FoRbidden love

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/10/2023 (1095 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Emma Donoghue, Irish-Canadian author of the hugely popular bestselling novel Room (and many more), has produced a beautiful and engaging new novel that takes place in York, England, in the early 1800s. What is remarkable is how readable and “unputdownable” it is, despite its being based on a lot of research.

Learned by Heart is written entirely from the point of view of the real-life Eliza Raine, born in India to Dr. William Raine, an Englishman, and “his woman,” a native of India. The doctor sent Eliza and her older sister Jane to England to be educated, but he died a couple of years later, leaving them to live with his York friends, the Duffins.

When the novel begins, the year is 1805; Eliza is 14 and enrolled in the Manor boarding school “for young ladies.” The 40 students are divided into Seniors, Middles and Juniors; Eliza is a Middle. One of the strengths of the book is the dialogue — the many scenes in which a group of students chat among themselves and the scenes that take place in class. The teachers seem approachable enough, but are quick to impose demerits and punishment of many kinds.

Eliza is given an attic room in the north wing of the school, set off from where most of the girls are. Another girl is assigned there — Anne Lister, who wants to be called by her last name. She is rather boyish in looks, reads a lot of books and soon becomes the most outspoken student — “erudition just rises off Lister like smoke,” Raine observes. Some of the girls are offended by her remarks, but Eliza believes Lister has no intention to offend. “[T]he flow of her thought is as urgent and unstoppable as a spring of water,” Donoghue writes.

“Lister may not be good at everything — her drawing’s too fast to be correct, her flute fingering clumsy — but she’s interested in everything. Some of the Seniors (only half mockingly) refer to her as Lexicon Lister, or the school Solomon.”

As Eliza and Lister become good friends, Eliza quickly becomes “Raine.” “She’s amused to see that Lister’s disguised several of her books to avoid detection by the proprietors; a French novel called Julie wears the cover of The Universal Preceptor,” Donoghue writes.

They enjoy being together and one evening it seems inevitable that their friendship is going to be something more: “Suddenly Lister’s head turns and she’s kissing Eliza, claiming her mouth like a low-hanging fruit.”

Their relationship only becomes more physical, especially after they see a production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The intensity of their lovemaking over the next weeks is beautifully presented by Donoghue, while the threat of being caught by one of the proprietors hangs over them.

Interspersed among these chapters are brief segments that jump forward to 1815, when Raine is in an asylum, desperately wanting to make contact — any contact — with Lister.

While the Raine-Lister relationship makes for a completely satisfying novel, there are observations that ring true and are in themselves memorable: “Left alone in the courtyard, Eliza finds herself thinking again that school is not a rehearsal for life’s play… It’s the first act of the piece, performed once only.”

At the end of the book, Donoghue offers a lengthy “Author’s Note” that gives details of how she researched “the history of Eliza Raine (1791-1869)” and how information about Anne Lister has changed Donoghue’s own life.

Dave Williamson is a Winnipeg writer whose latest work, a short story called Reading on an Airplane, appeared in the Fall 2022 issue of Prairie Fire magazine.

Emma Donoghue launches Learned By Heart at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location on Monday at 7 p.m. as part of Thin Air 2023: Winnipeg International Writers Festival, where she’ll be joined in conversation by Angela Torgerson.