Lillian Bouzane

Epistolary novel written from the point of view of John Cabot’s wife (Cabot sailed from Bristol in 1497 and discovered mainland America & was first to realise it was a new continent) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot

The novel is written as a series of diary entries in the 1490’s interspersed with letters to and from various family members, family friends and of course between husband and wife. If you already know everything about John Cabot, his voyages of discovery (and those of Colmbus, Vespucci etc.) and Renaissance Italy this is the book for you. If you don’t know anything about those subjects your unlikely to find much in this book to broaden your knowledge and this is my main problem with the book – when I saw that it was written by someone who had been on the 500th anniversary trip aboard the Matthew http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_(ship) I thought I was in for an insight into sailing in the 1490’s and what it was like to cross the vast oceans and come across new lands. What you get instead is a noblewoman’s life in Venice (and later in the book Bristol & a short section on pilgrimage to the Holy Land) of composing music for the church and managing her money and estates with occasional diary entries saying in essence “I miss my husband” or “I hope my son is OK at university”. Although Bouzane has created a realistic narrative of family life in the beginning of the great age of discovery it just wasn’t what I wanted. I’d like to explore the story of the explorers further and will be looking for other books to fill in the gaps this book has left me questioning….

Overall - The book is well written and vaguely interesting but really not what I was looking for… (más)