I stumbled onto this book at the library and liked it immediately. The narration was dark but interesting, evoking sights and smells that sent me right into the 18th century. The 1st person pov didn't bother me because I found Emilie's voice to be authentic and consistent throughout the novel. She is an intelligent girl with a story to tell and I got wrapped up in her story from the first page. I do not agree with so many other reviewers who found her to be "unidimensional." I found her to be complex and relatable. Maybe the other reviewers never did anything as stupid as allowing a handsome older man to violate them and then mistakenly think, even before the vile act was over, that she should be pleasing him. Reviewers keep saying she was a grown woman and they treat her character as if she had all the social advantages of a 21st century grown woman. I had no trouble believing her thoughts and actions. For all the empowerment women have achieved over the last half century, that is a story line that is still played out again and again in the lives of young girls, and it broke my heart to watch it play out for Emilie. Where the story began to fall apart for me was when Emilie sensed her unhappiness and realized she was in love with Shales. The romance between them seemed abrupt when it was revealed through a conversation in the laboratory, which really left me scratching my head. Shales compared alchemy with religion, stating the difference was that in religion, the agent is God, where in alchemy, the agent is man. I had to stop there, remembering passages from the very early pages in which Emilie's father taught her that from the study of the perfect function they observed in creation (they were studying a mushroom in this passage), an intelligent God permeated everything. Later, by toying with the idea of palingenesis, they are attempting to *be* god, in a sense, by creating something which didn't before exist. This leads me to believe that for McMahon, alchemy is an allegory for religion. Or maybe she wasn't even going for the subtly of allegory and wanted us to see how religion is no different than alchemy.The implication for me, a Christian, is huge, as I begin to see the flaws of Emilie's over-protective father as a description of religious people who live in "holy huddles" and never venture out into the real world to understand real people with real problems. This is a true problem that exists in religion, and I have no bone to pick with McMahon over it, if it is, in fact, what she was trying to convey.I see, I think, what she was going for with Sarah's character, the poor sinner, who has been rejected and thrown out on her butt by the self-righteous who have no idea what she's been through, nor any desire to try to understand her. Isn't that the plight of so many today? The thought of this actually spurred me to anger than so many well-meaning Christians do exactly this. Even I do it until I am confronted with my snobbery. So may of us are like Emilie, walking around oblivious or in denial that we came from the same place or worse than that of the people we look down our nose at.Fine. Guilty. Still, no bone to pick.And then Emilie lamented her father's biggest failure: that he failed to teacher her how to make choices.That combined with the miscarriage, Sarah's predicament and subsequent attempted abortion, the dead discarded babies, the plight of all of these women who have found themselves pregnant outside of their will or design and with no hope for a good life to come...And I began to think with dread that this was just another feminist manifesto, and THAT I had a problem with. I have read SO MANY over the last couple of years. Our library shelves don't need another.I almost didn't finish the book because I had no desire to watch Emilie or Sarah "rise above" the oppression of unwanted pregnancy and, like modern women, realize the empowerment of "choice." I felt like I'd been duped. Believe what you want about abortion, but leave me to my own, please. It took me several days but I stuck with it and finished the last 1/3 of this book. Now I can say that I'm glad I did. The ending completely surprised me, considering the direction I thought the author was going when Emilie seemed to believe that Sarah's or the baby's death would be better than taking in a baby that wasn't hers. But in the end, though there was tragedy, there was also the triumph of life, as it continues when it is allowed to. There was peace to be had despite the lack of control a woman in the 18th century had over her own life, and in that way, she did control her destiny in the way that she could.
