The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield is up for discussion. As I've already mentioned, I went into this book with much trepidation due to the constant mentions and hints of ghosts. I just don't do well with anything paranormal. I will take this moment to confess that, though I have read the Harry Potter series more than is probably recommended for sanity's sake (I challenge you to Harry Potter trivia. Book only. You won't win), and therefore know that Peeves the Poltergeist is nothing to get worked up about, I still do not let myself read the word "poltergeist." I skip it. It's ridiculous. It took a lot of palm sweat for me to even type it twice. That said, at the first mention of ghostliness on the page in The Thirteenth Tale, I very nearly threw the book across the room and hoped to forget about it. However, I first decided that I should talk rationally about it with two confidantes: my sister and my husband. NEITHER OF THEM TOOK MY SIDE! Both were of the mindset that this book was not chosen by me as our reading choice... that since I let you all pick it, I was basically stuck reading it for your sakes and just suck it up and remember it's not real.
I was expecting more pity than that.
But I did know that they were right, so I merely vowed to read it only when my husband was home because GEEZ do I have nightmares, people. That is probably the real reason that I refuse to read, watch, or acknowledge anything remotely scary: I'm afraid of what it will make me dream. I've had some extremely off-putting, grotesque, and freakish nightmares. It makes me afraid to go to sleep sometimes. I feel much better when Kyle is here with me. Basically, when it comes to paranormal anything, my feelings are summed up in this:
Anyway, you knew that was my reason for being so slow and if you'd like to read the rest of my reasons, please see the previous post!
Though noticeably daunted, I followed the advice and powered through the best that I could. I imagined all kinds of ghoulish things about the twins. Why is it that twins are often put into creepy contexts? I think twins are fascinating rather than creepy.
And granted that Adeline had some real issues, I was most disturbed by the Charlie and Isabelle story. Here' the thing though. Did anyone else find themselves having to read passages twice because they almost missed something important? Setterfield did not seem to want to reveal much in black and white. She said things in more of a roundabout way that I barely caught if I was distracted or sleepy. So I wondered for a while if Charlie was, indeed, obsessively enamored with his sister (gross) or if I imagined it. When he began harming himself as an outlet to unrequited love, it became clear. haha On this same subject of Setterfield burying the facts, the twist ending (which was really very good and unexpected, I thought) confused me by never spelling out exactly who was who (unless I missed it and you care to clear it up. Who was the woman in the hidden little home in Ms. Winter's estate? Adeline or Emmeline?)
I found the studies of Hester and the doctor to be informative and entertaining, though somewhat cruel. I did not, however, find any of the characters to be very believable as real people. The twins were an enigma from the get-go. Who could or would raise them? Who was the father (I do think that it eventually became clear that it was Charlie... gross)? And once they had been left to their own devices while the Mrs. and John the Dig aged and minded their own businesses, who would teach the socially inept proper etiquette when they couldn't even properly speak?
As a side note, it bothered me that the twins couldn't speak and that Emmeline was effectively a baby the whole book through. I get it. She stayed childlike because she was never taught differently. But her benignity and bland stupidity got on my nerves. Adeline was messed up, but at least she was interesting.
In comes Hester and the doctor to split up the twins and begin a love affair (which I totally knew was coming; did you?!) and their study of the twins was interesting enough...
But what made me keep turning pages the most were honestly not Margaret's musings of her dead twin (though I did enjoy the analogy of separated twins being like amputees, particularly because it was especially true in Margaret's conjoined twin case. It makes me just weep inside to think of George Weasley without Fred in Harry Potter) leading her to see and hear things, nor Ms. Winter's strange behaviors (haircut) and descriptions (her wolf: her sick pains), but the descriptions of the books and literature, the book shop Margaret's father owned, and, most of all, Aurelius Love.
Aurelius Love is, in my opinion, the most over-the-top character in the whole book. He spent his time in Angelfield, deeply believing that he was rooted there, without concrete evidence. He took tea and cake there, even before meeting Margaret by chance there. He was a loner who longed for a family. He was a giant in a fairy tale gone awry. He brought about a quality of magic and mystery in an already mysterious book when I was beginning to lose interest Ms. Winter's mystery because she drew it out for too long. And, finally, he was the reason, essentially, that she finally decided to "tell the truth." I did like how that tied back in.
This book left me longing. Longing for a library on a river. Longing for my sister. Longing for a cup of cocoa. I enjoyed the bright and rich descriptions, the fact that the twins and Ms. Winter had red hair (though mine is fake), the sadness embedded in Margaret when she spent her life yearning for her twin, and the hope of kindness in strangers. I don't think I would have liked it nearly so much if not for the twist that Ms. Winter was not Adeline after all. That was a stroke of brilliance. And the actual Thirteenth Tale within the book, Cinderella's Daughter, was also marvelous. It was Ms. Winter's autobiography in one short little story blurb. Margaret was needed, not as a writer, but as a listener. I loved that.
I'm betting that this would make a great movie.
What did The Thirteenth Tale evoke in you? What did you like or dislike? And most importantly, did you get a mug of cocoa while you read it? Because honest to God, that was one of the images that kept coming back in my mind whenever I'd pick the book up!
