Status
Available
Publication
New York : Viking, 2001.
Description
Based on the true story of Eyam, the "Plague Village," in the rugged mountain spine of England. In 1666, a tainted bolt of cloth from London carries bubonic infection to this isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners. A visionary young preacher convinces the villagers to seal themselves off in a deadly quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. The story is told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Anna Frith, the vicar's maid, as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As the death toll rises and people turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna emerges as an unlikely and courageous heroine in the village's desperate fight to save itself.… (more)
Media reviews
Discriminating readers who view the term historical novel with disdain will find that this debut by praised journalist Brooks (Foreign Correspondence) is to conventional work in the genre as a diamond is to a rhinestone. With an intensely observant eye, a rigorous regard for period detail, and
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assured, elegant prose, Brooks re-creates a year in the life of a remote British village decimated by the bubonic plague. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member abruno
Year of Wonders is a novel inspired by the true story of the little town of Eyam in Derbyshire, known as the Plague Village, during the years 1665 - 1666. Although the cause of how the plague showed up in their village is still unknown, the villagers' decision to quarantine themselves in order to
Geraldine Brooks provides us with a fictional account of what life looked like from within the Plague Village and gives us insight into the human nature that accompanies tragedy.
Anna Frith is a widowed housemaid busy raising her two sons and working in the home of the town's priest and his wife, the Montpelliers. When Anna's lodger dies she suspects the plague to be the cause of his awful death and it's not long before her fears are confirmed. The spread is rampant and the fatalities of the villagers grow daily. No one is safe from the disease and every Sunday the church pews get emptier. Anna and Mrs. Montpellier team up to care for those afflicted while Mr. Montpellier works tirelessly bringing comfort to the dying.
What really fascinated me in this novel was the human factor - how the villagers dealt with the constant death of their loved ones and neighbors, the trauma of self-exile and how their faith was tried. They sought a reason why this plague had come upon them, to understand...why was God punishing them or was he testing them?
My favorite part of the novel was the friendship between Anna and Mrs. Montpellier, which has been strengthened by the tragedy is really beautiful to read and you can't help but love both of them and stand in awe of their strength.
The ending is a bit of a rollercoaster with the revealing of secrets and hidden desires realized. Brooks ties the ends up nicely and while I was a little surprised by the ending, it was a pleasant surprise and I felt a great way to say goodbye to Anna, knowing she would have the happy future she so deserved.
This poor book has been sitting on my TBR tower for ages and I could just kick myself for waiting this long to finally read it! Brooks' writing is brilliant, I can't wait to read more from her. Do yourself a favor and read this! You won't be sorry you did =)
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stop the spread of the deadly disease has sealed their place in history.Geraldine Brooks provides us with a fictional account of what life looked like from within the Plague Village and gives us insight into the human nature that accompanies tragedy.
Anna Frith is a widowed housemaid busy raising her two sons and working in the home of the town's priest and his wife, the Montpelliers. When Anna's lodger dies she suspects the plague to be the cause of his awful death and it's not long before her fears are confirmed. The spread is rampant and the fatalities of the villagers grow daily. No one is safe from the disease and every Sunday the church pews get emptier. Anna and Mrs. Montpellier team up to care for those afflicted while Mr. Montpellier works tirelessly bringing comfort to the dying.
What really fascinated me in this novel was the human factor - how the villagers dealt with the constant death of their loved ones and neighbors, the trauma of self-exile and how their faith was tried. They sought a reason why this plague had come upon them, to understand...why was God punishing them or was he testing them?
My favorite part of the novel was the friendship between Anna and Mrs. Montpellier, which has been strengthened by the tragedy is really beautiful to read and you can't help but love both of them and stand in awe of their strength.
The ending is a bit of a rollercoaster with the revealing of secrets and hidden desires realized. Brooks ties the ends up nicely and while I was a little surprised by the ending, it was a pleasant surprise and I felt a great way to say goodbye to Anna, knowing she would have the happy future she so deserved.
This poor book has been sitting on my TBR tower for ages and I could just kick myself for waiting this long to finally read it! Brooks' writing is brilliant, I can't wait to read more from her. Do yourself a favor and read this! You won't be sorry you did =)
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LibraryThing member pokarekareana
Growing up in Derbyshire doesn't do much for your sea legs (being seventy miles from the coast) but it does guarantee numerous school trips and family outings to the village of Eyam; the 'plague village' on whose story this novel is based. Part of me feels sad that it took an Australian-American to
Overall, I liked it a lot - the plot was mostly perfect. My little bugbear was the ending, which felt a bit contrived and I don't know if it was convinced by it. I thought I had worked out what was going to happen, but then it went off on a bit of a wild tangent. Ten pages from the end, I was sure that this was going to be a five-star book which I would physically hug when I got to the end, but then the ending happened and I was left thinking "Hmmmmmmmmmmm?!"
I loved Brooks' use of language contemporary to the period, and felt it worked really well. Her characters were very rounded figures, persuasive and constantly developing. This book is definitely worth a read.
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write this book, and not a fellow Derbyshirapodeian; I think that's just a personal issue - I must learn to understand that we are not the only ones qualified to write books which frequently refer to sheep and hills.Overall, I liked it a lot - the plot was mostly perfect. My little bugbear was the ending, which felt a bit contrived and I don't know if it was convinced by it. I thought I had worked out what was going to happen, but then it went off on a bit of a wild tangent. Ten pages from the end, I was sure that this was going to be a five-star book which I would physically hug when I got to the end, but then the ending happened and I was left thinking "Hmmmmmmmmmmm?!"
I loved Brooks' use of language contemporary to the period, and felt it worked really well. Her characters were very rounded figures, persuasive and constantly developing. This book is definitely worth a read.
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LibraryThing member Eurydice
Despite an often elegant grafting of archaic vocabulary, vivid and impressionistic rendering of sensory detail, and a promising subject - the self-imposed quarantine of an infected English village in the plague year of 1665 - I found this novel deeply disappointing. Perhaps the glowing praise it
There are serious imbalances of tone, and even, I felt, of purpose in the novel. I don't mind fiction 'inspired by' historical circumstances more resembling reverie than history: but I like the author's mind to have been made up about the matter before the book begins. Or for the alteration to follow some clearly intentional, conscious plot development. Beginning as deftly illuminated history, passing through badly sketched historical nightmare, and into a not-impossible but highly-unlikely denoument reads more like wish-fulfillment than fine crafting. It also undermines the book's ostensible point.
Further, if an author wishes to create a strong female character who is also becoming fashionably liberated from the mores of her own social-historical niche, it ought in all decency to be done in a manner consistent - in thought, in speech, and in behavior - with her own time, and not our own. That is, it ought to follow the pattern (known or carefully imagined) of real women who rebelled in similar circumstances. Glaringly modern phrasing and formulations of thought not only stick out startlingly from the fabric of the prose, but seem to be evidence of an insensitive ear to contemporary speech, carelessness, or worse.
Much of the actual suffering under the plague is reported almost distantly. It becomes a pretext for the story, rather than its marrow. The portrayal of the villagers feels unfinished and inadequate. Whereas the - to me - somewhat gratuitous 'history' of the Mompellions and the tragically bizarre fate of the central character's stepmother (both fictional) are given all due time. Neither one is either entirely impossible, nor credible. The emphasis on instances of 'licentiousness', lynching, drug use, suicide and abortion attempts, infidelity, drunkenness and madness seems to go a bit beyond demonstrating the universality of human nature, the relevance of the past, and possible reactions to tragedy. Nor do they always grow organically out of the characters, so much as seem to be merely allotted to them.
