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Book review: Middlemarch

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Middlemarch by George Eliot. Highly recommended.

It seems that it’s nearly impossible to talk about Middlemarch without mentioning its breadth and scope. The irony is that the entire novel takes place within the confines of this small community and within the sometimes-small minds of its various citizens.

Although a vast number of characters populate Middlemarch and its environs, each who speaks has a distinctive voice, yet does not fall into being mere type only. The horse dealer sounds like a horse dealer — but one with a particular background and perspective. The setting itself represents every type of town, suburb, village, or neighborhood where you’ll find the complacent, the critical, the aspiring, the intellectual, the earthy, the wealthy, the poor, and the worker in between. As with many English novels, the setting, in this case Middlemarch, becomes as much a central character as any other, whether it’s Dorothea or Lydgate.

The tapestry Eliot weaves is complex; one character’s actions can affect the lives of others he or she may rarely meet, while the unknown behavior and works of Bulstrode in his youth decades ago eventually touch nearly all.

How the characters come together is sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle. Dorothy’s interest in Causabon, although a puzzle to her friends and family, is painted in broad strokes to the reader; her later interest in Will Ladislaw, grows somewhat more delicately if based in the same altruistic roots. Mary Garth and Fred Vincy have, in their way, come together in their childhoods; they are still struggling with mutually agreeable terms that will allow both to acknowledge the love and affection that are already there. Lydgate and Rosamond are both more of a puzzle and less of one — a case of two opposed personalities with opposing views, opposing goals, and opposing personalities drawn together by that most capricious of matchmakers, proximity and circumstance, to form a union that will frustrate both and satisfy neither.

Against the background of these four sometimes difficult relationships (Dorothea and Causabon with its lack of love or eros, Dorothea and Will with the barriers set by Causabon’s will and that of the Middlemarch society who frown on Will and Dorothea’s association with him, Fred and Mary with her imposed restrictions to set him on the correct course in life before she can make a commitment to him, and Lydgate and Rosamond with their diametrical oppositions) is the long, happy marriage of Nicholas Bulstrode and his Vincy wife Harriet. Unlike the others, there are no visible barriers to their happiness, and they are happy as a couple — except for the events in Bulstrode’s past that haunt him in the back of his mind and then at the front with the appearance of Raffles. The marriage survives the ensuing scandal, but the individuals — Nicholas and Harriet — become poor shadow of their former selves.

It is in a town like Middlemarch that a woman like Dorothea will find it impossible to find approbation for her plans and Bulstrode will find the antagonism of those who have come to terms with their own worldly desires. It is in a town like Middlemarch that merely the raving words of a delirium tremens-afflicted Raffles can upset the respectable work of a respectable lifetime. The downfall of Bulstrode validates the town and its modernizing secular culture.

Middlemarch is a novel of insight into personality, motivations, social behaviours, and history. In the end, even the happiest characters have failed at most if not all of their youthful aspirations and have become variations on the Middlemarch theme — husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, day-to-day toilers rather than dreamers and achievers. Middlemarch is Everytown, where you will find an example or two of Everyone — and their dreams or lack thereof.

If you intend to glean the utmost from it, begin with an annotated, critical edition; while Eliot enjoyed a high enough level of erudition to reference the current events of 1830s England along with mythology, religion, quotations, and developments in science and medicine, most of us today cannot begin to follow them without assistance. Knowledge of these references will enrich the rich text of a rich mind.

1 September 2002
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: A Confederacy of Dunces

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A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Highly recommended.

He’s egotistical, erudite, ejaculatory (literally), and explosive. He’s “emptily verbose” (Merriam-Webster’s definition number 3 for “gassy”). He’s also that — gassy, a man with a flux. He’s Ignatius J. Reilly, a monster of a man with a master’s degree, a faulty pyloric valve, a love for Boethius and The Consolation of Philosophy, a hatred for modern life, a passion against anything to do with sex (at least sex involving a second person), and a distinctly lower-class New Orleans lifestyle. He’s also a man about whom his own pet phrase could apply: “Do I believe what I am seeing?”

Set in the New Orleans of the 1960s, A Confederacy of Dunces begins with an incident with an overzealously inept policeman that leads Ignatius, one of the most unforgettable characters of American fiction, into a world with which he is unfamiliar and ill-equipped-work. As a result, he encounters a cornucopia of characters — from the cynical female owner of the laughably named “Night of Joy” to the wizened owner of the equally ill-named “Paradise Hotdogs” — who are as unforgettable as Our Hero. The most memorable is undoubtedly the generically named Jones, who, behind his dark glasses and his cloud of cigarette smoke, manages to see the world, its people, and the ironies of situation all too clearly. There are also Ignatius’s wine-loving mother, his irascible neighbor, and “Myrna Minx” — the closest Ignatius has ever had to a girlfriend.

Ignatius, taken away from his magnum opus (written on a series of Big Chief tablets strewn everywhere in his room in his mother’s house) and the modern movies he so likes to deride, touts the value of The Consolation of Philosophy and bemoans the work of Fortuna while attempting to leave nothing to chance. To feed his laziness and lack of desire to work, he works hard at being sly, devious, and manipulative. He carefully plans and plots his efforts from the perspective of a man who has little perception of human nature; the results are hilariously unexpected — the whims of Fortuna. In the end, Ignatius’s life, such as it is, will never be the same thanks to his forced interaction with the outside world.

A Confederacy of Dunces will make you laugh out loud and, at the same time, you will probably detect an undertone of sadness, even hopelessness. As Walker Percy notes in his introduction, perhaps this is due to the knowledge that author Toole committed suicide. But perhaps it is equally due to the absurdity of modern life that the adventures of the larger-than-life Ignatius reveal at every turn.

2 June 2002
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Pagan’s Crusade

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Pagan’s Crusade by Catherine Jinks. New York: Collins. 2004. 272 pages.

I learned about Pagan’s Crusade on a medieval history list, where a poster recommended it for young adults. Pagan, a 16-year-old product of war rape who arises from the grimy underbelly of 1187 Jerusalem, finds himself desperate to join the Knights Templar for both the money and protection from the lowlifes to whom he’s indebted. Life as a Templar squire won’t be easy, he’s told. “Lord Roland’s last squire was disemboweled by the Infidel and his guts were tied across the road to the fortress,” to which Pagan mentally responds, “Hip hip hooray.”

It’s Pagan’s irreverent commentary and metaphors that may hook the young adult reader. In Pagan’s world, those who aren’t rotting from disease and poverty are rotting from corruption and cynicism, with one remarkable exception — the man to whom he’s hired himself as squire.

Like many teenagers, Pagan nicknames individuals based on their appearance, so for example the sergeant who interviews him becomes “Rockhead” (“face like a fort, eyes like arrowheads”).  When Pagan learns that his Knight Templar, Lord Roland Roucy de Bram, is a paragon of looks, strength, and virtue, he dubs him “Saint George” (“like something off a stained glass window”). If Pagan can’t stand Rockhead, he’s not too sure about Saint George, either, as they set about protecting pilgrims and then defending Jerusalem itself.

Pagan sounds like the teenager he is, but his voice is that of an alienated loner who’s come of age in the era of video games, not the twelfth century. Young adults may relate to his running, clipped commentary on everyone and everything, but I found it to be tiresome, especially as it is not leavened by a sound, suspenseful plot or even historical context. The anticlimactic, predictable denouement didn’t leave this older adult reader wanting more of this series about the “misadventures of a squire in peril,” a young man surrounded by war, violence, starvation, disease, and death who whines, “Lentils again. Terrific.”

19 March 2011
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life

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Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life by Elizabeth Gaskell. Edited with an introduction and notes by Shirley Foster. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006. 480 pages.

A tale of Manchester working life set in the 1830s, Mary Barton begins as bucolically as any gritty urban novel can. The Bartons, who are expecting an addition to the family, meet the Wilsons, who are carrying their infant twins, at Green Heys Fields. The charm of these low, flat, treeless tracts lies in their rural contrast to “the busy, bustling manufacturing town [he] left but half an hour ago.” The couples adjourn to the Barton home for tea, where Gaskell lovingly describes every modest luxury such working folk can manage — the bright green japanned tea tray with its scarlet lovers, the cupboard of crockery and glass of which Mrs. Barton is so proud, and the hodgepodge of furniture (“sure sign of good times among the mills”). In honor of their guests, the Bartons send young Mary out for fresh eggs (“one a-piece, that will be five pence”), milk, bread, and Cumberland ham.

