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Anthony Adverse #1-3
Anthony Adverse
Child of fortune. Conceived in France, born in an Alpine village, reared in a great house of Italy, Anthony never knew his parents, never had a name of his own. But he was born of passion and it filled his blood.
Volume 1. The Roots of the Tree
Volume 2. The Other Bronze Boy
Volume 3. The Lonely Twin
Volume 1. The Roots of the Tree
Volume 2. The Other Bronze Boy
Volume 3. The Lonely Twin
1045 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
36 people are currently reading
759 people want to read
About the author
Hervey Allen
97 books14 followersBorn William Hervey Allen. 1915 University of Pittsburgh graduate. In WWI served as a Lieutenant in the 28th (keystone) Division, US Army and fought in the Aisne-Marne offensive July-August, 1918. He wrote "Toward the Flame" (1926), a nonfictional account of his experiences in the war.
Allen is best known for his work Anthony Adverse, a 1933 bestseller. He also planned a series of novels about colonial America called The Disinherited, of which he completed three works: The Forest and the Fort (1943), Bedford Village (1944), and Toward the Morning (1948). The novels tell the story of Salathiel Albine, a frontiersman kidnapped as a boy by Shawnee Indians in the 1750s. All three works were collected and published as the City in the Dawn. Allen also wrote Israfel (1926), a biography of American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
Allen is best known for his work Anthony Adverse, a 1933 bestseller. He also planned a series of novels about colonial America called The Disinherited, of which he completed three works: The Forest and the Fort (1943), Bedford Village (1944), and Toward the Morning (1948). The novels tell the story of Salathiel Albine, a frontiersman kidnapped as a boy by Shawnee Indians in the 1750s. All three works were collected and published as the City in the Dawn. Allen also wrote Israfel (1926), a biography of American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
July 15, 2014
I was looking over the list of books over 800 pages and I remembered reading this book my sophomore year in high school. I remember none of the book, even the summaries only get a hollow jangle of memory bells, but I'll claim the read. My English teacher did not believe I had read the book I reported prior. I said I'd read a book in a night. I asked the librarian for the longest book she knew of and she gave me this title. I did the read that night and made the report the next day.
I'm now reading a book on memory and that got me to thinking what book do I (or you) remember best after ten years, twenty, thirty? Or more philosophically, why are we reading more books if we can't remember the ones we've already read?
I'm now reading a book on memory and that got me to thinking what book do I (or you) remember best after ten years, twenty, thirty? Or more philosophically, why are we reading more books if we can't remember the ones we've already read?
November 5, 2013
This novel is a historical adventure set in the years between 1770 and 1820. It is set literally all over the western world including the Spanish colonies of America during the time of Napolean. It is the story of Anthony Adverse, a young man who was the product of an affair between a young French nobleman and the wife of a Spanish nobleman. He is raised in an Italian convent and, when he is a young man, becomes the apprentice of a Scottish merchant in Livorno, Italy. From there, Anthony travels the world, engaging in various mercantile trades, eventually living for a time in Africa where he becomes a wealthy slave trader. The climax of the novel has Anthony in Paris where he meets Napolean Bonaparte and embarks on a scheme to move Spanish gold out of Mexico for the immense profit of himself and his confederates. In the end, Anthony has a conversion of sorts and ends up in the New Mexico territory, then still a Spanish colony, where he dies in poverty among the missions to the natives.
The story here is a tremendous saga that extends over the entire known world at the time and includes some famous people from the era. More than that, Anthony Adverse describes much of the mercantile activity of the early 19th century and how fortunes were made and lost in those times. I read somewhere that that Anthony Adverse was recommended reading for Harvard undergraduates for many years after its publication in the 1930s. This would make sense, seeing as many graduates of that institution became mercantile giants themselves, much like Anthony. However, it seems to me that Allen's purpose in this novel is not to glorify commerce and wealth as much as to be a sort of "Citizen Kane" story, in which a wealthy man yearns for the simplicity of his youth and ultimately returns to simplicity. Anthony's upbringing in the convent limited his world to literally four walls and a ceiling, and as he embarked on his globetrotting career he yearned for that simplicity. In the end, he found something more dear to him than wealth and adventure.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Napoleonic era or in adventure stories in historical fiction.
