The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann: book review

The Stockholm Octavo (2012) is set in Stockholm, Sweden, from 1789 to 1792, the last years of King Gustav III’s reign. Gustav (1746-1792) was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination. It is after the French Revolution (the Palace of Versailles is ransacked and the fortress, the Bastille, is taken), and Sweden offers assistance to reinstate Louis XVI as King of France.

French-born Mrs. Sofia Sparrow is the owner of well-respected gaming rooms. To gamble there, a personal recommendation is required. Narrator, Emil Larsson, an unwed errand officer in the customs office, gained access in order to make his fortune. Within a year he had enough money to purchase a high-level position of sekretaire in customs. Two years of good fortune led to a perfect life.

But his superior was not happy with Emil’s gambling habits and strongly suggested that he be respectably married to keep his position at work. Then Emil saw the beautiful Carlotta Vingstrom, daughter of a successful wine merchant. Mrs. Sparrow – who is not only proficient at gambling with cards, but also with fortune-telling – has a vision for Emil and for herself. And their fates entwined.

Mrs. Sparrow read Emil’s Octavo fortune tarot cards – Octoavo is ‘a form of divination unique to Mrs. Sparrow’ and only for specially selected people (such as King Gustav). She used an old and mysterious German deck of cards, of which eight were chosen that revealed eight people who would bring about her vision for Emil – an event that would herald a positive transformation, a rebirth. The cards showed Emil how to to make her vision come true – if he finds the real people depicted by the eight cards – his companion, prisoner, teacher, courier, trickster, magpie, prize, and key. To ignore the cards would end in his ruin. Her visions of the King become tragically true, but what of her own and Emil’s?

But there is more than the realization of the cards. Emil has to contend with the loss of Carlotta when her parents send her to Finland, women plotting deceit and trickery to have the most exquisite collection of extravagant hand-made fans, and an assassination plot to kill the King.

Cooling hand-held decorative fans are woven into the narrative – each has a female name – their ‘sole purpose is to bring happiness, beauty, and romance.’ The fans of the aristocrats are not cheap. The most mysterious fan, Cassiopeia, named after the Greek mythological queen who boasted of her unrivalled beauty, becomes the key instrument of profit and loss, rise and fall, and life and death.

The plot culminates at the Carnivale, the masked ball, at the Opera House, with the entrance of King Gustav III. ‘The century died a few years ahead of schedule’ says Emil. He thinks too that the age of magic is ending.

Mrs. Sparrow is based on the real Ulrica Arfvidsson, the famous medium of the Gustavian era, who predicted the King’s future in 1786. This novel mingles fictional characters with historical figures in a tale of intrigue, trickery, rivalry, sleight of hand, and a turn of a fan. It begins well – with the selection of the eight cards – slumps in the middle – and picks up pace before the cutthroat Carnivale.

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...

Apes go to the movies - and remember the scenes

Apes remember major events in movies, even after a single viewing. That’s the findings of primate research in Japan (New Scientist, September 17, 2015). Researchers at the Kyoto University in Japan conducted experiments with two species of apes – chimpanzees and bonobo primates – to test their memory and recall. Instead of using food to test memory, they used films. The researchers made two short movies to show to the apes. Fumihiro Kano and his colleague, Satoshi Hirata, starred in the films with another person dressed as an ape. They wanted to have strong dramatic scenes to see if the apes remembered them. In the first 30-second movie the character ape bursts through a door on the right hand side (there is also a door on the left hand side) and attacks the two researchers (characters) 18 seconds after the start. After 24 seconds a human character choses one of two weapons next to each other and launched a revenge attack on the ape. In the second 30-second movie t...

The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Suda...

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