A review by rosekk
A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell
3.0
The book had some things going for it. I liked the circular shape of the plot, with the main character arriving back where they started and the question of how their changed view points and experiences may actually affect their day to day life left to the reader to consider. It highlights the way the moment to moment aspects of life usually take precedent over the things that we would consciously think of as important.
Other aspects of the story did not work as well for me. The amnesia element of the plot annoyed me. Amnesia is a common (and frequently abused) trope, and usually I'm able to suspend disbelief when it comes to things like that. In this instance it came so suddenly out of nowhere, and got the most half-hearted explanation, that the whole idea seemed to loom over the book for me, even though it isn't all that important in relation to the rest of the story.
There's a section in the middle of the book where the style changes from a fairly standard 3rd-person past-tense, to snatches of conversation from a range of different characters, many of whom appear nowhere else in the book. On the one had, this actually does a fairly effective job of giving a sense of what that setting is like, and what the lives of people living like those characters might be like. On the other, it's a random one-off interruption to the book, and gives a window into a kind of life the main character quickly escapes and never really looks back to or reflects on. So while the idea worked in principle, the execution in the context of the rest of the book betrayed it.
So on the whole, there were ideas to admire in the book, but plenty else that held it back.
Other aspects of the story did not work as well for me. The amnesia element of the plot annoyed me. Amnesia is a common (and frequently abused) trope, and usually I'm able to suspend disbelief when it comes to things like that. In this instance it came so suddenly out of nowhere, and got the most half-hearted explanation, that the whole idea seemed to loom over the book for me, even though it isn't all that important in relation to the rest of the story.
There's a section in the middle of the book where the style changes from a fairly standard 3rd-person past-tense, to snatches of conversation from a range of different characters, many of whom appear nowhere else in the book. On the one had, this actually does a fairly effective job of giving a sense of what that setting is like, and what the lives of people living like those characters might be like. On the other, it's a random one-off interruption to the book, and gives a window into a kind of life the main character quickly escapes and never really looks back to or reflects on. So while the idea worked in principle, the execution in the context of the rest of the book betrayed it.
So on the whole, there were ideas to admire in the book, but plenty else that held it back.