The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells

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After reading my first H.G. Wells book, Ann Veronica, in March I mentioned that I now felt ready to try one of his science fiction books. The Island of Doctor Moreau is the one I chose to read, and it certainly couldn’t be more different from Ann Veronica!

The story is narrated by Edward Prendick who, having been shipwrecked, is rescued by the crew of the Ipecacuanha. Whilst on board, he becomes acquainted with one of the other passengers, the mysterious Montgomery, who is transporting a cargo of wild animals home to the island where he lives. When the drunken captain of the Ipecacuanha attempts to have Prendick thrown overboard, Montgomery takes pity on him and invites him to accompany him to the island. Here Prendick meets the famous vivisectionist Doctor Moreau, who is carrying out some secret experiments on animals – and as the true horrors of Moreau’s island are revealed, Prendick begins to realise that his own life could be in danger.

I’ve never been a fan of science fiction and wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The opening chapters were a bit slow, but things became much more interesting when Prendick arrived on the island and after that the pages flew by.

I didn’t think the story was frightening, although I did feel a growing sense of disgust and repulsion. Some of Moreau’s nightmarish creations were truly horrible to read about. Whatever your personal views on animal testing may be, the way Wells describes the unnecessary pain and suffering Moreau inflicts on his animals is very sad and disturbing. Like Frankenstein and more recently, Jurassic Park, The Island of Doctor Moreau can be seen as a warning of the negative effects of science and the dangers of ‘playing God’. When this book was published in 1896, the kind of technology Wells described only really existed in fiction. But during the 20th and 21st centuries the advances scientists have made in areas such as genetic engineering and cloning mean that Wells’ ideas are no longer so far-fetched. And that’s what really is frightening!

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale

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One night in June 1860 a little boy called Saville Kent was murdered at his home in the village of Road, Wiltshire. As it seemed certain that nobody had entered the house from outside, suspicion fell on the Kent family and their servants. When the local police proved to be incompetent, the Home Secretary requested that Scotland Yard send Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher to assist them with the investigation. In The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Kate Summerscale tells the full story of the case and how it affected Whicher’s career.

This is a non-fiction book based on a true story. Considering the book combines two of my favourite things in literature – mysteries and the Victorians – you won’t be suprised to hear that I thought it was completely fascinating! And although I regretted not reading it sooner (it was first published in 2008), my timing actually couldn’t have been better. Just after finishing the book I discovered that it had been adapted for television, so the story was still fresh in my mind when I sat down to watch it on ITV1 last night (Monday 25th April). I enjoyed the TV adaptation but I’m glad I managed to read the book first.

I appreciated the fact that Summerscale was careful not to give away the solution to the mystery too early in the book, which meant the reader had a chance to study the clues and try to solve the mystery along with Whicher. It was interesting too to see how the vocabulary used in detective work has developed over the years, such as the origins of the word ‘clue’.

Summerscale also explains how during the 19th century people began to place a greater importance on the privacy and security of their homes than they had in the past. Thus a case like the Road Hill one was even more shocking in that it had taken place behind locked doors. The sanctity of the home had been violated and it seemed that the murderer was almost certainly one of the household. This must have made people all over the country afraid that the same thing could happen in their own family home. And with the multitude of new national and local newspapers that had appeared in recent years, detailed reports of this and other horrific crimes could be brought to an even wider audience. This, of course, allowed the public to become ‘armchair detectives’ and come up with their own theories as to what really happened.

The murder at Road Hill House captured the imagination of the British public and inspired a number of fictional detective stories such as The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, which I read a few years ago. The character of Sergeant Cuff in The Moonstone is thought to be based on Whicher and I can also now see how Collins incorporated some other elements of the Road Hill investigation into his story – the importance which is placed on checking the family’s laundry, for example. I really need to re-read The Moonstone soon because I’m sure that knowing some of the background behind it will help me to get more out of it!

Have you read The Suspicions of Mr Whicher? Are there any other true crime stories that you’ve enjoyed reading?

The Lost Book of Salem by Katherine Howe

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Note: This book was also published under the title The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.

This book got a lot of attention when it was first published a couple of years ago and I couldn’t wait to read it as I thought it sounded like something I would really enjoy. But after seeing quite a few negative reviews I wasn’t so sure and decided that maybe I wasn’t in such a hurry to read it after all. I finally picked it up in the library last month and thought I’d give it a try.

The Lost Book of Salem (I’m not sure why it was necessary to change the title) is a dual time-frame novel, with part of the story set during the Salem witch trials in the 17th century and the rest of the story taking place in 1991. The modern day storyline follows Connie Goodwin, a history graduate who is attempting to track down a spell book belonging to Deliverance Dane, one of the Salem women accused of witchcraft in 1692. Connie believes the book has been passed down through the generations and could still be in existence. Through a number of flashbacks we meet Deliverance Dane herself and some interesting questions begin to arise: could she really be a witch – and does magic really exist?

