about_wind_and_willows's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
tansyellow's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-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
3.75
ashleylm's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely delightful, and unexpected. Does anyone write like this anymore? There's a sort of sub-genre of fiction (not sure what it's a sub-genre of, but it's definitely not a whole genre!) where the characters are essentially good, the plot's gentle, the author can be humorous as required, and the whole thing's suffused with a kind of optimism, without being stupid, wish-fulfilling, or head-thumpingly rom-com. There needn't be any romance at all, really—Mrs. 'Aarris Goes to Paris would be one such book. I Capture the Castle fits the bill. Anything by Barbara Pym, and so forth. I wish I knew how to refer to these!
Cluny Brown is another such gem. I was never quite sure where the tale was taking me, but it never disappointed, I was surprised (but not shocked), which is about the right feeling when reading a well-constructed novel, and I'm raring to try another of hers, but will wait one or two books so as not to overindulge.
And I teared up, twice. Some very good books nonetheless leave me cold; moving me gets an extra 1/2 star ;-)
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
Cluny Brown is another such gem. I was never quite sure where the tale was taking me, but it never disappointed, I was surprised (but not shocked), which is about the right feeling when reading a well-constructed novel, and I'm raring to try another of hers, but will wait one or two books so as not to overindulge.
And I teared up, twice. Some very good books nonetheless leave me cold; moving me gets an extra 1/2 star ;-)
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
mg_ocio's review against another edition
4.0
90/2022 Cluny Brown. Margery Sharp. Hoja de Lata. 280 páginas. Traducido por Raquel García Rojas
Cluny Brown es huérfana y vive con sus tíos, que la consideran una excéntrica porque un día se fue a tomar el té al Ritz. Y como no saben qué hacer con ella, la mandan a servir. Como si un cambio de aires fuese a hacer que dejase de ser excéntrica y de intentar hacer en todo momento lo que ella quiere.
Me ha gustado porque está llena de personajes interesantes, el hijo de la casa, su amigo el autor...pero sobre todo la propia Cluny, que es un gran personaje. Me lo he pasado muy bien y estoy muy a tope con Margery Sharp. Muy recomendable.
Cluny Brown es huérfana y vive con sus tíos, que la consideran una excéntrica porque un día se fue a tomar el té al Ritz. Y como no saben qué hacer con ella, la mandan a servir. Como si un cambio de aires fuese a hacer que dejase de ser excéntrica y de intentar hacer en todo momento lo que ella quiere.
Me ha gustado porque está llena de personajes interesantes, el hijo de la casa, su amigo el autor...pero sobre todo la propia Cluny, que es un gran personaje. Me lo he pasado muy bien y estoy muy a tope con Margery Sharp. Muy recomendable.
mommaraff's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
xavi3r's review against another edition
funny
medium-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
4.25
Año 1938. Arnold Porritt, un próspero fontanero londinense, ya no sabe qué hacer con su sobrina Cluny. La jovencita, una asombrosa mezcla de inocencia y determinación, acumula una extravagancia tras otra y no parece saber cuál es su lugar. Después de tomarse un té en el Ritz y de dejarse seducir alegremente por un cliente, su tío decide mandarla como sirvienta a Friars Carmel, una mansión campestre en Devonshire. Allí la esperan, entre otros, lady Carmel, su patrona, siempre metida entre sus flores; su hijo Andrew, que acaba de traerse de Londres a un prometedor escritor polaco supuestamente perseguido por los nazis; o el comedido Titus Wilson, boticario del pueblo y perfecto polo opuesto de Cluny. En ese apacible rincón de Inglaterra, el mundo se abre repentinamente para Cluny Brown, y ella está más decidida que nunca a seguir haciendo lo que no se espera de ella.
Escrita en 1944 y llevada al cine dos años después por Ernst Lubitsch, Cluny Brown es una deliciosa comedia social británica que satiriza las buenas maneras inglesas y los estrictos protocolos de clase de inicios del siglo XX.
