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A rather uncanny coincidence, that by chance the 2 book reviews I'm about to review today has to do with children, social status, and how both books actually use the picaresque storyline to different effect. It's also rather freaky, on another front, given that of the 6 books I borrowed, I had to read the 2 that bore the most similarity together, when the remaining books could not be more different.
But enough of that.
The first, HSMRMHB, is a picaresque fable recounted in the 3rd person of the love story of the ugly Hercules and the beautiful Henriette. Both were born in a brothel on a stormy night in 1813, and from that day on, their fates were entwined.
Hercules was born deaf and mute, and was so ugly that for the first few years of his life, the procuress of the brothel kept him locked away from the external world, for fear of horrifying the world who could not take the sight of a freak, and of harming a child that whilst ugly, nevertheless had a pure heart that beat only for Henriette.
Beyond his disabilities, Hercules had a gift for reading people's minds and conversing with them in their thoughts. This was to be both his undoing and his salvation in his later life, when he used it to aid him in the search for Henriette, and eventually in his quest for revenge for the murders of Henriette and one churchman who had sought to protect him from charges of demonology.
Another interesting point: do go and take a second look at the book cover in the beginning of this post. You will realise the cover is written in the freak show poster style of that time, and deliberately laid out/ rendered in the style of posters advertising for freak shows -- don't ask me how I know that, but I think I came across something similar before. It was the reason why I picked up this book in the first place, though eventually I was to realise that this cover was an indirect reference to the time Hercules spent as the main attraction in a traveling freak show.
The original book is actually written in Swedish, and while I do not know if any subtle nuancing is lost in the translation, I do think this version remans quite a good read. Though at times, I tend to find the prose a bit awkward, I think overall it still works and whatever that comes across funny, can be chalked up perhaps to the language style of that time.
Hercules' devotion to Henriette is the thread that binds the whole story together, but unlike the usual love story, I thought it had rather dark overtones in its way it placed Hercules as the central figure of the story, and had him struggling against church doctrine, social norms and being the 'outsider' in a normal world. It lingers after you finished the book, but beyond that I guess nothing earth-shattering.
Readibility: 3 out of 5
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