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Cargando... The Bee and the Orange Treepor Melissa Ashley
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. A well- researched fictional book on the life of an interesting character, Baroness Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy, a French writer, who became one of the first women to pen fairy tales. She and the members of the salons she attended broke the tradition of male authors. They wrote thinly veiled fairy stories highlighting the suppression of females and the conditions under which many women suffered after arranged child marriages. She was a leading feminist of her day after having herself been “sold off” in marriage, aged fourteen, to pay off some of the family debts. A interesting glimpse into the lifestyle of 17th century France and the place of women in that society. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
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It's 1699, and the salons of Paris are bursting with the creative energy of fierce, independent-minded women. But outside those doors, the patriarchal forces of Louis XIV and the Catholic Church are moving to curb their freedoms. In this battle for equality, Baroness Marie Catherine D'Aulnoy invents a powerful weapon: 'fairy tales'. When Marie Catherine's daughter, Angelina, arrives in Paris for the first time, she is swept up in the glamour and sensuality of the city, where a woman may live outside the confines of the church or marriage. But this is a fragile freedom, as she discovers when Marie Catherine's close friend Nicola Tiquet is arrested, accused of conspiring to murder her abusive husband. In the race to rescue Nicola, illusions will be shattered and dark secrets revealed as all three women learn how far they will go to preserve their liberty in a society determined to control them. This keenly-awaited second book from Melissa Ashley, author of THE BIRDMAN'S WIFE, restores another remarkable, little-known woman to her rightful place in history, revealing the dissent hidden beneath the whimsical surfaces of Marie Catherine's fairy tales. THE BEE AND THE ORANGE TREE is a beautifully lyrical and deeply absorbing portrait of a time, a place, and the subversive power of the imagination. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Marie Catherine was a storyteller and author known for coining the term 'fairytale' and The Bee and the Orange Tree focusses on her life, in addition to that of her daughter Angelina and friend Nicola Tiquet. Those familiar with the fate of Madame Angelique-Nicole Tiquet may be interested in this fictionalised account of her life, while simultaneously finding the conditions of her circumstances hard to process.
Imagining the literary salons of Paris in the seventeenth century was intoxicating and the list of family and character names at the beginning of the novel was extremely useful. In this novel about female agency and the power of story, our characters struggle with overbearing males in their lives:
"She'd lost count of the conversations they had shared about brutish husbands. She repeated the advice she always delivered at their end: you are more capable - of creating meaning, of finding pleasure - than you allow yourself to believe." Page 22
While seeming more appropriate for today's characters than 300 years ago, this advice is freely given, yet has surprising and unintended consequences for our characters.
The writing in The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley is luscious and evocative and reading it felt like an indulgence. We're also treated to some striking moments like this one:
"As the only tree standing in the field of her mother's fury, she was preparing to be lashed by strong winds, vulnerable to a fiery lightning strike." Page 291
Written by an Australian author and published in 2019, the title of this book comes from a fairytale of the same name written by Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy and published in 1697 and it really works. My reading experience would have been enhanced if I'd known the book was based on real figures from history; that understanding only arrived afterwards with the Author's Note at the end.
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to visit one of the literary salons of France in the 1600s or enjoy the work of Kate Forsyth with regard to fairytales, The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley is for you. ( )