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Title: The Old Wives' Tale (20th Century Classics) by Arnold Bennett, John Wain ISBN: 0-14-018255-1 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The most remarkable book I've read in ages....
Comment: I'm certainly not the only person in the world who thinks of this book as a masterpiece. The fact that H.G. Wells, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf all praise this book as being so is one of the reasons I picked it up. In spite of that, I really read it without set expectations.
Briefly, to say what has already been said before, The Old Wives Tale is exactly that - a tale of three women who marry in very different circumstances. Mrs. Baines, the mother, is a life who is only briefly touched upon. However, the seperate lives of the two sisters, Sophia and Constance, are the crux of the book. Each life takes its' turn. We are first told about Constance, then about Sophia, and finally, about their reunion. Constance, whose name is not a coincidence, lives a simple provincial life, and Sophia, whose name also matches her persona, chooses romance and adventure. There is only one villain, and yet, he is perhaps the most powerful and chilling of all villains, Time. His grasping, clutching, suffocating presence is ever felt throughout the book, and looms even larger once that final page is turned. In the end, Sophia and Constance each pay the price for their choices, and the true cost of those choices is left for the reader to decide. As unique as we are, we will each believe something different about Sophia and Constance in the end, and that is precisely the point.
To sum up the experience of The Old Wives Tale, a tale of three women living their lives, and their lives changing them (or perhaps not changing them, is that it is the most honest approach to human psychology I have ever read. The lives we read about, Mrs. Baines, Sophia, Constance, and even those who surround them, could be anyone's. In fact, most of us can find someone in this book we could point to and say "that's me". No character, no matter how brief their exit or entrance into this story, is insignificant. Each person gives us a fresh perspective on the human response to events and to, of course, other humans. The three main characters are presented with sheer, unsympathetic, yet respectful honesty. We are not introduced to inhuman, perfect, idealistic souls in this book. Nor are we looking through the eyes of the wicked. Instead, we are searching the souls of ordinary people and in the end, are left with a question about our own existence.
In fact, it should be a large clue to readers when they see that the title of the fourth section is, What Life Is. It is here that something occurred which I totally unexpected, and it left me quite shaken - in fact, desperate. I found that I had been brought from the comfortable vantage point of observing these fictional lives, which are at times inexplicably amusing and heroic, to a sudden uncomfortable sensation that the characters were real and had turned toward me - the reader - begging the question "What of your life? What have you done with it? What have you accomplished?"
That subtle change of vantage point was shocking, and ingenious. Without criticizing his own creation, the author was able to communicate the importance of living our lives to the fullest without telling us how. This fact alone shows great wisdom. Sophia and Constance experience remarkable things, no more remarkable than most people, but remarkable just the same. Each reacts differently because they are different, and each has a different idea about how to find happiness and how to deal with life's disappointments. Both are frequently of the opinion that they could improve someone else's life, yet have not found real satisfaction in their own. Each makes mistakes, and each perform the heroic. The author will on the same page be blunt about their faults and tender with their plight. He tells their story without judgement, and yet in the end, you feel you have read a very wise judgement on the nature of the human race. Here, reader, you will find no prescription for life, but a question that begs a diagnosis. The author makes it starkly clear that the remedy, or whether a remedy is even required, is up to you.
The Old Wives Tale is not a dark story. It is not a comedy. It is not high adventure or mystery. In fact, it is many of these things put together to create something REAL. And it has shaken me to the core.
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant and Touching
Comment: I first read this wonderful book many years ago. Recently, I happened to pick it up again (before giving it to my daughter to read), and thought, well, I'll just read a few pages, to see if it's as good as I remember it to be. I stayed up all night rereading it. "The Old Wives' Tale" is a heartbreaker, but superb. As somone else has pointed out, there's a real villain in the book, but the villain isn't human: it's Time. It's difficult for me to imagine anyone reading the last few lines without being touched. I agree with Somerset Maugham: I feel presumptuous even praising it. For those who were "disappointed" with it, may I say, with another commentator, that these people will probably be disappointed with The Day of Judgment.
Rating: 4
Summary: BENNETT AT HIS BEST
Comment: The continuing saga of a mother and her two daughters.Mrs Baines is the middle aged boisterous woman who runs rule of the family business as her invalid husband lies in wait of his demise.The Baines` have two young daughters-Constance ( intelligent and stable)and Sofia (beautiful and flighty).the ideal of the story was to examine how one would perceive "a Mrs Baines" if you were to encounter her on the street or in a cafe.would you see her as an old rude lady?Would you be able to invision the possibility that in her younger days she was as Constance and Sofia are? And ther lies the basis of the story-how does one go from being a beautiful,fun loving girl to a boisterous old lady.Well as the story delves further into their lives we witness everything that happens and therefore shapes their lives.In real life events, whether large or small will determine our next path in life and here we get to see where they end up.
A terrific read for something written in 1908.
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Title: Loving/Living/Party Going (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Henry Green ISBN: 0140186913 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Death of the Heart by ELIZABETH BOWEN ISBN: 0385720173 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 09 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell ISBN: 082031661X Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Angle of Repose (Contemporary American Fiction) by Wallace Stegner ISBN: 014016930X Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Magus by John Fowles ISBN: 0440351626 Publisher: Dell Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 May, 1985 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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