A review by tasharobinson
The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan

4.0

I was pretty mesmerized by Sofia Coppola's movie adaptation of The Beguiled up until roughly the last 10 minutes, which gave me such a strong "Is that all there is?" feeling that they colored the rest of the film for me. The original 1966 book also winds up in a somewhat abrupt way, but it earns it more with a much more complicated, nuanced look at the individual characters. All the characterization I was missing in the film, especially from the more minor characters, is here in the individual point-of-view chapters that lets all the story's female characters take turns narrating their feelings around the wounded Union soldier brought into a Southern school for ladies that's trying to weather the Civil War without disturbance or danger. The characters here seem much darker and uglier than in the film, but with the same air of gentility and surface grace projected at everyone around them — except when they feel crossed or insulted or overlooked or slighted. There are a lot of deep, painful strains of feeling running through this book, but it isn't just well-crafted emotionally, it's also a strong series of escalations around McBurney, the soldier, whose lies get progressively more outrageous and obvious as the novel builds. This was a pretty fascinating read, and I'm glad Coppolla brought it to my attention.