Jocelyn Pierston, a sculptor from the Isle of Slingers, spends forty years pursuing an elusive ideal of beauty that migrates between different women. He first falls in love with Avice Caro, a local girl, but abandons her when he believes his "Well-Beloved" spirit has inhabited someone else. Twenty years later, he returns to the island and attempts to marry Avice’s daughter, seeing the same phantom perfection in her. Another two decades pass, and the elderly Pierston tries to wed Avice’s granddaughter, hoping to finally capture the ephemeral vision that has dictated his artistic and romantic life.
Readers of Victorian literature and psychological fiction choose this novel to examine the obsession with aesthetic perfection over human reality. It appeals to those interested in how the male gaze deconstructs the female subject into an artistic abstraction. The text provides a study of the repetitive nature of desire and the inevitable decline of physical vitality. By the end, the reader understands the heavy emotional toll of prioritizing a mental image over the tangible flaws of living individuals.
- Published
- 1897
- Language
- EN
