The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield
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Book Reviews of The Thirteenth Tale
Book Review: Did anyone else laugh when the doctor gave Margaret her perscription?
Summary: 2 Stars
On occasion, the publishing industry gets together and seems to arbitrarily decide on a book or set of books that become the next big thing. You know the ones I'm talking about. They usually have a great big `O' on the cover and are read by women ages 25 - 49. This one is not part of She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named's Book Club, but it's the `in' book of the season, and like nearly all `in' books, it's not very good.
The premise is an intriguing one: Margaret Lea, the daughter or a rare-book shop owner, receives an invitation from the world's best loved and best selling writer, one Vida Winter. Ms. Winter is a notorious recluse and, we later see, an eccentric, whose novels captivate the layman and the scholar alike, often to the point of complete loss of basic mental faculties: we see more than one character lose sleep in order to read them in marathon sessions, and others whose attention cannot be diverted from its pages. Margaret is offered the lucrative position of being Ms. Winter's official biographer - a generous position considering Margaret's inexperience (she has published only one biographical article about two obscure brothers) and the decades of lies Ms. Winter has told various reporters. One day she was the child of circus performers, the next the daughter of a Persian nobleman who fell out of favor at court, and so on. Margaret arrives at Ms. Winter's estate, and the story begins.
If I took the time and effort to include menial details and plot holes in my summary it is because I would not feel right describing the book by ignoring some of its key aspects, namely those same plot holes and menial details. The woman's writing pleases both beggar and king? I think not. The excerpts shown from Winter's writing are embarrassingly pretentious and stark. It's like reading something turned away by a University Lit magazine. The writer believes it to be unabashed genius, but the truth is it sucks like a Hoover. What little is shown makes me consider Setterfield's Winter something of a Borges or Kafka, and she is definitely not either, especially considering her status as the world's best-selling author. In one memorably comedic moment, Margaret remarks that Ms. Winter may have outsold the Bible, but figures considering the Bible's sales were murky at best. While this point is true, it comes off leaving a sour taste in the mouth of the reader to whom it is presented. "That's the best she can do to convince me?" I thought after reading that passage, and it was not the only one of its kind.
The novel will keep your attention until the last page, but do not expect any deep observations or poetic prose. In fact, some of the ideas are presented so poorly it's a wonder a former academic such as Ms. Setterfield would send the manuscript in for consideration. Worse, the prose is laughable at times. I tell you seriously that I actually began to write the page numbers of the cryptic and apparently chilling one-line revelations. Still think I'm kidding? Check pages 27, 42, 76, and 176 of the hardcover edition. I stopped writing them down after that. Bone chilling? No. Bound to produce a smirk and a shake of the head? Well, let's just say it's hard to read "Someone was watching me" standing on its own, in italics, and not chuckle a bit.
The story is written as a cross between Victorian and Gothic styles. The result is neither good or refreshing, new or unpleasing. When I was younger my older sister and mom would read a steady diet of V.C. Andrews novels. I have never read a word she has written, but I used to open the inside covers and stare at stark pictures of sharp and gothic families that were painted by the numbers: the severe mother wearing her graying hair in a tight bun, the dumpy father with a lecherous look in his eye, the temptuous sister, the innocent-looking and impressionable younger brother, all posing for an oil painting the artist apparently drew by candlelight.. That image kept floating into my mind as I read Ms. Winter's account of her past, and with good reason. The ingredients are all there, including a family who makes the Addams Family look model by comparison.
Is this book worth your time? Depends what you're looking for. If you are looking for a light read that will keep your heart pumping at 65 - 70 bpm and your brain at a light jog, this is the book for you. Just don't expect a masterpiece of mood or a worthwhile family saga. Perfect for those recovering from post-Dan Brown Disorder.
Book Review: (4.5 stars) A bewitching, beguiling debut that kept me reading late into the night!
Summary: 4 Stars
At the beginning of Diane Setterfield's debut novel, THE THIRTEENTH TALE, our narrator, Margaret Lea, gets a letter from Vida Winter, one of the greatest writers of the century by most accounts. Margaret prefers the constancy and reliability of Victorian novels to contemporary fiction, so she's never read any of Miss Winter's books. She is, however, aware of the enigmatic author's reputation in the press. First, there's the mystery of the "thirteenth tale," the story that doesn't exist; and second, there's the fact that Miss Winter has given hundreds of accounts of her life to various reporters over the years -- all of them fabrications. Now it seems Vida Winter has commissioned Margaret, rare book collector's daughter and amateur biographer of obscure historical figures, to write about the truth of her life. And although Margaret is at first wary of the author's honesty, it isn't long before she's swept up in Miss Winters' haunting, disturbing tale. Miss Winters tells of the Angelfield family of Yorkshire: incestuous siblings Isabelle and Charlie, twin girls called Adeline and Emmeline. She tells of a governess and a topiary garden, a ghost and a fire. It's a truth stranger than fiction, and we readers are instantly captivated right along with Margaret.
I first learned about THE THIRTEENTH TALE when I saw it on the New York Times Bestsellers List -- at number one, no less. In a world where serial characters and churned-out novels by prolific romance writers reign, there is little room on the charts for a literary work like THE THIRTEENTH TALE -- so when I saw it in the top spot, I knew I had to get my hands on it.
And I wasn't disappointed. THE THIRTEENTH TALE is a rare find. It's the kind of novel that completely beguiles you, transports you, makes the rest of the world recede. The atmosphere is lush and spooky, the prose is seductive and mesmerizing. Setterfield excels at creating tension in both Margaret's and Miss Winter's stories, and she utilizes the "story within a story" technique brilliantly in the novel. Setterfield channels the great Gothic novels in her execution, earning THE THIRTEENTH TALE a place on the shelf right beside the best of Austen and Brontė. The tone of the novel is very Victorian, very old-fashioned, very...British. I was completely riveted by the language, totally entranced by the story.
There were a few things, however, that made THE THIRTEENTH TALE less than a five-star read for me. Although I think Setterfield did a good job of developing her female leads (and what a difficult job it must have been to develop and balance two first-person protagonists), I do think the dynamic between Margaret and Miss Winter could have been further explored. I also found it frustrating that readers aren't given a frame of time in which to place Margaret's story. We're given to believe that her narrative is taking place in current day; however, she corresponds only in letters and transcribes all of her conversations with Miss Winter using pencil and paper. This rings untrue if the story is, in fact, set in current day (but I suppose it also further contributes to the Gothic quality of the novel, and maybe that was the intention). And lastly, the mysterious "thirteenth tale" for which the novel is named was a little bit of a let-down when its content was revealed.
But I think this book is worthy of all the praise it's garnered since its release. It's like nothing you've ever read before, and nothing you'll read after. At one point early in the novel, Margaret observes, "There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs, like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic." That's exactly what THE THIRTEENTH TALE DOES: It captures you from the first page, and it doesn't release you until after its satisfying conclusion. And maybe not even then.
Bottom line: THE THIRTEENTH TALE will make you remember why you love reading. Don't miss it!
Book Review: a praising, non-spoiler review
Summary: 5 Stars
It is a dark and stormy night as I write this. Or, to be more accurate, a dark and stormy morning. The weather reflects the exquisite melancholy that has settled itself upon me at the completion of The Thirteenth Tale. Diane Setterfield's debut novel is one of those all-too-rare stories that gets under your skin, that grabs hold of your imagination with both hands and won't let go.
I have cherised the reading of this book over the last week. All other books were set aside. When I wasn't reading The Thirteenth Tale, I was thinking about it, remembering it. I looked forward to those stolen moments when I might be able to read but a few pages as much as I did those hours that I could devote to the tale. I hung on every word and savored The Thirteenth Tale as one would a well-prepared meal. And now it has ended and, contrary to my normal habits I am not anxious to pick up the next story. I am not yet ready to move on.
To put it plainly, The Thirteenth Tale was bound to fail. It had to overcome the weight of considerable expectations. It seemed that everywhere I turned prior to its release someone or some thing was inducing me to buy this book. Comparisons to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca only served to heighten those expectations. And as I stood in the bookstore holding this beautiful volume in my hands (raised letter dust jacket with an image to make a book lover swoon, serrated pages that smelled of new paper and fresh ink, gold embossed designs on the spine of the book itself) my expectations were at a fever pitch.
As I read those first pages I was nervous. Diane Setterfield was obviously attempting to speak with the voice of her gothic ancestors a century or more gone. A few of the initial sentences worried me. This style of writing seems always to be balanced on the edge of a precipice...one sentence fragment too many will tip it over that edge. I needn't have been concerned. Within a few pages it was apparent that Setterfield was a skilled performer. And really, if you think about it, she had an ace up her sleeve. Her protagonist, Margaret Lea, is a book lover. Sentences like:
"There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce you skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic."
and
"I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book."
could be mantras for those of us who have shared our love of books of late. With the kindred spirit of the bibliophile I was willing and anxious to follow Margaret on her adventure. And what an adventure it was.
As I indicated at the beginning I will not spoil any part of the story for you. Simply put, The Thirteenth Tale is a grand novel in the gothic tradition. If you have read the book jacket you know that the story features a ghost, a grand old house, and family secrets. The novel allows us to witness the act of one person telling their story to another and in those moments Diane Setterfield's writing transports you to the very side of this storyteller, making you feel like the story is being told you and you alone. A delicious air of suspense pervades this story in both its revelation of the nature of evil and in its resolution of the various plot threads that are skillfully woven together by Setterfield.
The back inside flap of the book jacket promises that Setterfield will, "in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life". She keeps her promise.
