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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
Took around 50 pages to get into it, then I was really into it for around 30 pages, and then some character I did not care about started the story-within-the-story which I thought would last around 10-20 pages... 150 pages later I gave up and put the book down. There were some interesting takes on the hypocrisy of the Church and monk-ism (?) but the novel established a Gothic and demonic tale of temptation at the beginning and derailed into an extensive and repetitive narrative which went everywhere and nowhere. Wanted to like it, did briefly, didn't work out, moving on.
About 300 pages too long. Interesting framing devices, split narratives and rants abound though. The anti-Catholic sections in particular were enjoyable and a bit overwrought.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
«La incertidumbre es el único mal contra el que no se puede establecer una defensa»
Maturin era un dublinés protestante y sacerdote excéntrico, tendencioso a sermonear y aficionado al baile. En 1820, escribió a su amigo el autor Walter Scott, para detallarle que estaba orquestando en una novela tan aterradora que gozaría de éxito igual a las escritas por autores de la escuela alemana como Schiller, Hoffmann, Goethe, los cuales gozaban de popularidad en ese momento.
Este clásico victoriano ha sido arquetipo para otras obras clásicas como El retrato de Dorian Gray de Oscar Wilde y la novela Melmoth de Sarah Perry. Un texto que a la medida que penetramos en el misterio, comienza a desarrollarse una historia intrincada y escalofriante. Durante los últimos doscientos años, el maldito Melmoth ha estado buscando desesperadamente un escape del trato infernal que una vez hizo. Melmoth ha atravesado el mundo dejando destrucción y miseria a su paso, desde la España de la era de la Inquisición hasta una remota isla en el Océano Índico, y ha habido avistamientos recientes de él en el condado de Wicklow, donde nuestro narrador todavía está uniendo la historia.
La noche después de la muerte del tío de John hay una tormenta. John observa con horror desde la casa cómo un velero español se estrella contra las rocas. Mira a través de los acantilados y ve a un extraño riéndose maníacamente mientras los restos se estrellan contra las rocas. A la mañana siguiente, uno de los sobrevivientes del naufragio, un marinero español, se sienta con John y le cuenta su historia. Explica, ha sido visitado por un extraño mientras estaba detenido por la Inquisición española en Madrid. Después de escapar, se encuentra con un manuscrito que detalla el asesinato de una mujer en la misma ciudad. En ese manuscrito, el padre de la mujer conoce a un extraño en una posada, que le cuenta la historia de un hombre hambriento a punto de asesinar a su familia. El hombre hambriento recibe la visita de otro extraño, que le ofrece comida y salvación, por un precio. Historias, dentro de las historias, dentro de las historias. «La tarde era muy oscura; espesas nubes, avanzando como fuerzas de un ejército hostil, oscurecían el horizonte de este a oeste. Encima se extendía un azul brillante, aunque lívido, como el del ojo de un moribundo, donde se reúnen las últimas energías de la vida, mientras sus fuerzas abandonan a toda prisa el armazón y siente éste que no tardará en expirar».
Melmoth, como bien la describen, se parece a una muñeca matrioska gótica de ficciones una dentro de otra, teniendo como el hilo conductor al Errante, que se va moviendo por todos los niveles, nunca presente, pero siempre allí, del que se habla en susurros y rumores. Es aterrador en su ausencia, pasando por una pesadilla daedeliana que se entrelazan entre sí. La novela no es lineal, como "perlas en una cuerda" (una analogía que toma prestada de Aristóteles), sino que, como el Errante, salta hacia adelante y hacia atrás, diabólicamente fuera del tiempo.
Mas allá de las posibles debilidades que muchos ven el texto, donde apuestan a contradicciones, que bien no pudieran ser intencionada por el autor, como el caso de que ningún personaje tranzara su alma por los placeres mundanos, sin embargo Melmoth lo acepta poniendo en tela de juicio la moral, creo verle pinta al texto. Antes de Goethe, la historia de Fausto tenía una moral clara y simple: mientras Maturín pretende hacer lo mismo, claramente no lo hace, sea que esa fuera o no su intención todo el tiempo. Parece más probable que, al escribir su propia versión del personaje de Fausto, Maturin creara un personaje que asumió su propia personalidad distinta, fuera de los límites del control del autor. Esto muy bien puede haber sido lo que llevó a Balzac a decir que Melmoth fue uno de los mayores marginados sociales de la literatura, junto con Manfred de Byron y Fausto de Goethe.
