Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brook

I used to love this season. The Wood stacked by the door, the tang of its sap still speaking of forest.

Title: Year of Wonders
Author: Geraldine Brooks
ISBN: 184115458
Publisher:Fourth Estate/2001
Pages: 304

Year of Wonders is about plague that took place in 1666, in an isolated Mountain village. The plague might have come there with an bolt of cloth from London. Anna Frith, the narrator, is a housemaid. In the midst of all this madness, she emerges as a strong heroine, who tries her best to heal. The plague destroys almost all of the village and also reason. Poeple go frenzy with madness and resort to witch hunting. Anna comes out stronger out of all this with faith, and love for people.

She loses here own family. That doesn't deter her from offering her services for healing those who need her. The minister of the village insists that they quarante their village so that it does not spread far and wide. Apart from a few handful, everyone agrees to it. In a way, 1666 becomes an Year of Wonders instead of Year of Plague.

Anna Firth comes out to be strong woman. She has faith in their minister and most important in the young wife of the minister. Their relationship is not that of a mistress and a servant but more like two sisters. Both love each other. Elinor teaches Anna to read too. Mr Mompellion, the minister loves his wife Elinor, which seems to be reciprocated well.

For all her goodwill, her healing powers, Anna is torn with misplaced love too. She is one of the survivors of the plague and she knows what she has to do at the end of it. We don't see Anaa failing us at any time and she has got her priorities right too. In those times when a woman was taken for a witch just because she could heal, Anna survives in more ways than one. With good writing, this makes an extremely readable book. Brooks has made that period of time come alive for us.

16 comments:

Anna said...

I've had my eye on this one for a while. Glad to see you liked it. Thanks for the review.

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric

Meghan said...

I really enjoyed this book too. It was a while ago but I definitely felt that Brooks made history come alive; this is my favorite of her books.

Care said...

I really enjoyed this book. Did you see that it's on the 50 books 'for our time' (or something. I suppose I should double check what exactly...) It's one of the few that I had read.

serendipity_viv said...

I am really looking forward to reading this one. I also have March by Geraldine Brook too.

Anonymous said...

I love books with strong women characters. Looks like a good one.

Karen Harrington said...

I loved this book so much that I gave my copy away. And here you make me want to read it again!

The Reading Momster said...

This is one author I really need to get to :) Thank You for the review!

Staci said...

I listened to an interview of this author and her voice drew me into the conversation. I really enjoyed learning about how she wrote this one and I need to add this to my TBR list...great review!!

ibeeeg said...

I really enjoy reading historical in nature books and this book sounds great!
I am most certainly going to read this one.

Sarah at SmallWorld said...

Absolutely loved this book. I just reviewed her People of the Book this week.

Framed said...

I loved this book. It was so well-written and Anna is a great character.

Teddyree said...

Enjoyed your review, this one has been sitting on my bookshelf for ages, I really should pick it up!

J.T. Oldfield said...

I've heard a lot of good things about this book, but most focus on the beginning. This was a very comprehensive review!

Beth F said...

Nice review. I have committed to reading this book by the end of the year and now I'm looking forward to it even more.

Jeanne said...

I loved this book. I'm glad you're telling more people about it!

Booklover Book Reviews said...

Great review - I really enjoyed this book also. I have included a direct link to your review in my post AUSSIE AUTHOR IN FOCUS - Geraldine Brooks, here http://bookloverbookreviews.blogspot.com/2010/01/aussie-author-in-focus-geraldine-brooks.html