Moll Flanders

This month's book club selection was DeFoe's Moll Flanders (Norton Critical Editions).I'd say it's a fun read once you get used to the language and the convention of capitalizing most nouns. "Moll" whose name we never really learn, leads a wild life. She's born to a convict and luckily is raised by a prosperous family, but once she gets older and catches men's eyes, trouble begins. She racks up the husbands and lovers. The unexpected is the norm in this life as Moll even winds up inadvertently marrying her brother. The second half of her life, she takes to crime with unbelievable success and creativity. Throughout this chronicle, the main character looks back on her adventures and is quite open though we can see her unreliability and Defoe's hand behind the character.

It's a good read, but not a favorite, as some parts seemed contrived. It is one of the first novels so we should cut it some slack. There's a lot of energy and spice.