Review: The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge

Title: The White Witch
Author: Elizabeth Goudge
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Hodder & Stroughton
Published: 1977
Pages: 414

Rating: 2 out of 10

For so many pages, this book is quite empty. I will try to list a plot here, but truly, there wasn't one. This is the best that I could come up with:

It is 1642 England, and the English Civil War is flaring up. Back at their peaceful estate, the affluent Haslewood family does their best to get through the times.

The White Witch was a very bland, tedious novel that I found it quite a chore to finish. Fortunately, the writing isn't all that difficult, so I just decided to sit down one night with a good supply of tea (the best thing about reading this one) and be done with it.

I couldn't believe how long the author let the plot go motionless. The first 200 pages are filled with descriptions of people going from here to there, and it all just seemed so pointless. It wasn't as if anything exciting or remotely interesting happened - ever.
Not that I need every book I read to be a page-turner, but this one was just nothing. I wondered to myself how an author could possibly think that she had put enough into this book and get it published. If this had been more of a character-driven book, with good characterizations and strong writing, I would have forgiven the lack of events in a moment. But even the main characters fall flat and appear empty of thoughts and feelings. Many of the reviews on the cover listed this as "Goudge's best" or, "her peak," making me wonder if they were either paid for or quoted massively out of context.

The one thing that does happen, around page 200, is that we get to see a battle of the war, with Charles II as a character.
I thought that perhaps this marked the beginning of the action (finally) but was wrong.
After the battle, things return to the Haslewoods, and everything goes on just as tediously as it had before until the very last page.

I thought that it was funny how for so long, all of the characters keep saying that they are "fighting" the war, and how the war is looming over them, but in actuality, their hollow words are as much as the war ever touches them. There appears to be no war at all, no matter how much they keep telling us that it is affecting them so deeply.

Other things I found annoying...
- Froniga references "the middle ages." I am pretty sure that no one called them that until much later than 1642.
- Yoben, our heroine's Romany love interest, annoyed me. I don't mind a bit of romance, and I love Gypsy stories, but this man would have been better edited out. Like everything else, he is pointless to the story. The fact that he and Froniga have been in love for ten years, but have never spoken of it or done anything, seemed a bit of a stretch.
- There were too many characters. Even the main characters were under developed, so the last thing this book needed was more. But, for example, Yoben has an adopted mother, a sister, and his mother has three children. Do we really need all of these extra and irrelevant characters?
- This thing about unicorns. Everyone kept emphasizing it and it got old, plus (like everything else) it was pointless.
- Everyone measures their love for everyone! Every single character is always giving us a list of who they love most, and second most, and how they love Jenny just a bit more than Will, or Froniga second to Margaret, or Froniga first, and so on. What??
- There are a few chapters devoted to two completely random characters (a gypsy and a servant) who haven't come up in the story before except to be mentioned passingly. For some reason, Goudge draws up a little story for them, almost like a bad short story smacked down in the middle of a novel, about how the Gypsy fools the servant woman out of her money (and in a way that really didn't make any sense, by the way). I know that I have already said everything about this book was pointless, but this brazen veering away from the vague plot line was just ridiculous.

Every plot element in this book is watered down, subdued, and drawn out into boredom. Certainly not a book I would recommend.

Review: Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory

Title: Earthly Joys
Author: Philippa Gregory
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2005
Pages: 516

Rating: 7 out 10

Although I normally read books quite quickly, I stretched out my reading of this one over a few days. The vividly portrayed Renaissance England setting, the complex, familiar characters, and the interesting, steady flow of the plot line made me want to stay in this story longer than I usually do with others.

The main character is John Tradescant, a gardener in the time of King James I. While other men entwine themselves in politics and charge eagerly off to war, John is content to nurture seedlings, discover new plants, and watch his beloved trees grow along with his life. John ends up becoming the loyal personal servant of George Villiers, the young and handsome Duke of Buckingham, and the king's favorite. As the years slip by, John sacrifices his family and his life for his master, viewing him at different times as a son, a brother, a friend, and a lover.

I just loved this story! There was so much complexity, so many undercurrents, so many sub-plots. Though I have certainly heard more than a few complaints about the historical accuracy of Philippa Gregory's works, this one in particular, I found this to be a very well written book.

First of all, the way that Gregory writes is just lovely here. She captures everything so perfectly. Some authors write their books with a poetic beauty, some with a touch of appreciated humor, some with drama, some with characters you can't help loving, but Gregory seems to mix a bit of all these together into a writing style that just compels you to keep reading. I had to struggle to put the book down, or not read so quickly as I normally do, because despite wanting to savor this book, I also felt compelled to tear through it in one sitting.

I read a review on the back cover of another of her books that said no one has mastered Renaissance England like Philippa Gregory. I don't know if I would go that far, but she has definitely mastered this setting. I just absolutely love books that fully transport you to another time and place, and this book certainly succeeds with that.

The only parts that I felt a lack of a setting were when John travels the world – to India, Asia, Russia, and France. Surprisingly, there is a very large lack of placement here. After being so sharply introduced to the sights and smells of England, it was a bit startling to suddenly be whisked off to another country – even if a similar one, such as France – and have no descriptions of a setting at all.
In these scenes, the author focuses on John himself, his botany, and other things that are going on in the plot. But the scenery is left a mystery, something that I felt extremely odd, considering how good Gregory is at that.

All of the characters in Earthly Joys are wonderful. John is a simple man, and yet, we see into his thoughts and actions so deeply that he becomes a complex, and essentially a very realistically ordinary, yet interesting man. The relationship between him and his wife was an extremely well written one, and though there was no great love story, Gregory combined fondness, duty, love, resentment, and guilt into a very believable marriage. George Villiers was another of my favorite characters. Or at least, another of the most well written characters – I hated him! Excessively arrogant, reckless, selfish, and – the reader is led to believe – a traitor and a murder.

Something about this book that I was not expecting was how sexual it was. Gregory makes no attempt to hide all of the homosexual alliances, affairs, and romances going on at the time – in fact, she makes good use of them and even has John take a male lover as well.

All of the characters, settings, politics, and events in this book were very well written. Gregory may not be the deepest or most historically accurate writer, but she certainly is an engaging one.

Review: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Title: Year of Wonders
Author: Geraldine Brooks
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2001
Pages: 336

Rating: 7 out of 10

Year of Wonders is the story of a small village in 1666 England that is quarantined after the feared Bubonic Plague flares up there. The young, recently widowed Anna Frith struggles to make her way through terrifying times as she sees her neighbors change, fall to the disease, and turn against each other.

This book was elegantly written, and I was so gripped by the first chapter. I felt that I was really there in Anna's apple orchard. Geraldine Brooks is certainly a very talented writer, with vivid descriptions and strong characters.

Michael and Elinor Mompellion were the strongest of the characters. Michael is the town rector, a man of god, and on the surface seems to be the hero of the story. He encourages the villagers, doing his best to lift their spirits, he urges them to do what is right by quarantining the village, and he spends his days tending the sick and comforting those who have lost loved ones. However, through out the story, we see tiny glimpses of another man - one who is angry, bitter, stubborn, and self righteous.

His wife, Elinor Mompellion, was the blameless, beautiful woman who helped anywhere she could, always doing good. She was the angel of the story. Anna looks up to her, and their relationship is somewhere between sisterly and motherly. Elinor later reveals her sad background to Anna, but it isn't until the end that we really discover the extent of her pain. I don't want to give out any spoilers in this review, but after the book was finished, I came up with more questions about Elinor, and found myself wishing that Brooks would write a companion book telling her story.

Anna, our main character and narrator, was a good character, though not as well written as her friends. I think that her story gets lost a bit in the story she is telling, though I did like her. She is insightful, wise, and strong. I was especially struck by a few paragraphs in the book where she wonders if the Plague is a natural thing, instead of a divine thing of God. She reasons that if the disease is a thing of Nature, there must be a natural way to stop it. Though this sounds completely logical and obvious, there were few, if any, individuals with this idea in 1600's England, and the book reflects this.

I loved how the town took on a life of its own. It was made up of scenery that Brooks so eloquently described and the people themselves. Men and women who were not major or even minor characters played important roles in this book, because there are many instances where a mob, or a group, of villagers lash out in rage toward other townspeople. It reminded me of the Salem Witch Trials, and there is even a scene where the locals accuse a woman of witchcraft for trying to guard against the Plague. In these terrible scenes, I felt Brooks' writing potential the most as they were powerfully brought to life.

The downside to this book was that not a whole lot actually happens. I felt that the Plague should have been more present in the story, more tragic. While it is certainly ingrained in every page, it never seems so severe or serious as it presumably was. Other books I have read on the topic gave me more of a sense of the hardship and loss Bubonic victims suffered. In the beginning of the book, some of those close to Anna die of the disease, but after that, she simply keeps mentioning random names of those who have passed. The names mean nothing to us, however, which greatly lessens the impact.

Another negative for me was the ending (or, the second ending). I wish very much that it had just been left out, as it took the European 17th Century world half-way around the globe to a spicy Middle Eastern setting and starts talking about rugs and things. It had absolutely nothing to do with the story. I was shaking my head in bewilderment as I read it.

The chilly foreboding in this book was beautiful in a ghostly, sorrowful sort of way. I loved the writing style and will certainly be looking for more of the author's writing.

Recommended - just skip the epilogue!