Average customer rating:
- Not a whole lot about honor
- Soooo Sad........zzzzzzzzz........
- Tony and Alicia-SPOILERS
- Not So Much About Honor...
- SIZZLING SENSUALITY
|
A Gentleman's Honor
Stephanie Laurens
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
 Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Laurens, Stephanie
| ( L )
| Authors, A-Z
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Contemporary
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Historical
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Romance Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Laurens, Stephanie
| ( L )
| Authors, A-Z
| Romance
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Contemporary
| Romance
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Romance
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Historical
| Romance
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
All 4-for-3 Deals
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The Lady Chosen (Bastion Club)
-
A Lady of His Own (Bastion Club)
-
A Fine Passion (A Bastion Club Novel)
-
Captain Jack's Woman
-
To Distraction (Bastion Club)
ASIN: 0060002077
Release Date: 2003-09-30 |
Book Description
The Season has yet to begin, and the second member of the Bastion Club, tall, handsome Anthony Blake, Viscount Torrington, is already a target for every matchmaking mama in London. None of their flighty daughters can fix his interest, but a certain lady does...
Alicia is living a deception. Desperation has caused the determined but penniless lady to boldly launch her ravishing younger sister into the ton and have her make a spectacular match. By masquerading as the widowed "Mrs. Carrington" Alicia can act as the perfect chaperone…but fashionable ladies are not accused of murder...
When Tony Blake discovers Alicia standing over a dead body in his godmother's garden, every instinct tells him she is innocent. His connections allow him to take control of the investigation, his social prominence provides her public support, but it is more than honor that compels him to protect her and to do everything in his seductive power to make her his.
Download Description
The second Bastion Club novel from bestselling author Stephanie Laurens! Beautiful Alicia Carrington's family is desperate, but when her lies lead to a dead body, only the quietly confident Anthony Blake -- member of the Bastion Club -- can protect her. Anthony's duty soon falls way to passion, forcing Alicia to decide: is her love worthy of the truth? The Season has yet to begin, and the second member of the Bastion Club, tall, handsome Anthony Blake, Viscount Torrington, is already a target for every matchmaking mama in London. None of their flighty daughters can fix his interest, but a certain lady does...
Alicia is living a deception. Desperation has caused the determined but penniless lady to boldly launch her ravishing younger sister into the ton and have her make a spectacular match. By masquerading as the widowed ""Mrs. Carrington"" Alicia can act as the perfect chaperone, but fashionable ladies are not accused of murder... When Tony Blake discovers Alicia standing over a dead body in his godmother's garden, every instinct tells him she is innocent. His connections allow him to take control of the investigation, his social prominence provides her public support, but it is more than honor that compels him to protect her and to do everything in his seductive power to make her his.
Customer Reviews:
Not a whole lot about honor.......2006-07-31
Well, to begin with, this book is about people engaging in sex acts, a lot of sex acts; so I guess I'd say it's probabably female pornography. There is a plot, sort of. It winds in and out of the story like a sine wave; but at each loop of the wave, there's is another sex episode. It gets tedious. The author's premise seems to be that if there are enough of those episodes, the hero(?) and heroine(?) will become "bonded" so to speak. I'm not sure that is to be taken for granted; I'm sure there are many ways to become emotionally bonded, and the repetition of the physical bonding becomes nothing but boring.
Soooo Sad........zzzzzzzzz...............2006-03-31
It's just so so sad, so sad that I wasn't able to finish this book, I just hate it when this happens. It start out okay, I liked the intro, the 1st - 20 pages were interesting, liked Alicia and Adriana alot, then it went downhill from there, it just totally lost me. I kept telling myself over and over that it will get better but....I just didn't care anymore. I spent three days reading this, have not reached 1/2 of the book, then told myself, it just wasn't worth it, i could've read and finished two books during those three days i spent reading this one. This is my first Stephanie Laurens book and it will definitely be my last. Should've listened to the reviews but was too stubborn, thought it might be different for me but...zzzzz.
Tony and Alicia-SPOILERS.......2005-04-09
Favorite scene with Alicia-
Being kidnapped by the enemy.
Favorite scene with Tony-
Finding information about why Ruskin was killed.
Together-
Finally telling each other I love you.
What did you like about Alicia-
Her love for her family, going so far as to pretend to be someone she's not to protect and save them.
What didn't you like about Alicia-
There really wasn't anything I didn't like about Alicia, although I didn't like that she was willing to be just his mistress. She didn't think Tony really loved her because she thought he was just saying the words. So she couldn't bring herself to tell him that she loved him.
What did you like about Tony-
His love for Alicia and her family. Putting their safety and happiness first.
What didn't you like about Tony-
He waited till the end of the book to tell her he loved her, although he had said it in French. Still, he led her to believe she was only good enough to be his mistress.
If I had to cast Alicia, I'd cast Reese Witherspoon.
If I had to cast Tony, I'd cast Julian McMahon.
Not So Much About Honor..........2004-10-04
I have conflicting feelings about this book. The subplot takes up too many pages and throws the main plot of discovering and building a love match between the main characters off balance. For about the first 100 pgs SL establishes the main characters personal backgrounds and details their thoughts, hopes and dreams - she spends too much time setting multiple stages for the reader. The seductive and intimate sex scenes are deeply personal, express heart rendering intimacy between a man and woman falling in love. SL's descriptive love scenes are rich and stir the imagination; drawing you yearningly into the lover's bedroom.
However, I found the subplot filled with a lot of wordy discussions and lacking true who-done-it mystery suspense. It was too easy to figure out; which was why I had difficulty believing honored retired veteran spies to the Crown had such difficulty identifying who the murderer was.
I felt a big hooray for the haut of the ton uniting against being manipulated by unsubstantiated rumors against Alicia and scandalous encounters with the "police" that could have crushed her family. Although I don't condone deceiving people, I did feel compassion for Alicia and her orphaned family and was grateful for the support Tony provided through his social status, name and connections at the Bastion Club and its members. I felt this was more of a case of Tony's use of his nobility and manipulation of his peers' respect and love for his godmother and mother vs "honor" as a gentleman to do the right thing and marry Alicia. I didn't really mind Tony appointing himself Alicia's and her family's protector, because he was not rude, pushy or demeaning towards Alicia, however Tony was definitely domineering in and out the bedroom. Also, two thumbs up for Alicia on her frugality in supporting and managing her family affairs and their appearance in the eyes of the public. No one knew just how penniless they really were.
Overall I did not feel "romantic" about the characters of this book; however it sizzles with foreplay and is dripping with sex. Tony and Alicia did not do a lot of talking to learn about each other, trust or understand one another beyond the bedroom or ballrooms. Yet what they did learn about each in the bedroom and ballroom was "Mmm, mmm, good."
SIZZLING SENSUALITY.......2004-08-08
I have read all Stephanie Laurens' books. Some have been hits, some have been misses. This one is a hit!
Book One of this new Bastion Club series was a good story and a good heroine. Book Two combines a great heroine and a sensuality that begins in chapter one and doesn't miss a beat throughout the entire novel.
The series revolves around seven English spies, now off-duty, who bond over finding their own wives instead a letting society matrons manipulate their choices. Naturally, each book will be about one of the men, his wife search, and a mystery he solves using his spy skills. It works for me!
The only three drawbacks of this novel are characteristic Laurens' style: the "mirror sex," the heroine's "teach me" excuse to have sex, and a mystery that takes a little too long to resolve. With that said, however, the mirror sex in this novel does not seem contrived as in some Laurens' novels, and the heroine's confidence and ability to defend herself against the villian is inspiring. I liked Alicia's spunk, resourcefulness, determination, self-preservation, leadership, and tenderness -- a great character!
This book even brings back Jack and Kit from "Captain Jack's Woman" -- a book that causes second-degree hand burns while reading it! Laurens gives "A Gentleman's Honor" the same sizzle treatment...minus "Jack's" table sex!
Average customer rating:
|
Tom Poulton: The Secret Art of an English Gentleman
Jamie Maclean
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Private
| Museums & Collections
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Artists, A-Z
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Themes
| History & Criticism
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Erotica
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
French
| Foreign Language Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
German
| Foreign Language Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
French
| Foreign Language Nonfiction
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
German
| Foreign Language Nonfiction
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Arts & Photography
| French
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| French
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All French Books
| French
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Arts & Photography
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All German Books
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Painful Pleasures: The Erotic Art of Lynn Paula Russell
-
Fireside Orgies
-
Lost Girls
-
Dian Hanson': The History of Girly Magazines: 1900-1969 (Klotz)
-
Jan Saudek
ASIN: 3822830623 |
Book Description
The secret art of an English gentleman...
Thomas Leycester Poulton was an English magazine and medical book illustrator, born in 1897. Upon his death in 1963 it was discovered he was also a prolific and imaginative erotic artist who produced hundreds of sketches and finished drawings of women proudly and exuberantly displaying themselves in ways shocking to conservative post-war Britain. The archive remained hidden until the 1990s, when a collector of erotic artifacts passed it on to a fellow collector willing to share it with the world. Though Tom Poulton's work tells us much about English society between 1948 and 1963, there is a universal quality to these images of joyous, uninhibited sexuality that transcends time and place.
Customer Reviews:
Passionate Poulton.......2006-12-24
Mr Poulton gets the Taschen treatment in this well designed and printed book. Unfortunately I was disappointed with the contents because out of 183 illustrations only twenty-nine are what I would call finished art. The remaining 154 illustrations are basically rough sketches and interesting as they are I would have expected perhaps a few of them to show how the Poulton developed his ideas and the bulk of the book full of his completed erotic renderings.
As a medical illustrator he obviously had the ability to show the human body correctly and you only have to look at his finished drawings to see that he also had the creativity to handle light and shade (always with a soft-lead pencil on tissue) but I don't think his style is particularly original. Plenty of art college students produce similar looking nude drawings though obviously not erotic ones.
Jamie Maclean in the book's introduction rightly comments on the underground nature of Poulton's erotic art in fifties and early sixties England, no publisher would have dared to put out a book with such pictures but that is not to say that erotic artwork was not being created. Some English material is shown in another Taschen book Erotica Universalis, Volume II.
This handsomely produced book ends up as a half-hearted coverage of Tom Poulton's work.
Customer Reviews:
For the True Clubman!.......2001-06-25
Do you wander around aimlessly in your tweed jacket with the leather patches on the elbows? Do you live off of money made three or more generations ago by a soundrel? Does the term "Preppy" offend you as being much too nouveau and personally insulting? Are you a "Clubman"?
If any of these comments applies to you, or to anyone you know, then this is your kind of book. In addition to being hilarious, it is right on the money.
After you finish it, buy a copy of "Old Money" by Nelson Aldrich or anything by Lewis Lapham.
Customer Reviews:
An amazingly-told tale of an 18th Century family.......2000-06-05
Have you ever wanted to read a book where the author decides to "rip out" one of the chapters, or leaves a blank page for you to 'draw' one of the characters? Would you enjoy an 18th-Century story which takes many chapters before the hero is born? The tale is touchingly told. The characters are real, and constantly fascinating. It's not their fault that their story is frequently interrupted by outlandish "digressions" on the part of an author so creative that his modern descendants are considered to be Joyce and Beckett as well as many others. Would you enjoy a chapter about Chapters? About buttonholes? About whether parents and their children are kin to each other? A chapter on curses? Laurence Sterne has so much trouble getting Walter and Toby Shandy downstairs that he calls in the "critics" to do it. Advice on reading such an unusual, even unique book: read the first several chapters, then stop and reread them. Continue that process and soon the book will feel quite familiar, and that's when the fun starts! Walter loves arguments about anything. Uncle Toby enjoys building military models. Tristram is quite busy just trying to get born and baptized with the correct name. His mother Elizabeth argues with her husband Walter about midwives and their methods. (Their wedding contract is here for you to peruse...it causes some problems itself.) This volume "3" consists of the Notes on the text (which is found in volumes "1" and "2".) Amazon also lists several less expensive paperback editions of the novel, the preferred one being the Oxford World Classics Edition.
Customer Reviews:
no title.......2005-11-17
No wonder he won the Nobel Prize! Four hauntingly magnificent short stories, all but the third with death as the end. Or maybe not the end, but the raison d'etre of the story. "The Gentleman from San Francisco" almost half the book, translated rather badly, I suspect, in the version I read, by D. H. Lawrence; "Gentle Breathing", an incredibly subtle story; "Kasimir Stanislavatch", and "Son". In each, he takes the human tragedy and contrasts it with beautiful nature. His detail is remarkable. The stories are all short, plots not intricate or even eventful, but he manages to make each one simply live and breathe and have being. It rather reminds me of all Russian writers; they're all so tragic. What is it about being a Russian? And nobody remembers him as they do Chekhov, or Tolstoy. I wonder why. Perhaps his volume of writing was not large enough.
The Capacity to Feel with a Singular Intensity.......2005-08-10
In the meditation entitled "Night," Bunin's unnamed narrator says: "Why did God choose to brand me so deeply with wonderment, thought and `wisdom', and why is that fatal mark constantly growing inside me?" Although the voice is abstract, I think it works as a description of Bunin himself. He wasbclearly a man with (again in his own words) "the capacity to feel with a singular intensity ... not only their own identities but those of other people...." And although he may feel that his capacity is somehow unusual, he does a remarkable job of imagining (or is it projection?) that capacity in others. Everybody, he says somewhere (although I can't put my finger on it), has a story that deserves to be told.
In his introduction, David Richards calls Bunin "egocentric." In context I think I know what it means, but it's an odd choice of words and I suspect misleading. Conceded that Bunin is not a "social" novelist in the sense that Tolstoi is, nor a dramatist like Dostoevsky: his metier is, indeed, the minute attention to feelings. In some sense I suppose these feelings are "his own," but in some sense, every artist's feelings are "his own." Perhaps closer to the mark to suggest that at some level every one of us is an egocentric, and that Bunin may be able to capture the egocentricity in all of us.
Caution: Bunin won a Nobel Prize, but don't be misled into disappointment. He's a fine and rewarding writer, but not better than several others who did not win the prize, the award of which inevitably has more to do with politics than with intrinsic merit.
Great stories.......2005-03-25
Ivan Bunin is a great writer. And as for the readers, reading his stories and enjoying them are a mark of achievement. As you read his stories fierce chill pierces through you simultaneously as grand pictures fill your imaginations.
Amazing short stories.......2000-01-04
Bunin is one of the most brilliant Russian writers of the early 20th century. His short stories express more in a couple of pages than most novels do in hundreds. It is poetry in prose.
Book Description
In the declining years of the British Empire, in Northern Rhodesia, Stewart Gore-Browne was a proper English gentleman who built himself a sprawling country estate, complete with liveried servants, rose gardens, and lavish dinners finished off with vintage port in the library. All that was missing was a woman to share it with. He adored the beautiful aviatrix Ethel Locke King, but she was almost twenty years his senior, married, and his aunt. Lorna, the only other woman Gore-Brown cared for, was married as well, but years later her orphaned daughter would become Gore-Browne's wife. The story of a colonialist who beat his servants yet supported Rhodesian independence and who was given a chief's burial by the local elders when he died, The Africa House rescues "from oblivion the life story of an astonishing man, an astonishing marriage, and an astonishing house" (The Spectator).
Customer Reviews:
a must in every Africana collection.......2006-09-01
Ms Lamb is a pleasure to read. From the very 1st page, I was already in love with Shiwa House and the mysterious Lake of the Royal Crocodiles. Ive never imagined such a magical place could exist!!! Gore Brown's love for Africa, its lands and peoples, is clearly evident, but I found his sometimes patronizing attitude annoying: he despaired that his servants would never appreciate opera like the white man etc. In spite of this, I highly recommend this to everyone ... not just architects and travellers. Some day I must see Shiwa Ngandu for myself!!!
Takes You Right Back It Does.......2005-07-11
Christina Lamb writes like one possessed, and her latest book takes us deep into the inner life of one of nature's gentlemen, the 20th century adventurer and baronet Sir Stewart Gore Browne, who died in 1967. Gore Browne led an exciting life, yet like the man portrayed in Werner Herzog's film FITZCARRALDO, who tried to bring garnd opera to a little town on the wrong side of a Peruvian mountain, his obsessions are hard to separate from his derangement. In the case of Fitzcarraldo, he attempted to building a Western-style opera house in the jungles of Peru; Gore Browne had similar dreams of building an old fahsioned country manor a la Walter Scott's Waverley novels in the middle of what was then Rhodesia. In both cases everythinghad to be imported for thousands of miles--in Gore-Browne's case that included a wife. And what a wife! It seems that he only married her because he had once been in love with her mother--surely a strange story, and one that you don't hear that much of any more. You'd have to turn to the magnificent Snopes trilogy (by William Faulkner) to find this quasi-incestuous story told so delicately and with such perception.
Christina Lamb did a lot of homework before writing this book, even going to the tumbledown mansion where, as she writes, she would pull a book from the library shelves and it would crumble in her hands (due to Rhodesian humidity and the family's neglect of the old estate). Her descriptions of going to this haunted mansion are almost as romantic as the first pages of REBECCA by Daphne Du Maurier ("Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again") and understanding Gore Browne's character in the light of British romantic novels will help us understand this odd old duffer, a man who championed the cause of black freedom and yet kept a cast of servant as though they were slaves.
The bad thing about the book is Lamb's reliance on cliches and the fact that her writing resembles a Harlequin romance of the 1960s. There is little or no attempt to understand the politics that shaped Gore Browne's career. It is all about the inner man.
A Man Ahead of His Time.......2005-04-08
The descriptions and pictures of the English manor house set in Africa were interesting, but what I found fascinating was the complex character of Stewart Gore-Browne. He clearly loved the beauty of the land of Africa and its people, yet he was continually frustrated and angered by both. He treated his workers extremely well, loaned them money, helped with education, yet he also beat them.
Gore-Browne was ahead of his time in understanding that the white man should and could not be the rulers of Africa, that the governments should be run by the native people. He spent much of his life trying to achieve that goal. As others have said, it is a wonder that his name is not well known. Christina Lamb shone light on a story that should be told.
An intriguing biographical sketch of Stewart Gore Browne .......2005-03-11
Author Christina Lamb, foreign correspondent for London's Times, was on assignment in Zambia when she stumbled on a rich abandoned house deep in the bush: a house of forty rooms, rose gardens, and even a clock tower. Lamb's discovery of a chest crammed with thousands of letters, and journals, resulted in The Africa House : The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream, an intriguing biographical sketch of English gentleman Stewart Gore Browne and his African dream. THE AFRICA HOUSE first appeared in the UK: this edition updates history to include the next generation of Browne's descendants, who are trying to rescue the decaying wonder of his former estate.
