Neo-Victorian Voices: The Wisdom of Bones, Kitty Aldridge (2019)

Welcome back to my Neo-Victorian Voices series in which I review novels written in the twenty-first century but set in the nineteenth. Today I’m reviewing Kitty Aldridge’s The Wisdom of Bones, which centers on Percy “Unusual” George, a Victorian showman who acquires the skeleton of an eighteenth-century French dwarf. 

Writing in a journal in his colorful idiolect, Percy introduces us to the array of characters who make up his London act and details how he found this precious skeleton, which he believes will elevate his career and fortunes. After discovering the dwarf Bébé’s own journal amongst the skeleton’s papers of authenticity he seeks out a French clockmaker who translates the earlier man’s reminiscences, Percy hopes accurately. At times, Percy’s estranged wife, who has suffered the loss of multiple children, takes control of the primary journal, adding her own commentary and giving us an outside perspective on Percy and his aspirations.

Overall, this was a bizarre read. Aldridge’s use of slang in the sections set in 1879 London is memorable and vibrant, but the plotting is flimsy, it’s hard to build an emotional connection with the characters, and the chapters set in 1740s-1760s France were short and much less integral to the whole than the novel’s marketing copy led me to anticipate. The novel delivered on atmosphere, but not story, and, while the final image of the ending will stay with me, much that preceded it won’t.

One thing the book made me think of is, while “freak shows” have fallen out of favor today, books about historical acts featuring “remarkables” remain popular (Elizabeth Macneal’s 2021 Circus of Wonders is a stronger example I reviewed previously). What excited me when I picked up Aldridge’s novel was the idea of diving into the humanity of characters, like Bébé, who were treated as sub-human in their time. But a surface-level depiction of these characters and the choice to stay most firmly in Percy’s point of view reduces Bébé, and some of the other characters who make up the act, to objects readers “watch” on stage.

Let me know what novel you would like me to review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? You can comment here, message me on Instagram or Facebook, or tweet @SVictorianist. Want to get monthly emails about my writing and blog? Sign up here.