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hannah850's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
sloatsj's review against another edition
4.0
It's impressive how much research must have gone into this book in an effort to put the pieces of a life together from scraps and notes. Written from a feminist perspective, and looking at the 'lesser lives' of people overshadowed by looming personalities and notables, it became engaging as it went along.
The author sets out to illuminate the life of a (somewhat) ordinary person who lived in the shadows of well-known men, but who in herself is a smart, worthwhile, lovely and independent person, who declined to play the unhappy role society would have of her. Mary Ellen Peacock, who first becomes Mrs. Nicholls, then the wife of the aspiring writer George Meredith, some years her junior.
The impression is that Meredith is quickly infatuated by her intelligence and independent spirit, and likely thinks himself modern in marrying an older woman who isn't just a docile household help, only to rue it as time goes by and Mary Ellen can't disregard her own needs and desires in service to his. A lot of this is speculation, though it is clear that they had money problems that she also worked to alleviate, and he devoted himself only to writing.
For reasons we can't fully know, the marriage disintegrates and Mary Ellen does the unthinkable -- becomes an adulteress and has an illegitimate child, a few years before dying of renal failure.
As much as it was about life it was also very much about death. The book winds down with a generation aging, sorrowing and dying.
It's a touching story really, for all its scholarship and famous figures, an interesting picture of an era in a particular pocket of society.
The author sets out to illuminate the life of a (somewhat) ordinary person who lived in the shadows of well-known men, but who in herself is a smart, worthwhile, lovely and independent person, who declined to play the unhappy role society would have of her. Mary Ellen Peacock, who first becomes Mrs. Nicholls, then the wife of the aspiring writer George Meredith, some years her junior.
The impression is that Meredith is quickly infatuated by her intelligence and independent spirit, and likely thinks himself modern in marrying an older woman who isn't just a docile household help, only to rue it as time goes by and Mary Ellen can't disregard her own needs and desires in service to his. A lot of this is speculation, though it is clear that they had money problems that she also worked to alleviate, and he devoted himself only to writing.
For reasons we can't fully know, the marriage disintegrates and Mary Ellen does the unthinkable -- becomes an adulteress and has an illegitimate child, a few years before dying of renal failure.
As much as it was about life it was also very much about death. The book winds down with a generation aging, sorrowing and dying.
It's a touching story really, for all its scholarship and famous figures, an interesting picture of an era in a particular pocket of society.
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