My first review:
2.5 bookworms
Leslie's review of
Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
I couldn't wait for this book to come out. Luckily it came out when I was on
vacation so I was able to read it right away. Turns out it was a good thing I
was on vacation because I ended up having to go back and skim through it again
to answer some questions ... and I also flipped back through A Discovery of
Witches, too. And I'm still not sure I have all the details straight!
I given this 2.5 stars but I do appreciate the depth of historical
knowledge Ms. Harkness has and I am hopeful that some of my issues will be
clearer in book 3. And I am committed to Matthew and Diana's story -- it's just
so heavy-handed here.
I don't think these comments are spoilers, but I'll
post it here just in case you haven't read it yet and don't want to know some of
the issues I had.
1) The intermittent present day chapters -- I am hoping
that we'll get more on what was happening now in Book 3 because what's shown is
not very clear. Diana and Matthew are back in the past for quite awhile and the
family in present day is looking for historical blips that may appear that mean
Diana and Matthew have changed something in the future. They don't want that
information to fall into the hands of the congregation. My question is: How does
a mention that Mary Sidney had a helper named DR mean anything to anyone? How
did they know the miniatures were of Matthew and Diana so they could swoop in
and buy them? How does an article about the "telescope" mean it has anything to
do with them? Right, I know it was a Shawdow of Night figure ... but how would
they ever put the two together? Weird blips that seem very obsure and also only
a handful of blips -- more must have been changed during the many months Diana
and Matthew blundered around.
2) Time travel -- this is also wrapped up in
the blips. Present day Ysabeau looks for a note from Phillipe that will tell her
he's seen Matthew and Diana ... meanwhile present day Verin (introduced with
practically no background) gets a call from Gallowglass during which she says
that she guesses her father's ravings were true about a time traveling witch,
and we have a present day Gallowglass sharing that he basically followed Diana
in her present life to see how she turned out so he has the memory, but everyone
else is keeping it from 1590s and 2012 Matthew?-- I feel like the time travel is
all screwed up. Wouldn't everyone's history now include memory of the
1590s?
3)I honestly had to go back and find a mention of 1590s Matthew --
where was he, what happened to him? In two tiny places in the first book and in
the second, throwaway lines, really, it is mentioned that you can't exist at the
same time, so 1590s Matthew is just sucked away into some void, to appear when
2012 Matthew leaves. For all of the many, many, many pages devoted to history
lessons and Matthew's blood rage and/or guilt, this is buried. So he's going to
be sent away out of England when he returns? So Elizabeth 1 will never question
what happened to him? So all of the servants and family never slip up and tell
him or get confused in the next 500 years? What about Louisa? And also remember
they were traipsing all over the Hapsburg empire ... you need to have some
consistency over what affects the future and what doesn't.
3) The ribbons ...
am I the only one who can't tell if they are real, actual ribbons or
metaphorical magical ribbons?
4) And being a weaver and how to do it ... lots
of words around it but again can't really say I get it. And it did sort of come
along very quickly at the end. (Diana herself admits that she should have been
concentrating on it.)
5) Diana's father -- this I did try to find more of in
A discovery of witches. The description of him here doesn't really seem to match
the description of him in the first book.
I usually go with the flow, and
I'm a pretty forgiving reader. But reading this is very hard, almost drugery --
not light reading at all. Which normally isn't an issue for me ... but this time
I feel that the author lost track of the story trying to shoehorn in all the
historical element. I hope everything is straightened out in the third book.
