Readin' the Classics

The Damnation of Theron Ware

2011-12-29T21:03:00.002-06:00

Harold Frederic (1856-1898)

Show me some Realism from the 1890s and I'll show you an top-tier classic. Why? Well because the Gilded Age is the most fascinating time in American history. It's a bridge time that gets us to what we know as Modern America. Everything is changing and it's changing fast. Opportunities are opening and closing for different classes, races, and regions. Sleepy backwaters are being pulled into the Twentieth Century by the power of electricity and mass communication. Optimism and ambition rule the day.

This is where we find Theron Ware. He's a Methodist preacher in rural upstate New York (I'm pretty sure it's New York). Theron is ready to hear his named called for a plum position at the big Methodist conference but he's passed over and sent to Octavius, which is the opposite of plum, prune I guess. He and his pretty wife Alice move to Octavius and try to make the best of it. They are confronted, however, with very traditional members, a very stingy board of directors, and whole load of Irish Catholics. At every turn Theron is slowed by the church elders, they aren't impressed with his oratorical ability, they just want the old timey hellfire and brimstone. It is in this dark spot that three things occur which lead Theron down the road to damnation.

The first is the flower garden. His wife takes to gardening in a major way. She gets plants from a rich man in town who buys them for her and expects nothing in return. Theron thinks little of this arrangement at first. Next is his meeting with Celia Madden, an Irish Catholic with some unconventional views and some conventional hotness. The red head intrigues Theron, Catholicism is so foreign to him that she and her church hold a mysterious allure to the protestant preacher. The third is the boarding of two fundraisers for the church with the Ware's. The Soulsbys arrive in town to fire up the congregation and get some cash flowing into the debt-ridden church. Candace Soulsby is an engaging, smart, theatrical woman who's been around the block and ends of serving at Theron's guidence counsellor/physiologist.

The result of these events is a revaluation of Theron's life and its direction. The worldly Madden makes Theron feel like a rube. Soulsby makes Theron realize that not everyone has to be genuine in their religious fervor. The flower problem starts Theron into questioning his wife and imagining other ways to live. Theron's transformation is quick. He changes from a naive by sincere preacher of the gospel to a scheming, but pretty dumb, preacher who desperately wants to be cosmopolitan.

Theron's actions, stepping over the Catholic/Protestant divide in Octavius, becoming a stranger to his wife, courting Celia, backsliding in his religion, lead him to a desperate situation that nearly costs him his life and does cost him his livelihood.

Lots of cool stuff in this book. It's crazy how the Irish are treated as a seperate race from the WASPs in Octavius. Their ceremonies and even their church picnic with its lager beer might as well be from Mars. Celia is also a cool character. Modern and sophisticated in her outlook, but just as confused about what she wants as Theron. Her machinations with Theron are suspect and never totally fleshed out.

The themes here are great, we've got the role of women, religion and its relevance in a scientific world, race and class and how that dynamic affects relations in a small town.

Rating 9.5/10: Loved this book and would have given it a ten if Theron's breakdown had more depth. Still, loved the characters, the setting and the themes.

Redburn: His First Voyage

2011-12-08T17:24:00.003-06:00

Herman Melville (1819-1891)

Herman Melville writing a book about the travails of going to sea, what a shocker. Write what you know is the mantra and Melville does it, and does it a lot. But if you think you're going to get another Moby Dick, well, you're wrong my friend. While Ismael puts the reader through torturous never-ending descriptions of whales, Wellingborough Redburn is a more interesting narrator, yeah I said it. Redburn is a painfully naive kid from up the Hudson who decides it would be a great adventure to head across the Atlantic and see England. He comes from a formerly wealthy family and carries himself as such. Everything we see in Redburn comes through his inexperienced eyes. The picture of New York City in the 1840s is amazing. The thriving port is a living, breathing place full of characters, beautiful ships and not so beautiful goings on. After Redburn finds a job on the Highlander he's in over his head for the entire book.
The first thing I want to cover is the voice in this book. It's semiautobiographical and Redburn is a greenhorn. He looks down on the sailors for their manners and habits. Drinking and smoking and any other vice is not pooh poohed as much as it is looked on with shock and a desire to reform. He belongs to an anti-drinking club and an anti-smoking club back home and criticizes the non-stop smoking and drinking that happens ashore and on board. Now I'm not really sure Melville isn't poking fun as his younger self here. Redburn is so naive and innocent it seems like a put on at times. It is this wedge between Redburn and the rest of the crew that provides much of the conflict and humor in the book.
There are lots of great characters in Redburn, the contemptible Jackson, the weird and perhaps homicidal Barry and the immigrant Carlo. I think the book is most notable portion of the book is the tribulations of the immigrants on the passage from Liverpool to New York. The mostly Irish bunch, around 500, are housed in incredibly cramped and unclean conditions. They have one fire to cook over and only have a very rudimentary idea of the duration and hardships they're going to face. In many ways their experiences and surprise at the conditions mirror the feelings that Redburn has on the outward voyage.
Redburn might not be as deep and important as Moby Dick, but it's more consistently entertaining and paints a better picture of life ashore.

Rating 7.5/10: A fun fast-paced read with lively characters and interesting social commentary.

Lady Audley's Secret

2011-09-11T20:31:00.002-05:00

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1837-1915)

This thing is classified as a "Sensational Novel," because it centers on a something sensational and it was written between 1850-1880 in Great Britain. So pretty much every novel during that period. Now you'll have to excuse me because I read this book a few weeks ago so this review is going to be quick and dirty. Lady Audley marries Sir Michael Audley and everything seems to be fine. Lady A was a servant girl who married the much older man and moved in with him and his 20 year old daughter. Even though there's tension between Lady A and her new daughter-in-law everything is going pretty well until Robert Audley, nephew of Sir Michael, meets his old army buddy George Talboys. Now George has been in Australia hunting gold for three years because his life sucked before that being married and poor with a kid. George didn't go on this trip the most noble way, abandoning the family in the middle of the night and hoping to strike it rich and return to them.
This book really is a pretty good mystery so I don't want to give away too much plot, so a few words about style and themes. Lady A's Secret moves along at a pretty swift clip and has one great character. Robert Audley is a super lazy lawyer. He doesn't really practice law and most people think he's dumb. Luckily he's not dumb, he just enjoys an idle lifestyle. The mystery that pops up around George Talboys, Lady A. et. al. spurs him into action. Being constantly underestimated works out to his advantage as he turns into a private detective.
Lots to think about as far as gender and identity here. Lady Audley has been treated really badly in her past, she's taken matters into her own hands and has ended up in a great situation with Sir Michael. Does she get a standing ovation? Nope, just a one way ticket to the looney bin. Does her agency warrant such a fate? She is strong and determined, but she is also manipulative and dishonest. George Talboys is a real a-hole, he ditches his family and parties in Australia for three years before cashing in and heading home, expecting everything to be cool with the wife. The rest of the characters in the book seem to think his actions are fine. Lady Audley does some things that probably aren't as bad as George and she's shipped up to a nut house on the continent. It was good to see that Braddon didn't neuter her as a character, Lady Audley stayed as defiant and tough right to the end.

Rating 8.5/10: Good mystery, great characters in Robert and Lady A, some interesting themes and exciting writing.

The Adventures of Augie March

2011-08-07T14:08:00.002-05:00

The Adventures of Augie March

Saul Bellow (1915-2005)

The third Bellow book that I've read on the list after Herzog and Humboldt's Gift. Not your typical novel. We follow Augie March, a likable normal guy from Chicago, around from adventure to adventure which is all a grand buildup for, well, nothing. There is no grand finale here. What the reader gets is a lot like real life, no happily ever after, just onward to more challenges and opportunities.
Augie is born into a down on their luck Jewish family around 1920 in Chicago. Apparently the first paragraph is very famous for its declaration of Americaness, but I didn’t notice it the first time around. Augie seemed about as American as you can get, resourceful, immigrant family, good natured but makes some questionable choices.
Augie March is all about fate. Augie muses on it often. The characters he encounters, the trips he takes (smuggling immigrants in a stolen car, working at a pool hall, stealing books for profit, teaching an eagle to hunt, and excursion to Mexico, getting sunk by a Japanese ship in the Pacific) all seem to inflict themselves on Augie. He reacts to the different circumstances, but does he really have any agency over what his future will be?
Augie himself is an interesting character, streetwise but philosophical. He’s as good at hitching rides and avoiding the law as he is at opining on ancient Greeks. The book is more valuable, however, in its depiction of the Great Depression. Chicago is tough and gritty, filled with guys trying to make a buck whether it’s honest or not, and women who are tougher and more resilient than the men. There’s a gap between the rich and poor which Augie straddles precariously at times, at others he struggles to break through, and sometimes he revels in a Bohemian lifestyle.
I thought Herzog was a more impressive work by Bellow. It’s main character was more interesting. If I could change Augie (and yeah, I know Saul Bellow probably isn’t super pumped to have a hack edit his classic) I would have had Augie get in on the plan to protect Trotsky in Mexico. Bellow was scheduled to meet with the Russian leader the day he was assassinated, it would have been neat to see Augie deal with a big historic event, it also would have served as a climax and set up an extended denouement with WWII serving as closure of Augie’s wanderings and an entrance into the next phase of his life. Maybe that’s the point though. We don’t live our lives like a novel. If we succeed or fail we don’t get a handy “The End” as the sun sets. We move on to the next thing, or fight off whatever fate has in store for us.

Rating 6/10: Loses steam after the Mexico trip. Great characters, great plot points, seemingly no story arc (but that’s probably the point).

A Room with a View

2011-06-26T14:52:00.002-05:00

EM Forster (1879-1970)

Firstly, do you think there's another span in history where more stuff changed than 1879-1970?

I've tried to get into A Passage to India several times and never had much luck, so I was a little nervous when BJ Harrison announced he was doing a 10 part series reading A Room with a View on his awesome podcast. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this short novel. The characters are lively and fun, and you can tell Forster is really smart without him beating you over the head with it.

Lucy Honeychurch is on vacation in Italy when she meets an odd father/son duo named Emerson. Dad is kind of an outside the system proto-hippy and his son George is kind of a down in the mouth philosophical dreamer. Lucy is probably 20, struggling to find her place in her stuffy Edwardian era social circles. Forster introduces us to a full cast of characters in Italy from the most embarrassing tourist to the most seasoned traveler who's still embarrassing because they think they're Italian.

The Emerson's are notable because they refuse to abide by social norms, they tell things like they are and don't sugarcoat anything. They become a curiosity but not someone that polite people want to be seen with. This awkwardness comes early when the Emerson's hear Lucy and her companion opine about having a better view from their hotel room. When the Emerson's offer to simply switch rooms with the ladies all sorts of social ramifications are set into motion. On a trip to the country the couple kiss and are caught in the act by Lucy's cousin. This act of impropriety ends part one.

Part two is back in England where Lucy is engaged to Cecil, who, to be frank, is kind of a dick. He talks down to women, is really boring, and won't play tennis. Another string of occurrences lead the Emerson's to town where George renews his courting. Lucy loves him, but he's not an acceptable match. She breaks it off with Cecil and decides to bolt for Greece before she meets one more time with Mr. Emerson who convinces her to get with George. They're married and hanging out in Italy, her family is mad but they'll get over it.

Two big themes in Room, adhering to society's expectations versus being free and the role of fate. The dichotomy between the Honeychurch's and the Emerson's is clear, societal rules or be free. Luckily Forster made the whole situation more nuanced than that. Because the Emerson's are so rigid in their screw the system attitudes they are almost as trapped as the Honeychurch's. Emerson and Lucy think about how fate plays into their lives. So many coincidences and long shots have to come through for them to be together. Lucy tries to avoid George even though she loves him, but he just keeps appearing.

Rating 6.5/10: It's a cool inspection of British customs in the early 1900s and the characters are interesting, but not much in the way of plot.

Little Dorrit

2011-06-04T14:28:00.002-05:00

Charles Dickens

I'm back baby! Little Dorrit almost derailed me with its terribility, but I survived. This is Dickens, A Christmas Car, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities etc. etc., so we should be pretty safe picking up one of his books. Even Dickens worst, Bleak House, was endearing after a slow start. Well, Little Dorrit is a big letdown. Memorable characters are limited to Flora, the motormouthed ex-girlfriend of the bland and boring Clennam.

We start in prison in France, a moderately interesting scene with a man named Rigaud who allegedly killed his wife and has switched identities several times. Sounds pretty rad, right? So there's your villain. We ditch Rigaud for awhile before he returns with a nefarious plot, perhaps the worst thing a person can do, blackmail an old woman with a moderately embarrassing secret from 45 years ago. Oh the excitement.

Most critics would say the real villain in Little Dorrit is the debtors' prison and the lack of a social safety net. We find the title character and her father in Marshalsea Prison, they've been screwed over by Clennam's mom who's a real piece of work. The prison is a community unto itself with interesting social interactions and a hierarchy of leadership.

By the end of the book everyone is back to being poor and living in the prison. except for Mrs. Clennam because of bad investments. Normally I don't like to spoil the endings of the classics, but let's be honest, none of you are going to read Little Dorrit. I also want to review the end because it is outrageously stupid.

Rigaud blackmails old lady Clennam, she pretty much tells him to eff off, and, after sitting in a wheelchair in her house for 20 years she gets up, leaves the house and heads to Marshalsea to tell Little Dorrit she's sorry. This accomplished she heads home only to pass out in front of her house which promptly collapses, killing Rigaud. I'm not making that up, Charles Dickens actually wrote that climax. I have a feeling he was about 10 pints deep into the wassail.

The relationship between Little Dorrit and Clennam is also strange. Clannam is a 40ish business man who's sort of estranged from his mother. Little Dorrit takes care of her dad in the prison, she's 16. Clennam becomes her protector and they fall into tepid love with each other.

Rating 3/10: Boring, contrived, no characters worth caring about. This makes two Dickens books on the classics list that don't belong. Dorrit & Drood.

The Warden

2011-01-11T15:56:00.002-06:00

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)

The Warden is the first of six novels about the town of Barsetshire. Naturally, I read the second novel, Barcester Towers, first. No one should ever accuse me of being smart. BT was a few years ago but I remember liking it quite a bit, some biting satire and standout characters. Trollope is like a more personable Dickens with less eventful, if more realistic plots. He seems gregarious and friendly as a narrator than his more famous countryman.

The Warden details the controversy surrounding the right of the church to bestow 800 pounds to the warden of an old folks' home when the will it draws that right from explicitly states that money is to go to the old folks at Hiram's Hospital. The church is basically ripping the poor, infirm workers off and has been for years. Who's stuck in the middle but Septimus Harding (cool name) a kindly, meek, and benevolent man of the cloth. The problems start when an equally well meaning laymen, John Bold, decides to take up the cause of the poor guys. Things are complicated by three facts: 1) Bold is in love with Harding's daughter Eleanor and she loves him 2) The archbishop is a big blustery fellow by the name of Grantly who is vehemently against Bold and also married to Harding's other daughter 3) Septimus Harding has a conscience that won't let him overlook ripping off old guys.

