The words in my hand by Guinevere Glasfurd
Two Roads, 2016. ISBN 9781473617865
(Age: 16+) Highly recommended for mature readers. Themes:
Philosophy; Education of women; Rene Descartes; Relationships.
Weaving together the story of Rene Descartes with the young maid
with whom he has a relationship, the reader gets an insight into the
way the world has changed on so many fronts. Descartes was a French
philosopher, scientist and writer whose thinking and words were
germinal in beginning a transformation in the way the world was
understood. This was a dangerous occupation as it upset the status
quo. This very well crafted first novel by Glasfurd, enables us to
see Descartes life through the eyes of the young maid, Helena Jans
Von Strom, that he meets while lodging in the Dutch house where she
works for an English Bookseller. She is portrayed as an intelligent
woman trapped in her role because of her gender and the
intransigence of her circumstances as a maid. From the perspective
of the 21st Century reader, this level of discrimination seems so
unfair and we mourn with her as she attempts to self-educate herself
and to be respected and to be acknowledged as a woman of worth in
the highly patriarchal and socially discriminative era of the 1600's
world. She becomes Descartes' love interest and the mother of his
child and yet her position needs to remain hidden to protect
reputations and to enable her to fit into the society of the day.
Helena's love of learning and her exploration of ideas live in
parallel to the philosophical world of Descartes. We see how the
power of paper and the words that it can carry enters the world of
the young woman, and yet the words in her hands remain constrained
by her status. Her sorrows and powerlessness are potent for the
reader.
This book is not unlike The Girl with the Pearl Earring in
portraying a piece of Dutch history in a fictional way albeit a
century earlier. It will be enjoyed by Book Club readers who will
enjoy the insight into the world of the philosopher who challenges
the world in which he lives as well as comparing the role of women
from the past. (It does also portray the illicit relationship in
detail and there is a violent incident that is quite distressing, so
readers need to have some maturity.)
Carolyn Hull