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3.14 AVERAGE
3.14 AVERAGE
How to best enjoy this book: 1) Forget it was written by the same author who wrote "The Thirteenth Tale" and 2) disregard the words "A Ghost Story" in the title.
It was engaging and I wanted to love it, but I just didn't. There were times when I felt sympathetic towards the main character, William Bellman, and there were times when I disliked him passionately, which is either a great compliment to the author for painting a rich character or a horrible criticism for creating a character so confused.
It was not a BAD book. The intro was amazing and foretold of dark things to come. I enjoyed the look back in time to Victorian London. I enjoyed the glimpse of mill life. While it wasn't a ghost story, William's life was certainly haunted and it was fascinating to see how it drove him forward (or backward) at times.
There were bits that I expected to turn up later or perhaps become a larger plot point that didn't really develop as expected. Again, is that kudos to the author or the opposite?
As for the author, I do feel badly for her. Setterfield's first book, The Thirteenth Tale, was so well-received that fans couldn't wait for her next novel. I think that would be a lot of pressure and there was really no way to succeed. People were going to be disappointed because expectations were set so high.
Hopefully with her second book out of the way, book #3 will be written with less pressure. I look forward to it very much. It's not that this book was bad - it just wasn't The Thirteenth Tale. And for that it's going to be ripped to shreds.
It was engaging and I wanted to love it, but I just didn't. There were times when I felt sympathetic towards the main character, William Bellman, and there were times when I disliked him passionately, which is either a great compliment to the author for painting a rich character or a horrible criticism for creating a character so confused.
It was not a BAD book. The intro was amazing and foretold of dark things to come. I enjoyed the look back in time to Victorian London. I enjoyed the glimpse of mill life. While it wasn't a ghost story, William's life was certainly haunted and it was fascinating to see how it drove him forward (or backward) at times.
There were bits that I expected to turn up later or perhaps become a larger plot point that didn't really develop as expected. Again, is that kudos to the author or the opposite?
As for the author, I do feel badly for her. Setterfield's first book, The Thirteenth Tale, was so well-received that fans couldn't wait for her next novel. I think that would be a lot of pressure and there was really no way to succeed. People were going to be disappointed because expectations were set so high.
Hopefully with her second book out of the way, book #3 will be written with less pressure. I look forward to it very much. It's not that this book was bad - it just wasn't The Thirteenth Tale. And for that it's going to be ripped to shreds.
I enjoyed this beautifully written book set in Victorian England in its height of ostentatious mourning. I've heard it called "gothic" and "a ghost story," and I wouldn't call it either of those things, but it does have a lightly imposed fantasy element, and it's an absorbing read.
As a boy, William Bellman kills a rook with his catapult. He pushes it to the back of his brain never to be thought of again. But the rooks remember.
As Bellman grows, he is shadowed by this one event. He is a successful businessman who runs a mill (we learn in excruciating detail) and one by one, his loved ones die, culminating in an epidemic which takes his wife and 3 of 4 children. As his favorite daughter lay dying, he makes a deal with Black.
I continued with the book up until this point because I wanted to know where it was going.
It was going to the construction and running of Bellman & Black, a department store for the mourning. Which we also learn about in excruciating detail. By this point the book slowed to a crawl, but being only 100 pages from the end I soldiered on to the not-so-satisfying resolution.
I don't know what I wanted. I guess if his daughter was important enough to give up his soul for, I think he should have had some kind of relationship with her and she was an afterthought through the second half of the book.
What a disappointment since I enjoyed the Thirteenth Tale so much.
As Bellman grows, he is shadowed by this one event. He is a successful businessman who runs a mill (we learn in excruciating detail) and one by one, his loved ones die, culminating in an epidemic which takes his wife and 3 of 4 children. As his favorite daughter lay dying, he makes a deal with Black.
I continued with the book up until this point because I wanted to know where it was going.
It was going to the construction and running of Bellman & Black, a department store for the mourning. Which we also learn about in excruciating detail. By this point the book slowed to a crawl, but being only 100 pages from the end I soldiered on to the not-so-satisfying resolution.
