Skea’s sequel – “A House Divided” is even better than “Turn of the Tide”

Margaret Skea’s brilliant second novel in the Munro family series.

I’ll tell the truth, shall I?  I have been a bit annoyed with some of the historical fiction I’ve read recently.  It is my fault for choosing too many books with the storyline “girl goes to court, meets [insert royal figure], chaos ensues.” This storyline seems prevalent in the Tudor/Elizabethan novels I’ve read. The cure for my malaise? Reading Scottish historical fiction.

Margaret Skea has just this month published the sequel – “A House Divided”  – to her first novel; “Turn of the Tide,” which I savored over several weeks and just finished this weekend.  I loved the first book (see review here) and this one was, I thought, even better. That makes some sense – an author learns a lot between book one and book two.  Skea has skillfully woven a gripping story set again primarily in Ayrshire about the Cunninghame-Montgomerie feud in a restless time period when superstition and witch trials were on the rise. She has done her research – knows the landscape, the history of the feud, and has given it all perfect context with the Munro’s story.

“A House Divided” continues the story of the Munro family, forced into hiding from Glencairn’s heir, the great arch-villain of the series, William Cunninghame.  In the sequel, William Cunninghame has taken possession of the Munro home at Broomelaw and is rebuilding the tower and surrounding holdings for himself. Adam Munro is in France, fighting with the Scots Garde for the French Henri IV.  Kate Munro has taken the surname Grant, and is living with her children at Braidstane – a Montgomerie stronghold.

There’s great dramatic tension from the get-go.  Kate makes a living as a “wise woman” – a cross between a herbalist and midwife.  It is a dangerous occupation in late 16th Century Scotland, where witchcraft trials have become commonplace.  The trouble begins when Kate is called to help Margaret Maxwell, the wife of a Cunninghame supporter.  It is an understatement to say that this good deed does not go unpunished, and leaves Kate and her family increasingly vulnerable to discovery.  Kate is further put at risk when her reputation spreads and she is asked to attend to Queen Anne, the wife of James VI.   Like any good healer she goes where and when she must – even with a high chance of seeing Maxwell and William Cunninghame there.

Court?! Yes, there were a few trips to Court – the Court of James VI to be exact – but the characters in the novel are not conduits who get involved in the affairs of the Court, rather the opposite – which of course saves it from my perturbation with the “girl goes to Court” theme.

I loved this book – the way the tension rose and dipped and then rose higher, dipped in brief resolution and rose again – finally to a great crescendo.  I suspected early on what was coming but that in no way diminished the grip the novel had on me.  I can’t spoil it for you. I was on tenterhooks.  I suppose I will never be sure what a novelist will do to their characters since Eddard Stark died, so I could not be sure of the ending.  I was all-in for the journey – and you will be too.

For lovers of Scotland, Scottish history, and historical fiction more broadly, this is a great read. It left me wondering what the Munro’s will do next.  That’s a good sign – ready for no. 3!

Saint defeated by Tudor despot in Philippa Gregory’s “King’s Curse”

The King’s Curse, the 6th novel in Philippa Gregory’s Cousin’s War series. Very well done. Recommended.

You can tell Philippa Gregory enjoyed writing Margaret of Warwick’s story in The King’s Curse – her 6th novel in the Cousin’s War series.  The novel is one of her best, bringing to life one of the great Plantagenet women — one lucky, or canny, enough to survive the Tudor period into old age.  And Margaret is a survivor, adept at hiding her true feelings of grief at the loss of family and fortune and shielding her remaining Plantagenet family.  She was adept at managing courtly intrigue — and keeping secrets.  Secrets like the truth about the marriage of Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon, and  the truth about the curse cast by her cousin Elizabeth — a curse that affects the Tudor succession.

