“DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY” by P. D. James

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Chatsworth, Death Comes To Pemberley, Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Austen, manor life, Mr. Darcy, mystery, P. D. James, Pemberley, Pride & Prejudice, Seth Grahame-Smith, The Duchess of Devonshire

For those of us who have long admired the verbally adept, socially constrained, interactions between Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and their mountain-twisty road toward love, there is a natural curiosity to want to peek in at the windows at Pemberley to see how it all turned out. Many authors have tried to continue their story (just google ‘Pemberley’ and be amazed); the almost unanimous vitriol they received in Amazon reviews alone made me glad that I resisted the temptation to investigate. Also, beyond my own mental constructions from Austen’s book, my imagination doesn’t have musical accompaniment and I wanted to preserve the image of Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy, walking across the foggy moor at dawn, his shirt uncharacteristically open at the neck, long dark coat lifting away from him as he walks purposefully toward Elizabeth, the joyous notes of Dario Marianelli’s beautiful piano score rising around him. I am pleased to report that the image remains intact. This is P. D. James, after all; rather than attempt to create extended biographies for Austen’s popular characters, in Death Comes To Pemberley, she provides a more oblique view of their relationship by putting them in the path of a murder investigation, all the more interesting because it is Wickham on the block.

At first, I experienced a twinge of disappointment that their witty exchanges were not continued (except for a brief bit at the end) but, on reflection, I understand just how clever Miss James has been. The novel is set six years after Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage and there are actually very few scenes in which they are even in the same room. However—there are two boys in the Pemberley nursery, Jane and Mr. Bingley and their children are comfortably situated nearby in a house called Highmarten, and all the familiar and familial relationships are in place. In the course of working within the legal parameters of the time, Darcy’s position in the community is made clear, as is Elizabeth’s. We learn about the Darcy family, the history of Pemberley and its importance to the area. We find out what Wickham and Lydia have been up to and many additional details about how their marriage was brought about and at what cost. Miss James manages to preserve the integrity of the original novel while delivering all this information in the background of what is really a very good mystery: Who killed Major Denny in the Pemberley woods? Sometimes it’s best to leave things well enough alone. Thank you, Miss James. Well done.

For a good look at the model for Pemberley used in the movie version I mention, please check out Round About Chatsworth by Deborah, The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire. Her life is an amazing story on its own and I have long admired her efforts to bring Chatsworth into the present century. I can also recommend Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith because it, too, preserves the basic spirit of the original though superimposed with zombies, which is always a good idea. Learn more about P. D. James on her official website.

“MICRO” by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston: A Fantastic Voyage To Mysterious Island

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Crichton, Ebola, Hot Zone, insects, Michael Crichton, Micro, miniature, miniaturisation, nanotechnology, Oahu, pharmacology, Richard Preston, survival

Nature and nerdiness are not incompatible. This novel is brilliant fun—a wonderful examination of perspective, moral and physical (in case you didn’t get the hint from my title), superimposed on a scaffold of two of Crichton’s favorite themes: the dynamic struggle between corporate greed and scientific innovation, and the balance (often brutally maintained) between man and nature. Unfinished at the time of Michael Crichton’s death in 2008, his Trust engaged Richard Preston to continue the work. Preston is best known to me for his novelisation of the discovery and course of infection of the Ebola virus in his eminently readable The Hot Zone; his descriptions in the audio version (chosen for a 15-hr drive) were so delightfully disgusting they had us all screaming. I was very happy to see his name associated with Crichton’s Micro and very amused when the detailed (understatement) description of a man’s death by the fangs and embrace of a huntsman spider was summed up with “The spider venom was Ebola in thirty seconds.” Yes. Yes, it was.

