Bawdeswell Book Club
Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore Although some book club members, in their youth, had read an abridged version of Lorna Doone none of us had read the full version before. It is not a quick read so we gave ourselves two months, November and December, to read it. The members’verdict was that it is certainly a classic worth reading.
Written in 1869 the setting for the story is in the 17th century and so the novel can be classed as a Victorian historical romance. The rustic hero, Exmoor farmer John Ridd, describes how he carried off and married a beautiful daughter of the aristocracy. The novel opens with John’s reminiscences of early schooldays and essentially finishes with his marriage to Lorna. During this time, by honesty and hard work, John rises to economic prosperity and the title of ‘Sir John Ridd’. Whilst you can find yourself admiring John’s strength, heroism and commitment to his family it is difficult to feel the same warmth towards Lorna’s character. She is portrayed as a fragile beauty with ‘no notion of work’ and although you can sympathise with her abduction when a child, by the Doone’s, it is easier to relate to the other young female characters: John’s sisters - ‘housekeeping Annie’ and ‘book-reading Lizzie’ - and his capable cousin Ruth.
We all found the love plot rather sentimental but Lorna Doone is far more than just a romantic novel. By setting the novel during the reign of Charles II, Blackmore is able to include the economic, political and religious problems of the time and dramatise events such as the Monmouth rebellion. However, the aspect of the book that sets it apart from other books is the use of language. There were some one-liners that were quite amusing such as the description of Judge Jeffrey who was elevated to the first man in the kingdom for ‘his kindness in hanging five hundred people, without the mere grief of trail’ and we all enjoyed the poetic prose and dialect that Blackmore uses to paint a nostalgic picture of rural England. To illustrate this here is a sentence from my favourite passage in the book.
‘To awake as the summer sun came slanting over the hill-tops, with hope on every beam adance to the laughter of the morning; to see the leaves across the window ruffling on the fresh new air, and the tendrils of the powdery vine turning from their beaded sleep’.
If only I could wake up with such thoughts!
Therese Racquin by Emile Zola January’s choice was Therese Racquin by the French author Emile Zola. A tale of adultery, murder and madness, the novel caused a scandal when it was published in 1867. Therese leads a boring life trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin Camille and running a dreary haberdashery shop, in a dingy Paris backstreet, with her aunt. Therese’s life changes dramatically when Camille brings home Laurent, a fellow clerk from the Orleans Railway Company. Therese and Laurent embark on a turbulent affair and their desire to meet freely compels them to commit a crime which will haut them for the rest of their lives.
Zola has a unique matter-of-fact style and the novel reads like a documentary on human animal behaviour at its worst. There is no love or compassion between the main characters, their only concern is to satisfy their own needs. The book club members found the book interesting and well-written and were pleased they had been introduced to Zola’s work. However, nobody could say they actually enjoyed the story and feelings were mixed about whether they would read any more Zola novels.
Pat Catchpole
The book club meets in the Workhouse on the first Thursday in the month and we welcome new members. The library provides a good service for book clubs so you do not have to buy new books each month. During February we are reading Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. This will be discussed at the meeting on Thursday 1st March. During March we will be reading Amsterdam by Ian McEwan