The BURIED Book Club discussion

Lost in translation of Knut Hamsun's books, Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright, who wrote under the pen name, George Egerton is a buried writer at present. Her Wikipedia Page is a glowing testimony about her credentials both as a writer and as a strong influence on future writers. Her book Fantasias is available for free download from open library: http://archive.org/details/fantasias0...

I'll repeat.

A FREE ebook is SPADE-ready and ratingless! Shovels!

The link above appears to point to the wrong Fantasias.

Here's the book with zero ratings and reviews: Fantasias

I may actually read it some day.

Welp, I went ahead and read the first story in Fantasias. It was good, and bitter too. Having forgotten this thread, and having forgotten that the author was a woman, I was rather convinced that the author was a man based on the resentment the main character expresses towards his worthless wife and the deadening effect she has on his creative output.

It's strange that the profile for the author brings so much attention to her as a "feminist," with an emphasis on feminism in her work. I would never have guessed such a thing in a million years, based on the one text that I read.

Thanks for sharing that. The feminist tag is courtesy her wiki bio and can only be confirmed after reading her other works. We'll see about that. Fantasias is said to be a book of Nietzschean parables..mmkayy!

What's up with women writers taking on 'George' as their pen names? George Eliot, George Sand, now George Egerton!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading her...

Umm... so I just read the second story 'The Elusive Melody'... I can definitely tell that it's a feminist who wrote it. And WOW what a weird wonderful story! It starts out like a boring conventional haunted-house type of ghost story, then unexpectedly becomes this weird sexist fairy tale and ends up sounding more like a zany parable. Throughout is this ridiculously inflated language (obviously on purpose) and a lot of humor. It reminded me a bit of Orlando. Certainly going to read more of this free e-book soon... and maybe write a full review of the book instead of a half-ass paragraph (sorry!) of just one story.

Perhaps they're reverential. Am likewise interested.

Jimmy, that sounds amazing!

It looks like disposable Print on Demand and Ebook options have now infiltrated Abebooks as well, but I found a copy of Keynotes and Dischords via Better World Books!

Congratulations Nate! :) Let me know how those are when you get around to them.

Yay for free books when you're bored at work! I joined this group today and this was the first thread that popped up for me. I'm terrible at writing reviews, but I do it anyways, so here's my review of Fantasias.

I have a feeling this group is going to sap a lot of my reading time.

What do you mean you're terrible? I hope that's not false modesty, because I just read your review and it is awesome!

No, not it the least. I always read other people's reviews and wish I could do that, but then when I sit down to write my own I feel like all I have to say is "I liked this book because it was good". But I've always been pretty damn critical of my own writing, so that likely plays a pretty big factor.

But thanks! I appreciate the positive feedback!

The reviews on this site are so damn interesting/insightful/creative that if I were to hold myself up to that standard every time I wrote a review, I would never write another book review.

Instead, I try to just write notes to myself, basically. i.e. block out all that other stuff long enough to trick myself to write something at least meaningful to me.

Seriously, great review Ronald. My interest has been further piqued.

Yeah - I agree - very good review and is enough to prompt me to download a copy of this ASAP.

Ronald wrote: "I have a feeling this group is going to sap a lot of my reading time. "

This will not be a problem. Welcome.

Thanks for the kind words all!

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Ronald wrote: "I have a feeling this group is going to sap a lot of my reading time. "

This will not be a problem. Welcome."

Ha! Not for you. I, on the other hand, now have 20 new (to me) books winging their way to me as we speak after browsing less than half the archives here.

I just read the Elusive Melody, and I remain uncertain of whether it was written by a feminist. I know that discussing what it even means to be a feminist could cause us to quickly descend into semantic murk. But, let me extract three lines for analysis:

Spoilerish material, maybe:

(view spoiler)["Women friends she had few; and although this deprived her of a seat in the councils of scandal, she was not unhappy..."

Upon being taken by the huntsman: "...truth to tell, it was pleasant to have all choice denied her."

When a man proclaims, basically, that love cannot last, and the woman says she did not know that to be true: "Of course not, being a woman, where would we be if you did?"

The question is whether we should assume the author to be intentionally ironic. Statement A = "women are gossips." Statement B = "It's pleasantly romantic to let a man take charge of your life." Statement C = "Women are somewhat foolish to idealize love and not realize its transitory nature." (hide spoiler)]

I'm not sure that the author would actually disagree with ANY of these statements. Yet she still embraces-- by romanticizing--the feminine idealism. She expresses bitterness at the consequence of romanticism, but she doesn't disown it.

Unless I'm reading it wrong.

Well, I'm excited (found today):

Ronald wrote: "Well, I'm excited (found today):"

I read this, it was so very excellent.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...