Seasonal Plume

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield’s evocative novel on the connection and bond between siblings, revolves around two sets of twins: Margaret Lea and her deceased twin Moira, and tragedy-born twins Emmeline and Adeline March. The story is two-fold, one story in another story: you have Margaret while she goes about her task to write the life story of reclusive, mysterious author Vida Winter… and then you have Vida Winter narrating her story; Vida, the successful writer who’s never told the truth about who she is and where she came from. She’s finally coming clean.

I will admit that I picked up this novel purely on reading that it was a “spellbinding, lyrical debut” as I’ve always been drawn to rather lyrical, lush stories–and always felt disconnected with rather terse ones. I raved about it some time ago when I started reading it, and I’ve since finished it. It was definitely a good read.

There are three things that I want to highlight about this book, which might very well be the deciding point if this book interests you:

1. I’m usually a quick reader, always wanting to devour each book. But with this book (along with a few others) was worded so wonderfully that I took my time, savoring each word, each phrase. I’m not one for something overly drawn out, because that makes me read even quicker, skip some phrases. Setterfield hit a good balance between lush prose and story speed, which is important. Something too lush will drown me; something too terse isn’t personal to me.
2. The story revolved around family, bonds, and love. There’s a lot of tragedy, and a lot of abandonment, with dysfunctional people and people who think they know better. But they all served to highlight the (often almost otherworldly) connections between siblings, between twins, to be precise. There wasn’t an extraneous story, a useless thread: I was easily sucked into the story, my full concentration on it.
3. Vida Winter’s past is a mystery, and because of that, the book itself is a big mystery that keeps one guessing. And guessing. And guessing. It’s so finely weaved together that once you reach the end of Vida’s personal story (“…my story–my own personal story–ended before my writing began. Storytelling has only ever been a way of filling in the time since everything finished.”) you might say, as I did, “why didn’t I see that before?”

Other things that was of interest in me is that there are two writers in this book. Novels about writers are quite interesting for me; now I have two: one a biographer and another a fiction writer. Love of reading and Jane Eyre was another. That’s not to say that the book is perfect: precious few are. The final ending of the book felt a bit too drawn-out, a little contrived: there was such a lot of wrapping up to do that it seemed there were endless epilogues. It was not a slow landing, but one that happened in rather swift gradations.

All in all, though, it was definitely a good book, one of those that I can easily call an escape into another world, another time, another place. One that transforms, and one that speaks of more than just the surface.

Other than children’s/young adult fare, I haven’t been able to make much of a dent in the books that I brought with me here to Singapore. Still adjusting to life here, still adjusting to six o’clock being too dark, and half-past seven in the evening still having a few rays of the dying sun. Still adjusting to going home right after work, to no after-office Starbucks, to the general feeling of being alone amidst a lot of people. It is not always lonely, but it is not always home.

I started Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale back home in the Philippines, but put it down for a while to devour other lighter stories like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and the various Nancy Drews I’ve picked up. (Yes, it’s almost cheating my 50 books for 2007!) I’ve been intrigued from the start, from the moment I picked up the book, but I was getting ready for my move then, and had to tear myself away.

I picked it up again now, and am still deciding between going to sleep now (because I am going to wake up early tomorrow and re-start my knee exercises) and staying up and reading through, because then I would get so thoroughly sucked into the story that it will be almost painful to put it down. It’s a magnetic read so far, the type of story that gets me going, that gets me excited.

The paper cover was cream and green: a regular motif of shapes like fish scales formed the background, and two rectangles were left plain, one for the line drawing of a mermaid, the other for the title and author’s name. Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation by Vida Winter.

I locked the cabinet, returned the key and flashlight to their places and climbed the stairs back to bed… I didn’t intend to read. Not as such. A few phrases were all I wanted. Something bold enough, strong enough, to still the words from the letter that kept going around my head. Fight fire with fire, people say. A couple of sentences, a page maybe, and then I would be able to sleep.

…Opening the book, I inhaled. The smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it.

The prologue. Just a few words.

But my eyes, brushing the first line, were snared.

All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. When you get won’t be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.

It was like falling into water.

Yes, this was like falling into water. Somehow, I could almost see myself in Margaret Lea, and even in Vida Winter, even though I haven’t met her. Somehow, I could find myself in these words, in this world. Somehow, I could feel that if I read far enough, if I looked deep enough, I would see myself, I would find myself. The Angela that somehow eludes me, the Angela that I know but don’t know, the Angela that I would have to face.

I’ll let you know if I find her.