The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan

September 23, 2014September 23, 20147 Comments

This story of seventeenth century Mughal India is the first in a trilogy of novels describing the history behind the construction of the Taj Mahal. In The Twentieth Wife, Indian author Indu Sundaresan introduces us to Mehrunissa, later known as the Empress Nur Jahan. The Taj Mahal was actually built in memory of Nur Jahan’s niece, but that part of the story must be told in the other two books of the trilogy as this one concentrates on the tale of Mehrunissa and her love for Prince Salim, the future Emperor Jahangir.

Born to Persian refugees who are fleeing their country, Mehrunissa is abandoned by her impoverished father, Ghias Beg, on the road to India because with no money, no job and no home, he fears that he and his wife will be unable to take care of her. Luckily, fate steps in and Mehrunissa is rescued by the merchant, Malik, who befriends her parents and helps Ghias Beg find a position at the court of the Emperor Akbar. Growing up at court, Mehrunissa is taken under the wing of Akbar’s favourite wife, Ruqayya, and spends a lot of time in the zenana (harem) listening to gossip and witnessing the rivalries between the Emperor’s other wives and concubines.

Mehrunissa is only eight years old when she has her first glimpse of Prince Salim, who is marrying his first wife. That first glimpse is enough for her to make up her mind that one day she too will marry Salim and become Empress. When Salim falls in love with her several years later, it seems that Mehrunissa’s wish could come true…but of course, things don’t go exactly as planned! The Twentieth Wife follows Mehrunissa and Salim (or Jahangir as he becomes known) through years of separation, unhappy marriages and political intrigue. Do they eventually marry? Well, the title of the novel gives us a big clue so there are no surprises there, but the path that leads to Mehrunissa becoming Jahangir’s twentieth wife is a long and eventful one, and you can expect plenty of drama along the way: rebellions, assassination attempts and the scheming of Mehrunissa’s rival, Jagat Gosini.

I found a lot to like in this novel, but not everything worked for me. My biggest problem was that with the romance between Mehrunissa and Jahangir forming such a central part of the story, I didn’t find that romance convincing enough. I struggled to see the attraction of Jahangir during the first half of the novel. He was an alcoholic and an opium addict, too easily influenced by unscrupulous advisers and was even plotting to have his father murdered. He started to redeem himself later in the book, but is still not high on my list of favourite romantic heroes!

As for Mehrunissa, I found it difficult to accept that she could fall so passionately in love at the age of eight with a man she didn’t even know and that her love for him could continue into her adult life despite only meeting him once or twice more in all that time. I got the impression that she just wanted to marry him because he was a prince rather than who he was as a person and I didn’t start to really believe in their romance until near the end of the book.

I did like the way Sundaresan writes about India. The Twentieth Wife is a very descriptive book: the clothes, the buildings and gardens, the food and drink, the traditions and rituals of court and the zenana are all described in vivid detail. I do enjoy reading historical fiction novels set in India, though I’m sorry to say that most of the others I’ve read were written by non-Indian authors (M.M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions is my favourite). I wasn’t aware of Indu Sundaresan until I saw The Twentieth Wife listed as one of Aarti’s suggestions for A More Diverse Universe and I’m pleased I decided to give it a chance. I’m not sure I like this book enough to want to continue with the sequel, but it was good to have learned a little bit about a period of Indian history I knew nothing about. While I didn’t love this particular book I would still be happy to try one of Sundaresan’s others outside of the Taj Mahal trilogy.

This was my second read for A More Diverse Universe hosted by BookLust.

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

September 18, 2014September 18, 201418 Comments

The Garden of Evening Mists is set in Malaya and is narrated by Teoh Yun Ling, a Straits Chinese woman who, at the beginning of the novel, has retired after a long and successful career as a Supreme Court Judge in Kuala Lumpur. Returning to the Cameron Highlands area of the Malayan Peninsula – a very special place for Yun Ling, being the site of both the garden of Yugiri (‘evening mists’) and her friends’ tea plantation, Majuba – she makes the decision to write her memoirs, even if that means remembering things she would rather forget.

In a series of flashbacks, we go back with Yun Ling to the 1950s, during a time of conflict known as the Malayan Emergency. This is when she first comes to Yugiri and meets its creator, Nakamura Aritomo, the former gardener to the Japanese emperor. Yun Ling hopes Aritomo will design a garden in memory of her sister but he refuses, offering instead to take her on as an apprentice so that she can learn how to do it herself. At first, she finds it difficult to be near Aritomo (she and her sister, Yun Hong, were both imprisoned in a Japanese camp during World War II) but as they work together in the garden Yun Ling slowly begins to come to terms with the traumas of her past.

This is the second novel by Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng and enjoyed a lot of success following its publication in 2012 – the book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won both the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Having now read it, I agree that it’s an excellent book and deserved its success. Until recently, I had very little knowledge of Malaya (or Malaysia as we now know it). Now I have read two books in two months (The Separation by Dinah Jefferies was the first) and I’m finding it a very interesting country to read about. The Garden of Evening Mists covers three different periods in the country’s history: the Japanese Occupation of the 1940s, the Emergency of the 1950s, and the more recent past, probably the 1980s, in which Malaysia is an independent country.

We wait a long time to hear what exactly happened to Yun Ling and Yun Hong in the Japanese camp, but we do find out eventually – although certain details continue to be withheld or only hinted at. It’s understandable as this is Yun Ling’s own story to tell and she can choose what to say and not to say; some memories may be too painful or uncomfortable to bring to the surface. It was the wartime sections of the book that I found the most gripping and emotional, however. I was particularly moved by the story told by Tatsuji, a Japanese art collector who visits Yun Ling in the present day, about Japan’s kamikaze pilots.

This is not just a book about war and suffering, though. Gardening, as you might have guessed from the title, also plays a big part in the story. Gardens are usually peaceful places to sit or to walk – and reading about gardens feels peaceful too. I don’t have a lot of interest in gardening myself but I was fascinated by the descriptions of Yugiri and the techniques used by Aritomo to create illusions of depth and distance. He puts so much thought into where to place every rock, every stone. As well as gardening, Aritomo is also a master of other art forms including woodcuts (ukiyo-e) and tattooing (horimono), and these were interesting to read about too. Other aspects of Japanese, Chinese and Malaysian culture are also covered in the novel, such as storytelling and mythology. But most of all, this is a book about memory: memory and the act of forgiving and forgetting.

There are so many ideas and themes packed into this wonderful novel and I’ve only managed to discuss a few of them here. I haven’t even mentioned how beautifully written it is and how cleverly it is structured. As I read, I wanted to go back and read earlier passages again because things were taking on more and more meaning as more layers were revealed. It’s that sort of book.

I read The Garden of Evening Mists as part of A More Diverse Universe hosted by Aarti of BookLust. The event doesn’t end until Saturday 27th September so there’s still time for you to join in.

Harvest by Jim Crace

September 11, 2014September 11, 201416 Comments

I often find myself beginning a review by stating where and when the novel is set. With Harvest I can’t do that, because we aren’t told. All we know is that it’s a small rural community where for generations the people who live there have worked on the land, ploughing, planting and harvesting. This is the way of life they have always known and this is how they have always supported themselves and their families.

Things begin to change when a ‘chart-maker’ whom the villagers refer to as Mr Quill arrives and proceeds to measure and map the land. Soon it becomes clear that their new landowner (the Master’s cousin-in-law) has plans to enclose their fields and convert them to sheep farming. Meanwhile, three more strangers have settled on the outskirts of the village and have lit a fire, sending up plumes of smoke to let people know that they are there and planning to stay there. That same day, smoke is also seen coming from the manor house. When it is discovered that Master Kent’s dovecote has been burned to the ground, the newcomers are blamed and the way the villagers react to this crime will have greater consequences than they could ever have imagined.

We see all of these developments through the eyes of Walter Thirsk, who has lived in the village for twelve years but is still seen as an outsider because of his close relationship with Master Kent. Although he refers to himself and his neighbours as ‘we’ there’s always a sense that he is slightly distanced from what is going on. Walter is in the unique position of being part of the community and not part of it at the same time, which makes his story even more interesting.

When reading a novel that appears to be set in the past, it’s natural to want to know exactly which period we are reading about. My guess is that it’s England in the sixteenth century, though it could be slightly earlier or later than that. It is certainly a time of agricultural change, when common land is being fenced off and enclosed. It’s also a superstitious time when strangers are viewed with suspicion and anyone different risks being accused of witchcraft. Other than these facts, we are given very few clues – no names of nearby towns and cities, no mentions of historical figures or events that we could use as a point of reference.

So why does Jim Crace not just tell us when the story is set? The obvious answer is that he doesn’t want us to think of this book as ‘historical’, fixed in the past in a time that has been and gone. He wants us to think beyond this, to consider how some of the ideas in the novel are timeless and still relevant to us today. In Walter Thirsk’s village, the wheat and barley farming that has sustained the people for many years is being replaced with wool production because this will be more cost-effective for the landowner. Anyone who has ever lost their job, lost their home or been forced into a new way of life because of change and progress will know how that feels. This story (or one very similar) could just as easily have been set during the Industrial Revolution or in more recent times when tasks that were once performed by human beings were being replaced by computers.

Harvest is also a beautifully written book. I am not usually a fan of novels written in the present tense, but this is an example of one where it works well and is very effective. The novel only covers a week in Walter Thirsk’s life but it is a very eventful week and the present tense helps to convey the sense that things are moving quickly and happening now. It’s also a book with a lot of atmosphere and an underlying darkness, with the story building in tension towards the end.

This is not the first Jim Crace novel I’ve read. I have vague memories of reading Quarantine, probably soon after it was published in 1997, but I can’t remember very much about it now. That story hasn’t stayed with me but I’m sure this one will.

A Triple Knot by Emma Campion

September 8, 2014September 8, 201410 Comments

There are some historical women whose lives have been covered many times in fiction – Elizabeth I is one example and Anne Boleyn is another. The heroine of Emma Campion’s latest novel, A Triple Knot, is a less popular choice: she is Joan of Kent, cousin of King Edward III and once described as “the most beautiful woman in all the realm of England”.

Joan is the daughter of Edmund, Earl of Kent, and his wife, the Countess Margaret. Edmund, the younger half-brother of the deposed Edward II, is executed for treason several years before our story begins, leaving Joan and her brother to grow up in the household of their cousin, Edward III, and his wife, Philippa of Hainault. Joan’s Plantagenet blood and her great beauty give the King reason to hope that he can negotiate a marriage for her that will be useful to him from a political perspective. When he and Philippa notice that their own son, Ned (who will become known as the Black Prince), seems to be showing too much interest in Joan, they decide that she needs to be married off sooner rather than later. However, Joan has other ideas.

On a journey to the Low Countries to see the father of a potential husband picked out for her by Edward and Philippa, Joan meets and falls in love with Sir Thomas Holland. Thomas is twenty-six and Joan is only twelve, but while their relationship would be shocking by modern standards, this is the fourteenth century and an age difference like this is not too uncommon. They marry in secret, knowing that the King would not approve, but are soon parted when Thomas has to return to the army. Back at home with her family, Joan is forced into a second marriage with William Montague, the Earl of Salisbury’s son, and faces a long, difficult battle to prove that her marriage to Thomas was legal. But as she and Thomas struggle to have their marriage recognised, the Black Prince waits for his chance to win back the woman he has always wanted more than any other.

A Triple Knot is the first book I’ve read by Emma Campion, but I’m aware that she has also written a novel about Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward III, as well as a series of historical mysteries published under the name Candace Robb. Having read this one, I’m not sure I would want to try any of her others, as I didn’t really enjoy it very much. While it was good to learn more about a woman I previously knew very little about, I was left thinking that maybe there’s a good reason why not many novels have been written about Joan of Kent – her story just wasn’t interesting enough to sustain a novel of this length. Apart from her relationships with Thomas, William and Ned (I’m assuming this is what the ‘triple knot’ of the title refers to) other aspects of Joan’s life aren’t given much attention. As for Joan herself, I was surprised every time her age was mentioned as she didn’t feel like a child to me – in fact, she didn’t seem any older at the end of the book than she did at the beginning, even though many years had gone by!

