The Coral Thief, by Rebecca Stott (2010)
The Coral Thief is a historical novel that is set in France during the end of Napoleonic era. The story begins as the narrator, Daniel Connor, was a young man traveling from Edinburgh to Paris to study comparative anatomy with the great Professor George Cuvier at the Jardin des Plantes. Napoleon, too, was traveling, but he was on his way to exile on Sainte Helena.
Paris is no longer the intellectual hotbed it was under the Emperor Napoleon. The city has become a military base for the Allied forces, who are trying to regain their art and scientific specimens. The city is in chaos and rumors abound that Napoleon’s armies are hiding in the catacombs beneath the city awaiting the moment for a comeback and attack.
Paris was filled with foreigners and items stolen from the Napoleonic conquests, including fossils and scientific specimens, were being hidden from prying eyes. On his trek to Paris, Daniel met up with a beautiful, but older fellow passenger who stole the fossils and scientific papers he was to present to Cuvier. Thus, begins Daniel’s descent into the mysterious world of post-Napoleonic France.
Once Daniel discovered that his possessions were stolen, he was forced to choose between seeking recovery on his own, or employing the services of Jagot, a former thief and current Head of Police. He steps out on his own and finds his mysterious traveling companion, Lucienne, whom he learns was a countess who managed to escape death during the French Revolution. She was also a brilliant scientist, which is one reason she took Daniel’s papers.
The Coral Thief seeks to combine the beginning of scientific theories, which ultimately lead to our modern theory of evolution, with a mystery-thriller. Some of the peripheral characters are based on real people of the time. The scientific debates presented in the book were the hot topics of the day.
The Coral Thief was an interesting book, but I was not totally enamored by the author’s style of writing. I will probably not seek out her other works.
Read: September 10, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Books Set in the United States
The Four Ms. Bradwells, by Meg Waite Clayton (2011)
I really wanted to like The Four Ms. Bradwells and, in fact, the book started off very promising. Somewhere along the line, however, the novel lost its momentum for me.
The Four Ms. Bradwells is the story about four women who became close friends while in law school during the early 1980s. The story line jumps from their law school days to the present day, where each woman, now in middle age, has been blessed with a successful career. The novel opens at the Senate confirmation hearings where Betts (Elsbieta Zhukovski) has been nominated to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The other three women are there to provide moral support. During the course of the Senate hearings, questions are asked about a mysterious death that occurred during their law school days. The prepared answer is unsatisfying and may derail Betts chance for approval to the Supreme Court.
The women decide to escape the public eye by spending the weekend on an island in Chesapeake Bay that is owned by the Ginger Conrad’s family. It is the same island where the death occurred nearly 30 years earlier. Was it really a suicide, or was it something more malicious?
The title of the novel, The Four Ms. Bradfords, comes from an actual old Supreme Court case, Bradford v. Illinois (83 US 130), in which one Myra Bradwell had been denied admission to the Illinois Bar in 1869 merely because she was female. Over a century later, women were allowed admission to the Bar, but in the 1980s women were still hassled for being in law school (I know from personal experience).
Each chapter is told through the voice of one of the four friends ~ Mia, Laney, the African-American, Betts, the Polish-American, and Ginger, the blue-blood. Each of the women have faced and overcome discrimination during their careers. Some of these fights are ones still faced by women in the workforce.
Unfortunately, as the author begins to expound on the travails of each of the women, I felt as though the story was contrived. All social issues facing women, from death, divorce, affairs, raising children, etc., seemed to befall these women.
The character of Max, the poor, but intellectual and caring architect living on Conrad’s island, seemed to be included solely to portray a “good” man. Not all men are evil and out to destroy a successful woman.
The climatic ending was also a disappointment. By the time I finished the book, I really didn’t care about how or why the death from the women’s law school days had occurred.
Read: September 6, 2011
I really wanted to like The Four Ms. Bradwells and, in fact, the book started off very promising. Somewhere along the line, however, the novel lost its momentum for me.
The Four Ms. Bradwells is the story about four women who became close friends while in law school during the early 1980s. The story line jumps from their law school days to the present day, where each woman, now in middle age, has been blessed with a successful career. The novel opens at the Senate confirmation hearings where Betts (Elsbieta Zhukovski) has been nominated to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The other three women are there to provide moral support. During the course of the Senate hearings, questions are asked about a mysterious death that occurred during their law school days. The prepared answer is unsatisfying and may derail Betts chance for approval to the Supreme Court.
The women decide to escape the public eye by spending the weekend on an island in Chesapeake Bay that is owned by the Ginger Conrad’s family. It is the same island where the death occurred nearly 30 years earlier. Was it really a suicide, or was it something more malicious?
The title of the novel, The Four Ms. Bradfords, comes from an actual old Supreme Court case, Bradford v. Illinois (83 US 130), in which one Myra Bradwell had been denied admission to the Illinois Bar in 1869 merely because she was female. Over a century later, women were allowed admission to the Bar, but in the 1980s women were still hassled for being in law school (I know from personal experience).
Each chapter is told through the voice of one of the four friends ~ Mia, Laney, the African-American, Betts, the Polish-American, and Ginger, the blue-blood. Each of the women have faced and overcome discrimination during their careers. Some of these fights are ones still faced by women in the workforce.
Unfortunately, as the author begins to expound on the travails of each of the women, I felt as though the story was contrived. All social issues facing women, from death, divorce, affairs, raising children, etc., seemed to befall these women.
The character of Max, the poor, but intellectual and caring architect living on Conrad’s island, seemed to be included solely to portray a “good” man. Not all men are evil and out to destroy a successful woman.
The climatic ending was also a disappointment. By the time I finished the book, I really didn’t care about how or why the death from the women’s law school days had occurred.
Read: September 6, 2011
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