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stucifer_'s review
I’m a little over 100 pages in, and not very invested; it feels like it’s still trying to get into itself. Which would be fine, and I would stick with it to see if it picked up, except for the overt anti-Semitism and racial slurs. It’s just not worth continuing.
cantwelljr's review
2.0
I had previously heard the Mary Westmacott novels described as bittersweet romances. The cover of this edition of Giants' Bread calls it a "novel of romance and suspense". I find both of these misleading. This is not a romance novel. It's also not terribly suspenseful, or bittersweet. While there is a lot of emphasis on various romantic relationships, they're really not the point of the book. They're also fairly uninteresting.
This is a hard read because you are following a cast of characters who are not inherently likeable and whom you are not sure if you are supposed to root for or not. Vernon is "a genius", but are we supposed to applaud his sacrifice of all in favor of music? And actually he himself doesn't sacrifice very much, a lot of those decisions are more or less made for him. Sebastion is a respectable character in that he lives his life how he wants to live it, regardless of what anybody else thinks, but he's terribly lonely. Joe is an insufferable little git, but she's often little more than a side character. We don't really get to know that much about her inner life, beyond how she's perceived by other characters. Jane is insufferable as well, but the book frequently attempts to make us feel sorry for her.
And of course then there's Nell. There may be a cultural gap between myself, the author, and the setting of the book. I'm not sure, but I feel like the author wants the reader to not like Nell, to be against her. However, I felt fairly sympathetic to Nell. She could have had quite a nice life if only people would stop trying to make her believe that infatuation is the same thing as true love and that true love is the only way to achieve true happiness. Everyone (minus of course her mother and George Chetwynd) is always trying to get her to sacrifice the kind of life she knows she wants to have in favor of being with her "true love", and then calling her heartless for not wanting to make that sacrifice. Perhaps I'm in the wrong genre or perhaps I'm from the wrong time period, but that's stupid. There's no reason why Nell shouldn't be allowed to pursue the life she wants, whether or not that includes any one particular man.
All in all it's hard to know what the author's message is in this book. Obviously, it is about the human sacrifices involved in a man's genius coming to fruition, but are we meant to nod sagely and say that's just the way it is? Are we supposed to condemn Vernon for the way he treats the people in his life? Is the music really worth it? Or would it have been better if well enough had been let alone?
This is a hard read because you are following a cast of characters who are not inherently likeable and whom you are not sure if you are supposed to root for or not. Vernon is "a genius", but are we supposed to applaud his sacrifice of all in favor of music? And actually he himself doesn't sacrifice very much, a lot of those decisions are more or less made for him.
Spoiler
I guess in the end he does make one active sacrifice but again how much is that just him realizing what his situation is rather than him choosing what his life will be?And of course then there's Nell. There may be a cultural gap between myself, the author, and the setting of the book. I'm not sure, but I feel like the author wants the reader to not like Nell, to be against her. However, I felt fairly sympathetic to Nell. She could have had quite a nice life if only people would stop trying to make her believe that infatuation is the same thing as true love and that true love is the only way to achieve true happiness. Everyone (minus of course her mother and George Chetwynd) is always trying to get her to sacrifice the kind of life she knows she wants to have in favor of being with her "true love", and then calling her heartless for not wanting to make that sacrifice. Perhaps I'm in the wrong genre or perhaps I'm from the wrong time period, but that's stupid. There's no reason why Nell shouldn't be allowed to pursue the life she wants, whether or not that includes any one particular man.
All in all it's hard to know what the author's message is in this book. Obviously, it is about the human sacrifices involved in a man's genius coming to fruition, but are we meant to nod sagely and say that's just the way it is? Are we supposed to condemn Vernon for the way he treats the people in his life? Is the music really worth it? Or would it have been better if well enough had been let alone?
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