Belchamber
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.82 (621 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1475215290 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-08-27 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Fortunately or unfortunately, he is also wealthy and titled, which makes him ripe for exploitation. This, his third novel, is an accomplished but unassuming story about moral choices. The protagonist is barely in touch with the ways of the world and for this, he is nicknamed 'Sainty' by his family and friends, most of whom betray him in one way or another. With an intriguing cast of unreliable characters, Belchamber poses questions about good and bad behaviour and demonstrates effectively that virtue is rarely its own reward." -Anita Brookner, The Observer"Not only one of the strongest books I have read in years, but so beautifullywritten. Forster” –Los Angeles Times"Belchamber is a curious hybrid, a ma
Forster, A. After the death of his parents, inheriting a sizeable fortune, he bought a house in the country which he named Queen's Acre or Qu'acre. . Benson, and Edith Wharton. Howard Overing Sturgis (1855-1920) was born in England to wealthy American expatriates. He became friends with Henry James, E. "Howdie" (as Sturgis was known) and his much-youn
criminally overlooked Edith Wharton and Henry James should be taking a few uneasy turns in their graves for their damning silence on BELCHAMBER. According to Edmund White's excellent preface to this perceptive, unsparing novel, they were his friends and frequent guests yet neither came to his rescue when the critics took the ax to BELCHAMBER. No wonder, it was decades ahead of its time in its appreciation of its effeminate central character, not t. "Good, but a little too much self-pity" according to Bamber Gascoigne. This book is too driven by pity for the protagonist -- apparently a stand-in for the author -- but it's very involving.Sturgis was a protegé of Henry James, who however criticized the novel rather harshly, and it also failed commercially. It was his third and last novel. He was a wealthy English-born son of an American banker, who lived in a country house keeping a popular gay literary salon in the 1890s and 1900s, see. "Tender And Serene Despair" according to Daniel Myers. This novel, in effect, offers a twist upon Shakespeare's line that, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." For Sturgis and for our protagonist, Lord "Sainty" Belchamber:"The world is like a huge theatrical company in which half the actors and actresses have been cast for the wrong parts."The book is very reminiscent, in many ways, of some of the works of Sturgis's friend, Henry James, except that
"Belchamber deserves to take its places as a true, if minor, classic, for it is a work of imagination, deeply felt, truly observed, and achieved with a sense of style and architecture."—Gerard Hopkins. Viewforth Classics. Sainty is Sturgis's portrait of a sexually ambivalent (implicitly homosexual) young aristocrat who is pressured (for the sake of the family line and doing what is expected) into a loveless marriage with a woman who, like his mother, is also domineering and dismissive of his real interests and sensibilities. Originally published in 1904, Sturgis's novel has been enjoying a positive contemporary reappraisal by such authors as Edmund White and Alan Hollinghurst, both siding with E. Sainty is both