Lucia and a Girl is A Half Formed Thing including remarkably winning both the Desmond Elliott Prize and even appropriately the Goldsmith Prize for novels which break the mould of fiction And I think this book is a worthy addition to their formidable canon managing an excellent combination of powerful themes and page turning readability it was one I thoroughly enjoyed reading in only two sittings Its is an imagined version of the life of Mary Toft a poor woman from Godalming less than 20 miles from my now home who in 1726 gained some national celebrity and controversy due to her apparent ability to affliction of giving birth to rabbits or specifically parts of rabbits As the author makes almost immediately clear this was due to the initial machinations of her mother in law Mary who inserted animal parts within her in the author s view motivated it seems less by money or fame than as some form of social protest large rabbit farms at that time rather taking over the countryside but with strict anti poaching prohibitions on the poor and dispossessed Mary s case and her seeming ability to continue to deliver rabbits interests various Doctors some for personal reasons for example a need for acceptance or simply for a new interest.
But with all of the wit and humour and empathy which they lack Special mention needs to be made of a really impressive why can t novels do this Afterword and Acknowledgements which as well as a series of sources and suggested further reading is really open about topics such as the non fictional inspiration for the novel Karen Harvey s The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder Mary Toft and Eighteenth Century Britain and the small number of knowing anachronisms and changes to the historical facts Highly recommended and I really hope to see this as the latest Galley Beggar book to grace a prize list Ann Toft is opposed to it All the women are opposed to it. Even Joshua Toft.
All presented in a way that at times feels absurd but at others makes you pity the position Mary was in There is a dreamlike feel to the prose which adds to the sense of unreality in the story It was a quick read but one that provokes much thought I am giving it four stars I would definitely read from this author in the future. I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review English She is the ideal person to use for people who wish to use other people for their own ends. It is based on the curious 18th century case of Mary Toft.
Were accorded a special status in regards to the people who were allowed to own them and eat them and that the case of Mary Toft became an opportunity for doctors to test and demonstrate the validity of the empirical scientific method Harvey also explores the possibility that Mary was quite low down the hierarchy in her community of women that she was dependent on them and even afraid of several of them Harvey calls them formidable and sinister women. Although clearly extensively researched and the author is admirably clear in her afterword when and why she has departed from or built on the known facts for the purpose of her novel.
I found this a tough one to rate indeed it called into question the rating criteria I ve been using Of course that is trivial anyway I thought it was an excellent idea to weave a fictional story around actual events which incidentally I still can t quite believe actually happened It was also excellent to give Mary and poverty a voice I just didn t enjoy reading it that much which is probably down to me than the author English The irritating everything in triplicate prose style recalling an eccentric 60s children s book and conceited typesetting strategy didn t work for me but the story and its themes are interesting worthwhile Did not get a sense of Mary Toft at all still a distant curiosity a faraway tragic folk heroine lost to history The phalanx of male doctors meanwhile are far finely drawn and richly contextualised Felt like a short story a novella at most that had been mercilessly tamped out Kiss De ki s little epilogue outro is excellent however and ends up telling you all you need to know about the whys and wherefores English With Mary And The Rabbit Dream No mi Kiss De ki gifts us a disturbing yet exquisite portrayal of 18th century misogyny and the plight of women and poor men locked within the cultural confines of severe male aggressiveness obsessive hierarchies and the dismissive rejection of females as equal beings. In No mi s tale Mary an ordinary poor working class woman finds herself at the centre of a controversy regarding whether or not she ergo women in general is able to birth creatures other than humans in this particular case rabbits As news of this improbable situation spreads Mary is physically emotionally and mentally abused both by those wanting for a variety of reasons to prove that she has indeed birthed rabbits and by those determined but not completely convinced that humans birthing rabbits is an impossibility The appalling behaviour of learned men towards Mary and women in general is deplorably shocking and the rage of injustice draws this reader to contemplate how far or not we have come 300 years later. I m not entirely sure that enough has changed since those times Although in 2024 many women have a good degree of comparative autonomy over their lives there is still too much of our health bodies and personal authority that is both given and taken away especially in our so called modern medicine arena Take the over medicalization of labour and