Lest you think the science a bit off (as the bite of a huntsman spider is not normally fatal to humans), this particular human is only a half-inch tall—a size entirely susceptible to being overwhelmed by any spider’s venom, not to mention the myriad killing methods used by any creature in any square foot of soil. The secret miniaturisation of a human workforce, intended to facilitate the acquisition of new pharmaceutical resources harvested from plants and insects, is the heart of the technology being developed and exploited by Nanigen MicroTechnologies on the bountiful island of Oahu. None of this is immediately apparent to an argumentative group of graduate students lured to the facility to interview for unexpected new openings, the offers sweetened with free travel expenses and the promise of lucrative careers in their various specialties—the definition of ‘too good to be true’ and every graduate student’s dream. Instead, they are immediately red-shirted into a background drama of corporate espionage and greed. To ensure their silence, Nanigen’s secret is used against them; they are forced to fend for themselves in a suddenly alien world where their comprehensive academic knowledge is the only thing that might keep them alive.

Unfortunately, they’re out of touch with the natural world, as most people are, long before they lose their place on the food chain. Their new learning curve seems impossibly steep yet, remarkably, they see their place, in all its precariousness, very clearly and don’t fault the environment for carrying on as usual. In fact, the beauty of the nature that surrounds, sustains, and, in turn, hunts them remains prominent in their considerations, their respect increasing exponentially with every day they remain alive.

I came away from this novel realising that a simple exercise in an imaginative change of scale might make the study of natural processes so much more memorable for scores of schoolchildren. Wouldn’t you want to know everything you could about a beetle who wanted to have you for dinner? Knowledge is power.

Read more about Michael Crichton at his website here and about Richard Preston here.

SNAKES AND SNAILS AND DINOSAUR TAILS: Science Books For Children

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Aliki, bones, children's literature, Day-Glo Brothers, day-glo paint, dinosaurs, discovery, Eloise, exploration, Hilary Knight, mummies, paleontology, Philo Farnsworth, science, science books, scientists, Smithsonian, TV, William Beebe

Children should be—need to be—curious about the world they live in but it isn’t always an innate default. Curiosity needs to be fostered; it’s hard to learn to ask questions when so much of what surrounds us is taken for granted. A little prod, in the form of a well-written and engagingly illustrated book, will often do the trick. In a recent blog post, the Smithsonian Magazine published a great list of science-themed children’s books and there are a few others I would like to add simply because they are really good and shouldn’t be forgotten.

As science and discovery combined, nothing beats the story of William Beebe’s (pronounced BEE-bee) vision of a craft that could withstand the pressure of the deep ocean, allowing researchers to explore marine life at dark depths for the first time. Into The Deep by David Sheldon describes Beebe’s early research interests and the production of the Bathysphere, a cramped, two-man, iron bubble designed by Otis Barton, the engineer who accompanied Beebe on all the initial voyages in the 1930s. When I first read Beebe’s account of this remarkable event (probably from one of my father’s books), I was 8 or 9 years old and in my dentist’s waiting room; I was so fascinated I forgot where I was and why I was there. Some of the luminescent fish they discovered were represented by strings of light on black pages which immediately made me think of Hilary Knight’s illustration of Eloise in the dark, surrounded by dotted-line animals. The two images are forever connected in my brain, the mysterious fish made more approachable by its resemblance to Eloise’s adventure and the adventure made more dreadful by its resemblance to the fish.

No child’s personal science library is complete without books by Aliki. Aliki Brandenberg wrote (and continues to write) a considerable number of carefully researched books exploring topics such as dinosaurs and mummies, among others. Dinosaur Bones is an introduction to paleontology, covering the early days of fossil discovery and the mistakes and successes of the earliest fossil hunters. Digging Up Dinosaurs goes into more detail about the scientific procedures followed from the discovery of fossils in the field to their eventual display in a museum and all the people along the way who facilitate that process. It has been recently updated with some minor changes including the female paleontologist (yay!) on the cover. My Visit To The Dinosaurs provides brief bios of several dinosaurs—exactly what you might see on a walk through a natural history museum—while Dinosaurs Are Different explains some actual morphological differences between the dinosaurs, separating them on the basis of bone structure into two orders: the saurischians (lizard-hipped) and the ornithischians (bird-hipped). The illustrations are easy to follow (as usual); the discussion balloons from the children that swarm the pages of Aliki’s books provide as much information as the text. She is always very complete. The process of mummification, from corpse to tomb, is described and illustrated step by step in Mummies Made In Egypt.

Television is ubiquitous in our lives; it’s hard to imagine our days without it, but did you ever wonder who first came up with the idea? It all started with a scary-intelligent 14-yr-old boy plowing a field. His fantastic ideas and the people who both helped and hindered him are the subject of Kathleen Krull’s The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story Of Philo Farnsworth.

Finally, as a great example of how well necessity and imagination can work together, there is The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton. Joe and Bob Switzer experimented with ultraviolet light and various chemicals in their basement (unfortunately, this might be regarded with a few hairy eyeballs today) to come up with the first fluorescent paint that could be seen in daylight. In the beginning, it was just a way to jazz up Joe’s magic act but, among its other applications, their paint was used in WW II to help guide night landings on aircraft carriers. The 50s look of the illustrations reminds me of my old Scholastic books; the gradual increase of day-glo color on the dark pages might induce some late 80s flashbacks but, overall, makes its point.

And don’t forget that there is an important benefit to increasing your child’s knowledge of the world (besides the obvious)—dinner table discussions and car pool drives will be more interesting by magnitudes.

Ghoulies, Ghosts, and Gaiman Galore. Oh, and Pirates.

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All Hallows Read, Ghost Story, Graveyard Book, Guardians of Childhood, Halloween, Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher, Margaret Mahy, Neil Gaiman, pirates, Pride and Prejudice, Quirk Books, Shining, zombies

While you’re carving the pumpkins, mulling the cider, and digging through the giant box of costumes you keep in the basement (because you never know when you might need a great costume), don’t forget about this fool-proof way to get into the Halloween spirit: A twofer—Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book read by the author—Himself—in its entirety, for free. I’ve mentioned this book previously but at Mouse Circus, you can listen to Gaiman’s lyric, economical prose about a boy who is raised by, and learns about life from, ghosts. It makes for a nice tradition and a good candidate, too, for Gaiman’s All Hallows Read, an effort to give out books (along with the candy) on Halloween (the backyard flavor of his video is very amusing). The audio version of this book would be great on a car trip, too.

Something about the relentless nature of zombies, the way they come in slow,inexorable waves, so comfortable with their horribleness, makes them a wonderful mascot for these financially troubled times in which misfortune seems as insidiously targeted to the average citizen as are the shuffling undead to an errant noise. This, in turn, is what makes watching them get their heads blown off so incredibly satisfying. We can’t seem to get enough of it. The lure of a “literate” zombie novel, as it has been described repeatedly, puts Colson Whitehead’s Zone One on my reading list. And Quirk Books has come up with an interactive zombie app. Now you can read an enhanced (music and sound effects!), illustrated version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the original Pride and Prejudice, or both, side by side.

Jim Butcher’s Ghost Story, the latest addition to his series featuring Chicago’s wizard-detective Harry Dresden, is fun because Harry has his hands figuratively tied by dying. Returning as a ghost to solve the mystery of his own death, Harry finds out, first, that it’s difficult to interact with the living and, second, that there are Things That Go Bump In The Night that even ghosts are afraid of. Before he can succeed on his mission, Harry must master the rules of ghost survival and face some hard truths about his relationships with the people most important to him.

Stephen King’s The Shining is so iconic, it would be remiss of me not to mention that he is reportedly working on a sequel called Dr. Sleep that will feature a group of roving vampires called The Tribe. Unfortunately, my curiosity about how Danny Torrance becomes associated with vampires will have to wait until next year to be satisfied.

I haven’t forgotten the teeny tinies. Margaret Mahy never disappoints and these stories, first published in 1978 and illustrated by the amazing Quentin Blake, combine her wonderful humor with hugely entertaining plots. In The Great Piratical Rumbustification, a dubiously reformed pirate becomes a babysitter to the Terrapin boys and wants to use their house for a pirate party. The Librarian And The Robbers finds a lovely librarian kidnapped by illiterate robbers. Somehow (no spoilers here), she engineers her escape and turns the tables; probably the Dewey Decimal System’s first real street cred.

William Joyce has a string of popular titles bearing his name but his illustrations for The Man In The Moon left me gobsmacked. This is the first book in the Guardians of Childhood series which will eventually include the mythologies behind Santa Claus, Mother Goose, the Sandman, and a few others charged with, as Joyce maintains, “protecting the imaginations of children.” There is more information about the series here.

Finally, some Halloween advice from me:

Ghosties are friendly, zombies need brains,
Witches like teacakes whenever it rains.

Over most of the frighties, you wield all the power;
But if it’s raining—for god’s sake, don’t run out of flour.

 

 

“SPELLBOUND” by Cara Lynn Shultz

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Cara Lynn Shultz, curse, fantasy, New York City, private school, soulmates, Spellbound, supernatural, Upper East Side, witch, witchcraft, YA novel

When Emma Connor’s sodden stepfather almost causes her death in a car accident, she leaves the small town in New Jersey where she grew up, and where she stayed even after her mother died, for a comfortable co-op on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to live with her great-aunt. Emma is a high school junior and will join her younger cousin, Ashley, at exclusive, co-ed, Vincent Academy. She will trade jeans and a hoodie for a white Oxford shirt and a black, blue, and green plaid tartan skirt but the necklace her twin brother gave her before he died—a round charm etched with an unusual medieval crest—stays. Emma is smart, beautiful, athletic, and, as she learns in the wake of a sequence of strange occurrences, cursed. Her necklace is the key and with the help of her lab partner, Angelique, who happens to know a few things about witchcraft, Emma begins to understand that the most exciting part of her new life, her burgeoning relationship with the stunning Brendan, may also end her life.

Cara Shultz knows her way around a fight scene and her depictions of high school anxieties and jealousies are pitch-perfect. A medieval legend may steer the plot of Spellbound but it is firmly grounded in present-day New York City, where some of Central Park’s landmarks provide an elegant backdrop for much of the book’s action. Typical of most (all) teenagers, Emma and Brendan spend a lot of time listening to music; some of their favorite bands and songs are mentioned conversationally in the text but there is an additional playlist included at the end of the book—a sort of DIY soundtrack. The song titles and artists are listed with a description of where they would appear in the novel. At first, because I reflexively associate soundtracks with movies, this seemed a little strange but then my dinosaur brain remembered why I listen to Dave Matthews when I drive or Ludovico Einaudi when I have a problem to sort. In the acknowledgments for Twilight, Stephenie Meyer gave special praise to the bands who inspired her as she wrote. Shultz provides her readers with a list of specific songs (downloadable on iTunes, even) that echo Emma and Brendan’s feelings as the action progresses— a way to remember the spirit of the story after the reading is done—with the characters as imagined by the reader rather than as they were played on the screen. A book with an optional musical fingerprint—kind of cool, really.

The sequel, Spellcaster, will be out in the spring and I’m looking forward to its release. I expect it will include more of Emma’s developing affinity for magic (secondary, in this novel) and more about Angelique, as well. To discover more about Cara Lynn Shultz and her current projects, along with a picture of the mysterious medallion, visit her website here.

“Bedbugs” by Ben H. Winters

Tags

bedbugs, Ben H. Winters, Brooklyn, infestation, Quirk Books, supernatural, yuppies

“Bedbugs” cover art

The creepiness factor for Ben H. Winters’ Bedbugs starts to climb before his evocative prose even begins. Holding the book in one hand while turning pages with the other, I experienced a sudden involuntary pause at the sight of black speckling along the book’s spine and a slight frisson of disgust at the realisation that the ragged edges around a scattering of larger dots were legs. Knowing in the same moment that it was merely a clever effect accomplished with a bit of well-placed ink could not prevent the quick tightening of the gut they induced. Oh, well done, book designer, well done. That eerily invasive crawly feeling underscores the novel’s central psychological premise: humans and bugs don’t mix. There is something deeply offensive about being snacked on by creatures who hide until we are most vulnerable. Bedbugs’ seeming invulnerability has kept them in the news and so I began reading Winters’ new novel with an eye hyper-sensitive to hype. It turns out that bedbugs, uniquely suited to wreak havoc on both biological and psychological fronts, make an ideal weapon—especially if wielded by someone with one foot right up to the neck in the Twilight Zone.

