by Amalie Skram
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The House with the Blind Glass Windows (Women in Translation) by Herbjorg Wassmo |
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This novel, first published in Norway in 1885, in some ways is refreshingly dissimilar from other works of its era. Skram outspokenly covers such topics as sex, adultery and women's rights in her story of a woman trapped into marriage and betrayed by hypocritical men. Skram animates her writing with conviction by describing the minutiae of everyday lifean apartment's furnishings, the goings-on at a supper party. The first portion of her book, in which the title character, a vibrant woman in her early 20s, is stifled in a marriage to a boor 16 years her senior, is compelling indeed. Skram's description of Constance's slide into depression after she learns of her husband's adultery appears autobiographical (an afterword notes the author's hospitalizations for mental breakdowns). But in the novel's major flaw, Constance retains her childishly idealistic notions of love and marriage. She marries again, only to learn that her second husband has an illegitimate child. To spite him, she sleeps with a musician and then finds that her lover has been having an affair with her maid. Skram makes an important point on the double standard for men and women, and equates marrying for money with prostitution. However, Constance's unchanging behavior and total passivity are ultimately boring. The three men in her life are variations on the same monotonous theme. And although Skram departs from convention for most of the book, she punishes her adulterous heroine in the denouement, true to Victorian form.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
France had Madame Bovary, the United States had The Awakening, and Norway had Constance Ring - each was written at the end of the nineteenth century, and each condemns the prevailing institutions of marriage and patriarchy. In Constance Ring the attack focuses on the sexual double standard set for men and women. Although the men in this novel argue for widely varying positions of political and religious liberality, in their private lives they maintain identical philosophies: it is excusable, if not to say expected, for a man to carry on an affair with a working-class woman without it affecting his relationship with the upper-class woman he "loves." Constance Ring is a protected, naive woman who goes through a series of disillusioning marriages and affairs with men before she realizes how all-pervasive the double standard is. Although the lack of positive options for women in these novels is depressing, Amalie Skram does an exceptional job of showing us how society - through religious, legal, economic, and social institutions - works to keep the system of oppression operating. When Constance wishes to leave her first husband there is no one, male or female, to support her decision; when her first husband dies and she is left bankrupt, she finds herself a woman with no way of supporting herself, fit only to marry again or commit suicide. Piece by piece, Amalie Skram reveals the structures that encircle a vibrant, beautiful woman, and leave her no room to move and no air to breathe. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
See all Editorial Reviews
This novel, first published in Norway in 1885, in some ways is refreshingly dissimilar from other works of its era. Skram outspokenly covers such topics as sex, adultery and women's rights in her story of a woman trapped into marriage and betrayed by hypocritical men. Skram animates her writing with conviction by describing the minutiae of everyday lifean apartment's furnishings, the goings-on at a supper party. The first portion of her book, in which the title character, a vibrant woman in her early 20s, is stifled in a marriage to a boor 16 years her senior, is compelling indeed. Skram's description of Constance's slide into depression after she learns of her husband's adultery appears autobiographical (an afterword notes the author's hospitalizations for mental breakdowns). But in the novel's major flaw, Constance retains her childishly idealistic notions of love and marriage. She marries again, only to learn that her second husband has an illegitimate child. To spite him, she sleeps with a musician and then finds that her lover has been having an affair with her maid. Skram makes an important point on the double standard for men and women, and equates marrying for money with prostitution. However, Constance's unchanging behavior and total passivity are ultimately boring. The three men in her life are variations on the same monotonous theme. And although Skram departs from convention for most of the book, she punishes her adulterous heroine in the denouement, true to Victorian form.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
France had Madame Bovary, the United States had The Awakening, and Norway had Constance Ring - each was written at the end of the nineteenth century, and each condemns the prevailing institutions of marriage and patriarchy. In Constance Ring the attack focuses on the sexual double standard set for men and women. Although the men in this novel argue for widely varying positions of political and religious liberality, in their private lives they maintain identical philosophies: it is excusable, if not to say expected, for a man to carry on an affair with a working-class woman without it affecting his relationship with the upper-class woman he "loves." Constance Ring is a protected, naive woman who goes through a series of disillusioning marriages and affairs with men before she realizes how all-pervasive the double standard is. Although the lack of positive options for women in these novels is depressing, Amalie Skram does an exceptional job of showing us how society - through religious, legal, economic, and social institutions - works to keep the system of oppression operating. When Constance wishes to leave her first husband there is no one, male or female, to support her decision; when her first husband dies and she is left bankrupt, she finds herself a woman with no way of supporting herself, fit only to marry again or commit suicide. Piece by piece, Amalie Skram reveals the structures that encircle a vibrant, beautiful woman, and leave her no room to move and no air to breathe. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
See all Editorial Reviews
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7
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- Scandinavian Women Writers: An Anthology from the 1880s to the 1980s (Contributions in Women's Studies) by Ingrid Clareus in Front Matter, and page 41
- 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader's Guide by Erica Bauermeister on page 348, and page 350
- The Unknown Sigrid Undset: Jenny and Other Works by Sigrid Undset on page 368
- Ibsen and Early Modernist Theatre, 1890-1900 (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies) by Kirsten Shepherd-Barr on page 6
- Sexual/Textual Politics : Feminist Literary Theory (New Accents (Routledge (Firm)).) by Toril Moi in Back Matter
See all 7 books citing this book
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