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| 0140442057
| 9780140442052
| 0140442057
| 3.99
| 1,580
| 1847
| Aug 31, 1978
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really liked it
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Interesting, but ultimately too depressing for my tastes. I've read lots of English nineteenth-century novels, but I haven't read any French ones befor Interesting, but ultimately too depressing for my tastes. I've read lots of English nineteenth-century novels, but I haven't read any French ones before, so it was really interesting reading about France in this period. Balzac brings the different social worlds of nineteenth-century Paris to life, and has many penetrating insights into human nature, some of which are particular to the period in which he is writing but many of which strike the modern reader as still very relevant. To my surprise, much of this novel was a page-turner. Several times, I stayed up late, carrying on reading to try to find out what happened. This is slightly perverse, as the plot is actually rather slow, and not a great deal really happens, you realise at the end, but somehow Balzac often injects a sense of urgency and mystery. There are long (some pages!) of tangential description and rumination, which once or twice I skipped over; the chapter devoted to Balzac's thoughts on divination was quite boring after the first couple of pages! The middle of the novel also felt as though it lost some of the pace, somehow, but fortunately it picked up again later. I enjoyed the first half of this novel immensely, as it is lighter than the second half, and there are things to amuse as well as to sadden. The latter half is increasingly dark and pessimistic, and I found the ending very bleak. That is not to say that the second half is devoid of humour, but I did find it rather devoid of optimism. Now, of course, Balzac may be - probably is - quite right and accurate in his depiction of how bleakly things tend to turn out, and how often the morally unscrupulous triumph over the innocent of heart, but I just found it rather disheartening to read about (probably because we already watch it happening in real life all the time!). So, the four stars reflects my degree of enjoyment of the book, rather than its quality - it is, undoubtedly, a masterpiece, and if you don't mind cynically pessimistic novels then you'll enjoy this one even more than I did. ...more |
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Jul 08, 2021
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Jul 08, 2021
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| 1593082649
| 9781593082642
| 1593082649
| 3.85
| 413,175
| Dec 20, 1817
| Mar 03, 2005
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really liked it
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While no Jane Austen book is boring or run-of-the-mill, this one seems to me to be far below the quality of her best novels, and perhaps this is why i
While no Jane Austen book is boring or run-of-the-mill, this one seems to me to be far below the quality of her best novels, and perhaps this is why it was not published in her lifetime. The plot line is too predictable, and at times not very convincing, and the character development lacks the depth seen in, say, Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion. Isabella and John Thorpe are well drawn, but I found Catherine's time in Bath, and especially with the Thorpes, to be stretched out too much, and some of the scenes rather repetitive. I found them sufficiently irritating that (a bit) less would have been more (enjoyable). The same goes for Mrs Allen. Conversely, the end of the novel felt rather rushed; I find Austen always wraps up her narratives quite quickly, but in her masterpieces the combination of sufficient detail and a sense of unhurried pacing means that the ending feels satisfactory, even while one longs for yet more! (E.g. Pride & Prejudice.) I think the plotline would have been more exciting had it been less predictable. I thought/hoped the plot would be that the General wanted pretty, young Catherine for himself, and that Henry was unable to pursue her openly because he knew his father's intentions, that this was why he and Eleanor were embarrassed, and that naive Catherine would be shocked when she found out. All of which would have created an interesting tangle of interests to be resolved. The actual plotline - that the General thought she was richer than she actually was and so wanted her to marry his son based on mistaken ideas about her wealth - was rather too standard for my liking. A more serious obstacle to Henry and Catherine's union (given that Henry already had financial independence, due to his benefice, and so could ultimately do as he liked with regards to marriage) would have made a more interesting plot. Also, there are some threads not entirely tied up. Why is Eleanor so embarrassed about inviting Catherine to stay at Northanger? Is the degree of Eleanor and Henry's embarrassment at their father's officiousness convincing? Why does Henry appear not entirely sure if he wants to marry Catherine until his father's behaviour spurs him into action? Some of Austen's pairings are satisfying to a modern readers, others perhaps less so! Henry and Catherine aren't unconvincing to me, and a very believable real-life match, but I didn't find them entirely satisfying as a romantic pairing. She is rather ignorant and silly, whereas he is intelligent and knowledgeable but rather arrogant and sometimes insensitive. And then we have the fact that Henry's affection for her is largely based on the knowledge that she is very taken with him, and perhaps propelled into motion by his father's bad behaviour. I think Henry needed a more spirited wife, and Catherine a less erudite husband. Their romance has an element of teacher and pupil (a bit like Marianne and Colonel Brandon - Sense & Sensibility) which, as a modern, educated woman, I have to say I'm not that keen on. The best pairing seems to me to be Frederick and Anne in Persuasion, who are both very intelligent and cultured, and similar in that their polite formality hides a deep sensitivity (in a good way) of feeling. Given that Northanger Abbey was an early novel and Persuasion the last(?), perhaps this development in Austen's ideas of romance isn't surprising. All that said, Henry and Catherine are both very genuinely moral people, so I can't imagine that either would ever have been unfaithful to the other, and, indeed, both would, I think, have tried to be a good spouse, so I can imagine that they would have had a pretty happy marriage. The novel's parody of Gothic novels, and ironic comments about unrealistic norms in novels of that period, are amusing, and must have been even more so at the time. Nonetheless, I did feel they sometimes interrupted the flow of the story a bit, by abruptly dissolving the scenes playing out in my imagination with the author's voice reminding me that it was all just a novel. (I listened to the audiobook version read by Nadia May. I've never "read" a book by listening to an audiobook before, but it was actually great, because I don't have a lot of free time to sit and read anymore, so this allowed me to find some time to "read" while doing other things, and made household chores much more enjoyable! I'll definitely try more audiobooks...) ...more |
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Aug 21, 2020
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Aug 21, 2020
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| 9796052288
| 4.05
| 271
| 1952
| Jan 07, 1996
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it was amazing
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This is another Lorna-Hill-at-her-best work. I was sorry that she didn't continue Veronica's narrative any further- I wanted to read about her travell
This is another Lorna-Hill-at-her-best work. I was sorry that she didn't continue Veronica's narrative any further- I wanted to read about her travelling the globe as a freshly minted prima ballerina and picking up her romance with Sebastian again. But I think Hill decided Veronica's story had finished, since she had achieved her dreams, and Hill was probably right! It was a brave decision by Hill to start over again with new characters, but on this occasion it works really well (unlike in the later books!). Mariella and even the rather pathetic Jane are very life-like, interesting, and generally likeable characters. And the variations on the themes of before are not too similar to be repetitive: Nigel is another "sort-of-cousin" with some similarities to Sebastian but also plenty of critical differences; the children spend some of their time in Northumberland and some in London, but their adventures are different to Veronica's; even Jane learning ballet and aspiring to be admitted to Sadlers' Wells doesn't seem repetitive. I think Mariella is the character who really makes this book sparkle - her rebellion against her famous ballerina mother pushing her into ballet is a new theme in the series and narrated extremely well. Mariella is spoilt and wilful, but charming and good hearted, and I can entirely empathise with preferring the countryside to London! (I wish she didn't like fox hunting, but there we are, this is a countryside book of the 1950s, so it's to be expected, I suppose.) **Spoiler Alert** I find it really strange that in this book Veronica and Sebastian are about 24 and only just about to get married, yet in No Castanets at the Wells (written after this book) they get engaged on a whirlwind upon meeting each other again when Veronica is only 18. If they were in such a rush at 18/19, then why the 6 year wait to go ahead and get married? Did Sebastian want to stake his claim, but then Veronica said they couldn't get married yet because she needed to travel the world for her career and couldn't risk having children until she had reached the pinnacle of success?? It seems very strange to me. I think a more believable chronology would have been that they had met again at 18/19 and started getting to know each other again as adults and with romantic feelings for each other, but that they had not got engaged for a year or two, and then it would have made sense them getting married 6 years after they re-met. Unfortunately, Hill added in their immediate engagement in the next book she wrote - No Castanets at the Wells - so the chronology doesn't entirely make sense to me. But there we are. A small detail, anyway. ...more |
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not set
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Jan 2021
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Jan 09, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0330338714
| 9780330338714
| 0330338714
| unknown
| 4.00
| 334
| 1953
| Sep 09, 1994
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it was ok
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I hadn't read this one in the series before, although I had always wanted to. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally got hold of a copy. To
I hadn't read this one in the series before, although I had always wanted to. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally got hold of a copy. To be honest, it was a great disappointment! I had read the other reviews, which were mostly very positive, so I was expecting to enjoy it, but - to my mind - it's a pale shadow in contrast to the first two books. It reads, in my opinion, like a work of fan fiction, and I don't mean that as a compliment! ** Spoiler Alert ** This seemed like those tedious fan fiction works which try to fill in all the gaps left in the author's previous narratives and bring in all the characters they ever mentioned for little cameos. For the first half of the book, no-one does anything, we just get lots of different Lorna Hill characters from her various series popping up, without sufficient introduction. Including the dreaded Guy, who I find absolutely insufferable (but more on that in my review of a later book in this series...). The only good bit is Caroline's description of Sebastian's reaction to Veronica going back to London, which is well done because it is written with a light touch, rather than over-explained - something which can't be said for much of the rest of this book. Then we finally get to Sadlers' Wells, and there are a few good bits, but the same problems occur. The future is constantly predicted in a boring and oversimplified manner. All the