I wish I could say I had enjoyed this book, but I didn’t. I had trouble with Katherine Howe’s writing style, which was overly descriptive and made the story drag in places. I also found the plot too predictable – it was interesting enough to keep me turning the pages, but there were no real surprises.

As the main character, I found Connie very irritating. Considering she was a PhD student and supposedly an expert in colonial American history she was very slow to pick up on clues that were obvious even to me. She didn’t appear to have much knowledge of the period she was studying either – I’d have thought she would have known that ‘receipt’ used to mean ‘recipe’, for example, and she seemed to be mystified by the word ‘bottel’ before it finally dawned on her that it was just the phonetic spelling for ‘bottle’. Deliverance Dane was a more interesting character and I would have preferred to have spent longer in the 17th century, rather than just the brief interludes that we were given.

There were still a lot of things to like about this book, though. The historical sections were atmospheric and appeared to have been well-researched. And for anyone with an interest in the Salem witches, the book goes into a lot of detail about the trials and the events that lead up to them. So, although I was disappointed by it, I’m sure other people would enjoy it more than I did.

Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch

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When young Jaffy Brown comes face to face with an escaped tiger in the streets of London, it leads to him being offered a job with Mr Jamrach, a dealer in wild animals. For the next few years Jaffy works at Jamrach’s menagerie, helping to take care of the animals – until one day he gets the chance to go to sea in search of a very special creature…

This novel, the first I’ve read by Carol Birch, grabbed me from the very first page. It was everything I love in a book: historical fiction set in the Victorian period with a fast-paced plot and quirky, interesting characters. When a few chapters into the novel Jaffy set off on his voyage and it became clear that most of the book was going to take place at sea I was slightly worried as I often find seafaring stories boring – but not this time! I was pleased to find that I enjoyed reading about Jaffy’s adventures on board the Lysander, visiting distant lands and battling against storms, starvation and superstition as much as I enjoyed the chapters set in working-class 19th century London.

From tigers and whales to exotic birds and giant reptiles we encounter a large number of animals, both at Jamrach’s London menagerie and in their natural habitat (and be warned that Birch doesn’t shy away from describing the cruel ways in which these creatures were treated in the 19th century). But more importantly, we learn a lot about human nature, about friendship, love and loyalty. Jaffy, as our narrator, is the character around whom all the others revolve including Ishbel, the girl he loves; Tim, his childhood friend and rival; and Dan Rymer, the older sailor who becomes a father figure to the boys.

Birch’s writing is atmospheric and descriptive, giving the story an almost supernatural, mystical feel at times. And although there were a few occasions where I thought the plot suffered slightly from taking second place to the detailed descriptions, for the most part I found the book completely gripping. A good old-fashioned adventure story and a very enjoyable and entertaining read!

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

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Ethan Frome is married to Zeena, a woman he doesn’t love. Trapped in his unhappy marriage, Ethan has no joy in his life and no hope for the future. One day Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver, comes to stay with the Fromes. Mattie is everything Zeena isn’t – warm and loving and pretty – and soon she and Ethan begin to fall in love.

Ethan Frome is a short book with a simple but very effective plot, so for those of you who haven’t read it yet, I don’t want to go into any more detail about it and risk spoiling the story for you. But although this is not a particularly complex story, it is a powerful and memorable one.

The tone of the book is very bleak, filled with foreboding and a hint of tragedy to come. The only characters explored in any depth are the three main ones (Ethan, Zeena and Mattie) but all three are realistic, believable people. Ethan and Mattie’s relationship felt real and natural, and I wanted them to find happiness together. Zeena, as seen through Ethan’s eyes, was portrayed as such an unpleasant person I found it difficult to have much sympathy for her, but it was clear that she was also stuck in a desperately sad situation.

The most striking thing about this book, for me, was the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere Wharton created, making the reader feel locked within Ethan’s miserable world. The town of Starkfield, Massachusetts is as stark as its name suggests; the descriptions of the snow, the ice and the cold all contribute to the heavy feeling of oppression which hangs over the entire book. The wintry landscapes are so vivid I wished I’d saved this book to read on a snowy day, as I think it would have made a perfect seasonal read! As well as the winter imagery, I also loved the way the book ended. I thought it was obvious what was going to happen but I was wrong; there was a twist at the end that gave the story an unexpected conclusion.

