Jan Priddy > Recent Status Updates

I am tired of books about war and destruction, romances, anything with royalty—maybe especially that. I refuse to read another fantasy with a king or prince, languishing princess or commoner who marries above their station. Give me another sort of adventure, one where wealth and position are beside the point rather than THE point. No sex scenes because they are almost always done badly.

I am tired of books about war and destruction, romances, anything with royalty—maybe especially that. I refuse to read another fantasy with a king or prince, languishing princess or commoner who marries above their station. Give me another sort of adventure, one where wealth and position are beside the point rather than THE point. No sex scenes because they are almost always done badly.

They do, in fact, seem like authentic stories. They seem too arbitrary and odd to be invented for this book, without the resolution a writer would have created in fiction.

Beautiful, lyrical writing and and powerful examples from memoirists.

Would anyone call Gilman "dated" for this line? "To an outsider, [carelessly abused land] seems as horribly strange as to see people living in cellars [streets] thick and crawling, while airy homes stand empty above." Yes, she will go on and on about the abuses of railroad companies, graft which I studied in HS, but you only have to update to airlines and professional sports arenas, etc.

So far, it's better than I recall, and so close to what I imagine a woman's society would be like in my own utopian novel that I'm a little ashamed not to have credited Gilman. I taught two of her short stories, but never reread this novel till now. I was unaware how much I owed her.

The discussion about prostitution is an eye-opener.

The use [overuse] of the expression "you see" grates. Otherwise I am kicking myself for not having read this decades ago. I read HERLAND long ago, but was dissatisfied with Gilman's bigotries, as best I recall. I am forewarned here, and so far enjoying this utopian novel.

I've argued with explanation of POV and landscape, but have no quarrel with the subjects Beth reviews. She's spot on.

I have had this book for years! How did I never read it?

Probably (hopefully) something will happen . . . soon. At this point, a great short story that's gone on a bit too long.

The narrator worries about the right things: sanitation, dangerous wildlife, men, being found, finding food, finding greens, and running out of matches. She is over concerned about meat, but that's the culture, and so she worries about running out of ammo. But what more can this novel do?

Of all the books I have hunted up about survival, this one does it best. I have spent years thinking about how it would be to survive alone. Haushofer mentions salt licks! [I thought I was the only one who considered the need for salt.] Oil and fat and grain and beans... the way she remembers her children, not as the adults they have become but as the little girls they once were. I believed that.

On the next page the cow is described as "a pretty animal, fine-boned, rounded, and grayish-brown." So... less Holstein, more Jersey or small Brown Swiss. Page 27. It's not hard to find an image of a brownish cow. A quick search found a page about Austrian dairy breeds. Her cow could be Tyrolean Grey, an Original Braunvieh coloured grey to brown, or Braunvieh described as grey-brown. Otherwise, I do like this cover.

I'd never heard of this novel before, but the cover was used when designing the cover brief at O. Wise choice, though only when I had the book in hand did I appreciate how wise.