Customer Reviews

Barren Ground

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This lengthy story covers the life of a farm girl in rural Virginia around 1890 through the early 1920's. The novel starts out with her madly in love with another villager. A day before her wedding she is dumped. Her financee decides he is going to marry another villager.

She decides she is through with love and finds that men are more trouble than they are worth. The character's reasons, resoltuions, and actions are extremely admirable. Not focusing on relationships, she is able to rise from poverty to run a successful dairy farm. On the other hand, just about everyone else in the town become failures and poor (including her financee and his wife).

Sometimes, I found myself admiring the main character, Dorinda, and other times feeling pity that her loveless life was filled with work only. It seemed one-faceted and at times filled with biting man-hating resentment. There was a lot of substance to this book and much could be written and studied about it. Another book to be filled under "read again."

This is definitely one of Glasgow's best pieces of work.

Ellen Glasgow is largely forgotten now and this is a pity because she was a talented writer. "Barren Ground" and "Vein of Iron" are her best known works and in their time, the first half of the last century, they were highly regarded

"Barren Ground" is sometimes taken by feminists as a tract for their side. They are wrong. It is true that the protagonist, Dorinda, successfully makes her way in the man's world of the turn of the last century. Having been viciously jilted by her lover the twenty-year old Dorinda flees her impoverished Virginia homestead only to return two years later and gradually transform it into a showplace farm. In the process she is amply revenged on her faithless lover and becomes a wealthy and moderately powerful woman of admired character. So far, so good.

But, the title "Barren Ground" says it all. The Virginia farmland Dorinda inherits, worn out from years of tobacco culture, is indeed nearly barren. A pernicious weed, the bloomsedge, has invaded the sterile landscape and it must be plowed under if anything of value is to bloom. Thus far the obvious metaphor for Dorinda and her need to transform herself into something vital and valuable after her tragic young adulthood.

But, the title of the book is ironic. The land is, indeed, reclaimed by Dorinda and made fruitful again. It is Dorinda who remains barren -- both literally and figuratively -- to the last page.

It must occur to any careful reader that Dorinda is, in fact, psychologically unbalanced. Her 'jilt" at the age of twenty becomes the determining factor in her life. For most people, it is an episode. In page after page of over-wrought prose Ms. Glasgow takes us through Dorinda's ridiculously over-wrought reaction to being dumped. Whole chapters describe her inner turmoil and bitterness and after only a few pages the message becomes clear: Dorinda is mildly psychotic.

The second half of the book extends Dorinda's story from about 1893, when she is dumped, to 1923. During that time Dorinda uses the excuse of her musty, long-ago love affair, as an rationale for her utter lack of empathy toward others and her total self-involvement. She feels no grief when her loving father dies -- a man she mentally compares with a horse -- and has not even a trace of sympathy for a brother who fears for his life after having killed a man. When she finally does marry it is solely for reasons of gain and she is dismissive of her husband -- a man so intelligent and saintly that after his death the impoverished community erects a monument to his memory!

Dorinda is the classic ice-queen. Time and again the author tells us, and Dorinda reiterates, that she is repulsed by physical sex. She cannot,in fact, bear to be touched. There is not a single hint in the book, though, that she is attracted to women. While she maintains her surface decency Dorinda becomes one of those against whom Hawthorne warned us -- one who has lost hold of the magnetic chain of humanity.

Dorinda bears no child ("Barren Ground") and lives primarily for revenge. She is incapable of love. She sits in judgement on others. Offered, time and again, sacrificial love by her husband, and a few others, she dismisses the offer with contempt. Her only admirable quality is that she "endures" -- a thing done as well by cold stone.

There is no reclamation of Dorinda as there is of the land. She is a feminist "hero" only insofar as she has a tidy bank account. In all other ways she is a selfish, repulsive character and it is hard to believe that Glasgow used the adjective "barren" casually.

"Barren Ground" is not a tale of redemption. It is a tale, instead, of youthful psychosis hardening itself into a lifetime of uncaring. It is a cautionary tale. It belongs with Hawthorne's novels and short stories as a case study of a perverted personality warping itself into a moral sink.

