Tag: 19th century

Day 807: Life on the Mississippi

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Cover for Life on the MississippiLife on the Mississippi is Mark Twain’s nonfiction book about the Mississippi River. Sort of. Although part history, part memoir, part travel account, it also includes a chapter from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, some folk tales, and many tall tales. So, it’s not just nonfiction. And not the best of Twain.

Twain begins with a few chapters about the history of the river’s discovery and exploration by Europeans. These first chapters are followed by reminiscences of Twain’s life as a boy along the river (including the excerpt about Huck) and his career as a riverboat pilot, including a description of what is involved in learning to navigate the river. This section takes up about half the book, by far the best half.

From there, the book loses focus, and if the kitchen sink had anything to do with the Mississippi, it would be in there. The last half of the book is supposedly centered around a trip Twain takes down the river to New Orleans and all the way back up to Minnesota. It describes the people he encounters and the towns he visits during his journey, 20 years after his time as a pilot. But it also goes off an every manner of digression and tells many anecdotes, some of which are frankly corny and a few of which are offensive these days. I don’t want to make too much of this because it is judging a book unfairly by the standards of another time, but some of the pictures especially, reprints of those that appeared in the 1883 version, are insulting to African-Americans.

Finally, my edition, a replica by Dover, was loaded with typos, especially in the last half. I can only hope that the errors weren’t really in the originally published edition.

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Day 805: Blood & Sand

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Cover for Blood & SandRosemary Sutcliff was a prolific writer of historical novels from the 1950’s through the 1990’s. She is best known for children’s literature, and most of the books I’ve read by her are set in Britain during or shortly after the Roman occupation. She also wrote a series of Arthurian novels, placing Arthur in the time just after the Roman withdrawal, which is a much more likely time period for him than the Middle Ages, if he existed at all.

Blood & Sand is for adults, however. It is based upon the life of Thomas Keith, an actual Scottish soldier in the Napoleonic Wars, who was captured in Egypt while fighting for Britain. Keith converted to Islam and went on to become the governor of Medina.

Blood & Sand is full of adventure and fighting, but it also depicts a sincere conversion to Islam and a love for the desert. It has beautiful descriptions of the desert landscape. Several times I was reminded of the line in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, where Prince Feisal describes Lawrence as “another of these desert-loving English.”

Thomas takes the name Ibrahim and makes a good friend of Tussun, the younger son of the Viceroy of Egypt. Part of his decision to convert is because of the opportunities for advancement with the Sultan’s army, and he becomes involved in trying to free the holy cities of Arabia from a group of religious zealots called the Wahabis. Some of the issues in the latter part of the book have echoes for us in modern times, showing us that these kinds of battles have been going on for hundreds of years.

link to NetgalleyI mildly enjoyed this novel. The characters are concerned with issues such as honor and are not terribly well rounded. The descriptions of Thomas’ life in Egypt and Medina and the customs of his new people were more interesting to me than the action scenes. There is a small bit of romance in the novel as Thomas marries a girl to protect her and ends up loving her, but it is not very important to the novel, and she herself is not fleshed out. The writing is at times, especially in the descriptive sections, quite beautiful, however.

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Day 802: This Godforsaken Place

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Cover for This Godforsaken PlaceAbigail Peacock and her father are regretting the impetuous desire for adventure that led them to journey thousands of miles from England to a remote village in northwestern Ontario to run a school. In 1885 the living conditions are primitive, and Abigail’s father has fallen ill in the depths of winter. Abigail continues to run the school and finds her life tedious. Lars, the helpful store owner who brought them there to teach Swedish rail workers and miners English, is almost certainly going to propose marriage. Abigail is not enthused.

Abigail is not at first receptive to Lars’ suggestion that she get a rifle. But eventually she buys one on a whim, guiltily spending some of her family’s savings. She finds an area outside of town to practice, and it soon becomes the only thing she enjoys. One day, though, she arrives at her practice location to find a wounded, unconscious cowboy. It’s not totally clear, but suggested, that she shot him by mistake the day before.

Here’s where the story started to lose me a little bit. Abigail doesn’t want anyone to disturb the place she practices, so instead of going for help, she leaves the cowboy there and returns at times to nurse him. This decision eventually leads to an even more morally challenged decision and then to a cross-country journey to find a man connected with Buffalo Bill Cody’s western show.

I don’t expect characters to be perfect, but this is the same person whose desire to do the right thing puts herself and a friend in jeopardy later in the novel. And then there’s the way they get out of it.

This kind of thing probably won’t bother many readers, though, and the novel does make an inventive adventure story with a strong heroine. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it. Still, just one more caveat.

