cross-posted at booklikes and the mo-centric universe. a few months of staring blankly into space means that finishing this book was a major accomplishment for me. normally, it would have been a quick read but for this cursed lack of focus.. anyway, it is a simple little romance, and i do like enigmatic, artistic pirates very much, so i found some fun in frenchman's creek. i wasn't crazy about it, though, beyond the eponymous pirate. the heroine, lady dona st. columb starts off very precious, driving the thirsty and exhausted horses of her carriage on despite the concerns of the servant she commands. there is nobody chasing her, except perhaps an image in her mind of herself, wearing boy's breeches. she had lately done so, alleviating the boredom she felt in life by scaring an old lady while sneaking around in the middle of the night with her husband's cousin and best friend, rockingham. as a result of this secret shame, she has commanded that her husband, sir harry, stay behind in london while she exiles herself to his country seat, navron in cornwall, with just the children for company. lady dona, or lady lady, if you will (dona is used as the honorific "lady" in latin countries) has come to realize that she doesn't much like the woman she's become (she will repeatedly tell everyone within hearing that she is "near thirty" in the novel) and that she worries that the dignity her title affords is all she has retained. she does not love her husband (she married him because she liked his eyes but apparently that is no longer enough) and she tries to love her children (she has two) but there's really only evidence of some small affection or perhaps more properly, a compulsive maternal connection to her son, james. her daughter henrietta is only casually mentioned and most often she doesn't distinguish between them, only saying how much she enjoys picking flowers with the children. of course, that's when she's not leaving them in care of their nurse, and sneaking off the estate for a few days to go fishing in the creek with our titular frenchman, the pirate. the pirate does has a name but in dialogue he is always the frenchman, so i'm not going to bother telling you his name; du maurier seems to have been allergic to them, anyway. sometimes he draws pictures of dona when he is not sketching birds or teaching her about fishing or the natural world. and of course he used to have a title and be fancy but he gave up all that for adventures on the high seas (and the high creeks, of course). so hurray for the frenchman despite his taste in women!the thing that bugged me most about the novel was du maurier's handling of the period, the historical part of the romance. the book never feels planted in the seventeenth century even though the bulk of the action takes place then. she had already shown so much command in the previously-published rebecca and had already written this type of book, the bodice-ripper jamaica inn, so it's sort of surprising du maurier seems so unsure as a writer here. the first chapter is not set in the period she has committed to: instead she has a contemporary, unnamed yachtsman sail past the part of cornwall where dona's story unfolded two centuries before. she even provides a full precis of the action of the novel here, called forth by the land as he floats by: it is as if the birds, the creek and the country are haunted by this lady and her lover. perhaps she meant this "foreshadowing" as an effect to heighten the power of her romance, that the love herein described still "echoes through the ages" but i did not find it effective. and then there's lady dona herself. du maurier wants you to knows she is an inevitably devastatingly beautiful, ringletted, fiery and strong-willed woman who is used to getting her way, essentially born in the wrong era. the problem in terms of the novel is that everybody else, ostensibly supposed to be part of the norm in society, accepts her behaviour and conveniently accedes to it at every point and frankly, i didn't buy it.. really? lord godolphin would allow her to do *that*? du maurier doesn't make the remotest effort to have dona's movements impeded by her time or position. her husband is ruled by her but so is everybody else, it seems. the only check on her actions comes from the lady herself which seems incompatible with restoration-era england.as other reviewers have noted, lady dona seems to be du maurier's tragic mary sue, a woman who can bend anyone to her will, whose portrait can make a man lose his heart but whose face is conveniently forgettable when it counts. she cannot have everything she wants because she is constrained by her sex. i do actually feel that if du maurier didn't think Society would judge her for it, she would've given this novel the ending that some romantics yearn for, and had she not had children herself, i don't imagine the novel would have unfolded the way it did at all.all this i struggled to accept but the worst parts of the novel for me were two scenes where dona and her frenchman were together, at their first late-night supper, and later on when fishing. dona is at her most annoying here as she petulantly mewls about the limitations of being a woman, about how much less a woman is than a man. thankfully the pirate argues with her in defense of the sex she disparages but it seemed to me her limitations were of class not sex: the reason she could not fish or cook was because she