Gibson Books

Book is what my husband wanted. He read it when he was a young man. Just a review.

it's a grower. it took me a long time to summon the patience to read further than the 50th page or so. it took far too long to get on with the story. when it did though, i begun to really enjoy the book. the characters are excellently portrayed, especially ernests parents. in my humble opinion, it is very well written. my only criticizm is the tendency of the narrator to go off on tangents, mainly at the beginning of the book

A slow, difficult read yet not without merit. At times scathing at others jocular yet always insightful.

The tale is of one Ernest Pontifex and 4 generations of his family beginning with his great-grandfather told by a family friend, Overton.

The reader is exposed to the hypocrisy of Victorian values inevitably consequential in the development of our protagonist and his overbearing bible thumping father.

Butler describes the twisted growth of the Pontifex family tree; one limb overshadowing the next letting it shrivel in darkness. One wonders whether the tree was planted outside the Munster residence.

At times I couldn't help but hate Ernest's father and reel in disbelief in Ernests' naivety. These conflicting emotions make the book enjoyable.

There is nothing remarkable about the literary style of Butler's book; it reads like a million and a half other 19th century British novels. What distinguishes "The Way of All Flesh", however, is its honest and at times funny portrayal of Victorian society. With great wit, Butler's narrator, Overton, and main character, Ernest, expose the stuffy, staid, hypermannered, insipid Victorian middle-class mindset.

What is especially nice is that Butler doesn't take too many cheap shots. The characters here are very well-drawn. Ernest's father, Theobald, though clearly representing all that Butler seeks to skewer, is enough of a three-dimensional foil that I could feel some sympathy for the poor old man. (He's not evil incarnate, just a sorry product of his time.) The same goes for the rest of the supporting cast. I like the narrator's voice; it's distinctive and wry enough to be unique, but not so intrusive as to distract from the plot.

Parts of the novel are funny; parts seem to drag. I don't know that I liked the end of the novel--everything seems tied together a little too perfectly; but an explanation may be found in the fact that Butler did not edit this portion of the novel before his death.

This is a solid book. Give it a shot.

A rich, intelligent, historically informative masterpiece that tells the modern reader about the concerns, delusions, pretensions and prejudices of Englishmen of the 1700s and 1800s.

Much more than just a novel, this work offers Butler's opinions upon philosophy, child-rearing and religion. The events of the novel serve to illustrate and reinforce the points made. It is a hybrid, a novel/essay, and rare at that. More essayists should spice up their arguments by dressing them with vivid characters and a decent plot, as Butler has.

Rich in wit, satire, sarcasm, humor, insight, and not without flashes of bitterness and anger.

If you read only a hundred books in your lifetime, this would not be such a bad choice for the eightieth or eighty-first. Towers above most novels that cover this long period in history (some hundred years or so, spanning four or more generations).

I'm a seasoned reader of the classics and have enjoyed other novels by James. This book took me four months to read and nearly killed me. After having read great literature almost non-stop for 10 years, I took a year's break from reading after this book. Enough said. I spent time reflecting on it - surely the hard slog was worth it? What was I missing? Other reviewers seemed to find depth to the book...But no, I wasn't touched or transformed, I learned nothing from the characters and felt no sympathy towards them. I felt empty and exhausted at the end. Perhaps that was the intended impact of the novel? If so, I give it 2 stars for achieving at least that.

The reader tries valiantly to appreciate this work of psychological fiction from a century ago. Henry James is rightly celebrated as an author, both as a weaver of words and as a caster of characters, and so the reader valiantly tries. But even though James is a master of his craft, the way here is hard going.

In this work dating from 1902, Henry James writes favoring obscurity over clarity, circuitousness instead of directness and vagueness rather than subtlety. When the reader struggles valiantly onward, it is much as if one were to attempt to hack one's way through the trackless Amazonian rain forest using only tweezers and butter knife, all the while, wondering whether is it worth so much to learn so little. It is a question each reader must answer for herself or himself.

The reader longs to appreciate and honor the characters, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, to honor their love as well as their concern about marriage on less of an income then they might wish; however, the reader who looks upon the heart is tempted to wonder what kind of a love this might be, that hesitates to move forward on a pathway of insufficient pounds and pence, or that plans and proposes underhanded pragmatic methods to acquire such means. The reader longs to appreciate and honor the character of Milly Theale, the dove, the extraordinarily wealthy heiress who had previously met and fallen in love with Dresher, yet has kept her feelings to herself. This tragically romantic figure, based on James' cousin Minny, can bring the reader to the point of tears, but only if the reader cuts through some inordinately thick pea soup verbiage.

The underling plot is engaging enough, but, critics aside, even the most valiant reader is daunted by James' relentless surge of fifty-word sentences, such as:

"The fact of the adventure was flagrant between them; they had looked at each other, on gaining the street, as people look who have just rounded together a dangerous corner, and there was therefore already enough unanimity sketched out to have lighted, for her companion, anything equivocal in her action."

Why this jumble of words, why these awkward turns of phrase? A diagrammer's despair, to be sure. To have to read a steady succession of such sentences is something akin to having molasses poured all over one's body and then being set down over a nearby fire ant's nest.

James found his most famous (memorable and thankfully short!) phrase from "Dove", "To turn one's face to the wall", in Scripture, in Hezekiah's action in Isaiah 38:2. The meaning of the phrase, a turning away from everything and everybody, with nothing to look forward to but death, was highlighted in a sermon by the Rev. Thomas Bradbury, published in 1877 (see page 565 of "Grove Chapel Pulpit" of that sermon preached on Nov. 4, 1877), and was generally quite familiar to the scripturally literate reader of James' day. Later generations sometimes think it James' invention, but the source from whom he borrowed is, as it were, the Almighty. If one must borrow, why not the best?

One longs to see what other great authors would have done, given the same plot, settings and characters. No doubt, Trollope would have told the story just as leisurely, but with fewer lapses and greater finesse--and more love for the protagonists. Dickens would have enriched the descriptions of place and made more ironic/comic use of most of the supporting characters. Austen would have given us a tale replete with bon mots, tender and surprising scenes, and characters that even when they are at their worst, are deeply loved by their creator. Fitzgerald would have given us more visual and aural delights, and pared the prose to pithiness. Well, we are left with the ponderous mind of Mr. James, who at times had no idea how very amorphous his work could be.

Kudos to all valiant readers who persist to the end.

Skimming through the reviews here, I don't seem to find any by people who love and enjoy Henry James's last three novels. I do. The prose takes getting used to (and critics of James's own time, including H. G. Wells, said it was like a hippopatomus trying to pick up a pea), and all the characters are rich and so, by American standards, can't have any problems and must never have done anything wrong. Even the "poor" protagonists have jobs and aren't starving: they just want to be very wealthy indeed.

But once you get used to the prose it's brilliant and witty, and nobody in the history of fiction has done people trying to kid themselves about how rotten they are better than James does. Milly Theale, the absolute angel who gets exploited by everybody and doesn't even mind, is not the kind of character who would be believable in an ordinary novel. But James makes her acceptable, because we see how complex her thoughts are, and how difficult her situation AS SHE HERSELF SEES IT, is. No other writer can do this sort of thing, and it takes James's sort of prose to do it this well.

Some people prefer earlier James works, and THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY is a brilliant and intense novel that isn't quite so hard to read as THE WINGS OF THE DOVE. But the good woman in that book gets utterly crushed (James had guts and almost never sold out to what his readers might want by way of a happy ending); she never knows what hit her until it's too late. The good woman in WINGS knows everything, and finds a way to forgive her torturers, while at the same time torturing them back again with that very forgiveness. And does she know all that? Does she know that being nice will hurt her tormenters even worse than they hurt her? In the later Henry James, even the good characters know everything. That's why these novels are hard to read, in every sense. But my goodness how they pay off, and how a real James fan can find passages in them to treasure forever.

He writes about people who are trying to think while suffering deeply. He's one of the very very few writers who do, or can.

By the time Henry James had written WINGS OF THE DOVE in 1902, most of his best work was behind him. In many of these novels and short stories, James had shown a fascination with the theme of the new world American bumping into the old world European. Just as James himself seemed unable to label himself definitively as one or the other, so do many of his characters muck about with some Americans coming off as country bumpkins while other Americans have old-world fineness and grace hardwired into their genes. In WINGS OF THE DOVE, Milly Theale is an American heiress whose inner qualities James deliberately obscures. She is wealthy, beautiful, good-hearted--and dying. Milly seems too good to be true, and of course she is; she suffers not only from the dread disease of cancer but the equally dread disease of emotional blindness. Milly decides to take a trip to Europe, where she encounters her doppleganger, Kate Croy. Millie sees Kate as having a feral aggressiveness that Millie admires but can never duplicate. Yet, both Kate and Millie soon discover points in common: they like and admire one another, and more disturbingly they both love the same man, Merton Densher. James complicates the plot in a manner worthy of a soap opera. Kate discovers that Millie is dying and hatches a plan breathtaking in its audacity. Merton, who is both poor and secretly engaged to Kate, must worm his way into the affections of Millie, whom he will marry. Then, after her expected demise, he will inherit Millie's fortune, and thus be free to marry Kate.

The problem with this plan becomes clear when we find out that it is one thing for two otherwise honorable people to contemplate deceitful actions and quite another for them to actually have the mental toughness to carry it out. James keeps the reader involved in this unlikely plan by shifting focus from victim to plotter. Millie is so good so kind that her only flaw is her inability to see what is right in front of her nose and yet this is quite enough to cause her undoing. If Kate were no more than a heartless backstabber, then the novel would have a huge hole in the plot where there ought to be some convincing motivation. James sidesteps this dilemma by making both Merton and Kate fully rounded characters, both of whom are fully aware of what they are doing and why, but unable to come up with another scenario that would permit them to marry. Kate is now the dramatic center. It is she who sizes up her own unhappy situation. It is she who correctly assesses Millie's feelings for Merton. And it is she who weighs cost versus benefit and decides that the latter outweighs the former. Of course, their plans go predictably awry when Millie discovers their plan and breaks up with Merton. Millie dies, and astoundingly, her will yet provides money for Merton. And it is here that James allows the moneyed world of the obtuse American to meld with that of the flawed but decent European. Kate and Merton then must ponder whether their consciences will permit them to accept the largesse of a woman who has forgiven them from beyond the grave.

WINGS OF THE DOVE is a superb novel that explores what it means to be kind and decent. For those who might be inclined to these noble qualities, Henry James suggests that decency and self-interest need not be mutually exclusive so long as one can be honest enough with all concerned. Such difficult questions are not limited only to a Kate and Merton who must stare at an envelope and decide whether it holds their future or their past.

I know H. James is considered one of the "Greats" of American literature and I question my taste for hating most of his writing. With few exceptions I think he is a pretentious purveyor of obscurantism. I read Wings of the Dove many years ago in the days when I would not allow myself to set aside books I did not enjoy. I recently picked up a collection of his short stories and remembered why I disliked him so much. Now in my old age I had no pangs of conscience when I happily closed the book before finishing it. If more of the stories had been like Daisy Miller I would have proceeded further but unfortunately much of the writing reminded me of Wings. I am currently seeking relief from Henry's turgid prose by reading Hemingway. I'd trade in a Henry for an Ernie any day. It's also difficult to like Mr. James' snobbish, shallow and unsympathetic characters. The more sympathetic ones were obscured by his heavy hand and my impatience with his style.

This book really awakened my sexuality back in college. I was lifted and washed away on a tide of passionate longing, straight into the arms of a cute road crew guy who had been working on my street that summer. Before I read it, I was just another shy nerd. Afterward! I became the audacious sex goddess that you see today! O, beware this magick book, for it will unlock you!!!

I had actually never read any of Lawrence's works before, though I had heard much praise about him. Saga type stories tend to interest me in the way you can trace growth in characters and really get into them, so I thought I would give this a try. So glad I did! Lawrence writes with some of the most beautifully lyrical and lush wording. Even when speaking of the dirty coal mines of England, you can almost feel the grime on your own skin, or when Ursula travels to the shore and plays in the surf you feel as if you're right there feeling and hearing the ocean on yourself. It reminded me somewhat of the way Fitzgerald writes. Also, seeing the growth and change in the different generations of one family was very interesting to me, especially the way that Lawrence as a man so keenly captured the struggles of girls developing into womanhood and accepting those changes and dealing with first loves and heartbreaks. If you come across this book, dont let it go!! I am currently reading this book's sequel Women in Love - let you know how it goes!

