Tag: 18th century

Day 538: Treasure Island

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Cover for Treasure IslandIf I had to guess which of Robert Louis Stevenson’s books is the most popular, I’d pick Treasure Island. My own favorite is Kidnapped, though, and I probably wouldn’t have reread Treasure Island except that it came free with a reading app for my iPad. Still, it’s a pretty good adventure story.

The plot is familiar to everyone. Jim Hawkins and his parents run the Admiral Benbow Inn in an isolated location near the English seashore. A shifty old sailor comes to stay. He seems to be on the watch for someone, and asks Jim to alert him to strangers. Soon more shifty sailors arrive looking for him. The Hawkins’ guest is drinking himself to death, though, and he dies soon after Jim’s father does. In his sea chest is a treasure map.

Jim has gone for help to the Squire Trelawny and Dr. Livesey. Soon they prepare a ship to go collect the treasure, taking Jim with them. A crucial misstep occurs when the Squire hires the crew without waiting for the captain (something that seemed not only improper but stupid to me). He hires as the cook a one-legged man named Long John Silver. Silver and a good part of the crew turn out to be pirates who know about the map and want the treasure.

I was struck by a few cases when the protagonists behave nonsensically, the biggest being abandoning the ship when they find out a mutiny is afoot. Almost all the sailors are ashore at that point. It seemed like they should just sail away to another part of the island.

Still, the novel is written really well, and Stevenson is good at building suspense. I’m sure that successive generations of young people are thrilled to discover this adventure story.

Day 528: A Tale of Two Cities

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Cover for A Tale of Two CitiesIt has been a long time since I read A Tale of Two Cities, and I did not remember anything except its broadest outlines. The novel is unusual for Dickens in two respects. It is his only historical novel, and it is probably the grimmest. Although he handles some weighty subjects in other novels—the poor laws, the civil justice system, mistreatment of children, abusive schools—this novel about the French revolution shows little of his celebrated sense of humor.

The novel centers around a much smaller cast of characters than usual for Dickens. It begins with Dr. Alexandre Manette, long a resident in a French prison for reasons we do not learn until the end of the novel. When the book begins, he is free but severely disturbed from trauma. His daughter Lucie travels with his banker Jarvis Lorry from England to bring him back to London.

Five years later, he is living contentedly with his daughter in England. Their friend French émigré Charles Darnay is tried for treason on bogus charges, but he is released when his defense proves that the principal witness cannot tell him apart from Sidney Carton, a barrister. These characters will soon become well acquainted.

When the novel returns to France, it shows us the extreme poverty of the poor as well as grim depictions of their mistreatment by aristocrats. Darnay returns to France to meet his uncle, the Marquis St. Evrémonde, and renounce his inheritance. St. Evrémonde’s careless slaughter of a young child when he runs over him in his carriage and his disdainful treatment of his nephew are all we see of him before his murder.

Secretly, a revolutionary society is growing and taking note of atrocities such as those committed by Evrémonde. Wine shop owners Monsieur and Madame Defarge are involved, and at first we have sympathy with their cause.

Charles Darnay marries Lucie Manette in London, but Sidney Carton has fallen in love with her as well. Although he considers himself unworthy of her, he pledges to do anything he can for her or for anyone she loves.

Meanwhile, France falls into revolution and brutal chaos. It becomes a place where revenge is more important than justice.

The fates of the main characters reach a climax when Charles returns to Paris to help an old retainer and is denounced by the revolution. Although he has committed no crime, his relationship to St. Evrémonde puts him in peril. Dr. Manette’s sanity is also threatened when he, Lucie, and Jarvis Lorry travel to Paris to try to help Charles.

The novel is a little more melodramatic than I prefer, unleavened as it is by Dickens’ usual antics. Only a couple of major characters provide momentary relief, and Madame Defarge is like a heavy dark cloud hovering over everything. The novel is also a bit disjointed through moving back and forth between the two cities. Still, Dickens always manages to bring tears to my eyes.

Day 520: Iceland’s Bell

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Cover for Iceland's BellIceland’s Bell is a curious novel. Most of the characters are based on actual people who were involved in court trials in Iceland and Denmark at the turn of the 18th century. One way to look at this novel is as the Icelandic version of Bleak House.

