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Summary: Esoteric subject brought to life by the talented Bainbridge
Review: "According To Queeney (ATQ)", Beryl Bainbridge's historical fictional account of the last 20 years of Samuel Johnson's life, will appeal especially to readers who have some background of the subject but it won't shut out the rest of us who don't. Although Bainbridge parades her huge supporting cast of characters to readers with scarcely an introduction as if we're on first name terms with them, it doesn't take long for us to catch up...and we make the effort because after a slow start, we're intrigued as we read on. Bainbridge's disciplined, economical yet eloquent prose stimulates our curiousity and brings to life a subject the non-literary minded may justifiably consider esoteric. ATQ doesn't seek to compete with Boswell's biographical masterpiece because it is fiction. What Bainbridge offers is a personal and intimate profile - warts and all - of a great lexicographer and an eminent man of letters who in his twilight years has become a sickly, strange tempered and eccentric old man. This profile is developed from his imagined life as a permanent house guest of Southwark brewer, Henry Thrale and his wife, Hester on whose emotional support he grows increasingly to rely. Through the eyes of young Queeney, the Thrales' eldest daughter, we observe the lifestyle of Johnson and the Thrales, how they behave, the fellow artistes they consort with and their meticulously organised travels to Europe. More interestingly, we detect the development of a curious relationship between the crotchety Johnson and his hostess, the unhappy and shallow Hester. Not quite "the story of unrequited love " suggested by critics, it is nevertheless a relationship founded upon mutual need and one that isn't in the least obvious or easy to discern. That it should end the way it did doesn't surprise. The story is also littered with incidents of spite, bitterness and petty jealousies among the servants in Johnson's own household as they compete for their master's affection. There is ironically a subplot of "unrequited love" in the story but not where you expect to find it. Queeney's voice is sour and reluctant throughout. She was a precocious child - that's why Johnson was so fond of her and became her Latin tutor - but the sentiment isn't especially reciprocated. Her letters as an adult to various Johnson researchers seeking corroboration and evidence reveal a less than enthusiastic friend, if ever she was one. What does that tell you about Johnson's success as an individual ? ATQ is a quietly confident historical novel of Johnson's erratic life that will appeal to the literary minded, afficionados as well as those who simply love good writing. Bainbridge must be the most often shortlisted fictional author - ever - for the Booker Prize. She's earned her dues and played bridesmaid long enough. Let's hope she wins it some day. ATQ didn't make it beyond the longlist. More's the pity because so few contemporary writers today possess Bainbridge's virtues. With her, less is more.
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Summary: An easy read, and a depressing one.
Review: Beryl Bainbridge is nothing short of a genius. Her According to Queeney is a witty and wonderful masterpiece and reveals a side of Samuel Johnson little seen. The focus of the novel is his friendship with the Thrale family, in particular, Hester, the wife and mother. The Queeney of the title is Hester's eldest, and very precocious, daughter. In the novel, Johnson is portrayed as brilliant, but difficult--moody, depressed, obsessed, the list goes on. Bainbridge's novel is witty--full of sparkling dialogue and wonderful prose. Enjoy.
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Summary: Brilliant and Witty
Review: Beryl Bainbridge is nothing short of a genius. Her According to Queeney is a witty and wonderful masterpiece and reveals a side of Samuel Johnson little seen. The focus of the novel is his friendship with the Thrale family, in particular, Hester, the wife and mother. The Queeney of the title is Hester's eldest, and very precocious, daughter. In the novel, Johnson is portrayed as brilliant, but difficult--moody, depressed, obsessed, the list goes on. Bainbridge's novel is witty--full of sparkling dialogue and wonderful prose. Enjoy.
