The Cloister and the Hearth

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One reason the lovers are kept apart is perhaps that it is hard to imagine Gerard and Margaret living any normal life. Just as I cannot imagine Romeo and Juliet arguing over a smelly latrine, so I cannot picture Gerard and Margaret debating what colour to paint their spare room. These are idealised characters, and one whiff of reality would bring about their deaths. being on the road with Gerard. I love a good Chaucerian journey with changing travelling companions, dangers and tales shared between the characters. Gerard is a tiresome hero. He foregoes his monastic vocation at the beginning, but he never loses his monkish personality. His virtuous and priggish manner does not make him endearing. In the book’s only piercing moment of psychological insight, he responds to news of Margaret’s possible death by descending into a life of hedonism and easily indulging in all the vices that he once deplored. The prude is generally one step away from the rake, and this proves so here, at least briefly.

Good Denys - a friend with spirit and gusto, who's answer to everything is a - "Courage, camarade, La diable est mort!" Arthur Machen, in his short story "The Islington Mystery, [3] contrasted the work with George Eliot's Romola: The writing style was a challenge but one that brought deep engagement and attention from my side. I was so well gripped in the story that it didn’t even matter that some words were not found in the translation application, so I had to go by guessing and interpreting according to my taste, mood and opportunity. I think I was right, in most cases though 😂 Reade’s writing almost choked me with his clear cut, edgy irony and satire. Well, that’s poor fool me for being an unlearned reader ;) so I thank him so much more and even for knowing my own’s frailty and absurdity…O my, novice of novices!

CHAPTER XXXIII

However, after finishing the book, I felt I had a little better understanding of the different medieval civilizations of Europe—France, Germany, Italy, Holland. I read strange and unusual vocabulary words. And best of all I felt the satisfaction of finishing something hard.

novel by Charles Reade 1893 poster by Edward Penfield advertising a US edition of The Cloister & the Hearth THERE IS AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WITH LINKED TABLE OF CONTENTS WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK NOV 2014 - I must admit I was torn about how to rate this book. Initially, I felt certain it was 5 stars. Then in the middle and in other places, we got bogged down with the novels-within-novels, the contrivances, and the theological dissertations. That put the book at a good, solid 3. Well, having completed the reading (and crying lots of tears at the ending), I rewarded The Cloister and The Hearth 5 stars. What is more, few medieval stories do not contain aristocrats, soldiers, servants, fair maidens and clergymen. To call these clichés or tropes is almost to underestimate the importance of these fictional conventions. They are the only story of the age. They are almost literally present in any tale about medieval times, no matter who the writer or artist is. The Cloister and the Hearth is certainly erudite, perhaps too much so. Reade makes the error that has become common in writers of the last few decades who wish to be taken seriously. He constantly makes a display of his factual knowledge of every aspect of medieval life, with the result that the story frequently grinds to a halt while we can hear some arid discussion about art or clerical disputes.In the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Archive at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, there is a document list of Doyle's 18 favourite things. When asked who his favourite heroine in fiction was, he replied, "Margaret" in Cloister and Hearth. [2] The story is about two lovers, Gerard Eliassoen and Margaret Brandt. Gerard is training to be a monk, but he soon becomes enamoured by Margaret, the daughter of a herbalist. Faced with serious opposition that leads to his arrest, Gerard decides to flee the country and to meet with Margaret in Italy. Based on a few lines by the humanist Erasmus about the life of his parents, the novel began as a serial in Once a Week magazine in 1859 under the title " A Good Fight", but when Reade disagreed with the proprietors of the magazine over some of the subject matter (principally the unmarried pregnancy of the heroine), he curtailed the serialisation with a false happy ending. Reade continued to work on the novel and published it in 1861, thoroughly revised and extended, as The Cloister and the Hearth. Mercy! What's this? A gibbet! and ugh, two skeletons thereon! Oh Denys, what a sorry sight to woo by!" "Nay, said Denys, "a comfortable sight; for every rogue i' the air there is one the less a-foot." Secondly, I was profoundly intrigued by the mediaeval setting of the story. I had myself travelled so far behind that it felt strange at some point, I got that feeling that I am part of that long past age too. It looks that this remarkably lengthy chronicle starts some time past the middle of the 15th century, in Holland, and it is full of old, rather strange words fortunately translation applications were a great assistant to me during this period, and it offers a great mass of intolerable Latin really, don’t take me seriously, in fact I love Latin! 😂