Der eingerahmte Sonnenuntergang

by Joan Aiken

Lucy reist nach England, um herauszufinden, was mit ihrer alten Tante Fennel und deren Freundin geschehen ist. Die beiden alten Damen scheinen einfach verschwunden zu sein. Was wie ein ganz normaler Verwandtenbesuch beginnt, entwickelt sich rasch zu einem gefährlichen Abenteuer für Lucy. Seltsame Bilder werden zu Objekten der Habsucht; Rache, Betrug, Mordversuch und Tod bestimmen das Tempo der Handlung.

Genres: Gothic, Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Mystery Thriller, Thriller

294 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Joan Aiken was a much loved English writer who received the MBE for services to Children's Literature. She was known as a writer of wild fantasy, Gothic novels and short stories.

She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972).

Her most popular series, the "Wolves Chronicles" which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world.

Another series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.

Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax.

Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories.

Reviews

[Rachel Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucy Culpepper, an orphan pianist with a heart condition and crossed incisors that make her look like a squirrel, was raised by her asshole uncle who squanders her inheritance. All she wants is to study piano from a dying pianist in England, but she can't afford to go... until said asshole uncle sends her on a wild goose chase to see if her ninety-something great-aunt Fenella, an unrecognized genius outsider artist who does painted/embroidered/multimedia Biblical paintings, is actually dead and someone else is cashing her minuscule pension checks.

Lucy goes and meets the dying pianist, and they fall in love. They then spend the entire book apart as he's too sick to travel and she's trying to track down her great-aunt, who lived her whole life with another woman who recently died falling off a cliff. Or maybe her great-aunt is dead and being impersonated by her partner. Or maybe it is the great-aunt pretending to impersonate her partner! A farrago of bizarre events follows, including many strangely charming meetings with a Turkish doctor (unless he's just pretending to be Turkish), several old people's homes, a trio of escaped convicts, a cat everyone wants to kill (which does get killed, FYI), a cat that may or may not have died years ago, and a live cat that may or may not be the killed-by-a-fox-years-ago cat.

I almost forgot to mention that Lucy becomes psychic when she has a migraine.

I'm calling this a Gothic because it was published as one and the cover depicts a woman fleeing a menacing house. However, as I guessed before reading it based on the author, it's actually very hard to categorize generically, is both very funny and very dark, and parodies everything from Gothics to British food to outsider artists to seductive Turks in romances to the sort of idyllic English towns also parodied in Cold Comfort Farm, which this book also slightly resembles. In fact I'm sure it contains many parodies that I didn't catch as I'm unfamiliar with the originals.

I enjoyed this a lot. It's funny, sad, and very very strange. Also very very Joan Aiken.



So, the ending. The villains' efforts to steal the paintings cause the reservoir to break and a flood drowns the paintings, them, and possibly most of the town. Lucy has a heart attack and dies listening her beloved dying pianist play over the radio. It's implied that he'll die of shock when he hears of this. The ancient aunt is still alive, and in the very last line declines to say which one she really is.

[grosbeak · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!!!!!!!!

[Christine Honsinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such an odd book this, but written well...Joan Aiken is impressive. I wish I could have had a chance to hear her speak about her books and to ask her some questions. I do very much like definitive answers. lol. One thing is for sure, it is not the kind of novel that I forgot about the next day when moving on to my next. In this respect, she achieved something that other gothic novelists are not known for doing. Get to the ending yourself and we will "talk". :)

[Schmasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

ich würde auch 5 sterne geben wenn das ende nicht so...so...so "wait what? wtfh???" gewesen wäre. an sich war das buch toll, sehr leichtfüßig und spannend geschrieben, die netten charaktere waren sympathisch und die bösen böse wie es sich gehört. aber das ende, man, man, man.

[Priscilla King · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1980 this was the most surprising, suspenseful novel of suspense I'd ever read. Going on forty years later, I know how all the plot elements resolve, but I've reread it every few years because I enjoy revisiting these people and places. How much more can be said for a mystery novel? I don't often reread a novel written for adults.

