Tag: Cornwall

Day 925: Warleggan

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Cover for WarlegganIt seems that the more books I read in Winston Graham’s Poldark Saga, the more interesting I find it. In the fourth book, Warleggan, we get more insight into whether George Warleggan is the villain Ross Poldark thinks he is. Short answer—yes.

Ross and Demelza’s marriage undergoes serious tests in this novel. First, at a party, Elizabeth, Ross’s first love, lets him know she made a mistake when she married his cousin Francis instead of him. Ross is no fool, and he realizes that this inability of Elizabeth’s to know her own mind has poisoned her own marriage to Francis, because Francis has realized that Elizabeth prefers Ross, too. Ross is sure that his betrayal by Francis, now forgiven, is at least partially because of this perception.

Early in the novel, though, Francis has an accident in the mine and dies. Demelza becomes more worried about Ross’s feelings for Elizabeth, especially since there is a new distance in her marriage with Ross.

The mine that Ross placed his hopes on, based on Mark Daniel’s comment after spending a night in it while hiding from the authorities, is not panning out as expected. Ross and Demelza are struggling financially, and the money to mine won’t last much longer. So, Ross decides to involve himself more directly with the smuggling trade by going along with the smugglers to see Mark, in hopes of finding out where he saw the ore. But there is an informer in the village.

Dwight Enys has finally decided to elope with the rich heiress Caroline Penvenen, because her relations won’t agree to her marriage with a penniless doctor. However, he must agree to leave Cornwall to marry her, and he is not happy to leave his patients.

Finally, the situation in Europe has become more unstable. Soon there will be a war with France, and no one knows how that will affect the country.

So far, this novel is the one in the series that has most involved me. I don’t know if this is because of my sympathy for Demelza or my ability to finally divorce this series from the new television series, which I saw before I began reading. I think there are eight more novels to go, and I’m looking forward to them.

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Day 913: The Unforgotten

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Cover for The UnforgottenA novel set in two time periods, The Unforgotten is a thriller and a mystery. But it is more than that—a story with deep-running themes offering its characters difficult choices.

In 1956 Cornwall, Betty Broadbent is an innocent, naive 15-year-old. She helps her unstable mother run a hotel and sometimes has to run it herself when her mother is in the throes of depression or alcoholism. The small fishing village has been invaded by reporters after the murders of several young women.

In 2006, Mary reads that the man who served time for the murders back in 1956 still insists he is innocent. Mary remembers him as the man her mother used to date and believes he is innocent. She thinks she knows who the actual killer is and is torn between telling what she knows and keeping a long-held secret. Although we don’t know why she is living under another name, we are soon sure that Mary is Betty.

This novel is about the painful choices two people must make under difficult circumstances. It is also about a sad and doomed love affair.

At first I thought that some of the dialogue and situations were unlikely, but I soon forgot those thoughts, driven forward by the sheer power of the story. It is one that has many more levels than first expected. This is a great first novel by Powell.

Full disclosure: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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Day 899: Jeremy Poldark

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Cover for Jeremy PoldarkThis third novel in Winston Graham’s Poldark series begins with Ross and Demelza Poldark in trouble. They are still grieving over the death of their baby daughter, and Ross is soon to come to trial for the incident of the shipwreck.

Although he certainly summoned the villagers to the wreck, some of the charges are trumped up. He never assaulted anyone or took any of the wreckage for himself, and he offered hospitality to some of the shipwrecked sailors. The worst looting and killing was done by unemployed miners.

Ross and Demelza soon have a misunderstanding that affects their marriage for months. This situation is not helped by a rapprochement between Ross and his cousin Francis, which brings Francis’s wife Elizabeth back into their orbit. Demelza is insecure around Elizabeth and envies her for her beauty and poise.

As all the Poldarks are suffering financially, Ross gets involved in some risky ventures. One could put him at odds with the law, and another could ruin him.

This novel is the first in the series that hasn’t been overshadowed for me by seeing the recent programs on Masterpiece. I think it is a good, solid series, with interesting characters and a well-researched historical background. The scene at the beginning of the novel of the election and its resulting chaos was particularly startling. I am enjoying this series.

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Day 882: Rebecca

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logo for the 1938 clubBest Book of the Week!
Since Rebecca is a book that qualifies for The 1938 Club and is also on my Classics Club list, I thought this was a good time to reread it. I must say that during this reread, I noticed things I’d never noticed before.

