The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel | Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel | Diane Setterfield | A book for book lovers

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The Thirteenth Tal...

	The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel Diane Setterfield Washington Square Press, 2007 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 599 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Book Club Favorite

Great discussion in our book club and a great read that kept you guessing until the end.

A book for book lovers

First of all, I applaud Diane Setterfield, the author, for writing such a novel. I believe it must be a challenge to craft a story that is entirely plausible yet gripping and puzzling and unique.

The central character in The Thirteenth Tale is Margaret Lea, a reticent young woman who is the only child of parents who own a bookshop. I say parents, though it is Margaret's father who is the book expert who spends most of each day in the shop with Margaret. The father and daughter share a tender closeness that adds to the humanity of the book.

Margaret confesses that her love for books actually transcends her feeling for many of the people she knows. Her delight is to slip into bed each evening with a hot cup of cocoa on her bedside table and read for hours into the night. As she has a treasure trove of literary works at her fingertips and enjoys various genres of books, including historical accounts and biographies, she becomes intrigued at times by rather obscure figures in history and takes it upon herself to write small biographies on these men and women, which she occasionally has published.

Her work becomes noticed by a Miss Vida Winter, England's best-known author of her time. Out of the blue, Margaret receives a letter from Miss Winter, requesting Margaret's services to write her life's story. Margaret accepts the position, moves to Miss Winter's estate, and later learns that Miss Winter has given twelve earlier accounts of her life to various biographers, which she confesses have all been untrue. As Miss Winter relates the true account of her life to Margaret, what unfolds is a fascinating tale involving generations of a wealthy, recluse family with a truly dysfunctional lifestyle. There are whisperings of ghosts and ages-old family secrets, which are dark and disturbing.

What transpires is that Margaret grows and learns much about herself, as she first listens and then begins to investigate the truthfulness of Miss Winter's tale. Some pleasant resolutions occur regarding Margaret's and Miss Winter's lives toward the end of the book, which give a nice wrap-up to the many threads of plot woven throughout the story. Along the way, however, there are several cringe-worthy moments and mysterious occurrences that keep the reader riveted.

I will say that the story began a bit slowly for me, but I appreciate how Setterfield takes her time to include elegant descriptions of scenes and feelings and situations. The writing is superb. Also, I appreciate that this work does not include the vulgarity, profanity, violence, and sexual inappropriateness so prevalent in so many of today's novels.

Diane Setterfield is a gem, a writer with an elevated and praiseworthy style. Her tale is a moral one, with honorable characters who display acts of kindness and service, despite some genuinely troubling circumstances. This is definitely a novel worth reading.

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Excellent!

This was not my "type" of book, but I loved it. From the Victorian style writing to the true mystery surrounding the characters and the eerie details of the story, it was just a great read. The ending could have been shorter, but everything else was great.

A little heavy on the dysfunctional, but still a great read

Unsettling and gothic in its mood, and disturbingly eerie in its setting, Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale is a homage to the classic gothic Victorian novel. The author establishes a strange atmosphere, one that gets under your skin. One gets the sense that all is not right in Angelfield household, and that there is some startling or bizarre twist that is going to come out and shock or disturb the reader.

The novel is a ghost story in a sense, as each of the main two characters, Margaret Lea and Vida Winter, have untold pasts that come to haunt each in its own way. There are apparitions that seemingly cross Margaret's eyes, but then there are painful memories from the past that, when revealed, are more haunting. When Miss Lea, a biographer, goes to Vida Winter's residence with the opportunity of learning the renown author's life story, she not only opens up the door to the secrets of Winter's life, but her own.

One enjoyable aspect of Setterfield's work is the mysteriousness that rings forth. The author does enough to hold the reader in suspense all the while giving some insight into the background of the Angelfield household. The ominous appearance of Miss Winter's house is depicted early on: "Barred shutters blacked out the windows and there was not a single sign of human habitation. Closed in upon itself, the place seemed to shun visitors" (37). Miss Winter's failing health seems to add to the dreariness of the setting, and she slowly divulges the bizarre family secrets of Charlie, Isabelle, George Angelfield, Hester, Dr. Maudsley, and the mysterious twins, Adeline and Emmeline. Before everything is over, there will be a fire that sets in motion much tragedy for Miss Winter's family, and mistaken identities will be revealed. The author does enough to keep the wheels in motion, giving you little glimpses here and there so you can try to figure out what will happen next.

While I enjoyed the effort at creating mystery and mood, the overabundance of dysfunction was less-than-appealing. Between insane asylums, incest, murder, deadly fires, affairs, the book goes from Gothic to downright morbid at times. The shocking moments were attempts at furthering the plot and characterization, but come across as a means of gaining cheap "shock value", tabloid-type popularity.

However, the one hiccup doesn't detract from the over all impact of the book. It is a great novel to read on a cold, winter's night when you are thinking about curling up with a good mystery. I don't think it is quite five star material, but the next best thing.

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Book Club selection: I liked it

This was our first book club selection and all in all I really liked it. It kept you interested throughout. I understand the issues some people had with the ending - it got a little complicated and a little implausable. But it was good.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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