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| Original Title: | Melmoth the Wanderer |
| ISBN: | 014044761X (ISBN13: 9780140447613) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Charles Robert Maturin
Paperback | Pages: 659 pages Rating: 3.72 | 4095 Users | 275 Reviews
Chronicle In Pursuance Of Books Melmoth the Wanderer
Created by an Irish clergyman, Melmoth is one of the most fiendish characters in literature. In a satanic bargain, Melmoth exchanges his soul for immortality. The story of his tortured wanderings through the centuries is pieced together through those who have been implored by Melmoth to take over his pact with the devil. Influenced by the Gothic romances of the late 18th century, Maturin's diabolic tale raised the genre to a new and macabre pitch. Its many admirers include Poe, Balzac, Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire.
Details Epithetical Books Melmoth the Wanderer
| Title | : | Melmoth the Wanderer |
| Author | : | Charles Robert Maturin |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Penguin Classics |
| Pages | : | Pages: 659 pages |
| Published | : | May 25th 2000 by Penguin Books (first published 1820) |
| Categories | : | Gothic. Classics. Horror. Fiction. Literature. 19th Century |
Rating Epithetical Books Melmoth the Wanderer
Ratings: 3.72 From 4095 Users | 275 ReviewsWrite Up Epithetical Books Melmoth the Wanderer
IntroductionNote on the TextSelect BibliographyA Chronology of Charles Robert Maturin--Melmoth the WandererExplanatory NotesFavourite parts:"His hands, that had convulsively been catching at the blankets, let go their short and quivering grasp, and lay extended on the bed like the claws of some bird that had died of hunger . . . so meager, so yellow, so spread"After burning the painting:"You have burned me, then; but those are flames I can survive . . . . I am alive . . . I am beside you scary!When Stanton is in the insane asylumbeing taunted by Melmoth:You must be content with the spider and the rat, to crawl and
I tried really, really, really hard to like this book. Hell, Baudelaire and Wilde both loved it, so it can't be all bad could it? And scads of people regard it as a classic of the late Gothic genre, so it can't be all bad could it?Why, yes...yes, it is! Plodding and dull, with around 50% of the text quotations from other works, including Gothic writers such as Radcliffe and Lewis, a peculiarity that maybe I've just never noticed in works of the time, there is little of note here. Maturin, a fine
This had been sitting on my shelf to read for some time now, for some reason it never felt like the time. Most of the classic fiction I have read has been in much shorter form and I was quite intimidated by this Gothic epic that I worried might be quite hard work. After completing it, it did feel like a mammoth undertaking but well worth the effort. Melmoth the Wanderer, damned for some undiscovered reason and doomed to wander the earth looking for individuals in the pit of despair and anguish
Not much to say, I guess Maturin said it all. I liked his fierce stand against Catholicism, his beautiful and atmospheric scenes, but got fed up by his never-ending long-windedness and his intertwined stories. Not sure who started telling a story and who ended telling another!Anyway, try it if you have ample time and patience.
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. But it fought me so much that I was ultimately just glad to finish it.The opening half is great. Spooky, gothic, deranged sections about inheriting a fortune from a miser whos fearful for his life from some mysterious otherworldly being. We then get stories about this being from across a century and a half, always tempting and turning folk to the dark side. But Maturin isnt in control of his books structure - we end up hearing a story inside a
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