ramseyhootman's review
4.0
I don't read much historical fiction (I prefer straight-up biographies), so Breath and Bones was very much outside of my "literary comfort zone." I was expecting the flawless prose and carefully crafted narrative that this novel certainly delivers, but I wasn't really expecting to LIKE it much. Much to my delight, I was wrong! I like to divide my reviews into pros and cons, so here we go:
Pros:
- As I said, flawless prose. The kind that's not overly self-conscious, and disappears when you get sucked into the narrative. Periodically, however, I would encounter a perfectly phrased gem that would make me stop to savor the Rightness of it before reading on.
- Narrative that came together like clockwork. Now and then I would suddenly realize where a particular plot thread was heading, and by the end all of the themes and imagery came to a very satisfying, thought-provoking conclusion.
- Cokal excels at the juxtaposition of the divine and the morbid. She paints a pristine word-portrait of a sublimely beautiful woman posing for a painting - and then follows her to the chamber pot in the corner. This sort of realism hits you like a dash of cold water in the face, and I love it. One of the reasons I don't generally read historical fiction is because even the "gritty" bits tend to be romanticized, but Cokal has this very interesting way of seesawing back and forth. To put it in the context of the book's imagery, it's like a pre-Raphaelite painting with all the naughty bits in focus.
- The extensive and meticulous historical research that had to go into this book absolutely blew me away. Every other page I wanted to go Google something to see what the "real story" was behind a particular device, turn of phrase, place, or historical event. I resisted, not wanting to mar the wonderful blend of fact and fantastic fiction.
- The symbolic story at the heart of the narrative is lovely. I'd call this spoiler territory, but nobody else reviewing this book seems to have paid any attention to it so I'll just spell it out. Famke falls in love not with a man, but a sketch of herself - a possibility of who she might be. She pursues the man who drew this sketch, unconscious of the fact that she's actually pursuing herself, or his vision of her. As she travels, the sketch gradually fades and smears, while Famke herself becomes more and more real. Soon she is following vague images of herself painted onto canvasses - and then she is participating in her own creation by cutting up and restitching the canvasses. Creating herself out of the impressions other people have of her. I'll leave off there; if you can't figure out the rest of the symbolism yourself you probably don't care anyway.
Cons:
- If there's one thing this book lacks, it's character. Breath and Bones is very plot and thematically driven, and I had a really hard time "bonding" with the protagonist or anyone else. I think this is in part due to the nature of the story. We follow Famke from childhood to adulthood as she awakens both mentally and sexually - which means that she essentially starts out as a blank slate. I do feel she could have been made more sympathetic, though. We get no real insight into her deeper motivations, even if they are unconscious. She's more of a product of her environment than a person.
- Each chapter is prefaced with a quote from what I assume are actual historical texts. Although I read all of them faithfully, I never felt they added anything at all and could have been left out entirely. Not a big deal, though.
Books don't usually strike me this way, but while reading, three other stories often came to mind:
- The narrative distance and clinical tone of Sherlock Holmes.
- The historic timbre and, in particular, the Ellie/Dee Boot plot of Lonesome Dove.
- The self-discovery and endless perseverance of Millennium Actress (this one's a movie).
Add those together and you get Breath and Bones.
Pros:
- As I said, flawless prose. The kind that's not overly self-conscious, and disappears when you get sucked into the narrative. Periodically, however, I would encounter a perfectly phrased gem that would make me stop to savor the Rightness of it before reading on.
- Narrative that came together like clockwork. Now and then I would suddenly realize where a particular plot thread was heading, and by the end all of the themes and imagery came to a very satisfying, thought-provoking conclusion.
- Cokal excels at the juxtaposition of the divine and the morbid. She paints a pristine word-portrait of a sublimely beautiful woman posing for a painting - and then follows her to the chamber pot in the corner. This sort of realism hits you like a dash of cold water in the face, and I love it. One of the reasons I don't generally read historical fiction is because even the "gritty" bits tend to be romanticized, but Cokal has this very interesting way of seesawing back and forth. To put it in the context of the book's imagery, it's like a pre-Raphaelite painting with all the naughty bits in focus.
- The extensive and meticulous historical research that had to go into this book absolutely blew me away. Every other page I wanted to go Google something to see what the "real story" was behind a particular device, turn of phrase, place, or historical event. I resisted, not wanting to mar the wonderful blend of fact and fantastic fiction.
- The symbolic story at the heart of the narrative is lovely. I'd call this spoiler territory, but nobody else reviewing this book seems to have paid any attention to it so I'll just spell it out. Famke falls in love not with a man, but a sketch of herself - a possibility of who she might be. She pursues the man who drew this sketch, unconscious of the fact that she's actually pursuing herself, or his vision of her. As she travels, the sketch gradually fades and smears, while Famke herself becomes more and more real. Soon she is following vague images of herself painted onto canvasses - and then she is participating in her own creation by cutting up and restitching the canvasses. Creating herself out of the impressions other people have of her. I'll leave off there; if you can't figure out the rest of the symbolism yourself you probably don't care anyway.
Cons:
- If there's one thing this book lacks, it's character. Breath and Bones is very plot and thematically driven, and I had a really hard time "bonding" with the protagonist or anyone else. I think this is in part due to the nature of the story. We follow Famke from childhood to adulthood as she awakens both mentally and sexually - which means that she essentially starts out as a blank slate. I do feel she could have been made more sympathetic, though. We get no real insight into her deeper motivations, even if they are unconscious. She's more of a product of her environment than a person.
- Each chapter is prefaced with a quote from what I assume are actual historical texts. Although I read all of them faithfully, I never felt they added anything at all and could have been left out entirely. Not a big deal, though.
Books don't usually strike me this way, but while reading, three other stories often came to mind:
- The narrative distance and clinical tone of Sherlock Holmes.
- The historic timbre and, in particular, the Ellie/Dee Boot plot of Lonesome Dove.
- The self-discovery and endless perseverance of Millennium Actress (this one's a movie).
Add those together and you get Breath and Bones.
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