A Discovery of Witches is like two separate, very different books all rolled into one. One of those books was right up my street, and the other had me pulling my hair out in anger and frustration. The historical and academic parts of the novel, mixed with the experienced history of its characters really worked for me. When Diana Bishop was in Oxford studying ancient alchemical manuscripts, my eyes flew over the pages desperate to take in every word.
Harkness drew me in with a strong premise and intelligent, emotive writing. The beginning and end of A Discovery of Witches are where it really shines. It’s an historical mystery wrapped up in intrigue, and at those moments I was utterly engrossed. But unfortunately, the entire middle of the book and most of the plot movements were dedicated to one of the most lacklustre, insipid romances ever put to page. And it’s toxic, to boot.
As far as I can tell, there are only two emotions that keep the world spinning, year after year. One is fear. The other is desire.There is precisely zero chemistry between the Witch, Diana Bishop, and her Vampire lover, Matthew Clairmont. Sure, Matthew is intelligent, but apart from the fact that he’s handsome, there is nothing about him as a person that really convinced me why someone as equally intelligent and independent as Diana would fall for him. Matthew is controlling, demanding, secretive, and dismissive. At various points in the narrative, he purposefully keeps important things from Diana – things that are imperative for her independent decision making. He controls her through use of his blood, keeps her sedated if he thinks she’s being too headstrong about her own bodily autonomy and is a straight up murderer! Sure, at times Diana makes the right noises about Matthew’s controlling nature, but it never goes anywhere. She merely smiles, nods, and accepts all of his negative traits because he’s…good looking, I guess?
Diana Bishop herself is a problematic character, and it sometimes felt like Harkness couldn’t quite decide what she wanted her to be. I’m an historian, and some of the ways Diana thinks about her profession and research makes my mind absolutely reel. It is established very early on that Diana doesn’t use her witchcraft because she’s afraid of it after her parents were killed by villagers in Africa for being witches (the inherent bias in that alone is worthy of discussion at some point…). Despite this, she still has some vestiges of power that could help her in her research, which she refuses to use because she thinks it’s cheating and wants to make sure that she earned everything on her own. This is like someone born tall thinking that their height gives them an unfair advantage in basketball so it would be cheating if they played. If your skills give you a unique outlook and understanding of the history that you’re studying, this isn’t cheating. This is using your knowledge for the betterment of human understanding! If you can glimpse the past and find the truth of a document from touching it, then this is a far more valuable skill than the fallibility of human interpretation. As long as you can cite it, you can use it!
Still, Diana is set up as an independent, modern woman with a set of ‘isms’ that she will have to overcome. I can totally get on board with that. But it’s not how the narrative played out. Within weeks of meeting Matthew, Diana does everything he wants, and everything he tells her to do. She sometimes remarks on the way he controls everything she does, she even says she doesn’t like it, but she lets him do it anyway. Even her magic is somehow tied to her feelings for him. Given how many women were killed historically as witches for being too independent, the fact that Diana’s witchcraft is tied to man is just downright insulting.
All you have to do is be a good listener. Nobody really wants to keep secrets, not even the dead. People leave clues everywhere, and if you pay attention, you can piece them together.The end picks up again as A Discovery of Witches brings the plot back to the historical manuscripts. When Diana heads back to her childhood home, Harkness weaves some of the best scenes in the book. The house is a character in its own right, and I absolutely loved the way it reacted to and accommodated for visitors. This is where the real mystery comes into play, and I loved the convergence of characters (although once again, Matthew spends the entire time being an absolute douche).
This is where we come to an issue of stylistic choice, however. A Discovery of Witches is written in the first person from Diana’s point of view. Because of this, we can only experience the narrative through her eyes. The unintended consequence of this was that in the final few chapters we end up with characters showing up who we’ve never heard of until this point, but are going to be absolutely essential to the plot moving forward (I assume…). They seemed just to appear and were given grave narrative importance, despite the fact that one of them only appears in a single chapter! I had a moment where I had to flick back a few chapters and see if I was meant to know who these people were. It was sudden and confusing and definitely could have been worked in more subtly to the narrative.
All in all, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy A Discovery of Witches. I did. When I got past the pages and pages of wanky wine descriptions and the fact that Diana loves tea, and moved past the absolutely toxic and insipid romance, the descriptions were sumptuous, and the world building was really quite excellent. I’m going to finish the series – after all, that’s what a reading challenge is for – but I really hope that Diana grows into a stronger character as the novels progress, and Matthew stops being such an insufferable asshole.
For anyone who felt like me and loved the literary mystery of A Discovery of Witches but hated the Twilight’esque romance, I can highly recommend A.S. Byatt’s Possession. It is everything that A Discovery of Witches isn’t.