Evan Harrington
by George Meredith
1860 / 427 pages
rating 8 / classic satire
This is a bit outside my comfort zone – I can read late Victorian lit very nicely thank you, but when it comes to the earlier Victorian novels it seems to be a different ballgame. The vocabulary is more esoteric, the syntax more complex – it’s just plain archaic and takes me awhile to get used to it.
That said – I do enjoy a good classic novel because, as I’ve likely said here before, it gives me a real bird’s-eye view into the times – not some historical fiction writer’s explanation and interpretation of the times (which is nothing against historical fiction. As a result the things a reader of the author’s own times would know are often mysteries to me and I have to do a bit of research. Also the style and the substance of the narrative form has changed – we rarely see and intrusive author these days, but in Evan Harrington the narrator is almost a character. Also, social “class” is not a common theme of literature about 21st century times. >>>>MORE (no spoilers>>>>