Read it!.......2005-03-01
If this had been a novel, publishers would reject it as implausible. It astounds me that I had not heard of Stewart Gore-Brown while growing up in Zambia. He comes across as a fascinating, complex person, whose life story boggles the mind.
Book Description
Introduction by Peter Conrad
Customer Reviews:
Pre-modernist postmodern.......2007-04-07
A line from the movie "adaptation" put it best: this was a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post to.
Simply put, Laurence Sterne threw out all the literary conventions of what a novel should be and how it should be arranged, a few hundred years before more recent writers like Calvino, Joyce and Danielewski did. The result is "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," a gloriously rambling, richly entertaining sort-of-novel.
"I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me." So begins Tristram, who starts his life story with his "begetting," and attempts to tell the story of his birth and life, as well as the descriptions of relatives -- his lovable uncle Toby, his eccentric dad, his patient mother (who's in labor for most of the book).
But as he tries to tell us about his life, Tristram keeps getting sidetracked by all the stories that surround him -- his uncle's romance with the Widow Wadman and the war in which he received a nasty wound in a sensitive spot, the French, the doctor who delivered him, letters in multiple languages, the parson, the personal history of the midwife, and what curses are appropriate for what occasions.
Most novels are pretty straightforward -- they have a beginning, a middle and an end. But "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" totally ignores that, by having a beginning that lasts for the whole book, dozens of "middles," and no real end (it just stops at a suitable spot). All of this is without a real structure.
And he took this postmodern, break-all-the-rules mentality all the way, by including odd little illustrations -- when speaking of the death of Parson Yorick, Sterne includes a black page. Random empty pages. Asterisks instead of important paragraphs. And a bunch of squiggly lines to demonstrate precisely how the narratives in previous chapters looked.
At first glance, Sterne's writing style was pretty typical of his period -- detailed, somewhat formal in tone, and very talky. It takes a little while for Tristram to start dipping out of of his narrative -- at one point, he starts interrupting himself in midsentence. By the middle of the book, he's completely lost control of his own story.
And he twisted it around with lots of bawdy humor (such as poor Uncle Toby's groin injury, which causes quite a few problems), and the continuous comic stumbles of all the characters. On the subject of his own name, Tristram describes his dad's reaction: "Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which to his ears was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven.")
Life is too rich to be encapsulated in a single story -- that's the problem with "Tristram Shandy," whose story is a classic comic delight of premodernist-postmodern skill.
The LONG life and rants of one, Tristram Shandy.......2006-12-05
Many things could be said about The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, funny, unique, and off-topic being a few of them. Personally, I would call The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy to be a rant of the longest degree. To prove my point, the main character isn't even born before the end of the second volume. It takes the character one year to write about one day in his life, so even if you enjoyed the book you would never get to read an end.
To be fair, this is one of the first true novels ever written and is the very first stream of consciousness novel to ever be written. So with that in mind, it can go off once in a while on a rant because everyone does that in their own head once in awhile.
The characters are rather creative, ranging from a king to a slightly strange mother, but the side trips get very annoying when you are trying to reach the end of the book. Do you honestly want to know what each person did months before the main character was even born? Do we really need to know what color this was and what Mr. Toby Shandy did to cause misfortune to his unborn son the moment he was conceived?
Personally, this book was far too droning. I would much rather read something with more plot, and less stream of consciousness. I admit that maybe people would probably enjoy reading this book for its unique style, but I can not stand to read it. The tangents are too long and the overall style just isn't for me.
With all that in mind, I say that The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy is a decent book with a good story to tell, and tell... and tell. So if you like older writings with a twisted sense of humor, pick this one up.
Tristram Shandy: There Is Logic In The Illogic.......2006-08-18
When Laurence Sterne, in 1760 wrote the first volume of TRISTRAM SHANDY in what was to be a series of nine, no one had any idea what this new genre of literature was meant to be. The only models that Sterne had were Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson, so the field was pretty much wide open in terms of any competitor's choice of content, style, or theme. Sterne noted from these two that their successes were based on their characters' being placed in wildly varying and potentially threatening situations. He took these twin concepts of changeable location and possible harm which he incorporated into the first volume of Tristram Shandy, and then proceeded to turn the incipient world of novel writing over on its very young head. What differentiated this book from those of Fielding and Richardson was Sterne's abandoning the tidy world of the classical insistence on the need for unity. In a style that centuries later would be adopted by Joyce and Proust, Sterne twisted the relation between plot and time into a pretzel. To begin with, the title itself is a misnomer. The titular hero, Tristram, is not even born until midway through the book. He is born, appears briefly, disappears for lengthy periods of time, and then reappears briefly at the end. A more honest title would have been "The Life and Times of the Father and Uncle of Tristram Shandy." It is Walter Shandy, Tristram's father and Toby Shandy, the uncle, who dominate most of the action. And it is not simply a misdirection of who the primary protagonist is to be that gives TRISTRAM SHANDY its off beat flavor. What distinguishes this book from both its predecessors and most of its descendants is Sterne's refusal to use structured time as the unifying glue.
When Sterne presents his action in a manner that seems to defy the laws of causality in that results may precede causes, he does so by his novel use of the association of ideas which act to reconnect threads of thought that are snipped here and spliced there. Such cycles of snipping and splicing lead to digressions such as when in Volume II, the removal of Walter Shandy's wig leads his brother to be reminded of military tactics from his participation in a long past war. Such digressions take on a life of their own, like baby universes after the Big Bang with each one branching off to a possibly related clone. Sterne asks a lot of his readers to tolerate these rapid and often extended shifts in time and perspective. For those readers who are nimble enough of mind to follow, they are treated to some very comic scenes of humor that range from the broadest of satire to the most scatological of coarse jesting. By the time that Tristram makes his initial appearance, the reader has already learned to anticipate the many detours (some would call them roadblocks) of time and space that Sterne has inserted. Many of these scenes of digressive humor are so bizarre and pathetic, that the reader is not sure whether he should laugh or cry. And that perhaps is the magic that causes each new generation of readers to return and follow the twisted paths of time and space that even now can wring tears and laughs from them, sometimes in the same breath.
A forerunner to metareality and postmodernism.......2006-05-19
Lawrence Sterne's sprawling "Shandy" is a fun, difficult read I enjoyed most when I took the time to digest it in 50-60 page chunks. Sterne's meandering style, with no sense of plot, and digression upon digression, can be frustrating to those looking for a story or any sense of a straight narrative.
But for those who love word play, or, like me, grew up reading Mad Magazine and other satire; or anyone with a degree in Latin or philosophy, or even if you're a frustrated writer stifled over care to the craft, "Shandy" is the book for you.
It's crazy fun -- missing pages, the infamous marbled page, black pages, drawings of pointing fingers, digression after digression on such diverse topics as armaments, noses, and fasting, and one of the most self-conscious, self-referential narrative voices in all of fiction. Literary critics point to Shandy as one of the first examples of postmodernist writing.
Sterne presages the modern tendency towards meta-fiction, that blurry limbo between fact and fiction. The controversy over "A Million Little Pieces," reality television, the movies "Adaption" and "American Splendor," along with the stream-of-consciousness style of Kerouac and the Beat Movement -- any work where the creator's ego/persona interjects into the narrative -- owes a creative debt to Tristram Shandy.
I saw the movie and decided to read the book to make sense of it all. Of course, the book was no help. Sense has no place in the "Shandean" universe. The intrepid reader should just roll with it, laugh at the absurdities and highlight in pencil the little nuggets of wisdom contained herein.
A canonic novel the worthy will love.......2006-03-26
Although my motivation alone to read Life and Opinions speaks to its literary value (it is required reading for esteemed and illustrious Professor Priscilla "Sawcebox" Gilman's Eighteenth Century British Novels course at the prestigious and highly selective Vassar College in the scenic Hudson Valley of New York), I have discovered that it actually lives up to its assigned space in the canon. For those who are connoisseur-enough to understand that it takes patience, devotion, and a well-rounded understanding of vulgarity to get through an obra-maestra such as this, it is truly a fun read. At times I find myself daring to laugh out loud (lol) to Sterne's outlandish and fearless narrative. After such morally righteous (dull) tales as Pamela and Joseph Andrews, this novel is a welcome release. FINALLY here is an author who knows how to take charge of his readership and completely disregards their wishes while acknowledging and thriving off of their existence. Unlike the other little girly writers of his age who chew day and night on their anxiety of criticism, Sterne addresses his critics directly, super-manly, and does the most masculine thing of all: he makes fun of them. I mean, what better credit can one do for oneself other than to make a spectacle of those who think differently? In conclusion, don't attempt this one if you aren't a careful reader: it will just be words on a page, page after page, with a few anomalies stuck in. For the adventurous reader, carpe librum! However, I will offer one word of advice; watch for the pointed finger hand- therein little nuggets of truth, perfect for the mantle.
