9 / 10
Andrew Garvie has loved collecting antique dolls since he was a child, so much so that he now makes his own. Dolls that are very much like him, miniature (Andrew has proportionate dwarfism) but graceful, with plenty of hidden depths. One day, he answers an enigmatic personal ad in his collector’s magazine: “INFORMATION (biographical / bibliographical / photographic) on the life and work of EWA CHAPLIN AND/OR friendship, correspondence… Please reply to: Bramber Winters.”
With each letter, Bramber reveals more of her strange life in an institution on Bodmin Moor and Andrew falls more and more in love, to the point where he decides to play Sir Galahad and rescue her. He takes with him on this journey a copy of Ewa Chaplin’s fairy tales: strange, potent things, like her dolls, that eerily start to mirror reality. What will happen when Andrew and Bramber finally meet? Will they remain empty vessels, like their dolls, or will they finally come to life?
Nina Allan is known primarily for her speculative fiction – her debut, The Race, won the Grand Prix de L’imaginaire and her second novel, The Rift, won the British Science Fiction Award and the Kitschies Red Tentacle, as well as short fiction that has been shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Shirley Jackson Award. and the British Fantasy Award. However, The Dollmaker isn’t as much of a departure as it may first appear. Both previous titles are characterised by narratives that span time and space and themes that question the nature of reality. The Dollmaker is described as “a love story about becoming real” and, though it appears to be literary, the short stories apparently having little to do with the main narrative. It uses the stories, and the motif of dolls themselves, to explore the idea of how reality is created (or, as it is put in the book, the “metaphysics of physics”).
The question of parallel realities and universes is posed. Both Andrew and Bramber are familiar with the feeling of belonging to a different world – Andrew because of his stature and Bramber because of her social awkwardness and, later, because of her surroundings in the mental institution. One character – Edwin, Bramber’s first love – even mentions a link between ghosts and parallel universes – that what we see as ghosts could just be echoes of other realities. So how are they created? Through objects? There is mention of the link between dolls and the human form and the beliefs surrounding this – the uncanny influence they seem to exert, tales of possessed dolls and the idea that by harming a doll made in someone’s image, you do harm to the person, echoed when Bramber destroys her doll that looks like her friend Helen for example, or when Andrew comes across a Ewa Chaplin doll, known as “Artist”, whose spell he seems to fall under.
Are they created through storytelling? Chaplin’s fairy tales are sandwiched between Andrew’s journey and Bramber’s letters, perfect self-contained set-pieces that encompass everything from the contemporary to the fantastical. There are a number of recurring motifs: firstly, dwarfs – court dwarfs especially, who were used by the monarchs of Europe to visually enhance their powerful positions and cater to the aristocracy’s fascination for anything “grotesque” and/or extraordinary – and their allusions to mythology and magic, particularly in the form of a poem about a dwarf who fell in love with and ended up murdering his queen (possible hints/foreshadows of a possible outcome for the relationship between Andrew and Bramber) and so there is a dwarf or dwarf-like character (a soldier who has lost both his legs, for example) in every story, who always act as agents of change.
Another recurring motif is transformative acts of creation: storytelling, alchemy, make up artistry, science, philosophy, journalism, painting and, of course, doll making. As he reads, Andrew begins to notice more and more characters and details that mirror his own life, the woman he fell in love with who went on to disappear without a trace, for instance, or the daughter of his best friend who’s a musical prodigy but seems to have trouble behaving or communicating in a manner considered normal. Even a particular story itself, ‘Amber Furness’ – another story about unrequited love between a woman and a dwarf, seems to take on a life of its own, mentioned in the main narrative as well as in other stories in the form of a play.
Or do we simply make reality by existing through it? As Edwin also reminds us, “time is a human construct” – things, people, memories can become more or less real. Because Andrew is just passing through the places he stays in they have a sense of unreality about them. He has never met Bramber in person before but has already managed to construct a “real” person from her letters.
The pace is thoughtful and measured, moving much more smoothly once you become used to the different narratives, building to an ending that is atmospheric but doesn’t seem to provide definitive answers for the questions posed. But whilst some may struggle with its slow start or its ambiguity of its ending, for those who can get past this they’ll find The Dollmaker is a book that lingers on in the mind long after finishing it, much like the tales of Chaplin herself.
The Dollmaker is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive but graceful, unique, and with surprising depths. Perhaps that’s why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector’s magazine.
Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped, and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her.
On his journey through the old towns of England, he reads the fairy tales of Ewa Chaplin–potent, eldritch stories which, like her lifelike dolls, pluck at the edges of reality and thread their way into his mind. When Andrew and Bramber meet at last, they will have a choice–to break free and, unlike their dolls, come to life.
A love story of two very real, unusual people, The Dollmaker is also a novel rich with wonders: Andrew’s quest and Bramber’s letters unspool around the dark fables that give our familiar world an uncanny edge. It is this touch of magic that, like the blink of a doll’s eyes, tricks our own.
le livre The Dollmaker va t-il paraitre en Français? je le souhaite vivement !