Daivd Herbert Lawrence was born on September 11, 1885 in the ugly mining area of Nottingham in the English Midlands. His father Arthur was a hardworking miner who opened the world of natural beauty to the lad. His mother was a woman who focused her attentions on "Bert" so the boy would develop his artistic inclinations. Together this ordinary couple produced a literary genius. Lawrence would change the novel and the way we read novels.
In 1915 he wrote the Rainbow which tells the three generational tale of the Brangwen mining and farming family of Nottinghamshire. The generational stories revolve around:
a. Tom and Lydia Brangwen-He is a strong man who marries the Polish widow Lydia. Together they have several children as they build a world of their own on their farm.The couple has difficult communicating well together except in the marital bed.
b. Will and Anna Brangwen-Anna was the daughter of Lydia and her first husband a Polish physician who died young. While Will and Anna have a brood of children it is Anna who is in the spotlight. She weds her cousin Will. We see them making love; Anna dancing in the nude during a pregnancy and becoming an earth mother loving her man, home and land.
c. Ursula is the oldest daughter of Will and Anna. She is a shy girl who blossoms in the novel. Ursuala becomes a schoolteacher in a grim urban school; falls in love and leaves Anton Skrebensky and returns home to her family and the friendship and love of her sister Ursula. These two girls will be the main characters in "Women in Love" the sequel to "The Rainbow." Ursula develops a lesbian relationship in this novel but is clearly bisexual in orientation. The novel ends with her miscarriage as she is chased by a herd of horses in the rain.
That is the outline of the story. Nothing much happens on the surface; plot is there but is minimal. What Lawrence aimed for in this fiction was the experience of sexual awakening; the female organism and the stormy but essential relationship between the sexes. His language is poetic in beauty and bristles with the life force. His descriptions of nature are detailed and evocative making him the heir to Thomas Hardy.
"The Rainbow" was removed from the bookstore due to the strict and puritanical English censorship during World War I. Lawrence's wife Frieda who was German was under suspicion as a spy and the couple had a terrible time. Today in our sexually liberated culture "The Rainbow" is far from shocking. What we remember is the beauty of the language and the sense of time passing in the genealogical study he gives to one English family.
Lawrence hated modernity, industrialism and the rape of the English countryside due to mining. He is romantic yearning for a simpler time.
This classic novel published in the Cambridge Edition by Penguin paperbacks is well worth your time and money.

This book delves into the thoughts and feelings of the Brangwen family and their loves. It shows how beautiful life really is and does it in the most meticulous fashion. The Brangwen women display an air of grace and wonder as they examine the numerous changes occuring around them. Their character is the most beautiful aspect of the book. Anna and Ursula are dear protagonists and are hard not to love for their spry and dissenting yet caring personalities. This book is of medium length and is a very thorough look at life through women's eyes and emotions from a male novelist. A great read!

THE RAINBOW is the story of three generations of the Brangwen family. Beginning with the first, D. H. Lawrence shows the intricacies of human relations that frequently have no more going for them than just good looks or sexual passion. It seemed inexplicable to Lawrence that as many relations worked out as they did. His concern was in finding the rationale for the successes, and in THE RAINBOW he suggests that success in a relation is a function of the recognition that all relations begin in conflict, which in turn imply either a resolution which ends in success or a non-resolution which does not. The paradox that is inherent even in the first generation of Brangwens is that most people are by definition unique and therefore independent. It is only when they connect romantically that a fusion may occur--or perhaps not. It is this reaching out for connection, from man to woman, from man to society, that marks the underlying order of THE RAINBOW.

Tom Brangwen is of the first generation. He is decent enough but alone and feels a void that only a woman can fill. He sees a Polish woman named Lydia Lensky to whom he feels an instant attraction. They meet, they talk, and conventionally fall in love. But they are supremely different in nearly all areas, including their ages. She is older by six years and has a daughter from a previous marriage. But they recognize and accept the paradox that individuality must merge with a collective identity. This they do and the relationship is secure. It is here that Lawrence introduces the near mystical "blood" affinity that two people have--or not--in any ongoing relation. Tom and Lydia have it. They have children but the one who comes into focus is Lydia's child from before, Anna. As Anna grows into womanhood, she clearly does not "have" it. Her blood speaks in a whisper and her husband Will does not hear it even after having nine children. The divisions between them are real enough, but they are no more or less real than those that Tom and Lydia were able to solve. Neither Anna nor Will connect. They are simply two spouses who maintain their uniqueness and never merge. They do manage to have children, one of whom is Ursula, who will return as a mature woman in Lawrence's sequel, WOMEN IN LOVE. Ursula is relentless in her wish to connect with someone or something. She tries teaching, but remains unfulfilled. She has an affair with a Polish officer named Anton Skrebensky, and discovers that raw sexual passion is not enough to bridge the gap from where she is to where she wants to be. She even tries a lesbian relation with a schoolmate, Winifred Inger, a factor which undoubtedly led to the public outcry to ban Lawrence's book. That too is unfruitful. Ursula is crushed when she learns that Winifred marries Ursula's uncle. When Skrebensky pops up out of nowhere, they recommence their affair but she is sure that they are never going to connect. By the end of the book, Ursula has an epiphany. She sees a rainbow. In the world of Lawrence, a rainbow is a potent symbol of rebirth. Ursula sees it the same way. To her, the rainbow is a mystical piece of architecture that promises that someday she will connect perhaps in a manner not unlike Judy Garland seeking her Oz. Thus, Lawrence indicates that the rainbow is the visual objective correlative of the magical blood that as he writes in his famous letter will allow Ursula, "To be alive, to be man alive, to be whole man alive: that is the point." Putting aside the sexist pronoun, that is indeed his point.

This is a review of the Kindle version of the Fictionwise Classic edition of Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop."

I bought the Fictionwise Classic edition (which is more expensive than many of the other Kindle versions offered of this novel) in the hopes that the higher price reflected better presentation. I was disappointed. This version contains no table of contents (linked or otherwise), no interpretive introduction or footnotes, and none of the contemporary illustrations. It is also lacking the foreword that Dickens wrote for a reprint edition done in his lifetime, and in parts it is rife with typographical errors.

Next time I purchase a Kindle version of a classic novel, I will avoid Fictionwise Classic.

Little Nell is the protagonist of Charles Dickens's _The Old Curiosity Shop_. This sweet, angelic, beautiful, almost godly young adolescent, travels throughout England with her beloved grandfather to escape the clutches of the evil, money-hungry dwarf, Quilp. Like many of the child heroes/heroine of his books, Nell lives in dire circumstances. Everyone seems to love her and she often repays these kindnesses, not monetarily, by performing little acts of goodness towards these individuals. There is nothing Nell or grandfather would not do for each other, including engaging in gambling at cards so that he could win enough money to support Nell. Unfortunately, her grandfather is an inept card player.

Other children in the book include Kit (Christopher), a friend of Little Nell's, and his younger brother. Kit is a good and honest young adolescent, who is falsely set up by several dishonest and venial adults in the novel as a thief. Dickens goes into some detail about Kit's travails, as well as the suffering of Kit's loving mother and of his innocent little brother. As usual, Dickens is very strong in character development and the reader must bear the ghastly way Kit, his mother, and even Quilp's wife are treated. Assisting Quilp in the intended ruination of Kit are the completely slimy lawyers, Sampson Brass and his "lovely," equally corrupt sister, Sarah. Other decent characters in the novel include Richard Swiveller and his woman friend, whom Richard lends the sobriquet, the Marchioness. Her tininess of stature stands in contrast to her worthiness.

Although many avid fans of Charles Dickens's works know of the fate of Little Nell, I will not ruin this part for those who intend to read this novel by revealing it. Also, unlike Oscar Wilde, I cannot be as blithely cruel as Mr. Wilde by stating that a certain section of the novel made me laugh. I loved Nell as much as the other people who knew her did, and found her to be one of the most unforgettable characters in all of literature.

This is among the bottom four novels by Dickens and it ranks a mediocre #25 in sales among the Dickens novels and short story collections. There is a reason. Unfortunately, this is a poorly planned and executed novel, partially saved by a few interesting characters including little Nell and Kit. It is not one of his great ones; and, if you are new to Dickens be encouraged because the others are mostly better.

After reading many of Dickens's novels and short stories in the last year or two, my pick for the best is the 750 page David Copperfield. It is both entertaining and it is a literary masterpiece, or close to it. There is a degree of charm and enthusiasm that is better the other novels. Oliver Twist is a close second, and I like the sleeper that is less well known: Nicholas Nickleby. Great Expectations is one of the lighter and fast moving novels, and it is very popular with many readers. It is a shorter work, about 400 pages. The novel does have a few interesting and famous Dickens characters such as the protagonist, Pip, Miss Havisham, and Abel Magwitch. Tale of Two Cities is a good read as well, and Edwin Drood is the worst book. Skip that one.

Now, back to the present book. Dickens only real writing failure was the Master Humphrey's Clock series which was stopped due to readership rejection after approximately six serial publications, and the readers had mostly gone after the first story. It followed his third and wildly popular novel, Nicholas Nickleby. In short, he departed from his popular themes and got ahead of the readers. As a result, he found himself with no audience. In his next novel, "The Old Curiosity Shop," he refers in the forward to the Humphrey series as "desultory" and was obviously not content with his own efforts there. But he carries some of the problems of that failed series into the present novel. He searched for a literary mechanism to get the readers back for his fourth novel, the present novel, and he decided that a small vulnerable girl surrounded by grotesque characters would make a good theme, hence we have the present novel.

The first few chapters of The Old Curiosity Shop follow the narrative style of Humphrey's Clock. But then after three chapters he switches gears. There is a feeling of darkness or foreboding in the novel that is not offset with positive characters, and instead it is dominated by the negative the character named Quilp, who is a wife beater and nasty character. His impact on the story is very negative. There are few sympathetic characters here, unlike say Oliver Twist where we have an array of nasty people offset by good characters. Also, the novel contains two parallel plots which leaves the reader somewhat scratching their head and wondering why?

Overall, I thought the read was just average or worse. It is not a difficult read. The reading experience is smooth and sometimes interesting. I read the book then read the analysis and found that I agreed almost completely with the critical analysis: it is was a problem novel. It contains many signature elements of a Dickens novel, but also includes many problems and poor planning for the story. Dickens tried to save it using a highly dramatic ending in the last few chapters. But is it enough? I think not: too little too late.

As background information, I am in the process of reading most of Dickens's 22 novels and longer short stories, and set up a Listmania list. As a suggestion, avoid the Penguin Popular Classics with the plain green covers (I bought two). They fall apart and do not stand up to a read, especially books over 500 pages in length. The Regular Penguin Classics with the photo or painting on the front are excellent and some have maps and illustrations (drawings). The Wordsworth Classics are not as good, and some are illustrated.

i have never read Dickens before, and I found this book intriging. I love his characters, and the way he intertwined all of them, and brought them all together in the end.

The Old Curiosity Shop appeared in 1840-1841 in monthly installments in
a magazine edited by the young Charles Dickens (1812-1870). The novel was an instant success winning the author of "The Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist" great fame and riches.
The long novel deals with Little Nell Trent. She lives in the Old Curiostiy Shop with her granfather. He is an alcoholic old man who is weak and has a dangerous gambling addiction. Due to this vice he loses his shop which is taken over by the evil dwarf Quilp. Quilp delights in evil and is one of Dickens most malevolently grotesque creations.
Nell and her granfather flee London encountering many adventures and meet many characters on their peregrinations throughout England. Among the most interesting characters are the kindly schoolmaster who befriends the hapless pair; Mrs. Jarley who owns a waxworks employing in a time of dire need and the old church sexton who shares advice on eternity with Nell.
Back in London we meet the man about town Dick Swiveller and Nell's wild brother Fred Trent. Swiveller becomes a clerk at the notorious lawfirm of Sampson Brass and his mannish sister Sally Brass who is also an attorney.
Here in this law office we meet the little servant the Marchioness who falls in love with Swiveller.
Kit Nubbles works for Quilp and is accused of theft by Brass. He is an endearing simpleminded young man who cares for Nell. He and his mother and family are delightful.
Nell dies as the novel concludes. She is modelled on Dickens' 17 year old sister-in-law Mary Hogarth who died in that year of her short life.
Dickens mourned for her all of his days. Nell is an etheral angelic girl who lacks realism but does make one love her. A New York mob awaited the arrival of the installment dealing with her demise by crying out "Does Little Nell live?" Alas, the answer is no regarding the charcter but yes in literary annals. She will always live as long as Dickensians savor this fine novel.
"The Old Curiosity Shop" is episodic but does contain scense of great comicality and wit. Dickens also writes a good mystery story and this novel is no exception as we learn who the solitary gentleman is! This is a good novel to begin your reading of the immense corpus of works left by
Dickens. I enjoyed it very much. The period illustrations in the Penguin edition are also an enhanced pleasure to the total experience of this
journey back to the days when Victoria ruled the British Empire.
Excellent!

Too much conversation and not enough action! I wanted this one specifically because it's the one where Captain Hastings met his wife (who, by the way, didn't seem to be his type at all). The twins angle made it neat for a happily ever after for our good Hastings, but some of the scenes stretched credibility. I didn't care for the reader; she could have done a much better job. The many french-accented characters sort of blurred together. Still, it is Dame Agatha - it is Poirot, and there is always a good time to be had.

In her second novel featuring Poirot, the peculiar private investigator from Belgium, Christie fails to illustrate the main trait that made her famous. The author had the ability to constantly "fool" us in connection with who the culprit was in each case and at the same time dangle the truth in front of our eyes, without us realizing it. In this novel, that is not the case, and as the story progresses we are immersed into a tangle of complicated connections that go against the aforementioned simplicity.

As is usually the case in Poirot's novels, the events are described by Hastings, a charming character, who serves as the punching bag that tries to make sense of things, only to be beaten down by Poirot's brilliant deductions. The Belgian detective is bored out of his mind, with obvious cases that present no challenge to him, until a letter from Monsieur Renauld arrives. The missive comes from France, and carries a palpable sense of urgency. The sender is convinced that his life is in danger and requests that Poirot gets there to assist him as soon as possible. Thus, the detective, together with Hastings, embarks on a journey to France, towards a new challenge.

Upon their arrival at the villa, they face the news that they got there too late, and that Renauld was murdered the night before. Naturally, Poirot offers to stay around and help solve the case. There are a good variety of suspects, including a lady that had visited the victim frequently, a wife that may feel disrespected, a son that fought with his father shortly before the murder and a mysterious young artist that had crossed paths with Hastings before.

As I already mentioned, the only drawback I found with this novel is the way in which the author twisted and turned the plot, but I understand that she was still at the beginning of her career. She does a few things very well though, like for example the way in which she continues to develop the character of Poirot. The detective's worship of the little gray cells and his preference for method and order over running around after clues make him a very special character; especially since in this case, he is pitted against a French detective from the Surete, Giraud, in a competition of contrasting styles that is exciting to witness.

Even though this is a sub par effort for Agatha Christie, it is still a decent novel. If this is by any chance your first attempt at reading her work, I recommend that you stick with it. The rewards are going to be worth it! - 3.5 stars

A fan's book. Many are better but Agatha is Agatha, none like her.

"Murder on the Links" was the second book Christie wrote that featured Hercule Poirot as detective. Told by his friend and sometimes fellow sleuth, Captain Hastings, the story is an immensely readable, keep-you-guessing mystery. By the end of the novel, Christie manages to weave so many twists and turns into the story you won't be quite sure which to believe.

Hercule Poirot receives a letter from the millionaire Renauld, who fears for his life; but upon arriving at the rich man's villa in France, Poirot and Hastings are greeted with news of his murder. Is it possible that his death was an accident? Poirot thinks it's a possibility, but as the suspects mount and the clues continue to confuse, trying to figure out the real culprit is truly puzzling. Complicating matters are a nasty French detective named Giraud who is certain he has found the correct killer; Poirot knows he is wrong, but can he prove it?

"Murder on the Links" staggers a little at first: Hastings can be a bothersome narrator at times, but once the witnesses start talking and the story becomes ever more convoluted the narrative picks up the pace and never stops. Twists are an Agatha Christie signature, especially with Hercule Poirot cases where he uses his "gray cells" to solve the mystery; but she has truly outdone herself with the denouement of "Murder on the Links", a hole-in-one in terms of enjoyment and surprise.

This 1923 murder mystery provides a view of the culture of those days. Hercule Poirot received a letter from an English millionaire living in France. P.T. Renaud plead for help, he is in fear for his life. Poirot and Hastings travel by boat to Calais, then by train to the small village. When they arrive they find Renaud was murdered in the early morning. His body was found in a freshly dug open grave! The examining judge was investigating, a top detective from Paris was looking for clues (and found some). Renaud's wife described the two masked bearded men who invaded their home, tied and gagged Madame Renaud, then took Renaud outside to his death. Why did the servants hear nothing in the night? Were they too old?

Poirot learns about the official investigation, and the facts from his own efforts We learn about the neighbors, those two strangers disappeared without a trace. Little is known about Renaud except he made a fortune in South America. What were his secrets? Was he involved with local neighbors? Clues are found that reference unknown people. The murder weapon was unique, formerly owned by Renaud's son Jack. Will he become the chief suspect? Various theories are offered, various facts are used to modify the theories. [I had a hunch to the mystery in Chapter 17, it was only correct as to the secret identity.] Will false confessions create confusion? There are surprises just until the mystery is solved by Poirot (Chapter 29). The last chapter ties up the loose ends.

In the real world murder is usually caused by love or money (lust or greed), to get it or to keep it. This story offers not one but two murder mysteries that are solved in the end. It's a good plot, even if some parts seem incredible. What do "anxious eyes" look like? The "Sherlock Holmes" detective stories created a market for this genre. Their cessation provided opportunities for new authors. Hastings and Poirot provide an alternative for Watson and Holmes. Few have been as widely-read as the originals.

Whose Body? is the first in the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series. A dead body turns up in Mr. Thipps's bathtub one morning wearing nothing but a pince-nez; at the same time, a prominent financier goes missing. It's obvious that the two cases are connected, but how? In comes Lord Peter Wimsey, an amateur detective who quickly solves the case. He's an interesting detective obsessed with old books and Sherlock Holmes. He is assisted by the eminently capable Mr. Bunter, as well as Mr. Parker of the Scotland Yard.

This book felt like a rough draft to me. Only 215 pages long, its as though Sayers just began writing without making an outline, or without knowing much about her protagonist before she began. The murderer is kind of obvious, only because there's no one else who could conceivably have done it. But the premise is intriguing, and the way in which Wimsey solves the case is unique.

I think Dorothy Sayers got better as she went along. Her first try at Peter Wimsey was a disappointment to me.

In his first case, Lord Peter Wimsey rushes to help out a London innocent ("Poor Little Thipps"), when a dead body shows up in the unfortunate fellow's bathtub.

The plot thickens and no clear suspect jumps out to the reader in this one as the victim is nearly impossible to identify. Inspector Sugg, assigned to the case, becomes an additional burden for Wimsey as the former wants no part of amateur detectives.

A sub-plot, Inspector Parker (Wimsey's pal) is simultaneously investigating the disappearance of a prominent financier, which turns out not to be the body in the bathtub -- but Wimsey cannot let go of the idea that the crimes are connected. The inquest proceedings are a regular hoot as Inspector Sugg, a man who takes the "shotgun approach" to arresting people, begins to look like an idiot.

There's plenty of great atmosphere and good old aristocratic snobbery in this one. One of Sayers' best entries.

This is the unabridged audiobook of Lord Peter Wimsey's introduction, "Whose Body". Whatever you do, do NOT purchase any Lord Peter audiobooks unless they are read by Ian Carmichael. He is the perfect Lord Peter, and he reads all of the Lord Peter novels better than anyone else. It's a lot harder to find "Whose Body" than any of the others, especially if you're looking specifically for Ian Carmichael's version. But after listening to David Case and Roe Kendall, I've always returned to Ian Carmichael, no matter how hard it may be to find it.

Whose Body? Sayers first Lord Peter Whimsey novel hints at the promise of later volumes in the series. Lord Peter is the aristocrat who took up amateur sleuthing as a distraction from shell shock he suffers from serving in WWI. He has an enormous intelligence, a knack for charming difficult people and a fussy rambling manner that some mistake for weakness. His other talents are piano playing, knowledge of ancient books and manuscripts, and an athletic physique disguised by his sartorial excellence.

In this volume there is a seemingly insolvable mystery, with a not too competent police inspector who doesn't seem to like Lord Peter very much. Shades of Sherlock Holmes Inspector Lestrade? Sayers is still putting together her writing style and comes out with florid phrases like "His long amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola." However, Sayers undoubtedly has a mastery of the English language and Whose Body is a highly readable novel as well as a good mystery which sets the stage for Lord Peter to develop as a character.

This story is fantastic. The author's grasp of the language and speech of the period is wonderful and completely creates an atmosphere that one cannot help but fall into. This is now one of my favorite books!

The book I chose to read for my book report was the Black Arrow. The Black Arrow was written by R.L. Stevenson and was illustrated by Lionel Richards. The Black Arrow is a good historical fiction book that takes place during the English civil war against the Yorkists and the Lancastrians. The following paragraph will give you a short summary of the book I read.
The story is about a knight named Dick who goes on an epic quest to find and destroy the group, the Black Arrows. It leads him to a forest and a victorious battlefield. This book would be best suited for people who prefer historical long fiction books. I thought it needed to be shorter and more easier for younger readers to understand

With the War of the Roses as its backdrop, The Black Arrow blends the romance of young love and the excitement of its hero's initiation into war and politics. The theme of loyalty runs throughout--loyalty to parents, guardians, leaders, followers, lovers, and oneself.

England's loyalties are divided between Lancaster and York, although the distinction makes little difference to the country's more practical citizens. "It is the ruin of this kind land," a woman said. "If the barons live at war, ploughfolk must eat roots." When the naive young hero, Richard Shelton, reassures her that men "cannot better die than for their natural lord," another man points out, "No natural lord of mine . . . I followed the Walsinghams . . . And now I must side with Brackley! It was the law that did it; call ye that natural?"

Despite young Dick's idealism, which makes him faithful to his guardian and to the men with whom he has served, and despite many disturbing rumors, it soon becomes apparent that most men are loyal primarily to their self-interests, whether they seek power like Richard Crookback or favor and riches like Dick's guardian, Sir Daniel Brackley. Even the mysterious "Jon Amend-All" of the black arrow, whose objective is to revenge himself and his friends on Brackley, is found collecting rents from Brackley's cottagers, acknowledging that they will suffer the hardship of having to pay twice. The man behind "Jon Amend-All" is no beneficent Robin Hood, but as cold and crafty a political operative as Brackley himself.

Brackley's loyalties are soon explained. "I lie in Kettley till I have sure tidings of the war, and then ride to join me with the conqueror . . . Tosspot and Shuttle-wit run in, but my Lord Good-Counsel sits o' one side, waiting." As Clipsby says, "For, indeed, he is one that goes to bed Lancaster and gets up York."

Fleeing from one danger into another, Dick finally understands that he cannot trust Brackley simply because he is Dick's guardian, or even Ellis Duckworth as his savior and protector. The only person upon whom he can rely is the girl he loves, who, ironically, was intended to be his wife in one of Brackley's financial maneuvers. The black arrow flies from Tunstall Forest to Kettley, then through wetlands back through Tunstall to the Moat House and on to Shoreby, with treachery and the threat of war hanging over all.

With every adventure, Dick's loyalty turns more inward on himself and his heart's desire. He is loyal to York because Ellis Duckworth is and Daniel Brackley isn't. When he finds himself rapidly in and out of Richard Crookback's favor, he is "neither glad nor sorry." Danger and treachery transform Dick into a more mature man who recognizes that loyalty is neither won nor lost so easily or quickly. In one of the novel's strangest and weakest scenes, he proves his loyalty to his bride-to-be by rejecting the advances of her best friend, peculiar as they are.

The series of events that makes Dick a man is his theft of the Good Hope, its subsequent destruction, and the death of the captain's man, Tom. "Dick's heart smote him at what he heard. Until that moment he had not perhaps thought twice of the poor skipper who had been ruined by the loss of the Good Hope; so careless, in those days, were men who wore arms of the goods and interests of their inferiors . . ." Dick achieves his aims, but at the cost of many lives and the prosperity of the innocent Arblaster, who mourns "my man Tom" until the end of his days.

As a protagonist, Dick is refreshingly and painfully human, at least outside battle. While brave, he lacks the ability to pick up on clues that are obvious to his less-sheltered acquaintances, including those about the true nature of Jack Matcham. He suffers remorse for what he has done and begins to ask others like Ellis Duckworth to reconsider their course. He has the mercy that Richard Crookback and Brackley lack.

Whatever its historical flaws (some of which Stevenson points out in footnotes), The Black Arrow is beautifully written, with well-drawn characters, a plot that rarely stalls, realistically bloody battle scenes, and dialogue that is often poetic without being jarring. While not Stevenson's greatest effort, The Black Arrow is exciting and fun for anyone of any age who loves a solid historical drama.

I picked up The Black Arrow on speculation, driven by three considerations - it was written by Robert Louis Stevenson, I had vague but good memories of the old TV series the Black Arrow and well it was going cheap at a jumble sale.

The Black Arrow relates the adventures of Richard Shelton, a orphan and ward of Sir Daniel a landed knight and veteran warrior of questionable loyalty who has been successfully negotiating the War of the Roses siding with either York or Lancaster based upon who is on top and who is currently providing the best opportunity for material advancement. The only cloud on Sir Daniel's horizon is the mysterious order of the "Black Arrow", a band of outlaws who have previously been injured by Sir Daniel and who have now sworn themselves to his death and the death of his supporters. Although initially Sir Daniel's loyal ally, Dick eventually becomes aware that Sir Daniel may in fact be responsible for his fathers death. Forced to flee from Sir Daniel's house (and his true love in the form of Joanna another ward of Sir Daniel's), Richard joins the order of the black arrow and swear vengeance for his fathers death. What follows is a series of adventures with espionage, fencing, shipwrecks and many deaths, culminating in Dick joining forces with the Yorkist forces lead by Richard of Gloucester at the battle of Shoresby, where they confront the forces of Lancaster including Sir Daniel.

So why do I say that this is not quite what I expected? Well I was expecting in Dick, a hero from your standard boys own adventure, you know the type brave to a fault, a strong fighter, smart and wise beyond his years and completely moral. Instead Stevenson defied my expectation by presenting Dick as brave and strong and honorable, but not terribly smart, capable of making very bad decisions which have a terrible affect upon the lives of those around him, someone whose lack of experience means that he is regularly trumped by his opponents. And although in the end, Richard is knight and married to his love, he is judged by Richard of Gloucester as a man who I will go no further a man who has reached his natural level of advancement a judgment which I found myself agreeing with.

Book review-Black arrow

The Black arrow starts off very, very slow. It picks up at the end, thankfully. The book is a long one, at first it's very hard to follow. The plot also gets better as you get deeper into the book. It's a good book if you want to read something over a long period of time. The story takes place in at the time of the War of the Roses and follows the book's hero Dick. This book is clearly an action book. The main character, Dick is likeable enough. In this book, Dick encounters the Black arrow, a battle, a castle and more. This isn't one of Robert Louis Stevenson's best books, but yet is respectable. The original book was written in French and translated so it's got some weird words. Maybe some people would rank it higher, I'm a young guy so I may think it's hard to follow. For me, it's just too long and difficult to follow to be a really good book. Stevenson though has got some good books out there,though, including: Treasure Island, Kidnapped and more.

Reading late James - particularly "The Golden Bowl" - often strikes me as being similar to reading a novel in a foreign language whose vocabulary you have mastered but whose grammar remains partially a mystery. Anyone who has attempted this will recognise the sensation of understanding all the words, yet not understanding how they fit together. You read a sentence two, three or five times, and it is only then that you understand, if at all, the meaning of all the words combined. Sometimes the meaning never becomes clear.

"Late James" is a foreign language, but one in which I have become more fluent over the years. When I first read "The Golden Bowl" some years ago I understood very little and did not enjoy it. The long, convoluted sentences, with so many things only half spoken - and often never spoken at all - seemed a vast and elaborate machine which never seemed to produce enough to justify its own existence.

Yet now, having read most of James over the intervening years, I have become more fluent in his language, and find the circumlocutions, complexities and ellipses of the "late style", if not exactly crystal clear, then certainly much clearer, and even rather comforting and enjoyable. The subtle discriminations, the way James holds up to the light tenuous motives and turns them slowly - very slowly - so that their hidden facets become, fleetingly, visible; the very real portrayal of interesting characters that James reveals; as well as the languorous, unpredictable turns of a Jamesian sentence - all offer the kinds of pleasures that no other writer (possibly excepting Proust) is able to produce.

"The Golden Bowl" consists largely of conversations, some continuing over many, many pages. The content of those conversations would, for most writers, comprise the details between the main actions of the plot; and for most writers, those conversations would occupy, at most, a few pages. But for James, it is the interstices between big events, the dramas, not so much of everyday events, but of the subtle daily manipulations, the unspoken victories and losses of personal relationships, which interest him and which comprise the novel.

The subject of "The Golden Bowl" is the reciprocal marriages of father and daughter, to a pair of former lovers. The novel is about the tensions and deceptions, and the manipulations, that arise as a result. Who knows what about whom? Who is responsible for what actions? Who is deceiving whom, and who has the moral authority as a consequence? Ultimately, who, if anyone, triumphs, and is their victory a hollow one? These are the sorts of questions James is concerned with.

"The Golden Bowl" rates as a great novel - one of the greatest of the twentieth century - because of these qualities as well as its ambiguities. It is also an enjoyable novel, but to enjoy it you must first be sympathetic to the sorts of concerns James is interested in, and you also need to be conversant in his distinctive language. Both of these require - or at least I would recommend - first reading James' earlier and middle period works. For most of us, late James can be a struggle, but one which is justified by its rewards. I don't regard reading "The Golden Bowl" as an exercise only for academics, pretentious aesthetes or literary masochists, but I sympathise with those who do.

Giving "stars" to a James novel seems a little inappropriate (he is beyond these kinds of simplistic judgements), But I have given "The Golden Bowl" four stars, because there are times when it strains the patience even of those who admire the writing style and enjoy the late James novels, and I prefer "The Ambassadors" or "The Wings of the Dove". Nevertheless, "The Golden Bowl" is one of the great novels in English and is highly recommended to anyone who has read and enjoyed James' other novels.

This last completed novel of Henry James, the third of his three culminating masterworks, is not for the reader who doesn't understand that there is a difference between high, difficult, art and pop art--and that the difference has nothing whatever to do with class or politics or social status, but rather with depth, complexity, subtlety, and virtuosity of articulated nuance.

The storyline is fairly simple (easy to look up), but what makes the book most rewarding, read after read, is the way that Henry James brings dramatically to life, with unexpected richness of texture, every feeling of passion, ambivalence, anxiety, and inner conflict of the Prince, his lover Charlotte, her husband (Mr. Verver),the Prince's wife (Mr. Verver's daughter, Maggie), and the Assinghams.

Like "Hamlet" or a late Beethoven quartet, one learns to savor "The Golden Bowl" through repeated performances--except here, the reader must do the performing, a daunting challenge that takes patience and a concentration of intelligence that few enough people are interested in cultivating or even capable of. What is the reward for essaying to make James's visionary work one's own visionary work? In a word, it is the life-enriching experience of what Shelley once called "transforming enlargements of the imagination."

The rating is for my own enjoyment of the book - not for its literary quality.

Henry James is not my cup of tea. Tea being an appropriate metaphor, as Mr. James could no doubt write fifty pages about how a woman holds her cup of tea with her pinkie finger extended just so, therefore indicating to the rest of the group her inner turmoils, her family history, and what she fed the dog for dinner.

He has a tremendous command of vocabulary, long, complex sentences, engaging characters but it is such a long, slow read for me I find myself having to go back to the beginning of sentences just to see what the heck was going on when he started them.

This book took me all month to read, with some personal time off causing part of the delay, and reluctance to dive back in the rest. I am sure it is my own failing as a reader, but from a pure reading enjoyment viewpoint, this did not do it for me.

"The Golden Bowl" (1904), written by Henry James (1843 -1916), is a book that many consider a classic. I read it many years ago, and decided to read it again after hearing a friend mention it, and realizing I didnt remember much about its plot.

The story is set in England, and its main characters are Prince Amerigo, Maggie Verver and her father Adam, and Charlotte Stant, Maggies best friend. Amerigo is an Italian nobleman that happens to be poor, and decides to marry the very rich Maggie in order to become wealthy. Maggie has a very close relationship with her father, and decides that Adam should marry Charlotte, so that he wont be alone. What Maggie doesnt know, however, is that Amerigo was the lover of her friend Charlotte. That seemingly small detail, that Amerigo and Charlotte go to great lenghts to hide, complicates the relationships of the four characters, and immerses them in a web of lies and simulation. Appearances and reality, what is more important? And what doesn a golden bowl have to do with all that?

If you are interested in finding the answer to those questions, and dont mind the fact that James style is somewhat baroque in this book, you might be interested in reading "The Golden Bowl". The descriptions are great, and the author excels at making you understand what these couples are thinking, and feeling. On the other hand, not much happens, and this is the kind of book that can be easily forgotten. That is what already happened to me once, and it is likely to happen again, at least to me. I dont recommend "The golden bowl", due to the fact that there are other books out there that are unforgettable, books that simply make you remember them...

Belen Alcat

PS: If you are interested in reading this book, please do so. "The golden bowl" was not for me, but maybe you will understand and appreciate it better.

Reading THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James can be either an exercise in frustration or of exhiliration. If after reading a few pages one deduces the former, then one has allowed an excessively convoluted and ornate prose style to interpose itself between a writer with a straightforward theme that is inextricably intertwined with a style that is its polar opposite with a reader who expects the straightforwardness of the theme to link with a parallel style. James uses grammar and syntax in much the same way that Milton does in PARADISE LOST. Reading James and liking James is an acquired taste. For the novels leading up to this one, one can almost argue that James was simply getting ready to write what is generally considered his master work.

The plot is relatively uncomplicated. A father daughter relation is exceptionally close. Their immense wealth insulates them from the mundane trivialities of life. Both are used to acquiring things of value: a painting, a house, and when need be, a husband for the daughter. Adam Verver is the father, a basically decent sort who has Midas type wealth, but is determined to use it to make his daughter happy, a state of mind that is no more different--or more expensive--than acquiring anything else. Maggie is the daughter, also a good hearted woman who has learned from her father that value must be exchanged for value. Enter Prince Amerigo, a titled but impoverished European who is selected to marry Maggie. He is willing to swap values. The difference between his decision and theirs is that he knows what he is contemplating is wrong, but as long as all concerned are upfront, no harm done. Complicating matters is Charlotte Stant, a close friend of Maggie, who is in love with Amerigo and he with her, but both acknowledge that marriage is out of the question. Maggie convinces Charlotte to marry her father--again an exchange of value for value. The two marriages occur and things are more or less normal for a few years. Maggie has a baby, but neither the baby nor her husband are allowed to interfere with her relation with Adam. Maggie, eager to have more time for her father, encourages Amerigo and Charlotte to spend time together. Eventually, Maggie gets suspicious and guesses the truth. The novel ends with Charlotte and Adam leaving for America, leaving a suddenly contrite Maggie to relight the spark in a marriage that was never properly lit in the first place.

The dominant theme is less complex to relate than to analyze. All four spouses are willing to marry as long as each one receives value for value. For Adam, this value is renting/buying (it is difficult to approximate the correct verb) a titled husband that he believes will make Maggie happy. He is quite prepared to pay millions. For Amerigo, this value is getting enough money so that he can make his way in the world. He is prepared to be a probably non-functional trophy husband. For Maggie, this value is fulfilling her biological imperative, and she is prepared to ignore Amerigo or pay attention to him as the case may be. And for Charlotte, this value parallels Amerigo's and she is prepared to pay the same price as he does.

Unifying all these cross-cutting themes is the Golden Bowl of the title. Early in the novel and before any of the marriages, Amerigo and Charlotte plan to buy a suitable gift for his marriage to Maggie: a magnificent golden bowl, with a minute defect, a slight crack. They refuse to buy it for that reason. Later in the novel, the bowl reappears with Maggie's learning that it had been intended as her wedding gift. Maggie sees, perhaps subliminally, that the bowl is symbolic of her life with her father and her husband. As long as she lives with her father, life will be an uncracked bowl, perfect externally but inhuman internally. Maggie's realization that her life with Amerigo must contain that crack comes with breathtaking force. She, Amerigo, Adam, and Charlotte have chosen to live with a cracked bowl. For those readers with the patience and skill in deciphering an admittedly complex text, they can see that in this imperfect bowl Henry James has made a very profound statement about the human condition.

A prankster would love this book.

So would any Jane Austen fan.

Why?

Well, for starters, Frances Burney created a story about a young woman coming to society and discovering what it really means. Innocent, sweet Evelina suddenly discovers a strange and at times dangerous world as she begins to grow up. But at the same time, we are presented with side characters that are incredibly amusing and give this story the light air and dramatic punch needed to create a truly stupendous book.

Evelina as a character is interesting, though not particularly strong. She is quite intelligent and sweet, but on the whole, she doesn't learn very much nor does she step up for herself. Upon reflection, seeing as to when this was written, is that particularly surprising? I was still mostly impressed by the time period (and also at times amused by time-relevant remarks...).

Mostly "Evelina" is a wonderful book. It's a great read (though at times, unsurprisingly dry [as seemed to be the habit of English writers in those days]), an interesting, intriguing story (with quite a few twists, though some predictable with others still thoroughly surprising!), but mostly is an amusing, fun story of a girl.

A favorite classic. Highly recommended!

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a sweet and sentimental classic. All in all an enjoyable read, but the writing style never dares equal the skill of Jane Austen.
It has an interesting plot which, once you get wrapped up in it, is hard to disentangle yourself. Yet, I feel the plot could have been better developed by a more skilled novelist. Due to the fact that the book is written in passive letters (most of them Evalina's), the characters are often flat, and real active emotion is lacking. Several excellent opportunities for dramatic events are glazed over in a "re-telling".
However what the book lacks can be overlooked, and take the tale at its face value: a gentle love story.

Fanny Burney lived from 1752 - 1840. Evelina was the first book she wrote when she was twenty-five. The first publication had to be published under the name of a man before the publishers would look at it, but it didn't take long for Fanny to claim ownership. The book was wildly successful, even though it didn't' make much money for Fanny. She wrote three more books after this one, but none of these really remains readable today. Evelina stands alone in this regard. The book is another one that is written as a series of letters. Evelina is not your usual heroine. She is bashful and somewhat deficient in charm. But she is beautiful and young, and because of this there is a lot of optimism in the novel that things will turn out alright for her. That is why the book is so enjoyable. The reader sees all the difficulties in her path in her quest for a brilliant marriage, but somehow we know she'll make it and things will be OK. This is quite a readable book, and I enjoyed it.

"Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World" is an entertaining story of a girl's 'coming-out' into society as well as a fascinating record of the genteel and not so genteel diversions of the middle and upper classes in Georgian England. Frances Burney published it anonymously in 1778, setting a precedent for Jane Austen both by this anonymity and by making writing a respectable pastime for women, thus allowing women to turn the novel into a medium of their own. The extent to which writing was considered improper for respectable women during this time is revealed in the author's own life: when Fanny was 15, her stepmother made her burn her writings, which consisted of odes, plays, songs, farces, and poems as well as a story about th