Heart's Blood
by Juliet Marillier
Read: 1/7/10-1/27/10 (but only in about three sittings -- around 50 pages one day, the rest of it a few weeks later)
LibraryThing tags, if I had put this on LibraryThing: Fantasy, Romance, Fairy Tale, Historical Fiction, Ireland, Medieval, Family, Fear... and a couple other tags I won't include this time just in case it'd spoil things for a couple of you.
Perhaps the best way to introduce this book is with the author's own words (I will link to it only with the warning that the page includes spoilers, but I don't think the part I've copied here really spoils anything, unless you just don't want to know what a book is about at all before you read it, in which case, why are you here?):
"Beauty and the Beast has always been one of my favourite fairy tales, and readers will recognise the bones of it in Heart’s Blood: a mysterious house with an alienated, disfigured master, a priceless plant growing in a forbidden garden, magic mirrors and unusual household retainers. The story of my novel has the same general shape as that of Beauty and the Beast.
However, this is far from a fairy tale retelling. It’s not even a close reinterpretation of the traditional tale. Heart’s Blood is a love story, a... [Marcy just now realized one of the descriptions she uses could be a big spoiler to the right kind of brain and cut it] ...a family saga, a story about people overcoming their difficulties, and a little slice of Irish history, as well as a homage to a favourite fairy tale."
Aside from the magic mirrors and one other spoiler aspect, there isn't a great deal of the fantastic in this book, especially when one has "Beauty and the Beast" in mind while reading it. It had a gothic feel to me (although I'm not widely read in gothic literature), even more so than some of the traditional retellings, which seems a little odd now that I think of it. I suppose when there's already a beast in an isolated castle you don't want to make the tale too dark, or the happy ending begins to feel implausible. And I suppose it made particular sense for Heart's Blood, because one of the main themes concerns facing your fears, so a dark, frightening mood lends itself to the theme.
And now you're going to think it's horror or something. Not so much. It's fantasy, romance, and historical fiction; in that order, I think. Maybe more romance than fantasy, but not enough that you would ever want to shelve it there. Heavens, no. For starters, fantasy readers don't like going into the romance section, whereas the reverse is not true. Romance is one of those things... any genre can have a pretty huge dose of it without necessarily offending its readership or moving it in the bookstore. Anywho.
As for the historical fiction, it's set in western Ireland, Connacht, in the twelfth century. Dang it, I started a new paragraph, but that's really all I have to say about that. Huh. I mean, I could say more about the period, but I don't really need to for my purposes, and I'd risk spoilers. So meh. You can read more about it (on the author's page, or elsewhere) after you finish the book.
I didn't like it quite as much as some of her other books, but that isn't saying much, as Daughter of the Forest and Wildwood Dancing are among my favorites. I'm not quite sure why I didn't like it as much. It was certainly well written and enjoyable. It just didn't have that extra something those two did, to flabbergast and amaze me. Maybe the themes and characters didn't speak to me as much? And yet, I did like and relate to them; the hero not as much as other characters, perhaps, maybe that's it. Maybe I stayed too busy thinking about the book instead of living it. I'm really not sure. It was very good. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if other readers fell in love with it.
The Wolf Hunt
by Gillian Bradshaw
Read: 9/11/09
LibraryThing tags, if I had put this on LibraryThing: Historical Fiction, France, Medieval, Fantasy, Romance, Sonderbook (click here for Sondy's review), and another tag I won't actually use because it'd be a bit of a spoiler
Ware spoilers for this book, for they abound. The book's cover blurb, the Publisher's Weekly review, several of the top amazon customer reviews -- for some reason they all feel compelled to summarize the entire plot, right up to the climax of the book. I understand a certain amount of summary is customary in reviews, but the entire thing? Good grief.
In some ways I didn't mind too much myself -- the only reason I picked the book up at all is because I was browsing in the library and picked this one out of a row of books by Gillian Bradshaw based on reading the blurb. The description fit my mood at the time and sounded more interesting to me than her other books. I was chagrined as I read to realize how much the blurb had revealed, but it was still well-written enough to keep my attention, even when the details I'd picked it up for were long in coming and I found I already knew certain elements which could have made for suspense.