The novel follows Harding's struggle with the lawsuit, his ideas about fairness to the inhabitants of Hiram's hospital and his loyalty to the church. He is devastated when a few editorials appear in the all powerful Jupiter newspaper blasting the warden for his greed. The editorials are really the last straw, they deeply affect Harding and he decides to head to London to confer with the church's lawyer, an action of betrayal to the archbishop. After the lawyer can't even begin to explain why the warden gets the 800 pounds a year Harding makes up his mind to retire from the position. And that's pretty much the whole book. Eleanor and Bold get married, the end. What we've got here is really the introduction to Barchester Towers, a much more nuanced and complicated tale. The nice thing about The Warden is that we get a look inside the mind of a very good man. Once the issue of fairness is brought up to Harding, Trollope shows the wheels moving in the old man's mind. The thought process that leads him to resign from the wardenship and take a ton less money is the center of the tale.

Rating 5/10: I liked The Warden, but it should have just been tacked onto Barchester Towers.

The Dreams in the Witch House

2011-01-02T13:41:00.002-06:00

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

One of the shortest of the classics, you can find Witch House here. We meet poor Walter Gilman after he's already made a fatal mistake. A math major in college, he becomes obsessed with the tales of a witch who was executed 300 years ago in his town. This witch, Keziah Mason, bragged to the court that she had discovered a fourth dimension. Gilman decided, or was drawn, to move into Keziah's former garret room which was still extant.

The small room is plagued by rats and has two small enclosures that have long been inaccessible. Lovecraft guides us between Gilman's distressing days and his mindblowingly abstract and horrible dreams. Within the dreams Gilman alternates between seeing horrible apparitions of an old crone, a small human-like rat named Brown Jenkins, and a giant Black Man and some really trippy scenes where he is transcending time and space surrounded by space and odd shaped entities.

I don't want to give away the story save to say Gilman is pulled farther and farther into the insanity of the dreams until they cross over into his awake life. I do want to comment on the dreams. Lovecraft's dreamworld reads more like an analyzation of an LSD trip from the 60s. The division between the real and the dream world becomes smaller and smaller until they finally merge. Some creepy, mindbending stuff.

Rating 7/10: A lot packed into a short story. Need to get through more Lovecraft stories in this series before giving it a final rating.

David Copperfield

2010-12-27T14:38:00.002-06:00

Charles Dickens

There is an awful lot of Charles Dickens on the Penguin list of classics, some of it not so great (Edwin Drood) some of it totally awesome (most everything else). Copperfield falls into the awesome category. It's a sweeping, semi-autobiographical novel full of memorable scenes and more memorable characters. The bad guys are really bad and the good guys are really good and there are even some people who occupy a nuanced, grey area.

This is Copperfield's book. He is writing it at a time after he has become an accomplished author looking back on how he got there. He has a unique voice, enthusiastic and emotional, that makes the book chug along even when it hits some slow spots.

The characters are what make Copperfield, otherwise it's a slightly overdramatic plot with criticisms of several of Britain's institutions. Uriah Heep, Mr. Micawber, Steerforth, Mr. Dick, Miss Dartle, Peggotty, Aunt Betsey, Dora and on and on. Heep is particularly noteworthy for his capability to be hated for his humbleness.

As for the plot we see David's whole life. He loses his secure place in society when his mother remarries and scrambles for everything he gets from there. There are many who help and hinder him on his path to adulthood. There are even a lot of twists and turns that I didn't see coming, The Tempest chapter is dramatic and touching, there might have been some tears shed in one of the death scenes as well.

Rating 9/10: High level Dickens. Touching, entertaining, funny, and memorable; this one deserves to be in the list.

Bleak House

2010-10-24T16:34:00.002-05:00

Charles Dickens

A long, interminable, mindnumbingly infuriating, suicide-inducing court case screws up a family and leaves everyone's lives in ruin. That's pretty much Bleak House. The only good thing that happens for the first 4/5s of the book is the reunion of a minor character and his mother. Everything else is, well, bleak. Esther is the main character. She's the right hand lady of Ada. Ada and Richard are involved in the lawsuit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. They are introduced to each other and the suit by the benevolent John Jarndyce. John tries to shield them from the fools gold of a court victory. Guess how well that plan works.

Bad stuff starts happening after Richard and Ada fall in love. Richard is a slacker, Esther gets sick, some philanthropists are jerks, Richard obsesses about Jarndyce, a kid dies, Esther is disfigured because of her illness, not great times. There are some notable minor characters in the novel. The Mrs. Jellyby, who care more about saving Africa than her own family, Miss Flight who's attended Jarndyce sessions forever.

This thing really takes a long time to get its legs. Once it does, though, there's a lot of good stuff. Esther and her mom, Richard's descent into obsession, John and Esther's relationship, all interesting and the theme of the injustice of the justice system is everywhere.

Rating: 6/10 Too long, conflict and drama not all that dramatic.

Herzog

2010-08-08T23:11:00.002-05:00

Saul Bellow (1915-1905)

Reading this book made me feel like I was back in grad school. There were times when I'd sit in a small classroom with seven or eight other students and a professor and feel profoundly dumb. I'm not talking about how I felt in math class where I didn't care whether I knew what was going on, I was legitimately interested in the subject matter and tried to understand it and still had no clue what other people were talking about. Saul Bellow's command of language and a turn of phrase is something at which to marvel. His knowledge base is vast. He delves into psychology, history, sociology, literature, all in telling the tale of Moses E. Herzog. The narrator is omniscient, but has the voice of someone who could have been friends with Moses or perhaps even Moses looking at his own life. Much of the story is told through Moses's letters that he writes to just about everyone but never sends.

We meet Moses after his second wife, Maddy, has left him for former friend Valentine Gersbach. Moses is an academic with lots of knowledge, a relatively impressive career but he's fallen on hard times. His letters touch on his personal relationships, the direction of the country and society as a whole and most notably his nostalgia for the his upbringing in Montreal and Chicago. It's a tribute to Bellow that there really isn't any action in the entire novel. Moses, in his darkest hour, a time where he finds clarity in his life, nearly rocks the boat, but he backs off. Most of what the reader gets is up in Moses's head. There are a ton of real show stopping lines, the kind of phrase that makes you think, "I could have never thought of that in 100 years."

RATING: 7.5/10 Not much action but lots of good writing.

The Way We Live Now

2010-05-07T22:51:00.002-05:00

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)

Financial crisis, celebrity maneuverings, wild parties, suspicious deaths: is it 2009? nope it's "The Way We Live Now," a book way ahead of its time. Does that make it great? no, not really. There are a bunch of characters, Melmotte, his wife and daughter, Lady Carbury, Felix Carbury, Hetta Carbury and on and on. None of these characters are very likable. Those who are wise seem to be conniving cheats, and those who are innocent seem to be naive and dumb. Melmotte plays the market and inflates stocks by his guile. The stodgy English gents don't perceive Melmotte's financial genius and anticipate huge gains no matter what the real situation is.

There are many interpersonal relationships, Hurtle/Montague etc. but this book is about society and the perception of wealth. When finances get screwed up everything goes wrong. A good book for out times, but not particularly entertaining.

Book Ratings: 5/10

Update

2010-02-15T22:04:00.002-06:00

Just went through the list and I've read 161 of the more than 1400 Penguin Classics. I also have only reviewed about 40 of them. That's pretty lame of me. Granted I read many of the classics before I started this blog. Over the next week I'm going to pound out some reviews of stuff that I read a long time ago. They're going to be more my impressions of the works more than detailed summaries, but maybe that will be better.

The Brothers Karamazov

2010-01-15T13:29:00.003-06:00

Fyodor Dostoyevski (1821-1881)

A grating religious fanatic, an ultrasnobby intellectual, and a prick army officer: these are the Brothers Karamazov. This is said to be one of the greatest examinations of psychology in literature, well I'll do some psychology right here, if you like this book you need some serious meds.

Books about exciting subjects, like the murder of a hated father and the rivalry between sons culminating in a dramatic trial, should not be boring (See Dick, Moby). The book opens with Alyosha (the religious guy) and his mentor Zosima. We get their philosophy for about 300 pages. It's very boring. Nothing happens. Dosty tells us about God, man's morality etc. when he could have easily shown us these things with the characters' actions.

Dmitri is the jerk soldier who fights people and is trying to get with a whore named Grushenka. He's an ahole like his father who is also trying to get with Grushenka.

Honestly I don't really want to review this book it was so bad. Philosophy is great in a philosophy book. When you try and jam it down my throat and ruin a decent story it doesn't work. Brothers Karamazov has seized last place in the Classics I've read so far. Congrats Wizard of Oz, you are off the hook!

Rating 1/10. Barely got through this one. The bad news is that this book was horrible. The worse news is that there are 6 more Dostoyevsky titles on the list.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

2009-08-12T18:08:00.002-05:00

L Frank Baum (1856-1919)

Let me start this post by saying that I love kids' books. Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, all great reads. You want to know what's not a great read? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The characters are shallow, the action is frequent but glossed over, the lessons are nowhere to be found. This is the rare occasion when the film is better than the book, and not just because of the effects or the music. The story itself is superior in every way. There is little setup in the book before the tornado lifts Dorothy and Toto out of drab Kansas (this part of the story is accurate, Kansas is incredibly boring) and deposits them in Oz. Uncle Henry is kind of a dick and Aunt Em is a broken woman. There are no smiling farm helpers who become the trio of fellow travelers in Oz.
Next Munchkin Land is crappy compared to the '39 film version. The wicked witch of the west doesn't present herself until 100 pages in. Baum's hope that readers will suspend their belief on the lifelike characteristics given to the scarecrow (he could see once his eyes were painted on) didn't work with me. The tinman and his enchanted ax which kept chopping off his legs just made me think that he was really dumb in human form. The lion was actually the only thing cooler in the book version. He roars and is actually a lion.
Let me take that back, the flying monkeys are also pretty rad. They had to obey the golden cap because of some really lame story dealing with a princess and dropping a guy in a river. But they fly around and pretty much kick whoever's ass needs kicking. But when you have a lame story that feel patched together and then you supplement that with lame side stories, something is wrong.
Once the wizard is defrocked it turns out he's just some clown from Omaha and he has no real powers, he'd fit right in living in 2009 Omaha. After many travails and more miles of walking it turns out Dorothy could have just tapped her silver slippers any time to be sent home. Pretty weak that the first good witch decided to keep that fact to herself. Dorothy is sent back to her Kansas home, a house rebuilt, and a happy Auntie Em. Oz was not the result of a concussion, it was a real place.
As for the theory that the book is a metaphor for the silver coining crisis of the late 1800s, if it is so it's very shabbily done. Maybe every character has a parallel in the political fray, but what lesson do we learn?

Rating 1/10: This book should be immediately stricken from the classics.

The House of Mirth

2009-08-01T10:15:00.002-05:00

Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

It seems like a bad idea to write a book about thoroughly unlikable people and make it boring until the last fifty pages. Well, it isn't the best strategy but the end of The House of Mirth is so redemptive that Edith Wharton manages to salvage a classic out of a social book of manners. Lily Bart is the socialite who is always the belle of the ball. She isn't rich, but she is cultured, mannered, desirable, and beautiful. She is nearing thirty, but retains her youthful charm and is still useful to the movers and shakers of turn of the century New York. Herein lies Lily's dilemma. She wants, needs, to keep her place in the circle of the rich. She wants to exceed the wealth of those around her. She has a few chances to make this leap, but she sabotages them for two reasons. First, she is in love with Larry Seldon, a relatively poor lawyer of middling means who lampoons high society and the desire for riches. Lily can't bring herself to commit to a life of upper middle class drudgery so she turns him down. This relationship ruins her chances with the uber rich Percy Gryce. Second, Lily always thinks there will be another man around the corner because of her manifold charms. She gets over Percy, she screws up a chance with a European prince. Well, these chances run out.

The problems start when she gets in debt to the douchey Gus Treanor. She thinks he's investing some cash for her, he thinks he's cutting checks to her for some extramarital hanky panky. This scandalous relationship with no scandal starts Lily into a string of messy relationships that, through machinations of a richer, more devious woman, gets her booted from her beloved society. Finally, things get interesting. It is during Lily's torturous fall from grace that we get to see more than the "It Girl" persona that we got before. Her decisions are more complicated, and they tell us more about what she truly values. She becomes a drug addict, fails to support herself at a hat shop, moves to increasingly seedy lodgings, and finally comes to a moment of decision.

Lily has love letters from the devious married woman who screwed her over, Berth Dorsett. Lily could use them for blackmail, which she has justified to herself, problem is the letters are to her love, Larry Seldon. At her most desperate moment she returns to Seldon, intent on extorting the cash needed to pay off her debt to Treanor and reestablish her in more favorable circles. After a heart to heart she chucks the letters into the fire and leaves, believing a reboot of her relationship with Seldon is impossible and perhaps undesirable. On her way home through Manhattan she bumps into Nettie, a girl she helped get healthy years ago by paying for her trip out west. Nettie idolizes Lily and lets her rest in her apartment and hold her baby. This act seems to ground Lily and make her happy for the first time in months.

When she returns to her crappy boarding house she gets a long awaited inheritance check for $10K. She debates whether to keep the money and remain under the cloud debt or to pay everything off and live in poverty, her nightmare. She cuts checks to her debtors and goes to bed. Although exhausted her mind races and she can't make it stop. She takes a big shot of her sleeping drug and drifts away, her last thought about a word that would make everything right between her and Seldon.

The next morning Seldon heads over to Lily's, ready to reconcile after the change he saw in her the night before. When he arrives he finds a crowd and Lily dead. As Seldon and his cousin Gerty sit in the room with Lily's body they examine the remnants of her life. He finds that she chose to pay off her debts and realizes that she was much more than a money hunter. As he embraces her he thinks of the word that would make everything alright between them.

Rating 6.5/10: I was really bored at many points in the novel. I didn't like the characters or Wharton's writing. When Lily was finally forced to confront her future things really turned around.

PS Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart? Casting director must have been high.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

2009-06-25T22:40:00.003-05:00

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

Anybody who uses "Uncle Tom" as a disparaging remark should be immediately required to read this novel. I know he doesn't revolt and lead a Nat Turner-esque ass-kicking rampage against even the cruelest slaveholder. But look at his life, his devotion to his family and faith and what they caused. George becomes an abolitionist, Legree pretty much kills himself, and an entire nation of readers were forced to think about how awful slavery was. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the second best selling book on the 19th Century. It spawned an outrageously popular stage play and was hotly debated all over the United States.

What Stowe gives us is a heart-wrenchingly, quick moving, dual narrative which follows George and his wife Eliza and Tom. George and Eliza flee north when it becomes apparent that their owners are going to sell their son. Tom decides to stay.

Many of the stereotypes of African Americans grew out of the novel and plays. But what we see is enslaved people who are people. They are good, they are bad, they are immature, they are heros, they are faithful, they are atheists, they are smart, they are dumb. They are very human. Stowe also gives them agency. The enslaved and the owners are in a constant struggle for power. Tom's power resides in his extraordinary Christianity and it's affect on lazy, basically good owners, and evil owners. And that's Stowe's message: Christianity and love will end slavery. She might have been partially right. Her book galvanized the North in such a way that they had the courage to stand up to the Fugitive Slave Law and Southern bullying.