Margaret of Warwick was the daughter of Isabelle Neville (one of the Earl of Warwick (aka Kingmaker’s daughters) George, Duke of Clarence — the brother of Edward IV and Richard III.   Even listing Margaret’s famous kin should give you an idea of the tragedies she experienced:  her grandfather the Earl of Warwick was beheaded by Edward IV, her father was drowned in a barrel of Malmsey; and her uncle Richard III was slain on Bosworth field by a victorious Henry VII who eventually executed her brother Edward of Warwick, several cousins, and her eldest son.  The book has several telling family trees that show the Plantagenet’s at the start of Henry VII’s reign and those surviving at the end of Henry VIII.

This was definitely one of my favorite novels in the Cousins’s War.  The first-person narration brings into Margaret’s thoughts, fears and hopes, triumphs and tragedies.  Through Margaret, you understand what it was like to be a Plantagenet in the aftermath of the Tudor victory, on the losing end the War of the Roses and at the mercy of Henry VII and Henry VIII.   Margaret herself was favored by Henry VII — enough that she and her husband attended Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon at Ludlow.  But her fortunes — and those of her family—fall afterwards while Henry VII reigns.  Margaret thinks and hopes that Henry VIII — the son of her good friend and cousin Elizabeth of York — will be a good, merciful King in the style of the Plantagenets.  Her fortune rises again as she waits upon Queen Katherine,  eventually becoming governess to Princess Mary, is named a Countess in her own right and becomes one of the richest people in England.  But Henry is not the King she hoped for and as any student of history knows, so many of those close to Henry VIII found themselves in the Tower awaiting execution.  Margaret’s execution is one of the low points of Henry’s reign, still shocking ~450 years later.

Henry VIII character arc is one of the novels strengths, for me.  I loved the way Gregory portrayed his descent from the good-looking, most-favored ruler in Christendom to the obese, distrusting, vengeful tyrant he became.  His failures as a monarch lead Margaret to  act on the hope for a new rule — Princess Mary — and in that lies her doom.  Gregory does an excellent job of showing the impact of the Dissolution of the Monasteries on the people of England, who lost their long-held traditions as Reformation swept the nobility.

I appreciated that this novel was consistent with others — “The Constant Princess” “The Boleyn Inheritance” and the others in the series in terms of character histories.

Here are links to my reviews of other Gregory novels — I did not review all of them, but read them all and think for the most part they were well done (“The Red Queen” being my least favorite and “The White Princess” one of my favorites).

• Elizabeth of York  — The White Princess
• Anne Neville – The Kingmaker’s Daughter 
• Jacquetta of Luxembourg — Lady of the Rivers

Of Scotland, Selkies, and Survival: The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford

The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford

I enjoyed this novel very much.  It’s Elisabeth Gifford’s first and she is a fine storyteller.  This one will sweep away the cobwebs and give you a look into the Scottish Island of Harris – wild, incredibly beautiful and high up on my bucket list.

If I could live anywhere, I’d live in a house with the sea at my door (maybe back just a little to allow for global warming). I’m never happier than when I’m by the sea or in the sea – no matter how cold the water. Yesterday, I even put ocean waves on my Spotify while I was working – because I live in the middle of America where there’s not much surf to be found.  If I could, I would live in Elisabeth Gifford’s Sea House on Harris in the Hebridean Islands.

I wonder if Gifford found an old run-down house on an island and used it as the catalyst for The Sea House? For me, it was a story about family, loss, and the struggle to survive.  Set both in 1976 and in 1860 it is really two stories, knit together by Selkie legends and a beautiful house.  What’s a Selkie? It’s the Scottish word for a mythical creature that resembles a seal in the water but assumes human form on land. (For a great movie on the similar subject, see “The Secret of Roan Inish”)

In 1976 Ruth and her husband Michael are renovating the dilapidated Sea House on Harris.  For Ruth, the house and the island are a return to her mother’s birthplace, something of a homecoming to a home she never had.  While working on the house they find a body of baby with what looks like a fin, buried under the floorboards.  A Selkie child?  The dead infant haunts Ruth and adds to the dis-ease that Ruth experiences on the cusp of becoming a mother.  She carries a child, but she also carries the weight of a rootless existence as an orphan raised in the urban welfare system, the pain of the loss of her mother, and the abandonment by her unknown father.  Ruth clings to family lore that she is descended from the Selkies.  This belief leads her to learn more about the home’s previous inhabitants.  She finds story of Alexander Ferguson and Moira, his servant in his journals, church papers and historical accounts.

