A Woman of Substance (Emma Harte Saga #1) by Barbara Taylor Bradford

 

I have a theory. The website Goodreads was created in 2007.  If you look at the ratings for any book that published before Goodreads was founded on Goodreads, its star rating will be overly inflated because the only people who will rate and review a book from pre-Goodreads are people who like the book.  If you read a book in 1993 and were all "meh" about it, it's unlikely you'd go write it up, right? This is the only explanation I can find for the rating of 4.2 for A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford. 

This book, published in 1979, is the tale of Emma Harte, a woman born into a loving family that is impoverished. She rises up into power and riches and we follow her whole saga, from her first marriage and business until the day she lets her family know how she's going to distribute her wealth when she dies. There are two world wars, two marriages, suicides, rapes, and countless business acquisitions. If you're thinking to yourself, hey, this is just a story about how hard work and smarts can make you successful, well, just read on.

First of all, there are a lot of things in this book that do not age well. There is the use of the r-word to describe a child, many fatphobic lines, including:

His brother Gerald had been dubbed ‘Skinny Ribs’, which made him laugh uproariously, since the obese Gerald was disgustingly fatter. (page 308) - Look, Gerald is a terrible person in this book, but the constant descriptions of fat=terrible person were absolutely nonstop.

...the uniforms certainly wouldn’t fit the bovine Annie (page 421) - Again, Annie is not especially hardworking in this book, but using descriptions of her weight as a surrogate for laziness was just lazy writing.

...was astounded at the man's hippopotamic body...(page 692) - Gerald again. Rude. 

Don't get me started on the characterization of the only gay man in this book.  I mean, sure it was the late 1970s, but it was just horrid and mean. 

Okay, well, let's just look beyond the things that we are reevaluating as the years go by. Let's look at the so-called woman of substance, shall we?

Things started out well enough. 

‘Being underestimated by men is one of the biggest crosses I’ve had to bear all of my life, and it was particularly irritating to me when I was your age. However, it was also an advantage and one I learned to make great use of, I can assure you of that. You know, Paula, when men believe they are dealing with a foolish or stupid woman they lower their guard, become negligent and sometimes even downright reckless. Unwittingly they often hand you the advantage on a plate.’ (page 8)

Okay, I get this. If people are going to underestimate you, maybe it's okay to take advantage of that.

But soon she manages to convince her husband to sell his property to her company in order to make a huge profit on it instead of actually, you know, helping her husband and their family?  

And then once WWI started, there was this.

...whenever she felt a prick of conscience about making a profit from war she dispelled her discomfiture with logical reasoning: Somebody had to produce the uniforms for the fighting men, and if she did not do it, others would. (page 547)

War profiteering. 

What a woman of substance. 

I'm not going to even talk about how she continued a decades-long affair with a married man. (She also birthed two illegitimate children, which I don't actually think is terrible, but the coverup she did for those births WAS and had terrible implications for those babies when they grew into adulthood.)

I think we're supposed to think of Emma as a woman with grit and perseverance, but instead I just think she was a person who took advantage of everyone and everything around her in order to create humongous wealth and get revenge for a family that mistreated her when she was young. I wanted her to do something with herself besides get revenge, but instead she's just vengeful toward her own family in the ending scenes. 

(Are any of you following that golf thing with Liv merging with the PGA? I am vaguely interested in this story because I watched that series about golf on Netflix. Basically, some rich people from Saudi Arabia have bought out professional golf. And Emma is like the rich Saudi. Just stepping all over anyone to get what she wants at the expense of morality and the common good. Capitalism, man.)

I will say that the historical research that must have gone into writing this book must have been a massive undertaking. Very impressive.

Ugh. I have very strong feelings about this book, but they do not align with the Goodreads folks who describe it as "a classic saga that stands the test of time," "one of the best novels in print," or "spellbinding." Did they read a different book entirely than I did? All NINE HUNDRED PAGES OF IT?

2/5 stars

Lines of note:

Daisy was like a dove that had been flung into a nest of vipers. (page 30)

I always note a good animal metaphor describing people.

At eleven sharp, for he was punctilious about time, Henry put on his black overcoat, picked up his bowler hat and umbrella, and left the office. (page 37)

I really can't stop myself from finding the word hat in books now. 

The boy was small-boned and delicate, yet for all that he was surprisingly wiry and tough, like a little terrier. (page 98)

Another animal metaphor.

Things I looked up:

bobbin ligger (page 90) - Person who removes empty bobbins from the spinning room area in the wool industry, especially in West Yorkshire 

parterre (page 345) - An ornamental garden with paths between the beds (from the photos, I would probably call this a garden maze)

cinereous (page 463) - especially of hair or feathers, ash-grey

cyclamen (page 510) - a perennial flower plant found in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin

Cyclamen

parvenu (page 546) - A person of obscure origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity. In my defense, I had only ever heard this word and thought it was of French origin, so it would have an -eau ending. I was wrong.

dernier cri (page 547) - The very latest fashion.

deliquescent (page 598) - Becoming liquid or having a tendency to do so.

decree nisi (page 740) - A court order that will come into force at a future date as long as a particular condition is met. This apparently a step in getting a divorce in the UK (or at least England).

etiolated (page 757) - pale and drawn out due to lack of light