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A review by anniewill
A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert
3.0
I started off not enjoying this book at all. I thought it was pretentious and self-important. I don't even know why I continued reading except for the fact that it is a library book and I was on the waiting list for awhile!
About mid-point, after continued consultation with the lineage chart and the table of contents to keep track of who was who, I really started enjoying the book. I grew fond of a few of the characters (mainly the husband, Charles, which I'm sure the author would not approve). I found it difficult to like or understand the original suffragette, Dorothy Townsend, who starved herself to death, but I was moved by her story.
I found the connecting thread for all the women to be a sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness or frustration with their lot in life. By the end of the novel, I was a bit frustrated myself with this thread. Is this "problem"...this "woman problem"....specific only to women or is it a human problem? Life is often tedious and full of drudgery, and as Caroline wrote, it is often difficult to lose the forest for the trees.
Perhaps I misread the novel and was looking at it from my modern perspective and not the perspectives of the various women written about. Maybe a further, more in-depth examination of the historical women and their lives would have made a difference.
I would give this 3 1/2 stars. Because of the slow beginning and lack of depth I've rated it 3 stars.
Favorite quote:
I find it is the dark of the night when you least expect it- whatever this thing is- regret, perhaps, but not, it is bigger than that, more epic, somehow, padded and full and weirdly hysterical: this restlessness, this discontent. You've done it wrong, again, and you were going to do it perfectly. You've lost the forest for the trees. Now it rises up to knock your breath out. Was this what you felt, DT, when you sat on the edge of our beds? Is this the same feeling for any of you? (page 222)
About mid-point, after continued consultation with the lineage chart and the table of contents to keep track of who was who, I really started enjoying the book. I grew fond of a few of the characters (mainly the husband, Charles, which I'm sure the author would not approve). I found it difficult to like or understand the original suffragette, Dorothy Townsend, who starved herself to death, but I was moved by her story.
I found the connecting thread for all the women to be a sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness or frustration with their lot in life. By the end of the novel, I was a bit frustrated myself with this thread. Is this "problem"...this "woman problem"....specific only to women or is it a human problem? Life is often tedious and full of drudgery, and as Caroline wrote, it is often difficult to lose the forest for the trees.
Perhaps I misread the novel and was looking at it from my modern perspective and not the perspectives of the various women written about. Maybe a further, more in-depth examination of the historical women and their lives would have made a difference.
I would give this 3 1/2 stars. Because of the slow beginning and lack of depth I've rated it 3 stars.
Favorite quote:
I find it is the dark of the night when you least expect it- whatever this thing is- regret, perhaps, but not, it is bigger than that, more epic, somehow, padded and full and weirdly hysterical: this restlessness, this discontent. You've done it wrong, again, and you were going to do it perfectly. You've lost the forest for the trees. Now it rises up to knock your breath out. Was this what you felt, DT, when you sat on the edge of our beds? Is this the same feeling for any of you? (page 222)