Tracy's review
Washington Square
by Henry James
I was expecting her to show some spirit, but she never did. The movie version of this book is better. In film she stands against her father and gets back at the money hungy suitor.
Tracy's review
Washington Square by Henry James
Tracy's review
rating:
bookshelves:
classics
I enjoy the writing style of Henry James, but the story itself... Ugh.
I kept thinking surely there are going to be some major plot twists, some sort of revelations or scandal to spice things up, or even some drastic unexpected course of action taken by someone or another... Instead the story mostly consists of a pack of unlikable people sitting around either scorning or deluding each other, and one spineless, milquetoast "heroine" stuck in the middle of it all, whom I spent most of the book desperately wanting to punch in the throat for being such an obtuse cow. I didn't feel bad at all for her when her father was proven right and her mercenary suitor took off running, even though it would probably been better for her to have a big, messy, disastrous marriage to a spendthrift rather than shrivel up and die lonely under a pile of needlework.
I kept thinking surely there are going to be some major plot twists, some sort of revelations or scandal to spice things up, or even some drastic unexpected course of action taken by someone or another... Instead the story mostly consists of a pack of unlikable people sitting around either scorning or deluding each other, and one spineless, milquetoast "heroine" stuck in the middle of it all, whom I spent most of the book desperately wanting to punch in the throat for being such an obtuse cow. I didn't feel bad at all for her when her father was proven right and her mercenary suitor took off running, even though it would probably been better for her to have a big, messy, disastrous marriage to a spendthrift rather than shrivel up and die lonely under a pile of needlework.
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I was expecting her to show some spirit, but she never did. The movie version of this book is better. In film she stands against her father and gets back at the money hungy suitor.