Like many people, I was shocked by the transition from Book 1 to Book 2 of this novel. However, since I read an interesting scholarly journal article on this novel in the journal "English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920," the two pieces fall more into place in their relationship to each other. The article is titled "The Judge Reexamined: Rebecca West's Underrated Gothic Romance," by Philip E. Ray, who was at that time at Connecticut College. The article is in Volume 31, Number 3, Year 1988, pp. 297-307 of the journal. Ray argues very convincingly that, though there are some problems with the novel, it is not the disaster that some critics have claimed it to be; it simply needs to looked at through the proper lens. Ray shows that The Judge has the qualities of a Gothic novel. With that said, the transition from Book 1 to Book 2 is still too abrupt, in my opinion. Overall, I'm glad I discovered this novel--it is brilliant but bizarre at times. ( )

Impossible to rate.

I thought this was a very interesting book although a failure as a novel. It really went off the rails at the end. Knowing a bit about West's life made the characters of Ellen and Marion interesting but as a writer, she really lost control of the material in the last third of the book.

I'm not sure I have ever read such beautiful descriptions of the natural world or a more truthful portrayal of the extreme emotions of motherhood.

In truth, the book scared me a little.

depressing story. started as a love story, turned into can i live with my husband and his mother, ended up with murder and everyone's life, except perhaps ellen's is over. it was wordy too, but i never wanted to stop reading. ( )

Rebecca West’s 1922 second novel is much longer than her wonderful first novel; The Return of the Soldier. It is a complex, densely written novel with some breath-taking descriptions of Scottish and English landscape. It is also – I can see from other reviews – one capable of dividing opinion. I suspect it is that highly descriptive dense writing that some readers dislike, while others may find the highly dramatic melodrama of the end of the novel at odds with what had come before it.

“Ellen thought herself a wonderful new sort of woman who was going to be just like a man; she would have been surprised if she had known how many of stern-browed ambitions, how much of her virile swagger of life, were not the invention of her own soul, but had been suggested to her by an old woman who liked to pretend her daughter was a son.”

In the early years of the twentieth century, Ellen Melville is a seventeen year old typist at a legal office. She is also a suffragette, naively innocent Ellen is unaware of her own beauty and the effect it has on others. Ellen finds herself judged and treated as an object by the men for whom she works, but has inherited a great capacity for love from her impoverished mother with whom she lives in a tiny dark house. Ellen can’t help but be dissatisfied with her life, she wants to experience all that life has to offer, she is at times outspoken, but still with a touching childishness about her which allows her to leap about her beloved Pentland hills in joy. When she meets client Richard Yaverland one day at work, she meets an older worldlier man, a successful man who has travelled widely, with liberal political views he seems to represent much of what Ellen seeks.
In Ellen and her simple good mother, Richard finds something he seeks – and is soon determined to marry Ellen. Before their marriage the couple travel back to Richard’s home to meet his mother of whom Richard has spoken to Ellen a good deal.

“‘Her body would imprison her in soft places. She would be allowed no adventures other than love, no achievements other than birth.’

Richard Yaverland comes from Essex, where he lived with his mother Marion, Marion even accompanied him on some of his expeditions abroad and the two are extraordinarily close. Richard is illegitimate, the result of his mother’s love affair with the local squire. Marion’s story – of how she was judged and ill used by the small community in which she lived, is told more than half way into the novel – yet it is the memory of this strong and controversial mother and her obsessive like love for her eldest son that pervades this novel. Marion has another son, one born following her somewhat forced marriage to an utterly odious man who offered to save her reputation when she found herself pregnant. This younger son; Roger, is a pitiful figure that the reader wants to sympathise with, and I did, however West has made his older, more selfish, more golden brother the more likeable character – although he is far from flawless. Roger’s childhood was sacrificed so that Marion could live the solitary life she desired with Richard. It is Roger, not Richard who is Marion’s guilt made flesh. The ending is gloriously melodramatic – it is at odds with the first part of the novel but I loved it.

“Every mother is a judge who sentences the children for the sins of the father.”

The judge of the title then is everyone, each character and certainly the reader themselves. Marion is a very harsh judge of herself, she has reason to be, and although the reader is able to sympathise with this strong and unusual woman, they can’t condone her actions. The judge is a fascinating exploration on what early nineteenth century society perceives as sin and the treatment of those who stray from the excepted path. ( )

The Judge is set in 1910s Edinburgh and focuses on the love story between a young typist and suffragette, Ellen; and Richard Yaverland, a charming explorer who has literally been all over the world. Their relationship is overshadowed by the relationship between Richard’s mother and father, creating an intricate tale about what happens when the past starts to catch up and interfere with the present.

Sigh. No matter how hard I try, I just seem to strike out with Rebecca West’s novels. I wasn’t a big fan of Harriet Hume, and I didn’t particularly like The Judge, either. I think it has something to do with West’s manner of exposition; she doesn’t focus on plot, so that all of the action tends to take place in her characters’ heads. She also has this fantastical ability to know exactly what each of her characters is thinking or feeling, which makes for stilted, ponderous reading and overblown prose. Even the nature of her characters’ thoughts is confusing; they all have the ability to jump all over the place when introspecting.

I know that other people love Rebecca West’s novels for their depth and complexity, but I just didn’t like any of the characters all that much, to the point where there were many places where I wanted to give up on reading this book. As it was, it was slow going. ( )