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Gertie MacDowell Locked account

undauntedgirl@books.boxpleats.com

Joined 1 year, 2 months ago

A rather moody enigma with a plethora of fascinating interests.

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2025 Reading Goal

44% complete! Gertie MacDowell has read 8 of 18 books.

Edith Wharton: The custom of the country (2006, Penguin Books) 4 stars

Edith Wharton's satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century …

Lifestyles of the wannabe rich and famous

4 stars

This was an interesting book from the standpoint of social conventions in upper crust society at the turn of the 20th century. Undine Spragg is very much the antihero leaving a trail of destruction in her wake as she crawls up the social ladder marriage by marriage. One wonders whether Meghan Markle should have read it before becoming entangled in the British royal family given the subject matter.

It's a bit hard to relate to so much of the novel partly because it's over a hundred years old, but also because I am not of the New York elite and therefore unfamiliar, even baffled by some of the social aspects of the story. Having to have your mother respond first before you can seems bizarre and so when Undine breaks some of these rules, it is difficult to appreciate the effect it should have on the reader.

One of the …

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell: North and south (1995, Penguin) 4 stars

When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted …

Still relevant two centuries later

4 stars

I liked this book even if I did not, per se, 'enjoy' it. Charles Dickens was correct to demand the title be 'North and South' because to have called it simply 'Margaret Hale' would be a disservice to the story, and the reader. By far. it's the themes of the story that rise above the characters in it. Conflicts between the urban and rural, rich and poor, male and female, and indeed, north and south provide the overarching sky under which things take place and without which, the story would not stand out amongst its contemporaries.

I cannot say that I liked the characters in 'North and South' as much as I did Gaskell's other work, 'Cranford', but their various interactions gave the story a much needed conflict and friction.

It's perhaps hard from the 21st century vantage to appreciate the dramatic crisis of faith Mr. Hale undergoes that gets …

Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar (2005) 4 stars

The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia …

Sadly Plath's only novel.

4 stars

Content warning Obvious topics related to mental health and death

James Joyce: Finnegans wake (Paperback, 1999, Penguin Books) 5 stars

Follows a man's thoughts and dreams during a single night. It is also a book …

My new favourite book

No rating

I started Finnegans Wake knowing only a few things. Namely that it was not a traditional novel, that it was incredibly difficult to read, and that it confounded many (if not all) who did. I certainly agree that it is not a traditional novel, and that is clear from page 1! I do not agree that it is difficult to read, or that it is particularly confounding. It is, however, difficult to comprehend, and that's by design.

What struck me almost straight away is that this is Joyce having fun with language. Puns and double meanings abound. An early one describes a drink as a 'foamous ale', i.e. 'famous ale' but throwing in the common description of ale as 'foamy' or 'foaming' into the same phrase. I very quickly realised that there was going to be a lot of this in the book and I was not proved wrong! Every …

Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights (Paperback, 2020, [publisher not identified]) 4 stars

Wuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under the pseudonym Ellis …

A classic I respect but don't necessary like

4 stars

Content warning Plot spoilers herein

Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre (French language, 1984) 4 stars

A worthy classic

4 stars

This was my first ever Brontë novel (no, really). I was of course familiar with the literary family but had never read any of their work (for no purposeful reason). So it was with a degree of excitement that I started Jane Eyre wondering what the popular Victorian novel could hold.

I enjoyed it from the start, and I enjoyed it more as I devoured it over three days of a holiday. Certain anachronisms aside, the social commentary was informative, and the character of Jane Eyre remarkably fresh given her age. Her personal growth throughout the novel (along with other characters') was probably the best I'd read up until that point.

Some aspects of the story I found a bit weak but overall it was a satisfying ending in the context of the time and place.