This is a well written book. It has some fine lines, a few well-conceived set pieces, a fair share of perceptive and insightful observations, and some lean dialogue. That said, try as I might I found neither the characters, nor their situations, nor the overall narrative engaging enough to arouse or hold my curiosity and attention. As a consequence, it doesn't seem fair to write much more of a review, apart from encouraging inquisitive readers to give the book a try.

I found this to be an interesting piece and I appreciated the gothic style. But I really struggled with the characters. I had trouble with them from the very beginning and it took me out of the beauty of the writing. I almost didn't finish it. I absolutely understand why the people who love it do, but this one isn't totally for me.

This is a rerelease of the 1991 novel, with a new introduction. A very compelling gothic coming-of-age story set in Scotland that grips you from the very beginning! Will be recommending this at my library.

This book has been reissued in a new edition with an introduction written by Maggie O’Farrell, who raves about the book. I did not enjoy “Hamnet”, so I should have known to be skeptical of the rave. I found the book interesting enough but, unlike O’Farrell, I do think that this is a coming of age story about an awkward and eccentric girl. As Janet is just coming into her own at 16, she is murdered. That is not a spoiler- the information is in the first sentence of the introduction, and in the first chapter of the book. It took me 2 days to finish this short book because I wasn’t really captivated by it.

I liked the writing style and the story of Janet’s cousin Lila was compelling. Lila’s story examines the dutiful housing of poor, unloved female relations. Lila was the Russian widow of Janet’s cousin and when Janet’s family moved into a huge Gothic structure, keeping cousin Lila was part of the deal. “At Auchnasaugh she had been neither happy nor unhappy, passing her days in reading, dreaming, painting watercolours of animals, landscape, mushrooms, and politely refusing all contact with the world beyond the glen.” “… Janet, who had taken to reading Edwardian books about isolated, misunderstood young girls whose intelligence and courage were noticed only by one adult friend, decided that Lila was fitted for this part. Her only regret was that neither of them was crippled.” The book is full of quirky details and a lot of dead animals. It culminates in Janet’s death, when she is missed only by her pet jackdaw. 3.5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

What a wild little gothic book! This was just the perfect seasonal reading material as it's a coming-of-age story set in a Scottish castle and boarding school after the Second World War where we follow Janet and her large family. Janet is an odd bird- bookish, drawn to animals, a daydreamer, awkward, unattractive, lacking in common sense, and in a world all her own. Which she needs because her life is one of either being ignored or ruthlessly ridiculed by family or peers at school. The writing is lyrical with great visuals, witty, horrific at times, and with a tragic ending set up from the very beginning. It's such a shame that she only wrote this one book.

Janet lived for sixteen short years. Her family went away on holiday without her because she was being punished because of her behavior and she was gutted like a rabbit at the foot of the stairs. Stabbed by a family retainer for being a "whore." But as everyone said, it's what she deserved. She never was normal. She liked books too much and boys barely at all, an extra irony given why she had a falling out with her parents before the holiday and what her murderer thought of her. Her mother despaired of her. All she wanted was the perfect daughter, someone to chat and gossip with, but instead she got Janet. A girl who couldn't be bothered to wear a simple white dress to the hunt ball and instead insisted on a purple gown that was a bit too grown up. But then, she got what she deserved. And Janet didn't see her death coming. She loved life. The castle that was home to her family and the eighty odd boys her father taught during term time, Auchnasaugh, she loved more than anywhere else in the world. The castle wasn't just a castle, it was her castle, her home, and somehow, when they moved there, it's almost as though her wish to be a princess had come true. She explored every room and turret and turn of the stair until it was her domain completely. The countryside she explored on foot and hoof. Watching the changing of the seasons. Rejoicing in the flora and fauna that was a part of her world. Learning about mycology from her eccentric relative Lila. She spent every minute she was indoors in her room sitting perfectly straight in a chair reading. She loved poetry, she loved the sounds certain words made, but she learned early on not to share this with anyone. Her brother thought it stupid, her younger sisters weren't anything like her, and as for when she finally went to school, her classmates thought her a joke. Who actually wants to learn Greek and worship their gods? Learning is a burden and everything else is what life is about. But not for Janet. Janet was different and therefore she got what she deserved. Because girls shouldn't want to decorate their rooms to reflect the work of Edgar Allan Poe, they should want mirrors and makeup and not have jackdaws making homes in their dollhouses. But at least her family was ride of her. At least she got what she deserved.

