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Awakening
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http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Stevi...
Wiltshire 1860: One year after Darwin's explosive publication of The Origin of Species, sisters Anna and Beatrice Pentecost awaken to a world shattered by science, radicalism and the stirrings of feminist rebellion; a world of charismatic religious movements, Spiritualist seances, bitter loss and medical trauma. Fetishist of working women Arthur Munby, irascible antiquary General Pitt Rivers, feminist Barbara Bodichon and other historical figures of the Victorian epoch wander through the backdrop of the novel, as Anna's anomalous love for Lore Ritter and her friendship with freethinking and ambitious Miriam Sala carry her into areas of uncharted desire - while Beatrice, forced to choose between her beloved Will Anwyl and the evangelist Christian Ritter, who marked her out as a wife when she was only a child, is pulled between passion and duty. Each is riven by inner contradictions, but who will survive when the sisters fall into a fatal conflict with one another?
http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Stevi...
Wiltshire 1860: One year after Darwin's explosive publication of The Origin of Species, sisters Anna and Beatrice Pentecost awaken to a world shattered by science, radicalism and the stirrings of feminist rebellion; a world of charismatic religious movements, Spiritualist seances, bitter loss and medical trauma. Fetishist of working women Arthur Munby, irascible antiquary General Pitt Rivers, feminist Barbara Bodichon and other historical figures of the Victorian epoch wander through the backdrop of the novel, as Anna's anomalous love for Lore Ritter and her friendship with freethinking and ambitious Miriam Sala carry her into areas of uncharted desire - while Beatrice, forced to choose between her beloved Will Anwyl and the evangelist Christian Ritter, who marked her out as a wife when she was only a child, is pulled between passion and duty. Each is riven by inner contradictions, but who will survive when the sisters fall into a fatal conflict with one another?
- GenresHistorical Fiction
300 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2013
About the author
Stevie Davies
39 books32 followersWelsh born Stevie Davies is a novelist, literary critic, biographer and historian. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Academi Gymreig and is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Wales, Swansea.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 27, 2017
While this didn't turn out to be quite the story I was expecting it was still rather interesting and I found he relationship between the two sisters and the outside world intriguing as it shows the role middle class women of the time were expected to fulfill and the lengths they would go to to try and escape these. The contrast between the two sisters shows these roles and limitations even more clearly as Beatrice tries to stick to what is expected while Anna tries to be her own person. And yet both a torn apart by the same doubts and pressures, although one survives better than the other. The writing is a pleasure and flows well, using a mixture of real and fictional characters to transport the reader back and bring the era to life.
September 22, 2018
Stevie Davies' novel begins in 1860, one year after Darwin's ground-breaking work. This novel too is ground-breaking as it charts the lives of Anna and Beatrice Pentecost. Anna, digging in her tump for buried objects and memories in The Prelude, sets the theme of the novel with skill. "Awakening" is a novel about personal histories and how these are excavated for truth and how truths change as history moves on. The style of this novel is an exquisite stitch-work: it pulls together the high religious hopes of an Age and the low life-giving forces of Nature. As in an earlier novel, "Primavera", "Awakening" focuses on those sudden, surprising moments in life when love transforms, love of ideas or love of another human being. This novel combines a compelling narrative with passages of true descriptive beauty. Reflecting on the fictional novel "Freedom Seeks Her" by Baines Sala, Anna comments on the "long, sinuous sentences and a godlike commentator". Like Eve, she experiences the seductive coils of Satan and God together. A reader of "Awakening" is presented with a goddess-like narrator who is aware of the educative power of prose and poetry. Clearly, the creator of this novel has been awoken by the great writers of the C19. The world of Thomas Hardy is merged with the spirit of Emily Bronte and the intellect of George Eliot. A wonderful reading experience!
September 10, 2013
Hmm.
Most interesting to students of religion and the lives of middle-class women in Victorian Britain, I'd say. A domestic tale of two sisters and their rivalries. That just about sums it up.
The quotes on the back cover and the blurb make it sound a more substantial volume than it proved to be. Ultimately I found it rather slight. Promised more than it delivered. Not a bad book by any means but lacking in spirit. Possibly inevitable given the nature of women's lives in the period but a little depressing.
Most interesting to students of religion and the lives of middle-class women in Victorian Britain, I'd say. A domestic tale of two sisters and their rivalries. That just about sums it up.
The quotes on the back cover and the blurb make it sound a more substantial volume than it proved to be. Ultimately I found it rather slight. Promised more than it delivered. Not a bad book by any means but lacking in spirit. Possibly inevitable given the nature of women's lives in the period but a little depressing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews