[Books 2007] The Thirteenth Tale
Apr. 7th, 2007 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro23. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Short version: Go away, I'm reading.
It's got a supposedly haunted, decaying country house inhabited by an insane, decaying family, with the narrator trying to piece together the story 60 years later. Unsubtle hommage to Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Turn of the Screw and the collected works of Wilkie Collins (my personal favourite Victorian author).
Obvious parallels are The Quincunx by Charles Palliser, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and I suppose Wide Sargasso Sea, with the difference that this has a more modern (though vague in time) setting.
Some annoying stuff about the specialness of twins and occasionally a bit pretentious, but overall I couldn't put it down.
Short version: Go away, I'm reading.
It's got a supposedly haunted, decaying country house inhabited by an insane, decaying family, with the narrator trying to piece together the story 60 years later. Unsubtle hommage to Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Turn of the Screw and the collected works of Wilkie Collins (my personal favourite Victorian author).
Obvious parallels are The Quincunx by Charles Palliser, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and I suppose Wide Sargasso Sea, with the difference that this has a more modern (though vague in time) setting.
Some annoying stuff about the specialness of twins and occasionally a bit pretentious, but overall I couldn't put it down.