One can see why people superficially compare the heroine of this book traditionally to Merricat Blackwood and more contemporaneously to Flavia De Luce, but they're missing a key detail, we actually got to deeply connect with those two heroines while I know the barest hints of who Janet really is. Her story is told at a remove. We don't get to know her at all and I WANT to know about the girl who had been dying to quote Nina from The Segull to her mother and claim that she was "in mourning for [her] life." This is someone who I think I could be friends with. Instead I know that she likes Greek and hates math. I know as much about her after reading this book as I would a perfunctory job interview with her. Her entire brief life is here and yet I am as ignorant as when I started this short yet excruciatingly long book. But the worst part is I don't know if Elspeth Barker loved Janet and all her eccentricities or wanted to make an example of her, after all, she got what she deserved. It's said over and over again. She was a sixteen-year-old who was murdered and she deserved it!?! For what? For being different? Because that's what this book says again and again, if you're not normal, if you're not feminine, if you're not towing the expected line in regard to traditional gender rolls, you deserve death or the insane asylum. And yes, her eccentric relative Lila does go to the insane asylum, driven there by Janet's mother. Oh, and let's not forget the number of sexual assaults that Janet fends off. I'm sure if she hadn't been so resourceful she would have "gotten what she deserved." This book was being touted everywhere as a rediscovered classic. Who says it's a classic? Just because there are superficial inklings of the Mitfords or Dodie Smith or Shirley Jackson does that mean we are to embrace this simply odoriferous mess of victim blaming? Who said, this book is what people need to read now? No, in a post #metoo world this is the exact kind of book we should be holding up and saying NO MORE! No more to just accepting that women deserve to be victimized by their family and by the opposite sex just for existing. This book was first published in 1991 and a lot has changed in the world since then, and yet I feel like a woman author should have known better even then because it feels so dated. This tripe needs to be called out. And not just for abhorrent treatment of females but for lack of character development, lack of plot, and if anyone says the language and turn of phrase is beautiful, yeah, occasionally, but is that when Janet's describing her dream funeral or a friend of the family is showing her his cock before she pushes him into the hogweed?

⁉️Have you read any 5 ⭐️ stories lately?

BOOK REVIEW
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
Original pub date: 1991
Rerelease date: Sept 20, 2022
@scribnerbooks

Thank you @netgalley for my e-copy

This is my first big fat 5 star read in what feels like ages. I loved every bit of this book.

I’d never heard of this award winning novel before, but when I was scrolling on netgalley (as one does) and saw that the one and only Maggie O’Farrell had penned the introduction on the 2022 rerelease (once claiming to befriend someone on their claiming this as their favorite book alone 😯), I knew I needed to page through it.

This is exactly the type of story I’d imagine Edgar Allen Poe would write if he were an expert on coming of age stories. In, O Caledonia, we meet Janet, a misunderstood child, who despite longing to find her social footing sort of despises people and retreats to her books. Her story is so much darker and humorous than I think I’d be able to describe here, sort of haunted and atmospheric while still having plenty of content to chuckle at. I won’t soon forget Janet realizing she was staring out at the water from the backside of a dead seal she’d mistaken for a rock, when she buries her baby sitter under a pile of leaves and thinks she’s handled that problem 😆

This is one I’d recommend to a wide range of readers. I’m so glad that netgalley put it on my radar. It reads like a cross between classic lit and something really fresh and modern in equal measure, the sort of book that book readers spend days, weeks and months searching for. Highly recommend.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Elspeth Barker’s novel O Caledonia is set in post WWII Scotland, but the dense gothic atmosphere breathes a sense of timelessness into this amazingly visual tale. The book opens with the death of its protagonist, Janet:

Halfway up the great stone staircase which rises from the dim and vaulting hall of Auchnasaugh, there is a tall stained-glass window. In the height of its Gothic arch is sheltered a circular panel, where a white cockatoo, his breast transfixed by an arrow, is swooning in death. Around the circumference, threaded through sharp green leaves and twisted branches, runs the legend “Moriens sed Invictus,” dying but unconquered. By day little light penetrates this window, but in early winter evenings, when the sun emerges from the backs of the looming hills, only to set immediately in the dying distance far down the glen, it sheds an unearthly glory; shafting drifts of crimson, green and blue, alive with whirling atoms of dust, spill translucent petals of colour down the cold grey steps. At night, when the moon is high it beams through the dying cockatoo and casts his blood drops in a chain of rubies on to the flagstones of the hall. Here it was that Janet was found, oddly attired in her mother’s black lace evening dress, twisted and slumped in bloody murderous death.

