Feet of Clay

by Margaretta Tuttle

368 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 1923

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to think about this book. On the one hand, I loved the story line, I loved how Kerry and Amy met, and I loved reading a book about 1921 that was actually written in 1921. On the other hand, though, I didn't love that it wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. I thought the story would focus on the love story between Kerry and Amy—and it did, to a certain extent—but it was more about Amy growing up and learning what is important in life. In fact, [mild spoiler] once Amy and Kerry marry, he is more or less relegated to the background of the story and becomes a two-dimensional character. I definitely didn't love that. I also didn't love that the author tends toward the high flown in her language. I often had to read passages more than once, trying to get to the author's meaning. No doubt, it's more my fault than the author's that I struggled with her frequent dip into philosophical disquisitions such as this one about marriage:

It never occurred to me—how should it—that with the gift of the body, only the appetite is challenged and that youth rarely understands that to endure, appetite must be so delicately handled that it can be made to grow instead of satiating itself. Sooner or later the best and the worst of us face the appetite problem. Some of us go far both to gain it and to glut it. Some of us remember its pleasant hours with gratitude. Some of us forget them with their passing. But the appetite is no thing on which to build love unless perhaps love the trust may grow from love the gift. Let one touch of the spirit flame through the flesh and appetite stands abashed. In the infinite spirit is room for the pulse of infinite growth.

(Seriously? There's more to love than sex? Is that what we're getting at here?) When I understood it though, I loved what the novel had to say about love and marriage and the value of hard work. Maybe I just need to read it again...!

[Samantha Glasser]

This book was brought to the screen in 1924 by Cecil B. DeMille.