The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
Book Review: A great read
Summary: 5 Stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book right from the first page. You have a typical eccentric old lady and a slightly dull young girl who shows potential. I found some of the scenes very real and some a bit vague. I was gripped by the overall storyline and read the book very quickly. I can see how it would not appeal to every reader but I found it an enjoyable read. Book Review: a book that is hard to put down
Summary: 5 Stars
This was an audio book I couldn't put down! When it first began, I thought it was going to be a story that would drag out and be dull. Was I wrong! It was a slow start for me but once the author got into the main story and past the initial background information, it just kept getting better and better.
Vida Winter is an author who is sought for the mystery of her missing thirteenth tale. She has kept her past life a secret from every biographer and newspaper reporter that has ever interviewed her. Oh, she would give them a story but it was jus that, a story. Each and every one was different. No one knew the truth of her past life. She is now dying and wants to tell the true story for future generations.
Margaret Lea is the daughter of a book store owner and has a secret in her own past. She receives a letter from Vida asking her to write her biography. Margaret goes to Vida's home and, at first, is unwilling to write the story. But Vida has a way with words and persuades Margaret to change her mind. Vida has only one rule, no jumping ahead or asking questions. A very strange but Margaret agrees and takes up residence at Vida's home.
Each day, the two spend a few hours together as Vida spins her story of the Angelfield family. What a story it is! A ghost, a governess and a devastating fire is enough to keep anyone's attention. But there is even more as the story is also about twins. Margaret discovers that this is something that Vida's biography and her own life have in common.
As the story progresses, Margaret begins to believe there is more than she is hearing and her curiosity sets in. She writes for help from a private investigator to find out if certain things Vida is telling her are really true. The answer is that the story is true and Margaret takes a holiday to visit the Angelfield home. There she finds the burned out remains of the family home, Aurelius Love and a woman and her two children. What does all this have to do with the story? Just wait, it all comes together so well.
Diane Setterfield writes a story that is a story within a story within a story and if you don't pay attention, you miss the clues she leaves you along the way. She writes in a clear and easy to follow manner and holds your attention so intently that you can't wait for the next twist or turn. She even had me guessing what would happen next and some times I was even right!
The two readers, Jill Tanner as Vida Winter and Bianca Amato as Margaret Lea are wonderful to listen to and give the story which is set in England a true English feeling with their respective accents. Each makes their respective character come to life. Ms. Tanner gives Vida's character the voice of an elderly person who is gravely ill and makes it believable. Ms. Amato gives Margaret's character the incredulous sound of someone who is not quite sure she is being told the truth and of one who is determined to know it.
Without a doubt, this is a tale that I would read again. I hope Ms. Setterfield plans on writing more as I would be sure to read any she writes.
Book Review: Captivating!
Summary: 4 Stars
From the first pages this book has captivated my attention, and the more I read the deeper I got drawn into the main story of this book. Although told in a modern style, this book has all elements of a 19th century novel: the mystery surrounding the characters, the moral decay of a rich family and the secrets harbored in their home, the twists in the plot; it all gives the reader a sense of reading a classic containing an interesting and compelling tale that you cannot stop reading until you are finished.
There is more than one story however, and Setterfield manages to bring together all the different stories into one fitting whole.
However, the characters seem to have received less attention from the author, making them two-dimensional at times, and sometimes giving you the impression that they are mainly pawns in the author's plot. But all of that is compensated for a great deal by the great plot and the clear and concise style of the writer, which makes this book highly readable and worth the effort.
Book Review: "One gets so used to one's own horrors, one forgets how they must seem to other people"
Summary: 4 Stars
In this compelling tale of truth and falsehood, author Diane Setterfield interlaces elements of the Victorian gothic to expose the secrets of a world-famous novelist called Vida Winter who is anxious to tell the story of her past before chronic illness kills her. Miss Winter appears to be a remnant of a bygone age, and has understandably been agonizing over the mystery surrounding her life for quite sometime.
Uneasy about finally letting the truth be known, the octogenarian Vida enlists the assistance of Margaret Lea, a young and bookish literary writer, who has been helping her father run an antiquarian bookshop in the city. The plot is fuelled into motion when Margaret receives a baffling letter from Vida, full of half truths, but also asking her to come to her house in the midst of Yorkshire for a meeting, and hopefully a confessional.
Apparently, Vida was made famous for writing a book called the Thirteen Tales, but only twelve of the tales were ever published, and then under another name. Margaret is enthused - partly out of professional interest, she really wants the origin of this mysterious thirteenth tale, but also to assuage her own insecurities about her past. In the end, she jumps at the offer, mostly because wants to find out more about this cagey, enigmatic woman, who has kept so much of her life secret.
Ensconced in Vida's sprawling house in the wintry landscape Yorkshire, and after an initial hesitation, the virtually friendless Vida begins to pour her heart out to Margaret, her dreams and her disappointments, eventually confessing that her name is actually Adeline March and that she once lived on a vast country hunting estate at the center of which was Angelfield House.
At first Margaret is tentative, unsure whether Vida/Adeline is really giving her the truth. She's about to walk out, frustrated at the older woman's lack of commitment and guarded answers, but once Vida mentions that once upon a time there were twins, and that Vida herself once had a twin sister called Emmeline, Margaret is drawn back to Vida by something that is beyond her control.
Clearly Margaret is beleaguered by her own private demons. Like Vida/ Adeline, she also had a twin sister, but she had died at birth. This revelation causes a kind of weary truce between the two women, Vida tells Margaret that she chose her because she knows "about siblings," whilst Margaret informs Vida that from the start, she must tell her everything.
The stage is finally set for Vida to unleash her house of secrets and as the novel morphs into a type of Victorian ghost story pieces of a puzzle are steadily revealed that have to do with the inexplicable and gloomy past of Angelfield House. As the circuitous narrative unfolds, Setterfield populates her complex tale with an almost Jamesian-like passion as she throws in numerous subplots involving orphans, burning buildings, decimated libraries, and scraps of pages from the novel Jane Eyre.
In this unsettling assault into the indistinguishable fissures of superstition, betrayal and even the afterlife there's a pair of ruinous red-headed girls, rumored to be up to no good, a young naïve mother who is inexplicably carted off to an insane asylum, an ancient, blind housekeeper, who along with her devoted gardener plays guardian to a ghost, an abandoned baby left on a doorstep one night during a thunderous storm, and an officious, but kind-hearted governess who mysteriously disappears, never to be seen again.
As the story of Vida/ Adeline's life gets ever more bizarre, Margaret finds herself moving through the twin worlds of worlds of reality and make-believe, through the past and the present. And as she becomes a sort of detective, burying deeper and deeper into Vida's life, she's eventually forced to face her own feelings about the death of her long-lost sister.
A fine example of this current predilection towards literary modern gothic, The Thirteenth Tale builds cleverly to its earth shattering finale, involving a deadly fire and a surprise revelation of Vida's, along the way this exquisitely written work of fiction stirs up deep feelings of memory and loss; it's indeed a beautiful ode to anyone who loves literature, and is a terrific page turner for those who love literary fiction. Mike Leonard February 07.
Book Review: Atmospheric.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a really good modern day read written in the old style, reminscent of Daphne Du Mauriers Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel.Atmospheric, thought provoking will keep you hanging on till the last page.