Besides sharing my outfits and favorites from Anthropologie, I've been planning to include some book reviews on this blog.
First up is a melancholy little book called The Daguerreotype by Patrick Gregory (published in 2004). I was just wandering through the library stacks and the title caught my eye. It's really fun to stumble upon lesser-known books and I'm glad I found this one because its slow-building, quiet little story appealed to my more pensive side. If you prefer action-packed adventure stories or neatly tied up conclusions, this book isn't for you. Due to my extensive research in nineteenth century literature as a grad student, I'm used to novels that lack a definite sense of closure and instead aim to leave the reader pondering, but I can see where a book like this would leave some people feeling unsatisfied since nothing momentous really happens in the story. I enjoyed it for the way it chronicled the life of the main character, and for how it meditated on the idea that although life isn't always as exciting as we would like it to be, it can still be meaningful even if we don't do something grand.
Set in the mid-nineteenth century, the story opens with a close-knit father and daughter poised to take divergent paths that would separate them at least for a year, and possibly forever. Elizabeth has just graduated from school and is preparing to spend a year in France enhancing her language skills and training for a teaching position that will be waiting for her at her old school when she returns to London. Her father has just been turned down for a position at the university in Edinburgh and has no hopes for gaining another position in England or Scotland, so he plans to accept an offer to go to America to give a lecture series and possibly gain a position at an American university.
However, this isn't the story that follows. Instead, Elizabeth decides to accompany her father to America and the novel traces her path in her new country. I liked Elizabeth and her story but I found myself identifying with her father, a struggling academic, at the beginning of the story since I'm also struggling with my dissertation and trying to make my way into academia. It would have been nice to get more of his story but the novel focuses primarily on Elizabeth. The book includes some interesting turns and spans about seventy years, taking the reader along on Elizabeth's journey through life, love, and tragedy. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction, coming of age stories, or just well-written realism with subtle irony and unexpected twists.
Here's one of my favorite quotes from the novel when Elizabeth ponders what it means to grow up:
"Elizabeth paused outside the front gate and peered through the grille. Though overwhelmingly familiar, the place seemed strangely transformed . . . It is all different, Elizabeth said to herself, because I am different, because I am seeing it with different eyes. Before, I was a student and belonged to the school in a way that a child belongs to a parent. Today I view it with the detached gaze of an adult. A great sadness welled up within her. If this is what it meant to be grown up -- to lose one's intimacy with the things of her past -- she was not sure that she was ready to relinquish her childhood. Yet as she pushed open the gate and entered the carriageway, she was overcome by a wholly new sensation in which longing mingled with melancholy, and added to her deep sense of loss an ineffable sweetness" (15).
If you liked this review, take a look at the one I did last month on Lev Grossman's The Magicians.
I'll post my OOTD later today! Have a great Wednesday!
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