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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Sep 2023, 352 pages
Paperback:
Sep 10, 2024, 352 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Maria Katsulos
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A novel about obsessive love featuring two ballet dancers—identical twin sisters Olivia and Clara Marionetta—with a terrifying climax set in the world of ballet in pre-war London.
The Dance of the Dolls tells the story of identical twin ballerinas rehearsing for Coppélia at the recently opened Sadler's Wells Theatre. Superficially, even their differences are complementary: Olivia aspires to be the perfect ballerina while Clara is rebellious and independent. Clara takes up a relationship with the bohemian and passionate Nathan, a pianist at the theater. Meanwhile, Olivia is unaware that she has cast a spell on another frequent visitor to Sadler's Wells: Samuel, a bashful apprentice ballet shoemaker who steals into the building as often as he can to watch her dance.
But as the sisters rehearse, danger lurks. The story of Coppélia and the dancing doll threatens to become a dark and sinister reality. Olivia becomes jealous of Nathan's adoration of Clara, while Clara discovers that being adored can feel suffocating. Samuel dreams of being recognized by Olivia and wonders how far he would go to achieve his goal, while Nathan, a musical child prodigy, struggles to adapt to adulthood and begins to blur the lines between reality and his dark fantasy world ...
CHAPTER 2
OLIVIA
I look for luck everywhere. Today, I need to calm my nerves, soothe the anxieties that keep jumping to the front of my mind, refusing to be kept at bay. My porridge stares at me this morning; I can't eat it. It would be unlucky, a curse, to fill my belly with such ordinary, heavy-looking food. Today I need to shine.
We are all superstitious. We thrive on routines and good luck charms. They give us certainty, focus the mind, take us to a magical place where we can leave the real world and become the dancing apparitions the audience want us to be. We need our muse, our Terpsichore, to lead us onto the stage. Changing our names was the first step. Clara and I used to be plain old Olivia and Clara Smith. But we changed it to Marionetta when we left ballet school and ascended to the ranks of the company, joining Miss de Valois at her brand-new Vic-Wells ballet company, rebranding ourselves to match. It was our mother's idea to take her ...
Much of the story occurs in a tight space of time — though the book itself stretches through several months, the action on the page concentrates on the same performances, the same parties, and even the same conversations between characters' chapters. This makes it somewhat confusing to follow the plot, as the thread becomes tangled and readers see the same situations playing out repeatedly. Regardless of any confusion brought on by multiple narrators, each point-of-view character is more than strong enough to hold their own. In fact, there are other characters whose points of view are not explicitly written — including some borrowed from history to outfit the novel — but whose presences are so compelling that Ashe could certainly write more from their perspectives...continued
Full Review
(772 words)
(Reviewed by Maria Katsulos).
Lucy Ashe's The Dance of the Dolls is populated by historical figures whose presence in the fictional narrative enmeshes the story within the real history of British ballet. Long associated with the royal courts of France and Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries, the art form only became established in Britain in the early 20th century. Ballet in Britain was influenced not only by French and Italian styles but also greatly impacted by Russian ballet and dancers fleeing the Revolution and Soviet Union. For example, in Ashe's novel, main character Olivia notes the importance of Nicholas Sergeyev, former choreographer for the Imperial Ballet in Russia. Sergeyev successfully smuggled notated sections of over 20 ballets out of Russia, ...
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