This version of the book has been reviewed in English(17) by readers.
|
| |||||||||||
Buy from Amazon
What are readers saying about Shirley?
|
A reader posted a review at 2009-09-26 14:00:57.
(Language: English)
   
Charlotte Bronte is clearly a great story-teller. As much as this story tells the tale of a troubled 19th century cloth industry, I felt it essentially a romance: Jane Austen in a less aristocratic setting.This novel, in my reading at least, unfortunately suffers from predictability, even on some of the supposed "surprises". You get the feeling not a huge amount happens; hence the development of its characters and their motivations are what would drive the reader's interest. Nevertheless a worthwhile read, and one which provides morals as valid now as they were then. 
|
Yes (0) 
No (0) |
|
A reader posted a review at 2009-08-10 19:23:43.
(Language: English)
Not my favorite of Charlotte B's. If you have a choice, read Villette (my favorite)or Jane Eyre instead.
|
|
|
Byambaa posted a review at 2009-07-01 09:29:22.
(Language: English)
sounds like north and south???
|
|
|
Vanessa posted a review at 2009-01-09 17:43:50.
(Language: English)
Had to the potential to be a good romance...boring overall.
|
|
|
A reader posted a review at 2008-12-07 21:14:21.
(Language: English)
"Captain" Shirley Keelder is now one of my favourite heroines
|
|
|
A reader posted a review at 2008-12-02 00:49:32.
(Language: English)
Oh so long and pointless. Charlotte missed with this one. Her plot was completely unbalanced. The climax of the novel read more like the falling action/an after thought. The exposition of the book lasted probably 100 pages. This was a painful read. I would say the 600 page story could have been told in about 150 pages. 200 max. I feel like I wasted so much time, but for some reason kept thinking it would get better.
|
|
|
A reader posted a review at 2008-10-07 04:59:28.
(Language: English)
great book very sentimental,fantastic author
|
|
|
A reader posted a review at 2008-09-28 13:29:05.
(Language: English)
Very enjoyable, some beautiful observations about the position of women in Bronte's day.
|
|
|
A reader posted a review at 2008-08-04 16:09:25.
(Language: English)
I first read this story in High-School. It helped that I was also taking French. Many passages in this book are written unapologetically in French. The main female character is of ethnic Flemish and English mix. And because of the Flemish inbreeding, Bronte spends time musing over Shirley and her brother's coarse features. This preoccupation with Flemish coarseness can run a reader bored. I am sure that in Bronte's time the slight variation between medium-light, white people and light-white, white people was a topic of unrestrained excitement. Now that we live in an age of vast cultural and ethnic diversity this aspect of the novel "Shirley" just seems silly and over-considered. If you are interested in the cultural views of Woman in the early 1800's, this book has a few sharp points on the subject. There is a plot element about workers being disgruntled and uprising. There are clear allusions to the Napoleonic Wars and the effect of the war on English society. The lack of womens career opportunities, how death and marriage change family dynamic. Loneliness, money and education are all themes in this book. But what I found to be most interesting to me, was the novel within the novel architecture of "Shirley". The Bronte's liked scope. Large stories that took the character places, changing their perspectives or cementing character attributes because of the strangeness of their new surroundings. Jane Eyre jumps from childhood to a young females first job, then from their first escape to their return. Wuthering Heights breaks after the first generation of character's progeny are born to take those youthful characters from parental death to parental old age. Shirley runs over the age for marriage to have the character escape to a strange new environment and a wealth of suspicion and suspense. These are the early prototype of literary device that count The Master and Margarita a "post-modern" classic. Hum, Not really, I think I've lost my train of thought here. Bronte was very proud of herself for scripting a heroine that was neither beautiful nor exceptional but trustworthy and hard-headed. She and her sisters found the formulaic "beauty as heroine" to be a cheap and rather dull approach to scripting life into page. This book was not fun to read, but it was important to read. This review was written while playing Mob-Wars.
|
Share your views!
Similar books
