The Salpetriere asylum, Paris, 1885. Dr Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad, hysterics, and been cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated – these women are often simply inconvenient’, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, or wayward daughters. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is The Mad Women’s Ball, when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpetriere dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves it is a rare moment of hope.
Genevieve is a senior nurse – after the childhood death of her sister Blandine, she shunned religion and has placed her faith in Dr Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugenie, the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family who have locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugenie has a secret – she sees spirits. Inspired by the scandalous, banned work that all of Paris is talking about – The Book of Spirits – Genevieve is determined to escape from the asylum (and the bonds of her gender) and seek out those who will believe in her. And for that she will need Genevieve’s help…
” Truth be told, whether free or incarcerated, women were not safe anywhere. Since the dawn of time, they had been the victims of decisions that were taken without their consent. “
The topic matter of this, Mas’ debut novel is intriguing, darkly interesting and incredibly and important. The novel is set in the 1880’s and tells the story of women that have been declared mad and committed to an asylum simply as they refused to play the role with which society inflicts upon them and so someone (often their husbands/families) has deemed this the best way to get rid of them and make the problem go away in a respectable manner. When taken into the asylums the women became known as the hysterics and were treated as research subjects in a prison like setting. This novel has the opportunity to provide an excellent look at the way women were treated at this time by institutions and by society as a whole, however some parts of the narrative just didn’t hit the mark and felt quite fumbly – however this could have been a translation issue and when read in the language it was written in it may come across more together.
The story follows protagonist Eugénie, a young woman who has the ability to see dead people reads Le Livre des Esprits – one of the first works based around spiritualism- and is committed by her father, as well as following the story of Geneviève, a nurse who starts to doubt whether what happens at the Salpêtrière asylum is morally right. While these two join forces, the yearly “Mad Women’s Ball” is approaching, where Parisians can enter the ward and dance – yep you guessed it another entertainment spectacle that entails staring at suffering women.
One of the aspects I Loved as an English Literature/History major is that the book contained genuine historical figures from within the field the book is based in such as Dr. Charcot, the famous French neurologist; Joseph Babinski, a French-polish professor of neurology; Alan Kardec, leader of the French Spiritualist movement, and many more. This really gave a sense of the book being well researched and a lot of care taken over the details which is important to me as a reader of historical fiction.
All in all, I found the novel slightly underwhelming, not because of the storyline as the story behind the book is amazing and actually has a lot of potential, however the author literally told the reader everything they needed to know and more – leaving nothing to the imagination. We were told why each character does things, why what happens is bad, how everything is connected. As a reader I like to know things but also make inferences for myself and have questions brought on by the narrative, characters, plotline and so firth and sadly for me this was lacking with this novel. Thus, sadly I can only give it 4 stars, although this has not put me off from reading anything that the author writes in the future.
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