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I meant to grab the first Aubrey/Maturin book at the library, but instead I ended up with Patrick O'Brian's first novel, Testimonies, which is some sort of a creeping horror of a small town psychological thriller. Only not, really, but it does end up being creeping and horrible at the end. I think I'd have been happier with an Aubrey/Maturin book- although the main character's middle name is Aubrey, and he does at one point mention a friend named Maturin, so. Patrick O'Brian, I see what u did there.
You have the main character, Joseph Aubrey Pugh, an Oxford scholar with poor health who retires to the Welsh countryside to live off an inheritance and be generally useless in the manner of country gentlemen; you have Mr. Lloyd, the village schoolteacher; and you have Bronwen Vaughan, the wife of the farmer who keeps the land below Pugh's cottage. The book is the collection of their testimonies about a tragic event that occurs not long after Pugh moves to the valley. The book blurb tells us that Bronwen's husband is abusive, and that Pugh and Bronwen fall in love- it also says, "The visit of a famous preacher punctures the boil of jealousies and suspicions in the small community, and the violence that follows comes almost as a relief."
I actually liked this book! I wasn't really expecting to, because it's not my usual cup of tea- I have little patience for stories about men having midlife crises, or about the culture clash of the educated and the working class (which reminds me, I have thoughts on Avatar, but that's another post). And I have even less patience for "love stories" in which the main character is male and the romantic interest is just so perfect and good and beautiful. Thankfully, the inclusion of Bronwen's testimony in the story turned that last point on its ear- Pugh may have been unaware that she was much more than a pretty cardboard cut out, but the reader gets a more three dimensional view of her. I appreciated and enjoyed that.
However, all of Bronwen's testimonies are a total fake-out; the story starts out at a crawl as Pugh adjusts to country life and gets to know his neighbors, but then it snowballs as rumors start to fly- until Bronwen's husband, in a fit of jealous rage, violently rapes her- and then her mother-in-law poisons her.
Dear book blurb: what, exactly, was supposed to feel like a relief about this situation? *anguish hands*
I was hoping, if not for a happy ending, then at least for Bronwen to survive, so this wouldn't be yet another story of tragic domestic abuse, and women being each other's enemies.
The book was published in 1952, and I suppose it's fairly progressive in its own way, but the ending left a dirty feeling in the back of my brain. What compounds horror of Bronwen's death is the way none of the characters really know each other- they live together in this tiny mountain village, and they're all so self absorbed that they can't see beyond their own prejudices and preconceptions. Bronwen and Pugh fall in love, but he is entirely unaware of the village rumors, or of the fact that she loves him back, or of her husband's abuse even as he is living under their roof.
I should say that the structure of the book kind of made it awesome, all horrible slimy feelings in my brain aside. Getting Bronwen and Lloyd's views of certain key events makes Pugh into an unreliable narrator- but Bronwen and Lloyd aren't any more reliable than Pugh, and the reader is stuck trying to reconstitute the truth of things from bits and pieces of the three of them. I did enjoy Testimonies up until the end, and I'm looking forward to reading more Patrick O'Brian when I go back to the library.
You have the main character, Joseph Aubrey Pugh, an Oxford scholar with poor health who retires to the Welsh countryside to live off an inheritance and be generally useless in the manner of country gentlemen; you have Mr. Lloyd, the village schoolteacher; and you have Bronwen Vaughan, the wife of the farmer who keeps the land below Pugh's cottage. The book is the collection of their testimonies about a tragic event that occurs not long after Pugh moves to the valley. The book blurb tells us that Bronwen's husband is abusive, and that Pugh and Bronwen fall in love- it also says, "The visit of a famous preacher punctures the boil of jealousies and suspicions in the small community, and the violence that follows comes almost as a relief."
I actually liked this book! I wasn't really expecting to, because it's not my usual cup of tea- I have little patience for stories about men having midlife crises, or about the culture clash of the educated and the working class (which reminds me, I have thoughts on Avatar, but that's another post). And I have even less patience for "love stories" in which the main character is male and the romantic interest is just so perfect and good and beautiful. Thankfully, the inclusion of Bronwen's testimony in the story turned that last point on its ear- Pugh may have been unaware that she was much more than a pretty cardboard cut out, but the reader gets a more three dimensional view of her. I appreciated and enjoyed that.
However, all of Bronwen's testimonies are a total fake-out; the story starts out at a crawl as Pugh adjusts to country life and gets to know his neighbors, but then it snowballs as rumors start to fly- until Bronwen's husband, in a fit of jealous rage, violently rapes her- and then her mother-in-law poisons her.
Dear book blurb: what, exactly, was supposed to feel like a relief about this situation? *anguish hands*
I was hoping, if not for a happy ending, then at least for Bronwen to survive, so this wouldn't be yet another story of tragic domestic abuse, and women being each other's enemies.
The book was published in 1952, and I suppose it's fairly progressive in its own way, but the ending left a dirty feeling in the back of my brain. What compounds horror of Bronwen's death is the way none of the characters really know each other- they live together in this tiny mountain village, and they're all so self absorbed that they can't see beyond their own prejudices and preconceptions. Bronwen and Pugh fall in love, but he is entirely unaware of the village rumors, or of the fact that she loves him back, or of her husband's abuse even as he is living under their roof.
I should say that the structure of the book kind of made it awesome, all horrible slimy feelings in my brain aside. Getting Bronwen and Lloyd's views of certain key events makes Pugh into an unreliable narrator- but Bronwen and Lloyd aren't any more reliable than Pugh, and the reader is stuck trying to reconstitute the truth of things from bits and pieces of the three of them. I did enjoy Testimonies up until the end, and I'm looking forward to reading more Patrick O'Brian when I go back to the library.
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