students know that Veronica, who is currently in the Second Company, is another Margot Fonteyn and will be a very great dancer, while they all know that Belinda will never make it. Funny that all these kids at the junior school know more about the merits of the dancers than those doing the casting... hmm... One of the things I really liked about the first two books was that Veronica's eventual rise to fame was not inevitable, it was not predicted by all and sundry, her teachers and fellow pupils didn't mostly fall on her neck and praise her greatness, rather she went largely unnoticed for a long time, and eventually reached the stars by perseverance and hard work. I liked the realism and humility that underlay this treatment of Veronica. In this book, it's all overturned, and I found that annoying. And then Angelo strikes me as a player. He takes up with one dancing partner, whom he clearly admires for her beauty, but then - as soon as that partner has to go home - he is instantly smitten with Caroline instead and showers her with compliments. As an adult, not a child, reading the book, I didn't like Caroline's inner voice, telling her so quickly that he would be her lifelong, trusty partner, and she would marry him. ...more |
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Jan 2021
not set
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Jan 2021
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Jan 09, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0856861561
| 9780856861567
| 0856861561
| 4.18
| 460
| 1951
| Aug 26, 1975
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it was amazing
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This was the first book in the series which I read (as a child) and used to be my favourite. Re-reading the series, I found to my surprise that I actu
This was the first book in the series which I read (as a child) and used to be my favourite. Re-reading the series, I found to my surprise that I actually slightly preferred the first book - perhaps the green, rural setting was blissfully idyllic to this city dweller! But, as a child, I loved how this book focused on the dirty sparkle of London life and the sweat and glitter of the ballet world, and I still very much enjoyed it upon a re-read. ** Spoiler Alert ** Although, as I explained in my review of the previous book, I don't generally find Sebastian annoying (until the later books, at least), there are moments here where he is a bit insufferable - but I think it's realistic, he's a teenage boy, a precious only child who has been allowed his own way far too much, he lost his mother presumably while a small child and has only his rather hands-off father to parent him, and now he's fallen in love but it doesn't seem to be going his way. Even the things he says to Veronica about her career, I think he doesn't mean in his heart of hearts - I think he's furious, deeply upset, impassioned. In contrast, I think Jonathan does mean what he says about how girls shouldn't taken up the stage as a career, and I find his constant interferences with Stella's career officious, although it's true that ultimately the stage turns out not to be the right place for her. While Sebastian mostly doesn't annoy me, I have to say that Jonathan does. He's rather interfering and patronising, to my mind, and the whole thing about pretending to be a poor artist (while really being a wealthy member of the gentry) and having cut himself off from his father for reasons that are never really justified made me like him even less. I think part of the problem is that the author clearly really liked him herself, and keeps telling us (through Veronica) how kind and perfect a man Jonathan is - nothing puts me off characters more than the author telling us we should like them! Most of this novel is very well told and well paced, and you can see why the characters do what they do. I appreciate the "show rather than describe" approach Lorna Hill takes in these early books, and I think it's why her portrayal of Sebastian and the relationship between him and Veronica is intriguing and believable. It works especially well because Veronica, as a character, does not seem to understand herself fully, nor to understand romance in her own life or the lives of others, so you see everything through her rather puzzled eyes - her gaze fixed intently on the ballet stage! These first two books, I think, as Lorna Hill at her finest, and I really enjoyed re-reading them :) ...more |
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not set
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Jan 2021
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Jan 09, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 0859976777
| 9780859976770
| 0859976777
| 4.19
| 941
| 1950
| 1986
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it was amazing
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As a child, I was totally unsporty and terrible at dance of any sort, and yet I really liked ballet books! I think I identified with the drive and det
As a child, I was totally unsporty and terrible at dance of any sort, and yet I really liked ballet books! I think I identified with the drive and determination of the heroines, and loved the magical world of music and the stage. After I had read various of the Noel Streatfield books, and some of the Drina series, one day my Mum found a second-hand copy of the second book in the Sadlers' Wells series (Veronica at the Wells) and bought it for me, because she had enjoyed the series when she was a child. I loved it, and so - a little later - she managed to find this book for me, the first in the series. Back then, Veronica at the Wells remained my favourite. But having just re-reading the books, as an adult, I found I now liked this first book best of all. As a child, I loved the London and ballet scenes of the second book, but as an adult I found I liked most of all the simple life of the extended family of children in Northumberland in this first book. A Dream of Sadler's Wells has some of the same charm as Enid Blyton's books - a mostly charmed world of middle-class children growing up in the mid-twentieth century. A world in which adults don't get in the way too much, children remain innocent well into their teens and yet full of determination, drive and character, a world of picnics, midnight feasts, and adventures in the beautiful English countryside. Undoubtedly partly fantasy, there's still more than enough reality to the worlds these mid-twentieth-century childrens' authors created to charm many children and quite a few adults with a bit of child left in them! (I include myself here!). ***Spoiler Alerts*** Re-reading this, I can't believe that I didn't spot before that Sebastian is already in love with Veronica from the very first book! As an adult, it's very obvious, in a sweet way. And it's obvious that Veronica herself has no idea, a theme that of course continues in the second book. I've seen some reviewers say they don't like Sebastian, but I have to say that on the whole I do. He's certainly imperfect, but a fascinating character, and he and Veronica are so realistic and such a well-created pair of characters that their scenes together really come to life. And all the supporting characters are very believable too, and all very different, creating a simple but realistically rich tableaux of middle class life on the northern border almost a hundred years ago. Some of the behaviours and attitudes of the characters may strike modern readers as a bit dated at first sight, but for me it's the historical value of these works that is part of their charm. They offer a an everyday glimpse back into the past. I think it's probably best for adult readers to read them that way, in order to appreciate them. As with all the Sadlers' Wells books, this seems to have been written in a bit of a hurry, rather than well revised and edited. It's much less of a problem with the early ones than the later ones in the series, but even in the first two there are some subtle non-sequiturs. For example, in the second book, Stella goes home to be with her sick grandma, but then almost immediately Jonathan whisks her away to the opposite end of the country (Cornwall)! And in this first book, Veronica's father dies shortly before the start of the novel; okay Veronica is rather single minded, but wouldn't she have continued to miss and mourn him in a muted way throughout the rest of the book (e.g. why does she never say how much she would have liked him to see her progress at dancing, and eventual admission to Sadlers' Wells school?)? I think these things stand out because the rest of the world is so believable - Lorna Hill had a real gift for sketching believable and compelling characters. ...more |
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Jan 2021
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Jan 09, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0802818609
| 9780802818607
| 0802818609
| 4.18
| 1,535
| 1875
| Oct 23, 1980
|
really liked it
|
This is a very interesting set of short stories by MacDonald. On the whole, I like the way he writes (though I find the level of description a bit har
This is a very interesting set of short stories by MacDonald. On the whole, I like the way he writes (though I find the level of description a bit hard-going occasionally), and I love the imaginary worlds he creates. I can see why C.S. Lewis saw him as the father of the fantasy genre. The stories all begin very well, and then, I find, their narrative loses shape and direction about half-way through, or becomes rather strange. Also, it's clear that the stories are partly allegorical, but it's often hard to understand exactly what the allegories means. The allegories are clearly based in Christian theology, but sometimes, as with the end of the last story, their meanings seem unorthodox. The last story seems to imply a sort of gnosticism and possibly a disbelief in the divinity of Jesus Christ; I would be interested to know whether MacDonald belonged to a denomination which held these beliefs, or indeed just privately held them himself, or whether I've misunderstood the meaning of the end of the story. 4 stars because they are beautifully-written fantasy stories which are inspiring to any would-be fantasy writer, but not 5 stars because of the way the stories often flounder and meander in their second halves. ...more |
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Jan 06, 2020
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Jan 08, 2020
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| 4.04
| 55,977
| Oct 03, 2019
| Oct 03, 2019
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did not like it
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I found this book disappointing. As a child, I enjoyed reading Philip Pullman's novels, and, as an adult, I had mixed feelings about Belle Sauvage, bu
I found this book disappointing. As a child, I enjoyed reading Philip Pullman's novels, and, as an adult, I had mixed feelings about Belle Sauvage, but was interested to read the next one in the series. There are two main problems with this book. The first is that it's not well crafted, in terms of basic writing technique. The second is that its intended social/religious commentary is overly simplistic, and at points offensive. So, to give him his due, the good things about this novel... The troubled relationship between Lyra and Pan is very well portrayed (and I love Pan!). The relationships people have with their daemons are explored in a very interesting fashion. There are some fascinating episodes in the narrative, and some great characters that the protagonists meet on their travels. BUT... The novel starts off well, but then rambles and meanders, rather than having an engaging narrative thread. It also ends so abruptly, without any resolution of the threads of the story, that it feels like cheating. Ending a novel with some threads unresolved, to make the reader keen to buy the next in the series, is fine. Ending a novel with a complete cliffhanger, as if you'd been handed only half of the manuscript, or as if it was part of poor-quality Netflix series, is bad writing technique, cheats the reader (who has just spent £20 buying this book!), and is a surprising mistake from an experienced writer like Pullman. The crush Malcolm (one of the heroes of the novel) has on Lyra is quite disgusting, and mishandled by Pullman. When Lyra was 16, and Malcolm was her teacher, he was attracted to the 'smell of young girl' that