The Essex Serpent

Strange News Out of Essex: it is 1892*, and residents of a coastal village have reported glimpses of a mysterious animal in the marshes of Blackwater Estuary. Thither goes our heroine, one Cora Seaborne, a young woman recently (and mercifully) widowed, hoping to add to the collection of ammonites and other fossils in which she has an amateur interest. She meets the local vicar, Will Ransome, a friend of a friend, and they develop an intimate relationship that defies attempts at definition.

The serpent serves a number of functions for different characters in this novel: the savagery beneath the veneer of society (both the society of the village and of Cora’s violent marriage); the glamour and threat of nascent sexuality; the mysteries that science, in the dawn of the modern era, is starting to demystify.

When Sim and I started dating, twelve years ago now, I felt it incumbent on me, as the arts half of our arts/science pairing, to educate him about certain metaphors that never appear by accident in Western literature or film. An apple; a game of chess; a storm or other significant weather event (though that last can equally be necessary from the perspective of the narrative’s mechanics). Well, I broke my own rules here: I was so focused on the use of the serpent as a metaphor for something lying beneath a still surface that for most of the book I totally missed the fact that it was, by name, a snake. This would have been particularly obvious had I paused to consider the fact that the main plot element features a man of God married to a woman named Stella, developing feelings for a woman named Cora. Cora and Stella: heart and star, fleshly and celestial. Somehow I missed this even in the face of accusations from the villagers that she (Cora) brought it (the serpent) with her. Fail.

Bianca Stratford taught us that there’s a difference between like and love. As someone who has owned Skechers but never a Prada backpack, I liked this book, but did not love it. I loved aspects of it, most of all the idea that a novel can explore relationships that are not (or not solely) romantic but are just as emotionally dramatic (familiar terrain for Ferrante fans). Sadly I think The Essex Serpent may have fallen victim to its own hype: my expectations were high, and it fell short where it may have otherwise been perfectly satisfying.

*I worked this out myself from the date of the earthquake, you’re welcome.

Trigger warnings: domestic violence, suicide.