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Search - Dreamers of the Day: A Novel
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Dreamers of the Day: A Novel Author: |
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Book Description:
“I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: My little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your times until you understand mine.”
So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell’s compelling new novel, Dreamers of the Day. And what is Miss Shanklin’s “little story?” Nothing less than the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell met to decide the fate of the Arab world–and of our own.
A forty-year-old schoolteacher from Ohio still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic, Agnes has come into a modest inheritance that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinions–and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosie–enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days at a hotel in Cairo, invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.
Neither a pawn nor a participant at the conference, Agnes is ostensibly insignificant, and that makes her a welcome sounding board for Churchill, Lawrence, and Bell. It also makes her unexpectedly attractive to the charismatic German spy Karl Weilbacher. As Agnes observes the tumultuous inner workings of nation-building, she is drawn more and more deeply into geopolitical intrigue and toward a personal awakening.
With prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the Nile, Mary Doria Russell illuminates the long, rich history of the Middle East with a story that brilliantly elucidates today’s headlines. As enlightening as it is entertaining, Dreamers of the Day is a memorable, passionate, gorgeously written novel.
So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell’s compelling new novel, Dreamers of the Day. And what is Miss Shanklin’s “little story?” Nothing less than the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell met to decide the fate of the Arab world–and of our own.
A forty-year-old schoolteacher from Ohio still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic, Agnes has come into a modest inheritance that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinions–and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosie–enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days at a hotel in Cairo, invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.
Neither a pawn nor a participant at the conference, Agnes is ostensibly insignificant, and that makes her a welcome sounding board for Churchill, Lawrence, and Bell. It also makes her unexpectedly attractive to the charismatic German spy Karl Weilbacher. As Agnes observes the tumultuous inner workings of nation-building, she is drawn more and more deeply into geopolitical intrigue and toward a personal awakening.
With prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the Nile, Mary Doria Russell illuminates the long, rich history of the Middle East with a story that brilliantly elucidates today’s headlines. As enlightening as it is entertaining, Dreamers of the Day is a memorable, passionate, gorgeously written novel.
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Top Member Book Reviews
Kim M. (
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
This is the story of Agnes Shanklin, a middle-aged woman from Ohio who has been under the thumb of her mother her entire life. Then, in 1919, the influenza epidemic takes the lives of her entire family and she suddenly finds herself the heiress of a sizable chunk of change and free from any obligations. She decides to take a trip to Egypt, and in 1921 find herself mixed up in the periphery of the Cairo Peace Convention.
Mary Doria Russell, the author of one of my favorite novels, "The Sparrow," is an amazing storyteller, but this book left me unsatisfied. It felt a bit Forrest Gumpish in that Agnes happened to be on the scene for these important historical events. I wasn't able to suspend disbelief enough to accept that a no-name woman from Ohio would be welcomed into the social and political circles of the likes of T.E. Lawrence, Lady Gertrude Bell, and Winston Churchill.
I also felt, reading this book, like I was being preached to--not about God--and it seemed the author made a special point of not making this about God--but about war and peace and how we should all treat each other as equals. We should all let everybody make their own decisions, and we should learn from our mistakes of the past and not continue to make the same mistakes now. A little of this would have been ok, but she was relentless. I felt like she was preaching to the choir and I grew a bit weary of hearing about it.
I also felt that the idea of Agnes telling this from the grave was a little lame. Agnes is Forrest Gump even in purgatory, as she looks down on the earth and discusses war and current events with the likes of Ptolemy XIII, Saint Francis, Napoleon Bonaparte, and George McClellan. This section just seems hokey and random.
Despite all of these things, and despite the fact that the narrator's attention seem to flitter from one subject to the next, I really did enjoy this novel. I was engrossed in the story and didn't want to put it down, wondering what might possibly happen next. Plus, it is a helpful history lesson and a bit of insight into why the Middle East is having the troubles it's having now and why what we're doing now to try to fix it is unlikely to be successful.
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