Review: The Essex Serpent (by Sarah Perry)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

I had won this book in a Goodreads giveaway a few months back but wasn’t able to find the time to read it until about 2 months ago when it got chosen as the book of the month for one of my book clubs – that motivated me to finally read the book and while I can’t say that I was disappointed with the book, I have to admit that I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

The main strengths of this book I feel were in the characters and the writing.  The primary female protagonist in this book, Cora Seaborne, is a character very different from the typical Victorian era women we may be used to seeing from classical literature.  She is, by all accounts, completely opposite from the prudish, well-mannered upper class women of her time – though smart and well-educated, she possesses neither grace nor elegance nor the typical interest in religion and superstition but instead has an insatiable appetite for adventure and exploring the world around her through the lens of science and the laws of nature.  She is the type of woman who shuns elegant dresses and jewelry and would much prefer going out in ordinary clothes that include an overcoat that looks like it belongs to a man and boots caked in mud perhaps from one of her prior adventures.  She is also witty, charming, open-minded, outspoken, perpetually optimistic (or at least it comes this way) – in more contemporary terms, I would say she has somewhat of a “happy-go-lucky” personality and doesn’t seem to let anything bother her.  On the opposite corner is William Ransome, the local rector of Aldwinter parish with his beautiful but fragile wife Stella and 4 vivacious children – a man who can match Cora for wit and intelligence, but is deeply rooted in his faith and obligation to his parishioners.  He has a pronounced intolerance for superstition and therefore is deeply suspicious of the pervasive rumors of a winged sea creature – the titular Essex serpent – that supposedly lurked in the town’s back waters. There were also other characters in the book that were equally important and played a large part in shaping the story, all of whom were interesting and well-imagined, but to me, Cora stood out from the rest, whether in physical appearance, personality, behavior, attitude, etc.  The author Sarah Perry did a great job imagining her characters and bringing them to life in the story.

In terms of writing, the prose was lovely and elegant, poetic even – I definitely felt like I was reading a classical novel.  With that said though, I felt a lack of consistency with the writing in that some parts were overwritten and overly detailed while others were severely underwritten – I was frustrated at certain parts when the writing got a bit too “poetic”(?) I guess (the right word escapes me at the moment) and I felt like yelling out – just be clear already, did they or didn’t they, did something happen or did something not happen?  Perhaps it was just me but I felt like some parts took a bit too much brain energy to read and process (which is partly why it took me so long to finish reading this book).

I think for me, the part that made this reading most difficult was the lack of one cohesive plot that tied the story together.  Yes, essentially it was the Essex serpent that basically provided the premise of the story and a lot of the subplots (and there were many) linked back to this in some way, but I felt like some were unnecessary and detracted from the story a bit.  I found myself losing interest at certain points but then when it got back to the main story, I started paying attention again.  At one point, I was nearly 200 pages in and I remember thinking to myself that I really didn’t have much of an idea what was truly going on with the story.  It almost felt like I was reading a series of character vignettes detailing how particular characters’ every day lives were upended due to the community’s obsession with a potential serpent lurking in their midst.  While having a book be more character-driven than plot-driven is not necessarily a bad thing, I think it didn’t work that well for me in this particular book because of some of the other things mentioned above.

There were also quite a few themes that the story dealt with – science versus superstition, fanatical adherence to religion versus free thinking and letting nature take its course, prudishness versus being openness and being sexually bold, etc.  To be honest, I didn’t read as deeply into the story as others might have and near the end I was just relieved to finally finish the book, so I really didn’t explore some of these themes as much as I probably could have.  With that said, my review might not be the best one to read if you’re trying to decide whether to read this book or not -- I would suggest checking out the other reviews to get a more balanced perspective.

In the end, while I can’t say I “enjoyed” this book and definitely did not feel emotionally engaged when reading it, there were many good things about the book that made me feel it deserves a higher mark.  In fairness, I decided to rate this 3.5 stars.

Received advance reader’s copy from Custom House (William Morrow) via Goodreads Giveaways