{reviews} her father's name & the golden child

I have just read two really enjoyable books in a row, and it would certainly be remiss not to share these. They were quite different books, but both made me laugh and reminded me why I love books.

Florence Marryat Her Father's Name (1876)

Leona Lacoste was a woman who would never give in—until she died.

I chose this one because I read a tantalising blog post on it by Catherine Pope, who has published the Victorian Secrets edition of the text. The novel is available free (e.g., archive.org), but this edition is well worth having - actually, I'd say indispensable - for the absolutely wonderful Introduction by Greta Depledge, in which she provides all sorts of contextualization on the author and the varied and often kooky themes of the novel. 

Basically, if you like 'sensational' novels and you admire a strong heroine (with admirable bosoms, "body supple as a cat-o'-mountain's" and "eyes of burnished bronze, like... the eyes of a spotted panther in repose") who scorns the conventions of polite society in order to escape a fate worse than death ("Bah! In a country where the girls marry at fourteen! But were she twelve it would make no difference. She is old enough for me." Ew.) AND clear her father's name of a heinous accusation, then this is for you.

"I am quite determined, father. I shall never marry. Marriage is slavery, and I was born free. I will never be such a fool as to barter my birthright for any man."

But wait, there's more: cross-dressing...

She commenced to stroll leisurely in the direction of the cabin as she spoke, and as Valera followed her, he could not help wondering at the easy grace with which she filled her part, and the admirable disguise it was, to which, however, the effeminacy of many of the men in those southern climates much assisted her.

... hysteria, sweaty sickbeds, effeminacy, a touch of Sapphism on the chaise-longue, duelling, travel, disguises, faint downy moustaches, guitar playing, ethnic stereotyping ("I shall not faint, doctor, I have too much European blood in me for that") and really tall women who smoke cigars. What more could you ask? 

This is my second Marryat, and I'm loving her more and more. I previously reviewed The Blood of the Vampire (1897), which was one of my 'best of 2012'. 

*

My second recommendation is by an author who made it onto my 'best of 2013', although I never managed actually to review that book. That was Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop (which all lovers of independent bookshops should read: what could possibly go wrong with one woman's ambition to bring a bookshop to her country town?). 

I'll try to do better with my second Fitzgerald: Penelope Fitzgerald's The Golden Child (1977):

       

'Three minutes to go... We are all quite clear, I take it. Slight accidents, fainting, trampling under foot — the emergency First Aid posts are indicated in your orders for the day; complaints, show sympathy; disorder, contain; increased disorder, communicate directly with my office; wild disorder, the police, to be avoided if possible. Crush barriers to be kept in place at all entries at all times. No lingering.'

What made me love this? I did wonder if my list of things that I love might only be applicable to me, but I hope not! The British Museum, a golden treasure from a lost civilization, a group of highly eccentric curators and academics, a quick trip to Russia, and a murder or two. No, surely there's universal appeal there?

Half over the sill, the eminent maniac was holding Untermensch by his two thin wrists, hanging him down outside while he sawed the wrists to and fro on the frame. The Professor’s voice came only faintly: ‘Spare me! I alone can read Garamantian!’

Waring Smith is the naive but practical assistant curating a huge British Museum exhibition (inspired by the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition of 1972) of golden treasures from the mysterious civilisation that was Garamantia in Africa. 

Few know anything about the artifacts which were discovered by Sir William Simpkin many, many years ago: there is Professor Untermensch (Fitzgerald's names are brilliant) who has written the definitive study of the Garamantian script, Garamantischengeheimschriftendechiffrierkunst; there is "Tite-Live Rochegrosse-Bergson from the Sorbonne - the distinguished anthropologist, anti-structuralist, mythologist and paroemiographer" (anti-structuralist - still giggling about that; he also believes in "the irresistible impulse to stop thinking at all"); and there is, of course, Sir William himself, who refuses to visit the exhibition. Is this because of an alleged curse? The museum's Director sees the exhibition as a cash-cow, and Sir William as another source of funds which can all go towards his love of French "dix-septième" objets: "He particularly hated Oriental rugs, which took up an immoderate amount of display space." 

