Tag Archives: Tracy Chevalier

August 19, 2024 · 8:46 pm

The Glassmaker – Tracy Chevalier

I am always going to buy Tracy Chevalier’s novels. My favourite is still A Single Thread, but I have liked them all.

Here’s the blurb …

Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle.

Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her?

This had an interesting structure with time. Chevalier used the metaphor of skipping a stone over water to explain the way time worked in this novel. The rest of the world might skip 100 years, but Orsola and the people close to her only aged 8 years. In this way, we could witness the evolution of glassmaking from the 1400s to now.

I enjoyed this novel, but the end felt quite melancholic. Orsola was grappling with ideas of Tourism and Making. Is she adding to the world’s problems by making things that no one really needs? But surely there is a place for beautiful things? And tourism? Good or bad? All that air travel?

At the Edge of the Orchard

At the Edge of the Orchard – Tracy Chevalier

I like Tracy Chevalier novels – my favourite is the The Lady and the Unicorn. This one was selected by another book club member – we also read Remarkable Creatures last year.

Here’s the blurb …

From internationally bestselling author Tracy Chevalier, a riveting drama of a pioneer family on the American frontier

1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck – in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life.

1853: Their youngest child Robert is wandering through Gold Rush California. Restless and haunted by the broken family he left behind, he has made his way alone across the country. In the redwood and giant sequoia groves he finds some solace, collecting seeds for a naturalist who sells plants from the new world to the gardeners of England. But you can run only so far, even in America, and when Robert’s past makes an unexpected appearance he must decide whether to strike out again or stake his own claim to a home at last.

Chevalier tells a fierce, beautifully crafted story in At the Edge of the Orchard, her most graceful and richly imagined work yet.

As always, the level of historical detail in this novel is extraordinary – I do like to learn while being entertained at the same time. This one is about trees – apples (spitters and eaters) and the huge trees – redwoods and sequoias – in California. I loved all of the detail about planting, grafting and tending the trees, about collecting specimens and transporting them over oceans to try to grow in a new continent (apples to the americas and the redwoods back to England).

I had little to no sympathy for any of the characters – violent, drunks (sometimes both) and damaged. I am sure it was a sign of the times – living was hard, etc. but it makes for unpleasant reading.

More reviews …

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/06/at-the-edge-of-the-orchard-tracy-chevalier-review-stephanie-merritt

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/at-the-edge-of-the-orchard-review-tracy-chevaliers-engrossing-family-drama-20160331-gnv0c8.html

Remarkable Creatures – Tracy Chevalier

In one of those strange bits of concurrency I read this book right after Richard Dawkins The Greatest Show On Earth. One thing I really noticed was the conflict with the religion. Living in quite secular times it is hard to imagine being concerned that a creature existed that was now extinct and what did that mean about God and man?

Here’s the blurb …

In 1810, a sister and brother uncover the fossilized skull of an unknown animal in the cliffs on the south coast of England. With its long snout and prominent teeth, it might be a crocodile – except that it has a huge, bulbous eye.

Remarkable Creaturesis the story of Mary Anning, who has a talent for finding fossils, and whose discovery of ancient marine reptiles such as that ichthyosaur shakes the scientific community and leads to new ways of thinking about the creation of the world.

Working in an arena dominated by middle-class men, however, Mary finds herself out of step with her working-class background. In danger of being an outcast in her community, she takes solace in an unlikely friendship with Elizabeth Philpot, a prickly London spinster with her own passion for fossils.

The strong bond between Mary and Elizabeth sees them through struggles with poverty, rivalry and ostracism, as well as the physical dangers of their chosen obsession. It reminds us that friendship can outlast storms and landslides, anger and and jealousy.

This novel has two different narrators; Elizabeth and Mary (they alternate chapters). The voices of the two narrators are remarkably different and it adds depth to the story to have two different points of view.

I found this to be a quick read and I enjoyed the historical aspects (I didn’t know anything about Mary Anning or Elizabeth Philpot). Having said that the best I can say is that it is a light, easy read.

Here are some other reviews …

http://anokatony.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/%E2%80%9Cremarkable-creatures%E2%80%9D-by-tracy-chevalier/

http://www.curledup.com/tcremark.htm

Tag Archives: Tracy Chevalier

The Glassmaker – Tracy Chevalier

At the Edge of the Orchard

Remarkable Creatures – Tracy Chevalier

Search

Recent

Categories

Archives