(no subject)

[skygiants]

I remembered The Ivy Tree as being my favorite Mary Stewart on the basis of concept alone, but I'd only read it the once, circa 2007, and therefore decided it was about time to reread and discover if that was still true.

Spoiler: it totally is, The Ivy Tree is GREAT. Premise: Our Heroine Mary Grey has been recruited, Brat Farrar-like, to impersonate long-lost heiress Annabel, whose dying grandfather refuses to believe that she's dead, and whose dashing-but-sinister ex-fiance-and-cousin Con would very much like to get control of the estate without the trouble of having a legal battle with a missing person.


The twist, of course -- as is officially revealed late in the book, but detectable reasonably early on if you pay close attention -- is that 'Mary Grey' was actually Annabel all along, PRETENDING to be an identical doppelganger who then got hired to pretend to be Annabel!

THIS IS TOTAL NONSENSE AND I LOVE IT. I love the sheer chutzpah of Annabel sailing through the book, looking both of her exes straight in the face and coolly explaining to them that she's very sorry but she's just a coincidentally identical stranger! Genetic recurrence, what are you gonna do?

(Yes, Annabel has a second ex besides Con; for once, the most sinister Gothic gentleman who presents himself is NOT actually the hero.

...Annabel's other ex is not that much better, all that we know about him is:

a.) eight years ago, he was an unhappily married adult who started a dramatic emotional affair with a nineteen-year-old, and
b.) he found it so inconceivable that his ex might not be into him anymore after EIGHT YEARS that he immediately accused her of being a different person, like, NO WONDER Annabel decided to run with it

There IS one (1) worthy love interest in this book; his name is Donald and he's a laconic Scottish archaeologist who loves forts and cats. Unfortunately, Donald is not Annabel's love interest, despite the fact that Annabel too loves forts and cats and dry Scottish humor; he is designated for Annabel's baby cousin Julie, who is very nice and very cute but appears to have no interest in archaeology whatsoever.

ANNABEL: Donald, I like you, you should marry Julie immediately.
DONALD: Well, I like her and all, but we only met eight weeks ago and she's not yet twenty and also doesn't seem particularly interested in archaeolo-
ANNABEL: IMMEDIATELY I SAID, you're a precious gem who needs to be part of our family and I don't trust Julie not to go off and marry someone else significantly worse!

I'm pretty sure Donald is correct and he should not, actually, marry Julie immediately on eight weeks' acquaintance, but I don't blame Annabel for attempting to lock that in as quickly as possible so she can just hang out with Donald all the time. I would be tempted to do the same thing.)

Gentleman callers aside, though, the real shining star of the story is Annabel and her amazing double game, which for the most part she pulls off with a really exceptional level of skill and panache for a Gothic heroine. Her choices are ridiculous, but, you know what, she owns them, and I love her.

Comments

[sovay]

THIS IS TOTAL NONSENSE AND I LOVE IT.

I still think it is no more unreasonable than the ending of many novels by Diana Wynne Jones.

[skygiants]

Hexwood definitely has more secret identities, but I can't remember if anyone actually does double back so they're pretending to be the person they're pretending not to be....

[oracne]

This book blew my mind when I read it in high school.

[skygiants]

As I recall, I read it shortly after reading (or rereading) Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief, so as soon as I hit the cagey first-person narration I was like 'THIS CAGEY FIRST-PERSON NARRATION FEELS FAMILIAR, WHAT ARE YOU NOT TELLING US MARY GREY --'

[watersword]

I am SO ANGRY that this is one of the Mary Stewarts that the public library keeps as "reference" rather than "circulating". I can't read this in public! I need to be under a quilt and allowed to make delighted squeaks!

[skygiants]

That is one hundred percent the proper way to read a Mary Stewart! I hope you have good secondhand bookstore luck; this is the sort of book that I feel one ought to be able to acquire in battered paperback for fifty cents with just a little bit of good fortune.

[percysowner]

I read this in High School and was one of my first Gothic novels, so I missed any clue that Mary was actually Annabelle. The reveal BLEW MY MIND. It made me a Mary Stewart fan for life, although not many of her books ever hit the heights of The Ivy Tree.

[skygiants]

I'm very far from having read all the Mary Stewarts there are, so it's still POSSIBLE I'll find one that I like as well, but none have managed that yet!

[ladyherenya]

I love this book! It made me realise how much fun an unreliable narrator can be -- before then, the only unreliable narrators I'd come across had made me want to throw the book down the stairs. I enjoy rereading it, picking up on Annabel's lies and misdirection and her reasons for employing both.

I agree that there's really not much to recommend Annabel's other ex. (Huh, he's a bit of a Rochester figure -- I don't think I'd noticed that before.) But the book makes me invested in seeing Annabel get what she wants.

[skygiants]

It is REALLY enjoyable rereading in certainty and picking up on all the careful clues! It's such a well-crafted book.

Yeah, I mean, the one way the structure does a disservice is that because we don't get the reveal about Forrest until the end, Annabel can't tell us any of the reasons she actually likes him -- we only see him by his actions in the text, and those are .... not great, actually. Maybe he does have other, sterling qualities we don't see, but who knows? Not the reader!

[alchimie]

I am not reading the rest of the post because you had me as 'Brat Farrar-like' and now I must read it as soon as possible.