Talk about keeping a stiff upper lip! Sophia must have 5 pounds of starch in her's because she shares her tale of woe in such a cool calm and detached manner you'd think that she's a Stepford Wife, London division.
Sophia marries fellow artist Charles despite his family's objections. They're poor and Charles won't work because he's an artist! What follows next is poverty! Babies! An abortion! Adultery with Snidely Whiplash! An illegitimate child! Scarlet fever! Divine punishment! A divorce! Single motherhood! Indentured servitude (kind of)! And then the unrealistic happy ending!
Comyns description of the birthing process for the poors in a big London hospital, no matter how detached Sophia comes across as being, sounds like a sticky circle in hell designed to shame women for having sex. According to a note in the foreword the chapter dealing with Sophia giving birth is all true. Ick! Nast!
I appreciate Comyns keeping the tone "*shrug* and so that happened... and then this happened next. *shrug*" because this is actually a sad and horrific story and in the wrong hands it could have been an annoying girly melodrama. Instead of "you rat bastard!" moments, we get a lot of polite moments of intense dislike.
I've personally been on the business end of that cool detached and disinterested English stoicism and it can be frustrating to the point you want to punch that stoic bastard the hell out, so if you need yelling, banshee like wailing and a lot of face slapping in your stories of love gone wrong, then this is not the book for you.
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