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wolfsonarchitect's review against another edition
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? Yes
4.25
This is a wonderful story by an underrated author. I love how her stories include lengthy reflections on life. The LibriVox audiobook read by Simon Evers is a great treat!
krobart's review against another edition
3.0
See my review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/day-1065-diana-tempest/
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/day-1065-diana-tempest/
kjcharles's review
An enormously enjoyable late Victorian novel. It's a terrific sensation novel with New Woman elements and a nice romance. The plot is satisfyingly twisty with skulduggery, illegitimacy and murder in high society, and although the payoff is somewhat telegraphed, the author milks it to its immensely satisfying full.
What I like most about it though is the intense, savage, relentless attack on male selfishness, which seems incredibly timely. Colonel Tempest is self-centred, abusive, and contemptibly weak, while constantly trying to blame his wrongs on women. He's an 1893 MRA and Cholmondeley skewers him brutally, along with various others. (Women are not exempt: this is a pretty savage book on a variety of moral failings, including religious extremism, hypocrisy, and self indulgence of all kinds.) In particular we are left in no doubt of the horrors of being yoked to a man in a loveless marriage. Diana is advised to be grateful that her love affair has been ended before she married the guy because "a death even of what is dearest to us...is as nothing to the death in life of an existence which is always dragging about a corpse." That's...not the popular perception of the victorian view of marriage.
A terrific sensation novel, and a fantastic example of why the BBC should stop adapting Dickens-Austen-Dickens and branch out because this would make brilliant TV. Off to get more.
Note because it's niggling at me: There is this really weird line where John, the super rich hero, is wandering around his massive Elizabethan mansion looking at his stuff, and casually picks up a brass slave collar and reflects it must have chafed. And that's it, he moves on. Is this a reflection on where his wealth came from? A quiet analogy, in a book very much about women's lack of freedom to act and the power of money? Just a bit of local colour for no reason that the author didn't think about? I can't tell.
What I like most about it though is the intense, savage, relentless attack on male selfishness, which seems incredibly timely. Colonel Tempest is self-centred, abusive, and contemptibly weak, while constantly trying to blame his wrongs on women. He's an 1893 MRA and Cholmondeley skewers him brutally, along with various others. (Women are not exempt: this is a pretty savage book on a variety of moral failings, including religious extremism, hypocrisy, and self indulgence of all kinds.) In particular we are left in no doubt of the horrors of being yoked to a man in a loveless marriage. Diana is advised to be grateful that her love affair has been ended before she married the guy because "a death even of what is dearest to us...is as nothing to the death in life of an existence which is always dragging about a corpse." That's...not the popular perception of the victorian view of marriage.
A terrific sensation novel, and a fantastic example of why the BBC should stop adapting Dickens-Austen-Dickens and branch out because this would make brilliant TV. Off to get more.
Note because it's niggling at me: There is this really weird line where John, the super rich hero, is wandering around his massive Elizabethan mansion looking at his stuff, and casually picks up a brass slave collar and reflects it must have chafed. And that's it, he moves on. Is this a reflection on where his wealth came from? A quiet analogy, in a book very much about women's lack of freedom to act and the power of money? Just a bit of local colour for no reason that the author didn't think about? I can't tell.
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