Customer Reviews

Clergyman's Daughter (Item No. 1237)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Some say, this is the weekest of Orwell's 6 novels. I am not so sure.
But even if it is, it is still so much more interesting than most other writers' 'good' novels.
If it is a bad novel, it is still a very good book.
Sure, the text is uneven. The chapters talk a different language. So?
Chapter 1 is a 'plain' tale of a young woman in Suffolk, a spinsterish, neurotic, sex-phobic, obedient, pious, nice person, called Dorothy. She has a bad hypertrophy of sense of duty. She lets herself be exploited as an unpaid church helper. Her father, the clergyman, is maybe the biggest idiot in his profession that you can find in literature. This life happens in Knype Hill in Suffolk, the small town that you never want to get to know.
Chapter 2 is the catastrophe: Dorothy had a blackout, and at awakening, she is not in any kind of Ozish wonderland, but has lost 8 days of her life plus her memory plus her self. Who is she? She somehow joins a small band of bums who go hop-picking in Kent. This chapter is maybe the worst; Orwell grafts his own diary texts about hop picking on Dorothy's life. It is not working. A very odd text. She finds out who she is and realizes that her disappearance was a major scandal at home: her small home town thinks she eloped with an older man of disreputable morals. She appeals to her father for help and gets no answer.
Chapter 3 is brillant: Dorothy has ended up with the homeless crowd at Trafalgar Square. A Joycean text of multiple voices, which rarely attends to Dorothy, but never lets us forget where she is. Arrest is a step to salvation.
Chapter 4 and then 5 go back to straighforward narration. Father, through a relative, has somehow managed to get her saved from the street. She gets a job as a teacher, and finds herself in servitude to the worst school owner that you can find. The job is hell. She gets fired, but then there is another level of rescue: she may come home, she has been rehabilitated. Chapter 5 shows her in the dreariness of her sad prospects: unpaid church helper, a father who will leave her poor when he dies in maybe 10 years, no other prospects than oldmaidhood and poor jobs. And worst: she has lost faith, but she can not resign herself to the view that life is meaningless. Like a proper Sisyphus she keeps pushing the rock upwards on the hillside.
Yes, this is not smooth. The neurological aspects of the story (amnesia, regaining self-identification) seem dubious. (Maybe Oliver Sacks could have a look?). The text also has some of Orwell's less agreeable characteristics: he was something of a racist as a young man. This seems to have been worked out of his sytem later. Here he still writes about the gypsies, that they have 'oafish, oriental faces', that they exude 'dense stupidity, untameable cunning'. Come on, George/Eric! There is a 'Jew' who lusts after Dorothy in a way that could have been taken straight from the 'Stuermer'. Sure, Jews could have been lusting after her, but so might all the others. Where was the point here?
The novel is a highly interesting 'Bildungsroman', in a reverse sort of way. Reading my own review now I conclude that I would consider it one of Orwell's best productions.

While The Clergyman's Daughter may not be 1984 it is still an amazing piece of literature. Orwell's satirical look at England through the eyes of a fanatically pious woman is amazing. He points out alot of social, religous and personal issues without being preachy. Trough it all you care about the fate of Dorathy Hare and that makes the end a little unsettling. Although, the story is sometimes to "convinient" and it is not as powerful and gripping as Orwell's other works I think any true Orwell fans will like this book.

I think this is a great novel, as atmospheric and moving as my other favorite novel by him, 1984.

To me, the most incredible and resonant parts of the book are those about homelessness - the nightly routines - trying to sleep in trafalgar square, being allowed to sit in the cafe from 6 AM etc. It is all so intimately described that you feel as if you are there. In this way it recalls 'down and out in paris and london'.

Definitely a winner

It is interesting when thinking of the protagonist in this novel to compare her to Dorothy of The Wizard of OZ. She mysteriously wakes up far away from her home and her claustrophobic small town life. But, unlike Dorothy of Kansas who finds a world of magical wonder, Orwell's Dorothy finds a bleak world of late-industrial England where people are left to survive in the dark corners and from the scraps they can find. It is an adventurous tale of a young woman's survival, but it is also a ripe opportunity for Orwell to critique the social condition of England's underclass. The comments are poignantly made. Orwell also finds his an interesting way to incorporate some stylistic techniques in his fiction that he hasn't explored before. The scene where Dorothy is trying to survive on the streets is written in dramatic dialogue. This creates a greater physical intimacy with the situation that is dramatically created in the mind of the reader. It also enables immediacy with repetitious dialogue like Dorothy's obsession with how cold the cold can be. Like Dorothy of Kansas's journey, this is meant to be a journey of self-discovery. It is up to the reader to decide whether she has learned anything. It is one of Orwell's best novels, though not his most subtle.

Knowing what was finally going to come of Dorothy kept me until 2:30 AM this morning...and I wasn't disappointed.

Orwell cheats right out of the chute: In realizing that he may not know enough about women to write about our protagonist, he immediatedly removes her sexuality by telling us she is disgusted by the thought of "that." Nuff said. Our hero(ine) is now pretty much asexual.

What a story though. Plumbing the depths of faith and predestiny, Orwell weaves a fairly heavy tale of the motherless daugther of a grim and dispassionate minister obsessed only with his investments and petty theological particulars.

The minister's daughter loyally fills in the gaps, acting as the heart and soul of a failling church, praying her way against impossible odds while visiting the sick, recruiting new church goers, seeing to the buildings and her father's meals...and eventually completely wigging out.

Now the fun begins.

