Sometimes a darn good yarn is in order, and it is as such that I would describe Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel The Essex Serpent that I have just finished reading. I recall that it was well received at the time of publication and quickly became a public’s darling (in the first instance, very much through ‘word of mouth’) and having read of a newly released streaming series (about which I heard the author speak on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme a short time ago), I was easily enough tempted by a bookshop display.
Not a complex book, but an intelligent and thoughtful one – well structured, with original, well formed characters and very nicely written indeed. If so inclined – and Perry encourages the inclination – it can also inspire to some historical and philosophical reflection on the last decades of the 19th century in Victorian England – a tumultuous time in which the social consequences of the industrial age were still settling, rigid class structures showing signs of fracture and Darwinism already being hijacked to explain “the evils” in society. Specifically, Perry uses this latter; imagined as a new “religion” based on science and rational thought, in conflict with the mysticism and belief system of the Christian tradition, and fought in proxy and along different lines by several of the characters.
Here, a review from 2016, a 2020 piece by Sarah Perry on how she came to write the novel, and, here, her thoughts about the Apple TV adaptation which premiered at the end of May (all in The Guardian). Like the author, I didn’t exactly envisage a Claire Danes sort as Cora, but Perry embraces the choice (so so will I!), and is very satisfied indeed with the production. Below, the trailer. I don’t have Apple TV but I will certainly try to see the series some time in the future.