Stories magically unfold within this novel’s irresistible tale of Miss Julia Garnet, a schoolteacher who decides, after the death of her longtime friend Harriet, to take an apartment for six months in Venice. Soon overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the city and its magnificent art, Miss Garnet’s English reserve begins to melt away. For the first time in her life she falls in love—with an art dealer named Carlo—and her once ordinary world is further transformed by a beautiful Italian boy, Nicco, and an enigmatic pair of twins engaged in restoring the fourteenth-century Chapel-of-the-Plague. Most affecting to Julia, though, is her discovery in a local church of panels depicting the ancient tale of Tobias and the Angel. As Julia unravels the story of Tobias’s redemption, she too strives to recover losses—not just her own but also the priceless painting of an angel that goes mysteriously missing from the Chapel along with one of the twins restoring it. His name is Toby. And Miss Garnet herself may prove to be an angel, but nowhere in this haunting, beautifully textured and multilayered novel is anything quite what it appears to be.
MY THOUGHTS:
I made a new year's resolution to read some of the books of the Apocrypha, because I'm unfamiliar with them, so I made a start with the strange and bizarre book of Tobit. In a nutshell, a righteous old man turns blind when sparrows poop in his eyes, then sends his son on a long journey to acquire some family funds they're entitled to. The Angel Raphael accompanies the boy on his travels, incognito. In the process, young Tobias catches a fish with astoundingly specific healing properties and acquires a beautiful wife with a history of accidental husband slaying. That unusual tale led me to this novel, because it's been on my shelf for a while and I knew it draws greatly from the old story.
Miss Julia Garnet is a pedantic retired school teacher with Marxist ideals. After the sudden death of her housemate Harriet, she decides to take a six-month holiday alone in Venice. Since she's not the sort of person who appreciates the opulent, iconic character of the Catholic church tradition it seems an odd choice of destination. Yet Venice rubs off on Julia, along with the hunch that there may, after all, be more depth to the world than the ho-hum, everyday sliver of life she's used to. The Apocryphal story of Tobias and the angel comes to her attention through artwork everywhere, and then to Miss Garnet's surprise, she finds herself caught up in an unfolding, modern counterpart of that ancient story.
Even though the premise sounded so ambitious and appealing, I found the modern parallel way too heavy handed and unsubtle. It is clear who each new character is meant to represent, and Vickers had to tweak her plot in all sorts of far-fetched tangents to pull off her analogy. What's more, Julia Garnet struck me as a tedious, woeful protagonist whose head space I kept wanting out of. She seems to be forever bumping into things and hurting herself, or second-guessing others in her dithery efforts to gauge their intentions towards her.
My favourite parts of the novel by far were the retellings straight from the Book of Tobit itself. Salley Vickers assumes the voices of the dad Tobit and son Tobias brilliantly, to the extent that I grumbled whenever we were back with Julia again, even though she's the main character. Yet if I hadn't read the book of Tobit just before reading this novel, they would've gone over my head.
Even here, I would've loved more about the awkward position of poor Tobias, the boy who'd been coerced to get betrothed to a girl whose inner demon had murdered seven new husbands on their wedding night as they attempted to consummate the marriage. How would you feel knowing you stood a fair chance of being number eight? Maybe the black humour of the original tale is unintentional, but I love how his new father-in-law admits he'd been preparing a spot for him in the family crypt as Tobias headed to Sarah's bedroom, basically admitting, 'I thought you were a goner, mate.'
At one point, Salley Vickers has Tobit say, 'I've come to see that bungling is what all of us do. Perhaps bungling is what we are here for.' That might be my best takeaway, since I feel she's sort of bungled her handling of the Book of Tobit, which doesn't lend itself easily to modern knock-offs. For example, the modern counterparts of Toby and Sarah are a young pair of supposed twins restoring an ancient Venetian church. That in itself is a highly unlikely stretch of credibility.
Julia Garnet undoubtedly softens and mellows as a character, yet all through she seems to be the same finicky spinster who insists on having tradesmen address her as, 'Miss' rather than 'Mrs' rather than just letting it pass. Still, I can't deny Vickers gave it a good try, resulting in something almost as bizarre as the original. I remained just curious enough to keep turning pages to find out how this modern mess of an adaptation would turn out.
🌟🌟
No comments:
Post a Comment