Customer Reviews

Memoirs of a Midget

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

 

 

I thought that this book was excellent! As a fellow short person, I could relate to the story wonderfully! I have felt the same feelings that she felt, it was almost like a mirror was held up to my life. Well except for the when the book took place I can't believe how awesome this book was! Now perhaps people will look at the midgets and think that they are real people too, not just disformed humans. you should read this book. It was the best book I ever read. I hope that everyone reads this book so that people everywhere can get to know the hardships that we face in our day to day lives. This book really educated my friends on how hard life can be. I can only hope that others will do the same thing.

...though few enough people will ever read it, because this book languishes in undeserved obscurity. This novel is a fascinating look into a life which is unimaginable to most of us--this life of a tiny, delicate midget,

whose heart and soul are as large as she is small. This is not a book to be picked up for an idle afternoon's

reading (though it is not difficult to read), because it is truly like entering...well, a fairyland. If you are a

reader of high fiction, you will love it.

And, though I'm evidently the only person in the world who knows this, it would make a world-beating

animated film.

Memoirs Of A Midget by Walter de la Mare is a fictional memoir of Miss M, a diminutive young woman (exactly how diminutive is left up to the reader's interpretation!), who grows up in an orphanage and eventually falls in love with a full-sized woman even as she is courted by a male dwarf. The daily travails of Miss M, with the unique obstacles presented by her size difference, lead to her resolve to claim independence by offering herself as a spectacle in a circus. An engagingly told, wry yet witty read, Memoirs Of A Midget is a unique and inherently fascinating novel from beginning to end.

Amazon.com sent me the corrected, updated version of Memoirs of a Midget today (thank you, thank you!), and it works fine on my Kindle (at last)!

The book itself is a masterpiece, and I am so glad to have some Walter de la Mare works available for my Kindle now. His prose stories are generally hard to find, and unaccountably obscure. And it is a pity, because he was a unique, amazing writer and poet. His lyrical, haunting style is unmatched, and quite enchanting. His poetry is truly fine, but I really love his prose works best. They read like prose, but engage your imagination like poetry! The language is beautiful.

De La Mare's little gem, Memoirs of a Midget has to be one of my favourite novels of all time; an uncanny situation, richly developed personalities and the ever present philisophical questions of identity, place and sexuality are all addressed in the most quizzical and charming ways. A must have for those who consider themselves lovers of fairytales as well as philosophers.

I so wanted to enjoy this book, Walter de la Mare is truly a great poet and author of some gems in the short story genre. But I felt the steam went out of this novel approximately 100 pages into it, there was simply not enough plot development to sustain an entire novel. This is a character study that simply got out of hand. There is great poetry in the prose but I found that once the heroine of the title moves to the boarding house from her family home the book becomes a muddled mess with little rhyme or reason. The sense of whimsy and pathos that enriches the beginning quickly becomes a plodding dose of endless pathos without sympathy or motivation to attract the reader. I see that there is an appeal to this work according to other reviewers, but I simply offer my assessment as a counter-point.

A book that begs to be read, and certainly will benefit from second, third, fourth readings and so on. The poetry in the prose is most exquisite and makes for an incredibly beautiful read, but it does take some time getting used to. The subtleties of the dialogue as well as half of the descriptions by Miss M can probably be read a myriad of different ways and may well confuse the reader as to the real meanings behind them. But once you come out of the haze, you will realise that you are holding something entirely unique in your hands.

On vacation. No bookstores around. Needed to read for a book group. But after more or less reading the sample, sometimes able to decipher the multiple "typos," sometimes not, I decided that even at 3.97 the experience would just be too frustrating.