September Reading Summary

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I never know how to begin writing these monthly posts, so without further ado I’ll just go straight into my summary of September’s reading.

I started the month with the new Philippa Gregory book, The Kingmaker’s Daughter, fourth in her Cousins’ War series, telling the story of the Wars of the Roses through the eyes of some of the important female figures from the period. This one is narrated by Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick and wife of Richard III. Not my favourite book in the series, but still one that I enjoyed reading.

I was already familiar with Anne Neville’s story before reading The Kingmaker’s Daughter, but I also read two books in September that introduced me to some historical figures I knew little or nothing about. In The Conductor by Sarah Quigley I met the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and learned about the circumstances that surrounded the composition of his Leningrad Symphony. And in Melanie Benjamin’s The Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb I found out what life was like for Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump, who measured only two feet eight inches tall.

I also read three books for R.I.P. VII. The first was The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. I haven’t had time to write about the other two yet: The Quarry by Johan Theorin and The Seance by John Harwood. The Seance, which felt like a Victorian sensation novel, was a book I had expected to enjoy and I did, though I didn’t like it quite as much as John Harwood’s other book, The Ghost Writer. The Quarry is the third in a planned quartet of crime novels set on the Swedish island of Oland, but although I loved the first two in the series, this one was a slight disappointment – I’ll explain why when I post my review.

Back to historical fiction, and another book I still need to post my thoughts on is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I started reading it in August as part of a readalong, but fell behind with the schedule after the first couple of weeks. I did still manage to finish it before the end of September and was very impressed. I can see exactly why it has been so successful. Finally, anyone who has been following my blog for a while will know that I’m currently working my way through Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolo series. Yesterday I finished the fourth in the series, Scales of Gold, and although I did enjoy the previous three, this one was the best so far for many reasons, not least the wonderful Timbuktu setting and the shocking cliffhanger ending!

Newly acquired books

The Unicorn Hunt by Dorothy Dunnett
The English Monster by Lloyd Shepherd
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Queen’s Promise by Lyn Andrews

Apart from the top one, which I bought myself so I can continue with the House of Niccolo, the other three are review copies.

Clarissa Group Read

I haven’t posted any updates on my progress with the group read of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa since March, but I am still reading it and am finally beginning to catch up after coming close to abandoning it earlier in the year. I’m reading the Kindle version which is in nine volumes and have just started volume seven, so I think I will probably be able to finish it before the end of December as scheduled.

I hope you all had a good September and enjoy your reading in October!

The Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin

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Despite the title, this is not a real autobiography, but a fictional account of the life of Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump. Measuring only two feet eight inches tall, Vinnie is described as ‘a perfect woman in miniature’. Not content to spend her life living on her family’s farm in Middleborough, Massachusetts, she works briefly as a schoolteacher before leaving home to perform with Colonel Wood’s riverboat show. Wood, who claims to be a cousin, promises to make Vinnie famous as an entertainer but it soon becomes obvious that he has other plans for her and she returns home disillusioned.

Determined not to give up on her dreams, Vinnie contacts the great showman P.T. Barnum and soon becomes a celebrity, travelling the world and meeting presidents and royalty. Her wedding in 1863 to another small person, Charles Stratton, known as General Tom Thumb, captures the imagination of both the press and the public. But when her younger sister Minnie, who is even smaller than herself, is also drawn into the world of show business, Vinnie fears it could all end in tragedy.

I enjoyed Melanie Benjamin’s previous novel, Alice I Have Been, which told the story of the girl who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so I’ve been looking forward to reading more of her work. And I enjoyed this book too. There were plenty of things to admire about Vinnie – she had lots of courage, lots of confidence and dignity, and lots of ambition. Instead of staying in the safety of her home which would certainly have been the easiest thing to do, she wanted to get out and see the world, to have new experiences and to build a successful career for herself. I’ve never really stopped to think about how difficult – and even dangerous – everyday life can be for a person smaller than average in a world built for much taller people. Such simple things as opening a door, getting into bed, climbing up stairs and even walking through a crowded room were a challenge for Vinnie and I was impressed with how well she dealt with the situations she found herself in.

