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A review by le_corbeau_romantique
Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre
5.0
Wow! What a way to write historical fiction. Unlike some readers, I loved the addition of modern figures, ideas, words into the story: Groucho Marx entertaining at a masque, Mary Shelley attending one of Digby's scientific lectures, and quotes from famous actresses and models. My favorite is when Digby just "knew" the modern science terminology to a concept he was thinking of. It showed that Digby was ahead of his time. He's an interesting man with interesting ideas. I also loved how the author interspersed the novel with quotes from Digby's actual journals, letters, etc.
It also shows how unfortunately apropos this story is to our time- which is one of the reasons why we look at history. This book is about the passage of time and beauty and the lengths we go to to get it all back. This includes, "gums blackened by painting with lead; breasts operated on seventeen times for a non-existent problem; healthy bodies, cut apart by greedy physicians; women misled, traduced, deluded. ...He had not realised vanity had undone so many" (392). Like the time I chemically burnt my upper lip trying to remove its tiny, practically nonexistent hairs after my sister egged me on. Or the time I dyed my hair in high school and it turned black (ie- not the color I was going for) ...Just saying, we've all been there.
The notorious apothecary of this tale, Choice, was quite the character. The author did a marvelous job showing this forefather of ratty quacks and greasy, untrustworthy "doctors"- or money hungry prescription pushers. I wish we got to read more of him or others like him- maybe I'll pick up a few nonfiction books on this subject; I can't believe what they believed back then, but then again, there are still strong parallels of this nowadays!
This was such a refreshing addition to the historical fiction drama- connecting the past with the present. The ending chapters that draw this story to a full circle are lovely.
It also shows how unfortunately apropos this story is to our time- which is one of the reasons why we look at history. This book is about the passage of time and beauty and the lengths we go to to get it all back. This includes, "gums blackened by painting with lead; breasts operated on seventeen times for a non-existent problem; healthy bodies, cut apart by greedy physicians; women misled, traduced, deluded. ...He had not realised vanity had undone so many" (392). Like the time I chemically burnt my upper lip trying to remove its tiny, practically nonexistent hairs after my sister egged me on. Or the time I dyed my hair in high school and it turned black (ie- not the color I was going for) ...Just saying, we've all been there.
The notorious apothecary of this tale, Choice, was quite the character. The author did a marvelous job showing this forefather of ratty quacks and greasy, untrustworthy "doctors"- or money hungry prescription pushers. I wish we got to read more of him or others like him- maybe I'll pick up a few nonfiction books on this subject; I can't believe what they believed back then, but then again, there are still strong parallels of this nowadays!
This was such a refreshing addition to the historical fiction drama- connecting the past with the present. The ending chapters that draw this story to a full circle are lovely.