The novel begins with Jón Hreggviðsson, a disreputable farmer. He has been sentenced to a whipping for making a bawdy joke about the Danish king. While he is awaiting punishment, the king’s hangman has him help take down Iceland’s bell.

Although Iceland’s bell does not feature much in the novel, it is a symbol for the treatment of Iceland by its Danish overlords. The novel makes clear how impoverished the nation is and how the Danes bleed it dry. Iceland’s bell is at the time Iceland’s only national treasure. It has hung for centuries and is rung for court hearings and before executions. After a war with Sweden, the Danish king orders the bell to be removed so it can be melted down to help rebuild Copenhagen.

Jón Hreggviðsson has his beating and then goes off drinking with some men, including the hangman. On the way home the drunken men get lost in a bog. According to Jón’s story, when he wakes up the next morning, he’s lost his hat and his horse, so he takes the ones that are nearby. These turn out to belong to the hangman, who is later found dead in a nearby stream. A few days later, Jón is accused of his murder. We never find out if he murdered the hangman or even if the hangman was murdered, but thus begins a series of trials that last 32 years.

The day after Jón returns home from his beating, two other important characters enter the novel. Arnas Arnæus is a famous Icelandic scholar and a professor at the University of Copenhagen who comes to Jón’s farm with a group of eminent Icelanders searching for old manuscripts. Among the trash in Jón’s mother’s bed, Arnæus find several pages from a Skálda, a manuscript of Eddaic poems. Arnæus is trying to rescue Iceland’s heritage from destruction by searching out these old manuscripts. Having discovered the fragment of Skálda, he considers it the jewel of his collection.

With Arnæus is the bishop, his wife, and her sister Snæfríður, the beautiful young girl known as Iceland’s Sun, daughter of the magistrate. Snæfríður, we learn later, is in love with Arnæus. Arnæus leaves Iceland, promising Snæfríður to return for her. However, he soon marries an elderly rich Danish woman to save his precious manuscripts from being claimed for debt.

When Arnæus returns to Iceland years later, it is as a representative of the Danish king. He comes with the mission to end some of the Danish abuses of the Icelandic people. But his reversal of some of Snæfríður’s father’s decisions takes the perversity of their personal affairs to the international level.

Iceland’s Bell is written with the stark and cynical humor I encountered in Independent People. Laxness brutally depicts the state of the Icelandic people and their diminishment by the Danes. This novel is dark and comical at the same time—and beautifully written.

Day 515: Robinson Crusoe

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Cover for Robinson Crusoe Here I am with my third review for the Classics Club. Robinson Crusoe is a difficult novel for the modern reader. It is one of the earliest novels and as such lacks some of the characteristics we associate with the form. It has no chapters—just a few breaks here and there—little dialogue, minimal characterization, and a primitive plot structure. If you think of the novel as a children’s story, you are wrong (although when I was looking for a cover for this article, I saw that it is marketed as such).

In fact, the story that has made several exciting movies is related in a mundane manner with little notion of building suspense and would probably bore most kids silly. Instead, Crusoe’s novel is an expression of the importance of self-reliance and an assertion of Defoe’s religious faith.

The story is familiar, although I was surprised by just how much happens before the famous shipwreck and after the rescue. As a young man, Robinson Crusoe is in a position where he could live a good life at home. His father urges him to be content, but he determines to be a sailor. He makes several voyages, ending in Brazil, where he accumulates property and an estate. But he is not satisfied to stay at home. He takes on an errand from neighbors to travel back to Europe for business, and that is when he is shipwrecked.

The rest of the novel is about his efforts to survive and make himself a home, his religious musings, and (after years of being alone) his encounters with other people. As I mentioned before, none of the characters are fully realized. In fact, aside from Crusoe, only Friday even has a name. Everyone else is just called by his station. (I say “his,” because there are no female characters.)

Modern readers may also have problems with such issues as racism or sexism in the novel (sexism only in the sense that Defoe ignores women—he mentions a few, but they are clearly unimportant). I don’t think that works should be judged outside the standards of their time, though. By the standards of his own time, Crusoe probably treats Friday pretty well.

