The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield starts with an introduction to Margaret Lea, a young woman who works in a bookshop with her father, and writes small biographies of people long dead. Mysterious author Vida Winter wants Margaret to write Winter's biography and as Margaret begins talking to Winter, a long and winding tale unfolds. 

I thought this book was perfectly acceptable.  I didn't stay up late reading it, but it was always enjoyable when I was reading it. I think it's perfectly forgettable, though, and imagine I won't remember anything about it in a couple of weeks.

Lines of note:

1. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what  I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. (page 32)

This is so true, isn't it? There are many novels I've read as an adult, but none have the lasting impact that A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or Black Beauty had on me when I was a tween.

2. She'd have been a plain woman if it wasn't for that laugh of hers. (page 91)

I find this to be an oddly flattering line. 

3. When one is nothing, one invents. It fills a void. (page 115)

Young teenagers writing angsty poems know this feeling all too well.

4. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you?  You leave the previous book with ideas and themes - characters even - caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you. (I forgot to write the page number down and I returned the book! Argh!)

This is why I enjoy a good series. You can put a book down, but still cling to that membrane.

5. Angelfield House is decent enough at a distance, although it faces the wrong way and the windows are badly positioned...(page 315)

So many people made fun of my "southern facing" requirement for home ownership, but it really is important. The fact that we ended up buying a house that faces north is not lost on me.

6. ...but he is a man, hence cannot see how tiresome it is to have explained at length what one has already fully understood. (page 319)

Mansplaining in any time period is annoying.

Things I looked up:

Landier brother (page 16) - Brothers Jules and Edmond who Margaret wrote her first biography about in the novel.  There are a lot of allusions to real books and historical figures in this novel, so I assumed these brothers were just obscure characters from long ago, people I was not aware of, but it appears as if they might be based on Edmond and Jules Goncourt, naturalist brothers who were pioneers in French literature. 

Gammon (page 82) - Ham which has been smoked or cured like bacon. As a non-pork eater, I guess it's not surprising that I'd never come across this term. 

Amanuesis (page 97) -  A literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts 

Brougham (page 109) - A horse-drawn carriage with a roof, four wheels, and an open driver's seat in front. I looked this up because it seemed much too dated to be within the timeframe of the novel's story, but I guess it's a clue as to how long ago it really was.

Going nineteen to the dozen (page 155) - Very rapidly, hurriedly, and/or energetically. This was a new idiom to me. 

Parterre (page 339) - A level space in a garden or yard occupied to an ornamental arrangement of flower beds