Besides George, Eva is the other youth in whom Stowe invests higher powers of observation and a sense of justice. Her death is heart wrenching. Stowe endows George and Eva with the power to change things. I think she gave up on the current generation of slaveholders and abolitionists, the future depended on which way the youngest would break.

Rating 10/10: Great great read. Exciting, engaging, and a look into daily life during slavery. What every historian of the era tries to elucidate comes through in touching humanity here.

Moby Dick

2009-06-25T21:56:00.002-05:00

Herman Melville (1819-1891)

Alright, I read this a while ago so the plot details are not as fresh in my mind as I like. I do know one thing, there's a lot about whales. A whole lot. Whatever you want to call them: whales, leviathans, the great fish or any other of the numerous names Melville gives the big sea creatures, you'll learn about them in Moby Dick. And this is the problem. The story is awesome. Ishmael is a great narrator. He's funny, he can spin a great action scene, he's a great relator of character and scene, he gets himself into dramatic situations, and he's got pretty much every different conflict you could want. His buddy Queequeg is maybe the coolest guy we've encountered in the classics so far. So Moby Dick is a masterpiece, right? A work of "can't put it down" literature to rival anything else I've ever read? Nope.

Quite simply about 45% of Moby Dick is really really boring. Our boy Ishmael decides he needs to prove he knows about whales and boy does he ever. We learn about every kind of whale, where they live, how to hunt them, their anatomy, and on and on and on. It just gets to be way too much. The character studies of Captain Ahab, Queequag, and the rest of the crew are brilliant and engrossing, but when they're separated by fifty pages about whale blubber you tend to get bogged down. But there is a lot of good.

Through the relationship between Queequag and Ishmael we get a look at mid-19th Century race and class relations. The book is genuinely funny at some points. Ahab is a fascinating (if over the top) character. The sea and the whale are front and center characters. Ahab's quest for the whale is all consuming and consumes the reader. I read the novel as a narrative about a guy chasing a whale at the expense of everything and everyone in his life, not as some metaphor for our desperate chase of the unattainable. Why do I not delve into these philosophical questions? Because Melville tells me not to!!

"So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory."

So maybe this is why we get so much info on whales, because otherwise people wouldn't believe a word of it. I also appreciate Melville saying this is NOT an allegory, it's about a guy chasing down an asshole whale. If you're a good enough writer (Melville is) then you don't have to shoehorn metaphors and symbolism into a novel, they just happen because we can relate to the experience of the characters.

Rating 6.5/10: Too much whale talk = too boring for me. Let me edit this thing down to a tight 400 pages and we can talk. I like Melville's short stories better.

This Side of Paradise

2009-04-29T21:57:00.003-05:00

F. Scott Fitzgerald. (1896-1940)

Francis wrote Paradise in 1919 during a summer spent drinking in Minnesota, he was 22. That makes me want to go suck on an exhaust pipe. Seriously, this guy breaks up with Zelda, heads to St. Paul, gets Christmas Hammed on Martinis every night and he churns out a masterpiece which sets him on a path for literary greatness. Maybe the oppressive Nebraska humidity melted made me sweat all my potential away. Whatever the case, Paradise is pretty damn interesting.

Amory Blaine is our main character and by all accounts he's a doppleganger of Francis himself. Amory is spoiled from birth by a mother who wants him to be a societal charmer rather than a normal kid. He heads to Princeton and finds his way to fit in with all the preppy kids who generally go to Princeton. They carouse and live a privileged life on their campus and during their jaunts to Manhattan and other regional locales. One such drunken excursion ends in the death of a revered classmate on dark country roads. This incident haunts Amory for years. Our protagonist meets Isabelle and falls in love, but is rejected as the US enters WWI.

The war is treated as interlude, that is very lightly. The aftermath of the carnage is plain to see in the characters. Fitz may have cobbled together Paradise from previous shorter works. But the change in tone in the second half works beautifully. Instead of the smooth prose of the first book we get a dramatic form, just character lines to start book two. It is here we meet Amory's second love, Rosalind. Ros is pretty much a clone of Amory with one difference, she is rich and his fortune is pretty much shot. They fall for each other but she won't marry him (Can you plagiarize your own life? This is FSF and Zelda (Also who knew that's how you spell "plagiarize"?)). She ends up dumping him and marrying some rich guy. In the meantime Amory is looking for something to bring meaning to his life. There is discussion of religion, friendship, and loyalty. This is most prominent during a mess he got into with one of his buddies and a drunken floozie at a hotel. Instead of letting his friend take the fall for crossing state lines for immoral purposes with a girl, Amory takes the blame and is written up in the papers.

As the novel ends we have a steadily increasing flow of Amory's poems and a feeling of his despondence. The war and the materialistic yearnings of Rosalind have disillusioned the poor kid. Amory leaves us with this sad line, "I know myself, but that is all-".

Rating 8/10: I'm a sucker for anything in the 1910s. Here we see the makings of the preppie northeastern culture that has taken over today. If they made a film as a modern take on Paradise Vampire Weekend has to be the soundtrack. This is only the second FSF book I've read. I've also read four short stories (B. Button, The Ice Palace, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, and The Offshore Pirate). Gatsby is my least favorite of all these. I found that novel relatively bland and joyless compared to Paradise and the stories which pop with life.

Rabbit, Run

2009-04-06T21:51:00.002-05:00

John Updike (1932-2009)

Mr. Updike left us earlier this year and his death spurred me to jump into some of his work. Rabbit, Run is the first of the five part Rabbit series. What I found was perfect 1960 realism. The prose is descriptive without being flashy. The characters are painfully real. There are no good guys and bad guys, just people making mistakes and existing with their flaws in flawed world. Updike's use of the present tense is startling to the ear in a way that makes it difficult for the reader to understand how they are being startled.

Rabbit Angstrom is a former HS basketball star. He is drearily trudging home when he runs across a playground game and joins in, stroking a few jumpers before going back to his pregnant wife, Janice, and their son Nelson. The game is a bit awkward, a place where he can't return. He's only 26, but the glory he experienced in high school is long gone. His wife is pregnant and an alcoholic. His job, selling kitchen gadgets, isn't much fun. So one day he ditches his wife and drives away. He vaguely wants to head to the southern coast, but he barely gets out of Pennsylvania before turning around. He's the antithesis of the 1950s roadtrip character who roams the countryside, his roots are too strong.

He goes to the only man who's lead him to his peak, his high school coach. Tothero, with vague hopes that the old man will guide him. Well, he guides him right into a date at a Chinese restaurant with a couple of prostitutes. He shacks up with Ruth, a wise, but lovelorn woman who makes love with Rabbit, but only slowly falls in love with him. They carry on a three month affair that again leads Rabbit nowhere because of his marriage and his jealousy about Ruth's former employment.

Rabbit returns to his wife for the birth of their baby, and for a fleeting night feels the connection he felt with her during their sweetheart days. This feeling of being good again lasts until Janice returns home from the hospital. Rabbit's selfish desire for sex, perhaps an instinct to abuse Janice for her shortcomings (or his shortcomings) leads to Janice understandably rejecting him and his abandoning the family yet again. During Rabbit's absence Janice gets drunk and accidently drowns their baby girl. This leads to the final segment of the book.

Rabbit makes a scene at the funeral, insisting that the baby's death was not his fault. Once again he runs away, right to Ruth. Ruth initially rejects Rabbit, but eventually admits him and reveals that she's pregnant. As the book ends he heads out to grab some food.

Rabbit could never find the comfort he found on the basketball court. He is constantly running but never really gets anywhere, in fact he manages to tie himself to Brewer, PA more completely. Religion is an important part of Rabbit, Run and this realm provides the two most interesting characters in the novel. The Eccleses are a reverend and his wife. Rev. Eccles is charged with getting Rabbit and Janice back together and seems to fall in love with Rabbit. It might not be romantic love (it might be) but Eccles becomes more committed to Eccles than his real family. His wife, Lucy, is my favorite character. She's disgusted by the time Eccles spends on other people's problems when it's quite obvious that the Eccles family has big problems itself. There is a strange energy that exists between Lucy and Rabbit. He feels a sense of control over her, and I don't know if she likes it, or even knows about his feelings, but she seems receptive to his advances. At one point she says he's full of life (contrast that to Ruth saying he spreads death). Lucy is also nonreligious, very interesting for a minister's wife.

Rating 7.5/10: I couldn't quite go 8. I might be too used to reading books that don't make you work so hard. Rabbit, Run requires a lot from the reader. The prose is jarring, the characters aren't really that likable and everything is tragically real. I bet if I read it again in ten years I'd like it even more.

Silas Marner

2009-03-15T13:20:00.002-05:00

George Eliot (1819-1880)

I can't decide whether Silas Marner was too short or just right. It is a beautifully written study of a time, place and character. Ultimately I wanted to know more about Silas, the hard-working, loner, who weaves for a living. Duncie, the cocksure son of Ravaloe's leading citizen who seems to ruin everything for everyone, flashes in and out of the novel in the blink of an eye. Eppie, the daughter of Duncie's more stable brother only enters the last third of the book. George Eliot could have fleshed more out, but there is a certain realism to characters flitting in and out of life, providing the causes and effects of life without the context.

We find Silas working as a weaver and living as an upstanding member of a church in the north country. He leads a humble life but is singled out for his strange looks and fear-inducing fits. A conspiracy is successfully carried out against him by his best friend when Silas is framed for stealing church money. He is persuaded to leave the village, and then learns his buddy ended up marrying his former fiance.

All these crappy happenings lead Silas to Ravaloe. He weaves for a living, more solitary then ever. He earns an almost mystical reputation as a healer, garnering admiration and fear among the townspeople. His only comfort is the gold he's accumulated over the years. He counts it religiously, in fact it is his religion since he has abandoned the church. He continues on this lonely path until his life intersects with those of the leading men in town.

Godfrey and Duncie are brothers who are in trouble. Duncie is a jerk who screws with everybody and fritters away money. Godfrey is a coward who won't stand up to his brother because he was goaded into a loveless marriage and only Duncie knows about it. When Godfrey demands repayment of a loan from Duncie things go awry. Duncie goes to sell Godfrey's horse, but impales it on a stake instead. To get the money Duncie decides to ask Silas for a loan, but when he finds the weaver out of home, Duncie goes ahead and steals the money. He decides to walk home and jauntily begins his journey through the night.

Problem is Duncie never went home. Godfrey figures that he skipped town and life goes on except for with Silas, who's devastated by the loss of his gold. One night, during a big party, Silas is depressed in his house. In walks a toddler from the snowy night. A woman is dead outside and Silas finds himself with a blond-haired little girl staring at him for help. An alarm is raised and we find that the dead woman is Godfrey's wife. Godfrey decides to keep his mouth shut and let Silas raise the child, He doesn't want anyone to know about the marriage so he can get married to a new belle.

We get some comical scenes where we see Silas trying to raise the precocious Eppie and then we flash forward sixteen years. Eppie is beautiful, Silas is happy, and the small pond by their house is being drained. Lo and behold old Duncie is down at the bottom in skeleton form clutching bags of gold. The revelation leads Godfrey to reveal that he had a secret marriage and that Eppie is his daughter. He and his wife decide to try and get Eppie to come live with them and become a lady. This penultimate meeting is the climax of the novel.

Everything that Eliot has developed in the characters is on display. Silas loves Eppie with all his heart and she is unspoiled by gentry life. Godfrey regrets his past actions and assumes he can get Eppie back with promises of wealth and care for Silas. Godfrey's wife Nancy finally sees a socially acceptable way to have a child. The showdown shocks Eppie and Silas. Godfrey's words about a better life infuriate Silas. His anger builds and he finally berates Godfrey for shunning a blessing like Eppie from his house when she was a baby, and now trying to take her away from her true father. Eventually, however, Nancy and Godfrey make Silas realize the opportunities that lay open to Eppie if she moved in with them. Silas leaves that decision to Eppie. In a touching scene she commits herself to her fiance Aaron and her father Silas.

The novel ends here. We don't see the repercussions of Eppie's decision.

Rating 7.5/10: The landscape is beautifully rendered and the character of Silas is complex and contradictory. There are major temporal and location shifts with little narrative description. The plot points are jarring, but the story is exciting.

The House of the Dead

2009-02-22T12:21:00.002-06:00

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

The House of the Dead was published in 1862. The story begins in a provincial town where a mysterious tutor dies. In his papers are found a collection of memoirs detailing his time spent in a Siberian prison. The simple device makes what follows believable and authentic. The main character is Alexandr Petrovich. He offed his wife and gets sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. As a gentleman he is kept at distance from his peasant comrades. The book is thematic rather than linear making it more of an examination of the prison system than a typical novel.

The prison is plagued by thievery, but there is sort of an understanding about it. No one really gets mad about having their things stolen. The work is monotonous and hard, but there is a freedom for those capable of a trade. The nearby settlement works symbiotically with the prison.

I found this tale of prison life pretty dry, but a few scenes stand out. The prisoners put on a play that absorbs the attention of the entire camp. The small room bursted with prisoners who overflowed into the entry way and withstood subzero temperatures. They were enchanted by the passionate amateur production. It provided a needed diversion for the prisoners. It was also interesting that there were only bits and pieces of a script, most of the production was based on oral accounts from other prisons and towns.

The other memorable scene was the yearly trip to the bathhouse. Alexandr Petrovich aptly compared the event to hell. The writhing mass of prisoners trying to clean themselves in a steamy, disgusting room was disturbing.

The House of the Dead is interesting because of its authenticity. Dostoyevsky spent some time himself in a labor camp so the strange characters we meet and the tortured feelings that AP endures feel real.

Rating 6/10: The details are interesting but the story moves slowly.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

2009-01-04T10:27:00.002-06:00

Charles Dickens (1812 -1870)

Penguin Classics has some explaining to do. Charles Dickens is one of our greatest writers and he deservedly has many novels on Penguin's list, but Edwin Drood does not deserve to be among them. Not only does the book, which should be an exciting mystery, get bogged down in boring characters, but it's only half finished. Meant to appear in a twelve part serial, Dickens only finished six before he died. I understand that an unfinished classic provides a fun mental mystery for hardcore Dickens fans, but it doesn't warrant a stop in the Greatest Ever list.

The novel starts interestingly enough, in a London opium den complete with the dark, creepy atmosphere that one would expect. It's here that we meet John Jasper, a resident of Cloiserham who teaches music and sings in the choir. He's got a nephew named Edwin Drood who is has an arranged engagement to Rosa Bud. Jasper loves Rosa and Edwin doesn't really love Rosa, herein lies the problem. Two characters come to town, twins, Neville and Helena Landless. Neville falls for Rosa and has a fight with the flip Edwin when Drood seems not to care that he's engaged. Rosa and Edwin then decide to break off their engagement but they don't tell everyone about it. All of the sudden Edwin goes missing. Suspicion falls upon Neville and that's pretty much the end of the action.

The remaining mysteries are: what happened to Edwin Drood? I got the feeling that he wasn't murdered and that he simply took off somewhere because he seemed like the kind of guy who would do that. Most everyone else seems to think he was bumped off, however, most likely by Jasper, his own uncle. Other suspects are Neville, Rosa, and Helena. The other mystery involves Dick Datchery, a minor character introduced at the end of the final installment. Dick is spying on Jasper and seems to be disguised. Could this be Helena, Princess Puffer, Grewgious, Bazzard, or even Edwin? Like a stupid multiple choice test, there simply isn't enough information given to determine the outcome.

It's fun to speculate though, so I will say that Dick is Helena trying to clear her brother. Rosa and Neville hook up and when Jasper challenges Neville to a duel Edwin reappears in the nick of time to vanquish his uncle and marry Helena. The End.

Rating 3/10: It's only half finished, how can this be a classic? I know the Gil Stuart painting of George Washington is half done and everyone loves it, but seriously including Edwin Drood among the greatest things ever written is like giving the guy leading the marathon at the 13 mile mark the gold medal.

Far From the Madding Crowd

2008-11-23T22:36:00.004-06:00

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

I really always thought this book was called Far From the Maddening Crowd until I started reading it. Kind of weird how your ears can hear what they think should be right instead of the correct title, or maybe everyone just adds another syllable. "Madding" and "maddening" mean about the same thing anyway.

What we have is a love story between an unbelievably devoted and sincere man and a really strong woman who is swept off her feet by what twenty-first century intellectuals call a "douche." Gabriel Oak is a humble farmer who falls for a woman of humble origins, Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel proposes to Bathsheba, but she turns him down because she doesn't love him. To make matters worse Oak's overzealous dog chases his entire flock of sheep through a hedge and they all fall off a cliff, the sheep aren't insured so Gabe is out of luck. He starts wandering around looking for work when he comes upon a fire. He puts it out, saves the farm, and lo and behold it's Bathsheba's, she's come into some inheritance. Oaks proves to be a great worker and is totally devoted to Bathsheba, but she finds it hard to be around him all the time and they squabble. She ends up falling for Sergeant Troy, a player of the first degree who is momentarily captured by Bathsheba's beauty. They get married much to the consternation of Bath's other suitor, William Boldwood. Needless to say the marriage doesn't go very well and it all ends in MURDER. Well the marriage ends in murder, the love proposed at the beginning is eventually fulfilled.

Bathsheba is the most interesting character in Madding. She is fiercely independent and is only brought into subservience by the wily charms of Francis Troy. She soon realized her mistake, however, and tries to regain control of her life. Hardy flips the typical, "steady" man "passionate" woman binary on its head with Bathsheba and Boldwood. The aged farmer acts like a teenager in love throughout the book. He is manically moody and lovelorn, and finally vengeful. Bathsheba is logical and strong. Even when she makes a bad choice she doesn't waver and faces the consequences.

Rating 7/10: An entertaining read with some unique characters. Oak isn't the flashiest protagonist, but Hardy makes up for it with some nice plot twists and the flamboyant Troy.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

2008-11-23T21:56:00.002-06:00

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

There once was a man from Nantucket

His adventures overflowed any bucket

He went to the sea

found calamity

And now he's in the Antarctic

This is Poe's only full length novel and it's a weird one (shocking). The story changes from wild teen romp, to a youthful, rebellious adventure, to pirates, to lost at sea, to travelogue, to anthropology, to weird religious symbolism. I found the whole book to be interesting, but the most gripping part of the narrative was during Pym's enclosure below decks on the Grumpus. I'll just chat about that part for a bit and you can read the rest for yourself.

Arthur Gordon Pym gets tired of his life of partying and having fun in Nantucket and decides to sneak about a ship with the help of his friend Augustus. AGP's family didn't want him to go on the ship, so he decides to run away. Their plan is to put AGP in stowage and hide him for a while until they're far enough at sea to not turn back. The plan is going swimmingly, AGP is hanging out in the dark with a little food and water and the boat launches. Pym starts getting a bit concerned when Augustus doesn't show up for a few days. This section is the most prototypically Poeish part of the novel. It is claustrophobic and creepy. Pym is starving, trapped in the cargo hold, can't get out and has no idea what's going on above decks. It's the unknown that really ramps up the psychological drama. Turns out that the crew has mutinied and Augustus can't get below to inform Pym. There's really some weird mind games being played when Pym's dog mysteriously shows up in the stowage.

The book is really organized in a strange way. After the creepy trapped in cargo section, there's a really cool lost at sea bit that ends in an "Alive" style feast. Then Poe throws in mountains of data on the flora and fauna of some islands in the South Atlantic. It sort of felt like a bunch of Poe stories mashed together with some other information to make it a believable travelogue.

This wasn't my favorite thing I've ever read by Poe. Too much dry pedantic info about the ocean and sailing and a really weird, vague and unsatisfying ending left me feeling that this classic had way more potential.

Rating 6.5/10: Some incredible parts, but fails to hold up as a whole.

Armadale

2008-11-13T12:27:00.002-06:00

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

I was banking on another awesome adventure from Wilkie after being blown away by The Woman in White. Sadly, Armadale didn't quite live up to the high expectations. Written in 1866, Armadale, like WIW, is mostly letters and remembrances of the characters. Unlike WIW, Armandale is sometimes rambling and boring. We start in a small town in Germany where a rich guy is dying. He puts down his will and kicks the bucket. The will reveals a story of love and murder in the Caribbean and England. The dead guy's name is Armadale, but it wasn't always that way. He lived in the Caribbean and was hand picked by the owner of the Armadale estate to take his name and take over operations because his son, the rightful inheritor, is a bum.

This is where the trouble begins. The new Armadale falls in with a stranger while running the estate in the Caribbean. They become great friends. Eventually the new Armadale gets hooked up with a lady in England who he's supposed to marry. She's loaded and he gets ready to head across the Atlantic to meet her. Well, his buddy disappears the day before he's supposed to leave. New Armadale takes off and finds that Old Armadale has moved in on his scene and married the lady. New Armadale is enraged and challenges his impostor friend to a duel. The married Armadale tries to flee in a boat which gets caught in a storm. The lady and some of the crew is rescued, and the rescue boat (manned by New Armadale) heads back to the foundered boat. Old Armadale finds New Armadale in the hull of the ship trying to save the lady's jewelry. They lock eyes and New Armadale locks the door on him, in effect murdering the traitor. The lady is pregnant from her brief marriage and Living Armadale marries a beautiful slave upon his return to the Caribbean. The resulting children are born a year apart and both named Allen Armadale.

Now comes the main part of the story. The dead father insists that "Dark Armadale" never meets the "Light Armadale." Well, what happens but they meet and become buddies. "Dark Armadale" goes by the alias Ozias Midwinter. Well, Josias finds out that he's an Armadale and that's when things start getting weird. The real star of the book is finally introduced, Lydia Gwilt. Lydia is a conniving, corrupt, and shockingly beautiful woman. She decides to go to Thorpe-Ambrose, the Armadale estate, and hook up with the rich Armadale. Well that breaks up a romance between Armadale and Miss Milroy, a 16 year old living on the estate. Eventually Miss Gwilt comes up with a plan to get the Armadale property without marrying Armadale. She seduces Midwinter, knowing his secret, and marries him. She then plans to murder Midwinter and Armadale and return to Thorpe-Ambrose as the rightful inheritor. Well, things go awry to say the least. First of all, Lydia falls in love with Midwinter. This screws the machinations of the plan up. Eventually we end up in a insane asylum and Gwilt tries to gas Armadale, but ends up realizing that Midwinter is in the room. She saves his life and gases herself. The End.

The central theme of this book is fate. The two Armadales are fated to meet. When they do Light Armadale has a dream with several prescient scenes. Throughout the book these scenes come to pass and Midwinter notices every time. He believes deeply in the prophecy that as long as he's around Armadale will die. Yet, everytime he tries to leave Midwinter tries o leave he is drawn back by some mechanism. In the end, however, fate is averted because the Armadale lives. The murderer's son is not the ruin of the victim's son.

Rating-7/10: It's a good read, but not as good as WIW. Still, once Lydia Gwilt is introduced things really get rolling in a good way.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

2008-09-07T20:51:00.003-05:00

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Up to now I've been posting on books that I recently finished. Well, I think it's time to ramp up the productivity on Reading the Classics, we do have this recession going on. I'll start with a book I know really well so memory won't be an issue. I've read Huck Finn four times since tenth grade and no matter how educated I get, this book is still too complex for me. I don't mean complex in a Ulysses I can only read three pages in an hour way, but in a socio-historical way that always amazes me.

Authorial voice is critically importing in Huck Finn. Who are we listening to? Is is Twain? He does give us his famous notice before the body of the book: "PERSONS attempting to fin a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot." Reading from a twenty-first century perspective we are probably safe from such punishment, but finding any of the three (motive, moral, plot) remains a tricky issue. The layers are thick and numerous. We have Twain, we have Huck, and we have some really weird border state history to deal with. Huck has been raised in the slave-holding state of Missouri and speaks from a white boy's perspective. He knows how he's supposed to act within the slave structure but something bothers him. His conscience is always getting in the way of doing the socially right thing. When deciding between turning in Jim and continuing on their escape he decides "All right, then, I'll go to hell," and continues on the river. This inversion of what we'd see as the moral thing to do, help someone escape a brutal, exploitative system, makes Huck all the more charming and admirable because he found the truth despite his Missouri upbringing.

I'm assuming most people have read this one, so I'm going to skip the plot summary in favor of some fun minutia. I've read several times that Twain set the book down for a time after Jim is sold to the Phelp's family. When he picked it back up he rushed the finish with unlikely and hackneyed plot devices. The reintroduction of Tom Sawyer changes the road trip, buddy feel of the book and inserts another dynamic. Tom is not capable of feeling the pangs of conscience that Huck feels. His appearance necessarily means that Jim's situation is no longer to be taken seriously, but only as a game piece in Tom's imaginary adventures. I believe that Huck is better able to feel empathy for Jim because of his pauper class origins. Tom doesn't have that capability. Ultimately Tom and Huck are kids, we need to remember that. Huck matures as he travels down the river, but he's not yet capable of engineering a return to the free states with an escaped slave. Luckily Miss Watson kicked the bucket so Jim is free anyway, but it is interesting to ponder whether Huck would have made another attempt to save his friend if he'd been sent back to bondage.

Rating 10/10: Could read it every year, if I was alive when it was published I would have said instant classic.

The Woman in White

2008-08-18T21:05:00.005-05:00

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

Count effing Fosco. He's the greatest character in any novel of all time. Suck on that Huck Finn. Fosco is the mastermind behind the great conspiracy at the center of The Woman in White, before we get to him and his scary awesomeness we need to check in on the story.

Walter Hartright is just a guy who gives drawing lessons. He gets a gig in a big country house in mid 19th century England. His students are Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe. Laura is hot and Marian is not, but Marian is strong and self-reliant. Walter and Laura fall in love, but it turns out that she's already engaged to Sir Percival Glide. The thing is, he's a huge jerk. There's also the title character to deal with. Anne Catherick is a bit bonkers, but keeps popping up in the novel after escaping an asylum. She's got a secret about Sir Percy, and she doesn't want Laura to marry him. Did I mention that Laura and Anne look exactly alike?

This is essentially a mystery novel so I won't give away the coolness of the plot, but in the interests of introducing my buddy Count Fosco I need to explain a few things. Percy needs cash and needs to get rid of Anne Catherick and her secret. Count Fosco and his uber-obedient wife, Madame Fosco, live with Sir Percy and now Lady Glide (Laura). Fosco is an Italian gentleman of the highest aristocratic bearing. He's tall and phenomenally fat. He's about sixty but carries himself with the agility of a much younger man. He's dainty, a fantastic dresser, has a proclivity for small pets, mice, canaries and a cockatoo. He's a fine musician and an expert chemist. He's also a sociopath who cares more about his pet mice than any humanitarian urge a normal person might have. He is amazingly creepy, endearing, funny, and despicable. He is too smart for everyone he encounters in the novel, but his bravado and vanity cost him dearly.

Let me also mention another great character, Uncle Fairlie. He's the patriarch of the family who is in charge of Limmerage House. He is also a colossal puss. His nerves are always on edge, to the point where any noise disturbs him. He can't make any decisions and pawns all his responsibilities onto others. His quavering, faux-invalid status is funny and vexing at the same time.

A tip of the hat as well to Wilkie Collins. What a brilliant way to structure a novel. There are multiple narrators who are put to work by Walter Hartright who wants to document the whole affair to prove the conspiracy existed. So we hear from Marian, Walter, Count Fosco, servants, doctors, and more. It is fascinating to see how Collins reveals things from different perspectives, or gives a nugget of the plot which is only revealed through another character's eyes.

Rating 10/10: This might be my favorite book I've ever read. It was written in 1859, yet kept my modern mind guessing the entire time. The characters and form are great and the narrative voice is something worthy of another look. I'll definitely be coming back to The Woman in White in the future.

Crime and Punishment

2008-07-02T21:05:00.002-05:00

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

This book should have been great. You've got a senseless murder, a potential psychodrama, family, a hooker with a heart of gold, a drunken mentor, blackmail, and a pedophile. Sadly, Crime and Punishment reminds me of a steak dinner that ends with a fruit parfait for dessert. Now the dinner is great, and it's done really well, but nobody likes fruit parfait for dessert. I don't care what you say, fruit is a good snack and it's healthful, it's not a dessert. C&P starts with a steak dinner, Rodian Romanovich contemplates a murder because he is struggling through school and has no cash. He is further disturbed by the his sister's impending marriage to a rich clown who wants to dominate her because she grew up poor. Rodian is convinced that Avdotya Romanovna, his sister, is sacrificing her life to save her mother and himself from a life of poverty. Rodian decides the best way to solve this problem is to kill an old, hated, pawnbroker and steal her money. Rodian sees Alyona Ivanovna as a parasite who destroys her clients. Like a bug who needs to be stamped out.
Rodian thinks about the crime for a short time. He impulsively heads to the pawnbroker's apartment and axes her in the head in a heart-stopping scene. While he's whacking the old lady to bits her sister, Lizaveta, walks in and meets Mr. Ax as well. Rodian abandons his feeble plan, grabs a few things and takes off.
The rest of the book is a relentless psychological battle within Rodian. He is a smart guy and the guilt he feels is inescapable. He wonders how other criminals live with themselves. Suspicion begins to fall on Rodian. The authorities suspect him, but can't pin anything on him even though he acts extra crazy whenever he feels suspicion. The real intrigue of the novel deals with Rodian's friends and family. What will he tell them? Will their love drive him totally insane with guilt? What will happen to Avdotya and her marriage? What about Rodian and his prostitute girlfriend/sounding board for his craziness Sophia? We really get down to, who will Rodian tell and what will he reveal? This all takes a very long time. Most of this time is filled with Rodian being a jerk to everyone.
I know that he's going through some major psychological drama. He's got some things on his mind. But he is a certified a-hole to everyone who tries to help him. To make Rodian less sympathetic all his plans are really crappy. His meetings with police all turn embarrassingly bad. I'm not sure if Dostoevsky intended Rodian to be a sympathetic character. He does ax two old ladies in the head. Perhaps as readers we can relate to Rodian with our (hopefully) less egregious sins. I won't spoil the end of the book for those who haven't read C&P.