was wealthy, because she was a lady lady. and please stop saying women aren't creative, stupid dona, so that our hero, the frenchman can point out the obvious powers. i did like the servant william and her dynamic with him, though i grew tired of dona's describing him as a man with a "button mouth". what does that even mean? (i keep imagining sylvester stallone's mouth.) also, i know i already mentioned it, but i thought i should end on a high note: the frenchman pirate is really attractive. come tell me about birds and share your cheese with me, monsieur. still, i couldn't help but think of how much more i had enjoyed sabatini's Captain Blood. now there's a pirate romance!probably closer to 2.5 stars but given that i am happy to have finished something, i'm shining up three. This work by Maureen de Sousa is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Beautiful, headstrong Lady Dona St Columb is weary of her life, disillusioned of her social set, her husband Harry and his friend Lord Rockingham, disgusted with herself and the pranks she's done out of boredom and an urge for adventure. On a whim she packs up her two small children and their nurse and takes them with her to their Cornwall estate of Navron, which she hasn't visited since she was a bride.Dona settles quickly into the leisurely pace and wilderness of Navron, which has been maintained by a single servant, William. Her neighbour, Lord Godolphin, tells her about a French pirate who has been robbing the Cornish coast and "distressing" their women, and pleads with her to ask Harry to come and help capture him. The last thing Dona wants is her none-too-bright husband destroying her peace, especially when she discovers the pirate himself is using a deep pool at the end of a tidal creek on her property to secrete his ship, le Mouette - the seagull - before raids.The Frenchman, Jean-Benoit Aubéry, is philosophical and a little bit wild himself. Dona finds in him a soul mate, a friend and a lover, and on a dare joins his crew on a hazardous bit of pirating. All dreams must end, though, and this one comes to a decided halt with the arrival of Harry and Lord Rockingham and a plan to catch a French pirate.I can't begin to describe how much I loved this book. It's only the third du Maurier book I've read (The House on the Strand; Rebecca) but I've always wanted to read them all. Each book I read becomes a new favourite, and I can't help but marvel at her talent, which floors me.Set in Restoration England (second half of 17th century - time of buckled shoes and big wigs), Frenchman's Creek has about it an exotic atmosphere that brought to my mind colonial estates in the Caribbean - perhaps too it is the pirating that does that, though pirates were common around Europe. Du Maurier's skill as a writer was never more abundant than in the sublime descriptions not just of Navron, the creek and river and pirating, but in the changes wrought in Dona herself. As Julie Myerson says in her introduction, "Here is a tale of emotional and sexual awakening, of loss and risk and compromise." It all combines to create this wild, exotic landscape.There is darkness and shadow to the light and carelessness, something secretive and mysterious that's incredibly well-established by the stirringly poignant first chapter in which the estate is described from the "present" as a derelict farmhouse, half fallen-down, haunted by the deeds of long-ago, echoing with the past but overgrown, a ruin, something left behind and possibly forgotten.Written only from Dona's perspective, though not in her voice (yet her voice comes across distinctly), absolutely everything is perfect here - I could not suggest a single thing I'd change, even if I had the audacity - not to the characters, to the prose, to the pacing, not even to the ending, as sad yet hopeful as it is. I can summon my imagination to see the final ending the way my romantic soul would wish it to be, but the ending du Maurier gave it is the only ending it could possibly have had and still keep its magic.Magic is indeed what this story has, the magic of Navron and Dona's escape from Court life, from being the talk of the town - gossiped as far as Cornwall, since even the Frenchman has heard all about her; the magic of the Frenchman himself, never physically described beyond his height (tall) and how he wears his hair (no wig), yet powerfully described by his expressions, his stillness, his care of his crew and of Dona, his hobby of sketching birds, his character - all the things that are so important to Dona about this truly heroic man. This book lived and breathed in my hands like a slice of history, a story that is a ghost, a seductive glimpse into the heart of a woman who thought herself nearly heartless.
What do You think about Frenchman's Creek (2003)?
For many years my sister has begged me to read this book, and for many years I put it off. Again, I believe the book chooses the time and place for its reader. My time was now. No sooner nor later, but simply perfect timing. The need for escape, the need for adventure no matter what the cost; Oh, and, of course, a Pirate - The Frenchman, Master of La Mouette. <3 He is the symbol of escape from the daily routine we find ourselves in, and wish desperately to be elsewhere, if not someone else entirely. Can true and honest emotions be felt and experienced? Yes!...however, reality will always come to call you back home. Your true home.
