Book-a-holic

Sooo I meant to make this one last, but I found it so easy to read after the density of The Ambas- sadors that I read it in a few days.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte was great for me for a couple of reasons, but first I'll explain the way it pissed me off. I'm used to this type of novel. I know when I peel back the front cover I'm in for about 400+ pages of "Oh I love him/her but she/he is too rich/poor/religious/drunk/far away," or the same number of pages of Ben-Stiller-style mishaps and painfully drawn out misunderstandings. It doesn't bother me that much, and I'm willing to deal with it in exchange for the elevated writing style and the overarching societal and historical themes, along with the fact that you can simply analyze the hell out of most of these amazing novels and never seem to find the end of it. I'm ready, in other words, to deal with the troubled love plot. When I began the novel, I expected this. So when I got about 100 pages into it, and the love plot seemed almost neatly resolved, I was thrilled. Maybe, just maybe, the love plot would be a trouble-free one and there would be a little bit more action to the novel. Maybe this novel would lead me into new territory.

No. No, no, no. Rather than that, Bronte teased me with a seemingly tidy resolution and then SLAMMED me with a 300 page journal, written twenty years earlier by one of the characters. Oooooooooh, I was mad. But once I got over that, I did find that it was a good novel. First of all, it had a lot of characters. And it had a lot of types of characters, from drunkards, liars, hussies, and rakes to lords, ladies, vicars and those sorts. And they were good characters. They were human, with their failings and inconsistencies and confusion and hesitation. There were a couple of highly idealized characters, but for the most part they were presented in a wonderfully rounded way. The second thing that I loved about the novel was that since I just read Jane Eyre, by Anne Bronte's sister Charlotte, I got to have fun picking out different phrases that they both used, or situations that both of their characters go through. The similarities and differences of novels produced in one household go to show a lot about the personalities of the sisters. I may read Wuthering Heights again soon, so I can compare the three sisters side-by-side.

Oh, and in case anybody besides me cares, I'm up to novel #6. I don't think I've been ahead of schedule on anything before!

Coming soon: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald