Reviews

Castle Dor by Arthur Quiller-Crouch, Daphne du Maurier

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krobart's review against another edition

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3.0

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/day-678-castle-dor/

cimorene1558's review against another edition

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2.0

I have never really been able to enjoy the writings of Q, but I love Daphne du Maurier, and so I read it. To me it’s pretty obvious where the rather incoherent beginning moves into the much better writing of D du M, but I could be imagining that—presumably she worked on the whole thing at least some, didn’t just throw an ending on.
It’s almost my kind of book. I was reminded of both the Owl Service and some of du Maurier’s books, but I have never had much interest in Tristen and Isolde (there never seems to be much to it), and so I don’t know enough to follow the quite academic (thanks Q) details throughout, and honestly, it just seemed kind of sad and foolish. There are great romances in history, but this is a fairly lame book about one of them. The end ought to be heartrending, but it kind of falls flat.
An interesting read, but not something I can imagine wanting to read again.

caroline562023's review against another edition

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4.0

This was a slow burn as it is so different to my favourite, Rebecca. The reason for this becomes clear in the explanation of how Du Maurier came to write it. As a reimagining of the Tristan and Isolde story, however, there are few to surpass it. Hold out for the end. It is exquisite.

alexis_something_rose's review against another edition

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sadly not even Daphne du Maurier could have saved this shipwreck…
but it was awful nice of her to take up this task, no doubt about that.

willablue's review against another edition

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2.0

As a big fan of Daphne du Maurier, this was a big disappointment. The story was incredibly boring and poorly written, especially at the beginning.

molly_greenshields's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

I had high expectations for this one, especially when I found out it was a folkloric retelling of Tristan & Iseult's tragic love story, but Castle Dor was a drag. I honestly had little clue what was going on for at least half of the book, which I think was down to the dual authorship, unfortunately.