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mellanclear's review
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
vpetra416's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
borealis85's review against another edition
4.0
A nice, well researched historical renaissance novel with Victorian touch. Everything that you expect from good historical fiction: A couple of historical characters to google, great personal adventures and tragedies in a very real setting.
Romola as such is ofcourse perhaps a bit too well off with access to education and privileges, but Eliot hardly tries to hide the links to 1850's struggles between religion, traditional values and earthly lusts and pleasures.
Romola as such is ofcourse perhaps a bit too well off with access to education and privileges, but Eliot hardly tries to hide the links to 1850's struggles between religion, traditional values and earthly lusts and pleasures.
caterpillarnotebooks's review
3.0
in the words of the inimitable yana zlochistaya, it's giving ap history creative assignment
rancuceanu's review
4.0
I hesitated between 3 and 4 stars, finally I made it 4 by rounding up from 3.5. Atypical for Eliot, and definitely the most difficult to read, but still feeling the hand of the Mistress (is this the equivalent of Master for a women writer?)
anneliesb's review
4.0
I have never clicked that button "I'm finished!" with so much relief. That exclamation mark behind it jumps off the screen for me right now. I started reading this in October 2015, just over a year ago. There were times I thought this was just a slow read, there were times that I completely forgot about it and there were times I thought about giving up altogether.
I usually don't do New Year's resolutions, but this year I made a 'before the end of year' resolution, to clean up some sludge from my currently reading list. Now this one is gone I might even work my way through some more German fairytales before 2017.
The fact that it took me so long to read by no means means that it is bad. It is just rather demanding and has chapters which are mostly focussed on politics rather than moving the plot forward.
Unlike most Victorian novels this one is set in 15th century Florence, rather than 19th century England. I felt that George Eliot was maybe a bit overambitious with this one.
The novel is set in Italy and she uses translated Italian phrases and sayings, which affect the natural flow of the language. There's also a mount of 15th century Italian politics involved which needs a lot of explaining. It is so easy to lose reading momentum when you arrive at a patch with several 'political' chapters.
Actually the last 60 pages of my edition are appendices with notes and glossaries of Italian terms and historical figures. So, you could check something in the back every other page to slow you down even further.
It doesn't help that most of the characters are rather caricatural. There's saintly Romola, selfish, opportunist Tito, simple, childlike Tessa,...
My favorite character was Monna Brigida, she's a minor character, but probably most human.
I usually don't do New Year's resolutions, but this year I made a 'before the end of year' resolution, to clean up some sludge from my currently reading list. Now this one is gone I might even work my way through some more German fairytales before 2017.
The fact that it took me so long to read by no means means that it is bad. It is just rather demanding and has chapters which are mostly focussed on politics rather than moving the plot forward.
Unlike most Victorian novels this one is set in 15th century Florence, rather than 19th century England. I felt that George Eliot was maybe a bit overambitious with this one.
The novel is set in Italy and she uses translated Italian phrases and sayings, which affect the natural flow of the language. There's also a mount of 15th century Italian politics involved which needs a lot of explaining. It is so easy to lose reading momentum when you arrive at a patch with several 'political' chapters.
Actually the last 60 pages of my edition are appendices with notes and glossaries of Italian terms and historical figures. So, you could check something in the back every other page to slow you down even further.
It doesn't help that most of the characters are rather caricatural. There's saintly Romola, selfish, opportunist Tito, simple, childlike Tessa,...
My favorite character was Monna Brigida, she's a minor character, but probably most human.
slrsmith's review
3.0
Not as good as Middlemarch but I liked it. Interesting setting. Interesting use of historical interpretation of 15th century Florence and its most (in)famous names.
deea_bks's review
5.0
Renaissance, Florence. Ending of the 15th Century - beginning of the 16th. A space where people like Girolamo Savonarola, Niccolo Machiavelli and the Medicis are the everyday pawns of an ongoing and complicated reality. Politics handled with ability and shrewdness, religion used for political ends and social movements are displayed with great talent in the background, while in the first plan we witness together with the omniscient author the path of an individual to fame brought by corruption and treachery. In this context of great actuality, the main character, Romola, with a majestic stature and the countenance of a Goddess, experiences love and disappointment and copes with all the good and bad coming her way with the strength of a superior character.
This is my first book by George Eliot and her display of erudition left me breathless. I am not a feminist per se, but when I see that a woman from the past, in spite of all the limitations that society imposed to women, managed to have a strong voice and express with ability and talent things that only men were encouraged to, and that she expressed them with such a spiritual force that you can only applaud the result, I feel admiration (It is true that she wrote under a pseudonim, but she didn't have the access to education that only men in that time did.) It is admiration that I feel to George Eliot’s effort to write a book about a 15th century heroine whose strength of character transcends time, political realities and societal boundaries and stands as a symbol of strength and integrity.
