Year of Wonders: Portrait of Plague Village

"Dear friends, here we are, and here we must stay. Let the boundaries of this village become our whole world. Let none enter and none leave while this Plague lasts."
~Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks

In the book Year of Wonders, the charismatic rector Michael Mompellion implores the villagers to stay and not spread "the seed of the plague" outside of the village, and most agree to this self-imposed quarantine. But they are ill prepared for their fate and the depth of how all this hideous sickness and death will affect them. The descriptions of the plague are riveting; I knew so little about the particulars of this dreadful disease before reading this book, which starts as a fever or cough, "marks" victims with a large, painful, grotesque boil that appears suddenly, and progresses so rapidly that many victims would die within a couple of days. It's a very moving novel, based on the true story of the English village of Eyam, although the book blends historical fact with fiction. Some believed that the plague was God's judgement on the sinful world, and pleaded for forgiveness or self-flagellated; others questioned this, and looked to science for prevention and cures. The 1660s were the beginning of the age of modern medicine and the Age of Enlightenment, and in England, there was a shift from Puritanism to the ideas of the Restoration, so many questions about the role of faith are featured in this book. Year of Wonders deals with a most horrific subject and presents an unforgettable portrait of an isolated village outside of London during 1665-1666, which lost two-thirds of its inhabitants to the plague. The effects of all this loss are as widespread as the plague, causing some villagers to become more selfish, fearful of ghosts and witches, hateful, and murderous, while others, such as Anna Firth and Elinor Mompellion, become herbalists and healers who help ease the suffering, or Michael Mompellion, who serves those afflicted untiringly. I'm finished reading this haunting book, and may read more from this author, such as her book March, the fictional story of the father of the girls in Little Women, who leaves his family to fight in the Civil War.

On a different note, today's quest will be to obtain a copy of Nicholas Sparks' new book, The Lucky One, which is being released today. Wish me luck!

Nights in Rodanthe, the Movie

Yesterday I saw the movie I've been waiting all summer for, Nights in Rodanthe, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane, based on the book by Nicholas Sparks. It's definitely a tearjerker, like all of Sparks' romances. If you see Nights in Rodanthe, unless you're really unemotional, expect to cry a bit, or at least to fight back the tears. Even the trailer for the movie starts to chokes me up. The scenery is breathtaking and features the wild beauty of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, and the romance is, as always, bittersweet.

Here's a list of Sparks' best-selling books that have been made into movies so far. Click on the titles to view the movie trailers.


Message in a Bottle, 1999: stars Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn, and the late, great Paul Newman A Walk to Remember, 2002: stars Mandy Moore and Shane West The Notebook, 2004: stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams Nights in Rodanthe, 2008: stars Diane Lane and Richard Gere

I've seen all of these movies except for Message in a Bottle, which I'll try to find on DVD.

As far as my reading goes, I'm still reading Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, but will finish it before Sept. 30, when Nicholas Sparks' new book, The Lucky One, will be released. You can bet I'll dash to the bookstore on Tuesday in hopes of getting a copy.  It'll be the next book I read. I suppose I'm a hopeless romantic.