wafted from her hair! And Pullman is an old man writing this... I found this rather disturbing. The Catholic Church is not at all as Pullman portrays it, and never has been. His plot-lines here rest entirely on cardboard characterisations and malicious stereotypes. (The Catholic Church has, and has had, many other problems, but Pullman is very wide of the mark!) Pullman does not seem to understand that most clergy and religious believers in positions of authority in the secular world are not closet cynics and psychopaths, using religious systems immorally as an opportunity to amass power. Rather, for the most part, they genuinely believe their religions. In fact, THAT is the real danger of violent, extremist forms of religious belief - that people genuinely believe them with heart and soul, and love their god(s) above all the world has to offer. (This devotion is only bad/dangerous when applied to perverted, violent forms of religious faith, to be clear.) The portrayals of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Christians in the Middle East are utterly ridiculous. The Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Christians of the Middle East are, and have been, under horrendous persecution - they are not powerful persecutors, but quite the reverse. The Ottomans repressed Christianity. If Pullman is determined to portray Anatolia and the Middle East as Christian, then it would make more sense to present it as Byzantium continuing, because the Ottomans could never have been Christians nor governed a uniformly Christian Empire. However, this raises the glaring question of why Pullman does not portray Islam in the novel. After all, he lays into Christianity no holds barred. The real situation in the Middle East is that radical Islamists are persecuting and slaughtering peaceful Christian minorities and minorities from other faiths (including Muslims). And the persecution of the Christian minorities of the Middle East and North Africa has been ongoing for over 1,000 years; look up the heartbreaking history of the Copts in Egypt, for example, and the Antiochian Christians of Syria. Christianity is, in fact, statistically the most persecuted faith in the world. Much of this persecution is, and has been, done by violent and repressive forms of Islam, which are strangely left out of Pullman's socio-religious commentary, while Christianity is twisted into a homogenous, machievallian cover for an attempt at world domination. The novel would have been SO much more interesting if Pullman had treated honestly the fact that different world faiths (yes, including atheism) all have, and have had, their peaceful and their violent forms, and had given us a nuanced commentary on the plurality of religious beliefs present in the geographical areas he covers. Pullman's depiction displays ignorance of the realities of the world outside of a puzzlingly white & homogenously Catholic Europe, and his knowledge of the Middle East is pitiful. Indeed, given the horrendous persecution and genocides of Christian minorities there, his portrayal is quite offensive. If he wanted to write a work of socio-religious commentary, through the lens of fantasy, he should have researched the socio-religious history of Europe and the Middle East, and the relevant religious theologies, far better. If he wanted simply to write fantasy, without doing all that research, then he should have left these poorly-treated themes out of it, because it spoils his fantasy universe. ...more |
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Dec 02, 2019
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Dec 28, 2019
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ebook
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0460056808
| 9780460056809
| 0460056808
| 3.83
| 1,236
| 1938
| Jan 01, 1948
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it was amazing
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Peter and Santa are orphans who have been living with Aunt Rebecca, a retired lady's maid to a duchess. Aunt Rebecca has given them the impression tha
Peter and Santa are orphans who have been living with Aunt Rebecca, a retired lady's maid to a duchess. Aunt Rebecca has given them the impression that they are important children and should not mix with ordinary children; at the same time, she has not equipped them with any useful skills, including social skills! When Aunt Rebecca suddenly dies, Peter and Santa are told they will be put in an orphanage. Terrified, they run away to join their estranged Uncle Gus, who is a clown and trapeze artist in a circus. For the first time in their lives they make friends - the circus performers and their children. They find the world of the circus exciting and fun, but also challenging. They quickly learn that life in the circus requires constant hard working, and that everyone is expected to have a talent at something and an ambition for life. Can Peter and Santa fit into this world? Can they find talents which will enable them to join the circus, or will they have to go to the orphanage once the summer is over? _ _ _ I had forgotten how absorbing Noel Streatfield's books are. If only "adult" fiction was as effortlessly enthralling as the best "children's" fiction! The great charm of this book is that it brings the circus world of a bye-gone era to life before your eyes. You see the dancing horses, musical sea lions, awe-inspiring big cats, clever poodles, and the lives of the people who work with them (adults and children). Streatfield does not make her world too perfect - we see the tiredness, physical and mental effort, and clashes of personality, as well as the upsides of excitement, novelty, comraderie, and adventure. She gives the circus folk a firm, work hard play hard, and no-nonsense, approach to life, which perhaps was her own (I have noticed it in her other novels, to a lesser extent, especially Tennis Shoes). To modern eyes, the adults sometimes seem too hard on Peter and Santa, who are, at the end of the day, just children, but I suppose this was characteristic of the age in which she was writing and the world she was describing. I like the fact that the adults are 3D characters, especially Uncle Gus. We see throughout the book his inner struggle between his instinctive