After How to be a Woman I have a bit of a crush on Caitlin Moran, and so The Chronicles of Narmo was an obvious purchase when I managed a few minutes in a book shop in London. It’s a short novel, written when Moran was just fifteen and based on her own family’s (mis)adventures.
It’s not a brilliant book. As a narrative it only works haltingly and there isn’t much of a plot, really. Where it excels is where Moran still excels, in the clever turn of phrase. It is what makes the book worth reading.
In order to reach the Earth, the Sun has to travel eighty million million miles, across the universe, through the atmospheres and magnetic pulls of countless planets; it has to seep its way through clouds of stardust twelve thousand miles thick. It plays leapfrog with time and has a neat little party trick of standing where it was eight and a half minutes ago. And still – after all this exertion – it still had the energy to struggle through the yellowing nets and purple nylon curtains of Bill and Carol’s bedroom, and wake them up.
(P 48) Not entirely accurate astronomy-wise, perhaps, but still rather lovely.