However, as the story continued I began to dislike Vinnie more and more. She was obsessed with fame and fortune, she had a very superior attitude and appeared to consider almost everyone else, including her husband and sister, to be less intelligent than herself. I found her relationship with Charles particularly sad to read about as it had the feel of a professional business arrangement rather than a happy marriage and Vinnie seemed to have very little affection or respect for him. Luckily, though, my dislike of Vinnie didn’t stop me from loving the book; it was still one of the most fascinating and original historical fiction novels I’ve read for a long time.

While Vinnie’s personal story is the main focus of this book, there are also lots of interesting facts of American history scattered throughout the novel. Vinnie lived through an eventful period that included the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, as well as the arrival of some exciting new inventions such as the electric light and the telephone. Information on all of these things and many others are provided in the form of short news articles during the ‘Intermissions’ between chapters. Some of these facts are relevant to the chapter that follows, while others are seemingly unrelated pieces of trivia – these don’t do anything to move the story forward, but they all give fascinating insights into the period.

I knew nothing about Lavinia Warren before reading this book so I can’t comment on the historical accuracy of the story, but it did appear to be very well researched. The real Vinnie never actually wrote an autobiography, but she left behind some travelogue-style journals and essays which Melanie Benjamin read as part of her research for the novel. She also includes some interesting photographs in the book, though I was disappointed that there weren’t more pictures illustrating some of the characters who appeared in the story. I was able to find some for myself online and seeing photos of Vinnie, Charles, P.T. Barnum and the others really helped bring the story to life!

The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory

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This is the fourth book in Philippa Gregory’s Cousins’ War series which looks at the Wars of the Roses (the series of conflicts in the 15th century between the House of York and the House of Lancaster) from a female perspective. The others in the series are The White Queen, the story of Edward IV’s wife Elizabeth Woodville, The Red Queen, which follows Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, and The Lady of the Rivers, the story of Elizabeth Woodville’s mother, Jacquetta. This one, The Kingmaker’s Daughter, focuses on the life of Anne Neville.

Anne is the daughter of the powerful nobleman Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker for the part he played in putting Edward IV on the throne in place of Henry VI. When Edward marries the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville despite Warwick’s attempts to negotiate a marriage for him in France, Warwick changes allegiance and rebels against the King he had once helped raise to power.

Warwick has no male heirs, but he does have two daughters, Isabel and Anne, and is determined to make one of them Queen of England. Anne, our narrator, is only eight years old at the beginning of the book but soon both she and her sister become caught up in their father’s political machinations. Isabel is married to Edward IV’s brother George and Anne to Henry VI’s son, Edward of Lancaster. But after Warwick’s rebellion fails and Anne finds herself widowed, she marries again – this time to the Duke of Gloucester, the man who will become Richard III.

I’m sorry if I’ve made this sound very confusing, but it was a confusing period of history and Philippa Gregory does a good job of presenting the information in a way that is easy for the reader to follow and understand even if you’ve never read about the period before. Although this is the fourth in the series, these books could be read in any order and all four also work as standalone novels as Gregory does not assume that the reader has any knowledge of events that happened in the previous books. However, reading the whole series helps to build up a full and well-balanced picture of the period. I love the way the books overlap, showing us some of the same events but from different perspectives. This book, for example, seen through Anne Neville’s eyes, is extremely biased against Elizabeth Woodville and her family, the Rivers – but if you also read The White Queen you get Elizabeth’s point of view which is obviously very different!

Like The White Queen and The Lady of the Rivers, this book has strong themes of witchcraft and magic. Elizabeth Woodville and her mother Jacquetta were supposedly descended from the water goddess, Melusina, and Gregory suggests that they might have had magical powers. There’s a lot of focus on this in The Kingmaker’s Daughter, with Anne becoming more and more convinced that Elizabeth is using witchcraft to attack her family, to whistle up storms and put curses on people. This is one aspect of the series that just hasn’t been working for me; I feel that this period of history is already interesting enough without needing to bring in an element of fantasy.

