Résumé
Résumé de L’Aventure véritable
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
You will enjoy this if you like a lively story about marriage and ambition, sharp talk at dinner tables, the backstage world of the theater, and a heroine who learns by doing.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Real Adventure is a novel by Henry Kitchell Webster, set in Chicago and New York in the years just before the First World War. It follows Rosalind Stanton, called Rose, a university student with a gift for making everyone look at her, and the man she marries after one stormy night on a streetcar. It asks what a marriage is made of once the first rush of love has passed, and what a woman owes herself.
The book is built in four parts. The first shows a whirlwind courtship and a honeymoon in the Wisconsin woods. The second shows a young wife in a rented house that is all surface, learning that her husband can love her without sharing his work. The third sends her out alone to earn her own living. The fourth follows what that costs and what it gives back.
Webster writes with wit and close attention to money, clothes, rooms, and the way people talk at dinner. He lets his characters argue about work, independence, and what men and women want from each other. Let us begin where Rose does, in a lecture hall, with a joke she writes down.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A girl who writes down the jokeFree
- 2A streetcar, a storm, and a stranger
- 3Love comes fast and lightly
- 4A house with nothing inside
- 5The branch that was cut off
- 6The only remedy
- 7Alone, on North Clark Street
- 8What the story is really about
Point clé 1 sur 8
A girl who writes down the joke
The story opens in a Chicago lecture hall in March. A professor is teaching the French Revolution, and he jokes that young girls should never marry a man with a passion for principles. Rose Stanton, who has not taken a single note all hour, writes the joke down with a perfectly serious face.
Rose is about twenty, with chestnut hair, a wide mouth, and a way of making everyone else in the room fade. Her mother, Naomi Rutledge Stanton, is a well-known writer and speaker for women's rights, and raised her children on Rousseau. After class, Rose is met by Harry, a gigantic football halfback who has followed her about for six months.
That morning she sees him differently. She has enjoyed imagining his love far more than she enjoys his company. When she says goodbye to him and strides off alone into the warm wind, the book says she has just had a birthday of the spirit.
Webster sets the tone here. He is amused by his heroine and fond of her, and he lets small details, such as a boil on a young man's neck, carry real feeling. The joke she copies down will come back later in the story.
The opening also shows what Rose lacks. She has never had to pay for anything. Her gifts have come to her like weather, and the book will test what happens when they stop.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about L’Aventure véritable
What is The Real Adventure about?
It follows Rose Stanton, a Chicago student who marries a lawyer, Rodney Aldrich, after a chance meeting on a streetcar. She leaves him to earn her own way and prove she can be his friend as well as his wife.
When was The Real Adventure written and where is it set?
Henry Kitchell Webster wrote it in the early twentieth century, and it is set mainly in Chicago and New York in the years around 1912 to 1915, with a touch of the First World War.
Who is Rose Stanton in the novel?
Rose is the young heroine. She is athletic and charming, and she is brought up by a mother who writes about women's rights. After her marriage, she wants a real share in her husband's work.
Why does Rose leave her husband?
She feels that his love is a gift she has not earned, and that she cannot be his true partner while living on his money. She leaves to build a life of her own and to earn his friendship.
Is The Real Adventure easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that matters: the scenes are lively and full of conversation. The story moves from a streetcar quarrel to a theater, a hat shop, and a studio, and Webster's humor keeps the pages turning.