Moppet's Updates en-US Fri, 04 Apr 2025 02:17:54 -0700 60 Moppet's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg UserStatus1039486718 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 02:17:54 -0700 <![CDATA[ Moppet is on page 169 of 699 of Illusions perdues ]]> Illusions perdues by Honoré de Balzac Moppet is on page 169 of 699 of <a href="/book/show/1248705.Illusions_perdues">Illusions perdues</a>. ]]> ReadStatus9269352381 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 02:17:12 -0700 <![CDATA[Moppet started reading 'Illusions perdues']]> /review/show/7461286386 Illusions perdues by Honoré de Balzac Moppet started reading Illusions perdues by Honoré de Balzac
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Review7255425768 Fri, 28 Feb 2025 15:40:29 -0800 <![CDATA[Moppet added 'Chocolates for Breakfast']]> /review/show/7255425768 Chocolates for Breakfast by Pamela   Moore Moppet gave 3 stars to Chocolates for Breakfast (Paperback) by Pamela Moore
bookshelves: 1950s, 20th-century, hollywood, los-angeles, new-york, the-rich-are-different, coming-of-age
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ReadStatus9129712213 Fri, 28 Feb 2025 15:38:33 -0800 <![CDATA[Moppet started reading 'Aurora Floyd']]> /review/show/7363546542 Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Moppet started reading Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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Eleanor's Victory by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
"”’[…] Listen to me, both of you, and remember what I say. I am very young, I know, but I have learnt to think and act for myself before to-day. I don’t know this man’s name; I never even saw his face; I don’t know who he is, or where he comes from; but sooner or later I swear to be revenged upon him for my father’s cruel death.’
‘Eleanor, Eleanor!’ cried the Signora: ‘is this womanly? Is this Christian-like?’”


I don’t know about you, but I certainly love revenge tales. They are a gory guilty pleasure and seductively suggestive of how to reduce life’s annoying complexities. They also have the reader experience a perversely gleeful delight resulting from the fact that on one hand, in our heart of hearts we still root for the an eye for an eye principle – which in fiction is usually satisfied through the introduction of poetic justice, whereas on the other, our religion and the civilized rules by which we go demand us not to give in to the whisperings of a bloodthirsty and resentful heart. And so, we, of course, would never stoop to jettisoning our moral principles and our self-restraint in the name of vengeance, but if a literary character does it, why! we are not to blame if we side with him, are we? Interestingly, while we sometimes may agree with Hamlet that time is out of joint and needs some setting right, it rarely occurs to us that we could do this work of adjusting things with regard to people who are in need of some good being done to them but instead concentrate on the apparently more relishing work of doing evil things to evil people.

In M.E. Braddon’s early novel Eleanor’s Victory (1863), our avenger is a young woman, Eleanor Vane, who is merely fifteen years old when she takes a vow of revenge after her father has committed suicide because he had lost the money he wanted to invest in his daughter’s schooling to a young gambling Englishman. Admittedly, Eleanor’s father reminded me a lot of Little Nell’s grandfather, being as whiny and full of self-pity, but rather more grandiloquent and egocentric, and I also felt the novel was getting richer for having lost him, but still, Eleanor was blindly devoted to the old fool, and now is blindly devoted to her scheme of revenge, which does not look very hopeful at the beginning, because how could she find out the identity of the young gambler who precipitated her father’s death? Revenge lovers needn’t lose heart at this obstacle, though, because Eleanor has a very staunch and trustworthy friend, and this is no one less than the author herself, who, a charming finagler, bends and twists the plot in such a way as to produce coincidence upon coincidence to the effect that Eleanor meets the very man she is looking for when she is least expecting it.

However, the plot itself is not the most intriguing aspect of this sensation novel, and indeed, one might almost throw one’s hands up in horror and dismay at all the coincidences we are supposed to put up with. What really makes the novel interesting is the development of the vengeful maiden Eleanor, a very strong female character, indeed, who has no qualms about marrying a decent man just because this gives her the opportunity to live near the person she wants to wreak vengeance upon. This is just one instance of our heroine taking decisions that are, at best, ethically doubtful and it shows that a person devoting their life to revenge may not always tread upon morally sound ground. Towards the end of the novel, when Eleanor is just one step away from fulfilling the vow she has given to her dead father, or rather to herself, she comes to realize that her desire for revenge, might cause some unforeseen misery and suffering to a person that had gone under her radar all the time.

All in all, I would not recommend Eleanor’s Victory for its plot so much as rather for the excellent character work Mrs. Braddon is doing. A word of warning: Don’t give up on the novel because the first three or four chapters might seem plodding and meandering. I was tempted to discard the novel for this very reason, but felt quite happy for not giving in to this impulse, because the book really improved as it moved on.

(3.5 stars, altogether)"
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Review83821604 Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:29:13 -0800 <![CDATA[Moppet added 'The Mill on the Floss']]> /review/show/83821604 The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot Moppet gave 5 stars to The Mill on the Floss (Paperback) by George Eliot
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ReadStatus8990876219 Tue, 28 Jan 2025 07:42:38 -0800 <![CDATA[Moppet wants to read 'Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings']]> /review/show/7265956683 Lucy Maud Montgomery by Mary Henley Rubio Moppet wants to read Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings by Mary Henley Rubio
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