So, what can I tell you about the book, without spoiling anything myself? Not as much as I'd like (perhaps the reason so many tell everything...), but here goes. As you can tell from my tags, it's historical fiction, set in medieval France. There are a few fantasy elements, but they're included in what I can't tell you, although they're really not hard to guess. It's based on a poem by the twelfth-century Marie de France, and set at the end of the eleventh century, although she says in the author's note, "as befits a medieval romance, the history is not entirely exact." At the very beginning of the book (so don't read this if you want utter and complete spoiler-freedom) the main character, Marie Penthievre, is kidnapped from her priory in Normandy and taken to the court of Brittany, where she fears she'll be forced into a marriage that will give Brittany her Norman lands. Although there was a king over all of France at the time, Normandy and Brittany were basically at war much of the time, despite that. Early medieval, and all.
I didn't find the plot as melodramatic as Sondy did. Probably in part because of how much I was expecting, from reading the blurb. Partly because some of the more melodramatic elements, like her kidnapping, are entirely plausible (actually quite common) for that time and place in history. And unlike certain books in the romance genre (this book is certainly romantic, but doesn't really fit into the genre), the author's done her research, which does a great deal to make kidnappings and things seem quite level-headed rather than melodramatic. She's not just spinning a yarn set in the vague romantic past.
Quite the contrary, this is one of the best medieval novels I've read, as far as being true to the time period. She doesn't gloss over anything, she gets across a good deal of their mindset as least as it relates to the fantasy elements, and she doesn't make them seem like idiots in the process (which is good, because medievals weren't idiots). I knew she was a scholar, but not even all scholars get the medieval period right, and most of her books are set in the ancient world, so I was quite relieved.
There's also a good dose of mystery, but it isn't a who-done-it -- you know exactly who did it, the whole time. The mystery is in how in the world the culprit is ever going to be caught, how the main characters are even going to realize there is a mystery to solve. Add in some interesting thematic elements, and I highly recommend this one. Enjoy!
Heir to Sevenwaters
(The Sevenwaters Trilogy #4 -- okay, okay, not exactly, but it amuses me, and it almost is) by Juliet Marillier
Read: 1/17/09-1/18/09
LibraryThing tags: Fantasy, Romance, Historical Fiction, Ireland, Medieval, Irish Mythology, Mythology
Beautiful book. I'm so glad she came back to Sevenwaters, although as far as I've heard everything she writes is wonderful. Plot-wise, it definitely is distinct from the original trilogy, and there's a lot of promise for the two books to follow. I hope she is able to finish them. The romance was fairly obvious, but it often is in romance, and it was still good; well developed, actually romantic, all of that. And the fairy tale elements! It wasn't a fairy tale retold, but the elements of a fairy tale were definitely all there. Kind of like Fruits Basket. Only different. Um, with Irish mythology instead of the Chinese zodiac. Yeah. It's not so much a new take on the existing mythology (as fairy tales retold sometimes are) as... an addition to them, I suppose. Recommended.
Child of the Prophecy
(The Sevenwaters Trilogy #3) by Juliet MarillierRead: 12/19/08-12/21/08LibraryThing tags: Fantasy, Romance, Historical Fiction, Ireland, Medieval, RedemptionI really really liked this one; especially the perspective, the character Marillier chose to be narrator. It added a wonderful tension to the story and immediacy to the battle between dark and light. It would have made a good book in its own right, but with the backdrop and setup of the last two books the perspective change had an even greater impact. Delightful.
Son of the Shadows
(The Sevenwaters Trilogy #2) by Juliet MarillierRead: 12/7/08-12/18/08 (started reading before that on 7-8-08, but stopped after only 20 pages, so I just started again in December)
LibraryThing tags: Fantasy, Romance, Historical Fiction, Ireland, Medieval
As you can see, it has been a few months since I read this, so this won't be a super-detailed review. I remember I didn't like this one quite as much as the first or third, but my opinion is hardly universal. Certainly it was a good book. But the first one was amazing, and had other things going for it that I won't talk about for those of you who haven't read it yet. And the third one... well, in my opinion the perspective (especially with the setup of the first two books) made that one, well, also amazing. So. I think this one was the least self-contained of the three (or at least it has the least closure -- like I said, the third one relies on setup), which is probably another reason I liked it less than the others. It does have its own story, but that story is shaped by motivations and struggles which aren't fully played out yet. And there's a little less time actually with the love interest too, which can be annoying. Like in Sleepless in Seattle. I like to see their romantic interactions. The more the better. "Interactions" being the key word. Not just daydreaming or hearing others talk about them or hearing their voice on the radio (again, Sleepless in Seattle). Yep. Anywho.
A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens
Read: 1/5/09-2/2/09
LibraryThing tags: Classics, Historical Fiction, French Revolution, SLOBS
I enjoyed this a lot more than when I read it in high school. A mix, perhaps, of not being forced to read it for a grade, and of reading it quickly enough to stay in the mood and to remember what was going on. There were even some moments in the book that I actually loved. Imagine! =)
Dickens was very, very good at description. There are still moments when one wants to throw something at him because he let description slow down the story, but at least it's good description. And sometimes he was so delightfully sarcastic! I had forgotten how sarcastic Dickens could be. As, for example (forgive the length, for I love this one):
“Military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the score… The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur… But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever… And who among the company at Monseigneur’s reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out!”
I also liked, especially when thinking of Baltar in Battlestar Galactica: “Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occasionally parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it himself—which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender’s being carried off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way.”
“‘We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern time also,’ said the nephew, gloomily, ‘that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France.’
‘Let us hope so,’ said the uncle. ‘Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.’”
A philosophy of rule that has certainly been held at times in history. Provides an interesting contrast with Cleopatra’s Heir, in which Octavian is made to say that Cleopatra and Julius Caesar both believed kings could do whatever they wished, and both as a result were directly or indirectly betrayed to their deaths. From what I understand of the historical Caesar Augustus (as opposed to this one in a historical novel), this is probably an accurate portrayal; he may very well have taken warning from what happened to his uncle Julius. It's interesting to think of such a "modern" and "enlightened" view in antiquity, long before history was forced to swing back to it after the French Revolution.
“‘...there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!’”
Cleopatra's Heir
by Gillian Bradshaw
Read: 1/12/09-1/25/09
LibraryThing tags: Historical Fiction, Alternate History, Roman Empire, Greek World, Egypt, Story Research, Sonderbook (click here for Sondy's review)
This isn't precisely "alternate history" as one normally thinks of it. Or at least, not as I normally think of it. It isn't like Harry Turtledove, or like the only other books I currently have tagged that way on LibraryThing, the Sorcery and Cecelia books. Although it is very, very, very unlikely that the premise of this book actually occurred, it conceivably, theoretically, could have, and our history books would have remained the same.
Cleopatra and Julius Caesar had a son, normally called Ceasarion (all the important figures back then had so many names...). His paternity is debated, but there is good reason to believe Julius Caesar was his father. Among other things, Caesar himself seemed to believe it. Anyway, when Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, Ceasarion was killed by order of Octavian (Caesar Augustus) in 30 B.C. Cleopatra's Heir asks, what if he escaped? Then it proceeds to answer that question quite satisfactorily. The extremely dissimilar viewpoints of a fugitive king and a common peasant are wonderfully done. The character growth is very good, too, without making Caesarion obnoxious and unlikable in the beginning (at least to the reader -- the peasants might have a different opinion). Oh, and the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures are portrayed very well -- accurately, to the best of my knowledge, which one would expect from an author who also happens to be a classics scholar. But she doesn't bog you down in her knowledge, either. If it's a part of the story, she includes it. Otherwise, she doesn't.
I did feel a little detached from this book for some reason -- possibly because of one of those other tags I put on it -- "story research." Still, that didn't come into it much. The issue I want to research more, that of royal hostages, barely was referenced in the book at all. I knew it would be a slender connection. It was still useful, even as a reminder of all the things one has to research to write good historical fiction (and historical fantasy), but that shouldn't have kept me from immersing myself in the story. It normally wouldn't. Maybe I just needed to read it faster. Real life and other books got in the way.
Daughter of the Forest (The Sevenwaters Trilogy #1) by Juliet Marillier
Read: 7/1/08-7/3/08
LibraryThing tags: Fantasy, Fairy Tale, Romance, Historical Fiction, Ireland, Medieval
Doesn't this list of tags just make your mouth water? No? Hmph. You're weird.
I can't tell you one of my favorite things about this book, because premise or not, it's not something you find out for sure until over a hundred pages in. So you'll just have to take my word for it, I guess. It's good, read it. One of my favorites, now. The prose is wonderful. Despite its length (544 pages), it feels very polished, crafted and magical.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
by Michael Chabon
Read: 2/12/06-3/26/06
Don't think I ever put it on LibraryThing (site's down for the evening, can't check); but if I had, I would probably tag it as TWN Novel, Historical Fiction, Pulitzer, Comic Books, WWII. Or something like that.
Now, yes, I did read this a couple years ago. However, I recently rediscovered a document of book reviews I'd been intending to blog little by little, giving me a bit of time to be sure I liked what I'd written before posting them. Gave them more time than they needed... This is from that cache. I originally wrote it soon after finishing the book, I believe.
I’m afraid this is the first novel I’ve read in quite some time which isn’t fantasy, or historical fiction, or children’s fiction, or even Christian romance. Oh wait, it is historical fiction. Um. Well, it’s not too similar to most historical fiction I’ve read. Anyway. It’s quite good.
The story begins in 1939, as comic books first exploded in popularity, with two Jewish boys who gain the opportunity to publish their own comic books. As they come up with their hero and his story, you feel with them the thrill of discovery, of finding a Good Idea.
You learn quite a bit about the period as you go along, one reason I would recommend it. It's fascinating to see all the facets history books divide up under various chapters and headings integrated into a cohesive history. It was a little too “realistic” for me, though. The ending left me a little cold – the sort of book that makes you say, “Is that all there is? Oh.”
I found the reality and escapism theme fascinating, though. Exactly what in the book was facing reality and what was escaping it could be a bit confusing (I’m still not entirely sure which was which, or was considered which by the author), but it was certainly interesting to think about.
“It was the voicing of a vain wish, when you got down to it, to escape. To slip, like the Escapist, free of the entangling chain of reality and the straitjacket of physical laws. Harry Houdini had roamed the Palladiums and Hippodromes of the world encumbered by an entire cargo-hold of crates and boxes, stuffed with chains, iron hardware, brightly painted flats and hokum, animated all the while only by this same desire, never fulfilled: truly to escape, if only for one instant; to poke his head through the borders of this world, with its harsh physics, into the mysterious spirit world that lay beyond. The newspaper articles that Joe had read about the upcoming Senate investigation into comic books always cited ‘escapism’ among the litany of injurious consequences of their reading, and dwelled on the pernicious effect, on young minds, of satisfying the desire to escape. As if there could be any more noble or necessary service in life.”
“Having lost his… [cut to minimize spoilers] …the friends and foes of his youth…[same reason] …his city, his history – his home – the usual charge leveled aginst comic books, that they offered merely an easy escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags, and crates, from handcuffs and shackles, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt – especially right after the war – a worthy challenge.”
“The pain of his loss – though he would never have spoken of it in these terms – was always with him in those days, a cold smooth ball lodged in his chest, just behind his sternum. For that half hour spent in the dappled shade of the Douglas firs, reading Betty and Veronica, the icy ball had melted away without him even noticing. That was magic – not the apparent magic of the silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art. It was a mark of how fucked-up and broken was the world – the reality – that had swallowed his home… …that such a feat of escape, by no means easy to pull off, should remain so universally despised.”
I still don’t know. I normally find when I’ve returned from that world reality hurts even more, the icy ball has grown larger rather than melting. If it melted for him, perhaps it is magic. But at any rate, that last quote demonstrates the hopelessness of the modern novel that turns me away from it. Yeah, it’s honest. That’s the world without God, the world when you believe that the qualities to be found in a world of escape are nowhere to be found in this age or the age to come. No thank you. On the other hand, I agree in some ways. Escape is not always a bad thing, let alone something to be despised (see first quote).
“‘Jewish superheroes?’
‘What, they’re all Jewish, superheroes. Superman, you don’t think he’s Jewish? Coming over from the old country, changing his name like that. Clark Kent, only a Jew would pick a name like that for himself.’” –Joe and Sammy
The Sight by David Clement-Davies
Read: 10/17/07-4/5/08
LibraryThing tags: Animal Story, Animal's POV, Wolves, Fantasy, Transylvania, Historical Fiction, Mythology
Despite the insane length of time it took me to read this book, it really was rather decent. At first I read a used copy at work on my lunch breaks. Then, after a while, I checked it out from the library. Then I had to return it to the library. Then I checked it out again and finished it. It reminded me overwhelmingly of Fire Bringer, by the same author; Fire Bringer just had deer instead of wolves. Fortunately, I liked Fire Bringer. I'm sure there are some differences... but I read Fire Bringer six years ago, so I'm not entirely certain what they are. Or at least, they didn't seem that different towards the beginning, and much of the middle. The ending is another matter.
