60 pages • 2 hours read
Deanna RaybournA Curious Beginning
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Mysteries as Scientific Inquiry
In the early chapters of the novel, Veronica and Stoker occupy the “reluctant detective” role—they are drawn into the pursuit of the truth not due to any intrinsic desire for answers, but rather because they cannot avoid it. This is because Veronica is being actively pursued and Stoker is a suspect in Max’s death. When they shift from being reluctant detectives to avid investigators, however, this shift is underscored by Veronica’s assertion that solving mysteries is not antithetical to their normal work. In Chapter 10, she argues, “Murder is an act of chaos. It lies with us to bring order and method to the solution of the deed. We are scientists” (100). Stoker dismisses Veronica’s status as a scientist and rejects this assessment, calling her a “dilettante” instead. Nonetheless, he comes to act in a manner that constitutes tacit acceptance of the comparison over the remainder of the novel.
As they pursue answers to the mystery of Max’s murderer and Veronica’s birth, Stoker and Veronica discover both the utility and the limitations of using scientific practices to solve a murder mystery. When faced with taking evidence and turning it into inference, Veronica and Stoker excel. When Veronica smells caraway at Max’s house, for example, she can connect this to the other instance she smelled caraway during the investigation: on de Clare’s breath at the train station. She therefore correctly concludes that de Clare was in some way involved in Max’s death. Conversely, when asked to determine what evidence they might seek to help clarify their many intertwined questions, they struggle. Veronica notes this is not due to their failure as scientists, but rather due to their successes in their chosen fields. Moving from conclusions to evidence is contradictory to the proper application of the scientific method, which asks open questions first, then seeks evidence, then formulates conclusions.
Ultimately, the novel proves somewhat ambivalent regarding supporting Veronica’s connection between science and the solving of mysteries. Max’s murder does not prove to be precisely an act of chaos in the end. Rather, it is the result of a long chain of linked events that stretch back before Veronica’s birth. This chain is logical, if one considers human emotion in the formulation of this logic. When deducing why Prince Albert Edward would abandon the woman he loved enough to marry during her pregnancy, they layer assumption upon assumption: A man who married his actress lover must be a romantic, a romantic man would feel guilt for his role in his father’s death, and this guilt would inspire him to bow to his mother’s matrimonial decree. Their deduction is decidedly nonscientific; they cannot prove it. Still, the novel supports the idea that it is a sufficiently true explanation by marking the case as closed—as indicated by Veronica’s emotional closure and the conventions of the genre, in which mysteries are solved by the end of the novel. The text thus suggests that mysteries might be solvable by circumstantial evidence that would not hold up to science’s more stringent demands for indisputable proof.
The Role of Women in Victorian Society
The position of women in society was a contentious topic during the late Victorian era. Though Victoria had been on the throne for five decades by the timeline of A Curious Beginning, women in Britain still lacked the right to vote or sue in a court of law. Victoria herself spoke out against women’s suffrage, though debates roiled over whether the queen truly felt this way or whether this was a way to protect her own power from critics who feared that a female monarch would disrupt the male-dominated social balance of the time. Indeed, the Victorian era is known for its regressive politics regarding women’s place in the world, in which sexual “purity” was highly valued and women were expected to follow the beatific “angel of the house” archetype.
Veronica rejects many of the expectations put upon her by her society’s view of what a woman “should” be. Her career as a lepidopterist, her status as a lady explorer, and her insistence on exercising sexual freedoms commonly denied to women of her time orient her as a countercultural figure. The novel is still careful to articulate that Veronica’s difference is not exclusively because of her capability or personality. This thereby resists the trope of an “exceptional woman who deserves an exception” that Victoria intentionally occupied by pushing back against legalizing rights for other women. Veronica continually notes that her education has enabled her to become a free thinker. By her logic, if other women are not similarly disillusioned with Victorian-era patriarchy, it is because they have been denied the intellectual tools to do so—not because they are inherently inferior to men, as Victorian hegemony would hold. Veronica extends this consideration even to women she dislikes, such as the judgmental and petty Mrs. Cuttlethorpe in the novel’s opening chapters.