Book Review: a good read for booklovers
Summary: 5 Stars
Steeped in the Brontes, DuMaurier, Wilkie Collins, and The Turn of the Screw, this book is at once a throwback to the 19th century and a thoroughly modern reinvention of the gothic story. Setterfield lovingly lifts generic tropes from these classic tales while weaving a story that is utterly hypnotizing and deeply human.
At heart, this is a book about a fictional famous author, and Setterfield evokes a sense of yearning for these nonexistent works. I found myself wishing I could go to the library and dive into Miss Winter's reportedly vast oeuvre, imagining that she'd be a British version of Shirley Jackson, or a slightly domesticated Patricia Highsmith. Setterfield sustains this tension without letting it overwhelm the book, and delivers a payoff that is surprising and satisfying.
Above all, this is a book suffused with the distinct pleasures of reading. I was won completely on page 32. I read this passage and thought, "Oh, she knows!"
"Of course, one always hopes for something special when one reads an author one hasn't read before, and Miss Winter's books gave me the same thrill I had when I discovered the Landier diaries, for instance. But it was more than that. I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my sould the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled. And during this time, these days when I read all day and half the night, when I slept under a counterpane strewn with books, when my sleep was black and dreamless and passed in a flash and I woke to read again-the lost joys of reading returned to me. Miss Winter restored to me the virginal qualities of the novice reader, and then with her stories she ravished me."
I know what she means. Nothing will ever be for me what it was to read Rebecca when I was a lonely middle-schooler, reading it over and over because I needed to know that being alone was something that could be borne. If Mrs. de Winter could survive Manderley, then I could survive seventh grade.
Another such book was Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I still have my copy that I read to death in elementary school, missing front and back cover and most of the spine, and when I pick it up I can't read it properly, because the words knit the stories into my head. The most haunting part for me was her transition from the Greeks and Romans to the Norse. With a few simple sentence she conjured for me the reality of mortality, something that I knew that I didn't want to know, but couldn't stay away. My affinity for this book took me to the point of hiding it from myself. I was so enraptured by the stories that I wondered in earnest if I was hurting Jesus's feelings by reading them, and so I put them away.
Tom Robbins once said that all smokers are Prometheus, and I say that all readers are Pandora. I think Setterfield would agree with me, and I'm pleased to let her know that she might not have given me Vida Winter's books, but she gave me what Margaret Lea found in them-a read that stopped time.
Book Review: Downright gripping come mid-book
Summary: 5 Stars
Vida Winter is an enigmatic, bestselling author who has told the story of her life innumerable times over the years but never truthfully--until, her health failing, she determines to confide all in a certain Margaret Lea. Margaret has spent her life absorbing the contents of her father's bookstore, and Setterfield lingers over the details of Margaret's life in books, pausing to explain even the economics of her father's business. Setterfield tells us also of the tragedy that has been the singular fact of Margaret's life, that her twin sister died shortly after their birth. Margaret's life is quiet and reclusive, but she has contributed to the world of letters herself in a small way, having written a handful of biographical pamphlets, studies of ordinary lives. It is one of these which attracts Ms. Winter's interest.
Margaret's story in the present frames the tale that Winter tells her over months, the initial, quiet chapters yielding to something nightmarish and ugly. Winter's story is filled with sadism and incest, haunted lives in a decaying mansion--Angelfield Hall--the truth about its inhabitants hidden from the world. Winter's story, too, has to do with twins, Adeline and Emmaline, inseperable from one another and neither of them quite right in the head. There is a mystery in Winter's story, or a series of them, and I'd be shocked if any reader should guess what really happened at Angelfield the night that changed Vida Winter's life.
I was not initially excited by The Thirteenth Tale, though I was impressed at the languorous pace with which its author dwells on the details of Margaret's life. In its early chapters the book seems almost a 19th-century product in that Setterfield is not afraid to take her time with it. And in fact the story has a timelessness to it: there are cars and telephones in Margaret's present but apparently no computers; it is difficult to be very specific about its temporal setting. The story Vida Winter tells Margaret, meanwhile, is initially offputting because of its violence. But Setterfield has woven an intricate story which, if slow to start, becomes downright gripping by mid-book. One finds in it also the occasional, beautifully-wrought passage:
"With a bit more imagination they might have been able to leap the bounds of their own expectations; they might have recognized their feelings for what they were: love of the deepest and most respectful kind. In another day, another culture, he might have asked her to be his wife and she might have said yes. At the very least, one can imagine that some Friday night after their fish and mash, after their fruit pie and custard, he might have taken her hand--or she his--and they might have led each other in bashful silence to one or other of their beds. But the thought never entered their heads. So they became friends, the way old married couples often do, and enjoyed the tender loyalty that awaits the lucky on the other side of passion, without ever living the passion itself."
My one reservation with Setterfield's book has to do with Margaret's obsession with her dead twin sister, the intensity of which I thought highly implausible. But it hardly matters. The Thirteenth Tale is a book that will leave its mark on you.
Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)