I don't know what I wanted. I guess if his daughter was important enough to give up his soul for, I think he should have had some kind of relationship with her and she was an afterthought through the second half of the book.
What a disappointment since I enjoyed the Thirteenth Tale so much.
William Bellman is quite a happy-go-lucky sort, until life happens to him. This book is the story of a man who is kind, warm, diligent and very much a product of his age in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. Without giving anything away, tragedy knocks on his door which changes him entirely. A series of chance meetings with a mysterious stranger persuades him to embark on a new challenge; one he plans meticulously down to the finest detail. Was this what the stranger really wanted him to do, and why does he feel he owes the stranger anything? This is a tale of suppressed guilt and of a man's inability to deal with grief while at the same time surrounding himself with it. It has interesting gothic elements to it and a darkness at its core while providing a hint of commentary on vice and virtue alongside the difference in the shrinking rural landscape in comparison to the growing behemoth of London, and all this time the rooks are watching William's every move. A good novel for those who like detail and can cope with a slower paced narrative than the average book.
full review here: http://wp.me/p42FJU-m5
Bellman & Black promises many squeal-inducing, shiny, book-lover’s-dream kind of things: a gripping story, sparkling characterization, generously smacked with the supernatural and a sense of pagan magic. I wish I could say it delivers flawlessly on all fronts, but the truth is, this book sort of falls flat. The potential is there, but the plot falls into stagnation and the characterization isn’t just faulty: it’s almost nonexistent. If good writing should ensnare all your senses, Bellman & Black fails the test. It piques one’s interest, but doesn’t keep it, unfortunately.
What’s annoying is that it starts out wonderfully. The novel begins with the death of our enigmatic protagonist, William Bellman. In this one scene, we learn that Bellman has lost his wife and three of his children, and is contemplating his life and its regrets. In the next, William is a young boy of ten playing with other boys his age. William has a catapult, a slingshot of sorts, so perfectly made that the other boys marvel at it, eager for William to showcase its abilities.
Reluctantly yet with a measure of pride, William selects a rook in a tree, loads his catapult, and shoots the rook dead with one shot. It’s an impossible shot, a beautiful arc, a perfect trajectory of rock and rook, but William almost instantly regrets it. He killed the bird and he’s guilty, ashamed. He spends the next week sick in bed and “applied his ten-year-old genius and power to the greatest feat he had ever attempted: forgetting. He very largely succeeded.”
William Bellman grows up into a dashing seventeen-year-old, loved and respected by most in town. He has astonishing business acumen and despite his bastard status, secures a place as secretary in his uncle’s successful cotton mill. Bellman marries a girl he loves passionately, takes over the mill and turns it into a formidable business due to his brilliant mind and dedication, and fathers four children, the oldest of which is his daughter Dora. William considers himself a lucky man, blessed beyond the norm and expecting nothing to disrupt his happiness and success. William’s luck does hold–until a fever sweeps through town and claims the lives of his beloved wife, and his three youngest children. Death seems to follow Bellman wherever he goes, and whether it is the funeral of his mother, his uncle, his cousin, or his wife and children, there is a mysterious man in the back, never making contact, driving Bellman crazy.
Read more at http://themosthappy.me
All of this sounds eerie, chilling, gripping, and it should be. I think this novel fails the most in characterization. William Bellman isn’t a well-rounded character. He has some interesting qualities, but really, he’s just a “good” person with an above average brain for business. He is a workaholic, really. He loves his wife, his children, he is universally beloved and admired. He has a good singing voice. And I think that’s about it. The only distinguishing feature of Bellman’s is his inability to deal with grief. This makes Bellman more of an allegory than a person.