Que me queda de este texto, unos excelentes diálogos, como olvidar el capitulo 22 que trata sobre que es el amor, donde Melmoth le cuestiona a Isidora. Así como el graneo de otras tantas reflexiones dispersas en todo el texto.
«Sí, me río de toda la humanidad, y de la impostura que se atreven a representar cuando hablan de sus corazones. Me río de las pasiones y los cuidados humanos: el vicio y la virtud, la religión y la impiedad; todo son consecuencia de minúsculos regionalismos y situaciones artificiales. Una necesidad física, una severa e imprevista lección de los pálidos y marchitos labios de la necesidad, valen por toda la lógica de esos vacuos desventurados que se han jactado de dominarla, desde Zenón a Burgersdyck. ¡Ah!, ella hace enmudecer en un instante toda la absurda sofistería de la vida convencional y la pasión transitoria»
Maturin era un dublinés protestante y sacerdote excéntrico, tendencioso a sermonear y aficionado al baile. En 1820, escribió a su amigo el autor Walter Scott, para detallarle que estaba orquestando en una novela tan aterradora que gozaría de éxito igual a las escritas por autores de la escuela alemana como Schiller, Hoffmann, Goethe, los cuales gozaban de popularidad en ese momento.
Este clásico victoriano ha sido arquetipo para otras obras clásicas como El retrato de Dorian Gray de Oscar Wilde y la novela Melmoth de Sarah Perry. Un texto que a la medida que penetramos en el misterio, comienza a desarrollarse una historia intrincada y escalofriante. Durante los últimos doscientos años, el maldito Melmoth ha estado buscando desesperadamente un escape del trato infernal que una vez hizo. Melmoth ha atravesado el mundo dejando destrucción y miseria a su paso, desde la España de la era de la Inquisición hasta una remota isla en el Océano Índico, y ha habido avistamientos recientes de él en el condado de Wicklow, donde nuestro narrador todavía está uniendo la historia.
La noche después de la muerte del tío de John hay una tormenta. John observa con horror desde la casa cómo un velero español se estrella contra las rocas. Mira a través de los acantilados y ve a un extraño riéndose maníacamente mientras los restos se estrellan contra las rocas. A la mañana siguiente, uno de los sobrevivientes del naufragio, un marinero español, se sienta con John y le cuenta su historia. Explica, ha sido visitado por un extraño mientras estaba detenido por la Inquisición española en Madrid. Después de escapar, se encuentra con un manuscrito que detalla el asesinato de una mujer en la misma ciudad. En ese manuscrito, el padre de la mujer conoce a un extraño en una posada, que le cuenta la historia de un hombre hambriento a punto de asesinar a su familia. El hombre hambriento recibe la visita de otro extraño, que le ofrece comida y salvación, por un precio. Historias, dentro de las historias, dentro de las historias. «La tarde era muy oscura; espesas nubes, avanzando como fuerzas de un ejército hostil, oscurecían el horizonte de este a oeste. Encima se extendía un azul brillante, aunque lívido, como el del ojo de un moribundo, donde se reúnen las últimas energías de la vida, mientras sus fuerzas abandonan a toda prisa el armazón y siente éste que no tardará en expirar».
Melmoth, como bien la describen, se parece a una muñeca matrioska gótica de ficciones una dentro de otra, teniendo como el hilo conductor al Errante, que se va moviendo por todos los niveles, nunca presente, pero siempre allí, del que se habla en susurros y rumores. Es aterrador en su ausencia, pasando por una pesadilla daedeliana que se entrelazan entre sí. La novela no es lineal, como "perlas en una cuerda" (una analogía que toma prestada de Aristóteles), sino que, como el Errante, salta hacia adelante y hacia atrás, diabólicamente fuera del tiempo.
Mas allá de las posibles debilidades que muchos ven el texto, donde apuestan a contradicciones, que bien no pudieran ser intencionada por el autor, como el caso de que ningún personaje tranzara su alma por los placeres mundanos, sin embargo Melmoth lo acepta poniendo en tela de juicio la moral, creo verle pinta al texto. Antes de Goethe, la historia de Fausto tenía una moral clara y simple: mientras Maturín pretende hacer lo mismo, claramente no lo hace, sea que esa fuera o no su intención todo el tiempo. Parece más probable que, al escribir su propia versión del personaje de Fausto, Maturin creara un personaje que asumió su propia personalidad distinta, fuera de los límites del control del autor. Esto muy bien puede haber sido lo que llevó a Balzac a decir que Melmoth fue uno de los mayores marginados sociales de la literatura, junto con Manfred de Byron y Fausto de Goethe.
