Curiosity

The flap reads: More than forty years before Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a cabinet-maker's daughter named Mary Anning found the fossilized skeleton of a dolphin-like creature in the cliffs of Dorset. This was only the first of many important discoveries made by this exceptional woman. Indeed, Mary Anning may have been the most significant paleontologist of her day, even though her finds where taken over, named, and exhibited by the male scientific establishment - including a young man named Henry De La Beche."

Not too long ago, I read and reviewed Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. Excellent book, also about Mary Anning and her discoveries, and how as a woman she was excluded from the scientific establishment that was dominated by men. Additionally, this book went into detail about the questions these fossil discoveries brought up around the biblical stories of Adam and Eve and Noah and his ark, and the challenges to the long-held religious beliefs of the time.

Curiosity, by Joan Thomas, covers the same subject matter, only with a different spin. This book tells the story of impoverished Mary Anning and her fossil discoveries along the cliffs of Lyme Regis, and delves into the religious tensions it caused and the gender and class biases of the time. But this book is equally about another historical character related the this historic time, Henry De La Beche, a wealthy young man with a passion for painting and drawing old bones and fossils, and who makes impulsive decisions that change his life in a matter of seconds. Most notably, as a teenager, he sees a pretty girl next door and sets out to pursue her; they share one kiss in the garden and, according to the societal expectations at the time, this means marriage. Henry finds himself engaged to this girl, something which he struggles with for years and deems unfair because, after all, it was only one bloody kiss.

Henry finds himself in Lyme Regis eventually, living with his mother as he waits for his marriage. It is here he meets Mary Anning and where he gets caught up not only in her paleontological work, but also in the male-dominated scientific community buzzing around Mary and her discoveries. And it is here that a subtle love story develops between the two.

Curiosity is a book with many layers, like the strata of the cliffs around the setting of Lyme Regis. This is one book where the lack of actual plot works in its favour because the characters and their various predicaments, as well as their internal dialogues carry the narrative very strongly. Mary, living in poverty, struggles internally with her religious upbringing vis a vis the questions her fossil discoveries bring up. She struggles with her family and the death of her father. She struggles with her feelings for Henry. And most importantly, she struggles with her own knowledge that she is intelligent, experienced, and providing the world with important discoveries while she is being completely left out of all the writings, debates, and lack of proper credit due to her for what she does for all these men and for science in general. Her poverty, class, and gender keep her stuck, and she is painfully aware that she is powerless to change that.

As a member of the wealthy elite, and someone whose income comes from a sugar plantation worked by slaves in Jamaica, Henry's struggles are similar. His position in society dictates to him that he needs to marry an unsuitable girl after one impulsive moment when he was young and impetuous; he is as much a victim of his class as Mary is, because he is just as stuck. The portrayal of the stifling upper class lifestyle by the author is excellently drawn.

As with Remarkable Creatures, which is an perfect companion book to Curiosity, this story of Mary Anning is gentle and elegant and deft. Henry, Mary, and the rest of the cast, which includes the big historical names surrounding Mary and her fossil findings, are powerfully characterized. The prose is eloquent and poignant. I knew enough about these characters previously to know that there would be no romantic, happy ending at the conclusion of the book, but I was still sad for both Mary and Henry because the author really made me root for these two finding happiness.

Definitely a recommended book if you like historical fiction, stories of gender & class struggles, and a good old fashioned, bittersweet love story.