The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders is a tale that if Moll were alive today, she would probably be a guest on Jerry Springer. Moll's struggles include orphaned at an early age, made a servant, a mistress, prostitution, a thief, becoming a mother (but shows poor plotting by Dafoe, since some children seem to just disappear for the sake of story), dabbling with lesbianism, imprisoned and banished to the Americas, incest and a happy ending. Entertaining and enlightening, Moll Flanders is a funny romp through the life of a greedy survivor during 17th century England.
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The review of this Book prepared by Kathleen
One of the greatest books ever written, and one of the most misunderstood. On the surface, it's a story about one woman's questionable struggle for survival in a brutal world--what people usually focus on. But beneath the surface, it's an indictment against civilizing living, an indictment against humanity's denouncement of agrarianism in favor of industrialization, in favor of capitalism. Would Moll Flanders have to prostitute herself for money to eat, have to steal, if fruit-bearing trees grew all around her in the civilized jungle instead of buildings? And yet she is a paradoxical product of that civilized nightmare, and can no more escape her civilized roots than she can escape the planet: those roots must feed her, even while they are killing her.
The review of this Book prepared by Fran Upman