The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Waterstones Book of the Year 2016
Sunday Times number one bestseller
Shortlisted for Costa Book Award
iTunes Book of the Year 2016
Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas prize 2017
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize 2017
Longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2017
Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017
Shortlisted for the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award 2017
British Book Awards Book of the Year 2017 (Fiction and Overall)
What Amazon says:
An exquisitely talented young British author makes her American debut with this rapturously acclaimed historical novel, set in late nineteenth-century England, about an intellectually minded young widow, a pious vicar, and a rumored mythical serpent that explores questions about science and religion, skepticism, and faith, independence and love.
When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at nineteen, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend.
While admiring the sites, Cora learns of an intriguing rumor that has arisen further up the estuary, of a fearsome creature said to roam the marshes claiming human lives. After nearly 300 years, the mythical Essex Serpent is said to have returned, taking the life of a young man on New Year’s Eve. A keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, Cora is immediately enthralled, and certain that what the local people think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. Eager to investigate, she is introduced to local vicar William Ransome. Will, too, is suspicious of the rumors. But unlike Cora, this man of faith is convinced the rumors are caused by moral panic, a flight from true belief.
These seeming opposites who agree on nothing soon find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart—an intense relationship that will change both of their lives in ways entirely unexpected.
Hailed by Sarah Waters as "a work of great intelligence and charm, by a hugely talented author," The Essex Serpent is "irresistible . . . you can feel the influences of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Hilary Mantel channeled by Perry in some sort of Victorian séance. This is the best new novel I’ve read in years" (Daily Telegraph).
What I thought:
This is my kind of book, before I even comment on the text it is for me a Pandora's Box of mysterious and murky things, of marvels of nature: mosses, fungi, serpents, parasites, tapeworms, fossils, toadstones, amber, blue seaglass and my personal favourites blue wing feathers of Jay and, of course, Leviathan and then a lexicon of brooding terminology: decay, putrescence, blackness, miasma, mud, tuberculosis and then there are the things that go wrong, the sheep that is stuck on the saltings, the child that is lost, the young man who is stabbed, Luke's loss of manual dexterity even the jam which does not set. There is much that is strange. I try to find some sense of joy in the pages of Perry's book but even the intimate scenes between the characters are recounted in a gladless style. What is to like then? Firstly there is such texture in the narrative, in all those objects both natural and artefactual which are referred to time and again. Visually appealing, curious and also tactile. And the settings, the east end of London and the flat coastal landscape of Essex where the land grades into the sea over extensive saltmarshes. I know saltings well and enjoy walking by them, they have an idiosyncratic fauna and flora and are 'dangerous' to encroach on. Made all the more treacherous by the tides - my familiars as they reveal and then hide their natural curiosities in an endless cycle of highs and lows.
And as for the writing even before I read Sarah Perry's Wikipedia profile I knew that I was in the presence of a writer who is very comfortable in Gothic style and a probably a Victorian born out of her time. She says as much on her own profile page, by inclination and upbringing. She has a PhD in creative writing from Royal Holloway University where her supervisor was Sir Andrew Motion. Her doctoral thesis was on the Gothic in the writing of Iris Murdoch. There are several relationships between the characters in the book and they are all uneasy, that between Will and Cora, drawn together by mutual attraction yet differing profoundly in their spiritual beliefs and always the figure of Stella between a symbol of potential guilt. And Cora herself, a contrary and manipulative woman I found her to be, what did others think?. I could write an essay on her alone...... And finally the book is themed by the serpent who threads its way through the book, the ancient legend, the carving on the end of a pew, the optical illusions of some of the characters, the beached corpse, a medical symbol and always the serpent of original sin, temptation. So this was very much a book for me, and thank you for choosing it.
Postscript - all the way through I found myself wondering just what the serpent would prove to be. When it transpired to be a 20 foot fish with a single fin running along its dorsum I looked up conger eel and moray eel but even the maximum size for the latter would not work for the giant of Perry's imagining. In the end I found an answer, the oarfish:
This is what I believe the rotting sea serpent to be:
What I thought:
This is my kind of book, before I even comment on the text it is for me a Pandora's Box of mysterious and murky things, of marvels of nature: mosses, fungi, serpents, parasites, tapeworms, fossils, toadstones, amber, blue seaglass and my personal favourites blue wing feathers of Jay and, of course, Leviathan and then a lexicon of brooding terminology: decay, putrescence, blackness, miasma, mud, tuberculosis and then there are the things that go wrong, the sheep that is stuck on the saltings, the child that is lost, the young man who is stabbed, Luke's loss of manual dexterity even the jam which does not set. There is much that is strange. I try to find some sense of joy in the pages of Perry's book but even the intimate scenes between the characters are recounted in a gladless style. What is to like then? Firstly there is such texture in the narrative, in all those objects both natural and artefactual which are referred to time and again. Visually appealing, curious and also tactile. And the settings, the east end of London and the flat coastal landscape of Essex where the land grades into the sea over extensive saltmarshes. I know saltings well and enjoy walking by them, they have an idiosyncratic fauna and flora and are 'dangerous' to encroach on. Made all the more treacherous by the tides - my familiars as they reveal and then hide their natural curiosities in an endless cycle of highs and lows.
And as for the writing even before I read Sarah Perry's Wikipedia profile I knew that I was in the presence of a writer who is very comfortable in Gothic style and a probably a Victorian born out of her time. She says as much on her own profile page, by inclination and upbringing. She has a PhD in creative writing from Royal Holloway University where her supervisor was Sir Andrew Motion. Her doctoral thesis was on the Gothic in the writing of Iris Murdoch. There are several relationships between the characters in the book and they are all uneasy, that between Will and Cora, drawn together by mutual attraction yet differing profoundly in their spiritual beliefs and always the figure of Stella between a symbol of potential guilt. And Cora herself, a contrary and manipulative woman I found her to be, what did others think?. I could write an essay on her alone...... And finally the book is themed by the serpent who threads its way through the book, the ancient legend, the carving on the end of a pew, the optical illusions of some of the characters, the beached corpse, a medical symbol and always the serpent of original sin, temptation. So this was very much a book for me, and thank you for choosing it.
Postscript - all the way through I found myself wondering just what the serpent would prove to be. When it transpired to be a 20 foot fish with a single fin running along its dorsum I looked up conger eel and moray eel but even the maximum size for the latter would not work for the giant of Perry's imagining. In the end I found an answer, the oarfish:
This is what I believe the rotting sea serpent to be:
