Scan barcode
A review by borbala_17
The Children of the Abbey (Valancourt Classics) by Regina Maria Roche
4.0
I have been dreaming about this moment. Finally finishing 700 pages of this deserves a medal.
Regina Maria Roche is masterful at totally engrossing you in the story, making you invested in the fate of the characters, and then killing you very, very slowly. I would really like to know how she came up with this intricate and, quite honestly, at times unbearably torturous plotline. Did she just wake up one morning, and decide to choose violence? Because there is ALWAYS something worse around the corner.
I was angry. I was revolted. I felt murderous feelings rise within me. I held a 15-minute disquisition to my best friend about my grievances over this book. All this with having already read sentimentalist and Gothic fiction, and knowing full well what to expect. Or not, as my reaction shows...? At least, the sentimentalist theories about emotional response could totally have been observed in my case - as far as rage goes. At some point I wasn't even that angry at the villains - their job is to be bad, as the main character's is to be pure, angelic and all that. What really had me fuming is that the author was purposefully torturing me.
Also, I'm not the type to judge old books (which I LOVE) by modern standards, but there are things which are just plain wrong, regardless of when you read it. Glamourizing as the epitome of virtue when Amanda submits to the emotional blackmail of Lord Cherbury and clearly implying that it would have been her fault if he committed suicide had my blood boiling. Just NO.
Anyways. I'm glad that it ended well, with all the threads tied up, somewhat foreseeably, but nonetheless satisfactorily. It's over now and I'm glad it is, so that now I can go on and choose another torturous reading.
Regina Maria Roche is masterful at totally engrossing you in the story, making you invested in the fate of the characters, and then killing you very, very slowly. I would really like to know how she came up with this intricate and, quite honestly, at times unbearably torturous plotline. Did she just wake up one morning, and decide to choose violence? Because there is ALWAYS something worse around the corner.
I was angry. I was revolted. I felt murderous feelings rise within me. I held a 15-minute disquisition to my best friend about my grievances over this book. All this with having already read sentimentalist and Gothic fiction, and knowing full well what to expect. Or not, as my reaction shows...? At least, the sentimentalist theories about emotional response could totally have been observed in my case - as far as rage goes. At some point I wasn't even that angry at the villains - their job is to be bad, as the main character's is to be pure, angelic and all that. What really had me fuming is that the author was purposefully torturing me.
Also, I'm not the type to judge old books (which I LOVE) by modern standards, but there are things which are just plain wrong, regardless of when you read it. Glamourizing as the epitome of virtue when Amanda submits to the emotional blackmail of Lord Cherbury and clearly implying that it would have been her fault if he committed suicide had my blood boiling. Just NO.
Anyways. I'm glad that it ended well, with all the threads tied up, somewhat foreseeably, but nonetheless satisfactorily. It's over now and I'm glad it is, so that now I can go on and choose another torturous reading.