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Golden Hill
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Smith is a man of mystery- in his own word "he must remain the mercurial, the unreckonable stranger" This sort of set up always works well for me, though the crux comes when (if) there is a final reveal. I thought Spufford pulls it off. There were enough clues through the book as to the reason for his presence in New York, but the manner of the final wrap up was satisfying. I'd thought that Achilles and Zephyra were excellent supporting characters and their relatively small part in the narrative had all the more resonance at the conclusion
Jenny, yes, making the principal a newcomer make the early worldbuilding very natural: his reactions are often similar to ours. I was struck by the description of the motley specie that Lovell produces for Mr Smith's gold:"Lovell opened a box with a key from his fob chain and dredged up silver—worn silver, silver knocked and clatter'd in the battles of circulation which he built into a little stack in front of Smith. “A Mexica dollar, which we pass at eight-and-fourpence. A piece of four, half that. A couple of Portugee cruzeiros, three shillings New-York. A quarter-guilder. Two kreutzers, Lemberg. One kreutzer, Danish. Five sous. And a Moresco piece we can't read, but it weighs at fourteen pennyweight, sterling, so we'll call it two-and-six, New-York. Twenty-one and fourpence, total. Leaving a hundred and
twenty-nine, tenpence-halfpenny to find in paper."
Lovell accordingly began to count out a pile of creased and
folded slips next to the silver, some printed black and some printed red and some brown, like the despoiled pages of a prayerbook..."
Have just reread Golden Hill and I liked it even more the second time round. Of the characters, I thought Richard, the mystery man newly arrived in early 18th century New York, his politically connected pal Septimus, and Tabitha were memorable and fully realized. I did feel that the Richard-Septimus duel and Tabitha’s final response to Richard’s proposal bore the marks of a debut novel. But the English author is more skillful than any Americans I’ve read at revealing the too-little-known fact that early New York had a harsh form of slavery that played a central role in the city’s economy and in many inhabitants’ daily lives. Spufford's dad was an eminent economic historian at Cambridge, where his mother was also a fellow in social history. On present evidence, their son seems to have developed as keen an historical eye as his novelist's talent at populating the past with vivid, believable characters.
My full review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thank you, Gregory! A great reason to repair my shallow reading of this novel.
Gregory, I think you’re spot on with your comment about the duel and Tabitha’s response. I really enjoyed the book, but those were two of the things that I found myself less than thrilled with. I also thought the mysterious errand was pretty obvious which lessened the impact somewhat. I did really enjoy the meticulous attention to detail in describing the different cultures and enclaves and the way Spufford compared and contrasted 1740s New York and 1740s London. I look forward to his forthcoming novel later this year. I believe it’s set in the 1940s. For a first novel, this was a pretty impressive effort minus a few notes above.
Gregory wrote: "But the English author is more skillful than any Americans I’ve read at revealing the too-little-known fact that early New York had a harsh form of slavery that played a central role in the city’s economy and in many inhabitants’ daily lives..."Agree with your observation.
I also had no prior feel for the small size of New York. In the author notes Spufford confirms:
Populations 1746
New York 7,000
London 700,000
I was also struck, and awakened, to the significant, underlying influence of the Dutch in nascent New York
I really loved Spufford's prose. Just reading Mark's example above brings back that pleasure. I was less pleased with the insertion of contemporary, hot topic themes of homosexuality and race into the work. The homosexuality seemed superfluous to the whole and the race element seemed contrived and tested my suspension of belief. While those themes didn't completely spoil the work for me, I kind of ignored their presence, while concentrating on the aspects of the novel that I loved. Spufford kind of washes himself of the responsibility here by making the novel a creation of Tabitha's at the very end, but that did not assuage my complaints. For me the brilliance of the novel lay in Spufford's depiction of the relationship between Tabitha and Smith and I wish there had been more of it, not to mention more political intrigue involving the French, instead of the focus on slavery, which seemed preachy, considering the time period. From reading above remarks, others were not as sensitive to this as I, and it may not be fair to criticize because the author did not write the book I would have preferred,
Jenny wrote: "Gregory, I think you’re spot on with your comment about the duel and Tabitha’s response. I really enjoyed the book, but those were two of the things that I found myself less than thrilled with. I a..."Thanks, Jenny, for that most welcome news of a new Spufford novel this year. I will definitely keep on the lookout for it.
Gregory, if you’re lucky enough to live in the UK, it’s out on 2/4/21. Us yanks must wait until May, though I’m hopeful I can grab an ARC before then.
Hmmm. I'm reading at the end of Chapter 4, and a huge plot point is revealed: he has (shudder) a black ancestor! There is one major point of plausibility here, though: if this is such a deep secret, how does he imagine this letter to his father will be carried? Does he think it will pass unread through many New York hands? Also, his jail mate, the Monster, is almost unreadably vile, even here in 2021. Would Mr. Smith of 1746 have ever put such language into a letter, to his father? a clergyman?Now, I don't think the race element feels contrived; people have been "passing" since the human race first evolved. The whole point of passing is the conflict between smooth genetic variation and society's categorization.
Mod
Sam, I found another of the reader's errors: strangely, she missed "amours" at the end. Overall, her voice was well modulated, and the various accents she rendered were believable. I've got Queen's Gambit on audiobook now, and the reader, Amy Landon, has a strange flat affect with zero attempt to shape the speaker's individual voices. (Of course, since the central character spends the first two chapters tranked to the gills (at eight years old!), she may be adopting a proper tone...)Hugh, this was a second pass for me too, and it held up well.
I enjoyed this a lot, mainly for the descriptions of life in New York at the time. I found the conflict and co-existence of the English and Dutch immigrants very interesting - the different churches, festivals etc. The way they celebrated Christmas (or didn’t) was amusing but also quite revealing.I did feel there were some weaknesses in the plot, but the author left enough grey areas to get over it. Overall it was lively and entertaining, and I’m glad this group read got it moved up to the top of the TBR.
This book definitely felt like a first novel of an experienced writer. The language was lovely, but switched narrative stances several times - a chatty narrator who was clearly not omniscient to pure first person monologue, with every level of relationship to the protagonist in between. I liked the chatty narrator best although it emerged last, and when identified as Tabitha in the epilogue I finally felt like he had a vision of the book that could have hung together. If I was the editor I would have suggested a rewrite it with that voice, since once found it would have lifted this to a great read.
Jenna, really interesting analysis. My only "perception " was the huge plot hole that develops while he is in prison, and he WRITES DOWN his deepest secret. It could have been introduced as a thought that would have to be left out of the letter.
Mark, I agree with the letter as a kind of a plot vacuum, the verbatim dialogue seemed unlikely for example, and there is no explanation of how it could have gotten into Tabitha's hands, which at the end of the story you need it to have done, and why if abandoned would he not have been as anxious about it as about the charter in the pocketbook. The only reason to switch to first person here is so that the race issue can be revealed to the reader when the narrator of the first half supposedly didn't know it, although by that time I though it was obvious based on the scene with Septimus and Achilles and having him play Jura. I did think his escape with the slaves a bit pat, but redeemed by Tabitha getting the last word in. I would have liked to have had a growing sense of her growing voice as the narrator as an alternative protagonist all along.
When the setting for a story ends up becoming a character in its own right, the narrative ends up taking shape in the form of a great tale about to be told. This is exactly what Golden Hill was for me - a great story - exciting from beginning to end. The secrets are pervasive, a theme threaded through masterfully by the use of a third-person narration. I loved Spufford's command for this particular voice, creating a distance between the reader and Smith, another layer of intrigue in a story full of secrets. I found Golden Hill to be a well-crafted novel, it was rich in both language and history, and it kept my attention. I'm giving it four golden stars.
I just finished. I liked the writing and how the author captures the setting and some of the ambience, but the story just fizzled a little in the second half in my opinion and was all over the place. Still, I'm interested in checking out other works from this author.
There’s something particularly intriguing about presenting a setting through the eyes of a newcomer, seeing it all for the first time. This reminded me a lot of last month’s selection, The Adventures of China Iron. The same sense of wonder and newness was present in that novel as well.