In 1860 Moira works in the Sea House – then the manse for the island’s Reverend Alexander Ferguson, who has saved her life after the loss of her family in the Clearances.  [Highland Clearances of the 19th century destroyed communities throughout the Highlands and Islands as the human populations were evicted and replaced with sheep farms.]  Moira is quietly devoted to the Reverend in a way that reminded me of a Dickens novel.  Alexander is a bit of a scientist – he is fascinated by the possibility of a missing race of people – Selkies – from whom he believes he is descended.  As much as Moira loves the Reverend from afar, she hates Lord Marstone – whose clearance of land led to the loss of her family.  She plots revenge on Marstone even as his daughter gets uncomfortably friendly with the Alexander.   And the baby?  I can’t spoil it for you.  But it is good.

How the author got her inspiration for the story, and more about Selkies

Fiction books set in the Hebrides 

Goodreads list of books about Selkies

Find out more about the Scottish Islands

“Turn of the Tide” charts shifting currents of clan loyalties

Turn of The Tide by Margaret Skea, Capercaillie Books

It is hard to know where to begin, there were so many things I liked about “Turn of the Tide,”Margaret Skea’s debut novel about the feud between the Montgomeries and the Cunninghams set in 17^th Century Scotland.   I have had this one in the queue for a wee while and was grateful for the US Labor Day weekend for uninterrupted hours of reading pleasure.Set in Ayrshire, the novel opens with main character, Munro setting plans in motion for a massacre of key members of the Montgomery clan.  He’s a loyal, albeit reluctant, member of the Cunningham clan who would rather be at home with his wife, bairns and farm.  He carries out this mission for the Earl of Glencairn with a seed of misgiving about continuing the 100-year-old feud that grows throughout the novel.

Retribution is swift for may of those involved in the massacre, but Munro has a handy alibi and escapes harm.  Still, his wife is horrified and his conscience nags him. A friendly encounter with a Montgomery makes him question further the blind loyalty to the Cunningham clan and its leader, the Earl of Glencairn.  Glencairn himself may have some reasonable qualities, but William, his son and heir is a dangerous man.

Auch, I’ll no spoil it for ye!   I will say that Munro’s conscience is the tide that turns, and the reasons behind it make for a captivating read.

I love that the novel shone a light on this feud, which ran for centuries in Ayrshire.  King James VI and his court do feature in the novel, but they are far from the main story.  It was a refreshing departure to find a 16^th-17^th century novel with a griping tale where royalty is on the fringe and not center stage.  That said, one of the issues in the feud was which clan leader took precedence at court.

This is an emotionally gripping story about a man caught between duty and conscience at a time in history when a man’s livelihood depended upon his loyalty to family and clan –theoretically those would be aligned.  While Skea could have chosen one incident to make Munro’s loyalties change, I’m glad she did not.  It would have had impact, but missed the nuances, the questioning and the soul-searching Munro went through.  And then of course, there was also impact (I willnae spoil it).

Skea clearly knows Ayrshire well, and writes with beautiful detail about the landscape, whether it is describing the miserable rain that can chill you to the bone, or the aconite flowers in a valley.   The dialect adds richness to the characters and is judiciously used.  Helpfully, there’s a glossary in the book so you can look up words like “wabbit” (no, not rabbit).

