Book Review: Heartstone by C.J. Sansom
Sep. 5th, 2010 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenak"Heartstone" is the latest in C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series, reaffirming the author's status as best current Tudor fiction writer. (Yes, including Hilary Mantle.) The Shardlake mysteries started with Dissolution at a time just after Anne Boleyn's execution and have now reached the last years of Henry's reign; while each book is a self-contained story, there is emotional continuity and a recurring set of characters, our narrator, the lawyer Matthew Shardlake, and some friends (and foes). What makes Sansom's novels so great isn't just the great sense of period - rarely has a writer evoked the utter paranoia of living in a state where your religious convictions, no matter whether Catholic or Protestant, might be this year's dogma but could get you killed next year when the King changed his mind again - but also the way he shows Tudor society. Most novels set in the era stick to the court. Not Sansom, though Shardlake occasionally crosses paths there. You get a real sense of what it was like to live in London, in York, in various places in the country, for everyone. For example, in the latest novel there's a great scene of various soldiers trying to buy bread and cheese and finding their new coins rejected because Henry, in order to pay his costly and stupid war with France, has debased the coinage yet again and shillings now contain far more copper than silver.
There are actually two mysteries to be solved in this novel; one concerns the fate of two orphans who were made wards as a way to enrich their new guardian, very much a practice of the day (the court of wards was one of the most corrupt), and the other the background of Ellen, a woman Shardlake met in the last novel, Revelation, who lives in Bedlam without having been declared insane. Both plots are elegantly intertwined. I must admit at first I felt a bit jaded and was sure the first one - about what really happened to the orphans, and what secret the family of their guardian is hiding - was what's increasingly a favoured topic in mysteries, sexual abuse, but no. Sansom comes up with something entirely different which is at the same time a riff on a quintessential plot device of many an Elizabethan play. Very clever. And he plays fair with the reader; in retrospect, you inwardly go "of course!".
Regarding historical characters: since in the last novel Shardlake managed to do a service to Catherine Parr, she shows up in this novel again (the case with the orphans is brought to her attention via an old servant of hers, which is why she asks Shardlake to take it), and those are brief but very sympathetic appearances of the learned lady who survived Henry only to marry Tom Seymour and die in childbirth. (Tom Seymour has a cameo appearance along with more important - for this novel, that is, not necessarily for history, where his most prominent deed was to testify against Thomas More - villain Richard Rich. Boo, hiss.) That she shows up for the second novel in a row, with Shardlake's admiration and affection for her emphasized (due to previous examples, he's a cynic about courtiers and rulers, but she won him around) and also in one of her few scenes has her stepdaughter, teenage Elizabeth, with her, makes me wonder whether Sansom intends to continue the series beyond the reign of Henry (previously I had assumed he wouldn't), at least into the reign of young Edward and Catherine's death.
Back to the fictional characters: I missed Shardlake's friend, the ex monk and apothocary Guy, who shows up in the first novel and has been with the recurring cast ever since, but since most of the novel takes place away from London and Guy had had a prominent role in the last one, I suppose his reduced appearances couldn't be helped. On the other hand Barak and Tamasin were around in just the right amount. The most intriguing new character is at the centre of the orphans plot, and I can't say more without spoiling the mystery, but I hope said character will be back, should the series continue.
Rare for a novel set in England at a time of a war with France: no jingoism. The various recruiters pressing people into service for Henry's war (including Shardlake's clerk, who really doesnt want to go) keep bringing up Agincourt and indulge in the usual "no Frenchman is ever a match for an Englishman" type of rethoric, but juxtaposed with the fact said war consists of humiliating losses and inconclusive battles, plus our narrator sees it as a mere ego indulgence of Henry, the constant "we showed them at Agincourt" sounds utterly hollow (and since Shardlake has earned his sceptical attitude towards the King’s policies through the previous novels, it doesn’t feel anachronicstic, either). All in all: a great book, which I had to read non stop.
There are actually two mysteries to be solved in this novel; one concerns the fate of two orphans who were made wards as a way to enrich their new guardian, very much a practice of the day (the court of wards was one of the most corrupt), and the other the background of Ellen, a woman Shardlake met in the last novel, Revelation, who lives in Bedlam without having been declared insane. Both plots are elegantly intertwined. I must admit at first I felt a bit jaded and was sure the first one - about what really happened to the orphans, and what secret the family of their guardian is hiding - was what's increasingly a favoured topic in mysteries, sexual abuse, but no. Sansom comes up with something entirely different which is at the same time a riff on a quintessential plot device of many an Elizabethan play. Very clever. And he plays fair with the reader; in retrospect, you inwardly go "of course!".
Regarding historical characters: since in the last novel Shardlake managed to do a service to Catherine Parr, she shows up in this novel again (the case with the orphans is brought to her attention via an old servant of hers, which is why she asks Shardlake to take it), and those are brief but very sympathetic appearances of the learned lady who survived Henry only to marry Tom Seymour and die in childbirth. (Tom Seymour has a cameo appearance along with more important - for this novel, that is, not necessarily for history, where his most prominent deed was to testify against Thomas More - villain Richard Rich. Boo, hiss.) That she shows up for the second novel in a row, with Shardlake's admiration and affection for her emphasized (due to previous examples, he's a cynic about courtiers and rulers, but she won him around) and also in one of her few scenes has her stepdaughter, teenage Elizabeth, with her, makes me wonder whether Sansom intends to continue the series beyond the reign of Henry (previously I had assumed he wouldn't), at least into the reign of young Edward and Catherine's death.
Back to the fictional characters: I missed Shardlake's friend, the ex monk and apothocary Guy, who shows up in the first novel and has been with the recurring cast ever since, but since most of the novel takes place away from London and Guy had had a prominent role in the last one, I suppose his reduced appearances couldn't be helped. On the other hand Barak and Tamasin were around in just the right amount. The most intriguing new character is at the centre of the orphans plot, and I can't say more without spoiling the mystery, but I hope said character will be back, should the series continue.
Rare for a novel set in England at a time of a war with France: no jingoism. The various recruiters pressing people into service for Henry's war (including Shardlake's clerk, who really doesnt want to go) keep bringing up Agincourt and indulge in the usual "no Frenchman is ever a match for an Englishman" type of rethoric, but juxtaposed with the fact said war consists of humiliating losses and inconclusive battles, plus our narrator sees it as a mere ego indulgence of Henry, the constant "we showed them at Agincourt" sounds utterly hollow (and since Shardlake has earned his sceptical attitude towards the King’s policies through the previous novels, it doesn’t feel anachronicstic, either). All in all: a great book, which I had to read non stop.
