The Glassblowers – Daphne du Maurier (1963)

My third and final read for this year’s #DDMreadingweek was The Glassblowers – an incredibly vivid historical novel based on the author’s own family history. Two other readers (at least) have written about this novel this week, and so I don’t feel it necessary to go into too much detail.

Set in eighteenth-century France, this is a novel of a family, their struggles, and tragedies during an extraordinary period in the country’s history. The novel is narrated by Sophie Duval – who now an elderly woman tells the story of the family history to her long-lost nephew, taking him back to the world of the glassblowers and the turbulent, frightening years of The French Revolution.

“Perhaps we shall not see each other again, I will write to you, though, and tell you, as best I can, the story of your family. A glass-blower, remember, breathes life into a vessel, giving it shape and form and sometimes beauty, but he can, with that same breath, shatter and destroy it.”

Sophie’s mother Magdaleine, married into a glass-blowing family in 1747, a world her own father warned her was a closed world, a world totally different to the one she had grown up in. Magdaleine comes to embrace this world, taking up a managing role, as well as raising five children. She is a formidable, respected figure around the glasshouse, a great help and support to Mathurin her husband. The family move between glasshouses, renting houses as their fortunes wax and wane. This is a world with its own ways and traditions and Magdaleine takes them all on as her own.

Three boys are born first, Robert, Michel, and Pierre, later two daughters, Sophie – our narrator – and her younger sister Edmé. The three sons are expected to enter the world of glass-blowing, following their father in the art to become fully fledged master glass blowers. The eldest Robert is the most gifted, he becomes a master glass blower, as does Michel in time. Pierre is less committed to this world – and is apt to take himself away from the glasshouse. Only Robert’s great problem is that he had his head turned by beauty, and a gracious way of living as a young boy. He aspires to wealth and prestige, to grand houses and fine possessions. Robert’s ambitions are set to be his undoing – his speculations costing him more and more each time. Robert is annoyingly optimistic, he never sees what he is doing to his family, he is always convinced of his own success. His wife Cathie and their son Jacques will in time become victims of Robert’s destructive, gambler like attitude.

Sophie tells the story of this family, of her siblings their glassblowers trade and the world in which they live, that becomes changed forever, as does France itself with the revolution. Sophie marries François in 1788, in a double ceremony, her younger sister Edmé marrying at the same time.

“Something within each one of us had been awakened that we had not known was there; some dream, desire, or doubt, flickered into life by that same rumour, took root, and flourished. We were none of us the same afterwards. Robert, Michel, François, Edmé, myself, were changed imperceptibly. The rumour, true or false, had brought into the open hopes and dreads which, hitherto concealed, would now be part of our ordinary living selves.”

The peaceful world of the glassblowers is coming to an end – the country is seething with discontent following a terrible winter, hunger, and poverty the driving force. Rumour and gossip help to fan the flames of revolution. They all hear about the storming of the Bastille in Paris – and it is said that brigands roam the countryside, ready to steal goods and damage property. The whole of France are entering into uncertain times.

 “‘Where do they go, Sophie, those younger selves of ours? How do they vanish and dissolve?” “They don’t,” I said. “They’re with us always, like little shadows, ghosting us through life. I’ve been aware of mine, often enough, wearing a pinafore over my starched frock, chasing Edmé up and down the great staircase in la Pierre.”

While Sophie tries her best to hold the family together, Pierre finds his calling as a notary, Michel and Edmé both great patriots, become revolutionary leaders in their community. Robert continues to speculate – and is declared bankrupt, more than once – and his way out of the mess, is to leave the country, a decision which horrifies his brothers especially.

In telling the story of the French Revolution du Maurier moves her characters around quite a bit – from place to place, house to house – similarly to the way she did in The King’s General. It allows her characters to see and experience more, creating movement and drama in the story.

The descriptions of the fear unleashed at various times over the years of revolution are well done, du Maurier understands, the loss, the rage and patriotic fervour unleashed at such times. There are many incredibly vivid scenes. The historical detail is extraordinary, I learned the other day (via a Twitter conversation), that she spent years researching this – it shows. The one thing I missed rather was a strong sense of place – something I always associate with Daphne du Maurier – I really didn’t get that in this novel. Nevertheless it is a really ambitious novel, in fact so much happens it is difficult to write about. Recommended to those who like a good historical novel with a large strong family at the centre of it.