This was another of those random, impulse reads from the
library; I was attracted by the cover and the blurb. Andrew Taylor, by the number of books he’s
written, should be a good writer—in general, people seem to have been impressed
by this book, which I would categorize as a historical novel with some mystery
thrown in. That is, it a lot more
literary than Absolution by Murder—it’s
clearly something standalone; I can’t see John Holdsworth investigating any
more conundrums. I found it very
entertaining, though the final revelation was like a shocking, icy trickle down
the neck. It’s a novel set in the late 18th century at the
fictional Jerusalem College at Cambridge, and as such contains a lot of Stuff I
Like. I’m not a huge one for Hellfire
Club rip-offs (any interest I had in that was cleansed of my system by reading The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and
listening to Minuet in Hell) but as this focused on the economic
repercussions of such activities as much as the more scandalous dealings, I
found it much less sensational. It is
also, of sorts, a Ghost Story.
I like the way it looks at characters from all different classes—from
Tom Turdman, the night-soil man, to Lady Anne Oldenshaw—but keeps the
necessarily 18th century divisions in place, as the characters would
have known them. We have sympathy for
characters like Augustus the grubby footboy and suffocated hussy Tabitha
Skinner, but they are only as good or bad as their environment allows them to
be. Harry Archdale is one of the more
memorable characters, changing a good deal in the course of the novel, and yet
he can never extend more than pity toward struggling, penniless sizar[1] Tobias
Soresby. Mrs Phear is the delightfully Dickensian
illustration of her name; in fact, the novel combines the Fielding-esque and
the Dickensian in its rogues’ gallery. Gyp[2] Mulgrave
could only be played, as far as I’m concerned, by Ron Cook. The main character, author, bookseller, and
widower John Holdsworth delighted me as I tried to pin an actor down to play him;
in the end I gave up and just enjoyed his character. His love interest, Elinor Carbury, is less
sympathetic yet seems wholly of her time:
she’s a young woman married to an aging, decrepit Cambridge Master,
dependent on others for her financial support.
The Anatomy of Ghosts is
also the title of Holdsworth’s book, written to debunk spiritualism before it was spiritualism after the death of his
young son. I like the skewed perceptions
of the book. It could have easily turned
into Holdsworth fancying himself some kind of psychic detective, and the
scandal of the Holy Ghost Club could have quickly reached outrageous
proportions. However, the thick fog
around Jerusalem College, and Holdsworth’s feet planted firmly on the ground,
make this quite an unusual book that will
keep you guessing til the last page.
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