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A Secret Alchemy by Emma Darwin

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sweetpotatoboy
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Post by sweetpotatoboy » Mon August 17th, 2009, 9:55 am

OK - so I just finished reading this book at the weekend, so I'll add my own thoughts...

I struggled with this book as many did - but for me, overall, the perseverance paid off. For those of us who read mainly HF, this novel was very frustrating. But I'm guessing that to those that don't, it would have been a more interesting novel.
I do wonder whether someone who didn't know the period and the main characters previously to some degree would have really kept up with who was who and what was going on.
Ultimately, by the time the book ends, it was apparent that this wasn't so much a historical novel trying to tell that particular story - but an exploration of what it might mean to a particular writer to write a historical novel. More about the interplay between historical research and storytelling than anything else. As the book closes, it becomes apparent what we have been reading...

Without the contemporary element, it becomes in some way a much less interesting work. Though, with it, it was somehow a less engaging story - until maybe the last quarter or so of the book.

I'm very glad I read the book. We maybe didn't need yet another conventional historical novel about this period and these characters. But maybe we did need a book that makes you ponder about the contemporary impact of historical storytelling and novels.

(And on a minor note, it was nice to get a modern anti-Richard take. The pendulum has swung too much in his favour recently. The balance has been redressed somewhat...)

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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Mon August 17th, 2009, 8:13 pm

I've noticed that a large percentage of the historical novels that appear on the NYT bestseller list are dual-time-period novels like this. I think the modern-day frame story makes them more attractive to readers who aren't very experienced readers of historical fiction. It helps provide a bridge to the historical story, and gives readers some characters they can easily identify with and understand. A lot of the historical novels that don't have a modern frame story but are especially popular with the general public tend to portray the main characters with attitudes that are a bit anachronistic - Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, for example, which do a good job of portraying medieval England in many respects, but with main characters who are a lot "nicer" in a modern way than people of the time would really have been.

A dual-time-period novel I really liked from a few years ago was Possession. The link between the modern-day literature students and the historical story about the poets they were researching worked well, because the modern story built curiosity about the poets' lives, and the affair between the modern-day students echoed the affair between the poets, even while it had significant differences. And of course, Possession was beautifully written.
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Post by Chatterbox » Mon August 17th, 2009, 8:26 pm

Margaret, Possession was a stunning novel on so many levels... It was as intricate as a great work of art, with layers and layers of meaning, including all that Lacanian stuff.

In some ways, the movie wasn't bad either, if what you were looking for was a straightforward romance version roughly based on the book's skeleton.

I agree that anyone who reads Secret Alchemy as a book about the Princes in the Tower is going to feel shortchanged, but then if anyone is marketing it that way, that's pretty idiotic -- I don't think Darwin intended the book to be a 'whodunnit' in that sense.

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Post by SonjaMarie » Mon August 17th, 2009, 8:33 pm

I love the movie "Possession", read the book a few years ago, skipped all the poems and extra stories, didn't detract from liking the book.

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EC2
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Post by EC2 » Mon August 17th, 2009, 9:08 pm

[quote=""Margaret""]A lot of the historical novels that don't have a modern frame story but are especially popular with the general public tend to portray the main characters with attitudes that are a bit anachronistic - Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, for example, which do a good job of portraying medieval England in many respects, but with main characters who are a lot "nicer" in a modern way than people of the time would really have been.
.[/quote]

I would respectfully disagree with that. :)
I would say that they do a terrible job of portraying Medieval England, but they do do a superb job of portraying Medieval England as modern day readers expect it to look and expect people to behave - it's a bit like the Monty Python 'Dirt' sketch! The main characters are cariacatures of how modern people expect medievals to behave, blended with modern two-dimensional goody/baddy character traits. Bound to succeed....
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

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Post by Leo62 » Mon August 17th, 2009, 9:14 pm

[quote=""Chatterbox""]Margaret, Possession was a stunning novel on so many levels... It was as intricate as a great work of art, with layers and layers of meaning, including all that Lacanian stuff.

In some ways, the movie wasn't bad either, if what you were looking for was a straightforward romance version roughly based on the book's skeleton.

[/quote]

Oooh... *froths at the mouth*

Possession is one of my favourite books and I thought the movie totally massacred it! He turned the main character from a shy, withdrawn English academic to a caricatured brash American. It was just painful... The movie was directed by Neil LaBute, the genius that brought us the remake of The Wicker Man so nuff said....

/soapbox
Last edited by Leo62 on Mon August 17th, 2009, 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Leo62
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Post by Leo62 » Mon August 17th, 2009, 9:18 pm

[quote=""Margaret""]
This makes me curious. I wonder how many of us prefer HF that has a modern-day frame story before it goes into the past, and how many of us would rather have the whole story set in a past century.[/quote]

Depends on the book. If it's well-done, and the stories are skilfully woven together then it can work brilliantly. Apart from Possession, another great example I read recently was The Secret Scripture.

I haven't read A Secret Alchemy, but I DNF'd on one of her earlier novels, The Mathematics of Love, so don't feel very motivated to try it. :p

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Post by Chatterbox » Mon August 17th, 2009, 10:54 pm

[quote=""Leo62""]Oooh... *froths at the mouth*

Possession is one of my favourite books and I thought the movie totally massacred it! He turned the main character from a shy, withdrawn English academic to a caricatured brash American. It was just painful...
/soapbox[/quote]

That's why I approach the movie as being almost unconnected to the book. If you forget that it was based on that book (which is amazing and so complex as to be completely unfilmable by anyone and just view it as a stand-alone work that is unconnected with the original book, it does work, which is a great rarity. (So, if you can block out the author's intentions....) But I agree, if you're comparing it to the book, it will be a debacle in so many ways. There was something else I saw on DVD recently -- and am scrambling now to remember, must have early-onset Alzheimer's -- that was similar, including providing a happy ending when the book didn't have one. A bit like having the princes in the Tower being tearfully reunited with Elizabeth Woodville as the screen credits roll, however.

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Post by Margaret » Tue August 18th, 2009, 6:04 am

EC, what I think Follett handled reasonably well in Pillars and WWE were the technical details about how medieval people built cathedrals and bridges, as well as showing how some of the larger-scale social issues played out, like the serfs in WWE who were able to transition to becoming free landholders after the plague made their work more valuable.

The character development was, I thought, pretty clunky, with the characters' attitudes seeming much too modern sometimes, especially in the case of the sympathetic main characters. For example, it set my teeth on edge when the young nun in WWE who ran the infirmary adopted so many of the standards of modern medicine - like the sanitary procedures she set up, and her disapproval of the practice of bleeding patients (something that was still being done in the 19th century). In fact, I've read that the latest research suggests bleeding might actually have had some effect in combating disease. Apparently, infection doesn't take hold as easily when the amount of iron in the bloodstream is low. So, to me, not only did this character seem too modern in her attitudes to be believable, it also seemed like Follett gave less respect to the real people and practices of earlier centuries than they deserve.
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Post by Leo62 » Tue August 18th, 2009, 6:49 pm

[quote=""Chatterbox""]That's why I approach the movie as being almost unconnected to the book. If you forget that it was based on that book (which is amazing and so complex as to be completely unfilmable by anyone and just view it as a stand-alone work that is unconnected with the original book, it does work, which is a great rarity. (So, if you can block out the author's intentions....) [/quote]

I couldn't do it! Maybe if I'd seen it before reading the book I could have enjoyed the movie for itself. I think when you get very attached to a book, it's hard to be in any way tolerant or understanding of movie adaptations. :D

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