Part of the novel is devoted to a rebellion in Canada that I hadn’t heard of before, of the Métis people lead by Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. Early in the novel, information on this topic is introduced through synopses of news articles Abigail is reading to her father and through some discussion. These sections and later ones are handled a little awkwardly because of the amount of information and its method of introduction. The way it was handled made me wonder what it was doing in the story. The information fits into the story eventually, but I feel, firstly, that it could have been introduced more smoothly, and secondly, that the novel unhandily juxtaposes the rebellion, the James Gang, and Annie Oakley.

When I read in an interview of Gault on Consumed by Ink that Gault wanted to write something that combined her research into those three topics, it made perfect sense to me. I just think the subjects could have been combined in a way that seemed more likely.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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Day 795: Pitcairn’s Island

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Cover for Pitcairn's IslandThis final novel in the Bounty Trilogy tells what happened to the mutineers from Mutiny on the Bounty. As explained in the introduction, the fate of the mutineers was not known until Pitcairn’s Island was rediscovered by an American ship in 1808. Although the mutineers arrived 18 years before, only one survived, surrounded by the wives and progeny of himself and others.

As the authors explain, the only information available about the fate of the mutineers was directly or indirectly from Alexander Smith, but those sources failed to agree and many accounts were improbable. So Nordhoff and Hall presented what they thought was the most likely version of events.

The mutineers and their companions arrive at Pitcairn’s Island in 1790. They have already tried to settle twice in Tahiti and once in the Friendly Islands (Tonga) but had to leave for fear of discovery or because of hostile natives. With the nine mutineers are six native men and twelve native women. Although all of the islanders get along well at the beginning while they are busy building their homes and planting their crops, the seeds of failure are already there, in the quality of some of the mutineers.

The first problems are caused by John Williams. He already has a woman named Fasto, but he lusts for Hutia, the wife of one of the native men, Tararu. When disputes over the woman reach the heights of disruption, Fletcher Christian allows Hutia to pick her husband. She picks John Williams, thus introducing the first tension between whites and native men.

But Christian’s biggest mistake is his egalitarian impulse to grant each man a vote on the future of their community. Although he wants to extend this vote to the native men, the whites do not agree, and it is this plus the votes extended to the less scrupulous whites that cause the problems. Eventually, some of the lowest of the men begin treating the native men as their slaves. The final break between whites and natives comes after a vote about ownership of the land, for the whites want to own the land and reduce the natives to servants.

Although most of the novel is peaceful, taking place in a tropical paradise, the worms in the apple are a few of the white men. A palpable tension brews throughout the novel.

If I have a criticism, it is that the final portion of the novel, presented as Alexander Smith’s story to the mate of the Topaz in 1808, goes on for a bit too long past the fate of the islanders into Smith’s discovery of God and the Bible. Other than that, the novel is gripping and a fine conclusion to the trilogy.

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Day 791: Moloka’i

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Cover for Moloka'iIn late 19th century Honolulu, Rachel Kalama is only seven years old when she develops leprosy. It starts out as just a pink spot on her leg, but as soon as authorities spot it, she is examined and exiled to the leper colony on Moloka’i. Even though her beloved Uncle Pons is already on the island, she is not allowed to stay with him but must live in the girls’ dormitory at least until she is 16. The facilities on the island are primitive and the rules rigid. She is the youngest resident of the island. It’s tough for a little girl.

Although Rachel’s father Henry writes regularly to her from his travels as a seaman, she soon has her letters to her mother returned to her. She never sees her mother again. The novel tells the story of Rachel’s life from the time she is admitted to the colony until she is an older woman.

I have to admit that I hesitated to read a novel about lepers, thinking it might be too gruesome. But Rachel’s story isn’t depressing. Aside from lightly covering a great deal of the recent history of Hawaii, beginning with the deposing of the queen by the United States, the novel depicts a life in a tough environment that slowly becomes a community. If anything, at times the novel seems to depict a rosier environment than seems possible.

Owing to lack of characterization and the prevalence of description versus action and dialogue, I was not captured by this novel until almost the end. I was interested to see what would happen, but I didn’t find the characters very involving. Still, I found the end of the novel touching, and I enjoyed learning about the history and customs of Hawaii.

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Day 779: The Quickening Maze

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Cover for The Quickening MazeThe Quickening Maze is the first book I read purposefully because it’s one of the finalists for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. By coincidence, I had already read half a dozen finalists and winners, and when I learned that Helen of She Reads Novels was trying to read them all, I decided to join her.

This novel is based on events in the life of the poet John Clare, known as the “peasant poet,” a man of rural background who was steeped in his natural surroundings. Unfortunately, Clare is having some mental problems and is staying in an asylum in Epping Forest. Nearby is Alfred Tennyson, whose brother Septimus also resides there.

John Clare seems to be doing well under the treatment of Dr. Matthew Allen. When we first meet him, his movements are relatively unrestrained and except for some confusion about a girl he knew named Mary, he seems sane enough. He is soon given a key to the gate so that he can walk in the forest.

Another patient important to the novel is Margaret, who is regularly transfixed by visions of angels and messages from god. At one point as Clare’s mental state deteriorates, he mistakes Margaret for his Mary.

Dr. Allen seems to have a gift for dealing with his patients during a time when mental health practices were deplorable. However, he also has a fascination with risk, and soon he is trying to talk his friends and the Tennysons into investing in his new invention, a machine for following the shape of furniture and carving additional pieces.

Hannah Allen at 17 has decided that Alfred Tennyson is the man she’d like to marry. She boldly begins seeking him out, not realizing that he is preoccupied with his brother and with grief over the death of a good friend.

Although this novel is more about the internal workings of some of the characters’ minds than its historical setting, it is beautifully written and atmospheric. I was interested in this narrow slice of history and curious to look at some of Clare’s poetry.

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Day 777: Barchester Towers

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Cover for Barchester TowersBest Book of the Week!
As Trollope’s first book in his Chronicles of Barchester was about gentle Mr. Harding’s position as warden, it seems hardly possible that a good portion of Barchester Towers, the next in the series, would be about exactly the same subject. Yet, that is the case, and Trollope finds it to provide more food for satire and social commentary.

Several years have passed since the events of The Warden. The kindly old bishop, Dr. Grantly, is dying, attended by his son, the archdeacon, and his old friend Mr. Harding. Although the younger Dr. Grantly is certainly devoted to his father, he has hopes that he will be appointed to his father’s office, as he has been doing the work for years. However, just before his father dies, a new government comes in, and Dr. Proudie is appointed bishop.

The quarrels in this novel pit low church against high church, which is about all I understand about the religious issues. But all of the clergy in Barchester are high church, and Bishop Proudie is low. Bishop Proudie himself, a meek man, is not so much a problem, but he arrives with a wife who is determined to sit in on every meeting and meddle in diocese business, much to the shock of everyone else. In this she is assisted by Mr. Slope, the bishop’s own chaplain, selected by Mrs. Proudie. And an insinuating, unlikable Uriah Heepish character he is.

One of the first issues to come up for the bishop is the wardenship of the hospital for old men, which has sat vacant since Mr. Harding resigned. Bishop Proudie knows he must offer the position at its lowered salary to Mr. Harding, and Mr. Harding would enjoy returning to the house that was his home for so many years and taking up his old duties. But Mrs. Proudie wants anyone except the entrenched Barchester clergy, so she selects Mr. Quiverful, an impoverished curate with 14 children.

Under instruction from the bishop to offer the position to Mr. Harding, Mr. Slope does so by adding conditions to the position that he knows Mr. Harding will not accept and that Mr. Slope himself, or even the bishop, has no authority to request. Although Mr. Harding does not turn down the job outright, Mrs. Proudie then promises it to Mrs. Quiverful.

But Mr. Slope decides that he can run the bishopric himself if he can cut out Mrs. Proudie, so he and the bishop soon have a silent agreement to throw off the feminine yoke. They do so by offering the wardenship to Mr. Harding again. Mr. Slope has also found out that the beautiful widow, Mrs. Bold, is wealthy. He decides to marry her and feels that he won’t help his chances unless he assists her father, Mr. Harding, back into his position.

In the meantime, Mr. Slope is infatuated with Madeline Neroni, the crippled but beautiful married daughter of Dr. Stanhope. She herself is frankly toying with him and several other men, but she turns out to have some sympathy with Eleanor Bold. However, Madeline’s sister Charlotte Stanhope has decided that her impecunious brother Bertie must marry Eleanor for her money.

Barchester Towers affords another entertaining look at the political and social maneuvers underpinning this mostly religious community. It offers lifelike, engaging characters, plenty of humor, and an empathetic and perceptive view of Trollope’s own time. I enjoyed The Warden particularly because I sympathized with the upright Mr. Harding, but Barchester Towers offers more for our consideration and is an altogether more significant work.

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Day 774: Miss Emily

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Cover for Miss EmilyLast year, I read the novel Amherst, which was mostly about Emily Dickinson’s brother Austin but depicted Emily hazily. The excellent biography White Heat, about Emily’s relationship with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, portrayed her more fully but she still seemed hard to grasp. The Irish poet Nuala O’Connor presents a more fully realized character—Emily in her middle age*—through her relationship to a (fictional) Irish maid.

Ada Concannon is a good worker but a bit too much of a free spirit for her Irish employer. She arrives at work one too many times smelling of the River Liffey, in which she has bathed on the way to work. She is demoted to scullery maid, and her mother decides there is nothing to be done but send her to America to find better opportunities.

Ada has good luck at first. She finds a pleasant home with her aunt and uncle in Amherst, and they soon learn that the Dickinsons need a new maid.

Emily Dickinson has insisted that her parents get a new maid after the old one left, because she is spending all her time on housework and none on writing. Although she loves baking, she is not really interested in most of the other chores. Other than poetry, her main interest is in her warm relationship with her sister-in-law, Sue, but Sue is busy with her family. When Ada arrives, Emily becomes fascinated by the small, neat maid.

Ada soon finds she is being courted. Daniel Byrne shows he likes her right away, and she is attracted to him. His boss’s son, Patrick Crohan, is also trying to get her attention, but she dislikes him.

When Ada finds she needs help, she has only Emily to turn to. Emily, in her turn, goes to her brother Austin.

link to NetgalleyThis novel is beautifully written, sometimes poetically, with delightfully old-fashioned chapter titles. It explores the relationship between two women across a class divide. The two main characters are interesting and convincingly developed. Austin is also developed more fully than the others, but is not as likable.

I enjoyed this novel, which made me feel as if I understood O’Connor’s fictional Dickinson as a person. Although Dickinson at 16 was just beginning to develop some of the quirks she becomes well known for, O’Conner her thinking believable.

*I originally said that Emily was 16, but Caroline of Rosemary and Reading Glasses pointed out that I was mistaken. I thought I saw a reference to her age, but perhaps I got the age reference mixed up with one about Ada. My e-copy is expired, so I couldn’t go back and look it up.

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Day 762: The Call of the Wild

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Cover for The Call of the WildThe Call of the Wild is no boys’ tale. It’s rough, embodying as it does Jack London’s ideas about the survival of the fittest. It is also London’s classic tale about the relationship between dog and man.

Buck is a large, pampered dog, the pet of a rich judge in California. But the Alaska gold rush is on, and all large dogs on the west coast are at risk. A gardener’s assistant with debts kidnaps Buck and sells him.

Buck is beaten with a club and then taken up to Alaska to work as a sled dog. But Buck never becomes submissive. Through intelligence, cunning, and brute strength he survives in brutal conditions. Eventually, he begins to feel the urge of his wild heritage.

Although London has the dog have fairly ridiculous “racial memories” of tree-living humans, they are probably about on par with what was believed at the time about evolution. London’s short novel is typical of the school of naturalism, which endeavoured to show the worst of reality. This is not really my favorite of my Classics Club list books so far.

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Day 741: Seven for a Secret

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Cover for Seven for a SecretSeven for a Secret is the second fantastic Timothy Wilde historical mystery by Lyndsay Faye. The series is set in 1840’s New York City. Wilde is a member of the newly formed copper stars, the city’s first police force.

It is Valentine’s Day, and Timothy and his colleague Jakob Priest are celebrating having solved an art theft when a beautiful woman of color comes looking for him at the station house. She is Lucy Adams, and she has just returned home from her job at a flower shop to find her son and sister missing. She knows exactly what happened to them. “Blackbirders” have snatched them to sell down south as escaped slaves, even though they are free.

Timothy asks his brother Valentine to go with him to get them back. Although Valentine is a corrupt Democratic party boss and a drug addict, he’s a good man in a fight. Timothy, his African-American friend Julius, and Valentine retrieve the three from the slavers, Varker and Coles, but not without a fight. The two women and little boy need somewhere safe to stay until Lucy’s husband returns, so Valentine offers them the use of his apartment.

Something is going on that is more complex than he understands, for when Timothy goes searching for Lucy’s husband, he finds that Lucy isn’t married to Charles Adams, a white salesman, as she thinks she is. She may or may not be married, but her “husband” is a Democratic senator for New York state.

Coming to see Lucy and her family a couple of days later, Timothy finds Lucy strangled and the room disrupted. Timothy is an honest police officer but he knows a frame job when he sees one. He has just finished removing the body and cleaning up when an enemy, Sean Mulquean, another copper star, arrives to investigate a reported disturbance. Timothy also soon learns that Varker and Coles have kidnapped Julius, so he must hurry to court to try to free him before he can look for Lucy’s sister Delia and son Jonas.

Faye’s historical setting of gritty 1846 New York is absolutely convincing. We like Timothy more the more we see him, and Faye is beginning to build a solid cast of supporting characters. This is a well-written, swift-moving, suspenseful series. At almost 500 pages, the novel is long for a mystery, but it didn’t seem like it for a second. Unfortunately, I have just learned that there is only to be one more in the series, and that one is waiting in my pile to be read.

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