Tue 27 Apr 2010
Reviews by L. J. Roberts
ALYS CLARE – Girl in a Red Tunic. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, November 2005; softcover, August 2006.
Genre: Historical mystery. Series characters: Abbess Helewise/Josse d’Acquin, 8th in series. Setting: England-Middle Ages/1193.
First Sentence: He had to wait until it was dark and everyone was asleep.
Abbess Helewise has been thinking about her life prior to joining the Abbey. She is surprised, yet concerned, when her son Loefgar, shows up with his wife, who looks pale and ill, and their 14-month son, who is unnaturally shy and won’t speak.
It is a relief to have her good friend, Josse d’Acquin, who had come to the Abbey ill but is recovered, on hand. When a man, who claims his brother was killed by Leofger in a dispute, is found hanged near the Abbey, Loefgar, and his family, disappear. Helewise fears for her son, and questions how events from the past are impact the present.
The most important element of a book, to me, is the characters. It has always been the characters which have drawn me to this series. We learn much more about Helewise than in previous books. These were times when an Abbess needn’t have been a nun, so it’s nice to see her as a woman, learn about her past, and how she came to Hawkenlye Abbey.
As always, we see the strength of the friendship between Helewise and Josse. Not only Helewise and Josse, but all the supporting characters come to life under Ms. Clare’s hand, even the ones you don’t trust. I do appreciate that we’ve see a transition in characters since the beginning of the series. People come and go in life ad Clare handles it in a way which works.
In most of the previous books, there has been a strong element of the metaphysical. I am one who, if done well, enjoys that. It is an element of this book as well, and it works. These were times when, even with the dominance of the Catholic Church, people, including the clergy, were highly superstitious and believed the ancient powers and abilities. Although it is quite clear that Ms. Clare is no fan of the Church, I would suspect any book set in this time, which did not include some reference to the metaphysical.
Which leads to the third thing: I love English history. Not only did Ms. Clare include a map and genealogical chart at the beginning of the book, she clearly does her period research. Early in the story, Clare talks about King Henry being captured for ransom and the impact the levies was having on the lives of the people.
She paints a vivid picture of people’s lives, including the hunger and cold due to lack of money. A slight misstep is in the plotting. I did figure out the motive and villain before the end, which reduced my rating, but it didn’t spoil the read for me.
In fact, I was so drawn into the book, I never wanted to put it down, and found the ending quite sad, but rather lovely. I look forward to continuing with this series.
Rating: Good Plus.
Editorial Comment: There are now 12 books in this “Hawkenlye” series, with the most recent appearing in 2008. Since then Alys Clare seems to have switched gears a bit, with two books in her “Aelf Fen” series being published in 2009. These novels are set in the reign of William II (1087-1100), with the series itself named after the imaginary area in which they take place.
April 28th, 2010 at 9:20 am
My late wife enjoyed these historical mysteries, especially those set in the middle ages, this was one of her favorite series. I’ve only read a few, but they are literate and well researched, and it not exactly my cuppa this is a fine introduction to them.
Having trained to be a historian I can tell you that a well researched historical novel can be tremendously helpful in capturing the human side of the equation in understanding the past.
I know I was surprised when writing a paper on Charles Parnell that when I referenced a novel on the romance that brought him down by Dorothy Eden, the professor teaching the class was delighted and admonished the other students not to be snobs, but to learn to intelligently use historical fiction as an adjunct to their research.
And Historical mysteries have the added bonus of reminding us as alien and foreign as some aspects of the past may be human motives and nature are constants. They remind us that we are both closer to and more distant from the past than we may realize.
April 28th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Walker Martin just sent me a link to an excellent online article about historical fiction, and I’ll repeat it here:
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/2825/full
It’s largely about Sir Walter Scott, now deserted by readers, but a number of other authors are also mentioned.
Here are a couple of excerpts I thought were worth repeating:
“…the genre is more fashionable than it has been for more than 100 years. All six of last year’s Man Booker shortlist were set in the past, with the winner, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall as far back as the 16th century.”
“Given the difficulty of understanding the confusion and turbulence of the ever-changing present, it is natural that authors drawn to the open novel should turn to the past. Hence, in our present uncertainties, the attraction of the historical novel and the vogue it once again enjoys.”
But anyone who’s interested in historical fiction should by all means join the Historical Fiction Society
http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/
and check out my daughter Sarah’s blog
http://readingthepast.blogspot.com/
April 28th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Scott hasn’t been completely deserted, nor historical fiction. Among other things there is a very nice site on Stanley Weyman and Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s Violet Books site has some nice sidelines of
n Robert Neilson Stephens, Jeffrey Farnol, and Weyman among others (both Stephens and Farnol also wrote mystery fiction).
As for Scott, about every ten years I reread THE TALISMAN, ROB ROY, and QUENTIN DURWARD. THE TALISMAN is particularly fun to read if you can find a copy of the wonderfully bad KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS to watch along with it. If you can hear Virgina Mayo’s Brooklyn accented “Damn you Dick Plantagenant!” line to George Sanders King Richard without a smile you’re a better man than I am. Look up the film of QUENTIN DURWARD too with a wonderfully droll performance by Robert Morely as the Spider King, the magnificent Kay Kendall, a stalwart Robert Taylor, and a great sword fight from ropes in a burning belfry at the climax.
Thanks for the links, I’ll be looking both up.
April 28th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
The article I linked to, while pointing out that Scott is no longer widely read nor his work very influential, is actually quite favorably disposed to him, closing with
“Meanwhile, the Waverley novels that delighted several generations wait on the shelves to be discovered by those who have never known them, to be read again by those who, like Virginia Woolf, already love them.”
and previously stating that
“His real distinction is to be found in the Scottish novels, more generally, in what Carlyle identified as his ability to remind us that historical figures were men and women of flesh and blood, not abstractions…”
I grew up reading his books, but alas, that was a long time ago.
As for historical fiction in general, it’s today one of the hottest categories around, both in terms of sales and books that win awards.
April 28th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Not only is the online article of great interest but the comments are of value because they mention several other authors of note.
November 16th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
[…] with the most recent appearing in 2008. LJ reviewed Girl in a Red Tunic, the eighth in the series, here, earlier on this blog. The titles of the books come from Carmina Burana, the lyrics of which were […]