Reviews for Roughing It

The average rating for Roughing It based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-10-20 00:00:00 Thomas Grillo An American millionaire businessman arrives in Paris, Christopher Newman in 1868, to get "Culture," find the perfect wife after all he's 36 and lonely... while walking through the gigantic Louvre museum the tired man sits down, he views the magnificent paintings surrounding him on the walls. Newman notices too, young pretty girls, copying these exquisite works particularly the highly ambitious Noemie Nioche efforts, making an offer to buy the picture and does, for a greatly inflated price ( Christopher is not wise on the quality of paintings, very far from it indeed ). Her ancient father comes to escort her home and is delighted to discover the sale of a painting he is discouraged , depressed, a failure in business yet offers to teach the American, French he the compassionate foreigner readily agrees...Mr.Tom Tristram, a fellow American and old friend of Newman's he sees walking by, they haven't met since St.Louis, during the American Civil War (he fought, Tom didn't), after taking a minute or two to remember Christopher, the millionaire is happy to have someone to talk to in the city. Later taking the businessman, back to his modest home, and introducing him to his intelligent, but sarcastic wife, Mrs.Tristram (that the intimidated Tom, is afraid of), another American, who knows all the important people in the town. She recommends her friend, a young, beautiful widow, by the name of Claire de Centre ( nee Claire Bellegarde) from a very proud aristocratic family , in need of money, their houses are becoming shabby, as a candidate for his future wife. Mr. Newman's at first sight is intrigued, by Claire, from the beginning, he has not seen any woman like her before, smart, gorgeous , well spoken and the manners of the nobility. But there is a problem, her mother and older brother Urbain, feel Christopher is beneath them, a common man in commerce, even though he is rich, yet still not in their class, he wouldn't fit in, holding their noses they permit him to court her, the money is too tempting. After a lengthy, respectable , getting to know each other better, Claire and Christopher become officially engaged...Mr. Newman had followed the rules, the goodhearted , amiable man, visited his love almost daily at her family home, it has seen better days, the aloof relatives still show him their distaste, except for Valentin, the amusing, younger, lazy brother, who becomes his close friend. A crisis develops, right after a sparkling party given by the arrogant Bellegardes, for the engaged couple, to show their great, noble friends , Mr. Newman, though something is not quite right, the atmosphere is thick with uneasiness, the people are polite but rather remote, it is not the kind of thing that Christopher will ever feel comfortable with or they him ( he was born and raised in a Republic)...Life is not tranquil, it is full of obstacles to be overcome by the brave, Mr. Newman learns...to maybe his regret

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-01 00:00:00 Leona Petersen Are you the kind of person who enjoys fast-paced melodrama? Fortified castles where dreadful deeds are carried out at midnight? A beautiful heroine who is destined to be buried alive? Evil villains straight out of a gothic romance? No? Perhaps you are instead the kind of reader who prefers a more sedate narrative full of realistic depictions of everyday life. If you are, you share a trait with Christopher Newman, the American of the title. Though his story is set in the 1860s, Newman is a modern man who would never be caught dead inside the pages of a Gothic romance. Dramatic heroines given to extravagant displays of passion don't interest him, nor do flirtatious or hysterical characters. In fact, he rarely reads novels of any kind. He is practical rather than romantic; he likes new inventions, things that make life faster, easier and brighter; things like trains, lifts, electric lighting. Dark and gloomy castles aren't really his thing. But though he favours the modern and the innovative, Newman is quite simple in his personal tastes, and especially in the way he expresses himself. While traveling through Europe visiting the many magnificent monuments to be found there, the brief comments he pencils into the margins of his guidebooks summarise his reactions perfectly: "Wherever you find a scratch or a cross, or a 'Beautiful!' or a 'So true!' or a 'Too thin!' [in the guidebooks] you may know that I have had a sensation of some sort or other." So we know early on that Newman doesn't waste time on extravagances of expression. When he meets the beautiful Comtesse de Cintre for the first time, his reaction is characteristically low-key : She was pleasing, she was interesting; he had opened a book and the first lines held his attention. Yet his muted reactions don't equal a lack of feeling, he simply prefers to keep some feelings private. He is a man who knows the value of silence. He is surrounded by characters who love to expound. A few of them know what they are talking about, others, perhaps not. Newman stands out among them for the careful way he uses words, and when he is silent, it doesn't mean he disapproves or that he has nothing to say, just that he is wiser than the rest. His quiet wisdom makes him a daunting opponent for anyone who tries to thwart his plans for the future: if he were to take the trouble he might, as he phrases it, break all the windows (I really liked the way HJ juxtaposes phrases reflecting Newman's New World origins with the sedate language of the narrative). Newman's plans for the future aren't hugely ambitious however. Making money has always been easy for him so wealth is not something he covets. Neither does he have any social aspirations; he is oblivious to class distinctions and is not intimidated by aristocratic families with 'noble' lineages. He measures people by their behavior rather than by the deeds of their ancestors, and he has very high standards for his own behavior. In short, everything he says and does reveal him to be a thoroughly noble character, though he will always be plain 'Mr' Newman. About half way through this book, Newman's nobility and patience suffer a terrible test, and this reader's patience along with him. If you glance at the updates, it might seem that I gave up at page 225. I didn't stop reading however, but I did stop posting updates; there were simply no more passages that struck me as memorable. Newman too is out of his natural habitat in the second half of the narrative. His sense of both fairness and fun are no longer called for. He finds himself among people he can't recognise and situations he can't negotiate. It was too strange and too mocking to be real; it was like a page torn out of a romance, with no context in his own experience. Yes, you've guessed it. Newman finds himself trapped in a gothic melodrama, complete with fortified castles, emprisoned heroines and evil villains. There is nothing to be done but get through it as quickly as possible. And so we both did.