Eline Vere (original 1889; edition 1983)

Did not finish.
I had to stop after about 3 or 4 chapters. The feeling of desperation, listlessness and depression became so overwhelming that I feared for my sanity and taking drastic measures myself. The writing is that good, in the sense that the novel manages to convey Eline's situation so poignantly.
Mind you, I was a slightly depressed teenager at the time, so the emotions sunk in deep.
Not recommended if you're having doubts as to the meaning of it all yourself. ( )

I read the version put out by Archipelago Books. It was a lovely book to hold. I really enjoyed its comfortable heft, the binding, the font, the overall design and texture of the cover. It may have been about the stodgier side of the Hague in the 19th century, but the book itself was a sensual delight. Every time I turned a page, I enjoyed touching the paper it was printed on. This was very fitting since there is a lot of material culture in it. There was a sameness to what people said; the details came out in how they related to each other's furniture.
This book had a pleasant fly-in-amber quality about life in The Hague for a certain class of people at a certain time, and like Andy Warhol's 'Empire' it develops it's own scale of action. Every night I climbed into this book and braced myself for the moment the lights would come on. They never did. I enjoyed it anyway. ( )

This is a little gem, a literary classic from a great Dutch author. Situated in the late 1800s , Couperus portrays the life of the upper-class in Den Haag, which was quite something at the time. He focusses on Eline Vere, a 20-something girl who lives with her sister and brother-in-law and who regularly falls in and out of love but never can seem to find what she's looking for in this empty life of hers. She's surrounded by family and friends who also try to make somethong of their lives, some of them who succeed, others who don't. I thought it very interesting to see how Eline developped from a young innocent, slightly spoiled girl to a hysterical wreck and how her surroundigns reacted to her. This is a very beautiful, elegant, bitter-sweet study of 19th century mores. ( )

A wonderful English translation of a Dutch masterpiece. This is not a book to be raced through. It doesn't drag and it's not tedious, but you will want to go along with it's unhurried pace because you'll enjoy it all the more.

Eline Vere lives with her sister, brother-in-law and nephew in The Hague. She's frivolous, she's kind, she's lively and witty, she's melodramatic and given to bouts of temper tantrums, she's a daydreamer and given to flights of fancy, she's eccentric, she's uncertain, she's lovely and she's tragic.

There's just so much in this book that it's difficult to review without giving it all away. Eline Vere is the central character and we are given peeks into her thoughts as she enjoys life as a social butterfly, without a care in the world and her only mission appears to be having a good time. She's charming and knows what she has to do to get all to love her. But she's also given to bouts of depression and she falls into infatuations easily.

But it's not just about her, there is also a great many other characters the author spends time lovingly developing, and the reader gets to know them all, understand them, love or despise them accordingly.

There are elements of Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' and Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' in here that make this a very compelling read. You cannot help but fall into the story, share the laughter and the tears, the anger and the love, the celebration and the depression. This has it all, in my opinion. ( )