The Sealed Letter

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In a nutshell, the book documents a true event - a high-profile divorce in the Victorian era, and the interference / support of the wife's friend, 'Fido'. It's told from a variety of viewpoints, mostly from Fido's, but occasionally from Helen's (the wife) and even her husband. Its climax is the court-scene, where Helen essentially calls upon her friend to lie for her in court, but things don't turn out quite as planned... But what of the eponymous letter?! What's so special, so scandalous, that it remains sealed until the final chapter? Without going into too much detail, let me just say that this is more a MacGuffin than anything. It serves a minor purpose, but the book would have worked even with the letter removed, so don't spend too much time stressing over it as you read, OK? Applelec’s Rimless letters combine sophisticated construction techniques with an elegant finish.They are constructed using a built up metal letter that is combined with an acrylic iluminated face. The acrylic covers the entire face of the letter providing a robust and evenly lit surface that runs cool to touch.

However, I hated Helen with a passion. I found it hard to route for her at all, which is conflicting with this promoting feminism. The last theme echoes over and over again throughout the book. There's one quotation, which I can't locate at the moment, that aptly describes this idea. As she watches the divorce proceeding, Helen wonders if all this was an inevitable outcome of her dalliances with Mildmay and Anderson. She likens herself to a little boy pushing his toy soldier closer and closer to the edge just to see what would happen. I really enjoyed this underlying idea that we humans are prone to pushing ever so slightly too hard and bringing disaster upon ourselves. I have a big issue with how the book is presented in the blurb and in the author's note. In both places they make mention of how the courtroom drama rivals "the Clinton affair." Seriously? One thing has nothing to do with the other. The Clintons never divorced; an impeachment is not a divorce; and the "stained dress" in the book played a very minor role in the divorce and was brought forward by an unreliable witness. Which is where it falls down for me, because Fido (as she’s called) is clearly head over heels for Helen, and it’s just as clearly pathetic. It’s not going to happen. Take this scene, for example:I feel like the best part of this book is the fact that Emily "Fido" Faithfull is a big dumb gay puppy. It's both incredibly endearing and almost unbearable to read, for example:

LED colour options include cool white, warm white, red, green, yellow, orange, blue and RGB (colour-changing). The uniquely sealed letters are suitable for interior and exterior applications and are supplied individually or mounted onto signage manufactured by Applelec. rounded up. As much as I have enjoyed some of Emma Donoghue's previous books, this one didn't work for me. It was based on an infamous divorce trial in Victorian England that was apparently quite scandalous for its time. The story got a bit tedious after a while while it built up to the main attraction, the trial itself. Then it got more interesting, but barely so. In saying that, I did become a little frustrated with both ‘Fido’ and Harry being so gullible, especially when these two characters are supposed to have good intelligence and foresight and yet both are used by a character who appears, childlike in her selfishness, as though she needs to be treated with kid gloves and forgiven for her indiscretions and appeased when she has tantrums. Firstly, let me start by saying that I think Emma Donoghue is a great writer. She can certainly spin a yarn and I kept reading right to the end, as I wanted to know what happened! However, there were a few minor issues that kept me from rating this higher.They revealed the text, which was awesome. To do that without opening the letter is itself a sort of miracle, which I love," says Seales. "They were also complete about the technology of the artifact itself, because we can't forget that this stuff is embodied in physical form. And that's important." It was quite the disappointment, after Donoghue’s critical coup with Room, to turn to this novel, written a few years before but reissued to capitalize on her success. This fictional account of a real-life divorce scandal should have been a brilliant, realistic, gripping Victorian mystery along the lines of Sarah Waters’s Fingersmith or Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White. Instead it was a tedious slog. Yet I can’t quite put my finger on why. The dialogue is well imagined and the setting authentically described, but still something is missing. The story made me think about how many changes there have been to the role of women in society, the laws of divorce, for one thing, divorce was very new at the time and the awful treatment of the 'fallen woman' was really rather horrific compared to today's standards.

Which is not to say that all women are weak. No, what I mean is that Fido is right in claiming she was too weak-willed to refuse to sign the affidavit, too weak-willed to stand up to the illogical Helen Codrington. It's a character flaw—of the individual, not of the gender—that manifests over and over again, each time sending Fido down a darker, dimmer road as she tries to find some sense of equilibrium. Even as she contrasts two very distinct Victorian era women and their attitudes toward men and society, Donoghue reminds us that gender is only a part of who we are. Some reviewers have said they were disappointed by the ending but I loved it. There are two nice twists in the tail which I felt added much to the story and a lot of meaning to the undercurrent stuff. The author had some good points to make and it made me consider the old 'double standard' from an entirely new perspective, even amoung women and feminists. The early feminists had much to learn about what real equality meant, as arguably we still do today.This book is based on the real life divorce case of Harry and Helen Codrington which scandalised Victorian England. I found the social commentary of Victorian life very interesting, where divorce was almost unheard of, wives and children were the property of husbands, and the women’s movement was in its infancy.