Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

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Madame Bovary I read Madame Bovary during April as part of a readalong hosted by Juliana of Cedar Station and CJ of ebookclassics. It was a book I’d been thinking about reading for a while anyway so the announcement of the readalong couldn’t have come at a better time for me.

Madame Bovary is a French realist novel published in 1856. The title character, Emma Bovary, longs to experience the drama and excitement she has read about in romantic novels but she is unlikely to find it in her marriage to Charles Bovary, an unambitious country doctor. Charles loves his wife and is not unkind to her, but Emma finds him boring and her life dull and meaningless. After she and Charles attend a ball hosted by the Marquis d’Andervilliers, Emma becomes depressed and miserable; she has had a glimpse of a more glamorous world and it has left her even more disillusioned and dissatisfied with her own situation.

Charles wonders whether a move to a larger town will make her happy but Emma is no more content in their new home in Yonville-l’Abbaye than she was in the small village they’ve left behind. Seeking an escape from her unhappy existence, Emma has affairs and spends money she can’t afford, but as she becomes more reckless in both her romantic and financial entanglements, her life begins to spiral out of control.

It has been interesting to read the opinions of other readalong participants, because while I think we all agree that Emma’s behaviour is silly and self-destructive, the amount of sympathy we have for her seems to vary widely. Some readers can relate to Emma and admire her for doing something to try to change her life and find some happiness; other readers find her very selfish and annoying.

I’m one of those readers who didn’t like Emma at all, though I did have some pity for her, because I know there weren’t many options open to women in the 19th century, particularly those living in provincial areas, who wanted more from life than just to be a wife and mother. I can see why she may have felt that adultery was a way of escape and a way to find the passion she’d read about in books. I thought it was sad that Emma couldn’t even take any pleasure in her daughter (when Berthe is born, her first emotion is disappointment that the baby isn’t a boy). Later, when Berthe comes up to her hoping for affection Emma pushes the little girl away so that she falls and hurts herself. Poor Berthe – and life doesn’t get any better for her later in the book either.

I don’t think Charles was entirely blameless as he could have made more effort to understand his wife’s feelings and he was so naïve that he seemed completely oblivious to what was going on, but my sympathy was definitely with him and with Berthe more than with Emma. I noticed, though, that Flaubert himself seems to stay neutral throughout the novel, reporting on his characters’ thoughts and actions without actually passing judgment on them and telling us what we should think.

There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed, but I’ll have to be honest and say that much as I wanted to love this book I just didn’t. I think my dislike of Emma was part of the problem, but not the whole problem, as I didn’t find the writing style very engaging either. The version of Madame Bovary that I read was an older Penguin edition (pictured above) translated by Alan Russell – I had no reason for choosing this translation other than that it happened to be the one I already had on my shelf, which seemed as good a reason as any. I didn’t really have any problems with it and found it easy enough to read, but having since read that Flaubert prided himself on always searching for the perfect word, in this case it’s possible that the translation did affect my enjoyment. I didn’t like the book enough to want to read it again in a different translation to find out, though!

While this has not become a favourite classic, I’m still glad I’ve read it. If nothing else, I can now see where Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s inspiration for her novel The Doctor’s Wife came from!

The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin

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The Fortune Hunter Set in 1875, this is the story of two women and their love for the same man, Captain Bay Middleton, a cavalry officer and renowned horseman. One of these women is Charlotte Baird, heiress to a fortune, whose brother is a friend of Bay’s from the army. Bay asks Charlotte to elope with him but she convinces him that it will be best to wait nine months until she comes into her inheritance. However, this could be a mistake because in the meantime the Empress Elizabeth of Austria and her retinue arrive at nearby Easton Neston for the hunting season.

Elizabeth – or Sisi, as she is known to her friends – is the wife of Franz Joseph of Austria. Bored with her marriage and with constantly being in the public eye, Sisi is looking forward to spending some time in the English countryside riding and hunting. Sisi is an excellent horsewoman herself, and when Bay Middleton is given the job of acting as her ‘pilot’ (or guide), she and Bay find that their shared passion for horses leads to passion of a different sort. They are unable to keep their affair secret and when people begin to gossip about the Empress and her relationship with her pilot, Bay must decide whether his fascination with Sisi is more important than his love for Charlotte and his dream of winning the Grand National.

This novel is based on a true story – Sisi, Bay and Charlotte are all people who really existed – but it’s probably not one that many people will be familiar with. I certainly wasn’t. However, having read the author’s note and also the small amount of information I could find online, it seems that The Fortune Hunter is largely fictional and only loosely based on the real life story. There are some significant differences, such as the fact that the events of the novel take place over just a few months while in reality, Bay was Sisi’s pilot for five years. But whether or not the characters and their actions were completely true to life, it didn’t matter to me because the author made them feel so real and made me care about them so much that I found myself thinking about them even when I wasn’t reading the book.

The Empress Sisi, who I admit I knew nothing about before starting this book, must have been a fascinating woman. She was also known as a woman of great beauty and I was interested to read about how she would have her floor-length hair tied to the ceiling at night to relieve the pressure of its weight on her head and how she would cover her face in strips of raw meat to freshen her complexion. I particularly enjoyed a scene in the novel where Sisi meets and makes conversation with Queen Victoria, a very different type of monarch with very different views!

Although I was unable to find out anything about the real Charlotte Baird beyond her name, the fictional Charlotte is another character I loved. I enjoyed reading about her experiments with photography, a hobby that in Victorian England was not considered entirely appropriate for a young woman. But the character I was drawn to the most was Bay Middleton. I never doubted that he loved Charlotte but it was easy to see how he became captivated by the Empress and why he was ashamed of his behaviour while at the same time being unable to stop himself. It was not clear to me what the outcome of the story would be for Bay, for Charlotte or for Sisi and I was kept in suspense until the final chapter.

There are also some great secondary characters including Caspar Hewes, a flamboyant American photographer; Augusta Crewe, who is engaged to Charlotte’s brother; and Chicken Hartopp, a disappointed suitor of Charlotte’s. Another favourite was Bay’s grey mare, Tipsy – I thought the relationship between Bay and his horse was well written and very touching. There’s a lot of period detail too and the setting feels believably Victorian, with no irritating anachronisms or language that feels inappropriately modern.

This is a long novel (there were more than 600 pages in the version I read) but I was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t really notice the length. I loved this book and now I need to find a copy of Daisy Goodwin’s first novel, My Last Duchess.

Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

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Songs of Willow Frost William Eng has spent the last five years of his life in the care of the nuns at Seattle’s Sacred Heart Orphanage. It’s 1934 and living conditions at the orphanage are very poor, particularly for William who is Chinese-American and considered inferior to most of the other children. But William is not at all sure that he is actually an orphan – although he has never known his father, the last time he saw his mother she was being carried out of their apartment by a doctor, promising that she’d be coming back soon.

On William’s twelfth birthday he and the other boys are taken to see a film as a special treat and William becomes convinced that one of the actresses he sees on the screen, Willow Frost, is his mother. With the help of his best friend, a blind girl called Charlotte, he sets out to find Willow Frost in the hope that she can answer the question that has been troubling him for five years – what can lead a mother to abandon her child?

Having loved Jamie Ford’s previous novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, I was looking forward to reading this one. If anything, this book was even more ‘bitter and sweet’ than the first! At times it was so sad that I wasn’t sure if I could bear to continue reading, but even while my heart was breaking for William and his mother it was obvious that they loved each other and that gave me a glimmer of hope. I wanted them to find the happiness they deserved and that was what kept me turning the pages.

Although we begin in 1934 with William in search of Willow Frost, at least half of the novel is actually set several years earlier in 1921 and follows the story of the young Willow – or Liu Song as she was originally known. It was the 1921 section of the story that I found particularly upsetting to read; being Chinese, a woman and unmarried, life is not easy for Liu Song and it seems that every bad thing that could possibly happen to her does happen. While her stepfather, Uncle Leo, is the villain of the book, I was equally furious with the attitude of a social worker who supposedly had William’s best interests at heart but was clearly only concerned with punishing his mother for what she claimed was immoral behaviour.

