Old Mortality (1816), which many consider the finest of Scott's Waverley novels, is a swift-moving historical romance that places an anachronistica...
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Jun 03, 2011
Lily
rated it: 
Sir Walter Scott goes nasty -- beyond knights and damsels -- into a world of religious hatred and sectarian violence that remains more relevant than ever today!
I read this book as a teenager in the Seventies, and what I loved even better than the action, adventure, and romance was the striking similarities between the "culture war" of 17th century Scotland and the lingering bitterness in America at the end of the Vietnam era.
The story of the Protestant uprising More...
I read this book as a teenager in the Seventies, and what I loved even better than the action, adventure, and romance was the striking similarities between the "culture war" of 17th century Scotland and the lingering bitterness in America at the end of the Vietnam era.
The story of the Protestant uprising More...
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May 24, 2010
Surreysmum
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[These notes were made in 1983:]. I really liked this novel. It is constructed on the simplest of "triangle" plans - one man too many; both admirable; the one the lady doesn't want dies a noble death in the arms of the one she does. Add to that the utterly splendid re-creation of the language of the Covenanters (in pulpit and out - it's much the same!) and enough battles to keep the bloodthirsty among us happy, and we have a novel whose scope and handling of characters (sentimental a
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Aug 16, 2010
Cambusken
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Brilliant narrative filled with tumultuous action and vivid detail, accompanied by sly comment and humour. I doubt if many people share (or ever shared) Scott's wistful longing after a time of noble families and faithful servants (the evidence of this book is, he didn't manage to convince himself). This vision does not intrude much, in fact is part of the period detail. His sympathetic insight into vastly different, complex people, and complex situations, must surely be unique. Certainly accompa
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Aug 31, 2010
Caitlin
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Jun 19, 2010
Charlene
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I am just starting this one. I have this set of Sir Walter Scott, Waverly Novels, Soho Edition printed in 1903...and if I have them on my shelf, they deserve to be read. On this one, so far so good. In the Intro, the name of the book is clarified...Old Mortality is an old man who left his life behind and has been traveling the rural moors of Scotland cleaning up grave markers from people who died for their faith. The narrator of the story actually meets the old man when he is twenty years in
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Oct 28, 2011
Katherine
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I love Sir Walter Scott's novels and read him every four years or so. So I tried Old Mortality. I thought I wouldn't get through this one. One thing about his novels is the dialect writing - diffcult to read sometimes. This novel was full of it at the beginning but that's because of the conflict between the aristocrats and the peasants in Scotland. As I went with the appealing main character, I found the rendition of this religious conflict to parallel the Revolutionary War. It seemed very
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Jan 10, 2012
Brad
rated it:
As good the second time through -- and with not a few decades between first and last reading. Not so much daunted by the Scots dialect now, and just as thrilled as I was as a boy by the battles, escapes, etc. True, the hidden identity in the last hundred pages, and a few other Romantic conventions were a bit painful, but still, a masterfully made novel; humane, exciting, well-made. So glad to have had another read of it.
Jun 19, 2010
MN
rated it:
Just read it for the third time - Scott's story sits uneasily with its professio of being a history of the Covenanters during the Killing Times, culled from Old Mortality, himself a Cameronian. The tale seems unremittingly pro Royalist, with an anachronistic centrism acording to Morton, while the covenanters are at best comical and ignorant, and more often insane.
Oct 16, 2007
Rachel
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I read this so long ago as an undergraduate. I struggled with it back then, since I didn't understand the history, the conflicts, and so on. Some day I'll have to try it again.
Jul 10, 2011
Chris
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i bought this book a few months ago, have tried to read it a few times since, but have yet to get much farther than the middle of the second chapter.
Sep 23, 2009
BookRambler
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Old Mortality is an important Scott text - this edition is ruined by the introduction that gets a lot of significant information wrong or mixed up.
Jun 19, 2010
Laurel
rated it:
Bifurcated Protestant groups, war, torture and rustic humor, all in one.
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