3.5 stars. The Infanta Eulalia of Spain is a disappointment: another girl to add to the royal nursery, rather than the longed-for second son to secure3.5 stars. The Infanta Eulalia of Spain is a disappointment: another girl to add to the royal nursery, rather than the longed-for second son to secure the family line. But she is, nevertheless, a princess and such a child must be raised in state. Officials searching for a wet nurse find and hire Amalia, a woman from Burgos with a bouncing, healthy baby boy of her own, christened Tomás. Amalia is offered a small fortune to come to Madrid to serve at the palace, with one free day each month to meet her husband. Her decision to accept is the point from which several different stories spiral outward, affecting the lives of those involved far into the future. Chantel Acevedo’s novel resurrects, on captivating form, a very real Spanish princess (1864-1958) who questioned convention, who loved and lost and travelled, who wrote with a fierceness and freedom that none of her predecessors had dared, and who sought to broaden the boundaries of her own stifling world...
Amalia Cresques is descended from the great family of Majorcan cartographers who produced the Catalan Atlas in 1375 (they are historical figures, thouAmalia Cresques is descended from the great family of Majorcan cartographers who produced the Catalan Atlas in 1375 (they are historical figures, though she is invented). As a child growing up in Seville in the 1430s she experiences the struggle of converso life: outwardly living as a Christian, but secretly continuing to celebrate the rituals of her family's Jewish faith. When tragedy strikes her family, Amalia moves to Portugal with her mapmaker father, where he serves Henry the Navigator in charting the new discoveries along the African coast. Here, in the environment of a (temporarily) tolerant court, she finds the foundations of her future, through marriage and through an increasingly warm friendship with the Abravanel family of Jewish advisers and scholars. But this happy balance can't last long, and Amalia and her friends must soon come to terms with ever increasing hatred and discrimination - which eventually looks set to drive them from their country altogether. It's a sombre and sobering piece of history.
Despite the book's fascinating subject, there are certain elements which aren't carried off quite as successfully. I found some of the characterisation rather simplistic and was especially struck by the fact that certain relationships felt like dramatic necessities rather than genuine emotional connections. This was particularly true of Amalia's great love affair, which seemed to happen very quickly and which had plenty of physical description but not, in my opinion, a correspondingly deep emotional conviction. Having said this, the story will still be of interest to those who are keen to learn more about this period, or who have an interest in Jewish culture and history. Corona describes Jewish customs with great warmth and respect, and the book was most interesting for me in this respect, as I knew so little about them. But unfortunately overall, as a novel, it just didn't quite grab me.
In both its subject and its point of view this is a fascinating book, because it deals with an aspect of Renaissance history that we very rarely see iIn both its subject and its point of view this is a fascinating book, because it deals with an aspect of Renaissance history that we very rarely see in historical fiction - life in Gharnata (Grenada) in circa 1499-1500, after the city's fall to Ferdinand and Isabella - and a perspective that is similarly represented - that of the Muslim citizens suffering Christian oppression. As their liberties and religious freedom are slowly eroded by the queen's confessor Ximenes de Cisneros, and as the shadow of the Inquisition looms on the horizon, the men and women of Gharnata must make their choice about how to live in this new world. Will they convert, in order to keep their lands? Flee to Africa? Or stand and fight? We follow one noble family and their retainers - the Banu Hudayl - as they tackle these questions, while still trying to draw what pleasure from life they can.
The concept behind the book is well worth your time - but unfortunately the writing is heavy-handed and sometimes simply weak. The point of view dances about between characters in a single scene, sometimes within a matter of lines, and dialogues are often simply ways to have one character tell another a large slice of backstory or family history. Despite their moving setting, the characters never quite come to life enough for me to really care about them - and these stylistic issues were distracting enough to undermine my pleasure in the story itself. This is still worth reading if you're interested in the period or religious history, because there don't seem to be many other novels which take such an original perspective on the Renaissance, but personally I found it extremely hard to engage with it.
For the elite, Spain in the 1620s is a world of stately protocol, fine poetry and all the trappings of a great empire: the sun may be setting on SpaniFor the elite, Spain in the 1620s is a world of stately protocol, fine poetry and all the trappings of a great empire: the sun may be setting on Spanish dominance in the New World, but there’s still enough light to enjoy it while it lasts. Outside the insulated world of the court, however, things are very different. For the man on the street, it’s a world of living hand-to-mouth, gossip on street corners and scurrilous sonnets, where every insult is met with steel and where the appearance of gentility (bearing arms, getting good seats at the theatre) is more important than the reality. Into this roistering world of old soldiers, literary priests and jobbing poets comes young, wide-eyed Íñigo, whose mother has sent him to live with his late father’s comrade-in-arms, Captain Alatriste...
The Idle Woman
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