33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Mystery, August 5, 2002
By A Customer
The story of a persecuted girl who is delivered from one person to another who are compelled by different motives to decide her destiny. Her beauty and refinement of character attract many to her, but only one wins her love and proves worthy of it by his noble actions.
The plots of Radcliffe's mysteries have been efficiently summarized by Russell Noyes in an introduction of 1956:
"The hero is a gentleman of noble birth, likely as not in some sort of disgrace; the heroine, an orphan-heiress, high-strung and sensitive, and highly susceptible to music and poetry and to nature in its most romantic moods. A prominent role is given to the tyrant-villain. He is a man of fierce and morose passions obsessed by the love of power and riches. The villain can usually be counted on to confine the heroine in the haunted wing of a castle because she refuses to marry someone she hates. Whatever the details, Mrs. Radcliffe generally manages the plot and action so that the chief impression is a sense of the young heroine's incessant danger. On oft-repeated midnight prowls about the gloomy passageways of a rambling, ruined castle, the heroine in a quiver of excitement (largely self-induced) experiences a series of hair-raising adventures and narrow escapes. Her emotional tension is kept to the pitch by a succession of strange sights and sounds . . . and by an assorted array of sliding panels, trap doors, faded hangings, veiled portraits, bloodstained garments, and even dark and desperate characters."
Many reviewers claim that no other Radcliffe mystery measures up to her Mysteries of Udolpho. I was hesitant to read others after reading Udolpho and loving it, but I decided not to trust the reviewers and read three more. The same beautiful descriptions, the stories within stories and the mysteries appearing and perplexing the reader, then having full explanations continued to adorn her most marvellous writings. If you want one more page-turner, you have it in this story. The literary beauty and the mysterious characters and events will keep you reading.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ann Radcliff's First Success as Gothic Writer; Has Eerie Charms of Gothic, But Is Not Good Enough, October 14, 2005
Today Ann Radcliff is known for two thrilling Gothic novels -- 'Mysteries of Udolpho' (1794) and 'The Italian' (1797) -- but her talent was first recognized by 'The Romance of the Forest' (1791). 'The Romance' is now obscured by the more famous works, but can still offer some thrills common in the 18th-century Gothic world in its own way.
The narrative of 'Romance' is typically set in Roman Catholic Europe, and we see a family -- La Motte and his wife -- fleeing from Paris for debt. In the middle of the deep forest, La Motte is caught by the banditti (so he thinks). But the latter would not demand money; the ruffian instead brings a young, innocent girl Adeline, and places her under the protection of the family.
The episode above is just a beginning. Next we see La Motte et al. keep on running, until they decide to settle in a remote ruined abbey in France, of which owner Marquis is away from the estate. The deserted abbey provides them a good hiding place until Adeline realizes that something is wrong with the place -- there are a rusty dagger, a faded manuscript, a trap door, strange bahavior of La Motte, who daily vanishes in the woods, etc. And when finally Marquis arrives there in person, she must face another danger, typically Gothic situation for an innocent lady.
If you have read Radcliff, you find in 'Romance of the Forest' her distict touch here and there, which she was to develop in her later works. Besides the trademark tricks of Gothic fiction (which is to be parodied in 'Northanger Abbey'), we see Radcliff's obsession with the "sublime" landscapes, and her heroine is always allowed to escape from the dangers, only to frequently faint later. Lengthy poems are often quoated to express the sentiment of her and the writer, and the identities of some characters are revealed in the final act in order to solve the problems as rewards for the good.
Though Ann Radcliff has shown considerable skills of presenting thrills, the novel gets weaker in the third (and final) book, in which Adeline has virtually nothing to do. One strange thing is (from the viewpoint of us today, I mean) that portions of the third book are devoted to her travel, far from 'The Forest,' partly written as if it is a book of travel literature. And because of the too many characters rather carelessly introduced, the conclusion suffers from the complex (and often confusing) relations between them. So who is this sinister Marquis after all? Like the ending of 'Oliver Twist' the book explains too hastily, and you need to stop and think a while.
Good as it is, generally 'Romance of the Forest' is not regarded as Ann Radcliff's best, and probably it remains so in the future. And it even ceases to be a Gothic novel in the fianl section, in which the heroine, who should be in distress trapped in the distant castle somewhere in the Alps, leaves the dark forest far behind, and is allowed to look at the sunset in the sea and read a poem.or two. So if you want a genuinely Gothic version of Radcliff's novels, you should read 'The Italian' first.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Alright, but not nearly as good as The Mysteries of Udolpho!, October 5, 1999
By A Customer
I admire the way in which the authoress took all of her threads at the end and made them part of a carpet intricate in design. The heroine was lovable, but the romance between her and her lover was too restrictive and cold that I was often disappointed with it and not convinced, all though perhaps it suits the stereotype of the times, but I doubt I could ever keep my feelings so hidden. Despite my many qualms with the book, it was often exciting, and I do credit Radcliffe's ability to set words on paper. It is a perfect example of the gothic genre.
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