Rating: ***** 5 stars

Margaret Mahy,
Alchemy.
Collins Flamingo, 2002.

Aged 17, Roland continues to be haunted by dreams which he has been having since his childhood, with the added complication that he now sees his nightmares ‘becoming part of a roughly conforming, everyday life’. This is only one of the many aspects of change which that ‘everyday life’ is made to undergo in a novel which explores the many faces of transformation. In particular, Mahy focuses on its consequences for Roland and a young woman called Jess Ferret, into whose secret life he finds himself increasingly drawn.

Readers closely acquainted with the Dewey Decimal Classification system will know the significance of the 540.1 grouping, given a central role here, though few will be ready for the numerous manifestations of the ‘magical and mysterious power’ which a mere library category can hold. As with the ’Childe Roland’ to whom he occasionally compares himself, Roland's quest to understand that ’power’ involves a sequence of dramatic and visionary encounters, strongly Blakean in their resonances, which will end in the dissolution of what he calls his ’dislocation and confusion’.

It is a remarkable journey of self-discovery, charted by a novelist at the very peak of her abilities.

Robert Dunbar

Guide to the rating system:
***** 5 stars, unmissable
**** 4 stars, very good
*** 3 stars, good
** 2 stars, fair
* 1 star, poor