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Summary: The Darker Side of Samuel Johnson
Review: Beryl Bainbridge seems to be an author people either love or hate; there just doesn't seem to be much inbetween. Personally, I love her books and I think she certainly must be one of today greatest living authors. "According to Queeney" is, in my opinion, one of Bainbridge's very best. In this book she tells us much about the life and times of Samuel Johnson, the 18th century poet, editor of Shakespeare, journalist, critic, lexicographer, novelist, biographer and playwright. Most people owe what they do know about Samuel Johnson to James Boswell whose biography of Johnson is considered by many to be the greatest biography ever written and surely the greatest ever written in the English language. Boswell, however, committed a grave error when he wrote his biography of Johnson; he fell in love with his subject matter. Boswell revered Johnson so much that he simply couldn't bring himself to include the darker side of Johnson's life, and it did have its darker side. It is this side...the darker one...that Bainbridge explores in "According to Queeney." As anyone who's ever engaged in gossip knows, our darker moments are far more interesting that are our lighter ones. No wonder this book is so good. Queeney really did exist and she really was acquainted with Johnson. Her real name was Hester Maria Thrale and she was the eldest daughter of Hester Lynch Thrale and Henry Thrale, a wealthy, 18th century brewer who just happened to be Johnson's closest friend and confidante. Queeney is even mentioned in Boswell's biography of Johnson; she died in 1858, at the age of ninety-four, so she was no doubt the last surviving person to actually know Johnson personally. The lives of Johnson and the Thrale's were intertwined, to some extent, for a full twenty years. Johnson retained his own room in the home of the Thrales, called "Streatham Park," and he even taught Latin to the Thrale children. His confidante extraordinaire became Mrs. Thrale, and, by all accounts, she came to know the deeper, darker side of the great Samuel Johnson. Bainbridge has chosen to tell her story of Johnson from several viewpoints, all to the good, I think. We encounter an omniscient, third-person narrator; an assortment of Johnson's friends; Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, of course; Johnson's housekeeper; Mrs. Desmoulins, a one-time companion to Johnson's wife; and Queeney, the most important and by far, the most captivating. Queeney's story is told in her own voice and through a series of genuine letters that are strewn throughout the book. The letters were written years after Johnson's death and are in the form of reminiscences. They give us a very vivid picture of Samuel Johnson, not according to Boswell, but, as Bainbridge tells us "according to Queeney." Bainbridge's (and Queeney's) Samuel Johnson is a far darker, and more interesting personality than the one we meet in the pages of Boswell's biography. According to Queeney, Johnson was a man who suffered from frequent bouts of melancholia, was sexually repressed, had a morbid fear of death and even showed some striking masochistic tendencies. "According to Queeney" opens with Johnson's autopsy (right away, we know this is going to be a "dark" book), and works its way backwards. The action then focuses on the year 1766; Johnson had known the Thrale's for about a year and Queeney was almost two years old. Johnson, who was childless, definitely saw himself as a "father figure" to the charming and strong-willed Queeney (and her sisters) and he would be a major influence on her life for the next twenty years. When Johnson met Queeney and the other Thrale's, he was already deeply mired in the mental and physical illness that plagued him for the rest of his life. Bainbridge writes many engrossing set pieces and scenes in which Johnson confronts the demons that haunt his waking and sleeping hours. These set pieces are all exquisitely and precisely written and provide a vivid portrait of Johnson...as he really was. Johnson was, as we are shown (not told), a man who constantly wavered between madness and wisdom. While Boswell would have us believe that Johnson was remarkable for only his virtues, Bainbridge generously lets us know that he was also remarkable for his weaknesses, especially masochism. This doesn't, however, make Johnson thoroughly unlikable; Bainbridge presents Johnson as supremely human, a man who was beset by vices, but who didn't give in to them willingly. For those who are familiar with Boswell's portrait of Samuel Johnson, Bainbridge should be required reading. She balances the portrait, letting us see the dark side of Johnson as well as the light. Personally, I find Bainbridge's book, and Bainbridge's Johnson, the more interesting. But the real star of "According to Queeney," is, on every count, Queeney, herself. "According to Queeney" is thoroughly engrossing, thoroughly absorbing, read.
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Summary: Not Boswell's Dr. Johnson
Review: Beryl Bainbridge's new historical novel takes a fresh, and rather disturbing, look at Samuel Johnson, LL.D., the eminent 18th century lexicographer and man of letters. Dr. Johnson (as he is usually referred to) is, of course, well-known as the subject of English literature's first great biography, James Boswell's "The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D." (1791). But Boswell, who worshipped Johnson, failed to include some of the less appealing and less attractive aspects of Johnson's life and personality. It is these that Bainbridge writes about in "According to Queeney." Queeney was the real-life daughter of Hester Lynch Thrale, one of Johnson's closest friends and confidantes. In fact, Johnson lived, off and on, at Mrs. Thrale's estate, Streatham Park. Through the voice of a third-person narrator, along with a series of letters written by Queeney to her girlhood friends, we discover that Dr. Johnson was deeply depressed (or melancholic, as they called it back then), obsessed with death, sexually conflicted, and a masochist--in short, a bundle of neurotic tics and rifts. Bainbridge's book is brilliant not only in its expose of the dark side of Dr. Johnson, but also in its depiction of the literary and social world of 18th century London, especially the upper classes. While non-specialists in this period of English literature may be challenged to keep up with who's who and what's what, in the end the challenge is well worth taking up.
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Summary: As usual, virtuosity
Review: Brainbridge's skill as a writer puts her in the rarefied domain of literary giants. Composing prose of such wit, truth and exquisite poignancy, she is absolutely equal to the daunting task of speaking for Johnson. This reader was happy to pause and savour just about every thought he utters, and, in turn, this reader frequently, inelegantly, uttered aloud, "goddam, this is good...
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Summary: Introducing Samuel Johnson
Review: Did everyone else know that Samuel Johnson wrote the first dictionary of the English language that still influences writers of dictionaries today? Has everyone else read a book by Beryl Bainbridge? If not, _According to Queenie_, Bainbridge's latest historical novel about the 18th century genius Samuel Johnson and his relationship with the wealthy, beer-brewing Thrale family, is a perfect introduction to both. I thoroughly enjoyed being transported to that earlier, innocent, no-tech time and being reminded that then, as now, there were those (even geniuses) with serious psychological "issues" and families that could be described as "dysfunctional." It does help, I believe, to do a little research about Johnson before- or while--reading the book. (No, I shall not read, nor recommend, all of Boswell's "Life of Johnson.") But the characters in the book are based on real people. If the book has a fault, it's that Bainbridge seems to assume that the reader already knows something about the characters before the first word is read. But even if one doesn't, as I didn't, I would recommend this book simply for its intelligent, well-crafted, scintillating prose. It left me wanting to read more about and by Samuel Johnson and definitely wanting to read more books by Beryl Bainbridge.
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Summary: Historical Shmorical
Review: I can't understand why everyone loves historical novels and this one is crazy. Talking about people you never heard of. Johnson who? I mean it's like watching black and white television. it doesn't say anything about now. And isn't now where we're living. The work shows no creativity in it's approach to medicine or the state of literature in general. It will never win the BOOKER!
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Summary: Delightfully Unusual
Review: I found this book to be delightfully unusual! Two irascible, unappealing, but compelling chracters. I was somewhat familiar with Samuel Johnson having made my way through about half of Boswell's tome. Bainbridge has a remarkable gift for twisting life into one big ambiguity, filled with magic and darkness. According to Queeney follows Johnson's last twenty years and his friendship with the Thrale family. Most of the characters are enormously self-centered, remiss in love and filled with below first level longings. I found it to be odd and entertaining.
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Summary: One of her best!!
Review: I've been a fan of Beryl Bainbridge for years and this rendition of the life of Samuel Johnson is right up there with Watson's Apology. It's still a mystery to me how she mixes the horror and humor of life so well. Certainly, the darkness of tone running through all her books is not for everyone. Although this novel retains her oblique storytelling style, it is easier to figure out what exactly is going on than in some of her previous novels. She captures perfectly the muck and disarray of 18th-century living and of Johnson's life.
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