eshchory

It wasn’t just that I really disliked this book but I also found it offensive.

This claims to be a story of love but for me it is more a story of obsession and a not very healthy one at that.

Our heroine is a spoilt immature child in love with the idea of being in love , in love with the idea of a romantic suitor who writes love letters and in love with the idea of rebelling against her father. However the moment reality impinges she rejects her lover out of hand without a thought for his feelings.
As the book progresses she rejects romance instead choosing social status and a wealthy doctor. She spends her marriage behaving like a petulant child, throwing tantrums and taking offense at the merest slight. Her story is filled with trivial and petty concerns.

Our hero, on the other hand leads an existence wasted on obsession. After becoming fixated on a teenage girl and his illusion of a relationship with her the thrust of his life seems to be the passing of time until he achieves the object of his obsession.
The rather repetitious tales of his sexual exploits were more than a little wearying; rarely erotic but for the most part boringly pedestrian and crude. When he descended to pedophilia I became rather queasy and repulsed.
I found it disturbing how apathetic ‘our hero’ was to the death and destruction he caused in the lives of his lovers and despite the author’s repeated insistence that women found him irresistible I found it difficult to understand why.

Finally when the couple discover their love they run away, too ashamed to reveal their feelings to their friends and society in general.
Such a great love that it can’t even stand up to the test of a little social embarrassment!!! I was underwhelmed.

Many times I was tempted to throw this book against the wall and only enjoyed the writing when it was describing scenes of nature or landscapes.
I found all of major characters unlikeable and for me a satisfying end to the story would have involved a massive explosion killing them all.