Bedbug Under The Influence

Susan and Alex Wendt are the supremely normal protagonists of Bedbugs. They live in Brooklyn with their daughter, Emma, who has all the requisite trappings of inherited yuppiedom including a nanny and a Maclaren stroller. But their apartment could be better and Susan’s determined search eventually leads her to 56 Cranberry Street #2, an 1860s brownstone where she imagines that both Alex’s ambition for his business and her dream to resume  painting will be realised. For the first few weeks in their new home, her instincts seem to be right. Then slowly, with one disconcerting event after another, Susan’s initial optimism begins to erode, taking pieces of her sanity with it. It’s not just the possibility of an infestation that consumes her with worry but the implication of an infestation that seems targeted at her alone. Winters’ writing shines as he describes the insidious, isolating psychology of her predicament. A burst of creativity becomes an obsessed drive and the result, her first painting in her new home, takes on a significance Dorian Gray would appreciate. Finally, she is on her own as the mystery takes a truly terrifying turn.

Clearly, Ben Winters, the best-selling author of the recent YA novel The Secret Life of Ms. Finkelman and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, enjoys a puzzle and the realm of the slightly Strange and Unusual. Bedbugs kicks it up several notches, tweaking the traditional urban fears of being singled out and of failing with the added stress of supernaturally driven pests—all the more enjoyable because it can never happen to you.

Visit Ben Winters at his blog where he talks about Bedbugs and his latest project, The Mystery Of The Missing Everything. For more information about Bedbugs and to see the new book trailer, a visit to the Quirk Books website is in order.

“SWAMPLANDIA!” by Karen Russell

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Alligator, Bigtree, coast, family, Florida, ghosts, Karen Russell, quest, swamp, Swamplandia!, theme park

Like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, the exclamation point tacked to the end of this fancifully-named, alligator-centric Florida park seems to linger in the air long after reading this descriptively vivid novel. It hangs shimmering, first an echo and then a sad mockery of Swamplandia!’s promising mythology. The hundred-acre island attraction was created by Chief Bigtree with the enthusiastic showmanship that seems endemic to the Florida coast (his title as “Chief” is self-assumed). His family’s expertise with alligators and their wholehearted embrace of his marketing ploys inform all of Swamplandia!’s shows and walking tours—but the main attraction is his wife, Hilola. Her every-weeknight-including-Saturdays dive into a well-stocked alligator pool, lit only by the stars and a follow-spot as she swims triumphantly past “icicle overbites,” is a tourist favorite and a source of deep pride for their three children, Kiwi, Osceola, and Ava (a precocious 13-yr-old whose older self is the narrator of their story). Hilola’s comparatively ignoble death from cancer (not a spoiler, I promise) is a personal and professional blow. Without their mother’s show and tourists eager to take a 40-minute ferry ride to see her cheat death, the edges of their island world become unpinned and the family drifts apart. Each of the children ends up, deliberately or accidentally, on a journey. Like miniature Jasons, they leave Swamplandia!’s familiar confines to complete a quest: Kiwi, to a literal “World of Darkness” on the mainland, to find the money to keep the park (and the family) going; Osceola, to find true love (across the boundary of the afterlife); and Ava, to find her sister and bring her back.

The children’s journeys are alternately, sometimes equally, amusing and disturbing. Emboldened by their own history and family pride, they are also hindered by an artlessness that is both shocking and touching. Somewhere in my brain, a patch of saw grass, as emblematic as anything of the arch beauty and associated pain integral to this unforgettable story, has taken root. Read it. But be prepared to give over some neurological real estate. Swamplandia! will stay with you.