Some years after the time of the novel’s action, the narrator recollects the events at Manderley from a life of exile. As a young, naive woman working as a companion for the vulgar Mrs. Van Hopper, the narrator meets the older, sophisticated Maxim de Winter one spring on the Riviera. When Mrs. Van Hopper becomes ill, the narrator spends some time each day with him, driving through the countryside. Mrs. Van Hopper recovers and decides abruptly to return to the States. When the narrator tells Maxim, he proposes.

Cover for RebeccaThe narrator, whose first name we never learn, is an immature girl who is prone to imagining what people are saying about her or what may happen, usually in exaggerated terms. The wedding is not the romantic event that she imagined, but she goes along with whatever Maxim suggests.

Finally, they come home to Maxim’s family home of Manderley, and that’s where the novel really gets going. For the narrator is already haunted by the thought of Rebecca, Maxim’s first wife. Rebecca was beautiful, assured, accomplished—everything the narrator believes she is not. Everyone assures her that Maxim adored Rebecca and was shattered when she died in a sailing accident. Everyone tells her she isn’t at all like Rebecca. The decor of the house reflects Rebecca’s taste, her name is scrawled inside books, her monogrammed handkerchiefs are in the pockets of coats, and the servants tell her, when she timidly makes a request, “Mrs. de Winter used this vase,” or “Mrs. de Winter sat in this room in the morning.”

Further, there is the terrifying Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, from whom the new Mrs. de Winter senses actual hostility. Mrs. Danvers was devoted to Rebecca and resents a new wife taking her place, especially one so much Rebecca’s inferior.

The narrator was not brought up to a life with servants, running a big house, and she has no idea how to behave. Maxim gives her little help in this regard, just expecting her to adapt. She makes mistakes, and his moods become more erratic until she thinks he regrets their marriage. As she becomes more unhappy, events build to a climax on the night of a big costume ball.

This is an extremely powerful novel that, I think, hits you differently depending upon the age you are when you read it. When I was young, I thought it was romantic and scary. Now, I think it’s more of a study of some very maladjusted characters. But this is the first reading where it made me think of Mr. Rochester.

Even though I love Jane Eyre, I’ve never been much of a fan of Mr. Rochester. But what does he do? He yearns for a young, innocent girl and is prepared to commit a crime to get her. We can say this for Jane, though, she has a strong sense of herself.

I don’t want to say much more about Rebecca in case you haven’t read it. But let’s keep it at this. Maxim de Winter also yearns for a young innocent girl, but his choice has such a weak sense of self that we don’t even learn her name. He takes her to a life for which she is completely unsuited and untrained, with a servant he might predict would be hostile, and just leaves her to make the best of things. And this comment doesn’t even touch on the darker secrets of the novel.

Do these observations make me love the novel less? No, this is a great novel. Rebecca is one of Daphne du Maurier’s most atmospheric novels, in a career with many atmospheric novels. I believe she modeled Manderley after the house where she lived in Cornwall, and its description is detailed and loving. Du Maurier was interested in aberrant personalities, in which she probably counted her own. This is a dark novel that fully draws you in. It is very well written, an excellent character study and a masterful suspense novel.

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Day 854: Demelza

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Cover for DemelzaAgain I had difficulty separating this novel from the Masterpiece series televised a few months ago, which covered the first two of the Poldark novels. The focus of this novel is Demelza Poldark, the kitchen maid whom Ross Poldark married at the end of the first novel.

At the beginning of the novel, Demelza is in labor with the couple’s daughter Julia. Ross has engaged Dr. Choake, who takes the situation more casually than Ross would like. The doctor checks Demelza and goes away, saying she won’t deliver until the next afternoon. But Julia arrives before the doctor does, and Ross makes yet another enemy of his own class.

Demelza has come to believe that Ross’s gentle cousin Verity should have been allowed to marry Captain Blamey. She sees Verity’s sadness and feels she has aged ten years in only a few. So, without Ross’s knowledge, she begins plotting to draw them together.

Ross is striving to avoid the Warleggans’ financial takeover of the whole district. He is pressured to take the lead in forming a business to purchase and smelt copper in an effort to bring up the price of copper for the mine owners, as smelters are bidding low to keep the profit in their own pockets. Since several of the business partners are in debt to the Warleggans, they are concerned to keep their participation secret. However, the secret comes out, in a way that destroys Ross’s relationship with his cousin Francis.

Since the Masterpiece series so closely follows the books, it will not be until I read the third book that I will be able to tell how well the book series stands on its own. However, it seems well grounded historically and is particularly interesting when dealing with the problems of ordinary people of the time, when poverty was threatening many. I also like Ross and Demelza and feel sympathy with their struggles.

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Day 852: The Lake House

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Cover for The Lake HouseThe Lake House is another of Kate Morton’s enthralling novels about family secrets. It is set in two time periods, 1933 and 2003.

In 1933 Cornwall, Alice Edevane is 16. She loves her life in the woods and gardens of the family estate, Loeanneth, and she spends her time writing stories of romance and mystery. She reads her stories to Ben Munro, an itinerant gardener whom she loves. Her newest one is about a kidnapping, set in her own home.

In 2003, Sadie Sparrow is a police officer on an enforced holiday. She got over-involved in a case, in her partner’s opinion, and went to the media when she thought it was mishandled. Her partner is trying to keep her name out of the subsequent investigation, but he wants her on vacation for a month.

Sadie chooses to visit her grandfather Bertie in Cornwall, where he recently moved after her grandmother’s death. In traipsing around the woods with the dogs, she comes upon the abandoned house at Loeanneth. When she tries to find out about the house, she learns that it was deserted after the disappearance of a little boy, Theo Edevane, who was never found.

Sadie decides she would like to look into the cold case with the help of retired officer Clive Robinson. She tracks down Alice Edevane, now a famous novelist, and writes asking for permission to enter the house. But she hears nothing back.

Alice has always believed she knew what happened to Theo and thinks it is her fault. She has no desire to reopen the investigation, however unofficial. But a frank conversation with her sister Deborah reveals something she didn’t know, which leads her to re-evaluate her belief in what happened long ago. When the persistent Sadie writes again, she agrees to see her.

The story alternates between the investigation in the present and the events leading up to Theo’s disappearance. We see the past events from the points of view of several different characters but mostly from that of Eleanor, Alice’s mother.

I absolutely loved this novel, with one caveat. It is intricately plotted and beautifully written, as are Morton’s other novels. I also found it completely absorbing.

However, the coincidence of what happened to Theo I found a bit much. I can’t explain more, but read it yourself and tell me what you think.

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Day 835: Ross Poldark

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Cover for Ross PoldarkYears ago I used to enjoy the odd Winston Graham novel, but it was his crime novels rather than his historical novels I read, Marnie and The Walking Stick. I didn’t get interested in the Poldarks until the recent Masterpiece rework of the series.

Ross Poldark returns to his home in Cornwall from the war in America to find nothing as he expected. His father has died, and his slovenly servants have not kept up the house or the farm. Someone has set about a rumor that he died, and the girl he loves, Elizabeth Chynoweth, is engaged to his cousin Francis.

Ross sets about trying to put his property in order and to deal with his feelings about Elizabeth. He investigates whether he can get one of the mines on his property back into order. He also involves himself in the problems of his tenants.

While he is at a fair to buy livestock, he plucks an urchin out of a fight about a dog. Although the child is dressed as a boy, she is a girl, Demelza. When Ross finds her father has abused her, he agrees not to return her to her family and takes her as a kitchen maid.

Ross Poldark is an interesting historical novel dealing with the problems of the time in Cornwall. I don’t know much about Cornwall, which is associated in my mind with many of the novels of Daphne du Maurier. Although this novel certainly involved me, I found myself unable to separate it from the Masterpiece series. For example, although Demelza is described as dark, I still kept picturing her as a redhead. Since the Masterpiece series is based on the first two books, I’ll have to wait until the third book before I can begin to separate it in my mind. Certainly, the first novel seems just as effective as the series, which has so far followed the novel closely.

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Day 678: Castle Dor

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Cover for Castle DorIt is clear from the number of books Daphne du Maurier set in Cornwall that she found the region inspiring. In the case of Castle Dor, a book I had not heard of until recently, she actually finished a book begun by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, which is a retelling of the ancient Cornish legend of Tristan and Iseult. The novel also features another interest of du Maurier’s, the unexplained.

