Tea at Trianon: "Sensory and Visceral"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, March 17, 2017

"Sensory and Visceral"

An eloquent and glowing review of The Paradise Tree from The Portland Book Review:

Elena Maria Vidal’s The Paradise Tree is the haunting saga of the O’Connor family. The reader follows the life of blacksmith Daniel O’Connor, an Irish catholic who migrates to Canada in pursuit of economic and religious freedom. O’Connor flees Ireland with a rosebush and the “Paradise Tree,” a wooden crucifix. He begins a new life in Ontario, where he cultivates his home and raises a family in a new world fraught with its own sets problems—some old, some new.

A sprawling historical novel, told from multiple perspectives, The Paradise Tree takes us into the lives of the O’Connor family in a voice that is thorough and rich. Vidal’s writing is sensory and visceral. The reader feels as if she is a member of the O’Connor family, slunk in the corner watching, rooting for the characters, feeling for the characters, and taking on their conflicts, joys, and burdens. We are told the harrowing tale of the O’Connor family in scenes that we feel we are a part of, and when necessary, a narrative voice that moves the story to it’s bittersweet conclusion as we leap along in time with the family.

Vidal’s meticulous research brings the O’Connor’s’ world to life. Lush provocative details enrich the novel instead of distracting from it: “Time for the ceilidh!”…Patrick brought out his bodhran, a wide drum…The general idea of the ceilidh was that each member of the company would contribute to the entertainment of the others with a song, story, a dance, or recitation.” Vidal’s novel is rich with history. She manages to enlighten the reader of the customs, traditions, and folklore of the O’Connor family through factual anecdotes and observations, as well as poetry and song, while moving the story forward instead of bogging us down in showy, didactic details. Whether we are discovering the “shillelagh” wielding “Orangemen,” or sitting down to a goose roasted over a spit and smelling the simmering parsnips on Christmas Eve, we are given a thorough history lesson without the lectures, the notes, and—thank goodness—the exams.

The Paradise Tree does what good novels should. It tells us a story, it shows us what it means to be human—replete with the triumphs, sadness, and conflicts entailed in being human—while whisking us away to another world that is not our own. For 232 pages we are extracted from our lives and into the lives of the O’Connor family. We root for them. We feel their hardships. We feel their connection and disconnection as a family while we are shown a distant time and place, filled with potentially unfamiliar folkways. In the end we are pleasantly reminded that the O’Connors’ story is just as much ours as we traverse the familiar territory of faith, family, and love, and how we still find ourselves dancing in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
(Read more.)