The Scarlet Pimpernel

Please read this whole thing to find out how I really feel about this book.

I was stuck, very stuck, on The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. Two different people on two different occasions had recommended it to me. Not only did they recommend it, they practically raved about it. So this summer, when I came across a copy of it for only 75 cents, I quickly bought thinking this would be a great read. I started it back in July. I read the first three chapters, and had no desire to pick it up again. I was having a hard time with the language of the story and I was actually quite bored with it. As far as I could tell the book was about some snooty French girl, Marguerite Blakeny, who was married to simple Sir Percy Blakeny and only cared about herself and her brother. Nope, she didn’t even care about her husband. Then there was the main character, the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel. He was mentioned and explained as a great hero saving countless lives as the people of France went about killing all the noble men and women they could. I was a little interested in him, but didn’t seem to be getting much. So I left the book on my bookshelf for the next two months and did finally pick it up again to read another chapter. Yep, still bored with it. Back to the shelf it went.

Finally about a week ago I decided that I had to read that book. I couldn’t read anything else until I did. I have read plenty of books that are quite slow going for me at the beginning but turn out to be quite enjoyable. I was hoping this would be the case again. And it was! I didn’t have to go much further to get into the real plot of the story. Once there, I was hooked. I still didn’t have much sympathy or liking for Lady Blakeny, but her husband was growing on me. The villain, Chauvelin, was very bad and very easy to dislike which made the story all the more exciting. And the Scarlet Pimpernel was finally really playing into things.

The rest of the story went very quickly and was much helped by some very interesting twists and a beautiful love story. I don’t want to say too much more except that I do really like the ending. It is one of those happy, everything gets resolved, all is well kind of endings. And I learned once again, that I really can’t judge a book by its first few chapters. This one was definitely worth the wait. I would gladly reccomend it!