Rating 7/10: I really thought this was going to be a totally bad ass read. In the afterglow of Rodian's murders I was breathlessly on the edge of my seat. Things slow down drastically from there, however. Rodian's guilt is kind of half-assed and the book drags to a anti-climactic conclusion. I can see how a philosopher would read this book as a study of rationalizing one's behavior, but Rodian just seems like a jerk to me, not truly investigating his actions.

Robinson Crusoe

2008-05-08T08:58:00.003-05:00

Daniel Dafoe (1661-1731)

There is an awful lot going on in Robinson Crusoe but I'm just going to cover a few things. First, this really is an outstanding book. It's not stuffy or terribly dated as one would expect the first English novel to be. Robinson disobeys his father and goes off to sea. After a couple of rough voyages he gets rich in the West Indies on an island. Not satisfied with his good luck he decides to go on a slaving mission. Well, the ship ends up in a big storm and he is the only survivor on an island. He makes a life for himself, finds religion, saves his man, Friday, adds a few more to his kingdom, takes over a mutineering ship and heads back to England.
Race is a major factor in the novel. Was Crusoe being punished by God when his slaving ship was wrecked upon the rocks? How about the constant dichotomy of savages/civilized, Crusoe thinks in these terms, but does Defoe? Friday is the key to all this. He starts as a "savage," a Carib cannibal who is saved by Crusoe. But he is loyal, smart, and better at everything than Defoe. This could either be a sign of the power of Crusoe's civilizing influence, or that Friday and Crusoe are not as different as he thinks.
Religion carries most of the novel when Crusoe is by himself. He has led a rotten life, leaving his family to sail with drunken louts and blasphemers. After he lands upon the island he unloads the teetering ship. He happens to take a Bible or three out before it sinks. For years he doesn't look at the Good Book. Finally, when he's deathly ill and at his lowest point he reads a few inspiring lines. In this moment he transforms, repents and becomes a devotee of Protestant Christianity. He starts giving thanks that God put him on the island to change his ways and his outlook is much improved. He believes in fate, the men on the ship died but he didn't, that can't be coincidence. There are other times when God presents and opportunity that he seizes to his advantage. Defoe also presents the comparison of Friday's religion with Crusoe's. They really are not that different, Crusoe's just has different names and roles for the deity.

Rating 10/10: Yeah, awesome quick read. Defoe's ingenuity on the island is astounding. It keeps you interested in his development as a land developer and as a human being.

Les Miserables

2008-04-21T17:46:00.002-05:00

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

It took Victor 17 years to pound this bad boy out and I can see why. Les Mis is startlingly long with tangents the size of giant baguettes. It's hard to believe that the musical follows the book as close as it does considering the book's NBA draft pick like length. I always thought the musical was about the French Revolution, well, apparently not. Although the novel spans decades, the main action takes place between 1810 and 1835.
We are first introduced to a kindly old bishop. We get much of his life story and just when the reader is wondering where this is all going Hugo gives us the main character. Jean Valjean starts as a hardened convict in the galleys. He hates everything. After 19 years of slavery he is released as an outcast. The only person who will take him in is the old bishop. Jean is shocked by the bishop's kindness, but he cannot help but be tempted by the house's fine silver. He steals it and is caught. Much to everyone's surprise, the bishop lies to the police and tells them he gifted the silver to the con. This is the moment that changes Valjean's life. The bishop makes him promise to turn things around.
Valjean obliges by starting a new life. He invents a method of making black jewelry that generates tons of cash and great jobs for his new town. He is elected mayor and respected by everyone. It would be hunky dory if this could have lasted, but, alas, it wasn't to be. Valjean's former captor and current police chief has suspicions that his boss is Valjean. Eventually another man is arrested for being Valjean and the real Jean has a crisis of identity. He can save himself and the town or save the falsely accused man. He chooses the man and admits to being Valjean. Valjean, being really good, has also been taking care of a sick single mom who he initially fired from his shop. Fantine, abandoned by her baby daddy, had been whoring to pay for her daughter, Cosette's, upkeep by the Thenardiers. The inn-keeping family was running a big scam and using Cosette as a servant while pocketing all Fantine's money. Valjean watched Fantine die as Javere arrested him. Outraged at Javere's lack of human decency he bolts the first chance he gets and heads to rescue Cosette. He buys her off the amazed Thenardiers and takes her away. Javere is enraged and the Thenardiers are mad that they didn't fleece Valjean for more cash. These are two enemies that will reappear.
Valjean and Cosette eventually get settled in a convent in Paris. They live there for several years before Valjean decides the homely Cosette should get out in the world. Despite the risk that he might be discovered he leaves the nuns. For a year or two this works great, but then Cosette starts growing up. She turns out gorgeous and attracts the attention of Marius, a student who's a bit lost in life. Much like Hugo, he came from a family divided between Royalists and Bonapartists. His grandfather has disowned him for remembering his father, a soldier in Napoleon's army. Marius falls in love with Cosette.
Skipping ahead Marius finally finds Cosette with the help of one of Thenardier's daughters, Eponyne. Eponyne is the most pathetic figure in the story, hopelessly in love with Marius, but not able to extricate herself from the thieving background of her father.
Eventually things get too hot in the neighborhood and Valjean is forced into an emergency relocation. This leaves Marius depressed and suicidal. Conveniently there is a bloody revolt that his friends are staging. He heads over to the barricade and gets ready to die. Valjean intercepts the death letter Marius means for Cosette and heads to the barricade himself, not sure what he wants to do the the interloper. Valjean encounters Javere, a captured spy, and volunteers to execute him. In an act of mercy he frees the determined policeman. Everybody dies in a wonderfully exciting scene, everyone except for Marius and Valjean. Valjean carries the unconscious Marius through Paris's extensive sewer system, and the reader is treated to a detail history of said system. Valjean exhausts his strength trudging four miles before he finds a way out. Here he is promptly arrested by Javere.
In keeping with the theme of identity Javere isn't sure what to do with himself now that he knows Valjean isn't pure evil and might not deserve to go back to the galleys. He finds that justice and the law don't always mix. So, naturally, he chucks himself into the Seine and drowns.
Everything should be right as rain, but Valjean is feeling guilty that he's an ex-felon and once Cosette and Marius are married he starts phasing himself out of their lives. He tells Marius his story, but leaves out the part about saving his life and coming up with all the cash legally. Marius gives him the cold shoulder and Valjean is distraught at not seeing Cosette. He sinks into depression and starts dying. One day Thenardier stops into to try and extort some cash from Marius by using Valjean's past as blackmail. Thenardier reveals that he saw Valjean with a "corpse" in the sewer. Marius realizes that "corpse" was him and all is clear. He throws some money at Thenardier because of an old family connection at Waterloo, grabs Cosette and they race to Vajean. They meet and see each other for only minutes before Jean Valjean dies.
Well, in a thousand page book you expect a lot of different themes and Hugo delivers. Gender, class, identity, sexuality, politics, familial relations, age, religion, city planning, the nature of good and evil, language and slang, and death are all deeply explored.

Rating 9/10: It is a brilliant book if a bit long-winded at times. It really does have everything.

UP NEXT

2008-02-04T13:38:00.000-06:00

Another big dog along the lines of War and Peace. It's Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. There'd better be either a hunchback or "Can You Hear the People Sing" or I'm going to be pissed.

Peter Pan

2008-02-04T12:15:00.000-06:00

JM Barrie (1860-1937)

Well this isn't your run of the mill children's story. There's a hell of a lot to unpack here. You've got racism, brutal violence, English imperialism, British social customs, gender issues, the psycological issues of abandonment and growing up, the imagination, adults' view of childhood, and the environment. The basic framework of the book is similar to what I remember from the old Disney film. Wendy, John and Michael Darling go to sleep in their middle-class British home. Their nanny, the dog Nana, has been banished outside by the Mr. Darling. Peter Pan appears and whisks them away on a long, drawn out trip to Neverland. There they meet the Lost Boys, a group of kids without parents. Their rivals on the island are the pirates led by James Hook, the "Redskins" a group of Indians, and the wild animals. These groups chase each other around and routinely kill each other. The realism of the deaths are surprising, although there's always a hint that they are happening in the children's imaginations. Wendy becomes the Lost Boys' "mother," which brings up a whole barrel of gender issues as the kids rely on her to be responsible and caring. There's also a female rivalry between the fairy Tinkerbell, the Indian princess Tiger Lily, and Wendy. They all pursue Peter, but he's not capable of seeing them in an even adolescent light.
Captain Hook is another character who's much deeper than Disney portrays. He has a history of striking fear into other pirates, but his upbringing included time at an elite prep school (Eton?) where he learned the importance of good form over good behavior. His fear of the natural (in the form of a hungry crocodile) is extreme. He also abhors Peter's lack of good form, for Peter is unbelievably conceited.
Eventually the Pirates capture the Lost Boys, only to have Peter rescue them from the ship. Hook is dispatched via a kick to the rear which sends him over the bulkhead and into the waiting mouth of the happy croc.
The part of the novel which surprised me most came at the end in the chapter about Wendy's adult years. Peter has no conception of natural aging. Barrie gets rid of beloved characters like Mrs. Darling and Nana without so much as a eulogy. Time moves on in the real world without sympathy for human feelings. In the world of the imagination, however, things stay the same. It's a collective creation of all the children who are capable of imagining such a place. As Wendy gets older she can no longer sustain that belief. She is no longer a "gay, innocent and heartless" like a child. Her child Jane, however, flies off with Peter to help with the spring cleaning and the pattern of children moving in another sphere than adults continues.

Rating 8/10: This is a really disconcerting book. Barrie speaks of "innocence" but the book is chalk full of racism. The children see themselves as superior to the Indians on the island. Peter is not so much a hero as a brazenly conceited kid in constant search of thrills. His only noble act is letting the Darling children return to their distraught mother.

Stop the Presses

2008-01-25T00:00:00.000-06:00

Couldn't find Adolphe in anglais anywhere and sadly it seems that the five years I spend learning 'ir" verbs in French class went for naught.

So we're switching tacks to a double-barreled classics onslaught. Going for a little light kid listening on the audiobook side with Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. I'll also be getting down in a textual way with The Aran Islands by John M. Synge.

Thanks for screwing up my expectations for all women Tink, you minx.

Next Up

2008-01-20T22:50:00.000-06:00

Adolphe by Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque

All I've got to say is don't count on a good review if you say anything bad about L'Empereur Napoleon, Hank.

Don't mess with my boy----------->

Mansfield Park

2008-01-19T09:24:00.000-06:00

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

When I think about the wonderful prose and beautiful story of Mansfield Park one thing comes to mind; cousins getting it on. That's basically what this Jane Austen novel comes down to. It's a Jane Austen work so we can assume a couple things. First, there are some rich aristocrats hanging out at a really nice estate. Second, there's some love shenanigans. Third, there's some legitimately funny writing.
Mansfield Park focuses on the story of Fannie Price, a girl who has moved from her poor family in Portsmouth to her rich aunt and uncle's estate. Although she is loved there, she is clearly seen as inferior to her cousins, Maria, Tom, Edmund and Julia. These Bertrums are also accompanied by Lady Bertram, who seems to be on perkoset most of the time, Sir Thomas, a stern man who evolves, and another aunt, Mrs. Norris who is pretty much the same person as Aunt Livinia from Washington Square. Cranky, self-important aunts seem all the rage in the 1800s.
Fannie comes to find her place at Mansfield, helping out and hovering in the background. The only person who shows her genuine kindness is Edmund, the younger son destined for the clergy. As soon as the hormones start rolling in the kids they are making matches. Maria hooks up with the blowhard but rich Mr. Rushworth. Two new characters are introduced, Henry Crawford and his sister Mary. Mary sets her sights on Edmund and Henry goes after everyone. Crawford's untoward advances to Maria, who's engaged and Julia irk Fannie. Mary is a seductress who seems like she's after some cash. The real action starts in the latter half of the book when Don Juan Crawford decides he's in love with Fannie. It started as a teen movie kind of joke, "I'll make her fall in love with me for fun," but then he actually starts to love her. Fannie is horrified. Although he is a gentleman, Crawford is abhorrent to her. Despite Crawford's very determined efforts and Mary's friendly urgings, Fannie holds out. No one can understand why she'd turn down such a upward move in status. In the meantime Edmund is in love with Mary Crawford. They have a difference of priorities when it comes to money. Edmund is about living humbly (even though he lives at an estate with a boatload of servants) while Mary is all about the glamorous life. This rift turns into an unconquerable obstacle when the unthinkable happens. Despite his protestations of love for Fannie, Henry Crawford runs away with the married Mrs. Maria Rushworth. This scandal is taken relatively lightly by Mary, who urges Edmund to make the best of the situation without criticizing the absconding duo. This enrages and saddens Edmund and he ditches her.
Fannie is vindicated by Crawford's faithlessness but the mood at Mansfield is dour. She comforts Edmund and eventually he starts to see her as she has always seen him, as a potential mate. This cheers everyone up and they live happily ever after.
Money and class are central to this novel. Fannie comes from a poor family and moves to Mansfield. The manners and decorum of the place, the respect for each other that is present at the estate is not at her Portsmouth home. When she returns home after years away she can't bear the din and racket of the city house. Money is also a key to the relationships in the book.

Rating 9/10: A wonderful story and fun read. Austen is outstanding.

Next Up

2007-12-26T22:41:00.000-06:00

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Washington Square

2007-12-26T21:59:00.001-06:00

Henry James (1843-1916)

James was one of the main proponents of realism and that's what we get in Washington Square. The story centers around the courtship and engagement of Morris Townsend and Catherine Sloper. The Slopers are a good New York family, wealthy and respected. Dr. Sloper is a successful physician who's always had a strange relationship with his daughter Catherine. She never measured up to her deceased mother, either in looks or smarts. Sloper quickly acknowledged her deficiencies and contented himself with expecting very little from her but quiet concession. Throughout the novel Sloper anticipates the action. He sees that his daughter would be susceptible to a gold digger. Lo and behold Catherine meets the gorgeous hunk, Morris Townsend.
Townsend's motives are always suspect. He's handsome and eloquent but really lazy. That tips off Sloper. Catherine's feelings towards Morris are likewise confusing. She likes the attention from the sophisticated man about town, but it seems like she could take him or leave him. What ensues is a Machiavellian battle between the sharp and smart Dr. Sloper and the suave, conniving Townsend. They kick Catherine back and forth, with little thought for her feelings, in an attempt to be "right." For her part, Catherine is far too deferential to her father and not aware enough to suspect Townsend's motives. Things are not helped by Aunt Livinia's Lady MacBeth-esque behind the scenes machinations.
Finally, Sloper plays his Trump card, he decides to take away Catherine's inheritance if she marries Morris. The ball goes to Townsend's court and he decides to quit the game. Why? It's never clear whether he was truly after her cash, it certainly was part of his attraction to Catherine, but it wasn't his only attraction. Henry James vaults about twenty-five years into the future where we find Sloper dead and Catherine an old maid. An older and less attractive Townsend shows up one day and begs her to be "friends" again. The years of experience had served Catherine well, she shows some fortitude and tells him to go away.
The star of the book is James's writing. The way he enters the character's thought processes is brilliant. We get to hear what characters say under their breath, the hustle and newness of New York City is nicely depicted, and the power struggle in relationships is palpable. There is a weird filial control that Sloper exerts over Catherine, but that could be more the product of the 1830s than anything else.