Que me queda de este texto, unos excelentes diálogos, como olvidar el capitulo 22 que trata sobre que es el amor, donde Melmoth le cuestiona a Isidora. Así como el graneo de otras tantas reflexiones dispersas en todo el texto.
«Sí, me río de toda la humanidad, y de la impostura que se atreven a representar cuando hablan de sus corazones. Me río de las pasiones y los cuidados humanos: el vicio y la virtud, la religión y la impiedad; todo son consecuencia de minúsculos regionalismos y situaciones artificiales. Una necesidad física, una severa e imprevista lección de los pálidos y marchitos labios de la necesidad, valen por toda la lógica de esos vacuos desventurados que se han jactado de dominarla, desde Zenón a Burgersdyck. ¡Ah!, ella hace enmudecer en un instante toda la absurda sofistería de la vida convencional y la pasión transitoria»
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I normally like stories within stories as a structure, but this felt like someone talking my ear off. "BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE." This was so overwrought that I skimmed most of it.
I loved that idea of the book, but -- the book doesn't do what it sets out to do. Melmoth is seen as cruel and evil because he doesn't solve people's problems for them and he sneers a lot. So what? The real antagonist of the book is the Catholic church, which the author intrusively takes every opportunity to slam. The book felt like listening to a bitter old man complain about religion for 600 pages. "But what about Melmoth? When does the bad guy come back? And when does he do anything?"
I feel like Anne Rice took Melmoth, made him a vampire, and had a great deal more fun with Lestat than the author ever did with Melmoth. Likewise Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I can't say my time was wasted here, but I wish the author had been more respectful and less hysterical with it.
I loved that idea of the book, but -- the book doesn't do what it sets out to do. Melmoth is seen as cruel and evil because he doesn't solve people's problems for them and he sneers a lot. So what? The real antagonist of the book is the Catholic church, which the author intrusively takes every opportunity to slam. The book felt like listening to a bitter old man complain about religion for 600 pages. "But what about Melmoth? When does the bad guy come back? And when does he do anything?"
I feel like Anne Rice took Melmoth, made him a vampire, and had a great deal more fun with Lestat than the author ever did with Melmoth. Likewise Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I can't say my time was wasted here, but I wish the author had been more respectful and less hysterical with it.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
funny
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If anyone reads this review, frankly, I’ll be stunned. And impressed. Modern readers would never finish this overlong overwrought story. I meant the book ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’, not my review. Shut up.
First, gentle reader, go to Youtube and play in the background:
https://youtu.be/mpgAm-QeR-4
Or for harsher tastes:
https://youtu.be/BQPAza1KfJg
‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ (metaphorically a malignant moth of the night?) walks the world (well, mostly in Ireland, Spain and an island somewhere off the coast of India) looking for someone to tempt into swearing allegiance to he-who-isn’t-ever-named. Melmoth the Wanderer gave his soul to he-who-isn’t-ever-named in exchange for 150 years of life. The Wanderer doesn’t really DO anything except mostly scare the bejesus out of people who are facing terrible life choices that lead to (or not) supposedly horrible un-Christian and immoral values.
A new sad short story is introduced every time a character meets another character. Each person tells a long-winded short story involving the meeting of a character who begins another sad but instructive story.
Some of these nested short stories involve Catholics who suffer agonies of the damned! Spanish Catholic inquisitors and doctrinaire monks are insane and wicked! They use actual torture and totalitarian mind-control over other unfortunate Catholic believers.
Wandering Melmoth has a disturbingly piercing look in his eyes and a wicked laugh. He is intelligent with a gift for smooth talking, theoretically. He shows up whenever people are vulnerable, which, frankly, means he only has a walk-in appearance every 1,000 of so pages in this novel of a million pages. Wait, sorry! The actual page count is almost 700. It only seems like a million pages.
Charles Maturin liked to write a lot primarily on overwrought fearful emotions and intense soul-searching desperation. He used only about 50 of the 600+ pages for actual action. For the character of Melmoth, Maturin’s pleasure was in writing extensively about his fears and emotional agonies. Omg, did he enjoy himself writing about emotional agonies! In run-on paragraphs…
One story involves a formerly innocent (virgin) woman who falls into error by loving the Wandering Melmoth. She believed Melmoth really loved her, thus dooming herself and her family to extended emotional misery and social shame. Surprise! - an early death is in the cards for her after her un-sanctified baby girl is born. The baby is also doomed since it is a living sin, not a person of God.
Peculiarly, none of the main male characters pass on sin to innocent babies, only women do. Nor do any of the men fail their moral tests or opportunities for redemption with the exception of the damned and wholly incompetent Wandering Melmoth. He basically grins spookily and talks shit everywhere he wanders - the main signs he is evil and is trying to do evil. (2023 Edit: Reminds me of Christian and conservative males today.) The Wanderer never once commits an act of violence or hurts anyone. He is really just a sweet-talking guy without a soul. Only the Catholic monks do violence and torture.
The Catholic monk’s story is brutal! The starving family (will the father eat his kids? will the young daughter prostitute herself? will mom die of starvation?) and the two different women’s stories (marry dishonorably as judged by God or not, and suffer social or emotional damnation forever?), not so much. But there be ghosts, and pictures on walls with eyes that watch you, and a spooky Melmoth haunting everybody including the first narrator, called Melmoth as well, who starts the nesting tales when his horrible uncle dies, bequeathing a haunting picture hidden away inside a closet - watching, watching, watching, eyes glittering....
The woman who loved Melmoth dies for her sin, which was apportioned to her in her having a baby, the proof of unsanctified-by-religious-authorities sexual desire. Very judgy and unfair, gentle reader. The men characters must do sex as well, I suspect, hello, a baby happens (human women don’t do parthenogenisis, married or unmarried) but somehow sex is not as much of a killing sin for men as it is for women in this book. I am wondering at this moment how the author’s religious ideas of women having loving sex with a man they love and the man also says he loves her, somehow always kills off unmarried women through giving birth. Meanwhile the unmarried fathers get the opportunity for redemption, exciting travel and staying alive to praise God later. Is this supposed to attract women to religious values!
Edit, March 2023: Wait! Actually, I guess given the evidence of legal changes for many Americans in the states in the South and the Midwest today, I guess a lot of women will soon be punished once again for having sex, whether the sex is forced on the woman or not! Being forced to have an unwanted or unhealthy baby they can’t afford to have, without having decent healthcare insurance or child care, while the fathers can walk away, and often do walk away despite love promises or the laws about child support. After all, boys will be boys! They are often considered blameless, being without any visible sin, you know, the baby bump. Men can go on, move on, and often do live without the social or economic devastation the woman has. I guess this return of the legal inequality of gender economics, not to mention Old Testament religious judgement on female sex in cases of rape, child marriage, incest, seems to be accepted by Southern and Midwestern women (women being in sin for sexual desires, men just being boys). I mean, if I lived in the South or Midwest and was a young woman, I would be yelling and demonstrating about losing my rights, protesting at having to have a baby I don’t want until I’m ready for a baby, voting for liberals, joining women’s rights organizations, moving to a state where women were actually respected as being a person or given a chance for an education. To be more than only impoverished babymakers sweating under the hard hands of men holding all of the cards to economic freedom and religious judgement. I’d be figuring out where my clitoris was, and how I can control sexual experiences. If I was a man, who, one never knows, sometimes the law works for women, might be actually caught up and prosecuted in an enforcement net of the laws about child support, garnishment of wages and so on, I as the father might be having to pay to support his unwanted or chronically ill child with an expensive disability, I would be making an appointment for a vasectomy. Today.
Original review continues:
By a strange coincidence, the author, Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824), was an Irish Protestant clergyman who hated the Catholic Church as much as he feared atheists and the devil. He was completely biased and judgy, no shame.
He wouldn’t have liked me, gentle reader. I’m an atheist because all religions despise and punish women when they act or want to act like normal people, or have the same rights as men. Maturin does not deviate from the usual dogma of every religion in regards to women even though he clearly believes the Catholic Church is horribly wrong in their (early millennia) use of torture to punish and kill, and in the maintenance of celibate religious organizations.
