Review: Where history and imagination intertwine
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2013
The Wild Girl is a stunning tale of passion, love and war where history and imagination intertwine to create a wonderfully rich portrait of a woman whose contribution to the legend of the Grimm Brothers is finally acknowledged.Dortchen Wild lives in the small kingdom of  Hessen-Cassel in Germany in the early 1800′s, as Napoleon Bonaparte marches across Europe. One of five daughters of an apothecary,  her only relief from her father's tyranny comes from the rare occasions she can escape his attention and her friendship with her next door neighbour,  Lotte Grimm. As the war intensifies, Lotte's older brothers Jakob and Williem return home. With a single glance, twelve year old Dortchen falls in the love with the scholarly Williem but he barely notices her and she can only worship him from afar. As war rages and Cassel is plunged into economic ruin, the Grimm brothers hope to reverse their fortunes by publishing a book of collected fairytales.  It's not until Dortchen shyly offers to contribute that Williem realises Dortchen has grown up, but her father forbids any courtship between the desperately poor neighbour boy and his daughter. While the lovers endure years of enforced separation due to abuse, war and poverty Dortchen never stops hoping for her own happily ever after.Kate Forsyth uses historical record as the anchor for a story that she then develops with informed imagination. The Napoleonic War and it's social effects grounds the tale in time and place while her fictional narrative winds in and out of what is known about the Grimm brothers, the origins of their fairytale collection and Dortchen. I don't doubt that Forsyth's research, using primary sources such Williem's diaries amongst others, is impeccable but I most admire how she creates a plausible, seamless narrative melding fact with fiction. The author's intuitive grasp of behaviour and motive ensures her characters, their environment and their lives feel authentic.In the tradition of the original Grimm's fairytales, Dortchen's childhood is beset by darkness. Her mother was a weak woman addicted to Laudanum and subservient to her husband. Dortchen's father, pious and strict during her childhood, devolved into a drunken, abusive tyrant in her adolescence, illustrated in several harrowing scenes. The war and resulting economic deprivations is hard on the family and though three of the sisters are eventually able to escape, Dortchen is forced to remain at home and care for her ailing parents. It is saddening to see Dortchen withdraw into herself in self defense, her spirit eroded by her fading hopes for escape from her father. The spark is only revived when she steals a moment or two with Williem. Her relationship with him is fraught with angst, drama and passion, their love is challenged repeatedly and a happy ending is never guaranteed.The fairytale's appear in the narrative not just as stories passed between the characters but also with some relationships to the plot. Dortchen often hopes that Williem will recognise her pain in the tales that she tells, though his scholarly focus seems to make him somewhat oblivious to the subtleties. They also reflect the political and social instability of times with tales of greedy kings and an abandoned, unfed children, despite their origin being from other times and places. The fairytales themselves are both versions of familiar stories like Cinderella and Snow White as well as less well known tales like that of a singing bone that identifies a murderer.Really I could go on, The Wild Child is remarkable. A tale of triumph over adversity, an epic historical romance, a fascinating glimpse into the history of storytelling - it is all those things and more. One of my favourite reads for the year, I recommend it wholeheartedly.