Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All : A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: Struggled to Finish
Review: When I started reading this book, I was so excited to have discovered Gurganus as a storyteller. He has done an admirable job of portraying a soldier's experiences in the Civil War, as well as capturing the unique characters of a community with humor and empathy. However, I soon found myself drowning in prose. Some of the stories drag and drag to the point of tedium. Eventually the author's world view began to distort things as well: his premise is that the only true romantic love to be found is based on adolescent same-sex relationships. The two main characters, Lucy and William Marsden, both pine for their lost first loves, Shirley and Ned. Their marriage seems one of convenience, without any real passion or complexity, which casts a depressing pall over the entire novel. Lucy has nine children, but only three are actually well-drawn: Louisa, Ned and Baby. The rest just help to populate her busy domestic life, like nameless faces. Considering the length of the book, there certainly was room for more character development. The dialects and poor grammar seem contrived at times (especially since Lucy was raised in a wealthy home), making the narration often difficult to read. Although this is an admirable attempt at capturing an era gone by, I think that the novel's flaws would turn me away from reading it again.

Rating:
Summary: good stories when you're not drowning in prose...
Review: When I started reading this book, I was so excited to have discovered Gurganus as a storyteller. He has done an admirable job of portraying a soldier's experiences in the Civil War, as well as capturing the unique characters of a community with humor and empathy. However, I soon found myself drowning in prose. Some of the stories drag and drag to the point of tedium. Eventually the author's world view began to distort things as well: his premise is that the only true romantic love to be found is based on adolescent same-sex relationships. The two main characters, Lucy and William Marsden, both pine for their lost first loves, Shirley and Ned. Their marriage seems one of convenience, without any real passion or complexity, which casts a depressing pall over the entire novel. Lucy has nine children, but only three are actually well-drawn: Louisa, Ned and Baby. The rest just help to populate her busy domestic life, like nameless faces. Considering the length of the book, there certainly was room for more character development. The dialects and poor grammar seem contrived at times (especially since Lucy was raised in a wealthy home), making the narration often difficult to read. Although this is an admirable attempt at capturing an era gone by, I think that the novel's flaws would turn me away from reading it again.