Year of Wonders in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Apr 22, 2011 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, literary-fiction, fiction, novels, ultimate-reading-list

For almost all its length, this is a first-rate work of historical fiction about the plague year of 1666 in a remote village in England which decided to quarantine itself to halt the spread of the epidemic. The prose is luminous, with just enough of a tint of the language of the period to evoke a different place and time without losing the clarity and intimacy of the first person narrative. The narrator and protagonist, Anna Firth, is easy to identify with and care about, with enough flaws to ma For almost all its length, this is a first-rate work of historical fiction about the plague year of 1666 in a remote village in England which decided to quarantine itself to halt the spread of the epidemic. The prose is luminous, with just enough of a tint of the language of the period to evoke a different place and time without losing the clarity and intimacy of the first person narrative. The narrator and protagonist, Anna Firth, is easy to identify with and care about, with enough flaws to make her interesting and human. We see the best and worst in people the crisis brings out, tempering some like steel, breaking others. Despite the dark subject, reading it never felt bleak during the course of the epidemic because the novel showed the light in people and not just the dark, and more than once I was moved close to tears.

But then there's the ending, which I hated, particularly the epilogue. And no, I don't hate it because it's not some idyllic happily ever after. The novel is subtitled "a novel of the plague" announcing it's largely tragic, just as the first person signals this is also a tale of survival. I was disappointed in the way the plot subverted the Christian faith of the people that inspired their sacrifice in the first place. I'm not a Christian myself, and I have my issues with a lot of the Christian creed--and from the beginning the novel shows the dark side of the villagers' beliefs, which leads to witch hunts and flagellation in attempts to turn away a wrathful God, but their faith also was at the core of so much that was inspiring and good. Maybe it's just knowing this is based on the true story of Eyam, so that how Anna winds up geographically and spiritually feels somehow a betrayal of what these people endured to save their neighbors. Besides, aspects of the ending are so implausible, after the realism of what went before, and just plain wtf. Were it not for the ending, I'd have rated the novel five stars and propped it up on my Goodreads Favorites bookshelf. Easily. ...more

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