Reviews

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

mjtucker's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

reneeharper72's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

lauragessert's review against another edition

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5.0

stays with you

bethanye92's review against another edition

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reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

mrbanana's review against another edition

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3.0

very well written but dragged on at times. I found myself getting lost towards the end, but I enjoyed the recurring nature and themes amongst the characters

wjhogan235's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

A true American classic. 

stephenleary's review against another edition

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3.0

Winesburg, Ohio is a series of stories with the unifying elements of the town, the character of George Willard, and the theme of Willard growing into a man. Such is the "plot." Anderson's method is to see beneath the surface of lives and their psychological underpinnings.

Nothing much happens and the chapters offer little more than character sketches--characters of a neurotic variety. Anderson paints his characters as lonely failures. Grotesques outside the ordinary. Reality and real people were not Anderson's strong points.

The characters are eager to go elsewhere and make something of themselves if they can. This reflected Anderson's own sojourns from his town of Clyde, Ohio to Chicago and Cleveland.

So much seems to be missing in Winesburg. The namesake town itself, for example. Winesburg is almost invisible, with most of the "action" taking place either indoors or at night. Anderson is sparing in details of the nerve points of the city, other than sidewalks or the creek environs where the characters walk.

Winesburg was part of a trend toward "interior action" without much in the way of a traditional plot, and alienation themes that impacted writers such as Ernest Hemingway. The influence of Winesburg on later writers seems much greater than its own internal quality outside all other considerations.

sandmountain's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

zeltzamer's review against another edition

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I read about forty pages of this one almost exactly a year ago, but stopped for whatever reason. Rectified it I have. In fact, I serendipitously finished reading it just one day after the date I started it on last year. I guess that’s why they call them books. 

Interesting with a (county) fair consistency, although I do wonder about one thing in particular; what’s with all the trembling? I got the “adventure” repetition of the town residents, but less explicable to me is it being Tremblecity. Shoulders tremble, voices, hands, possibly even ears at one point. Sometimes it’ll happen within the same paragraph. I know the Moderns did some odd things, but this is weird even by those standards. Did Sherwood write this in a sub-room temperature room? (Now that’s what I call repetition.)

phersace's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5