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camilleisreading24's review against another edition
5.0
Awesome book!! 752 pages so it took me about 2 and a half months to read (especially with Netflix, Audible, and podcasts taking up so much of my time these days).
Takes place in America (mainly Pennsylvania) in the Gilded Age, specifically 1879-1899. Follows the 5 daughters of the Zinn family, all of whom defect from social mores over the years.
Opens with the abduction of the youngest (adopted) daughter, Deirdre, by hot air balloon. She later becomes one of the most famous psychic mediums of all time. Another daughter runs away to become an actress. One girl elopes while another flees her marital bed and reappears many years later after undergoing a major bodily alteration.
The book is told in Victorian prose but takes diverse and fascinating subjects including transsexuality, substance abuse, and the decades-long attempts by the family patriarch, JQZ, to perfect his perpetual-motion machine. Fascinating and enthralling book that combines romance, literature, and history.
Takes place in America (mainly Pennsylvania) in the Gilded Age, specifically 1879-1899. Follows the 5 daughters of the Zinn family, all of whom defect from social mores over the years.
Opens with the abduction of the youngest (adopted) daughter, Deirdre, by hot air balloon. She later becomes one of the most famous psychic mediums of all time. Another daughter runs away to become an actress. One girl elopes while another flees her marital bed and reappears many years later after undergoing a major bodily alteration.
The book is told in Victorian prose but takes diverse and fascinating subjects including transsexuality, substance abuse, and the decades-long attempts by the family patriarch, JQZ, to perfect his perpetual-motion machine. Fascinating and enthralling book that combines romance, literature, and history.
mollyringle's review against another edition
4.0
This was my second reading of this novel; my review from the first reading, almost 20 years ago, is copied at the end of this one.
This book is insane and weird and difficult to get through, and I kind of love it. Or at least, I love that it exists and that Joyce Carol Oates took the time to create such a crazy thing.
It's huge and dense and full of meticulously chosen late-1800s-style-prose, and you would think it would take 20 years just to write and that whoever wrote it probably couldn't have had time to write much else in life, but we're talking about JCO here, who is an amazing force of nature when it comes to prolificness. So yeah, this is just ONE of her 70 or so books. My hat's off to you, JCO.
And what is this novel even about? Hard to describe. A parody of the late 1800s in America? Well, yes, but it also goes so deep into that time period, and into each character, that it becomes legitimate literature at the same time. It's serious / not serious. I was finding it similar to, say, [b:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|14201|Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|Susanna Clarke|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1357027589s/14201.jpg|3921305] that way: written in antiquated style with tongue in cheek, and with similarly bizarre supernatural occurrences, but at the same time fully in earnest about the plot and characters. So if you liked JS&MN's style, consider this one.
I was also thinking this novel might be a thought experiment, in which Oates more or less posits the question, "What if all that crazy stuff people believed in the late 1800s was literally true?" What if the Spiritualists really were in league with dangerous spirits? What if someone really could invent a time machine? What if a young woman wandering off on her own, though still within view of her family, really was in danger of being seized by some stranger who might appear out of nowhere (say, in a hot air balloon)? What if young women were honestly so innocent about the facts of life that they had genuinely no idea what would happen to them on the wedding night? What if a woman who starts dressing and acting like a man actually physically became a man?
Because, yes, all those things happen in this book, and more. Crazy. But I kind of love it.
