Wild life in the Tower

Reading Julia Stuart's 2010 novel The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise, one might wonder how a book so melancholy can be so funny. Or how a book so funny can be so melancholy. Or even how a book so funny and melancholy can convey so much obscure British history.

At one time, before they were moved to the London Zoo, animals given to the British monarch by other countries were housed in the Tower of London. Stuart imagines that happening again. What if the queen, who often does receive unwanted gifts of animals from foreign governments, decided to move these animals from the zoo back to the Tower?

Balthazar Jones, a beefeater at the Tower, is put in charge of the menagerie. Beefeater is a term long ago applied to the uniformed guards at the Tower because at the time they were among the few British subjects who were regularly served meat at their meals. Today, Stuart assures us, beefeaters are more tour guides than torturers.

While the animals, including the ravens that have traditionally lived in the Tower (actually a fortress with many towers) and an aged tortoise named Mrs. Cook kept by Balthazar Jones as a pet, inspire much of the novel's humor, it is the wild life of the human residents that lies at the heart of the story. Everywhere Stuart turns there seems to be either excited romance or broken hearts, often both at once.

As for Balthazar Jones (Stuart always mentions her characters by their full names), he and his wife, Hebe Jones, seemed to have lost their love for each other when they lost their beloved son, who simply died in his sleep. Now Hebe Jones leaves her husband and the Tower, devoting her life to her job at the London Underground lost and found office, another great inspiration for the novel's humor (and not a little extra melancholy).

Like Stuart herself, her characters all seem fascinated by the oddities of British history, certainly a handy asset for tour guides. In fact, whenever romance blossoms, odd historical facts serve nicely as terms of endearment and museums as the ideal place to impress a date.

The novel makes wonderful reading, every bit as odd and interesting as the most peculiar British history.