The story here is a tremendous saga that extends over the entire known world at the time and includes some famous people from the era. More than that, Anthony Adverse describes much of the mercantile activity of the early 19th century and how fortunes were made and lost in those times. I read somewhere that that Anthony Adverse was recommended reading for Harvard undergraduates for many years after its publication in the 1930s. This would make sense, seeing as many graduates of that institution became mercantile giants themselves, much like Anthony. However, it seems to me that Allen's purpose in this novel is not to glorify commerce and wealth as much as to be a sort of "Citizen Kane" story, in which a wealthy man yearns for the simplicity of his youth and ultimately returns to simplicity. Anthony's upbringing in the convent limited his world to literally four walls and a ceiling, and as he embarked on his globetrotting career he yearned for that simplicity. In the end, he found something more dear to him than wealth and adventure.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Napoleonic era or in adventure stories in historical fiction.
January 6, 2019
Well, I have finally finished this one. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good book. We get to follow the life of Anthony Adverse as he grows and changes and experiences life. We experience his joy, love, fear, heartache, sorrow, friendship, beauty, pain. We travel all over the world with him and experience it with him, as the descriptions are precise. Italy, Spain, France, Cuba, Africa, New Orleans, Texas, Mexico..... We learn some of economics/banking of the 1800s.
This took over a year to read. I had to keep putting it down. Not because it wasn’t good, but because it was soooo long. Maybe I wasn’t patient enough. I do see that it was split into 3 books. This is probably the way to go. My copy was an all-in-one, and this being on a list of books, I am reading, I read the whole thing. Glad I read it, but also glad it’s done. 3-3.5 stars.
This took over a year to read. I had to keep putting it down. Not because it wasn’t good, but because it was soooo long. Maybe I wasn’t patient enough. I do see that it was split into 3 books. This is probably the way to go. My copy was an all-in-one, and this being on a list of books, I am reading, I read the whole thing. Glad I read it, but also glad it’s done. 3-3.5 stars.
November 29, 2012
ALREADY I am loving this book and I'm only on page 40!
A lot can change in the next 1160 pages, I'm sure; but I hold out a lot of hope.
It inspires me to voice the thought that occurred to me on a recent trip to the expansive, desert homeland... "like old times, meet me in the orchard at midnight in mid-March. more details to follow. can it be done?" :)
About half way through now and it's not what I expected. Still an enjoyable read, although, I had to smile that the previous owner of this particular copy marked page 612 in black ink as "half way" as though one needed encouragement. Perhaps some do.
I enjoyed this book to the end. It was not the predictable plot and characters that are so multitudinous. An orphan boy growing and learning, falling in love and losing love, experiencing tragedy and coping, etc, etc. Sounds rather cliché, but somehow it really wasn't.
I won't be keeping it on my shelf, because, being realistic, I'll never REread a book over 1200 pages, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but it was good.
A lot can change in the next 1160 pages, I'm sure; but I hold out a lot of hope.
It inspires me to voice the thought that occurred to me on a recent trip to the expansive, desert homeland... "like old times, meet me in the orchard at midnight in mid-March. more details to follow. can it be done?" :)
About half way through now and it's not what I expected. Still an enjoyable read, although, I had to smile that the previous owner of this particular copy marked page 612 in black ink as "half way" as though one needed encouragement. Perhaps some do.
I enjoyed this book to the end. It was not the predictable plot and characters that are so multitudinous. An orphan boy growing and learning, falling in love and losing love, experiencing tragedy and coping, etc, etc. Sounds rather cliché, but somehow it really wasn't.
I won't be keeping it on my shelf, because, being realistic, I'll never REread a book over 1200 pages, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but it was good.
December 13, 2016
Surprisingly, this is a masterpiece. I say surprisingly, because I had heard it referred to jokingly on the few occasions that it was mentioned in my presence. It is a very big book, and the author writes in such a way that one must not skim. So reading 1100 pages without skimming is a daunting task for those of us (most) that have attention spans of cocker spaniel puppies. I admit to skimming myself, but when the situation demands, I can throttle myself down, as here. It's kind of like Hugo; if you can read the first 20 pages the right way and stick that far, you're hooked. Much wisdom and insight into humanity is interspersed as the book proceeds, and it is a rich diet of such. The plot is dramatic and detailed; take care, friend. But read it.
December 1, 2008
A forgotten best-seller from the thirties which is also a wonderful epic. Deserves to be rediscovered. Another book that you can't put down and have to read all night long. If I'm correct, it was the biggest hit of its time until Gone With The Wind arrived and dethroned it from the top of the best-seller lit. It's massive in every way, yet it reads very easily without being badly written at all. Allen certainly possesses a real sense of storytelling.
June 12, 2013
I read this gigantic book many years ago while stuck in bed for two weeks. Maybe that's why it made such a lasting impression on me. I truly loved this book. Anthony makes and loses several fortunes and families around the globe until finally reaching the stone in the heart of the tree. You can see it has hugely melodramatic, or you can think about what's really important in life.
November 12, 2008
An historic novel of an orphaned boy who rides the wave of 18th-19th century commerce to success. This book was so well written it may be amoung the best stories I have ever read. It concludes on a spiritual note that huants me to this day.
December 28, 2019
A masterwork which needs to be filmed by a Catholic producer.
At 1,224 pages, Hervey’s 1933 masterwork is not light reading for a twenty-first century person used to tweets or posts of limited characters. However, it would be as ridiculous to ignore this masterpiece as it would be not to read the major and hefty volumes by great authors like Dickens or Dos Passos.
If you watched the 1936 film version of the novel, then try to erase those images from your mind. As is the case with other novels adapted to the screen, so much is lost when a novel is transferred to film. Only a diligent reading of this massive work will convey numerous important images and ideas.
What is missing from the film which the book labors to develop? Here are six.
1. Sophisticated literary allusions. If it’s true that Americans have lost common knowledge (and it is), then having one’s smartphone or Internet at hand will be an immeasurable help for contemporary readers to understand historic personages or movements, whether referencing Byzantine iconography or Napoleonic generals and nineteenth-century political leaders.
2. Anthony’s profound and lifelong devotion to the Virgin Mary, personalized by a Madonna statute which Anthony carried with him from boyhood to his adult life, no matter what social (becoming a slaver) or sexual sins he committed. The destruction of Anthony’s Madonna statue in the Epilogue at the hands of ignorant Americans is thus especially poignant.
3. An extension of the above, the importance of Catholic Christianity in Anthony’ s life. Although his faith is as feeble as any millennial’s in 2019, his recognition of God as the Supreme Power in the universe, his devotion to the Virgin Mary as the mother of Jesus, and his desire to do what is right testify to his inherent Catholic Christianity. This bildungsroman is as much about Anthony’s acceptance of his Catholic faith as much as it is about slavery and sex, the two topics which Hollywood in the 1936 film version tried to emphasize.
4. The crucifixion of Brother Francois in chapter 45 at the hands of Islamic slavers, who forced Africans into slavery.
5. A profound respect for the body and its importance in human life. This is especially unique since the novel, written in 1933, anticipates St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body by decades.
6. Wonderful sexual passages, such as those in chapters 4 and 5, which show Anthony’s delight of heterosexuality. Granted, some of the sexual activity is fornication, but the literary treatment of such sinful activity is still respectfully depicted. After all, sex is a wonderful God-given activity between a husband and wife; that Anthony chooses sometimes to indulge his sexual appetite like an animal is evidence of his fault, not evidence of the inherent fault of the activity—a hard lesson for twenty-first century readers to understand, since they think that sex is only recreational and not a divinely-inspired activity for married persons.
I look forward to the time when the novel can be filmed anew, showing all its magnificent detail, sexual escapades, and theological implications. Doing so would obviously remove it from Hollywood’s jurisdiction, since, as everyone now knows (can you say Harvey Weinstein?), Hollywood is just a cesspool of leftist activity which corrupts everything it touches into a mere pornographic or LGBTQ diatribe.
