The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield
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Book Reviews of The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
Book Review: A Modern Book in the Grand Old Tradition
Summary: 5 Stars
A young, innocent, perhaps even naïve character finds herself in the employ of a mysterious person in an isolated mansion. Mysteries abound -- about her employer, and about things the household is hiding from her.
Jane Eyre? Nice guess, and indeed, Diane Setterfield does borrow heavily from the gothic tradition that gave us such classics as Jane Eyre, or Rebecca,but her creation is wholly modern, with just a touch of the salacious depravity of V.C. Andrews.
Our bookish heroine is Margaret Lea, an avid reader and sometimes writer, who has been invited by the mysterious authoress, Vida Winter, to write a biography. Winter (a pen name) has given numerous accounts of her life, but no two are the same. She promises the young Lea, however, the truth.
And she delivers it -- in all its lurid detail. It would be almost difficult to keep up, if Winter weren't such a firm believer in all stories having a definite beginning, middle, and end (a philosophy I happen to like!). Following the twists and turns of Vida Winter's life as she tells of Adeline Angelfield and her twin sister Emmeline, whom she says died in a horrible fire, and whose parentage is rumored to be incestuous, is horrifying and spellbinding. Growing up in a mad house full of mad people can't have been easy. It seems obvious why she has sheltered under a pen name and behind fictitious stories.
I was simply fascinated by this page-turner of a novel. It is clearly an homage to gothic classics, but I love that it isn't really historical fiction. (Although, obviously, since Vida Winter is telling about her long-forgotten past, most of the action does take place in an earlier time, but still within the 20th century.)
Yet, I loved the book's old-fashioned feel and the use of framing -- which I don't think I've seen in a long time. However, don't be prepared for a squeaky clean novel that you'd give to a younger child -- the story's twists and turns are sometimes lurid, often morbid, and almost always disturbing. While I think it is unfair to dismiss this novel (as some have done) as no better than V.C. Andrews, there is a touch of the Andrews style there. Of course, Andrews tips her hat to the gothic novel in her own way, so perhaps this isn't a surprise. There is enough to satisfy a literary reader here.
This book is simply a rollercoaster that left me all but breathless at the end. While some things were easily guessed, others simply knocked me off my chair. This has to be one of the best books I've read in a long, long, time.
Book Review: Lucky (and skilled) 13
Summary: 5 Stars
Instantly, I was transported. By story as well as by its telling. Any book lover will know within the first sentence or two, more times than not, and so I knew: treasure. In Diane Setterfield's "The Thirteenth Tale," the reader does not have to choose between intruiging storyline and strong writing. The book is built on both. It has the flavor of old classics, and the comparisons with the Bronte sisters and Daphne du Maurier fit well. Yet Setterfield also manages to achieve her own signature.
Margaret Lea loves books more than people, and so the world of a quaint old bookshop of old leather tomes that one picks up only with gloved hands suits her just so. She lives in the world of words on paper, and she writes her own. An obscure biography she'd written becomes, then, what brings her out of the dusky shop and into the dusky world of Vida Winter. Vida Winter is a famed author, a reclusive artistic sort that the outside world can never quite capture. She won't let it. What interviews she does are all yet more storytelling, each one elaborately contradicting any other. Yet when life nears its end, even those who enjoy living in the secrecy of elaborate, however colorful, lies, come to long for truth at last. Vida Winter calls young Margaret to her home to tell her the truth.
Why Margaret? Something in her first written biography gives her away. Even when writing factually about others, after all, every honest writer will tell you - there is, deep inside the words, their own truth. Vida Winter knows that, and she senses in the young woman's work an understanding for the complexities of sibling relationships. Even, as chance would have it, and especially that of twins.
So the story unfolds, expertly, little by little and logically, building upon itself. Here is a twisted love, here is ugliness and beauty, here is human nature gone wild, and rivalry intertwined with lifelong bond. We find tragedy and adultery, banishment and reunion. All of this is revealed in Vida Winter's voice, even as she grows ever nearer "the wolf" in the shadows, death, that with waning patience awaits her. Alongside Winter's voice is the young biographer's, and we see the parallel lines and hear the echoes. Winter has indeed chosen correctly. If anyone will recognize the truth in the lies, this one will.
Expertly done. Setterfield holds firm to the end. Draw the blinds, start the fire, settle in for the read.
Book Review: A tale wirh reading....
Summary: 5 Stars
It's wonderful to find a book that you read and enjoy purely for the story being told. There are no self-help hints; no underlying messages about politics, the environment or the decay of society; no theories about religious wherefores or arguments about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - just a great gothic tale told in a modern day setting that kept me engaged until the very end.
