Waverley: or 'Tis Sixty Years Since (Oxford World's Classics)
by Sir Walter Scott
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 115)
Read in February, 2008
Well, it's actually the Edinburgh edition that I've read.
This is Scott's first novel, and one of the best of his I've read. I won't add much with this review to a book that's been exhaustively discussed for almost two hundred years. Scott was a sort of romantic rationalist -- he admired the Scottish traditions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but knew that the future of his country lay in the modern and "English" ways that were established by the early nineteenth centur...more
This is Scott's first novel, and one of the best of his I've read. I won't add much with this review to a book that's been exhaustively discussed for almost two hundred years. Scott was a sort of romantic rationalist -- he admired the Scottish traditions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but knew that the future of his country lay in the modern and "English" ways that were established by the early nineteenth centur...more
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Read in March, 2008
This book took me forever to get into--mostly because of the style. I never realized people were making fun of Scott when they talked about "our hero," but if he said that once more in reference to Waverly, I would probably have gone insane.
Once they got to the rebellion itself and Waverly's part in that, the pace seemed to pick up. All of the wandering around gathering local Scottish color bogged me down (read: the first 300 pages).
By the last few chapters outlining the respec...more
Once they got to the rebellion itself and Waverly's part in that, the pace seemed to pick up. All of the wandering around gathering local Scottish color bogged me down (read: the first 300 pages).
By the last few chapters outlining the respec...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
masochists and fans of the very dull
From the get-go I wasn't a fan of the titular character. I found him to be quite insufferable and Scott to be a bit of a git when it comes to narration. He loves to hear himself talk (or narrate, as it were) and it it painfully obvious that this is so. The novel seemed to drag on and on, with such a seemingly abrupt neat-and-tidy ending that it's almost out of left-field. It may be one of the earliest Buildung-roman and historical novels, but I don't fancy I shall ever be able to hear the wor...more
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Read in September, 2007
WS's first novel and the first historical romance, set during the 1745 jacobite rising in the scottish highlands, bonnie prince charlie et al.--how can you go wrong? OK, it's a little on the slow side, in fact good bed-reading material, high on soporific value; it's no Ivanhoe! If you're holding out for the battle scenes, you have a 300+ page wait... But we live in impatient times, and it's good to slow the pulse to Sir Walter's ponderous pace sometimes...
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
classical literature
Just started it! It has very interesting footnotes; so I am flipping to the back quite often.
~~~UPDATE~~~
I have finished this novel...I would read this one again if I was searching for something that would take me a while and is thoroughly intriguing. I like how it has a complete ending. My favorite kind: it tells you how everything turns out instead of leaving you with cold sheets wondering what happened!
~~~UPDATE~~~
I have finished this novel...I would read this one again if I was searching for something that would take me a while and is thoroughly intriguing. I like how it has a complete ending. My favorite kind: it tells you how everything turns out instead of leaving you with cold sheets wondering what happened!
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Read in April, 2008
i finally had to put this one down and quit reading after the first 450 pages. i couldn't take it anymore. this was a book stock full of broad scotch,old english, and a whole bunch of latin and french phrases mixed in.the language just killed me. it was a story of english history that i didn't understand, wasn't explained very well,and quite frankly bored me to death.
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Read in September, 2007
On a second, more leisurely read, I've come to appreciate the brilliance of Scott. In the end, this remains a difficult novel to get into, but understanding Scott's objectives and how he carries them out really adds a layer of depth to the reading of the novel.
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I've just begun this book, assigned for my Romanticism class. Although my professor stated that many don't like it, 3 chapters in, I'm finding it intriguing. More after I finish!
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Read in January, 1991
recommends it for:
fiction readers; Scottish lit. readers
Another Border ballad novel. Fabulous, although Scott's politics are very conservative. He was influenced by Maria Edgeworth. She came first....
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It's got highlanders and you can see Scott's influence on Dickens when you read it. That's good enough for me.
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Really quite boring, if you want to know the truth. Besides, what kind of name is "Waverly" anyway?
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I sort of read this... would have much rather read a different one though...
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.27 (115 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 2.89 (9 ratings) number of reviews: 13popular shelves
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"Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft."
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