My review from first reading in 1998, for posterity:
The cover looked like a melodramatic grocery-store romance novel--it had a woman with billowing black hair and a breathtaken expression, wearing an extravagant 19th-century dress--and the back read, "One beauteous autumn day in 1879, a sinister black balloon swooped from the skies and abducted Miss Deirdre Zinn as her four sisters gaped, mute and terror-struck. For their family nothing was ever the same again..." If I hadn't known it was a parody, I would have been terribly alarmed and probably would have put it back on the shelves. But, having been notified of the fact, I laughed, and decided I had to read it. "Like a long Edward Gorey cartoon, or like Little Women as told by Stephen King," said one review in the front. Yes. It was just my sort of thing. Altogether, Ms. Oates captures the spirit of the times quite well, deftly mixing mentions of Edison and Walt Whitman and Poe into her characters' social lives, and including an intimate personal appearance by Mark Twain. Furthermore, as this book is highly amusing and deeply interesting, and barely at all disturbing, it shows that Joyce Carol Oates is an even more versatile author than I realized. Fans of Victorian literature will be delighted at this new take on the subject.
This book is insane and weird and difficult to get through, and I kind of love it. Or at least, I love that it exists and that Joyce Carol Oates took the time to create such a crazy thing.
It's huge and dense and full of meticulously chosen late-1800s-style-prose, and you would think it would take 20 years just to write and that whoever wrote it probably couldn't have had time to write much else in life, but we're talking about JCO here, who is an amazing force of nature when it comes to prolificness. So yeah, this is just ONE of her 70 or so books. My hat's off to you, JCO.
And what is this novel even about? Hard to describe. A parody of the late 1800s in America? Well, yes, but it also goes so deep into that time period, and into each character, that it becomes legitimate literature at the same time. It's serious / not serious. I was finding it similar to, say, [b:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|14201|Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|Susanna Clarke|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1357027589s/14201.jpg|3921305] that way: written in antiquated style with tongue in cheek, and with similarly bizarre supernatural occurrences, but at the same time fully in earnest about the plot and characters. So if you liked JS&MN's style, consider this one.
I was also thinking this novel might be a thought experiment, in which Oates more or less posits the question, "What if all that crazy stuff people believed in the late 1800s was literally true?" What if the Spiritualists really were in league with dangerous spirits? What if someone really could invent a time machine? What if a young woman wandering off on her own, though still within view of her family, really was in danger of being seized by some stranger who might appear out of nowhere (say, in a hot air balloon)? What if young women were honestly so innocent about the facts of life that they had genuinely no idea what would happen to them on the wedding night? What if a woman who starts dressing and acting like a man actually physically became a man?
Because, yes, all those things happen in this book, and more. Crazy. But I kind of love it.
My review from first reading in 1998, for posterity:
The cover looked like a melodramatic grocery-store romance novel--it had a woman with billowing black hair and a breathtaken expression, wearing an extravagant 19th-century dress--and the back read, "One beauteous autumn day in 1879, a sinister black balloon swooped from the skies and abducted Miss Deirdre Zinn as her four sisters gaped, mute and terror-struck. For their family nothing was ever the same again..." If I hadn't known it was a parody, I would have been terribly alarmed and probably would have put it back on the shelves. But, having been notified of the fact, I laughed, and decided I had to read it. "Like a long Edward Gorey cartoon, or like Little Women as told by Stephen King," said one review in the front. Yes. It was just my sort of thing. Altogether, Ms. Oates captures the spirit of the times quite well, deftly mixing mentions of Edison and Walt Whitman and Poe into her characters' social lives, and including an intimate personal appearance by Mark Twain. Furthermore, as this book is highly amusing and deeply interesting, and barely at all disturbing, it shows that Joyce Carol Oates is an even more versatile author than I realized. Fans of Victorian literature will be delighted at this new take on the subject.
robberbaroness's review against another edition
4.0
This book is the chronicle of a well-off (though not quite well-off enough) American family in the late 1800s. The narrator (a celibate maiden, as she continues to remind us whenever her natural feminine frailties interfere with the telling of the story) would like to extract from them a tale of moral inspiration and instruction, but how can she? While the Transcendentalist father and thoroughly respectable mother are beyond reproach, the lives of their five daughters shock her sensibilities. There’s Deirdre, the adopted malcontent abducted by a black outlaw balloon. There’s Constance Philippa, whose discomfort in her own body leads to a surreal transformation. There’s Malvinia, cruel and beautiful, with those strange urges that continue to interfere with her love life. There’s Samantha, the young inventor always subordinate to her father’s will- until suddenly she isn’t. And poor Octavia, the kindest and most obedient child, suffers such hardships- so many mysterious accidents befall those close to her, despite her best efforts to love and obey them as a good woman should!