There were some things that I did like, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to continue reading. The novel felt very well-researched and there were lots of details of fourteenth century life, both at court and away from it. The historical background is quite complex and it was sometimes difficult to untangle the relationships between various members of the royal family, especially in the first few chapters of the book, but I love reading about medieval history so I didn’t mind this. Overall, though, I was quite disappointed with this book – and as a side note, I really dislike the cover. It’s definitely not an image I would have chosen to represent the story and the time period!

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley for review.

The Streets by Anthony Quinn

September 5, 2014September 5, 201411 Comments

In 1882, twenty-one-year-old David Wildeblood comes to London to begin his new job working as a reporter for Henry Marchmont’s weekly newspaper, The Labouring Classes of London. The idea of the paper is to highlight the suffering of some of the city’s poorest people and David’s task is to visit some of London’s worst slum areas, such as the notorious Somers Town, to speak to the inhabitants and report on their living conditions.

Having grown up in rural Norfolk, David is instantly an ‘outsider’, inexperienced in London ways and unfamiliar with the slang. This makes his job very difficult, but things improve when he is befriended by Jo, a young costermonger who can introduce him to people and places he would never have been able to access on his own.

As David continues his investigations into living standards at Somers Town, he is shocked by the state of the housing and the poverty of the people who live and work there. Soon he uncovers something even worse – a network of corruption and exploitation by unscrupulous landlords – and finds that he has gained some very powerful enemies.

The story also has a romantic element and there are two main female characters whom David gets to know throughout the novel. One is Kitty, the daughter of David’s godfather, and the other is Roma, the sister of his new friend, Jo: two very different women. Kitty, with her valuable jewels and pet monkey, comes from a rich, privileged background and while she does take an interest in the welfare of those who are less fortunate than herself, she seems to view them as a project or a problem to be solved. Roma, on the other hand, has endured hardships and made sacrifices from an early age to support herself and her brother: she and Jo are the type of people Kitty considers to be in need of help. David himself doesn’t quite fit in with either of these social groups and it was interesting to see his relationships with both Kitty and Roma develop.

Looking at other reviews of this book I see the word ‘Dickensian’ being used a lot, and while there’s nothing in the writing style or atmosphere that reminds me of Dickens, it is certainly a novel that draws attention to some of the same issues that were obviously very important to Dickens. I could appreciate the huge amount of research Anthony Quinn must have carried out while writing this novel (in the acknowledgments he mentions two 19th century sources: London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew and Life and Labour of the People in London by Charles Booth) and I found it fascinating from a social history perspective. Fascinating, but disturbing too; the plans of the wealthy for social engineering, segregation of the lower classes and the creation of rural labour camps were uncomfortable to read about.

As a work of fiction, though, I didn’t enjoy The Streets very much at all; the pace was slow and the plot, despite sounding so promising, was not very entertaining. I didn’t feel I was fully engaging with David or any of the other characters (apart from Roma on occasions) and the ‘back slang’ used throughout the book, which I know must have been intended to add some authenticity to the story, really irritated me. What made it even more disappointing is that this book really did sound like something I should have loved: a Victorian setting, a mystery to be solved, and references to Dickens and Eliot on the cover. I didn’t regret persevering to the end, but I was still quite pleased when I reached the final page and could move on to something else.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

September 1, 2014September 25, 201816 Comments

In October 1686, eighteen-year-old Petronella (Nella) Oortman travels from Assendelft to Amsterdam to join the household of her new husband, Johannes Brandt. Johannes is a merchant with the VOC – the Dutch East India Company – and spends a lot of time away from home, leaving his young wife in the company of his sister, Marin, and their two servants, Cornelia and Otto. Disappointed with the lack of affection from her husband and confused by Marin’s cold, unwelcoming reception, Nella quickly finds that married life is certainly not what she had hoped and expected it would be.

Unable, for various reasons, to give Nella the attention she deserves, Johannes presents her with a special wedding gift to help her pass the time: a cabinet containing a dolls’ house that resembles the Brandts’ own home. The little rooms are empty and it is up to Nella to decide how to furnish them. Responding to an advertisement by a ‘miniaturist’, she sends a letter with her requests, but when the tiny items and figures begin to arrive, Nella is amazed by how accurately they reflect life within the real Brandt household. How can the miniaturist possibly know so much about Nella and her family?