Rating 7/10: Henry James sets us up with for a major event in Washington Square. Maybe the murder of one of the big three, or even Livinia. The long awaited marriage of Catherine and Morris never happens. So we never get to see how Sloper would have reacted to that betrayal. Instead we get a very understated, but emotional conclusion. Brilliant style, memorable characters, but the plot points could have used a bit more umph.

Next Up

2007-12-19T21:33:00.000-06:00

Washington Square by Henry James.

The Woodlanders

2007-12-19T21:04:00.000-06:00

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

The real star of The Woodlanders is, not surprisingly, the woods. The environment shapes the people who live within. Those who stray from its bounds or enter from the outside are in trouble. The book starts with an introduction to Marty South, the woman most attuned to nature in the novel. She stands on the periphery for most of the story, acting as a deux ex machina in a few situations. She is involved in the love quadrangle that is at the center of Hardy's novel.
The people in the quadrangle are: Grace Melbury, a native of Hintook who's left to gain a great education, Giles Winterbourne, a native of Hintook who is in sync with nature and the consummate good guy, Dr. Edred FitzPiers, a physician who moves to Hintook and the aforementioned Marty South. Grace's father drives the action, making dumb decision after dumb decision. Grace and Giles are destined to be married. They like each other and Grace's dad owes Giles's dead dad for messing with his girl in olden days. Both Grace and her father are seduced by FitzPiers and his powerful family name. They bail on poor Giles and Grace marries Edred. Lo and behold he turns out to be a jerk and cheats on her with the local party girl Sook Damson, and then with the woman who runs Hintook, Felice Charmand.
Well this crushes Grace and her father. He tries to get a divorce for his daughter who tries to rehookup with Giles. The divorce doesn't go through and she's stuck with an absent FitzPiers. she runs away to Giles. He's so honorable that he gives up his little hut and sleeps outside, even though he's very sick. One day he doesn't come to the house and Grace finds him dying. He dies despite the called in FitzPiers's efforts. Once again Grace is very sad.
Grace and Marty South, who's kind of had a working relationship with Giles, go to his grave every week. FitzPiers tries to get back with Grace and slowly succeeds. One night when they're supposed to meet they go on a walk and get far from town. They decide to stay in another small town together and they make up. Poor Marty waits forever for Grace to meet her to go to Giles's grave, but Grave doesn't show. Finally, Giles is Marty's.
Hardy's description of the woods are beautiful and haunting. They scare the hell out of Marty's dad, who dies of a hysterical fright of the tree outside his window. People get lost in the woods multiple times and life seems to follow the rhythm of the trees. Marty is the best and truest person in the book, it's a shame Giles couldn't get over the overrated Grace and see Marty for all her positive attributes.

Rating 9/10: One of the best endings to any book I've ever read. The action with the failed mantrap attempt and the rejoining of Grace and FitzPiers distract us from what's going on in Hintook. The novel ends with Marty, stood up by Grace, with a basket of flowers for her love, Giles. The transition from the joy of Grace and FitzPiers, who's a big punk ass, to the despondent yet jubilant Marty. Finally Giles is hers and hers alone.

NEXT UP

2007-12-02T22:42:00.000-06:00

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy.

The Way of All Flesh

2007-11-25T17:07:00.000-06:00

Samuel Butler 1835-1902

Our narrator in The Way of All Flesh is the middle-aged writer Mr. Overton. In many ways he is far more interesting that his "hero" Earnest Pontifex. Overton writes burlesques in Victorian England and he uses his wry sense of humor to lampoon the era and its embodiment, the Pontifex family. The book starts slowly. Overton is a friend of the Pontifex family who is peripheral for the first half of the novel. The patriarch of the Pontifex family is the benevolent John. He is an artist and a humble country man. His son is George, a smart, ambitious kid who makes good publishing religious tracts. Two of his children, Alethea and Theobald play important roles in the narrative.
We get a full account of Theobald's strange courtship of Christina. It is a sly commentary on the very unromantic machinations that parents often put in place to get rid of unmarried daughters. One of their children, Earnest Pontifex, is our main character. So halfway through this 320 novel we finally get to know our main character, Earnest. This is both an interesting and frustrating part of The Way of All Flesh. We get to see how generations of development lead to an individual's personal characteristics. The lineage of John, George, and Theobald is the main force directing the way Earnest behaves. We also get to know a woman from the Pontifex family, Aunt Alethea. Her self confidence, not conceit, is refreshing and she is a genuinely friendly person. Yet, despite the interest that the family history provides, Butler's genealogy of the Pontifexes can become tedious at times. It simply takes to long to get to the meat of the book, only when Earnest enters the fray do we get any tension and drama.
Earnest is set to be a typical Pontifex in the tradition of the very traditional George and Theobald. He shuffles through life at his miserable prep school and Cambridge. He doesn't stand out in school and is easily led astray by stronger personalities. His father, a stronger personality, assumes that Earnest will enter the clergy, and Earnest goes right along with this path. When he enters the clergy, however, he isn't ready for what faces him. He never really studied what he now preached. Easily swayed by Pryer, another priest, he enters a scheme of making money to open a blasphemously odd religious college. Pryer was interested in cash, not religious education and he quickly fleeces Earnest.
Earnest is nearly at his wit's end because of his religious confusion when he enters into a brilliant scene. He roams throughout his boardinghouse and tries to convert various tenants. They all ask him questions that force him to consider his line of work. Finally he tries to convert a prostitute. He finally goes off the deep end when a classmate he admires arrives early for an appointment with the young lady. He is jealous and feels betrayed by his choices. He heads over to another young lady's apartment and, assuming she was also a prostitute, makes some moves on her and takes it too far. Enraged, she calls the police and he is sentenced to jail.
Aunt Alethea did not live to see this shameful incident, but she had become interested in her nephew. She decided she would leave her money to Mr. Overton. Mr. Overton in turn would keep the money until Earnest turned 26, upon which time the money would be turned over to an unsuspected Earnest. The only caveat to this was that Earnest could not crash and burn during this time. The arrest was not a good start. Earnest, however, was unburdened by his change in status. He eschewed help from his furious father and refused to take a do nothing job with Mr. Overton. Instead, upon release, he started a tailor shop. He completes his fall to the working class by marrying a former maid at his parents' house, Ellen. Ellen was beautiful and charming, but an alcoholic who ran with a bad crowd. Earnest was drawn to her, however, and without knowing about her drinking problem, he married her. This infuriated Mr. Overton, a bachelor, who felt that Earnest could never regain his upper class standing with the anchor of Ellen. In truth, Ellen was a godsend in starting his business. For awhile she helped in every facet of the tailoring enterprise. Eventually she reverted to her former lifestyle which shocked and dismayed Earnest. He was resigned to a life with a drunk until he ran into a former coach driver at the Pontifex house. The coach driver told him about his marriage to Ellen, which was also derailed by her drinking. This joyous news meant that the Earnest/Ellen married was null and he was a free man.
Earnest's life is rejuvenated, Mr. Overton let's him manage the money for a while before revealing that the cash is actually his. Eventually Earnest makes his way back and boosts his sick mother's spirits. The ending is pretty lame, to tell the truth, Earnest has grown up and proves to his family that he doesn't have to rely on them.
My knowledge of the Anglican Church hurts my reading of this book. Theobald's religiosity and Earnest's experience in the cloth are interesting commentary on the state of the church. Earnest also finds employment writing books about religion and other things that people besides himself might not be able to say publicly.
The real brilliance of this book is the humor and the generational development. I wish Butler could have cut to the chase a little faster, but once we meet Earnest the book picks up.

Great Quotes:

"Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently..."

"He should not have had the courage to give up all for Christ's sake, but now Christ had mercifully taken all, and lo! it seemed - as though all were found."

"The greater part of every family is always odious."

Rating: 6/10 The generations of Pontifexes rise and fall, that is the beauty. Earnest couldn't learn how to be a gentleman until he fell all the way to the cellar, and even then he didn't really want to be a gentleman.

New Widget

2007-11-21T19:41:00.000-06:00

You may have noticed the new Wine Library widget on the lower left. I watch two blogs a day, TPM Media with Josh Marshall and Wine Library with Gary Vanyerchuk. After I get done walking my dog Fluffington (above right) while listening to great classics I like to kick back with a nice beer or glass of wine. Lately I've been hitting the Menage a Trois red blend as I ruminate on the narrative voice in The Way of All Flesh. But Gary is helping to expand my wine horizons. Readin' the Classics lives in Nebraska, so our wine selection isn't top notch, but we do the best we can and can use all the help we can get. Thanks to Gary for his great show.

Therese Raquin

2007-10-18T18:12:00.000-05:00

Emile Zola (1840-1902)

Well, this book was pretty awesome. It starts in a dingy alley off a the Rue de Seine in Paris. The shop/apartment is inhabited by Madame Raquin, Camille (her sickly son), and Therese (her niece). Camille and Therese grew up together as brother and sister, but they are betrothed. Eventually they enter into a loveless, sexless, listless marriage. Therese is utterly unhappy and lives in a shell of thoughtful silence. Camille doesn't really know anything is wrong. The family has a group of people over each Thursday for dominoes, a clerk, his wife, and a police detective. The plot kicks into high gear when Laurent, a lazy clerk, comes to the get-together. He is mildly attracted to Therese, but she immediately falls for him. He decides that she would be a nice play thing, not really giving a crap about what his friend Camille would think.
Well, things don't really go as Laurent had expected. He falls madly for the forbidden fruit and their love affair takes off. They become so crazed, and Therese becomes so disgusted with Camille's sickliness, that they decide to throw Camille off a boat. The murder is pulled off perfectly, but the consequences cover the remainder of the book.
Therese feels guilt for the crime. She sees her dead husband and nights are hellish for her. Laurent doesn't really feel guilty as much as he is angry at Camille for being in the way. Zola has a scene in the morgue where Laurent sees Camille's body that is chilling. The couple can't even have sex anymore because the specter of Camille hinders any romance.
Madame Raquin is still hanging around at this point, destroyed by the death of her son. She suffers a stroke and is reliant on Laurent and Therese. Eventually the couple get married and no one suspects anything. Yet, even though Laurent and Therese pulled off the perfect murder and got exactly what they wanted, their life is a constant hell.
The couples' miseries are increasingly caused by the specter of Camille. He appears to them in hallucinations, paintings, and in dreams. Eventually he takes the form of Francois, the large orange cat. He is personified by the live mind but dead body of Madame Raquin. The mother, destroyed by grief is thankful for the help of Laurent and Therese, that is, until they get into a huge row about the murder in front of her. Her condition is so bad that they often forget she is even in the room. Madame Raquin now knows about the murder and, after she gets over her shock, hates the couple with a passion. She musters all of her strength for one valient attempt to reveal the truth of the crime. This leads to the most gripping scene in the novel. During the regular Thursday night dominoes game Madame Raquin desperately tries to trace letters on the table. Despite constant interruptions she manages to get out, "Therese and Laurent have..." the killers are terrified of being revealed, but it is here that Madame Raquin's strength dissipates and her hand falls dead to her thigh, she is despondent.
The killers try everything to forget their crime. They fight, Laurent viciously beats Therese and Therese accepts this as a way to free her mind. They each turn to lives of vice, drinking and having affairs, but nothing helps. Finally they both decide to kill the other. Therese has the big knife sharpened and Laurent buys some poison. At the moment of truth they perceive the other's intention and fall into each other's arms in desperate grief. They decide to each take the poison, crumbling on the floor dead. Madame Raquin sits motionless in the chair, "unable to sufficiently gorge her eyes with the hideous sight."
This book is intense. Camille's ghost hovers throughout the narrative, not as a real apparition, but as a unshakable figment of the killers' imaginations. He stays with Laurent through the bite of flesh he took out of his assassin's neck upon being tossed into the Seine. This throbbing purple scar is the dominate symbol of the book. Sometimes Laurent is able to forget the pain it gives him, but it never leaves. Therese's caresses only serve to make the scar stick him with pain.
Zola tells us that there is no earthly way to relieve yourself of the guilt after such a crime.

Rating: 10/10: This is a masterfully written suspense thriller. I can see why it's been adapted to the stage and screen. Rumor has it that Jessica Biel is going to play Therese in an upcoming film. Not sure about that casting choice (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry?). This Zola work doesn't have the breaks of humor that made Nana great, but Therese Raquin is short enough that the intensity doesn't become overbearing.

NEXT UP

2007-10-08T21:58:00.000-05:00

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola. Murder and harlots #1.

Roughing It

2007-10-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Roughing It is Twain's recollection of his trip out west during the Civil War. The excursion was supposed to last a few months, but it turned out to take seven years; as Twain says in his closing lines, the actual span of the trip was closer than many of his other calculations. Twain wrote the book in 1870-1871 and published it the next year. It was a more polished version of his first travelogue, Innocents Abroad.
The story starts with the Clemens brothers traveling over the Great Plains on their way to Mark's brother's government job in Nevada. There are some really nice descriptions of my home state, Nebraska, in this section. The mail coach method of travel sounds like a hell of a bad way to get from one place to another. Bad roads, heat, bad food, rain, rivers, lots of mail and gruff station masters made for a difficult voyage. Yet, Twain takes these frustrating experiences and turns them into funny stories.
Nevada truly was the wild west. Instead of cowboys roaming the plains, miners worked claims and ripped each other off. Twain described this world in glowing terms. A community of the strongest and most determined men in the world working and living in pursuit of fortune. Yet, Twain describes the spectacular violence that accompanies so must testosterone and alcohol. Men are gunned down without consequence. In fact, murderers are made leading citizens depending on their body count. Women are a rarity and made much of whenever they show up.
Mining is the center of the entire book. It's a strange and gutwrenching process of prospecting, disappointment and hope. Most of the money seemed to be made in the selling of claims to gullible buyers rather than in actual mining.
Mormons are also a frequent topic. The group was almost foreign to Twain. He made a trip to Salt Lake City to investigate the matter and did not come away with a good impression. Brigham Young ruled the city like a monarch and polygamy was rampant, although Twain certainly exaggerated its prevalence.
Twain's trip to Hawaii is also interesting. He sees many of the places I saw during my trip to the Big Island. His portrayal of poi's shittiness is spot on as his description of the awesomeness of volcanoes. The native Hawaiians are treated harshly at times, but at other instances Twain skillfully compares their lifestyle favorably against the Anglo Americans.
Twain also narrates his beginnings as a writer and lecturer. Both ventures came out of desperation for cash. The newspaper business was a wide open enterprise susceptible to political dealings, violent reprisals and fabrication. Twain himself often improvised stories and sometimes made things up.
The west was a wild place where people made and lost great fortunes daily. Twain's adventures and anecdotes, mot very funny, especially his continuous battle with horses, accentuate the opportunities and pitfalls that faced the fortune seekers.

The Last of the Mohicans

2007-09-24T22:15:00.000-05:00

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

This 1826 romantic novel is way better than I thought it would be. I remember when the movie came out in 1992; I never saw the Daniel Day Lewis flick but I have a hard time imagining him as Hawkeye. The French and Indian war is the setting for LOTM. The main characters are a multicultural mix of two English men, two English sisters, two Mohicans, and one English woodsman. Once the characters get in the woods the English skills are made worthless and they are constantly saved by Native smarts. Uncas and Hawkeye are the two most interesting characters. Uncas is the last descendant of the Mohicans, a tribe of skilled warriors who's last two members have befriended Hawkeye a white man without a cross. After the English group is betrayed by Magua, a Mingo (a derogatory term describing Mag's group of Iroquois) they fall in with Chingachgook (dad), Uncas (son) and Hawkeye. The English, David (Singer) Alice, Cora (sister daughters of and English commander) and Duncan, an overachieving young officer.
They begin a hide and seek with both the enemy Indians and the enemy French. This episode repeats several times. The small group manages to narrowly escape trouble time after time before getting to the English fort just in time for a devastating battle. Cora, Alice and David are captured by Magua. The rest of the novel is the chase and rescue of these characters. Hawkeye and Uncas are captured in the chase and look like they're in big trouble. Cora makes a stand and refused to go any farther with Magua. One of Mag's buddies goes ahead and kills Cora in an emotional scene. There ensues a was between the Deleware and the Iriquois. Uncas is killed by Magua seconds before Hawkeye picks off Mags with kildeer, his trusty rifle. The book ends with a sad and unifying funeral with Cora and Uncas.
Race and gender are prime themes in LOTM. The Indians are portrayed as skillful, but far from "civilized". The whites are civilized but are really worthless when not in their element. They seem to understand that they worship the same God. Hawkeye is the man stuck in the middle. He has characteristics of both sides and seems to be the ideal man to deal with all the situations that come up. The English females are real characters who have personalities and can think. The Native American women are present but vacuous. More animal than human, Cooper pays little heed to their thoughts and actions.
Although the language of the characters is a little florid at times, the action is non-stop.

Rating 10/10: A great read, a piece of American history, and action adventure. Good Stuff.

Pudd'nhead Wilson

2007-05-20T22:29:00.000-05:00

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

A very strange and interesting book. I've read most of Twain's novels and this one is different. Pudd'nhead Wilson is Twain's most in depth examination of slavery. Huckleberry Finn is of course more recognized and popular, but to truly get a handle of Twain's feelings on slavery you have to read this book. Pudd'nhead is not just about slavery, however. Twain opens by describing the process of writing the book. He was in Florence and he invoked the muse of Dante and his beloved Beatrice. Twain also goes to great lengths to assure the reader of his authority and the veracity of the legal scenes.
Each chapter is headed by a an entry from Wilson's almanac. These are funny, ironic and clever, typical Twain. The story has many characters, but this is the plot in a nutshell: Wilson is a smart lawyer who is new in town. He is annoyed by a dog barking and jokes that if he owned half the dog he would kill his half. The dull town people don't get the turn of phrase and they dub him "Pudd'nhead". The name sticks for the next 24 years. Although he is the title character, Wilson hovers on the outskirts of the narrative until the end. The novel focuses on Roxana, an enslaved woman who is 1/16 African American. She has a child named Chambers at the precise time that her mistress has a child named Tom Driscoll.
Roxy is fearful that her child could be sold so she switches the nearly identical children at 8 months. Tom (nee Chambers) grows up to be a total jerk, blowing money and stealing to make up for his gambling habit. Chambers, (nee Tom) is a humble, good guy who takes crap from Tom all the time, and it's all the worse because he is Tom's slave. Tom's white father dies and he moves in with his uncle, a leading citizen. Roxy returns from working on a steamboat after 8 years and extorts money from the abusive Tome, threatening to tell the truth. Eventually, after lots of intrigue and plot twists, Tom goes ahead and murders his uncle to steal money. Two Italians who happen to be traveling through town get blamed because of a bloodstained knife. Wilson defends the unfortuate duo, but can't crack the case. He then goes and looks at his fingerprint collection (nice hobby) and is able to reveal the truth in a riveting courtroom scene. He proves Tom's guilt and restores Chambers to his rightful spot. Twain's conclusion once again details the writing of the book.
Twain's attitude to slavery is tough to pin down. Certainly slaves aren't mentally inferior, Roxy outmaneuvers all the other characters in the story. After Tom finds out that he is Roxy's son he often claims that it's the "nigger" in him that causes him to act poorly. That's more of Tom being an ass than Twain's feelings.
There are two things that jump out when reading Pudd'nhead. First, Twain goes into great depth to reveal the illogical shifts in social status that mere perception can cause. The real Tom is screwed over because people believe his mother was a slave. And clearly Twain is skewering the ridiculous notion of "blood" when he points out that Roxy is 1/16th black, making Chambers 1/32nd black. Good natured Tom is kept in the lowest class while dumbass Chambers is given chance after chance to behave because of social perception about status and race. Yet, at the end when the truth is revealed in court, no one has any problem switching their perception and elevating Tom and enslaving Chambers.
The second point is the strength of Roxy. She is the backbone of the story. She is a mixed bag of a character, making her much more real than some of the caricaturistic individuals in Pudd'nhead. She brilliantly switches her child to save him from being sold. She uses all her tools: beauty, guilt trips and guile, to keep herself free and afloat later in the story. She masterfully plays bad Tom to her advantage.

Rating 8/10: I'm a big Twain fan and I enjoyed this book. It is not typical Twain though. There is a darkly atmosphere in Pudd'nhead. The evils of slavery are more insipid here than in Huck although this work isn't as well executed. It seemed like Twain had a lot of good, profound ideas, but he tries desperately to pack everything together. The Italian twins are interesting, but they aren't well developed characters. Also, Pudd'nhead himself is a really interesting character, he would have been an ideal character to show us what small town life on the Missouri was like, but his potential isn't realized. Still a fascinating book.

(The image is a poster from The Acting Company's 2002 season, pretty sweet if you ask me.)

War and Peace

2007-05-18T18:47:00.000-05:00

Leo Tolstoy 1828-1910

Probably the scariest looking author in the classics list, just imagine waking up to see this guy standing over your bed. Fortunately he's as good a writer as he is scary. This is one long book, well over 60 hours of audio. But it doesn't seem that bad once you get a hold on the characters and their situations. A good character guide that doesn't give away any key plot points would be invaluable. The story evolves within the Napoleonic Wars in Russia from 1804-1813. The main character include: Nicolai, Petya, Natasha, Sonya, the Bolkonskis, Andrei, Marie, Count Bezuhov, Pierre, Kuragin, Anatole, Helen, Napoleon, Kutezov, Dolohov, Platon Karataev, Ana Mehalovna, Boris and many, many more. The book follows the travails and joys of these people through (surprise) times of war and peace.
Society is a battlefield in this novel. Marriages, friendships and feuds are forged in parlors and at parties. There is simply too much to give an accurate plot summary, so I'll just relate a few things. Pierre Bezuhov is easily my favorite character. Sort of an innocent soul that that is thrown from his moorings when he sees any cruelty. He inherits a huge fortune but he spends the entire novel trying to find peace. Through a rotten marriage, an ill-fated attempt on Napoleon's life, a journey into Freemasonry, a POW stint, and a new marriage to the equally sensitive Natasha Rostov, he eventually ends up with a rather elegant world view: God is everywhere, a living, breathing part of it all.
Some things to remember about War and Peace:
-Tolstoy's ideas about history: it isn't determined by great men or popular groundswells, but a bit of both, and also an unseen source.
-Anatole's sleazy seduction of Natasha.
-Tolstoy's bitingly funny observations on people's social habits and actions.
-Petya's innocence. The young man wants to be a soldier and his last scene is touching.
-The idea that Russia was saved by its superior spirit rather than logic or military planning.
-The very human portrait of Napoleon.
-Prince Vasili's societal maneuvering.
-The execution scene in occupied Moscow.
-The French invasion of Moscow and the burning of the city.
-The randomness and pure chance of wars and battles. Andrei endorses this idea.
-The small, but important role of slaves.
-Fat, old, one-eyed Kutezov, who saved Russia.
-Tolstoy's ability to zero in on a very diverse (at least ideologically so) group of characters.

Rating: 10/10: An absolute epic. I'm going to have to figure out how Tolstoy was able to write something so intricate. The characters are engaging and the backdrop of a vast war for Russia's existence makes for exciting reading despite the book's massive length.

Cousin Bette

2007-05-13T09:34:00.000-05:00

Honere de Balzac 1799-1850

France in the 1840s was a pretty crazy place. Parisians walking in two spheres, the respectable world and that of the courtesans. Balzac contrasts these worlds masterfully as reason/passion and duty/pleasure in his 1846 work Cousin Bette. The characters in the book are alternately enticed and smashed by this system.
It all begins with the title character, Cousin Bette Fisher. She is the old maid/black sheep of a peasant family. Her sister, Adeline, married the rich and powerful Baron Hulot. Cousin Bette kind of hangs around the periphery of this new high class life, not being as good looking or charming as her sister. Consequently, she is taken for granted and stepped on for her entire life. Bette snaps when her niece, the seemingly naive and innocent Hortense, steals her "lover" Wenseslas. Bette vows revenge against the family. She teams with the enchantingly beautiful Valerie Marneffe. They work together to tempt the easily temptable Baron Hulot. The Baron is kind of a good natured philanderer who can't keep his hands off of the young girls. Hulot fritters away his money and eventually puts his family into ruin. His wife, Adeline, never challenged her husband's infidelity, instead she worshiped him and accepted his extracurricular activities.
The shenanigans eventually engulf many more people. The most pathetic is the Baroness. She's still beautiful at 50, but she let's Hulot trample her. In contrast her daughter, Hortense, refuses to accept Wenseslas's dalliances with Valerie Marneffe. Neither strategy seems to effect the actions of either man, but at least Hortense has some backbone.
Eventually all the backstabbing and revenge catches up with the main characters. Madame Marneffe is poisoned by her Brazilian lover, Bette dies, the Baron is restored to his honorable position thanks to the diligence of his son, but he is soon discovered messing with a plain country maid. This final insult kills Adeline Hulot.
As evil as Bette's vengeful machinations are, they couldn't have been successful without the utter faithlessness of the men and the conniving of her niece. Hortense takes Wenseslas, the only good thing in Bette's life. Courtesans in Cousin Bette are sirens capable of ruining marriages and causing the shift of thousand and thousands of Francs. Men cannot resist these charming females, so different from regular women. It's the rare woman who has the qualities of wife and courtesan, they don't get cheated on.

Quotes: "Parents may hinder their children's marriage, but children cannot interfere with the insane acts of their parents in their second childhood."

Rating: 7/10: An interesting picture of Paris in this era. The book is, at times, confusing. There are many different characters, some thrown in for only a scene or two. There is also a lot of financial finagling that bogs things down a bit. That being said this is a very realistic look at upper class life in a revenge story.

Captain Blood

2007-04-16T12:39:00.000-05:00

Rafael Sabatini 1875-1950

After trudging through the coma-inducing The Idiot I was hoping for something with a little better pacing and a little more action. Luckily I picked Captain Blood and I got action in droves. This is the prototypical pirate story. It's full of sailing, sea battles, shifting allegiances, a beautiful woman, and a pirate captain with a heart of gold.
Peter Blood MD was tending his geraniums when a group of revolutionaries try to overthrow King James, around 1660. Blood sees their actions as a waste of time, but answers when called to treat a wounded rebel. This generous act leads to his enslavement and deportation to Barbados. He is bought by the vile Col. Bishop, but enjoys more freedom than the other slaves because of his medical knowledge. Bishop's niece is a boyish, frank girl who becomes Blood's guiding hope through all his travails, her name is Arabella. The desperate slaves escape the island when they are attacked by foreign forces. Although the slaves save the city, Col. Bishop is enraged by their escape. Peter Blood becomes Captain Blood, a pirate who harasses the mighty Spanish. The Spanish are traitorous, dishonorable people who routinely break the trust of everyone. Blood is in the habit of making lifelong enemies, England (King James) Bishop, Don Miquel and Lavasseur. He is aligned with everyone, and aligned against everyone at one time of another.
In his adventures Cpt. Blood takes the head of the Spanish fleet, raid the wealthy city of Maricaibo, and is forced to killed the lascivious Lavasseur. Yet, through all the brutal attacks and invasions, he keeps a tight ship. Absent is the raping and pillaging so common with other crews. This is all because of Blood's love and respect for Arabella. But when they meet again Arabella is disgusted with his life as a "pirate and thief," words that stick with Blood and drive him to near ruin. Allegiances continue to shift until a final battle with the French goes down in Barbados. I'll save the ending, but it is dramatic and perfect for this book.
The one qualm I have with Captain Blood is its treatment of Africans. Whether they are house slaves, field hands or pirates, Sabatini portrays them as savages, given no voice and only a faint glimmer of humanity. Otherwise this books is a whirlwind adventure story with a memorably brilliant main character.

Rating 10/10: The most fun book I've read in a long time. Blood is witty, sarcastic, and noble. There are no long boring diatribes into philosophical theory. A great read.

The Idiot

2007-04-07T17:47:00.000-05:00

Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821-1881

Well, this was a really boring book. I hate to say it, but this is my least favorite of the classics I've read so far and when I become emperor of the world I will probably make it illegal to call it a "classic."
Prince Myshkin rides into St. Petersburg on a train where he meets Rogozhin and the very annoying Ledbedev. Rogozhin is a dark man (get ready for a crapload of Light/Dark imagery) who is on a mission to get the beautiful but scandalous Nastashia Philipovna. Throughout the book people worry that Rogo is going to kill Nastashia, nobody really explains why. Well, turns out Prince Myshkin, the idiot of the title, falls in love with her too. He also falls in love with Princess Myshkin's, a distant relative, daughter, Aglaya. Aglaya is a typical teenager, very annoying and stuck up. She probably would have been on My Super Sweet Sixteen if they had MTV in 1860s Russia. What ensues is a tangled mess of love intrigue, sudden fits of illness and a whole lot of long long long scenes. (See Hippolite's suicide scene). None of the characters save Myshkin are likable. I have no idea why Myshkin is considered strange, he speaks with eloquence, yet everyone seems to know he was an "idiot" before. In the end, people die, some are spurned, some go to jail and some revert to previous mental states. It ends like it began, with Myshkin in Switzerland and me not that interested.

Rating 2/10: An incredibly dull book. The lesson, as always, women drive men crazy, sometimes crazy enough to kill.

