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Mandrake Root
The story revolves around a school in Denmark, just prior to the war, where an ambassador, a college faculty, a young woman writing a thesis, and an American man studying political science, have all gathered in a seminar. The story is a battle of wills, according to a statement on the jacket. The " strange mystery" hinted at in the opening is never very strange and certainly no mystery. The mystery is that anyone of Joanna's intelligence could be so unaware of her surroundings. (And what is a mandrake root, anyway?)
227 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1946
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June 3, 2020
I picked this book up for a quarter at an estate sale in Minneapolis, in a tiny house overlooking the freeway. With a plain cover, no illustrations and an unhelpful title I don't recall seeing in the book, I had no idea what it was going to be about -- but it was in good condition, attractive green cloth with darker green lettering and similarly dyed pages along the top edge, and the first page held my attention rapt:
Chapter 1: In the King's Deer Forest
Joanna rode her bicycle along the dimly starlit forest track. She felt the earth bare beneath her wheels. A few moments ago the ground had been padded with pine needles, for she had smelled the pine trees and sensed the softness. Now it was stripped, with a curious resilience. Above the rushing of the air as she rode, she heard the movement of great branches.
She rode quickly, for she was lost and beginning to grow desperate. The dark forest about her seemed unreal yet endless, as if there were no world beyond this track between the midnight trees. She thought of dismounting to spend the night in a hollow beside the road, but she had no coat. And more than the chill night, a hidden fear drove her on. The country was strange to her. She did not know how far this forest might reach, or where towns would lie.
The basic premise is that an American university student is completing thesis work at a school in Denmark, sometime in the 1930s I believe*, but leaves shortly thereafter upon accepting an invitation to continue her independent studies at a private seminar, led by a reclusive figure generally known as The Ambassador, on his historic family estate.
(*there is a ton of European history being thrown around with a dash of European politics, and it all went right over my head)
After an eternity, I finally realized it was shaping up to be a romance with a love triangle. On one side is the Ambassador, who's taken a shine to her like Mr. Rochester to Jane Eyre, only much kinder and not able to decide whether he sees her as a daughter or a love interest, whose evident concern for her welfare borders on suffocating at times. On the other is Jimmy, an American farm boy from the seminar who immediately sets his sights on her and is successful at capturing her interest, but frequently prone to fits of jealousy when he decides she's spending too much time with that creepy old guy.
That said, while the naive Joanna spends a good deal of time waffling about her Strange, Confusing Feelings and certain only that she does not want to be like her father (who committed copious amounts of adultery because he "just couldn't help himself"), I still didn't feel like romance was the sole focus, as she also spends plenty of time both absorbed in her 19th century literature research, and in simply exploring her surroundings. There are visits with a friend from her original school as well as outings with Jimmy and some of the other men from the seminar, all from a variety of international backgrounds, most of whom she has a comfortable sibling-like relationship with.
What I truly love about the book is the beautiful descriptions of everything, from the details of her boarding rooms, to the manor, to its grounds, to the activities she participates in with her free time, like horseback riding and a day at the beach. It's not often I read something set in both the past AND a European nation, making it feel doubly far removed from my reality. I never knew if what I was reading about was more a reflection of the time, or the country.
There is also a great deal of symbolism about being caught between the old and the new, Jimmy representing the forward progress toward the second half of the 20th century, the Ambassador seeking to hold on to the customs of the 19th, from balls to horse-drawn carriages. One guess as to which one I found more romantic.
The ending is rather rushed and goes off the rails kind of out of nowhere, but for the most part, reading it was a real "the blue mist has transported you to another time and another place" experience.
May 2020: On my second read four years later, I still can't track the politics and I'm still annoyed by the fact that nationalities are never capitalized in the text, but all of the descriptive writing is as beautiful as I remember. This has become one of my all-time favorite obscure books.
Chapter 1: In the King's Deer Forest
Joanna rode her bicycle along the dimly starlit forest track. She felt the earth bare beneath her wheels. A few moments ago the ground had been padded with pine needles, for she had smelled the pine trees and sensed the softness. Now it was stripped, with a curious resilience. Above the rushing of the air as she rode, she heard the movement of great branches.
She rode quickly, for she was lost and beginning to grow desperate. The dark forest about her seemed unreal yet endless, as if there were no world beyond this track between the midnight trees. She thought of dismounting to spend the night in a hollow beside the road, but she had no coat. And more than the chill night, a hidden fear drove her on. The country was strange to her. She did not know how far this forest might reach, or where towns would lie.
The basic premise is that an American university student is completing thesis work at a school in Denmark, sometime in the 1930s I believe*, but leaves shortly thereafter upon accepting an invitation to continue her independent studies at a private seminar, led by a reclusive figure generally known as The Ambassador, on his historic family estate.
(*there is a ton of European history being thrown around with a dash of European politics, and it all went right over my head)
After an eternity, I finally realized it was shaping up to be a romance with a love triangle. On one side is the Ambassador, who's taken a shine to her like Mr. Rochester to Jane Eyre, only much kinder and not able to decide whether he sees her as a daughter or a love interest, whose evident concern for her welfare borders on suffocating at times. On the other is Jimmy, an American farm boy from the seminar who immediately sets his sights on her and is successful at capturing her interest, but frequently prone to fits of jealousy when he decides she's spending too much time with that creepy old guy.
That said, while the naive Joanna spends a good deal of time waffling about her Strange, Confusing Feelings and certain only that she does not want to be like her father (who committed copious amounts of adultery because he "just couldn't help himself"), I still didn't feel like romance was the sole focus, as she also spends plenty of time both absorbed in her 19th century literature research, and in simply exploring her surroundings. There are visits with a friend from her original school as well as outings with Jimmy and some of the other men from the seminar, all from a variety of international backgrounds, most of whom she has a comfortable sibling-like relationship with.
What I truly love about the book is the beautiful descriptions of everything, from the details of her boarding rooms, to the manor, to its grounds, to the activities she participates in with her free time, like horseback riding and a day at the beach. It's not often I read something set in both the past AND a European nation, making it feel doubly far removed from my reality. I never knew if what I was reading about was more a reflection of the time, or the country.
There is also a great deal of symbolism about being caught between the old and the new, Jimmy representing the forward progress toward the second half of the 20th century, the Ambassador seeking to hold on to the customs of the 19th, from balls to horse-drawn carriages. One guess as to which one I found more romantic.
The ending is rather rushed and goes off the rails kind of out of nowhere, but for the most part, reading it was a real "the blue mist has transported you to another time and another place" experience.
May 2020: On my second read four years later, I still can't track the politics and I'm still annoyed by the fact that nationalities are never capitalized in the text, but all of the descriptive writing is as beautiful as I remember. This has become one of my all-time favorite obscure books.
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