Thus Mary Barton commences with a self-conscious air of cautious prosperity, but underneath the pleasure of the occasion are hints of despair to come — Mrs. Barton’s distress over the disappearance of her sister, and the Wilsons’ “little, feeble twins, inheriting the frail appearance of their mother.” In chapters I and II, Gaskell sets up the end of abundance and joy for the Bartons and the beginning of misery for their entire class in the mill city of Manchester.

Mary Barton is a novel of contrasts. While the Bartons take homely pride in their furniture and wares, the Carsons live in a “good house . . . furnished with disregard to expense . . . [with] much taste shown, and many articles chosen for their beauty and elegance.” As Carson’s former employee, Ben Davenport, lies dying in a filthy basement in the company of his wife and children, who are “too young to work, but not too young to be cold and hungry,” Carson’s youngest daughter Amy tells her brother and father that she “can’t live without flowers and scents” and that “life was not worth having without flowers.” They can’t live without food and shelter, and she thinks she can’t live without luxuries. Perhaps the most terrible contrast is between the “listless, sleepy” Carson sisters and the tragedy that interrupts their idle chatter.

The contrast and conflict between the rich and the poor, the men and the masters, is not conventionally based on envy or even class; Carson was once no better and no richer than anyone else. The men don’t aspire to wealth, at least for now. They want to feed their families and perhaps to enjoy the simple comforts the Bartons once shared with the Wilsons. What keeps masters and men apart is not class or money, but a more fundamental unwillingness to acknowledge the other’s humanity. Mr. Carson can’t be bothered to recall who Ben Davenport is, other than one of the many faceless men who worked for him for many years, or to give Wilson more than a useless outpatient order. Instead of approaching the masters, the men, who are powerless as individuals, join groups and send delegates like John Barton to London and Glasgow to try to gain government support for their cause. On their own, they fail.

Neither side is willing to break the communication barrier. Ignoring one of their number who wisely notes, “I don’t see how our interests can be separated,” the masters choose to hide the conundrum they face from the men, who are described as “cruel brutes . . . more like wild beasts than human beings.” Even as the omniscient narrator shows the just causes for both groups’ anger toward one another and tries to avoid demonstrating a preference, she can’t resist retorting parenthetically, “Well, who might have made them [the men] different?” It takes a murder and a near miscarriage of justice merely to open the door to redemption for the man in each side’s leading role.

Mary becomes the fulcrum of the characters and plot, connecting the Bartons to the Carsons, the unforgiving John to the repentant Esther, the worldly men and the more spiritually minded women. Through positive and negative models like Alice, Job, Margaret, Esther, Mrs. Wilson, and Sally, and through her true and patient if frustrated lover, Mary avoids Esther’s fate and is transformed from a heedless young girl into a courageous woman who is able to withstand the pull of her divided loyalties.

Confronted with the undeniable humanity of John Barton and the relentlessness of his unfamiliar poverty, Mr. Carson finally recognizes the need for change. As guardian of the old institutions, however, he struggles with his ambivalence toward taking action. Meanwhile, Mary Barton simply leaves the dead and the past behind to embrace an entirely different kind of future in a new country.

Mary Barton lacks some of the psychological depth and nuances that make Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters more interesting and engaging; here, the characters behave consistently and predictably. Despite the ease of its characterizations and assumptions, though, Mary Barton is a surprisingly stark, unvarnished look at the poorer, seamier side of urban industrial life. Gaskell accomplishes what the masters and men have failed to do — she recognizes the humanity in each of them and hints at its potential if only it is discovered and embraced.

16 September 2009
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story

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Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann. Translated by Anthea Bell. London: Transworld Publishers/The Random House Group Ltd. 2006. 352 pages.

As flock animals who can be herded to their own deaths (see Thomas Hardy), sheep are easy to look down on — that is, until you meet the individuals who make up the flock in Leonie Swann’sThree Bags Full. From the clever Miss Maple (a tip of the hat to Agatha Christie’s demure spinster detective) to the enigmatic black Hebridean ram, Othello, with a mysterious past, Swann’s crowd is full of unforgettable characters.

This fable begins with the murder of their shepherd, George Glenn, whom they find run through with a shovel. Although the flock can’t quite forgive him his habit of wearing Norwegian wool sweaters, they agree that he was a good shepherd and that they would like to know who did him in and why. Miss Maple, reputed to be the cleverest sheep in Glennkill (and possibly the world), takes the lead in trying to nail the killer.