Brooks is an impressive wordsmith, vividly imaginative, yet lacking in equally rigorous judgement. The impression left is that a meagre stock of historical fact, research, and period reading was used for elaborately imaginative embroidery: promising, but flawed. It's a colorful and even lurid dream with insufficient underpinnings to support it credibly.
Touted as an inspiring story of people's diverse reactions to tragedy and the emerging strength of one woman in their midst, in that guise it is no better than middling. Year of Wonders affirms that suffering and horror can have a beneficial effect, not a merely destructive one. The timing may have given this message more immediacy and widespread appeal than it had pre-9/11, but it is not news. This truth, essential as it is, is portrayed without fresh insight or profundity. - Perhaps with less than I feel it deserves.
Year of Wonders is disappointing precisely because of its virtues: it could have been, and was hailed as, a much better book.
(Rated three stars for the quality balancing its faults.)
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recieved is somewhat to blame; I am astonished that it was not more equivocal. There are serious imbalances of tone, and even, I felt, of purpose in the novel. I don't mind fiction 'inspired by' historical circumstances more resembling reverie than history: but I like the author's mind to have been made up about the matter before the book begins. Or for the alteration to follow some clearly intentional, conscious plot development. Beginning as deftly illuminated history, passing through badly sketched historical nightmare, and into a not-impossible but highly-unlikely denoument reads more like wish-fulfillment than fine crafting. It also undermines the book's ostensible point.
Further, if an author wishes to create a strong female character who is also becoming fashionably liberated from the mores of her own social-historical niche, it ought in all decency to be done in a manner consistent - in thought, in speech, and in behavior - with her own time, and not our own. That is, it ought to follow the pattern (known or carefully imagined) of real women who rebelled in similar circumstances. Glaringly modern phrasing and formulations of thought not only stick out startlingly from the fabric of the prose, but seem to be evidence of an insensitive ear to contemporary speech, carelessness, or worse.
Much of the actual suffering under the plague is reported almost distantly. It becomes a pretext for the story, rather than its marrow. The portrayal of the villagers feels unfinished and inadequate. Whereas the - to me - somewhat gratuitous 'history' of the Mompellions and the tragically bizarre fate of the central character's stepmother (both fictional) are given all due time. Neither one is either entirely impossible, nor credible. The emphasis on instances of 'licentiousness', lynching, drug use, suicide and abortion attempts, infidelity, drunkenness and madness seems to go a bit beyond demonstrating the universality of human nature, the relevance of the past, and possible reactions to tragedy. Nor do they always grow organically out of the characters, so much as seem to be merely allotted to them.
Brooks is an impressive wordsmith, vividly imaginative, yet lacking in equally rigorous judgement. The impression left is that a meagre stock of historical fact, research, and period reading was used for elaborately imaginative embroidery: promising, but flawed. It's a colorful and even lurid dream with insufficient underpinnings to support it credibly.
Touted as an inspiring story of people's diverse reactions to tragedy and the emerging strength of one woman in their midst, in that guise it is no better than middling. Year of Wonders affirms that suffering and horror can have a beneficial effect, not a merely destructive one. The timing may have given this message more immediacy and widespread appeal than it had pre-9/11, but it is not news. This truth, essential as it is, is portrayed without fresh insight or profundity. - Perhaps with less than I feel it deserves.
Year of Wonders is disappointing precisely because of its virtues: it could have been, and was hailed as, a much better book.
(Rated three stars for the quality balancing its faults.)
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LibraryThing member rosalita
I'm majoring in history and geography, so this book by Geraldine Brooks appealed to me when my friend Janet pulled it off the shelf. A Year of Wonders is a fictionalized account of a 17th century English village that reacts to the arrival of the Plague by quarantining itself from the rest of the
The story is told from the point of view of Anna, a maid for the local minister and his wife. It is the minister who through the force of his personality convinces the villagers to close the town off from the rest of the world, and who struggles mightily to keep them from succumbing to superstition even as entire families of their neighbors die. Anna is a sympathetic narrator, not immune to the tragedies wrought by the infection. The oddity of a peasant-class woman knowing how to read and write is addressed in the text.
I thought I knew where this book was going, if not the details, but the ending really took me by surprise. The unusual twist requires the reader to re-examine their assumptions and casts familiar characters in an entirely new light. I don't know how realistic it is — not very, I suspect — but it surely made me think.
Another interesting aspect: Brooks' afterword details her research into a real-life village that was the inspiration for her novel. While she used many of the known facts, they are few and far between, which gave Brooks a license to invent. I suspect that if we were able to know the true story it would be fascinating in its own right, but in the absence of that, Brooks has given us a fine substitute.
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world. The isolation provides a kind of psychological laboratory that examines the ways in which communities experience mass fear, mass hysteria, and the consequences of losing 2/3 of its population in the space of a year.The story is told from the point of view of Anna, a maid for the local minister and his wife. It is the minister who through the force of his personality convinces the villagers to close the town off from the rest of the world, and who struggles mightily to keep them from succumbing to superstition even as entire families of their neighbors die. Anna is a sympathetic narrator, not immune to the tragedies wrought by the infection. The oddity of a peasant-class woman knowing how to read and write is addressed in the text.
I thought I knew where this book was going, if not the details, but the ending really took me by surprise. The unusual twist requires the reader to re-examine their assumptions and casts familiar characters in an entirely new light. I don't know how realistic it is — not very, I suspect — but it surely made me think.
Another interesting aspect: Brooks' afterword details her research into a real-life village that was the inspiration for her novel. While she used many of the known facts, they are few and far between, which gave Brooks a license to invent. I suspect that if we were able to know the true story it would be fascinating in its own right, but in the absence of that, Brooks has given us a fine substitute.
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LibraryThing member herebedragons
This is a truly beautiful book, about a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in an English village in the 1660s; the book is fiction, but based on the history of a real town. There was much I loved about this book. (I don't think this review contains any real spoilers, but here is a warning, just
The story is narrated by Anna, a young woman who is wonderfully written - she is compassionate, smart, funny, honest, flawed. So many of the events in this story are heartbreaking, and hearing them in her voice not only made them come alive, but also somehow made them more bearable. The author also did an excellent job of bringing the time period and setting to life - I felt immersed in Anna's world, and of the way in which the plague affected the lives of every single person in the village, sometimes in unexpected ways. The way the book is set up, we know several details about what will happen from the very beginning of the story, but not how these things come to pass. I thought the pacing of the story in this way was excellent - even knowing what would happen, there were still many surprises in store. As I got near to the end, I had some thoughts and hopes about what would happen, and was pleasantly surprised when things took a turn I had not expected. The epilogue in particular is lovely. I highly recommend this book; it's one of the best I've read in years.
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in case). The story is narrated by Anna, a young woman who is wonderfully written - she is compassionate, smart, funny, honest, flawed. So many of the events in this story are heartbreaking, and hearing them in her voice not only made them come alive, but also somehow made them more bearable. The author also did an excellent job of bringing the time period and setting to life - I felt immersed in Anna's world, and of the way in which the plague affected the lives of every single person in the village, sometimes in unexpected ways. The way the book is set up, we know several details about what will happen from the very beginning of the story, but not how these things come to pass. I thought the pacing of the story in this way was excellent - even knowing what would happen, there were still many surprises in store. As I got near to the end, I had some thoughts and hopes about what would happen, and was pleasantly surprised when things took a turn I had not expected. The epilogue in particular is lovely. I highly recommend this book; it's one of the best I've read in years.
