Happy Thursday, all! For this week's #bookreview I am going back to something I read last year, that's just been waiting for the freezing cold weather we've had recently. Winter took its time coming, but now it's hit full-force and is being in rather a bad mood about it.
Cold and snow, cold and snow.
Perfect for today's review.
The Thirteenth Tale asks the reader to step inside a world that would not be out of place in Jane Eyre or Northanger Abbey, and for that, I love it.
Vida Winter is the author of twelve tales, tales that have thrilled her audiences as much as the rumours of an elusive thirteenth tale. She has told outrageous stories about her life, so much so that no one can ascertain her truths, and she as author and human has become as mysterious and legendary as her stories.
But Winter is older. She is sick. And she has summoned Margaret Lea, a biographer more at home in the bookshelves of her father's rare bookstore than with the general public. Winter wants to tell her story, her real story, to Lea, and Lea is struck by some startling, heartbreaking similarities between her own secret life and Winter's.
As Vida Winter unveils her life piece by piece, a story emerges of gothic romance. A grand manor, heartbreak, obsession, beauty, feral twins, a governess, a ghost, and devastation; it all mesmerizes Lea, but she also questions the honesty behind Winter's story, and so she is moved to uncover the truth herself and answer her own questions.
“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.”
First of all, this book has been called a love letter to storytelling, a love letter to books. And it is. It is part adventure, part homage, part drama, but all lovely. And the writing is truly beautiful.
I read this book in 2020 and any other year it would almost certainly have been my favourite read of the year. (But I read The Starless Sea last year, so...)
I still loved it. I still highly, highly recommend it, if you're someone who thrills to the idea of cozying up in an old house while rain patters the window, with a cat curled on your lap, drinking tea as you get lost between the pages of a beautiful old story. (And if that's you, we should probably be friends.)
This is a story like that, about stories like that.
“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
This is gothic literature in its modern-day finest. It is beautiful, and it isn't easily forgotten. It deserves to be read on cold days in front of a fire. The twists are there, and surprising, yes, but so lovingly handled that they do more than just shock.
Is it a perfect book? No, probably not. But is it pretty gosh-darned close? Yes, yes it is. It is one I will reread one day, one cold day, with a cup of tea, when I know the twists because oh yes, I will remember them, but instead can just thrill to the words, taste them, whisper them, and lose myself in the descriptions and characters.
I'm also incredibly annoyed at myself for leaving this book on my TBR shelves for years before I finally got to it, but so incredibly happy I did, finally, eventually, get to it.
This book has been called a "love letter to reading". What books do you recommend that may be called the same?
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