In so doing, Veronica orients her vision of women’s role as one characterized by unity rather than difference. If she is different from other women, it is due to circumstances, not nature. However, the novel also clearly articulates that these differences do have an impact. Cordelia’s role furthermore suggests that this difference happens as a matter of class, not merely access to education. Unlike Mrs. Cuttlethorpe, whose provinciality has kept her from any new ideas about what women might accomplish, Lady Cordelia is highly educated and a talented mathematician. In her case, it is her upper-class status, not a lower one, that prevents her from accessing the same freedom as Veronica. Bound by the respectability politics assigned to aristocratic women, Cordelia is forced to become a de-facto mother for her brother’s children—all so that her brother, a scattered intellectual, may pursue his own studies. The novel thus suggests that women’s liberation is only possible in a tightly prescribed set of circumstances—which includes no obligation to a man whose rights would supersede that of the woman in his sphere.
Nevertheless, the novel sets forth an optimistic vision for women’s futures, one in which the actions of the individual affect the collective. Cordelia says, “You are striking a blow for all of us with your adventures, Miss Speedwell. I hope you know that” (258). In pursuing her own path—and in giving up the ties to royalty that would forever consign her to the role of a “proper” Victorian woman—Veronica thus influences the future path of what roads women might take.
The Role of Fact in Historical Fiction
When Stoker and Veronica puzzle through Prince Albert Edward’s motivations for abandoning his wife and infant child, they turn to public record of the royal family for their understanding. The events they discuss—Prince Albert’s death after an unexpected visit to his son on a rainy day, for example—come from true historical record. By invoking real-life figures and putting them central to her plot, Deanna Raybourn prompts an analysis of the divide between fact and fiction in her novel.
The question of to what extent should historical fiction depend on fact is one that is central to the genre. Genre scholars have argued that readers must differentiate between authenticity and accuracy to understand historical fiction’s relationship to truth, as well as what the genre affords readers when it either adheres to or strays from this factual representation of the past. They argue authenticity “denotes the extent to which a text’s representation is consistent with available evidence,” while authenticity “refers to an impression of accuracy and the extent to which readers believe that a representation could capture the past” (Saxton, Laura. “A True Story: Defining Accuracy and Authenticity in Historical Fiction.” Rethinking History, 2020, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 127-44). In the case of authenticity, then, historical fiction depicts a version of the past that strikes readers as credible to set up a backdrop for the main action of the plot, which is typically entirely fictional. A Curious Beginning plays with this space between fact and fiction, prompting critics to praise the novel for its well-researched setting. A strong understanding of the setting allows for Raybourn to more accurately depict the challenges her characters face, such as the specific forms of sexism Veronica may have dealt with or the common perspectives on social and political matters at the time.
Furthermore, the use of numerous factual elements in the story evokes Veronica’s experiences as a character. Veronica’s main aim in the story is to solve a murder; to do so, she leans heavily on her well-established knowledge of the natural world. She is an intelligent, practical woman. However, she couldn’t have been prepared for the twist that she is actually of royal lineage. This fills in the most pressing gap in her knowledge—that of her family—and reorients her perception of herself, her relationships, and the monarchy itself. The truth creates a fresh connection between her life and society at large, and it provides a deeper understanding of history by exposing the rich details that can exist beyond what historical records convey. This mirrors the experience of a consumer of historical fiction, who can better connect to characters, plot points, or settings through the use of real-life details. This can shift perspectives on historical events; for example, Veronica’s understanding of Irish-English relations may change over the rest of the series, even if they don’t much in this specific novel. The incorporation of truth or historical details into fiction thus offers new points of view and encourages readers to make new connections.