Lucy, a heroine more energetic and amusing than pretty or exemplary, spots some funny old collages of her great-aunt's up attic and identifies them as valuable pieces of folk art. Her great-aunt lived with another old lady in a village of distant relatives where lots of people look alike (and none of them is considered a great beauty). One of the old ladies has died; Lucy's Uncle Wilbie hopes to prove it was the great-aunt, so his company can stop paying her a pension. Lucy hopes to prove the living one is her great-aunt, because she's suddenly interested in knowing her great-aunt, because she hopes to find more collages, and because "If it had not been a pleasure, it would have been a duty to hate" Wilbie.

Lucy's music teacher, Max, is impressed by Lucy's playing as well as her personality. Not only does he agree to teach Lucy in exchange for one of the collage "paintings"; he lends her a car and pocket money to go in search of more. But hurry back, he keeps repeating pathetically, because he probably won't be able to teach much longer; he has leukemia. His doctor doesn't believe in raising false hopes but thinks Max might achieve a few years' remission after seeing how Max reacts to Lucy.

Lucy has a heart condition too, which she ignores; she consults Dr. Adnan only about her (probable) great-aunt's health. Like Max, Dr. Adnan is impressed by Lucy's take-charge personality. The suspense includes the question of which admirer she'll choose, which is generally bad news for male characters in a novel of suspense...

Anyway, I've always found it a very enjoyable read, although some people are disappointed by Aiken's choice of which characters survive the dangerous adventures.

[Geraldine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chilling Gothic mystery

I've loved Joan Aiken's children's books for a long time but I've recently been reading my way through all her historical and mystery novels written for adults as they become available on Kindle. Like her children's books, these adult novels have brilliant use of language, wildly inventive plots, spirited heroines and wonderfully eccentric supporting characters. The cruel streak that sometimes troubled me in Aiken's work for children is even more apparent in her adult novels. She seemed to delight in writing about abusive parents and spouses. The very old and the very young often suffer horribly in these novels and innocent characters meet nasty fates almost as frequently as the villains do. You are never in safe hands with Joan Aiken.

In its dedication, `The Embroidered Sunset' is described as `light romance'. I can only assume that this is an example of Aiken's sense of humour since this is a dark novel with a high body count and no happy couples. Lucy Culpepper is a typical Aiken heroine - a strong-minded young woman with a vocation - and there is no skimping on plot elements. When Lucy is sent to England by her hated uncle to look into the possible death of her great-aunt, Fennel, she soon has to cope with hostile villagers (an Aiken speciality), elderly people with unreliable memories, possibly untrustworthy medics, suspicious deaths and shocking family secrets. When she takes a temporary job at Wildfell Hall (the novel is littered with references to the Bronte sisters' novels) Lucy has put herself, and the woman she believes to be her great-aunt, in deadly danger. At the centre of the mystery is Great Aunt Fennel's extraordinary artwork, which Aiken cleverly conjures up mainly by showing people's reactions to the pictures. This was a story I had to keep on reading though when I got to the end I wished I'd stopped earlier. Reader beware...

[Carolin Bsl · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say... The whole story is somehow cute and like a fairytale; it is clear who belongs to the good and the bad side. However, she seems to be indifferent to her own characters, which some readers might enjoy, but I was a bit confused by it. Because of her fairytale-like style of writing, I expected a happy end and was very taken aback when out ouf a sudden, the main character died. Also, the reactions of the remaining characters to this event felt a bit shallow.
So, not sure what I should think about this book. It envoked strong emotions in me (specifically the last 10 pages), but in the middle, I felt that the story could have progressed quicker. Also, the internal monologue of the aunt felt tedious at times.

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this manuscript were delivered to a publisher today, Joan Aiken would be carted off for gentle reprogramming at the Institute for Wayward Fiction Writers. I kinda sorta liked it, despite the horrible ending and multiple plot points left dangling.

[Linda Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

So terrible

[Barbara Parrish · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the saddest books I ever read. Has stayed with me 40 years.

[Rebekah · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange novel. It drew me in immediately, and left me thinking after I finished it.