A Discovery of Witches is the first instalment of the All Souls trilogy that taps into the current wave of popularity of witchery and vampirism. It combines both themes and pushes the genre to a slightly more sophisticated level.
Harkness harvested the main ingredients that have propelled the readers of Harry Potter and Twilight Saga to turn pages for a fair few years. There is romance, adventure, dangerous adversaries, supernatural powers and objects hiding secrets. The reluctant heroine, desperate to lead an ordinary life, is somewhat unwillingly pulled into a chain of events as her extraodinary powers manifest themselves until there is no escaping from living up to her true identity.
Conflict Between Superstition and Science
The main character, like her creator, is a scholar specializing in history of science and the author's knowledge of the subject lends the story an intellectually stimulating framework while being served in digestible portions. Diana Bishop is a serious American scholar engaged in research at Oxford. As the descendant of the Bishops and the Proctors whose ancestors were accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, she has an impressive lineage.
She is the last in the legendary bloodline and possesses an accumulated wealth of powers and magical abilities she is unaware of. As an academic, she had renounced her family's heritage to live her life based on reason and rational order of nature rather than superstition and spells, suppressing any signs of her unusual gifts.
Witches, Vampires and Deamons
In Oxford Diana chances upon an alchemical manuscript at the Bodleian Library. She realizes that the manuscript, once in possession of Elias Ashmole, the 17th century book collector and alchemist, is bewitched. Her discovery of the prized manuscript triggers a chain of unexpected appearances of witches, vampires and deamons. When Diana crosses path with Matthew Clairmont, an accomplished scientist and a vampire, things begin to get complicated.
With the dashingly suave vampire, there are several new arrivals at Oxford, all conspicuously hanging out at The Bodleian Library watching Diana closely. When she fails to betray a single clue to the secret of her powers, creatures grow agitated and aggressive, while Diana's aunts Sarah and Emily are concerned about her liaison with Clairmont. As Sarah puts it: 'English vampires may not be as well behaved around witches as the American ones.'
Darwin's Theory with a Fantasy Twist
Harkness's book is peppered with references to a host of figures that shaped our history and our knowledge of the world. But these are only brief encounters with the likes of Darwin, Newton, Machiavelli, Gutenberg, Shakespeare or Giordano Bruno and the author uses her seasonings sparingly. The allusions to the works and theories of these great minds are meant to illuminate the genealogy of vampires, witches and demons, their interactions with humans and their role in history.
Surprisingly, Harkness manages to pull off this retrospect projection on the way the history was shaped. If one does indeed believe in supernatural creatures it would seem to be a logical explanation that, for example, a 16th century pope should have been a vampire. Clairmont might not be as opulent as a pope but he owes his wealth, power, charisma and extraordinary academic credentials to an icredibly long life, no need for sleep and modest dining habits. Yes, in a fictional world such a life style makes as much sense as wizards letting off their teenage hormones playing Quidditch.
Harkness upgraded the genre to suit a more mature reader by creating a space for learned discussion with a fantasy twist. Clairmont is a geneticist and his interest in Darwin is rooted in his concerns about the survival of vampires. He explains that Darwin's work was not only about the origins of species but also about the natural selection and, most importantly for creatures, about extinction of species. One of the secrets held in the bewitched book is that it explains origins of creatures and how to destroy them.
The Relationship Between the Witch ans the Vampire
There is the same vampiric obsession with scent that we find in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga but I guess that's what vampires do and we have to accept the scent issues in the same way we accept that Jane Austen's heroines wear bonnets. The tension between Matthew and Diana ebbs and flows throughout the book keeping the reader in suspense as their feelings and their preternatural instincts both clash and harmonize in the state of constant conflict.
While being on guard from Clairmont's predatory instincts, Diana does not hold a clue as to the extent and nature of her powers nor how to control them. As the creatures get impatient with her not recalling the manuscript nor are they getting any wiser as to the secrets of her powers, they use a direct threat and Diana is yet again confronted with her childhood trauma of having lost her parents to a gruesome death.
Diana is forced to seek refuge in a fortress-chateau Sept-Tours in France where she faces Matthew's icily beautiful vampire mother Ysabeau. There Matthew's mysterious past unravels as she keeps discovering the story of his life and her powers are unburied with increasingly terrifying intensity.
Mastering the Magic
But the survival instinct of other creatures make Diana a vulnerable prey until she is able to master her gifts and control her powers. The fortress is where her apprenticeship and her journey of discovery only begin. The first book of the trilogy concludes with the promise of a greater conflict between species but also with reconciliation between enemies and forging of unlikely friendships. At the end of the book, vampires and witches go back in time, they step into the unknown past. Judging by this book, I believe that they find themselves in a greater sequel still and look forward to journeying with them.
The book was published 3rd February 2011 by Headline Publishing.
Zuzana Minarikova - I live in London and work in publishing in Bloomsbury which is an exciting part of London, full of museums, galleries, bookshops and ...
