For any who want to talk more about the book than we did at book group, or if you missed book group, post a comment.
If a comment is posted and you want to reply to that comment be sure to comment on the comment not the post so it will indent your comment under it, just to keep different discussions clear.
If you want to start a new discussion comment on the post itself.
So I felt that Agnes' inward pining was rather like another heroine we know, Bella Swan. She starts by admiring from afar, determining that he's a good guy and then proceeds to fall in love and pine away.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I think it just shows that people are people. As annoying as Bella's pining was I didn't think it was unrealistic. that was one of the things that my husband found truly disturbing, but I knew girls like that and sometimes was that girl.
Anne manages to portray it in a way that less annoying, maybe because she refrains from melting over his marble features, particularly his chest. I mean, sheesh.
Anyone else see Twilight in there?
As I am not a literary guru as some of you seem to be in my mind. I just read for entertainment and learning value not to see into the heart of the author or other such stuff. I'm a simple minded soul. that being said. I liked this book as well. I didn't see a lot of wishy washy stuff that could have been deleted. I was appalled at the kids in this story and WISH mine are never like that. I do think this was a percurser to the Help. How we treat each other and such. Over all I'm glad I read it.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Agnes Grey. She even made me like the name Agnes. But I also wanted to yell at her "Have a SPINE woman!" Seems like there are a lot of books about women who never stand up for themselves and then magically get the man in the end. As if being ultra-submissive and letting people abuse you is somehow really hot. That being said, I loved the writing and found all the little details of their lives interesting--like what times they ate and what foods they had. I would give it a B+, which on a scale of one to ten is probably a seven. :)
ReplyDeleteI have not reread this but was reading a bit about Anne today and it's funny because what I read specifically mentioned that while described as a very demure quiet person it was in Anne's writing that she showed her spine. I think over the last several years it has been a bit more clear just how horrible things were for women back in the day. Let's remember that in the context this book was written they had to use a male pseudonym just to get it published because it wouldn't be taken seriously from a woman and a writer was not an acceptable occupation for women. Sadly this book, minus the romance, was largely autobiographical. It makes me wonder if the romance was too, but that she just pined and nothing came of it. But you can see how being woman she was dismissed and being the youngest she was as well and Agnes is very much the personification of Anne in that regard and writing the book was her way of finally having a voice in a world where it just wasn't done.
ReplyDelete