Tag: historical fiction

Day 871: The Summer Before the War

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Cover for The Summer before the WarBest Book of the Week!
I, for one, have been waiting for Helen Simonson’s second novel ever since I read the first one. And here it is!

Hugh Grange is preparing to pick up the new schoolteacher from the station at the beginning of The Summer Before the War. His Aunt Agatha has been instrumental in the school board’s controversial decision to hire a woman as the school’s new Latin mistress. Agatha has supported the hire because the woman was the most qualified applicant, but she is aware that her position as well as the teacher’s is precarious and that the mayor’s wife, Bettina Fothergill, is up to something.

So, Beatrice Nash arrives to take the position unaware that it is already threatened. She has been eager to leave the home of her father’s relatives, where she has lived since her father’s death. She soon finds that he has bargained away her freedom by agreeing to put her money into trust in return for being allowed to return home to his estranged family. Beatrice’s trustees start right out by assuming that she is mishandling her money.

Hugh is a medical student who is working under Dr. Ramsey, a well-known Harley Street physician. Hugh is a careful person whose future is neatly charted out. He will qualify in a year and then marry Dr. Ramsey’s daughter and join his practice. But the Great War breaks out, and Dr. Ramsey pressures him to accompany him to the front. Hugh wants to finish qualifying first, but Lucy Ramsey threatens to give him a white feather if he doesn’t join up.

Hugh’s cousin Daniel is a poet, and he plans to open a journal in London with his good friend Craigmore, Lord North’s son. But after Lord North sees Daniel and Craigmore together at the local hops festival, he makes Craigmore join the air corps. Daniel joins the Artists’ Rifles in reaction.

link to NetgalleyThis description doesn’t do much justice to the novel, which is about how all the characters’ lives are affected by the war. Aside from the same kind of class and town politics featured in Simonson’s delightful Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, we meet a handful of characters who are genuinely likable and we get very involved in several subplots.

Simonson evokes a bustling town of Rye in 1917, with it occupants becoming involved in their various war activities. Belgian refugees arrive, and the town begins to experience the first horrors of war. This novel makes an absorbing second effort that is at times very touching.

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Day 870: Jane Steele

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Cover for Jane SteeleBest Book of the Week!
Fans of Lyndsay Faye’s Timothy Wilde trilogy (I am one) have undoubtedly been looking forward to Jane Steele, which she describes as a riff on Jane Eyre. In this novel, which Faye dedicates to “Miss Eyre and Mr. Nickleby,” Jane Steele describes her life as one very similar to Jane Eyre’s, only with an important difference—Jane Steele is a serial killer.

At the beginning of the novel, Jane is nine or ten years old, living in a cottage with her mother on the grounds of Highgate House. Although her mother has told her Highgate House belongs to her, it is occupied by her Aunt Patience Barbary and her cousin Edwin. Mrs. Barbary hates Jane and her mother, and after her mother’s death from an overdose of some opiate, Mrs. Barbary wastes no time in preparing to ship Jane off to Lowan Bridge School, run by Mr. Vesalius Munt. But before that can happen, Edwin tries to rape Jane, who pushes him off a cliff to his death. Terrified by the perspicacious Constable Quillfeather, Jane goes meekly to school.

It is difficult to know how much to reveal in this review, but suffice it to say that almost every action in Jane Eyre is echoed in some way in Jane Steele, but always with a twist. Mr. Munt is, if anything, a worse sadist and hypocrite than the headmaster of Lowood School. Jane Steele has a dear friend in the school, Rebecca Clarke, who comes close to dying, but when Mr. Munt offers Jane a choice between further starving Clarke or agreeing to be sent to an asylum, Jane instead chooses to stab him with a letter opener. Jane being sixteen by then, she and Clarke run off to London.

link to NetgalleyEventually, Jane meets her Mr. Rochester when she forges credentials as a governess to go work at Highgate House. There she hopes to search for proof of her mother’s claim that the house belongs to her. She finds herself in an unusual environment. The house belongs to Mr. Charles Thornfield, a nephew of Patience Barbary. Her charge is a little Sikh girl named Sahjara, and the entire household is Sikh. This household has its own secrets, to do with the betrayal of the Khaba, the Sikh military, by its own leaders.

This novel is a romping good read, full of adventure. It features a missing treasure, secret identities, several oily villains, and the resurrection of the heroine’s self-esteem. Yes, Jane kills five men. Do we still like her? Absolutely. I think you’re going to love this book.

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Day 868: Flight of Dreams

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Cover for Flight of DreamsI liked Ariel Lawhon’s first book only moderately but enough so that I was willing to give her second book a try. Since the ending of the first book redeemed what I initially considered a mediocre novel, I was trying to hold out for the ending of this one. That being said, after more than 160 pages, I gave up on Flight of Dreams.

The novel is about the flight of the Hindenburg on its way from Germany to the U. S. on the trip that ends with its explosion. The novel has a large cast of characters, passengers and crew. Many of the characters have secrets, including a couple on some sort of mission, a thief who has deeper motives, and a Jewish woman attempting to leave Germany.

In what Lawhon was attempting, this novel reminded me of Dead Wake, Erik Larson’s nonfiction book about the sinking of the Lusitania. Frankly, Dead Wake built up a lot more suspense. The pace of this novel truly drags. At more than 400 pages, we follow practically every second of four days. By page 168, where I stopped, the book had only reached breakfast on the second day. Since the Hindenburg departed in the evening, I knew I was in trouble.

Perhaps there are too many characters in the novel. We see the actions from five points of view, but there is no distinct voice that differentiates them one from the other. Each narrative point of view sounds the same. Further distance is created by the chapter names, which continue to refer to the characters by their roles (the American, the Stewardess) even after we know their names.

What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t care about Max and Emilie’s romance or what was going on with the Adelts or what the American was up to. I keep making this complaint, but it seems as though some authors don’t know that part of their job is to get readers to care about what happens, not just put characters through their paces. The most notable novels I have read in recent years (or maybe ever) have all shared one trait—they have all had a distinctive voice.

link to NetgalleyFinally, some of the scenes between people play like TV melodrama. I’m thinking of the fight between the Adelts over Gertrud going to the bar and a scene where Emilie kisses a man she doesn’t care for in front of Max. These scenes seem like simply (hackneyed) devices to move the plot, not as if they are originating from the realistic behavior of a character. As far as I was concerned, the Hindenburg could have blown up 300 pages earlier.

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Day 865: Arctic Summer

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Cover for Arctic SummerFrom its description, I thought that Arctic Summer might be one of the most interesting books I’m reading from the Walter Scott Prize list. It is described as a fictional biography of E. M. Forster, particularly leading up to his publication of A Passage to India.

That is certainly the time period the novel covers, and A Passage to India is one of its preoccupations. But the novel spends most of its time on Forster’s obsession with his homosexuality and his desire for sexual experience. As I’m not all that interested in reading about anyone’s obsession with sexuality, this novel was not the best fit for me.

The novel begins in 1912 on Forster’s first trip to India. While he is there, he will visit a good friend, Masood, and he has hopes that his life will open up, particularly in regard to sex. At the age of 33, he is still a virgin, his fear of disgrace holding him back from expressing his sexuality at home. Perhaps in India he will have an experience, maybe with Masood, whom he loves.

Unfortunately, Forster, who goes by Morgan, has a tendency to fall in love with heterosexual men and prefers men from a lower class, so nothing quite works out the way he wishes. Even when he finally has some encounters, years later, what he is actually looking for is love, which he never finds. The novel follows him during the long gestation of his novel about India, back to England, to Alexandria during World War I, and back to India again. During this time, his most significant relationships are with two friends who do not return his feelings.

The novel is extremely well written, and Galgut deeply characterizes Morgan, if not the other characters. It did make me wonder if any person could be so relentlessly focused on sex, although of course he is also lonely. It also made me wonder how, if he really felt this unrelenting focus, he ever got anything written. Certainly this novel makes you feel for Forster—he was a sad man.

