Scan barcode
A review by connorshirs
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
4.0
My first review of 2024! This book is very close to home for me, infidelity is one of my biggest fears, and sometimes, I believe that it can be inevitable. This is a book about infidelity as much as it is about love. Unlike in Anna Karenina, the love doesn't exist between the husband and his mistress, the love exists between the husband and the deceived wife.
I didn't quite see where this was going until the very end. Whipple uses the "only connect" idea that we find in Forster's Howards End, how everything can be affected by decisions made by one person. I don't blame Avery as much as I blame Louise, a dreadful, dreadful character, who is painted so vividly. We might all know a Louise in our life, which is the scariest bit of this book. I was moved by the ending, and I think that this is the only one that Ellen could have gotten; it is the best ending for the situation that was forced on her.
I didn't quite see where this was going until the very end. Whipple uses the "only connect" idea that we find in Forster's Howards End, how everything can be affected by decisions made by one person. I don't blame Avery as much as I blame Louise, a dreadful, dreadful character, who is painted so vividly. We might all know a Louise in our life, which is the scariest bit of this book. I was moved by the ending, and I think that this is the only one that Ellen could have gotten; it is the best ending for the situation that was forced on her.