Customer Reviews

Camilla (Oxford World's Classics)

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Why do I think it should have been called Eugenia? She is the character whom you will respect and adore the most at the end of this book. But before I elaborate on that further, let me say that this is the second book of Fanny Burney's that I have read and she is the author who has, by far, the best gift for pulling her readers into the very emotions of her characters. The characters in Camilla felt like very real people to me by the end of this book. This is not just due to the fact that it is almost a thousand pages long - I felt this way within the first few chapters. Ms. Burney was a great inspiration to many later authors, most notably, Jane Austen. In fact, scholars believe that Camilla was the direct influence for Austen's masterpiece, Sense and Sensibility. The flavor of Austen's books were clearly cooked up while she was reading Ms. Burney, and you'll find that the inspiration and enjoyment Ms. Austen received while reading Camilla, as well as other Burney books, is no mystery.

The story follows two sisters, Eugenia and Camilla, and their cousin, Indiana, in the months preceding their marriages. Not only are the lives of these three women explored, but we see several equally strong male characters and the supporting cast is as delightful, frustrating, and dramatic as good supporting characters should be. Although Camilla is darling and sympathetic, you may, as I did, find that much of what she goes through could have been easily avoided. Much of what occurs involves Camilla's suitor, Edgar, who decides, based on the advice of a friend, to look for her faults and be sure she loves him before declaring his love and asking her to marry him. On the other hand, Camilla, who is deeply in love with Edgar is given advice by her father to avoid him and hide her feelings for him as much as possible (to avoid complications in their already established friendship). This of course, places everything in a muddle as both are working against each other. On top of this, Camilla seems to have a knack for finding herself in situations, which Edgar always just happens to witness, that appear less than flattering to her character. The reader finds themselves frustrated with the continual thousand page cycle that ensues, but fear not, by the end you find that Ms. Burney planned and shares these frustrations. As you can imagine, the book deals greatly with the expectations placed on young women, trust, prejudice, and giving individuals, especially those we love, the benefit of the doubt.

Ms. Burney writes about her characters in such a vivid manner that you feel as if you can actually see what's going on. Facial expressions, emotions, settings, etc. are painted with subtle yet strong master strokes. Besides giving us Camilla's story in full, Ms. Burney gives us multiple strong sub plots. Eugenia's story is perhaps the most dramatic and in my opinion, more powerful and moving that the main story. I will not spoil the book by giving you the details other than to say that she overcomes insurmountable odds, and does so with a grace that will endear her to you.

Besides giving us wonderful human interest stories, Ms. Burney once again weaves intrigue, wisdom, tragedy, comedy, and a host of surprising plot twists in this book that will hold the reader glued to every page. It's length was never felt. In fact, the closer I came to the finish line, the slower I read because I didn't want the book to end. Despite it's being a thousand pages long, I finished the book rapidly and never felt a numb, boring moment. Camilla will capture you from her opening pages and hold you betwixt the beginning and end in utter turmoil, suspense, awe, and, most importantly, rapture.

Along with Belinda and The History of Sir Charles Grandison, essential reading for all Jane Austen enthusiasts. In Camilla you will find Austen's inspiration for many different characters and situations. The 17 year old heroine of the novel is Burney's most enchanting. Her adventures are rich and surprising.The color of the 18th century infuses this book. Bring handkerchiefs, for there is pathos aplenty, but in a pure, non-cloying form. Eugenia, the stunted and unlovely but spiritually and intellectually exquisite sister of Camilla provides the soul of the book. This book contains suspense, glamour, romance, great wisdom and greater folly. Anyone who adores 18th C lit. will be sorry to turn the last page, though a thousand preceded it. In many ways this is Burney's happiest and most hopeful book. It was written as she was celebrating her liberation from spinsterhood into the estate of a married woman at age 40. We would be very lucky if anyone ever thought to turn this one into a film.

As a devoted Austen fan and having read Northanger Abbey where Fanny Burney's Camilla is mentioned I thought I'll give the book a try. Although it proved quite enjoyable for a time, but after 500 pages and at least "500" recurring events where the main (?) characters, Camilla & Edgar, almost seem to make it just to end up further and further apart I got really bored. The novel would be much better if it were 400 pages shorter.