A Bloodsmoor Romance is a gothic fantasia, and the tale that emerges could be described as “Little Women gone to hell.” The adventures of the Zinn daughters shock and sometimes delight the reader (though frequently at the opposite times as the narrator!) This dense and delicately-told book is packed with the grotesque and bizarre, and is ultimately a romance in the truest sense of the word.
A Bloodsmoor Romance is a gothic fantasia, and the tale that emerges could be described as “Little Women gone to hell.” The adventures of the Zinn daughters shock and sometimes delight the reader (though frequently at the opposite times as the narrator!) This dense and delicately-told book is packed with the grotesque and bizarre, and is ultimately a romance in the truest sense of the word.
dwellordream's review
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
redbluemoon's review against another edition
5.0
Once more, a huge book, and, once more, a family that the reader, at the same time, loves and hates, and it's hard for him to leave them at the end of the book!
Fantasy, Gothic, frightening, annoying because of the period's sexism, and because the narrator keeps telling it's normal and keep speaking about religion.
An excellent read, unforgettable characters, great writing style.
Fantasy, Gothic, frightening, annoying because of the period's sexism, and because the narrator keeps telling it's normal and keep speaking about religion.
An excellent read, unforgettable characters, great writing style.
booksmacked's review
5.0
The narrator was the best part of this book by far. What a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE person!! I kept quoting her to others that have read the book-- just so outraged! Of course this is a fantastical journey of wonder, as of course JCO will provide. I loved these stories, characters, and how they were arranged for maximum dramatic intrigue. The foreshadowing is genius.
lbast's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
ruthiella's review
4.0
A Bloodsmoor Romance is a “romance” in the literary sense. There is very little in the way of a romantic love story between characters. Instead is more about the often bizarre and mysterious adventures of the five Zinn daughters in Gilded Age America. It was a pastiche of typical mid-19th century fiction maybe in its telling. The narrator often uses stilted language and/or syntax and it is very long; over 600 pages. It felt a lot like a subversion of Little Women. Though outside of some Hawthorn and Twain, Little Women is pretty much the only American classic I’ve read from that time period. But I interpreted it as an intentional send up of modern historical novels that idealize and whitewash the past.
The story begins when the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Zinn, teenaged Deirdre, is abducted by a man in a black hot-air balloon in 1879. This bizarre event is the beginning of the end of the Zinn family. The narrator takes the reader back to inventor John Zinn’s rather cloudy beginnings and his curious courtship with the then Miss Prudence Kiddemaster, heiress and bluestocking, from a wealthy and well connected Pennsylvania family. Then the fates of Dierdre and her other sisters are recounted. It is a wild tale and it includes mediums, time machines, stardom on the stage, cross-dressing and secret histories…pretty wild all in all. I am looking forward to trying JCO’s gothic novel Bellefleur, next. Is there nothing she cannot write?
The story begins when the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Zinn, teenaged Deirdre, is abducted by a man in a black hot-air balloon in 1879. This bizarre event is the beginning of the end of the Zinn family. The narrator takes the reader back to inventor John Zinn’s rather cloudy beginnings and his curious courtship with the then Miss Prudence Kiddemaster, heiress and bluestocking, from a wealthy and well connected Pennsylvania family. Then the fates of Dierdre and her other sisters are recounted. It is a wild tale and it includes mediums, time machines, stardom on the stage, cross-dressing and secret histories…pretty wild all in all. I am looking forward to trying JCO’s gothic novel Bellefleur, next. Is there nothing she cannot write?