This is no easy feat for a flock whose contact with the outside world is restricted, whose primary human frame of reference is an outcast from his own herd, and whose humorous interpretations of abstractions don’t lead them as far astray as might be expected — for example, their belief that the term “God” and all that humans associate with God refers to the village vicar.

As the story of George’s complicated life unfolds, so do the inner lives of the sheep and the inner workings of the flock. Miss Maple is almost single minded in her pursuit of justice, which the sheep believe is something that can be found in George’s caravan and that needs to be outed. She also asks pointed questions such as, “What does George have to do with drugs? What are drugs anyway?” Othello is haunted by his lonely, violent past and a voice that seems to taunt him with aphorisms like, “Sometimes being alone is an advantage.” Zora daydreams of the depths and heights, of the abyss and the cloud sheep that sometimes fill the sky. Mopple the Whale, the fat “memory” sheep who forgets nothing and understands little, makes a lasting impression as “a plump young ram staring in bewilderment out of the car window and eating George’s road map.”

The humans, too, are vividly drawn, from the frightened “God” to the fearsome butcher, Ham. None, however, is more clearly portrayed and more enigmatic than the late George Glenn, the “Goblin-King” who read romance (“Pamela”) novels to his herd and received mysterious visitors in quiet black cars. George, “who usually said things in a way that a sheep could understand,” proves to be beyond the ken of sheep and humans alike.

Three Bags Full has the elements of a classic detective story — a gruesome death scene, an enigmatic victim, a village populated by likely suspects with secrets, a plot complete with red herrings, and a clever detective whose human understanding falls short. So does the ending, which introduces another ovine character who appears to be more clever than Miss Maple because he lives among the human herd that George left behind. Perhaps there’s a lesson here about people, cleverness and intelligence, and herd mentality and individual reason. It’s lost in the convolutions of the plot, the side tracking, and the contrived resolution. By the last page, with Othello contemplating mating season, the individuals who had captured my heart with their ruminations accompanied by mindless rumination seem to have been reduced to just another flock, doing what typical sheep typically do. In this case, the destination doesn’t satisfy nearly as much as the journey.

27 December 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Mansfield Park

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Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, edited by James Kinsley and with an introduction and notes by Jane Stabler. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. 2003. 480 pages.

In Mansfield Park, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players.” The cast of characters of both the novel and the play within it is drawn from three families and their social circles: the Bertrams of Mansfield Park, the Grants/Crawfords of the parsonage, and the Prices of Portsmouth. Even as she refuses to participate in her cousins’ staging of Lovers’ Vows, Fanny Price is at center stage as the observer we observe in Austen’s social and familial drama.

As the poor relation of the Bertrams, Fanny is a natural outsider. Lacking social or financial aspirations, she is free to see the folly of those around her and bound by what seems to have become a quaint form of honor from warning Edmund about his. For all her acquiescence to fate, however, Fanny is not weak. Just as she takes a firm stand about not appearing in the ill-fated Lovers’ Vows with its ill-fated cast, she stays on her moral high road even when it requires her to assert herself to Sir Thomas, to whom she is beholden and whose own daughters dare not defy him so directly.

Marriage is central to Mansfield Park. Maria Ward “had the good luck . . . to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.” Despite the narrator’s cynicism, the Bertrams have what seems to be an effective marriage; Sir Thomas is the domineering household head, while his decorative lady provides the services of her busybody widowed sister and her niece Fanny. Lady Bertram’s passivity complements Sir Thomas’s active nature; she is “guided in everything important by Sir Thomas, and in smaller concerns by her sister.” She can do without companionship, but only if Sir Thomas reassures her.

Motivated by his money and status and her good looks, the Bertrams have established a solid marriage, but its sons and daughters are not its pride. Restrained by and resentful of Sir Thomas’s patriarchal hand, his elder son and daughter rebel against and eventually flout his authority and threaten the family’s good name. His younger daughter seeks escape through the closest means possible, and even his younger son is spared from his poor judgment only by fate.

Unlike Lady Bertram, her youngest sister marries for love, or at least on impulse, and suffers the consequences of ignoring what matters most—money and social standing. Self-condemned to a life of poverty and negligence, Mrs. Price cannot depend on either husband or servants to manage day-to-day life so she can indulge in her natural laziness, as Lady Bertram does. Even as her family lives in filthy squalor, Mrs. Price, could, if she were capable of noticing, take pride in Fanny’s personal growth and moral fortitude, William’s accomplishments and career, and Susan’s promise. Like the Bertrams on their extensive estate, she is trapped in the narrow drama she has written for herself. Those who exit—Fanny, William, Susan—are able, it seems, to craft a more positive narrative for themselves.

Like a proscenium arch, the trip to Sotherton and the use of Lovers’ Vows frame Fanny’s view of the relationships around her. Much of the action takes place out of her sight (to her dismay), but Fanny sees enough to disturb her sense of propriety and to bring to light her own desires. Fanny, and the reader, can only guess what is happening offstage and how it may affect her.

Relationships founded solely on money (Rushworths), rebellion or love (Prices, presumably), and lust (Henry/Maria) fare poorly, as does the Crawfords’ sister’s second marriage (to the admiral). Austen’s narrator does not give up on the institution, however. “With so much true merit and true love, and no want of fortune or friends . . . happiness . . . must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be,” the omnipotent stage director steps in to say after having dispensed justice and wisdom to those characters who require one or the other, just before before the curtain falls on Mansfield Park and environs. In the end and with a heavy hand, the narrator redeems marriage, at least for the deserving (Fanny) and the enduring (the Bertrams).

Readers who prefer strong, attractive women may not appreciate Fanny, her apparently rigid morality, and her seeming weakness of will. As a perceptive outsider who understands what she observes, Fanny is a complex character. She knows and respects how Sir Thomas would feel about Lovers’ Vows and participates to the extent she can so she can keep an eye on Edmund. She knows where his future unhappiness lies, yet does not deter him although it is in her power. She may be judgmental, as people are, but she asserts herself strongly only when she is herself affected, for example, when she is wanted for the play and when Henry pays his attentions. She is true to herself and allows others the same freedom, succeed or fail, with her real feelings hidden within her inner emotional life.

Set in a time of war and slave-supported prosperity that seems remote, Mansfield Park can still reach across the years. In spite of the antiquated social and moral codes that rule their lives, the out-of-touch adults, the rebellious children, and the lonely and unconventional heroine still hold interest today.

Friday, 28 November 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by Diane L. Schirf.

Book review: Priestess of Avalon

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Priestess of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2002. 416 pages.

Set mainly outside Britannia, Priestess of Avalon marks a departure from Bradley’s Avalon series and the buildup to the Matter of Britain. Bradley and Paxson trace the acceptance and spread of Christianity to the goddess through the travels and actions of one of her Avalon priestesses — Flavia Helena Augusta.

For the first time that I remember, astrology plays a significant role in the series. When Helena is born, the Merlin consults the stars, but his words are strangely misinterpreted. “. . . the maid shall hide the moon she bears upon her brow” inexplicably leads the priestesses to murmur, “He prophesies greatness — she will be Lady of the Lake like her mother before her!” The Merlin’s reading of the stars proves accurate in every detail, but Helena discovers that prophecies are problematic. Convinced that she is destined to bear the “Child of Prophecy,” she remembers only years later what she as a priestess should have always known — that prophecy and its interpretation do not always take the expected path to the anticipated end.

After defying her hated aunt, the High Priestess Ganeda, so that she may bear the “Child of Prophecy,” Helena drifts through life just as she and her lover Constantius drift through the Empire. She carefully describes her son’s innate leadership talent and his developing personality, but she does little to shape  or understand either. Even before he is taken from her, she is oddly passive toward the boy she is sure will change the world — he is born at the end of one chapter of her narrative and is 10 years old at the beginning of the next. When requested, she foretells the future for Constantius and his friends, and later she takes the place of the sybil at a shrine. She makes no effort, however, to see what lies ahead for her “Child of Prophecy.” She says, “‘All the gods are one God, and all the goddesses are one Goddess, and there is one Initiator’ . . . Somehow I must get its meaning across to Constantine,” but she refuses to reveal the mysteries to him. It should be no surprise that Constantine fails to follow an example never set for him, yet Helena finds him and his choices strange and disturbing.

