El despertar (1899)

I would call this a predecessor to the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. The ending was surpringly tragic. ( )

Bland and empty version of a certain famous Russian story that I won't name because spoilers. But this is just a love story! How was I tricked into reading it!? "Not over burdened with depth of thought" as she herself put it. Not worth banning.
I can't but look at this with modern eyes, sorry about that.

This is so bad I can't... argh.. There aren't words. How the spoilt brat envies the "quadroons" and black servants who wait on her hand and foot! Hand and foot!
"There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual." This while the following was still ringing in my ears:
"A little black girl sat on the floor, and with her hands worked the treadle of the machine. The Creole woman does not take any chances which may be avoided of imperiling her health."
"The quadroon sat for hours before Edna's palette, patient as a savage"

She is rich, privileged and she has pretty much every freedom in the world thanks to a trust fund.
She could never end up worse off than the people she orders around in almost every chapter of the book. Oh she made the silly mistake of marrying someone she never loved. Boo hoo. I am so so sorry you prioritized disobeying your parents over picking someone you were remotely sexually attracted to as your husband.

You'll have to quickly skim through so many details about how beautiful or how ugly every character is and your patience will not be rewarded.

Arms arms arms. And what is this writer's problem with sleeves!?

"One would not have wanted her white neck a mite less full or her beautiful arms more slender."
"She thrust a bare, white arm from the curtain which shielded her open door..."
"..in a neglige which left her arms almost wholly bare.."
"She rested her head against the table upon her bare arm..."
"The mosquitoes made merry over her, biting her firm, round arms..."


There are a few moments in the book that might have made it worth while if they had been in any way explored.. But it is more like she is trying in vain to excuse the rest of the shite.

"She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium."

"The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days. "

I also like the bit about how men won't fan themselves when they are hot. Come on men, fan yourselves! It's been 117 years!

But really, the rest of it is about arms. ( )

I thought this was a very smart book it made a lot of good points but... the same themes are present in Story of an hour and even Fedora which are both much shorter. So at times it seemed to drag! but overall I thought it was a really good. All the super low ratings on here are so funny, missing the point cuz the book isn't saying Edna is an example to follow, but that society fails women no matter what they do. Which I guess is still true
( )

Having a group of people at my disposal, I thought it might be entertaining (to myself) to throw them together and see what would happen. I never dreamed of Mrs. Pontellier making such a mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. But when I found out what she was up to, the play was half over and it was then too late. Quote by Chopin in defense of her book

unexpected ending