Burney might have inspired Jane Austen, but Austen exceeded and outsmarted her in every way. Where Austen's plots are tight without any unnecessary subplots and going-ons, just for the sake of writing another 200 pages, Burney keeps repeating events, her characters find themselves over and over in similar circumstances without adding anything new to plot or to characterization, making the whole novel very tiresome after a while. I admit that Jane Austen also used cliché characters but her genius breathed life into them - they are well-drawn and have depth - while Burney's characters - even or especially the main characters, with the exception of the wonderful Eugenia - stay flat and common place, as if cut out from a newspaper.
In my opinion, Camilla, the heroine is simply one of the most frustratingly perfect female cliché characters that appeared in print. Besides some very common place deeds she doesn't seem very special at all. What is apparent right form the start that her family, friends and admirers assume her perfect without any other ground that her being pretty and good-humoured. And it seems the author was quite satisfied with this kind of characterization for she didn't feel the need to emphasize Camilla's good qualities with any external actions really but what is cliché and boring. As a result, Camilla remains a rather one-sided, flat character without any real progress than being understood rather than misunderstood by Edgar at the end of the painfully long 1000 pages. The most incredible and discrediting thing to me was when at a social assembly the boorish suitor of Camilla - not at all a gentleman - starts abusing Eugenia's appearance and Camilla instead of putting him to place or at least leaving him on the spot if she is such a coward to say anything - like I am sure Elizabeth Bennet, Elinor Dashwood or Emma Woodhouse would have done - just remains there sitting stupidly and mutely. So much for sisterly love!

I tend to agree with my fellow reviewers that Eugenia is a far more interesting and profound character, her personal tragedy and the courage she bears it with make her endearing. Hers was the -unfortunately only - subplot that I followed with the most excitement and sympathy.

Still, the novel was an interesting experience for me to know what was considered popular reading in that period and as such, quite useful with my studies.

Though there may have been a few slight annoyances about this book (Dr. Marchmont, Edgar's suspicious nature), for the most part, it was highly readable and very well-written. The Eugenia subplot was fascinating and the characters were well-rounded and interesting (especially Sir Sedley Clarendel, who I thought showed a lot of potential, and who was much more than the fop he appeared to be). I should warn you (especially everybody new to Burney)that it starts fairly slowly, but the plot really picks up a couple hundred pages in. There were several times that I got so into reading it (especially the last 200 pages) that I ignored homework or other things that I was expected to do. Altogether, I highly recommend Camilla to anyone who wants to read something engaging, entertaining and different.

Although this book may seem intimidating due to its length, it kept me entertained the whole time. I am a huge Jane Austen fan, and I had also read Burney's Evelina. After reading Camilla, I have found an author that I enjoy as much as Jane Austen: Fanny Burney. Burney's works seem neglected by Hollywood; while reading this novel, I kept imagining what a great role some of the characters would provide for a movie. (However, I couldn't think of one scene which I wouldn't be disappointed to have left out in a screenplay of normal length.) Camilla's uncle (Sir Hugh Tyrold), her brother Lionel, and various suitors actually had me laughing out loud. This book is 1000 pages entirely composed of "the good parts" of Jane Austen's novels. I felt like I was there in the world of Camilla. I cringed everytime Camilla did something that Edgar, her love interest, interpreted in the wrong way. It was almost painful, and I could sympathize. It is a great novel which should be a part of the library of any fan of Austen or 18th century literature.

This is a long novel, but well worth the effort. If you like Jane Austen then you should find this a rewarding book to read.

Don't get me wrong, /Camilla/ (1796) is a fantastic novel, and an excellent piece of late eighteenth-century literature; however, after reading all of Burney's other novels, her journals, and her plays, I have to say this novel is my least favorite of all her work. While Burney again demonstrates her talent for satire (especially in her comprehensive representation of all "degrees" or "ranks" of society), her arch critiques, and stunning insights into human interiority and social interactions, /Camilla/, to me, lacks the "edgy-ness" (for lack of a better word) of her other work. There are really no moments comparable, for instance, to /Cecilia/'s (1782) masquerade sequence or Harrell's suicide at Vauxhall, nor to /The Wanderer/'s (1814) acute sensitivity to terror and the vexed questions of liberty so closely associated with the revolutionary period. And the "hero" of /Camilla/, Edgar, is certainly no Mortimer Delvile, Lord Orville, or, my personal favorite--Albert Harleigh. In fact, one of the biggest issues I have with /Camilla/ is the fact that the hero takes the advice of a professed misogynist--a close friend of his who, spurned by a woman in his youth, encourages Edgar to judge Camilla based on her actions, without deigning to point out that she deserves to speak for herself in regard to them, too. Acting more like a judge and a tool of regulation than a sensible, spirited, and intriguing lover, Edgar is a hero I just cannot get on board with. Camilla, however, is interesting enough, if not a little unlucky when she appears in public before Edgar--but that's exactly Burney's point: when society (and a patriarchal society at that) chooses to judge women based on "outward semblance" alone, how can she appear other than as a weak and inherently flawed second-citizen in need of male regulation? While Edgar learns, somewhat, in time to not trust to appearances and to hear Camilla speak for herself, it comes a little too late for me--I spend the entire novel resenting him, and the end doesn't really make up for it.