Richard III is one of my favourite historical figures and I was happy enough with the way he is portrayed in this book. He’s not perfect, but he’s certainly not the villain of Shakespeare’s play either – he comes across as a loyal brother and husband and a good king who really cares about the future of his country. This book is also more sympathetic towards George, the Duke of Clarence, than any other novel I’ve read and it was refreshing to be shown the good sides of his character as well as the bad. The characterisation of Anne, though, was not quite what I would have expected or hoped for. In other books that I’ve read about her, she has been portrayed as quiet and gentle with a lot of inner strength and dignity, but this version of Anne doesn’t display much strength or courage, while being too ready to blame other people (usually Elizabeth Woodville) when things go wrong. But I did think the relationship between Anne and Isabel was handled well, showing how they were friends one minute, rivals the next – the ‘sisters’ aspect of the book reminded me of Mary and Anne Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl.

This was not my favourite of the Cousins’ War books but I’m enjoying the series and will look forward to the next instalment. Apparently the fifth book will be about Elizabeth of York, the sister of the Princes in the Tower and daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville.

I received a copy of this book from Simon & Schuster for review

The Conductor by Sarah Quigley

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It’s 1941 and Russia is now at war with Germany. As the Nazis surround Leningrad with the aim of starving the city into submission, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich begins work on his Seventh Symphony. While other important musicians are being evacuated, Shostakovich insists on remaining to help defend his city. To his wife, Nina, the real reason he doesn’t want to leave is because he doesn’t want to be disturbed while writing his symphony and it seems to her that he is putting his music before the welfare of his family.

During the siege, the government orders that the Seventh Symphony be performed to raise the morale of the Soviet troops at the front. Since the members of Leningrad’s famous Philharmonic Orchestra and their conductor Mravinsky have already been removed from the city, the job of performing the Seventh Symphony falls to another, less highly regarded conductor, Karl Eliasberg and the second-rate Radio Orchestra. Eliasberg finally has the chance to do something great, but it’s not going to be easy…of the musicians who have stayed in Leningrad through the long, cold Russian winter some of them are dead and the others barely have the strength to lift their instruments.

Alongside the stories of Shostakovich and Eliasberg is the story of a third man, Nikolai Nikolayev, and his beloved nine-year-old daughter, Sonya. Nikolai must make the heartbreaking decision of whether to risk sending Sonya out of Leningrad on her own while he stays behind to continue his work as violinist in the orchestra.

The Siege of Leningrad was surely one of the most horrific episodes of the Second World War. This book was maybe not quite as emotional as other novels I’ve read on the same subject (The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons, for example) but it was still very moving. The idea of people being so hungry they’re driven to boiling down leather briefcases for protein or mixing water and hair oil to make soup, while watching as their family and friends die one by one of starvation or cold, is horrible to think about. And yet the story is not too bleak or depressing because it’s not just about war and suffering – it’s also about the power of art and music and how something good can come from even the worst circumstances imaginable.

The characters Sarah Quigley has chosen to focus on in this novel are all interesting, three-dimensional people who each have their own set of problems and obstacles to overcome during the siege. My favourite was Karl Eliasberg, the conductor of the book’s title. Based on a real person but one who we don’t know much about, the author imagines him as a shy, awkward man with low self-esteem, desperate to have his talents recognised and to be accepted by the cultural elite. Shostakovich is his idol but every time he comes face to face with him he finds himself saying the wrong things and failing to give the impression he was hoping to give. Eliasberg’s character is so well-written and believable I felt I could really understand him and empathise with him.

Despite Shostakovich being one of the central characters and the story revolving around one of his compositions, you don’t need any knowledge of classical music to enjoy this novel. However, I would highly recommend listening to the Seventh Symphony after finishing the book – it’s definitely worth it and it really adds to the reading experience. I loved this book and I have a feeling that when I make my list of favourite books of the year in December this might be one of them.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

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The problem with reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the 21st century is that most of us probably already know what the story involves. Even without having read it or seen any of the film versions, everyone knows what is meant by a ‘Jekyll and Hyde personality’. And this completely takes away the suspense and air of mystery that the story relies on so heavily. I’m sure the original Victorian readership would have found the connection between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde much more shocking! So is there still any point in reading it? Yes, I thought there was, because although I knew what the ultimate revelation would be, I didn’t know all the details of the plot or how the conclusion would be reached.

