Karen’s Blog

The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark






The most interesting part of this book for me - excellent book - was the fact that medical science had things so completely wrong so very recently. The book is set in 1718, in London, and follow the life of Eliza Tally. She has grown up North of London, the only surviving child of a now-deceased father and a mother who is the midwife and provider of herbal remedies for the local village. ‘Ma Tally” is shrewd and poor, but sees opportunity when the son of the local wealthy family takes an interest in Eliza. A “jumping over the broom” wedding happens, and so sex is then permitted, but when Eliza becomes pregnant, the wealthy family quickly disagrees that the two are married. The son is sent of on a ship bound far away, and Eliza, through maneuvering by her mother and the wealthy family, Eliza is sent to be a maid for an apothecary in London. Then the story really starts.



Eliza only wants to be rid of “the worm” as she calls it, and assumes the apothecary will induce a miscarriage and she will work for him for a year to repay him. She knows her mother knew herbs that women took for that, so figures the apothecary would, too. But when she arrives, she finds a strange and tense household. Mr. Grayson Black, the apothecary, is of the belief - common at the time - that a pregnant woman’s emotions effect the child’s development. After all, he has a large birthmark that we call a “port wine stain” disfiguring much of his face that he attributes to the fact that his own pregnant mother fled the Great Fire of London in 1666, and turned to watch. He is bitter, driven, and also an opium addict.



The dark and unpleasant household is comprised of Mr. and Mrs. Black, Edgar - the lewd, conniving and opportunistic apprentice, and another servant Mary, who is mentally retarded and born with a hare lip. But the room Eliza is given to share with Mary under the eaves of the house looks out on the grand dome of St. Paul’s cathedral, and she marvels at that, and keeps it as a point of hope and wonder. She gradually realizes that she will not be “getting rid of the worm” but instead that Mr. Black is studying her pregnancy, in great detail, and means it to carry to term. She delivers, and is told afterwards her baby died. When Mary becomes pregnant, the realizes her own son was probably dissected by Mr. Black, and he means to do the same to Mary, whom she has come to love.



The book draws you along, and is interspersed with Mr. Black’s notes and correspondence to colleagues, and one can watch his mental status deteriorate as the opium addiction progresses. It is quite gruesome, and does not spare us any details of medicine at that time, and the strange things people quite seriously believed and did to others in the name of “medicine” and “scientific advancement.”



How Eliza matures, learns and is determined to save both her simple friend and herself make for a fascinating story, but not, as I have said, one for the squeamish.



Aren’t you glad you live now, when no one believes in the “four humours” (phlegm, blood, black bile, and yellow bile), gives you expectorants and emetics and just daily bleeds you for “health”? Ewww, yuck. And I know my asthma is an inherited condition, not something I can blame my mother for looking at during her pregnancy, or feeling or thinking!

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

A really cool novel, a well-done mystery, this not one of those formulaic who-done-its. The heart of the story is based around storytellers, writers and books, so it was easy to jump right it. The narrator, Margaret, is a single woman who lives above the London bookshop she and her father run. Their primary business is in antique or rare books, and she has grown up reading more than socializing. Her mother’s illness kept her from ever making many friends, and books have been her companions.

She is summoned to interview - and write a biography for - a popular, famous and famously reclusive novelist, one whose works she has never read. She is surprised to see books by Vida Winter on the shelves of the store, and her father owns one of the rarest copies, a set of 12 short stories that are labelled The Thirteen Tales. The book is rare because it was supposed to have been recalled and destroyed, with a “12 Tales” cover on it instead. Because of the popularity of Ms. Winter’s other books, endless speculation has gone on over the years as to what the 13th tale was meant to be. She has kept silent, until, facing the end of her life, she summons Margaret for her final story - her own.

As the tale unfolds, set early last century with murder, sex, insanity, unrequited love and incest at its heart, Margaret learns more than she thought she would both about the prickly, demanding and reclusive author, and herself. It’s really a fascinating story, and zips right along. And I didn’t even guess the mystery at the core of the piece until it was revealed, so that was a pleasant - though not cheerful - surprise.

I highly recommend it, it’s an unusual, dark little tale with a redemptive ending.

The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Historical fiction at its grittiest. I have the habit, good or bad, or finishing every book I start. I rarely come across one I cannot finish, even if I don’t like it - and yes, there I books I do not like, and I do promise to tell you about them as well. The Great Stink is one that was well worth persevering through the beginning somewhat tedious descriptions of how bad London smelled in the days before they redid the sewer system in Victorian times. Trust me, it smelled really awfully bad, and you can skim over the description of the layers of smell and get to the story. When it finally gets going, it is a good one.

The main characters, besides the Sewers of London, includes William, a man who has returned from the horrors of the Crimean War badly emotionally damaged, but still good at heart. Nowadays we’d recognize it as PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and his coping method as Self-Mutilation - he’s a cutter, but keeps this secret from those around him. Another central character is Long Arm Tom - and his foundling dog - who makes his living scavenging in the sewers William is busy mapping for the planning commission. The two get tangled up in a web of murder, crime and political corruption, and William comes close to losing his very sanity trying to cope, and Tom his heart.

At the heart of the tale are also two very real, touching and sweet love stories, and all the characters are well-fleshed out and seem very genuine. If you can stand graphic descriptions of some of life’s genuine horrors, and are not squeamish about blood, flesh, sewage and decay, this is a very good book. And it turns out that William, and his PTSD, are of course Victorian-era counterparts to so many soldiers returning now from Iraq and Afghanistan. I recommend it, if you can stomach it.

And how come we never studied the Crimean War in school, and I just know about from Florence Nightingale books I read as a kid? Just an aside.