This is the first book I’ve read by Edith Wharton and although I did like it, it hasn’t become an instant favourite. I can definitely understand why people love it, but it didn’t affect me emotionally as much as I had expected it to. I don’t know why not because it was certainly a tragic story, so maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. Overall, my first experience of Wharton’s work was a good one, but I think I’ll have to try another of her books before I can decide if she’s my type of author or not – any suggestions as to which one I should read next?

Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson

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This is the book that I received for Christmas from my Persephone Secret Santa, Margaret of Ten Thousand Places. Choosing a book for another person is never easy, but of all the titles published by Persephone Margaret managed to select one that was perfect for me. Thank you, Margaret!

Alas, Poor Lady tells the story of one London family, the Scrimgeours, over a period of more than sixty years, from the Victorian era through to the 1930s. Captain and Mrs Scrimgeour have eight children – seven are girls and only one, the youngest, is a boy – and we get to know all of them, some better than others. We watch as they grow up and try to find their place in society – a society designed to cater only for men and, to a lesser extent, for married women. For a woman who stayed single (whether by choice or not) her options in life were very limited.

Three of the Scrimgeour girls marry and leave home early in the story, though they do reappear from time to time. Of the other four, Mary is the eldest sister still living at home and is portrayed as the stereotypical ‘spinster’, a quiet, sensible woman who can usually be found reading a book and who has never really been expected to get married. Agatha decides to follow a different route after it starts to look likely that she, like Mary, is also going to remain single – but will this really lead to happiness? What Queenie really wants is to get a job, but after considering several possible career paths is forced to come to a disappointing conclusion. And finally there’s Grace, the youngest sister, who through no fault of her own finds herself facing poverty and in the uncomfortable position of becoming a burden to her family.

Although the focus of the book is on the seven girls, it’s interesting to see how their brother, Charlie, is also under pressure to conform to society’s expectations of how a boy should behave. In some ways, he doesn’t really have any more freedom to be himself than his sisters do. His father is furious with him when he discovers him playing with Grace’s doll, for example, instead of his own toy soldiers.

Another thing I liked was the amount of information we are given on everyday life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the Captain keeps insisting he’s ‘not a rich man’ and worrying about money, the Scrimgeours are evidently a very wealthy family with a large house and servants. It was interesting to see how their way of life changed over the years as a result of poor financial decisions and changing economics.

I loved this book but I know it won’t appeal to everyone. It’s slow and detailed, doesn’t have a lot of plot, and it did seem to take me a long time to read it. And yet without anything really ‘happening’ there’s still so much going on in this book that this post could easily have been twice as long as it is.

So, for anyone with an interest in feminism and the differing roles of men and women in society, I can’t recommend Alas, Poor Lady highly enough. Although my favourite Persephone so far is still Little Boy Lost (largely due to the emotional impact it had on me) this one is now a close second.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

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As I’ve mentioned before, I always find it difficult to write about a book that so many people have already read. I feel as if there’s nothing new I could possibly say and that nobody will want to hear about it yet again anyway (which I know is not true – there is no book that absolutely everybody in the world has read, however much it sometimes seems that way). But at least I’ve read The Help now and can see why it’s been getting so much attention. And I have to agree with all the bloggers who’ve been giving this book such glowing reviews because it really does deserve it.

The Help is told in the form of alternating narratives by three women living in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. Two of them, Aibileen and Minny, are black women working as maids, or ‘helps’, for white families. The third is Eugenia Phelan, nicknamed Skeeter because she’s ‘long and leggy and mosquito-thin’. In contrast to the first two narrators, Skeeter is a white woman from a rich family. Skeeter dreams of becoming a writer and convinces Aibileen and Minny to help her write a book throwing new light on the life of a black maid in Jackson.

I loved all three of the narrators, who were each given very different and distinctive voices of their own. I thought it was impressive that Stockett could write so convincingly from the perspectives of three such different people. The intelligent, dignified Aibileen was a lovely, engaging narrator and probably my favourite. But Minny was an equally captivating character – she was outspoken and funny and in some ways felt the most real. I liked Skeeter too but found that she didn’t come to life for me as vividly as the other two. I found it hard to believe that she hadn’t noticed how cruel and prejudiced her best friends were until she reached the age of twenty two (and also hard to believe that she would have been friends with people like them in the first place).

The Help is a powerful and thought-provoking read which raises a number of issues relating to various aspects of racial discrimination, segregation and the Civil Rights Movement, though I’m happy to leave it to people with more knowledge of these subjects to discuss them in the depth they deserve. Judging it purely on its merits as a novel, this was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year. I was alternately enraged by the prejudice and injustice the black maids were forced to endure, amused by the antics of Minny and the other characters, intrigued by the well-meaning but very eccentric Celia Foote, and filled with loathing for Hilly Holbrook, one of the vilest characters ever!