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cattytrona's review against another edition
2.0
What a snobby book. There is interesting information in here - although I knew a lot of it already, from having read around the subject (the lack of citations in this are astounding, although I guess that's a problem with the publishers/series, rather than this book specifically - but it's actually mildly painful to not see the volumes which lay the groundwork referenced properly). Still, Goldhill provides a fair summary, particularly of Shakespeare. But it's filtered through him, or at least the narrative voice he's chosen, which is neckdeep in attitudes which already feel so outdated. His response to and therefore judgements of sites is obviously based in what he likes (he favours Wordsworth and Freud and therefore favours their homes: also weird to me, although I won't penalise him for that), and his dismissal of emotional reactions therefore feels very motivated. It's noteworthy that he waves away the Brontë Parsonage, which yes, is a problem space, but also has been a site of great response from thousands of (dare I imply something) women. Booth's book Homes and Haunts, on an adjacent topic, I think relieves a trip to the Parsonage in a much more honest way; Goldhill feels like he's being cynical because he has the emotional distance to judge those who don't. There's also a general dismissal of tourist visiting (including some slightly weird stuff), which again, I think fails to engage with why people visit and what the average person has access to, in terms of travel. Also, and this is a little mean, but the world he exists in, outside of his pilgrimage is also really boring and alienating to read about at such length: constantly filtered through university, in the most old fashioned possible version of the thing possible in 21st century, and his friends and family, all a sort of monotonous echo of the narrator in education, class and attitude. There's a glibness towards difference and a lack of interest in experiences outside the narrator's own, for all he insists on being accompanied. And I take the point that to be a pilgrim is inherently an individual, internal experience, but given the narrator isn't interest in engaging fully with the pilgrimage experience, in opening himself up to faith, trust, transcendance, even emotion, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care about his journey more than anyone else's.
beyadob's review against another edition
4.0
A delightful read on authors and the places they lived in. It was enlightening and genuinely interesting to read about Wordsworth and Bronte's houses, especially in the way they so deeply contrasted each other. Shakespeare's house was an exercise in "packaged heritage" and how "tacky" and commercialized the whole institution can be. Meanwhile, Sir Walter Scott's place was a great way of showing how a house can be manufactured around an author's identity and presence in the world. Finally, the author meditates on Freud's fascination in maintaining the same office in both Vienna and London. I felt this chapter was more personal for the author, and the analysis was good.
It's a quick read that explores how author's shape their houses and how their houses also shape their identity and their works.
It's a quick read that explores how author's shape their houses and how their houses also shape their identity and their works.
nikkigee81's review against another edition
3.0
A quick, but no less interesting read. The author makes pilgrimages to several writers' homes, retracing the path of Victorians who did the same.
emtobiasz's review
3.0
This book was pretty good. I was impressed with the analysis of both the writers and their lives, as well as the idea of literary tourism in the Victorian era and now. I still think the book could have gone farther into these ideas, especially Victorian ideas about the treatment of writers. Also, I was surprised by the omission of Jane Austen-- who, I know, was neither Victorian nor much admired in the Victorian era, but she is the author who probably receives the most literary tourists today. And doesn't Dickens have a theme park now in Britain? I would have been interested to read Goldhill's interpretation of that. So, yes, I enjoyed the book and wouldn't have minded it being even longer (although if he called his wife "the family lawyer" or his traveling companions "four Jews on a train" one more time I might have thrown the book out the window).
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