WHAT difference a novel and four years make. I’m reeling from the notion that this novel was penned by the same author who wrote The Observations, which for me at least is wrong in just about every way possible. I apologise if, to many, this sounds unduly harsh. In contrast, everything about Gillespie and I is a joy. The beautiful textural cover, high quality paper and presentation are what I have come to expect from Faber and Faber.
The setting is the Glasgow First International Exhibition of 1888. Harriet Baxter, the story’s narrator and main protagonist arrives in the city following the death of her aunt whom she had been caring for in London. While out shopping one day an incident in the street brings her in contact with the family of Ned Gillespie, a talented aspiring artist, hoping to gain a first foothold on Glasgow’s artistic scene. Harriet goes to some lengths in helping him along the path to recognition whilst also ingratiating herself with the rest of his family. A colourful mix of characters people the plot in the form of family and friends. All become in some way indebted to Harriet. So when Rosie, the artist’s youngest daughter, goes missing and is found murdered several months later the shock of the police believing Harriet to be the perpetrator rocks the family and the city to its foundations. Fifty years later, when Harriet is an octogenarian living in London with two canaries for company she decides to write an account of what happened half a century before. If the reader believes this will reveal any more about the part Harriet played in the tragic events which occurred in Glasgow than he already knows he will be sadly disappointed. The author cleverly leaves him to the devices of his own imagination.
The writing and research in this novel are exemplary. The characters are so real and well described that if it weren’t for the different era in which the story is set they could almost be people you might encounter in real life. That said, it took me well into the second half of the novel before I warmed to Harriet Baxter. It is her voice, after all, which is the story and carries it forward through a unique blend of dark foreboding and dry humour. The initial impression is of a judgemental, overly confident, self-obsessed young woman who believes her knowledge is superior to that of everyone else around her. However, the niggle of uncertainty at the back of my mind about Harriet’s true character stayed with me right up to the end. Is she really the genuine, generous and kind-hearted (albeit rather lonely) soul she appears to be or would she turn out to be someone else entirely? I liked the eerie spine-tingling sense of unease which imbues the plot in the manner of a Victorian melodrama.
Harriet aside, the other characters are well drawn, too. I could easily picture the absent-minded behaviour of Ned; his nervy wife, Annie, and Mabel the artist’s sister whose sullen exterior hides the bitterness and regret of past experiences. Elspeth, Ned’s mother, a tad loud and occasionally irrationally prejudiced, but generally kind-hearted and generous; Kenneth (the artist’s brother) and the secret life he’s anxious to keep from his family; Ned’s friend and (later) brother-in-law, the awkward and irritating Walter Peden. Last, but not least, Ned and Annie’s children: Sybil, highly disturbed and impossible to control; Rosie, sweet and innocent who doesn’t deserve to meet her untimely death. Less well-portrayed, I felt, were her murderers Hans and Belle Schlutterhose.
I suspected Sarah would turn out to be Sybil as soon as Harriet begins to describe the new companion she takes into her Bloomsbury flat. I briefly wondered whether Harris might not have handled that parts of the story a shade more subtly. I felt a little as though I was being railroaded towards the revelation via a series of clunky clues that suggested the author thought the reader wouldn't be clever enough to work it out for herself.
Perhaps the novel could have been a hundred or so pages shorter by reducing the amount of verbatim description during the court proceedings of Harriet’s trial and further tightening some sections of it, but besides these minor observations this novel sits easily amongst some of the best crime fiction by contemporary writers even though author and publisher probably classify it as historical fiction. Many writing for this market could do worse than taking note of some of the ploys Harris utilises in Gillespie and I. I count this amongst the favourite books I have read so far this year.
REF. Gillespie and I, by Jane Harris
Publisher: Faber and Faber (5 May 2011) hb
16/06/11
I find this review odd, for a couple of reasons:
ReplyDelete1. It seems clear that the author is telling us that Sarah is NOT Sybil, as the belated letter from the asylum states that Sybil died in 1918. Of course, the "facts" in a work of fiction are whatever the author decides, but there seems no reason to disbelieve the facts as presented. The so-called "clunky" clues are just Harriet's paranoia (see below).
2. The reviewer "warms" to Harriet well into the second half of the novel, but it is precisely then that we see her disintegrating, first mentally and then physically, and it's not a pretty sight ! Also, reading between the lines in the trial scenes, I think we are meant to deduce that Harriet probably DID arrange the kidnapping (for who knows what obscure reason), and that she only got off because Christina decided - or more likely was bought off by the defence lawyers - not to give evidence.
Still, it says something for the quality of the novel, that it can leave different people with such different impressions.
Thank you for visiting my blog, Angela, and for your comments. Personal taste and perception in literature or in anything else in life is, indeed, very subjective. It is, after all, not media reporting which should, ideally be objective, even though it isn’t always so. In the second half of the novel Harriet became more ‘human’ for me. She was someone I could relate to the more her fallibility was revealed even though I didn’t necessarily understand why she did what she did. As you say, the precise reason for the kidnapping is never made entirely clear.
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