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Silly Novels By Lady Novelists (2010)

by George Eliot(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0141192755 (ISBN13: 9780141192758)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Penguin Books

review 1: It has taken me ages to read this fairly short little book. It has been weighing heavily on my mind, and yet I haven't been able to concentrate on it fully. Non-fiction has never agreed with me when stressed, and apparently Eliot is no exception to this rule in spite of my eternal love for her writing.The titular essay in "Silly Novels" is by far the best. In it Eliot discusses the ridiculous amount of female novels in the romantic era; the sensation novelist writing about a beautiful main character who falls in love with a duke under drastic circumstances.Eliot argues that the many silly novels give a bad name to the female novelist in general, making it impossible for the actual talented female writers to get recognition for their work and therefore forcing them to take ... moreon a pseudonym (as Eliot in fact did herself).The remaining essays are very period-specific, focusing on a particular work and making it hard for the modern reader who perhaps haven't read all of the novels which are being discussed by Eliot. I did however find the essay comparing Margaret Fuller to Mary Wollstonecraft very interesting as well. All in all – an interesting little collection of essays, but very dated and very specific. Sometimes even limited in their very Victorian outlook on the world.
review 2: This slim little volume is a collection of a few of George Eliot's essays and book reviews, and like with most collections, it was a hit-and-miss affair for me. The piece on Madame de Sablé and a number of the book reviews went right over my head because they were so period-specific that it is difficult to know what Eliot is talking about without having to do some extensive reading first. Not only are her points of reference very specific to her time, but many of Eliot's opinions are formed by the Victorians' (scientific) knowledge of the world. At one point she claims that French women are better equipped to produce great literary works than English women because of certain "physiological characteristics of the Gallic race: - the small brain and vivacious temperament which permit the fragile system to sustain the superlative activity requisite for intellectual creativeness". But of course. Eliot has a lot of ideas about the role of women in the creative sphere and society as a whole, mostly expressed in her discussion of Mary Wollstonecraft and Margaret Fuller, and in the opening titular essay, where she explains that women writers should have higher standards when it comes to their output because all the "silly novels" out there are preventing great female writers like the Brontës from getting the recognition they deserve ("stop it, you're making all of us look bad!"). This is where Eliot is at her snarkiest, and the opening paragraphs where she outlines your basic 19th-century Mary-Sue character especially are absolutely hysterical. Personal highlight: "Rakish men either bite their lips in impotent confusion at her repartees, or are touched to penitence by her reproofs."(Note to self: make men bite their lips in impotent confusion.) less

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