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xvicesx's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not a great fan of horror, so this isn't necessarily my thing, but I can appreciate the progressive nature of fear here and the way that the lines get increasingly blurred between Melanie and Milly, whoever they may be.
The end does leave me confused though, for I'm not sure entirely what happened and whether there was any real resolution to the whole episode. Things happen, they increase in intensity, but I'm not clear what the end of the journey is. For me, it felt like a rollercoaster where the end just drops you off a cliff into the sea. No clear ending, even if it's clear that it's ended. Does that even make sense? Probably not. It's all I've got, though.
The end does leave me confused though, for I'm not sure entirely what happened and whether there was any real resolution to the whole episode. Things happen, they increase in intensity, but I'm not clear what the end of the journey is. For me, it felt like a rollercoaster where the end just drops you off a cliff into the sea. No clear ending, even if it's clear that it's ended. Does that even make sense? Probably not. It's all I've got, though.
flajol's review against another edition
3.0
A short and interesting psychological Gothic horror originally published in the 1950s.
Melanie is recovering from tuberculosis. She is bored, a bit spoiled, and is looking forward to finally being able to see her new son, who has presumably been kept apart from her since his birth to avoid contagion. After months of confinement in her bedroom, she is at last given a change of scenery, and moved to the lounge where she lies on the Victorian chaise-longue she found in a local junk shop. She falls asleep in 1953 and wakes in 1864 - trapped in the body of Millie, who is also suffering from tuberculosis, but who doesn't seem to be recovering.
As Melanie tries to come to terms with her new situation and to find a way 'home', she picks up clues about Milly's past. It seems Milly has some dark secrets as well as an angry sister looking after her.
All told from Melanie's point of view, the writing is sometimes overwrought, swinging from optimism and hope, to horror and confusion, then back again. It's an interesting commentary on how the behaviour of women is policed by social attitudes - at one point as Melanie realises what Milly has done, she confesses that they have done similar things, but only one is judged as sinful because of the attitudes of her time. There are other parallels between the two women, but Milly's life is a very dark reflection of Melanie's.
Creepy rather than terrifying, but an interesting read.
Melanie is recovering from tuberculosis. She is bored, a bit spoiled, and is looking forward to finally being able to see her new son, who has presumably been kept apart from her since his birth to avoid contagion. After months of confinement in her bedroom, she is at last given a change of scenery, and moved to the lounge where she lies on the Victorian chaise-longue she found in a local junk shop. She falls asleep in 1953 and wakes in 1864 - trapped in the body of Millie, who is also suffering from tuberculosis, but who doesn't seem to be recovering.
As Melanie tries to come to terms with her new situation and to find a way 'home', she picks up clues about Milly's past. It seems Milly has some dark secrets as well as an angry sister looking after her.
All told from Melanie's point of view, the writing is sometimes overwrought, swinging from optimism and hope, to horror and confusion, then back again. It's an interesting commentary on how the behaviour of women is policed by social attitudes - at one point as Melanie realises what Milly has done, she confesses that they have done similar things, but only one is judged as sinful because of the attitudes of her time. There are other parallels between the two women, but Milly's life is a very dark reflection of Melanie's.
Creepy rather than terrifying, but an interesting read.
echitchins's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
neilrcoulter's review against another edition
4.0
This is an interesting psychological story, something like a Twilight Zone episode and a lot like “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Marghanita Laski lets the narrative (almost entirely inside the thoughts of the protagonist) raise intriguing questions to linger, unanswered. There are some intriguing meditations on ecstasy, prayer, destiny, the connections between mind and body, and finding the right “pattern” to successfully reach the next phase of life. Elements from early in the story—which are (I think deliberately) almost obscured by the amount of minute detail in Laski’s descriptions—resonate with the conclusion to generate more unanswered questions about what really happened and what it all means.
On a side note, I always love getting a book from the library that has been on the library’s shelves for many, many years. Dallasites have been reading this copy of The Victorian Chaise Longue almost since it was first published.
On a side note, I always love getting a book from the library that has been on the library’s shelves for many, many years. Dallasites have been reading this copy of The Victorian Chaise Longue almost since it was first published.
sloatsj's review against another edition
3.0
Pretty wild little trip. I didn't take to it at first because the main character is a helpless, giggling child-wife who is difficult to like. But it certainly takes a turn.
readingoverbreathing's review against another edition
4.0
" . . . now they dimmed and faded, shimmering an instant in the fading vision, and at last there was nothing but darkness, and in the darkness the ecstasy, and after the ecstasy, death and life."
This a very short novel, hardly a novel at all really, but one that is hauntingly intense, with an atmospheric immediacy that will cling to you for days, even if you read it all in one sitting as I did.
Laski immediately drops you into the affluent and comfortable home of Melanie and her husband, an up-and-coming young barrister, at the edge of London in the 1950s, when the book is set. Melanie, who has recently had a baby, is on the mend from a respiratory illness and has been treated with the utmost caution and care, care that seems almost patronizing; both her doctor and her husband treat her more as a helpless child than as a grown woman.
I found it so interesting that the opening scene takes place largely from the doctor's perspective, so that we don't know much about Melanie's illness until her truly psychological inner narrative after she wakes up from a nap on her chaise-longue in the Victorian period. There is very little action from there on out, yet somehow Laski is able to foster a chilling intensity as Melanie struggles to piece together what has happened both to her and the Victorian woman whose body she now shares.
This book is very much in the vein of Kate Chopin's [b:The Awakening|58345|The Awakening|Kate Chopin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1170507247l/58345._SY75_.jpg|1970518] and especially Charlotte Perkins Gilman's [b:The Yellow Wallpaper|8217236|The Yellow Wallpaper|Charlotte Perkins Gilman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1276430319l/8217236._SX50_.jpg|17352354], but with a more modern comparison that makes it all the more striking. For all the twentieth century's advances, Laski reveals, for women, the treatment of sex, childbirth, and both mental and physical illness has made little progress.
This is a deeply thought-provoking read, the kind you'll want to turn over and start again as soon as you've finished it. I know I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I did.
izzysorr's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
moth's review against another edition
"But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes."
—John Milton, "Il Penseroso"
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes."
—John Milton, "Il Penseroso"
sunbearbeam's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75