The only other novel I have read by Defoe is Moll Flanders, which has the advantage of being bawdy. I think the way to approach this novel is not as an adventure story but as an example of an early novel and as a story about self-reliance.

Day 489: Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

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Cover for Queen AnneHistorically, the legacy of the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne, has been marred by allegations that Anne was a weak woman who was ruled by her favorites. The accomplishments of her reign have been attributed to men she entrusted with leadership roles, most notably John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. Similarly, the wrongs perpetrated during her reign have been imputed to the misguidance of her favorites. Historian and biographer Anne Somerset’s new book exhaustively shows that Anne, to the contrary, was a sensible and conscientious ruler, most consistent in her views and often very stubborn, although private and reserved.

Much of what was popularly known about Queen Anne came from the writings of Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, who was Anne’s close friend and confidante for many years before becoming her bitter enemy. Even when they were close, the duchess seems to have been a demanding harridan, whose idea of her own power and desserts grew too rapacious and who treated the queen abominably for years. Having read a biography of the duchess several years ago, I approached this book believing Anne was a weak and silly woman, but it has made me change my mind.

Somerset makes an interesting point that Anne’s lack of charisma and physical appearance may have hurt her legacy. Although the portrait of the young Anne reveals a beautiful lady, by the time of her reign she was grossly overweight and plagued by serious physical ailments. These were diagnosed at the time as various disorders, including gout, but a modern look at her symptoms indicates that she may have suffered from lupus, a serious autoimmune disease. For the most part she soldiered on uncomplaining to do her duty for her country.

This book lucidly explains the complex issues that echoed throughout Anne’s reign, including the ouster of King James II, Anne’s father, and the refusal to acknowledge his son, Anne’s half brother James Francis Edward Stuart, as a legitimate heir to the throne because of his Catholicism; the bitter feuds between the Whigs and the Tories; and the War of the Spanish Succession. The book is thorough in its research and very well written. Although I tired at times of its dissection of a seemingly endless series of disputes among those vying for power, I think the book offers a considered and balanced look at Queen Anne’s life and reign.

I received a copy of this book free through a giveaway on Goodreads.

Day 486: Empress of the Night

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Cover of Empress of the NightIn early November 1796, Catherine the Great of Russia suffered a stroke and lay on her deathbed for 36 hours before she finally succumbed. Eva Stachniak’s second novel about Catherine imagines her spontaneous flashbacks of her life, interrupted by moments of fleeting awareness, as she lies there helplessly.

Empress of the Night covers some of the same ground as Stachniak’s The Winter Palace, only the previous novel is told from the point of view of Varvara Nikoleyeva, Catherine’s spy turned confidante, and concentrates mostly on the time before Catherine was Russia’s ruler. Varvara is only a fleeting presence in Empress of the Night, and I wonder if readers who had not read The Winter Palace would be confused by references to her.

Stachniak’s deathbed approach for this novel by definition causes it to be disjointed in narrative style and sometimes difficult to follow chronologically. The novel portrays Catherine as a figure more sympathetic than otherwise, but other characters are left relatively undeveloped.

Catherine’s memories go all the way back to her arrival in Russia as Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, a prospective bride for the Empress Elizabeth’s spoiled and childish heir Peter. We follow her struggles to be accepted as a future wife, to conceive, and to maintain some kind of standing in Elizabeth’s court, although that subject is covered more thoroughly in the first novel. The narrative carries us through the coup against her husband after Elizabeth’s death and the most important events of Catherine’s reign, ending with her attempts to marry her granddaughter Alexandrine to the king of Sweden and to leave her office to her grandson Alexander instead of her foolish and tyrannical son Paul.

Although this novel is interesting, I was not as drawn in as I was by the first book. The parts of the novel dealing with Catherine’s stroke and its aftermath interrupt the flow of the narrative too often. I was also taken aback by the preponderance of attention given in the novel to Catherine’s favorites, especially to the annoying Zubov, versus the actual events of her rule. The emphasis seems to lie with her personal attachments, which I frankly think is unlikely for a world ruler. I also find it hard to believe that Catherine had so much patience with some of her relatives and lovers, most of whom are characterized as being annoyingly selfish.

