• About Me
  • Contact Me
  • Policies
  • Welcome

Novelhistorian

~ What's new and old in historical fiction

Novelhistorian

Tag Archives: Rivka Galchen

Lucky Seven: Another Blog Birthday

25 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ben Hopkins, book reviews, Carol Edgarian, Eleanor Morse, Esi Edugyan, First World War, historical fiction, Ian McGuire, James McBride, Janet Fitch, Jess Walter, Lisa See, Maggie O'Farrell, P.S. Duffy, Peg Kingman, R. N. Morris, Rivka Galchen

As I do every year at this time, I recap my favorite reviews from the last twelve months of Novelhistorian. This year’s crop includes several that will stay with me a long while.

Start with Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell’s extraordinarily intimate, subtle portrait of: a courtship and marriage; the gossamer boundary between life and death; the longing for love and connection, despite that; and daily life in Elizabethan England with Shakespeare at the center, though his last name never appears, and most of the narrative belongs to Agnes, his wife. (Yes; Agnes, not Anne.)

Ben Hopkins’s Cathedral tells of thirteenth-century serfs in Alsace buying their freedom and moving to a city where a cathedral is being built. From that singular occurrence emerges a beautifully imagined tale of greed, politics, skullduggery, sex, bigotry, and piety, while the coming Renaissance lurks in the distance. This narrative has zest and fire; a masterpiece.

A coming-of-age novel for both a young girl and her native city, the San Francisco of 1906, Carol Edgarian’s Vera casts an outwardly unsentimental eye on fraught mother-daughter relationships and the all-consuming question of how women can wield power. At the same time, the girl never loses her deep yearnings, possessing a rich inner life at odds with her circumstances. A remarkable duality, there, that few authors can portray so convincingly.

Washington Black, Esi Edugyan’s story of a slave in nineteenth-century Barbados who dares dream of a life he wasn’t born to have, is that rare novel about a victim who expresses no self-pity or bravado, and which conveys every character, even the villains, in their fullness. No earnestness, here, only a protagonist who never stops striving and loving, no matter how many blows he takes.

Unlike any other novel I’ve ever read about the 1960s, Eleanor Morse’s Margreete’s Harbor captures the essence of the decade, that ineffable vibe. The narrative rests on small moments writ large, depicted in gorgeous prose, and which show you characters as deep as the Maine harbor on which they live—contradictory, sometimes cranky, secretive, and altogether real.

The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter, reads like a thriller about labor strife in Spokane, Washington, 1909, enacted by larger-than-life characters. Life’s a fight to the finish, and so much wrong blankets the landscape, you seldom know where right is hiding itself, let alone how to act accordingly. The political and social divisions portrayed here parallel those of the present.

The First World War is my historical specialty, and I’m always on the lookout for authentic novels about the era. Consider, then, The Cartographer of No Man’s Land, P.S. Duffy’s moving portrayal of a Canadian infantry officer’s war and the home front he leaves behind. She effortlessly captures the camaraderie of men at war, the search for meaning amid the violence, the tension and release of battle. Even readers who avoid such stories may find much to keep them glued to this one—a debut novel, no less.

The Revolution of Marina M, by Janet Fitch, realizes the Russian atmosphere, be it Petrograd or rural peasantry, with bold, lush strokes and complete authority. Like the Russian novels the author admires, hers goes deeper than a sweeping lens and epic events. You understand what motivates these characters, all of whom have inner lives for the reader to navigate, and the weight of events never feels like a burden, even at 800 pages.

In The White Feather Killer, R. N. Morris excels at characterization, the atmosphere of 1914 London, and the craft of whodunit. So many scenes in his novel start out one way and shoot off unexpectedly in another, the essence of tension, because something touches a nerve in his legion of fragile people. Some readers may find these tortured souls off-putting, but the rewards here are many, not least a soul-searching detective, an unvarnished portrayal of police work, and a similar, gritty depiction of a great metropolis straining at its bounds.

The Great Unknown, Peg Kingman’s philosophical novel about the origins of life, set in 1845 Edinburgh, evokes a country on the brink of moral upending through scientific discovery. It’s also a thought-provoking daily drama playing out chance and consequences, fortunate or tragic, and people trying to figure out whether these outcomes mean anything or merely display the benign indifference of the universe. The usually droll tone delights.

With The Abstainer, Ian McGuire puts a capable, compassionate Irish detective in Manchester, England, in 1867, whose job is to keep tabs on Irish revolutionaries. When our man, who faces bigotry and obstruction from his superiors, hears that a cold assassin has arrived from America to settle scores with the highest and mightiest, staying one step ahead of the killer proves more than merely difficult. The tension in this fine thriller never relents.

A driven narrative of sibling rivalry, Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See, describes that city in 1935, the eve of personal disaster for two sisters, and a greater catastrophe for their country. See writes with the force of gravity, and when the worlds she creates collide, the shock waves are enormous, playing out themes of duty and tradition versus modernity and independence.

A south Brooklyn housing project in 1969 provides a whole world for James McBride in Deacon King Kong. What begins with a shooting turns into a complicated, finely woven story, involving a church, cheese deliveries, storytelling as an art form, racism, unlikely romances, what constitutes good in the face of so much evil, and how humans dare to hope. It’s also a rollicking good time, full of sprawling, delicious sentences with spicy flavor.

Rivka Galchen depicts an eccentric busybody who happens to be Johannes Kepler’s mother in Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, a tale set in the Duchy of Württemberg in 1618. Frau Kepler’s neighbors twist her admittedly cranky behavior into proof she consorts with the devil, which doesn’t stop them from pestering her to get her astronomer son to cast their horoscopes. A brilliant narrative, this, at once chilling and hilarious, as absurdity vies with truth to explain how conspiracy theories take root.

As my regular readers will note, I’ve recapped more books than usual this anniversary. I think that’s because I’ve gotten more selective in what I review or even finish reading. If I start a book and anticipate criticizing flat characters or a contrived narrative, I put the book aside. As a consequence, I wind up praising more books wholeheartedly.

Whether that’s an entirely good thing, I’m not sure. It’s no fun ripping a book apart (and besides, negative reviews take a lot of time to write). But I also don’t want to ignore promising novelists who haven’t found their feet, or stories that deserve a hearing despite their flaws.

It’s a balancing act, and if you have thoughts about it, I’d like to hear them.

What Makes a Conspiracy Theory: Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

23 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

book review, conspiracy theories, diction, feminism, Germany, historical fiction, humor, Johannes Kepler, Kafka, literary fiction, misogyny, paranoia, plagues, Rivka Galchen, Thirty Years War, witchcraft

Review: Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, by Rivka Galchen
FSG, 2021. 271 pp. $27

Life feels fragile in the German Duchy of Württemberg, for it’s 1618, and not only does plague stalk the land, the Thirty Years War brings the passage of armies and their attendant depredations. But in the village of Leonberg, these afflictions only lap around the edges. What really matters is that Katharina Kepler is accused of witchcraft.

Katharina is an old woman, a grandmother who puts more faith in her beloved cow, Chamomile, than in people, young children excepted. Known for herbal remedies and her strange way of talking — she seldom answers a question directly, and asks in turn those that nobody else would dream of — she’s a busybody. She thinks nothing of bursting into someone’s house, whether to bring a gift or tell them how they should be living. The Yiddish word nudnik comes to mind.

She’s the sort who has an opinion about everything, and if you’re really lucky, you’ll get to hear it. She has a way of summing people up in insulting terms: “The crowd of them looked like a pack of dull troubadours who, come morning, have made off with all the butter.” Finally, her son, Johannes, is Imperial Mathematician, and Katharina’s neighbors are always asking her if he’ll cast their horoscopes. Apparently, he knows things about the heavens and writes books. These are suspicious activities, especially if the desired horoscope isn’t forthcoming.

Johannes Kepler, who framed the laws of planetary motion, in 1620, portrait artist unknown (courtesy Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

From this eccentric yet harmless profile emerges the most incredible folklore. The good citizens of Leonberg believe, or come to believe, that Katharina has the power to poison, make people lame, pass through locked doors, cause livestock to sicken and die, and consort with the devil. How they arrive at these fancies — and why — makes a brilliant narrative, at once chilling and hilarious, absurd, yet with the ring of absolute truth.

In a novel like this, especially in the first-person narratives Galchen deploys, voice matters greatly. Here’s Katharina’s, on one of her favorite subjects, the failings of the local authorities:

I know you’ll think it’s not wise… but I’d like to say something about Ducal Governor Einhorn, whom I prefer to call the False Unicorn. He’s not from this area. He was brought in by the marvelous Duchess Sybille, may she rest in peace. The False Unicorn was to defer to Sybille’s judgment in all matters. Then Sybille died so suddenly. The Duke was distracted — with counting soldiers, signing treaties, commissioning lace shirt cuffs.… and so the False Unicorn usurped powers that should have reverted to the Duke. He began to puff up, Einhorn did. He wore his hair longer. He had a new collar made.… I will say that the False Unicorn looks like an unwell river otter in a doublet.

You might suppose, as I did at first, that Galchen owes a debt to Kafka. Not quite. In Kafka’s bureaucratic nightmares, the hand that wields power remains obscure, sometimes invisible. Here, you see the workings, or many of them; more importantly, you see their paranoid, angry underpinnings. Kafka is said to have read his work out loud to friends, causing general laughter. I’ve never laughed at Kafka — maybe that says something about me — but I did at Galchen. Until, that is, the accusations gather steam.

Everyone Knows is a feminist statement, for we have a free-thinking woman blamed for heresies, mostly by other women, interestingly. It’s as though they resent her for doing what they’ve never let themselves even think of. But though misogyny, including the self-inflicted variety, has historically fed attempts to suppress witchcraft, there’s much more here. Galchen has delved into the paranoia that produces conspiracy theories, and her reconstruction of their origins is spot on. Life has disappointed them, hasn’t granted what the conspiracy theorist assumes he or she deserves and, by God, someone will pay. If that’s not a diagnosis of a sickness that threatens this country’s social, cultural, and political fabric, I don’t know what is.

Some readers will find that this novel ends abruptly, and maybe it does. But that doesn’t trouble me. Galchen’s less concerned with what happens than its origins and legacy; she’s not so focused on the plot, and I accept that. More bothersome is the language, entirely brilliant, yet with occasional lapses in diction. Images like troubadours stealing butter or an otter in a doublet strike my ear perfectly, so I’m not prepared for modern idioms like okay, open up, be fine with, or share your story. If Galchen, a careful writer, is trying to suggest that these seventeenth-century Germans are just like us, she’s proven that in other, deeper ways.

And it is precisely those ways that make Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch required reading.

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

Recent Posts

  • The 1918-19 pandemic
  • Learning to See: Swimming Between Worlds
  • Lost Child: We Must Be Brave
  • Blackmail and Murder: Hot Time
  • Soft-Rock Sixties: Songs in Ursa Major

Recent Comments

Novelhistorian on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Francine Lerner on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Novelhistorian on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Dee Andrews on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Trauma and Post-Trau… on A Very Odd Couple: Crooked…

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • 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

  • Roxana Arama
  • Damyanti Biswas
  • madame bibi lophile recommends
  • History Imagined: 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 170 other followers
Follow Novelhistorian on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • The 1918-19 pandemic
  • Learning to See: Swimming Between Worlds
  • Lost Child: We Must Be Brave
  • Blackmail and Murder: Hot Time
  • Soft-Rock Sixties: Songs in Ursa Major

Recent Comments

Novelhistorian on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Francine Lerner on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Novelhistorian on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Dee Andrews on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Trauma and Post-Trau… on A Very Odd Couple: Crooked…

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • 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.

Roxana Arama

storyteller from a foreign land

Damyanti Biswas

For lovers of reading, crime writing, crime fiction

madame bibi lophile recommends

Reading: it's personal

History Imagined: 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

  • Follow Following
    • Novelhistorian
    • Join 170 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Novelhistorian
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...