Any Catholic producer willing to take up this challenge? Mel Gibson, where are you? If so, I can smell the Oscars already.
At 1,224 pages, Hervey’s 1933 masterwork is not light reading for a twenty-first century person used to tweets or posts of limited characters. However, it would be as ridiculous to ignore this masterpiece as it would be not to read the major and hefty volumes by great authors like Dickens or Dos Passos.
If you watched the 1936 film version of the novel, then try to erase those images from your mind. As is the case with other novels adapted to the screen, so much is lost when a novel is transferred to film. Only a diligent reading of this massive work will convey numerous important images and ideas.
What is missing from the film which the book labors to develop? Here are six.
1. Sophisticated literary allusions. If it’s true that Americans have lost common knowledge (and it is), then having one’s smartphone or Internet at hand will be an immeasurable help for contemporary readers to understand historic personages or movements, whether referencing Byzantine iconography or Napoleonic generals and nineteenth-century political leaders.
2. Anthony’s profound and lifelong devotion to the Virgin Mary, personalized by a Madonna statute which Anthony carried with him from boyhood to his adult life, no matter what social (becoming a slaver) or sexual sins he committed. The destruction of Anthony’s Madonna statue in the Epilogue at the hands of ignorant Americans is thus especially poignant.
3. An extension of the above, the importance of Catholic Christianity in Anthony’ s life. Although his faith is as feeble as any millennial’s in 2019, his recognition of God as the Supreme Power in the universe, his devotion to the Virgin Mary as the mother of Jesus, and his desire to do what is right testify to his inherent Catholic Christianity. This bildungsroman is as much about Anthony’s acceptance of his Catholic faith as much as it is about slavery and sex, the two topics which Hollywood in the 1936 film version tried to emphasize.
4. The crucifixion of Brother Francois in chapter 45 at the hands of Islamic slavers, who forced Africans into slavery.
5. A profound respect for the body and its importance in human life. This is especially unique since the novel, written in 1933, anticipates St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body by decades.
6. Wonderful sexual passages, such as those in chapters 4 and 5, which show Anthony’s delight of heterosexuality. Granted, some of the sexual activity is fornication, but the literary treatment of such sinful activity is still respectfully depicted. After all, sex is a wonderful God-given activity between a husband and wife; that Anthony chooses sometimes to indulge his sexual appetite like an animal is evidence of his fault, not evidence of the inherent fault of the activity—a hard lesson for twenty-first century readers to understand, since they think that sex is only recreational and not a divinely-inspired activity for married persons.
I look forward to the time when the novel can be filmed anew, showing all its magnificent detail, sexual escapades, and theological implications. Doing so would obviously remove it from Hollywood’s jurisdiction, since, as everyone now knows (can you say Harvey Weinstein?), Hollywood is just a cesspool of leftist activity which corrupts everything it touches into a mere pornographic or LGBTQ diatribe.
Any Catholic producer willing to take up this challenge? Mel Gibson, where are you? If so, I can smell the Oscars already.
September 12, 2016
An engaging adventure story. Read it many years ago.
May 18, 2022
Wow! What a trip! This book will take you on some amazing trips and voyages. It traverses the life of Anthony from preconception to the end of his days. After 1159 pages, I feel like finishing the book, was like saying goodbye to a family member I got to know intimately. I read up on the history of this novel and its' author and it was considered the first historical novel. I learned a lot of things from this novel from the business and money-making side to slavery, Napoleon and the effects of the French Revolution, and the politics of Iturrabide in Mexico. I love going along on Anthony's adventures and delighting and sorrowing in his many romances. Like L.M. Montgomery said in her journals, I felt like I traveled all over Europe, Cuba, parts of Africa, and The U.S. and Mexico and I immensely enjoyed the journey and the company of Anthony. This was the hit novel of 1935.
keep-in-mind
September 26, 2011_Anthony Adverse_ Volumes I, II, III, (first published in 1933) (1933 bestseller) (1,224-pages)
by Hervey Allen
Added 9/26/11
9/26/11 - I had always heard of this book, but never knew much about it. Today I watched the last half of the movie adapted from the book on TCM-TV.
