A Discovery of Witches
by Deborah Harkness
Audiobooks are a godsend for book lovers like myself. Long car drives, styling hair, going on a long walk/jog, are all times that one can read a book without actually reading a book. While listening to a book doesn’t replace the feeling of the pages on your fingers as you fall into the book and your eyes flicking from printed word to word, audiobooks create more opportunities to continue a book while accomplishing mundane chores like cleaning your room. Now I just need to figure out how to enjoy a book in the shower, and I’ll be set for life. But, for now audiobooks are enough. And, with audible books the longer the better.
One of the first books I listened to was A Discovery of Witches. This book makes the perfect audiobook because it is long and drawn out. It captivated me and was my companion as I raced across the California highways one summer.
In this story Diana Bishop is a professor at Oxford and is the classic workaholic. She is an alchemy specialist, and has her life changed in a big way by the small act of opening a manuscript. By doing her job of studying old manuscripts Diana has stumbled across the elusive manuscript Ashmole 782, a book sought by many, including Mathew Clairmont, for its rumored secrets of life, death, and creation. However the people coming after this newly uncovered book are not people at all, they are daemons, vampires, and witches all seeking the power of Ashmole 782. Now with all kinds of supernatural creatures flocking to Oxford, to Diana, she must be reminded that she can’t ignore the fact that she is a witch as well. She has tried living without magic ever since her parents died, but now she has to face who she is because the magic wants to be free. She must also face her strange attraction to Mathew Clairmont, a vampire, and learn to not only be around him, but also trust him.
This book is packed full of action and suspense, but what makes this book so long is it is also packed full of imagery and details. I really loved this story because of its clever plot and creative, contrasting, rounded characters. Except when I began to read this book’s sequel, Shadow of Night(which I think is a stale, unoriginal title) I realized that it is harder to read both of the books than to hear them because the imagery is so superfluous that it distracts from the story. I maintain that the imagery is well-done, but there is just too much weighing down the plot. In a chapter when Mathew takes Diana to yoga class and the experience is described as though trying to explain yoga to someone who has no clue of what it is. There is also too much detail on the furnishing in every room setting. I can appreciate the décor of Mathew’s home, but seeing I will never get to visit that fictional place I don’t need to know everything in it and where it is, including the bathroom. However like I said earlier, in an audiobook the listener won’t take notice of this because it becomes white noise.
It is cumbersome that the wonderful plot is diluted because of this overuse, but it is still an good plot if you can get past the overzealous imagery. I encourage you to listen to this audiobook because it did sweep me up and it can do the same to you. Just give it your time and it may end up giving you the time of your life, in excruciating detail.
