REVIEW: Under A Dancing Star
Dec. 30th, 2023 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllUnder A Dancing Star: Laura Wood, Scholastic, 2019.
This is delicious. It’s both a prequel to ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ transported to the 1930s and a young adult novel about a summer romance that turns into a first love. From when we first meet our narrator, 17 year old Beatrice Langston, she’s tremendously likeable, her curiosity about the natural world leading her to do yet another thing that horrifies her parents. We slowly learn that she lives in a draughty, expensive stately home, her parents, who were not young when they had her, are old-fashioned and want to marry her off to a respectable rich man who will help keep Langston Hall going. Never mind that, sensibly, Beatrice has suggested selling part of the land off and her getting a job. For them, that would be unthinkable.
After a disastrous dinner party, where she is goaded into saying something shocking, she is informed that she is to be sent to Italy to stay with her uncle Leo and cousin Hero until The Scandal dies down. She’s meant to think over her bad behaviour, but is thrilled, having never been abroad before.
When she arrives at her destination, she is met by Ben, and it’s a memorable introduction. Beatrice also finds the Villa di Stelle different from what her parents imagined it to be. A widower after the death of Beatrice’s mother’s sister, Leo is now engaged to artist Filomena, who has turned the villa into an artists’ colony, with Ben and Klaus, the younger Hero’s crush object, and his playwright sister Ursula, as regulars and others drifting in and out. This assorted company don’t find Bea unladylike or try to repress her. Conversation flows about art and politics, and when Bea, as she’s been nicknamed, starts talking passionately about science, she’s given a respectful hearing. Filomena insists she gets a less shabby, better fitting and more colourful wardrobe – with trousers suitable for tramping around following insects and birds she’s never seen before. It's liberating, heady stuff for a clever girl who has been expected to be ‘a proper young lady’ all her life, and known she’s failed at it.
And of course, there’s the ridiculously good-looking Ben. The push and pull between this version of the original bickersons is genuinely funny. In fine romantic tradition, the reader is invited to chuckle knowingly at what’s ahead for the shrewd but inexperienced Bea and how she punctures Ben’s ego but brings out the best in him. Several characters seem to want to matchmake her with him, suggesting art lessons, and then, an experiment where he will attempt to use his skills at seduction to give her a summer romance. The more poetic he gets, the more unimpressed Bea gets, and she has a habit of analysing Ben’s well-practiced seduction techniques and finding them amusing. But then, at other times, the charge between them elicits quite different reactions from her. After a couple of disasters involving paint and distracting insect-life and birds, a kiss changes everything.
Wood does an excellent job of bringing an Italian summer to life, the heat is a palpable thing, the colours more vibrant, and I especially enjoyed reading about this over a couple of wet winter days. Gloriously, there’s a visit to Florence, which seems like a perfect setting for a first love affair, especially as Bea has a guide who knows the city and seems as happy to hear her expound on natural history as he is to show her the art treasures it holds. This section not only reveals more to us and Bea about Ben’s background, but also brings into greater focus the political tensions that were swirling about in previous chapters and that you’d expect given the specific setting. Ursula and Klaus are Jewish, Beatrice only gets to go to Florence because an English lady has invited Leo to Rome to meet Mussolini, of whom Bea can’t approve.
The summer looks as though it’s about to be cut short and Bea has definitely broken the rule about not falling in love with Ben, but what about him? More importantly, what about who the two young people want to be? I thought I knew how the story would end from the beginning and told myself it didn’t matter whether Wood would ‘stick the landing’ or not, as so much of what had come before had been note perfect, and ‘the play’ and Beatrice and Benedick’s reunion would eventually come next, but Wood keeps it up. There are some lovely, telling gestures from Ben, and then there’s a beauty of an epilogue.
What an enjoyable read! The blurb points to ‘I Capture the Castle’ and Georgette Heyer as influences, which only attracted me even more to the book. The author’s note confirms that the 90s Branagh-Thompson movie adaptation was a huge influence on her. I must remember to reread this before going to see productions or adaptations of Much Ado in the future, but I also very much liked the adaptations for the form, genre and era in which it’s set. Filomena and Ursula are distinctive characters who help to support Bea grow from girlhood to womanhood. I will definitely be looking out for more by this author.
This is delicious. It’s both a prequel to ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ transported to the 1930s and a young adult novel about a summer romance that turns into a first love. From when we first meet our narrator, 17 year old Beatrice Langston, she’s tremendously likeable, her curiosity about the natural world leading her to do yet another thing that horrifies her parents. We slowly learn that she lives in a draughty, expensive stately home, her parents, who were not young when they had her, are old-fashioned and want to marry her off to a respectable rich man who will help keep Langston Hall going. Never mind that, sensibly, Beatrice has suggested selling part of the land off and her getting a job. For them, that would be unthinkable.
After a disastrous dinner party, where she is goaded into saying something shocking, she is informed that she is to be sent to Italy to stay with her uncle Leo and cousin Hero until The Scandal dies down. She’s meant to think over her bad behaviour, but is thrilled, having never been abroad before.
When she arrives at her destination, she is met by Ben, and it’s a memorable introduction. Beatrice also finds the Villa di Stelle different from what her parents imagined it to be. A widower after the death of Beatrice’s mother’s sister, Leo is now engaged to artist Filomena, who has turned the villa into an artists’ colony, with Ben and Klaus, the younger Hero’s crush object, and his playwright sister Ursula, as regulars and others drifting in and out. This assorted company don’t find Bea unladylike or try to repress her. Conversation flows about art and politics, and when Bea, as she’s been nicknamed, starts talking passionately about science, she’s given a respectful hearing. Filomena insists she gets a less shabby, better fitting and more colourful wardrobe – with trousers suitable for tramping around following insects and birds she’s never seen before. It's liberating, heady stuff for a clever girl who has been expected to be ‘a proper young lady’ all her life, and known she’s failed at it.
And of course, there’s the ridiculously good-looking Ben. The push and pull between this version of the original bickersons is genuinely funny. In fine romantic tradition, the reader is invited to chuckle knowingly at what’s ahead for the shrewd but inexperienced Bea and how she punctures Ben’s ego but brings out the best in him. Several characters seem to want to matchmake her with him, suggesting art lessons, and then, an experiment where he will attempt to use his skills at seduction to give her a summer romance. The more poetic he gets, the more unimpressed Bea gets, and she has a habit of analysing Ben’s well-practiced seduction techniques and finding them amusing. But then, at other times, the charge between them elicits quite different reactions from her. After a couple of disasters involving paint and distracting insect-life and birds, a kiss changes everything.
Wood does an excellent job of bringing an Italian summer to life, the heat is a palpable thing, the colours more vibrant, and I especially enjoyed reading about this over a couple of wet winter days. Gloriously, there’s a visit to Florence, which seems like a perfect setting for a first love affair, especially as Bea has a guide who knows the city and seems as happy to hear her expound on natural history as he is to show her the art treasures it holds. This section not only reveals more to us and Bea about Ben’s background, but also brings into greater focus the political tensions that were swirling about in previous chapters and that you’d expect given the specific setting. Ursula and Klaus are Jewish, Beatrice only gets to go to Florence because an English lady has invited Leo to Rome to meet Mussolini, of whom Bea can’t approve.
The summer looks as though it’s about to be cut short and Bea has definitely broken the rule about not falling in love with Ben, but what about him? More importantly, what about who the two young people want to be? I thought I knew how the story would end from the beginning and told myself it didn’t matter whether Wood would ‘stick the landing’ or not, as so much of what had come before had been note perfect, and ‘the play’ and Beatrice and Benedick’s reunion would eventually come next, but Wood keeps it up. There are some lovely, telling gestures from Ben, and then there’s a beauty of an epilogue.
What an enjoyable read! The blurb points to ‘I Capture the Castle’ and Georgette Heyer as influences, which only attracted me even more to the book. The author’s note confirms that the 90s Branagh-Thompson movie adaptation was a huge influence on her. I must remember to reread this before going to see productions or adaptations of Much Ado in the future, but I also very much liked the adaptations for the form, genre and era in which it’s set. Filomena and Ursula are distinctive characters who help to support Bea grow from girlhood to womanhood. I will definitely be looking out for more by this author.
