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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
(4.5) The uncharted territory of passion and art, May 13, 2005
This review is from: Breath and Bones (Hardcover)
In Denmark in the late 1880's, Famke Summerfugl finds comfort in the arms of her English artist/lover, Albert Castle, posing for him in a shabby garret, transported by his adoration of her youthful charms. Born in Denmark, Famke is left as an infant at the Orphanage of the Immaculate Heart, an early victim of the consumptive lungs that plague the orphans in that cold climate. The child is favored by Sister Birgit, who is in thrall of the flame-haired child from the start. In her eagerness to feed, baby Famke bites off the glass top of her bottle, tiny shards of glass cutting her tender lips. Sister Birgit delicately removes each sliver, forging a bond with the child that will never be broken.
A curious and feminine girl, Famke's precocious nature unsettles the sisters of the convent and they are happy to release her to work as a maid and goose girl. But Famke isn't meant for such a life and when she meets an artist, Albert Castle, she enthusiastically joins him as his model and lover. When Albert finishes his larger-than-life painting of the idealized beauty, he leaves for England, then later on to America. Waiting for Albert's return, Famke falls on hard times. When the opportunity arises, she follows Albert to America. So begins a long and desperate search that takes her to Utah, Colorado, the New Mexico Territories, Hygeia Springs, California and finally, to San Francisco.
Famke follows Albert's trail, always but a few steps behind, steadfast in her purpose. As the tale unravels, Famke is at the center of it all, suspected of cohesion with the infamous "Dynamite Gang", pursued by the Mormon man she marries, Heber Goodhouse, one of his plural wives, an enterprising yellow-journalist and a young man from her past at the orphanage, Viggo, a mortician's apprentice, who has been sent by Sister Birgit. Little does our heroine know that she is the object of all these searches, intent as she is on her own desperate quest.
Only seventeen-years old, a wiser woman would be overwhelmed, but Famke is single-minded, bravely navigating uncharted territory in pursuit of her youthful fancy. Like a chameleon, she adapts to place and circumstance, but soon realizes the advantages of men, rather than an unprotected woman. Famke's drama unfolds as she travels America, leaving behind men who are obsessed with her, prostitutes who remember her in male disguise as Albert Castle's brother or the mysterious woman with the terrible cough of the tubercular, the bright red drops that spill from her fevered lips. The illness is part of the woman's unique attraction, emphasizing her delicate beauty, the contrast of white skin, fevered cheeks and titian tresses.
Cokal has done a masterful job of blending the threads of Famke's life and love for Albert into an impressive canvas that covers the continents, from Denmark to the barren deserts of Utah and the pristine wilderness of the West, as it is eagerly subsumed by the advances of industry. The characters have not caught up to industrialization, mired in the past, save Famke, their Victorian morals grounded in the last century; Famke draws this disparate group in her wake. The ending is a shocking conflagration of misspent emotions, misguided intentions and the final fury of unrequited passion. The age of invention meets the Wild West in this outstanding Victorian drama. Luan Gaines/2005.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sexy, exuberant, beautifully written picaresque!, May 14, 2005
This review is from: Breath and Bones (Hardcover)
From its stunning prologue to the disturbing, shattering beauty of its finale, Breath and Bones gets under your skin. This sexy, exuberant picaresque takes you and its heroine on a fast-paced ride from Copenhagen to San Francisco via the wild west of the late nineteenth century, but each place it takes you is so immediate and vividly rendered it stays with you long after you close the book. Cokal's originality, humor, and extraordinary ear for language purge historical fiction of its fustiness and bring it to life.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Opportunities lost, January 7, 2007
Susanna Cokal introduces us to Famke, a poor Danish orphan with Tuberculosis whose sex appeal gets her in trouble with the nuns and in bed with the rest of the orphanage, a painter, a polygamist morman & an early model vibrator, all while a multitude of others pursue what's under her skirts across the Atlantic and the American West in the late 1800s. Cokal's debut novel "Miribilis" was darkly sexual & intriguing - she clearly has the imagination and skill to deliver tantalizing stories! But in comparison, "Breath and Bones" disappoints.
Famke searches for Albert, a narcissistic mediocre painter with whom she believes herself to be in love, throughout the story. Her quest takes her across the Atlantic and the United States, into a polygamist family, and in and out of numerous brothels in the west. Famke's story lacks bits of reality needed to keep this reader truly interested. Though she is a young woman who apparantly oozes sex and is traveling alone, she encounters no violence. She is blissfully ignorant and blind to obvious coercion, and appears to be an accomplice to her own "captivity" at times. Further, she is wildly successful posing as a man and a painter though she is neither and descriptions of her physical appearance and artistic abilities lead one to wonder how she could have pulled off either ruse. Her luck and ability to land on her feet, which I suppose may amuse some, seemed too contrived.
Stories of such a physical journey during the early years of a young woman's life often parallel an internal journey to finding a sense of self, self respect, etc. Famke's character, however, remains nearly one-dimensional. She is stubborn about her health to the point of her near death. She misses out on opportunities for true affection to pursue a narcissist who never respected her. She does not use her voice to defend herself at any opportunity. Famke is hell-bent on believing her limited exposure to "art" via Albert is perfect, unassailable and complete. These components of character were offered with little context and simply just didn't add up.
Cokal opens and closes the book with a morbid scene which holds promise of a dark and gruesome story, but somehow that promise is lost in the pages between. The elements which advertise this to be a bizarre and ribald tale (polygamists, brothels, etc) only provided an off-beat background for this meandering middling tale.
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