Monday, February 03, 2014

On Comments

My previous post has three good comments, which should be read. I especially liked the comment by Foxessa, which reminds me that there is much in 19th century fiction worth reading -- and also that I make generalizations based on too little.

I have a strong, strong bias toward fantastic fiction, which -- most likely -- makes me undervalue the classic bourgeois realistic novel. I did read and like Middlemarch, though I prefer Dickens and Austen.

I need to repeat that I do generalize on the basis of too little. It's a fast way of learning. Someone will correct me, and then I know more than I did before.

1 Comments:

Blogger Foxessa said...

That is a gracious observation!

The great English language novels, from Richardson's Pamela (1740)through all the nineteenth century, center and forefront women's concerns, which then are working people's concerns too. For the latter see Eliot's Felix Holt specifically, several of Gaskell's works such as Shirley and North and South, even the Brontes -- Anne and Charlotte (not Emily's Wuthering Heights, which isn't about humanity at all). In the U.S. look at both Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott. Yout might find the works of George Gissing of great interest, particularly The Odd Women -- which deals with the condition of a variety of women who are not married, who cannot marry, due to lack of money and other resources. How do they live? How do they survive? His New Grub Street deals with this too, but more within the context of attempting to live by writing.

Love, C.

11:16 AM  

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