Barchester Towers

2007-03-26T20:36:00.000-05:00

Anthony Trollope 1815-1882

Barchester Towers is the second of six in the Chronicles of Barsetshire. Trollope created a giant mountain of literature during his life. Towers was written in 1857 during Trollope's apex in popularity. Later in life critics weren't as kind, and now his reputation is a bit overshadowed by his contemporary, Charles Dickens. This is the first Trollope book I've read, but I think he compares in style and volume of words to Dickens.
This turned out to be an excellent pick. It's incredible that Trollope is able to stuff this much intrigue, love, rivalry and humor into a story centered on a regional church appointment. We have no heroes in this book. Events are put into motion by the death of the Bishop of Barchester. Instead of selecting the bishop's son, Dr. Grantley, an anonymous nobleman selects a Londoner, Mr. Proudie (and his domineering wife Mrs. Proudie). Also included in the deal is Proudie's private chaplain, the slick Obediah Slope.
The main conflict involces Slope and Dr. Harding. Harding was warden of an old folks home and looked forward to regaining that title under the new bishop. The town supported him, but Mrs. Proudie and Slope wanted Mr. Quiverful in that office, someone they could control. But everything is thrown into disarray when Slope meets Harding's daughter, Eleanor Bold, a widow. He falls in love with her and decides to get her dad the wardenship in hopes of wooing her. This sets up a showdown with Mrs. Proudie. The waffling Bishop Proudie meekly sides with Slope, temporarily (and for the first time) giving him hand in the relationship (to reference Seinfeld). We are then introduced to the Stanhopes and Mr. Arabin. Arabin is a thoughtful, 40 year-old clergyman. He's a good guy who also falls in love with Eleanor. The Stanhopes inclue Bertie, a slacker/semi-serious suitor for Eleanor.
Another Stanhope is Senora Neroni, the most interesting character in the book. She married a lowly Italian who beat her so badly she lost the use of her legs. All she has left is playing people for intrigue. She is exceptionally beautiful and quickly ensnares any man she likes, she starts with Obediah Slope. He is scandalized by this relationship.
Eleanor is also scandalized because she is connected with slope by rumor. He is a distasteful man and she is very hurt by the insinuations that their marriage was a foregone conclusion. Eventually Slope asks her to marry him and she slaps him. Bertie doesn't press his suit and eventually Mr. Arabin steps up to the plate and proposes. She gladly accepts. Behind the scenes Senora Neroni had engineered the entire engagement. The Senora also cruelly ridiculed Slope for the slap, but he deserved it. Arabin gets the coveted deanship, Quiverful the wardenship and Harding is happy with his new son-in-law.
Trollope loves speaking directly to the reader. He totally ignores the proverbial fourth wall and talks about his editor and how many pages he's been alloted to finish the story. He doesn't give us much indication of what these people look like, but we understand how they feel. The women in this novel really stand out: powerful Proudie, sincere Eleanor, and the connivingly seductive Senora.

Rating 8/10: I didn't know what to expect from this book, but I really enjoyed the read. Trollope is good with a funny turn of phrase and the book truly is a comedy. Mrs. Proudy and Slope are the two most frequent targets of Trollope's humor. The only problem/opportunity (maybe I'll have to get one of those Chinese tattoos) is that now there are five more books in the Chronicles of Barsetshire to read.

Three Men on the Bummel

2007-03-22T22:14:00.000-05:00

Jerome K. Jerome 1859-1927

Three Men on the Bummel is the sequel to the comic masterpiece Three Men in a Boat. Jerome wrote this eleven years after Boat and it enjoyed limited commercial success but got a cool reception from critics.

A bummel is a trip with no beginning and no end, just a lot of roaming around and a place you have to be at the end of your allotted time. This book is similar to Boat. George, J, and Harris are back and they plan a vacation from dreary London. They decide the best course of action would be a bicycle trip through the Black Forest. This novel was written during the turn of the century, the most cycling mad era in history. There are the typical machinations for getting the men out of town, convincing skeptical wives, packing way too much, and barely making the train.
Germany itself is described in great detail. Jeromes captures the German character prophetically. The Germans are slaves to authority and can't do much for themselves individually. When they are in groups with someone in charge they can accomplish anything. Som incidents on the trip: a kreipe, a German, late night, male, drinking party. At such an event Jerome advises the reader to pin a name tag to their shirt to ensure they get home after passing out. Harris remembers when his wife fell off their tandem bike and he didn't notice. They make plans to wake up at 6 AM and never leaving before 8. Harris has an adventure with a water hose and a bunch of soaked and angry Germans. The trio constantly struggles with directions, at one point they are so confused they decide to wait out a rainstorm outside rather than heading to an unseen restaurant 20 yards away. The Germans are absolutely obsessed with order, they worship anyone wearing buttons. The most elaborate story in the book involves J and Harris's attempt to temper George's drinking. Apparently the German beer is a little too much for him. It is a very intricate plan that is too involved to explain here, but it deals with lots of drinking and multiple statues.
The biggest difference between Boat and Bummel is the lack of the lovable dog Montmorency. His space is replaced by a detailed study of German culture. Geroge is very cynical and funny. There are lots and lots of jokes I missed in here, either from quick reading or cultural and chronological space. But it is short so I can always go back over Bummel. Seems like the guys had a great time drinking and riding around Germany, but it doesn't quite match the overall magical experience that they enjoyed in Boat.

Rating: 8/10 Reminds me a lot of a sketch show. The characters are put in funny situations and they do funny things. Although Germany and the German people provide a constant thread, they don't have the same power as the Romantic Thames River.

Sister Carrie

2007-03-13T22:57:00.000-05:00

Theodore Dreiser 1871-1945

I had to read Sister Carrie for my Gilded Age in America class in the Spring of 2006. It fit very well into the themes established in the class such as: the transition from rural to urban, the male bachelor subculture, female/male relations, the vital importance of money, the divisions in class, labor issues, the breakdown of family bonds and male conquest. When you get down to it this is the quintessential Gilded Age book. It contains lots of fun literary devices and wry comments from the narrator. There are some problems, however. It is sometimes painful to listen to the narrator speak for Carrie. He can be sexist, generalizing what all women should feel. There is something off-putting about his voice. The end of the book is ponderous and slow.
Carrie Meeber is the main character of the story, a small town girl to whom we are introduced on a train on the way to Chicago. The use of a machine taking an innocent girl from the nourishing country to the corrupting city is an apt way to begin the tale. Carrie is intrigued by the world of wealth and society. She accomplishes social gain by becoming a kept woman, quite a damning state of affairs around the turn of the century. The fact that Carrie's options are so incredibly limited (work for a pittance, marry a poor man, return home, or have an affair) is an indictment of the gender situation at the time. She and her lover, Hurstwood, have a whirlwind affair that takes them around the country, into and out of good situations, and finally to disaster.
Hurstwood is a respected bar manager at a high class place in Chicago. He leaves his family and his job because he is obsessed with Carrie, a lover of his friend. His desperation is a powerful force in the book. He completely breaks through all cultural restraints by stealing money from his bar and spiriting Carrie out of town. His life spirals downward as the travel through Montreal and New York where he finds a job in another bar. Eventually though, he is thrown out of work and becomes destitute. Carrie fulfills her dream of becoming a stage star (reminiscent of Nana by Emile Zola). The couple does not stay together, but their tortured thoughts go on. The late introduction of the enigmatic Ames makes for a confusing ending.
Carrie herself is a tough character to get a grasp on. She is subdued most of the time. For some reason I never got a clear picture of her in my head. She also never seemed happy. Since people are always using Carrie for their own purpose she has good reason to be sad.
My favorite part of Sister Carrie is the portrayal of the cities. Dreiser's realistic style is especially suited to conjuring the essence of the metropolises. Chicago, a rapidly developing city, has streets that run to nowhere. The grid is ready before the houses, businesses or people are. The upper class know each other well. The poor classes toil endlessly and earn nothing. When Carrie lives with her sister and the grey, depressed Sven the oppression of the city is palpable. New York, with the glitter of Delmonico's, Sherry's, and the theaters. The final message from in Sister Carrie comes from Carrie herself. She's found the wealth, fame, and achievement she's alway desired, but she can't help but feel terrible for the working and non-working poor (including her ex-lover Hurstwood). She just wishes she could do something about it, but she can't figure out a way to help.
This was Dreiser's first book. Quite an achievement. It was written in 1900 but got little publicity because of the controversial subject matter. Dreiser's success did not come until later.

Quotes and Main Themes
-About Hurstwood, "Bigamy lightened the horizen of his shadowy thoughts for a moment."
-Drouet to Carrie, "Be natural."
-After Hurstwood is ruined, "Hurstwood sat there, a perfect load to contemplate."

Rating: 7/10 This book has its pros and cons. The realistic tone is a departure from earlier American novels. Dreiser's strengths are his vivid descriptions of cities and his ability to relate the feeling of the time. The Gilded Age is a favorite time period of mine, so this book was an illuminating experience for me. Yet Dreiser's long-winded prose can get irritating.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)

2007-03-04T14:25:00.000-06:00

Jerome K. Jerome 1859-1927

An awesome book from a guy with an awesome name. Written in 1889, this travelogue of the Thames was so popular that boat registrations on the river went up 50% the year after publication of Three Men in a Boat. Jerome acted in London for awhile before trying his hand at writing. Following his honeymoon trip on the river he penned his most famous book.

Unlike most funny novels Three Men in a Boat holds up well today. The story is about three friends, they are real friends; they fight, laugh and make fun of each other. The gentlemen are well-off and lazy. They decide a boat trip on the Thames would be good for their health. The river is the fourth main character in the narrative. Not being familiar with the region, some of the references went right over my head. Jerome's description of the trip is alternatively hilarious, historical and sappily beautiful. The book is more episodic than linear, as J. (the main character) describes the history and beauty of the river. He is joined by the rotund George, the constantly imbibing Harris and the dog, Montmorency. The novel details the packing, boats, tents, food, mazes and songs that go into such an endeavor. The humor is dry and biting, a sarcastic humor I think of when I think of British comedy. The language is shockingly common and realistic. Jerome has a round about way of making a point that reminds me of Dickens and a rapier wit similar to Wilde. To Jerome's credit, Three Men makes you want to travel to London and hang out with the characters. They seem like fun, normal guys despite the cultural and chronological separation from today.
And I haven't really spoke about the dog. Montmorency always seems to have "friends," all of them brutish roaming dogs, hanging about. The group arrives at a landing where Montmorency has 25 fights in two days, the dog feels like "he was in heaven." There was a sequel to Three Men in a Boat called Three Men on a Brummel, about cycling through Germany.

Quotes and main themes
-"I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
-During a comic scene of inept packing for the trip J. comments, "When George is hanged, Harris will be the worst packer in the world."

Rating: 10/10 Maybe not the greatest book ever, maybe not the most well-constructed, but I enjoyed reading this as much as any novel I've encountered. There are very few books this old that has humor which still thrives today.

Next Up: The Idiot

2007-03-02T12:59:00.000-06:00

I've never read Dostoevsky (1821-1888) before so this should be an experience. The Idiot was written in 1868, fours years after his first wife died, but only one year after he married a twenty year-old stenography. He was broke because of compulsive gambling (loved young women and gambling, sounds life my kind of guy) so he started churning out books and they all turned out to be masterpieces. His biography itself is pretty interesting. He was raised in a nasty part of Moscow among the poor. He was fascinated by them and loved talking to mentally unstable patients at his father's hospital. After leaving the army he was exiled to Siberia by Tsar Nicholas for being in an underground group. He spent about ten years there before returning to civilization. The audiobook for The Idiot is just over twenty one hours, so I should have this done in two weeks or thereabouts.

Great Expectations

2007-03-01T21:05:00.000-06:00

Charles Dickens 1812-1870

Great Expectations was Dickens's third to last book. Written in 1867, it is one of his many classics. The king of Victorian prose at full power in this one. I listened to Great Expectations on audiobook. Dickens's language is so thick, textured and descriptive that if my mind wondered for a second I felt like I missed something. Dickens tells the story of the rise and fall of Philip Pirrip (Pip). He lives in a small, English, country town with his older sister and her good, blacksmith husband Joe. One gloomy evening as the young Pip sits ruminating on his parents' deaths a fugitive appears on the foggy marshes. A terrified Pip helps the dangerous man escape from his bonds by using one of Joe's files.
Pip's sister ("Mrs. Joe") rages about the house everyday, but Pip and Joe manage to have many "larks." Joe is a bit slow-witted, but he has a heart of gold. Pip is introduced to Ms. Havisham and the young Estella. Ms. Havisham is a wealthy old woman who has stopped living in the outside after being left at the altar years and years ago by a man named Compeyson. In her mansion the clocks are stopped at 8:40, the wedding feast, long rotted and mummified still sits on the table. Ms. Havisham is never seen out of her papery old wedding gown. Estella is enchantingly beautiful. Her ethereal beauty is the antithesis of Ms. Havisham. Pip immediately falls in love with her, but Estella only toys with and abuses him.
Now an adolescent, Pip receives word that he's to be lifted to the position of gentleman, presumably at the bequest of Ms. Havisham, who he's been humoring for about a year. He heads to London and lives with Herbert, a loyal friend. In London he meets his guardian Mr. Jaggers and Jaggers's employee, Wemmick. Wemmick leads an interesting double life, at work he is dull be he goes home to an old castle to tend to his "aged parent." Pip is convinced that Ms. Havisham is his benefactor and that she intends to have Pip and Estella married. He becomes ashamed of lowly Joe and Pip's childhood friend Biddy because of their country ways. The story turns when Able Magwitch (aka Provis), the same convict from the marsh, returns from Australia illegally and informs Pip that he's been the one paying for Pip's luxurious upbringing. Pip is initially disgusted, but eventually becomes loyal to the devoted man and unsuccessfully tries to leave the country with him. This fails because Provis's mortal enemy, Compeyson, tracks them and turns them over to the police.
Pip returns to Ms. Havisham and Estella, the old house has been the sight of much confusion and heartbreak for him. He leaves Estella forever, even though he knows it is the right move he is sad. Ms. Havisham's humanity is touched for the first time in years. In a fit of remorse for making Estella an unfeeling bitch and for stringing Pip along for years she walks over to the fireplace and sets her very flammable wedding dress on fire. Pip manages to save her despite the terrible things she's done to him.
In the end Pip learns that loyalty is the best value and returns to Joe and Biddy (Mrs. Joe died years before). He feels remorse for neglecting them and intends to marry Biddy only to find that Joe and Biddy have married each other. Pip has missed his chance with Biddy but the trio is extremely happy together. Eventually Pip goes off to work for the now successful Herbert .

Quotes and main themes
-"A Hercules in strength as well as weakness."
-Children are the main victims of injustice.
-When a minor character dies, Dickens writes she "conquered a confirmed habit of living."
-"Life's made of ever so many partings welded together."
-Pip has an interesting discussion of a production of Hamlet.

Rating: 8/10 Certainly a classic, but not my favorite Dickens novel. Still, great characters, especially Ms. Havisham, Magwitch, and the best of all Joe. His good-natured country ways are beautifully juxtaposed against the mostly terrible things that happen in the city.
(Credit victorianweb.org for the pic)

The Method

2007-03-01T20:43:00.000-06:00

There are over 1000 "Classics" to read according to Penguin's List. That's a lot of books, and you can get them all for just under eight grand. I'm going to pass on that great offer and use a mix of audio books, purchased books and library books to accumulate the necessary tomes. I went through the list and found that I have read over 100 of the books already. Now, some of these I read in high school and I don't remember them too well. I'll be rereading or at least reviewing these when the time is right. Here's how this blog will look:
1) When I start a new book I will highlight some info about the author and the significance of the book. If you'd like to read it with me, you'll have the opportunity.
2) After finishing the book I'll give an overview of the characters, main points, and perhaps touch on its greater meaning.
3) Every so often I'll throw in a review from a book I've already read.