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Loading... The Thirteenth Tale: A Novelby Diane Setterfield
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  Moniica | Dec 24, 2009 |  To describe The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield would require a string of adjectives more witty, but similar to spooky, complicated, mysterious, multilayered, and cozy. It’s reads like a car starting on a cold day, but once the engine warms up it’s a comfortable and enjoyable journey.Anyone who says they understood all of the subplots and minor mysterious is a smarter person than me, because I got lost several times over during the tale, but if it wasn’t complicated I would be complaining that it was too elementary.The character development is very thorough. In fact, the characters are so complex and self aware it’s easy to get lost in the pages of the character’s self reflection, since the novel jumps to different first person views very often.Overall, I enjoyed the book and I would recommend it to a reader that is looking for an engrossing read. It is not a shallow nightstand reader, because it requires too much concentration and reflection for a reader that might be drifting off to sleep as you turn the pages to the very long chapters. I recommend the book, but stay alert or you might get lost in the details. (  )1  chriSchaeffer | Dec 12, 2009 | I know this book gets very good reviews, but I did not enjoy it. At best, it was OK. I read it about 6 months ago, I recall it was well written, but the story just didn't grab me. (  ) Robnw | Dec 2, 2009 | Wow! I couldn't put this one down! Absolutely loved it!! It was full of surprises til the very end!! (  )1 Ames3473 | Nov 28, 2009 | A beautifully written book that anyone who enjoys the craft of writing, a bit of a mystery, and a good story will enjoy. Two of my favorite parts of the book: "Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes--characters even--caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you" (289 - 290). "Books from any shelf, opened at any page, in which I would start and finish anywhere, mid-sentence sometimes. _Wuthering Heights_ ran into _Emma_, which gave way to _The Eustace Diamonds_, which faded into _Hard Times_, which ceded to _The Woman in White_. Fragments. It didn't matter. Art, its completeness, its formedness, its finishedness, had no power to console. Words, on the other hand, were a lifeline. They left their hushed rhythm behind, a counter to the slow in and out of Emmeline's breathing" (312). (  ) turbobks | Nov 27, 2009 | 
 "The Thirteenth Tale" keeps us reading for its nimble cadences and atmospheric locales, as well as for its puzzles, the pieces of which, for the most part, fall into place just as we discover where the holes are. And yet, for all its successes -- and perhaps because of them -- on the whole the book feels unadventurous, content to rehash literary formulas rather than reimagine them.
Amazon.com (ISBN 0743298020, Hardcover)Settle down to enjoy a rousing good ghost story with Diane Setterfield's debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale. Setterfield has rejuvenated the genre with this closely plotted, clever foray into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths. She never cheats by pulling a rabbit out of a hat; this atmospheric story hangs together perfectly.There are two heroines here: Vida Winter, a famous author, whose life story is coming to an end, and Margaret Lea, a young, unworldly, bookish girl who is a bookseller in her father's shop. Vida has been confounding her biographers and fans for years by giving everybody a different version of her life, each time swearing it's the truth. Because of a biography that Margaret has written about brothers, Vida chooses Margaret to tell her story, all of it, for the first time. At their initial meeting, the conversation begins:
"You have given nineteen different versions of your life story to journalists in the last two years alone."
She [Vida] shrugged. "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller."
"I am a biographer, I work with facts." The game is afoot and Margaret must spend some time sorting out whether or not Vida is actually ready to tell the whole truth. There is more here of Margaret discovering than of Vida cooperating wholeheartedly, but that is part of Vida's plan. The transformative power of truth informs the lives of both women by story's end, and The Thirteenth Tale is finally and convincingly told. --Valerie Ryan (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:13 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
It isn't easy for Vida Winter to tell the truth about her past, as she is used to the fictional world. But slowly, she begins to tell the story of Angelfield House, hidden for centuries.
Magaret Lea tries to discover Vida Winter's connection with the house, unravelling many deep secrets.
My Opinion: The mysterious plot confused, and sometimes even bored me for the first half of the book. It isn't until the main secret is revealed that everything starts to make more sense and create a more easy-to-read and enjoyable story, but this doesn't happen until near the end. (