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Title: William Dean Howells : Novels 1875-1886: A Foregone Conclusion, A Modern Instance, Indian Summer, The Rise of Silas Lapham (Library of America) by William Dean Howells, Don L. Cook ISBN: 0-940450-04-6 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: 01 October, 1982 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: realistic window into another literary age
Comment: My friend Paul caught me reading this book and said "Wow, I'd have to believe that I was nearly immortal in order to read Howells." For the early 1880s, though, this is a pretty readable book. The ideas are familiar: "Money is to the fore now. It is the romance, the poetry of our age. It's the thing that chiefly strikes the imagination. The Englishmen who come here are more curious about the great new millionaires than about any one else, and they respect them more." (Rise of Silas Lapham)
My favorite section from The Rise of Silas Lapham: "This comes of the error which I have often deprecated," said the elder Corey. "In fact I am always saying that the Bostonian ought never to leave Boston. Then he knows--and then only--that there can be no standard but ours. But we are constantly going away, and coming back with our convictions shaken to their foundations. One man goes to England, and returns with the conception of a grander social life; another comes home from Germany with the ntion of a more searching intellectual activity; a fellow just back from Paris has the absurdest ideas of art and literature; and you revert to us from the cowboys of Texas, and tell us to our faces that we ought to try Papa Lapham by a jury of his peers. It ought to be stopped--it ought, really. The Bostonian who leaves Boston ought to be condemned to perpetual exile."
If these novels lack the genius of Edith Wharton or Henry James they provide a much more realistic view of American life circa 1880. You might not learn as much about the interior of the human heart but you'll learn something about how people got from place to place, furnished their houses, and managed businesses.
Rating: 3
Summary: The Minister's Charge
Comment: The Minister's Charge cannot be rated, in my estimation, as one of Howells better works. Although the relationship between the minister and his charge is intriging, the superferlous details of the young characters social life drags on and on in its useless verbosity. I enjoy Howells, and appreciate most of his works, but I labored through this book but ultimately had to leave the last 30 pages unread.
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