Unfortunately Oliphant, I think, didn't really know what sort of ending to come up with for such a brilliant and singular character as Lucilla; the last part of the book flounders about for a bit in plot points that don't really go anywhere and then settles on a silly conventional marriage ending.
Can you see a better ending in the text even if the author couldn't? tl;dr the Mary Renault last chapter game.
I learned how to pronounce "Marjoribanks" from something I read as a child which explained it, without which I would have had no hope.
Recommended by my mother, who doesn't usually read Westerns either, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I think the setting and sensibilities of the genre are not really for me
It may also be a factor of being a Western written in the 1960's, when the genre was significantly grittifying itself even past the deconstructions of the '40's and '50's. Something like Jack Schaefer's Shane (1949), which I was pleasantly surprised by re-reading within the last decade, is a lot more elegiac and mythical. True Grit I haven't read in decades and primarily what I remember of it is Mattie.
The book is uneven—in general it's good when it tries to be chilling and Gothic and bad when it tries to be comic—and there's not actually as much Jacobitism in it as I might have liked, but the good bits are very good.
I have actually not read this novel, but there is a Polish film adaptation from 1986 which I can highly recommend.
I eventually got round to reading it, and it is very much that! (In fact I think there are two obvious possible slash pairings, a cute and fluffy one between the amateur detective and his 'Watson', and a much more messed-up one between two characters whose exact roles it would be a spoiler to reveal. Er, might thus appeal to Armadale fans?)
This novel I actually have read and am trying to find a way to suggest encouragingly that I would love if you wrote fic for it without implying an obligation.
no subject
Can you see a better ending in the text even if the author couldn't? tl;dr the Mary Renault last chapter game.
I learned how to pronounce "Marjoribanks" from something I read as a child which explained it, without which I would have had no hope.
Recommended by my mother, who doesn't usually read Westerns either, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I think the setting and sensibilities of the genre are not really for me
It may also be a factor of being a Western written in the 1960's, when the genre was significantly grittifying itself even past the deconstructions of the '40's and '50's. Something like Jack Schaefer's Shane (1949), which I was pleasantly surprised by re-reading within the last decade, is a lot more elegiac and mythical. True Grit I haven't read in decades and primarily what I remember of it is Mattie.
The book is uneven—in general it's good when it tries to be chilling and Gothic and bad when it tries to be comic—and there's not actually as much Jacobitism in it as I might have liked, but the good bits are very good.
I have actually not read this novel, but there is a Polish film adaptation from 1986 which I can highly recommend.
I eventually got round to reading it, and it is very much that! (In fact I think there are two obvious possible slash pairings, a cute and fluffy one between the amateur detective and his 'Watson', and a much more messed-up one between two characters whose exact roles it would be a spoiler to reveal. Er, might thus appeal to Armadale fans?)
This novel I actually have read and am trying to find a way to suggest encouragingly that I would love if you wrote fic for it without implying an obligation.