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Now I have a thing about the Brontes , I like clever meta fiction, especially with a sense of humor, and I loved A.S. Byatt's novel Possession (one reason why I disliked the movie version), which imprinted me on literary scavenger hunts. Which is why I expected to feel more for this book than I did. My reasons for not going from "like" to "love" are mostly nitpicky in nature, so I will discuss them beneath a spoiler cut.
But first, some above cut impressions: the book's premise quickly summed up: Samantha Whipple (love the name), fictional American last living descendant of the Bronte family (via one of Patrick Bronte's Irish siblings), comes to Oxford still traumatized by her beloved father's death, in between snark sessions with her new tutor gets mysterious messages via her father's supposedly burned copies of the Bronte novels being dropped off in her room by parties unknown, and has to figure out how it's all connected while dodging obsessed Bronte collectors and the press alike. It's a first person narrated novel (of course it is), playing with a lot of Bronte motives but completely accessible if you're not familiar with the novels, offers some refreshing twists to the expected heroine characterisation ( which are spoilery ), and by picking Anne in particular as the Bronte sister to champion does its bit for Anne's by far not as neglected anymore as she used to be decades ago but still not as entrenched in the popular consciousness as the the others cause. I laughed at the in text digs at literary criticism and a certain type of collector and was very amused by Samantha's worthy-of-Victorian-sensation-novels theory about Anne and Charlotte. Samantha's final conclusion in that regard is progress for her within the novel's world, and the ending is - imo, though looking at reviews they seem to have taken it as literary true, which surprised me given all the in text discussions about unreliable narrators before - a clever twist on just that.
But here's what my inner nitpicker complaining throughout the book: ( Put unspoilery, some at least a century old conclusions sold as unheard of. )
In conclusion: nitpicks aside, I had fun, but don't think I'll reread this the way I did Possession.
But first, some above cut impressions: the book's premise quickly summed up: Samantha Whipple (love the name), fictional American last living descendant of the Bronte family (via one of Patrick Bronte's Irish siblings), comes to Oxford still traumatized by her beloved father's death, in between snark sessions with her new tutor gets mysterious messages via her father's supposedly burned copies of the Bronte novels being dropped off in her room by parties unknown, and has to figure out how it's all connected while dodging obsessed Bronte collectors and the press alike. It's a first person narrated novel (of course it is), playing with a lot of Bronte motives but completely accessible if you're not familiar with the novels, offers some refreshing twists to the expected heroine characterisation ( which are spoilery ), and by picking Anne in particular as the Bronte sister to champion does its bit for Anne's by far not as neglected anymore as she used to be decades ago but still not as entrenched in the popular consciousness as the the others cause. I laughed at the in text digs at literary criticism and a certain type of collector and was very amused by Samantha's worthy-of-Victorian-sensation-novels theory about Anne and Charlotte. Samantha's final conclusion in that regard is progress for her within the novel's world, and the ending is - imo, though looking at reviews they seem to have taken it as literary true, which surprised me given all the in text discussions about unreliable narrators before - a clever twist on just that.
But here's what my inner nitpicker complaining throughout the book: ( Put unspoilery, some at least a century old conclusions sold as unheard of. )
In conclusion: nitpicks aside, I had fun, but don't think I'll reread this the way I did Possession.
