July 10, 2012

  • Week 25 (Very Late): Sylvia's Lovers

    So this entry is standing for the week of June 17-June 23, I guess. Which means I'm about three weeks behind? I thought I was worse off on this reading resolution business, but I guess not.

    I've just finished Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'd never heard of this book before, but while going through some of Mike's stuff, I found it in a box of old Caltech books. Apparently Mike bought it for En123 (that's what the Caltech Bookstore sticker says anyway), but either didn't read it for the class or simply ended up dropping the class, since he says he's never read it.

    It has the typical style and tone of BritLit that you read for class, but it has a very strong dialect-ical influence in the dialogue which takes a bit of getting used to.

    When I was reading it, I tripped happily along. All the characters felt familiar, and yet I couldn't really say who I compared them to in my mind. I think it had a very neat sort of...Christian morals ending? As if you read the book to a child to teach them a lesson in proper Christian conduct or something.

    I think you know all along what is going to happen, and so nothing surprises you. You're just reading it for the sake of reading it. Going along with the story and such. I guess now that I think about it, it really is quite appropriate for a bedtime story that you read in installments.