Monday, August 6, 2018

Mary Doria Russell's "Dreamers of the Day" (2008)

I read Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow almost twenty years ago. Although I cannot remember many of the details, I do recall being affected by the quality and clarity of the writing.

This summer, I have enjoyed slowly working my way through Dreamers of the Day, which is a similarly lovely read.

Russell's choice of words, descriptions and dialogue are like a satisfying piece of music: they reach me on both the intellectual and aesthetic levels ("prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the Nile").

The protagonist is Agnes Shanklin, a 40 year old teacher from Ohio whose family has been decimated by the 1919 influenza epidemic. Agnes is shy, introverted, thoughtful -- perhaps surprisingly cosmopolitan given her limited experience in the world and lack of prior interactions with those outside of her family.

Using the inheritance from her deceased mother and sister, Agnes travels to Cairo to retrace the footsteps of her sister and brother-in-law. While there, she stumbles into the paths of T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, and other colonialist Europeans who have gathered to resolve post World War I questions about the fate of the Middle East.

The Europeans literally create the nation-state of Iraq during a dinner meeting, over the prescient objections of one colleague who explains that the ethnic and religious tensions amongst the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis could cause problems in the future.

I have loved learning about Lawrence and Churchill through the lens of Russell's imagined conversations and anecdotes. This is historical fiction at its best: it provides a glimpse into events and people that feels alive and real.

The background romance between Agnes and Karl (a German diplomat whose motives are a bit mysterious) is not quite as interesting, though it does provide a plotline of Agnes's growing confidence and determination.

I am happy that I stumbled across this book. As with the many books that the kids have enjoyed this summer, it makes me appreciate our public library as a truly awesome institution.