Allons! Vive le republic!

I heard about Rafael Sabatini's Scaramouche from Heidenkind when she read it and reviewed it on the Project Gutenberg Project blog.  It sounded like such a swashbuckling and fantastic story!  Plus, it takes place during the French Revolution, which is one of my favorite historical periods to read about (not one that I would ever choose to live through, however).

Scaramouche is the stage name of Andre-Louis Moreau.  Andre-Louis does not know who his parents are but was raised by a man in the French gentility.  After his best friend is killed in a duel by a marquis, Andre-Louis vows revenge and joins the revolution, giving stirring speeches that really get the people going and rioting and mobbing.  Then he becomes an actor and OWNS the stage.  And then he becomes a fencing master and is AMAZING at that.

Basically, Andre-Louis is good at everything he does.  While this generally annoys me in a character, in this situation it did not because, hey, he's a swashbuckling hero who saves France from the aristos, and he does it in style.

This is the sort of story that works best if you devote a weekend to reading it.  I, unfortunately, did not do this, but instead read it in fits and bursts over the course of several weeks.  This often caused me to forget people's names and their relationships to one another and that was to my detriment.  Finally, I powered through half the book in one evening, and then I got completely absorbed and wrapped up in the story.  It was fantastic.

In many ways, Scaramouche is the stereotypical adventure story of a man who rises through society by his wits and his skill and his ability to keep a cool head in a crisis.  But just because a story's arc is fairly predictable, that doesn't mean that it can't also be REALLY fun, and this book is just a LOT of fun.  There are dastardly villains, beautiful heroines, greedy friends, and a tale of pure vengeance.

It's a great read for this time of year, and I highly recommend it if you want a fun and exciting story that will take you back to days of powdered wigs and swords.

Also, there's a movie version.  I must find it!

Musings: Camera Obscura

Lavie Tidhar's Camera Obscura is the second book in a series that started with The Bookman.  I did not read The Bookman, however, and did not find it difficult to understand Camera Obscura at all- it takes place in a different country, with an entirely new set of characters, and while it probably mentions some characters from the previous volume in passing, it is not done in any fashion that impedes your understanding of this book.

That said, I don't really think I understood this book at all.  There is a Milady, an agent for the Quiet Council, a group of automatons that has been in charge of France since the Quiet Revolution.  The Quiet Council has set Milady the task of finding an object that was stolen during a gruesome locked-room murder, an object that appears capable of taking over people's bodies and causing them to do strange things.  Concurrent to this is the secondary story of Kai, a young Southeast Asian who gets his hands on a jade statue that everyone in the whole world seems to want.  The two stories converge only near the end, though they reference each other throughout.

Review: Cooking for Kings - The Life of Antonin Careme

Cover via Amazon

I really enjoyed Ian Kelly's biography of Beau Brummell when I read it in 2006 and so when I saw Cooking for Kings:  The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef soon after reading Brummell, I snatched it up.  And then let it languish on my shelf for over three years before finally picking it up to read.  But every book has its day and I've finally met the French culinary genius!
This is a fairly short biography- only 225 pages, and several of those pages are full of illustrations.  There is an extensive list of recipes at the back of the book, all of which Careme detailed in his many cookbooks.


The biography portion of the book is actually quite scant on details of Careme's life.  No one knows exactly when he was born, why he chose to marry who he married, why his daughter felt such animosity towards him or what his private thoughts on his many illustrious employers are.  All we know is that Careme started in the slums, rose through patisserie shops during the French Revolution, became a general chef who commanded the attention of such august personages as Bonaparte, the Prince Regent, Talleyrand, the Russian Tsar and the Rothschilds.  He invented the chef's hat.  And souffle.  He also was one of the first chefs to write his recipes down and share them with people- and to make a great deal of money by doing so.  Sounds like he must have had a pretty fascinating life, right?  But he is mum on his relationships with employers and mum on a great deal of subjects besides his own recipes.  So... what we get in the biography is a list of menus, some interesting anecdotal information on his employers and a lot of food commentary.  While I personally love looking at historic menus and reading detailed food descriptions, I wish that there was more information about Careme himself.

Musings: The Lacemaker & the Princess

The Lacemaker and the Princess is a young adult book set on the cusp of and during the French Revolution.  Isabella is 11 years old and works as a lacemaker in the town of Versailles.  One day, her grandmother sends her to the palace to deliver lace to a customer.  Isabelle takes the opportunity to wander around the palace and manages to catch the attention of Marie Antoinette, who promptly takes Isabelle to befriend her young daughter, Therese.  Therese and Isabelle become friends, spending their days together along with another young girl, Ernestine.  But Isabelle hears about stirring discontent from her older brother, George, and life at the palace becomes increasingly tense as the French people begin to rebel against the King.

Review: The Silver Blade

Title: The Silver Blade

Author: Sally Gardner

Publisher: Orion Books

# of Pages: 303

Rating: 6/10

Product Description
A stirring tale of magic and revolution- fans of The Red Necklace won't want to miss it.

The year is 1794. With his beloved Sido safely in England and the Reign of Terror at its height, mysterious Yann returns to revolutionary France to smuggle out aristocratic refugees who will otherwise face the guillotine. But while the two are apart, Yann’s Gypsy origins prejudice SidoÂ’s guardian against their marriage, thwarting their longed-for reunion. When Sido is kidnapped under strange circumstances, however, Yann must use all his strength and courage to outwit the evil Count Kalliovski, rescue Sido, and help save all of France.

As she did in The Red Necklace and the award-winning I, Coriander, Sally Gardner spins an epic tale that combines a vivid sense of history, characters full of Dickensian drama and fascination, and a sizzling adventure with touches of magic and romance.

I appear to be on a serious young adult fantasy kick recently. Well, recently being the past three days, over which time I have finished three books. Good thing they have all been pretty quick reads, so it doesn't seem too much like I have no social life! Seriously, I have plans every other night this week...

The Silver Blade is the sequel (and I think there may only be two books in the series because the story wraps up pretty neatly here) to Sally Gardner's The Red Necklace, which I reviewed here. It is historical fantasy set during the French Revolution. It centers mainly around Yann, a gypsy with the power to move objects and read people's minds and his lady love Sido, who has no magical power to do anything (except be beautiful- more on that later).

The plot in this book was darker and more supernatural than its predecessor. The villain, Count Kalliovsky (sidenote: why not Comte? Every other aristocratic title in this book is done in the French form, so why is there a count instead of a Comte? And Kalliovsky? That isn't even a French name. I think the author was trying to make it seem like he was from Transylvania. But I digress.), is truly evil and just... disturbing. In The Red Necklace, I thought he was more interesting as a character, but in this one, there was really nothing even like that to redeem him. You always knew what he would do because he would do the cruelest thing possible. New characters, on the villain side, were also introduced in this book, but they also had no depth. They were just evil, pure and simple.

And then, on the glorious side of light and goodness, Yann and Sido. I really liked Yann in The Red Necklace. He was a boy who had his head on straight and knew what he was about. He still is, in this book, except that he takes these really annoying turns of being a lovestruck mooncalf, bemoaning the loss of his soul mate Sido, who is off in London. And Sido is even worse than he is because she doesn't even really do anything in the book at all, except be in love with Yann. If she had a more active role, then it may have been easier to take. But she spends very little time doing anything except writing letters to her boyfriend. It is not often that a book can make me physically roll my eyes, but this book managed. This is probably why love letters are best kept private; they have a very different effect on anyone who is not the intended audience. Yann and Sido literally go through the story making several people in the book fall in love with them (oh, woe are them) and managing to remain steadfast and pure to their True Loves. Sigh. It's a well-worn path of a story, really. And while I like the dashing action and the French Revolution setting, this book just didn't catch me the way its predecessor did.

Overall, though, I'd recommend the series. The good parts outweigh the bad, and maybe other people won't be quite so annoyed by the moping as I as.

Another small part of this book which annoyed me (and it annoys me about so many books that take place in any historical period) is the belief that everyone in "Society" is dull and vain and empty-headed. I say it's a small part, but it's something that greatly annoys me.

[Aarti steps onto soapbox]

How is this possibly the case? It seems like every book that takes place in English Society between the years of about 1600 to 1900 does this. The Red Necklace and The Silver Blade, between themselves, do it on both the male and female side. So no one in London in the 1790s was interesting at all.

The formula is pretty basic. The book will feature a Feisty Young Lady or a Charming Young Man. We will know that the lady is feisty, or that the young man is charming, because the character will make it clear to us in some way that they Do Not Belong in society. Everyone around them is foppish and boring and only interested in clothing or gossip. Feisty Young Lady/Charming Young Man is the only person in all of London who is not a completely dull waste of life. And the poor dear is miserable about it. Honestly, how rude and egotistical is this premise?