We first see Dr Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde through the eyes of Jekyll’s friend and lawyer, Mr Utterson, who becomes concerned when he discovers that Jekyll has made a new will leaving everything to Mr Hyde. All Mr Utterson knows about Hyde is that he’s a sinister and brutal man responsible for some cruel and unprovoked acts of violence. The first half of the book follows the lawyer’s attempts to learn more about Hyde and his relationship with Jekyll. It’s only as we approach the end of the story that we hear from Dr Jekyll himself, in the form of a letter addressed to Mr Utterson, and the truth is finally revealed.

The story is cleverly structured so that if you had no idea what was coming, you would be kept wondering, knowing only as much as Mr Utterson knows, and it’s disappointing that for most modern readers the surprise has been spoiled. The part of the story I found the most interesting was the final chapter, after the secret has been uncovered and Jekyll gives his own explanation of what happened and his views on the good and the evil aspects of human nature. We can really feel his desperation as his own dark side grows stronger and things begin to spiral out of his control.

The edition I read contained just the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; other editions include a selection of other Stevenson short stories. Jekyll and Hyde on its own was only 88 pages long and if I’d realised how short it was I would have made time to read it earlier. This was one of my choices for RIP VII, and I would recommend it to other RIP participants who would like to read an important piece of classic Victorian fiction without committing to a full-length novel. I can’t say that I loved it and it’s not something I would want to read again, but I’m glad I’ve read it once and can see why it has become a part of popular culture.

Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett

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This is the third book in the House of Niccolò series, the first two being Niccolò Rising and The Spring of the Ram. The series is set in the 15th century and follows the adventures of Nicholas vander Poele as he travels throughout Renaissance Europe and beyond. By the time this third volume begins, Nicholas’s spectacular rise from dyer’s apprentice to head of a successful trading company, bank and mercenary army has not gone unnoticed and has brought him to the attention of various people who are hoping to use his skills for their own purposes.

In Race of Scorpions Nicholas finds himself kidnapped and taken to Cyprus, an island torn apart by civil war. Cyprus is in a strategically important location and has become the centre of power struggles between various groups including Christians and Muslims, Genoese and Venetian merchants, Egyptian Mamelukes, Portuguese traders, the Pope, the Sultan, the Knights of the Order of St John – and the two Lusignan siblings who are fighting for the crown. Both of the claimants to the throne, Queen Carlotta and her half-brother James de Lusignan (known as Zacco), are determined to recruit Nicholas and his army to their side and are prepared to use any means possible to do so. Nicholas must choose which of them, if either, to support in their battle to gain control of Cyprus, but as well as being drawn into the conflict between Carlotta and Zacco, Nicholas faces some problems of a more personal nature when he is reacquainted with Katelina van Borselen, who we first met in Niccolò Rising.

Many of the characters we have been getting to know over the previous two books are here again – including Tobie, Loppe, Astorre and John le Grant – and we are also introduced to some new ones. A lot of the other characters in the book are real historical figures and one of the most fascinating, I thought, was Zacco’s mother Marietta (known as Cropnose after her nose was bitten off by her rival). Nicholas also meets his young cousin Diniz Vasquez for the first time, contends with a new villain in the form of the Mameluke emir, Tzani-bey al-Ablak, and tries to unravel the complex motives of Primaflora, a beautiful courtesan who is working for Queen Carlotta…or is she really working for Zacco?

Luckily, with his talent for solving puzzles and coming up with labyrinthine plots and schemes, Nicholas is adept at getting out of the difficult situations he finds himself in and although his plans don’t always work out exactly as he wanted them to, he usually manages to stay at least one step ahead of everyone else, including the reader – or this reader at least, and I don’t mind admitting that! But despite not quite understanding everything that is happening or being said, I still loved this book. It also features one of the best scenes in the series so far, certainly one of the most eerie and atmospheric. I’ll never be able to see a moth again without thinking of it!

I loved the setting too – I haven’t been to either Cyprus or Rhodes (Dorothy Dunnett’s books always make me aware of how little of the world I’ve actually seen) but as usual every location is described so thoroughly I can form a vivid picture of them without ever having been there. And not only have I never visited these countries, I know almost nothing about their histories either so it was good to have an opportunity to learn about the Cyprus civil war – a fascinating piece of 15th century history I’d never read anything at all about before.

However, I wouldn’t recommend reading Race of Scorpions unless you’ve read the previous two novels in the series first. These books are complicated enough as it is without reading them out of order and you would also miss watching the development of Nicholas’s character over the course of the series. I really enjoyed this one, and luckily for me I still have five more House of Niccolò books to read. Scales of Gold is next!

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

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The Dog Stars is a post-apocalyptic novel set nine years after life on earth was almost entirely wiped out by a flu-like illness. Among the few survivors is Hig, a pilot from Colorado who lost his beloved wife Melissa to the disease and has been left alone with his dog Jasper and his Cessna plane. He spends a lot of his time flying over the mountains surveying the area and searching for food for himself and his nearest neighbour, Bangley, a tough, aggressive man who is obsessed with guns and killing.

Under normal circumstances, Hig and Bangley would have had little in common, but to survive in this new world they have decided to work together to protect the abandoned airport compound they both call home. Then one day Hig hears a voice on his radio and is intrigued. He wants to find out who else might be out there, but there’s one big problem – if he flies too far he might not have enough fuel to get back…

I have read very few novels in this genre so The Dog Stars was not the type of book I would normally choose to read and at first I didn’t think I was going to like it, especially when I discovered it was written in an unusual, disjointed, almost stream-of-consciousness style. I expected to pick up the book, read a few pages then put it down again – so I was surprised to find how completely I was drawn into Hig’s world and although I didn’t love the book it was certainly an interesting experience.

The writing style is very different and it took me a while to get used to it. The sentences are short and often incomplete and don’t seem to follow the normal rules of grammar or punctuation. I usually hate this kind of experimental writing and often I can’t see any reason for it, but with this book it did seem to suit the story and I think I do understand why the author chose to write it in this way. I can accept that a man spending most of his time alone with only his dog for company, rarely interacting with other humans, may eventually begin to think differently; another possibility is that Hig’s command of language has been affected by the illness he suffered from (and was lucky enough to recover from, unlike most of the population). Either way, Hig’s story probably wouldn’t have been nearly as effective or memorable if it had been written in normal prose. However, it did make the book much more challenging to read than it would otherwise have been!

I found it depressing that almost all of the other characters who appear in the book are so mindlessly brutal and violent. If you’re living in isolation and come across another survivor, why not talk to them and see if you can help each other, instead of immediately attacking them or stealing from them without even trying to make contact first? I realise that people were competing for dwindling resources and worried about running out of food, but it was hard for me to understand their behaviour. It could be realistic, I suppose, but it seemed such a sad and pessimistic outlook. That’s why I liked Hig, who even in this lonely, desolate world manages to retain some of his compassion and humanity. He kills when he needs to in order to protect himself or when he is threatened by intruders, but he doesn’t take the pleasure in it that Bangley does. He also pays regular visits to some families of Mennonites nearby who have become infected with the disease, and takes them food and supplies.

We are only given brief descriptions of how the flu and the blood disease that followed led to the destruction of most of the world’s population – I would have liked to have learned more about what happened, but that was not the focus of the novel. Instead this is a story about people trying to survive in the wilderness that remains. And in the end, the novel does take a more positive, optimistic view and leaves us feeling more confident that there might still be hope for the human race.

The Dog Stars has been compared to The Road by Cormac McCarthy which I haven’t read so can’t comment on how similar or different they are. With my very limited knowledge of dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction I would recommend that fans of the genre give this one a try, but I think it was a bit too far out of my comfort zone for me!

I received a copy of The Dog Stars from Headline for review