Since I have read a fair amount about Catherine’s life, I was able to follow the references to important events with little difficulty, but I am left wondering how easy it would be for someone who is unfamiliar to form a good understanding of what is going on. Still, I think this novel draws an appealing portrait of a complex and difficult person.

http://www.netgalley.comMy original understanding of The Winter Palace was that it was the first in a trilogy about Catherine the Great. I am left wondering if I was mistaken, because this novel does not seem to leave anywhere for the writer to go in a third novel. Empress of the Night is ultimately much less satisfying than The Winter Palace in the depth it applies to its subject, which makes me wonder if Stachniak simply lost interest.

Day 484: The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

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Cover for The Black CountTom Reiss, previously the author of the fascinating biography The Orientalist, seems to be drawn to unusual figures who were famous in their own time but have become virtually unknown. Such is the case with Thomas-Alexandre Dumas—the father of the famous author of The Count of Monte Cristo, among other classics—who reached the heights of his fame as a great soldier and general of revolutionary France.

Dumas, who went by Alex rather than Alexandre or Thomas, had a colorful past. He was born on the island of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), the son of a black slave and a French marquis, Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. His father was a wastrel and a scoundrel who, although he apparently did not raise his son in slavery, sold him in order to raise the passage money for his own return to France after his family had thought him dead for years. After claiming his right to his title and property (which his relatives had been maintaining and improving for years at their own expense), Pailleterie redeemed his teenage son and brought him up in privilege.

However, shortly after entering manhood, Alex broke with his father, took his mother’s name, and proceeded to make his own way as a soldier. He was the first person of color to become a general-in-chief of the French army and was the highest ranking black officer in the western world of his time.

This book is an account of Dumas’ fascinating life, in which his physical courage, ability, and principled behavior won him acclaim. Unfortunately, he was not as gifted politically and inadvertently made an enemy of Napoleon Bonaparte, who perceived him as a rival and really comes off here as a jealous and power-hungry opportunist. Bonaparte’s resentment, in combination with an abrupt change in policy of the French government to remove the rights previously granted subjects of color, ended in the loss of his career and a death in neglect and poverty.

The book is written in an energetic and informal style for the general public, although it is copiously documented in the back. The Black Count is an engrossing story of an event-filled life.

Day 449: The Signature of All Things

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Cover for The Signature of All ThingsBest Book of the Week!

I was not really eager to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love a few years ago for my book club, especially the pray part. But I discovered writing that was comic and intelligent and a story that was much more interesting than I expected.

In The Signature of All Things, Gilbert turns to fiction to tell the story of the life of a remarkable woman. Alma Whittaker is the daughter of a man born in poverty, the son of a frutier for Kew Gardens. Determined to become a wealthy gentleman, Henry Whittaker as a boy steals cuttings from the gardens to sell, and after he is caught, is dispatched by Sir Joseph Banks to gather plants on several voyages of discovery, including Captain Cook’s last.

Eventually, Henry breaks from Banks to start a pharmaceutical industry in Philadelphia. He marries a Dutch wife from a family of botanists and builds a series of greenhouses filled with plants from around the world.

Alma spends her childhood roaming the woods around her house and becomes a brilliant botanist but an unattractive girl and woman, tall and ungainly. She is much better with plants than with people, and when her mother Beatrix decides to adopt the beautiful orphaned daughter of a local prostitute, Alma is never able to develop a sisterly feeling for Prudence.

Although Alma spends much of her life there on her father’s estate, it is nonetheless an exceptional one, as she develops her own professional reputation, and eventually she ends up traveling farther than she ever expected she might. Gilbert takes time with her—time to develop her into a complex personality.

The course of her life takes a fateful turn when she encounters Ambrose Pike, an artist who has been living in South America and has painted the most beautiful pictures of orchids she has ever seen. Ambrose is of a spiritual turn of mind. He believes in the “signature of all things,” an old idea that god has left his imprint on everything on earth so that man will know its use. Although Alma, as a scientist, understands the fallacies in this notion, she finds she loves the man. But he has ideas about the pursuit of human perfection that she doesn’t comprehend.

This novel is beautifully written, completely different from Gilbert’s first book except for being a voyage through a human heart. I became fully engaged with Alma’s story. I grieved with her over her romantic disappointments and was impressed by how she snapped herself back into a productive life. This novel is an enthralling and satisfying story of an early woman scientist, about how a lonely but determined woman makes her own place in the world. Although Alma is not really a lovable person, Gilbert is able to make readers understand and care about her.

