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A review by bennought
Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott
4.0
Contains Spoilers; Obtained Free Pre-release Copy through First Reads
In 'The Coral Thief' Stott paints an enchanting picture of Paris and the Parisian scientific community just after the fall of Napoleon. She pulls in real events, real people, and real places to flesh out the world she in which she writes the main characters of her story: Daniel Connor, a young British medical student and Lucienne Bernard, a philosopher and scientist, a countess turned professional thief. Her writing is smooth and colorful, and I ended up reading most of the book in a single sitting because I was reluctant to put it down. Despite this, I was a little disappointed with the book. The build-up to the climax is long, though well-paced and beautifully written-- but the resolution and denouement of the story feels a bit rushed and contrived. I both like and dislike this fact. David's experiences in Paris are the most important in his life, and leave him completely and utterly changed. He had fantastic expectations heading towards Paris and ambitious dreams of what would come of his time there. Even if what he experiences and learns there isn't quite what he had planned or hoped for, they end up being, at least in his opinion, far better and more important than the ones he'd set out with. In life, I've found that I often go into events/experiences with high expectations and, even when they turn out well, they're often not as satisfying or exciting as I had expected. And, for me, that's what Stott captures at the end of the story for David. He doesn't end up a world-leading scientist who makes world-changing discoveries. Instead, the world changes him (as, of course, it generally tends to do). The heady, amazing experiences he has with Lucienne and co., in many ways, leave him in the dust. He is left behind by the thieves, including by Lucienne with whom he'd fallen in love, and finds himself in the world of Cuvier, the Jardin des Plantes, and interminable research. Even if that world was the one he'd set out for, and still finds interesting, it is not quite what he had wanted and is quite unsatisfying.
Yet, at the same time, it is satisfying, because it fits into a conception, at least for me, that is much closer to reality. The world that Lucienne, Salveira, and Jagot occupy-- and which Daniel stumbles upon for a short time-- is one of a magical realism full of adventures and people of Napoleonic stature. When the dust settles- quite literally- he is plunged back into the real world of hard work and hard science. But the real world eventually catches up with the magical one, and the ideas which permeated the latter, especially Lucienne's ideas about evolution, begin to leak into the former. Stott's book, in a lot of ways, is a story about how innovation and advancement can be found in the world of imagination; or, in a more rigid sense, in thinking outside the box and being willing to accept ideas which rattle the conventions and fundamental conceptions currently in place.
All in all, I quite enjoyed 'The Coral Thief,' even if it left me somewhat unsatisfied at the end. In some ways being unsatisfied can be a good thing-- it makes us keep searching, keep working and questioning and exploring. The characters were interesting. They fleshed out, grew and changed as the story progressed. I really liked the tableaus of Napoleon interspersed throughout the story. They provided a commentary on the story, on the world, and were a nice foil and mirror at the same time. My only real complaint/suggestion is to take another look at the ending. There is something missing, a little something, which I just can't put my finger on. Who knows, though, maybe that's the point.
In 'The Coral Thief' Stott paints an enchanting picture of Paris and the Parisian scientific community just after the fall of Napoleon. She pulls in real events, real people, and real places to flesh out the world she in which she writes the main characters of her story: Daniel Connor, a young British medical student and Lucienne Bernard, a philosopher and scientist, a countess turned professional thief. Her writing is smooth and colorful, and I ended up reading most of the book in a single sitting because I was reluctant to put it down. Despite this, I was a little disappointed with the book. The build-up to the climax is long, though well-paced and beautifully written-- but the resolution and denouement of the story feels a bit rushed and contrived. I both like and dislike this fact. David's experiences in Paris are the most important in his life, and leave him completely and utterly changed. He had fantastic expectations heading towards Paris and ambitious dreams of what would come of his time there. Even if what he experiences and learns there isn't quite what he had planned or hoped for, they end up being, at least in his opinion, far better and more important than the ones he'd set out with. In life, I've found that I often go into events/experiences with high expectations and, even when they turn out well, they're often not as satisfying or exciting as I had expected. And, for me, that's what Stott captures at the end of the story for David. He doesn't end up a world-leading scientist who makes world-changing discoveries. Instead, the world changes him (as, of course, it generally tends to do). The heady, amazing experiences he has with Lucienne and co., in many ways, leave him in the dust. He is left behind by the thieves, including by Lucienne with whom he'd fallen in love, and finds himself in the world of Cuvier, the Jardin des Plantes, and interminable research. Even if that world was the one he'd set out for, and still finds interesting, it is not quite what he had wanted and is quite unsatisfying.
Yet, at the same time, it is satisfying, because it fits into a conception, at least for me, that is much closer to reality. The world that Lucienne, Salveira, and Jagot occupy-- and which Daniel stumbles upon for a short time-- is one of a magical realism full of adventures and people of Napoleonic stature. When the dust settles- quite literally- he is plunged back into the real world of hard work and hard science. But the real world eventually catches up with the magical one, and the ideas which permeated the latter, especially Lucienne's ideas about evolution, begin to leak into the former. Stott's book, in a lot of ways, is a story about how innovation and advancement can be found in the world of imagination; or, in a more rigid sense, in thinking outside the box and being willing to accept ideas which rattle the conventions and fundamental conceptions currently in place.
All in all, I quite enjoyed 'The Coral Thief,' even if it left me somewhat unsatisfied at the end. In some ways being unsatisfied can be a good thing-- it makes us keep searching, keep working and questioning and exploring. The characters were interesting. They fleshed out, grew and changed as the story progressed. I really liked the tableaus of Napoleon interspersed throughout the story. They provided a commentary on the story, on the world, and were a nice foil and mirror at the same time. My only real complaint/suggestion is to take another look at the ending. There is something missing, a little something, which I just can't put my finger on. Who knows, though, maybe that's the point.