"If you want to understand the bad-boy appeal and the drive for independence and adventure this is the book for you.""A profoundly pathetic object," is an appropriate description of each character by the end of this book.
The book started out ok, it certainly wasn't the best book I've ever read but it wasn't the worst. If I hadn't ended up being disgusted with the book I would've just been indifferent towards it. Frankly, it's just depressing and there's not much more I can say for it. If you'd like to have a raincloud hovering over your day, this is the book for you.
In his conclusion, the author maintains that he has written a "success story" because all of the characters "got what they wanted." However, in the end, it's not whether they got what they wanted that really matters, it's whether they got what they needed, and what each one of them really needed was a good slap in the face. And so at the end we are left, as we began, with a cast of "profoundly pathetic object[s]."
A few quotes:
- "Marriage is a serious matter on which rest the security of the family and the stability of the state."
- "nothing is easier than to bear other people's calamities with fortitude"
- "Though not a Catholic, I can never attend Mass without a sense of tremulous awe when the little tinkle of the servitor's bell informs me of the Elevation of the Host; and now, similarly, I shivered as though a cold wind ran through me, I shivered with fear and wonder."
- "marriage still remains the most satisfactory profession a woman can adopt"
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