Random Number Lit

  This is on the Big Book List which is apt in this case because it is a very big book, coming at almost 700 pages. So, get this, a 700 page Victorian gothic romance novel - not my cup of tea I might imagine, but surprise surprise, I loved this book. I am going to keep this section short because I have a lot to talk about this week but the love story between Emily St. Aubert and Valancourt was entrancing. I was all the way at one particular moment, when Montoni takes Emily and her aunt with him to Udolpho though we don’t know what to expect there, Radcliffe writes this very honest moment about the aunt’s regret at this endeavor as sort of a humility and self-awareness that the aunt had planned to con Montoni because she wasn’t as wealthy as he had hoped and also the aunt knowing that Montoni was also a scoundrel and they they sort of deserved each other but Emily did not deserve either of them was a breath-taking turn of writing and logic and pathos. I was hooked for