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A review by bookwarm_220
Belinda by Maria Edgeworth
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
God help them, Regency and Victorian women need to take the character of a potential lover in far less than 500 pages. I was enjoying myself until about 300 pages in, then I grew exhausted with Belinda's inability to read a room. I can tolerate only so many misunderstood signals, servants' lies, and letters gone awry before I want to scream at the heroine.
Also I found Viscountess Delacour and Mrs. Stanhope super-manipulative and really tedious characters.
I'm also beginning to grow weary of the morality plays and 19th century virtue signaling. It's really dreary to realize how frantic these people were about female sexuality and the threat of reputation damage. 😳
I was enjoying this for a while; there was humor and some interesting characters. It was simply too long for the plot devices, and the observations about people's character weren't really that penetrating.
What I liked about the book were undercurrents of enlightenment thought: Belinda is a rational being, who eschews prejudice, gossip and myth (though she can be led astray by those whom she trusts to guide her. She prefers fact to fiction, calm to chaos, and seems of a liberal and egalitarian disposition. I further enjoyed the literary references in the book. Amongst all the gossipy blather are sprinkled in the true wisdom of the age (it's all in the annotations.)
Two-thirds through the book I could not have cared less if Belinda got her man or ran off with the circus. I was bored with the plot. I think I have just been in classics for too long of a stretch and I need a dose of nonfiction. Or a dose of laudenum.
Also I found Viscountess Delacour and Mrs. Stanhope super-manipulative and really tedious characters.
I'm also beginning to grow weary of the morality plays and 19th century virtue signaling. It's really dreary to realize how frantic these people were about female sexuality and the threat of reputation damage. 😳
I was enjoying this for a while; there was humor and some interesting characters. It was simply too long for the plot devices, and the observations about people's character weren't really that penetrating.
What I liked about the book were undercurrents of enlightenment thought: Belinda is a rational being, who eschews prejudice, gossip and myth (though she can be led astray by those whom she trusts to guide her. She prefers fact to fiction, calm to chaos, and seems of a liberal and egalitarian disposition. I further enjoyed the literary references in the book. Amongst all the gossipy blather are sprinkled in the true wisdom of the age (it's all in the annotations.)
Two-thirds through the book I could not have cared less if Belinda got her man or ran off with the circus. I was bored with the plot. I think I have just been in classics for too long of a stretch and I need a dose of nonfiction. Or a dose of laudenum.