In the acknowledgments, Paxson sets Helena up as a mythological figure associated with Christianity and relics such as the True Cross. In the novel, the Helena’s life and opportunities are remarkable, but Helena herself is surprisingly ordinary. Helena tries to reconcile paganism and Christianity, but each new epiphany contradicts those that came before. While the spiritual ideas underlying Priestess of Avalon are intriguing, they are wasted in a rambling, undisciplined story that needs a firmer hand to keep it tight, free of unnecessary detail, and consistent.

Set in the expanse of the declining Roman Empire, Priestess of Avalon is interesting and compelling at times, but ultimately it’s unsatisfying. More Paxson’s work than Bradley’s, the novel never connects the parts of its premise, including Helena’s belief in Constantine and her emotional distance from him. It also fails to bridge the gap between the fall of paganism and the rise of Christianity.

Avalon is missing here, and so are the mysteries, the magic, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

23 July 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Lady of Avalon

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Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. New York: The Penguin Group, 1998. 380 pages.

Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley picks up where The Forest House ended. Avalon has been established under the leadership of high priestess Caillean in the shadow of the holy Tor and close to the Christian brotherhood at Inis Witrin. The first book follows Eilan’s son Gawen and his contribution to Avalon, the second establishes Avalon’s active role in the politics and future of Britannia, and the third focuses on characters familiar to Arthurians — Vortigern, Vortimer, Viviane, and Taliesin and the Merlin of Britain.

Although the mythology and history are rich, the material is squandered in these nearly plotless, barely connected stories. While Avalon tries to preserve the degenerated wisdom that remained when Atlantis sank into the ocean, the world is being torn apart by the oppression and instability of empire and waves of barbarian invasions. Caillean, Gawen, and the daughter of the fairy queen, Sianna, save Avalon, then their successors extend its influence outward to manipulate kings, princes, and military leaders. In spite of the sacrifices and losses, Britannia seems no better off; Rome clings to it, and the barbarians keep coming. There are important victories, but they seem contrived when the goddess is called on to frighten off the Saxons, and they do little more than provide a break in the onslaught. The plots are so minimal and the useless details so many that it’s not clear to what extent Britannia’s rebelliousness and vulnerability contributed to Rome’s decline and fall.

The goddess religion of Avalon is murky at best. Unlike in The Mists of Avalon and The Forest House, the magic here is unquestionably real; the visions are not drug-induced hallucinations, and priestesses invoke the goddess to deter the enemy. The “ancient wisdom” seems to be centered on the power of the earth (focused along leys), the seasons, and reincarnated souls like Gawen, Sianna, Dierna, and Carausius. Practice of the religion is as ordered and artificial as the rule of Rome, with strict rules and elaborate rituals that owe more to the human predilection for control than to the concept of nature and the earth. Even the most natural of emotions and acts, love and non-ritual sex, are forbidden. Young men and women are drawn to Avalon, but their passion is poorly articulated, especially when they cannot know the mysteries revealed during training and initiation. There is nothing special about the character or intelligence of the many of the Druids and priestesses called to Avalon; why are they singled out to preserve the ancient wisdom and mysteries?

While the plots and the secondary characters are weak, the real problem is that so many of the primary characters are selfish and unlikable. Gawen, the “Pendragon” and “Son of a Hundred Kings,” from beginning to end is unremarkable, displaying predictable rebelliousness and nobility at the expected moments. He is so susceptible to suggestion that “the priest’s words had tainted the Druid ways as well.” Dramatically and childishly, he exclaims, “You both want to possess me, but my soul is my own! . . . I am leaving to seek my kin of Rome!” His soul mate, Sianna, has no more personality than Waterwalker, whose role is to pole the Avalon barge. High priestess Dierna does not seek the obvious path, proving the fairy queen’s point: “But I do not know what the purpose is, exactly, and if I did, I would not be allowed to speak of it; for it is often in working for or in avoiding a prophecy that people do the very things they should not.” We are told that Teleri, who is weak, pliant, and passive, is destined to become high priestess of Avalon; why would the goddess, the Druids, and the priestesses choose someone so unsuitable for such a position? At her worst, high priestess Ana is egotistical and petty, especially with regard to her daughter, Viviane. Is it Ana or the goddess who says, “I would gain nothing. I already have everything.”?

