The Old Wives' Tale (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)

Very well worth reading once you get used to the "language". I loved the book.

I was so happy to see so many positive reviews of this wonderful novel. When the Modern Library published it's list of the 100 Best Books of the Century, I decided I should attempt to read them all. In the end, I am about a quarter of a way through the list and I am continually glad that I took on the challenge since it has led to me wonderful, but more obscure, novels from the last century, this being one of the best examples. When I picked up the Old Wives Tale I had a similar thought to a previous reviewer: there was no way I was going to finish this book. But after reading Bennett's introduction and starting the first few pages, I found myself intrigued by this family. They are so normal that you find yourself relating to them, whether good or bad. They lived through such changing times, but for the sisters, whether they were in Bursley or Paris, life went on as usual. That is probably the most remarkable thing about this book. No matter what people live through, they generally are unaffected by the larger world around them. It's the private lives, the inner workings of a household or the change in ownership of their homes, which really troubles or changes them. In the end though, Bennett's old wives are what compels you to finish the story since you want to see how their lives end and how their relationship to each other changes through the years. Bennett stays true to human nature throughout the work, there are no death bed confessions or wild changes of character. In the end there is just one woman left standing, trying to keep time from pushing on and changing her world. Bennett is a master storyteller and he combines just enough detail with dialogue to get the point across and get the reader through the book. His prose is very precise and I found myself surprised from time to time that this book was published in 1908. There is much in this book that can relate even to our lives today.

I'm certainly not the only person in the world who thinks of this book as a masterpiece. The fact that H.G. Wells, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf all praise this book as being so is one of the reasons I picked it up. In spite of that, I really read it without set expectations. Briefly, to say what has already been said before, The Old Wives Tale is exactly that - a tale of three women who marry in very different circumstances. Mrs. Baines, the mother, is a life who is only briefly touched upon. However, the seperate lives of the two sisters, Sophia and Constance, are the crux of the book. Each life takes its' turn. We are first told about Constance, then about Sophia, and finally, about their reunion. Constance, whose name is not a coincidence, lives a simple provincial life, and Sophia, whose name also matches her persona, chooses romance and adventure. There is only one villain, and yet, he is perhaps the most powerful and chilling of all villains, Time. His grasping, clutching, suffocating presence is ever felt throughout the book, and looms even larger once that final page is turned. In the end, Sophia and Constance each pay the price for their choices, and the true cost of those choices is left for the reader to decide. As unique as we are, we will each believe something different about Sophia and Constance in the end, and that is precisely the point.To sum up the experience of The Old Wives Tale, a tale of three women living their lives, and their lives changing them (or perhaps not changing them, is that it is the most honest approach to human psychology I have ever read. The lives we read about, Mrs. Baines, Sophia, Constance, and even those who surround them, could be anyone's. In fact, most of us can find someone in this book we could point to and say "that's me". No character, no matter how brief their exit or entrance into this story, is insignificant. Each person gives us a fresh perspective on the human response to events and to, of course, other humans. The three main characters are presented with sheer, unsympathetic, yet respectful honesty. We are not introduced to inhuman, perfect, idealistic souls in this book. Nor are we looking through the eyes of the wicked. Instead, we are searching the souls of ordinary people and in the end, are left with a question about our own existence.In fact, it should be a large clue to readers when they see that the title of the fourth section is, What Life Is. It is here that something occurred which I totally unexpected, and it left me quite shaken - in fact, desperate. I found that I had been brought from the comfortable vantage point of observing these fictional lives, which are at times inexplicably amusing and heroic, to a sudden uncomfortable sensation that the characters were real and had turned toward me - the reader - begging the question "What of your life? What have you done with it? What have you accomplished?"That subtle change of vantage point was shocking, and ingenious. Without c

I first read this wonderful book many years ago. Recently, I happened to pick it up again (before giving it to my daughter to read), and thought, well, I'll just read a few pages, to see if it's as good as I remember it to be. I stayed up all night rereading it. "The Old Wives' Tale" is a heartbreaker, but superb. As somone else has pointed out, there's a real villain in the book, but the villain isn't human: it's Time. It's difficult for me to imagine anyone reading the last few lines without being touched. I agree with Somerset Maugham: I feel presumptuous even praising it. For those who were "disappointed" with it, may I say, with another commentator, that these people will probably be disappointed with The Day of Judgment.

This is the second Bennett book I read set in the Five Towns area (the first was Anna of the Five Towns). This book is longer and more complex but carries on the direct form of writing that seems to characterize Bennett's work. The direct, simple form of his prose draws the reader in and involves her in the experiences in these two women's lives. The ending, though expected, is still tragic and leaves the reader to reconsider what life is and just how it affected the sisters. I wish I could find more books by him about the five towns. I read voraciously and am always surprised by how moved I have been by Mr. Bennett's work. Readers will not be disappointed if they give him a chance.