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Tag Archives: religious strife

Who’s a Reliable Narrator?: An Instance of the Fingerpost

21 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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1663, book review, Cromwell, England, feminism, historical fiction, humor, hypocrisy, Iain Pears, literary fiction, mystery, Oxford, Rashomon, religious strife, Robert Boyle, scientific method, sexism, Stuarts, theocracy, Umberto Eco, unreliable narrator

Review: An Instance of the Fingerpost, by Iain Pears
Berkeley, 1998. 704 pp. $20

As this captivating novel begins, Marco da Cola, a self-described “gentleman of Venice,” offers his account of his visit to England in 1663. Sent by his merchant father to see to business affairs that have gone wrong, da Cola also carries a letter of introduction to notable English scientists, for our Venetian gentleman has interests there too. Accordingly, he travels to Oxford, where he meets Robert Boyle, the famed physicist, among others, and discusses the proper approach to observation and reasoning concerning both accuracy and conformity to God’s laws. Right away, these principles are tested, through an unheard-of medical treatment, a murder, an investigation, and a punishment, in all of which da Cola plays an important role.

Robert Boyle, physicist, chemist, and philosopher, as painted in 1689 (courtesy Science History Institute, Philadelphia, via Wikimedia Commons)

What sounds simple is anything but. These are religious times, dangerous to those who pray or think in unapproved ways; and with Cromwell’s protectorate recently ended, and the Stuarts restored to the throne, suspicion and conspiracy abound. Heed ye these controversies well, gentle reader, for they shape not only what Signor da Cola witnesses, but how others view him, his manuscript, and the events he describes.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is a strongly feminist novel, but by demonstration, not by soapbox. The woman most central to the story possesses a breadth of mind and character surpassing those of anyone else, to which Pears never calls undue attention. Yet how she behaves arouses suspicion, which raises a crucial theme, how men perceive women through the lens of their own weaknesses.

During his sojourn in England, da Cola shows his kind heart, good-natured disposition, ready laugh, and — within the bounds of seventeenth-century attitudes — tolerant outlook. All that makes him a perfect foil for the disagreeable, smug, hidebound, and cruel Englishmen he meets (many of whom are historical figures). His narrative provides an often cheeky commentary, as when he sums up what he sees and judges it freely:

I discovered that, in only a brief space of time, the atmosphere of Oxford has settled on me, rendering me as melancholic as most of its inhabitants. There is something about the place; a dampness which is oppressive to the spirits, which bears down powerfully on the soul. I have for long had a theory about the weather which, if God spares me, I would like to develop one day. I do believe that the weather and grayness of the climate will forever preclude the English for making much of a stir in the world, unless they abandon their island for more sunny climes. Transport them to the Americas or the Indies, and their character is such that they could rule the world; leave them where they are, and they are doomed to sink in lassitude.

However, when da Cola’s narrative breaks off, other witnesses to the same events narrate their view and take great exception to his manuscript. I don’t mean their counterattacks on his character, which confirm their hatred of foreigners, their gloominess, and much else he remarked on. Rather, the Venetian gentleman seems not to have told the truth. The question is why.

The other voices respond to that and much else, recasting the murder by their own lights, as they justify themselves, often with a semblance of truth, but perhaps not. You don’t know whom to believe, or about what. Not only does the narrative framework recall the great Kurosawa film Rashomon, in which a presumably clear-cut criminal act becomes murky when viewed from different perspectives, Pears raises “no — and furthermore” to its most psychologically penetrating form. Just when you think you might grasp how the murder and investigation unfolded, you don’t — though maybe there’s a piece of evidence, viewed differently, that makes sense. And that one piece won’t go away.

Readers of Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose will recognize similarities here (as reviewers noted when Fingerpost came out). Crime and its repercussions become inseparable from the way people perceive good and evil, or what it means to think and observe, not to mention how ready they are to detest each other for petty differences in religious doctrine. Like Eco too, Pears renders political, social, and intellectual attitudes with such sureness that you don’t doubt him for a second.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is an enthralling mystery and a chilling exploration of the vicious potential of the human mind.

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

Keys and Corpses: The Locksmith’s Daughter

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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1580, book review, commercial fiction, Elizabethan England, generic conflict resolutions, historical fiction, Karen Brooks, London, no and furthermore, religious strife, sexism, Sir Francis Walsingham, woman with a past

Review: The Locksmith’s Daughter, by Karen Brooks
Morrow, 2018. 551 pp. $17

Following a shame and scandal that took her away from her parents in London, Mallory Bright returns, hoping to hide herself as an assistant to her father, a locksmith. But it’s 1580, and according to the mores of Elizabethan England, locksmithing is no trade for a woman, nor should Mallory have received a scholar’s education, including ancient and modern languages. However, her father’s old friend, Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s secretary, witnesses Mallory’s talent for picking locks, and he realizes what a weapon she’d be in his campaign against Catholic subversives. The previous years have seen a not-entirely-covert war against those whom, rightly or wrongly, Sir Francis and the crown see as plotters to subvert Protestantism in England and topple Elizabeth from her throne.

Portrait of Sir Francis Walsingham, ca. 1585, attributed to John de Critz (courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London, via Wikimedia Commons)

Walsingham has long fascinated novelists and historians, and no wonder; he may have been the first national spymaster in history. Here, I find Mallory’s connection to him contrived, and her background even less credible, while her scandalous past is nothing less than operatic. But if you can get past that, The Locksmith’s Daughter offers a few pleasures, chief of which is sixteenth-century London, which Brooks has in the palm of her hand. Whether it’s common attitudes, daily routine, the casual way the law treats human life, scenery, or details of dress, she puts you right there:

Up ahead, a pack of dogs barked as a butcher unhooked the gutted pig strung up outside his premises, a swarm of flies lifting from the gray flash as he hoisted it over his shoulder and leveled kicks and curses at the hounds. Nearby, a flower seller chatted to an old sailor with a wooden stump where his left leg should be. We entered an area I once walked with confidence and I stayed close to Angela, who’d begun to hum the ditty drifting from a nearby tavern.

“No — and furthermore” seeps through these pages, which, though many, fly by. Conflict abounds, whether moral, political, or amorous, and Mallory’s closest friend, Caleb, is an actor-playwright, always good for color and theme (artifice, romance, deception). The adventures that Mallory undertakes for Sir Francis are truly hair-raising, and none go as planned. Many people die as a result of his efforts, some quite horribly. The serpentine plot forces Mallory to rethink everything she’s ever believed, and she’s never far from confrontation and recrimination, even if she sometimes narrowly escapes them — for now. There’s even a rakish, passionate peer, Lord Nathaniel Warham, Caleb’s patron, who takes a keen interest in Mallory and seems to see through her.

But despite these promising elements, to me, The Locksmith’s Daughter fails to deliver. Brooks’s style involves too much tell, not enough show. After doing such a marvelous job setting up crackling conflicts, she douses them with generic responses, whether sentences like, “Wonder and terror coursed down my spine,” or scads of rhetorical questions (“Did I make a mistake? What could I have done?”) The author wants us to believe that Mallory, though an exceptional woman for her time, is still at least partly in thrall to common views of gender roles. Fair enough, but rhetorical questions don’t prove that; Mallory needs to show it, not just entertain it, and whenever she criticizes herself for stepping beyond her role or her station, I don’t believe her. This split between the world she dreams of and the one she lives in is a difficult point of character to convey, but it’s crucial. And though I know what Brooks is trying to say, Mallory’s words and thoughts in those moments seem handed to her rather than coming from within. It’s as though she were a member of Caleb’s acting troupe, speaking her lines.

The romance, too, feels a little forced. The reader knows right away that Lord Nathaniel has fallen for Mallory, and when this notion finally occurs to her, it’s obvious that the lady doth protest too much. She would be easier to believe if they quarreled more often about anything substantive, rather than who insulted whom, and there are plenty of contentious issues floating around, not least religious persecution. Naturally, he rescues her at key moments, which disappoints this feminist reader, but it’s also the way he (and others) come to her aid, revealing that they knew a particular secret all along and have acted accordingly. It’s a shame that such an able storyteller should resort to melodrama, but perhaps she knows her audience and figures that skeptics like me aren’t part of it.

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

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