I was drawn to The Miniaturist by its striking cover and although the book itself didn’t quite live up to my expectations, it was certainly an unusual and intriguing story. I have seen comparisons with Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and it’s easy to see why, as both books tell the story of a young woman living in 17th century Holland, but apart from this I don’t think the two novels really have a lot in common. While I found that Girl with a Pearl Earring felt realistic and true to life, The Miniaturist has an element of magical realism that makes it very different – and this supernatural aspect was possibly the reason why I didn’t love the book as much as I wanted to. I thought the mystery of the miniaturist’s creations was a great idea, but I felt that it was never sufficiently explained or resolved, which left me wondering if I’d missed the point.

I found a lot to like about The Miniaturist, though, particularly the setting – not a common one in historical fiction, but very interesting to read about. I learned a lot about Amsterdam in the 1600s and the world of trade and commerce in which Johannes Brandt and his fellow merchants operate. It’s quite an atmospheric novel too, and a bit darker than I’d expected; bad things happen to some of the characters in the story and not everyone gets a happy ending. Nella herself is a character who grows and changes, from an innocent, nervous young girl at the beginning of the book to a strong, mature woman at the end. And I must mention Marin, secretive and hostile, but with much more depth than is obvious at first.

I had assumed this was a purely fictional story, so I was surprised to find that Petronella Oortman was a real person and her miniature house can be seen in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. As for the true story behind the house and its contents, who knows?

I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

August 23, 2014August 23, 201436 Comments

“Is it possible that innocence is not recognised in an age of enlightenment and truth? Let them search. I ask no favour, but I ask the justice that is the right of every human being. Let them continue to search; let those who possess powerful means of investigation use them towards this object; it is for them a sacred duty of humanity and justice.”

In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, is found guilty of spying and passing on France’s military secrets to the Germans. After being publicly degraded and stripped of his rank at a ceremony in Paris, he is exiled to Devil’s Island to live in solitary confinement in a tiny stone hut. One of the men involved in the conviction of Dreyfus is Georges Picquart, the narrator of An Officer and a Spy.

At first, Georges is sure that Dreyfus is guilty, but after being promoted to Colonel and made head of the Statistical Section (French military intelligence) he starts to have doubts. And when evidence of a second spy comes to light, Georges begins to wonder…what if Dreyfus was innocent all along?

An Officer and a Spy may be a work of fiction, but the events I’ve described above really happened. Known as the Dreyfus Affair, it was a serious miscarriage of justice that caused a huge scandal and divided public opinion in France. The author Emile Zola was even inspired to write an article in support of Dreyfus which was published under the title J’accuse…! and led to him being brought to trial for libel. The most shocking aspect of the case was the extent to which military officials had attempted to cover up the truth and fabricate evidence to hide the fact that mistakes had been made and that an innocent man had been used as a scapegoat.

This fictional account of the Dreyfus Affair is closely based on historical fact. The first half of the novel follows Georges Picquart as he discovers that there’s more to the case than meets the eye; in the second half we see what he decides to do with the information he has uncovered. Every step of the way he is thwarted by the very people he should have been able to depend upon for help and it becomes obvious that some members of his department are more interested in protecting their reputations than in seeing justice prevail.

This is the first book I’ve read by Robert Harris; for a long time he’s been an author I’ve been aware of without ever thinking I might enjoy, but when I saw that this novel had won this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction it convinced me to give it a try. And guess what? I loved it! Not having much previous knowledge of the Dreyfus story (it was touched on in Paris by Edward Rutherfurd but this is the first time I’ve read about it in any depth), I was completely gripped by Georges Picquart’s investigations.

From the historical fiction perspective, this book is excellent. It’s packed with information but never becomes boring or overly detailed and it’s firmly set in its time period – Georges travels by steam train, he communicates via telegram, and during a posting in Tunisia he can only rely on out-of-date newspapers as a way of following the progress of the case at home in France. But I would also recommend this book to readers of spy novels and thrillers and to anyone who enjoys well-written, well-researched fiction in general. Although the pace is slow at the beginning, it soon becomes quite a page turner, especially if you’re not very familiar with the facts of the Dreyfus Affair.

An Officer and a Spy really is a fascinating novel and took me through a range of emotions from shock to frustration to absolute outrage! Now I would like to try another book by Robert Harris. Any suggestions?