The Doll (New York Review Books Classics)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £1.45
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Doll (New York Review Books Classics) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.45, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"A masterpiece ... excellent translation."
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Review
Balances notions of love with genuine feelings of concern and remorse. This singular and timeless Polish masterpiece stands among world literature's enduring achievements.
(Irish Times )
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a one of the best examples of realistic litterature of the 1800's. Passionate, honestly brutal, tragic and real. A story of any person, her/his feelings of love, submission, power, and the eternal quest for the answer to one's sufferrings and triumphs in life. A book that feels as real today as it did yesterday.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Set in the early 20th century in Poland. This is a merciless resume of the aristocracy of Poland at that time , and by extension of any aristocracy anywhere. Purporting not to understand such grubby matters as finance they borrow and remortgage to the hilt . Whenever a person says he or she has no understanding of such things, you can bet your life they still preserve a nice comfortable, bourgeois existence- and such is the case here- trading on their exalted connections one of them inviegles our millionaire hero into subsidising one such family. His motive though is twofold. He is hopelessly in love with the daughter of this aristocrat, the eponymous 'doll' of the title. He makes a fool of himself constantly for no reward, for this is alas, an unrequited affair. Humorous and penetrating study of the absurdity of both the aristocracy ,and of true love unreturned. Buy it.
Format:Paperback
A truly wonderful 19th century epic that holds its own against other titans of the time such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
If anything, I'd venture to say I prefer The Doll to both of those comparable novels. Setting aside the weaknesses I perceive in those two books The Doll features a more penetrating, scathing attack on the aristocracy of the time and that is what sets it apart for me. Prus is as insightful about love and writes his characters as well as Tolstoy but it's his focus on the double standards of the nobility that adds another layer to this story.
"What am I saying? Any foreign vagabond could get into your drawing rooms, which I had to conquer with fifteen per cent interest on capital entrusted to me. It is these people, not I who had your respect. Bah! They even had far wider-reaching privileges... Although each of these respected men is worth less than the doorman in my store, for he does something, and at least doesn't infect the community."
Prus's writing style is wonderful too - clear and easy to read. For a book this long there is, surprisingly, no filler. Every chapter is truly revealing about the novels characters and moves along the overall plot. So many books of this era are padded out unnecessarily but, thankfully, The Doll is not one of them.
If there's to be one criticism of the novel it is perhaps an event near the end that, given what has come before, seems a little sudden. Perhaps I should dock half-a-star for that but it's not far out in the realms of human behaviour and I so enjoyed everything else in the book that I can't find it in my heart to do so. Suffice to say that perhaps not everyone will be totally convinced by the final chapters but I doubt they will spoil the enjoyment of the rest of the story.
If anything, I'd venture to say I prefer The Doll to both of those comparable novels. Setting aside the weaknesses I perceive in those two books The Doll features a more penetrating, scathing attack on the aristocracy of the time and that is what sets it apart for me. Prus is as insightful about love and writes his characters as well as Tolstoy but it's his focus on the double standards of the nobility that adds another layer to this story.
"What am I saying? Any foreign vagabond could get into your drawing rooms, which I had to conquer with fifteen per cent interest on capital entrusted to me. It is these people, not I who had your respect. Bah! They even had far wider-reaching privileges... Although each of these respected men is worth less than the doorman in my store, for he does something, and at least doesn't infect the community."
Prus's writing style is wonderful too - clear and easy to read. For a book this long there is, surprisingly, no filler. Every chapter is truly revealing about the novels characters and moves along the overall plot. So many books of this era are padded out unnecessarily but, thankfully, The Doll is not one of them.
If there's to be one criticism of the novel it is perhaps an event near the end that, given what has come before, seems a little sudden. Perhaps I should dock half-a-star for that but it's not far out in the realms of human behaviour and I so enjoyed everything else in the book that I can't find it in my heart to do so. Suffice to say that perhaps not everyone will be totally convinced by the final chapters but I doubt they will spoil the enjoyment of the rest of the story.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
