It's difficult to say if I liked it or not, or how much, because I'm still crying and my soul has not yet calmed down. What I can say is that since I started it I never stopped, going to sleep was a little painful because I had to stop for a few hours. Six, seven tops, not too much maybe, but the separation was no fun nonetheless. Towards the end I was so anxious to know what had happened that I overcooked my lunch. It happens when one keeps reading a book instead of checking the fire.
I liked the protagonist Margaret Lea because she loves books. We are totally different otherwise, but we have that in common, although we like different kinds: history and dates don't matter all that much to me. I want fantasy and fiction to take me away from my life, introduce me to people that don't exist in my world, make me part of something extraordinary that I could never find in my ordinary life.
Bit of plot, so I won't forget it... well, I will forget it, anyway, but that's the point, I write it so I'll have it all here if I want to remember it...
The book is the story of famous writer Vida Winter that, now old and sick, tells her story to biographer Margaret Lea. A tough story, full of deaths and violence. Her real name is Adeline March, she says, and her story starts with her grandparents. George and Mathilde had a son, Charlie, and when their daughter Isabelle was born, Mathilde died. George was catatonic, but when months later the nanny gave his his little Isabelle leaving them alone he changed and from that moment he lived only for his precious daughter. Charlie was cruel but Isabelle was strange. They were very close until they grow up and Isabelle went out and met Roland. Charlie's attachment to his sister was like an insane obsession, he loved her so much he was going crazy without her, and took it out on other girls, that they wanted to be with him or not.
When Isabelle went away with Roland, Charlie became catatonic and their father died. Isabelle married Roland but seven months later he died and Isabelle went back home. With two daughters, twins. Left to themselves, because Charlie didn't are and Isabelle kind of forgot their existence, they were out of control. Mrs Dunne the nanny and "John-the-dig" Digence the gardener did all they could, but the twins never cared for their efforts, only about each others and what they wanted. Emmeline was quiet but Adeline was a fury. They had no respect for anything or anyone, they entered other people's houses, and if they wanted something they simply took it. One day they stole a cradle to play with it, not caring for the child inside. Something had to be done, so the doctor called a governess to take care of them, after their mother was locked in an asylum. Charlie never cared about anything anymore, after they took her away, and when later on she died he shot himself.
Hester Barrow came into their lives changing them. Thanks to her the house was finally clean, and so were the twins. She wanted to help them, teaching them a regular life. She thought Emmeline was sweet and Adeline strange, but sometimes she saw a different Adeline, and she thought that separating the twins she would have helped them to be a whole person without the sister. She took it as a study project with dr. Maudsley: she kept Emmeline while he brought Adeline to his own house. Adeline stopped living, while slowly Emmeline started to like other games without her. One day Hester saw them together, or so she thought, but Adeline had never moved from the doctor's house. She was shocked and when the doctor's wife caught them kissing, she left town forever. When old Mrs Dunne died, only John remained to take care of them.
You see? It's all sad and dark. I could not have read it all had it been one long story, but it was divided in short tales, and in between there were Margaret's thoughts, her pictures of the old Angelfield house, her surprising friendship with Aurelius, a good giant connected to that story. Those moments brought peace to the story, the atmosphere no more as heavy as it was before. It was finally bearable, and like Margaret I wanted to know the rest, what had happened to the twins.
When later on John had an 'accident', Miss Winter was left alone to care for her sister; for a while there was also Ambrose, the boy that used to help John, but she never requited his feelings (or maybe she did, but she didn't want to , so she didn't) and when she discovered that Emmeline was pregnant she sent Ambrose away.
It took a long time but Margaret finally understood: why there seemed to be a ghost at Angelfield, why Hester thought Adeline had two different personalities in her, what she saw that day... Margaret thought: what if there weren't two girls in the house, but three? At this point the truth comes out. Miss Winter is not Adeline, she's the third girl. When John and nanny had found her, she was all dirty and starving, abandoned. They took care of her and once clean they saw she was a girl, and that she looked just like the twins. She had to be family, so they kept her without telling anyone. She had no name, and only played with Emmeline when Adeline was not there. She was sane and responsible, and loved Emmeline very much. Sometimes she passed herself for Adeline, confusing Hester. After Emmeline had given birth to her baby boy, Adeline was so jealous that she feared her actions. She tried to protect Emmeline and her baby, but Adeline was as she had always been: crazy and out of control. One night Adeline took the baby and tried to set it on fire. Without being noticed she saved him and took him away, but afraid of Adeline she took the baby to the house of a good old lady that would have cared for him; then, back to the house she found it on fire. She went inside to save Emmeline and had to drag her out. The twins didn't want to separate, not even in those circumstances. She saved her nonetheless, but once in the open she had a terrible doubt: she was not sure if that was Adeline or Emmeline... she always called her Emmeline and took care of her, and she wrote book after book to keep her ghosts away.
Margaret is terrible sad when Emmeline dies first and then Miss Winter. Now she has the whole story, including the famous thirteenth tale that was never included in the 'thirteen tales' book, her own story, of a girl that was raped by Charlie Angelfield and had a daughter; a story never finished of a poor child left on her own.
Margaret can now give peace of mind to Aurelius telling him his story, and also make him happy giving him a step-sister (Karen)and her two children, Tom and Emma.
Margaret herself finds peace: she had always been haunted by the twin sister she had never known, that had died when the two of them were separated, with a little scar as the only thing Margaret has of her.
The story is ended but the author knows 'what it means to finish a book and wonder, a day or maybe a week later, what has been of the butcher or who got the diamonds or if the widow will ever reconcile with her niece..' and Margaret imagines her readers wondering about Judith and Maurice and tells us they still live and work in Miss Winter's house. I wasn't thinking of them and I had forgotten about Hester, with everything that was happening at the end, but like she says I would have thought about it later and that detail would have slightly ruined the memory of the book. I liked to know that once a widow the doctor had gone to America to marry Hester and live happily with her.
When she also told me about Shadow the cat I was touched. I can't explain why, but I was.
Things I don't like to think about: not just that disgusting shit that raped all those poor girls, but even more so the fact, so realistic in this shitty world, that he was causing trouble and scandal when he went after rich girls, but then when he turned his unwanted attentions to poor girls nobody said anything anymore, because he was a rich sir and they were nothing. That is beyond disgusting because it is so realistic, in this superficial world one means nothing if without money or position of power. I'm glad he didn't just disappear but it was cleared that he blew his head off, freeing the world of his useless presence.
Things I like to think about after having closed the book? The way Margaret was consoling Miss Winter and then Dr Clifton was consoling her, lost in a pain that is always different but that every human can understand. It's so well written I felt that pain, that desperation of the soul.
Another thing that touched my soul was the doctor's cure when she was ill. For years she had read over and over Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Sense and Sensibility, so to quiet her wild emotions he gave her Sherlock Holmes to read: 10 pages twice a day. I love dr Clifton and I have the feeling she will too..
I mean: Sherlock Holmes books as therapy, how lovely was that?!? Unfortunately it doesn't (always) work for me, it would be so wonderful...
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