Traducción: Raquel García Rojas.
Escrita en 1944 y llevada al cine dos años después por Ernst Lubitsch, Cluny Brown es una deliciosa comedia social británica que satiriza las buenas maneras inglesas y los estrictos protocolos de clase de inicios del siglo XX.
Traducción: Raquel García Rojas.
we_are_all_mad_here26's review against another edition
4.0
Maybe it's just that I love the way women from the U.K., in the period 'between the wars,' constructed their sentences. In any case, Cluny Brown was delightful. Even the ending.
Full disclosure though, at first I hated the ending in a "wait - what?" kind of way. Within only a few pages I was totally sold on it and by the last page, I loved it.
Would recommend to almost anyone, except for those who prefer not to be charmed and amused by their fiction.
Full disclosure though, at first I hated the ending in a "wait - what?" kind of way. Within only a few pages I was totally sold on it and by the last page, I loved it.
Would recommend to almost anyone, except for those who prefer not to be charmed and amused by their fiction.
thenovelbook's review against another edition
3.0
Liked it pretty well until the ending, which I just didn't see coming and didn't totally agree with.
fictionfan's review against another edition
2.0
Rom without the com…
Cluny Brown is extremely plain, except to the many men who think she’s beautiful. She does scandalous things like going for tea at the Ritz, so her uncle who doesn’t seem to like her much (and incidentally hasn’t spotted her beauty) sends her off to be trained as a parlour-maid at the Devonshire home of Lady Carmel. There, several men will fall in love with several women, there will be mild misunderstandings and mild jealousies, and then they will all sort themselves into perfect partnerships and live happily ever after. As will I, now that this one can be cheerfully despatched to the charity shop…
I realise this book is beloved by all and even sundry, but I fear its charm largely escaped me. Cluny manages to be both underdeveloped and unrealistic, which is quite a feat when you think about it. Perhaps Sharp genuinely had no idea about the working-class – she certainly gives me that impression – but an editor could surely have told her that by 1938 aggrieved uncles weren’t actually able to force reluctant twenty-year-old nieces into service against their will. Nor are all working-class people fundamentally stupid, although that’s how they’re portrayed in this book. Sharp reminds us of Cluny’s basic stupidity on a regular basis, unnecessarily since she never has a thought worth thinking or expresses an opinion worth expressing. Her eventual rebellious metamorphosis is ludicrous, since up to that point the most rebellious thing she had ever done was to eat oranges in bed. She seems perfectly willing to go off with any man who promises to let her keep a puppy – one felt she could have got a job, a flat and a puppy all on her own, and foregone the dubious pleasure of having to put up with any of these tedious men.
For tedious they are! There’s working class therefore stupid Uncle Arn, he who can’t cope with the idea that his niece might be attractive to men so gets rid of her so he can sit in the evenings staring happily at his wall – one imagines his mouth hanging open and his mind echoing emptily as he does so. Sir Henry Carmel, stereotypical Little Englander member of the declining gentry, is also stupid now I think about it – Sharp clearly felt stupid is a synonym for funny. We’ll have to agree to differ on that. Mr Wilson, the chemist, attracted to Cluny because she looks at him adoringly, rather like that puppy she so longs for, and apparently happy to marry a woman whom he considers to be his inferior, socially, culturally and intellectually, presumably because he wants submissive admiration rather than any kind of equal partnership in life. One is supposed to like him, I think. Belinski, the Polish writer who comes to stay at the house, has more comic potential and actually provides the glimmerings of a plot in the early stages, as it appears he has got into the bad books of the Nazis and may be in danger. But no, turns out it’s all been a misunderstanding, and really he’s just a mediocre writer and marginally more successful womaniser.