Related articles

The Feud of Glencairn and Eglinton

Clan Cunningham (US)

Clan Montgomery (Electric Scotland)

Marie MacPherson’s debut novel makes John Knox likable

“The First Blast of the Trumpet” is the first of three novels about the life and times of Scottish Reformation preacher John Knox, brilliantly told by Marie MacPherson. The novel begins in pre-Reformation Scotland under James IV, a period of relative stability in the country in which three young girls, including Elisabeth Hepburn, the daughter of the Earl of Bothwell, are coming of age. Elisabeth’s hopes for marriage to David Lindsay are thwarted when she is commanded by her family to enter a convent. It soon becomes clear that Elisabeth is the thread that ties together a diverse cast of characters, from John Knox and Marie of Guise to Cardinal David Beaton and Mary, Queen of Scots. Elisabeth’s family and friends become divided over the need to curtail some of the excesses of the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The author deftly tackles a very complicated, emotionally charged subject and brings it to life with historical and emotional accuracy. John Knox is not, to my mind, a particularly sympathetic figure in Scotland’s history, and yet in the young Knox Marie MacPherson creates a very likeable, though flawed character. I quite liked Knox and felt keenly his struggle to keep faith with his past but follow his calling. I also enjoyed the characterizations of Elisabeth, Davie Lindsay and George Wishart; their troubles tugged at the heartstrings. There is fantastic Scots dialect throughout the book, which as a Scot I enjoyed, but others may wish to have had a glossary in the back of the book.

This review was first published by the Historical Novel Society in the Historical Novel Review August 2013.  

Rich characters, great plot – Gregory’s “The White Princess” is riveting

One of Gregory’s best!

So good it trumps my all-time Gregory favorite, The Other Boleyn Girl!  The White Princess is Philippa Gregory’s latest novel in Cousins’ War series. Unquestionably her best book yet.  It is fantastic—full of flawed characters you love to hate, quietly heroic characters you’ll alternately cheer and mourn for, and plot twists that will keep you reading well into the night.  You won’t want to put it down.  I read it over two days and was disappointed to reach the end because I was so invested in the characters and immersed in the storyline.  I’ve said it in my other reviews of Gregory’s novels, and I’ll say it again, she excels in the “what if” that lies between the facts of historical record.  It may not always make for an 100% historically accurate novel, but damn! it does make for some juicy plots.The White Princess is, of course, Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV.   Elizabeth of York is often portrayed as a quiet, motherly figure who lived harmoniously with Henry VII.  Gregory gives us another, deeper and richly satisfying portrayal of a young woman at the epicenter of upheaval in English history whose marital life was anything but comfortable.

This is her story, told from her point of view. Elizabeth’s world is full of conflicts and complications.  On the one hand, Henry VII gains the throne, restores her legitimacy and offers marriage.  On the other hand, he’s killed her Uncle, lover and King Richard III, treats her as no better than a tavern whore as the spoils of war and whatever legitimacy she recovers comes behind his all-seeing, all-plotting mother Margaret Beaufort.   The novel opens with Elizabeth mourning Richard in her heart, but outwardly appearing happy and content with the new regime.  This is a tough act to carry out and Elizabeth of York displays the rigid self-control that carries her through the novel, even on the day Edward of Warwick and her brother Richard are executed.   At times, her self-control fails her and sparks fly between her and Henry VII behind the bedchamber door, which shows how raw and real her emotions truly are.   (I though about the late Diana, Princess of Wales as I wrote this.  She was another princess who always looked happy and glamorous to the public but in private had a tempestuous marriage and life.)

Margaret Beaufort is a fabulous villain, a religious fanatic obsessed with carrying out her interpretation of God’s Will.  But she is well-matched in plotting by Elizabeth’s mother, the former White Queen Elizabeth Woodville, who hope a new son of York will rise to challenge Henry and supports several plots to overthrown the Tudor regime.  I loved this Elizabeth Woodville even more than I did in Gregory’s novel about her – The White Queen.  Admittedly I read it a long time ago now, but I feel like this Elizabeth is even Machiavellian.

Henry VII was not a wildly popular king and there were several challenge to his throne from the York camp, the most significant of which was from someone claiming to be Richard, Duke of York.  Gregory poignantly portrays the conflicting emotions Elizabeth would have felt, hoping her brother was alive, wanting to support York – but having to support her husband’s cause because her children are Tudors.  To tell you more would be to spoil it.  Gregory has now spent years with the Plantagenets and it shows in up in tight plots, and characters so vivid, so real and convincing that I carried them with me after I reached the end of the book.

Loved, loved this book.  Am now eagerly awaiting “The White Queen” TV series, which begins airing in the US on 10 August (Starz).

Here my reviews of other novels in the series:

• Lady of the Rivers
• The Kingmaker’s Daughter 

And some other articles and reviews of Philippa Gregory and her novels:

• Philippa Gregory: unearthing history’s forgotten women (guardian.co.uk)
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory: Book Review (windsbird.wordpress.com)
• The Red Queen – Philippa Gregory (kirk72.wordpress.com)
• The White Princess (loyaltybinds.wordpress.com)
• Girl Power On “The White Queen” (iamahugefan2.wordpress.com)
• The White Queen: Women in history rediscovered (bbc.co.uk)
• Elizabeth Woodville (historicalbritain.org)

“The Kingmaker’s Daughter” — Best So Far in Gregory’s Cousins War Series

Best in the Cousin’s War Series!

Philippa Gregory‘s latest novel, “The Kingmaker’s Daughter” is her best since “The Other Boleyn Girl.”  It is Gregory at her finest, excelling at coloring between the lines of history and bringing a lesser-known character to life. “The Kingmaker’s Daughter” is every bit as good and juicy a read as “The Other Boleyn Girl,” which I consider to be her finest work.

This was the first novel I’d read with Anne Neville as the main character, although she appears as a secondary character in many historical fiction novels about the War of the Roses.  As a background figure Anne—daughter of the powerful “Kingmaker,” Richard, Earl of Warwick and wife of Richard III—is often portrayed as a kindly but quiet, and sickly figure.

Gregory does not necessarily seek to change person Anne presented to the world, but she gives Anne an internal dialogue and spirit that reveals a character with fierce, determination.   The novel is written in the first person, which Gregory has used for throughout the Cousins’ War series. Perhaps it captivated me because Anne seems outwardly calm and inscrutable but we hear her inner thoughts and feelings that are so much at odds with her public persona.  I loved it.  I loved the suspicion and fear, and power politicking and strength that Anne had. It would never have come across so strongly in another point of view.

The novel tells the story of Anne and her older sister Isabel who grow from contented pawns of their father into significant players in their own right  War of the Roses.

Warwick was called the Kingmaker because he marshaled the resources to catapult Edward of York to the throne, snatching it out from under Henry VI.  But Warwick expected that in return he would unique power in England.  Edward VI had his own ideas.

Edward VI’s hasty, surprise marriage to Elizabeth Woodville wrecked havoc with Warwick’s ambitions for his family, and for England.  Elizabeth Woodville large extended family received favors – favors that Warwick believes should have been bestowed elsewhere. “If you crown a gannet, then she will gobble up everything,” observes young Anne Neville.

Warwick and his supporters feel they have been slighted and begin a destabilizing plot to overthrow Edward VI and bring back Henry VI, the “sleeping king.”  Key components of the plot are the marriages of Anne and Isabel to the Lancaster and York heirs – Edward of Lancaster and George, Duke of Clarence.  One way or the other, the Kingmaker is determined to get one of his daughters on the throne.

Anne and her sister Isabel are every inch Kingmaker’s Daughters. They each believe in their own manifest destiny to be the Queen of England, fulfilling their father’s dreams of glory for his family.  For a while after Warwick rebellion fails and he is executed, the girls believe the cause is lost.  Isabel and her husband struggle to regain favor with Edward, while Anne – a widow of the Lancaster heir – remains in disgrace until Richard, Duke of York claims her as his bride.  It is as his bride that Anne begins to shape her own destiny – quietly, behind the scenes.

Anne was not, in places, particularly sympathetic, but she was a real, emotionally solid character.   Isabel Neville, too, was well drawn but ultimately less likeable.

This was a thoroughly engrossing story, and one of Gregory’s best.  Her next novel in the series “The White Princess” is due out in a month, in which the story of Elizabeth of York – the wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII – is told.  I can’t wait.

