| Title | : | The Changeling |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1179572548 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781179572543 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2007 |
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The Changling
Sir Walter Besant
Chatto & Windus, 1899
The Changeling Reviews
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Loved this book! I thought, when I picked it up, that it was a fairytale kind of story, but it's nothing close to that. Still, I wasn't disappointed for a second. The characters are fascinating and dynamic, and the themes are timeless as the story itself. Excellent read, and I couldn't put it down!
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Starts well -- a high-placed and wealthy lady secretly adopts a son in order to replace her own dead child. Fast forward eighteen years, and the real mother (now herself a rich woman) seeks the child that she had given up, one who's grown up to be an awful person.
And the novel kind of falters on this point. The changeling is too terrible, and terrible in what are not sufficiently interesting ways (*). His intended fiancee is all sweetness and light, his half brother is wonderful -- carefree and almost too grand for all his good qualities to be described, and the reader is retching.
Besant also wrote oddly of the impression a great musician can make on people. I am somewhat curious if it was just a literary device he pulled out of his pants, or there are people to whom something vaguely similar might apply. This certainly isn't my experience, either as a performer or a listener, but was one of he few things in the book worth highlighting.
The ending did have its good points, but the process of getting there was too painful.
2/5: the basic outline of the plot is good, but the rest isn't. Some author should shamelessly steal the raw material of the idea and make something good out of it.
(*) One of the ways he was terrible was in his love for modern art & music. I could easily be talked into agreeing with the author here. But Besant wasn't amusingly satirical enough on the subject.
