Tag: 19th century

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan

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The Taste of Sorrow is a fictional retelling of the lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, beginning with their childhoods and ending just after Charlotte’s wedding. Before I started reading this book if you’d asked me how much I already knew about the Brontës, I would have said I knew very little. And yet a lot of the story felt familiar to me – their early attempts at writing stories set in the fantasy worlds of Angria and Gondal, their experiences of working as governesses, their brother Branwell’s alcoholism – so I must have known more than I thought.

Although The Taste of Sorrow does seem to stick to the historical facts as far as I could tell, it’s important to remember that this is a novel and not a biography. Jude Morgan brings the Brontë sisters to life by giving us insights into their feelings and emotions, their hopes and dreams. His fictional Brontës are realistic, complex and three-dimensional, and would have been interesting characters to read about even if they had not been based on real people. We can obviously never know exactly what thoughts would have gone through the minds of the real Charlotte, Emily and Anne, but I had no problem believing that they may really have said and done the things that Morgan has imagined them to have said and done. And that’s the highest praise I can give to an author writing this type of historical fiction.

The Taste of Sorrow, as the title suggests, is not the happiest of books. The Brontës had a lot of sorrow in their lives, beginning with the death of their mother and two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth. They also had to deal with the usual challenges and obstacles that came with being a woman in the 19th century. When Charlotte suggested that she would like to be an author she was discouraged by her father simply because she was female. Instead, Mr Brontë pinned all his hopes on his son, Branwell.

I had read very little about Branwell before I started this book, though I knew he had caused his family a lot of pain because of his drinking. I thought Morgan portrayed him quite sympathetically, attempting to show the pressures and disappointments that contributed to his downfall, and how his sisters struggled to reconcile their love for him with their despair in him. Although I couldn’t like Branwell, his character felt as real to me as the characters of Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

The book itself is very well written, although the style is unusual and takes a while to get used to, but the strong point of the book is the characterisation and each sister is shown as having her own distinct personality. Morgan does focus more on Charlotte than the other two, though I can see that as the sister who outlived the others it probably made sense to tell most of the story from her perspective. But my favourite Brontë book is Wuthering Heights (I love it even more than Jane Eyre, which I know puts me in a minority within the book blogging world) and for that reason, the sister I was most interesting in reading about was Emily. Although we don’t get to spend as much time with Emily as we do with Charlotte, I thought Morgan’s portrayal of her was excellent and I could easily believe that his Emily was the person who wrote Wuthering Heights.

I was also pleased to see that Morgan does give Anne a lot of attention and she is not shown as being in any way inferior or less important than her sisters. Personally I loved both of Anne’s books, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey, and I think it’s sad to see how often she is overlooked or dismissed.

The Taste of Sorrow will obviously be of particular interest to Brontë fans, but I think it would also be enjoyed by a wider audience as an interesting and compelling historical fiction novel in its own right. Now I just need to read the remaining two Brontë novels I still haven’t read: The Professor and Shirley.

Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola

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Thérèse is a young woman trapped in an unhappy marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille Raquin. On the surface she appears quiet and passive, never voicing an opinion of her own. But underneath Thérèse is a passionate person who longs to break away from her boring, oppressive existence. When Camille introduces her to an old friend, Laurent, the two begin an affair. Desperate to find a way in which they can be together, Thérèse and Laurent are driven to commit a terrible crime – a crime that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

If you think I’ve given too much away then I can tell you that this crime takes place quite early in the story and is not the climax of the book. The point of the story is what happens afterwards when Zola begins to explore the psychological effects this action has on the characters.

Thérèse Raquin, as you will have guessed, is a very dark book which becomes increasingly feverish and claustrophobic with scenes of violence and cruelty. I haven’t read much 19th century French literature, apart from a few books by Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, and one thing that struck me about Zola’s writing was how much more daring and graphic this book is than British novels from the same period. The reader becomes locked inside the tormented minds of Thérèse and Laurent, sharing their fear and terror, their nightmares and sleepless nights, their inability to enjoy being together because the horror of what they have done stands between them. If you’ve read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, there are some similarities here.

This book could be enjoyed just for the dramatic plot (it’s as tense and gripping as any modern thriller) but I also thought the four main characters – Thérèse, Laurent, Camille and Madame Raquin – were fascinating and very vividly drawn. Zola apparently said that his aim was to create characters with different temperaments and see how each of them reacted to the situation they were in.

As the first book I’ve read by Zola, I wasn’t sure what I could expect from Thérèse Raquin but I thought it was excellent and I’ll certainly be reading more of his books.