Despite the overwhelming sadness, I enjoyed Songs of Willow Frost. There are some great descriptions of Seattle in the 1920s and 1930s and we are given some fascinating insights into the city’s Chinese community and the lives of people struggling to survive during the Depression. I didn’t find this book quite as satisfying as Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and there were one or two aspects of the plot that didn’t resolve the way I would have liked them to but overall I thought this was a wonderfully poignant and moving story.

Thanks to Lovereading for the review copy

Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims by Toby Clements

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Winter Pilgrims On a cold winter’s morning in 1460, a band of armed horsemen approach the Priory of St Mary near Lincoln. One of the monks, Thomas Everingham, is outside the priory walls that morning, having been sent out to kill a fox that has been caught in a trap, and when he notices that the soldiers are about to attack two nuns (one of whom is Sister Katherine, a young woman who has spent most of her life in the priory) he decides to intervene. In the scuffle that follows, Thomas seriously injures one of the men, who happens to be the son of the nobleman Sir Giles Riven. With the furious Sir Giles seeking revenge, Thomas and Katherine (disguised as a boy called Kit) are forced to flee the priory.

After living for so many years in their isolated religious community, Thomas and Katherine have little knowledge of the world beyond and are surprised to find that England is in the midst of war. Henry VI is still on the throne but is under threat from the Duke of York and Earl of Warwick, whose armies are gathering in Calais in preparation for the next stage of what will become known as the Wars of the Roses.

With the help of pardoner Robert Daud, who leaves them a bag containing a mysterious book, Thomas and Katherine reach Calais and join the company of two of Warwick’s men, Sir John Fakenham and his son, Richard. Here Thomas learns to use a bow and Katherine increases her knowledge of healing, skills they will need when they return to England to face their enemy, Sir Giles Riven, and to play their part in the bloody battles of Northampton and Towton.

Although this book has already received lots of glowing reviews, I’ll admit that I had my doubts about it before I started reading. I thought it might be too similar to Conn Iggulden’s Wars of the Roses novel, Stormbird, which I read last year and struggled with. Luckily, while there were some similarities and I suspect that most people who did love Stormbird will love this book too, I did enjoy this one quite a bit more.

This is one of my favourite historical periods but I never get bored with reading about it; each book I pick up offers something new and adds to my knowledge of the subject. This novel is slightly different from most of the others I’ve read that are set during the Wars of the Roses, because instead of concentrating on the kings and queens, the rich noblemen and powerful battle commanders, the focus here is always on the ordinary people – people like Thomas, Katherine and their friends who have no involvement in politics and decision-making, but are risking their lives for York or for Lancaster.

I was interested to learn that Toby Clements had attended re-enactments and living history camps and even tried using a longbow, all as part of his research for this novel. The research has really paid off because his writing has a feel of authenticity that is sometimes lacking in other books. I could almost imagine that I really was standing in the middle of a muddy battlefield with arrows flying around me, walking through a smelly, bustling market place or watching Katherine performing surgery without the benefits of modern medicine. There’s certainly nothing glamorous about this story!

I only have two minor complaints about the book – and both are entirely a matter of personal taste. First, it is written in present tense which is something I almost always find slightly irritating. It seems to be an increasingly common choice of authors these days and is becoming difficult to avoid, but I still don’t like it and find past tense much easier to read. Clements also devotes more time to the battles (and fights, brawls, archery sessions etc) than I would have liked, but although I didn’t particularly enjoy reading these scenes I can appreciate that they were written very well, especially the Battle of Towton. As I said, though, other readers will not necessarily have a problem with either of these things.

Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims is the first in a series. At the moment I’m undecided as to whether I want to continue with the second book, but I did end up enjoying this one for the different perspective it offered on a period I love.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review via NetGalley

The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

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The Summer Queen The Summer Queen is the first in a trilogy of novels telling the story of the medieval queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor (or Alienor as she is referred to throughout the book) is a thirteen-year-old girl when the novel begins in 1137. Following the death of her father, the Duke of Aquitaine, Alienor is married to King Louis VII of France. At first the marriage is a happier one than either Alienor or Louis had expected, but as the years go by Louis begins to change and their relationship disintegrates. During a crusade to Jerusalem, Alienor makes an important decision regarding her future and with the young Henry, Duke of Normandy – the future Henry II of England – waiting in the background, the scene is set for the next two books in the trilogy, The Winter Crown and The Autumn Throne.

I have read other novels in which Eleanor of Aquitaine has been a character, but in most books the focus is on her relationship with Henry II and their sons (who included two more future kings, Richard I and King John). This is the first time I’ve read about her early life in so much detail, so I found this book fascinating and informative as well as being an enjoyable read.

As usual, Chadwick’s characters feel like people who really could have lived and breathed during the 12th century, rather than modern day characters dropped into a medieval setting. Alienor herself is shown to be a strong and intelligent woman with ambitions of her own, who really cares about the future of her own lands of Aquitaine and the welfare of the people who live there. She is frustrated by her husband’s lack of leadership skills and reliance on his advisers, particularly when she believes they are advising him to make incorrect decisions.

Alienor (or Eleanor) is not always shown in such a positive light as she is in this book and I liked this version of her character. In her author’s note, Elizabeth Chadwick explains some of the choices she made in writing Alienor’s story, particularly how to tackle the questions of whether Alienor may have had an affair with her uncle Raymond, Prince of Antioch, or with one of her own Aquitaine vassals, Geoffrey de Rancon (Chadwick’s answer is no to the first and yes to the second). She also tells us why she chose to use this particular spelling of Alienor’s name and how she decided what Alienor may have looked like.

I thought the breakdown of Alienor’s marriage to Louis was described in a way that felt realistic and believable. As a second son raised for a career in the church, only becoming heir to the throne after the death of his elder brother, Louis proves to be a weak leader and too easily influenced by the stronger personalities around him, particularly the Templar knight Thierry de Galeran. It was sad to see Alienor watch as the young, attractive husband she had once liked and cared for turned into a grim and humourless man, ready to blame his wife for all of his misfortunes (such as her failure to produce the male heir he so desperately wanted). However, Louis is never quite a villain and it’s possible to have some sympathy for the person he has become.

I also loved the portrayal of Henry, although he only really comes into the story towards the end. Being confident, self-assured and ambitious, he is the opposite of Louis in many ways and I was pleased to see Alienor find some happiness after so many wasted years, even though history tells us that this happiness isn’t going to last forever.

As well as being an entertaining story and providing a huge amount of information on Alienor’s early life, The Summer Queen is also a great introduction to the history and geography of medieval Europe and beyond. The route of Louis and Alienor’s crusade can be followed using a map at the front of the book and takes us through Hungary, Constantinople, Antioch and into Jerusalem encountering some of the most important historical figures of the period along the way.

I loved this book and am looking forward to seeing how Alienor’s story continues in The Winter Crown.

The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer

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The Convenient Marriage My library has very few Georgette Heyer books and I’ve read most of the titles they do have, so on a recent visit I was delighted to see this one on the shelf – one that I hadn’t read and in such a pretty edition. I think I still prefer the older Arrow covers with the historical portraits, but this one does look very attractive and I’m pleased to say that I thought the story inside lived up to the promise of the cover. Heyer’s novels are always fun to read and this one was no exception.

When the Earl of Rule proposes marriage to the eldest Winwood daughter, Elizabeth, she is faced with a dilemma. Her brother Pelham’s gambling debts are mounting up and she knows that the Winwoods are in need of Rule’s money. However, the man she really loves is Edward Heron, a humble soldier, and the thought of having to marry Rule instead breaks her heart. It is left to Elizabeth’s youngest sister, Horatia, to come up with the perfect solution – she’ll propose to Rule herself, leaving Elizabeth free to marry Edward.

Surprisingly, the Earl agrees to marry Horatia, not put off by her stammer, lack of height and eyebrows that won’t arch. But will the seventeen-year-old Horry and the thirty-five-year-old Rule be happy with their marriage of convenience or will the age difference prove too great to overcome? With a trio of enemies (Rule’s cousin and heir-presumptive, a jealous former mistress, and the vengeful Lord Lethbridge) determined to cause trouble and Horry’s brother Pelham equally determined to defend his sister’s honour, the plot soon descends into a series of farcical misunderstandings and moments of comedy.