So the questions which remain are why was Janet murdered? Who is the murderer? I’ll add here that this is not a crime novel, but a Gothic novel, and Gothic novels are wrapped in mystery, secrets and … yes crime.


From this astonishing beginning, the book then goes back in time to Janet’s birth. Born in Edinburgh during the war, she is the first child in the family and others follow quickly. Janet’s father, Hector, inherits a remote castle from an uncle with the agreement that Hector’s Aunt Lila continues to live there. Auchnasaugh, as the place is called, was once the residence of Scottish kings. Surrounded by moors and a forest, Janet believes it “held all the enchantment she had ever yearned for.”

Janet is the ugly duckling–the unattractive one. Hers is a lonely, isolated childhood but she fills the spaces with this wild place and her imagination.

She nurtured a shameful, secret desire for popularity, or at least for acceptance, neither of which came her way.

There are very few people in Janet’s social circle: her disinterested parents, Jim the gardener who sadistically murders any animals he finds, Miss Wales “the choleric cook” and potty Aunt Lila. Lila, a Russian exile, spends her days reading, drinking and painting in the company of her ancient “balding” decrepit cat, Mouflon, who was responsible for the premature death of Lila’s husband. In this household, Janet connects to Lila–perhaps because Lila is also a misfit but has grown old enough not to care.

Throughout the story there are acts of hideous cruelty–towards people and animals. This is so finely woven into the tale that the casual cruelty is seamlessly embedded into life. Janet fills this world with finer, better things:

Only the red earth of the hill tracks retained its colours; the puddles looked like pools of blood. Of all the seasons this was the one Janet loved most. In the afternoons she would ride up through the forest onto the lonely moors; she felt then, looking into the unending distance of hills ranged beyond hills that if only she had the courage to go on, like True Thomas, might reach a fairyland, another element, the place of the ballads, of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” But as the light ebbed away to a pang of sullen gold on the horizon she would turn back.

We see into Janet’s creative mind as she salves her emotional wounds with books and trudges across the moors with her beloved pet jackdaw. Janet is eventually shipped off to boarding school and while for many children, that is an institution that strips away all individuality and produces young adults with uniform thinking, for Janet it is a “two-dimensional existence.” Life is only real at Auchnasaugh. While Janet may seem like an uninteresting lump to her parents, to this reader I wished she would make her way to adulthood where perhaps she could define life on her own terms. Thanks to Jacqui for pointing me towards this book. I loved it.

Review copy

The Gammell family crest is a pelican pierced with an arrow–same motto.

One of those coming-of-age books where if you strongly identify with the main character (a bookish, weirdo adolescent girl in Scotland) it'll really speak to you and you'll probably love it, but doesn't transcend that and resonate with me (bookish but not a weirdo adolescent girl in Scotland).

Gothic and a little macabre in tone, O Caledonia is a novel that is at times comical in spite of its strangeness. It’s a dark coming of age story originally published in 1991 that reads like classic literature. Barker’s prose is beautiful and descriptive. She writes in such vivid detail of the Scottish castle, Highland landscape, and Janet’s outlier personality.

At the beginning of the novel (and in the synopsis) we learn of sixteeen your old Janet’s fate; she is murdered and found at the bottom of a staircase. However, the point of this novel is not to focus on her death. It reads rather like a summary of Janet’s tragically shortened life and the moments that defined her. Janet is an outcast to her family, friends, and society. She is highly intelligent and imaginative. I loved how she found companionship in books and her love for animals, especially her jackdaw. She is unapologetically herself, often prone to outbursts that reflect her rebuke of societal expectations. There is no “plot” in the traditional sense, which may not work for every reader, but that’s what makes this small and strange novel so unique.