—Tara Morgan
It is hard to imagine that a book such as this could have been written in England in 1941 when Britain was being bombed and WWII raged in Europe. Were women in London devouring this book and passing it around while waiting for the next siren alerting them to race to the bomb shelter? Apparently du Maurier was of the aristocratic class, and I assume, at arm's length of war's horrors and able to write escapist fiction. On second thought, perhaps du Maurier offered readers a character and an adventure that was much needed. Dona, like many women during the war, throws off the bonds of her former life. She dares to fills a man's shoes - if only in passing. She adventures. Setting the book in bygone days of horse-drawn carriages, pirates and wealthy English estates, the reader could dream and escape and be empowered to change, to take risks, to do men's work, to fall in love aware of love's circumstantial impossibilities just as many women loved their soldiers to never see them return and others became land girls donning menswear to work their farms.This book is a little twee in it's ne'er do well attitude and overdone "yes, my lady" dialogue. It's not the least bit believable, but it goes down really smooth. Though it takes place during the hazy midsummer, it's more a cozy read for a day you're forced to be indoors in need of a good rip-roaring escape. A "just for the fun of it" read.
—Mmars
I read and loved Rebecca as a teenager, and am unsure why I never sought out any of the other novels by the author, but after reading this book I will be sure to do so. I am so glad that Sourcebooks is reprinting this, and hope that it can find its way to many other people who have missed it, as I have. On the rare occasion I have the experience where book and mood meet perfectly. This happened with Frenchman's Creek, a book I am sure that I would have very much enjoyed no matter my mood, but which was exactly the book I was seeking at the time I read it. The wild, windy March days--with looming storm, and gathering clouds, the brief hours of sunshine tempered by drops of ice cold rain, and mud-causing snow--have left me restless and wild myself, longing for escape. And so enter Dona St. Columb, the beautiful but restless Lady, tired of London high society, longing for escape from the falsity and uselessness of her life. After a foolish escapade, and stupid flirtation, she sets off, with her two young children and their nurse, to her husband's country estate surrounded by forest river and ocean. All she wants is to find some solitude and peace--far away from the stench of the stifling London summer, and a husband who can not understand her."Forget the children's tears, forget Prue's grievance, forget the pursed up mouth of the coachman, forget Harry and his troubled distressed blue eyes when she announced her decision. "But damn, Dona, what have I done, what have I said, don't you know that I adore you?" Forget all these things, because this was freedom, to stand here for one minute with her face to the sun and the wind, this was living, to smile and to be alone." The descriptions of the nature and life teeming around the estate--the birds and butterflies, wildflowers and trees, creeks and ocean--bringing joy and peace to Dona and her children, are so well done that I feel as if I were there, in the Cornish countryside. I am transported away from the cold wind, the six inches of March snow I shoveled off of the walks this morning, the snow which keeps coming and will necessitate another shoveling in a few short hours. Instead I drowse lazily, being baked by the sun; I tramp through the thick woods; I stand above the ocean, the salty breeze enlivening me."The birds were astir again, after their noonday silence, and the silent butterflies danced and fluttered, while drowsy bumblebees hummed in the warm air, winging their way to the topmost branches of the trees... and there, suddenly before her for the first time was the creek, still and soundless, shrouded by the trees, hidden from the eyes of men. She stared at it in wonder, for she had had no knowledge of its existence, this stealthy branch of the parent river creeping into her own property, so sheltered, so concealed by the woods themselves. The tide was ebbing, the water was oozing away from the mudflats, and here, where she stood, was the head of the creek itself, for the stream ended in a trickle, and the trickle in a spring. The creek twisted around a belt of trees, and she began to walk along the bank, happy, fascinated, forgetting her mission, for this discovery was a pleasure quite unexpected, this creek was a source of enchantment, a new escape, better than Navron itself, a place to drowse and sleep, a lotus-land." Her stodgy neighbor had warned her about pirates, who have been robbing from the estates up and down the coast, and reportedly having their way with the womenfolk. Their leader a dangerous frenchman, so stealthy and with a ship so fast that he has not been aprehended. Dona had listened to the reports with some amusement, but really paid them no mind until she caught sight of the ship in the creek on her land, and at the same time found herself covered with a coat, and forced onto the pirate ship.What she finds there astounds her, there is no sign of the steriotypical pirate, but an educated, tidy, considerate artist. And beyond the peace which she had sought and found, Dona finds the adventure and passion her spirit had been seeking, and someone who understands."...she had known then that this was to happen, nothing could prevent it; she was part of his body, and part of his mind, they belonged to eachother, both wanderers, both fugitives, cast in the same mould."Danger, excitement, love, a meeting of souls, Lady St. Columb has found it all. Unfortunately she can not keep it all, something must be given up: her children and husband and very way of life, or the new love and adventure which she so craved. Yet events transpire that make it not even such a cut and dried choice as this.Anyone who has ever felt the need to escape from the cage of daily life will identify with and love this book. It has found its way into my heart, and will be added to the stack of favorites I pull out when I feel in the right restless mood, and need a satisfying read.
—Lisa