Diane Sutterfield's debut novel centers on the lives of two women: Vida Winter, a famous writer who is nearing the end of her life, and Margaret Lea, an amateur biographer, who is summoned by Vida so that she can at long last tell the true story of her life. Up to that point Vida has told curious interviewers each a different story of her life - all tall tales -- but Margaret insists, as a biographer, on the facts. What evolves is the telling of two lives because as we learn about Vida, the story of Margaret's life also unfolds.
The novel, while not a literary masterpiece, is remarkably well written in that the reader is drawn into the room for each story telling session. Vida being old and of ill health, her sessions with her biographer are limited in duration. I felt as though I had taken a comfy overstuffed chair in a dark corner and was right there in the room when the two women were together. It was easy to be drawn into the story and I willingly and eagerly went with Margaret as she traveled from Vida's home to her father's rare book store and back again. The characters are so well developed that you feel as though you know them both very well. The story takes many twists and turns, but the progress of the plot is well thought out and thoroughly readable and believable.
If you enjoy a great read and a well told story, then The Thirteenth Tale is a must. For greater enjoyment, choose your time and place keeping in mind that this book is best read with long spans of uninterrupted time and a warm fire and glass of good wine optional.
I'm not yet convinced that there is at least one great novel waiting in each and every one of us, but Diane Sutterfield certainly proved this true for her and I know others join me in hoping there are at least a dozen more tales for her to tell.
Book Review: I HOPE THERE'S A FOURTEENTH
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading a really good book feels a lot like connecting and conversing with a really good friend. One thing leads to another and words flow like a river carrying you away, through twists and turns, bringing you into and out of places you'd never thought you'd find yourself. Smiling, holding your breath, crying without realizing, you've been hypnotized by the landscape of someone else's story. Often, retracing your steps back to the beginning seems impossible since you've gotten "so far off track." Maybe it takes getting so far off track to realize you don't really care about find your way back.
Really good books, like really good friends, help loosen the grip of life. Really good things in this world bring us outside our perpetual thought machines and onto the fascinating result of someone else's.
Such is the case with The Thirteenth Tale. First it's a story about a girl. Then it's a story about a famous author. Then it's a story about a famous author telling the most amazing stories to the world. It became to be for me, a story about family, life, books, writing, secrets, connections, family, family, family, fear, mystery and devotion.
The plot twisted itself like a snake around my heart, and it wasn't long before I surrendered my attention and time to this great novel. In three days, I finished The Thirteenth Tale, and like real conversations with friends, I was sad when it was over. Nearly two weeks ago I bid adieu to Setterfield's beautiful characters ("cut your heart open and sew it back together again" beautiful), and they're still having conversations in my head. Like flashbacks from a good movie, her words are permanently etched in my mind.
A ghost story, I was told. Twisted, one might say. You think you know something about someone in The Thirteenth Tale and then BAM! you're put in your place. The author may make you feel like the wide receiver for a couple of plays, but really, you're that guy in the stadium with the beer belly. It's someone else's story to tell, someone else's game. You may think you have it all figured out Magnum, but in the end, Setterfield shows you who's boss: The Storyteller. Which in itself, is testament to her literary brilliance.
-land+sand
Book Review: "When one is nothing, one invents. It fills a void"
Summary: 5 Stars
Early on in Diane Setterfield's 'The Thirteenth Tale', the (fictional) author of the aforementioned 'tale' utters the line I have quoted in the title of this review, "When one is nothing, one invents. It fills a void."
Upon reaching the end of this novel, this one line holds greater meaning than initially suspected.
With so many reviews of this book, I am hesitant to provide a plot synopsis (amongst the many), and will focus on what I consider to be the book's strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths: Where to begin? This is a wonderfully atmospheric, well plotted, literary tale with so many parallels to classic literature tales that it's hard for any lover of classic fiction to NOT like....others have called this simply a 'ghost' story, and in ways it is, but it's that and so much more. Setterfield has crafted such a wonderful premise and tale to support it, with so many subplots, that virtually every character mentioned in this novel is of great interest, and has a 'place' in the story that unfolds.
Weaknesses: I only have one criticism of this novel, for which I have not deducted any 'stars' in this review. One thing that typically 'irritates' me as a reader is when someone is recounting a story, giving a narrative, and somehow has details to relate of conversations that they were not privy to, and do not explain how they learned the details. Granted, in this instance, the details were vital to the story, yet I still loathe the 'leap' one must take in order to simply accept that the person narrating the story 'somehow' found out what they are telling of. Whereas Ms. Winter's narrative of her life story is supposed to be the truth, I hesitate to think that she simply invented filler details....perhaps it was an embellishment of what little she DID know to be fact, but it still leaves me feeling a bit 'flat' in reading such things.
That said, this is a wonderful story....a perfect read for crisp fall afternoons when the shadows seem a bit longer and appear sooner in the day. A tale of death and rebirth, being freed by the truth, and the unburdening of the soul, I plan to recommend this novel to fellow readers over and over and over again.