Lorna Doone

[KEV67]

I have started reading this. I think I detect signs of Walter Scott influences  but it is set in the west country. Chapter 2, young John gets into a fight at school with another boy att school. The Victorians approved of schoolboy fights. Chapter 3 and there are shenanigans around Dunkery Beacon. I have run up Dunkery Beacon several times. Well, not all the way up. I ran some of it. Running down it is even harder. With a title like Lorna Doone you'd worry it would be a book for girls, but it's shaping up to he a boys' own  book.

[KEV67]

I am not sure I am really into this book. I will continue reading it because the chapters are short. It's a sort of unrealistic, romantic historical fantasy. 

[Madeleine]

I read it years ago and did find it very flowery at first, but it did get better.

[KEV67]

It is quite a good book. The chapter I just read had a long description of John Ridd working in a copse, turning the saplings into building materials, handles for tools, and firewood. It was a nice description, making me think R.D. Blackmoor had done work of that kind. The nature descriptions, and the description of farm work are good too. Then it gets back onto the plot. I read something recently about books being abridged to make them more readable. There is much scope to abridge Lorna Doone. Entire chapters in which nothing much happens plotwise could be cut. It would be a shame, though.

[Madeleine]

Yes it does take a while for the plot to get going.  I did read a very abridged version first (bought by mistake as I didn't realise it wasn't the full version) which made for a good introduction to the story,  but the full version was much better.  It was quite gripping,  eventually.

 

[KEV67]

I was glad nothing really horrible happened. I never liked it when writers like Joseph Conrad or Thomas Hardy did the dirty on their protagonists.

[Madeleine]

Have you read Jude the Obscure?

[KEV67]

4 hours ago, Madeleine said:

Have you read Jude the Obscure?

No, an I am not going to. I watched the film with Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston. It was quite a good film up to the horrible bit.

[Madeleine]

The book is even more tragic!  Hardy was vilified for it, also because of the nature of their relationship, and didn't write any more novels, concentrating on poetry instead.

Edited November 20, 2024 by Madeleine

[PYX]

2 hours ago, Madeleine said:

The book is even more tragic!  Hardy was vilified for it, also because of the nature of their relationship, and didn't write any more novels, concentrating on poetry instead.

After your comment, I'm really intrigued. This fall, I’ve been drawn to tragedies, if you know what I mean.

[KEV67]

4 hours ago, Madeleine said:

The book is even more tragic!  Hardy was vilified for it, also because of the nature of their relationship, and didn't write any more novels, concentrating on poetry instead.

I think he also re-edited most his past novels. He made quite serious changes to at least one of them - Tess of the d'Urbervilles. As far as Jude goes,I think Hardy went too far. There were enough commonplace tragedies in the 19th Century without thinking up freak horror stories, which just do not happen in real life.