Today I finished reading
Judith Paris by Hugh Walpole. It's one of the "Herries" sequence a generational saga extending over several novels.
Judith Paris is chronologically the second and centres on the eponymous central character from her birth to middle age. She is certainly delineated with some vigour. In fact, most of the characters are interesting if not always very sympathetic.
Walpole certainly has a fine pictorial quality to his writing and can use significant detail with great skill to create a vivid context and atmosphere.
Despite the fact that the story is over 700 pages long, it does keep the reader involved with the lives of its many characters despite the fact that it is not really what one would call an exciting, eventful book. As I said, it is the second of a series, but it can be read on its own--though the ending does leave us with a new plot sequence waiting on the horizon.
Walpole was immensely popular during his lifetime but this fame proved ephemeral and he is little read today. Indeed, if one compares his books to those of F.Scott Fitzgerald or Dawn Powell who were younger contemporaries, Walpoles's writing seems old-fashioned and a bit ponderous. Still, I think he is still worth reading--at least once. {But it might be a good idea to get a copy from a library to see if it appeals to you.
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