Circling the Sun

I likely would have read this sooner, had I not just finished West with the Night - Beryl Markham's memoirs - when Circling the Sun - Paula McLain's fictional account of Markham - appeared on my radar.

A bit of background first. McLain's The Paris Wife was one of the best books I read in 2011. I loved McLain's writing in general and her treatment of Hadley Richardson in particular. I may have had a similar reaction to McLain's treatment of Markham, too, had I not already read the latter's own memoir.

The writing is certainly there. McLain writes beautiful prose and, as with The Paris Wife, I found myself often stopping to admire her way with words. "I have fought for independence here, and freedom, too. More and more I find they're not at all the same thing," McLain has Markham say at one juncture. Simultaneously obvious and subtle, this sentiment stopped me in my reading tracks to ruminate how concisely McLain captured this thought.

Likewise, when I read in the narrative, "The beautiful rich who hoisted themselves up on vast parcels of land...They had their own rules, or none at all - which could happen when you had too much money and too much time." I again felt compelled to read and re-read and re-read again McLain's lovely prose. (And also to recall the multiple books featuring the well born behaving behaving badly. See White Mischief or My Life as a Mountbatten or Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey should you need any convincing.)

Ultimately, though, I felt that McLain gave Markham short shrift. Markham's life was one of firsts for women, from horse trainer to bush pilot, yet McLain chose to focus on Markham's personal life - failed marriages and extramarital scandals not least of all - which left me with a diminished sense of who Markham was and what she accomplished. And so, even though I don't find particular faults with the book itself, and enjoy and admire McLain's writing, I came away disappointed, feeling that I had read but a very partial account of Markham's life and times.

Two-and-a-half stars. (Caveat: see above. Anyone who hasn't read West with the Night will most likely - and fairly - find this rating overly harsh.)