Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederick, Harold Frederic, Everett Carter ISBN: 0674190017 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful Surprise!
Comment: I found this book on my father's bookshelf and brought it home to read. I'm not sure why I picked it--nothing about the title or description excited me too much, so it sat on my own bookshelf forgotten for several months. Finally, hurriedly getting ready for a vacation I needed a book to read and found Theron Ware. I loved it so much that I went right out and bought my own copy. I recommended it to my 21 year old son and he loved it too. One caution though, do NOT read the introduction first--it gives the entire plot away. Save it for after when you can savor the analysis.
Rating: 4
Summary: One Of Those Classics That You Never Heard Of
Comment: This was a very popular novel of 1896, and is considered by many to be a literary classic. Theron Ware enters the scene as a small town Methodist Minister. He and his wife seem to be humble folk and settle into a small house near his church. Soon he meets a Catholic priest, an atheist physician, and a beautiful Irish lass. They make quite an impression on him. They are sophisticated, well educated, and quite worldly. Alas, they are such a strong influence on him that he starts playing the worldly role, and begins to look down on his job and his religion. He also finds himself strongly attracted to the lovely Celia Madden. I should mention that in those days the Irish were assigned to the caste of untouchables.
Theron acts as if he is now a man of the world, although he knows nothing of the literature, music, and philosophy discussed by others. He becomes a boring, mean minded buffoon. The book continues with his steady degradation, a preacher who has become a victim of that secular humanism that our current day fundamentalists complain so much about.
The novel provides an interesting view of religion and culture of the late 1800s. It was somewhat difficult for me to understand how such a seemingly pious man could turn into such a churlish fellow. Perhaps his upbringing was quite religiously strict, and he developed a strong reaction formation to it all.
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful and shamefully neglected American novel
Comment: IMHO, this novel can and should be included with the other American novels that we cram down the throats of high-schoolers: Moby Dick, Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, etc. This is the almost painfully realistic story of a preacher who discovers that there is another world outside his previously sheltered existence. For many of us, this sort of discovery is a happy and broadening experience. But in Ware's case, his new discoveries cause him to reject all the good things about his old life, and to build fantasy castles in the air of his imagination. In his increasingly desperate attempt to escape into a fantasy life, he leaves behind many of his values and ethical standards - not least his responsibilities to those he loves.
This book will hit a nerve for many readers - it did for me. It is easy for the reader to identify with Ware and realize only too late, as Ware did, that he is embarking on an illusory and self-destructive quest. Frederick constructed both the plot and the character of Ware perfectly, and this novel is worth everyone's time to read. You will keep thinking about it long after you have closed the book for the last time.
 |
Title: Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period: The Complete Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce by David J. Klooster, Russell Duncan, Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce ISBN: 155849328X Publisher: Univ. of Massachusetts Press Pub. Date: 07 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: McTeague: A Story of San Francisco by Frank Norris ISBN: 0451524217 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: 1997 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
 |
Title: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, Richard Lingeman ISBN: 0451527607 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 10 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
 |
Title: The Rise of Silas Lapham (The Penguin American Library) by William Dean Howells ISBN: 0140390308 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 1983 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: The Aspern Papers and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) by Henry James, Adrian Poole ISBN: 0192836161 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 2000 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