Some religious folks today categorize me as damned - which is the usual religious pile-on of horseshit dumped on women. I think women are equal to men because of my college education with actual real-life history taught without censorship or any banning of books. The truly just and fair moral values of Western secularism are permitted to be taught to students in most colleges. Religious values suck for women, gentle reader. I’m a free bitch, baby.
Sigh.
‘Melmoth the Wanderer’, a ‘gothic romance’, was published in 1820. Believe it or not, many writers in the nineteenth century admired ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’. Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Sir Walter Scott, and Lord Byron liked it. Oscar Wilde was Maturin’s great-nephew and he liked it. An opera and a play was done based on some of the author’s other works of angsty gothic atmosphere and the over-the-top lengthy agonizing of being morally compromised internally and eternally.
I liked [b:Robinson Crusoe|2932|Robinson Crusoe|Daniel Defoe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1682976488l/2932._SY75_.jpg|604666], published in 1719 much better despite its also primitive, still developing, style as an early novel. However, like ‘Robinson Crusoe’, ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ is recommended reading. I recommend skimming. However, for Literature buffs the proto-novel is interesting as the novel evidently influenced the direction of other gothic genre books following its publication.
First, gentle reader, go to Youtube and play in the background:
https://youtu.be/mpgAm-QeR-4
Or for harsher tastes:
https://youtu.be/BQPAza1KfJg
‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ (metaphorically a malignant moth of the night?) walks the world (well, mostly in Ireland, Spain and an island somewhere off the coast of India) looking for someone to tempt into swearing allegiance to he-who-isn’t-ever-named. Melmoth the Wanderer gave his soul to he-who-isn’t-ever-named in exchange for 150 years of life. The Wanderer doesn’t really DO anything except mostly scare the bejesus out of people who are facing terrible life choices that lead to (or not) supposedly horrible un-Christian and immoral values.
A new sad short story is introduced every time a character meets another character. Each person tells a long-winded short story involving the meeting of a character who begins another sad but instructive story.
Some of these nested short stories involve Catholics who suffer agonies of the damned! Spanish Catholic inquisitors and doctrinaire monks are insane and wicked! They use actual torture and totalitarian mind-control over other unfortunate Catholic believers.
Wandering Melmoth has a disturbingly piercing look in his eyes and a wicked laugh. He is intelligent with a gift for smooth talking, theoretically. He shows up whenever people are vulnerable, which, frankly, means he only has a walk-in appearance every 1,000 of so pages in this novel of a million pages. Wait, sorry! The actual page count is almost 700. It only seems like a million pages.
Charles Maturin liked to write a lot primarily on overwrought fearful emotions and intense soul-searching desperation. He used only about 50 of the 600+ pages for actual action. For the character of Melmoth, Maturin’s pleasure was in writing extensively about his fears and emotional agonies. Omg, did he enjoy himself writing about emotional agonies! In run-on paragraphs…
One story involves a formerly innocent (virgin) woman who falls into error by loving the Wandering Melmoth. She believed Melmoth really loved her, thus dooming herself and her family to extended emotional misery and social shame. Surprise! - an early death is in the cards for her after her un-sanctified baby girl is born. The baby is also doomed since it is a living sin, not a person of God.
Peculiarly, none of the main male characters pass on sin to innocent babies, only women do. Nor do any of the men fail their moral tests or opportunities for redemption with the exception of the damned and wholly incompetent Wandering Melmoth. He basically grins spookily and talks shit everywhere he wanders - the main signs he is evil and is trying to do evil. (2023 Edit: Reminds me of Christian and conservative males today.) The Wanderer never once commits an act of violence or hurts anyone. He is really just a sweet-talking guy without a soul. Only the Catholic monks do violence and torture.
The Catholic monk’s story is brutal! The starving family (will the father eat his kids? will the young daughter prostitute herself? will mom die of starvation?) and the two different women’s stories (marry dishonorably as judged by God or not, and suffer social or emotional damnation forever?), not so much. But there be ghosts, and pictures on walls with eyes that watch you, and a spooky Melmoth haunting everybody including the first narrator, called Melmoth as well, who starts the nesting tales when his horrible uncle dies, bequeathing a haunting picture hidden away inside a closet - watching, watching, watching, eyes glittering....
