It was a time of opulence and magnificence. It was a bounty
of places and persons carefully selected to prime young people of wealth and
circumstance in ways of culture, history and language. It was the perfect place to come of age. Now mythologized in our consciousness and
lavish beyond most of our collective comprehension, the Grand Tour is legendary
in scope. From London to Paris to Vienna
to Rome, those of circumstance were guided to experience the epoch of Europe’s
delights. To guide these young impressionable minds was an educated “bear” who
would lead the young people through their adventures while (hopefully) keeping
them out of danger or trouble and, you know, regulated their penchant for
drink, dance and debauchery. The Grand
Tour is brilliantly woven as the backdrop of Lisa T. Bergren’s
Glamorous Illusions: one of the most literary endeavours in the Christian market I have
read this year.
Cora Diehl is comfortable with her farm life: the chores,
the structure, the routine, her loving parents…. She could ask for little more
than the comfort of her circumstance. That is, until she learns that she is the
illegitimate daughter of the Copper King and her life changes forever. No
longer the product of her Montana farming heritage, Cora must learn to bridge
the gaping social divide and accept her new role as the daughter of one of the
American elite. In order to give he a
proper upbringing and to atone for years of neglect, Cora’s new father sends
her on the Grand Tour with his other legitimate children. With her confidante Will, the bear and her
dashing new French acquaintance, Pierre de Richelieu, Cora is spun in an
intricate maze of masquerades and garden parties, cocktails, boating and
high-stepping: a social and cultural whirl set against the beauty and poise of
Europe.
This is an incredibly confident book: confident in its
structure, in its usage of the Tour as a backdrop which takes on its own
spinning characteristics and in its usage of shifting narrative points of view.
Intrinsic details of life in the whirlwind of the Grand Tour as well as a
sincere appreciation and understanding of the history of each landmark : from
English country manners to Versaille are perfectly executed. A lot of in-depth research clearly went into
the formation of this book. When Cora takes up with a dashingly enigmatic
Frenchmen, Bergen doesn’t err in beating us to death with immediate
translation: she allows the flow of the story and the dialogue to infer the
meaning of each statement. To add to
Bergren’s fortitude as a writer, she plays with narrative perspective: a point
of view switch--- from Will to Cora --- hers in first person. This could have been disastrous; but Bergren
does it well and it rounds out Cora’s experience and the reader’s impression of
her. As our narrator, we are immediately
attuned to Cora’s opinions and her experiences in a typically biased way; but Bergren
takes a step further by guaranteeing that Cora’s likeability is not only
personal expression, we get to see Cora and her adventures through other’s eyes
and perspectives. Amazing clothing and
culturally specific detail allow one to sink further into the believability of the
novel and the slight romance that fringes the character’s deeper acquaintance
is most welcome.
Not only is Cora a fish-out-of-water in the midst of
cultural divide in Europe, she is immediately flabberghasted by the major rift
between her farm life and the Kensington life of wealth and prosperity. While
busily waltzing from monument to monument, in and out of gorgeous clothes and
social faux pas, Cora must also learn to
reconcile the betrayal of her heritage: once thought beloved and owned by her
parents, the family secret that severed her existence plagues her on the other
side of the world as she learns to tolerate her new siblings and encounter
head-on the shame of being a child conceived out-of-wedlock in a time and society
where this equaled to social disaster. “ Wallace Kensington made a way for me
to come here…”, she says “… but he also made it impossible for me and my folks
to ever return home ….to ever resume our former life”
The blessing of wealth and experience clashes greatly with
the realization that once you leave a place and circumstance, you can never go back:
if physically, at least not emotionally. Fortunately, going into her new
excursion, Cora is blessed with a resolute character which allows her to take
her new circumstances with a grain of salt, keep her wits about her and not
immediately fall into the trappings of froth and flounce which could alter her inner
goodness. She inappropriately interrupts
a dinner with an outburst on behalf of union workers, she engages with the
servants and gracefully accepts the rude dismissal of her presence ( upon
recognition of her true parentage) from a family of great wealth and
influence. Cora is a heroine to believe
in. She is flawed; but willing. She is trying; but tried upon. She is the perfect balance of wonder and
skepticism.
There are very few authors who could pull this off. It's a trilogy about the Grand Tours of yore, flitting between the first person narrative of our hero, Cora, and the third person narrative of the "Bear" (read: Tour guide with the best job in the world. Bar none). 
