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Based on the true story of Eyam, the "Plague Village," in the rugged mountain spine of England. In 1666, a tainted bolt of cloth from London carries bubonic infection to this isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners. A visionary young preacher convinces the villagers to seal themselves off in a deadly quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. The story is told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Anna Frith, the vicar's maid, as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As the death toll rises and people turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna emerges as an unlikely and courageous heroine in the village's desperate fight to save itself.… (more)
caittilynn: I couldn't find the title listed in English, but the Horseman on the Roof tells the story of a young man traveling through the Provence region of France when there is an epidemic of cholera and he is suddenly forced to deal with death, opportunism and fearful townspeople.… (more)
wordcauldron: A girl who outlives her parents during an influenza outbreak and encounters a deceitful plan by a couple that lost their daughter during the same outbreak.
wordcauldron: Informative and intriguing university-level lecture about the plague. Sort of a micro history. Good for those who want some non-fiction about this topic!
"Forgive me, mistress, but these times, they do make monsters of us all."
Wow, this was a very sad story. I don't know much about the nitty gritty of the plague. I had to look up the different forms of plague to understand why there was disgusting bursting and the sweet smell of rotting fruit. Many descriptions were just foul.
but this is a very interesting story. Not knowing anything, I found it immensely fascinating. I didn't always like Anna, but I think that has everything to do with this as an audio book.
The year of the title is the year of 1666 when the Plague came to Anna Frith's mountain village in England. Anna is widowed at 18 with a toddler and a baby. She works for the Reverend Michael Mompellion and his wife Elinor. The story follows them and the villagers during that time as seen by Anna. A proposal by the Reverend to shut themselves off until the disease is spent (no one in, no one out) is based on a true village happening at that time. We see how they deal and suffer and the great changes that are its result. During the year true character and secrets are revealed. As usual this was a great story by Brooks. ( )
I am not sure about this book. It's not bad, but not exciting either. I didn't finish, I read the users reviews and the Q&As here, they gave away the "surprise" ending. It's not a book for me. ( )
When the plague visits an isolated village in the English countryside, a housemaid na,ed Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna’s eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers endure a self-imposed quarantine to keep the disease from spreading. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the ,ire of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes a “year of wonders.” ( )
Discriminating readers who view the term historical novel with disdain will find that this debut by praised journalist Brooks (Foreign Correspondence) is to conventional work in the genre as a diamond is to a rhinestone. With an intensely observant eye, a rigorous regard for period detail, and assured, elegant prose, Brooks re-creates a year in the life of a remote British village decimated by the bubonic plague.
O let it be enough what thou hast done, When spotted deaths ran arm'd through every street, With poison'd darts, which not the good could shun, The speedy could outfly, or valiant meet.
The living few, and frequent funerals then, Proclaim'd thy wrath on this forsaken place: And now those few who are return'd agen Thy searching judgments to their dwellings trace.
- From Annus Mirabilis, The Year of Wonders, 1666, by John Dryden
Dedication
For Tony Without you, I never would have gone there.
First words
I used to love this season.
Quotations
Good yield does not come without suffering, it does not come without struggle, and toil, and yes, loss.
God warns us not to love any earthly thing above Himself, and yet He sets in a mother's heart such a fierce passion for her babes that I do not comprehend how He can test us so.
And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.
Inasmuch as he knew what love meant, he knew he loved me, and all the more so when I gave him the boys.
This was no stealthy retreat. The Hall hummed like a struck hive.
Before sunset, no less than four families were visited so, by deaths that reached across generations, snatching children and parents with the same dread hand.
I set my morning to the rhythmic thump of my own knife, and its tattoo became, to me, the hopeful music of healing.
When he hefted his sack and went on, I stood and stared after his retreating back, wondering what kind of ill thing my good intentions might have hatched.
In his callousness, he would knock upon the doors of the ailing, saying if they wanted a grave he would dig it then and there or not at all. And so a person who yet lived would lie in his sickbed and listen to the rise and fall of my father's spud. I think that his heartless behavior hastened more than one person into the ground.
Michael Mompellion's face was quiet, but his voice was so cold I thought it would blast my father like an ice storm.
The crowd was thickening now as yarn gathers itself on a spindle.
The storm that had threatened at morning blew in by early afternoon. It came from the northeast, in sheets of snow that marched across the far valley in separate leaves, like the pages of a letter whipped from someone's hands in a wind gust.
After Alun Houghton's gravelly voice, my words seemed weightless, carried away by the wind.
I wondered then if others had these fell thoughts, or whether I was drifting slowly into madness.
There had been fear here, since the very beginning, but where it had been veiled, now it had become naked. Those of us who were left feared each other and the hidden contagion we each might carry. People scurried, stealthy as mice, trying to go and come without meeting another soul.
It became impossible for me to look into the face of a neighbor and not imagine him dead.
We were sorely depleted already in trades of all kinds. Horses who threw a shoe went without since the death of the farrier. We were without malter and mason, carpenter and cloth-weaver, thatcher and tailor. Many fields lay covered in unbroken clods, neither harrowed nor sown. Whole houses stood empty; entire families gone from us, and names that had been known here for centuries gone with them.
Fear took each of us differently.
"None of us is master of himself as we should be in these times."
So John Gordon's flesh was mortified in death as in life, lying naked under the sky, left to the untender mercies of Nature.
But fear, as I have said, was working strange changes in all of us, corroding our ability for clear thought.
For every one of us who still walked upon the Earth, two of us lay under it.
Some days, even the effort of thought seemed burdensome.
And yet some memories cannot be rooted out like weeds, no matter how much one wills to do it.
Last words
Elinor clasps the other, and together we plunge into the jostling swarm of our city.
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Problem CK : Date de première publication : - 2001-06-05 (1e édition originale américaine) - 2003-03-11 (1e traduction et édition française, Calmann-Lévy) - 2004-12-02 (Réédition française, Domaine étranger, 10/18)
Based on the true story of Eyam, the "Plague Village," in the rugged mountain spine of England. In 1666, a tainted bolt of cloth from London carries bubonic infection to this isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners. A visionary young preacher convinces the villagers to seal themselves off in a deadly quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. The story is told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Anna Frith, the vicar's maid, as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As the death toll rises and people turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna emerges as an unlikely and courageous heroine in the village's desperate fight to save itself.
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When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated mountain village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer.
Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the plague year, 1666, as her fellow villagers make an extraordinary choice. Convinced by a visionary young minister, they elect to quarantine themselves within the village boundaries to arrest the spread of the disease.
But as death reaches into every housebold, faith frays. When villagers turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna must confront the deaths of family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As she struggles to survive, a year of plague becomes, instead, annus mirablilis, a "year of wonders."
Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged mountain spine of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. Written with stunning emotional intelligence and hailed as an "astonishing re-creation of how it felt to be a victim and survivor of the year of wonders and horrors," the novel examines the collision of faith, science, and superstition at the cusp of the modern era. Exploring love and learning, loss and renewal, Year of Wonders succeeds as a spellbinding work of historical fiction and an unforgettable read.
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