IMDb movie: 'Anthony Adverse" (1936)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027300/
"In 18th-century Italy, an orphan's debt to the man who raised him threatens to separate him forever from the woman he loves."
Netflix description:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Ant...
"Mervyn LeRoy helms this sweeping, episodic tale that details the exploits of Anthony Adverse (Fredric March), the misbegotten heir to the estate of his cold-blooded stepfather, Spanish nobleman Don Luis (Claude Rains). When Don Luis and his duplicitous new spouse (Gale Sondergaard) conspire against Anthony, securing his birthright proves no easy task. Sondergaard's performance earned the first Best Supporting Actress Oscar ever awarded.
Cast: Cast: Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland, Donald Woods, Anita Louise, Edmund Gwenn, Claude Rains, Gale Sondergaard
This movie is: Romantic
The following link to the Kindle edition gives a detailed summary of the story:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66...
Wiki pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hervey_A...
by Hervey Allen
Added 9/26/11
9/26/11 - I had always heard of this book, but never knew much about it. Today I watched the last half of the movie adapted from the book on TCM-TV.
IMDb movie: 'Anthony Adverse" (1936)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027300/
"In 18th-century Italy, an orphan's debt to the man who raised him threatens to separate him forever from the woman he loves."
Netflix description:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Ant...
"Mervyn LeRoy helms this sweeping, episodic tale that details the exploits of Anthony Adverse (Fredric March), the misbegotten heir to the estate of his cold-blooded stepfather, Spanish nobleman Don Luis (Claude Rains). When Don Luis and his duplicitous new spouse (Gale Sondergaard) conspire against Anthony, securing his birthright proves no easy task. Sondergaard's performance earned the first Best Supporting Actress Oscar ever awarded.
Cast: Cast: Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland, Donald Woods, Anita Louise, Edmund Gwenn, Claude Rains, Gale Sondergaard
This movie is: Romantic
The following link to the Kindle edition gives a detailed summary of the story:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66...
Wiki pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hervey_A...
April 16, 2014
It has never taken me so long to finish a book. Clocking in at around 1100 pages, Anthony Adverse is not an easy journey. Mostly because the author writes with a careful precision and you want (and need) to read every, single, word. There is no skimming with this book.
Aside: I am a champion skimmer. I never realized how much until I read a book that simply didn't allow for skimming. It was painful, and I had to apply a discipline I had never needed before and it almost killed me.
But for all the hard work it requires, it is worth it. You follow a man's complete life. You feel like you literally live every day of his life. And Anthony Adverse definitely has an interesting life. The book spans from around 1780 to 1830ish. Napoleon is in the book, Anthony travels the world, he loses, he wins, he falls in and out of love, he experiences everything. It is at times boring, it is at times totally beautiful. Much like real life is.
Aside: I am a champion skimmer. I never realized how much until I read a book that simply didn't allow for skimming. It was painful, and I had to apply a discipline I had never needed before and it almost killed me.
But for all the hard work it requires, it is worth it. You follow a man's complete life. You feel like you literally live every day of his life. And Anthony Adverse definitely has an interesting life. The book spans from around 1780 to 1830ish. Napoleon is in the book, Anthony travels the world, he loses, he wins, he falls in and out of love, he experiences everything. It is at times boring, it is at times totally beautiful. Much like real life is.
November 25, 2011
I have read this book as a young woman in the late forties or early fifties. It is one of my all time favorites. Setting of book is England, Farnce and the Americas. Time frame: Perhaps in fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Story centers about an orphan child who had been left at a Convent. In his adult years the story included his many wanderings and dangers as he searched for his roods. This took him throughout Europe, Africa and America. I originally read this book when in my twenties. I recently reread it as a very mature adult just to see if I liked it as well as I remembered. Conclusion: Better than before.
January 7, 2017
The most popular book of 1933 (according to someone).
In scope this reminds me of 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. It had some slow moments mid book, but the overall story and reach was pretty great.
It took me forever to read this 1224 page tome because I had to keep finding new copies through the interlibrary loans department -- interlibrary loans are not be extended. I would get a copy for 3 weeks and then have to return it to wait for another copy. Even so, I'm glad to have read it in it's entirety and the ordeal and length of time it took to read satisfies the story's perseverance and scope for some reason.
