Book Challenge #20: Ghostwalk, by Rebecca Stott

[coraa]

Ghostwalk, by Rebecca Stott

This wasn't a book for me. That doesn't mean it was a bad book -- it just wasn't for me.

Shortly after her mentor Elizabeth dies by drowning, Lydia is asked by her mentor's son -- the man with whom she, not coincidentally, carried on an affair some years before -- to complete Elizabeth's magnum opus, a book about Newton's involvement with alchemy and with secretive alchemical circles. However, it rapidly becomes clear that Elizabeth's death was not an accident, but a murder, and furthermore a murder that ties into a three-hundred-year-old conspiracy.

The problem I had was twofold. One: I apparently lack the gene or acculturation or whatever that makes men who are smarmy, arrogant, lying jerks seem attractive. Lydia's lover -- Elizabeth's son -- is kind of... a jackass, and it's clear that I'm supposed to feel sympathetic to Lydia (and other female characters) for being so magnetically drawn to him, but I'm... not particularly. I mean, I feel bad for them that he lied to them and treated them badly, but then they kept going back and then acting surprised when he, you know, continued to lie to them and manipulate them for his own purposes, and I rapidly lost patience. C'mon! He's always been lying to everyone, including you! Why does this continue to be a surprise? I realize that a lot of people do find that attractive, but it didn't work for me, and in addition to meaning that I disliked the man himself (a fairly major character), it also gradually eroded my fondness for the female characters who kept coming back to be condescended to and jerked around.

Two: Some time ago, when reviewing a YA book about a roller derby girl (I think), buymeaclue coined the phrase "Too much boyfriend, not enough roller derby." In this book, it was "Too much midlife crisis, not enough alchemy." I find history, the politics of historians, and the history of science and alchemy in early modern Europe really interesting! I kept feeling like I was wading through a lot of upper-middle-class moaning about Life to get to it. Again, not something that I would consider a universal bad, just... not for me.

The alchemy stuff was interesting (it's something I studied myself, once upon a time), and I don't have too many complaints about that. I mean, I think the author overdramatized some stuff (yes, early scientists spent a lot of time on alchemy, because they considered it a valid science, but that doesn't mean that they were all nuts, just that they were misinformed about some chemistry; yes, early scientists/alchemists were very secretive, but -- well, so are a lot of modern research scientists), but overdramatizing stuff for the sake of the story is fine. It felt a bit as though she was trying to rejigger an already-interesting idea to be a bit more da Vinci Code, though, which didn't help my perceptions all that much. But... yeah, if the story had been centered the history, I would have been fine. It just wasn't.

Anyway. Not a bad book, just not a book for me, because the characters were all wrong to get my sympathy and without sympathizing with the characters I don't get very far. (I probably would have put it back down fairly early on, in fact, if it weren't that it was my book club book for March.)

Running Tally:

Total Books: 20
Fiction: 7
Non-Fiction: 13
POC Author: 6

Comments

[tedeisenstein.livejournal.com]

Synchronicity strikes again, oddly: I'm in the midst of digitizing a German Alchemy manuscript, and don't come across reviews of books in which alchemy plays a role (unless Isaac Newton in his later years is a character).

I may want to get the book just for that...

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Ooh! What manuscript, may I ask? It's an area of history that I've always found fascinating.

[tedeisenstein.livejournal.com]

Manuscript, Southern Germany, ca. 1563. To quote the bookseller from whom I bought it: 4to. 4 blank leaves, leaves numbered 1-52, 53-57 blanks, 63-153. Leaf size 155 x 198 mm, written area ca. 180 x 105 mm. Written in a neat cursive hand in black ink with marginal annotations, in the same hand, done in red and black ink. Ruled in red throughout. Richly blind tooled brown calf of the period with the date "1562" and the title "Register" stamped on the front cover; decorated with portraits (saints) and floral rolls.

"...dealing with various topics in the fields of alchemy and chemistry including such topics as the Philosopher's Stone, universal solvents, elixirs, sublimation, mercury, alkalis, calcination, phosphorus, fermentation, sublimation of sulfur, transmutation (125r) , rare earths, etc., etc. There are a number of authors mentioned eg.; Lilius (Lull?), Joannes Loutemaritz, Johannes Lemberg, Bartoldus, Maister Wisanto, and others. Including chapters titled such as: "Lapis Philos: est Aqua"; "Fermemtum - Terra Aer Aqua"; "Aristotelis Epistola ad REgem Alexandrum Missa" (38 r; on philosopher's stone, tinctures of phosphor, etc.); "Tractatus Wimandi von Roten Schilde" (on sunlight, phosphor, fermentation, elixers); "De Generali via de Invencione Artis" (87r on calcination, sublimation, incineration, coagulation, tinctures, and so on); "De Mercurii pprietate" (90r; mentions "Albertinus monarch Ratisbon" on 93r); "In quod anis Metallum", etc. The text also deals with pharmaceutical, putrefaction, and rare earths.
The name of the author of the volume unfortunately, was crossed out on the first leaf where he states "....begun by me...Anno 1563" ("...angefangen von mir....Anno 1563"); done by a slightly later owner.
Fine copy of the fascinating collection of essay son alchemical and chemical subjects in the vernacular and clearly not just copied from a printed work but original commentary which bases itself on information from early and contemporary authorities. It is bound in its original, very handsome, decorated binding (dated 1562 on front cover) completely unsophisticated. A number of presumably blank leaves have been excised from the end of the volume but the manuscript is clearly complete."

I have a sample page up on the last of my entries from yesterday....

It's an area of history that I've always found fascinating.
I know. That's why I friended you a while ago; we have a shared interest in, like, really old, y'know, stuff. You might also be interested in taking a look at my LJ galleries, and at the three (public, unlocked) entries of February 13, 2009, wherein are complete lists of Stuff Digitized.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Some time ago, when reviewing a YA book about a roller derby girl (I think)

Yep!

http://buymeaclue.livejournal.com/445009.html

[coraa.livejournal.com]

That phrase has taken up permanent residence in my head as a way of describing a certain type of book problem!

[porfinn.livejournal.com]

yeah! That's a fantastic description of why some books irk me.

[clairebaxter.livejournal.com]

What do you think of the Baroque Cycle? (With a smidge of Newton's Alchemy...)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I actually haven't read it -- not for any good reason (first volume's sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me), just because I haven't tackled it yet.

[porfinn.livejournal.com]

It's a lot fun!(If a bit over the top.) I will probably re-read it before I give my copies away.

[clairebaxter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's kinda huge. Also, I don't think it really gets interesting until the second book. (Though, because the second and third books are basically flashbacks from the first book, you could skip the first book and get into it first, and then go back and read the first book later. All three of these books are contained in the volume Quicksilver, which I'm guessing is the one you have.) If you do get around to it sometime, I have the second and third volumes, if you'd like to borrow them. I find them a bit much to try and read in the time the library gives you. And I have to say, if you did read them, they would wreak havoc on your reading goals.