mary_juleyre's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
madcrazymoviereviews's review against another edition
4.0
More accurate: 3.5
Very clever, funny, breezy, whimsical - at times even hilarious, like a cartoon (or caricature, given Beerbohm's day job?) in prose form. I liked this book a lot, but thought the shift in perspective was more distracting than enhancing. The book also got a bit long in the tooth after a while. All that said, it was fast-paced and entertaining. Recommend.
Very clever, funny, breezy, whimsical - at times even hilarious, like a cartoon (or caricature, given Beerbohm's day job?) in prose form. I liked this book a lot, but thought the shift in perspective was more distracting than enhancing. The book also got a bit long in the tooth after a while. All that said, it was fast-paced and entertaining. Recommend.
scorpstar77's review
3.0
Hoo-boy. This is a really short book (only 147 pages), but DAMN, I felt every single page. I can read 19th century lit with the best of them, but this one took me forever to get through. Okay, synopsis: a quirky, funny rich girl comes to visit her grandfather at Oxford, and the entire university falls in love with her. And decides to commit suicide for her. The end. It's a pretty heavy-handed satire about Victorian-era romanticism and chivalry and aristocracy and honor, and it is really funny in spots. But between the funny bits, it's just so hard to keep reading. I didn't even get into the story until about 75 pages in, when the heavy satire started. I read the first 50 pages or so about 6 months ago, put it down and didn't pick it back up again until this week. I was determined to finish it, and finish I did. I would have rated it higher if it hadn't been so damned hard to finish.
a_here's review against another edition
4.0
"To calculate, catch, distribute, seemed in her but a single process, She was one of those who are born to make chaos cosmic."
Chapter 2, p 10
"They had availed thousands and innumerable thousands of daybreaks in the broad, these Emperors, counting the long slow hours till the night were over. It is in the night especially that their fallen greatness haunts them. Day brings some distraction. They are not incurious of the lives around them - these little lives that succeed over one another so quickly. To them, in their immemorial old age, youth in a constant wonder. And so is death, which to them comes not. Youth or death - which, they had often asked themselves, was the goodlier? But it was ill that these two things should be mated. It was ill-come, this day of days."
Chapter 14, p 125
Chapter 2, p 10
"They had availed thousands and innumerable thousands of daybreaks in the broad, these Emperors, counting the long slow hours till the night were over. It is in the night especially that their fallen greatness haunts them. Day brings some distraction. They are not incurious of the lives around them - these little lives that succeed over one another so quickly. To them, in their immemorial old age, youth in a constant wonder. And so is death, which to them comes not. Youth or death - which, they had often asked themselves, was the goodlier? But it was ill that these two things should be mated. It was ill-come, this day of days."
Chapter 14, p 125
theclassickid's review against another edition
3.0
Dorset, oh Dorset. I'm not sure if I found the illustrations more entertaining than the actual plot. It's a satire about undergraduate life at Oxford. It follows the main character, Zuleika, during her visit to the college town. Once she gets there, her antics cause a great disturbance amongst the undergraduate men. Not sure if I can say I enjoyed reading it; there were some humorous moments, but overall it was saturated with irony-- irony that can get to be too overrated once it's overused. Maybe I just don't understand satire, but there was a point when I just couldn't help feeling indignant at the over-the-top occurrences. I really wouldn't recommend it, unless if you really want to know more about the Edwardian Era in such a microscopic setting.
mzoua03's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kpasteka's review against another edition
2.0
As others have said it's a wonderful cultural artifact but it's not necessarily a fun read. The satire is very much embedded in the culture it is taking jabs at which means that without a thorough understanding of the Edwardian period you miss the point of the novel and most of the jokes. There's no underlying theme of revealing some portion of human nature that would make Zuleika Dobson stand the test of time. I'm not sure how it's ended up on both The Guardian's and Modern Library's best novels list.
It's sort of book that's found on a syllabus for an English or History course and leads to great classroom discussions but one no one would recommend to a friend.
It's sort of book that's found on a syllabus for an English or History course and leads to great classroom discussions but one no one would recommend to a friend.
lnatal's review against another edition
3.0
Reading online at DailyLit.
"Death cancels all engagements," in this morbidly funny satire of undergraduate life at Oxford. When a beautiful magician swears she can love no man susceptible to her charms she sets off a dangerous taste for suicide among the college boys.
Free download available at Project Gutenberg.
"Death cancels all engagements," in this morbidly funny satire of undergraduate life at Oxford. When a beautiful magician swears she can love no man susceptible to her charms she sets off a dangerous taste for suicide among the college boys.
Free download available at Project Gutenberg.
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