An Instance of the Fingerpost

The English Civil wars are living memory. A king is back on the throne, and a nation remains wary of Rome while adjusting to its newfound peace.

Pears begins with a simple plot detail, the death of a university academic. Readers have this story recounted by a Venetian fop called Marco da Cola, who introduces characters and remarks on the strange land and customs he finds himself amidst. The author gradually 'pulls the camera back' to reveal a web of intrigue and inhumanity involving a wide cast, years in the making, and he does it by retelling the same series of events from three additional perspectives. After the Venetian's version comes that of a proud hothead, bent on restoring his father's honor. Next comes the entry from a high-placed civil servant, convinced of the superiority of his own assessment. The last part is told by a priest in love.

Each successive account informs prior ones, serving to either muddy details that used to be clear, or crystallizing their importance. Entire characters, their background and motives and capabilities, are thrown into a whole new light. It's a mystery novel but it isn't concerned with whodunit as opposed to who-done-what and how it got done. There are several excellent reveals that tie plot threads together. The final account by the priest is quite introspective and does the least plotwise, but is where the novel really bears its heart - for while you think you're reading one type of story for much of the book's 600-odd pages, Pears is about to reveal another.

Interested readers shouldn't alternate between this and other books. This demands persistent attention. I found it worth diagramming the character relationships. It includes a 'dramatis personae,' many members of which are real historical figures. It's skilfully plotted and pretty engrossing.

Set during the Restoration, like Andrew Taylor's Marwood and Lovett series, which I enjoyed, and in Oxford, which I know, I still struggled to get into it at first. There are many references to real historical characters, but the Unreliable narrator technique made it hard like or identify with the main characters. It did come together in an interesting way at the end, and had broadened my knowledge of the period some of the notable people who appear in itl

Clever time-travel novel in which of course the time traveller is not seen as such because that is not a concept known to the people of that day. Although I did wonder about Sarah Blundy's perception of those around her - q.v. when she exposes herself to the priest his reaction is understated if anything, and hardly exposes him as a priest; who says he wants some random woman showing herself to him? Her knowledge of medicine is hardly advanced, more that of someone who is travelling about and needs to know some.

This is a mixture of a historical novel and a whodunit, set in Restoration Englisn.

I've read a number of books about the period recently -- Samuel Pepys's diary (the concise version), a history of the Restoration by Ronald Hutton, and an account of the great fire of London.

This one is set in Oxford, and several of the characters are real historical personages. It is rather unusual in that the same set of events is described from the point of view of four different people, and are seen very differently, depending on the roles and interests of the characters concerned.

One thing that stood out for me was the attitude of most of these characters towards servants, and their emphasis on class, or as the book describes it, "station". Those of higher station seem to have had the same attitude towards the lower orders as white Rhodesians had towards blacks. One of my mother's Rhodesian cousins described her ex-husbands habit of pressing a lighted cegarette into the necks of blacks who didn't get out of his way fast enough when walking down the street. So in Restoration England, according to this book, the members of the upper classes seem to have expected to beat their servants if they were "insolent", and to be shocked if the servants did not expect this.

Now perhaps this was an exaggerated reaction agaist the more egalitarian society that was and ideal of the Commonwealth period. but it seems rather an abrupt change.

Clever time-travel novel in which of course the time traveller is not seen as such because that is not a concept known to the people of that day. Although I did wonder about Sarah Blundy's perception of those around her - q.v. when she exposes herself to the priest his reaction is understated if anything, and hardly exposes him as a priest; who says he wants some random woman showing herself to him? Her knowledge of medicine is hardly advanced, more that of someone who is travelling about and needs to know some.