Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

This book--coupled with another I had read earlier this year, Bunny--led me to muse on rabbits, and how they are associated with the grotesque. There are not only these two novels, but the infamous rabbit-boiling scene in Fatal Attraction, and the human-sized rabbit in Donnie Darko, and probably some other examples I am forgetting. What is it about rabbits, associated as they are with innocence and cuteness, but also promiscuity and out-of-control breeding, that lends so well to horror? There's a whole essay there, probably, if I could be bothered to write it.

The rabbits in this story were not, strictly speaking, fictional, as this was based on a true story of a woman in 1726 rural England who suddenly began giving birth to rabbits, show more which convinced many people for a little while that she was miraculous. It's an interesting story, and Palmer dramatizes it well, but he also elevates it well above just a strange-but-true retelling. There is one chapter, midway through, written in Mary's voice, and it was there I realized that Palmer was really talking about the battle over ownership of women's bodies, particularly their reproductive organs, that is still ongoing:

"That need of his to occupy the space inside me, claim it as his own. ... The rule of men: all spaces must be filled."

The story of a woman giving birth to rabbits is truly an argument for bodily autonomy. And Palmer carries it further than just women's rights to own their own bodies, but extends that idea to everyone who has been dehumanized because their bodies do not conform to what is considered the norm. He populates his story with other freaks of the day, who nevertheless do not see themselves as freaks but as human: a woman with a facial birthmark, conjoined twins, a black man. In contrast, there are the idle rich who revel in the grotesque and the dehumanization of others, who dress themselves up ridiculously but see themselves as beautiful. This novel is all about how we perceive others and the reality we weave for ourselves as we tell ourselves the story of who we are and who everyone else is, and what is acceptable and what is freakish, and who has the rights of humanity and who does not. And also about how those perceptions can, and should, change--how we can rewrite our own story of our collective humanity.

When I got to the end, to the conversation that Mary's doctor, John Howard (a wonderfully drawn character) has with her alone about belief, about choosing what is true, and about what happens when God is brought into the room--it's amazing writing, and it gave me so much more to think about than I bargained for when I picked up this slim novel.

So far, I have read all three of Palmer's novels, and each one has surpassed the last. show less

I loved this weird book based on a true event in the 1700s where a woman gave birth to 17 rabbits to the astonishment of her male doctors. Palmer takes this story and turns it into a dive into fiction vs. reality, weirdness vs. normality, and male voices silencing women.

I highly recommend it. I didn't know what to expect and was thrilled with what I got.

In 1726, in a small town in England, a physician is called to the bedside of a woman who is giving birth... to a rabbit. A dead rabbit. A dead, grotesquely dismembered rabbit. What could possibly be going on here? Is it the greatest medical discovery of the ages? A miracle sent by God? Something the woman must have brought on herself, somehow, with her thoughts or her actions? Those are the only reasonable possibilities, right?

Bizarrely, this is actually based on a true story. Although "true story" may be something of a slippery concept, and that is in fact the main theme of the novel: the ways in which human beings convince ourselves to believe things that may not be true, the ways those beliefs can take on an independent reality of show more their own once they're at large in the world, and the ways in which people with the power to do so project and impose those beliefs onto the lives and the bodies of others.

One might possibly complain that the novel ends up getting a bit heavy-handed with those themes, or that it seems to promise to be a very different kind of story at the beginning than the philosophical meditation it basically turns into. But for me, it worked quite well, and the ideas it's examining feel at once like universals of human experience and as if they've very, very specifically relevant to the world we're living in right this moment. show less

"Consider," Fox said, "the woman with child who reads. Who seeks to occupy her mind with matters of art and science at a time when she is intended to to embrace the role assigned to her by God, that of a wife, and of a mother. Who spends her days in the company of imaginary folk such as Moll Flanders and Roxana the Fortunate Mistress, while her belly swells and her needle goes neglected. Who fails to meditate on her responsibility to the new life that grows inside her. Such a woman's thought is torn in two directions--is it no surprise that if she were to give birth to a child in such an afflicted state of mind, that it would assume the most hideous of manifestations?"

"Behold," Fox said, "the woman with two heads."

This is the story of show more the extraordinary story of Mary Toft, a woman in Godalming, England who, in the early eighteenth century, gave birth to rabbits. Told from the point of view of the local surgeon and man-midwife's apprentice, the story begins with a traveling "Exhibition of Medical Curiosities" that comes to town and amazes Zachary, even as his father, the local clergyman and John Howard, the local doctor, differ in what they find extraordinary about the spectacle. Soon after, John Howard and Zachary are called to assist a woman in labor. The woman, Mary Toft, gives birth to pieces of rabbit. She will continue to give birth to rabbit parts a few times a week and it isn't long before people from London become involved, and things become ever more confusing and complicated.

Dexter Palmer's novel is a wonderfully written historical novel that subtly explores ideas about perception and truth, while delivering a hugely enjoyable look at England in the eighteenth century. I especially liked how Palmer explored how women were thought of and treated and how that affected them. These themes never get in the way of what is an entertaining story and they remain on my mind days after finishing. Palmer's previous novel was set in the near future and explored concepts arising from time travel. It seems that he is an author who can tackle any genre successfully. I'm now hugely curious as to what his next novel will be.