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LibraryThing member emmylee04
Really beautiful. Part story of survival, part small-town living, part tale about a woman finding her own strength, this book was truly beautiful. Set in 1666, the novel tracks a year in the life of one small town that was infected with the plague. Deciding to shut themselves off from their
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neighboring villages so as not to infect them, the town ends up turning within, seeking both strength and answers. The story is told through the eyes of a woman who loses her husband and two sons, and then acts as a servant to the rector and his wife, developing a friendship with the two of them. Based on a true story, the book is magnificently researched and truly captures the desperation the village must have been feeling. It reminded me at times of what I think New Orleans must have gone through during Katrina. Very powerful. The end of the story is completely unexpected (and somewhat unbelieveable, I thought, which is why it only got four stars). I think March was a hair better (probably why it won the Pulitzer and this one didn't), but both are definitely worth reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member mrstreme
Geraldine Brooks explored the the small village of Eyam, England in her historical novel, Year of Wonders. In 1666, residents in Eyam became inflicted with The Plague and volunteered to quarantine themselves to help stop the spread of the disease. Brooks used this fact to explain the hardships of
Anna, a widowed mother of two, accepted a tailor as a border to help make ends meet. Little did she realize that she was welcoming a threat of unparalleled proportions – for the tailor had received cloth from London that carried contagions. Soon, The Plague was affecting every household, including Anna’s children, and the town agreed, under their reverand’s advice, to seal their borders.
The effects of The Plague were devastating. Not only did people lose family members, many lost their economic freedom, sanity and sense of community. Greed was rampant, and the fear of witchcraft resulted in the death of two village women. Through it all, Michael, Elinor and Anna tirelessly worked to comfort the sick, represent the underprivileged and restore hope in God.
Eventually, The Plague ended, and for me, that was when the story plummeted. Brooks did a superior job explaining the disease, developing these characters and establishing a sense of place for the reader. In short, the ending was very disappointing (I will keep this vague for those who haven’t read the book).
Despite the flawed ending, I would recommend Year of Wonders to those who enjoy historical fiction, medical history and Brooks’ writing. Certainly a good read, it could have been better with an ending that matched the eloquence of the rest of the novel.
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the Plague and its effect on the village people, namely the main characters, Anna, Michael, the village pastor, and his wife, Elinor.Anna, a widowed mother of two, accepted a tailor as a border to help make ends meet. Little did she realize that she was welcoming a threat of unparalleled proportions – for the tailor had received cloth from London that carried contagions. Soon, The Plague was affecting every household, including Anna’s children, and the town agreed, under their reverand’s advice, to seal their borders.
The effects of The Plague were devastating. Not only did people lose family members, many lost their economic freedom, sanity and sense of community. Greed was rampant, and the fear of witchcraft resulted in the death of two village women. Through it all, Michael, Elinor and Anna tirelessly worked to comfort the sick, represent the underprivileged and restore hope in God.
Eventually, The Plague ended, and for me, that was when the story plummeted. Brooks did a superior job explaining the disease, developing these characters and establishing a sense of place for the reader. In short, the ending was very disappointing (I will keep this vague for those who haven’t read the book).
Despite the flawed ending, I would recommend Year of Wonders to those who enjoy historical fiction, medical history and Brooks’ writing. Certainly a good read, it could have been better with an ending that matched the eloquence of the rest of the novel.
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LibraryThing member Bookmarque
This book was excellent. It reminds me of Down the Common in the sense that it puts you right in the time and place in which it is set. Life was not easy back then, but I think people were somehow happier. They seemed to find happiness easier than we do now. Simple pleasures were reveled in more
Anna was very brave. A young widow with 2 kids, she was the housemaid to the rector and his wife. She also helped out now and again at the snooty people’s house when they had a big dinner party. Anna was the soul of goodness. Even when people treated her badly and deserved her ire, she loved them and tired to comfort them. I don’t think I could be that good and kind. Her father was a right shit, and in the end when he was nailed up to the entrance of the mine of the man he tried to cheat, she went to him. Of course she was too late and he was dead. Her stepmother blamed her even though she didn’t go to the old man herself either. After that, her stepmother went a little crazy and it wasn’t hard to figure out who was masquerading as the ghost of the “witch” and selling charms to the frightened and superstitious villagers.
The killing of the local healing women was a real tragedy and I could hardly read it I was so angry. The two people who were so vitally necessary to village life were killed very early on in the epidemic. The younger one Anys, screamed at the crowd of lynchers that their wives and daughters had joined her in her dancing frenzies with Satan. And in their blind rage and fear, the men started to turn on these women, too. Luckily, someone called the rector Michael and he set them straight. Telling them they were nothing but murderers and fools. That she screamed her invective because it was the last weapon she had against their unreasoning violence. The older healing woman they drowned (naturally if a woman floats she’s a witch) and despite the fact that she sunk and they berated themselves for killing her when she wasn’t a witch, they had no trouble going after Anys. Truly sick. I can’t even imagine the fear that these women went through. It’s so sad.
So Anna took up the role of healer. She did it slowly and reluctantly though. Anys had admonished her on occasion for not knowing the properties of very basic healing herbs – that she should know these things because she had children and they might need it. Anna and Elinor (the rector’s wife) took over the midwife duties as well. Elinor had never had a child or helped birth an animal, so Anna was the lead on these. She was wonderful and saved a couple of women after the “doctors” gave up (breech or sideways positioning that Anna could change, the “doctors” didn’t dare actually touch the woman you know!).
At the very end, the rich family that fled the village at the beginning of the story, came back and demanded the same level of service and respect that they had before half of the village was killed by the plague. This included Elinor. She didn’t die of plague, no, that she survived believe it or not. But instead, in a cruel twist of fate, she was stabbed in the neck by Anna’s stepmother when Michael had her restrained because she went totally crazy. Elinor died instantly.
After that, Michael went into a huge decline. Anna tried to help him and care for him, but he was reclusive – didn’t eat, seldom slept and never went out. After the village burned most of their possessions, the plague left them. Things got back to normal. Eventually, Anna and Michael started an affair. It was hot and mutual and I was rooting for them to find some love or happiness after their ordeals. But Michael revealed what an asshole he was.
Apparently he married his wife out of a desire to punish her. She had gotten pregnant out of wedlock when she was a young teen. Rather than have the baby, in her fear, anger and desperation, she aborted herself and almost died. She was unable to have any more children. The father of course, had nothing to do with her as soon as he tired of her after a few days. Her family was freaked out and thought she’d never marry. Michael married her to keep her humble and never let her forget her sin. He never had sex with her. Never slept with her and never touched her. She loved him blindly because she was convinced this was love and that he was shielding her from her baser desires. As soon as she died though, he was shagging Anna like there was no tomorrow.
Anna was pretty sickened by this and took off. She ran into the daughter of the snooty family who needed help with her mother who was having a very hard time giving birth. The baby was breech and the mother had lost a lot of blood. Anna help and the baby and the mother survived. When Anna was out of the room and suddenly returned, she caught the daughter trying to drown the baby in a bucket. She saved the child and freaked. The daughter said that the kid was illegitimate and would not be tolerated by her father. They worked it out so that Anna would take the baby and a bunch of money and jewelry as a bribe never to talk and to go far away and never return.
In his final good deed, Michael advised her to leave immediately. That soon the daughter and the father would change their minds and probably kill them both. He gave her his horse and she and the child left. Eventually, she got a passage to India or the Middle East and became an apprentice to a doctor there (she had to become one of his wives to do this, but it was all just for show). She could help the women of the area when they or their husbands refused to have a male doctor treat them. She raised the baby right beside her own new daughter (Michael’s). It was nice to see that she had people to love again. After her boys died of the plague, Anna was haunted and lost. She is a nurturer and needs to have someone to love like she needs to breathe. The end was a little far-fetched, but had a nice romantic aura about it and gave the book a rosy glow at the end.