But then things start to go awry and Waring Smith is dragged in well over his head:

And the Museum, slumbrous by day, sleepless by night, began to seem to him a place of dread. Apart from the two recent deaths, how many violent ways there were in the myriad rooms of getting rid of a human being! The dizzy stairs, the plaster-grinders in the cast room, the poisons of conservation, the vast incinerators underground! And the whole strange nature of Museum work, preserving the treasures of the dead for the curiosity of the living, filled him... with fear.

The Golden Child is black humour at its best - gentle, ridiculous and wonderfully well written. 

{review} beautiful for ever

Helen Rappaport Beautiful For Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street - Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer (2010)

  

This is the first book that I've read by Helen Rappaport, but it most certainly will not be the last. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and quick read and - even better - it tied in really nicely with some other reading I've done. It's always good to add a few facts to fiction, I say. 

'How frequently we find that a slight blemish on the face, otherwise divinely beautiful, has occasioned a sad and solitary life of celibacy, unloved, unblessed, and ultimately unwept and unremembered.' [from a Madame Rachel advert, c.1859] 

Madame Rachel was an infamous purveyor of dubious potions and lotions to the well-heeled ladies of London. Her most famous beautification sell was 'enamelling' which involved coating her willing victims in Heaven knows what to make them all whitely stuccoed for - generally - the ball. But Madame Rachel had another lucrative sideline in fleecing sillier sorts of every penny they possessed. Whether she was merely facilitating the meetings of ladies with their paramours, or actually running a knock-shop, isn't entirely clear. Perhaps there are hints that she was helping ladies get rid of other embarrassing problems than just bad skin. Certainly she seemed to making ridiculous amounts of money simply from cosmetics that made one Beautiful For Ever (but, then, what's a pot of Crème de la Mer go for these days to an equally silly market? AUD$250 for 30mL). Oh, and then there was that nice source of income in allowing gentlemen to watch ladies receiving her full body Turkish bath services... 

Madame Rachel and the ‘before and after’ hard sell (source) 

This book is good on the sensational aspects of the various legal trials in which Madame Rachel and her victims became enmeshed. Rappaport also has a good handle on the less savoury aspects of Madame Rachel's own treatment by a anti-Semitic media and establishment. Other interesting themes weave through the biography: contemporary concerns regarding cosmetics and female amorality; debate surrounding the much-delayed Married Women's Property Act (why allow women to control their money when they just spent it running up huge bills at Madame Rachel?); contemporary bias towards women in court for any reason whatsoever. I particular liked Rappaport's use of the 'popular culture' ephemera (racy song, cartoons) surrounding Mme. Rachel's run-ins with the law. Mme. Rachel also featured in Wilkie Collins' Armadale (his 'Mother' Oldershaw is close-to-libellously based on Mme. Rachel) and there is a reference too in Mrs Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (one of my favourite sensational reads).

Rating: a very entertaining historical read, even more so if you love a good legal trial or two.

If you liked this... definitely Armadale. I can't remember why on earth I didn't review it when I read it a few years back, especially since it has the heroine-villain to end all heroine-villains in it. Teresa and Jenny at Shelf Love sum it up nicely.

{review} the mystery of a hansom cab

Fergus Hume The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886) 

source

On the twenty-seventh day of July, at the hour of twenty minutes to two o'clock in the morning, a hansom cab drove up to the police station in Grey Street, St. Kilda, and the driver made the startling statement that his cab contained the body of a man who he had reason to believe had been murdered.

Fergus Hume has the distinction of writing the first Australian crime novel. It was HUGE - a phenomenon in its time (to borrow from John Sutherland: the "most sensationally popular crime and detective novel of the century" [dodgy source]). However, poor Hume had sold the rights and made sod all from its subsequent wild success. 

Hansom Cab is the story of the investigation into a mysterious murder in, yes, a hansom cab. It is set in Melbourne and, for those who know Melbourne ("Glasgow with the sky of Alexandria"), it is quite a good game to try to figure out how little has changed in that streetscape since Victorian times.

