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A review by jrc2011
The Buccaneers by Marion Mainwaring, Edith Wharton
5.0
I really enjoyed reading this book and found it to be a very fast read. I was interested in it because I watched the BBC dramatization - which was heavily Americanized & modernized as it turns out. My chief exposure to Edith Wharton was the very short and quite depressing "Ethan Frome." I found that to be written in quite an impenetrable style and was turned off of her for years - until I saw the film and came across a copy of the book in a used bookstore.
The way she writes in "The Buccaneers" is really fantastic - she manages to show things from the perspectives of different characters - even going into the point of view of a particular character for an entire chapter. Sadly, she died before she finished this and another author finished off the book based on her notes.
I much prefer the book to the film because it is really of a cloth with the way Edith Wharton talks about the values and interactions of these social classes. I even found it interesting how she referenced changing clothing styles (I could hear the old ladies saying "young girls these days!! pantalettes? oh dear!").
Her character development was really fantastic - I got a very clear sense of who these people were and their motivations, how they spoke and behaved. Such a better story than what the film presented!
The way she writes in "The Buccaneers" is really fantastic - she manages to show things from the perspectives of different characters - even going into the point of view of a particular character for an entire chapter. Sadly, she died before she finished this and another author finished off the book based on her notes.
I much prefer the book to the film because it is really of a cloth with the way Edith Wharton talks about the values and interactions of these social classes. I even found it interesting how she referenced changing clothing styles (I could hear the old ladies saying "young girls these days!! pantalettes? oh dear!").
Her character development was really fantastic - I got a very clear sense of who these people were and their motivations, how they spoke and behaved. Such a better story than what the film presented!