Average customer rating:
- A Not-So-Wicked Gentleman
- A Wicked Gentleman
- A story of a widow and a spy
- Widows, spinsters, and spies
- The Incomparable Jane Feather's A Wicked Gentleman
|
A Wicked Gentleman
Jane Feather
Manufacturer: Thorndike Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Historical
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Historical
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Feather, Jane
| ( F )
| Authors, A-Z
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
Regency
| Historical
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Historical
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
Literature & Fiction
| Large Print
| Formats
| Books
Romance
| Large Print
| Formats
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell
-
Bedding the Heiress
-
Beware a Scot's Revenge (School for Heiresses, Book 3)
-
Her Only Desire: A Novel
-
Desperate Duchesses (Avon Historical Romance)
ASIN: 0786294426 |
Customer Reviews:
A Not-So-Wicked Gentleman.......2007-09-10
I was disappointed by this title. From the description, I expected much more. I didn't find either main character particularly engaging and agree with other reviewers who stated there were too many characters. Do we really need all the description and exposition about the nannies? I skimmed a lot of this book, but I did finish reading it (so that says something). However, the male protagonist was not in any way "wicked." He was nice, caring, sympathetic and smart. But mostly, he was ho-hum. My advice is to skip this one.
A Wicked Gentleman.......2007-09-03
Lady Cornelia Dagenham, her sister-in-law Aurelia, and their friend Liv Lacey, are off to London on an adventure. Combining their sparse funds, the three plan to spend a few months in the home Liv recently inherited. Although the home is in terrible condition, they are determined to make it habitable and enjoy their London vacation.
Harry, The Viscount Bonham, has made several bids to purchase Liv's Cavendish Square property, which is a mystery to the three ladies. The viscount is wealthy and has no need for the shabby property. When Harry turns his charm on Cornelia, to her amazement she finds her self responding.
Unbeknownst to Cornelia, Harry is a code breaker for the Crown. His interest in her not only exposes her and her friends to danger, it also raises a distressing question. Does Harry truly desire Cornelia, or is his pursuit of her part of his mission for the Crown?
I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Wicked Gentleman. In fact, I am really looking forward to the next book in this trilogy. These women are smart, engaging and funny. I have been hooked!
A Wicked Gentleman is amusing, sensual and terribly romantic. I can't think of a better way to spend a summer's afternoon than stretched out on a hammock lost in the romance of Jane Feather's A Wicked Gentleman.
Annmarie
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed
A story of a widow and a spy.......2007-06-13
Cornelia is a widow with two young children who moves with two friends into a house in London. These woman move into a dilapidated home with unusual servants. They are quickly wooed by Harry, a viscount who ultimately falls in love with Cornelia. Cornelia initially dislikes Harry, but seems to be overcome by his charms. There is a subplot regarding a mysterious thimble and French agent that creates additional tension.
I love the idea that the character is a mature woman with a family. This makes the story different and enjoyable. Additionally, there are a number of fun characters, such as the unusual butler and the yappy dogs that are quite humorous. However, I didn't like Feather's development of the relationship between Harry and Cornelia. I didn't care that they got together-- in fact, I felt that he was deceptive and she might be better without him. Given that I generally didn't like their relationship or the hero, the novel fell a little flat for me.
Widows, spinsters, and spies.......2007-05-06
Lately, I've been enjoying some lighter reading, namely several new historical romances by authors that I know will usually turn out a good product. Long time author Jane Feather is one of those writers that I trust; while a few of her novels have bombed for me, most of the time she can keep me interested and entertained enough to finish her stories.
Ms. Feather has started a new series with A Wicked Gentleman, set in the Regency period of London, England. Three ladies, Cornelia, her sister-in-law Aurelia, and their cousin Livia, decide to go to London, each one for different reasons. At first uncertain how they will afford it, a surprise legacy from an unknown relation provides them with a house on the fashionable Cavendish Square.
This particular story centers around Cornelia, the widowed Lady Dagenham. Desperate to keep her two young children with her, Cornelia happily agrees to chaperone Lady Liv, and London provides a welcome respite from the threats of her uncle, who seeks to keep her son, Lord Stevie, from any hint of trouble. The idea of having her son taken away from her haunts Cornelia, especially when the proposed tutor is a bit of a sadist.
But London isn't seeming to be that much of a haven either. For one thing, the townhouse is a wreck, along with three aged servants who have their own attitudes about how things ought to be run. But what may be worst of all is the presence of Harry, Viscount Bonham. Besides being devastatingly handsome (aren't they always?), Harry has quite a few secrets of his own, and he and Nell keep crossing paths.
Unhappily for both Nell and Harry, his secrets, including the rather lurid death of his former wife, and his own reasons for seeking out the trio of ladies may prove to be too much for any hope of romance to survive the ugly truth. It's a tried and true plot that is usually found in romantic historicals, but Jane Feather manages to breathe some new life into the story.