If there is one thing which the Melbourne folk love more than another, it is music. Their fondness for it is only equalled by their admiration for horse-racing. Any street band which plays at all decently, may be sure of a good audience, and a substantial remuneration for their performance. Some writer has described Melbourne, as Glasgow with the sky of Alexandria; and certainly the beautiful climate of Australia, so Italian in its brightness, must have a great effect on the nature of such an adaptable race as the Anglo-Saxon. In spite of the dismal prognostications of Marcus Clarke regarding the future Australian, whom he describes as being "a tall, coarse, strong-jawed, greedy, pushing, talented man, excelling in swimming and horsemanship," it is more likely that he will be a cultured, indolent individual, with an intense appreciation of the arts and sciences, and a dislike to hard work and utilitarian principles.

The story is a fairly typical one: a murder, a corpse without identification, a handful of potential suspects, a lovable dialect-speaking landlady, a determined detective or two, a crime with its roots in the past, and a spot of tender romance.

"You do not regret?" he said, bending his head. "Regret, no," she answered, looking at him with loving eyes. "With you by my side, I fear nothing. Surely our hearts have been tried in the furnace of affliction, and our love has been chastened and purified."

It is quite a good read and a decent shot at sensational fiction. It is hard to imagine how astonishingly original it must have been in its day, since it fits so neatly the stereotypes of the typical crime novel… stereotypes it created. There is apparently a parody of it out there somewhere; it is hard to see how it could beat the original. Its modern day appeal may well now be primarily to Australians as a sort of period piece on Melbourne society, rather than as a crime novel. 

My interest in Hume lies in another area, namely his reuse of ancient themes in other novels that never hit the big-time like Hansom Cab. It is noticeable how often the ancient world pops its head into this book, which is filled with references to popular myth - the sphinx, Midas, asses' ears and so on: "I don't like Latin," said Miss Frettlby, shaking her pretty head. 'I agree with Heine's remark, that if the Romans had been forced to learn it they would not have found time to conquer the world.'" The narrator also suggests that Australians would be cooler if they adopted Greek dress!

It was a broiling hot day--one of those cloudless days, with the blazing sun beating down on the arid streets, and casting deep, black shadows--a real Australian December day dropped by mistake of the clerk of the weather into the middle of August. The previous week having been really chilly, it was all the more welcome. It was Saturday morning, and fashionable Melbourne was "doing the Block." Collins Street is to the Southern city what Bond Street and the Row are to London, and the Boulevards to Paris. It is on the Block that people show off their new dresses, bow to their friends, cut their enemies, and chatter small talk. The same thing no doubt occurred in the Appian Way, the fashionable street of Imperial Rome, when Catullus talked gay nonsense to Lesbia, and Horace received the congratulations of his friends over his new volume of society verses. History repeats itself, and every city is bound by all the laws of civilisation to have one special street, wherein the votaries of fashion can congregate.

This sort of thing may well irritate the hell out of many readers. The book is also frequently interestingly intertextual, which probably should not surprise given that Hume set out in cold-blood to write a popular crime novel based on his reading of other instances of the genre: "Puts one in mind of 'The Leavenworth Case,' and all that sort of thing," said Felix, whose reading was of the lightest description. "Awfully exciting, like putting a Chinese puzzle together. Gad, I wouldn't mind being a detective myself."

"Murdered in a cab," he said, lighting a fresh cigarette, and blowing a cloud of smoke. "A romance in real life, which beats Miss Braddon hollow."

Hume has a great turn of phrase: one character, hot on the trail of scandal, "was one of those witty men who would rather lose a friend than suppress an epigram." And sultry Queensland gets an unforgettable mention: "a profane traveller of an epigrammatic turn of mind once fittingly called it, 'An amateur hell'." 

Rating: a must read for anyone interested in the history of the crime novel or Victorian (in both senses) Australia. (I read a free manybooks.net edition with an unfortunately amount of typos) 

If you liked this: oh, surely "Miss Braddon" (Lady Audley's Secret is a cracker), though Anna Katharine Green's The Leavenworth Case is another marvellous period piece. 

{review} the blood of the vampire

Florence Marryat The Blood of the Vampire (1897 [2011]) 

I love a good old-fashioned sensational vampire tale.