Tito, a young Greek whose handsomeness is striking, has to face the consequences of a choice that is morally wrong and instead of trying to get redemption, he convinces himself that what he chose was the right thing, the thing that anyone in his right mind would have done. His secret pushes him to lie further and further and get deeply immersed in a world of corruption, lies and treachery.
He avoids the past with fierceness, he runs from it, but he cannot get rid of it as the past follows him like his own shadow. The person whom he has wronged most and keeps on morally hurting, becomes his biggest enemy. He pulls the political strings in his favor continually and although he is really skilled at that he ends up his efforts in an unexpected way. His other wife, a young cherubic and innocent blue-eyed “Contadina” with his two children are saved by Romola whose superiority of character is once again proved this way. The ending, the story she tells to Tito’s little son, Lillo, is the advice no one has ever given to Tito and it makes us wonder if his son will be the same as Tito was (pursuing the pleasure) or if he will listen to Romola's advice.
I really enjoyed the display of secondary characters: Nello, the barber and his philosophy of life; Bardo; Pierro, the painter; Baldasare; Tessa etc and the way they are inserted in the story to add flavor to it. I won’t add any other quotes (although I think I highlighted more than 40% of the book) as I don’t want to spoil the pleasure of any person who reads my review and then decides to read the book. George Eliot is now another author in whose craftsmanship I want to delve further by reading other books… I’m thinking Middlemarch sometimes soon.
The great river-courses which have shaped the lives of men have hardly changed; and those other streams, the life-currents that ebb and flow in human hearts, pulsate to the same great needs, the same great loves and terrors.
and
As our thought follows close in the slow wake of a dawn, we are impressed with the broad sameness of the human lot, which never alters in the main headings of its history – hunger and labour, seed-time and harvest, love and death.
This is my first book by George Eliot and her display of erudition left me breathless. I am not a feminist per se, but when I see that a woman from the past, in spite of all the limitations that society imposed to women, managed to have a strong voice and express with ability and talent things that only men were encouraged to, and that she expressed them with such a spiritual force that you can only applaud the result, I feel admiration (It is true that she wrote under a pseudonim, but she didn't have the access to education that only men in that time did.) It is admiration that I feel to George Eliot’s effort to write a book about a 15th century heroine whose strength of character transcends time, political realities and societal boundaries and stands as a symbol of strength and integrity.
Tito, a young Greek whose handsomeness is striking, has to face the consequences of a choice that is morally wrong and instead of trying to get redemption, he convinces himself that what he chose was the right thing, the thing that anyone in his right mind would have done. His secret pushes him to lie further and further and get deeply immersed in a world of corruption, lies and treachery.
The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjustment of our desires – the enlistment of our self-interest on the side of falsity; as on the other hand, the purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact, that by it the hope in lies is forever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity.Romola, the wife he chose because he thought he loved her at the beginning when his morality was still intact, has an integrity and moral strength that is a constant reminder to him of what he has done wrong. And, because he would rather appear flawless in the eyes of the community and attempt to get higher and higher in social status, he prefers to never confess to his wife the truth of his shallow choice from the past and creates a wall between them, adding a stone to it with every new deed. He is a Dorian of Florence, but the flawless attractive version looking in the mirror, and his only real reflection is in Romola’s consciousness while discovering that he is not what he pretends to be.
He avoids the past with fierceness, he runs from it, but he cannot get rid of it as the past follows him like his own shadow. The person whom he has wronged most and keeps on morally hurting, becomes his biggest enemy. He pulls the political strings in his favor continually and although he is really skilled at that he ends up his efforts in an unexpected way. His other wife, a young cherubic and innocent blue-eyed “Contadina” with his two children are saved by Romola whose superiority of character is once again proved this way. The ending, the story she tells to Tito’s little son, Lillo, is the advice no one has ever given to Tito and it makes us wonder if his son will be the same as Tito was (pursuing the pleasure) or if he will listen to Romola's advice.
I really enjoyed the display of secondary characters: Nello, the barber and his philosophy of life; Bardo; Pierro, the painter; Baldasare; Tessa etc and the way they are inserted in the story to add flavor to it. I won’t add any other quotes (although I think I highlighted more than 40% of the book) as I don’t want to spoil the pleasure of any person who reads my review and then decides to read the book. George Eliot is now another author in whose craftsmanship I want to delve further by reading other books… I’m thinking Middlemarch sometimes soon.