Where Ruggiero Loves Beatrice

The Children of the King A Tale of Southern Italy by F. Marion Crawford
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wish we had half stars. This is better than some books I've called 3-star reads, but I couldn't quite give it a 4. Alas.

But I still liked it, finding it interesting and entertaining for a number of reasons. First of all, it's written in a very smooth, glib way, with unornamented prose that feels more modern than it really is. It was published in 1885, but sounds (to my ear) at least 50 years more recent. Also, it makes Italy of 150 years ago or so very real, and very much a character in the novel. I found that enlightening, and learning often feels fun to me.

The main characters, at least the rich ones, seem like characters in a early 20th century British mystery novel, enjoying a long summer of ease on the Italian coast. The Marchesa, especially, is always lounging, always doing things in a languid manner, never showing too much emotion, and her dutiful daughter is a lot like her, but seems to be half waking up as she is being courted and pressured into an arrangement with a titled but poorer man who she realizes is a bad man too late. If someone had died on page 20, I might have thought I'd wandered into an Agatha Christie novel.

The two young Italian sailors, here called the Children of the King, are interesting in a different way. They are trustworthy but rough; principled; hard-working; and noble in spirit, though thoroughly working class. They man the ships that the wealthy elites lounge on all summer, and they have to watch without comment as their social betters play out their moneyed dramas. The commentary works both ways in the novel, with the rich Beatrice noting with interest the deep convictions and strong spirit of the sailors, though she has no emotional interest in them, while the poor servants (sailors, maids, and so on) watch and inwardly judge but outwardly obey the privileged and pampered elites who, to them, live in a different world. It's easy to see which side the author favored, though he's not too unfair to Beatrice, IMO. And I come down on the side of the servants, who are the more admirable characters here.

Another thing that interested me is how I never could quite decide what genre this book belonged to. Before I opened it, I expected it to be romance in the style of Dumas or Scott, and later I thought it might turn into a romance in the style of Nora Roberts, but in the end it's more like a Henry James novel, or E.M. Forster, or even Hemingway. That is to say, the genre is just... novel, I guess. With a tiny bit of adventure in a warm climate. A tad of romance. A bit of "novel of manners," too. Which all adds up to just novel.

I don't read that very often. It's alright.

Anyway, I like the author's style, and I'll happily pick up another book (off the shelf right beside it where I have 3 more) and the next one might be closer to my type. But this was still pretty good, and since it reads briskly, I think a lot of people who've never tried the author might enjoy it.

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