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mariatsak 's review for:
The Well of Loneliness
by Radclyffe Hall
As Esther Saxey states in the introduction note,
“The Well of Loneliness, should continue to delight new readers and to struggle with them, but as a puzzling and emotionally captivating story not as a lesbian Bible.”
and for me, it exactly did that. when you get to read this book, it’s quite obvious that at this time and age we live right now, it shouldn’t be considered as a lesbian book like it once used to. I think that for someone who reads this today the sole purpose of it and what you get out of it is how things used to be back then for homosexual people, how things have evolved and also how some things are somehow the same.
Stephen, the heroine had a very interesting personality and I sympathised with her until the very end. The first part of the book talks about her life until she’s an adult and the other half talks about her later life and how she grows as a queer woman. I could see myself thinking some things she thought and that amazes me for the similarities of homosexual people in 1900’s and them trying to understand their sexuality just like someone would do now. This timelessness amazes me.
After finishing the book and reading the introduction I have to say that the backstory of the book and Hall’s thoughts regarding homosexual people or women are indeed not ideal, they’re almost bad. It doesn’t follow in any way the social standards of today for gay people, but still, I saw critiques saying that it’s so damn narrowminded and that it shouldn’t have to be that way and that perhaps Hall’s depiction of lesbian women is wrong. But I mean who are we to judge what the writer knew and could express back then, in a totally different age. Yes, Hall was kind of close minded regarding homosexuality but for me, you can’t judge the book based on that. The story line is a very solid, well written and a straightforward one.
However, i have to admit that if I read it back then when it first came out in the 1900’s, I would be indeed troubled• I would think that that’s the only way to fit in what a lesbian woman is.
The only reason i’m not giving a 5th star is that towards the end, somethings could be left out of the book and maybe somethings could be written better
“The Well of Loneliness, should continue to delight new readers and to struggle with them, but as a puzzling and emotionally captivating story not as a lesbian Bible.”
and for me, it exactly did that. when you get to read this book, it’s quite obvious that at this time and age we live right now, it shouldn’t be considered as a lesbian book like it once used to. I think that for someone who reads this today the sole purpose of it and what you get out of it is how things used to be back then for homosexual people, how things have evolved and also how some things are somehow the same.
Stephen, the heroine had a very interesting personality and I sympathised with her until the very end. The first part of the book talks about her life until she’s an adult and the other half talks about her later life and how she grows as a queer woman. I could see myself thinking some things she thought and that amazes me for the similarities of homosexual people in 1900’s and them trying to understand their sexuality just like someone would do now. This timelessness amazes me.
After finishing the book and reading the introduction I have to say that the backstory of the book and Hall’s thoughts regarding homosexual people or women are indeed not ideal, they’re almost bad. It doesn’t follow in any way the social standards of today for gay people, but still, I saw critiques saying that it’s so damn narrowminded and that it shouldn’t have to be that way and that perhaps Hall’s depiction of lesbian women is wrong. But I mean who are we to judge what the writer knew and could express back then, in a totally different age. Yes, Hall was kind of close minded regarding homosexuality but for me, you can’t judge the book based on that. The story line is a very solid, well written and a straightforward one.
However, i have to admit that if I read it back then when it first came out in the 1900’s, I would be indeed troubled• I would think that that’s the only way to fit in what a lesbian woman is.
The only reason i’m not giving a 5th star is that towards the end, somethings could be left out of the book and maybe somethings could be written better