A Victorian novel which mixes art and beauty with the dark obsessions of a stalker, set amidst the squalid reality of 1850s London.
I was lucky enough to see the lovely Elizabeth Macneal discussing The Doll Factory at the Cheltenham festival whilst I was working in the book tent there. Although I'd received a proof copy of the book, I hadn't got round to reading it, but the event was fantastic nonetheless: she was very good and didn't spoil anything, but the discussion and her short reading made me all the more intrigued.
I finally managed to read the book earlier this month just as it arrived in paperback, and it was a brilliant read of two contrasting halves...
The Doll Factory centres on Iris Whittle, a young woman in Victorian London. Iris is a lowly but respectable 'shop girl', employed to paint the faces of dolls, but she dreams of becoming an artist. When she meets the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, she has the chance to become a model and perhaps achieve her goal, but at the risk of social ruin, since models are commonly thought of as whores.
Iris falls in with Louis Frost, Macneal's invented extra member of the brotherhood, who offers her a life of art, excitement, and freedom otherwise unheard of for women in the 1850s: she can wear looser clothes, leave her hair down, learn how to paint, and escape her jealous smallpox-scarred sister. Not to mention, Louis is rather a catch himself and their professional relationship quickly turns towards love.
A lesser novel would have left it there. A young aspiring artist discovering herself and the world against the backdrop of the Great Exhibition; it makes for a romantic coming of age story filled with art and beauty.
But then, there's Silas.
Oh, Silas. At first, it's possible to feel sorry for him. A taxidermist with a little shop of his own, he is a lonely and awkward figure, obsessed with his grotesque creations and with finding eventual fame and glory at the Great Exhibition. He hangs on the coat-tails of the artists for whose works he creates posed doves, dogs, and other creatures. It's quite clear that nobody likes him, that he hasn't quite got the knack of reading other people, thinking himself praised when he's being mercilessly mocked.
Silas brings to the novel a layer of Victorian grime reminiscent of The Crimson Petal and the White, along with Albie, the endlessly endearing street urchin whose life is pure Dickensian filth (I was rooting so hard for him in his quest to save up enough cash for some Waterloo teeth). But whereas Michel Faber's Sugar teaches us about the depraved details of Victorian sex lives, Silas is pure rot, decay and formaldehyde.
And he has Iris in his sights.
From the moment these two very different lives converge, at the building site of the crystal palace, there begins a slowly mounting tension as the reader becomes horribly, unavoidably aware of what Silas is planning.
The imagery at work is truly fantastic: Iris models for a painting of Guigemar's imprisoned lady from the Old French tale, full of the symbolism of freedom and love, whilst Silas plots a different life for her from within his dank shop surrounded by pinned butterflies and rotting animals. I loved the way Macneal (who is also a potter! So talented!) used the artworks she described to map and mirror the events of the novel.
We have all met Silas, or heard of him, so thoroughly convinced that he has been badly-done-to by the world, and particularly women. He shouldn't be truly threatening, this creeping man with his horrid stuffed animals, but Macneal taps into the grim truth that many women have encountered in reality: some men are absolutely and utterly convinced that no means yes, and that 'not interested' means 'playing hard to get.'
Honestly, I was scared of him. It's spine-chilling waiting for his plans to unfold, and as the realisation dawns that certain events from his past may not be quite as he describes...
Overall, this was a vivid and grisly historical tale with a sickening undertone that sets it apart from your average Victoriana. The characters are all wonderfully drawn, and that especially goes for Albie the urchin and Guinevere the wombat (yes, you read that right). It's pacy and tense, and shockingly gruesome at times, with descriptions that made me squirm - but the same wonderful writing conjured up the Great Exhibition as if it was just around the corner, waiting for me to visit.
My rating: 4 stars
You can also read my review on Waterstones.com here!
If you liked this, try:
The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
The Foundling by Stacey Halls
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