Andrew, the son of the house, is somewhat better as a character, being given a little more complexity and letting us see the gentry coming to terms with the approaching war. His mother, Lady Carmel, is also quite well drawn – outwardly she seems to be rather vague and wispy, but in fact she’s more perceptive than all the rest, and guides her useless menfolk with a good deal of charm. Beautiful Betty, love interest of many, is fun, and her development from immature social butterfly to poised society woman is much better done than poor Cluny’s unlikely coming-of-age story. I won’t mention the other servants, since quite frankly Wodehouse gives his domestics more depth and realism.
Nope, not for me. I’m not much of a fan of rom-coms in general, and even less so when the com bit gets missed out, leaving little except dull meanderings through an unrealistic depiction of pre-war life.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Cluny Brown is extremely plain, except to the many men who think she’s beautiful. She does scandalous things like going for tea at the Ritz, so her uncle who doesn’t seem to like her much (and incidentally hasn’t spotted her beauty) sends her off to be trained as a parlour-maid at the Devonshire home of Lady Carmel. There, several men will fall in love with several women, there will be mild misunderstandings and mild jealousies, and then they will all sort themselves into perfect partnerships and live happily ever after. As will I, now that this one can be cheerfully despatched to the charity shop…
I realise this book is beloved by all and even sundry, but I fear its charm largely escaped me. Cluny manages to be both underdeveloped and unrealistic, which is quite a feat when you think about it. Perhaps Sharp genuinely had no idea about the working-class – she certainly gives me that impression – but an editor could surely have told her that by 1938 aggrieved uncles weren’t actually able to force reluctant twenty-year-old nieces into service against their will. Nor are all working-class people fundamentally stupid, although that’s how they’re portrayed in this book. Sharp reminds us of Cluny’s basic stupidity on a regular basis, unnecessarily since she never has a thought worth thinking or expresses an opinion worth expressing. Her eventual rebellious metamorphosis is ludicrous, since up to that point the most rebellious thing she had ever done was to eat oranges in bed. She seems perfectly willing to go off with any man who promises to let her keep a puppy – one felt she could have got a job, a flat and a puppy all on her own, and foregone the dubious pleasure of having to put up with any of these tedious men.
For tedious they are! There’s working class therefore stupid Uncle Arn, he who can’t cope with the idea that his niece might be attractive to men so gets rid of her so he can sit in the evenings staring happily at his wall – one imagines his mouth hanging open and his mind echoing emptily as he does so. Sir Henry Carmel, stereotypical Little Englander member of the declining gentry, is also stupid now I think about it – Sharp clearly felt stupid is a synonym for funny. We’ll have to agree to differ on that. Mr Wilson, the chemist, attracted to Cluny because she looks at him adoringly, rather like that puppy she so longs for, and apparently happy to marry a woman whom he considers to be his inferior, socially, culturally and intellectually, presumably because he wants submissive admiration rather than any kind of equal partnership in life. One is supposed to like him, I think. Belinski, the Polish writer who comes to stay at the house, has more comic potential and actually provides the glimmerings of a plot in the early stages, as it appears he has got into the bad books of the Nazis and may be in danger. But no, turns out it’s all been a misunderstanding, and really he’s just a mediocre writer and marginally more successful womaniser.
Andrew, the son of the house, is somewhat better as a character, being given a little more complexity and letting us see the gentry coming to terms with the approaching war. His mother, Lady Carmel, is also quite well drawn – outwardly she seems to be rather vague and wispy, but in fact she’s more perceptive than all the rest, and guides her useless menfolk with a good deal of charm. Beautiful Betty, love interest of many, is fun, and her development from immature social butterfly to poised society woman is much better done than poor Cluny’s unlikely coming-of-age story. I won’t mention the other servants, since quite frankly Wodehouse gives his domestics more depth and realism.
Nope, not for me. I’m not much of a fan of rom-coms in general, and even less so when the com bit gets missed out, leaving little except dull meanderings through an unrealistic depiction of pre-war life.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com