An 832-page reconstruction of the life-and-times of the historical Macbeth, not Shakespeare's—and, though Dunnett's scholarly epic is rich in detail, irony, and elegant prose, most readers will find themselves yearning for the dramatic shaping and darkly vibrant characterization (not to mention the awesome concision!) of the Bard. As in other 11th-century historical novels, we quickly learn here that the authentic Macbeth tale has virtually nothing in common with the familiar one. "Macbeth" is actually the rarely used baptismal name of pagan-ish Thorfinn, a gawky teenage Earl of Orkney who is a grandson of King Malcolm of Alba (most of Scotland) and half-brother to Malcolm's heir Duncan. Tutored by foster-father Thorkel (the nomenclature throughout is dense and daunting), the lad grows up in the thick of Orkney/ Norway/Alba politics; he defects from the Norway camp, allying with Danish/English King Canute, thus gaining control of all the Orkneys; he expands his domain when Thorkel dispatches assorted enemies for him. (Thorfinn himself is a basically decent, mild-tempered chap, often speaking in the cadences of Ronald Colman.) And these early battles also bring a bride: Groa, gorgeous young widow of the slain Gillcomghain—who comments somewhat acerbically on Thorfinn's for-breeding-only conjugal visitations: "Four minutes. That was four minutes this time." Eventually, however, ugly but beautiful-voiced Thorfinn will come to love Groa (utterly unlike Shakespeare's Lady M. except for her verbal sharpness) deeply. Eventually, too, he'll become King of Alba—reluctantly: it's new King Duncan who's the invading aggressor; and, after losing in battle, Duncan is fatally wounded in a fair duel with Thorfinn (who tries not to kill his half-brother). The last two-thirds of the novel, then, deals with Thorfinn's career as a basically good king: a long, violent, sexually tinged feud with Norway-connected nephew Rognvald (duels, chases, burnings, sea battles); the building-up of Scotia's alliances and naval power; an extended diplomatic trip through Europe; and then the increasing troubles as 1066 approaches—from fleet-wrecking storms, from Siward of Northumbria in the south, from nephew Malcolm (whom Thorfinn always treated so nicely). There are battles, betrayals (by Denmark and Normandy), retreats, semi-retirement—and, finally, a dignified surrender via suicidal duel. Dunnett, author of several mysteries and the Francis of Lymond series, studs this knotty political pageant with tart dialogue, aphorisms, and tender husband/wife moments. Her scene-by-scene craftsmanship cannot be faulted. Yet neither Thorfinn/Macbeth nor Groa is a fully developed (or especially interesting) character here; the true-to-history plotting lacks momentum; and while pre-1066 buffs will certainly enjoy Dunnett's stylishly fictionalized scholarship, more of the historical-novel audience will prefer less authentic entertainments—like Farrington's The Breath of Kings (below), which covers precisely the same period, Lady Godiva and all.
Pub Date: May 18, 1982
ISBN: 0375704035
Page Count: 1173
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1982
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.
A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.
“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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