„You told me once you forget you are a
woman, and I understand it now – you think to be a woman is to be weak – you think
ours is a sisterhood of suffering! Perhaps so, but doesn’t it take greater
strength to walk a mile in pain than seven miles in none? You are a woman, and
must begin to live like one. By which I mean: have courage.”
Enchanting. Magical.
Spellbinding. Those are the words that came to my mind when I was trying to
summarize this book for myself. It feels a bit weird to use them to describe a
tale whose two protagonists are a village priest and an amateur natural
historian, but somehow I don’t think either Will or Cora would mind. Their
story, after all, is as much a story of myth and wonder as it is of religion
and science, as well as love, loss, loyalty, friendship and family… even some of
the pressing social issues that occupied the mind of Victorian people get a
prominent role in the narrative. In fact, what makes this book truly incredible
is that despite its thematic hodgepodgery and abundance of POV chararacters, it
never, not even for a second, feels crowded or overambitious. It just has so
much to say that you can’t help but forgive
when it jumps from one scene to the next in a matter of paragraphs, or leaves
you hanging on the fate of certain characters for a few chapters just so it can
delve deeper into someone else’s story.
I confess that despite all this,
I do have my doubts about the usefulness, or the entire point even, of certain
storylines and characters. Martha and the London housing issue both felt like
something tacked on as an afterthought, as if the author was tyring to distract
us from the happenings in the countryside, and bringing us back to the real
world a bit after a few chapters of wondering among the magical Essex marshes.
Sometimes even Luke Garrett, despite having the honour of narrating the very
first chapter, seemed pointless and generally out of place. I can’t be too mad
about it, however, since both of these characters helped supply me with a good
bit of research material, which actually is one of my favourite things about
reading any book: finding new things I can learn about, often ones that I never
would have thought about before. As far as The
Essex Serpent is concerned, I was introduced to some amazing historical
personalities such as Annie Besant or Elizabeth Fry, the legend of the Hadstock
dane-skin door, and the idea that tuberculosis could actually be cured, or at
least treated, by collapsing one lung so the other can heal on its own. I’m
still reading into whether this might actually work, but in any case I find it
fascinating.
What else might I say to convey
how much I loved this book? The writing is otherworldly. I frequently found
myself going back and re-reading certain paragraphs word by word, just to
better appreciate the beauty of it and to spend a little more time with the
image it conjured up in my mind. The characters were well-drawn, three dimensional,
all around incredible, making you care about them even if they only had a few
lines or chapters to really flesh them out, and God I wish I knew what happens
next to Stella, Cora, Will, Francis, Joanna, Luke… all of them, basically. It’s
rare when I care so much about so many of the players in a book, but these
weirdos are sure to stay with me for a good long while. Maybe Sarah Perry can
eventually write a ten years later kind of sequel about the children? Maybe,
hopefully? Until then, I’ll be sure to check out her other books. Somehow, I
don’t think they will disappoint.
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