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Scott's The Abbot
3 Apr 2025 10:03 pmWELL, as I embarked on the 5th novel I've read by Walter Scott (The Abbot, 1820), I have been taken by surprise!
The first few chapters have been ummm very hard to read. Not because they're boring (as in Waverley), but because they're a very clear picture of a child so neglected and badly parented that he has become violently abusive towards the servants by age 17.
It's not like Scott hasn't had bad people in these other books I read, or characters with a mixture of good and horrible qualities; but no bad parents to this extent. But he seems to maybe not realize that that's what he's written?
I have to finish the book to find out, but it's extremely unpleasant going! (Though the character is going to be an adult for most of the book, and hopefully at least the parental abuse will cease soon.)
The first few chapters have been ummm very hard to read. Not because they're boring (as in Waverley), but because they're a very clear picture of a child so neglected and badly parented that he has become violently abusive towards the servants by age 17.
It's not like Scott hasn't had bad people in these other books I read, or characters with a mixture of good and horrible qualities; but no bad parents to this extent. But he seems to maybe not realize that that's what he's written?
I have to finish the book to find out, but it's extremely unpleasant going! (Though the character is going to be an adult for most of the book, and hopefully at least the parental abuse will cease soon.)
