Scan barcode
amalia1985's review
5.0
‘’Didn’t they know I had used the last of my paper on this work? The new paper I wanted, bought with money I’d never have, blew about my head, tumbling like leaves in a gale. I saw birds, caught in the storm, taken higher and higher, quills blown to the top of the sky.’’
In one of my recent reviews, I wrote about debuts and how fortunate we readers are to live in a time that constantly gives us more and more examples of authors whose first forays to the world of Literature are exceptional. This novel by Guinevere Glasfurd is one more token of our wonderful, exciting reading era.
Helena is a young woman, living in the Netherlands, during the 17th century. She is quite different and quite ahead of her time. She craves knowledge and has taught herself to read and write. However, she is forced to travel to Amsterdam to become a maid in order to financially support her mother and finds herself in the enterprise of an English bookseller. One day, the famous René Descartes arrives as a temporary lodger and from that moment on, the book examines the difficult relationship between the Dutch girl and the French philosopher.
Glasfurd weaves the story around the love affair between the main characters, but the novel never becomes a romance, not even close. She has done a wonderful job with the characters and their interactions. In the heroine’s portrayal, she has achieved the perfect balance because Helena tries to achieve independence and fulfillment of her thirst for a better life but -faithful to the context of the era- she never manages to escape the various social constraints. It is often that we see female characters in historical novels who aren’t realistic and have turned out too modern. Here, this doesn’t happen and fortunately so, because her point of view is our sole eyes to the story and her ideas are clearly in the foreground.
Descartes is a man of thought, coming to grips with reality with great difficulty. He is a loner, desperate to communicate his ideas, a man who doubts the established system. His relationship with Helena causes him to challenge his perspective, but there are limits. He has his mission but finds a new kind of fulfillment in Helena’s presence. She challenges his world view up to a point and forces him to question all the beliefs he had taken for granted.
When the setting is the beautiful country of the Netherlands, then it becomes a character in itself.Here, our focus isn’t just Amsterdam. We travel to Deventer, Leiden, Santpoort and Amersfoort. The descriptions are so vivid that I could picture the cities, I could smell the market odours, I could feel the crisp, wintry air. There is an absolutely stunning text where Descartes describes the snowflakes whose beauty and poetry drove away the heatwave we’re currently experiencing in Athens.
The interactions are well-composed, the dialogues a successful mixture of clear language that balances daily speech and period speech. The voices of the characters are fully ‘’heard’’, the details of the everyday life of the era create a beautiful background. The writer achieved to bring fact and fiction together in harmony and managed to highlight the issues of a woman’s struggle to find her place in a world made by men for men, the search of knowledge, the responsibility and self-sacrifice of being a single parent, the eternal fight between Thought and Action.
I admit I am very fond of novels that are set in the Netherlands, but I can’t help it. There is something in that particular setting that provides a distinctive aura to a novel. Glasfurd’s book is as beautiful and fluid as the waters of Amstel in the dusk, as the flickering lights on its surface….
In one of my recent reviews, I wrote about debuts and how fortunate we readers are to live in a time that constantly gives us more and more examples of authors whose first forays to the world of Literature are exceptional. This novel by Guinevere Glasfurd is one more token of our wonderful, exciting reading era.
Helena is a young woman, living in the Netherlands, during the 17th century. She is quite different and quite ahead of her time. She craves knowledge and has taught herself to read and write. However, she is forced to travel to Amsterdam to become a maid in order to financially support her mother and finds herself in the enterprise of an English bookseller. One day, the famous René Descartes arrives as a temporary lodger and from that moment on, the book examines the difficult relationship between the Dutch girl and the French philosopher.
Glasfurd weaves the story around the love affair between the main characters, but the novel never becomes a romance, not even close. She has done a wonderful job with the characters and their interactions. In the heroine’s portrayal, she has achieved the perfect balance because Helena tries to achieve independence and fulfillment of her thirst for a better life but -faithful to the context of the era- she never manages to escape the various social constraints. It is often that we see female characters in historical novels who aren’t realistic and have turned out too modern. Here, this doesn’t happen and fortunately so, because her point of view is our sole eyes to the story and her ideas are clearly in the foreground.
Descartes is a man of thought, coming to grips with reality with great difficulty. He is a loner, desperate to communicate his ideas, a man who doubts the established system. His relationship with Helena causes him to challenge his perspective, but there are limits. He has his mission but finds a new kind of fulfillment in Helena’s presence. She challenges his world view up to a point and forces him to question all the beliefs he had taken for granted.
When the setting is the beautiful country of the Netherlands, then it becomes a character in itself.Here, our focus isn’t just Amsterdam. We travel to Deventer, Leiden, Santpoort and Amersfoort. The descriptions are so vivid that I could picture the cities, I could smell the market odours, I could feel the crisp, wintry air. There is an absolutely stunning text where Descartes describes the snowflakes whose beauty and poetry drove away the heatwave we’re currently experiencing in Athens.
The interactions are well-composed, the dialogues a successful mixture of clear language that balances daily speech and period speech. The voices of the characters are fully ‘’heard’’, the details of the everyday life of the era create a beautiful background. The writer achieved to bring fact and fiction together in harmony and managed to highlight the issues of a woman’s struggle to find her place in a world made by men for men, the search of knowledge, the responsibility and self-sacrifice of being a single parent, the eternal fight between Thought and Action.
I admit I am very fond of novels that are set in the Netherlands, but I can’t help it. There is something in that particular setting that provides a distinctive aura to a novel. Glasfurd’s book is as beautiful and fluid as the waters of Amstel in the dusk, as the flickering lights on its surface….
laurabeingareader's review
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
A beautiful and touching reimagining of Helena James, Descartes mistress. Love the setting, characters and the way you are taken along her life.
francesmthompson's review
3.0
A gently told tale that is based on a helluva lotta research but this didn't totally overwhelm the book. I found it lacking in pace sometimes and perhaps it was a bit too gently told, and the main character felt a bit flat at times, but I kept going and I certainly found the ending very moving. Great to read if you live in Amsterdam or the Netherlands too!
lauredhel's review
5.0
DON'T read the book blurb above - there are spoilers!
---
This is a lovely book, and very impressive for a debut novel. We know very little about Helena Jans, the woman who bore a child to René Descartes, so Glasfurd fills in the gaps with her imagination.
Helena was able to read and write, very rare for a maid of her time. Glasfurd's description of how she may have come by this knowledge and how she may have developed it, without access to paper or ink, is thoroughly engrossing. I saw Glasfurd do a reading at the Perth Writers' Festival, about Helena making ink from charcoal and beetroot and blood and tea, and writing on plates and pastry and skin, and I knew I had to read this book. Helena's synaesthetic observations of the world were beautifully written - they captivated me and kept me reading. Her relationship with Descartes was a stormy and often unsatisfactory one, so be aware that this is not a Romance.
Thoroughly recommended for fans of historical novels, and for those looking for an easy but satisfying read about how access to literacy, social class, and the privileges of gender influenced life opportunities in the 1600s.
Content note forchild loss .
---
This is a lovely book, and very impressive for a debut novel. We know very little about Helena Jans, the woman who bore a child to René Descartes, so Glasfurd fills in the gaps with her imagination.
Helena was able to read and write, very rare for a maid of her time. Glasfurd's description of how she may have come by this knowledge and how she may have developed it, without access to paper or ink, is thoroughly engrossing. I saw Glasfurd do a reading at the Perth Writers' Festival, about Helena making ink from charcoal and beetroot and blood and tea, and writing on plates and pastry and skin, and I knew I had to read this book. Helena's synaesthetic observations of the world were beautifully written - they captivated me and kept me reading. Her relationship with Descartes was a stormy and often unsatisfactory one, so be aware that this is not a Romance.
Thoroughly recommended for fans of historical novels, and for those looking for an easy but satisfying read about how access to literacy, social class, and the privileges of gender influenced life opportunities in the 1600s.
Content note for
fiction_aficionado's review
4.0
From the moment I began reading this novel I was drawn into Helena Jans’ world. At the risk of sounding like I am overstating the matter, there was some stunningly beautiful writing. I cannot think of any other way to say it. Guinevere Glasfurd has taken what little we know of Helena Jans and woven an evocative story of a passionate thinker and the young maid whose simple observations and desire to learn capture his mind.
The entire novel is written in the first person from Helena’s point of view. We begin, briefly, in the middle of Helena’s story as she is taken away from Mr Sergeant’s book store where she worked as a maid. From there, we travel backwards slightly, becoming acquainted with her and her situation, before we are introduced to Monsieur – Rene Descartes. And the story flows from there.
One of the things I found so utterly enchanting about this book was the way in which there was an almost childlike simplicity about Helena’s observations, and yet a striking depth at the same time. Everyday life in 1630s Holland doesn’t just come alive, it breathes character. Helena herself is a complex mix of strength and vulnerability, intelligence and innocence, and a product of a time when women were not taught letters and numbers. But she had a hunger to learn and improve, satisfied first by her brother when she was a young girl, and later by using beetroot juice and writing on the only thing she has to hand. Literally.
Rene Descartes is perhaps most well-known for his conclusion Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), and yet it would probably have been just as true for him to say ‘I am, therefore I think’, especially if his representation in this novel is anywhere close to the truth of his character. There was a kind of obsessiveness about his intellectual life that is probably true of all geniuses to varying extents, and it can’t help but impact those closest to them. Would Helena have made different choices if she could have looked into her future? I don’t know. I suspect not. Regardless of the outcome, the story was beautifully wrought.
Some readers may care to note there are a few instances of crass language and/or sexual references, and Helena and Monsieur’s physical relations occur on page on a few occasions (on the low end of the descriptive scale). These instances were infrequent and brief enough that they could be passed over, however they did temper my enjoyment of the novel slightly, as reflective by my four star rating rather than five.
The entire novel is written in the first person from Helena’s point of view. We begin, briefly, in the middle of Helena’s story as she is taken away from Mr Sergeant’s book store where she worked as a maid. From there, we travel backwards slightly, becoming acquainted with her and her situation, before we are introduced to Monsieur – Rene Descartes. And the story flows from there.
One of the things I found so utterly enchanting about this book was the way in which there was an almost childlike simplicity about Helena’s observations, and yet a striking depth at the same time. Everyday life in 1630s Holland doesn’t just come alive, it breathes character. Helena herself is a complex mix of strength and vulnerability, intelligence and innocence, and a product of a time when women were not taught letters and numbers. But she had a hunger to learn and improve, satisfied first by her brother when she was a young girl, and later by using beetroot juice and writing on the only thing she has to hand. Literally.
Rene Descartes is perhaps most well-known for his conclusion Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), and yet it would probably have been just as true for him to say ‘I am, therefore I think’, especially if his representation in this novel is anywhere close to the truth of his character. There was a kind of obsessiveness about his intellectual life that is probably true of all geniuses to varying extents, and it can’t help but impact those closest to them. Would Helena have made different choices if she could have looked into her future? I don’t know. I suspect not. Regardless of the outcome, the story was beautifully wrought.
Some readers may care to note there are a few instances of crass language and/or sexual references, and Helena and Monsieur’s physical relations occur on page on a few occasions (on the low end of the descriptive scale). These instances were infrequent and brief enough that they could be passed over, however they did temper my enjoyment of the novel slightly, as reflective by my four star rating rather than five.
More...