The Book of Life

This novel, a fantasy triple-decker, can be read as a satire of the modern condition or as a Sadian/Randian tale of becoming. It recounts the development of a young woman, orphaned at an early age, who, when the book opens, has achieved her ambition of becoming a tenured university professor. Suitably, the tale opens in an academic library, where our heroine is conducting research. Here she first senses the cruel destiny which her family and that of her husband-to-be have mapped out for her. The rest of the novel describes how she becomes complicit in her own entrapment and corruption.

Her parents, members of a minor mafiosi clan, are slaughtered in an internecine struggle; knowing the risks they were taking, they have cunningly arranged for their child to be married into one of the most powerful and blood-thirsty of underworld gangs. As is so often the case with such 'families', they trace their existence back to the time of the crusades, but owe most of their present power to the energy and political acuity of the bridegroom's 'father.' (The clan is organized as if it were a family, but in reality likely members are recruited from the criminal classes at large, undergoing bloody rituals before being accepted. Acceptance is conditional: members often kill each other, and the heroine's husband has already, when the book opens, killed his own 'father', as well as a long list of other members of the gang who had, he deemed, become insubordinate).

Diana, the main character, discovers a series of messages left by her dead parents, encouraging her to accept the advances of the man who, despite his violence and his taint of hereditary disease, they have chosen to protect her. For his part, the bridegroom's father had, prior to his death, set up a series of machiavellian gambits designed to ensure that the marriage contract would be fulfilled: he knows that Diana brings with her dowry an inheritance that will turn out to be a powerful trump in the vicious game that he plays with members of other underworld clans.

Diana herself is an interesting character study. Devastated by her parents' violent deaths, brought up by a semi-alcoholic, chain-smoking aunt, whose brusque ways do little to alleviate her niece's despair, she is ill-equipped to withstand the menacing advances of the man who has been chosen for her. Matthew, the lover/husband, is a satire upon the stalker/lover so common in the romantic fantasy genre. The apparently self-assured, but internally damaged heroine, is rapidly drawn into his malign influence and surrenders herself to him both physically and psychologically. As she does so, she drains her other acquaintances of their own psychic charge. As she descends further into madness, she comes increasingly incapable of seeing those around her as anything other than ciphers, whose role it is reflect and applaud the glories of herself and her mate.

The rest of the book follows Diana's descent into a numbed acceptance of the violence and mayhem that she has married into. The reader understands that she rapidly slides into psychosis, with vivid hallucinations and mood swings that take her from panic attacks to feelings of overbearing powerfulness. These are encouraged by her husband, a manipulative narcissist, who uses her as a spit upon which to turn his own impossible fantasies of 'being normal'. Her aunt and her husband's colleague, Miriam, for example, cease to have the knotty and often oppositional characteristics that she is capable of perceiving at the opening of the story, and are depicted in the final sections of the book as cuddly bunnies, comforting the heroine in her deliriums. We slide from Bronte to Beatrix Potter as the story progresses - which is one way of looking at the development of the novel of romance in recent times.

The world-picture that the author conjures up is one in which the political and financial levers of power are held by members of one or another of the criminal families, who manipulate politicians and businessmen to their own ends. They have little, if any, respect for the lives and opinions of outsiders, holding their both their gulls and their servants in contempt. In one illuminating scene we listen in on a telephone call between a member of Matthew's 'family' (his 'mother') and the managing director of one of the richest and most prestigious institutions of the commercial world, in which she blackmails him into revealing business secrets. Diana, by this time morally numb, is entranced by her 'mother-in-law's flexing of muscles.

The novel of romance often offers its readers a vicarious enjoyment of the consumption patterns of the rich. So it is with Harkness's book. But there is a satirical twist: the gangsters actually treat culturally powerful objects with contempt. Old masters are hung over the toilet, antique books are used as hiding places for secret notes, and in one drawn out scene the heroine destroys the Bodleian library so as to steal one of its ancient treasures. These are people who 'know the price of everything and the value of nothing.' Harkness describes a universe governed by those who are dead - but do not fully realize their condition.

Wow, a lot happens in the final book of the trilogy. So many characters, and so many story lines that I feel like I need another read-through to keep it all straight. Matthew and Diana have returned to the present, and are assembling a gang of supporters to help find the missing pages of Ashmole 782, revoke the covenant, and allow all creatures to live in harmony and co-mingle as they would like.

Along the way, there is some sketchy science and little to no secret keeping. What happened to the trepidation and reluctance everyone had in book 1? Everyone just runs around pell-mell in this book, telling roomfuls of humans their secrets. And everyone, and I mean everyone, takes it in stride. Like the government wouldn't have both Matthew and Diana locked in a laboratory somewhere once they started blabbing their secrets all over New England. ESPECIALLY since she is pregnant. With twins.

And speaking of pregnancy, did I miss a wrap up with Sophie and Nathaniel Wilson and their witch / demon baby? So much was happening, it's possible I have forgotten.

Matthew is far less controlling in this book, and Diana is less of a Mary Sue. I like how they evolved over time, and I wanted to punch them far less this time around. Plus, I love how Harkenss wove history into an interesting storyline. Definitely made the history nerd in me a happy gal.

Anyway, I liked the conclusion, and I'm a little sad the series is over. For Gallowglass alone I would keep reading.