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krobart's review against another edition
3.0
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018/05/17/day-1217-a-footman-for-the-peacock/
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018/05/17/day-1217-a-footman-for-the-peacock/
ashleylm's review against another edition
2.0
Not entirely unreadable, but that's hardly a strong recommendation. While reading it, I was puzzled. It was overwritten (in a Firbanks or Cabell sort-of-way) but I sensing any particular wit from it, it was just verbose and purple. Eventually we settled in on a character, but again, I was't drawn it, it wasn't funny, touching, straightforward, suspenseful, intriguing (which all might have made me continue), it was uninteresting, confusing, unengaging, etc.
So I wondered why I was reading it. Was it recommended to me because I liked Invitation to the Waltz, or had she written something I'd read and like earlier, was it a surprsing early fantasy novel, an award winner, etc. Turns out I'd picked it because I'd liked her The Brontës Went to Woolworths, very much. This one though? No.
Described as a cross between Pym (who's always a clear, clean writer, nothing ever overwritten) and Python (absurd, creative, hilarious), this novel is neither.
So I've moved on.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.)
So I wondered why I was reading it. Was it recommended to me because I liked Invitation to the Waltz, or had she written something I'd read and like earlier, was it a surprsing early fantasy novel, an award winner, etc. Turns out I'd picked it because I'd liked her The Brontës Went to Woolworths, very much. This one though? No.
Described as a cross between Pym (who's always a clear, clean writer, nothing ever overwritten) and Python (absurd, creative, hilarious), this novel is neither.
So I've moved on.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.)
balancinghistorybooks's review
3.0
A Footman for the Peacock is another novel in the great series in the Dean Street Press and Furrowed Middlebrow collaboration. Rachel Ferguson is best known for The Brontes Went to Woolworths, and another of her titles, Alas, Poor Lady, has been published by Persephone Books. I very much enjoyed the former; the latter is one which I have yet to read.
The introduction in this volume, which has been penned by Elizabeth Crawford, is insightful, particularly with regard to Ferguson's creation of characters. The protagonists here are the largely unlikeable Roundelay family, who live at the grand estate of Delaye in the fictional county of Normanshire. The Roundelays spent the entire novel, which was first published in 1940, trying to talk their way out of doing anything for the war effort.
Ferguson has such an unusual and distinctive voice, and she is quite unlike any author I have read. The story here is peculiar, and becomes more so as it goes on. I was not expecting the kind of magical realism which suddenly launches onto the page at around three-quarters of the way through. I enjoyed the realist parts of this book on the whole, but found the sudden jump rather jarring, and have come away feeling a little disappointed.
The introduction in this volume, which has been penned by Elizabeth Crawford, is insightful, particularly with regard to Ferguson's creation of characters. The protagonists here are the largely unlikeable Roundelay family, who live at the grand estate of Delaye in the fictional county of Normanshire. The Roundelays spent the entire novel, which was first published in 1940, trying to talk their way out of doing anything for the war effort.
Ferguson has such an unusual and distinctive voice, and she is quite unlike any author I have read. The story here is peculiar, and becomes more so as it goes on. I was not expecting the kind of magical realism which suddenly launches onto the page at around three-quarters of the way through. I enjoyed the realist parts of this book on the whole, but found the sudden jump rather jarring, and have come away feeling a little disappointed.
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