For one, the heroine, isn't the usual sort of ninny that is found in this novel. Cornelia is a grown-up, with a previous life that has left her with children, a touch that is rarely found in these sort of novels. She also has another rare trait -- a sense of humor, and there are several scenes in the novel that are laugh-out-loud funny. Harry is a little too perfect, always managing to show up at just the right moment with hardly a hair out of place, but by the end of the story, there's enough emotional tension going on to overlook that stumbling block. Too, the author doesn't fall into the pit of turning this into yet another book where it's nothing but sexual bouts between the leads, and the plot goes to the wayside. While there are quite a few dangling issues left at the end of the book, it's satisfying enough that it can be read as a stand-alone novel.
The main plot besides the romantic aspect involves a band of French spies trying to get into the house on Cavendish Square to find an object that is hidden there at the begining of the book. For those who might think that this sort of thing is far-fetched and an aristocratic nobleman is working to stop them, the truth may surprise them.
The secondary characters, Aurelia and Liv along with Harry's assistant, Lester, and the children, are fairly well-fleshed out, and provide some lighter touches and help to keep the story a bit more balanced than a constant 'he-said, she-said.' One interesting thread involves Lady Sophie, the desceased previous owner of the house, and the little clues that are scattered throughout the novel that indicate that she may not have been everything that she seemed. I can only hope that the future novels in the series will explore this angle a bit more.
Ms. Feather's writing style is fluid, and clear of anachronisms. Her knowledge of the time-period -- the early nineteenth centure -- is evident in how her characters behave and act. Regency society was one of those where reputation was everything and unlike most modern writers, Ms. Feather puts it to good use in the story.
Summing up, it's a good novel of this type, and better than most to be found in this genre. One of the best parts about this writer is that she works to maintain her consistancy of writing good stories that provide an evening's entertainment. I will continue to look for her forthcoming novels in her Cavendish Square series, as yet unnamed.
The Incomparable Jane Feather's A Wicked Gentleman.......2007-04-10
Jane Feather's writing style cannot be compared...I can only describe it as "magical"! Her love scenes are so beautifully descritive and the passion inside the bedroom is enhanced and heightened by the passionate romance outside the bedroom.
She describes things so beautifully and in such a sophisticated way that some of her sentences take my breath away. I have to re-read them 2 and 3 times.
Ms. Feather writes about history in such an interesting way that it seems vital to the storyline. In many of other historical romances, the history is just boring...not so with Ms, Feather.
I cannot say enough about her novels, with the exception of very few, she is a superb top shelf author.
The Wicked Gentleman has a hero to die for and a heorine who matches him. I enjoyed them immensely and cannot wait for Liv and Aurelia's stories!
Book Description
One of the brightest stars of romantic fiction, the incomparable New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens flings wide the gates of the Bastion Club -- an elite society of unmarried London gentlemen dedicated to determining their own matrimonial futures. Here, in one volume, are two of the author's most captivating and sensuous novels: a "prequel" that brilliantly sets the stage for the popular series and an early Bastion delight.
Captain Jack's Woman
Rebellious Kathryn "Kit" Cranmer finds adventure at the head of a rag-tag band of smugglers. But her dashing, ruthless rival, the notorious Captain Jack, rules the night -- and becoming this bold man of mystery's woman will carry Kit to new heights of excitement beyond anything she's ever dreamed.
A Gentleman's Honor
Anthony Blake, Viscount Torrington, believes Alicia Carrington when the frightened young beauty swears she's innocent in the murder of the villain who was blackmailing her. But it is more than honor that compels the handsome nobleman to protect her, and to do everything in his seductive power to make Alicia his.
Two classic novels in one volume!
Books:
- A Northern Light
- All About Me
- Arthritis Relief at Your Fingertips: The Complete Self-Care Guide for Easing Aches and Pains Without Drugs
- Bastard Prince: Henry VIII's Lost Son
- Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year 2007 (Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year)
- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
- Born to Be BAD (Bureau of American Defense - B.A.D., Books 1, 2 and 3)
- Boxcar Children Collection: The Chocolate Sunday Mystery, The Mystery on Blizzard Mountain, The Mystery of the Spiders Clue, The Ghost Ship Mystery (Boxcar Children)
- C.A.R.E. Packages for the Workplace: Dozens of Little Things You Can Do To Regenerate Spirit At Work
- C.A.R.E. Packages for the Workplace: Dozens of Little Things You Can Do To Regenerate Spirit At Work
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Brian Jones Straight From The Heart: The Rolling Stones Murder
- Uncle Bubba's Savannah Seafood: More than 100 Down-Home Southern Recipes for Good Food and Good Time
- The Complete Ghost Stories of Charles Dickens
- The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830
- The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher
- Timeless Reality : Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes
- The Seasons of Cumberland Island
- Civil Forfeiture As a "Sin Tax"
- The New Professional: Everything You Need to Know for a Great First Year on the Job
- Doing Business with the Russian Region of Krasnodar Krai
