Tag: 18th century

Review: The Monk by Matthew Lewis

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The Monk, published in 1796, is an early gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, which completely dispels the notion that classics are dull and boring! While I wouldn’t say this was an easy read (due to the 18th century writing style and language you do need to concentrate) it was a real pageturner. I actually started to write this review when I was only halfway through the book and I was going to say that although I was enjoying it, I didn’t think it was a great book. Then, as I continued to read, I changed my mind. It is a great book and the best gothic novel I’ve read so far!

The book cover shown above is the Penguin Classics edition of the book. However, my copy of this novel is actually part of a four books-in-one anthology called Four Gothic Novels, which also includes The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, Vathek by William Beckford and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I’ve been reading the novels in the order that they appear in the book, but The Monk was the one that I had really been looking forward to reading.

The novel is set in a monastery in Spain, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. The plot is very complex, but basically there are three main storylines.

The first storyline revolves around Ambrosio, the Monk of the title, who is highly respected within the monastery and attracts large crowds to his sermons. Ambrosio is regarded almost as a saint yet when a beautiful young woman called Matilda tries to seduce him, he is tempted into breaking his vows. After succumbing to this first temptation, Ambrosio goes on to commit one crime after another, each worse than the one before.

We are also given a long account of the adventures of the young Marquis de las Cisternas. When the Marquis rescues a baroness from a gang of bandits, he is invited to accompany her to the Castle Lindenberg in Germany where he meets and falls in love with her niece, Agnes – and learns the legend of the Bleeding Nun. Finally we follow a friend of the Marquis, Lorenzo de Medina, who also happens to be the brother of Agnes. When a young girl from Murcia named Antonia arrives in Madrid, she and Lorenzo fall in love – but things don’t go smoothly for the pair and Antonia soon finds herself in serious danger.

At first it seemed that Agnes and Antonia’s storylines were unrelated to the Ambrosio and Matilda plot, but I soon began to see how cleverly Lewis was weaving the threads of the story together. Ambrosio is a complex character and his downfall was fascinating to read about. Some of my favourite passages were those which gave us an insight into the different facets of his personality.

He pronounced the most severe sentences upon Offenders, which, the moment after, Compassion induced him to mitigate: He undertook the most daring enterprizes, which the fear of their consequences soon obliged him to abandon: His inborn genius darted a brilliant light upon subjects the most obscure; and almost instantaneously his Superstition replunged them in darkness more profound than that from which they had just been rescued…The fact was, that the different sentiments with which Education and Nature had inspired him were combating in his bosom: It remained for his passions, which as yet no opportunity had called into play, to decide the victory.

Some parts of the book are quite gruesome and disturbing, and the passages which describe the sufferings of Agnes and Antonia are horrifying. I thought the final chapter of the book was stunning. There were several different ways the story could have ended, but the ending Lewis chose was absolutely perfect.

This book has almost every element of the gothic novel that you can think of: ghostly apparitions, haunted castles, ancient monasteries, bad weather, fortune telling gypsies, an evil prioress, dark dungeons and shadowy crypts, witchcraft, magic and pacts with the devil. It’s also very daring for the 18th century; with themes of murder, rape, incest, violence and torture, I can see exactly why it was so controversial in its day.

So don’t let the fact that the book was written in the 1700s prevent you from picking it up!

Recommended

If you enjoy this book you might also like The Italian by Ann Radcliffe which I read a few years ago. It’s very similar to this one in both the setting and the atmosphere (and anyone who was put off Radcliffe by the long scenic descriptions in The Mysteries of Udolpho will be pleased to know there are a lot less of those in The Italian).

Review: Vathek by William Beckford

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This is my first book for the RIP V challenge and one of the strangest novels I have ever read! It’s the story of Vathek, ninth Caliph of the race of the Abassides, and his temptation by a supernatural being (known as ‘the Giaour’), who promises to bestow on him the treasures and talismans of the ‘palace of subterranean fire’. Encouraged by his ambitious mother, the sorceress Carathis, Vathek embarks on a journey through exotic landscapes and begins a descent into hell.

Although William Beckford was English, Vathek was originally written in French and translated into English by Reverend Samuel Henley in 1786. The best way I can describe Vathek is that it’s a sort of dark, twisted fairy tale reminiscent of The Arabian Nights. Beckford mixes eastern mythology and Islamic culture with elements of the gothic novel (ghouls, spirits, graveyards, an atmosphere of evil) and throws in some magic, fantasy and romance for good measure. There are some long and poetic descriptive passages which become quite surreal and dreamlike in places.

Bababalouk had pitched the tents, and closed up the extremities of the valley with magnificent screens of India cloth, which were guarded by Ethiopian slaves with their drawn sabres; to preserve the verdure of this beautiful enclosure in its natural freshness, the white eunuchs went continually round it with their red water-vessels. The waving of fans was heard near the imperial pavilion, where, by the voluptuous light that glowed through the muslins, the Caliph enjoyed at full view all the attractions of Nouronihar.

The book is short in length but it’s not a quick, easy read. The entire story is told in one big chunk, rather than being broken into chapters, which made it seem quite daunting. If it had been any longer I probably wouldn’t have finished it because although the beginning and the ending were great, I started to lose interest during the middle section.

The characters are two-dimensional and impossible to like. At the beginning of the book, Vathek is popular with his subjects as he is fond of the pleasures of life and rarely becomes angry (although when he does lose his temper, one of his eyes becomes ‘so terrible that no person could bear to behold it, and the wretch upon whom it was fixed instantly fell backward, and sometimes expired’). After the Giaour arrives in his kingdom and begins to tempt him with stories of the palace of subterranean fire, however, Vathek becomes a cruel and greedy ruler. One of the conditions the Giaour imposes on him in return for admitting him into the subterranean palace is that he must renounce Islam and perform a series of atrocious crimes. Vathek never shows any remorse for his actions and I found him completely undeserving of any sympathy from the first page of this book to the last. His mother, Carathis, is even worse…

“…by my formidable art the clouds shall sleet hailstones in the faces of the assailants, and shafts of red-hot iron on their heads; I will spring mines of serpents and torpedos from beneath them, and we shall soon see the stand they will make against such an explosion!”

Vathek is completely bizarre and probably a book that you’ll either love or hate. It’s worth reading if you’re interested in the origins of gothic literature, fantasy or horror – and it apparently influenced both Byron and H.P. Lovecraft, among others. If you don’t take this book too seriously, it’s quite entertaining.

Review: The Time of Terror by Seth Hunter

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In The Time of Terror, Seth Hunter introduces us to a new naval hero in the style of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower.  Nathan Peake is a commander in the British Navy who spends his days chasing smugglers along the English coastline.  This is not really Nathan’s idea of fun and he longs to have some real adventures.  He gets his chance in the year 1793 when, with England and France at war, he is asked to run the blockade in the English Channel and deliver some important documents to the American minister in Paris.  Unknown to Nathan, however, his ship is carrying a cargo of counterfeit banknotes – putting his life in serious danger!

Although it’s not necessary to be an expert on French history to understand this story, you will get more out of it if you have some prior knowledge of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.  So if names such as Georges Danton and Robespierre mean nothing to you, it might be a good idea to do some research before beginning the book.

Readers who enjoy historical fiction novels that focus on real historical figures will be pleased to know that throughout the pages of The Time of Terror you’ll meet the author and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, the American agent (and Mary’s lover) Gilbert Imlay, the revolutionary writer Thomas Paine and many more – so many, in fact, that I began to feel Hunter was just trying to drop as many famous names as possible into the story, regardless of whether they were necessary.  The sheer amount of historical detail in this novel was slightly overwhelming, though usually interesting.  There were dinner parties with Camille Desmoulins and Lucile Duplessis, visits to the waxworks (including a brief appearance by the young Madame Tussaud) and vivid descriptions of the guillotine.  However, other parts of the story that interested me were barely touched on.  The romantic storyline, for example, is very weak, and I would also have liked to have seen more of Nathan’s American feminist mother who had the potential to be a fascinating character.

If you’re concerned that there’ll be a lot of unfamiliar nautical terms and difficult-to-understand naval battles you’ll be right to some extent, but the story can still be followed even if you find yourself confused or bored by the seafaring aspects.  The sea battle scenes, although very well written, actually contribute very little to the plot and the book would have worked better as a more conventional historical fiction novel in my opinion.  However, there was probably too much land-based action to satisfy fans of nautical fiction so I think the book suffered from not really knowing what it wanted to be or what kind of reader it was aimed at.

This book is the first in a trilogy.  In the second Nathan Peake book, The Tide of War, the action moves to the Caribbean and in the third, The Price of Glory, Nathan will meet Napoleon Bonaparte.  Although I did find this book entertaining and interesting, I’m undecided as to whether I want to invest the time in following Nathan’s story to its conclusion.

Genre: Historical Fiction/Year: 2010/Publisher: McBooks Press/Pages: 391/Source: Won copy from LibraryThing

Review: The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer

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This is only the second Georgette Heyer book I’ve read and it was very different to my first, The Talisman Ring, in setting, language and plot. The Masqueraders is set just after the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and follows the adventures of Prudence and her brother Robin. Along with their father (referred to by his children as ‘the old gentleman’) Robin had been involved in the failed Jacobite rebellion and is now in danger of being hanged. To prevent him being captured, the brother and sister have created new roles for themselves – Robin has disguised himself as the beautiful ‘Miss Merriot’ and Prudence has become the handsome young ‘Peter’. All very Shakespearean! Not surprisingly, this leads to a number of misunderstandings and narrow escapes.

Things get even more interesting when Prudence, still posing as Peter Merriot, begins to fall in love with Sir Anthony Fanshawe – and then ‘the old gentleman’ arrives on the scene, claiming to be the lost heir to the Barham fortune.

I found the story confusing and difficult to follow at first. I spent several chapters trying to work out exactly why Prudence and Robin had found it necessary to masquerade as people of the opposite sex and what they were hoping to achieve. It also took me a while to get used to the Georgian-style dialogue, with all the egads, alacks and other slang terms of the period.

Robin made a face at his sister.  “The creature must needs play the mother to me, madam.”
“Madam, behold my little mentor!” Prudence retorted.  “Give you my word I have my scoldings from him, and not the old gentleman.  ‘Tis a waspish tongue, egad.”

After a few chapters, however, various parts of the story started to fall into place and then I had no problem understanding what was happening. I ended up enjoying this book more than The Talisman Ring, which surprised me as a lot of people have said that The Talisman Ring is their favourite Heyer, so I wasn’t expecting this one to be as good. There were many things that made this book such a success for me. I thought the Georgian setting, with its powdered wigs, card games, sword fights and duels, was perfectly portrayed. The plot was full of twists and turns that kept my interest right to the end. And I loved the characters. The calm and cool-headed Prudence was the perfect balance for the more impetuous Robin – and both were fun and likeable. Watching Prudence’s relationship with Sir Anthony develop was one of my highlights of the book. Robin’s romance with Letty Grayson, who knew him only as a masked man known as the Black Domino, was equally well written.

Most of all, I loved the ‘old gentleman’. He was conceited, arrogant and a scheming rogue – but he was also hilarious and capable of coming up with such ingenious schemes that maybe his arrogance was justified.

“Have you limitations, my lord?” asked Sir Anthony.
My lord looked at him seriously. “I do not know,” he said, with a revealing simplicity. “I have never yet discovered them.”

Having enjoyed both of the Georgette Heyer books I’ve read so far, I think I’m starting to become a fan and will definitely look out for more of her books!

Highly Recommended

Genre: Historical Fiction/Pages: 320/Publisher: Arrow/Year: 2005 (originally published 1928)/Source: Library book

Review: The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale

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Agnes Trussel is a seventeen year old girl whose life is thrown into turmoil when she discovers she is pregnant and runs away to London to start a new life.  In London she is lucky enough to find employment as an assistant to the firework maker John Blacklock but as she desperately tries to hide her pregnancy from everyone around her, she starts to realise that she’s not the only one with secrets…

When I first heard about this book last year I was immediately interested in reading it but eventually decided to give it a miss – until I saw that it had been shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers.  Of course, being shortlisted for an award doesn’t guarantee that a book will be good, but it does usually mean that there will at least be something different or special about it that makes it worth reading.

Well, it was worth reading, but I did also have a few problems with the book – the first being that it’s written in the first person present tense.  There have been a few books written in the present tense that I’ve enjoyed, but usually I find it distracting – and that was the case here.  I also found it difficult to connect to any of the characters, even Agnes herself.  It wasn’t that they were badly drawn or uninteresting – Cornelius Soul the gunpowder seller, Mrs Blight the housekeeper and the mysterious Lettice Talbot wouldn’t be out of place in a Dickens novel – I just couldn’t engage with them or care about them very much.  When I read historical fiction I like to feel as if I’ve been transported back in time and as if I’m there experiencing things along with the characters.  Unfortunately I didn’t feel any of that with this book.

The plot itself was interesting enough.  I struggled with the opening chapters -which described the slaughter of a pig in an unnecessary amount of detail – but after that, when Agnes arrived in London I started to enjoy the story more.


Picture by Jon Sullivan in the public domain

The descriptions of firework making were fascinating.  It was particularly interesting to learn about the early experiments and research that would eventually lead to the discovery of coloured fireworks.

“You imagine colours vividly,” he says.
“I do, sir.” I reply. “It is…almost as though I feel them as a sense of touch or taste when I am looking.”
He looks up at me beside him. I am startled to see how his eyes are tight with excitement. A hope flares up in me.
“Have you attempted a blue, Mr Blacklock?” I whisper.

Despite the negative points I mentioned above, I kept on reading to the last page because I wanted to know how the story ended – and I was rewarded with a surprising ending that I hadn’t been expecting.  In fact, the final few chapters were great and made me glad I’d persevered with the book.

Would I recommend it?  I’m not sure – there are much better historical fiction novels out there in my opinion – but if it appeals to you then give it a try and see what you think.

Review: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

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When I first opened this book I was confronted by page after page of almost continuous text with virtually no paragraph breaks and no quotation marks or any way of marking when one person stops speaking and the next begins. This made it difficult to follow the dialogue but otherwise the story is easy enough to understand considering it was published in 1764.

Manfred, the Prince of Otranto, has arranged a marriage between his fifteen year old son Conrad and the princess Isabella. However, on the day of the wedding Conrad is found crushed to death in the courtyard beneath an enormous black feathered helmet which appears to have fallen from the sky. As his son is obviously now in no position to go ahead with the wedding, Manfred decides to marry Isabella himself, but Isabella has other ideas…cue a never-ending chain of misunderstandings, coincidences and mayhem.

The Castle of Otranto is historically important because it was the first gothic novel – complete with haunted castles, underground tunnels, damsels in distress, knights, ghosts and paintings that move – but don’t expect a piece of great literature. In places the plot is so ridiculous and the writing so melodramatic that it’s actually hilarious.

The Castle of Otranto is funny and entertaining – and very short – but I can’t imagine ever wanting to read it again. For a better introduction to gothic fiction I would recommend The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, which is a longer book but much better written.

Genre: Gothic Fiction/Pages: 176/Publisher: Oxford World’s Classics/Year: 1998 – originally published 1764/Source: My own copy bought new

18th and 19th Century Women Writers Reading Challenge

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I signed up for this challenge today. Here are the rules:

18th and 19th Women Writers Reading Challenge
Hosted by Becky of Becky’s Book Reviews
Minimum 2 books;
All of 2010

Read books written by women authors that were written and/or published between 1700 and 1900. Contemporary historical books set in this time period do not count towards this challenge! The challenge is to encourage you to read some classics.

Books read for this challenge (updated 8 April 2010 – I have now read enough books to satisfy the minimum requirements of the challenge)

1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
2. The Doctor’s Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon