According to Queeney

Rating:
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.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
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...

Rating:
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.

Rating:
Summary: The Darker Side of Samuel Johnson
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.

Rating:
Summary: An easy read, and a depressing one.
Review: In reviewing "According to Queeney"[review excerpted above],Publisher's Weekly wrote: "...few novelists now alive can match Bainbridge for the uncanny precision with which she enters into the ethos of a previous era."

Uncanny? Yes. Very weird. Precise? I absolutely don't think so-unless you'd believe that 18th century upper-class people lived in a constant state of misery due to(among other things)clinical depression, sexual repression, religious fanaticism and/or hypocrisy, disease, and the lack of indoor plumbing. My main problem with this book is its unremitting unpleasantness, both of tone and character, and its rather superficial assumption that there's some kind of need to dispel an imagined rosy picture of "ye olden days" by swinging wildly in the other direction: a modernist, disaffected, determinedly downbeat view of humanity.
There isn't a single likeable person in the book, nor does anyone seem to escape either madness, disease, bitterness, selfishness, hate, gluttony, stupidity, addiction-or a combination of the above. It's one thing to make one's central characters complex, another to divest them of anything positive, save, supposedly, intelligence. An author runs a great risk-and takes on a huge responsibility-when she chooses to write a fictional "novel" using real people, places, and events. Perhaps it's just me, but I believe that she owes these onetime living, breathing people something better-at least, something a little more considered than simply using them as objects on which to hang some imagined psychodramas. Yes, Johnson was a strange man...that's hardly news to anyone who's read anything about his personal life and habits. As for "Queeney's" mother, longtime Johnson friend Mrs. Thrale, well, gosh, she must have been something more than the histrionic shrew Bainbridge makes to bulge, faint, redden, pinch, hit and kick her daughter, her husband, and her friend Johnson by turns. This was a woman who was wealthy, witty, and a very sought-after hostess and guest-and yet in this novel her life is an unending misery...somehow I tend to think that she was bit more complex than that. But everything-every scene, every inner thought-is made into a kind of creepy horror for these "characters"...in this "narrative", poor Johnson can't even show up from an errand buying treats for his beloved cat, Hodge[a real incident recalled, like much of the basis for this novel, by James Boswell in his "Life of Johnson"], without this simple act being given new shades of direst import by Bainbridge's pen: the paper bag containing the liver seeps and drips with blood...give me a break. It's a short book, easily read in one or two sittings. The author has done research, yes-all of it obvious and based on easily available sources, though not resulting in anything more amazing or unusual than can be found in a standard book on "life in Johnson's London"(there actually is such a title-and many like it). Finally, when you decide to write a novel with a couple of real-life geniuses as your main characters, you'd better be at least as witty as they were. Bainbridge isn't up to that task.

Rating:
Summary: Nuance, Stress, and Ambiguity
Review: This is a brilliant literary achievement. In it, Bainbridge demonstrates the skills of a novelist, historian, and (yes) cultural anthropologist. She enables her reader to return in time to the life and society of Samuel Johnson and do so within a fictional context, although he and most of the others featured really did exist and knew each other. (Johnson and Henry Thrale were close friends for more than 20 years.) The narrative (as such) is provided from several different perspectives. Values and opinions play a much greater role than do specific actions. The trip to the continent changes the setting but not the ongoing interactions (misunderstandings, tensions, breakdowns in communication, etc.) which complicate while intensifying Johnson's relations with the Thrales. With rare skill, Bainbridge enables her reader to (metaphorically speaking, of course) get into the heads and hearts of Johnson and various Thrales, notably Hester Thrale and eldest daughter "Queeney."

I doubt if more than a few people who read According to Queeney have already read (or will ever read) James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, among the greatest biographies ever written. (Perhaps few who read this review of mine know anything about either Boswell or Johnson.) Some have suggested that Bainbridge portrays the "darker" sides of Johnson's personality. I agree while presuming to assert that the aforementioned "interactions" between and among Johnson and the Thrales, rather than Johnson himself, serve as the primary focus.

Who will most enjoy reading this book? Those such as I who enjoy the films of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory and (perhaps) Robert Altman's Gosford Park as well as those who view certain novels (e.g. those of Balzac, Dickens, Twain, and Tolstoy) as a "magic carpet" which also facilitates a journey back in time to a distant, unfamiliar, and colorful period in human history.

Rating:
Summary: Booker Committee
Review: This is novel number 16 for Ms. Beryl Bainbridge. In addition to these she has written an additional 4 works. Of the first 15 novels, 5 have been nominated for the prestigious Booker Award, however it has never been granted to her work. If there is another writer who has had one third of their work nominated but not rewarded, I have not come across one. Many other awards have found their way to this tremendous storyteller; I hope the Booker Folks catch up.

"According To Queeney", demonstrates once again the ease with which Ms. Beryl Bainbridge can reach, both back into history and to some of the great players of their times, and not only grasp, but create wonderful new tales. The century of choice this time is the 18th, and she chooses the formidable Samuel Johnson as her focus. This person alone would be plenty for most writers, however she has added actor David Garrick, poet Oliver Goldsmith, novelist Fanny Burney, and artist Joshua Reynolds. Each of these people could fill their own book, and more than one has. The brilliance of this work is that the author manages to bring them all together, give them all they're due, and does so in a fairly brief 216 pages. She does not merely name drop or make a passing reference. She manages to make all of the various players memorable, however brief their words allotted may appear to be. The truth is they read with much greater length.

A young counterpoint to Johnson is the Queeney of the title. An extremely precocious child, she is a favorite of Johnson's as well as a talented young mind he seeks to cultivate. This same Queeney becomes a correspondent for a researcher investigating her memories of her young years, as they relate to her and her mother, the latter of the two who Johnson becomes emotionally attached to. The mother eventually becomes available for marriage, and the events surrounding this opportunity bring the threads of the story together, and then to a close.

This is one of the best books that Ms. Bainbridge has written. I hope the people who nominate and then award The Booker Prize, once again nominate this work, which they make a decision that differs from those in the past. If they do not, when her next work is released, she will then be the 6 times nominated author for the award.