This is a warm and rewarding book, full of human insight and only a little bit of Orwell's patented socialist soap-boxing.

There is a not very active Orwell newsgroup, and from timeto time newbies wander in and ask what Orwell's best booksare. Well, everyone knows about "1984" and "Animal Farm," so I usually mention that I like "A Clergyman's Daughter." I sometimes get flamed for this. But who cares? I like it! It is a kind of picaresque novel. I think my favorite part is poor Dorothy trying to be a good teacher in a very bad school, and having the parents object, saying saying things like "We don't want her taught decimals, we want her taught ARITHMETIC." Her struggles with her monster of a father is memorable, and the ending, where she cheerfully resigns herself to her fate, seems to foreshadow the ending of "1984."

Upon mention of George Orwell, "A Clergyman's Daugter" isn't usually the book that jumps into reader's minds, and compared to his polished masterpieces -- Animal Farm and 1984 -- the reason is understandable. Yet for fans of Orwell lies an undiscovered gem, a less understated yet deliciously piercing satire of early 20th Century England, flavored abundatly with the author's trademark social criticism and wicked humor. It's a book that leaves no stone unturned, challenging religion, gender, education, social class, and both the timely and timeless inadequacies and hypocrasies of which Orwell bore witness.

The book's title refers, fittingly enough, to the chief protagonist, Dorothy Hare. A girl in her late twenties, she begins the book as a militant religious devotee, shown best in a pin she always keeps with her, used for pricking herself in penance for committing the slightest misdeed -- sometimes drawing blood for thinking no more than an unholy thought. She is one daughter among "ten thousand others" who lives a grueling life under the stern command of her father, the pastor, a hardened man of stern disposition and resolute aloofness, whose awkening greeting to his daugter as the novel begins is a question of when breakfast will arrive.

With a misadventure that begins here and ends in a place both similar and entirely different, Dorothy meets affrronts to her life, her stature, her class, even the very faith upon which the whole of her existence resides. And as Dorothy is challenged to think of the world differently, so are we; a defining moment comes when she says, "it is not what we do that matters, it is how our thinking changes because of it." As a theme to the novel and a thesis which he brilliantly defends, Orwell succeeds without hesitation. (As a note, the above quote is paraphrased, and I appologize -- I've already returned the book to the library.)

Where he falters -- and indeed he does -- is in the structure of the novel and, occasionally, the consistency of his language. The myriad of poetic prose almost seems to contradict his otherwise honed and scathing wit, and while often pleasing to the ear, his effors seem at best superfluous, essentially inconcequential to his underlying message. Other reviewers speak with further clarity on this topic, and I'm particularly inclined with one's opinion that only "Joyce can write like Joyce," in other words, that Orwell's language in "A Clergyman's Daughter" could at the least be called affected.

But these gripes on language aside, Orwell succeeds in painting a stark, grim, yet gripping picture of a society gone awry, and beckons us to look within.

This book is absolutely marvelous. Orwell paints a very captivating picture of the difference between the classes in England, as well as the varying degrees of religiousness among the classes. The observations that Orwell makes are insightful and very expressive. I honestly prefer this book over 1984.

An intriguing meditation on the nature of faith and poverty, with a side dish of Orwell's laser-focused truth on what it means to be a teacher. However, stylistically, you can tell that this is one book from the early part of Orwell's career.

It is a little more 'experimental' in a modernist mode, without the narrative necessity for the experimental moves. Overall, I would recommend the book, but only after having read other books by the same author.

Dorothy Hare is the clergyman's daughter. A chief torment of her life is the butcher's bill. The rector is ill-humored. He is an anachronism. Their church, St. Athelstan's, is located in Suffolk. The rector exists in a chronic state of exasperation. He is the grandson of a baronet, (the youngest son of a youngest son). He is on a life-long search for a good investment and, consequently, feels it is perfectly proper to neglect paying the butcher.

The Dean's wife is detestable. Dorothy fears that in the course of a visit she will discover that Dorothy and her father are in debt. The condition of the church belfry is iffy. The church organ fund needs replenishing. Either science and free thought or the dullness of the services have caused the congregation of St. Athelstan's to dwindle.

Whereas the rector doesn't really fit into the community, Dorothy does. She visits the down-hearted, the neglected. She makes many costumes for the children's plays.

As happened to Agatha Christie in real life, Dorothy absents herself from her home in mysterious fashion. Dorothy and a companion are employed as hop pickers. In PIPPIN'S WEEKLY Dorothy reads the story of herself. It is troubling. Her memory returns and she seeks to go back to Knype Hall. She writes to her father. No answer is received and she endures life in the vicinity of London for ten days, jobless.

The rector does try to contact Dorothy. Unfortunately he does not believe she really lost her memory. The manservant of Sir Thomas Hare, his cousin, finds Dorothy. (George Orwell has put his character Dorothy Hare into the position of being down and out in London; thus anticipating his own autobiographical adventures).

Sir Thomas arranges for Dorothy to teach school at Ringwood House Academy. It is a mean school. (The George Orwell, Eric Blair, school-critic is apparent here in the above-cited episode of the novel.) The further adventures of Dorothy are related as she makes her way back to the village where the story begins.

In this novel the author feelingly portrays with verve his personal brand of stoicism through his description of Dorothy Hare and her life. It is an uneven but exciting story. The experiment of conveying the subject's reaction to environmental stresses is successful in part. In establishing the character and circumstances of the heroine Orwell moves as confidently and lightly as a latter-day Jane Austen.