Katherine by Anya Seton (1954)

 

Katherine is a fictionalised account of Katherine Swynford (1349-1403) the woman who was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster’s mistress for twenty years. Gaunt was the fourth son of Edward III and the Tudor dynasty descended from their illegitimate children.

Katherine and her older sister Philipa, daughters of a knight in what is now Belgium, are left orphaned. Philipa is sent to serve the queen at the English court while Katherine is placed in a convent in England and is educated there for a number of years until she, too, is summoned to court.
Katherine unwillingly marries Sir Hugh Swynford, a retainer in the Duke of Lancaster’s service, and bears him two children. When the Duke is away on a campaign, his wife Blanche contracts the plague and Katherine takes care of her and is with her when she dies. John hears of her kindness and courage and engages her as governess to their children. John is devastated by his wife’s death and turns to Katherine for comfort, but she refuses a relationship as his mistress as long as Sir Hugh is alive.
John has to marry again, and of course, he cannot marry a woman who is not of noble birth, so he marries a woman he does not love, Constance, the Princess of Castile, for political expediency. He does love Katherine and takes her as his mistress after the death of her husband. She bears the Duke’s four children, the ‘Beaufort Bastards,’ and after Constance’s death she marries the Duke after many years as his paramour.

There were aspects of this book I loved and then there were other aspects I didn’t. A number of historical figures and events are featured in Seton’s story – Edward III, Richard II, Wat Tyler and the Peasant’s Revolt, the Black Plague, John Wycliff, Julian of Norwich, and Geoffrey Chaucer (who was married to Katherine’s sister, Philippa) to name a few, which gave the book added interest, but as is usual with historical fiction, it’s difficult to sort out how much is actual historical fact and how much is the author’s imagination.

Parts of the story are highly romanticised and I became a bit tired of the love affair between the two main characters and Katherine’s agonising, ‘He loves me, he loves me not…’ while she disregarded the fact that she was monopolising him and his poor Constance was neglected.
Katherine’s first husband, Hugh, loved her in his own way but she found him repelling and he felt this keenly. Their first child, Blanche Mary, was born while he was away on a campaign and she loved the child. I thought that this would soften her attitude to Hugh when he returned, but she remained remote.
Her later relationship with the Duke deeply affected the children from her marriage to Hugh. The Beaufort’s, up until they were legitimised after Katherine and John’s marriage, had very little prospects and uncertain futures. The couple was often thoughtless about those who were adversely affected by their relationship.

Alison Weir has written an historical account of Katherine Swynford (Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess) and in this article she sheds some light on the real life of this woman who ended up bearing John of Gaunt’s Beaufort children and later married him.

The Middle Ages was a brutal time. Life was cheap, fortunes rose and fell depending on who was in power, life expectancy was short, infant mortality was high. Marriage was often a tool to gain political power and all sorts of unsuitable alliances were made for children of the nobility in order to add to their estates or elevate their status, and many women died in childbirth.
Reading books like this do make me thankful that I’m living now and not back then. To be sure, I would have died at sixteen from appendicitis if an infectious disease hadn’t taken me out before then.

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth…

-John of Gaunt ‘s speech (from Shakespeare’s Richard II)

Anya Seton (?1904-1990) was an American best-selling author of Romantic and biographical novels. Her father was the English naturalist and author, Ernest Thompson Seton, and her mother an American travel writer. Writing was obviously in her genes  and apart from my comments above about what I didn’t like about the book, I found it very well-written and engaging.

Simon the Coldheart by Georgette Heyer (1925)

 

Georgette Heyer was in her early twenties when Simon the Coldheart was published. She was a severe critic of her own work and this title was one of about five or six that she said she didn’t want to be republished. After Heyer’s death in 1974, her son decided that his mother had judged her work too harshly and the book was reprinted in 1977.

Simon Beauvallet is the fourteen-year-old illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Malvallet. His mother died when he was about ten and his father had never bothered with him.

As the book begins, Simon presents himself at Fulk of Montlice’s castle, his father’s enemy, with the desire to become his page. Alan of Montlice, Fulk’s son, was a little younger than Simon. He happens to meet Simon as he is intercepted by a guard when trying to enter the castle. Taking an instant liking to him, he leads Simon in to meet his father. Fulk is impressed by Simon’s attitude and makes him page to Alan. Fulk later made Simon his own page and swore that there was more of himself in Simon than in his own son.

Simon grew to manhood. He became firm friends with Alan and Simon’s older half-brother, Geoffrey, but there was always an icy reserve in his manner with everyone. His prowess in battle earns him knighthood and lands. He fights under Prince Henry, the future Henry V. By the time of the Battle of Agincourt, Simon has turned thirty and, 

‘He had power and wealth, a splendid body, fit for any hardship or endurance, a not unpleasing countenance, and a quick, cool brain. Yet something he seemed to lack, for with all his assets and attainments, he was as cold as stone, almost as though some humanizing part of him had been left out in his fashioning. There were those who said that a softer side of live and passion was not in him, but Henry the King, wiser than these, would point to some frolicking page in the Beauvallet green and russet when he heard this criticism.

‘What! Do ye think Beauvallet hath no tenderness within him? Fool, what of the children.?’

The critics were silenced then, for Simon’s love of children was well-known.’

