The Alchemist’s Daughter

I went on a bit of a cheap book buying splurge in Smiths a few weeks ago, it was surprising or perhaps unsurprising how many heavily discounted books there were by previous Richard and Judy writers, I’d heard that that was the case, that people were buying Richard and Judy bookclub books but not going onto buying other books by the Richard and Judy authors, well not in droves anyway.

So amongst others I brought The Alchemist’s Daughter by Katherine McMahon, I had previously read her The Rose of Sebastopol, which I had enjoyed. McMahon’s main character in The Alchemist’s Daughter, Emilie, was far less sympathetic however, but that may have been my older maturer self judging the actions of a reckless teenager harshly, but for a good chunk of the book I wanted to grip Emilie round the shoulders and go “can’t you see what you’re doing? You stupid girl”. However much as Emilie’s actions are annoying, they are understandable, kept enclosed with her alchemist father, of course she’s going to fall for the first flash in his pants that gallops through her village. Makes me glad that I’m a woman in the 21st century though, as women in the 18th century, particularly those it seems of either a higher class or a particularly lower class were essentially powerless (whereas women like the character Mrs. Gill, Emilie’s housekeeper, being inbetween, seemed to have more autonomy).

I liked this book, but it didn’t light any particularly great fires for me, so in the end I stayed up deliberately late last night to finish it, just to get it over and done with, take that for what you will, the fact that I wanted it over and done with versus that I did manage to stay awake till 1.30am reading it!

The Sunday Salon – The Welsh Girl

I reckoned during last week’s Sunday Salon where I had started The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies that I’d finish it within a matter of days, as it was a nice, easy to read story, but of course life gets in the way of books, so apart from a few snatched moments reading at a cafe and outside a ballet lesson, I didn’t really get a chance to finish it until today.

So now I can give my final impressions, The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies is ‘nice’ (although the subject matter itself is not nice), set in principal in a Welsh village during the Second World, it tells the story of how the village responds to the arrival of prisoners of wars. Told from the viewpoints of Esther, a village girl, Karsten, a German prisoner of war and Rotherham an officer of German origin working for the allies, as with a lot of stories with differing viewpoints it can be a little piecemeal, I wasn’t totally sure what the point of the character of Rotherham was and he doesn’t feature for much of the story, I can only think that as someone who grew up in Germany but was working for the Allies he was meant to act as a bridge between the two sides of the story. The character of Esther, well I’ve heard alot of discussion recently whether male writers can write women and to be honest normally I don’t notice any difference, but Ho Davies’ portrayal of Esther did seem a little odd and at times I had trouble feeling sympathy for her. My favourite character though was Karsten, I thought he was really well done and I found it easy to be in the shoes of a German prisoner of war.

So in my verdict of The Welsh Girl as ‘nice’ where does it stand in my own personal Richard and Judy Bookclub rankings? To be honest I don’t think it was the best book of the lot, so here’s the final (as The Welsh Girl is the last of this year’s Richard and Judy list) list.

1. A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory – every page grips you, scares you and tears at your heart.
2. The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon – a very close second, it is deeply and beautifully researched invoking the sites, sounds and smells of the Crimean War.
3. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones – a lovely little story of bravery and island life, let down in my opinion by it’s final 20 pages.
4. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann – the description of the journey across Siberia is epic
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – a very vivid description of life at a terrible period of time in Afghanistan’s history.
6. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies – a nice readable story
7. Blood River by Tim Butcher – non-fiction so difficult to judge
8. Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale – just not my sought of book, far too ‘cosy’.
9. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris – argh this is hard, I liked this book but Notes from an exhibition was more flawlessly written in my opinion.
10. The Visible World by Mark Slouka – I’m sorry, but for me this book dragged.

So in summary what did I think of this year’s Richard and Judy Bookclub list? Most of the books were really good and it was hard to judge between them, I only really did not like The Visible World and even that had some really beautiful scenes in, it was just the bits in between I had problems with. I can thoroughly recommend A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol and Mister Pip plus A Thousand Splendid Suns and Blood River provide thought provoking insights into troubled parts of the world only seen briefly on news stations. Who do I think will win the British Book Awards Best Read of the Year? I’d like it to be A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol or Mister Pip but I have a feeling it’ll be A Thousand Splendid Suns.

So now, ten weeks, ten books (actually I’ve read a few more than that), no more Richard and Judy to read, so it’s back to the Unread Book Mountain, which is a rather a nice feeling. I’m currently also mid-way through Stephen King’s On Writing, I’d heard so many good things about it over the last few months I had to read it. I still haven’t finished The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and I’m not sure I will. I think what’s luring me the most is Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch, now that looks good. Plus of course thanks to the Richard and Judy list I’ve got some new books to add to my ‘to be purchased list’ notably R.J. Ellory and Katherine McMahon.

The Rose of Sebastopol

I’ve just finished reading this week’s Richard and Judy’s book club choice, The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon and it was a lovely read. Set in the mid 19th century it tells the tale of a family caught up in the Crimean War, both in Crimea and back in London and the history between two disparate members of the family, following them from Derbyshire, to London and then the Crimea, one, Mariella calm and homely, the other Rosa headstrong and rebellious.

Now I don’t know much about the Crimean War and a map could have been useful (like in last week’s Richard and Judy choice, Random Acts of Heroic Love) so here’s a map I’ve just found.

 

From the Cambridge Modern History Atlas, 1912 at The University of Texas at Austin

I thought the book was beautifully written with a distinctive voice for it’ narrator Mariella. It was well researched and as Susan Hill (who suggested to the followers of her creative writing course to look at the Richard and Judy book club list as an indication of what is popular) said when describing the Richard and Judy list

You will find that most of them deal with countries other than this one and times other than now and several deal with war in one way or other. These are the books which have meat – the writers have something to write about, a story to tell, a time to immerse themselves in, another country to describe. This is the sort of book which a lot of people are reading now. They want meat. Thin, beautifully written, inward-looking contemporary literary novels are not fashionable and the ‘me’ novel does not find a place in this selection.

From Susan Hill’s blog post Aspirations

I can imagine that McMahon took the interesting subject of the Crimean War, imagined how it would effect the different members of the family, added some mystery and a love story and there you go, a plot!

And now for some major spoilers, please do not read if you’re planning to read the book or haven’t reached the end yet . . . . (I’ve written the paragraph below in white, so highlight to read)

I wasn’t too sure about the ending though, in the way how it ended when it did with Rosa’s death instead of tying up what happened to Mariella, Max and Henry. I suppose Rosa’s death was a powerful way to end the book instead of having it peter out in a ‘happy ending’ after I suppose Rosa had the ending she had been hurtling head long towards, still it left me slightly dissatisfied.

Finally I’ve noticed that the collective Richard and Judy list are up for the British Book Awards, so in Mrs. Lacer’s own ‘guess the winner’ list I’ll be ranking which book on the list I think should win. So I’ve read two now, so although a short list this is what I think is the best so far;

1. The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon – so far the most flawlessly written, it is deeply and beautifully researched invoking the sites, sounds and smells of the Crimean War.
2. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann