hj100

if Edgar Allan Poe were trying to write like Sir Walter Scott, he might come up with something like this. On the surface, it seems to be a very romantic, chivalrous tale, of a gallant cavalier who gives his life defending the cause of Bonnie Prince Charlie . . . and the beautiful daughter he leaves behind, who finds passion and a new start in the New World. Problem is, this is Anya Seton, and she does to romance what Jim Morrison does to the blues. Starting off with something familiar, she makes things get somehow sinister, somehow creepy, somehow twisted. Doesn't Jenny seem to spend a lot of time flirting with her dad? A lot of time . . . Isn't her rugged husband kind of an abusive jerk? Almost like he's an attack on the vulgarity of the new classless America that ostensibly we're supposed to admire . . . Jenny is cute and helpless as an orphan girl, but by the time she's all grown up she's got a mean streak and a chip on her shoulder . . . spurning young men or else shocking them with obscene taunts which reveal -- or rather hint -- at an enormous trauma she must have suffered as a small child. Gallant Sir Charles certainly was fond of his beautiful daughter . . .

2022-11-14 16:37