Although I’ve been reading a lot more than usual these past few months — which is a good thing, no doubt — I can’t help but feel guilty about the kinds of books I’m spending my time on. Agatha Christie, Michael Connelly, and John Grisham, while highly entertaining, aren’t exactly literary heavyweights.

As someone who formerly read the classics almost exclusively, it pained me to see my reading list being taken over by mostly modern fare. So I made a conscious effort to inject more classics into my rotation, and towards that end turned to a couple of my favorite Victorian novelists, Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. Dickens obviously has a large body of work to choose from, but with Thackeray, the choices are somewhat more limited. Having already consumed Vanity Fair twice, I decided to tackle The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. next. This was a historical novel where, alas, most of the history was unfamiliar to me, which meant that significant portions of the tome went right over my head.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. is narrated in the third person by an elderly Esmond. The novel opens when Henry is an orphan of 11 years old, as he anxiously awaits the arrival of relatives who are set to take over the Castlewood estate and peerage after the death of Henry’s father. (Since Henry was an illegitimate child, the property did not pass to him.) The fourth Viscount Castlewood and Lady Castlewood have decided that Henry can stay with them, and will raise him as a foster son along with their two natural children Francis and Beatrix.

Throughout his youth, Henry develops very strong feelings for both Beatrix and Lady Castlewood. He longs to marry Beatrix, though he knows that his “homely appearance” and “grave airs” are not something that the beautiful, vivacious, flirtatious young girl would be attracted to. Nevertheless, he holds out hope that he will be the last man standing among the flaky suitors that periodically come calling at Castlewood. As for Lady Castlewood, Henry is as devoted a follower as they come, always thinking of her feelings and jumping at the chance to perform any favors for his benefactress.

When Henry comes of age, he joins the army and goes off to fight various battles in an effort to help Prince James (the fallen James Francis Edward Stuart) retake the British throne from William III and George I. There were many political and religious implications in the struggle for the throne, which Thackeray assumes the reader has a working knowledge of, so these sections can be rather dicey for someone who hasn’t brushed up on their European history beforehand.

The rest of the novel then continues with both of these storylines, though Henry’s family saga receives far greater attention than the political intrigues. The end contains a bit of a surprise, as Henry winds up marrying not Beatrix, but her mother, before settling in Virginia.

My Reaction: I want to start out by saying that I usually love Victorian lit. But I found The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. to be an incredibly boring book, one with boring, unsympathetic characters and a setting that was difficult to visualize. I’ll concede that not being able to understand the political happenings that comprised the background of the story was entirely my fault, as the author couldn’t possibly be expected to explain every little detail. However, Thackeray is entirely responsible for the uninteresting characters and dull plotlines.

I don’t expect to like every protagonist that I come across in the books I read, but I do expect them to be interesting people who think, do, or say interesting things. If I wanted to read about ho-hum, everyday life, I’d spend my days scrolling through blog feeds! Seriously, I’m trying to figure out what was so extraordinary about Henry Esmond that he deserved an entire book written about his life. He wasn’t a military hero or a high-ranking government official, he didn’t influence social policy at all, he wasn’t an artist, he didn’t overcome incredible obstacles in order to survive or prosper…. In fact, he didn’t really do anything except pull a bit of an Oedipal move by marrying his foster mother. Hmmm, what was the point of this novel again?

Surprisingly enough, despite these problems Henry Esmond was actually a readable book. There were a couple of slow parts along the way (the battle scenes immediately come to mind), but I managed to get through the novel in a reasonable amount of time. I attribute this to Thackeray’s incredible prose writing skills. How else can I explain tearing through a novel that wasn’t exactly an edge-of-your-seat thriller?

Even so, the quality of Thackeray’s writing wasn’t enough to change my feelings about the work as a whole. In short, I was very disappointed with The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. I have a feeling that it’s one of those books that I’ll completely forget a few months from now and will never have the desire to read again — which I’m sure is not the response the author hoped to elicit!

It’s now been about two years since I decided I wanted to read all of Agatha Christie’s novels in chronological order. I’m not reading her works exclusively, of course, so I haven’t exactly been tearing through the list at high speed. To date, I’ve read 36 Christie novels, which works out to one about every 3-4 weeks or so. That might sound like a lot, but it really isn’t when you consider the fact that each one is only about 250-300 pages long.

At any rate, I’m still plodding along because I end up liking the books more often than not, and have just finished Sparkling Cyanide, which was published in 1945. I can’t believe I still have 30 left to go, though! Wow, Christie certainly was prolific, wasn’t she?

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Unlike most Christie books in which the first several chapters are spent introducing the reader to the main characters, one of whom will be murdered during the course of the novel, Sparkling Cyanide begins after a murder has already taken place. One year ago, Rosemary Barton and six friends were having dinner at a swanky hotel restaurant to celebrate Rosemary’s birthday. Her husband George made a toast in her honor, after which everyone clinked champagne glasses and drank up. Rosemary died shortly thereafter, and the cause of death was attributed to cyanide poisoning.

Police inspectors ruled the death a suicide after a perfunctory investigation. It seemed that Rosemary might have been suffering from “depression after influenza”, and might also have been down in the dumps because of a love affair gone bad. However, George never quite accepted the suicide theory, saying that it didn’t fit Rosemary’s character. His suspicions are borne out when he starts receiving anonymous letters saying that Rosemary was indeed murdered.

Upon further investigation, it turns out that every single person at the dinner had both the motive and opportunity to kill Rosemary. First, there was her sister Iris, who stood to inherit a fortune if Rosemary died. Then there was Stephen Farraday, Rosemary’s lover and member of Parliament whose career and marriage would be shot to hell if Rosemary spilled the beans about their affair. Stephen’s wife Sandra might have done the deed out of jealousy, as might Ruth Lessing, who was in love with George. Finally, there was Anthony Browne, Ruth’s American friend whose shady past included a prison stint.

George gets it into his mind to out the killer by staging another party with the exact same guests on the one-year anniversary of Rosemary’s death. However, things don’t go as planned, and another person is murdered by the same method. The police, headed by Col. Race, then get involved again, and eventually end up solving the crimes.

My Reaction: It took me longer than usual to get through Sparkling Cyanide, as I didn’t really get into the story until the latter half of the book after the relationship between each individual character and Rosemary was revealed. Once I learned that everyone had a motive for wanting Rosemary dead and saw how the pieces could potentially fit together, I began turning the pages a bit faster.

I didn’t mind the approach that Christie took in this novel (having the first murder occur “off stage”, so to speak, and in the past), mostly because it reminded me of Cold Case, a television show that I watch regularly. Sure, it prevented me from caring about Rosemary at all, but I did become sympathetic towards George and Iris, which turned out to be important later on.

Because each suspect had a good reason to kill Rosemary, I was kept guessing right up until the very end. The solution to the crime was believable and satisfactory, so that was an added bonus here.

Overall, I thought Sparkling Cyanide was a solid read. It wasn’t as charismatic or fun as a typical Poirot mystery, but it still has a lot to offer mystery fans. Check it out for yourself!