Tag: 19th century

Day 626: River Thieves

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Cover for River ThievesReading River Thieves did not leave me with the same impression of wild originality as did Galore, the other Michael Crummey novel I read. Still, it is an interesting historical novel about the interactions between Europeans and the Beothuk Indians in early 19th century Newfoundland.

This novel is based on a true incident. It concerns an investigation into the killing of a Beothuk man by trappers after they went looking for redress for some thefts. This expedition brought back a Beothuk woman, later called Mary, who is captured at the beginning of the novel. But the narration of this story is far from straightforward, and we do not learn exactly what happened until the end of the novel.

Further, the characters’ actions are affected by a long history of their personal interactions. John Peyton is a young man at the beginning of the novel. He is in love with Cassie, his tutor and his father’s housekeeper, but she is somewhat mysterious and keeps aloof from him. John Sr. hired Cassie thinking that she and John Peyton might marry, but a misunderstanding interferes.

Lieutenant David Buchan encounters most of those figuring in the incident when he makes an earlier attempt to establish more cordial relations with the Beothuk than the violent ones currently existing. This expedition, which includes John Peyton, John Sr., and some of John Sr.’s employees, ends in disaster. It is the seemingly upright Buchan, later a captain, who is put in charge of the subsequent investigation.

This story is told at a remove from the characters. Although we learn the thoughts of several of them, Crummey never reveals everything, forcing us to view his characters more as an ensemble rather than to consider one a central character. In Galore, Crummey used this technique to depict the occupants of an entire village. Here, it is not quite as satisfying.

Day 621: Smith, The Story of a Pickpocket

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Cover for SmithI did not understand from the reviews I read for this book that it was a children’s book until I noticed its sprightly and simple tone. (My copy did not have this cover.) However, it is not suitable for just any child, because it begins with a murder and includes other violent acts. When I read in the introduction that Garfield wanted to write books full of adventure, like those by Robert Louis Stevenson, that made sense to me. The book is also described as Dickensian, but whereas some of Dickens’ and Stevenson’s books appeal to both adults and children, Smith does not have as much to offer adults.

Smith shares some plot elements with Oliver Twist, if the hero of the latter had been the Artful Dodger instead of the more innocent Oliver. For Smith is a twelve-year-old pickpocket. His adventures start when he picks the pocket of an old gentleman. Right after he does that, he sees the man murdered by two men dressed in brown. These men chase after Smith, but he eludes them.

Smith finds that all he has stolen is a paper that he can’t read. He is smart enough, though, to figure out that the paper must be important, since the men in brown are looking for him. Soon he finds he must leave the cellar where he lives with his two sisters and flee for his life. He goes looking for someone to teach him to read.

Smith’s adventures lead him to meet lots of characters who are vaguely Dickensian but somehow not as fully drawn as Dickens’ own. He finds shelter with a kindly blind man and his gruff daughter, is friends with a boastful highwayman, and meets an untrustworthy lawyer.

I found Smith only mildly entertaining but think that a child of the right age could be fascinated with this book—both by the life of a Victorian street urchin and by Smith’s adventures.

Day 618: Giants in the Earth

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Cover for Giants in the EarthI don’t usually read introductions until after I read a book, but I began to read the one for Giants in the Earth because I was curious about the book’s origins. I had always assumed it was an American book because it is about settlers in the Dakota territory. But in fact it was originally written in Norwegian and published in Norway in 1925 and 1926 and then translated to English in 1927, for Rölvaag came to the States in 1896 as a young man of 20.

The reason I mention the introduction by Lincoln Colcord, who translated the book with Rölvaag, is that it gives away a key plot point of the novel in the second paragraph. I couldn’t believe this, as it certainly affected how I read the novel, and it is especially egregious in that the event referred to does not happen until the very end of the book. If part of your enjoyment of a novel comes from not knowing what to expect, as mine does, do not read the introduction.

Per Hansa and his family have lost their way crossing the featureless prairies at the start of the novel. They had been travelling out with a group of Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans, but Per Hansa had difficulties with his wagon and the others went on ahead, even his best friend Hans Olsa. Then Per Hansa’s little group got lost in the fog for awhile, and now Per Hansa is afraid he might have missed the others and gone past them.

Per Hansa is an ebullient, sociable, hard-working man, and when he and his family finally arrive at the group of homesteads by Spring Creek, he is delighted with the land Hans Olsa has already marked out for him. He finds the prairie beautiful and is confident that he is going to make a wonderful life there for his family.

His wife Beret feels otherwise, and it is around her reaction that much of the novel centers. She is appalled by the prairie, this vast expanse that has not a single tree to hide behind. She soon begins to view the land as if it is some sort of godless and primitive monster, while Per Hansa sees only that it is rich and fertile.

The novel is set in the 1870’s and early 80’s and details the hardships of life so far away from any amenities. The men have to travel days for firewood in one direction and for supplies in another. Still, more immigrants keep arriving until there is a little settlement by the creek.

This is a fascinating novel about the Norwegian contribution to the settlement of the country. It is a realistic novel, not romanticized, with no big feats of heroism or villainy, just details of the life these people have chosen and its effects on them.

Day 617: Charles Dickens

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Cover for Charles DickensReading this biography of Charles Dickens was very interesting to me after reading The Invisible Woman, about Dickens’ long illicit affair with Nelly Ternan. I have read biographies of Dickens before, but these two were the first I read that were forthright about some of Dickens’ inconsistencies and hypocrisies.

Renowned British actor Simon Callow puts a different spin on this book by examining Dickens’ love of and relationship to the theatre and his audience. Dickens adored the theatre and made quite a few forays into amateur theatrical productions, some of them quite large in scope, before settling on dramatic readings of his novels that were hugely successful.

It was of course during one of these productions, performances of a play he wrote with Wilkie Collins, where Dickens met Ellen Ternan, the young actress who became the focus of his mid-life crisis, which eventually ruined his marriage. She was brought in to replace Dickens’ daughter when a public performance made it improper for a young lady to appear.

This book is written in vivid and humorous style. It is entertaining and provides a view of Dickens’ career from the point of view of a theatrical background. Callow has himself played Charles Dickens more than once, most notably in a one-man performance, and is the author of nine books on theatre.

P. S. This book is sometimes titled Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World.

Day 616: The Rathbones

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Cover for The RathbonesBest Book of the Week!
The Rathbones is a strange and wonderful novel, part gothic mystery, part magical realism, about a whaling family in the 18th and 19th centuries. Mercy Rathbone is a girl, the last of a mysterious family. She lives in a massive house only partially built that used to house dozens of people. Now only her aloof mother lives there with her and her cousin Mordecai—who stays in the attic and acts as her tutor—and a few servants.

Mercy has vague memories of a brother that her mother and cousin tell her never existed. She has not seen her father for more than ten years, although packages from him occasionally arrive. She is curious about the family portraits in a gallery, all with the names removed. She knows the names of her mother and father but has no idea who her grandparents were, or how they related to Moses, the patriarch of the family.

One night Mercy is attracted by the sound of a boy singing and ventures into a part of the house where she is not allowed, the widow’s walk where  her mother goes every night. There she witnesses her mother being embraced by a strange man, and that man chases her through the house. She finds refuge with Mordecai, and the two decide to go to sea to find her father. They flee in a little dory, pursued by the strange man.

So begins a wonderous adventure, where they encounter an island occupied only by old ladies; an island of rich, eccentric cousins with a massive collection of furniture and art; an island of birds occupied by a woman who only speaks bird language. At each stop Mercy learns more about the odd and sometimes grotesque history of her family, many of whom have a magical affinity for the sea.

I do not usually enjoy magical realism, but with this novel I loved never knowing where the story would go. It is an odd one, certainly, and probably not for everyone, but it is imaginative and unusual.

Day 612: The 19th Wife

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Cover for The 19th WifeBest Book of the Week!
The 19th Wife is actually two interleaved novels, one as interesting as the other. The novel that begins the book is a modern mystery. The novel that dominates the book, however, is historical, about Ann Elizabeth Young, Brigham Young’s 19th wife, whose lectures after she left the Latter-Day Saints were partially responsible for ending the authorized practice of polygamy within the church.

In the modern story, Jordan Scott is a young man who grew up with the Firsts, a fundamentalist Mormon group that still practices polygamy. At the age of 14, Jordan was booted out on his own because he held his stepsister Queenie’s hand. Jordan’s intentions were not amorous, because he is gay, but he realizes that the young men are ejected from the group so that the old men can keep the young girls for themselves.

Jordan is living in California when he reads that his father has been murdered and his mother, Becky Lynn, arrested for it. As his mother is a complete believer who actually dumped him out on the highway herself those years ago, he does not believe she murdered his father. The evidence against her is that another wife saw her coming from their husband’s room looking upset. Jordan’s father was texting someone just before he was killed and remarked that his 19th wife was at the door. That wife is Becky Lynn.

While Jordan tries to find out what happened that night, we read the story of Ann Elizabeth Young, a woman born into the Church of Latter Day Saints but who has always been clear on the evils of the practice of polygamy. This story is told through fictional excerpts from her autobiography, newspaper clippings, statements by Brigham Young, and other documents.

Ann Elizabeth begins with the story of how her own parents, once devoted to each other, were forced into polygamy by Brigham Young, and what pain it caused her mother every time her husband took another wife. This pain was amplified by the hypocritical ruling that the first wife had to accept all future wives into the household before further marriages could take place. Ann Elizabeth’s own first marriage is also marred by threats of polygamy, which her husband uses to manipulate her despite having promised before marriage not to practice it.

Well written and convincingly characterized, this novel is absolutely engrossing. Although I found the modern mystery interesting in its insights into fundamentalist Mormonism as currently practiced, I found the story of Ann Elizabeth’s life even more compelling. Ever since reading Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, I have been fascinated by this subject.

Day 604: The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories

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Cover for The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost StoriesIn honor of Halloween, I decided to read this collection of 35 ghost stories from Victorian times, when they were very popular. This collection contains stories by well-known writers of the time, such as Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, and Rudyard Kipling, as well as those by other less-known writers.

First, I’ll comment that modern audiences probably won’t find them very scary. But I’m not so sure this has anything to do with the period or the ability of the writers. I think it’s very difficult to handle genre fiction successfully in a short story. Short stories seem to me to be more suited for literary fiction somehow. A few years ago, for example, I read a collection of mystery short stories but felt that the form didn’t allow much space to really develop an interesting atmosphere or characters. It merely allowed the author to pose a puzzle and a solution.

The Victorian ghost stories seem to observe a few conventions. Unlike the gothic stories from the preceding years, Victorian ghost stories are more homey and less likely to include oddities, fantastic events, or exotic settings. Many of them are presented as a person telling a story to one or more other people, often as an evening entertainment before the fire. Almost all of them involve haunted houses, which often seem to be leased to unwary renters at a suspiciously low price. (But I shouldn’t mock. I actually have a friend who found himself in precisely this situation.) Another common theme is a haunted object. In most of the stories, the worst thing that happens is that someone sees a ghost, although there are a couple that are a little more gruesome.

I found the story-telling approach a little tiresome after awhile and was refreshed by the ebulliant characters writing the letters in the epistolary story “The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth,” by Rhoda Broughton. “The Romance of Old Clothes” by Henry James and a few others also stood out. The collection even includes one vampire tale.

If you are looking for some chilling reading, you’re not really going to find it here. (Although I’ll suggest that any of these stories may be more successful if read out loud, preferably on a dark and stormy Halloween night.) However, if you are interested in the genre or the time period, you’ll probably find the collection worth dipping into.

Day 597: Neverhome

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Cover for NeverhomeBest Book of the Week!
After some personal tragedies, Ash Thompson leaves the farm in Indiana to join the Union army and fight in the Civil War. Although the truth about Ash is not immediately apparent, I feel little hesitation in revealing that Ash is a woman, because the publicity for this novel makes that clear. Why she has chosen to leave her husband Bartholomew and go off to war is another matter.

Ash, who is tall and strong, shows herself to be a brave and obedient soldier, resourceful and a good shot. No one knows her for what she really is except a few women she sees in passing and her colonel.