Related articles

• The Kingmaker’s Daughter – HNS – (Historical Novel Society)
• The Kingmaker’s Daughter – Philippa Gregory (beingbryonyisabella.wordpress.com)
• The Kingmakers (mattlewisauthor.wordpress.com)
• Book Review The Kingmaker’s Daughter (confessionsofabookaddict.com)
• The Cousins’ War (juneerphy.wordpress.com)

Tough times for gentry in Doughty’s Come Rain, Come Shine

Come Rain, Come Shine by Anne Doughty

This review was originally published by the Historical Novel Society in the Historical Novel Review, February 2013.  

Ireland in the early 1960s: Savvy, sophisticated Clare Hamilton returns from France to her native Armagh to marry Andrew, her childhood sweetheart, and run his ancestral home as a B&B. Business goes well for a time but falls off with the rise of package holidays abroad and sectarian violence in nearby Ulster, leaving Clare and Andrew finding it difficult to make ends meet. Clare is the creative, upbeat, come-rain, come-shine heroine, while Andrew is pleasant but struggles to create a successful law practice and really wants to be a farmer.

This is the fourth novel in Doughty’s Hamilton sequence and covers the time period 1960 to 1966. Come Rain, Come Shine is a smooth read with likeable characters. Armagh and the places Clare and Andrew visit are beautifully evoked — the author’s familiarity with the landscape comes through. Doughty captures the classic Irish phrasing and culture so much it made me smile.

But I felt that for the time period, Clare and Andrew had more luxury-related problems than the general population at a time when unemployment was rife. Andrew refuses a lordship but wants to farm, loses his law partnership, and gets cheap office rent in Armagh. I wished for antagonists with more depth, a bit more conflict with higher stakes, particularly in the time when the North of Ireland was riddled with dissent and violence between Catholics and Protestants.

Quest for the origins of supernormal species tantalizes in “A Discovery of Witches”

“A Discovery of Witches” is clever, interesting, well-written fiction that is so good I read it twice.  I almost never do that. It is one of the most engrossing, entertaining novels I’ve read in a long, long time.  I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend for a light romantic read, and while there was romance, there was so much more.  It had me hooked from the first page and I did not speak anyone for three days while I read it and its sequel “Shadow of Night.”  I’m just sorry I have to wait for the third volume in the trilogy…and the film.

In the world created by author Deborah Harkness witches, vampires and daemons live alongside us ordinary humans.  In this supernormal world we meet Diana Bishop, American descendant of Salem witch Rebecca Bishop. Diana’s is at England’s prestigious Oxford University as a visiting history of science professor reading 16th century manuscripts.  During her research Diana comes across an enchanted book on alchemy that immediately stirs up the vampires, witches and daemons.  The book–Ashmole 782–is thought to be a magical “Origin of the Species,” and each faction wants it for its own purposes but none has been unable to access it.  Diana has a unique ability to attract and open the book, and the supernormals are quite willing to threaten Diana’s life to gain access.  But Diana’s a witch who has turned her back on magic, and has no idea what she did or why the book responded to her alone.  Neither does the Congregation, the governing body of supernatural beings, whose attention is now as riveted on Diana and the powers she may possess as it is on Ashmole 782.

Also interested in Ashmole 782 is devastatingly handsome 1500 year old vampire Mathew Clairmont (I picture Eric Bana in this role, Hollywood hear me!).  He wants the book as much as the other supernormals, but with a slightly different purpose. He is a geneticist and has discovered that each supernormal species is showing early signs of extinction.  He believes the book may explain how the four species developed from one, and how to save them.

When Matthew meets Diana sparks fly, passion simmers and they are inexplicably drawn to each other.  But their love defies long-established rules of species segregation and brings them into further conflict with those seeking the magical book.They find shelter with their families, overcoming established prejudices, as they seek to understand Diana’s power as a witch, her reluctance to use it and how she, and she alone, could call Ashmole 782.  Villains materialize, good conquers evil–for the moment–but the stakes are high.

And I can’t tell you more.  I’d spoil it.  you have to read it.  Then we can talk about it.

I’m not a huge vampire-witch fan, and definitely no Twi-Hard, so the fact I loved this book comes as a surprise.  The mix of history and magic pulled me in along with some great characters.  Harkness draws her characters very well – there’s lots of conflict, large and small, and plenty of room for character growth, change.   The themes are fundamental and universal: where do we come from? How do we fit in? Why can’t we love where we choose?  The stakes–survival of each species–could not be higher.

I loved the settings–Upstate New York, rural France and (sigh) Oxford, England.  The production company will have an easy time with location shoots.  Harkness did a particularly great job of describing life in Oxford.  Once upon a time I lived there, so I relished the descriptions of the river, the colleges and the surround area. (Sigh. I must go watch some Morse or Inspector Lewis, just for a fix.)

If the Oxford setting drew me in, what kept me going was the history of  science that permeates the novel.  It kept the book fresh, and different.  From discussing the works of early alchemists in the context of the development of modern scientific enquiry, to framing the Origins of the Species and work on extinction as one of the driving forces behind Matthew Clairmont.  Brilliant!

Loved, loved it. Deb Harkness please hurry with the last book in the trilogy!

Related articles

• A Discovery of Witches (lizbethwrightbooks.wordpress.com)
• Magic ~ Bliss or a Dark Art? (onthehomefrontandbeyond.wordpress.com)
• Witches, Vampires, and Daemons, Oh My! The Sequel Review of Deborah Harkness’s “Shadow of Night” (crossstitchyourheart.wordpress.com)
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, or why paranormal romance is still romance (clsiewert.wordpress.com)

Production gets in the way of acting in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina

Fabulous costumes http://www.angelikafilmcenter.com

I’ve read Tolstoy‘s Anna Karenina twice, first when I was 12—precocious, no? And again a few years ago. I’m not sure it is my favorite story —tragic ending and so forth. But that did not deter me from looking forward to watching a DVD of Director Joe Wright and playwright Tom Stoppard‘s adaption of Anna Karenina on Saturday with my mum.

First, a shout out to the actors, in particular Jude Law as the wronged, self-righteous prig of a husband Alexei Karenin, Mathew Macfayden (who I would like in anything, it’s true) as Anna’s adulterous but loyal brother Stiva Oblonsky and Domhnall Gleeson as Constantin Levin, the moral heart and soul of the piece. Keira Knightley also did a fine job, though something she does with her neck make her head bob forward and back in an unsightly fashion. That said, it is hard for Ms. Knightley to be unsightly–she is quite beautiful as Anna.

More good news—The costumes designed by Jacqueline Duran are to-die-for gorgeous, luscious ball gowns, dramatic hats (with veils, so cool). No wonder she is nominated for an Oscar. I definitely fancy myself in a Russian fur coat and hat (fake of course) after seeing multiple versions on Keira Knightley. Dario Marinell’s Oscar-nominated musical score is beautiful and haunting. (Note: I’m the parent of a figure skater and I expect to hear this music in 2013 freestyle programs).

But the actual production—the set design—resembles a play in a theatre and, for me, it took away from the story and the acting. It was odd, and distracting and I wished for a smoother, more traditional approach to filming. But Sarah Greenwood’s production design and Katie Spencer’s set decoration are both nominated for Oscar’s along with Seamus McGarvey for Cinematography — so what do I know?

Finally, I concluded I’m not a fan of the actual story line: lovely, moral housewife content in her hum-drum life gets drawn into adulterous affair with ne’er do well bad boy and loses everything, family, children, reputation and finally the bad boy himself. In despair, she throws herself under a train. No hope, no redemption, certainly no happy ending for Anna. The only characters with heroic qualities are Levin and Kitty Oblonsky, who find true love despite initial setbacks.

Related articles

• Anna Karenina (randomfilmmusings.wordpress.com)
• Oscar Briefs: Anna Karenina, a convoluted recount of a very enjoyable flick (theartsyfilmblog.com)
• Take the Anna Karenina challenge (thepenguinblog.typepad.com)
• Behind The Scenes: The Stars Of British Film (news.sky.com)