Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier is not the kind of book I usually like to read. It is a historical novel but does not, like the other historical novels I have read, involve war, romance or passion of any kind. Oh no, this book is much more high brow.
I didn't look up anything about this novel before I strated to read it and it was only when I Wikipedia'd it at about Chapter 6 that I discovered that it's (loosely) based on a true story. The plot is a sort of "before they were famous" story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpott. (Who?). Only two of the greatest fossilists of all time! (Yup - fossilists...*wince*).
I sense I might be losing you slightly at this juncture so let me just give you a quick whizz through the main plot points.
Mary Anning is a poor, uneducated girl from Lyme Regis and Elizabth Philpott is an upper-class London spinster fallen on slightly hard times; forcing her to move to the same town. Mary collects "curies" (short for "curiosities" or fossils) from the beaches at Lyme and sells them to tourists without fully understanding what they are. Elizabeth becomes interested in fossil collecting and, with her education, begins to analyse the specimens they find and raise questions as to the kind of creatures they belonged to. Then (what feels like a gazillion years later) Mary finds a complete monster, digs it up, sells it to a rich man. He puts it in a museum, loads of important scientists (all men) study it and start to ask the same questions as Elizabeth. Thus begins a lot of hoo-hah between creationists and scientists (this is before Darwin). The rest of the novel is about Elizabeth struggling to help Mary get the recognition she deserves from the science world.
Bored? I told you it was high-brow!
You need to persevere until Mary finds the monster. Then things start to get more interesting. I have to say, I started to engage with the story a lot more once I realised it was based in truth BUT it was still a chore. I won't lie.
Well, that's about all of the negative out of the way. It probably says more about me than anything else; I found it dull because it dealt with issues such as progress, scientific understanding, the "limiting" nature of religion, feminism, creationism, other -isms... It lacked the visceral, vital, soulful qualities that usually excite me (sex, violence, rock & roll \m/).
The positives - What IS remarkable is Chevalier's writing. She must have had to do so much research to pack as much into this novel as she does. It's not a particularly hefty book! Her attention to detail really made the scenery come alive and that was what kept my attention. She does have the enviable ability to immerse her readers in the history and she really makes it easy to imagine yourself there with the characters that she describes so well. Chevalier's character portraits were so rich in detail that they were almost dickensian! The only problem was that I found it so hard to relate to them, Again, that might just be my problem and nothing to do with the way it was written. I felt like I - to use a geeky Harry Potter reference - had fallen into Dumbledore's Pensieve and was watching Elizabeth and Mary's actual memories being replayed. A compliment attesting to the rich imagery Chevalier evokes but a criticism also - due to the feeling that I was watching from a distance, and never truly felt any empathy for the characters, nor any familiarity.
On a scale of not-at-all-interesting to remarkable, I would say that this novel achieves QI status. It is quite interesting but not so much so that I would read it again in a hurry. I will definitely be sampling some more of Tracy's work though because I think it was definitely the subject matter that was the turn-off and I was blown away by her writing style. Your recommendations for Chevalier novels would be most welcome - leave me a comment if you've got a good'un!
Read this if you love: Ross Gellar from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Paleontology, philosophical discussions on religion and science???
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