A rerelease of a 1991 novel, O Caledonia follows the coming of age of Janet. Janet is a young girl that is struggling to fit in to every aspect of her life in Scotland. From her family to her school to society at large, nowhere feels comfortable or easy. Her life is cut short, though, when she is murdered in her own home at the age of 16.

This is not a whodunnit. It is a mix of a coming of age story and gothic romanticism. The prose of the story and the descriptions of Scotland are hauntingly beautiful, but this book ultimately was a miss for me. The main character is unlikeable, but I found it impossible not to pity her. Her mother openly dislikes her (and all of her children?) because she is so different. Janet doesn't make things easy for herself, going out of the way to stand out in negative ways. And while it is not the point of the book, her ultimate demise at the end of the novel just made no real sense.

If you like tragic stories, this may land better for you. It did rekindle that everburning flame in me to visit Scotland again.

TW: Murder, child neglect, animal death

Well, this was certainly a different sort of story!
A gothic coming of age story set in the wilds of Scotland.
It was very atmospheric, dark, and funny.
Set in a remote castle..
At the very start of the story..Janet, the oldest sibling, the wayward girl, is found murdered in a bloody heap near the staircase while the rest of the family is away.
So, then it tells us her story up until this time.
A very bookish, restless girl who lived in her own fairytale world.
Quite an entertaining read!

"A surreal, hilarious, and dark story of a troubled adolescence deep in the wilds of Scotland. I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book." —Maggie O'Farrell,




Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for the ARC.

There are five-star books, and then there are the books that I call "essentials." A truly wonderful read earns five stars, but to qualify as an essential, the book has to have a particular magic that makes me know I'll be rereading it, probably more than once.

Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia is an essential.

In the simplest terms, O Caledonia is a coming-of-age novel about a girl growing up in Scotland during and after WWII. Janet, the central character, is a sort of goth, female Holden Caufield. The promo material for O Caledonia compares this title to Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and that's a fair comparison. The books are each their own creatures, but each has an hypnotic sense of menace balanced by spirit. Janet is not Merricat, but I can absolutely picture the two of them sitting down together for what would be a lively, far-ranging conversation with all sorts of twists and turns.

In a world where women are still supposed to aim for marriage and raising children, where women's education is seen as acceptable, but not an end in itself, Janet—who is absolutely brilliant—finds herself an outsider no matter where she is: school, home, church. She has a deep empathy for living creatures, with the exception of humans who are less interesting than other animals and far more confusing. She has a quirky sense of humor that reflects her intelligence and education, but affectionate jokes about cats and the subjunctive aren't what win friends in any of the situations she finds herself in.

If you've grown up with a Panglossian perspective, feel comfortable anywhere, trust that things will always turn out for the best, and are certain that people you meet will like you, you might not enjoy O Caledonia. If, on the other hand, you have ever felt like an outsider, felt misunderstood, felt as if you were being forced into a social role that's a terrible fit, felt that life has an inherent tragedy that too many people fail to recognize—O Caledonia will ring with a truth and beauty that you'll find deeply affirming.

Find this title, read it. In fact, just go ahead and buy it, rather than borrowing it from a friend or the library because once you've read it you'll be wanting to read it again. And again. Trust me.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

I wanted to love this a lot more than I did. The writing is absolutely gorgeous and I fell like I almost cared about the characters, but the complete lack of plot really kept me from ever feeling connected to the story. There were so beautiful images and scenes throughout the book but I'm still left confused about what I just read... what was the point? Is there a message? Likely yes, but I missed it along the way.

When picking up this book I did not realize the cult following it had from when it was previously published. But it being compared to Jane Eyre and Shirley Jackson had me very intrigued. The prose is so lyrical and I found myself feeling adrift in the landscapes Barker would create. That said there were times I felt unmoored in a negative light. There didn’t seem to be much plot to anchor the story, in a way that I thought might have been better if it was told in diary entires. I so badly wanted this to be a new favorite, but despite the occasional perfect quote, this was just an okay read to me. I’m hoping to come back to this story and read it again since I know what to expect now.

I didn’t really enjoy this. The writing was good but the subject matter lacked for me. I found Janet to be annoying and overdone. The whole book was just overdone, too much. It seemed like a student study in creative writing.

At the beginning of O Caledonia, sixteen year old Janet, unloved by her family and a social outcast, has been murdered. But don’t expect this, as I did, to be a conventional murder mystery. Rather, it is a look at Janet’s life and aspirations, her awkwardness, life in Scotland after WW2, poor parenting, and bullying, all told in gorgeous prose and with no plot to speak of. More for the literary reader. While the book had its moments, it really wasn’t for me though I did enjoy the writing.

My thanks to Scribner and to Netgalley for providing an ARC of the book.

Man, I wish this book had a plot. Or at least something more than "Janet lists things she hates and also bad things happen to Janet." It's just so relentless, and not in a way that feels like it's building towards anything. In a way, I think it would have been more honest and in keeping with the spirit of the majority of the book if Janet hadn't been murdered; if, instead, she lived out a natural long life of one disappointment after the next. The murder throws this weird wrench into the workings of the book: you know it's coming, so all of Janet's complaints and likes and dislikes feel pointless when you think about them too hard; and then when it does come, the reason for it happening is so underwhelming it hurts. She deserved better.

But, I mean, not much better: talk about an unlikeable character. She's fascinating, don't get me wrong, but because the lion's share of this book is basically declarative statements of things she hates (and are written with some skill, it must be said, in the spirit of a young person) it gets very draining to be in her head after a while. The few reprieves we get from her POV, mainly with Vera (also super unlikeable! but more fun to read somehow?), made me wish the book had been written with multiple POVs. I think, for me, more viewpoints would've made the lack of plot feel less glaring, and would have added some variety. (And I enjoyed seeing Janet from Vera's POV. So vicious.)

The writing in and of itself is good here, though I'm not sure that I agree with the Foreword's assessment of it not needing any editing: there are some snarled up sentences here and there, and there are definitely spots where it's too wordy. But it is a unique book in the way it's so determined to be bleak, so determined to never give Janet anything. And I can definitely see how that kind of fiction would appeal. Fans of Ottessa Moshfegh may like this, for sure. But for those who want at least a little mediating factor: no, not so much.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the ARC of the 2022 edition in exchange for an honest review.

Reading a chapter-by-chapter plot summary of O Caledonia wouldn't take long; not a whole lot happens in the strictest sense. There are vignettes of action, but the bulk of this skinny little book is spent simply bringing the reader into an intimate relationship with Janet, the imaginative and insightful outsider. This intimacy with the novella's protagonist and her sharp observations is balanced with the atmospheric coolness of its Gothic setting. Barker deftly illuminates the coexistence of joy and isolation, the delightful and the macabre in Janet's short life.

This edition is published with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell, who succinctly captures the magic of O Caledonia: "Linguistic skill and deep semantic pleasure are evident in everything she writes. You can open this book at random and within seconds light upon a phrase that is not only elegant but shiveringly exact." Indeed, this book contains linguistic exactitude that is simply on another level. Less exact choices would render this book fluffy and disposable. There are countless passages, paragraphs, and even singular words that glitter or crackle on the page, bringing Janet and her world to vivid, even if tragic, life.

Barker's mastery over language is makes O Caledonia worth reading. It feels remarkably special. I'm shocked I haven't read it since it was originally published in 1991.

This story was first published in 1991 by Elspeth Barker about a doomed adolescent girl growing up in mid 19th century Scotland.

It is getting a rerelease on September 20, 2022!

We are first introduced to Janet lying murdered in her mother’s black lace wedding dress surrounded only by her pet jackdaw.

The introduction by Maggie O’Farrell prepares you to not get your hopes up for an investigation into why he killed the unfortunate girl. No, this is simply about the life of Janet growing up in a household that doesn’t understand her and the bond of books.

This was a beautiful piece of literature that I’m so happy I stumbled upon looking on NetGalley for something interesting to request.

It emphasizes the importance of books as Janet grows up learning Greek and French literature. It also professes that love from dead poets and animals can be such a joyous thing from life when you are lonely for human companionship.

I truly related to this and will be adding this to one of my personal favorites. I hope to reread this again and get a physical copy as I know I’ll learn more and more about life and love every time I delve back into it.