She had become fainter and fainter as the girl leaned against her with her head upon her breast. Some sensation which she could not define, nor account for—some feeling which she had never experienced before—had come over her and made her head reel. She felt as if something or someone were drawing all her life away. She tried to disengage herself from the girl's clasp but Harriet Brandt seemed to come after her, like a coiling snake, till she could stand it no longer and faintly exclaiming: "Miss Brandt! let go of me, please! I feel ill!" she rose and tried to make her way between the crowded tables, towards the open air. As she stumbled along she came against (to her great relief) her friend, Elinor Leyton.

This one came out in the same year as Dracula. The affectionate Harriet Brandt - "a mass of magnetism" - is the girl who has everything - looks, wealth and independence: "She wants to kiss everyone. Some times, I tell her I think she would like to eat them. But she only means to be kind!" But those around her wither away and die, their life-force drained from their bodies. The twist? - she doesn't use her fangs. I'll let you have a think about what she might use...

"Did you suffer so much from sea-sickness? I can sympathise with you, as I am a very bad sailor myself!" "O! no! Madame, it was not the mal de mer. I can hardly tell you what it was. Miss Brandt and I occupied a small cabin together, and perhaps it was because it was so small, but I did not feel as if I could breathe there—such a terrible oppression as though some one were sitting on my chest—and such a general feeling of emptiness. It was the same in London, though Miss Brandt did all she could for me, indeed she sat up with me all night till I feared she would be ill herself—but I feel better now! Last night I slept for the first time since leaving Jamaica!"

Victorian Secrets (www.victoriansecrets.co.uk) is doing a great job in getting forgotten Victoriana back on our shelves, and I want to put in a word for not skipping the Introduction (by Greta Depledge) to The Blood of the Vampire, as it added an enormous amount to both my understanding and enjoyment of the book. It was also interesting to read the contemporary reviews of Marryat's "repulsive style" and the obituary in The Athenaeum that she was "author of some seventy novels, too hurriedly written, unfortunately, to prove of enduring value." 

This has, sadly, been the case, but Depledge makes an excellent case for viewing The Blood of the Vampire in terms of - among other things - themes of women's vulnerability, women and science/medicine, and "hysteria, race, eugenics and the fear of the racial 'other'". 

Rating: good meaty read, 8/10. 

A sentence I have already used this week: "If we cannot get cavidre it is wise to content ourselves with cod's roe." 

If you liked this… Carmilla. Definitely Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla. So kinky.

{review} east lynne

Ellen (Mrs Henry) Wood East Lynne (1860-1).

What a 'sensational' read! Fleeing poverty, the Lady Isabel marries a man whom she doesn't love enough and thus becomes fair game for an evil seducer. Leaving her children and her home, she lives in sin on the Continent until, abandoned, reduced (again) to penury, and disfigured in a shocking train accident, she returns incognito to her husband's home disguised as a lowly governess -- just in time to nurse her dying child.

The very hour of her departure she awoke to what she had done: the guilt, whose aspect had been shunned in the prospective, assumed at once its true, frightful colour, the blackness of darkness; and a lively remorse, a never dying anguish, took possession of her soul forever. Oh, reader, believe me! Lady -- wife -- mother! should you ever be tempted to abandon your home, so will you awake. Whatever trials may be the lot of your married life, though they may magnify themselves to your crushed spirit as beyond the endurance of woman to bear, resolve to bear them; fall down upon your knees and pray to be enabled to bear them: pray for patience; pray for strength to resist the demon that would urge you so to escape; bear unto death, rather than forfeit your fair name and your good conscience; for be assured that the alternative, if you do rush on to it, will be found far worse than death.

Lady Isabel's cautionary tale is woven through by other equally interesting stories - murder, mistaken identity, village life, electioneering and many lesser love stories.

'Did you ever hear that it was necessary, or expedient, or becoming for a young lady to set on and begin to "like" a gentleman as "her husband?"'

As social commentary this is pretty scary stuff. East Lynne is a longish novel but if you're a fan of, say, Wilkie Collins, it is well worth reading.

Rating: 8/10.

If you liked this... definitely Wilkie Collins' Armadale.