A Spoonful of Sugar: “FALL OF GIANTS” by Ken Follett

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America, aristococracy, England, Fall of Giants, Germany, history, Ken Follett, politics, Russia, suffragettes, Welsh mining, Women's Suffrage, World War I

Ethel Williams, a Welsh maid turned journalist/suffragette and the central character in Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants, is headed for inclusion on my list of WOMEN I ADMIRE where she will join Emma Peel, Elizabeth Bennett, Ray Eames, Aeryn Sun, and the Duchess of Devonshire. Any woman who can marshal political support with the power of her pen and later, on hands and knees, calmly dictate mid-wifery directions to her timely-arrived brother as she gives birth to her first child deserves attention. She is no more than two degrees of separation from the other characters in this epic novel which follows five families, high-born and low-, across four countries through 13 years of history before, during, and just after the first World War in the hefty span of 925 pages. The enormity of Mr. Follett’s task as he weaves together fictional and non-fictional characters has the potential to leave heads spinning; that it doesn’t—acting instead like an uncharacteristically enjoyable historical primer—is a testament to the author’s skill.

Its larger themes, the politics of war, the influence of hawks and doves on the direction of public opinion, the dissemination of information to the public, and the role women should play in politics and society are still relevant today. Fall of Giants teases apart the complicated threads of class, politics, love (early 20^th century sex!), and duty that bind Follett’s characters as their various countries head into a war of previously unknown scope. Multi-level changes in English society begun before the war will find even more receptive footholds in its aftermath. The lazy scholar in me appreciates the ponderous amount of information that brings this complex period of history to life and is grateful for the rich prose that binds it all together into an appetising brainfeast.

Fall of Giants is the first book of the proposed Century trilogy and while waiting for the next installment, there are two television series set in the same historical period that are worth investigating. The first season of PBS MASTERPIECE’s recent drama Downton Abbey ends just as war is declared. There are many similarities between the connected family and servants in this series and the aristocratic Edwardian families that anchor Follett’s novel. Also of interest may be the new episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs scheduled to air on 10 April.

Ken Follett’s official website is here. In addition to information about all of his books, he describes where this series will be heading.

The Family That Slays Together: “Dreadfully Ever After” by Steve Hockensmith

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Bennetts, Bingley, Darcy, dreadfuls, Elizabeth Bennet, England, London, Pemberley, Pride & Prejudice, Steve Hockensmith, zombies

What is arguably one of the most admired love stories in literature gets severely tested in Steve Hockensmith’s amusingly gory and smoothly comic Dreadfully Ever After, the last book of the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trilogy. In keeping with the original classic, it explores the role of women and tradition in a carefully tiered society which, in this series, is beleaguered by increasing numbers of the undead. A sort of natural history of the ‘sorry stricken’ has evolved, where they hide and at what times of the day they like to roam. Still, propriety is demanded in their dispatchment. As an aid to discretion, Oscar Bennett has taken to carrying a vial of burn-acid which will smokelessly incinerate a dreadful corpse on contact but of his five warrior daughters, only Kitty and Mary, who remain unmarried, are allowed to be seen with weapons and actively patrol for dreadfuls. These changes have resulted in new tensions among the Bennett sisters and an opportunity for an old adversary to finally get rid of them all.

Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett have been married for four years and, though still very much in love, Elizabeth is feeling morose. Despite her intensive training and her unparalleled gift for dispatching the undead, the wives of gentlemen in England simply do not carry weapons or engage in the slaying of dreadfuls at all. Visiting her sister Jane to see the newest of four Bingley nieces only adds to her darkened mood. On their walk back to Pemberley, Elizabeth reluctantly confesses to Darcy her relief that they have no children of their own. He is so astounded that, failing to register the signs of danger when it literally crosses his path, he is bitten on the neck by a child dreadful. Elizabeth must act quickly. The usual course of action, amputation of the infected limb, is not an option but Elizabeth knows of another—a serum in the possession of Darcy’s aunt, her greatest enemy, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, that will delay the transformation from human to dreadful. Lady Catherine’s terms are harsh and after removing Darcy to her own home for the treatments, she sends Elizabeth to London, a city now “consuming itself from the inside, like a stillborn dreadful chewing its way through its mother’s womb.” There, by means of subterfuge, guile, and the batting of lashes, she is to obtain an antidote, developed and held in secret by the King’s physician in an impenetrable stronghold.

