17th Century New England Witches: Fact and Fiction

For the past two weeks, I haven't been reading much because I wasn't taking the bus every day, but I did manage to finish a novel by Alice Hoffman, The Probable Future.  As with all her novels, this one was about generations of women and their relationships with each other and the men in their life.  And there's always an element of magic with Hoffman's work; this story was no exception. In the case of the book's main characters, the Sparrow women, the magic goes all the way back to the 1600s in Massachusetts, with the appearance of a mysterious girl who walked out of the woods one day speaking gibberish, who attracted flocks of sparrows that perched on her as she worked in her garden, and who was later found to be unable to feel pain.  They took her for a witch, of course, and executed her for her supposed "crimes."

Her descendents all suffered in some way for their ancestor's deeds, and the story is in part about how they deal with that legacy.  It was a good story, compelling but with a nice, comfortable pace. There were mysteries to be unraveled for each generation of Sparrow women, and problems that found satisfying solutions by the end of the book. I recommend it highly.

In keeping with the theme of early Massachusetts, witchcraft and mysterious happenings, I'm now reading a history book, The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft & Conflict in Early New England, by Emerson W. Baker.  Mr. Baker is a history professor at Salem State College, and so he knows his witches.  The book tells about some strange doings in Maine and Massachusetts in the late 1600s (incidences of lithobolia, for instance) that many people of the time attributed to witchcraft; since then, they've been attributed to ghosts, poltergeists, and extraterrestrials.  It's pretty interesting so far, though I'm only about a quarter of the way through.

I started this book once before when I bought it to read about one of my ancestors, Jane Walford, who was one of the people featured in the stories.  I had put it aside because I was already involved in another book.  But now I'm committed to finishing it.

I'll let you know how things come out next time.

Detour: Story Sisters

I've read several books by Alice Hoffman, and they all seem to be about pain.  Her protagonists (nearly always women, often sisters) suffer from devastating loss and spend the novel trying to find a way to heal from it, to get through it or past it somehow.  Some of their suffering is self-inflicted, some dealt out by bad fortune.  The main characters come together and break apart over and over, but generally end in reconciliation. Sometimes supernatural forces are involved, sometimes not.

The Story Sisters repeats this pattern.  It is also about loss and suffering, but though the novel promises the supernatural, it delivers only mortal suffering.  The demons in this story turn out to be all too earthly: drugs, guilt, child abuse, self-destructive urges, despair, fear.

The narrative chronicles the lives of three sisters who enjoy reading and telling stories, but the title is also denotative: Story is their last name.  Though I didn't think of it while I was reading the book, afterward, when I was trying to sum up what I thought,  I was suddenly reminded of three other story sisters: the Brontes--Anne, Emily and Charlotte--19th century authors whose novels are still being read today.

When I started looking more closely, I saw more parallels: the three women, all with different personalities growing up in a single parent household; the imaginary world (the Brontes called their world Angria, the Story sisters Arnelle); the failed attempts at careers; the number of family deaths to mourn; the use of storytelling to cope with trauma.  It made me want to go back and read again about the Bronte sisters to find more connections.  I did that, starting with Wikipedia's article about the family: Bronte Family.

That research made me want to read Anne Bronte's work, something I haven't done before.  So perhaps I'll add The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to my list!

I chose The Story Sisters because of my experience with the author.  I was sure it would be a compelling read, and since I was going to be flying over the holidays, I knew I'd need something to fill up the uncomfortable hours I'd be spending wedged into an airplane seat. It worked quite well--I barely noticed the flight!

I recommend The Story Sisters highly--it's a sad story, but entertaining and rewarding as well. I also recommend learning about the Bronte sisters and reading their work. Both are definitely worth your time.

Happy New Year!

One thing I like about the holiday of New Year is that it's never too late to say "Happy New Year!" After all, what remains of the year is always before you, even when it's half over, so as long as it's still to come, there's still a chance it could be happy, and your wish could still come true.

So I'm taking the opportunity to say Happy New Year to all of you! I've been away visiting relatives and have neglected my blog, but I haven't neglected my reading.  While I was gone I not only finished House, but started and read another book on my list, The Story Sisters, a novel by Alice Hoffman.  Both were very entertaining, and I'm looking forward to telling you what I thought of them here.

Some of you may have seen the movie, Practical Magic, which was based on the book by the same name.  Alice Hoffman wrote that book and a number of others that have similar themes.  One of them is her latest, The Story Sisters, published last June. (An even newer novel will come out this month.) 

Hoffman's web site has this to say about her work: "In her spellbinding novels, Alice Hoffman weaves magic and fairy tales into plots thick with today’s gritty realism" (Hoffman).  I like that description, but there's more to it than that, and you can rest assured I will elaborate--and soon!