Current Workout Book -- "Life Mask" by Emma Donoghue (2004)

The narrative voices here are all people who were prominent inhabitants of England's Beau Mode, "The World," of the late 18th C, in those decades post the conclusion of war with the 13 North American colonies and the beginning and early years of the fires set off around the world by the French Revolution. (O yes, from the point of view of Europe, it was the French Revolution that changed the world, not those upstart cousin clods on the Atlantic coast across the pond.)

The three most heard from voices, the three points-of-view, are: Lord Derby, the richest and ugliest man in the House of Lords; his passion, the up-by-her-own-bootstraps celebrated and rigorously chaste actress of Drury Lane, Eliza Farren; the aristocratic widow of a miserable marriage whose husband committed suicide when he went bankrupt, the sculptor, Lady Anne Damer -- about whom float malicious whisperings of 'sapphism.' All three are good friends -- for a while. Other characters include but are not limited to Pitt, Fox, Walpole, the Duchess of Devonshire, her husband and the Duchess, Elizabeth Cavendish (more infamously familiar as "Bess"), Beckford and Sheridan.

The narrative is a leisurely carriage ride among classes and political movement and that Other Caste, of artists from the theater, wielders of pens, painters and so on. Long conversations among the characters concerning manners, gossip, virtue, political perils (we are treated to many political conversations, debates and Parlimentary addresses), etc. are reflective of what are contained in the popular works of the time, such as works by Rousseau. I'd have been fairly inclined to skim and / or skip these if I were reading them on the page. As the equivalent while working out these passages tend to land lightly upon the porches of my ears. However, these passages of conversation or individual rumination are valuable to the overall construct, as from our place in the 21st century, at least the characters complacent expectations jump out that they shall always and forever by exempted from any inconvenience that comes from Liberty and Equality and Reform. They are members of privilege, if only relatively as with Eliza Farren (the opposite of her previous novel, Slammerkin). Their personal shocks as the world changes around them, at least for awhile, due to the events in France, are convincingly realized by Donoghue.

What differentiates Donoghue's book of this time and place so vividly from so much of the historical fiction that has been following the trend of locating in this era is that the reader remains centered upon the characters' sensibilities, and the realities of class and wealth of the time. That all her period detail is accurate is NOT the point. She manages to keep all that at the same level of notice for the reader that the people of the time would have had noticed. So much fiction written these days seems to be about showing off how many details of the period the author knows, rather than how these endless details shape the flow of a daily life.

As more than one character in Life Mask declares, the events in France are the most enormous, most exciting, most life-changing thing to have happened in the world in many ages. Donoghue convinces you believe this is true for them, even though we, from our perspective in the 21st century, know how well that turned out.