For reasons that are never explained, the enigmatic fairy queen insists that her daughter become a priestess of Avalon, and it is her line whose members impose their will on events rather than that of the goddess, proving their human side stronger than their role as conductor of magic. Of all the major characters, only Caillean, Taliesin, and perhaps Carausius are likable, revealing both human weaknesses and a greater wisdom. Although it is strongly hinted that Carausius is a reincarnation of Gawen’s soul, they are different enough that it raises the question of what these souls are and why only certain ones return again and again, while others are “once born.” The whims of the god and goddess, as channeled through these souls and through the Druids and priestesses, appear to be as illogical as those of any human.

Without a solid plot driven by strong, sympathetic characters, Lady of Avalon lacks the touches of historical and magical drama that made The Forest House at least interesting. Although the novel reveals some of the reasons for the decline of Avalon and the goddess religion, Lady of Avalon adds little essential to The Mists of Avalon.

29 June 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Other Boleyn Girl

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The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc./Touchstone, 2003. 672 pages.

Today there are still jokes about how Anne Boleyn lost her head, but life as a wife of Henry VIII was no laughing matter. In The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory gives a fictional account of Henry’s most famous queen from the perspective of her sister, Mary. Gregory tries to capture a sisterly dynamic understandable to contemporary readers. Anne and Mary are opposites in appearance and temperament; loyal to one another out of obligation, not love; and, we are told, lifelong rivals. Oddly, that rivalry never quite materializes here other than in spiteful and venomous words and feelings. While Anne seethes with ambition and resentment, Mary is too passive a personality to be a match for Anne, nor does she try to be. As portrayed, the conflict between the sisters is more petty than powerful.

Gregory’s choice for Mary to serve as narrator, as though it were her memoir, detracts from the sense of history. A Tudor-era aristocrat like Mary does not seem likely to set her story down in such detail after the events have passed. It might have been more effective to frame the story as a researcher’s discovery of Mary’s journals and letters. When handled adroitly, this type of framing device can make the characters and story more immediate and less obviously fictional. Another alternative would have been the omniscient third person, which might have been more convincing. As it is, I could not suspend my disbelief in Mary’s voice, with its anachronistic nuances and sensibilities. She sounds more like a modern author than a 16th-century woman remembering the recent and difficult past.

Therein lies another problem — Mary never explains why she wrote all of this down, why she delves into such detail, or who she expects the reader to be. It might have made more sense if she had said she wanted her legacy to be the true story of her and her family’s role in Anne’s rise and fall, that she wanted her own name to be remembered, or that she was writing for her children and Anne’s daughter, the Princess Elizabeth. We never know her purpose, which is strange because we learn from her that the Boleyn family does nothing without a reason. Given how poorly Mary’s memories reflect on all the Boleyns and Howards, including herself, it become even more of a mystery why Gregory chose this format.

The Other Boleyn Girl draws readers in the same way that 1980s night-time dramas drew in viewers. Never particular about morals and influenced by time and events, Anne becomes as ruthless and desperate for power as any soap villainess, with her family’s encouragement and support. Mary, once favored by king and family, is tossed aside when she proves to lack the will and desire to usurp the queen’s place. She chooses her own path, never losing sight of her rivalry with Anne and never envious of Anne’s sacrifices and sufferings.

Historical inaccuracies aside, including details about Mary and her children, Gregory fails to capture the larger world in which the Boleyn drama was enacted. She refers to France and Spain and their rulers, and the pope, but the complexity of the world outside Henry VIII’s court and its politics is relegated to the background, brought forward in snippets only as needed. Henry himself is portrayed as hunting, gaming, and dancing from morning until night, with only an occasional concern for the kingdom’s business or for the intrigues of his enemies and allies. The world here seems narrow and confined because it is only the world Mary sees — Mary, the other Boleyn girl who pretends to remain naive and who tries to focus on her own life, only to be drawn again and again into Anne’s drama.

Gregory tries to use the story of the Boleyn girls to illustrate women’s issues during the 16th century. As Mary notes, women are only pawns in the marriage game, played to achieve position, power, and wealth. It’s clear, however, that men who lack power are pawns as well; George Boleyn and Henry Percy are forced into miserable marriages. The lesson here is less about the vulnerability of women to the whims of men than about how people of both gender were played for power.

Despite Gregory’s comments about the charges against the Boleyns, found in the book’s end matter, Mary witnesses (and, significantly, remembers in detail) enough clues to know whether Anne and George were guilty of the crimes for which they were beheaded. This is disappointing, because Gregory’s hints, if not her stance of ambiguity, ignore the logic and the politics behind the charges.

