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Mr Skeffington
Mr Skeffington: A Virago Modern Classic | Elizabeth Von Arnim
1 post | 3 read
Beauty; beauty. What was the good of beauty, once it was over? It left nothing behind it but acid regrets, and no heart at all to start fresh.'Approaching the watershed of her fiftieth birthday, Fanny, having long ago divorced Mr Skeffington and dismissed him from her thoughts for many years, is surprised to find herself thinking of him often. While attempting to understand this invasion, she meets, through a series of coincidences and deliberate actions, all those other men whose hearts she broke. But their lives have irrevocably changed and Fanny is no longer the exquisite beauty with whom they were all once enchanted. If she is to survive, Fanny discovers, she must confront a greatly altered perception of her self.With the delicate piquancy for which she is renowned, Elizabeth von Arnim here reveals the complexities involved in the process of ageing and in re-evaluating self-worth.
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merelybookish
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Panpan

I was excited to read about a woman "approaching the watershed of her fiftieth birthday" until I realized it was about how she'd lost her beauty and was no longer desirable to any of her suitors. The wrinkles, crevices, haggardness. ? What will become of her? (Spoiler, she ends up with a blind man who, thankfully, never has to look upon her ravaged visage. ?) Throw in some racism and antisemitism, and well, it sucked. Such a disappointment!

merelybookish I've loved other books by von Arnim and this could have been a book of liberation. Instead it's ageism at it's worst. #192025 @Librarybelle 12mo
Bookwomble I found the one book of hers I tried to read hideously classist, and reading about her nazi-supporting husband's use of Polish slave labour, the anti-Semitism is sadly no surprise 🫤 12mo
Librarybelle Yikes! That does sound like a disappointment! 12mo
See All 7 Comments
merelybookish @Bookwomble Oh, did not know about her husband. The anti-Semitism is the least egregious of the offences here, although that's relative. Jews like to make money (of course 🙄 But there's some acknowledgement of how poorly they are being treated by Nazis. Meanwhile there's no attempt at humanizing Black people. 😒 12mo
merelybookish @Librarybelle It just kept getting worse and worse. 12mo
Leftcoastzen Yikes 12mo
Suet624 Good lord!!! 12mo
59 likes7 comments