I have a new favorite book. "Abundance" by Sena Jeter Naslund swept me off my feet from the beginning and kept me coming back for more each day. Each time I picked up the novel, I felt like I was truly being transported back in time to the extravagant court of Versailles.
The novel opens with Marie Antoinette as an adolescent about to marry Louis-Auguste, the dauphin of France. It ends with her terrible death at the guillotine. And in between her arrival in France and execution, the reader becomes intimately close to the dauphine and eventual queen of France. My heart broke for her as she tried to be sweet and lovely and perfect for her husband, but year after year passed that the marriage went unconsummated. I became fond of the friends she became fond of. I rejoiced when she became a mother and I mourned for her losses. I fell in love with Count Axel von Fersen. I came to admire Marie Antoinette in every way for her strength and courage in the turmoil of the revolution. And, finally, I wept for her final days of loneliness and her cruel execution.
Not since reading Jane Eyre back in the 8th grade have I felt so intimately connected to a novel's character. Such intimacy is much owed to the fact that the novel does span her entire life. Each time I turned the page, I grew closer and closer to the historical figure. I came to know her as the friend, sister, daughter, mother, and lover she was. She was so much more than a ruinous queen that textbooks have made her out to be.
I know that there are many novels out there that center around Marie Antoinette, but this is the only one I have read and will probably read for quite awhile. Sena Jeter Naslund's epic was so well researched and detailed. Many of the letters and spoken words in the novel were historically authentic. I believe she depicted Marie as accurately as a 21st Century writer can---as a kind, spiritual, romantic, and beautiful girl who happened to become queen. And oh, I loved how Naslund depicted the relationship between Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen. It is popular belief that the two were lovers, but Naslund depicts them as the closest of friends while leaving room for the possibility of romance. She leaves so much of it up to the imagination so that the reader can decide whether the two ever did or didn't fall into a romantic, adulterous affair. (Personally, being so smitten with Fersen myself, I hope they did.)
The book gripped me from the beginning and had in me in tears during the final chapters. When it ended, I felt a sudden sadness in my heart. Sadness that I would no longer be returning to Versailles. Sadness that the book was over. And most of all, sadness for how Marie's life ended and how she has been the scapegoat of the revolution for centuries.
I highly, highly recommend this book. I loved it so much that I might actually read it again someday, which is a rarity for me. It is intriguing, historical accurate, and a surprisingly fast read despite the physical length of the book. (It looks like it would take forever to read, but it's one of those books you can't put down and end up reading in a record amount of time!)
One last thing I would like to note about the book is the way it is written. Naslund wrote it in first person present tense, which I didn't even notice until I was about a quarter of the way into it. I believe that this is the first novel I've ever read that was written in this pov and tense combination. A lot of readers and writers I've spoken to say that writing in first person present tense is difficult both to read and write. I found that this was not the case. For me, this is the style of writing that comes most naturally. And as for reading it, I felt like I was actually there with Marie every step of the way in her eventful life. It drew me further into the story and it was as if the events were playing out exactly at the moment I read each word. Beautiful language, stunning storyline.
Amore.