And I will tell you this about God--that despite his presumed omnipresence he often arrives in the company of men; that men fear to interpret the world on their own authority when they are aware of his presence, because his senses are complete and perfect and his experiences are unlimited; that the standards for proof are much higher when God is involved, especially proof of life, or of what goes on inside a woman's body; that weighed against God's displeasure, or against a man's feeling that God is displeased by his actions, the life of one woman is no great thing. show less

In “Version Control,” Dexter Palmer wrote one of the most original time-travel novels you are likely to find. In “Mary Toft: or, The Rabbit Queen” (2019), his creative mind takes off in a very different direction.

Now it is 1726 in a small English village, where a woman seems to be giving birth to dead rabbits. The novel is based on a true story.

Zachary is a village boy who becomes an apprentice to John Howard, the village physician, after he shows interest in a traveling show of human oddities. If this boy has the stomach for this sort of thing, he must have what it takes to be a good doctor, Howard reasons. Mostly the story comes from Zachery's point of view.

But then comes the case of Mary Toft, who gives birth to dead, show more dissected rabbits every two or three days. At that time it was believed that women who give birth to odd, misshapen children — such as the two-headed woman who shows up late in the novel — must have had something traumatic happen to them during their pregnancy. So why not rabbits?

Soon this oddity attracts surgeons from London, each claiming to represent the king. They take turns delivering dead rabbits and finally take Mary to London to impress the king and others in the big city. Of course, Mary stops giving birth to rabbits once she is in London.

Although this story has comic potential, Palmer mostly plays it straight. He deftly explores the odd human desire to believe the impossible. Whenever we see a magic act, we want to believe the magic tricks are not tricks at all. So again, why not rabbits? show less

I know not what will become of her, but I hope that her punishment will be light. For who can condemn a person for deceiving others who were so willing to deceive themselves? Which of us does not have a devil that lives inside of us, whispering not what is true, but what we wish to believe, out of innocence or cupidity or a hundred other reasons? We must stay ever vigilant against that demon, ever on watch against his pleasing music - if the tale of Mary Toft has any moral at all, it is this.

Writing a novel around the 18th Century historical case of Mary Toft, hoaxer and alleged birther of rabbits, Palmer has written a timeless examination of human nature, and an outstanding literary achievement.

Palmer sets out his intentions in the show more first pages, where we see provincial physician John Howard struggling to read English philosopher John Locke’s masterpiece “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” Palmer’s going to be concerned, while writing an entertaining story, with the question of ‘How do humans come to understand what they regard as truth?’ Is truth an objective reality, existing outside of the human mind, not subject to the realm of human passions? Or is truth an agreed upon conjecture shared between human minds, and thus changeable, and malleable, and open to manipulation by forces that do not mean well? “I am led to consider that the latter possibility may be the case,” says Howard, “that our world has some secret horror that I cannot fathom if so, controlling the minds of men though it is impossible to perceive with our senses alone.”

But to quote Leonard Cohen, you want it darker. So Palmer retells the fable of the king and the invisible cloak but changes the ending; no longer is the king exposed by the solitary truth teller, enabling the crowd to admit and see the truth for themselves. In this telling, a father brings his young son out to see the procession and when the king passes by and his son utters the infamous line "but he's naked", the father knows what he must do - break his son's neck, thus sacrificing what should be most dear to him to protect his, and the crowd's, illusions. After murdering his son as the king's procession stops in shock at the child's words, the father feels no shame, no guilt. On the contrary:

"The tradesman looked up at the king again, and the monarch smiled down at the tradesman with pleasure. And the robe the king wore had become, somehow, even more dazzling: its fabric had manifested as a rippling mirror, which reflected the tradesman back to himself as what he imagined himself to be, and as he once was, and as he would become. For a brief moment the tradesman had experienced what one might call a vision, some sort of devilish illusion, the details of the matter too embarrassing to repeat; but that cursed vision was gone now, and the hurrahs of the crowd grew ever louder and more frenzied as the team of horses pulled the king's wagon onward."

I mean, that is dark.

Who can dismiss that fear, reading human history or just looking around oneself? Palmer somewhat lessens the bleakness of this appraisal by writing with great humanity and empathy for his characters: the hoaxers, the educated dupes, the uneducated dupes the educated ones look down on, the ones who take advantage where they can. Everyone perhaps but the rich elite, represented here as utterly amoral Lords whose wealth warps their characters and destroys their humanity.

Philosophy and literary fiction make excellent bedfellows in skilled hands like Palmer’s. show less

This is one of the most interesting, bizarre, and readable books I've read in a long time. A totally weird story based on real facts from Eighteenth Century England -- a woman gives birth to dismembered rabbit parts. Mainly told from the perspective of a young apprentice to a well respected country doctor, this story touches on so many issues that are just as relevant today. What to believe is true when you haven't seen it yourself - or even if you have seen it? Do we just believe what we want to believe? Does not taking a side on an issue really reinforce it?

The story says a lot about love between husband and wife even when they are on two sides of an issue. It portrays class struggles in England with great detail and often humor. show more

Loved this book; will definitely look for more by this author. show less