The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry (2016)

  

„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.