Status Updates From Marcella (Broadview Literar...

Excellent, though I think I may have been reading too much 19thc lit recently as the whole relationship side of the plot is leaving me cold. But then we all know plot is irrelevant anyway, don't we? As Dorothy Richardson had Miriam say, if you can spoil a book by knowing the plot, then it aint a good book.

What particularly impresses so far is the subtlety and complexity of Marcella - that element of self-performance/self-aggrandisement which usually comes along with a youthful desire for social change. The sense that there is always a part of that self observing its own performance in the role of morally righteous radical. But, too, that this does not negate the honesty and the value of those beliefs/actions.

Excellent political novel, even if its politics are stacked. Potential for 5 stars.

Satisfies my urge to chew down on a 19thC novel.
I am *sure* the university friend Edward Hallin owes to Arthur Hallam. We'll see.

Well, she left her Socialist friends behind her in London and is already romancing her Tory in the countryside. That happened quicker than I bargained on.
-- I'm enjoying this.