This novel is written in the best traditions of the reliable narrator, and this first person narrator is very very reliable indeed. Although we meet Anne Marie Grosholtz when she is but a child of six, her tone is already that of an adult; indeed, Marie seems to have been that kind of child who has bypassed childhood and arrived in the world fully adult. She is born to humble parents in Alsace, on the borders of France and Germany, in the 1760s. From the outset, she has such an endearing sense of dignity and self-worth, and also a sense of humour.
My mother had a large nose, in the Roman style. My father, so I would come to believe, had a strong chin that pointed a little upward. That chin and that nose, it seems, fitted together. After a little while, however, Father’s furlough was over, and he returned to war. Mother’s nose and Father’s chin had known each other for three weeks” (p2). It seems to matter very much to our protagonist that she was born of love: “The love my father and mother had for each other was forever present on my face. I had the Waltner nose and the Grosholtz chin. Each attribute was a noteworthy thing on its own, and nicely gave character to the faces of those two families; combined, the result was a little ungainly…
p3
Marie loses both parents very young, and indeed, even as a very young child, seemed far more capable and resilient than either parent. She is ‘kept’ as she puts it, by a reclusive Doctor Curtius, in Berne. (It is important to note that she actively wants this arrangement,
I thought also, that if I was very careful, he would keep me
p37
Dr Curtius takes wax impressions of body parts, and apparently at age 6, Marie becomes both his assistant as well as his housekeeper, and apparently, very competent in both roles. The mild, shrinking Doctor Curtius is hounded by his superiors and takes a suggestion from a Parisienne, Mercier, that Paris is the place where the best heads for wax modelling can be found.
Parisian Mercier says of Marie,
She’s a little exclamation. A little protest. A little insult. In any case, a little something. Yes, I prefer Little. Little is what I name her.
p68
Which is at any rate kinder than what he said to her when he first met her in Berne: “
’Aren’t you, little boldness […] little ill-facedness, little minor monster in a child’s dress…little thing…little howl…little crumb of protruding flesh…little statement on mankind…little…little’ he concluded, not certain in the end of what I was, only that I was little, a little of something” (p52).
Clearly in those times, children were not always treated with much kindness or sensitivity! Child labour was not a concept of those ages either, with Marie becoming a servant/apprentice/housekeeper from 6 years of age; but even when she ceases to be an apprentice and is a mere servant, she is given no wages, except board and lodging. And she finds her master, Doctor Curtiss, can force her to obey the orders of others in the household as well (such as Widow Picot, whom the Doctor is much taken by), and accept physical abuse on top of everything else. Dickensian, or even pre-Dickensian conditions for children.
Marie’s fortunes change when she is noticed by a minor royal, the Princess Elisabeth, and taken by the princess to Versailles, where she lives from ages 17-28 in a cupboard, as both tutor and companion to the princess. At 28, Marie is returned to Paris, to her master (and the hated Widow Picot, who although abusive to Marie for most part, is nevertheless not depicted wholly as a villain), there are many chapters against the background of the French revolution, and when Marie is 33, she and her master are taken to prison for 8 years. Released in 1802, Marie is only 41, and she moves her entire family to London where she lives till 89. The whole novel increasingly becomes fantastical, and there is something of the Gothic horror element too, in the telling. The characters are all somehow slightly grotesque, slightly monstrous, caricatures rather than intended to be humans, and it is only because the reliable narrator is telling this tale that it becomes passably credible. Even so, it is probably not intended to be taken at literal or surface value, and more as commentary on the place and age.
Although the book started out quite charming, it becomes tedious mid-way through, and what little suspense there was at the beginning is soon lost because it is obvious the little Marie is a survivor, and whatever strange things live throws at her, she manages to muddle through. The other odd characters who populate this novel are just that, odd, eccentric, exaggerated. Few are endearing. It is very much a piece of its period, told with some comic intent, but also some dark humour. It perhaps goes on about twice as long as it needs to, and although by no means a dull read, yet somehow grows tedious, which will probably discourage me from picking up any further novels by this author.
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