childbirth for example the way it has oh so unsubtly become the norm for a woman to lie on her back in a hospital during both phases of birth be regularly interfered with by a rolling progression of practitioners undergo frequent often unnecessary interventions be assisted in giving birth by pathology obsessed doctors rather than natural birth focused midwives be injected with numbing anaesthesia obliged to remain still and hooked up to monitors rather than being able to move around freely as her body and her baby most often need to do in order to birth gently and well. Published by the wonderful Galley Beggar Press Mary And The Rabbit Dream is written in a series of short sentences that remind me of a long thread of modern text messages yet the frequent repetition of phrases and characters thoughts seem to slow us down so we can readily absorb the action and intention taking place It is kind of the opposite of doom scrolling and I enjoyed this seemingly deliberate and effective way of writing which was easy to get through A fascinating enjoyable read English Ann Toft clutches what is left of the rabbit What is left of the rabbit is a disappointment Ann Toft thinks about the daughter in law put through yet another tragedy. And because work is soon to dry up for her son daughter and daughter in law the healthiest and most able bodied members of the family because they have nothing to sell when Michaelmas is coming up and because all this goes on while the wealthy stay disgustingly wealthy not wanting for anything in life while the impoverished Tofts and everyone around them want for near everything Ann Toft has a diabolical thought. Because that evening after the failed fish mission and Mary s miscarriage Ann Toft is starting to link things together things wholly unrelated to each other Ann Toft links them together now creating relations between them relations and paths The latest novel by the brilliant Norfolk based small press Galley Beggar whose publications include such innovative books as After Sappho We That Are Young Ducks Newburyport some due to their firm belief in and desire to use the newly developed tool of empirical science to overcome ignorance and superstition some due to superstition one of them leads Mary into the idea that she has given birth to rabbits due to a vivid dream of them something which seemed like an extreme manifestation of the then still widely held belief that maternal imaginings shaped the fate and future life of a foetus and some from the orders of the King both intrigued and disturbed by the case For all of them though taking advantage of the privilege of their sex and station Mary s will are of little consequence and entirely subservient to their aims and her body in particular is simply a site for their investigations the lack of female particularly poor female bodily autonomy and the chasmic social divides of English society lie at the heart of the novel What really distinguishes though is its narrative voice detached written with a deliberate 21st century sensibility but at all times seeking for the truth of the then contemporary societal s and practices it employs staccato sentences resplendent with repetition and rhythm to surgically examine motivation in the same way the Doctors examine Mary Mary s husband kept in the dark about many things is opposed to it. Ann Toft doesn t realize Ann Toft doesn t realize her outlandish idea will not be enough to set the system on fire Because the system can t be set on fire She doesn t realize yet the system eats everyone sooner or later and especially the poor Especially them English Mary and The Rabbit Dream is a difficult one to review It s a really interesting and horrific tale about the abuse and control placed on women in history Mary is forced to pretend she can birth rabbits with the promise she will escape poverty Before she knows it she is being pushed further and further into the lie Her health freedom and body sacrificed The writing is where I had issues I get it and it works for the most part but frustrated me at points and I found myself struggling to stay engaged It s creative and pushes conventional story telling but It may not be for everyone English This reads like the most outrageous piece of gossip English I was shocked when I discovered this is No mi Kiss De ki s debut novel This is brilliant. The style is mesmerizing folding back on itself while propelling the story forward mirroring the forward motion of the events in the life of young Mary Toft poorest of the poor in 1726 Surrey England in a time when only the very wealthy could farm rabbits for food and clothes and catching a rabbit was considered poaching and punishable by law. After Mary suffers a miscarriage her formidable mother in law conceives of a fraud a fraud that pitches Mary into the orbit of powerful wealthy men none of whom care about Mary all of whom see something to be gained for themselves at the expense of Mary s dignity and suffering And she does suffer Some men are complicit in the fraud some are determined to prove it true some are determined to prove it false and caught up in all their machinations is a young women with no power no agency no freedom to decide who can question her look at her touch her or examine her Mary is merely a body to be exploited. This story is based on real events and I could not put it down I strongly recommend it English I had heard the story of Mary Toft somewhere before in my history non fiction reading and I really enjoyed Mary and the Rabbit Dream s