• About Me
  • Contact Me
  • Policies
  • Welcome

Novelhistorian

~ What's new and old in historical fiction

Novelhistorian

Tag Archives: Cornwall

Eighteenth-Century Iconoclast: Ross Poldark

07 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

class prejudice, Cornwall, Demelza, eighteenth century, England, Industrial Revolution, Poldark, sexism, social commentary, social injustice, Winston Graham

Review: Ross Poldark, a Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787, by Winston Graham
Sourcebooks, 2009 [1945]. 314 pp. $17

Captain Ross Poldark returns to Cornwall from the American war to find that everything has gone to pieces. His father has died, leaving behind debts. The two servants tasked with keeping up the modest ancestral home and surrounding farmlands have let them go to ruin and sold off the livestock to keep themselves soused. Worst of all, though, Ross’s sweetheart, the beautiful Elizabeth, is shortly to marry his friend and cousin, Francis.

Beach in Cornwall (Courtesy Mike Coates, publicdomainpictures.net)

Beach in Cornwall (Courtesy Mike Coates, publicdomainpictures.net)

To say that this novel is about a man who overcomes pain and disappointment to put his life back together is like saying that Huckleberry Finn is about a boy on a raft. Ross indeed has plenty of reconstruction to do and ways of submerging (but not drowning) his sorrows. However, it’s how and why he goes about rebuilding his life, who helps or hinders him, and how everyone else feels about it that make Ross Poldark a marvelously entertaining story. Further, the novel also offers a finely detailed picture of eighteenth-century England, warts and all.

That’s because Ross, though a man of his time, has no use for conventions, institutions, or prejudices that unjustly protect his social class at others’ expense. Whether his years among American revolutionaries influenced his views, or his youthful, independent cast of mind has flowered in adulthood, Ross repeatedly dares gossip and ostracism to do what he thinks is right. He has his limits, of course, believing in social distinctions. And to avoid making enemies, he sometimes takes the middle road, only to learn that he can’t please anybody.

Nevertheless, seemingly with every action he takes, problems occur, and he rises to meet them, revealing conflicts within himself and with the society in which he lives. Even so simple an exercise as dancing with a young girl to let her feel that she’s not a wallflower has far-reaching complications because of the way girls are treated like marriageable chattel. Defending a cottager from poaching charges sets Ross against the local magistracy while putting class and social inequities on hideous display. Restarting an old copper mine touches on ills of the Industrial Revolution and the constant struggle for a living wage.

But nothing arouses as much gossip or spite from the community, or ambivalence within Ross himself, as his rescue of Demelza Carne. Ross first sees the twelve-year-old Demelza at a fair, where she tries to rescue her dog from being tortured by a pack of boys, only to be set upon herself. Ross wonders why she’d go to that length for a mere animal–another common eighteenth-century English attitude–but when he sees the welts and bruises that her father has inflicted on her, he resolves to hire her as a live-in maid. He knows what people will say, but the more they say it, the less he’s willing to listen.

Wise choice. Once Demelza emerges from beneath her miserable childhood and realizes she can be a real person, she seizes the chance with both hands, changing the Poldark residence in the process. Over time, her vivacity, directness, and ability to see to the heart of things make her formidable indeed, and her way of putting things can only be described as delicious. She’s no prodigy–in this, Graham has wielded a lighter hand than many novelists I could name–but she has considerable resources that not even she’s aware of. In brief, she’s a firecracker, if a subservient one–for now.

Ross Poldark is the first of eleven volumes, which, I’m told, became a British television series, aired on PBS. I consider myself lucky that I never saw it, because I can appreciate this wonderful novel with fresh eyes.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Looking for a Home, and Himself

27 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Cornwall, Dunmore, First World War, Historical novel, lyrical

Review: The Lie, by Helen Dunmore
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2014. 294 pp. $25

“A memory like mine is more a curse than a blessing. It cuts into the past, as sharp as a knife, and serves it up glistening.” So observes Daniel Branwell, a British soldier returned to his native Cornish village in 1920, where he hopes to make a life after the Great War.

But Daniel has no home he may call his own, living in a cottage informally bequeathed him by an elderly woman whom he tended in her final illness. He worries that he’ll be turned off her property and prosecuted for having buried her on her land, as she wished, instead of the village cemetery.

From this seemingly modest premise, Helen Dunmore has created a page-turner of extraordinary depth and beauty, which has touched me ever since I finished it and probably will for a long time. Daniel’s homelessness is a metaphor for his struggles to find a place in the world, which have plagued him all his life; I love novels whose premise is itself a powerful, elegant image. But Dunmore takes this further, for her protagonist has an even more serious problem, an inability to find a resting place within himself.

Daniel’s sharp memory overwhelms him. The rocks, the sea, the pathways around the village, everything reminds him of Frederick, his closest boyhood friend who was killed in France, while he, Daniel, survived. Frederick’s sister, Felicia, Daniel’s first love, still lives in the village, which brings up more memories. But usually, he relives the war, which Dunmore renders mostly in words of one or two syllables, as with this passage, which narrates his thoughts during a visit to Felicia, now a war widow with a young child:


This is what we dreamed of, in France. Fire, and four walls, dry feet, a belly warm with food. Children’s toys on the floor. We talked about such things as if they were gone from the earth. You couldn’t believe in them. I still can’t, even though I’m here. I say Frederick’s name, but the room doesn’t answer.


The many lyrical passages like this convey Daniel’s longing, his pain, and, elsewhere, his rage–at the world, for passing him by, or the villagers, who treat him like an intruder, a shameful reminder of what they themselves escaped. But his trauma seems a quiet desperation, even when he’s reliving blood and thunder, the sort of understatement I find more compelling than the sound and fury that so often describes a mind torn by combat.

Perhaps most impressive about The Lie is the author’s range. I had read two historical thrillers of hers, The Siege and The Betrayal (can we say Dunmore likes simple titles?), which, though excellent, differ from this novel.

Do read The Lie. I haven’t been as moved by a novel about the First World War, one of my favorite subjects, since I finished A Long, Long Way, by Sebastian Barry.

Recent Posts

  • Controlling the Heavens: Jade Dragon Mountain
  • Good, Evil, and Hope: Deacon King Kong
  • The Marsh Girl: Where the Crawdads Sing
  • No Quarter: Wolves of Eden
  • Heresies: The King at the Edge of the World

Recent Comments

2020 – A Year… on Missing, Presumed: The Poppy…
Novelhistorian on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Mila on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Novelhistorian on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…
Juxtabook on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Categories

  • Comment
  • Reviews and Columns
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blogs I Follow

  • Rewriting History
  • Damyanti Biswas
  • madame bibi lophile recommends
  • For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction
  • Suzy Henderson
  • Flashlight Commentary
  • Diary of an Eccentric

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 154 other followers

Follow Novelhistorian on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • Controlling the Heavens: Jade Dragon Mountain
  • Good, Evil, and Hope: Deacon King Kong
  • The Marsh Girl: Where the Crawdads Sing
  • No Quarter: Wolves of Eden
  • Heresies: The King at the Edge of the World

Recent Comments

2020 – A Year… on Missing, Presumed: The Poppy…
Novelhistorian on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Mila on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Novelhistorian on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…
Juxtabook on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Contents

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Rewriting History

How writers turn history into story, and story into history

Damyanti Biswas

For lovers of reading, writing, travel, humanity

madame bibi lophile recommends

Reading: it's personal

For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction

Suzy Henderson

What's new and old in historical fiction

Flashlight Commentary

What's new and old in historical fiction

Diary of an Eccentric

writings of an eccentric bookworm

Cancel