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often than now it seems.Anna was very brave. A young widow with 2 kids, she was the housemaid to the rector and his wife. She also helped out now and again at the snooty people’s house when they had a big dinner party. Anna was the soul of goodness. Even when people treated her badly and deserved her ire, she loved them and tired to comfort them. I don’t think I could be that good and kind. Her father was a right shit, and in the end when he was nailed up to the entrance of the mine of the man he tried to cheat, she went to him. Of course she was too late and he was dead. Her stepmother blamed her even though she didn’t go to the old man herself either. After that, her stepmother went a little crazy and it wasn’t hard to figure out who was masquerading as the ghost of the “witch” and selling charms to the frightened and superstitious villagers.
The killing of the local healing women was a real tragedy and I could hardly read it I was so angry. The two people who were so vitally necessary to village life were killed very early on in the epidemic. The younger one Anys, screamed at the crowd of lynchers that their wives and daughters had joined her in her dancing frenzies with Satan. And in their blind rage and fear, the men started to turn on these women, too. Luckily, someone called the rector Michael and he set them straight. Telling them they were nothing but murderers and fools. That she screamed her invective because it was the last weapon she had against their unreasoning violence. The older healing woman they drowned (naturally if a woman floats she’s a witch) and despite the fact that she sunk and they berated themselves for killing her when she wasn’t a witch, they had no trouble going after Anys. Truly sick. I can’t even imagine the fear that these women went through. It’s so sad.
So Anna took up the role of healer. She did it slowly and reluctantly though. Anys had admonished her on occasion for not knowing the properties of very basic healing herbs – that she should know these things because she had children and they might need it. Anna and Elinor (the rector’s wife) took over the midwife duties as well. Elinor had never had a child or helped birth an animal, so Anna was the lead on these. She was wonderful and saved a couple of women after the “doctors” gave up (breech or sideways positioning that Anna could change, the “doctors” didn’t dare actually touch the woman you know!).
At the very end, the rich family that fled the village at the beginning of the story, came back and demanded the same level of service and respect that they had before half of the village was killed by the plague. This included Elinor. She didn’t die of plague, no, that she survived believe it or not. But instead, in a cruel twist of fate, she was stabbed in the neck by Anna’s stepmother when Michael had her restrained because she went totally crazy. Elinor died instantly.
After that, Michael went into a huge decline. Anna tried to help him and care for him, but he was reclusive – didn’t eat, seldom slept and never went out. After the village burned most of their possessions, the plague left them. Things got back to normal. Eventually, Anna and Michael started an affair. It was hot and mutual and I was rooting for them to find some love or happiness after their ordeals. But Michael revealed what an asshole he was.
Apparently he married his wife out of a desire to punish her. She had gotten pregnant out of wedlock when she was a young teen. Rather than have the baby, in her fear, anger and desperation, she aborted herself and almost died. She was unable to have any more children. The father of course, had nothing to do with her as soon as he tired of her after a few days. Her family was freaked out and thought she’d never marry. Michael married her to keep her humble and never let her forget her sin. He never had sex with her. Never slept with her and never touched her. She loved him blindly because she was convinced this was love and that he was shielding her from her baser desires. As soon as she died though, he was shagging Anna like there was no tomorrow.
Anna was pretty sickened by this and took off. She ran into the daughter of the snooty family who needed help with her mother who was having a very hard time giving birth. The baby was breech and the mother had lost a lot of blood. Anna help and the baby and the mother survived. When Anna was out of the room and suddenly returned, she caught the daughter trying to drown the baby in a bucket. She saved the child and freaked. The daughter said that the kid was illegitimate and would not be tolerated by her father. They worked it out so that Anna would take the baby and a bunch of money and jewelry as a bribe never to talk and to go far away and never return.
In his final good deed, Michael advised her to leave immediately. That soon the daughter and the father would change their minds and probably kill them both. He gave her his horse and she and the child left. Eventually, she got a passage to India or the Middle East and became an apprentice to a doctor there (she had to become one of his wives to do this, but it was all just for show). She could help the women of the area when they or their husbands refused to have a male doctor treat them. She raised the baby right beside her own new daughter (Michael’s). It was nice to see that she had people to love again. After her boys died of the plague, Anna was haunted and lost. She is a nurturer and needs to have someone to love like she needs to breathe. The end was a little far-fetched, but had a nice romantic aura about it and gave the book a rosy glow at the end.
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LibraryThing member Jemima79
Year of Wonders (2001) traces a young woman who looses all her loved ones to the plague in a 17th century small English village. As the protagonist struggles to find the will to keep living, she learns that the survival of her own soul is linked to that of the others in the village. It is a story
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of courage and human dignity in the face of death, disease and superstition. Show Less
LibraryThing member norabelle414
In 1666, Anna Frith is the maid to the rector of a small town in England which is hit by an outbreak of the plague. The rector makes the tough decision to quarantine the entire town, knowing that this could increase the deaths within the town, to prevent the plague from spreading to the surrounding
As with the other Geraldine Brooks book that I've read, People of the Book, the soap-opera-y drama that Brooks adds cheapens the real historical fiction that is buried here. The pain and fear involved with an outbreak of plague is more than enough drama to make a compelling novel, but Brooks felt the need to add murder, prostitution, torture, alcoholism, infanticide, mine collapse, madness, superstition, and adultery. As you would expect from a book about the plague, most of the characters you meet die. However, very few of them actually die of the plague. Anna comments every week on how many fewer people show up for church, but from the reader's perspective that could be due just as much to murder as to the disease. There is some interesting historical fiction to be found here, but it's buried under gratuitous added drama.
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villages. Anna and the rector's wife help the people of the village with everything from midwifery to mining, and form a deep friendship and mutual admiration.As with the other Geraldine Brooks book that I've read, People of the Book, the soap-opera-y drama that Brooks adds cheapens the real historical fiction that is buried here. The pain and fear involved with an outbreak of plague is more than enough drama to make a compelling novel, but Brooks felt the need to add murder, prostitution, torture, alcoholism, infanticide, mine collapse, madness, superstition, and adultery. As you would expect from a book about the plague, most of the characters you meet die. However, very few of them actually die of the plague. Anna comments every week on how many fewer people show up for church, but from the reader's perspective that could be due just as much to murder as to the disease. There is some interesting historical fiction to be found here, but it's buried under gratuitous added drama.
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LibraryThing member labfs39
Year of Wonders is loosely based on the history of an England village named Eyam in the the year the Black Plague hit the village, 1666. A fast read, I enjoyed the weave of the historic background with the ficticious characters and their varied responses to the disaster. The novel also touches on
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the relationship between faith and science. This is the author's first novel, and the plot doesn't flow as smoothly as in her later books. I would have rated the novel a solid four stars, if it weren't for the way the main character, the servant girl Anna, acted outside a plausible scope. For instance, it is not believable that a person of her time, especially an unlettered young woman, would determine how the contagion was spread and come up with treatments. Connie Willis solved this problem in her Plague novel, Doomsday, by making the woman a time-traveller who visits the village from the future. Somehow that was more believable than Brooks' Anna! Show Less
LibraryThing member Lisa2013
recommended for: historical fiction buffs, those who enjoy a good plague story
This book is about plague that strikes an English village in 1665-1666 and about the different reactions and behaviors of the residents when the village decides to quarantine themselves to prevent its spread to the
This book is about plague that strikes an English village in 1665-1666 and about the different reactions and behaviors of the residents when the village decides to quarantine themselves to prevent its spread to the
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surrounding villages and cities. The main protagonist is Anna but many of the characters are well developed. Even though I understood why the book ended as it did, I found myself unhappy with the ending. I did find the book special though and enjoyed a lot. It was fascinating to see how people reacted so differently under the stress of the plague. Show Less
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
For almost all its length, this is a first-rate work of historical fiction about the plague year of 1666 in a remote village in England which decided to quarantine itself to halt the spread of the epidemic. The prose is luminous, with just enough of a tint of the language of the period to evoke a
But then there's the ending, which I hated, particularly the epilogue. And no, I don't hate it because it's not some idyllic happily ever after. The novel is subtitled "a novel of the plague" announcing it's largely tragic, just as the first person signals this is also a tale of survival. I was disappointed in the way the plot subverted the Christian faith of the people that inspired their sacrifice in the first place. I'm not a Christian myself, and I have my issues with a lot of the Christian creed--and from the beginning the novel shows the dark side of the villagers' beliefs, which leads to witch hunts and flagellation in attempts to turn away a wrathful God, but their faith also was at the core of so much that was inspiring and good. Maybe it's just knowing this is based on the true story of Eyam, so that how Anna winds up geographically and spiritually feels somehow a betrayal of what these people endured to save their neighbors. Besides, aspects of the ending are so implausible, after the realism of what went before, and just plain wtf. Were it not for the ending, I'd have rated the novel five stars. Easily.
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different place and time without losing the clarity and intimacy of the first person narrative. The narrator and protagonist, Anna Firth, is easy to identify with and care about, with enough flaws to make her interesting and human. We see the best and worst in people the crisis brings out, tempering some like steel, breaking others. Despite the dark subject, reading it never felt bleak during the course of the epidemic because the novel showed the light in people and not just the dark, and more than once I was moved close to tears.But then there's the ending, which I hated, particularly the epilogue. And no, I don't hate it because it's not some idyllic happily ever after. The novel is subtitled "a novel of the plague" announcing it's largely tragic, just as the first person signals this is also a tale of survival. I was disappointed in the way the plot subverted the Christian faith of the people that inspired their sacrifice in the first place. I'm not a Christian myself, and I have my issues with a lot of the Christian creed--and from the beginning the novel shows the dark side of the villagers' beliefs, which leads to witch hunts and flagellation in attempts to turn away a wrathful God, but their faith also was at the core of so much that was inspiring and good. Maybe it's just knowing this is based on the true story of Eyam, so that how Anna winds up geographically and spiritually feels somehow a betrayal of what these people endured to save their neighbors. Besides, aspects of the ending are so implausible, after the realism of what went before, and just plain wtf. Were it not for the ending, I'd have rated the novel five stars. Easily.
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LibraryThing member Mercury57
A chance discovery of a real-life tale of personal sacrifice and survival made such a lasting impression on the Wall Street Journal's Middle East correspondent Geraldine Brooks, that it lingered in her memory for almost ten years.
While she was taking a walking holiday in the UK's Peak District she
Published in 2001, this is a novel which depicts the events of that fateful year of 1665. It began with the death of a tailor. Then spread quickly to his customers and soon the villagers began to dread the signs of high fever and supperating pustules that presaged the imminent death of their neighbours; their sons and their daughters; their wives and husbands. The local landed gentry fled in fear of their lives but the rest remained, persuaded by their forceful rector Michael Mompellion that a voluntary quarantine could prevent the spread of the “plague-seeds” beyond their boundaries.
The story of this decision and its aftermath is told through the eyes of Anna Frith, a young maidservant who assists the rector in his determination to contain the disease. She's a spirited, resourceful character who forms a close bond with the minister's wife in her endeavour to use herbs and plants to bring some comfort to the villagers who do succumb to the disease. Not that there is much solace in this village even for those who escape the pestilence. Many of them suffer in ways other than death, losing their reason, their faith and in some cases, their humanity. But as they weaken, Anna's resourcefulness and courage gives her the strength not just to survive but to thrive and grow.
To re-create the past, Brooks drew on records that explained contemporary beliefs about the plague, the lives of lead miners and shepherds such as those who lived in this part of Derbyshire, clothing and patterns of speech. But in the absence of any substantial body of written material from the villagers themselves, much of what she recounts as their actual experience came from her imagination.
For Brooks, that process of imagining life in a community so far removed by time and location from her own world, involved drawing on personal experiences and finding resonances in contemporary life. Talking to students on the Plagues, Witches and War MOOC course which features Year of Wonders as a set text, Brooks argued that emotions and sensations don't change through the centuries even if the particular circumstances differ. The intense pain of a difficult and life threatening childbirth she herself experienced would be the same endured by a woman in the same circumstances in the seventeenth century:
What we [historical fiction authors] do, we empathize, we put ourselves in someone else's shoes. This is what the nature of being a human being is, at its best, is empathy. I can presume to know her consciousness, her pain, her frustration....these things are what make us human, and they don't change.
It may be that empathetic approach was one reason why many of the human reactions portrayed in Year of Wonders seemed plausible even if the events described were almost beyond belief. I wouldn't rank it as a wonderful novel (some of the dialogue is rather strained and the ending pushes the boundaries of credulity) but it was still very readable and a big step above the other set texts on the course.
While she was taking a walking holiday in the UK's Peak District she
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noticed a sign for the village of Eyam bearing the beguiling descriptor 'the plague village'. An exhibition in a nearby parish church explained how the term derived from an episode in 1665 when bubonic plague descended on this community and in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease the villagers shut themselves off from the world. Brookes began to see parallels between the villagers' story of self sacrifice and instances she had encountered during her time in some of the world's hot spots of people who under the pressure of extreme circumstances found unexpected reservoirs of bravery. The result was her international best selling novel Year of Wonders that she wrote ten years after her visit to Eyam.Published in 2001, this is a novel which depicts the events of that fateful year of 1665. It began with the death of a tailor. Then spread quickly to his customers and soon the villagers began to dread the signs of high fever and supperating pustules that presaged the imminent death of their neighbours; their sons and their daughters; their wives and husbands. The local landed gentry fled in fear of their lives but the rest remained, persuaded by their forceful rector Michael Mompellion that a voluntary quarantine could prevent the spread of the “plague-seeds” beyond their boundaries.
The story of this decision and its aftermath is told through the eyes of Anna Frith, a young maidservant who assists the rector in his determination to contain the disease. She's a spirited, resourceful character who forms a close bond with the minister's wife in her endeavour to use herbs and plants to bring some comfort to the villagers who do succumb to the disease. Not that there is much solace in this village even for those who escape the pestilence. Many of them suffer in ways other than death, losing their reason, their faith and in some cases, their humanity. But as they weaken, Anna's resourcefulness and courage gives her the strength not just to survive but to thrive and grow.
To re-create the past, Brooks drew on records that explained contemporary beliefs about the plague, the lives of lead miners and shepherds such as those who lived in this part of Derbyshire, clothing and patterns of speech. But in the absence of any substantial body of written material from the villagers themselves, much of what she recounts as their actual experience came from her imagination.
For Brooks, that process of imagining life in a community so far removed by time and location from her own world, involved drawing on personal experiences and finding resonances in contemporary life. Talking to students on the Plagues, Witches and War MOOC course which features Year of Wonders as a set text, Brooks argued that emotions and sensations don't change through the centuries even if the particular circumstances differ. The intense pain of a difficult and life threatening childbirth she herself experienced would be the same endured by a woman in the same circumstances in the seventeenth century:
What we [historical fiction authors] do, we empathize, we put ourselves in someone else's shoes. This is what the nature of being a human being is, at its best, is empathy. I can presume to know her consciousness, her pain, her frustration....these things are what make us human, and they don't change.
It may be that empathetic approach was one reason why many of the human reactions portrayed in Year of Wonders seemed plausible even if the events described were almost beyond belief. I wouldn't rank it as a wonderful novel (some of the dialogue is rather strained and the ending pushes the boundaries of credulity) but it was still very readable and a big step above the other set texts on the course.
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LibraryThing member ecw0647
This fascinating historical novel is based on a true story. It takes place in the mid seventeenth century in a small British village that succumbs to the plague. It's told through the eyes of a young widow, Anna Frith, whose two sons die from the plague in as sorrowful a recounting as I would ever
The rector proclaims the plague to be a scourge sent by God, and the village voluntarily agrees to seal itself off from the rest of the world. The deaths begin to mount, and superstition and mob psychology seek vengeance on those they have decided are witches or guilty of devil worship. There is a horrifying scene, worthy of an Ashcroft creation, when the drunken townfolk decide that a local herbalist is a witch and they put her to trial by ordeal. They throw her into a deep well, bound hand and foot, only to be terrified that that might have murdered her when they watch her sink (in the classic water trial by ordeal, if the accused sank and drowned, he/she was considered innocent, i.e., accepted by God; if one floated, the accused was adjudged guilty, i.e. rejected by God, and then hanged or burned. It was the classic no-win situation for the accused.)
Anna suffers from a twentieth-century kind of existential angst, but the reader remains riveted to the story, haunted by the flawed and despairing humans trying to deal with a terrifying and inexplicable disease.
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wish to read. The author effectively, with rigorous attention to detail, captures what it must have been like. Anna works as a maid for Vicar Michael Mompellion and his gentle, selfless wife, Elinor, who has taught her to read.The rector proclaims the plague to be a scourge sent by God, and the village voluntarily agrees to seal itself off from the rest of the world. The deaths begin to mount, and superstition and mob psychology seek vengeance on those they have decided are witches or guilty of devil worship. There is a horrifying scene, worthy of an Ashcroft creation, when the drunken townfolk decide that a local herbalist is a witch and they put her to trial by ordeal. They throw her into a deep well, bound hand and foot, only to be terrified that that might have murdered her when they watch her sink (in the classic water trial by ordeal, if the accused sank and drowned, he/she was considered innocent, i.e., accepted by God; if one floated, the accused was adjudged guilty, i.e. rejected by God, and then hanged or burned. It was the classic no-win situation for the accused.)
Anna suffers from a twentieth-century kind of existential angst, but the reader remains riveted to the story, haunted by the flawed and despairing humans trying to deal with a terrifying and inexplicable disease.
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LibraryThing member morbidromantic
The year is 1665 CE. A traveling tailor named George Viccars finds himself in a small Derbyshire village located in central England. Unknown to him and the village that takes him in, his residence being with a widower named Anna Frith who has two sons, he is carrying the plague. After his death,
This story is how people manage. It is about how people stay strong and how they break down.
Personally, I liked the story. I think anyone who has read my previous reviews knows how I feel about accuracy in historical fiction: while I enjoy critiquing historical fiction for accuracy, I also don’t expect it. I’m realistic and perhaps overly forgiving in that I accept details must be altered or exaggerated for understanding or dramatic effect. After all, we don’t want fiction to read as a tedious textbook! Attentions have to be grabbed, held, and kept until the end.
Did this book that? Yes and no. Sometimes I felt the story dragging on and on. For the first few chapters, I read very slowly. Eventually, though, as the story moved on, I found it becoming more interesting. About the middle to nearly the end, I couldn’t put the book down.
Nearly the end.
I found myself wondering if Anna were superwoman for all she had managed to do in that time between the plague coming and finally disappearing. She was a simple peasant and servant, yet she could interpret Latin, create herbal remedies, ride a horse like a man, act as a midwife and deliver a breech baby, set a fire to mine iron even though she herself stated that she’d never even seen the inside of a mine… yes, the woman can and does do everything. Even those things well above her station as a servant. I think it was the excessive nature of her talents that started to annoy me and grate on my nerves. If not for Anna’s shows of occasional modesty that seemed sincere, she would have been a Mary Sue. After a while, I began to wonder if Anna was going to start to sparkle and cure the plague with her tears. When she began yelling at her former masters and acting well out of her station, I had to wonder if Brooks was paying any attention to realistic social boundaries of the time. Again, this might not have annoyed me had I not grown weary of Anna’s super talents. Though I say annoyed above, I mean it in a very amused way. I don’t get angry about books, at least not often. I just found myself shaking my head and snorting at certain parts of the books. And why would a rich Muslim doctor marry a widowed infidel from England?
There’s also much romance to be had. Okay, there is supposed to be romance. Up until Anna and the vicar Mompellion connected eyes over a shave towards the end of the book, there was absolutely no chemistry between them. Yet all of a sudden the two of them were copulating on the floor in a manner totally unlike an Anglican man of God and a modest, holy servant. The romance between them came completely out of nowhere. I guess I should have seen it coming when throughout the book Brooks dedicated countless lines of adjectives and praise for things like the commanding boom of the Mompellion’s voice, or his strong arms, or his dominating nature. I thought it a bit odd that he was being described in ‘romance book terms,’ yet there was absolutely no personal intimate chemistry between him and Anna.
And I am still disappointed in the turn Mompellion’s character made towards the end. It was so completely out of his character that I had trouble accepting it. Twists are one thing, but making a character into something opposite with no hints to his true nature is just out of the blue and confusing.
I know that I sound overly critical, but book readers know that a book can be flawed while still being a very great story. I liked the morbidity of the story; witnessing the breakdown of the people in this town as they battled adversity and death was fascinating. It was unreal to me to submit myself to death in the way the town people did. I had to commend the bravery of Brooks' characters, even as I condemned them for their actions in other regards. Yet, it was understandable how they behaved under certain circumstances. When faced with death, who knows what one would do or how to cope? And yes, Anna had her moments, but I found her a very likable character.
This book was like sociology and morbid psychology in action.
Year of Wonders is actually a very good book. It is a good and interesting read. You will read the book and find yourself captivated by much. I didn’t grow bored with what I read, even as I snorted in mirth. If you like historically based novels with a lot of drama and a fair mixture of people going absolutely crazy, you’ll really enjoy this one. I did.
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his goods spread and with them the deadly plague. The town vicar, Michael Mompellion, and his wife Elinor convince the people of the village to contain themselves within their walls in order to keep from spreading the plague to the rest of England. As the author states, this story is based on an actual event that happened in a village aptly known as Plague Village. Though the village people could very well flee and perhaps outrun the disease, they (for the most part) remain in their village to wait out the disease. Convinced that this plague is a trial sent by God, the people come together even as some of them fall apart. Innocent herbal women are beaten as witches, men and women seek to repent with violent means of self-mortification, and anger runs rampant. In the face of oblivion, moral codes and personal virtues are abandoned for pleasure and destructive behavior makes it all the easier for people to forget. The people of the village struggle with each other, their personal connections, and their connection to God. Eventually, they begin to question the nature of their suffering and God’s ultimate plan.This story is how people manage. It is about how people stay strong and how they break down.
Personally, I liked the story. I think anyone who has read my previous reviews knows how I feel about accuracy in historical fiction: while I enjoy critiquing historical fiction for accuracy, I also don’t expect it. I’m realistic and perhaps overly forgiving in that I accept details must be altered or exaggerated for understanding or dramatic effect. After all, we don’t want fiction to read as a tedious textbook! Attentions have to be grabbed, held, and kept until the end.
Did this book that? Yes and no. Sometimes I felt the story dragging on and on. For the first few chapters, I read very slowly. Eventually, though, as the story moved on, I found it becoming more interesting. About the middle to nearly the end, I couldn’t put the book down.
Nearly the end.
