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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Columbia professor Mendelson's interlocking essays on the subtexts of seven great works of fiction (all by women) are lucidly expressed, insightful and often provocative. However, in arguing that one can learn the essentials of human existence from close readings of Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Middlemarch and three Virginia Woolf works, he stretches Freudian imagination. In the chapter "Birth," for example, Mendelson demonstrates that Frankenstein is pervaded by fears of abandonment and death. Readers must invoke the subconscious to accept that these fears are common to human beings contemplating or existing in that earliest stage of life. What Mendelson does accomplish, and brilliantly, is to analyze these novels as extraordinary representatives of changes in moral and cultural mores in the 19th and 20th centuries. He offers a fascinating glimpse into the hidden visionary narrative in Wuthering Heights; convincingly finds that Middlemarch ("Marriage") and other of George Eliot's novels "expound more knowledge than any other body of fiction in English, and more wisdom than most"; and credits Woolf with groundbreaking insights into human emotions. As literary guides to these seven books, Mendelson's essays offer significant intellectual pleasure. (Aug. s15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Though the book is somewhat hit-or-miss, critics agree that the hits outnumber the misses. A particular standout is Mendelson's essay on Mrs. Dalloway, which both conveys the essence of the novel and offers acute insights into its eponymous protagonist. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Frankenstein piece, less coherent and evocative than the others. The writing is sometimes overly constrained by the "stages of life" structure, though Mendelson delves into his characters' moral journeys as well. This collection will be best enjoyed by literary enthusiasts who know these novels well and can interact with Mendelson's work from a standpoint of personal experience and opinion.
Columbia professor Mendelson's interlocking essays on the subtexts of seven great works of fiction (all by women) are lucidly expressed, insightful and often provocative. However, in arguing that one can learn the essentials of human existence from close readings of Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Middlemarch and three Virginia Woolf works, he stretches Freudian imagination. In the chapter "Birth," for example, Mendelson demonstrates that Frankenstein is pervaded by fears of abandonment and death. Readers must invoke the subconscious to accept that these fears are common to human beings contemplating or existing in that earliest stage of life. What Mendelson does accomplish, and brilliantly, is to analyze these novels as extraordinary representatives of changes in moral and cultural mores in the 19th and 20th centuries. He offers a fascinating glimpse into the hidden visionary narrative in Wuthering Heights; convincingly finds that Middlemarch ("Marriage") and other of George Eliot's novels "expound more knowledge than any other body of fiction in English, and more wisdom than most"; and credits Woolf with groundbreaking insights into human emotions. As literary guides to these seven books, Mendelson's essays offer significant intellectual pleasure. (Aug. s15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Though the book is somewhat hit-or-miss, critics agree that the hits outnumber the misses. A particular standout is Mendelson's essay on Mrs. Dalloway, which both conveys the essence of the novel and offers acute insights into its eponymous protagonist. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Frankenstein piece, less coherent and evocative than the others. The writing is sometimes overly constrained by the "stages of life" structure, though Mendelson delves into his characters' moral journeys as well. This collection will be best enjoyed by literary enthusiasts who know these novels well and can interact with Mendelson's work from a standpoint of personal experience and opinion.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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