feminist take on it considering Mary s predicament as she is passed from overbearing female relatives to the male doctors some of whom believed the tale of birthing rabbits and others who wished to expose the fraud It looks at the power balance at the time between rich and poor men and women a woman believed for a period including by some eminent doctors to be giving birth to rabbits As the author acknowledges in a very helpful afterword her novel was inspired and informed by Karen Harvey s non fictional reassessment of the history The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder Mary Toft and Eighteenth Century England and in particular some of her key conclusions as summarised by Kiss De ki that in the fraud of Mary Toft very little evidence supports the notion that it was done for money and that there in fact might be pointing towards it having been an act of some kind of resistance that there were great tensions between the wealthy and the poor in Godalming that rabbits as food and as animals the novel is very much not genre historical fiction instead written in a propulsive style with short rhythmically repetitive paragraphs that make this a compelling read I read it from cover to cover in one sitting Doctors would later describe her as having a fair complexion a strong and healthy constitution a small stature and a stupid and sullen temper They would note that she could neither read nor write The latter is something literate and educated men like to point out when demonstrating dominance and superiority But in Mary Toft s circle no one could read or write It was no problem It was not noted It was just how it was For women like Mary Toft other means of communication were employed One might wonder what women like Mary Toft who can neither read nor write would do if one day wishing to make an impact wishing to attempt a change. And the novel restores Mary Toft s humanity by showing that while at the physical centre of the scandal in practice she was at the mercy of all the other actors including her mother in law Ann and some local women who in this account meant the plot as some form of protest as well as the various medical experts each with agendas of their own Indeed the text focuses on the motivations of each involved and any actions are purely a consequence of that This when a local doctor not entirely convinced of the reality of what he has witnessed but seeing how it could lead him to fame insists on moving Mary from her home in Godalming to his own much grander house in Guildford But Mr Howard insistsAnd Mary Toft has no opinion Mary Toft has suffered too much to have an opinion Mary Toft has been listened to too little her whole life to have the courage to form any opinions of her own And now she has no opinions Not even if she tries She has suffered too much She is stunned with pain and fear She is fearful of the women around her She is fearful of her surroundings Everything right now inspires fear She is the ideal person to use for people who wish to use other people for their own ends In the end there is nothing Ann Toft and the other women can do They are losing control Instead a person with fine clothes a fine voice and fine eyes and a good name has taken control Ann Toft doesn t realize Ann Toft doesn t realize her outlandish idea will not be enough to set the system on fire Because the system can t be set on fire She doesn t realize yet the system eats everyone sooner or later and especially the poor Especially them Impressive and a contender for prize recognition from the Women s Prize to the Goldsmiths English Incredible story frustrating execution Mary Toft is a historical figure who claimed to have given birth to rabbits We are never in doubt in this book that there is anything other than deception at play The author lays out the hows and whys of the trickery from the start But that for me also took away some of the magic We re never given a chance to dream that maybe just maybe there is a miracle at play The novel is written in a sort of nursery rhyme like prose full of repetitions and overlaps Sometimes this works sometimes it s just irritating I also felt like this purports to be a feminist novel about the horrors of what can be done to women s bodies And yet it s centred mostly around the male doctors Mary feels oddly distant throughout I wanted the author to allow me glimpses of Mary s inner turmoil rather than always seeing her pain and anguish through a very male gaze English
| Mary and the Rabbit Dream By Noémi Kiss-Deáki |
| 1552454940 |
| 9781552454947 |
| English |
| 232 |
| Paperback |
.. Mary and the Rabbit Dream is the debut novel from No mi Kiss De ki. That is not how Ann Toft herself would word it in early eighteenth century England but that is what she wants to do, Mary Toft has been listened to too little her whole life to have the courage to form any opinions of her own: She is fearful of the women around her She is fearful of her surroundings. She is the ideal person to use for people who wish to use other people for their own ends: In the end there is nothing Ann Toft and the other women can do. Instead a person with fine clothes a fine voice and fine eyes and a good name has taken control.Ann Toft wants to set the system on fire.But Mr Howard insists.And Mary Toft has no opinion.Mary Toft has suffered too much to have an opinion.And now she has no opinions Not even if she tries.She has suffered too much.She is stunned with pain and fear.Everything right now inspires fear.They are losing control