Easily Amused: The Edwardians (Virago Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Product Details

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Virago UK (October 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0860683591
ISBN-13: 978-0860683599
Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.8 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

By : Vita Sackville-West (Author), Juliet Nicolson (Introduction)
List Price : ~~$17.95~~
Price : $12.21
You Save : $5.74 (32%)

The Edwardians (Virago Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Buyer Critiques

In a sly author's note at the starting of "The Edwardians", Vita Sackville-West says "No character in this book is wholly fictitous." Oh, actually? It really is intriguing to wonder who amongst the British aristocracy was becoming sent up in this volume. "The Edwardians" is a book of manners and morals during the last years of a decadent, decorative, and really inbred upper class. The characters live a life of total self-indulgence, waste and spiritual emptiness. The story focuses on the dukedom of Chevron and its 19 year old heir Sebastian, attracted to and repelled by the society he was born into and takes for granted his selfish, predatory mother, Lucy, a legendary hostess who is as shallow and superficial as she is well-liked and his sensitive, introspective sister Viola, regarded as an ugly duckling by her mother at sixteen. Into their lives comes a polar explorer named Leonard Anquetil, temporarily lionized by society, who sees "society" for the fraud it is and tries to open the young people's eyes. But as drawn to Anquetil as Sebastian finds himself, he is also drawn in the opposite direction, heading into his 1st adult relationship with one particular of his mother's married pals, Lady Roehampton, of a particular age but nevertheless drop-dead beautiful. Self-knowledge and discovery can wait Sebastian is launched into society by means of a clandestine affair with Lady Roehampton, which, as Anquetil predicts, will be the initially of a number of such empty, meaningless liaisons. Is this all there is to a life in which one's every single wish is granted? Sebastian realizes how soul-deadening such a life can turn into at some point and soon after a couple of years he desires out but just as he appears resigned to his gilt-edged fate, Anquetil resurfaces. Who knows exactly where Sebastian's life will go from there? As Anquetil tells him, it really is up to Sebastian to choose his personal destiny. And decide -- for far better or worse -- he does.
Sackville-West has a talent for characterization we see all the youthful conflict in Sebastian, the heady excitement of Lady Roehampton as she flings herself into what may well well be her last affair prior to age catches up with her and the shallowness of Sebastian's mother, the duchess, who need to surround herself with and endless procession of many people and parties to cover the vast chasm of internal emptiness that is her own life. But Sackville-West is herself torn in two directions. On the a single hand, she appears to share Anquetil's disgust and the false facade of high society on the other, she shares that society's contempt of middle-class values and virtues. She can not have it both methods, and it really is this especially conflict that offers "The Edwardians" so significantly of its tension and interest. The daughter of a British earl herself, Sackville-West knows the aristocracy inside-out, and she writes with an authority that tends to make her book all the even more compelling to read.

This is a fabulous and haunting book tracing the lives of the heir to a Dukedom and his sister in the course of the Edwardian age.
Sackville-West bargains gently however firmly with the social elements of the age, the double requirements, the society, and the arrising reforms.
Sebastian becomes especially true, particularly human and his struggles are believable. Though not 1 of her finest functions, The Edwardians is an exceptional book and properly worth reading.