Read this review and others at The Silver Petticoat Review: The Alchemist's DaughterReview by Elinor CackettThe Alchemist’s Daughter is a historical novel by Katherine McMahon about love, awakening and alchemy set in 1725, England. The central character is enigmatic Emilie Selden raised by her father, a brilliant if misguided scientist who has fascination with alchemy. It is summer and the two are carrying out experiments into Phlogiston, a theoretical substance believed at the time to be produced when a naked flame reacts to the atmosphere. It is during this summer that two strangers enter and disrupt their secluded lives. Despite the fact that Emilie is intelligent and knowledgeable about science and philosophy, she is ignorant of matters pertaining to the human heart. When one of the strangers manages to capture her imagination and possibly her heart, Emilie finds herself forced to make a difficult decision. Once the smoke dissipates, it is clear that nothing will ever be the same again.McMahon has created a historically accurate and truly believable world full of sensory detail. Each page is alive with beautiful descriptive language. A tremendous amount of research must have been done for this book. I learned a great deal about alchemy while reading. Although to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of chemistry, the theories held at the time seem laughable. She renders each scene perfectly, be it Emilie’s father’s study, a dark London alley, a heady brothel or a sunny summer orchard. The narrative is written the in the first person which gives us a great amount of insight into Emilie’s inner thought processes and the psychological side of her journey. Her characters are fully realised, with not a single one ringing false.The novel is well plotted though it can sometimes be predictable. The juxtaposition between Emilie’s fierce intelligence, detailed scientific knowledge and extreme naiveté can be frustrating as we see her navigate situations with which she has no experience. It takes the protagonist far too long to come to a realisation that the audience came to many pages beforehand. Also frustrating is Emilie’s realistic position in society. Too often is she treated like a trained monkey because she is a highly educated woman in a time period when a female scientist was an oddity. Worse, her opinion is regularly disregarded by inferior minds because of her sex. But most frustrating of all is that the conclusion is left too open-ended and thus is rather unsatisfying. Emilie’s happiness is left in the balance. Though the book was engrossing and well written, these facts detracted from my enjoyment of the book.On her journey towards understanding and love, Emilie suffers through many hardships but always emerges at the end of each having learnt from her mistakes. Throughout Emilie observes all around her and though her passionate yet logical nature is contradictory, she nevertheless is a whole, sympathetic complex heroine.The novel is not just a piece of historical fiction. It is a bildungsroman, a coming of age story. The story shares many thematic plot points with the story of Rapunzel, dealing with issues of naiveté, abandonment, growing into womanhood, seclusion and overprotective parenting that leaves a person unprepared for the dangers outside. The story also has elements of mystery as well pertaining to the ongoing lack of knowledge about her mother. Lest you think this is a staid corset drama, it should be noted that this story has many action filled scenes in between the more reflective passages.In summation, this is a story about a young woman coming to truly know herself and the world. It is this gradual coming into herself, this growth from weakness to strength that keeps you reading, along with the beautiful atmospheric and evocative prose. It does not take much imagination to place yourself beside Emilie in that warm, stifling and dark laboratory.McMahon is also known for The Crimson Rooms and The Rose of Sebastopol.
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Those of you who are Old School know about the original Legend of Zelda. The first game in the Zelda franchise was epic. It was badass. In my personal opinion, few games have been as awesome since. This book is a lot like the original Legend of Zelda. Unfortunately, it is like all the crappy and stupid aspects of that game, and none of the cool ones. Witness as I extrapolate. The main character in this book lacks personality. All of the things that sound kind of cool about her--like she knows about alchemy--in the end amount to practically footnotes as she wanders her way through a storyline, always doing the most obvious thing at the moment. At first, she takes the tools thrust upon her by her father and lets him mold her personality entirely. Like the little old man in the cave who gives Link his first sword, thereby bringing slaughter upon the legions of weird animals wandering Hyrule, Protagonist's father gives her the tools of alchemy and the knowledge of a very limited set of topics (sciences and alchemy are about it). She takes these tools and does the obvious thing with them, seemingly content being her dad's clone.........until a MAN walks in. And then, it doesn't matter who he is, she is all hot and bothered and blushing and virginal, unable to focus on her alchemy or science. But, she remains true to her father, not going after any of these guys until one of them rapes her. After he rapes her, she marries him....you know, because that makes sense. But, because Link is only capable of following instructions and killing like some little puppet serving the war pigs--let me try that again. Because Protagonist is only capable of doing what she's told, she marries the young and handsome rapist--even though she witnesses signs that he's only out for her money before they even get married. This is the pattern that she follows through the rest of the book, following the clearest instruction provided for her, slowly gaining cooler clothes and items. But, unlike Link, these items don't give her greater hit points or make it so she can do cooler things. She just continues being a uni-dimensional tool, ignoring the ways those around her are using her or manipulating her. The plot also shares some common elements with Zelda because everything is foreshadowed way ahead of time. Every plot point is predictable, almost from the point the involved characters enter the storyline. Let me just throw some archetypes at you. Feel free to guess at the ENTIRE PLOTLINE in the comments, and you'll probably be right:Overly Protective FatherFlat ProtagonistKind, Sweet, Widowed ReverendHandsome, Money-Hungry Rapist HusbandSneaky, Distrustful MaidMother who is Entirely Unknown by Protagonist, and is Never Talked About By Anyone.The climax wasn't ENTIRELY clear until about two thirds of the way through the book, so that's a mildly good thing. But by the time you get there, end is entirely abrupt and exactly what you'd expect. And, after reading the other Goodreads reviews of this, I was expecting some serious alchemy porn! I was excited about pages talking about strange experiments, and perhaps digging up bodies or...well, SOMETHING cool. Alchemy was the big draw for me here, but there actually wasn't enough focus on that for me. Mary Shelly can write some passages about science that add texture. This book didn't have texture, and the texture it didn't have wasn't improved by the small amount of alchemy included. Unlike some of my reviews, I'm not being harsh just because I'm grumpy. I'm actually in a pretty friggin' good mood: It has been a long time since I've read anything by Ann Coulter. I just got a job I'm totally excited about, and I'm buying a beautiful house in a little over a month! So, coming from that frame of mind, let me reiterate: this book sucks. Skip it. But you should totally play The Legend of Zelda. Link is a flat character, but he's a flat character who'll put his foot up a moblin's ass. I mean that as a good thing.
—Michael
I really liked this! Ok, it had its faults. The bits about the alchemy process and scientific research were boring and way too detailed and I had to skim through them a bit. No I do not care how many times the dittany and saltpeter had to be ground with an infusion of... yeah whatever. Emilie really annoyed me at times, the way she was so clueless about the obvious wastrel Aislabie and powerless to resist to his wiles, and generally unable to read people. It frustrated me that she couldn't tell immediately (as I could) that Aislabie was going to make her miserable and Shales was clearly the better choice. But, here's the thing: I couldn't complain about it, because I could also see WHY she was like that, due to the way her father had brought her up! It totally made sense in the plot and in the end she realised, so it was all good. She was a TAD strange at times, like the whole thing with the dead babies... but again, I can sort of see WHY that happened, she was so out of her head after finding out about her husband's (totally obvious from about 4 pages in) affair with Sarah. The only thing that didn't make sense was why ending was left so up in the air - it was implied that the evil husband was likely to die at sea and leave Emilie to marry Shales and bring up Sarah's daughter, but never actually stated. I can't understand why not. But yeah. Nearly every time I came across something that I found frustrating, I couldn't deny that it made sense and was backed up by the plot, so I was left feeling... marginally less frustrated. The writing was really good, even if it was a bit overly detailed. The plot itself was somewhat dull now that I think of it but the whole time I was kept interested and compelled to keep reading by curiosity - the elements of mystery were really well done. And I loved the bit where she read her father's journals about her and so much fell into place - heartwrenching! I felt so sorry for him.So yeah. A great, complex read.
—Sarah
I liked this story, it was a fast read, but somehow it missed being something special. It's the story of Emilie Seldon, who was raised during the time of Isaac Newton in the spirit of scientific inquiry, and, despite her sex, to be a natural philosopher--a scientist. But her father forgot to include the social--and hormonal--in his calculations. Motherless, home-schooled, without other family or friends beyond the housekeeper and never allowed beyond the bounds of the estate, Emilie is so isolated she's all too vulnerable to a seductive visitor, Roger Aislabie. Despite this being told first person, Aislabie comes across from the beginning as trouble to the reader--and to everyone else, except the too-sheltered, naive teen Emilie. McMahon obviously did her homework on the period, and she's good at getting the esoteric concepts of those early scientific inquiries across and the story is told in a clean style. There's also a mystery at the heart of this book about Emilie's parentage I found quite moving. However, I feel that's more because her situation hit home for personal reasons--and because of my own personal experience, I think part of the problem is that in the revelation scene is too detached--nor do I ever buy how it leads to her change of heart over Sarah. I also think part of why I wasn't more taken with Emilie is that she's too passive. I don't blame her too much for that, or find her stupid like some reviewers--not given her upbringing and the lack of power women had in the period. But it makes it hard to care. I kept waiting for Emilie's scientific mind and training to kick in somehow for her to find a way out of her problems, but the science and the alchemy is really mere trappings in this novel. I also felt dissatisfied with the lack of resolution at the end. Not a novel I wanted to hurl against the wall once finished--but not one I'd want to put on my bookshelf either.
—Lisa (Harmonybites)