Day 424: Mutiny on the Bounty

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Cover for Mutiny on the BountyMutiny on the Bounty did not seem like the type of book I would normally pick to read, but when my friend Karen learned I had never read it, she sent me a copy. Now that I have read it, I’m glad she did, for it is a true adventure story, extremely interesting and well written.

The story of the famous mutiny is told by Roger Byam, the only fictional character on the ship. At the beginning of the novel Lieutenant Bligh (not, apparently, a captain at the time) meets the young man socially and invites him along on the journey because of Roger’s facility with languages. One of Bligh’s directives for the voyage besides its mission to collect breadfruit trees is to draft a dictionary of the Tahitian language, a task for which Bligh does not feel competent.

Once aboard, Byam soon learns how ill-fitted Bligh is to command men. Byam commends him as an excellent navigator, but Bligh has no control over his temper and abuses all his men verbally, no matter their station. He is prone to order the most vicious punishments for slight or even imagined offenses. As time goes on, the men also come to believe that Bligh is cheating them out of their due rations with the connivance of Mr. Samuel, his clerk. Bligh even accuses his officers of the theft of cheeses that he himself had delivered to his own house before departure.

Bligh’s clash with Fletcher Christian is perhaps inevitable. Christian is one whom Bligh first views as a friend and promotes to second-in-command over the head of the ship’s master. However, Christian is an upright man whose attempts to soften Bligh’s behavior and whose rebukes in the name of fairness are not well received. And Christian is victim to his own passions. Nordhoff and Hall build slowly to the famous mutiny, which takes place shortly after the ship has departed Tahiti for home.

Although Christian is depicted more positively than Bligh, his fault lies in taking actions that affect the lives of the men who are innocent of the mutiny. Fully half the novel deals with the aftermath of the mutiny, culminating in the trial of eight men, three of whom are innocent.

The novel is carefully researched and the tale told is enthralling, from the details about shipboard life in the 18th century to the customs and culture of Tahiti. Even though the first chapter makes you aware of Byam’s fate, as he is tried for mutiny although entirely innocent, the suspense at the end of the novel still holds you to the page.

I was surprised to learn that this novel is the first of a trilogy. Men Against the Sea, which I had not heard of, tells the story of Bligh and the other men set adrift in a small boat, and Pitcairn’s Island, which I had heard of, relates what happened to the men who left with Fletcher Christian on the Bounty after they departed Tahiti for the second time. I will certainly read these other two novels.

Day 414: Seven Locks

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Cover for Seven LocksSeven Locks contains a surprise. I can say no more about it, for fear of spoilers, except that I suspected it from very early on.

In the Hudson River Valley of 1769, a woman is struggling. It is a difficult life on the small farm outside the village, full of hard work, and she is not getting the help she needs from her husband. He prefers to hang out in the village tavern or go hunting with his dog. He is a man of great charm, but he likes to think and daydream and lie in the fields drinking instead of doing his work. His wife has had to learn to chop wood, and the hay spoils in the fields. Her husband has a knack of turning every request for help into an argument, ending with him stomping out with his gun. Soon, she has the reputation of a scold.

One day he does not come back, leaving her alone with her two children. After waiting a few days, she rallies the men of the village to look for him, but he is nowhere to be found. Now she has a harder life, trying to rally her children to help her so they can continue to care for the animals, keep the house warm, and put food on the table. The villagers, at first helpful, turn against her, though, and soon rumors are floating about. She drove her husband away, or worse.

We also follow this story from the point of view of Judith, her daughter. She misses her father but is loyally supportive of her mother. Her brother resents the added work, and she would rather read, so neither of them is as helpful as their mother could wish. As the nation moves toward revolution, especially after her brother joins the army, Judith wants only freedom from the farm and her mother’s life.

Seven Locks provides us an unusual look at the remnants of the life of the early Dutch settlers and the ways they were forced to change with the emergence of the new nation. It is a touching portrayal of the difficulty of one family’s life and of one woman’s spirit. Sparely but vividly told, it is a tale to make you thoughtful.