Customer Reviews

Eden & Honor

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

 

 

I have all of the Eden books and have read them several times. These books are the reason I have read the rest of her novels. Eden and Honor is the last generation of Edens that Ms. Harris said she was going to write about and I hate that because they are such good stories. I would suggest them to anyone that likes historical fiction.

Eden and Honor least favorite. The Prince of Eden got me started
I love you Mrs Harris,for such great reading.

I read each of Harris' novels in order. I think her very best one was Eden and Honor -- her last one.

Eden and Honor more than any of the rest of the Eden series exposes a side of Harris that we do not really suspect except in John's adventure in the Crimea in an earlier novel. Harris hates war. In her mind there is nothing more destructive than war and her point in "killing everyone off" a criticism I once read on this book is that everyone is devastated by war. Everyone. No one survives it.

The women are most affected, because they must send husbands and sons to fight something they barely understand. They must do it because the men themselves are so determined to engage in it. Harris is enraged by the stupidity of males and her anger is clear throughout this novel. No one survives. That's her point. If men do come back, they're like Geoffrey, damaged beyond rehabilitation. If they are "peace-niks," like Alex, they are destroyed for nothing more than their opinion. Ms. Harris likely opposed the Viet Nam war and because she lives where she does, she likely saw the results of men coming back. These men were not appreciated. They were not treated as heroes. They let America down. Geoffrey was not talking about the Boer war, in my opinion; he was talking pointedly about Viet Nam: any veteran of any war but particularly Viet Nam could speak his bitterness and sense of betrayal.

Much has been made of John and his misuse of power and his slimy determination to control things that he had no real power over. That too is typical of Harris who believes that women have to stand up to John, no matter what it costs. She does not think John can be rehabilitated and she says so through Susan. When Susan finally does stand up to the diseased presence of Geoffrey and the overbearing complex stupidity of John, it is far too late. Her destruction of the symbol of the glorification of war and male dominance comes when Harris feels there is nothing left to say, and little that she can offer us.

Ms. Harris leaves us an unspeakable irony; she closes Eden with a disaster that has to have rivaled the original Eden. No wonder she wrote nothing more about it. What else could she say?

Eden and Honor begins in 1896 and Eden Castle is filled to the brim with returning family members and new arrivals. Eve is in childbirth, Richard's son Geoffrey returns from the Boer War crippled and bitter, and John Murrey Eden's son Frederick returns from ministering in India with a very pregnant wife. The novel continues as a new generation of Edens grow up through Queen Victoria's Jubilee celebration, the welcoming in of a new century and on through the The Great War - but not everyone at Eden is willing to adhere to duty and honor and fight in a war they feel is morally wrong.

"There will be no more wars after this one, will there, Susan?"

"No, I'm certain of it," Susan said with her quiet wisdom. "This will be the last. The very last. Men will not be so stupid again."

Righto, they've learned their lesson. Not.

I have sat here for an hour or more trying to find something to say to describe the plot, and have come to the conclusion that there isn't one - more just a series of vignettes about the family with plenty of loose threads left behind unanswered. The first 130+ pages are devoted to the birth of two babies by two different Eden mothers. Then there's a whole bunch of filler wasted on a big bash at Eden castle, just so's we can bring Aslam back into the story and get him involved with a new Eden character. Then there's a whole bunch of nothing as John ages and dotes on his grandsons and drives fast with his fancy motor car (no, I am not kidding). Then the saber rattling begins as England prepares for war and personal battle lines are drawn that splits the family in two.

*Yawn*

Add all that boring nothingness to a book riddled with more plot holes than Swiss cheese and you've got a fairly dull read, and I admit to skimming a great deal. Eden Rising (book five) leaves the reader with some very big unanswered questions. How did John and Aslam (John's foster-son) come to part ways? If John has been spending the last few years happily married and living at Eden Castle, just who is running his financial empire? Richard's only son and heir to the title locks himself away in the east wing and no one is concerned about the lack of a son to carry on? And what kind of answers do I get to my burning questions?

Nada, zip, nothing. What you do get are some serious continuity errors. The author tells us that Aslam is now the wealthiest man in England, but not how he separated from the Eden *fold*. In Eden Rising Aslam was sexually involved with a member of the Eden family (an affair that would have caused quite the scandal if it had ever been publically revealed), yet in this book they are little more than casual acquaintances. Editor, wherefore art thou?

Definitely read books one through five in the series, but I'd recommend giving the last two a pass. They aren't worth the time or the money wasted on them. Library only if you must.

I ordered 4 books of the series, and each of them came very fast. I was very satisfied with the quality of the books.