The Fabergé Secret: A Novel From the Perspective of An Aristocratic Russian Architect

I wouldn't have known about the existence of The Fabergé Secret  by Charles Belfoure if  I hadn't encountered it on Book Sprout.  I had to prioritize this review over a book that I had finished previously because Book Sprout gave me a deadline for posting this review.

 

                                 

The Fabergé eggs that the Tsars of Russia cherished as art , were more than art in this novel.   They became a means of hidden communication.  While I was reading, it occurred to me that too many people had access to these eggs. I don't know why none of the characters seemed to realize this.  The Fabergé secret was too widely shared to really be a secret.  This was bound to get some people into huge trouble. That definitely wouldn't be a surprising development.  The element of suspense in the book was limited.The only question was when it would happen, not if it would happen. 

I did find the protagonist, Dmitri, very sympathetic.   Some readers might not find it credible that he didn't share so many of the prejudices of his class.  He did seem pretty modern in his outlook. Yet I felt that he was believably exposed to differing perspectives.  It was also believable to me that his friend, Tsar Nicholas II, was so hermetically sealed away from the general population that he couldn't transcend his limited way of looking at the world.  

I suspect that it's possible that author Charles Belfoure may not have always researched his portrayals of the Jewish characters.  The most notable example was the Jewish Baron inviting a non-Jewish character who liked challah to a Passover seder saying that there would be plenty of challah.  On Passover all leavened bread like challah would be forbidden.  They would have been eating the unleavened matzoh instead.

The high level conspiracy behind the anti-Jewish pogroms revealed in this novel seemed so similar to the current white supremacist conspiracy to attack Black communities.  Both conspiracies seem so culturally insidious, but neither are inevitable.  I'd like to think that over time there will be so many more people like Dmitri that racist conspiracies will no longer be viable.

                                      

                                 

 

The Anglophile's Notebook: The Life of a Woman Writer

 I haven't reviewed anything here in a long while because I was moving, and didn't have the time. 

 I was asked to review The Anglophile's Notebook, the first novel by Sunday Taylor.  I was expecting it to have more of a central focus on Charlotte Bronte, but it's primarily about fictional protagonist Claire Easton.  Claire intended to write a book about people fascinated with the Brontes and how this obsession impacts their lives. I would be interested in reading about that topic, but The Anglophile's Notebook isn't really about Claire's book.  It's predominately about her life, and the lives of other characters in her orbit.

                                       

 

Claire continued to hold my interest because I felt that we shared some traits and common concerns.  So I was willing to read about  Claire's marriage problems and her personal history even though I found these details unremarkable.

I discovered that Claire and I didn't share artistic tastes. I looked up her favorite painting and wasn't impressed with it.  It was "The Swing" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard which can be seen below.  I suspect it was considered very risqué when Fragonard painted it.

                               

There were characters that were presented as possible villains.  I prefer books without villains that have fully rounded characters who are more developed.  I imagine the intent was to place these individuals under suspicion when a terrible event occurred.  So readers could be less certain about who was responsible. 

I thought this book was competently written with the exception of one scene.   Claire and her sister had a long exchange about their mother.  Since they both knew all this information, they wouldn't have had such a conversation.   This was an awkward means of providing background to the reader.  It would have been more natural  for Claire to have discussed her mother with the man she was dating. I think  it would have been relatively easy to develop a pretext for telling him about things her mother had done.

I did wish that there had been more about the Brontes than about Claire. An old friend of mine used to say "us beggar types cannot be chooser types".  This is another way of saying that readers can't dictate to authors about what they will include in a novel.  Yet a reviewer can state a preference.