Sam had left me the cottage and the sheepfold behind, but they had nicked his stowe the day they brought his body out of the mine. I told him that day that they need not wait to nick it again, for three weeks, six weeks, or nine, I could neither shore his fallen walls nor was I in purse to have another do it. pg34
At age five and twenty, Elinor Mompellion had the fragile beauty of a child. She was all pale and pearly, her hair a fine, fair nimbus around skin so sheer that you could see the veins pulsing at her temples. Even her eyes were pale, a white-washed blue like a winter sky. pg35
Not only do these sentences sound contrived (it takes place in the 1600s, okay I get it, you don't have to beat me over the head with it) but the similes and metaphors give me a rash.
Shakespeare and his contemporaries wrote some beautiful prose because they lived it. Charles Dickens and The Bronte sisters wrote some beautiful Victorian literature because they lived it. Authors should write well, write what they know, and leave some of the imagination up to the reader.
4 comments:
Oh, no! I enjoyed this book and once I got into the flow of it, I was fine with the way it was written and got much more into the story. I will say that I prefer People of the Book that she wrote around the same time much more, though. I did also enjoy The Help, but I listened to that as an audio production and thought the narrators playing each role were phenomenal. I don't mind it when an author writes in a different dialect - if it feels right, then I'm good with it.
I'm sure The Help does much better as an audiobook as dialect is a heard thing rather than a written thing. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie!
I enjoyed this book, though it is pretty harrowing in places. I know what you mean about dialect, but the thing about this book that I really didn't like was, yes, the ending! That really was contrived. I preferred it to People of the Book, and March, but that's partly because the headmistress of my old Primary School was from Eyam, and she used to tell us about the plague village, so I was interested to read a fiction (loosely) based on it.
I'm keeping this book on my shelf so I can give it another try some other time. I think the subject is interesting enough to warrant another attempt.
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