Skeinspotting

Another Great Book...........

I am about half way through this book. It has received mixed reviews, and its biggest criticism is that the story is interrupted for little asides by a narrator, and the narrator is actually a book i.e. Principia Mathematica by Isaac newton. This seems like a strange and interrupting device but once the story is underway, you really admire the heroine and want to find out about her. It follows hers story from a child when she witnessed an Aunt being burned for witchcraft after being accused by Jennet's own father, who is a Witchfinder General The Aunt was persecuted mainly because she was a Natural philosopher. The story moves on as Jennet undertakes her Aunts lifetime of work and she studies natural philosophy to come up with a challenging academic argument against demonology.

Along the way, our heroine moves to America at the time of the Salem with trials, gets abducted by a Native American tribe, settles in as squaw then is 'rescued' and becomes so absorbed in coming with a major document to send to the Queen that she risks losing her family.

I love it, in the end I|don't mind the comments of the narrator, who buts in rarely just to remind us of historical fact and contemporary views. I like it as well, that a male novelist can come up with so many feminist aspects, good on him!