Although I have read better Heyer novels and this one hasn’t become a favourite, I did really enjoy it. It was so entertaining, with never a dull moment – there are card games, duels, balls and masquerades, trips to the opera and to the circus, and encounters with highwaymen. This book is set in the Georgian period rather than the slightly later Regency and I loved the descriptions of the flamboyant Georgian fashions – powdered wigs, patches, silk stockings, blue velvet and puce satin, not to mention Crosby Drelincourt’s ill-fated straw hat with pink roses!

My only problem with the book, really, was that I didn’t like Horatia very much. I loved her opening encounter with the Earl of Rule and I warmed to her again by the end, but throughout the middle of the book she irritated me with her stubbornness and immature behaviour. I had to keep reminding myself that she was only seventeen after all.

I did love Rule. He’s one of my favourite Heyer heroes so far. He kept reminding me of the Scarlet Pimpernel, with his ‘sleepy eyes’ and lazy manner hiding a shrewd brain and quick wit. I loved the way he stayed so calm and patient with Horry, always trusting that she would do the right thing in the end. Horry’s brother Pelham, Viscount Winwood, was another great character. Some of the scenes involving the drunken Pel and his friend, Sir Roland Pommeroy were absolutely hilarious. I would have loved to include some examples here, but they really need to be read in context to be able to appreciate how funny they are!

Reading this book has reminded me of how much I love Georgette Heyer and how many of her books I still haven’t read yet!

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

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Kindred Kindred begins in 1976 with our narrator, Dana, celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her husband, Kevin. Suddenly Dana begins to feel dizzy and disappears from the room, finding herself kneeling by a river watching a young boy drowning in the water. She manages to rescue the boy before the scene in front of her vanishes and she is back in her own home, wet and muddy. After another similar experience, Dana becomes aware that she is somehow being drawn back in time to the early 1800s and that the boy she has saved is Rufus Weylin, one of her own ancestors.

Dana is transported back to the past again and again to find that on each occasion several years have gone by and Rufus is growing from a man to a boy. It seems that the purpose of Dana’s time travel is to rescue Rufus every time he finds himself in danger – but she quickly discovers that as a black woman in Maryland in 1815, her own life could also be at risk. To make things worse, Rufus is white and the son of a slave-owner. She’s not sure whether she can trust him, but she knows that she must continue to protect him if she wants to ensure her own future survival.

This is the first time I’ve read any of Octavia E. Butler’s work, though I’ve heard a lot about her and knowing that she was one of very few black female authors of science fiction made me even more interested in trying her books. I was particularly interested in reading Kindred, as it’s such a well-loved, highly regarded novel, and I’m pleased to have finally had an opportunity to read it because it was excellent.

At first, with her knowledge of the future and the freedom and independence she has there, Dana feels very different from the slaves she meets on the plantation. But the longer she spends in the past, the more she discovers “how easily people could be trained to accept slavery” and is horrified to find herself adapting to her new life and becoming increasingly reluctant to resist, knowing that it’s the only way to avoid punishment. On one of her journeys back in time, her husband, Kevin, is able to accompany her. This adds another angle to the story as Kevin is just as outraged by slavery as Dana is, but being both white and male he finds himself in an entirely different social position.

The relationship between Dana and Rufus is particularly interesting (as Dana herself muses, “slavery fosters strange relationships”). Although both Rufus and his father before him commit some acts of appalling cruelty, they are not portrayed as completely evil people. There are indications, particularly in the younger Rufus, that he has the potential to be a good person but as the years go by he finds it more and more difficult to think and behave any differently than he has been brought up to think and behave. Even the special bond he shares with Dana is strained as he becomes corrupted by the power he has, as a white man, over those he considers inferior.

I don’t know what Butler’s other novels are like, but this one is as much historical fiction as science fiction. We learn very little about the actual technicalities of Dana’s time travel and are never given a scientific explanation as to why it might be happening. The time travel is really just a device to get Dana into the past and explore what it was like to be a slave from the point of view of a modern day black woman. I have read other novels that deal with the subject of slavery but never from this perspective. It was fascinating and really helped me to understand what slavery was like (as far as it’s possible to understand without actually experiencing it yourself). I loved this book!

I received a review copy from Headline via Bookbridgr