Another flaw lies with the narrative itself. So much of the book is devoted to minutiae about Bellman’s mill and then later, with his London emporium. Yes, Setterfield, we know how devoted Bellman is. We know he’s a workaholic, we know that he doesn’t socialize and shuns human contact and sleeps at his desk: there is really no need to drill it into our heads. There leaves little for character development and actual events. The structure is interesting but not impressive: the novel is interspersed with what seems to be excerpts from an encyclopedia/anecdotal history written by rooks. Readers are led to believe that the bird Bellman shot out of the tree as a child is stalking him in some way, reaping revenge.
"There is a story much older than this one in which two ravens…were companions and advisers to the great God of the north. One bird was called Huginn, which in that place and time meant Though, the other Muninn, which meant Memory. They lived in a magic ash tree where borders of many worlds came together, and from its branches they flew blithely between worlds, gathering information for Odin. Other creatures could not cross the borders from one world to another, but Thought and Memory flew where they pleased, and came back laughing.
Thought and Memory had a great many offspring, all of whom were gifted with great mental powers allowing them to accumulate and pass on a good deal of knowledge from their ancestors.
The rooks that lived in Will Bellman’s oak tree were descendants of Thought and Memory. The rook that fell was one of their many-times-great-grandchildren…Rooks are made of thought and memory. They know everything and they do not forget." (124)
Setterfield undoubtedly meant it to atmospheric and foreboding, but I found it kind of comical that rooks write and keep a little bird book of their history. It came off as either cute like a cartoon or weird and unbelievable.
Most of the novel is given up to exhausting detail about Bellman’s business, christened Bellman & Black after the mysterious man, but there is underlying allegory that don’t save the novel, but make it more interesting to read, at least toward the end. Bellman is an allegory: for regret, guilt, shame, and grief that is consistently pushed away. Bellman has never learned to deal with the abandonment of this father, the death of his beloved mother, the destruction of his entire family. The rooks, made of thought and memory as they are, serve to remind Bellman and the readers of the danger of unprocessed grief. In this way, Setterfield makes a commentary on human nature that is worth making, but the format–and execution–of the novel, ultimately fall short of expectations.
There are many unanswered questions, and the novel ends somewhat unsatisfactorily. The only consolation I had from the disappointment of this book was the last scene, where Bellman’s daughter Dora witnesses the magnificent glory of a “rooking escapade:” watching rooks in their natural habitat:
"Dora glitters, serenely exultant. It is what a rooking escapade does to a human. She looks as if she has gathered all the glory of the world into herself. To see it once is never to be without the feeling for the rest of your life…Dora has been set right within herself…She will live the best she can for as long as she can…And rooks will paint mysteries on the sky at dawn and dusk for as long as the world exists." (324)
Dora represents everything Bellman does not: the ability to deal gently with grief, the tendency to cherish memories and imbibe them to make one stronger, introspection, creativity, artistic thought. She was my favorite character and unfortunately wildly neglected.
Bellman & Black promises many squeal-inducing, shiny, book-lover’s-dream kind of things: a gripping story, sparkling characterization, generously smacked with the supernatural and a sense of pagan magic. I wish I could say it delivers flawlessly on all fronts, but the truth is, this book sort of falls flat. The potential is there, but the plot falls into stagnation and the characterization isn’t just faulty: it’s almost nonexistent. If good writing should ensnare all your senses, Bellman & Black fails the test. It piques one’s interest, but doesn’t keep it, unfortunately.
What’s annoying is that it starts out wonderfully. The novel begins with the death of our enigmatic protagonist, William Bellman. In this one scene, we learn that Bellman has lost his wife and three of his children, and is contemplating his life and its regrets. In the next, William is a young boy of ten playing with other boys his age. William has a catapult, a slingshot of sorts, so perfectly made that the other boys marvel at it, eager for William to showcase its abilities.
Reluctantly yet with a measure of pride, William selects a rook in a tree, loads his catapult, and shoots the rook dead with one shot. It’s an impossible shot, a beautiful arc, a perfect trajectory of rock and rook, but William almost instantly regrets it. He killed the bird and he’s guilty, ashamed. He spends the next week sick in bed and “applied his ten-year-old genius and power to the greatest feat he had ever attempted: forgetting. He very largely succeeded.”
William Bellman grows up into a dashing seventeen-year-old, loved and respected by most in town. He has astonishing business acumen and despite his bastard status, secures a place as secretary in his uncle’s successful cotton mill. Bellman marries a girl he loves passionately, takes over the mill and turns it into a formidable business due to his brilliant mind and dedication, and fathers four children, the oldest of which is his daughter Dora. William considers himself a lucky man, blessed beyond the norm and expecting nothing to disrupt his happiness and success. William’s luck does hold–until a fever sweeps through town and claims the lives of his beloved wife, and his three youngest children. Death seems to follow Bellman wherever he goes, and whether it is the funeral of his mother, his uncle, his cousin, or his wife and children, there is a mysterious man in the back, never making contact, driving Bellman crazy.
Read more at http://themosthappy.me
All of this sounds eerie, chilling, gripping, and it should be. I think this novel fails the most in characterization. William Bellman isn’t a well-rounded character. He has some interesting qualities, but really, he’s just a “good” person with an above average brain for business. He is a workaholic, really. He loves his wife, his children, he is universally beloved and admired. He has a good singing voice. And I think that’s about it. The only distinguishing feature of Bellman’s is his inability to deal with grief. This makes Bellman more of an allegory than a person.
Another flaw lies with the narrative itself. So much of the book is devoted to minutiae about Bellman’s mill and then later, with his London emporium. Yes, Setterfield, we know how devoted Bellman is. We know he’s a workaholic, we know that he doesn’t socialize and shuns human contact and sleeps at his desk: there is really no need to drill it into our heads. There leaves little for character development and actual events. The structure is interesting but not impressive: the novel is interspersed with what seems to be excerpts from an encyclopedia/anecdotal history written by rooks. Readers are led to believe that the bird Bellman shot out of the tree as a child is stalking him in some way, reaping revenge.
"There is a story much older than this one in which two ravens…were companions and advisers to the great God of the north. One bird was called Huginn, which in that place and time meant Though, the other Muninn, which meant Memory. They lived in a magic ash tree where borders of many worlds came together, and from its branches they flew blithely between worlds, gathering information for Odin. Other creatures could not cross the borders from one world to another, but Thought and Memory flew where they pleased, and came back laughing.
Thought and Memory had a great many offspring, all of whom were gifted with great mental powers allowing them to accumulate and pass on a good deal of knowledge from their ancestors.
The rooks that lived in Will Bellman’s oak tree were descendants of Thought and Memory. The rook that fell was one of their many-times-great-grandchildren…Rooks are made of thought and memory. They know everything and they do not forget." (124)
Setterfield undoubtedly meant it to atmospheric and foreboding, but I found it kind of comical that rooks write and keep a little bird book of their history. It came off as either cute like a cartoon or weird and unbelievable.
Most of the novel is given up to exhausting detail about Bellman’s business, christened Bellman & Black after the mysterious man, but there is underlying allegory that don’t save the novel, but make it more interesting to read, at least toward the end. Bellman is an allegory: for regret, guilt, shame, and grief that is consistently pushed away. Bellman has never learned to deal with the abandonment of this father, the death of his beloved mother, the destruction of his entire family. The rooks, made of thought and memory as they are, serve to remind Bellman and the readers of the danger of unprocessed grief. In this way, Setterfield makes a commentary on human nature that is worth making, but the format–and execution–of the novel, ultimately fall short of expectations.
There are many unanswered questions, and the novel ends somewhat unsatisfactorily. The only consolation I had from the disappointment of this book was the last scene, where Bellman’s daughter Dora witnesses the magnificent glory of a “rooking escapade:” watching rooks in their natural habitat:
"Dora glitters, serenely exultant. It is what a rooking escapade does to a human. She looks as if she has gathered all the glory of the world into herself. To see it once is never to be without the feeling for the rest of your life…Dora has been set right within herself…She will live the best she can for as long as she can…And rooks will paint mysteries on the sky at dawn and dusk for as long as the world exists." (324)
Dora represents everything Bellman does not: the ability to deal gently with grief, the tendency to cherish memories and imbibe them to make one stronger, introspection, creativity, artistic thought. She was my favorite character and unfortunately wildly neglected.