dislike of softness and his sense that he is being unfair to the children (especially Peter). He struck me, reading the book again as an adult, as a pretty odd man and not particularly likeable, but he is an interesting character. Peter and Santa are just right as the main characters of a children's novel, I think. You are not expected by the author to admire them as heroes (a common mistake), but you grow to like them, warts and all, sympathise with them, and to respect the way they grow in character over the course of the story. The one downside of the book, for me, is that the actual nuts and bolts - as it were - of Streatfield's writing are pretty average (by which I mean that her style, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc. are fine, but not better than fine). BUT, I quickly got swept up into the story and completely stopped noticing this. What she has going for her is that she is a fantastic storyteller. I was totally gripped and couldn't put the book down (despite reading this with stomach flu!). I was also surprised to find myself a bit moved by the end of the story, although it's certainly not supposed to be a tear jerker. I don't think this story would be for everyone. Above all, the difference between mentalities then and now (especially the ideas about gender roles) would be off-putting for some readers, I imagine. But, I really like getting into the minds and world of people of bye-gone eras, so I enjoyed this all the more for the fact that it was written eighty years ago. ...more |
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Sep 13, 2019
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Paperback
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| B0060QM0DS
| 4.49
| 16,286
| Aug 15, 1992
| Nov 15, 2011
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really liked it
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This is one of the later books in Herriot's autobiographical series depicting his life as a Yorkshire vet in the mid-twentieth century. I have read so
This is one of the later books in Herriot's autobiographical series depicting his life as a Yorkshire vet in the mid-twentieth century. I have read some of the earlier books, and watched some of the TV serialisation, so I was already very familiar with the characters and setting before reading this book. I probably would not recommend this as a stand alone read, as it assumes a fair amount of prior knowledge. The book features different episodes and characters from Herriot's life while in his 30s. The stories are almost always about the relationships between people and animals. Some are about the tough, wry livestock farmers eking out a living in the Yorkshire dales. The tales range between amusing, heartwarming, and sad, but the majority are upbeat. They give a vivid insight into Yorkshire life in the post-war era, and some of the anecdotes are very memorable. What lets the book down a bit is its structure. Chronologically, it jumps all over the place, without sufficient signposting. The tales also appear to have been arranged haphazardly, with scarcely any bridging between them. This is an interesting, amusing, and moving book, which I would read again. It's an ideal coffee table book, as you can easily dip in and out of it, and the chapters are self-contained and very short. ...more |
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Sep 09, 2019
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Sep 13, 2019
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Kindle Edition
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| 0140434100
| 9780140434101
| 0140434100
| 3.83
| 1,077
| 1863
| Feb 01, 1996
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really liked it
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This is a light, and mostly engaging, novel, which I would read again, but wouldn't rate among Trollope's best. It begins well, with a very droll depic This is a light, and mostly engaging, novel, which I would read again, but wouldn't rate among Trollope's best. It begins well, with a very droll depiction of a nineteenth-century family of Evangelical ladies. After this good beginning, I think Trollope misses a trick by focusing more on the insipid Rachel Ray and her arrogant and rather pushy/rude young man, than on satirising the doings of her deliciously drawn sister, Mrs Prime, and her coterie (including Mr Prong, the minister, who is strongly reminiscent of Mr Slope from Barchester Towers). Trollope sketches to perfection the group's smug complacency, and continuous self-indulgence in unpleasant behaviour, while flaunting the externals of Christian piety. They are not at all likeable, but a pleasure to read about! Unfortunately, the limelight falls almost entirely on the far too predictable love affair of Luke Rowan and Rachel Ray, and the rather flat battle between Mr Tappitt and Luke Rowan over Baslehurst's brewery. I found it hard to take Rachel and Luke's side, as we are supposed to do, since she seemed naive and he headstrong; moreover, they had only met a handful of time, so it seemed to me that everyone was not so unwise in urging her to be cautious! Equally, difficult as Mr Tappitt was, Luke did seem to me to swan into Baslehurst, insist on an old brewer changing his method to make beer more to the taste of a young man who had never brewed before, and then insist that if Mr Tappitt insisted on brewing the way he was used to then Luke would use his superior fortune to set up a rival brewery in the poor man's own town. Not particularly heroic behaviour! This novel had the fatal combination of not very likeable main characters and a far too predictable plot. I could see exactly where it was going, but had no wish for things to go that way. Even Luke Rowan, towards the end of the novel, laments to himself that he would have preferred more of a battle in achieving his ends; perhaps Trollope himself realised that the novel had fallen a little flat. All that said, the novel was redeemed for me by its funny and interesting little sketches of different areas of nineteenth-century English life, its light and engaging tone, and its amusing cast of supplementary characters. Because it is eminently readable and re-readable, at least for this Trollope fan, I will give it 4 stars in terms of my enjoyment of it, even though it deserves only 3 in terms of its calibre as a novel. ...more |
