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Book: Golden Hill, Francis Spufford
Publication date: 2016
WCRG meeting: 8 March 2017
Rating: 7.8
Thank you to all who either attended the meeting in person, or submitted their reviews in advance at our last meeting on 8 March where we discussed Golden Hill, by Francis Spufford. We had a lively evening discussing the book.
A young man, Richard Smith, arrives on the brig Henrietta in small-town, colonial New York in 1746 bearing a bill for the sum of £1000 expecting to exchange it for cash from a trader, Mr Lovell, who owes this amount to the London company that wrote the bill. He won't say how he will use this enormous sum of money and even the reader is not enlightened until the very end of the book. Mr Lovell is understandably nervous and awaits confirmation from the London company by ship.
So begins a rollicking, picaresque rom-com of a book with more than a nod towards Tristram Shandy and Tom Jones with characters straight out of a Hogarth engraving, helped, or possibly hindered, by being written in the style of an 18th century novel with its use of archaic words, period punctuation and turns of phrase. Even the chapters are numbered and dated with the accession date of George II. This is pre-revolutionary America and everyone, to a man, is proud of being British.
After twenty years of writing non-fiction, this is Francis Spufford's first novel and he has managed to create vivid scenes of 18th century street and salon life that draws the reader into a world of commerce in which money and mistrust underlie everything. Comparisons between New York (a town of 7,000) and London, (one hundred times bigger) help to set the scene. New York is conveyed from Smith’s point of view - he thought the populace healthier and it was a rarity to see three women not marked by smallpox.
The Reading Group were greatly energised by their discussion though not necessarily because it was universally liked. Some thought that just too much was happening, and though hugely enjoyable at times it wasn't always clear just how it all hung together. The initial MacGuffin, the promissory note, is largely forgotten until the very end. In between its initial appearance and its conversion into hard cash, we have Smith helping to produce and perform in a theatrical play; almost beaten to a pulp at an anti-Papist bonfire followed by the mob chasing him through the streets and then roof-tops; fighting a duel; imprisoned for debt and then for murder; and steamy sex in a bathhouse. It was felt that a second reading would help make events clearer and one member had done this (and consequently almost doubled his score by doing so) but even then some connecting elements of the story were missed and it was only in the group discussion that the riot of action could be slowed and unpicked. Some members were put off by the mannered style of writing, while for others this was the real joy of the book.
The characters were very finely drawn, none being especially sympathetic, and some in fact were downright malicious but all were believable. Septimus Oakeshott, Secretary to the Governor was probably the most decent but even he was known to be a spy and would find out what was going on by any means at his disposal. The attraction between Smith and Tabitha was compared by themselves to that of Beatrice and Benedict and in the final chapter headed August 1813 with Tabitha now an elderly spinster, she sets down the events of that tumultuous period 67 years ago when Smith arrived and left with his (WARNING: PLOT SPOILER) sledges of slaves bought at the market, to start a new life of freedom. Tabitha can't help reveling in the fact that her father was taken in by Smith and that he had (WARNING: ANOTHER PLOT SPOILER) “entertained a n....r unawares" and "pressed upon him the society of his daughters". And when the laughter of others had died away "that judge, lawyer and jury had excused a black man for the death of a white one......that the assembly had thought him worth wooing.......he had been treated as a person of consequence....That Terpie had---- Well; enough of that." Tabitha belatedly becomes more human and is now living in post-revolutionary America as she perceives that she has moved from living in one epoch to another, both mutually unintelligible. She admits she has grown no nicer but her contrariness has diminished into a more easily domesticated form - but she remembers how good it was to scream!
All in all the book provoked a great deal of debate. All our members were impressed by this novelistic debut but some more than others. The final score of 7.8 reflects that a few marks were low but many were high.
