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Reviews
The Silent Partner: Including The Tenth of January by Mari Jo Buhle, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
earth_to_haley's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
hmidk's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent novel detailing factory conditions and workers' lives. While I can see and would expect many contemporary readers to see it less as a novel ('work of art,' 'story') than as a documentary polemic simply reconfigured into novel form or simply a dated 'political' piece, Phelps' stark yet understated meeting of content and style builds a fully realized world and full characters that quickly took away all the doubt I had coming into it, for the same reasons listed above.
The buried narrator throughout seems to simply have an eyebrow raised as they make slight asides and notes to the reader; I really enjoyed the voice of the narrator in the background. This voice adds layers and different tones to the reader as he or she first hears what the character is saying, and then what the narrator has to say about it, or them, and occasionally the reader will have conflicted reactions or not know who to 'side' with.
The buried tone and plot situation of a child's death is also stark in its simplicity, and the foreshadowing (yes, I know in a novel like this everyone knows a child will die in the factory,)is so slight and crafted in such a manner that it is painful and experienced as a loss almost with a sense of wonder. Narratively the child's death is sad and surprising, and I felt for him as I would for any fictional character in the circumstances; however, what then added in the mystical quality of his death is that slow realization that this character DID die, many times. Only in this manner does the potential 'documentary polemic' slip in, yet the author's expert craft makes it poignant and powerful instead: realizing the realism as opposed to being beaten over the head with a treatise. The best analog I can come up with for how the author handled this situation is Camus' The Fall, in which the titular fall is near silent and takes up all the time of a few seconds.
The buried narrator throughout seems to simply have an eyebrow raised as they make slight asides and notes to the reader; I really enjoyed the voice of the narrator in the background. This voice adds layers and different tones to the reader as he or she first hears what the character is saying, and then what the narrator has to say about it, or them, and occasionally the reader will have conflicted reactions or not know who to 'side' with.
The buried tone and plot situation of a child's death is also stark in its simplicity, and the foreshadowing (yes, I know in a novel like this everyone knows a child will die in the factory,)is so slight and crafted in such a manner that it is painful and experienced as a loss almost with a sense of wonder. Narratively the child's death is sad and surprising, and I felt for him as I would for any fictional character in the circumstances; however, what then added in the mystical quality of his death is that slow realization that this character DID die, many times. Only in this manner does the potential 'documentary polemic' slip in, yet the author's expert craft makes it poignant and powerful instead: realizing the realism as opposed to being beaten over the head with a treatise. The best analog I can come up with for how the author handled this situation is Camus' The Fall, in which the titular fall is near silent and takes up all the time of a few seconds.
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