Remarkable Creatures

By Tracy Chevalier

HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 2010, 352 pags, Fiction/Biographical, Fiction/Historical 
ISBN 0007178387, 9780007178384

Before the persistent and modest efforts of the heroine of this story the world had no concept of extinction and therefore could not understand fossils which were explained by myths.

This novel concerns Mary Anning (1799 – 1847), an uneducated, working class resident of Lyme Regis, Dorset, who discovered fossils of pre-historic marine reptiles, such as that ichthyosaur, in the cliffs near the town. Her determination to establish the authenticity of her discoveries caused her to be a major influence on the maturity of marine palaeontology which, within a few years, completely altered the human perspective on the past and on Biblical notions of creation.

Tracy Chevalier positions Mary Anning’s story as an epic with a romantic sub - plot. A humble, strong-willed character successfully pursues an historic mission beyond her station, education and means, despite almost overwhelming defamation and exploitation by those who stand to profit most from her efforts. It does not give too much away to say that in the process of overcoming these obstacles she experiences romantic fulfilment, of the sort she requires, and achieves the respect of her peers, in every sense. This elegant and anachronistic structure gives a 19th century flavour to the novel, redolent of classics by Hardy and George Eliot.

However, Tracy Chevalier’s unique accomplishment is her ability to consistently focus on the physical properties of a universally admired object or curiosity (such as, in this case, a seaside fossil), while, through fiction, expanding the reader’s sense of the object and its place in our culture with the result that we see it no longer as a curiosity but as a comprehensive and beloved part of our every-day existence. While doing so she magnifies not only the importance of the object, but the historical significance of the ordinary lives which have evolved and revolved around it.

Chevalier’s previous books perform this feat with regard to the paintings of Vermeer, the tapestries known as La Dame a la Licorne (now at la Musee National du Moyen Age in Paris) and the Victorian memorial sculptures at Highgate Cemetery. As with her other books, Remarkable Creatures gently and irreversibly enhances our understanding of Mary Anning’s fossil discoveries without being in the slightest didactic or detracting from the inherent value of these now well-known objects of fascination. In engaging us in fiction she inevitably enhances our interest in the facts.

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