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A review by paragraphsandpages
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
3.0
I always feel like classics are hard books to judge and critique, since my own experience of the book is more modernized than the intended audience of them. Additionally, I generally read these books for academic purposes, leaving my intentions behind it more critical than enjoyable.
However, I do have some opinions regarding the general enjoyability of Moll Flanders, and while this review is much shorter than my others due to everything I said above, I hope the review still carries some benefit.
This book only clocks in at 332 pages, with the last 15-20 being filled with notes and footnotes, but it reads as long as one of 500+ pages that I'm used to. It is so insanely wordy and length, with paragraphs spanning pages, that I had to turn to an audiobook to even get through it. I simply couldn't stay awake otherwise (which is probably due to having 9am classes for the first time in a while if I'm being honest).
Additionally, this story contains the plot and events of a whole trilogy almost. It spans Moll Flanders entire life and all her many anecdotes, of which there are many. There were times when this was fresh and entertaining, like, but many other moments where it was just waaay too much and way too repetitive
All in all, it's an interesting book to discuss for class due to it's implications (in terms of being one of the first novels, it being published as a true story, and it being one of the first female driven narratives in mainstream culture), but it's definitely not something I would have read on my own time, or would have dropped if I had ever tried to start it.
However, I do have some opinions regarding the general enjoyability of Moll Flanders, and while this review is much shorter than my others due to everything I said above, I hope the review still carries some benefit.
This book only clocks in at 332 pages, with the last 15-20 being filled with notes and footnotes, but it reads as long as one of 500+ pages that I'm used to. It is so insanely wordy and length, with paragraphs spanning pages, that I had to turn to an audiobook to even get through it. I simply couldn't stay awake otherwise (which is probably due to having 9am classes for the first time in a while if I'm being honest).
Additionally, this story contains the plot and events of a whole trilogy almost. It spans Moll Flanders entire life and all her many anecdotes, of which there are many. There were times when this was fresh and entertaining, like
Spoiler
when she turned out to have married her brother and had 3 kids with himSpoiler
specifically the 8 years of her thievery. The stories were intriguing and sometimes even funny, but I didn't need to hear her happen upon the perfect heist 700 times in a row, thanks.All in all, it's an interesting book to discuss for class due to it's implications (in terms of being one of the first novels, it being published as a true story, and it being one of the first female driven narratives in mainstream culture), but it's definitely not something I would have read on my own time, or would have dropped if I had ever tried to start it.