Review: A Spear of Summer Grass

Paris, 1923

The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savanna manor house until gossip subsides. Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.

Against the frivolity of her peers, Ryder White stands in sharp contrast. As foreign to Delilah as Africa, Ryder becomes her guide to the complex beauty of this unknown world. Giraffes, buffalo, lions and elephants roam the shores of Lake Wanyama amid swirls of red dust. Here, life is lush and teeming—yet fleeting and often cheap.

Amidst the wonders—and dangers—of Africa, Delilah awakes to a land out of all proportion: extremes of heat, darkness, beauty and joy that cut to her very heart. Only when this sacred place is profaned by bloodshed does Delilah discover what is truly worth fighting for—and what she can no longer live without. (from Amazon). 

With the release of The Ashford Affair, this book and The Fever Tree, this has certainly been an African-themed spring for historical fiction! I just have "The Fever Tree" left to read and so far it's been interesting to see how each writer has approached the unusual (for historical fiction) setting. In "The Ashford Affair," I (and several other bloggers) wondered about the amount of time actually spent in Kenya.

That's not the problem for Spear. Once thrice-married flapper and all-around hellion Delilah Drummond gets to Africa, there's no shortage of safaris, scheming colonists and sensitive African tribesman spouting wisdom about nature.

Don't get me wrong - I had a lot of fun reading the book but it really didn't feel like the 1920s once Delilah reached Africa. It could have been any time in which a decadent small group of expatriates lives in an exotic locale. Fortunately, Delilah is a well-written character - she could have easily been a walking stereotype but is actually presented as quite complex and I enjoyed seeing her misdeeds from her perspective. Other bloggers thought she was quite unlikeable but I actually enjoyed getting to know a character who is messed up a little rough around the edges. I'm sick to death of reading about lead female characters with fake "flaws" such as clumsiness or an excessive love of reading.

Unfortunately, Delilah seems to suck the air out of all the other characters in the book. No other character lives and breathes as much as Delilah and that creates an imbalance in the book. I was especially annoyed by the stock "mysterious hunter" and "sensitive African tribesman" characters. Really - how many times can these characters show up in books and movies before we stop using them?

All in all, this is a fun, light read with a memorable lead character who displays a surprising depth of emotion. 

Disclaimer: An advance e-galley of this book was sent to me for review purposes. 

Reading Updates

 

Historical Fiction Notebook's intern helps edit posts, despite a demonstrated interest in chewing the corners of all library books that come his way. 

I've been in an odd reading mood the past two weeks. I can't seem to get into any one new book and stick with it. At the moment, I have an ARC of "Queen's Gambit" - the new highly-praised novel about Katherine Parr and "Fever" - a novel about Typhoid Mary and life in turn of the century New York City. I'm still chipping away at "Foundation," the first volume of Peter Ackroyd's history of England. I've also picked up a  bunch of cheap paperbacks copies of older historical novels - Cythnia Harrod Eagles' "Fleur", Rosemary Hawley Jarman's "Crown in Candlelight" (about Katherine of Valois) and Reah Tannahill's "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" about Medieval Scotland.

I feel like I'm 13 years old again and procrastinating about starting a book because I want to read all of them. Except now I'm an adult and I don't have all day to read them!

It's getting to a very desperate point. I may download "War and Peace" to my Kindle and just start in on my long-held goal of reading the greatest novel ever.

In the meantime, I've had some interesting reads in the past few weeks to share:

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson If you're a devoted reader, you've probably already heard about this book and if you've heard about it, you're probably wondering if all the hype and the praise is true. It is. This is an incredible book about one woman - born in the early years of the 20th century - who keeps being born and then dies only to be born again to do her life just a little bit differently each time, each life bringing her closer and closer to WWII and an encounter with Hitler. That description makes the novel sounds very generic and pulpy but it's actually incredibly moving and was the first book in a long time that made me cry at the end. It was that good. 

Once a Grand Duchess by Coryne Hall I was excited to rent this rare biography of Grand Duchess Xenia (Nicholas II's sister) from the library. It turned out to be a nice read with some details about Romanov family life that I hadn't seen in other books. Unfortunately, the author had a terribly dry style that also tended to rapidly skip from topic to topic.

Blood Will Tell I was hoping this would be a bit more scientific analysis of what might have caused Henry VIII's rapid personality changes in the 1530s and his difficulties producing a healthy heir. Instead, it seems to be a rehashing of other biographies of Henry VIII mixed with the same repetitive speculation that he had McLeod Syndrome. Fortunately, I snagged this one for free through the Kindle Lending Library.

Museum Day: The Ballet Russes

The Ballets Russes—the most innovative dance company of the 20th century—propelled the performing arts to new heights through groundbreaking collaborations between artists, composers, choreographers, dancers, and fashion designers. Founded by Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929) in Paris in 1909, the company combined Russian and Western traditions with a healthy dose of modernism, thrilling and shocking audiences with its powerful fusion of choreography, music, and design. Showcasing more than 130 original costumes, set designs, paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, photographs, and posters, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes also incorporates film clips in a theatrical multimedia installation. Adapted from the exhibition conceived by and first shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in 2010, the presentation in Washington draws upon that rich survey, including some 80 works from the V&A’s renowned collection of dance artifacts, and adds about 50 objects, generously offered by more than 20 lenders, private and public. (from National Gallery of Art website).

The new Ballet Russes exhibit that opened yesterday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC is just outside the sweet spot of my historical interests. I'm fascinated by the Silver Age of Russian literature, the reign of Nicholas II and the classical era of Russian ballet dominated by Tchaikovsky and the familiar classics of Sleeping Beauty, Giselle and The Nutcracker.

The revolutionary artists of the Ballet Russes rejected the stiff formalism and romanticism of that classical era of dance in favor of plotless ballets, costumes painted in bright cubist colors and choreography modeled on Greek and Roman sculpture rather than the complicated steps of earlier generations. Personally, I'll take the old-school classics of late Imperial Russia any day but given that this is a special exhibit put together by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and that it's only making one appearance in the U.S., I thought it was well worth a trip downtown on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Here in DC, the exhibit has been heavily advertised as an opportunity to see ballet costumes designed by Coco Chanel and a massive stage backdrop painted by Pablo Picasso. These centerpieces were completely underwhelming. I found it far more interesting to actually see the costumes worn by the great dancers Nijiinsky and Tamara Karsavina. Up close, the colors and prints seem overly gaudy until you remember that they had to translate visually for an entire theatre. The passage of time can clearly be seen on the fragile fabrics and embroidery. The sketches for costumes and set designs for early ballets such as Scheherezade and Petrushka are small masterpieces of jewel-like colors and a visual delight to see in person.

Oddly enough, my favorite piece in the entire exhibit was a famous painting of the Coronation of Nicholas II. I've seen the painting a hundred times in various Romanov books and to be able to see the detail up close and in person was a treat. But after I left, I wondered if it was there just to shoehorn in a Romanov connection - Nicholas II was a staunch "old school" ballet lover and ended withdrawing Imperial support of the Ballet Russes largely on the advice of his former mistress, the prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. I wonder if he would have been horrified or amused to see his Coronation Day included alongside "revolutionary" artists.

The exhibit left me thinking not about ballet but about the things we expect from a good museum exhibit. Without a background in dance or Russian history, the average museum goer could leave the exhibit not understanding the revolution the Ballet Russes triggered in modern dance or the historical context in which the Ballet Russes grew and flourished. I find the Ballet Russes interesting largely because it mirrors some of the social and cultural changes taking places in Russia almost a decade before the Bolsheviks came into power; it's a very visual sign of an old, court-based focus on the arts coming to an end and a new, modern approach coming into being.

What was the best or very worst museum exhibit you've ever seen? 

Review: Anna by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

In this vast yet meticulously detailed historical romance, veteran British author Harrod-Eagles sets young English governess Anne Peters at the center of shifting and cataclysmic events occuring in Russia between 1803 and 1812. Dismissed by her stuffy English employers because of a social blunder, the outspoken Anne is hired by Count Nikolai Kirov, an adviser to the czar, to educate his two lively daughters, Yelena, nine, and Natasha, two. Warmly received in the count's diverse Petersburg household--which includes his ineffectual wife, Irina; his vitriolic mother, Vera; and a host of ebullient relatives--Anne, now called Anna Petrovna, predictably, falls in love with the count, whose response is guarded. Against the somber background of the Napoleonic wars and ominous portents that the French emperor has designs on Russia, tensions within the Kirov household increase. Anna leaves and marries unwisely, leading a hollow existence as the wife of a wealthy, dissolute nobleman. Although the plot is fairly formulaic and much of the cast outrageously stereotyped--there are only devoted servants, contented serfs, happy peasants--the entanglements nevertheless intrigue (from Publishers Weekly). 

This title has caught my eye countless times on library shelves. The cover has a kind of early-1990s grand historical romance saga look that both put me off and drew me in - it reminded me of my early teens, sorting through romance novels back in the pre-The Other Boleyn Girl/booming historical fiction genre days when historical fiction hadn't yet claimed its own shelf and everything got shuffled together. 

Back then, a lot of very good books got relegated to life alongside Harlequin romances and authors who I think of as the grand dames of historical fiction - Norah Lofts, Anya Seton, Georgette Heyer - were unfairly cast as fluffy romance writers even though they conducted meticulous historical research for their novels. I've never read Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' books before but I tended to think of her as part of this group due to the 20+ titles in her Morland Dynasty saga. Finally, desperate for historical fiction set in Russia (why are there so few titles?), I picked this one up and gave it a shot. 

I'm mostly glad I did. At 631 pages, I got through Anna in about a week so it represented a fairly serious investment of reading time. The book is divided into three parts, set in 1803, 1807 and 1811. The first two parts are the strongest as they give the reader the opportunity to discover Russia through the eyes of English governess Anna and experience first-hand the impact Napoleon had on Russia in the early 19th century. The first part strongly reminded me of Jane Eyre and the novels of Jane Austen through its use of language and custom and the plot-line of an impoverished governess falling for her older employer. The second part read quite quickly due to its gorgeous scenes detailing life in the Caucasus region. Unfortunately, the end of the second part finds the characters making choices that seem forced for the sake of the plot and the third part contains some very obvious plot twists combined with a dragging pace that unfortunately coincides with Napoleon's invasion of Russia - an event that could have been used for maximum dramatic impact. 

The writing style is straight-forward and very noticeably not from this current period of historical fiction. I don't think many authors could get away with the level of detail and description that Harrod-Eagles includes here. I tend to appreciate a deeper level of detail in historical novels but some readers may find it off-putting. The main character Anna is relatable during the first two parts before her character changes almost instantly in the third part of the book. Count Kirov, the main male lead, is believable and his presence allows Harrod-Eagles to include an interesting military/diplomatic angle on the Napoleonic Wars. Almost all of the characters in the novel tend to suffer from the slightly stale, generic stereotyped feeling that the PW review above notes. But all in all, I enjoyed the sense of sinking into a large novel that fully immersed me in a new world. 

My library system has "Emily," the last book in the series (set during the last years of the Romanov dynasty), but doesn't have "Fleur," the middle book. I bought a relatively cheap paperback copy that popped up on Amazon but the mediocre reviews on GoodReads and Amazon are making me think I should just move on to the last book in the series.  Historical fiction fans out there - any thoughts? 

What is historical fiction?

This past week, I was contacted by a student working on her dissertation on definitions of historical fiction. She very kindly asked for mine since I'm a historical fiction blogger and I wrote back to her with the following definition: 

"For my definition of historical fiction, I've always thought that authors should be writing about events that have passed out of living memory and that have stopped influencing the immediate present. For example, I would consider fiction set in the 1940s (and I suppose the 1950s) to be historical fiction. Someone born in the middle of WWII would already be 70 years old but would not have any memories of that time - so it's safe to say it is passing out of living memory. I also think there's something to be said for a time having noticeably different customs and behavior from our own. The 1940s and 50s are very different in terms of behavior and values than say the mid to late 1960s that bear more resemblance to our own time.

I run into trouble when I start to think about the difference between "genre" historical fiction and "literary" historical fiction. I would say that the biggest difference is character. Take two recent novels (again) about WWII. "Mr. Churchill's Secretary" and "Life to Life" are both set in London during the Blitz. "Mr. Churchill's Secretary" is definitely thought of as historical fiction - I think this has a great deal to do with the fact that the setting is integral to the interest/enjoyment of the novel. You read it because you want to experience what life was like in London during WWII and see the character interact with famous historical figures. "Life after Life" also follows a young woman during the Blitz but she doesn't interact with any famous people and the purpose of the novel is to explore deeper questions about the meaning of life. So in a sense it could be set during any time of war and danger to civilians. 

As for all of those time-slip and split time period novels that have come out lately, I consider them historical fiction since the story line set in the past is integral to the overall plot and usually involves some character attempting to understand the past. Very meta! :)

So to sum up, historical fiction is fiction set in a time that has passed out of living memory and whose purpose is to give some sense of the larger historical undercurrents and/or personalities of the time."

Looking back at my answer, I can see that it's not perfect. For example, under my definition you could write a historical novel that's both "genre" and "literary." 

I would love to hear from other bloggers who were contacted or anyone else who wants to put in their two cents!

Author Event: John Boyne's The House of Special Purpose

I'm lucky enough to live within walking distance of one of the country's premiere independent bookstores: the Washington, DC area's legendary Politics and Prose. Last night John Boyne appeared at Politics and Prose to speak about his newest novel, partially set during the reign of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia.

I read House a year and a half ago after finding it in another legendary bookstore: the now-closed The Village Voice in Paris. I have fond memories of carrying the book around with me in Paris and reading almost the entire thing on my flight back home. Now the book is finally coming out here in the U.S. 

Boyne was an excellent speaker. He read a passage about the Tsarevich Alexei that had remained with me even though many months have passed since I'd read it. The passage has a beautiful tension and does an excellent job of capturing Tsarina Alexandra's voice and personality.

Boyne said that he first encountered the Romanovs' story at the age of 14 while staying with his grandfather. He dug up a copy of Robert Massie's "Nicholas and Alexandra" and was enthralled by their story. "I didn't expect the assassination of the Romanovs," Boyne said, "I didn't see it coming." That early experience stayed with Boyne and he said he knew as a young writer that he would someday end up writing about the Romanovs.

I thought about asking a question about the development of the book's unique structure but worried he would be forced to answer in a way that gives away too much of the story. The novel starts in 1915 and moves forward to 1918. In alternating chapters, we follow the same lead character starting in 1981 and moving backwards through the past 60 years. I don't think it's giving too much away to say that the two story lines eventually meet in 1918.

Boyne did say that it was "a difficult book to write." He wrote it in order - writing straight through the chapters that alternate between the St. Petersburg storyline and the London/Paris storyline. Boyne said that he wanted to see if "an unusual structure like that could work" and I think he succeeded admirably.

I ended up asking Boyne if it was overwhelming - given the amount of material on the Romanovs - to incorporate his research into the novel.

He said that he didn't overload himself with research. According to Boyne, when he first starts on a writing project he doesn't start his research by reading non-fiction, he reads fiction contemporary to the time he's writing about to get a feel for the language and manners of that era. He noted that since his protagonist was fictional, the world was already "corrupted" and that he was already making things up. As a writer, he said "you know the moment when you could get overloaded [with research]." That's when he "plows through the first draft just to get it down and then goes back afterwards to look at the specifics."

It was also fascinating to hear that he traveled to St. Petersburg and wrote the sections of the book set in the city in the Winter Palace itself! I can't imagine what it must have been like to bring a laptop into the palace and sit down to write the Romanovs' story.

I very much enjoyed the event and encourage readers to pick up The House of Special Purpose now that it's available here in the United States. Politics and Prose films author events and posts them on their website. This event is not yet up but you can check back here to watch and listen to my question! 

Review: The Ashford Affair

As a lawyer in a large Manhattan firm, just shy of making partner, Clementine Evans has finally achieved almost everything she’s been working towards—but now she’s not sure it’s enough. Her long hours have led to a broken engagement and, suddenly single at thirty-four, she feels her messy life crumbling around her. But when the family gathers for her grandmother Addie’s ninety-ninth birthday, a relative lets slip hints about a long-buried family secret, leading Clemmie on a journey into the past that could change everything. 

Growing up at Ashford Park in the early twentieth century, Addie has never quite belonged. When her parents passed away, she was taken into the grand English house by her aristocratic aunt and uncle, and raised side-by-side with her beautiful and outgoing cousin, Bea. Though they are as different as night and day, Addie and Bea are closer than sisters, through relationships and challenges, and a war that changes the face of Europe irrevocably. But what happens when something finally comes along that can’t be shared? When the love of sisterhood is tested by a bond that’s even stronger? (from Amazon)

Like most "alternating timeline/present-day woman investigates secret from the past/family saga with a couple of love stories thrown in for good measure" novels, I both very much enjoyed The Ashford Affair and found it fairly predictable and too neatly tied up at the end. 

Unlike most alternating timeline novels, I enjoyed both lead characters - Addie from the early 20th century and Clemmie from the end of the 20th century. I never found myself racing through one's portion of the book to get to the other. The relationships between characters were well-developed - particularly the crucial centerpiece of the novel, the relationship between Addie and Bea. And while I thought the lead romantic interest in the early 20th century portion was underdeveloped, I did enjoy the nuanced portraits of the women and how Willig managed to show the impact their social circumstances had on the formation of their characters. 

That said, Ashford doesn't have the sweeping, grand feel I was expecting from a novel billed as a Downton Abbey cast of characters meets Out of Africa. In fact, the parts that do take place in Kenya seemed to go by quite quickly and I never had a strong sense of place when the characters were in Africa. The late 20th century story tied up in a way that you can see coming from the very first chapter. 

Oddly enough, none of these quibbles really distracted me from the pleasure of reading the book and I got through it in a matter of a few reading sessions. I think most readers will find a lot to enjoy as The Ashford Affair - it's the kind of guilty-pleasure, "know what you're in for" kind of read that can be a lot of fun.