The woman who loved Melmoth dies for her sin, which was apportioned to her in her having a baby, the proof of unsanctified-by-religious-authorities sexual desire. Very judgy and unfair, gentle reader. The men characters must do sex as well, I suspect, hello, a baby happens (human women don’t do parthenogenisis, married or unmarried) but somehow sex is not as much of a killing sin for men as it is for women in this book. I am wondering at this moment how the author’s religious ideas of women having loving sex with a man they love and the man also says he loves her, somehow always kills off unmarried women through giving birth. Meanwhile the unmarried fathers get the opportunity for redemption, exciting travel and staying alive to praise God later. Is this supposed to attract women to religious values!
Edit, March 2023: Wait! Actually, I guess given the evidence of legal changes for many Americans in the states in the South and the Midwest today, I guess a lot of women will soon be punished once again for having sex, whether the sex is forced on the woman or not! Being forced to have an unwanted or unhealthy baby they can’t afford to have, without having decent healthcare insurance or child care, while the fathers can walk away, and often do walk away despite love promises or the laws about child support. After all, boys will be boys! They are often considered blameless, being without any visible sin, you know, the baby bump. Men can go on, move on, and often do live without the social or economic devastation the woman has. I guess this return of the legal inequality of gender economics, not to mention Old Testament religious judgement on female sex in cases of rape, child marriage, incest, seems to be accepted by Southern and Midwestern women (women being in sin for sexual desires, men just being boys). I mean, if I lived in the South or Midwest and was a young woman, I would be yelling and demonstrating about losing my rights, protesting at having to have a baby I don’t want until I’m ready for a baby, voting for liberals, joining women’s rights organizations, moving to a state where women were actually respected as being a person or given a chance for an education. To be more than only impoverished babymakers sweating under the hard hands of men holding all of the cards to economic freedom and religious judgement. I’d be figuring out where my clitoris was, and how I can control sexual experiences. If I was a man, who, one never knows, sometimes the law works for women, might be actually caught up and prosecuted in an enforcement net of the laws about child support, garnishment of wages and so on, I as the father might be having to pay to support his unwanted or chronically ill child with an expensive disability, I would be making an appointment for a vasectomy. Today.
Original review continues:
By a strange coincidence, the author, Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824), was an Irish Protestant clergyman who hated the Catholic Church as much as he feared atheists and the devil. He was completely biased and judgy, no shame.
He wouldn’t have liked me, gentle reader. I’m an atheist because all religions despise and punish women when they act or want to act like normal people, or have the same rights as men. Maturin does not deviate from the usual dogma of every religion in regards to women even though he clearly believes the Catholic Church is horribly wrong in their (early millennia) use of torture to punish and kill, and in the maintenance of celibate religious organizations.
Some religious folks today categorize me as damned - which is the usual religious pile-on of horseshit dumped on women. I think women are equal to men because of my college education with actual real-life history taught without censorship or any banning of books. The truly just and fair moral values of Western secularism are permitted to be taught to students in most colleges. Religious values suck for women, gentle reader. I’m a free bitch, baby.
Sigh.
‘Melmoth the Wanderer’, a ‘gothic romance’, was published in 1820. Believe it or not, many writers in the nineteenth century admired ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’. Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Sir Walter Scott, and Lord Byron liked it. Oscar Wilde was Maturin’s great-nephew and he liked it. An opera and a play was done based on some of the author’s other works of angsty gothic atmosphere and the over-the-top lengthy agonizing of being morally compromised internally and eternally.
I liked [b:Robinson Crusoe|2932|Robinson Crusoe|Daniel Defoe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1682976488l/2932._SY75_.jpg|604666], published in 1719 much better despite its also primitive, still developing, style as an early novel. However, like ‘Robinson Crusoe’, ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ is recommended reading. I recommend skimming. However, for Literature buffs the proto-novel is interesting as the novel evidently influenced the direction of other gothic genre books following its publication.
Well, more 3 1/2 stars. There's a very good gothic novel in here battling to get out and at times the atmosphere drips so deeply it fair soaks your shoes. However, by Frankenstein's furry ferrets it doesn't half go on and twiddle about with tales within tales and oh CM's a bit not keen on Catholicism. There's a point made in the accompanying critical essay that things would've been improved if the novel had been a collective of separate but linked tales and I'm minded to agree.
In summary, the atmosphere and plot ideas are all in there, but balanced with flaws, so there we are really.
In summary, the atmosphere and plot ideas are all in there, but balanced with flaws, so there we are really.