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Sep 11, 2019
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Aug 28, 2019
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| 1541054148
| 9781541054141
| 1541054148
| 3.79
| 3,202
| Feb 1875
| Dec 13, 2016
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liked it
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The great strength of this book is its twists and turns. I thought I had guessed the whodunit at the start, but the author hoodwinked me several times
The great strength of this book is its twists and turns. I thought I had guessed the whodunit at the start, but the author hoodwinked me several times over! Although my first guess as to the solution to the mystery was correct, the answer was not quite so straightforward as I'd anticipated. I also appreciated the nuances that appeared in many of the characters as I read on. Some characters who at first seemed one-dimensional became, in fact, really interesting and intricate. I additionally have to give Collins credit that, compared to a most female characters in fiction written male authors prior to the twentieth century, Valeria has backbone! She is far less feeble than most of Trollope's heroines, for example (much as I otherwise love Trollope)! That said, I did find Valeria and her husband rather frustrating. They were believable enough, but it was hard to empathise with her and to respect him. I felt that Valeria is brave but naive. The more I found out about her husband's character, the worse and worse he seemed to me. I found it frustrating that, thanks to Valeria's over-protection, her husband ultimately escapes coming face to face with the horrible consequences of his behaviour. I also found the Major really rather repulsive and creepy, though I am sure that was not what the author intended (what does this suggest about the author's own attitude and behaviour towards women?!). What could I learn from this for my own creative writing? The twists and turns of this novel, and its relatively fast pace of action, are its greatest strength and keep the reader absorbed until the end. At the same time, I felt mildly irritated at points while reading the novel and unsatisfied when I had finished it, because it is an undeserved eulogy of a rather weak, superficial and cowardly man, who never gets his fair desserts. Authors beware of extolling a main character whom readers are not going to like much. Altogether a fairly gripping and enjoyable read, though not one of the great classics in my opinion. ...more |
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Aug 27, 2019
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Aug 28, 2019
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| 0142437204
| 9780142437209
| 0142437204
| 4.15
| 2,144,910
| Oct 16, 1847
| Feb 04, 2003
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liked it
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I had read this novel once before, a long time ago, but I didn't really remember much about it except the faintest impression of its plot line and tha
I had read this novel once before, a long time ago, but I didn't really remember much about it except the faintest impression of its plot line and that I hadn't been very keen on it. Laid up in bed with a bad cold, I thought I might as well try again! Overall, I would say I found it an interesting and gripping read, but I don't really sympathise with its spirit. It's probably too Gothic for my tastes! I would definitely read it again, but for its setting, its interesting characters, its evocative & readable prose, rather than because I like its message and conclusions. (***SPOILER ALERT*** SPOLIERS BELOW! ***) WHAT I LIKED: I really admire Charlotte Bronte's writing style. It's clear but mature and musical. I noted down quite a lot of interesting, new (to me) words while reading. That said, the amount of purple prose at times felt irritating, and - on a first read - interrupted the pace of the novel at times (e.g. the beginning of the orchard scene). It might be that so much description would be less annoying on a second read, though, when I'm not caught up in wondering what will happen next. Bronte also had a real talent for inventing characters who are all different, believable and interesting. This is a rare ability, and I am full of admiration for how every character who walked onto the page for more than a moment was 3D, different from the other characters, and so interesting in their own right that you wouldn't have minded hearing more about their story. For example, I thought the point where Jane left Thornfield would have been boring, but actually the new setting and cast of characters were so fascinating I wished she had given them more space. Her depictions of nature and animals, her love of the British countryside and evocative descriptions of it changing in different seasons and weathers, is absolutely wonderful, almost unparalleled amongst novels I've read. The pace of the novel is good and the plotline well constructed. Sometimes with Classic novels, I find myself getting bored and bogged down, but that didn't happen at all here - I desperately wanted to keep reading and was a little sorry to find myself at the end. WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE SO MUCH: My main gripe with this novel is that, although Edward Fairfax de Rochester (what a Gothic name!) is a very interesting character, I was far from convinced that he was a good match for the main character, and annoyed by how the novel tries to get the reader to minimise his bad points and inflate his good ones. I think, perhaps, his character has not aged well - his faults are heavier to the twenty-first reader than the nineteenth-century one. To the modern reader, he comes across as emotionally abusive (with the threat of physical abuse, as well, at the point where he tries to convince Jane to stay) and narcissistic. He is utterly absorbed in his own wishes, desires, feelings, and experiences. Even with Jane, whom he loves as deeply as he can love anyone, his interests throughout the novel are almost always focused on what use she is to him (he sees her as his sole saviour) rather than what is genuinely best for her. In fact, although the obvious mad character in the novel is his wife, he himself comes across as unbalanced, almost insane, as is apparent when Jane fears what he will do in their farewell scene, and also in his overblown emotional language, which she clearly finds uncomfortable in some way and tries to moderate - their conversation in the woods at the end of the novel is a case in point. Meanwhile, Jane has a co-dependent streak, unsurprisingly given her childhood experience. She is therefore unable to see that, at just 18/19, it's not a good idea to marry an older man, with a very selfish personality, who is dictatorial and controlling, doesn't like children - even his own, enjoys hurting other people's feelings if he feels they deserve it, and utterly obsessed with her and the concept that she will save him from himself. It's an obviously unhealthy relationship, and, even though I remembered the ending from before, I wished she would use the common sense she showed in rejecting her cousin to reject Rochester as well and wait to find a kind, loving, emotionally-healthy person. It's completely believable that an 18-year-old would think that the wrong person is ideal for them, and that after just a year apart they would believe that they'll never love again and never meet anyone who will love them again. What I found irritating was that the reader was supposed to see the relationship between Jane and Rochester as a wonderful romance rather than a tragic mistake. One also gets the impression that Charlotte Bronte was pretty narrow-minded, even for her day, about ethnicities and cultures other than her own. Rochester (and the novel) also has a subtle but pervasive racist trait as well - this comes across most clearly when he says that, in seeking a mistress, he was looking for the complete opposite of 'the creole' (his hated first wife being from a mixed-race family). The West Indies is depicted as an exotic but undesirable location. Adele's faults are sometimes attributed to her being French, e.g. 'a sound English education corrected in a great measure her French defects'. The harsh and unsympathetic John Rivers is seen as the right character for evangelising the peoples of India. Etc. She also, very clearly, hates Roman Catholicism, for example Jane pities Eliza for choosing to be 'walled up' in a convent. Actually, a monastic life would probably have done Eliza a lot of good - teaching her the importance of tolerance and unselfishness in a close community life, giving her role models and instructors who would teach her to direct her desires for rules and routines in more helpful ways, and so on. Maybe she became Mother Superior because she learnt so much, spiritually & emotionally, from her time in a monastic community and changed! (Obviously that is not what Bronte wants us to conclude, though!) This perspective is all rather modern, of course, you might say. And generally I'm not in favour of judging historical novels/works too harshly by modern standards, because they are products of their time, and if we expected every novel we enjoyed to conform perfectly to modern tastes then we would never be able to read any Classic works at all. (And, what would future generations, with their own tastes, make of our novels? We would end up with every generations binning the works of those before, simply because they were not up-to-date enough.) However there were many people, including novelists and thinkers, of Charlotte Bronte's generation who would have held similar views, albeit not expressed in the same modern, psychological terminology. (The examples below are just a few, or this will be a ridiculously long review!) In terms of more healthy marriages and balanced heroes, Jane Austen's work makes fun of Gothic novels, and her male heroes are fairly well-balanced, unselfish, rational good sorts. Equally, Trollope's heroes are, similarly, generally pretty sane and not bad husbands for the period (e.g. think of the heroes of Framley Parsonage), although more realistic and less idealised than Austen's. And Gaskill's heroes, while starting off with understandable human imperfections, do grow, mature, and recognize many of their mistakes and change in the light of them. In terms of less racist attitudes, Mansfield Park contains a passing criticism of the slave trade, and one of Austen's unfinished novels features a mixed-race young woman. (I'm not saying that Austen would have held modern views about race, but that by no means everyone of Bronte's era held to such strong racist stereotypes as comes through at points in the plotline of Jane Eyre.) And Alexander Dumas was himself from a mixed-race background. I have a vague memory that Roger in Wives and Daughters had (for his day) a relatively sympathetic and appreciative view of the indigenous peoples of the places he visited, although I may be remembering that. Finally, lots of British novelists of the period were more sympathetic to Catholicism than Bronte was - the rabid British anti-Catholicism of past centuries was fast declining. It seems that Bronte's rigid views were passé even for her day, which is probably not surprising given her remote upbringing and somewhat secluded life. Finally, oh, the Gothic drama! Extreme weather ad nauseum mirroring human events. Strange, supernatural events. Heroines fainting and crying. Ridiculous degrees of coincidence e.g. Jane just happening, of all the doorsteps in the country, to end up on that belonging to her long-lost cousins! The whole plotline, to be honest, was a bit over the top: cruel family mistreats orphan; wicked boarding school kills her consumptive only friend; brooding wealthy gentleman concealing mad, biting, foreign wife in attic; innocence young girl almost tricked into bigamy and then nearly dies of starvation; wife - after numerous almost murders- burns mansion house down and almost kills herself; husband survives blind and disabled; but, supernatural event re-unites the star-crossed lovers who henceforth live happily ever after. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Oct 07, 2021
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Oct 07, 2021
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