Whilst volunteering in the library, I was given a
book with the suggestion that it should be put forward for the reading group.
The book was ‘How to Ruin a Queen’ by Jonathan Beckman. The reviews described
it as a ‘rollicking whodunit’; ‘a terrific tale’, ‘Beckman tells this scarcely
believable story with flair’.
It’s actually a history book, not fiction, relating events
surrounding Marie-Antoinette and the French Court. When reading this book, you
also need an extremely good dictionary to hand to be certain of fully
understanding such literary ventures as:
‘His lack of resolve deliquesced into self-destructive generosity’, or ‘the
marquis’s face torqued itself incredulously’.Would you want to be described as a ‘milquetoast nonentity’?
It’s always good to stretch our vocabulary and perhaps mine
isn’t as good as other people’s, but it made me think: what is the point of
writing, whether it’s fiction or fact?
Firstly, I suppose we do it because we enjoy it, so perhaps
Mr Beckman enjoys using extremely literary language (or perhaps he just enjoys
using a thesaurus) regardless of who might be reading the book. But as Andrew
said at one meeting ‘everything is for the reader, not the writer.’
Secondly, we write to communicate. For that we need to know
our audience. If the audience for this book is limited to those who can read it
without recourse to a dictionary, then it’s a hit, but in that case, should it
be in a general public library?
If the audience was expected to be Joseph Public (slightly posher
and better educated than his cousin, Joe, but not by much) then surely fewer
break-teeth words would be more appropriate? Instead of ‘The peers … had
recused themselves …’ why not just say they’d disqualified themselves, which is
all recused means. Instead of referring to ‘the monitions of the Brunswick
manifesto’, couldn’t he have just used that good old English word ‘admonitions’?
It’s longer and almost as posh. Why use an archaic ‘parlously’ instead of
perilously, or pusillanimous instead of timid? Why labile instead of
unstable? And if anyone really knows what
he means by describing Marie Antoinette as a ‘steepling bulwark’ because she blocked the ambitions of Cardinal de
Rohan, please let me know. I’m assuming he means she was confident, or possibly
evil, but whether she was in the habit of steepling her fingers, I’ve no idea.
Is it a good book? I’m finding it interesting and enjoyable
to read, despite the constant breaks for research. I’m extending my vocabulary and revising quite
a few words which I know but sometimes need to check and I now know what a
Mansard roof is when I see one. It’s
well researched, probably factually correct, and covers a little known aspect
of French history. Is it ‘good’? I think that depends on what you want from a book,
whether you want simply to be entertained or to stretch your brain, which it
certainly does.
Still, I felt ever so slightly smug when I found Beckman’s
own description of the book beginning ‘It explores how history is comprised of
the stories told by its participants …’, for, as we all know, this is
shockingly bad grammar – and from a Cambridge graduate with double first in
English, too. Oh, tut, tut!
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