Barren Ground is an overlooked classic that is still relevant today. I would never have read it myself except that it was required reading in a college class on great american novels of the 20th century. I wonder sometimes if its lack of popularity is because the story concerns a young woman who forsakes the love of man and determines to have a meaningful, rewarding life on her own. The heroine, Dorinda, is betrayed by her lover. She ultimately builds a successful life as a single female (quite a revolutionary thought for a turn-of-the century novel!). Dorinda's life mirrors in many ways the life stories of actual women I have known, woman who have had to make their own way in the world due to death or divorce. If I were a high school english teacher, I would make this required reading for every girl in my class.

This is the first novel by Ellen Glasgow that I've ever read, and I was amazed at how good it was. This is the way novels should be written although, I'm afraid many readers will find her style antique, superfluous, and, perhaps tedious. On the contrary. I submit that the problem is that few writers have the ability these days to write this well

Glasgow's prose is flawless and a pleasure to read. I must admit that sometimes it's almost too good, and may lapse into melodrama. There must be some reason that she is not as famous as she should be, and it may be that her prose is just too damn enjoyable; almost vacuous at times, and like eating chocolate you want to eat more and more but its a quickly extinguished pleasure. I'm afraid that ultimately the reason that she is not a great writer, but a very fine one indeed, is that reading her is just too delicious, so it couldn't be good for you; and something is lacking although I can't quite put my finger on it.

Her descriptions are lush, detailed, paint a beautiful picture and complete as you could want them to be--do I contradict myself--so what!

Another strength, and possible weakness, is again, the interesting, but almost embarassing phiolosophical commentary on life that is almost on every page. I admire her for the guts to say some very hard things about life and love, but I almost wish she hadn't said them, at least, so much, because telling the story--which she does brilliantly-- may be enough; let the reader fill in the blanks. She had a tendency to preach too much, but I've got to admit that I like a good sermon, and she's full of those.

When I picked up the book at the library; I had seen Harry Golden refer to it, and felt the heft of a five hundred page novel;I wondered if I could get into it. But it captured me, and I took it in small doses like some wonderful treat that I didn't want to finish.

When I finished it,I ordered a used copy to use as a reference for a quality of writing that I would like to emulate, but perhaps in not so much abundance.

Glasgow has a place among the highest ranks of novelists world wide, and I would have no trouble awarding her a Nobel Prize for her intelligence alone. The fact that she never got one tells me that maybe the learned judges also smelt something fishy about her writing, something that they couldn't define either, but that put them off from awarding her the highest honor in literature that she may well deserve?

The spirit of human triumph and Glasgow's breakthrough style are amazing. THe book is so three dimensional and a wonderful read.

I read this book in college decades ago and still remember how moved I was by the story, not only by Dorinda's tragedy, but also by her strength and resilience. In some of the other reviews, I noted some readers who felt she never opened herself to love. This is true for most of her adult life, but near the end as she thinks she is through with all that, I didn't believe her at all. I thought she found some measure of contentment. She was not the kind of woman to let her guard down completely, not after the jilting, but I didn't view her as beign without feeling. For me, Barren Ground was one of those right books at the right time in my life.

Ellen Glasgow's 'Barren Ground' depicts the agrarian Virginia of post-Civil War to 1930's. This book was a trip back to that time, it seems to me. An extremely intelligent, fully alive human being, this acclaimed and regrettably, long forgotten author is brutally honest in her depiction of that time. If you want to experience the customs, human relations, race relations and hardships of that place and period you will be captivated by this book.

I will reiterate in this review that one should read her autobiography first before jumping into her fiction. You will understand where she was coming from. This book is much, much better than 'Virginia', an earlier Glasgow book.

Excellent. One of her best novels. The prevalent element of naturalism strongly reinforces the theme and setting of the story, giving the reader a good taste of southern literature. The growth of Dorinda's character can be measured by the symbolism of each of the three parts of the novel (broomsedge, pine, and life-everlasting). A wonderful addition to women's literature as well as southern literature.

This book is very depressing. The girl at the beginning is full of hope and she is a little naive. Then the world begins to crash down upon her. Almost everything bad that can happen does.
I almost had a nervous breakdown reading this. It makes you lose faith in the world and in man.

I had to read this for a class and, halfway through, opted to just make up answers on any further tests.