It was while I was reading “The Mermaid’s Tale” — the twelfth tale — that I began to feel stirrings of an anxiety that was unconnected to the story itself. I was distracted: my thumb and right index finger were sending me a message: Not many pages left. The knowledge nagged more insistently until I tilted the book to check. It was true. The thirteenth tale must be a very short one. I continued my reading, finished tale twelve and turned the page.
Blank.
I flicked back, forward again. Nothing.
There was no thirteenth tale.
Much like with Diane Setterfield’s recent Once Upon a River, I read this (her earlier novel, The Thirteenth Tale) with a flickering smile of anticipation on my lips, waiting for a moment of ignition that felt guaranteed, but which then failed to arrive. An antiquarian bookseller interviewing a reclusive author in her mansion on the moors? A slow unspooling of ghosts and mysteries with a Gothic vibe? Modern(ish) events that sound straight out of a Brontë novel? A book about books and their readers and their authors, all circling around themes classic and contemporary, just should have worked for me — and it almost did, and I’m not quite disappointed — the writing is strong — but once again, Setterfield and I ultimately failed to click as anticipated. Three and a half stars, rounded down.
“Once upon a time there was a haunted house —”
I reached the door. My fingers closed on the handle.
“Once upon a time there was a library —”
I opened the door and was about to step into its emptiness when, in a voice hoarse with something like fear, she launched the words that stopped me in my tracks.
“Once upon a time there were twins—”
Margaret Lea — a serious young woman who lives above her family’s bookstore, amusing herself with the reading of old manuscripts and the writing of obscure essays on the little known lives she uncovers — is shocked to receive a summons from Britain’s greatest living author; the reclusive Vida Winter. Disdaining contemporary fiction, Margaret has never read any of Winter’s bestselling novels, but when she reads a collection of Winter’s classic fairytale retellings that completely engage her mind and soul, Margaret decides to accept the writer’s invitation. Margaret learns that the imperious Miss Winter intends for her to act as her biographer, and although she isn’t really interested in the task, Margaret is completely hooked by the author’s story as it begins, and the mysteriousness and spookiness of the tale keep Margaret — and the reader — engaged until the twisty end.
I liked that (for the most part) Vida Winter’s story could be shelved alongside Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, or The Lady in White — books that various characters throughout The Thirteenth Tale keep reading and referencing — and that made this read feel like both pastiche and homage. I don’t know if I found Winter’s story to be completely believable, but in the tradition of these Gothic classics, I was willing to suspend my disbelief (which made the eventual “twist” ending feel pretty ho-hum; I was prepped for a much bigger reveal than that). On the other hand, Margaret’s own story seemed needlessly melodramatic (and especially her relationship with her mother), and while I understand why it’s better, as a would-be biographer, for Margaret to bring experiences that help her to relate to her subject, I just never believed in the things that “haunted” her. It was all too much and not enough.
I read old novels. The reason is simple: I prefer proper endings. Marriages and deaths, noble sacrifices and miraculous restorations, tragic separations and unhoped-for reunions, great falls and dreams fulfilled; these, in my view, constitute an ending worth the wait. They should come after adventures, perils, dangers and dilemmas, and wind everything up nice and neatly. Endings like this are to be found more commonly in old novels than new ones, so I read old novels.
And so, in a way, Setterfield has written an old novel and I do like the way she tied things up with a “proper ending” (even adding a postscript in order to reveal the eventual fates of secondary characters), and while I was always interested to keep reading, to learn the whole story of Vida Winter, this wasn’t a particularly meaningful bit of literature; nothing deeply revelatory about the human condition (there are really no relatable characters); no grand statements on society; no mind-engaging playfulness with language or form. This is, however, an interesting story, well told.