Still, I love this novel more than a lot of other works of the same period, mainly because I find Burney to be perhaps one of the most enchanting and innovative writers ever. For those, however, who are looking for another Burney novel after thoroughly enjoying her delightful and more light-hearted debut work, /Evelina/ (1778), I would sincerely recommend picking up either /Cecilia/ or /The Wanderer/ before /Camilla/--if you're going to read 900 pages, you should read her best! /Cecilia/, my favorite novel of all time (although /The Wanderer/ is a close, close second), is widely regarded as one of the best novels ever written, not just in the eighteenth century! And for those Jane Austen lovers out there, you may recognize some familiar characterizations and plots--and Burney's famous repetition of the follies of "PRIDE & PREJUDICE" that pervade the end of the novel only drive home the ways in which Austen admired and interacted textually with Burney.

I'd also recommend, if you enjoy this or other Burney novels, Maria Edgeworth's /Belinda/ (1801), Elizabeth Inchbald's /A Simple Story/ (1791), and Charlotte Smith's /Emmeline/ (1788).

Fanny Burney does not write "light" novels. They are complex, heavily populated and interwoven with numerous events that solidify the characters personalities.

If you can keep up with all the twist and turns, Camilla is quite a satisfying novel. The heroine is a sensitive and naive girl, who after several tests of character and tragic disappointments meets a just and lovely end. Along the way, you become acquainted with her family and friends. They instantly endear themselves as deeply as Camilla does, and you find yourself cheering for their success or deserved demise.

I especially love Burney's obvious enjoyment of the use of language. She lingers over the words and is in no hurry to bring brevity or economy in her narration. Its linguistic decadence is a wonderful contrast to todays "txtg" & abbreviated "msging", IMO.

I am sure we could find several passages that could have been effectively edited, but then it would not personify 18 century, classic, British literature.

Well worth the investment of time, as Burney always is!

Like the other readers who reviewed this book, I am a huge Austen fan. I've read "Pride and Prejudice" so many times I can quote whole paragraphs by heart. So when I discovered Fanny Burney, a contemporary of Austen's, I couldn't wait to get into her books. "Camilla" is the second book by Burney I've read, and it's reinforced my initial impression that Burney is not up to Austen's caliber as a novelist. She tells an interesting story, but her characters seem too much like stock pieces acting on a stage, and the overly dramatic dialogue doesn't help matters much. Austen's genius was in not only telling a mesmerizing tale, but in bringing her characters so completely to life that they seem totally real. Austen's novels are of their own time and for all time; Burney's books are stuck rigidly in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

A singular problem with "Camilla" is Camilla herself; she comes across more as a sweet but empty-headed ingenue, tripping from one mess to another and managing to make mountains out of molehills. Her younger sister Eugenia, crippled and disfigured with smallpox but well-read and profound, is a far more interesting figure, and if she had been the center of the book, it would have been a far more interesting book. By 600 pages we get kind of tired of Camilla's incessant mess-ups, and just wish she'd hurry up and marry Edgar and have done with it. As another reviewer stated, I would like to see "Camilla" brought to the screen; with the fat trimmed from the novel, a good script, and in the hands of a good director, it might be a better movie than a book. Taken on its own, "Camilla" is not a bad book at all; but there is no way it can stand up to Austen.

The story follows two sisters, Eugenia and Camilla, and their cousin, Indiana, in the months preceding their marriages. I have been meaning to read this book for a long time, I wanted to read some of the books that influced my favorite writers such as Jane Austen. Fanny Burney's name is always mentioned so I picked up Camilla at a used bookstore and decided to give it a try. It is a very long book and at times can be so frustrating because you just want the characters to get on with it and be over. The misunderstandings, are endless and Burney has an excellent ability to allow her readers to feel all of the emotions of her characters. There were points of the books where I was laughing out loud and other points where I was crying my eyes out. I have to say that I haven't read a book like this in a long time that had the ability to totally affect my emotions and make me think about it long after it was finished. I can truly understand why so many authors have been influenced by Fanny Burney her writing is witty, funny, light and dark and I look forward to adding her other two books in my large to be read pile.