A strange, macabre, allegorical tale. I couldn't stop reading it, but it was a bit cliche and predictable. I did enjoy the author's descriptions about the textile industry and the character's actions early in the book. The author's first book is a much more satisfying read.
I loved this novel!
It took me a few chapters to get into this book. The writing style was different than what I am typically read but once I got used to the style I couldn't put the book down. I'm not big on ghost stories, but this one seemed more Gothic than ghost. I enjoyed the mysterious aspects of the story, it's what saved this book from being one I didn't finish.
William seemed to have made the best of the life fate had handed to him. He was a workaholic but still managed to be a man adored by his family. When events lead to him almost losing everything, William struck a deal that he doesn't even fully remember making, this is when I fell in love with the book. Things were already slightly mysterious, but the way his life changes after he strikes a deal with Mr. Black was intriguing. Williams brilliant mind and extreme work ethic are his best tools and he uses them to build an empire of death in London. He builds his empire on helping people bury and honor their dead, think your local funeral home on crack. The way his life slowly spirals out of control reminds me of an Edgar Allen Poe story; psychological, suspenseful, mysterious.
I highly recommend this novel for those who love mysteries and suspense novels and those fans of Poe who are looking for something new to read.
I received an ebook ARC from Netgalley for an honest review. Originally posted at Little Thoughts About Books
It took me a few chapters to get into this book. The writing style was different than what I am typically read but once I got used to the style I couldn't put the book down. I'm not big on ghost stories, but this one seemed more Gothic than ghost. I enjoyed the mysterious aspects of the story, it's what saved this book from being one I didn't finish.
William seemed to have made the best of the life fate had handed to him. He was a workaholic but still managed to be a man adored by his family. When events lead to him almost losing everything, William struck a deal that he doesn't even fully remember making, this is when I fell in love with the book. Things were already slightly mysterious, but the way his life changes after he strikes a deal with Mr. Black was intriguing. Williams brilliant mind and extreme work ethic are his best tools and he uses them to build an empire of death in London. He builds his empire on helping people bury and honor their dead, think your local funeral home on crack. The way his life slowly spirals out of control reminds me of an Edgar Allen Poe story; psychological, suspenseful, mysterious.
I highly recommend this novel for those who love mysteries and suspense novels and those fans of Poe who are looking for something new to read.
I received an ebook ARC from Netgalley for an honest review. Originally posted at Little Thoughts About Books
I have not yet read The Thirteenth Tale, so my expectations were not based on the author's previous book. I really, really enjoyed this dark tale and found myself swept up in the whole story.
I don't feel GUILTY about my rating. The book was a rather boring read for me. I just wish Mr. Bellman could have let go of his past.
This is the second book of Diane Setterfield's that I've read, the first being The Thirteenth Tale. That one was a wonderful read and I considered it one of my favorite fantasy/YA novels to date, so when I saw another book by Setterfield, with a fancy, vintage-looking cover, I immediately checked it out and started reading it.
Turns out I don't like this one as much as I did The Thirteenth Tale though. I still enjoy the Victorian-era atmosphere, but the storyline itself fell short for me. It felt bland, empty, and besides some interesting backstory for William's life and his rise to success, it was just plain boring. Reading the book felt like a chore after the first half, and I dragged myself to finally finish it.
Let's hope Setterfield will publish a more interesting book in the future for me to read.
Turns out I don't like this one as much as I did The Thirteenth Tale though. I still enjoy the Victorian-era atmosphere, but the storyline itself fell short for me. It felt bland, empty, and besides some interesting backstory for William's life and his rise to success, it was just plain boring. Reading the book felt like a chore after the first half, and I dragged myself to finally finish it.
Let's hope Setterfield will publish a more interesting book in the future for me to read.