Grasshopper is the story of a young woman, Clodagh Brown, whose teenage years are darkened by a terrible event involving a pylon. A couple of years later, Clodagh, who managed mediocre A levels after the traumatism she went through, leaves for London to get a superior education. Claustrophobic, Clodagh has to live in an apartment located in the basement of a house belonging to a remote cousin. Max, the cousin, and his wife Selina, are cold and unwelcoming, and Clodagh soon finds out that psychology and business studies are not really her thing. After a while, she meets a group of social misfits named Silver, Liv, Wim and Johnny, who squat Silver's place, located in a top-floor apartment in her neighborhood. Clodagh soon discover their strange pastime: at night, they like to climb the roofs of London...

Grasshopper is a first-person account with Clodagh telling her story several years after the events she narrates. Like with other Barbara Vine stories, the terrible events that will take place at the end are foreshadowed, but we are also mislead by Vine and unable to predict exactly what form the tragedy will take. Unlike in The Minotaur, I wasn't able to guess what would happen, Vine manages to drop hints along the way without spoiling the surprise.

I have read some reviews on amazon.com and disagree with readers that find Grasshopper very different from other Barbara Vine books. As with A Fatal Inversion and The House of Stairs, she concentrates on a small community of young misfits, each with an individual story, and observes what happens to them when they isolate themselves from society. In my opinion it is one of the things she does best. Other reviewers have claimed to feel  no sympathy for any of the characters. This remark (about any book) annoys me. I don't think we have to like the characters of a book to love a book. There are characters we even love to hate. Anyway, if this is usually true for Rendell/Vine's books, that the characters are unlikable, in this case, I felt a lot of sympathy and understanding for the two main characters, Clodagh and Silver. I can even say that Clodagh reminded me in some ways of my own students days. I could also relate to the claustrophobia, having a couple of phobias myself. I loved how Vine depicted young students from the late eighties, although a couple of thing seemed anachronistic: "There was something deeply old-fashioned about Silver, though in the nicest possible way. He had no interest in the toys of modern lifestyle, television, video recorders, movie cameras, any cameras, mobile phones, computers and computer games." How many young people had computers and mobile phones in the late eighties anyway? At one other point, Vine talks about the philosophy of love developed by the youth after AIDS awareness. Granted, AIDS was known and talked about in the late eighties, but didn't attitudes toward sex truly change a bit later than that?

Grasshopper is a very good Vine's novel. I liked how major events are set about by chance and series of coincidences in the character's lives, as Clodagh underlines at one point. Another theme which is developed is "hell paved with good intentions", which takes all its signification as the story unfolds.  Vine has created interesting, unforgettable characters, as usual, each with a story linked to their past (the only story which was bit of let-down, probably because it was delayed for so long, is Wim's).

Grasshopper is another literate thriller by one of my favorite writers...

Rating:

© Discussing Books, 10/14/2005

As Barbara Vine:

Vine, Barbara (1986) A Dark Adapted Eye

Vine, Barbara (1987) A Fatal Inversion  

Vine, Barbara (1988) The House of Stairs

Vine, Barbara (1990) Gallowglass

Vine, Barbara (1991) King Solomon's Carpet  

Vine, Barbara (1993) Anna's Book

Vine, Barbara (1994) No Night is Too Long  

Vine, Barbara (1996) The Brimstone Wedding

Vine, Barbara (1998) The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

Vine, Barbara (2000) Grasshopper

Vine, Barbara (2002) The Blood Doctor   

Vine, Barbara (2005) The Minotaur

As Ruth Rendell:

Rendell, Ruth (1965) To Fear a Painted Devil

Rendell, Ruth (1965) Vanity Dies Hard

Rendell, Ruth (1971) One Across, Two Down

Rendell, Ruth (1974) The Face of Trespass

Rendell, Ruth (1976) A Demon in my View

Rendell, Ruth (1977) A Judgement in Stone 

Rendell, Ruth (1979) Make Death Love Me

Rendell, Ruth (1980) The Lake of Darkness  

Rendell, Ruth (1982) Master of the Moor

Rendell, Ruth (1984) The Killing Doll

Rendell, Ruth (1984) The Tree of Hands

Rendell, Ruth (1986) Live Flesh

Rendell, Ruth (1987) Talking to Strange Men

Rendell, Ruth (1989) The Bridesmaid

Rendell, Ruth (1990) Going Wrong

Rendell, Ruth (1993) The Crocodile Bird  

Rendell, Ruth (1996) Blood Lines

Rendell, Ruth (1996) The Keys to the Street

Rendell, Ruth (1999) A Sight for Sore Eyes

Rendell, Ruth (2002) Adam and Eve and Pinch Me

Rendell, Ruth (2004) The Rottweiler

Rendell, Ruth (2005) Thirteen Steps Down

Wexford mysteries:

Rendell, Ruth (1964) From Doon with Death

Rendell, Ruth (1967) A New Lease of Death

Rendell, Ruth (1967) Wolf to the Slaughter

Rendell, Ruth (1969) The Best Man to Die

Rendell, Ruth (1970) A Guilty Thing Surprised

Rendell, Ruth (1971) No More Dying Then

Rendell, Ruth (1972) Murder Being Once Done

Rendell, Ruth (1973) Some Lie and Some Die

Rendell, Ruth (1975) Shake Hands Forever

Rendell, Ruth (1978) A Sleeping Life  

Rendell, Ruth (1981) Death Notes  

Rendell, Ruth (1983) Speaker of Mandarin

Rendell, Ruth (1985) An Unkindness of Ravens

Rendell, Ruth (1988) The Veiled One

Rendell, Ruth (1992) Kissing the Gunner's Daughter

Rendell, Ruth (1995) Simisola

Rendell, Ruth (1997) Road Rage

Rendell, Ruth (1999) Harm Done

Rendell, Ruth (2003) The Babes in the Wood