Dreamers of the Day, a novel by Mary Doria Russell

01 June 2008

Gerard Wood

In Dreamers of the Day Mary Doria Russell gives us the story of Agnes Shanklin, observer and unlikely participant in the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference which saw the modern Middle East take shape. If it is possible to pinpoint a moment in time from which to explain the conflicts now raging in the Middle East, it is this one. And if ever you need evidence that Russell is a master story teller, consider this: the narrative traces the threads of conflict in the region today to decisions made at the 1921 Conference, decisions by the Super Powers of the day (Britain and France) that reveal a startlingly familiar motivation, namely the desire to control the supply of oil.

So why is SFFMedia reviewing what appears to be historical fiction? One answer might be that Agnes is in fact a fictional character situated in a historical setting and for that reason the novel could very loosely be described as a historical fantasy. More relevantly however, Russell does employ the fantastic, although for a purely practical purpose: through a sleight of hand that I won’t give away, she allows her fictional narrator (born circa 1880) to recount her life and through observation compare her times to ours: I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: my little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your times until you understand mine.

By age 40 Agnes is the very archetype of the spinster school teacher, an unremarkable moth to her beloved younger sister’s butterfly. Unhappy with her life but unable to break free from its constraints, liberation finally arrives in the guise of tragedy. Between them, the Great War and the Influenza Epidemic wipe out her family. Left with an inheritance and a new found will to live, she sets off on the trip of a life-time to Egypt.

If the novel makes an undue demand on our willing suspension of disbelief it is the ease with which Agnes on arrival in Egypt is drawn into the sphere of Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Lady Gertrude Bell and other luminaries of the times. Russell does plant the seeds early - Lawrence knew Agnes’s sister - but this is not entirely convincing. Ironically this is a consequence of Russell’s very real skills as a novelist: she breathes such life into the historical figures of Churchill, Bell and especially Lawrence, with their complex political, economic and other motivations that it is frankly difficult to believe they would have any time for the relatively inconsequential Agnes!

At the same time, it is Agnes’ lack of consequence that enables her to join in the debates and conversations of these European Masters of the World. She is harmless, an American novelty. Through her we are exposed to the thinking that led to the map of the Middle East being redrawn along lines doomed to fail. Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but the formation of Iraq from three fundamentally antagonistic ethnic groups is a forcibly made case in point.

But there is irony here too. Agnes adds value to the various debates precisely because she is an American, a former colonial with a brash perspective and fresh ethic that contrasts favourably with the old European Colonial way of thinking. A way of thinking that has very much come to dominate the current US Administration’s agenda in the Middle East.

There is of course far more to the novel than this historical focus. As mentioned, this is Agnes’ story and it's her miraculous evolution from moth to butterfly that drives this compelling story. But I’ll leave that for you to discover. In short, a highly recommended read.

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