Three quick reviews

I don’t normally write about every book I read, but A Century of Books project means that… well, I do! So here are three short takes on books that I don’t want to write about in full. There are various reasons for that, so this time I’ve decided to give the reason too…

The Disappearing Duchess (1939) by Maud Cairnes

Maud Cairnes is the pseudonym of Lady Maud Kathleen Cairns Plantagenet Hastings Curzon-Herrick (!) who wrote the wonderful body-swap novel Strange Journey, now reprinted as part of the British Library Women Writers series. It is light, fresh, clever, and touching – with the special touch of an extraordinarily adept novelist. Her second and final novel, The Disappearing Duchess, has been extremely difficult to track down – so I was thrilled to finally get a copy.

This is a sort of mystery novel, about a duchess who has gone missing (there is no supernatural element) and whose friends hire a detective to find her. Along the way they find an unlikely doppelganger, various long-lost secrets, and traipse off to France – but sadly lightning didn’t strike twice. There is none of the lightness of touch that makes Strange Journey such a marvel, and we don’t see enough of the duchess before her disappearance to really care.

Why don’t I want to write a full review? It’s almost impossible to find this book, so why write a disappointed review of a book nobody can get hold of anyway!

Basic Black With Pearls (1980) by Helen Weinzweig

There is some dispute online about whether this Canadian novel was published in 1980 or 1981, but my NYRB reprint edition says the former. It’s a curious novel about Shirley who travels the world to track down her soulmate, Coenraad. Shirley is married to another man, living a seemingly conventional life as a housewife in Toronto – but Coenraad leaves her clues to his whereabouts in National Geographic, and she travels around the world as ‘Lola Montez’ to find him – to Hong Kong, to Rome, to Tangier, and even back to Toronto. When she finds him, he is often so heavily in disguise as to have embodied another man altogether. She is recognisable by always being in basic black with pearls.

It’s an exquisitely written novel, where we can trust nothing. Surely none of these things are happening as she says? Coenraad cannot shape-shift. But is she even leaving Toronto? Weinzweig is giving us no answers – this novel is all atmosphere and beauty, and there is nothing firm for the reader to grasp onto. I really enjoyed it, but I didn’t understand it.

Why don’t I want to write a full review? I simply don’t think I understood it enough to write about it at length! But that didn’t stop me enjoying it.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) by Thornton Wilder

The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the Pulitzer Prize and was the best-selling novel when it was published – and I listened to the audiobook recently. It’s about a rope bridge in 18th-century Peru that collapses, killing five people – and a friar who witnesses the tragedy goes to explore the lives of those who were lost, trying to establish if there is any moral reason why they were the victims.

It’s not clear why Wilder chose to set this in Peru (and the Pulitzer Prize is meant to be about American life, so go figure), but it’s an interesting conceit for a novel. But it’s also not really a novel – it’s three short stories, about the different people who will die on the bridge. In each story, Wilder traces the lives of those involved – often unhappy – and the various successful and unsuccessful relationships they have. Each story is very compelling, and Wilder is great at immersing us in the lives of very different people – from a wealthy marquesa whose daughter dislikes her to a devoted pair of twins to an orphan-turned-actress who tires of her Pygmalion-esque benefactor.

It is, as I say, well written and involving – though strange that nothing really coheres between the different strands, and that he chose to make the book so short. Since it’s separate character studies with a sort-of link, I think it would have worked better to have more of them. But what do I know, since the book is still well-loved and well-respected. I liked it too, but it feels like a successful attempt at an idea, rather than a finished product.

Why don’t I want to write a full review? It’s so revered and well-known that I don’t think I have anything much to add to the conversation!