Of course, things don’t go as smoothly as planned but assistance comes from both a new friend and a surprise reunion with (most of) an old acquaintance. When the King’s re-coronation goes spectacularly, disgustingly awry, the Bennetts and their new allies pull together, among them two non-white children who represent the key to England’s dreadful-free future. Now there is still Darcy to save and the final, entrail-strewn confrontation with Lady Catherine is the very definition of comeuppance. The Bennetts, the Darcys, and the Bingleys are left to preside over the beginnings of a new, less insular, more open-minded England where they do indeed live happily ever after.

Interested readers should be aware that if they give the Quirk Classics facebook fan page a Like, they will be eligible to win a specially commissioned zombie antidote necklace. Yes, you need one.

Love Letters, Rumpelstiltskin, and Undershaw

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A.S. Byatt, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, history, Hound of the Baskervilles, house museums, J.K. Rowling, Jane Austen, Neil Gaiman, Possession, preservation, Rumpelstiltskin, Sherlock Holmes, Undershaw

There is a wonderful scene in A.S. Byatt’s Possession in which two scholars, on the heels of a literary mystery, have an opportunity to go through the rooms in the manor house where half of their pursuit’s objective, the famous poet, Cristabel LaMotte, once lived. By matching some of her verses with their present surroundings, they discover LaMotte’s clever hiding place for the love letters she exchanged with the renowned (and married) poet, Randolph Henry Ash. There’s much more to the story, of course, and I hope you’ll read it, but it’s tantalizing to imagine that, at any time, new connections might be made from the relationship between authors’ works and their working surroundings.

There is a Rumpelstiltskin-esque alchemy to a writer’s process—experience and imagination are drawn together with the added influence of place, past and present, to create the literary equivalent of threads of gold. We desire that gold for our entertainment and to be introduced to situations, possibilities, and points of view we might never consider on our own; we need it to maintain perspective on the sometimes bizarre complexity of our own lives. Naturally, we revere the people who can take us out of ourselves and enrich us with seemingly nothing more than a pen and piece of paper. It is certain that even the café where J. K. Rowling penned the first chapters of her story about a boy wizard, has never done better business. Seeing where  authors are from, where they liked to do their writing, seeing with our own eyes what they looked at every day, adds depth to everything they’ve written and brings us closer to understanding the source of such expansive creativity.

The relationship between authors and their homes has been on my mind since following a link on Neil Gaiman’s Facebook page about the on-going effort to preserve Undershaw, the home Sir Arthur Conan Doyle designed and where he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, among other influential works. It’s hard to believe Undershaw didn’t achieve house museum status decades ago—that generations of schoolchildren and their exasperated handlers haven’t walked through Conan Doyle’s study the way they’ve been able to walk through Emily Dickinson’s gardens, Jane Austen’s 17^th-century house, or Edgar Allan Poe’s modest row house, itself at risk because of budget cuts. It is unconscionable that the home designed by the creator of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger should be lost to ‘development’ and neglect. Many years of education, dispensed within its walls and across its grounds, could be an important part of its future and an anchor to the writer whose work, familiar to and beloved by children, scholars, and  Hollywood alike, will continue to inspire the generations to come.

Please read about the Undershaw Preservation Trust on their Facebook page—they are currently expecting their 4000th visitor and are offering a nice little gift to the lucky person  who arrives in time. Also, if you are interested in the disposition of the Poe House in Baltimore, here is the link to a petition for its continued operation.