This story is told by Ash herself in a very understated way. In fact, it is the voice of this novel, so distinctive, that makes it stand out. It is not until the end of the novel that we learn that Ash is not always a reliable narrator.

http://www.netgalley.comThis novel is beautifully spare and compelling, a wonderful portrait of a person who is more disturbed by violence and her personal tragedies than she appears to be.

Day 576: Indiscretion

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Cover for IndiscretionIn Regency London, Caroline Fortune and her ex-soldier father have been surviving at the edge of poverty for a long time. When her father reports that he has lost all his money in a bad investment, Caroline decides to look for work as a governess.

Soon, her father tells her he has found her a better situation, as companion to Mrs. Catling, the widow of her father’s former colonel. In his ebulliant way, he assumes Caroline could easily be left Mrs. Catling’s fortune. Caroline is not pleased with the situation, nor does she have any hopes of Mrs. Catling’s generosity, but seeing no other option, she takes the position. With no relatives other than her father to fall back on, as her mother’s relatives disowned her mother after her marriage, Caroline moves to Brighton to wait on Mrs. Catling.

Caroline soon learns that Mrs. Catling is demanding and petulant. She treats her servants harshly. When Mrs. Catling’s niece and nephew, the Downings, come to call, Caroline witnesses how her employer manipulates Matthew Downing with the promise of her fortune. Still, Caroline manages to get along with the Downings and Mrs. Catling fairly well, even receiving unwanted confidences from Matthew. However, her dependent position unexpectedly leaves her open to an insult from an unscrupulous man.

Re-opened contact with her relatives eventually removes her to an entirely new neighborhood and life, and she makes some new friends. After awhile, though, her experiences in Brighton return to haunt her.

I don’t often read romance novels and tend to stick to the older authors I love when I do. I have found no writer who can surpass Georgette Heyer in Regency romances. But a friend recommended this novel to me, and I found it quite entertaining. It does not seem simply a copy of Heyer as some other Regency novels have. The dialogue is witty. Once Caroline leaves Brighton she meets some endearing characters, and the plot is both complex and interesting. Caroline is an intelligent and engaging heroine. For some light, escapist reading, I recommend Indiscretion.

Day 567: Jack Maggs

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Cover for Jack MaggsBest Book of the Week!
Jack Maggs belongs in a growing genre of fiction that reinterprets a classic novel. In this case, the novel works in two ways: as another look at Great Expectations from the point of view of a different character and as a loose work of metafiction.

Jack Maggs is a convict illegally returned from Australia when he arrives at the door of a gentleman named Henry Phipps, only to find no one at home. The maid from a neighboring house, Mercy Larkin, thinks he has come to the wrong house as an applicant for a footman position in her own. Maggs decides to take the position so that he can watch the neighboring house for Phipps’ return.

Maggs’ employer is Percy Buckle, once a grocer, who inherited some money and fancies himself a patron of the arts. That night Buckle entertains at dinner a famous author, Tobias Oates, who dabbles in mesmerism. During dinner, Maggs is attacked by a horrible pain in his face, which makes him collapse. Oates hypnotizes him in an attempt to cure him but also gets him to tell some of his secrets.

Soon the two are locked in a struggle. Oates has mentioned knowing of a thief-taker, whom Maggs wants to employ to find Phipps. Oates only agrees to give him the name in exchange for two weeks of allowing him to mesmerize Maggs. Oates, who has realized quickly that Maggs is a fugitive, wants to learn about the criminal mind for an upcoming book. But Maggs becomes dangerous when he learns Oates has found out his secrets.

This tale is really gripping and ultimately suspenseful. It is also very Dickensian in nature—in its storytelling, its empathy for the poor, its dark London atmosphere, its character names, and its rather convoluted but satisfying plot. Our sympathy is all for Maggs, who has built up in his mind a fantasy about Phipps, whom he educated and made a gentleman, and who he does not realize is hiding from him in dread.

Oates is meant to be Dickens himself, and he is depicted less sympathetically. He misuses Maggs in service of his writing, but he is not much more responsible toward members of his own family.

Although Carey won a Booker prize for Oscar and Lucinda, I think Jack Maggs is much more powerful.