Even at the end, Gregory misses an opportunity. Mary does not hear Anne’s last words and does not include them in her work. This makes no sense, as they were recorded and can be read today. Gregory fails to weave in the available documented details that would have added real-life drama and interest to the story. Why would Mary not reflect on the final message of “the other Boleyn girl,” given her inside knowledge of Anne and her willingness to write about her and the other Boleyns?

With its compelling historical setting, The Other Boleyn Girl had the potential to be an engaging if inadequate and flawed historical fiction. Don’t rely on it, as I have heard some do, for your knowledge and understanding of Henry VIII, his court, or the Boleyns.

12 April 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Sherlock Holmes and the Thistle of Scotland

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Sherlock Holmes and the Thistle of Scotland by L. B. (Pamela) Greenwood. New York: Pocket Books, 1990. 208 pages.

It’s been many years since I read the Sherlock Holmes canon, so I may not be the best qualified to judge the worthiness of Sherlock Holmes and the Thistle of Scotland as a pastiche. From what I recall, however, L. B. Greenwood has made a valiant if not entirely successful attempt to give new life to the great Victorian detective.

The outline of the mystery, which involves an impoverished earl, a contracted marriage, and a valuable historic gem, is pure Holmes. On the day of Lady Caroline’s wedding, her only dowry, the famous Thistle of Scotland amethyst, is stolen from her hair — in front of a room full of family, guests, and servants. The clues are odd and apparently unconnected: a white thread, deliberately damaged books, ugly trousers, uncurled hair, and the very elusiveness of the victim. Only Holmes could make sense of so many random clues.

Greenwood draws on as many Holmes canon elements as possible, including Mrs. Hudson, references to a previous case, Holmes in disguise, a train trip, ancillary puzzles, the Baker Street Irregulars, and (of course) a vainglorious Scotland Yard inspector. There are more Holmes elements than in any one Conan Doyle story — indeed, there are too many. Here, they serve as utilitarian devices that lack the evocative charm that Conan Doyle gave them. The brash young inspector is bland, without a distinctive personality. The train trip confirms a clue, but Holmes is not aboard to make chilling observations, such as how easily crime can be committed and hidden among the peaceful farmhouses of the countryside. The cabs roll along the streets of London, accompanied by mundane detail about how they are hailed and how expensive they are. Conan Doyle (who, I understand, was not familiar with London) evoked London’s foggy nights and murky underworld so vividly that the city feels tangible and real — so much so that people still look for 221B Baker Street. It’s as though Greenwood grasps the vocabulary, but not the grammar. The words and the physical references are correct, but the subtle nuances that would make Holmes, Watson, and the rest live again in the imagination are missing. Instead, they are flat characters in a somewhat efficient if not engaging plot.

Holmes himself lacks the sharp wit, intellectual arrogance, and emotional detachment that made Conan Doyle’s character enigmatic and compelling. He questions the servants too gently, he doesn’t brood in the way Watson always finds so disturbing, he fails to chide the doctor for his inability to make sense of all that he has observed, he offers no philosophical insights into human behavior, and he doesn’t express smug elation when he reveals what happened. Even worse, he doesn’t explain how he makes the enormous mental leap required to make sense of the clues, and focuses on how the clues fit his solution rather than on how they led him to it. There is no real evidence against the culprit other than possession (why the amethyst was not disposed of after the theft is not adequately explained, so even this makes little sense). The ending is rushed, and I felt cheated by the somewhat scattershot buildup to and presentation of the solution.

Sherlock Holmes and the Thistle of Scotland begins solidly enough, but Greenwood tries too hard to be clever and not hard enough to be evocative. The fate of Lady Caroline is more of a bow to 1980s feminist sensibilities than the logical culmination of the story as told. The broadest strokes are found throughout, but Conan Doyle’s subtle touches are missing. Most important, the great detective himself is missing. The man who says, “Five-and-three? Dear me! I foresee that this case is going to cost a fortune in cab fares,” is not the coldly incisive, yet strangely vulnerable Sherlock Holmes I remember, the genius who challenged Professor Moriarty and the misogynist who succumbed to the combined beauty, charm, and intellect of Irene Adler. The surface is here, roughly executed, but the substance is not.

8 April 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf