All Souls
Some might expect that a blog headed All Souls will be concerned with All Souls College at the University of Oxford. While that is a fascinating place, it is not the subject of this set of comments (well, it is, marginally: you’ll see a little more on this later). This is a quite different All Souls, the name given to a trilogy of fantasy books written by Deborah Harkness, the first of which appeared in 2011. However, the series does begin at the University of Oxford, with an American academic receiving a collection of old manuscripts, each of which contains some alchemical illustrations. Dr Diana Bishop is visiting Oxford to complete a research project on experimentation back in the 17th Century. Her interest was in showing alchemists weren’t just about trying to turn lead into gold, but actually establishing systematic experimentation, the beginnings of modern science.
The opening paragraph of A Discovery of Witches gives a little hint of the journey we are about to commence:
“The leather-bound volume was nothing remarkable. To an ordinary historian, it would have looked no different from hundreds of other manuscripts in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, ancient and worn. But I knew there was something odd about it from the moment I collected it.”
To an ‘ordinary historian’? ‘But I knew there was something odd about it’?
Antennae already up, it took just a couple of pages before we were about to go deeper into this tale. Diana Bishop is in the same part of the library as Gillian Chamberlain, and walking past her as quickly as she can, Diana’s “skin tingled as it always did when another witch looked at me”. Gillian is hoping to get Diana to spend some time with her ‘sisters’ as the Autumn equinox is just a few days away, a time for Wiccan celebrations. As with so many novels, a few pages further in and we have reached in decision point: is this book for me? It took just one more sentence describing Diana’s musing to convince me: “In kindergarten I’d asked my friend Amanda’s mother why she bothered washing the dishes with soap and water when all you needed to do was stack them in the sink, snap your fingers, and whisper a few words”! Diana was counselled by her parents to be careful about magic and who she spoke on the topic. Yes, I was hooked.
I can see a second admission might be needed. Not only is this about witches, nor life in a distinguished all-male college, but I do know it is fantasy. I don’t believe in witches; not do I believe in vampires – who represent another key element in this trilogy. But then again, I didn’t believe in hobbits, or Luke Skywalker. Loving fantasy and science fiction isn’t about believing any of it is true, in that sense, but worthwhile fiction of any kind is about relationships, events, consequences, fate and unexpected outcomes, and Deborah Harkness delivers on all of these. It’s not surprising. She is an American scholar and novelist, best known as a historian. She is a professor of history and teaches European history and the history of science at the University of Southern California. The advantage of her professional life is obvious: she is able to include enough convincing ‘faction’ in her writing to make her stories work.
Indeed, some elements of her novel sprang directly from Harkness’ own life: she has revealed she spent many hours engaged in research in Oxford University’s famous Bodleian Library, and that in the course of her work she discovered an ancient – and long-lost – book of spells, the Book of Soyga. The Book of Soyga, also titled Aldaraia, is a 16th-century Latin treatise on magic, and apparently it contains incantations and instructions on magic, astrology, demonology, as well as all sorts of astral phenomena, explanation of the various phases and houses of the moon, and the names and genealogies of angels! Equally and similarly suspiciously relevant (!), the book contains 36 large squares of letters which studies have been unable to decipher. Otherwise unknown medieval magical treatises are cited, including works known as liber E, liber Os, liber dignus, liber Sipal, and liber Munob.
The best fiction is always close to fact! Deborah Harkness clearly drew on her academic work as a historian of science. There are various references to real alchemical processes as well as to a multitude of historical figures, particularly from the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Furthermore, I read that the inclusion of Elias Ashmole and his collection of rare alchemical manuscripts gives the novel a solid historical foundation. Guess what: central to the story, Ashmole 782 is a real alchemical text that is missing from the Ashmole collection.
I doubt you will read the trilogy just because I liked it. I doubt you will read it just because the author has an extensive and relevant knowledge about the time and its works. Books about witches, vampires and demons are clearly in a distinct category: many people won’t read them, and many others find this area of fantasy not to their taste. However, if you are one of that happy minority who enjoys such stuff, it’s a great story. Perhaps I should tell you a bit more about the content, first.
A Discovery of Witches is the first instalment in the All Souls trilogy. Diana Bishop is a Yale history of science professor who is conducting research at the University of Oxford, and, incidentally, is a witch. However, she has rejected this aspect of her life since the death of her parents when she was seven. She has not learned to practice witchcraft and has minimized her interaction with other witches. When she is researching in the library, she requests a book from the archives as part of the material on which she’s writing a paper. This is the document called Ashmole 782, a medieval manuscript, also known as the Book of Life.
It has been missing for over 150 years., but when she asks for it, it appears and is delivered to her desk. As soon as Diana touches the ancient manuscript, her powers as a witch are activated. Frightened by her clear supernatural connection to Ashmole 782, Diana quickly returns the book. It appears, however, that her discovery had already caught the attention of other creatures, some of whom were in the library. In no time a all, a series of events unfold that slowly brings her witch heritage and family back into her life.
The second key person in this story is Matthew Clairmont. He is a vampire who has spent at least 150 years looking for that same book. He is also a researcher at the University of Oxford, and I should also add, for the sake of clarity, that among his positions at the university he is a Fellow at All Souls College (but that position is not central to the story!).When word travels that the book is in Oxford, he races over expecting to see the book but instead, he encounters Diana Bishop. Without getting into too much detail (and hopefully encouraging you to read the book) Matthew’s vampiric protective instincts set in, and he makes it his responsibility to ensure Diana’s safety.
The word ‘safety’ is an interesting one. As the story progresses, a forbidden romance starts to bloom between the vampire and the witch, forbidden between two different kinds of creature. As she learns more about Ashmole 782, Diana Bishop finds that for her own safety and for the well-being of magical creatures, she must re-think her avoidance of magic and the worlds of witches, vampires and daemons. With Matthew Clairmont’s help, she sets out to discover more about her powers and gain control over her magic. Central to the story is a series of questions about the origin of all supernatural species, and author Deborah Harkness does an excellent job in drawing on alchemical and historic sources for reference, some real, and some given verisimilitude by her knowledge of the area.
In case you haven’t guessed, I found the story compelling. Fantastical, sure. A romantic drama. Certainly. Set in locations including Oxford, remote parts of France, the ‘witch country’ of Massachusetts, and other delightful settings, it is persuasive and intriguing. According to Harkness, the novel began as ‘a thought experiment’ after she noticed the plethora of novels surrounding vampires and magic at an airport bookshop. She realised people still wanted to read about the same sorts of subjects as they would have in the past, including the supernatural. “In some ways I think their popularity right now is about our feeling that we still want there to be magic and enchantment in the world,” she suggested. “Magic provides a way of still having room for possibilities, an unlimited sense of what the world offers. Magic is always there when science is found wanting.” (quoted in the NZ Herald, 17 November 2012).
Am I trying to persuade you to read the All Souls Trilogy? I guess I am, so I will add critics have praised Harkness’ attention to detail and history as “rare in paranormal romance novels”. One review described it as a “rare historical novel that manages to be as intelligent as it is romantic [and] it is supernatural fiction that those of us who usually prefer to stay grounded in reality can get caught up in.” (Steve Bennett, Steve, in the February 17, 2011, San Antonio Express-News). Another critic commented “its erudite references to the leather-bound boards of incunabulae and secret ingredients in medieval inks make it a welcome relief,” and Margot Adler inn NPR called it “a tour de force, an artful and unusually skilled blending of hard science, history and the supernatural.” (in January 2013).
Time to get back on track. I know some readers are more willing to read fantasy stories set in other worlds, everything from Lord of the Rings onwards. That was the path that took me to Ursula K Le Guin and A Wizard from Earthsea. It was a short step to then read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, then Harry Potter, Inkheart, His Dark Materials, and so many more. Fantasy in other worlds is now a huge area, and A Wrinkle in Time, and The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe seem like stories from another time, authored back in the distant past. It’s a genre that keeps me happy, and there are always new writers and new worlds to explore: right now it’s The Poppy War, The Fifth Season, and even more recently several Greek myths retold.
However, All Souls sits in a distinct category. Partly this is because the setting is this world. However, it is a version of this world, and by the time we get to the second book in the trilogy we are in a version of this world 400 years earlier, (and some unkind people might even suggest that Oxbridge today is more like the way the world was back in the past!). It seems to me there are two ways fantasy writers link ‘our time and world’ to the one that they have constructed. In many cases, there is a way in which the protagonists can slip from the here and now to elsewhere, a doorway (in the back of a cupboard), a magical phrase, or just simply taking a step forward. The other alternative is to make it clear that the ‘other world’ has always been around us, and it’s just that we haven’t seen it.
Stephenie Meyer understood that well. Her romance fantasy series about vampires and werewolves starts in a high school parking lot when one student’s car almost drives into another’s. Almost without noticing, you are being sucked into this adventure. So, that nice looking boy is more than you first thought, as Isabella Swan discovers. Then, almost seamlessly you realised that not only is Edward Cullen considered sexy looking, but he is a vampire. It’s not great literature, but Stephenie Meyer knows how to add twists and other possibilities into a romance, enough to capture a gullible reader like me. I can’t remember why I started to read Twilight (perhaps I took it out from the library, or more likely, picked it up at a second-hand bookstore) but there was enough there to ensure I would go on to read the second book. After that, I had to finish the series, and almost breathed a sigh of relief when I got to volume four, Breaking Dawn. I didn’t need to see the movie version.
All Souls is another romantic fantasy. However, Deborah Harkness has an edge over Stephenie Meyer: her trilogy is stuffed full of people, events, documents and accounts that are historically based, many of them almost true, as, indeed, is much of the background. The curious thing about this is that all that credible stuff isn’t the reason I enjoyed All Souls. I’ve read the trilogy a couple of times, and enjoyed it as fiction, with the historical verisimilitude mere background. As for the antics of witches, daemons and vampires, well their fictional antics are fun, but quite unconvincing … although Harkness is very clever in the ways in which she manages to slip in all sorts of real and pseudo-science.
Perhaps I am asking the wrong questions. I was rereading All Souls at the same time as I was reading a series of novels by Deanna Raybourn. Her Veronica Speedwell series is great fun, too, about an unlikely 19th Century pair: Veronica is a lepidopterist and together with her taxidermist ally Stoker, is in the business of getting into solving crimes (often with considerable dangerous adventures part of the process). What links these two series? They are both set in the past, historical novels if you like; they are both romances; they both involve puzzles, murders, and solving complex issues. They are complementary to my other area of leisure reading, murder mysteries.
Ah, there’s the other clue. If I look at those murder mysteries, which are the ones I like more than most? First up on my list are Wimsey, Dalgleish, Lynley, Strike, Rebus, Kincaid and James. I’d better stop there (the list could get very long), but almost all of them have a strong personal romance theme in them too. It seems I love mystery and fantasy, but especially if there is a strong romantic element, too. Currently I have been reading The Dales Detective Series by Julia Chapman, thoughtfully available through the local library. The stories are fine, but the additional twist is the not-quite relationship between suspended detective Samson and website writer Delilah (yes, I know, but the silliness of the names seems to work!). I’m a romantic!
Given this, how could I not like the All Souls trilogy. It seems to have been written for a person who likes mysteries, romance, and the academic world. Starting in an Oxford college (why Oxford, I keep asking myself), a scholar researching strange historical manuscripts and doing so with an audience of vampires and witches, and then toss in the romantic element, and it seems destined to meet my leisure reading loves.
Now I have to face one more question. It seems Deborah Harkness has written a new book (probably the first volume in another trilogy), involving some of the same characters. Am I going to put in a request at the local library for this new book. At this point, I don’t think I am. Why not? I enjoyed the shape of the story in All Souls, and it felt complete. There’s a risk the next cycle won’t be as good. I think I’m happy with what I’ve read and will wander off looking for a new series by a new author. Any suggestions?