Henry and Alan believed that there was something in Simon that would spring to life one day, but Geoffrey’s response was,

‘What manner of woman will it be before whom Simon will fall? How many fair maids hath he passed by? And now he is past thirty. He is not like to love. It is too late.’

Heyer’s last book written before she died was My Lord John which overlaps slightly with this book. Her first love was for the Middle Ages, although she is best known for her Regency romances. Simon the Coldheart reminded me of the type of historical fiction my sons really enjoyed in their early teens and although they didn’t get to read any of Heyer’s novels, I’m sure they would have taken to her writing. She is very good at portraying family life and in this book, male friendship. 

Lots of ye, thou, hast and battle exploits, chivalry and derring-do. 

Although Simon had a cold manner, he was loyal. His relationship with Fulk of Montlice and that man’s acceptance of him became almost that of father and son and Alan and Geoffrey were true and devoted friends. As you’d expect, something in Simon did spring to life in time but I won’t go into that. 

Recommended for those who enjoy the historical time period of the Middle Ages. There are romantic elements but not enough to turn off younger readers who prefer action. It has a slightly G. A. Henty feel about it with the added benefit of humour.

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Blood Feud (1976) by Rosemary Sutcliff

 

Rosemary Sutcliff is considered to be one of the finest writers of historical novels for children, but her writing is appealing for adult readers as well. As she herself said, “I write for children aged 8 to 88.” This ability to appeal to a wide age range is obvious in Blood Feud. I was listening to a podcast on Ukraine (The Rest is History) which traced the country’s history and they mentioned this book. 

Blood Feud follows the fictitious character of Jestyn Englishman, part Saxon, part Briton (?) who was left an orphan at the age of twelve after his stepfather rejected him when his mother died.
A cattleherd gave him work and lodging and for five years he was quite happy. One evening a sudden storm broke and Jestyn was sent to get the yearlings to safety but they never made it home. A clash with a group of raiders ended up with him being taken to the Dublin Slave Market.
In Dublin Jestyn was bought by a young Viking named Thormod and became his thrall. When he helped save Thormod’s life he was set free and went with him when he returned to his homeland in Denmark.

The underlying thread of the story is that of a blood feud to avenge the murder of Thormod’s father. Jestyn joins his friend and blood brother in the Death Feud which takes the two of them as far as Miklagard, the Viking’s name for Constantinople, the Great City, where they fight under Khan Vladimir and later become a part of the Varangian Guard.
Historical characters in this novel include Basil II, Vladimir the Great, Anna, his future wife, and Bardas Phocas.

'But it was in that moment…there came to me for the first time an awareness of the Rus as a People, not just a southward swarming of the Viking hoards, with the Tribes as a kind of lesser folk ingathered along the way.'

Like all Rosemary Sutcliff’s superb novels, Blood Feud transports you to a lost world and immerses you in its history. The Byzantine world of the 10th Century and the clash of religion and cultures are fascinating.

Their journey east sees Jestyn and Thormond enlist on a ship bound for Kiev, down the Dvina and Dnieper rivers. See t here.he trade route

The-Varangian-Route.jpg (560×420) (shorthistory.org)

'The Dvina that flows north to the Baltic, and the Dnieper that goes looping southward past Kiev to the Inland Sea, rise many days apart in the dark forest heart of things; and ships making the river-faring must be man-handled across country from one to the other.'

The Byzantine era is a neglected period of history in books for young people. There are many books based on the Vikings but they focus on their activities in Britain and Europe so this book is unusual in that it looks to the east. It would suit anyone who enjoys an adventure and history. It also is a story of friendship and loyalty.

'We did not know that we were beginning the Emperor’s life ‘s work for him: the driving back of the Bulgarian frontier to what it was in Justinian’s day, bringing all the lands between Macedonia and the Danube, the Inland Sea and the Adriatic again into the Byzantine Empire. It is done now. Thirty years in the doing, and treaties made and treaties broken, and a whole captured Bulgarian Army blinded along the way. (The Emperor Basil is nothing if not thorough!)'

High Wages by Dorothy Whipple (1930)

 

I’ve been slowly collecting Persephone Books and have been introduced to some new authors. One of these is Dorothy Whipple (1893-1966) and she is Persephone Book’s best-selling author. Hard Wages is the author's second book, and these are my thoughts on that.

‘Experience doth take dreadfully high wages, but she teacheth like none other.’ – Carlyle

Jane Carter, an eighteen year old girl, goes to Tidsley market-place in Lancashire on her half-day off. She sees the owner of Chadwick’s drapery put a wanted notice in his window for a young lady assistant. Fed up with her current job and tired of living with her stepmother and her children, she applies for the position.

The story begins in 1912 and describes Mr Chadwick’s store as typical of the drapery shops of that period. Class distinctions are reflected in the clothes that people wear but ready-made clothes and other recent developments means that this will all change.

Young single women often lived-in their employer’s homes. They were poorly paid with part of their wages taken by their employer for board and lodging. The hours were long, the food inadequate and Jane, like other young women in the industry, was always hungry.

Mrs Chadwick was rather mean. Not excessively so; but just mean enough to add interest to her days. She enjoyed exerting her ingenuity in the provision, for the girls, of suppers that did not cost more than threepence a head. She was adept at ringing the changes on cheap food. It was nice to think, too, that the tasty little suppers she took with Mr. Chadwick upstairs were justified by the economies she practised downstairs.

Mr Briggs was a man who had risen in society and was enjoying his elevated status. Known as a judge of cotton staple, he understood the trade thoroughly had been asked into partnership with Mr Greenwood. Mr Greenwood’s wife was the autocrat of Tidsley and Jane had the misfortune of getting on the wrong side of this woman. Mrs Briggs felt out of her league with the changes that her husband’s sudden rise in society brought. She had no confidence and the autocrat didn’t make life any easier for her. Mr Chadwick took his cues from Mrs Greenwood, pandered to her whims and went out of his way to try to please her. He had no time for Mrs Briggs as he toadied to Mrs Greenwood in everything. One day Mrs Briggs ventured into Chadwick’s drapery. She had no idea of what suited her, but Jane with her eye for style and her helpful and kind suggestions, impressed her. This was the beginning of a friendship that enabled Jane to open her own dress shop later on. 

One of Dorothy Whipple’s greatest strengths is that she was a supremely moral novelist. ‘She cared so much about people, about her characters, and this intense involvement, compassion and insight is what makes her writing so irresistible.’

Friendships play a large part in the story. Misunderstandings in relationships, jealousy and the effects of war (in this case, World War I) are explored. I loved that Jane was introduced to literature and stimulating discussions through a friendship. Whipple was a contemporary of H.G. Wells (1866-1946) and Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) and both authors were mentioned in the novel. Jane was introduced to Bennett’s Old Wives’ Tale by a friend.

The train came in, filling the station with clouds of white smoke of strange, tumultuous beauty.

Jane’s days were now like a succession of crammed cupboards that would not shut on their contents. Things fell out in miscellaneous confusion and had to be picked up and put into the next cupboard, from which they fell out again and so on until they positively had to be attended to.

A very enjoyable book that I think would have had a very different ending if a modern author had written it. It is realistic but hopeful and I agree with the observation above that Whipple was a supremely moral writer. Like her wonderful Someone at a Distance she provides a redemptive pathway while appreciating that actions do have consequences. I’ll certainly be looking for more of her books.

I Will Repay - a Sequel to The Scarlet PimperneI

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David (1793)

I Will Repay (1906) is one of the numerous sequels to Baroness Emmuska Orczy's famous book, The Scarlet Pimpernel. It's a stand alone book but you do need to read The Scarlet Pimpernel beforehand or you won't catch an important allusion that is referred to.

Paris, 1783, and the code of honour among the French aristocracy was rigid and without logic. When the wealthy bourgeois Paul Delourede blundered and inadvertently offended a young hot-headed aristocrat, Vicomte de Marny, the only acceptable outcome was a duel.
Delourede was a brilliant swordsman and having the advantage, his intention was to disarm the younger man, but the Vicomte became reckless and lunged at his opponent, falling upon the other's sword.

Vicomte de Marny had a younger sister, Juliette, fourteen years old at the time. Their invalid father, the Duc de Marny, had lost his wife ten years previously and his mind was fast losing its reason. Juliette was his joy but the Vicomte was his pride. On him the old man rested his hopes and in his future he saw the glory of the family name recreated.
On the evening of the fateful duel, the Victome's body was carried home. The old man, when left alone with his daughter, threw off the lethargy he had shown on first seeing his dead son, and feverishly seized his daughter's hand. Placing it upon her dead brother's breast, he made her swear an oath to avenge her brother's death.

Ten years later, Delourede was a well-known and respected citizen. Up until this time Juliette had nourished revenge in her heart but when circumstances placed her under Delourede's protection, she began to know the real character of the man and was torn between his kindness and growing love for her and the oath she'd made.

I mentioned that The Scarlet Pimpernel should be read prior to this book. He plays a short but important role in this story and a knowledge of the first book helps in appreciating the Pimpernel's comments to Delourede about love and idolatry which hearken back to his own painful experience.

 "And 'twill be when you understand that your idol has feet of clay that you'll learn the real lesson of love," said Blakeney earnestly.

"Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp one woman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do, suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sins with us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level after that—the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart."

The author's sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel retain the author's romantic, melodramatic tone and tend to have more mature themes than the original. I Will Repay, would suit readers about 13 years and up.

An excellent & comprehensive website containing information on all things Scarlet Pimpernel is Blakeney Manor. The books are available as e-texts on this site also.

The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry (1990) – The William Monk Series #1

 

I’ve finished reading the first three books in Anne Perry’s William Monk series which are set in Victorian London. The first book is The Face of a Stranger.

William Monk is a police detective and the story begins with him waking up in a hospital. He’d been unconscious after a severe accident where he was a passenger in a carriage and the driver had been thrown off and killed. He has no memory of the accident and no idea of who he is. His memory is completely blank.  A clue to his identity comes when he is visited by a man named Runcorn. It happens that this man is his superior in the police force and his Nemesis, as he later discovers. 

When Monk recovers sufficiently, he goes back to work as a detective. He knows that if it is discovered that he has lost his memory, he will lose his job and would probably end up in a workhouse. So by deduction and some internal instinct, he pieces together who he is (or was), all the while terrified that his secret will be discovered.

When he first looks in the mirror he sees the ‘Face of a Stranger.’ In some ways the whole premise of Monk’s story is implausible but it is an interesting idea. As Monk meets people at the police department and on the case he is assigned to on his return to work, he has no idea if he has met them before, if they like or dislike him, or what his relationship to them has been in the past.

Monk is a brilliant, arrogant detective and he discovers that while he is respected, he is also feared and generally disliked. Did anyone care for him? Did anyone love him? He discovers from letters in his room where he lodged that he has a sister, Beth, in the country. She wrote to him often, but he hadn’t seen her for years and rarely wrote back to her. He visits Beth and her husband, who accept him readily and don’t expect much from him. This gives him pause – was he really so insular and uncaring? He kept his memory loss a secret but let them know that he had been in hospital and was not yet fully recovered. What kind of a man was he? Occasionally he has flashes of remembrance but the past is still dark. 

Runcorn obviously hates him and Monk suspects that he knows his memory is affected and if the opportunity came would be happy to get rid of his subordinate. Why was this man so antagonistic to him?

Runcorn assigns Monk to a difficult case involving the murder of Jocelyn Gray, son of Lord Shelburne.  Gray was celebrated as a hero of the Crimean War and returned home with a leg injury which left him with a limp. While pursuing his investigations, Monk meets Hester Latterly, who had worked as a nurse in Crimea and eventually she helps Monk solve the case. 

Monk is assigned John Evan, a young policeman, to assist in the case. Over time Evan proves to be a true friend who respects his senior officer and learns about his memory loss.

Perry captures Victorian London well. Sometimes she tends to be repetitive and ‘tells’ rather than ‘shows’ the attitudes of the time – class distinctions is an example. It seems that Monk had a chip on his shoulder about his origins and she labours that at times. The murder case involved a man of the upper classes and Runcorn didn’t want to upset anyone by Monk’s findings in the case. The three books that I’ve read so far contain quite a bit of social commentary which sometimes feels overdone. The Crimean War is referred to often which added some more layers to the story. This was interesting and inspired me to learn more about the subject. 

One of the things I liked most about this book was Monk’s objective discovering and examination of who he was. He didn’t like what he saw. It had a redemptive aspect in some ways. Here is a man given a second chance at making his soul.

As the first book in a series, The Face of a Stranger was excellent and I thought the best out of the first three. 

A Dangerous Mourning (1991) #2

Monk, still struggling with amnesia, is assigned to investigate the murder of Octavia Haslett, the daughter of the wealthy aristocrat, Sir Basil Moidore. Octavia is found stabbed to death in her bedroom and Monk insists that the murderer must be either a family member or a servant.

Hester Latterly features prominently in this book. She and Monk have similar reactive personalities and often clash with each other but in this book they start to understand one another more. When Monk refuses to arrest one of the servants for the murder he is fired by Runcorn and he has to give up the murder investigation. He asks Hester to get entry to the Moidore home by becoming a live in nurse to Octavia’s mother who is in a fragile state after her daughter’s murder.

Hester plays a major role in the solving of this murder and it is she who asks the brilliant barrister, Oliver Rathbone, to defend the charge against the accused servant. There’s a twist to the solution of this story which was cleverly done although once again, Perry tended to overplay the class consciousness theme.

Defend and Betray (1992) #3

There are some dark themes in this book, s*xual abuse being the major one. A courtroom drama towards the end deals with this. I was surprised and put off by the details that came out at the trial and questioned whether such things would have been made public in Victorian England. 

General Thaddeus Carlyon, a military hero, meets his death not on the battlefield but in a freak accident while attending a dinner party at the home of a friend. The freak accident turns out to be murder and the general’s wife confesses to it.

William Monk is really a background character to this story, which was disappointing. He goes off and investigates clues to his past in different places while playing a secondary role in the mystery. Oliver Rathbone’s performance at the trial was a highlight. In the days before the trial he and Monk try to break through the wall that the guilty woman erected to get to the truth. 

It appears that Oliver and Hester may have a relationship developing. But what about William Monk…?

Some thoughts generally:

I was pleased to find a modern author who could write a clean sort of mystery that didn’t feel anachronistic. Defend & Betray did deal with themes that were sordid, even though they were dealt with in the context of a courtroom trial. This is as far as I’ve read in the William Monk series so I can’t speak about the rest of them.

Having read three of Perry’s books, it seems that moral dilemmas are a focus in her writing. In Books #1 and #2, a murder was committed where the accused, although found guilty, was in a way justified in doing what they did or driven to it because of circumstances. 

I’m still interested in this series. Monk’s amnesia and search for his identity and past are drawing cards.

As a Blackwell’s Books affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini (1922)

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini is an exciting adventure story which begins around 1685 when King James II was on the throne of England.

Peter Blood was a thirty-two year old Irish physician who had taken service with the Dutch under the great admiral de Ruyter and fought against France. He spent two years in a Spanish prison and later served with the French in their wars against the Spanish Netherlands.
As the story opens, he was in England working as a doctor, when an attempt was made by the Duke of Monmouth (the illegitimate son of Charles II and Lucy Walter) to overthrow James II after Charles’ death.
Blood watched the men of the town as they rallied under Monmouth’s banner head off to what he knew would be ignominious defeat. It was no concern to him and that night he went to bed early and didn’t wake until 4 a.m. with the sound of hammering on his door.
Blood was called urgently to treat a young nobleman wounded in the rebellion during the night; a man who had been a friendly and generous patron to him and to whom he felt indebted.
This act of mercy was to change his life.

Two months later Blood was brought to trial on a charge of high treason before the infamous Judge Jeffreys. Narrowly escaping the gallows, Blood was sentenced to ten years of slavery in Barbados.
At the first opportunity that presented itself, he devised a means of escaping with a group of slaves. This made a life of piracy their only option.
What follows is a colourful, high spirited tale involving romance, piracy and a good dose of historical detail.

Captain Blood engaged me from the very first page and never let up with its twists and knife edge escapades. He is a very likeable character, who, despite being involved in piracy, is a man of moral character - you’ll have to read the book to understand this paradox.
Swashbuckling it definitely is. Sabatini was an exceptional writer and it is not surprising that this book quickly became a best-seller after it was published and is still in print.

I was looking through the ‘Old Favourites’ section of a Lifeline book-sale a couple of years ago and an elderly man asked me if I’d seen any books by Rafael Sabatini and explained how wonderful they were. I’d only read Scaramouche so I’ve kept a lookout ever afterwards and picked up a few of his books.
Captain Blood has been reprinted by Dover Publications; they price their books well but they’re not really robust which is a problem when you have a book like this that demands to be read by everyone in the family.
Highly recommended for teen readers or anyone who likes a ripper of an adventure story based on historical events.
Fortunately, Sabatini was a prolific author and his books are available on Kindle quite cheaply.

‘…in the Caribbean, the Spanish Admiral Don Miguel de Espinosa might be said - to use a term not yet invented in his day - to have run amok. The disgrace into which he had fallen as a result of the disasters suffered at the hands of Captain Blood had driven the Admiral all but mad. It is impossible, if we impose our minds impartially, to withhold a certain sympathy from Don Miguel. Hate was now this unfortunate man’s daily bread, and the hope of vengeance an obsession to his mind. As a madman he went raging up and down the Caribbean seeking his enemy, and in the meantime, as an hors-d’oeuvre to his vindictive appetite, he fell upon any ship of England or of France that loomed above his horizon.’

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge (1949) #20 Books of Summer

Gentian Hill is a book that is based partly on history and partly on legend. Anthony, a fifteen year old orphan, became a midshipman in the British Navy after the unexpected death of his grandmother who had brought him up after both his parents died.

The British were fighting Napoleon and Anthony, only two months in service, had not yet seen any action. In fact he shrank from it with dread. All his life he’d been afraid and suddenly it seemed to him that it was impossible for him to continue in the navy. When his ship entered the bay at Torbay on the English Channel, the temptation to desert the ship came and he yielded to it.

After spending some time in hiding and in a state of semi-starvation, he found a miller willing to give him work but the man’s son, Sam, who had brawn but no brains, took an instant dislike to the well-educated young man and made life miserable for him. 

The miller was famed as a wrestler and Sam was obviously following in his footsteps and pummeled Anthony at every opportunity. Anthony was left with two choices - to leave the work at the mill, just as he had left the Navy, or stay and learn how to wrestle.

A wrestling match was coming up in a month and Anthony proposed that Sam leaves off his poundings and that he and his father teach him how to wrestle. When the match was held they would fight together and if Sam won, Anthony would leave the mill. 

The match day arrived and as expected Anthony was the loser, although he put up a good fight. One of the spectators was a doctor and when Sam threw Anthony to the ground he intervened and took the young man home to care for him. As he was carrying Anthony to his carriage another man went to help him and so another thread was added to Anthony’s story that would reveal itself at a later stage.

Anthony’s inner demon had always been fear and he had to learn not to be ruled by it. The doctor was instrumental in Anthony’s growth in this area of his life. He helped Anthony to see that right decisions are not always followed by feelings of relief.

‘You’ve done the right thing...though as far as you can see its not done you any good. Not much glory about it, as far as you can see. You feel damnable. That’s of no consequence - feelings don’t matter. It’s action that matters, and from fine action some sort of glory always breaks in the end…’

The doctor gave this advice to Anthony on dealing with fear:

‘To begin with, don’t fight it, accept it without shame, just as you would accept any other limitation you happen to be born with…Willing acceptance is half the battle…Be willing to be afraid, but don’t be afraid of your fear. As a doctor I can tell you that every man has within him a store of strength, both physical and spiritual, of which he is utterly unaware until the moment of crisis.’

There are many other characters in this story that I haven’t alluded to as well as ‘Providential’ threads, a romance of sorts, and a bit of history and legend thrown in.

As is usual with Elizabeth Goudge, she interspersed this story with philosophical rambles and the inner workings of the minds of her various characters which really flesh out the narrative.

‘You’re not befouled by another man’s obscenities and brutalities, but only by your own.’

Gentian Hill is a satisfying story of second chances, friendship and sacrificial love and of course, Goudge’s trademark descriptions of the beautiful English countryside.

'Fear is a lonely thing. Even those who love us best cannot get close to us when we are afraid.'

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott (1825)

 

‘All Scott’s work is marked by three characteristics: a genius for enriching the past; a love of Nature; a sturdy humanity. He loved the pomp and pageantry of a bygone age. His imagination lived naturally in the stirring tales of yore. He was a historical novelist by temperament rather than by profession... There have been historical romancers more accurate than Scott in the details of the story, but none so true to the inmost spirit of the age depicted.’ - from the Introduction by Robert Harding 

The Talisman is set in the Levant (the historical name for the region of the Eastern Mediterranean) towards the end of the Third Crusade. In 1187 A.D. Jerusalem was captured by Saladin and the Third Crusade was launched in 1189 to retake the city. The book, a work of historical fiction, focusses on Richard I, the ‘Lionheart,’ Saladin, and a fictitious knight by the name of Sir Kenneth. 

The Crusaders were encamped in the Holy Land and in disarray. The Lionheart was very ill with a fever and partisan politics were threatening the progress of the Crusade. Meanwhile, in the desert of Syria, Sir Kenneth meets a Saracen and after fighting and neither winning, they acknowledge each other’s prowess and continue on their travels together. The Saracen leads Sir Kenneth to the hermit he had been seeking and they then go their own ways. 

There are twists and turns, double identities, misunderstood prophecies and plenty of adventure as the story continues. 

'...the unfortunate Knight of the Leopard, bestowed upon the Arabian physician by King Richard rather as a slave than in any other capacity, was exiled from the camp of the Crusaders, in whose ranks he had so often and so brilliantly distinguished himself. He followed his new master...to the Moorish tents which contained his retinue and his property, with the stupid feelings of one who, fallen from the summit of a precipice and escaping unexpectedly with life, is just able to drag himself from the fatal spot, but without the power of estimating the extent of the damage which he has sustained.'

Scott gets a little theatrical and the chivalry is over the top at times, as you might expect of the writing from this time, but he really brings Richard and Saladin to life. Their characters are realistically portrayed and Edith, one of his main female characters and a relative of the King, is interesting, intelligent and plucky. 

Scott doesn’t glorify the Crusades in any way and Saladin is treated very positively. It was interesting to read Scott’s description of him as I had just finished a chapter in another book, In the Steps of the Master by H.V. Morton, where the author stated that Saladin was ‘...the one enemy of Christendom whose name runs through all the history books as that of a brave and chivalrous foe.’

I have to say that I used the dictionary fairly regularly when I was reading The Talisman! There are quite a few obscure words and although a glossary is provided at the beginning, it looks like it's the original from 1825 and doesn’t include all the words that have gone out of circulation since. 

The Talisman is scheduled as a free read for the Ambleside Online Year 7 curriculum and is a book all my children have enjoyed at some point. A great book to add to your Charlotte Mason high school.

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A Gentleman in Moscow (2016)

It was 1922 in Moscow and Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stood before the Emergency Committee of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. After a self-imposed exile from his homeland, Rostov had returned to Russia. He was in his early thirties and was accused of returning to the Motherland in order to take up arms against the Revolution. 

Due to his reputation as a hero in pre-revolutionary days, he escaped the death penalty and was sentenced instead to house arrest in the Metropol Hotel where he had been living for four years.

If he ever stepped out of the Metropol he would be shot.

The Metropol was built in 1905

He was assigned to an attic instead of his elegant suite and denied his usual luxuries. His world had shrunk considerably.

But the Metropol was the world in miniature and in this world Rostov began to establish relationships and close bonds with a swathe of people. He learned that small things were important. As his physical life contracted into a tiny sphere, he had time and opportunity to make his soul. The relationships he cultivated grew him as a person and the lives he touched had far reaching implications in later years.

His has been a life of privilege and convenience but his reduced circumstances enlarged his life in ways that his prosperity and freedom never had. 

"I’ll tell you what is convenient," he said after a moment. "To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka - and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most."

I’ve always had an interest in reading about Russia during the heyday of Communist rule, but A Gentleman in Moscow takes a different route from my usual sorties into this time period. During his confinement within the Metropol, Rostov was shielded from much of the chaos and change that was happening on the outside, learning of it secondhand and intermittently, but the changes in Russia were reflected in the interior life of the hotel. It’s a unique way to view history to show the ripple effect that change and upheaval have on a society. 

"By the smallest of one's actions one can restore some sense of order to the world."

The kindness and friendship he had shown to people such as waiters, bellboys, the hotel barber, a  seamstress, and a precocious young girl, would be returned in ways he would not have imagined.

"Who would have imagined, when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia."

The author sprinkles the story with many literary comments and references, which I enjoy in a book, but sometimes it felt like a display of knowledge for its own sake, which might be a harsh observation...

An interesting and engaging story with a nice bit of adventure later on. I wasn’t sure about the very end, though. If you have read it, did you wonder what his plans were and if he was going to get away with them??

2021 Challenge - Reading Europe: Russia 

The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge (1958)

Elizabeth Goudge is an author whose stories linger with you long afterwards. Somehow she manages to explore character, spirituality, and heavy themes with grace and perspective. She is never black and white, which is a quality I didn’t understand when I was younger. Life is so much easier if you can separate people and ideas into these two categories. Grey requires understanding, wisdom, and the hard knocks of life. Not that I believe there is no right or wrong, but when it comes to people, it’s not over until life is over. Growth and change are always possible and Goudge consistently weaves this theme into her writing.

The background of The White Witch is the English Civil War and its aftermath. The book’s chapters tend to focus either on the war and those fighting in it or alternatively, those left behind in Oxfordshire who are not actively involved. 

Goudge allows her readers to understand and empathise with her characters. There are a couple of unlikeable personalities in this book but for the most part she redeems them in some way. I’ve always appreciated this aspect of her writing.

The White Witch of the title refers to Froniga, a healer and part gypsy; a woman who has her feet in two camps but belongs to neither. Goudge spends some time describing gypsy belief and superstitions and does so in a refreshingly realistic and unsentimental way. Froniga’s synergistic approach to faith is likewise handled objectively and without censure. At first I was put off by some aspects of magic that were described, Froniga’s use of Tarot cards, for example. However, later on there is an encounter between Froniga and a ‘black witch’ where Froniga realises that there is a line that she must not cross. In another situation, a desperate one that involved a person she loved, Froniga accepts her inability to change the situation through her attempts at magic. Magical power is a controlling force that she ultimately rejects.

To my surprise, I actually enjoyed the war accounts very much. The descriptions of King Charles I, his wife, Henrietta Maria, the Royalist leaders and Oliver Cromwell before he took power, gave me a better sense of their personalities than any historical title ever had. The grey areas of conflicting beliefs between family members and residents of the town were sensitively probed, and as in real life, no easy path was found around them. 

'He had hoped that all the religious fanatics were on the other side, for extremists set his teeth on edge. Well, one's friends could not be cut to one's private and personal pattern...'

This unusual historical novel is replete with splendid descriptions of the setting (Oxford mostly) and the natural world. And Elizabeth Goudge's characters are not easily forgotten.

'Books were living things to those who truly loved them.'

The Brother Cadfael Series by Ellis Peters

 Ellis Peters was the nom de plume of Edith Mary Pargeter (1913-1995). I started reading her Brother Cadfael series of Mediaeval whodunnits set in England in the 12th Century about fifteen years ago. They are best read in order, although I haven't done so as the books are not always easy to find here.

Cadfael, originally from Wales, had turned Benedictine monk after life as a soldier and sailor and was well versed in the ways of the world. The earlier books elaborate on this and introduce some characters such as Hugh Beringar - the deputy sheriff and Cadfael’s close friend; Abbot Radulfus and others who re-appear in subsequent books.

The Leper of Saint Giles was written in 1981 and is the Fifth Chronicle of the series. The story is set in the year 1139 when King Stephen was on the throne.

‘He had seen battles, too, in his time in the world, as far afield as Acre and Ascalon and Jerusalem in the first Crusade, and witnessed deaths crueller than disease, and heathen kinder than Christians, and he knew leprosies of the heart and ulcers of the soul worse than any of these he poulticed and lanced with his herbal medicines.’

When visiting the leprosy hospital at Saint Giles to restock their medical supplies, Cadfael arrives just as preparations for a noble wedding are in progress. He witnesses the bridegroom, Huon de Domville, arrive with his entourage. Domville is a shrewd, malevolent man, and quite a bit older than his intended young bride. 

The young woman rides in later, accompanied by her uncle and his wife, her guardians after her father died. Cadfael recognised her as the granddaughter of a famous knight who had fought in the Crusades. It was also obvious to Cadfael that the young girl had had no say in the matter of her marriage and discovers that the girl is secretly in love with one of Domville's squires.

Before the marriage could take place, two deaths occur and Cadfael uses his position and his past to help discover a murderer, absolve an innocent man, uncover a mystery, and unite two lovers.

The Leper of Saint Giles is a satisfying mystery and a tale of treachery with the unique twists and turns that are the hallmark of Ellis Peters.

The Virgin in the Ice is the sixth chronicle in the Cadfael series and was written in 1982. This book reveals a piece of Cadfael's past that should be read before going on to subsequent books. I won't say too much about this book but it could almost be called a thriller.

In the year 1139 King Stephen is on the throne but his cousin, Empress Maude, daughter of Henry I, has an equal claim to the throne. A civil war (the Anarchy) results and refugees have fled from Worcester, the scene of the latest conflict.

Among the refugees are a boy of thirteen, his seventeen year old sister, and a young Benedictine nun. They were known to have been  seeking refuge at Shrewsbury Abbey where Brother Cadfael resides but they fail to arrive. A monk of Cadfael's order is found near death from wounds inflicted by persons unknown and Brother Cadfael is drawn into both mysteries.

This is a gripping book with many false trails and intertwining plots. I thought there was just a wee bit of contrivance and overdone coincidence towards the end but Ellis Peters can get away with it. Her descriptive writing is a pleasure to read and her ability to draw the reader into the wintery, bleak atmosphere of the England of Mediaeval times adds to the appeal of these books.

As Cadfael reflects on his younger days and his time as a soldier in the Holy Land twenty-six years earlier he observes,

'In a land at war with itself...you may take it as certain that order breaks down, and savagery breaks out.'

The Virgin in the Ice covers a brutal period of English history and portrays the hardships that fall upon the common people when leadership forgets them. '...where royal kinsfolk are tearing each other for a crown, lesser men will ride the time for their own gain, without scruple or mercy.'

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1957-8)

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1890 - 1960) is an epic Russian novel that takes place during the socialist revolution of 1905 and the years up to World War II. Philosophical and beautifully written, it is sometimes difficult to follow as it has a cast of thousands and everyone is known by about three or four different names. Ah! Russian novels!

Doctor Zhivago was first published in the West in 1957 but was banned in the Soviet Union. Pasternak won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958 'For his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition.'

Pasternak initially accepted the award but after a brutal denunciation by the Soviet regime he reluctantly renounced it. It was either that or be banished from the country he loved. It wasn’t until 1988, twenty-eight years after his death, that the book was published in Russia for the first time. From what I’ve read about the author, the book is partly autobiographical. 

Yuri Zhivago, the main character, is a physician and poet. Pasternak was born into an artistic family and had a classical education. He went on to study music and philosophy but gave them up to devote himself to poetry. Zhivago’s life reflected that of the author’s in his relationships with women also.

Zhivago was an intellectual and as such, an enemy of the people in the new Communist regime. In many ways he was a victim of the times: forcibly taken by the partisans to work in hospitals on the battlefields, he was removed without notice from his wife, Tonya, and young family, who could only guess at his whereabouts. Given an opportunity to escape his forced detention, he basically walked across Siberia to his old home but found his family had relocated. 

Throughout the novel there are threads of long-term friendships and a vast network of relationships that intertwine and separate throughout. One of these relationships was in the person of Lara whom Yuri had met when he was a boy and later on as he was working in the hospital in town. He had just begun a relationship with her before he was taken by the partisans and they came together again after his escape. He was a complex, sensitive man but his actions at times demonstrated a lack of moral feeling. Although at times he pined for knowledge of his wife and children, he didn’t make any great effort to find them. Zhivago’s internal world reflected his external circumstances:

'Everything established, settled, everything to do with home and order and the common round, has crumbled to dust and been swept away in the general upheaval and reorganisation of the whole of society...'

The author must have been a brave man to try to publish a book like this in Soviet Russia. It is certainly not a glowing account of the rise of the Soviet state. Yuri was at first an admirer of the Communist cause but that admiration dissipated as the book progressed:

‘...he found that he had only exchanged the old oppression of the tsarist state for the new, much harsher yoke of the revolutionary super-state.’

‘Revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track minds, men who are narrow-minded to the point of genius. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days … but for decades thereafter, for centuries, the spirit of narrowness which led to the upheaval is worshipped as holy.’

‘...it turns out that those who inspired the revolution aren’t at home in anything except change and turmoil: that’s their native element; they aren’t happy with anything that’s less than on a world scale.’

He was to ask himself later:

‘Was it possible that in one short moment of over-sensitive generosity he had allowed himself to been enslaved forever?’

Pasternak’s poetic ability shines through his writing so brilliantly that it was difficult to choose what to share here. He also digresses into much philosophical meandering but it is so well-written that I think it adds to the story. Some of these philosophical reflections reminded me of Tolstoy’s writing in Anna Karenina - actually, Tolstoy was a friend of Pasternak’s parents.

‘Marxism a science?...Marxism is not sufficiently master of itself to be a science. Science is more balanced. You talk about Marxism and objectivity. I don’t know of any teaching more self-centred and further from the facts than Marxism. Ordinarily, people are anxious to test their theories in practice, to learn from experience, but those who wield power are so anxious to establish the myth of their own infallibility that they turn their back on truth as squarely as they can. Politics mean nothing to me. I don’t like people who are indifferent to the truth.’

‘Men who are not free...always idealise their bondage.’

I loved this description:

‘Now the front is flooded with correspondents and journalists...linguistic graphomania and verbal incontinence.’ 

And this one:

‘Everything had changed suddenly - the tone, the moral climate; you didn’t know what to think, who to listen to. As if all your life you had been led by the hand like a small child and suddenly you were on your own, you had to learn to walk by yourself. There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgement you respected. At such a time you felt the need to entrust yourself to something absolute - life or truth or beauty - of being ruled by it now that man-made rules had been discarded.’

‘How intense can be the longing to escape from the emptiness and dullness of human verbosity, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labour, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!’ 

‘There was something in common between events in the moral and the physical world, between disturbances near and far, on earth and in the sky.’

Pasternak was a master of simile and metaphor:

‘The gunfire had died away behind him. There, behind him was the east. There the sun had risen in a drift of mist and was peering dully through floating shadows, like a naked man through a cloud of steam at the baths.’

‘Grief had sharpened Yuri’s vision and quickened his perception a hundredfold. The very air surrounding him seemed unique. The evening breathed compassion like a friendly witness of all that had befallen him. As if there had never been such a dusk before and evening were falling now for the first time in order to console him in his loneliness and bereavement. As if the valley were not always girded by woods growing on the surrounding hills and facing away from the horizon, but the trees had only taken up their places now, rising out of the ground on purpose to offer their condolences.‘ 

An extract from Yuri’s diary in happier times with Tonya and her father who lived with them:

‘At the beginning, during the spring and summer, we had a very hard time. It was all we could do to struggle along. But now we can relax in the winter evenings...The women sew or knit, Alexander Alexandrovich or I read aloud...We read and re-read War and Peace, Eugene Onegin, and Pushkin’s other poems, and Russian translations of Stendhal’s Rouge et Noire, Dickens’s Take of Two Cities and Kleist’s short stories.’

At the end of Doctor Zhivago the Bezprizornaya, homeless children whose parents were killed in the civil war, are mentioned. There is an article here about this: 

My copy of Doctor Zhivago pictured above was published by Vintage in 2002 and was translated from the Russian by Max Hayward and Manya Harari in 1958. 

Linking to Back to the Classics 2020: 20th Century Classic