The Sight wove an impressive array of mythology into the story -- some of it I recognized, some of it I didn't (although I still recognized it as probably mythology from an external source, researched by the author). The author's blurb says he "...traveled to Romania in the winter of 1990. The darkness of the country's recent history, its many tales and superstitions from Dracula to local folklore, gave this book its direction." That fits with the feel of the book. In some ways, I'd like to read it again sometime to see if I can catch more of it a second time around. On the other hand, I didn't really like the place the book ended up. For one thing, it seemed anti-Christian. I'm not entirely sure on that point, it could bear a second reading... but, I think the way he ended up having the characters view their own mythology (complete with a Christ-like figure) was rather negative. Meh, that's one thing. Secondly, the book continually built up anticipation, especially through prophecy, to this great knowledge that the characters were eventually going to obtain. The great knowledge turned out to be exceedingly anti-climactic. I won't tell you what it was unless you ask, so as not to spoil it for anyone who cares, but I thought it seemed very silly. Someone with a different worldview might have liked it.
So, overall... meh. Fire Bringer was better, unless it had some silliness I just didn't manage to catch six years ago.
Murther and Walking Spirits by Robertson Davies
Read: started sometime between 2/21/08 and 3/16/08 (Docs to Go on my Palm killed my records), ended 3/28/08
LibraryThing tags: Ghosts, Ghost's POV, Historical Fiction, Canadian, Character, SLOBS (a reading group)
Firstly, the title: "murther" means "murder," apparently a possible spelling/pronunciation in the 1600's. The book begins with a humorous quote from Samuel Butler: "Printers finde by experience that one Murther is worth two Monsters, and at least three Walking Spirits. For the consequence of Murther is hanging, with which the Rabble is wonderfully delighted. But where Murthers and Walking Spirits meet, there is no other Narrative can come near it."
Secondly, well... I'm not quite sure what to tell you about the book, because I actually felt that I might have enjoyed it more had someone told me "spoilers." A very rare occurence, for me. They wouldn't, in this case, actually "spoil" anything. You see, I expected the book to be about one thing and it eventually turned out to be about something else. This can be vexing. Otherwise quite good though, and I recommend it. I suppose I'll just say that if you want to hear the "spoilers," let me know and I'll tell you personally. One tidbit I will give you all now, in good conscience, because it is the very first line of the book: "I was never so amazed in my life as when the Sniffer drew his concealed weapon from its case and struck me to the ground, stone dead." Robertson Davies has a fun writing style, as you can see. And the book... well, obviously it's a ghost story, but what kind of ghost story? There's the rub. I've never read anything quite like it before. As with the other ghost story I reviewed recently, A Certain Slant of Light, it is quite unique. So, with no further ado, here are a couple quotes I enjoyed which communicate some of the main themes rather well (and don't even give away halfway spoilers, so far as I can tell):
"As McWearie used to say, one's family is made up of supporting players in one's personal drama. One never supposes that they starred in some possibly gaudy and certainly deeply felt show of their own.
McWearie used to talk a lot about the personal drama. He liked to call it the Hero Struggle, and when I protested that the term was grandiose for what he was describing he rebuked me with the sharpness of a Scots schoolmaster banging his ruler down on the fingers of a stupid boy.
'You're that dangerous class of fool, a trivializer, Gilmartin! To the human creature nothing that gets strongly to him is trivial. It is all on the heroic scale, so far as he can grasp it. What a fuss about the Oedipus Complex -- the fella who wants to possess his Mum! What about the Hercules Complex -- the fella that must grapple with his Twelve Labours while his wife and kids go by the board? What about the Apollo Complex -- the fella that thinks you can have all light and no releasing darkness? And women -- our towns and villages are jammed with Medeas and Persephones and Antigones and God knows who not, pushing their wire carts in the supermarkets unrecognized by anyone but themselves, and then probably only in their dreams. All engaged in the Hero Struggle!'
'So far as they can grasp it,' said I, to cool him.
'They don't have to grasp it, you gowk, in the sense you mean. They just have to live it, and endure it so far as they can bear. You suppose you're a thinker, Gilmartin, and what you are is a trivializer because your thinking isn't fuelled by any strong feeling. Wake up, man! Come alive! Feel before you think!'"
"One thing, however, is radiantly clear to Brochwel: if he gets out of this mess with a whole skin he cannot embrace the reductive spirit of his age. The reductive spirit that shows itself so trivially in trivial people, and has made some of the most persuasive thinkers of the past century embrace a man-centred world, will not do for him. He does not want a world that prates solemnly about Science, without any understanding of the doubts that haunt great scientists. Science, which seems to offer certainty, is the superstition of ignorant multitudes, who think it means toothpaste and tampons. The hungry sheep look up, and are fed foul air and poisonous garbage. Eng-Lang-and-Lit, the joy of his life, never grew in that soil. What can he believe?"
