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aphelia88 's review for:
The Clockmaker's Daughter
by Kate Morton
"Sentimentality was mawkish and cloying, where nostalgia was acute and aching. It described yearning of the most profound kind: an awareness that time's passage could not be stopped and there was no going back to reclaim a moment or a person or to do things differently." ~ Elodie (46)
"People value shiny stones and lucky charms, but they forget that the most powerful talismans of all are the stories that we tell to ourselves and to others." ~ Lily (481)
Kate Morton is known for her historical novels that juxtapose the past with the present; I've read nearly all of her work, but this one is unusual. It's wide range of perspectives meander back and forth, centered around an old house and a particular summer. We don't go back and forth neatly; the perspectives overlap and circle around each other, layering in places, sharing a story that emerges frustratingly slowly.
The varied tempos - the reflective eddies, the rushing action scenes, the unhurried flow in between - is reminiscent of the river Thames, whose moods are a metaphor used throughout. The Thames is used as a symbol that all secrets will eventually be revealed as the river of time inevitably carries them along. Or something like that, I think!
The Author's Note makes it clear that this dissonance is deliberate, when Morton writes of "...the novel's focus on curation and the use of narrative structures to tell cohesive stories about the disjointed past." (484). I'm not sure it's totally successful but it is striking, and requires patience from the reader. I almost lost interest twice, but I'm glad I stuck with it!
Ultimately, it is the individual characters that are more remarkable than the story (which feels a little trite and familiar) ,especially that of the thief turned artist's model Lily Millington (real name Albertine "Birdie" Dell), the ghost who narrates the story. Her story is a sad one, misunderstood and long-forgotten. But she hasn't faded away, haunting the house she once loved and living vicariously through the few special visitors that can sense her presence.
In 2017, Elodie Winslow, soon to be married, finds an old leather satchel with a sketchbook and a framed photograph of a beautiful Victorian woman in her work as a private archivist. Her curiosity leads her to a house at a river bend drawn in the book, by the artist Edward Radcliffe, and the summer that ruined young lives far too soon.
The revelation was a little anticlimactic and I had one major quibble:
The story is tangled, and I think overly intricate, but I have a love of ordinary personal histories and this exercise in reassembling ephemera and memories was more interesting from that perspective than the story itself. Still, a quietly rewarding and thought-provoking read for anyone who enjoys such things!
"People value shiny stones and lucky charms, but they forget that the most powerful talismans of all are the stories that we tell to ourselves and to others." ~ Lily (481)
Kate Morton is known for her historical novels that juxtapose the past with the present; I've read nearly all of her work, but this one is unusual. It's wide range of perspectives meander back and forth, centered around an old house and a particular summer. We don't go back and forth neatly; the perspectives overlap and circle around each other, layering in places, sharing a story that emerges frustratingly slowly.
The varied tempos - the reflective eddies, the rushing action scenes, the unhurried flow in between - is reminiscent of the river Thames, whose moods are a metaphor used throughout. The Thames is used as a symbol that all secrets will eventually be revealed as the river of time inevitably carries them along. Or something like that, I think!
The Author's Note makes it clear that this dissonance is deliberate, when Morton writes of "...the novel's focus on curation and the use of narrative structures to tell cohesive stories about the disjointed past." (484). I'm not sure it's totally successful but it is striking, and requires patience from the reader. I almost lost interest twice, but I'm glad I stuck with it!
Ultimately, it is the individual characters that are more remarkable than the story (which feels a little trite and familiar) ,especially that of the thief turned artist's model Lily Millington (real name Albertine "Birdie" Dell), the ghost who narrates the story. Her story is a sad one, misunderstood and long-forgotten. But she hasn't faded away, haunting the house she once loved and living vicariously through the few special visitors that can sense her presence.
In 2017, Elodie Winslow, soon to be married, finds an old leather satchel with a sketchbook and a framed photograph of a beautiful Victorian woman in her work as a private archivist. Her curiosity leads her to a house at a river bend drawn in the book, by the artist Edward Radcliffe, and the summer that ruined young lives far too soon.
The revelation was a little anticlimactic and I had one major quibble:
Spoiler
in that I just couldn't believe that Lucy could wait 20 years, not knowing if Lily died in the priest hole or not, and if she was responsible for Lily's death. I can see fear and her lost memories from the head injury adding a small delay, but once her memories returned I don't know how she lived with herself and the not knowing. Given her practical and unsentimental nature, I would have thought that knowing the truth would have been a relief. What a burden to carry!The story is tangled, and I think overly intricate, but I have a love of ordinary personal histories and this exercise in reassembling ephemera and memories was more interesting from that perspective than the story itself. Still, a quietly rewarding and thought-provoking read for anyone who enjoys such things!