Featured Reading Guide
Famously, Jane Austen created a fictional universe for ‘three or four families in a country village’. In this remarkable first novel James Fleming achieves something very similar: out of the relationships of two men and one woman in Derbyshire in 1788 he has created a fiction that bears comparison with the great novelists of the nineteenth century.Anthony Apreece covets the land of his young neighbour, Edward Horne. Edward covets Daisy, Anthony’s wife. On such simple foundations, James Fleming builds a novel of extraordinary richness, at once a wholly convincing representation of an eighteenth…
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topAbout the Book
Famously, Jane Austen created a fictional universe for ‘three or four families in a country village’. In this remarkable first novel James Fleming achieves something very similar: out of the relationships of two men and one woman in Derbyshire in 1788 he has created a fiction that bears comparison with the great novelists of the nineteenth century.Anthony Apreece covets the land of his young neighbour, Edward Horne. Edward covets Daisy, Anthony’s wife. On such simple foundations, James Fleming builds a novel of extraordinary richness, at once a wholly convincing representation of an eighteenth-century world and an utterly modern dissection of two of mankind’s most powerful passions: greed and love
topinterview/review
WHY I WRITE by James Fleming
“All writers have something of Eeyore in them. Gloom and despair are the order of the day. Why do others write so much more powerfully, emotionally, spontaneously, or whatever? Is there a better word I could use? Why don’t I know all the words that exist? Is this trite, belaboured, pompous or childish? Have I pinched that phrase from someone famous? Will anyone ever want to read this stuff?
The worst is, Am I making a fool of myself? But this may be a personal consideration. Experienced writers don’t appear to suffer from it.
But there are also good times. There is a profound satisfaction in getting it right. A day in which the story is advanced, the characters bubble, and some fine deed or thought or attitude is uncovered, is extraordinarily rewarding. There have been nights when I haven’t slept a wink for excitement. What will happen to them tomorrow? What will the lady do next? How can she think of marrying that creature! Someone should give her a good talking to…
Revision is difficult. Once the words have been written they appear to be set in stone.
I have to make a conscious effort to study each sentence afresh. And when it’s finished? A terrible emptiness, like saying farewell to one’s family. So I like to have a new book building in my mind when I’m at work, in the same way as I like to start writing with a few left-over thoughts from the previous day.”
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Fleming juxtaposes eighteenth-century content with a modern form. Is this a successful combination? How does this book revisit the time of its setting?
- Fleming explores the issue of land, “the mania that farmers have to possess it – almost like a psychological illness”; Sir Anthony Apreece covets Winterbourne, Edward Horne covets Daisy. What does ownership of either of these represent?
- One reviewer called this novel ‘startlingly cheerful’. On what grounds can The Temple of Optimism be said to be optimistic? How does the prose style affect your perception?
- In a fictional world of near cartoon characters, dark themes of greed, power, treachery and lust are ever present. How does Fleming construct his gallery of comic characters and do you find them sympathetic or not?
- The book teems with 18th century vocabulary, and if Fleming cannot find the word, he invents it, e.g. ‘contumaciously’ or ‘eximiniously’. How do you react to this? Do you think writers of historical fiction should have this license to invent?
- How appropriate are comparisons to eighteenth-century writers such as Austen or Fielding?
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Suggested Further Reading
- Sense and Sensibility ~ Jane Austen
- Restoration ~ Rose Tremain
- Sarum ~ Edward Rutherfurd
- Hawkesmoor ~ Peter Ackroyd
- Tom Jones ~ Henry Fielding
- Hard Times ~ Charles Dickens
- An Instance of the Fingerpost ~ Iain Pears