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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
(3.5) Diary of a "madwoman", March 17, 2005
This is really an astonishing piece of work, weighty in the extreme and filled with literary references that evoke beloved classic masterpieces. From the first page, Alice Pinkerton muses about her life as a woman of the 20th century, still controlled by the rigid Victorian mores that govern every element of society. Likening herself to Rochester's wife, the madwoman in Jane Eyre, Alice is hardly mad, rather a lady of exquisite intellectual sensibilities who does not live incarcerated, attending church and performing other duties required by her station. Rather, it is Alice's mind that is imprisoned, for the entire work, takes place in the character's mind, segueing from one connection to another. Hers is a fascinating dialog, one that questions, pokes, prods and eviscerates the common mentality. Clearly, Alice is a woman born before her time. The forces that converge in Alice's thoughts, literary, musical, sometimes vaguely threatening, run from simple observations to more convoluted ideas. Were she a man, Alice would be considered a literary master of ideas and revolutionary concepts. That said, this is a stream-of-consciousness novel with Alice as the only character, driven by her own inner dialog, without the respite of other points of view. Although I tried, I could not continue the journey with Alice, eventually exhausted by the sheer force of words spinning through her intellect. This book is staggering in the number of pages and range of ideas, especially the literary references, which mine long-forgotten, if once beloved novels. I just could not continue past the first 200 pages. Alice proved too much for me. Such enormous energy is expended in the 727 pages that there must be a welcoming audience for this novel. I envision the author, churning out endless pages, falling deeper into Alice's mind and I cannot imagine that this literary monument should go unappreciated. There is an audience for stream-of-consciousness novels and I hope this one receives its share of applause. Luan Gaines/ 2005.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Like being alone inside someone's mind., January 30, 2006
The first thing to warn potential readers of this book about - it isn't a story so much as the dialogue happening in a woman's mind. Imagine sitting down in the morning and daydreaming and reminiscing all day. Then sit down and write the whole thing down over 727 pages. That is what Pinkerton's Sister is like to read. Comparisons to James Joyce's "Ulysses" are apt. There is no "action", nothing actually happens. It is just thoughts written down (and it skips and jumps between topics like real thoughts do). So if you place a high value on plot, Pinkerton's Sister is best avoided. Having said that, the thoughts of Alice, the 35 year-old Victorian spinster, who "reads too much" are interesting. There are witty, cynical observations about the people in her neighbourhood and their social pretensions. There are numerous references to literary classics, from "The Scarlet Letter" to "Frankenstein", "Jane Eyre" and even the Bible. Alice Pinkerton relates all the characters and events in books to those people she knows in real life, and the two become intertwined. A play of reality and fiction forms in her mind, and the reader is invited inside. In the cave of Alice's mind we find bitterness, frustration and contempt for the world around her, all expressed with witty sarcasm. Alice realises the problem isn't with her, but with the society she lives in. A society where women who are unmarried and read literature are considered mad, and sent to see psychoanalists. She mocks this narrow world by comparing it to the rich and varied one she finds in books, the world of her mind. The writing style and literary knowledge of the author are great. The insights of Alice are beautiful despite their brutal truth. But unfortunately, I couldn't take 700+ pages of thought without any sort of events. With no "external stimulation" so to speak, I got wearing reading at times. It was like being stuck in an elevator, with nothing to do or see, just your thoughts. At times you just had to "get off" and take a break before returning to the "seclusion" of the book. If that doesn't bother you, I recommend it. As for me, I sort of wish it had been shorter. The experience was good, and I was glad of it, but it lasted too long. You get the flavour of Alice's thoughts in about 250 pages. After that, they begin to feel repetitive. I resented the loss of time I could have spent reading other books.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
What Alice knew ..., December 21, 2009
This review is from: Pinkerton's Sister (Paperback)
Whenever Alice, the novel's protagonist, turns her acerbic wit on the stuffy philistines surrounding her, the results are simply hilarious, and I honestly consider rereading some of these chapters to better savour their verbal acrobatics. Traversing this novel, however, was by no means an unalloyed pleasure: first, as Alice's fellow citizens tend to come across as cardboard caricatures, the sheer length of the harangues does not always seem justified; and what is more, these entertaining bits come in between expansive stretches of densely allusive prose, littered with literary references and snatches of verse. These parts definitely exhausted my patience and went beyond my intellectual grasp, but I still wonder if to some extent this is not simply a novel that wants to be too clever by half and in doing so diminishes the impact of the monstrosities lurking at its dark core.
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