In scope this reminds me of 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. It had some slow moments mid book, but the overall story and reach was pretty great.
It took me forever to read this 1224 page tome because I had to keep finding new copies through the interlibrary loans department -- interlibrary loans are not be extended. I would get a copy for 3 weeks and then have to return it to wait for another copy. Even so, I'm glad to have read it in it's entirety and the ordeal and length of time it took to read satisfies the story's perseverance and scope for some reason.
April 17, 2017
This book so impressed me in my early 20s that I was consumed with it for several weeks, really. The sweep of time (generations, decades) and global scope (continents) impressed the heck out of me. This historical adventure including the Spanish colonies of America during the time of Napoleon struck me as wildly exotic. I was so awed that I wrote - by in hand in pen in a spiral notebook - my own epic twin-based novel called "Castor and Pollux" and completely blew past the requirements in my community college creative writing course.
March 20, 2014
A very good book
A very good book
I enjoyed this book very much, except for the fact that it was a little hard to follow, because of the archaic
language. I had to.pay very close attention and had to guess sometimes as to what they were saying.
A very good book
I enjoyed this book very much, except for the fact that it was a little hard to follow, because of the archaic
language. I had to.pay very close attention and had to guess sometimes as to what they were saying.
November 5, 2019
The book started out wonderful with that flavor great epic novels have. It tells the story of the bastard son of a tragic love affair, who is plagued throughout life by the spurned husband. It is written in three parts, and the first part, dealing with the boy’s life as a child and young man, carries him to the point where he seeks adventure on a sailing voyage and to other lands. This part was very good. In the second “volume,” he establishes a business, first in Cuba and then in Africa, primarily in the slave trade. In my opinion his character is harder to like, and the story starts to be less engaging. By Volume three, it seemed to be reading as if the writer didn’t know how to end the story, and it was disappointing. All in all, I’m glad I read it, at 1224 pages, but I really wish it had continued to engage throughout. One could look at the book as three separate stories, in which case, read the first.
February 1, 2019
Wow! This is a VERY long book, Dickensian in scope, descriptiveness and coincidences. (Also, I stopped reading it for three weeks while I was on a cruise.) It was made into a movie starring Fredric March and Olivia de Havilland which of course could only include a small part of the story. It has everything: a sympathetic orphan as the lead character, world travel, philosophy, religion, politics, intrigue, love, adventure, heartbreak and death. Well worth reading, if you have the time to commit to it.
June 29, 2024
My mother read this book when she was pregnant with me over 60 years ago. Said it was her favourite book. When I first read it in my 30s it’s become one of my favourites, and led me to searching for great historical fiction and adventuring tales like - Master and Commander series / Gary Jennings novels / Mutiny on the Bounty series / Mary Stewart’s Arthurian tales / Wilbur Smith’s River God series / and Ken Folllet’s Pillars of the Earth series. Saw the movie on the book for the first time last year - the book was better - but had some good laughs on the special effects. Enjoy!!
September 29, 2023
Part high literature, part adventure, part erotica — this for two 1933-1934 years bestseller provides deep and dense look into a worlwind of psyche of an orphan, a willing slave trader, and a consummate lover. Rich, but strangely unatmospheric, tapestry of architecture, nature and philosophy transcribed in molassy prose. A unique vast blockbuster. Bloated, overdetailed and overemotional melodrama. Whatever this book is it's the opposite of lazy.
Read
March 31, 2021I believe this is a book that is meant to be read aloud. The author writes in such a vivid, cinematic style that it is easy to picture the action scenes. I imagine at the time he wrote it that reading aloud as a family may have been a precursor of our habit of watching tv together. That would help to account for its popularity much like a serial on PBS today.
October 5, 2025
I think I have read this book at least 3 times over my lifetime. The first time, at age 14, it made a tremendous impact on me. I had no worldly knowledge and I absolutely fell in love with the story.I think I will read it one last time to view it with the eyes of a life lived.It has always been #1 on the list of the hundreds of books I have read.