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Day 862: The Remains of the Day

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Cover for The Remains of the DayBest Book of the Week!
Having seen the movie The Remains of the Day years ago, I think it is just as well I waited so long to read it. Even so, some of the book’s scenes made me envision the movie, though I had forgotten most of it.

Stevens is the butler for Darlington House in the 1950’s. Lord Darlington, whom he served for 30 years, is gone, and now Stevens works for Mr. Farraday, an American. At Mr. Farraday’s suggestion, he has decided to take a holiday to visit the former Miss Keaton, who used to be the housekeeper in Darlington House. He surmises that her marriage is not altogether happy. She has split from her husband, and Stevens hopes she will agree to return to Darlington House as housekeeper. As he travels, he keeps a diary reflecting his thoughts on the journey.

To Stevens, his professional capabilities are the most important areas of his life. He reflects a great deal on such concepts as what dignity consists of. He has removed himself emotionally from the events of his own life, so much so that when his father is dying in the house, he won’t leave the dinner party he is serving. Stevens’ dedication is taken to such an extreme that when he sees in Mr. Farraday a disposition to banter with him, he, who has no sense of humor, begins to practice witticisms.

The Remains of the Day is the striking portrait of a unique individual as he comes to consider some of his life’s decisions. He has devoted his life to the service of Lord Darlington, whose political decisions before World War II left him a ruined man. Stevens thought he was helping Lord Darlington do important work, but later he had to re-evaluate that idea. In the meantime, Stevens ignored a possible other life for himself with Miss Keaton.

This novel tells a sad, sad story. Stevens is not always a reliable narrator for us, as his perceptions are as limited as his point of view. This is a novel of depth and brilliance, intricate as a puzzle box, as we delve the depth of Stevens’ psyche.

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Day 856: A God in Every Stone

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Cover for A God in Every StoneA God in Every Stone is a novel that seems to be trying to convey some profound truths. The trouble is, I couldn’t figure out what they were.

It begins in pre-World War I Turkey, where young Vivian Rose Spencer is on an archaeological dig. She is entranced by the thought of the history of artifacts, particularly by a story told her by Tahsin Bey, a friend of her father. He tells her of a circlet worn by the 5th century explorer Scylax, which he believes may be found in Peshawar, where the Persian King Darius sent him to explore the Indus. Viv’s visit is cut short by the start of the war, but by then she has promised herself to Tahsin Bey, who says he will fetch her in London after the war.

Viv begins the war nursing, but after a while she is unable to take the stress. Her mother agrees to allow her to journey to Peshawar as an archaeologist, but first she is drawn by patriotism and naiveté into a betrayal.

Qayyam Gul is a proud Pushtun soldier whose regiment is practically wiped out at Auber’s Ridge. He loses an eye, but it is his experience of being an Indian soldier in England that makes him begin rethinking his loyalties.

In Peshawar, Viv befriends a young Pathan boy, Najeeb, who becomes fascinated by the objects in the museum. She begins giving him lessons in the classics, but when his mother finds out, she makes him stop. Najeeb is Qayyam’s brother, and Qayyam accompanies Najeeb to Viv’s house to return her books. Not much later, Viv is forced to return to London.

Fourteen years later, Viv is enticed back to Peshawar by Najeeb’s letters. He is now employed by the Peshawar Museum and wants her to excavate the site that she hoped to explore years before. Qayyam has in the meantime become involved in the Congress, which wants to separate India from England. Viv arrives, but after violence has already begun.

Although I was interested in the characters and wanted to know what happened to them, I felt that Shamsie presents us with threads of different stories, all unexplored. We don’t learn very much about Qayyam’s experience at Auber’s Ridge or Viv’s nursing experiences, for example, or what’s going on in the Congress. We never find out what happened to Scylax’s circlet. It is almost a McGuffin. The best parts of the novel are her depictions of Peshawar. But even there, the readers’ experience seems fragmentary. In a dramatic portion of the end of the novel, a girl is introduced as an apparent partner for Najeeb, only to be killed within a few pages. The author’s intentions seem confused, as if she started with too many stories to tell and couldn’t decide between them.

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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 845: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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Cover for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoEven after thinking about the novel for some time, I can’t decide whether I liked The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. On the one hand, there’s the energy with which it is written and its inventiveness, wedging a portion of the narrative into footnotes that convey some of the most interesting information (a technique used also in The Sunken Cathedral and by such writers as David Foster Wallace). On the other hand, there’s the unrelenting sexism and objectification of women expressed by the principal narrator as well as by other characters. Okay, that’s an important part of the character’s personality rather than an attitude of the author, but I found it disturbing.

Oscar is a misfit. He is a fat, nerdy boy from the Dominican Republic, highly intelligent and well read but unable to interact normally with people, especially girls. He is interested in Star Trek and Tolkien, but even his other geeky friends eventually get girlfriends while he remains alone and still preoccupied with his obsessions. He dreams of being a science fiction writer.

In college at Rutgers he has one reluctant friend. Because Yunior (Díaz’s persona for much of his fiction) is in love with Oscar’s sister Lola, he agrees to be Oscar’s roommate. He tries to get Oscar to exercise and invites him out with friends. But his efforts aren’t sincere, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that his intentions are mixed, so he eventually gives up on trying to make Oscar more normal.

Of course, Yunior’s perceptions are all colored by his own preoccupation, sex. Although he loves Lola, they break up several times because of his unfaithfulness. Yunior sees Oscar as a young man wanting to get laid. Well, of course he does, but what he really wants is love.

Oscar has grown up with the romance of his sci-fi and fantasy epics. Yes, they are also full of action, but they are in a sense the continuation of the chivalric romances that obsessed another famous character, Don Quixote, and that’s the book this novel reminds me of. Of course, we know from the title that Oscar will die, and we can guess he will die for love. Also like Don Quixote, although the story is ultimately tragic, its tone is comic.

What I found most interesting in this novel was the story of Oscar’s family, for this is an inter-generational saga about the fortunes of his family in the Dominican Republic. In a combination of narrative and footnotes, the novel tells the recent history of the Dominican Republic and especially of the Trujillo regime, where Oscar’s family ran aground.

This time period was also the focus of another book I’ve reviewed, In the Time of Butterflies, which this novel references, along with a lot of other pop culture. I complained of that book that it assumed its readers already understood all about the Trujillo dictatorship. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao does a much better job of explaining Dominican history and exposing us to its culture.

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Day 837: Highwayman: Winter Swarm

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Cover for Highwayman: Winter SwarmHighwayman: Winter Swarm is a novella-length story that appears to be an episode of a larger novel. This confused me a little until I read that the publisher, Endeavor Press, was publishing electronic novels in installments.

Samson Lyle is a former Roundhead major who is now a highwayman, doing his best to sabotage the efforts of Oliver Cromwell and particularly General Goffe. Lyle’s disaffection came about because of his refusal to participate in Goffe’s massacres of Catholics in Ireland. Lyle’s goodwife was killed in battle after this incident, and Lyle believes the death was no accident. Since then, he has been a bandit, seeking revenge.

Lyle, known as the Ironside Highwayman, is assisted by a teenage girl, Bella, whom he rescued as a young girl from prostitution, and a tavern owner, Eustace, whose live he saved. He also has various informants around the countryside.

The novella opens with a daring theft of the strongbox containing the back pay for the Middlehurst garrison. Later, Lyle attacks the salt detail, knowing Goffe cannot get through the winter without salt to preserve the meat.

This novella is mildly enjoyable as an old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure. If I understand what the publishers are doing correctly, I’m not sure how well it will work. As the first installment, the novella spent time on exposition that may have to be repeated, but it spent little time on characterization. In the tricks Lyle plays on the soldiers, it reminds me just a bit of the first book in Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, but there is no way to judge whether the series will develop any depth. In general, I felt the approach to be unsatisfying, even though I like the idea of reading a novel in serial form, like the Victorians did. But this episodic approach, which probably doesn’t assume people will read the episodes in order, is not the same thing. It reminds me more of episodic graphic novels, without the pictures.

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