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gwenlest's review
3.0
Not Vernon Lee's best, but not Vernon Lee's worst. Intensely character driven and somewhat autobiographical.
Read this one as part of my studies. Very useful if you're a literature student reading for some context and critique on the Aesthetes and the Decadents or just Victorian literature in general.
Miss Brown can be pretty frustrating when you reach the end if you were disappointed with Anne's decision like I was. I felt like there was a lot of build up for a less than satisfactory ending, but I still gleaned a lot from it. Much of the plot is largely character driven and revolves around Anne Brown and whether she will decide to marry Walter Hamlin. While characters like Hamlin, Chough and the Leighs do get some occasional spotlight, the story's focus is really on Anne and her personal, spiritual and intellectual journey.
Given the author's gradually souring attitude towards those involved in the Aesthetic and Decadent movement, it becomes evident that by volume two she had found many of her fellow aesthetes to be fickle and repulsive creatures. Volume one has a very different tone to volumes two and three and part of this is reflected in the change in POV from Hamlin to Anne. Vernon Lee didn't bother to hide her criticism of the aesthetes of her time, either. Close reading reveals that the characters names allude to real-life nineteenth-century critics (WalterHamlin Pater, Anne Ford Madox Brown, Cosmo Chough Monkhouse). No surprise then that Miss Brown garnered such a shocked reception in 1884.
Overall, not bad - but if not for my literary studies, I probably wouldn't have picked up. Glad I did though. Vernon Lee, much as I love all her stuff, is better suited to her short stories I think. There needs to be some nicer editions too. I'd love to have a nicely bound physical copy on my shelf!
Read this one as part of my studies. Very useful if you're a literature student reading for some context and critique on the Aesthetes and the Decadents or just Victorian literature in general.
Miss Brown can be pretty frustrating when you reach the end if you were disappointed with Anne's decision like I was. I felt like there was a lot of build up for a less than satisfactory ending, but I still gleaned a lot from it. Much of the plot is largely character driven and revolves around Anne Brown and whether she will decide to marry Walter Hamlin. While characters like Hamlin, Chough and the Leighs do get some occasional spotlight, the story's focus is really on Anne and her personal, spiritual and intellectual journey.
Given the author's gradually souring attitude towards those involved in the Aesthetic and Decadent movement, it becomes evident that by volume two she had found many of her fellow aesthetes to be fickle and repulsive creatures. Volume one has a very different tone to volumes two and three and part of this is reflected in the change in POV from Hamlin to Anne. Vernon Lee didn't bother to hide her criticism of the aesthetes of her time, either. Close reading reveals that the characters names allude to real-life nineteenth-century critics (Walter
Overall, not bad - but if not for my literary studies, I probably wouldn't have picked up. Glad I did though. Vernon Lee, much as I love all her stuff, is better suited to her short stories I think. There needs to be some nicer editions too. I'd love to have a nicely bound physical copy on my shelf!
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