Dr. Carfax is the observer of this story set in the early 1800’s. He has a theory that he shares with a French visitor, elderly Monsieur Ledru, that the events of the old legend took place in the area of Cornwall where he lives. Monsieur Ledru has in fact traveled there to investigate just that subject. Ledru has also taken an interest in a young French onion-seller named Amyot Tristane and helps him free himself from his abusive ship’s master and get a job on the Bosanko’s farm.

It is the doctor who begins to feel an eerie familiarity in the behavior of Amyot once he unfortunately encounters Linnet Lewarne. Linnet is the most beautiful woman in the region, and she has at 18 married a much older man, the innkeeper Mark Lewarne. After Amyot meets Linnet, he seems to be aware of the history of the area in a way that is unlikely for the unsophisticated foreigner that he is. As Dr. Carfax views certain events and sees in them the similarities to the legend, he begins to fear the same fatal result for Amyot.

Linnet, although she is also presumably taken over by the strong forces of the past, is depicted unsympathetically, as ambitious and remorseless. As in the legend, there is a potion, but instead of being a love potion, it is poisonous.

The characters in this novel are rather one-sided, but it is the atmosphere and the legend that are important in the novel, set in the vicinity of the legendary Castle Dor. However, this is not one of du Maurier’s best, and for a retelling of the legend, I prefer Dorothy Robert’s The Enchanted Cup.

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Day 325: Over Sea, Under Stone

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Cover for Over Sea, Under StoneOver Sea, Under Stone is a charming children’s story with an Arthurian theme. Simon, Jane, and Barney Drew are vacationing with their parents and great uncle Merriman Lyon in a fishing village in Cornwall. While exploring the attic of the old house they rented, the children discover an ancient map of the local coast line. Barney realizes that the map refers to King Arthur.

The children’s parents are befriended by a Mr. Withers and his sister Polly, who invite the entire family to go fishing on their yacht. Jane is reluctant to go, though, and while everyone else is out, discovers a guide book that is similar to the map. It soon becomes clear that the Withers and perhaps other parties are looking for the secret that the documents reveal.

After a robbery, in which the robbers only rummaged through books and documents, the children decide to confide in great uncle Merry. They all figure out that the map and guide book may hold the secret to the Holy Grail. The children and their uncle become forces of the Light, while the others are forces of the Dark.

Over Sea, Under Stone is an entertaining book that should appeal to older grade school and middle school children. As an adult, my only quibble with it is the coincidence that other people suddenly begin looking for the map in the house just after the children find it. However, that is something that most kids wouldn’t think of.

The novel is well written and packed with adventure. I believe it is the first book in a series called The Dark Is Rising.

Day 96: The Forgotten Garden

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Cover for The Forgotten GardenKate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden was one of my big discoveries two years ago. I absolutely love this book.

A four-year-old girl walks off a ship in Australia in 1913 with a little white suitcase. No one meets her. She won’t say who she is or where she came from. The harbor master takes her home, calls her Nell, and adopts her, and she forgets her previous life. When she is 21 and on the verge of marriage, he tells her about it. This information is so shocking to Nell that she breaks with her fiancé and her family and isolates herself, feeling that she has been living a lie.

In 1975, Nell’s irresponsible daughter drops her own teenage daughter, Cassandra, at Nell’s house and drives away, never to return. Nell has other plans, but puts them aside to take care of her granddaughter.

In 2005, Cassandra is mourning Nell’s death. She has inherited Nell’s property but is only vaguely aware of her history. When she looks through Nell’s things, she finds a white suitcase with a book of fairy tales in it. She also finds that Nell never stopped looking for her real family. Continuing Nell’s search, Cassandra ends up in a small Cornish village where she learns she has inherited a small cottage on the Mountrachet estate.

Cassandra finds an entrance into a walled garden, and another one from there to the estate. Eventually, she also discovers the history of her grandmother’s parentage.

The book traces Nell’s history by alternating among these times. The modern story is one of investigating one’s roots, but the older tale is more gothic. Ultimately, it is the story of two cousins, the wealthy Rose Mountrachet and the slum-born Eliza Makepeace, who comes to live with her and be her companion.

A mystery about family secrets, the story is complex and enthralling. Some readers may be daunted by its length, but once you begin reading, you will not be able to stop.