Next Up

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Washington Square

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

Washington Square by Henry James.

The Woodlanders

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

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy.

The Way of All Flesh

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

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

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

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

Roughing It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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.