Scan barcode
A review by alba_marie
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
3.0
Maria Edgeworth is a local writer who once lived on an Anglo-Irish estate (the concept of which she is critical in this book) about 45 mins from where I live in Ireland. This is my second book by her (I read her society novel, Belinda, first), and though the 500+ page Belindatook me months and this 95 page story only took a few days, I still think I preferred Belinda.
I actually found the analytical introduction and Edgeworth's Glossary at the end more interesting and readable than the novella itself, which I found to be jumbled, confusing and rambling. Long paragraphs combined with a lack of chapters and confusing dialogue indications made it hard to follow (though the pints of Guinness I was drinking while reading the bulk of the this book maybe had something to do with it!).
I appreciate the sentiment. Castle Rackrent is a satirical attack on the exorbitant leases, poor working conditions, and lack of humanity combined with largely absent landlords who gained their estates through British land-grabbing (the Brits called it plantation and reward for all the killing of pesky natives abroad, the Irish called it theft and genocide). Estates were managed by maniacal and downright terrible middlemen who ruled their starving tenants with an iron fist, leaving them homeless, starving, overworked and destitute for a small power trip, while the absentee landlord collected his rents from the middlemen (without ever really interacting with the tenants) and partied it up in London and Bath.
Maria was a member of this class but spent most of her life fighting against the unfairness and cruelty of the English alongside her father, and it was this attitude that saved her family's estate from looting and burning on 2 separate occasions.
So I appreciate the sentiment, and appreciate that she only sort of pulled her punches (she carefully set the book a few decades earlier and said that "these practices were of the past" though everyone saw through that). But I can't say that I enjoyed the way the book was written, and felt that it was a sort of "birds eye" overview approach to telling the story, instead of kind of novel-writing we are used to today.
Anyway, glad I decided to read it during the local Maria Edgeworth Festival, but think I'll take a break from Edgeworth for awhile!
I actually found the analytical introduction and Edgeworth's Glossary at the end more interesting and readable than the novella itself, which I found to be jumbled, confusing and rambling. Long paragraphs combined with a lack of chapters and confusing dialogue indications made it hard to follow (though the pints of Guinness I was drinking while reading the bulk of the this book maybe had something to do with it!).
I appreciate the sentiment. Castle Rackrent is a satirical attack on the exorbitant leases, poor working conditions, and lack of humanity combined with largely absent landlords who gained their estates through British land-grabbing (the Brits called it plantation and reward for all the killing of pesky natives abroad, the Irish called it theft and genocide). Estates were managed by maniacal and downright terrible middlemen who ruled their starving tenants with an iron fist, leaving them homeless, starving, overworked and destitute for a small power trip, while the absentee landlord collected his rents from the middlemen (without ever really interacting with the tenants) and partied it up in London and Bath.
Maria was a member of this class but spent most of her life fighting against the unfairness and cruelty of the English alongside her father, and it was this attitude that saved her family's estate from looting and burning on 2 separate occasions.
So I appreciate the sentiment, and appreciate that she only sort of pulled her punches (she carefully set the book a few decades earlier and said that "these practices were of the past" though everyone saw through that). But I can't say that I enjoyed the way the book was written, and felt that it was a sort of "birds eye" overview approach to telling the story, instead of kind of novel-writing we are used to today.
Anyway, glad I decided to read it during the local Maria Edgeworth Festival, but think I'll take a break from Edgeworth for awhile!