Tag: historical

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

After I enjoyed reading Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, I decided to get The Birth of Venus because Amazon listed it as a similar book.

The Birth of Venus is a historical novel, similar to Girl with a Pearl Earring in its themes of sensual awakening and art, although it goes into more detail, especially on history and politics (from the death of Lorenzo de Medici to the rise and fall of Savonarola), with a bit of Dante thrown in.

Set in 15th century Florence, it is the story of Alessandra Cecchi, precocious and artistic daughter of a well-to-do cloth merchant. The story unfolds with Alessandra’s coming of age at 14, forcing her to sacrifice her dreams to fulfill the expectations of womanhood amidst the turmoil around her, with Savonarola threatening to snuff out the influence of the Medicis, and the pending French invasion. The Florence she has known and loved is changing, and with this, Alessandra carves out a life she can call her own, and finally explore the passions she’s kept at bay.

Like Griet in Girl with a Pearl Earring, Alessandra is intoxicated with art, and falls in love with a painter. I love how these two books explore art and love in a similar fashion. Maybe it’s the artist in me, but it’s a heady combination. The richness of detail paints a very vivid picture — you can almost hear the fine scratching of Alessandra’s chalk on the wooden board, or smell the paint as it’s being mixed to the right shade…

The second half’s full of surprises, especially Part IV, where things you didn’t expect to have any significance fall into place, and tie the whole story into a very strong piece: a charming novel that’s hard to resist.

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My copy: trade paperback upgraded into hardcover with dustjacket, thanks to Triccie and Babing

My rating: 5/5 stars

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Some stories are driven by their plots; Girl with a Pearl Earring is driven by the sensory experience it provides the reader.

16-year old Griet is a Dutch girl who comes to serve as a maid in the house of the painter Johannes Vermeer. Her keen perception and artistic sensibilities allows her access into Vermeer’s inner sanctum: his painting studio, where she eventually becomes the master’s assistant.

On top of her work inside the studio, Griet must contend with household duties and serve Vermeer’s temperamental wife Catharina, his shrewd mother-in-law Maria Thins, the maid Tanneke, as well as Vermeer’s growing brood of children.

Griet is on the brink of becoming a woman, and has to deal with growing attentions of the local butcher’s son and Vermeer’s patron van Ruijven. And as Griet becomes more intimate with the master Vermeer, disruption and jealousy erupt within the household, and ripple in the world beyond.

I was fascinated by the novel because aside from the typical coming-of-age elements (discovery of sensuality, angst, etc), it deals with artistic awakening. Griet was innately artistic, with her predilection for arranging vegetables by color. She had an eye for art, as Vermeer noticed himself. Thus she was promoted from mere studio-cleaner to artistic assistant and eventually to Vermeer’s sitting model. And she learns to see how Vermeer sees, and understands how a real artist doesn’t paint something according to how the rest of the world sees it…

Because Griet has a real eye for detail, the imagery is so rich that you can picture so much in your mind: Griet’s favorite tile, the blood caked between the butcher’s fingers, the scalloped edges of a tortoiseshell comb, Vermeer’s gray eyes, the meat market on a busy day… It’s terrific how a book can transport you to a different world, and make you see it in Griet’s eyes.

She develops an attraction to Vermeer, and I love the way she doesn’t come right out and say it, but you can read through her thoughts and feel it. There’s a part in the novel where he’s teaching her to mix paint, and you can practically reach out and touch the electricity crackling in her…

Sigh, what else can I say? Art is the best romance.

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There’s a movie version, starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth, and it’s every bit as good as the book. Excellent cinematography!

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My copy: originally an old creased trade paperback bought at Book Sale, replaced with a second trade paperback in better condition, then upgraded to a hardcover copy (with dustjacket), mooched from the US

My rating: 5/5 stars

My Father Had A Daughter by Grace Tiffany

My Father Had A Daughter is a wonderfully inventive fictionalized memoir of Judith, William Shakespeare’s daughter.

Since they were young, Judith and her twin brother Hamnet, have been in awe of their father, who told them stories about fairy queens and the playhouses in London. Judith and Hamnet are inseparable, and have a world no one else understands (Hamnet and Judy playing A Midsummer Nights’ dream evoked memories of our 6th grade play in St. Scho)… But tragedy strikes as Hamnet accidentally drowns In a fantastic game Judith creates out of her wild imagination, and Judith is stricken with grief.

One day, Judith uncovers a new play in her father’s wastepapers — Twelfth Night, which to her horror uses her grief as a springboard for the plot. Enraged, Judith decides to storm off to London to sabotage her father’s play, under the guise of street urchin Castor Popworthy, and she rediscovers her theatrical self.

I liked this book because it was charming, and Judith Shakespeare seemed to really come to life. The earlier parts of the book, when Hamnet was still alive, reminds me of The Thirteenth Tale and its concept of “twin-ness,” and how a twin is never the same once “untwinned.”

The highlight of the novel is when the spunky Judith becomes a girl acting as a boy acting as a girl right under her father’s nose — The whole London adventure was hilarious!

It’s also great how Judith’s relationship with her parents evolved, how she gained respect and affection for her mother, and how her relationship with her father evolved from hero worship, to disillusion, to finally, an understanding of her father’s character.

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My copy: a well-worn trade paperback bought at Book Sale (P70)

My rating: 4/5 stars

photo courtesy of Barnes and Noble (http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/18690000/18696089.JPG)

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl


Another historical thriller (am such a sucker for these!)

The Dante Club is about a series of grisly murders committed at the same time Dante Alighieri’s Inferno was being translated into English by a group of prominent New England literary figures, namely Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, George Washington Greene, and JT Fields (the group is known as The Dante Club, hence the title).

The murders are patterned after the different circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno, and the Dante Club must figure out who is behind the dastardly deeds or else lose the chance to introduce the writings of Dante Alighieri to America before they complete their translation.

I discovered this book a few years ago, when I interviewed Ces Drilon and she recommended it to me. The writing is old-fashioned and dragging at times, or maybe it’s because male authors focus on different (er, boring) things.

I also wish I’d waited for my schedule to free up before actually plunging into the novel because it’s the type that’s best for uninterrupted reading. Except I also had to stop reading it at night because given that the “Lucifer” (aka, serial killer) was patterning his murders after the circles of hell, it got pretty scary.

Canticle Three (it’s divided into Canticles), is particularly exciting, but I’ll have to stop now before I say anything more. Bottomline, it’s a good blend of fact and fiction, one that will keep you on your toes.

I still have to read The Poe Shadow, I have the hardback on my to-be-read shelf…

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My copy: mass market paperback bought at Powerbooks, upgraded into a trade paperback mooched from the US (or was it Canada? I forget…)

My rating: 3/5 stars

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova


A young girl exploring her father’s library chances upon an ancient book and a collection of aged letters containing secrets that connect her family’s past to Vlad the Impaler, the Prince of Wallachia, on whom the legend of Dracula is based.
Except that it turns out that it’s not just a legend…

The Historian is one of the best thrillers I have ever read. 816 pages might seem long for a novel, but I thoroughly enjoyed its wordiness as I sank my teeth into this hair-raising adventure.

The narrative is told in alternating chapters from three different timelines: the narrator, the narrator’s father (Paul), and Paul’s adviser Professor Rossi. It is interesting to note that they are, at different points of their lives, on the same quest — the quest to find Dracula and vanquish his evil.

It is an exciting chase throughout the Eastern bloc, rich Eastern European history, and a lot of sleepless nights for the reader.

I don’t know what interrupted my reading more — endless things to do at work, or the fact that I couldn’t stay up alone at night reading it because it gave me the creeps.

On my first reading, I was at Starbucks, sipping my latte and reading, sitting on the counter against the glass wall of the store. Suddenly a rap comes through the window and I nearly jump out of my skin in fright… It turned out it was my thesis adviser — hehe, Sir Brion lang pala, phew! — but man, I was terrified!

When I first got The Historian, I was really looking for a good historical thriller and I seriously thought I’d be sorely disappointed, after having read The Rule of Four, The Secret Supper, and The Dante Club in succession. With all the historical thrillers out, I was really cautious of buying another one because it might turn out to be a dud. I’m glad I was wrong. The Historian was definitely a satisfying read.

The second time I read it was in September, when a bunch of The Historian fans from Flips Flipping Pages decided to get together to discuss the book and eventually turned it into an official discussion. I thought rereading it wouldn’t be as scary, but I spoke too soon, as I was home alone and couldn’t sleep without the light on! I kept seeing Vlad Tepes’ face every time I closed my eyes that week…

The Historian isn’t for everyone — some balk at length, some (*cough Twilight fans cough*) prefer four volumes of sap disguised as vampire novels, and some just plain don’t like it — but for those into historical thrillers, I’d say it’s a must read!

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My copy: originally a mass market paperback, upgraded into a trade paperback, upgraded into a hardcover with a missing dust jacket, and now (permanently) a hardcover with a dust jacket!

My rating: 5/5 stars!

book photo courtesy: http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/litchick/uploaded_images/historian-799672.jpg