The Rossetti Diaries
In the mid-19th century, a group of rebel artists challenged the art establishment with their avant-garde ideas, techniques, and behavior. These were not the French Impressionists but the earlier British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood or PRB, who included such luminaries as John Millais, William Morris, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Lesser known then, but increasingly prominent now, was an unofficial Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood comprising PRB models, muses, artists, and poets such as Elizabeth (or Lizzie) Siddal and Christina Rossetti.
In focusing on these two women, Renk’s new novel covers some of the same ground as DM Denton’s recent The Dove Upon Her Branch. But the Rossettis and their circle are challenging subjects for any novelist because their lurid lives were stranger than fiction, featuring mental illness, depression, religious obsession, rape, incest, drug addiction, and suicide.
Renk opens her dual-timeline novel with a scholar’s wildest dream: a trove of incendiary new material. Her modern protagonist, an aspiring artist named Maggie, discovers, theatrically hidden in the crypt of a church, the previously unknown diaries of Christina and Lizzie, which prove that they were pioneering, underappreciated women artists—and lovers—and that the Brotherhood constantly and cruelly oppressed the Sisterhood. Dante Rossetti is the villain of both diaries, probably deservedly so.
The diaries themselves make tough reading. But lugubrious and repetitive as they are, the Victorian characters overshadow the modern ones, who seem thin in comparison, and given to making long expository speeches. Feminism abounds. Ghosts occasionally liven up the proceedings, however, and Renk does an excellent job of weaving Siddal’s and Rossetti’s actual poetry into the text, which may inspire curious readers to explore Christina’s creepy masterpiece, “Goblin Market,” and the PRB’s art, including many exquisite portraits of Lizzie.