It implies, fundamentally, that anyone who had money or "family" in England (or any European country, I assume) for about 300 years was ignorant and foppish. This is very much at odds with the fact that, for those years, the rich and landed were the only ones who could afford an education, and were the ones driving thought, socially and politically. They read. They wrote. They conversed. I cannot believe that a person versed in all the Greek classics, mastered in a musical instrument, hostess of political salons, and a great many other things besides, would be boring. She would not only discuss her ballgowns. The assumption that all these people with money and nice clothes and a penchant for a big party who attended balls were universally shallow and dandy-like is just annoying. Somewhere in that huge mass of people, someone had to be worth of conversation.

And honestly, if the Feisty Young Lady/Charming Young Man is that out of place in society, well... maybe the character just isn't making any effort to get along with people. After all, it's a two-way street. If you find everyone around you stiff and dull, then they are likely to find you rude and stand-offish. Not the way to win friends.

[Aarti steps off soapbox]

Review: The Red Necklace

Title: The Red Necklace

Author: Sally Gardner

Publisher: Orion Books

# of Pages: 374

Favorite Line: He had a large, needy, greedy face that gathered itself into a weak, undefined chin and had about it the promise of perpetual disappointment.

Rating: 9/10

From Booklist
*Starred Review* A Gypsy boy, Yann, and the dwarf who has raised him are caught up in drama on and off the stage, where they work with a magician and his automaton. Outside their Parisian theater, revolution is beginning to boil. Inside, the magician is murdered by the villainous Count Kallovski, who has Yann in his sights as well. So begins a finely crafted tale that crosses years and crisscrosses countries, as Yann becomes a young man with a mission: to save the lovely Sido from her heartless father, even as he struggles with the extraordinary gifts bestowed upon him by his Gypsy heritage. If the success of historical fiction depends on how well setting and story mesh, this is a very successful book, indeed. Gardner sweeps readers into a turbulent time, dissecting eighteenth-century French society and the evolution of the revolution, from a yearning for liberty to a chaotic bloodbath. The history becomes personal when seen through the eyes of an astoundingly rich, carefully drawn cast, whose lives are interwoven like pieces of string in an elaborate cat’s cradle. Scores are waiting to be settled on every page; this is a heart-stopper. Grades 9-12. --Ilene Cooper

Honestly, I don't think many other books could be so well-designed to be right up my alley. This book is what I dub "historical fantasy," and it is great! I think the French Revolution is a fascinating (and terrifying) period in history, and it lends itself to novels and fantasy really well. I have often mulled over the thought of starting a reading challenge that centers around the Revolution because it's just such a rich period of history. If I decide to go forward with one, I hope a lot of people choose to read this book. And, wonderfully, there's a sequel coming out later this year- The Silver Blade.

The Red Necklace (I really feel the title The Scarlet Necklace would have been better. Red sounds a bit blase, but that is a minor quibble.) is a really riveting young adult fantasy novel that focuses on a French boy of gypsy origins, Yann, who has magical abilities to move things and read people's minds. It also features a young aristocrat woman (beautiful, of course), Sido, who is trying to escape marriage to a vile, older man who excellently reinvents himself with each change in the political climate of France. The characters are all very richly-drawn and engaging. The story gets a bit bogged down in itself a couple of times, but generally moves at a clipping pace.

I really like the way Sally Gardner set up the story, too- showing different sides of the conflict. The French Revolution was certainly a long time coming, but she shows every side of the bloody mess objectively. Sido is an aristocrat whose servants love and defend her; her father is one who is held up as a symbol of aristocratic gluttony. Their servants are eager and excited by the revolution, but there are others that are horrifyingly taken over by the mob mentality. I also liked the bonus of Yann and his mentor being of gypsy background. It added another nuance to the story without overpowering it. I am excited to see how that backstory develops. There is also a somewhat Star Wars-esque plotline introduced near the end, but I won't get into that one- don't want to ruin the read for anyone else.

All in all, a really fun and interesting read. Highly recommended if you like fantasy or historical fiction. Young adult fantasy is definitely where it's at these days :-)

PS- And how fortuitous that I read and finished this book just in time for Bastille Day!