I found myself wondering if Anna were superwoman for all she had managed to do in that time between the plague coming and finally disappearing. She was a simple peasant and servant, yet she could interpret Latin, create herbal remedies, ride a horse like a man, act as a midwife and deliver a breech baby, set a fire to mine iron even though she herself stated that she’d never even seen the inside of a mine… yes, the woman can and does do everything. Even those things well above her station as a servant. I think it was the excessive nature of her talents that started to annoy me and grate on my nerves. If not for Anna’s shows of occasional modesty that seemed sincere, she would have been a Mary Sue. After a while, I began to wonder if Anna was going to start to sparkle and cure the plague with her tears. When she began yelling at her former masters and acting well out of her station, I had to wonder if Brooks was paying any attention to realistic social boundaries of the time. Again, this might not have annoyed me had I not grown weary of Anna’s super talents. Though I say annoyed above, I mean it in a very amused way. I don’t get angry about books, at least not often. I just found myself shaking my head and snorting at certain parts of the books. And why would a rich Muslim doctor marry a widowed infidel from England?
There’s also much romance to be had. Okay, there is supposed to be romance. Up until Anna and the vicar Mompellion connected eyes over a shave towards the end of the book, there was absolutely no chemistry between them. Yet all of a sudden the two of them were copulating on the floor in a manner totally unlike an Anglican man of God and a modest, holy servant. The romance between them came completely out of nowhere. I guess I should have seen it coming when throughout the book Brooks dedicated countless lines of adjectives and praise for things like the commanding boom of the Mompellion’s voice, or his strong arms, or his dominating nature. I thought it a bit odd that he was being described in ‘romance book terms,’ yet there was absolutely no personal intimate chemistry between him and Anna.
And I am still disappointed in the turn Mompellion’s character made towards the end. It was so completely out of his character that I had trouble accepting it. Twists are one thing, but making a character into something opposite with no hints to his true nature is just out of the blue and confusing.
I know that I sound overly critical, but book readers know that a book can be flawed while still being a very great story. I liked the morbidity of the story; witnessing the breakdown of the people in this town as they battled adversity and death was fascinating. It was unreal to me to submit myself to death in the way the town people did. I had to commend the bravery of Brooks' characters, even as I condemned them for their actions in other regards. Yet, it was understandable how they behaved under certain circumstances. When faced with death, who knows what one would do or how to cope? And yes, Anna had her moments, but I found her a very likable character.
This book was like sociology and morbid psychology in action.
Year of Wonders is actually a very good book. It is a good and interesting read. You will read the book and find yourself captivated by much. I didn’t grow bored with what I read, even as I snorted in mirth. If you like historically based novels with a lot of drama and a fair mixture of people going absolutely crazy, you’ll really enjoy this one. I did.
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LibraryThing member thornton37814
This story focuses on Anna Frith, a resident of a village where contaminated fabric wrought havoc during the Plague. Anna's boarder, George Viccars, a tailor, purchased the fabric from London. As he was dying, he asked them to burn all the garments, but villagers wanting their merchandise insisted
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on taking pieces made for them. The plague began spreading. The village self-isolated, much as we witness with today's COVID-19 crisis. Brooks created a well-written novel with well-drawn characters that emphasizes things important in today's crisis, such as hygiene and self-distancing. I thought this might be a five-star read until I reached the closing pages. This epilogue and events associated with it weakened the overall story. Show Less
LibraryThing member jayne_charles
This story of the plague as it affected a small Derbyshire village in 1665/6 had just the right amount of light and shade, and it was beautifully written. Bringing to life a historic event that had taken on a cartoonish image in my head, it became very real here when applied to people one could
I say almost because the end was curious. Just like having a cup of strong coffee when one is ready to settle down to sleep, there was an discordant rush of events right at the close, events which weren’t totally believable, though I accept that points were being made about the cultural divide over the practice of medicine. If the events were to be believed, they surely warranted a second book all to themselves. I would have been happy for this volume to be left on a cliffhanger, and would definitely have sought out volume 2.
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believe in. I liked the voice of the narrator Anna, and the way her life was portrayed as tough but generally happy. It was instructive, too, as to the customs of the time. I almost loved it.I say almost because the end was curious. Just like having a cup of strong coffee when one is ready to settle down to sleep, there was an discordant rush of events right at the close, events which weren’t totally believable, though I accept that points were being made about the cultural divide over the practice of medicine. If the events were to be believed, they surely warranted a second book all to themselves. I would have been happy for this volume to be left on a cliffhanger, and would definitely have sought out volume 2.
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LibraryThing member atheist_goat
Has all the same problems as March but is more enjoyable, though the ending is a big ol' WTF. Brooks also needs to lay off the idea (major problem in March) that bland perfection is what makes people lovable. No, it makes them boring, both in real life and horribly so in a novel.
LibraryThing member DaptoLibrary
Well, Geraldine Brooks gets the thumbs up from this book club. Her novel A Year of Wonders, which covers a year in an isolated village that becomes infected with the plague when a bolt of fabric arrives from Londohn, was thoroughly enjoyed by most everyone.
We did have a huge attendance this month,
Brooks does a good job of portraying what life would have been like in a small country village during this time, and I'm sure this is one of the appealing aspects of this book. We are so far removed from that kind of life nowadays, it becomes a big pull on the imagination to set ourselves in these characters' shoes.
It was also pointed out that in many ways, our society has not really changed all that much, what with prejudices, beliefs and superstitions of old still hiding just under the surface. All these things conspire to destroy this tortured village throughout the book, and we all remembered quite clearly what things were like when AIDS first came to light in our society.
So you can see, this book brought on a thought provoking discussion that left everyone quite satisfied.
If you like history and a good well thought out yarn, try Year of Wonders or her latest title March, which won Brooks the Pulitzer Prize this year. She is also the author of Nine Parts Desire, about the hidden world of Islamic women. Could her Middle Eastern ties have influenced Year of Wonders conclusion? Whoops! I'll say no more.
We did have a huge attendance this month,
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a total of 16, which can make discussion a little difficult (not to mention noisy!) but generally everyone managed to get an opinion in. The positives were many - accurate research, great setting with a real feel for time and space, plenty of believable characters, even if our heroine Annie was a little on the 'super-woman' side. Brooks does a good job of portraying what life would have been like in a small country village during this time, and I'm sure this is one of the appealing aspects of this book. We are so far removed from that kind of life nowadays, it becomes a big pull on the imagination to set ourselves in these characters' shoes.
It was also pointed out that in many ways, our society has not really changed all that much, what with prejudices, beliefs and superstitions of old still hiding just under the surface. All these things conspire to destroy this tortured village throughout the book, and we all remembered quite clearly what things were like when AIDS first came to light in our society.
So you can see, this book brought on a thought provoking discussion that left everyone quite satisfied.
If you like history and a good well thought out yarn, try Year of Wonders or her latest title March, which won Brooks the Pulitzer Prize this year. She is also the author of Nine Parts Desire, about the hidden world of Islamic women. Could her Middle Eastern ties have influenced Year of Wonders conclusion? Whoops! I'll say no more.
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LibraryThing member GennaC
A breathtaking and harrowing tale of finding hope, strength, and purpose in a time of inexplicable loss and sorrow. Brooks’ novel centers around Anna, a young widow and mother residing in a village in rural 18th-century England that has chosen to isolate itself from society following a deadly
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outbreak of the Plague. While Anna's remarkable character and imaginative story as an emerging midwife is compelling, the novel takes a bizarre and inconsistent turn in the final 30 pages finishing with an ending that is altogether confusing and unsatisfying. Show Less
LibraryThing member Knicke
I blew through this book in one evening. It's odd how entertained I am by descriptions of deadly epidemics, but give me a book with the Plague and I am hooked. So, death death death. This book is full of it. Only one death that occurs in the novel is really unexpected, partly because that's how the
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Plague usually plays out and partly because there's a ton of foreshadowing from the get-go. Because of that, I wasn't emotionally invested in any of the characters' demises (does that make me a cold person?), except insofar as I was interested in how the pathology would play out.Yet again, I quibble with the ending of the novel. It's nice that the author makes things so happy for the heroine by the end of the book, after all the suffering she had to endure. It just rings a little false. Everything is magically great. I wish she had stayed in her village despite it all. It would've been a more interesting and realistic choice. But that's me. I hate 90% of all endings. Show Less
LibraryThing member Michael_Godfrey
Beautifully written, but I found the ending disappointing. Maybe that's more my problem than Geraldine Brooks'!
LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Summary: It is 1665, and the restoration is spreading across England, but in the small lead-mining town of Eyam, the wider world seems very far away. But not as far away as they might wish, when a traveller arrives in town bearing the seeds of the deadly Plague from London. As members of the town
Review: I can't entirely believe I waited as long as I did to read Geraldine Brooks's books. This and People of the Book are different books, with very different narrators, but Brooks manages to slip into each of their voices seamlessly and completely. In this case, I was instantly caught up in Anna's voice, and her story, and in the world of tiny mining town in the English countryside. (Although I occasionally had to remind myself that this was all happening in a post-Tudor, post-Shakespeare world. Most plague novels I've read are set much earlier - notably Connie Willis's Doomsday Book, and the rural setting didn't always provide a multitude of clues as to the time period.) I got so involved in this book that I almost started crying while reading it on the bus. And the amazing thing is that Brooks manages to draw out this emotion, despite the fact that we know how it's going to end. The book starts with a scene from near the end of the Plague year, and mentions some of the most important deaths right off the bat. We know within the first 20 pages that those that Anna loves are going to die, but it's still totally heartbreaking when they do. Also impressive is that again, even though we know how the story ends, Brooks manages to maintain a certain sense of tension and suspense throughout the story, and even pull off a surprise or two - certainly not all of the events of the story unfolded the way I expected them to, nor did the path that events took to reach where they stand when the book opens run the way I thought it would in several key cases. There are a few places where the story slows down a bit, but all in all, this book was immersive and sad and beautiful, and a general pleasure to read. 4 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: Historical fiction fans should snap this one up, if they haven't already.
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begin falling ill and dying, the townspeople - lead by their rector, Mr. Mompellion - choose to quarrantine themselves to the confines of their town rather than risk spreading the disease to other villages. This story of the year that follows is told through the eyes of Anna, a serving girl in the Mompellion's household. Anna initially agreed with the quarrantine, but as people continue dying with no end in sight, and the very fabric of their society begins to unravel, how can the villagers keep any shred of their normal lives from crumbling to dust?Review: I can't entirely believe I waited as long as I did to read Geraldine Brooks's books. This and People of the Book are different books, with very different narrators, but Brooks manages to slip into each of their voices seamlessly and completely. In this case, I was instantly caught up in Anna's voice, and her story, and in the world of tiny mining town in the English countryside. (Although I occasionally had to remind myself that this was all happening in a post-Tudor, post-Shakespeare world. Most plague novels I've read are set much earlier - notably Connie Willis's Doomsday Book, and the rural setting didn't always provide a multitude of clues as to the time period.) I got so involved in this book that I almost started crying while reading it on the bus. And the amazing thing is that Brooks manages to draw out this emotion, despite the fact that we know how it's going to end. The book starts with a scene from near the end of the Plague year, and mentions some of the most important deaths right off the bat. We know within the first 20 pages that those that Anna loves are going to die, but it's still totally heartbreaking when they do. Also impressive is that again, even though we know how the story ends, Brooks manages to maintain a certain sense of tension and suspense throughout the story, and even pull off a surprise or two - certainly not all of the events of the story unfolded the way I expected them to, nor did the path that events took to reach where they stand when the book opens run the way I thought it would in several key cases. There are a few places where the story slows down a bit, but all in all, this book was immersive and sad and beautiful, and a general pleasure to read. 4 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: Historical fiction fans should snap this one up, if they haven't already.
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LibraryThing member tututhefirst
I've had this one on my TBR list for quite a while, so I was thrilled when our Seniors Book Club chose it for the fiction selection for August. We'll meet next Monday to discuss it and I have a feeling it will be a hit. Brooks tells the story of how one village, under the leadership and inspiration
Once the people of the village decide to isolate themselves, the vicar helps them develop an infrastructure to meet their needs, giving them a way to maintain contact with the outside world without physical interaction with humans. As more and more people fall ill and die, Anna and Elinor become more adept at nursing, the villagers either come to rely on their religious faith, or fall away in despair. Superstition abounds, as does suspicion of anyone gifted in the the healing arts. Not only do we learn about plague, and about human kindness and meaness, we also are painted a picture of early lead-mining techniques: the dangers, laws, and results of the perilous endeavor which was the backbone of the economy in the village. While Anna raised sheep and grew a few crops, as a widow, she had no way of mining her late husband's claim, which fell to others to take over when he was killed in a cave-in.
This is a powerful book, written with great attention to detail and showing much evidence of research and familiarity with the setting and the science. The characters are compelling. There are extreme acts of bravery and love, and equally extreme acts of savage cruelty and selfishness. Brooks has us believing them all. In the end, dire secrets are revealed, and lives are forever altered. The ending is stunning - I had to read it twice to catch it because I almost couldn't believe what I thought I read. Year of Wonders should be a definite addition to your TBR pile if you like history, good characters, and a little health science too.
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of its Vicar Montpellion and his wife Elinor, chose to isolate themselves and seal off the village for an entire year to prevent the plague from spreading. The story is told from the voice of Anna Frith who emerges as the central character. A young woman, widowed with two children, barely in her twenties, she is employed by the Vicar's wife to help in the rectory. They send a boarder to her, a young tailor who brings a bolt of cloth with him, and who subsequently develops the plague. Ultimately, the belief is that the cloth contained the seeds of the plague. As the tailor dies, he begs Anna to "burn it, burn it all."Once the people of the village decide to isolate themselves, the vicar helps them develop an infrastructure to meet their needs, giving them a way to maintain contact with the outside world without physical interaction with humans. As more and more people fall ill and die, Anna and Elinor become more adept at nursing, the villagers either come to rely on their religious faith, or fall away in despair. Superstition abounds, as does suspicion of anyone gifted in the the healing arts. Not only do we learn about plague, and about human kindness and meaness, we also are painted a picture of early lead-mining techniques: the dangers, laws, and results of the perilous endeavor which was the backbone of the economy in the village. While Anna raised sheep and grew a few crops, as a widow, she had no way of mining her late husband's claim, which fell to others to take over when he was killed in a cave-in.
This is a powerful book, written with great attention to detail and showing much evidence of research and familiarity with the setting and the science. The characters are compelling. There are extreme acts of bravery and love, and equally extreme acts of savage cruelty and selfishness. Brooks has us believing them all. In the end, dire secrets are revealed, and lives are forever altered. The ending is stunning - I had to read it twice to catch it because I almost couldn't believe what I thought I read. Year of Wonders should be a definite addition to your TBR pile if you like history, good characters, and a little health science too.
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Awards
Alex Award (2002)
Indies Choice Book Award (Honor Book — 2003)
Lincoln Award: Illinois Teen Readers' Choice Award (Nominee — 2005)
Nib Literary Award (Shortlist — 2002)
Virginia Literary Awards (Finalist — Fiction — 2002)