The Beguiled is an atmopheric read and the gothic feel pulled me through this book in no amount of time. And yet this novel is too long and drawn out. My physical copy has 372 pages with a tiny font, which makes this book in reality (and with a normal font-size) a 600+ page novel.
So it´s a big novel, told from the perspective of eight different characters (the women in the boarding school) and everyone has their own background story. Unfortunately not every background story is relevant for the overall storyline and some things could easily have been left out of the novel.
It doesn´t help either that the climax of the story lies about the halfway mark of the novel and after that the story just peters out. There is a lot of quarreling and tensions arise every now and then, but most of the women/girls behaved so incredibly stupid that I had a hard time believing in the credibility of the story.
Having said that, I really enjoyed reading this book. All the characters are disturbing and by omitting the point of view of the only man in the house, I had ambigious feelings towards him in the end. He is a manipulating, lying, seducing creep, who is only interested in himself. And yet I have my doubts if he deserved what he has got. And did the other characters get what they deserved? No one is clearly good or bad or without sin in this novel.
Book themes for St. Martin’s Day: Read a book set on a vineyard, or in a rural setting, –OR– a story where the MC searches for/gets a new job. –OR– A book with a lantern on the cover, or books set before the age of electricity. –OR– A story dealing with an act of selfless generosity (like St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar).
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