August 4, 2018
I'm planning to reread this as I read in high school many years ago like a number of the other people wrote in the reviews it's big so I know I'll have to prepare myself and set time aside.
August 19, 2022
I reviewed this by each volume, both and on here and on my blog and shall provide blog links when they come out.
April 10, 2025
Grandma and Grandpa’s book- In my library
March 5, 2021
Before reading, I was surprised I hadn't heard about this book before, especially since it was a bestseller once, in the early 20th century - even outselling 'Gone With the Wind', as the cover of my edition boasts. After reading, I am no longer surprised. There is some good stuff in this novel (or these novels, I should say, as they were originally published in several instalments) but it doesn't outweigh the bad.
The historical setting was brilliant, it was clear Allen put a lot of time and thought into it - and I have a soft spot for this specific time period (late 18th to early 19th century). I also found parts of the book quite explicit and daring for their time.
However, there were also a lot of outdated sentimentalities - both of the 1800s and 1930s kind - that I didn't care for at all. Yes, books, like anything, are a product of their time, and added to that is that this is an historical novel taking place even further back. Still, that doesn't mean I have to enjoy reading racist or sexist characterisations, or even outdated stereotypes about different European people, as accurate a depiction of the ideas of the time they might be. Allen does try to soften the blow by adding in some anti-slavery sentiments, but in the end that makes it worse: for instance, the anti-slavery storyline functions entirely as a redeeming arc for the main character.
Talking about Anthony: sometimes I did feel sympathetic towards him, but his character is so flat and he moves past misfortunes so easily that I mostly didn't care for him at all. He is an utter bore who constantly falls into good luck, and somehow runs into people whenever he needs them most. Despite the promise of adventure, the book was often plain boring. There were long passages and conversations about politics, philosophy, banking, religion etc that were semi-interesting the first time around but got repetitive and old really quickly. This might have been my own fault for trying to read this enormous book in one go. I also understand that the contrived plot and hero-like main character are typical for adventure novels, so I don't really mind about it that much, though it did take me out of the story whenever Anthony ran into some old enemy or lover in the most random places, or when he was just so damn unflappable.
I would say skip this one when reading the classics. You won't get much out of this - well, you might, but I certainly didn't.
The historical setting was brilliant, it was clear Allen put a lot of time and thought into it - and I have a soft spot for this specific time period (late 18th to early 19th century). I also found parts of the book quite explicit and daring for their time.
However, there were also a lot of outdated sentimentalities - both of the 1800s and 1930s kind - that I didn't care for at all. Yes, books, like anything, are a product of their time, and added to that is that this is an historical novel taking place even further back. Still, that doesn't mean I have to enjoy reading racist or sexist characterisations, or even outdated stereotypes about different European people, as accurate a depiction of the ideas of the time they might be. Allen does try to soften the blow by adding in some anti-slavery sentiments, but in the end that makes it worse: for instance, the anti-slavery storyline functions entirely as a redeeming arc for the main character.
Talking about Anthony: sometimes I did feel sympathetic towards him, but his character is so flat and he moves past misfortunes so easily that I mostly didn't care for him at all. He is an utter bore who constantly falls into good luck, and somehow runs into people whenever he needs them most. Despite the promise of adventure, the book was often plain boring. There were long passages and conversations about politics, philosophy, banking, religion etc that were semi-interesting the first time around but got repetitive and old really quickly. This might have been my own fault for trying to read this enormous book in one go. I also understand that the contrived plot and hero-like main character are typical for adventure novels, so I don't really mind about it that much, though it did take me out of the story whenever Anthony ran into some old enemy or lover in the most random places, or when he was just so damn unflappable.
I would say skip this one when reading the classics. You won't get much out of this - well, you might, but I certainly didn't.
August 22, 2019
Fascinating read. Second most read English in the 1930's after Gone with The Wind.
This very long three part novel follows the entire life of the title character across four continents while placing him cleverly in the Napoleonic age and affiliates him with many of the great events of the times, including the Napoleonic wars, the birth of finance capitalism with the Rothschilds, the triangle trade and slaving in Cuba, New Orleans and the African Coast, and the birth of Texas. The attention to detail, fidelity to names, place descriptions and events in the languages of each locale turns this somewhat pedestrian Odyssey into a feast for the imagination.
There are real weaknesses here. Allen uses his characters like tissue paper: all trooped on and off the pages like cannon fodder for the "divine thrusting on" of an improvident and adverse nature. He wraps the book up in a very unconvincing catholicism that seems to suggest suffering for the sake of suffering is transcendant. The handling of slavery, racist violence and moral depravity is especially poorly handled: it is accurate in many gory details but seems to relish them for their own sake: a surrender to an adolescent idea of realism. Mores of the 1930's forbid more than allusions to sexual escapades, but these are critical to the endlessly repetitive plot of "adversions" to which the hero is subjected and the entire tone seems deliberately prurient but distractedly "soft-core".
A very poor but highly awarded movie was made of the first part of the novel to capitalize on the novel's popularity, but it is even more strained and silly than the novel.
I read this as part of a self-imposed challenge to read the most popular works of American fiction to date, just as I read Ferber's Cimarron, Mitchell's Gone with the Wind and Buck's Good Earth of the same period. As an artifact, it's interesting. As literature, it's encyclopedic, middle-brow and essentially pornographic. As an example of immorality (in-humanity?) in authorship, it is similar to many of the Southern race novels of the period: fascinated with black folks, seemingly persuaded by racial eugenics and bizarre in its close attention to the details of financial markets and dealings of the period. Allen clearly had a soft spot for bankers, regardless of their other hobbies and pursuits.
I recommend this as a tonic to humanist literature of the period. Allen didn't like people much, and this novel fits perfectly with the national socialist cynicism that was so popular in the New York of 1933-1934.
This very long three part novel follows the entire life of the title character across four continents while placing him cleverly in the Napoleonic age and affiliates him with many of the great events of the times, including the Napoleonic wars, the birth of finance capitalism with the Rothschilds, the triangle trade and slaving in Cuba, New Orleans and the African Coast, and the birth of Texas. The attention to detail, fidelity to names, place descriptions and events in the languages of each locale turns this somewhat pedestrian Odyssey into a feast for the imagination.
There are real weaknesses here. Allen uses his characters like tissue paper: all trooped on and off the pages like cannon fodder for the "divine thrusting on" of an improvident and adverse nature. He wraps the book up in a very unconvincing catholicism that seems to suggest suffering for the sake of suffering is transcendant. The handling of slavery, racist violence and moral depravity is especially poorly handled: it is accurate in many gory details but seems to relish them for their own sake: a surrender to an adolescent idea of realism. Mores of the 1930's forbid more than allusions to sexual escapades, but these are critical to the endlessly repetitive plot of "adversions" to which the hero is subjected and the entire tone seems deliberately prurient but distractedly "soft-core".
A very poor but highly awarded movie was made of the first part of the novel to capitalize on the novel's popularity, but it is even more strained and silly than the novel.
I read this as part of a self-imposed challenge to read the most popular works of American fiction to date, just as I read Ferber's Cimarron, Mitchell's Gone with the Wind and Buck's Good Earth of the same period. As an artifact, it's interesting. As literature, it's encyclopedic, middle-brow and essentially pornographic. As an example of immorality (in-humanity?) in authorship, it is similar to many of the Southern race novels of the period: fascinated with black folks, seemingly persuaded by racial eugenics and bizarre in its close attention to the details of financial markets and dealings of the period. Allen clearly had a soft spot for bankers, regardless of their other hobbies and pursuits.
I recommend this as a tonic to humanist literature of the period. Allen didn't like people much, and this novel fits perfectly with the national socialist cynicism that was so popular in the New York of 1933-1934.
July 7, 2020
This is an engrossing, detailed story. If you skim the pages you're guaranteed to miss something.
May 24, 2011
This might deserve five stars, but I am discounting for how long ago I read it. I loved it. It is a big book: big story, big messages -- but lots of action. I may have to reread it so I can raise the rating. I just learned there is a movie and I don't know how I could have missed it since it seems to have Frederic March in it. Must rent immediately. Oh, maybe that's off topic!
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