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The Skull and the Nightingale A Novel Michael Irwin 9780062202352 Books

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The Skull and the Nightingale A Novel Michael Irwin 9780062202352 Books

**Never Any Spoilers**

I'm not going to give the author kudos for doing his research--that's just an expectation that goes with writing a book set in the time period. What I will give the author credit for is the writing style. It seemed very genuine to me, as though it could have been written over a hundred years ago. I think adopting that style is a unique talent and can be very difficult to pull off. Mr. Irwin does it masterfully.

Perhaps because of my admiration for his writing style, I found this book more of a pleasant read than anything else. There's some darkness here, but not a lot, and much of it occurs on a philosophical level rather than an actual one. I was waiting for it to take a darker turn, and it could have gone that way, but the characters don't bother much with guilt or questions on an emotional level, but more a logical one. There's a grand experiment happening in the goings-on in this novel, and in the end, even the parts that could be titillating simply come off as more of a science experiment, rendering the naughty bits not-so-very-naughty after all.


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The Skull and the Nightingale A Novel Michael Irwin 9780062202352 Books Reviews

I feel compelled to start this review with a warning- this book contains rape triggers so please be advised. I have not been a victim but this still bothered me greatly. Now my review will probably go downhill from here.

I’ll start with the positives. This author is well versed in the language and tone of the time, late eighteenth century, but he still managed to not overdo the flowery speech so it wasn’t too foreign for the modern reader. The language of those times was often flowery and seemingly emotional and reads beautifully. When letter writing was an art form.

The story begins with the main character, Richard Fenwick coming home to London from his two year grand tour of Europe. A tour that was de rigueur for upper class men, gentlemen, in the language of the times. Now Fenwick needs to have a conference with his godfather, Mr. Gilbert, who has been Fenwick’s sole support since losing his parents at an early age. Since the upper classes thought it common to actually work for a living, he needs to ascertain how much his godfather plans to settle on him so he can decide what type of life he was looking at now that he was home. While visiting Mr. Gilbert at his estate some distance from London he discovers that Gilbert has plans of his own which Fenwick must decide whether to be a part of and to what extent. Of course Gilbert holds his financial future as the trump card to make him likely to agree with the plan.

Unfortunately a good deal of the story is put forth in letters, which become repetitive after a while, not to mention less than edifying when the parties decide to withhold information. What Gilbert expects of his godson seems rather tame in the beginning but eventually his desires and requests get darker and more morally suspect. He wishes to experience the parts of life that he was too timid or rigid to experience when he was younger he says, but this angle simply doesn’t ring true as the story progresses.

I began to project where I thought the story was heading, which frankly isn’t a good sign for me. That means that I’m not caught up in the author’s world and I’m trying to hurry it along in my imagination. I have to say that some of my theories were more shocking or exciting than the final plot as written. Of course that’s only my opinion and some find the author’s version satisfactory as written. I just found it ultimately disappointing and needlessly misogynistic even taking the normal code of the time into consideration. And in my defense, I don’t normally have that issue; this is not my go to response to male violence. I just found it rather lazy and tiresome as a plot in this case.

Bottom line, I didn’t find the story as compelling as advertised; nor as dark and mysterious as the description promises. It managed to offend me and bore me simultaneously. Not a fan.
I’m still not sure why the book is titled THE SKULL AND THE NIGHTINGALE. I was enticed into reading it by its ballyhooed press that promised a chilling, deliciously-dark, exciting look at filthy eighteenth-century London, along the lines of TOM JONES and LIAISONS DANGEREUSES; both of the latter I’d read and enjoyed. Certainly the author, Michael Irwin, seems qualified to come through with those promises, being an emeritus professor of English literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury, specializing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature.

At the outset, though, I found Irwin’s methodology of using letters as a means of forwarding the plot, with a lot of duplication in the text, more than a little disconcerting (whereas in the case in Bram Stoker’s DRACULA I’d enjoyed the letter inclusions). What’s more, rather than finding what I was reading in the least chilling or deliciously dark, I found it all rather mundane, rather like having picked up a book, thinking it was a gritty hard-nails detective novel, only to find I’d come across a cozy mystery.

Granted, the book did pick up some steam toward the end. And, by the end, I found that I’d pleasantly enjoyed what I’d read, even if it hadn’t been what I’d expected, or was anything I’d have picked up had I known what I was going to get. It’s a book full of interesting things presented in far less interesting ways than live up to its potential.
This will not be a thorough review because I did not finish the book. The characters were forgettable and the plot uninteresting. I really tried to like the book and gave it several chances but in the end it was just plain boring.
Well told tale. Ultimately I'm not sure there was much to learn from this book but it was a good period drama. Good writing style.
It wasn't as involving as I thought it was going to be. But it was definitely different, which is what I was looking for out of this book.
This is a book with a good story line; but it is written in the vernacular of the time. So I found that a little off-putting. But I persevered & was rewarded by a psychological thriller that would be believable in our day & age.
**Never Any Spoilers**

I'm not going to give the author kudos for doing his research--that's just an expectation that goes with writing a book set in the time period. What I will give the author credit for is the writing style. It seemed very genuine to me, as though it could have been written over a hundred years ago. I think adopting that style is a unique talent and can be very difficult to pull off. Mr. Irwin does it masterfully.

Perhaps because of my admiration for his writing style, I found this book more of a pleasant read than anything else. There's some darkness here, but not a lot, and much of it occurs on a philosophical level rather than an actual one. I was waiting for it to take a darker turn, and it could have gone that way, but the characters don't bother much with guilt or questions on an emotional level, but more a logical one. There's a grand experiment happening in the goings-on in this novel, and in the end, even the parts that could be titillating simply come off as more of a science experiment, rendering the naughty bits not-so-very-naughty after all.