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

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Thomas Hardy really seems to be an author people either love or hate and Jude the Obscure must be the book that divides opinion more than any of his others. This is the third Hardy book I’ve read, the first two being Tess of the d’Urbervilles and A Pair of Blue Eyes and although this one didn’t have quite the same emotional impact on me that Tess did, I was still moved to tears in places.

Jude Fawley is eleven years old when he sees his schoolmaster, Mr Phillotson, leave the hamlet of Marygreen to go and study in the great city of Christminster. As a working-class boy it’s unlikely that Jude will ever be able to do the same. His only chance is to spend the next few years teaching himself Greek and Latin from books every night after going out to work through the day. Jude hopes that hard work, determination and a desire for knowledge will be enough to enable him to fulfil his dream of going to university in Christminster.

“It is a city of light,” he said to himself.

“The tree of knowledge grows there,” he added a few steps further on.

“It is a place that teachers of men spring from and go to.”

“It is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship and religion.”

After this figure he was silent a long while, till he added:

“It would just suit me.”

What makes this so sad is that we, as readers, can see almost from the beginning that Jude is going to be disappointed. The class system in Victorian England meant it was almost impossible for someone in Jude’s position to go to university. The hopelessness of his situation becomes clear when the head of one of the Christminster colleges advises him that as a working man he should ‘remain in his own sphere and stick to his trade’. Jude’s response is to write on the college wall with a piece of chalk: “_I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?_”–Job xii. 3. That scene was one of many that made my heart break for Jude.

But education is not the only problem Jude faces. Following a disastrous marriage to a pig farmer’s daughter, he falls in love with his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who has also been unhappily married. Disillusioned with marriage, Jude and Sue decide to live together without marrying, but this unconventional arrangement could have tragic consequences.

I can see why this book was so controversial at the time of its publication (1895) as there are a few aspects of the story that must have been quite shocking for Victorian readers, particularly the way it challenges the way we think about Christianity and marriage. Hardy places Jude and Sue into a situation which he could use to explore England’s marriage and divorce laws as well as the problems that faced two unmarried people living together and how they could (or couldn’t) reconcile this with their religious and moral beliefs.

All of this eventually leads to a devastating tragedy which takes place towards the end of the book – anyone who has read it will know what I’m referring to and for those of you who haven’t, I can tell you it’s one of the saddest scenes you’re ever likely to read. A couple of pages before it happened I guessed (knowing Hardy) what was going to occur and yet I still wasn’t really prepared for it. One of the reasons people give for not liking Hardy is that he’s too depressing and while I can’t deny that this book is relentlessly tragic and heartbreaking, I still felt compelled to keep reading, to find out what happened next, to see what further ordeals Jude would have to face.

I can’t recommend Jude the Obscure highly enough, unless you really just don’t like this type of book. Now I need to decide which of his books I should read next…

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

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I was lucky enough to win a copy of Gillespie and I through LibraryThing Early Reviewers but even if I had paid the full price for this book I would have considered it money well spent. I thought it was brilliant. It seems I’m one of the few people not to have read the first book by Jane Harris, The Observations, and I’m not sure how I managed to miss that one as it sounds like something I would love. I’ll certainly go back and read it now that Jane Harris has been brought to my attention.

But this post is about Gillespie and I. Or, I should say, Gillespie and Harriet Baxter. We first meet Harriet in 1933 as an elderly woman looking back on her life and promising to share with us her recollections of Ned Gillespie, a talented artist who was never able to fulfil his true potential. Harriet then proceeds to tell us the story of her acquaintance with the Gillespie family, whom she met in the 1880s during a trip to Scotland to visit the International Exhibition in Glasgow. She quickly becomes a friend of Ned, his wife Annie, and the other members of the family – but then disaster strikes and the lives of Harriet and the Gillespies are thrown into turmoil.

After a leisurely start, the story soon picked up pace and became very gripping. But as well as the compelling plot there were many other things that made this book such an enjoyable read. I connected immediately with Harriet’s sharp, witty and observant narrative voice. The other characters were vibrantly drawn, though the only one who never really came to life for me was Ned himself, which was the only disappointment in an otherwise excellent book. I also loved the setting. I’ve read many, many books set in Victorian London and it made a refreshing change to read one set in Victorian Glasgow instead.

Halfway through the story something happened that made me start to question everything I’d read up to that point – and even after I’d finished the book I still had questions. I was very impressed by how cleverly Jane Harris managed to control what I believed and didn’t believe at various points in the novel. I can’t really explain what I mean without spoiling the story but suffice to say there are some stunning plot twists that leave you wondering whether things are really as they seem – and this doesn’t happen just once, but several times throughout the second half of the book. At times it even felt like a Victorian sensation novel to me, which probably explains why I enjoyed it so much! Gillespie and I has been one of my favourite reads so far this year.

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

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I wanted so much to love this book. Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favourite books and although it has taken me a long time to get round to reading another Charlotte Bronte novel, I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, for a long time Villette just wasn’t working for me and I’m not really sure why not.

I actually read this book at the end of January and discovered too late that there was a readalong taking place in February/March. I wonder whether reading it along with other people would have helped, as there were times when I really started to lose the motivation to continue with the book. There was a point where I didn’t think I was going to be able to keep reading, but eventually things improved and I finally became immersed in the story. I ended up enjoying it, but sadly it was too late for this book to become another favourite.

Villette is the story of Lucy Snowe who, after an unspecified family tragedy, finds herself completely alone in the world. She travels to Europe on her own and starts a new life teaching English to the girls at Madame Beck’s school in the city of Villette.

I think part of my problem with the first half of the book was that it took me a long time to warm to Lucy Snowe. I didn’t like her at all at the beginning of the novel, but eventually I did begin to feel a lot more sympathetic towards her and this coincided with the point where I started to enjoy the story more. My perceptions of Lucy changed as I learned more about her and saw how badly other people treated her. She was so lonely and isolated and my heart broke for her at times. Despite her cold exterior, underneath she was a person who desperately needed love and friendship. It’s quite sad that she doesn’t make this observation until two thirds of the way through the book:

“I liked her. It is not a declaration I have often made concerning my acquaintance, in the course of this book: the reader will bear with it for once.”

Lucy is also quite secretive and often withholds important information from the reader. And throughout the early chapters, although Lucy is our narrator, we learn more about the people around her than we do about Lucy herself. She’s an intensely private person and doesn’t open up to the reader very often. But as I got to know Lucy better, I found a lot of things to admire about her – her independence, for example, and her bravery in leaving England and travelling to another country with no idea of where she would go once she got there.

There is a romantic aspect to the book, but it’s not the most passionate of romances and not love at first sight. I already knew who Lucy’s love interest was going to be because it told me on the back cover, but things developed so slowly and so subtly it might not have been immediately obvious to me otherwise. Because of this though, the relationship feels believable and real.

Apart from the length of time it took me to get into the book, there are a couple of other negative points I should mention. Firstly, I thought the racism and religious prejudice was excessive, even by the standards of Victorian literature. Lucy considers the girls at Mme Beck’s school to be inferior to English girls in every way, and she doesn’t like Catholics or the Irish much either. Also, a lot of the book is written in French. I do have a basic understanding of French and am fine with books incorporating a few French phrases but this one has whole paragraphs where I kept wondering if I was missing something crucial.

Although I did end up enjoying this book and could eventually appreciate the complexity of Lucy Snowe’s character, it still doesn’t come close to Jane Eyre in my opinion. However, I know a lot of people think Villette is the better of the two. If you’ve read them both, what do you think?

Group Read: The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell

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Having signed up for the Elizabeth Gaskell Reading Challenge I’m intending to read some of Gaskell’s full-length novels this year, but when I saw that Katherine of Gaskell Blog was hosting a group read of the novella, The Moorland Cottage, it seemed like a perfect way to start the challenge.

The Moorland Cottage is a short but very moving and emotional story. Mrs Browne and her children, Edward and Maggie, live with their elderly servant, Nancy, in a cottage near the town of Combehurst. It’s no secret that Edward is their mother’s favourite child but while she dotes on her son, she never has a kind word for her daughter. In a big house nearby live the wealthy Mr Buxton and his gentle, loving wife. There are also two children in the Buxton household: their son, Frank, and their niece, Erminia. The Buxtons attempt to befriend the Brownes, but while they can all see the goodness in Maggie, they find it difficult to like the spoilt, selfish Edward and the cold, snobbish Mrs Browne. As the years go by and the lives of the Brownes become more and more entwined with their neighbours’, Maggie is forced to make a decision which could potentially affect the future of both families.

The Moorland Cottage shows us the ways in which boys and girls were treated differently in Victorian society and I felt so sorry for Maggie. Throughout the first few chapters my heart was breaking for her as I saw how she was constantly pushed aside in favour of her brother. It was very, very sad to see the way, as a child, she meekly accepted her mother’s cruelty. For example, when Frank Buxton brings a pony for Maggie to ride, Mrs Browne decides “to spoil the enjoyment as far as possible, by looking and speaking in a cold manner, which often chilled Maggie’s little heart, and took all the zest out of the pleasure now”. How spiteful!

Maggie is also treated badly by Edward, and again, she allows him to do so, accepting that his needs are more important than her own. It’s not until she’s older and has spent more time in the company of the Buxtons and been exposed to other ideas that she starts to become aware of her brother’s faults. In the adult Edward, we see what happens to a child who is brought up always getting their own way and not being taught the difference between right and wrong.

I loved Gaskell’s descriptions of the Brownes’ home and the surrounding scenery throughout the changing seasons. Because the book was so short these descriptive passages had to be kept fairly brief which I thought made them even more effective.

The air on the heights was so still that nothing seemed to stir. Now and then a yellow leaf came floating down from the trees, detached from no outward violence, but only because its life had reached its full limit and then ceased. Looking down on the distant sheltered woods, they were gorgeous in orange and crimson, but their splendour was felt to be the sign of the decaying and dying year. Even without an inward sorrow, there was a grand solemnity in the season which impressed the mind, and hushed it into tranquil thought.

Finally, a few words on the group read itself: I thought this book was an excellent choice for a readalong. For such a short book it contains a wealth of interesting topics and issues. At only eleven chapters I could easily have read it in one day but I found that reading it slowly meant I had a better understanding of it and got more out of the story. And Katherine’s beautifully annotated chapter summaries were very useful and helped to bring the story to life. Visit Gaskell Blog to see them for yourself!

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

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Back in April I read my first Anthony Trollope book, The Warden, and enjoyed it so much I immediately bought a copy of Barchester Towers, the second Chronicle of Barsetshire, with the intention of going on to read the whole series. As it turned out though, other books seemed more tempting and poor Barchester Towers was pushed further and further down my tbr pile until The Classics Circuit’s Anthony Trollope Tour reminded me that it really deserved to be read as soon as possible!

Barchester Towers is set five years after the conclusion of The Warden. At the beginning of the story, the Bishop of Barchester dies, leaving a vacancy to be filled. It is expected that the Bishop’s son, Archdeacon Grantly, will take his place, but a change of government ruins his chances and newcomer Dr Proudie is appointed instead. When the new Bishop and his wife, the formidable Mrs Proudie, arrive in Barchester accompanied by their chaplain Mr Slope, Grantly becomes determined to prevent them from gaining too much power and changing the Barchester way of life.

This might not sound like a very exciting plot, and I have to admit it isn’t. Barchester Towers is a character-driven novel, and fortunately, the characterisation is excellent. Trollope’s characters are multi-faceted, complex and real; the villains are not completely evil and the heroes have their flaws. Archdeacon Grantly, for example, was portrayed quite negatively in the previous novel, but we see things more from his perspective in this book and I found that I was rooting for him against the Proudies and Slope.

Almost all of the characters are well-rounded and interesting. There’s the Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni, left crippled by her abusive Italian husband, who manages to get every man in Barchester to fall in love with her. There’s Miss Thorne, the local squire’s sister who lives in the past, dreaming of the days of knights and chivalry. And I was pleased to meet some old friends from The Warden, including my favourite characters, Mr Harding and his daughter Eleanor.

I’m not sure who I would recommend Trollope to. As far as comparisons to other Victorian authors go, I would say his style is a lot closer to George Eliot than Charles Dickens, for example. He tells his stories at a gentle, leisurely pace with some subtle humour, witty observations, and clever insights into human nature. He has a habit of talking directly to the reader and never lets us forget that we’re reading a novel, but rather than being annoying or disruptive, this style gives his writing the warm, conversational feel that I love. If you prefer stories with a lot of suspense and tension, though, you’ll be disappointed because Trollope keeps telling us in advance what is and is not going to happen, which has the effect of building an intimate and trusting relationship between the author and the reader. But even though it may seem quite obvious what the outcome of the book is going to be, the fun is in seeing how the outcome is reached.

Much as I love Trollope though, I can see that he won’t appeal to everyone – the gentle pace that I mentioned, in addition to the long descriptions and character introductions, might make the book too slow for some readers (it did take me almost 100 pages before I really got absorbed in the story). Some of his comments on gender, race and religion could also be considered offensive, although as a male Victorian author his views were probably consistent with the time period and society in which he lived. If you have read and enjoyed other Victorian writers, I would highly recommend giving Trollope a try to see what you think.

Although this one was a better book, I think I would still suggest that newcomers to this series start with The Warden. The shorter length means it’s less of a commitment if you find you don’t like Trollope’s writing style. It’s also the first in the series and although I’m sure Barchester Towers would work as a stand-alone novel, The Warden does introduce us to several of the characters and their backgrounds.

Based on the two books I’ve read so far, Trollope is quickly becoming one of my favourite Victorian authors. I definitely don’t want to let seven months go by again before I pick up another of his books! I’m already looking forward to the third Barsetshire novel, Doctor Thorne.

Anthony Trollope has been visiting my blog today as part of the Classics Circuit Anthony Trollope Tour. See this post for a list of other stops on the tour.