My Thoughts on the Novel, Farmington…

I tried. I really, really tried.

Maybe I just don’t have the brain or temperament for internal, philosophical, or reflective conflicts. But with this book…Well, I tried.

Darrow appears to be the valedictorian of The Dickens School of Ceaseless Verbosity. Yes, he writes like that. I was waiting for Darrow to call himself Pip. In thousands of ways, call himself Pip. And I thought that this style was out of vogue one hundred years before Farmington was written. I guess I was wrong.

The book has no conflict, no tangible one, anyway. What, a conflict a schoolboy has with his learning of letters? With his mother urging him to wash his feet? Of his father dreaming of a better life for his children? Even his reminiscences—and there are multitudinous reminiscences—are all long-winded and stale. These are not conflicts.

Or, again, perhaps I don’t have the proper mind or mentality to truly appreciate this work of fiction. If I could even call it that.

I don’t recommend this book. I just don’t. I’ll stick to the biographies of Darrow. His life is far, far more exciting than his fiction.