The Romantic
As a simple story told, "The Romantic" is one of Sinclair’s tightest and most compelling. Charlotte Redhead, a young British secretary, finds herself in a degrading extra-marital affair with her boss. In reaction, she renounces Sex and links herself platonically to a handsome young Bohemian (John Conway) she meets by chance, tramping in the fields. Together, under a powerful romantic excitement, the two rush off to Belgium in the early weeks of World War I, having organized their own little volunteer ambulance corps. The romance of the adventure begins to break down when the various ambulance corps start to back-stab each other, each selfishly seeking to one-up the others for glory. The real crisis comes when the central characters begin to reveal the true human characters behind their romantic delusions, in the end turning the attention back to the genuine human suffering that was the real story of the hideous Great War. An indictment of the author’s own thrill-seeking past, as revealed in her "Journal of Impressions in Belgium," and showing some of the concerns of the so-called Lost Generation that included Hemingway and Dos Passos and Woolf, "The Romantic" weaves together a number of fascinating themes, re-interpreting with Sinclair’s inimitable frankness post-war attitudes about sex, war, patriotism, and even the new psychology. (Summary by Expatriate)
Genre(s): Literary Fiction
Language: English
Section | Chapter | Reader | Time |
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Play 01 | Book 1, Chapter 01 | Expatriate |
00:11:47 |
Play 02 | Book 1, Chapter 02 | Expatriate |
00:15:04 |
Play 03 | Book 1, Chapter 03 | Expatriate |
00:13:06 |
Play 04 | Book 1, Chapter 04 | Expatriate |
00:06:02 |
Play 05 | Book 1, Chapter 05 | Expatriate |
00:12:16 |
Play 06 | Book 2, Chapter 06 | Expatriate |
00:15:38 |
Play 07 | Book 2, Chapter 07 | Expatriate |
00:18:15 |
Play 08 | Book 2, Chapter 08 | Expatriate |
00:17:03 |
Play 09 | Book 2, Chapter 09 | Expatriate |
00:15:31 |
Play 10 | Book 2, Chapter 10 | Expatriate |
00:13:54 |
Play 11 | Book 2, Chapter 11 | Expatriate |
00:29:10 |
Play 12 | Book 2, Chapter 12 | Expatriate |
00:23:51 |
Play 13 | Book 2, Chapter 13 | Expatriate |
00:18:56 |
Play 14 | Book 2, Chapter 14 | Expatriate |
00:17:39 |
Play 15 | Book 2, Chapter 15 | Expatriate |
00:15:15 |
Play 16 | Book 2, Chapter 16 | Expatriate |
00:08:42 |
Play 17 | Book 2, Chapter 17 | Expatriate |
00:11:08 |