Under the Wide and Starry Sky

Under The Wide And Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
Blog written by Sharon

I selected this novel because we had so enjoyed Nancy Horan's first novel about Frank Lloyd Wright called "Loving Frank" ( refer to our blog in Sept 2010).  Unfortunately only about half of us had finished the book by the group's meeting.

This is a novel once again based on historical people and facts -- that of the lives of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne.  It is about their amazing love story from around the end of the 19th century.

Fanny is portrayed as a strong, brave and talented woman whose ambition to be a writer herself had to take a back seat to the renowned writer, RLS, in the family.  It is astonishing how a woman in the 1800s had the courage to flee an unhappy first marriage and take her children with her half way round the world to enrol in an art school!

Throughout the novel, we see how doggedly Fanny nurses Robert's weak health and sacrifices her own need to put down roots and ignores her terrible sea sickness just so that Robert L Stevenson can thrive in the sea air and strengthen his lungs.  I personally warmed to Fanny more than Robert as I found him cruel at times ( calling Fanny a "peasant") and he was often swayed by his friends who were actually feeling threatened by Fanny.  She never really got over the death of her son Hervey and both of them were really hurt by the plagiarism slur. Fanny's mental breakdown was nicely handled by the author and showed how it brought Robert's love for Fanny back.

Nancy Horan was interviewed by Today's Bookclub and here is the link Patricia shared with us :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyV9hs5Q15M

There was a lot of admiration from us for the writing of Robert Louis Stevenson.  Personally I loved the poem he penned for Fanny on page 338:

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The great artificer
Made my mate.

Honour, anger, valour, fire;
A love that life could never tire,
Death quench or evil stir,
The mighty master
Gave to her.

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life,
Heart-whole and soul-free
The august father
Gave to me.


There is a general consensus that perhaps the novel rambled on and didn't need to be this long.  The ending was so moving though if the reader can get through all the cruises around the South Pacific!
That may explain the rather low rating we have given this novel, averaging a 6 out of 10.
Few descriptive words : Could do better, Tedious, Too long, Loved it, in Awe of them.

Our next novel is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and will be on Tuesday April 8th at Jane's.

Please note that Robyn's book choice this year is "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson.