The Awakening is considered by many to be an American classic and a forerunner of modern feminist literature. Yet when it was published in 1899, it received more negative criticism than positive, leading author Kate Chopin to dedicate her talents to writing short stories exclusively for the remainder of her life. Given that most journalists and literary critics in the late 19th century were men, the chilly reception shouldn’t be surprising. The Awakening is about a married woman named Edna Pontellier who, while spending her summer on Grand […]
Well, that was a tad dismal
CBR 10 Bingo: This Old Thing; published 1911 Ethan Frome has been on my reading list for years, ever since I was enchanted by Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, for which Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921. The Age of Innocence is a lovely tale of thwarted love and sadly not the book I’m reviewing today. Ethan Frome is also a tale of lovers separated by circumstances, yet not nearly as engaging as Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The story takes place […]
As close as I get to DNF and maybe first 1 star review
There’s a few lines on the back cover blurbs that say, “FSG is no ivory tower- the owner’s wife called the office a ‘sexual sewer’- and its untold story is as tumultuous and engrossing as many of the great novels it has published.” This is talking about the American publisher of T.S. Eliot, and other literary greats including Flannery O’Connor, Joan Didion, Philip Wroth, and Jonathan Franzen. I like books, I like literary history, and I like bibliography, therefore I should have liked this. And […]