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.