"Read the best books first,
or you may not have a chance to read them at all."
---Thoreau
How could I resist joining in this challenge? I'm in my final twenty years of reading on earth, I think, and it's time to devote myself to reading some of the best writing in these last years.
What is the Classics Club? From the blog:
- choose 50+ classics
- list them at your blog
- choose a reading completion goal date up to five years in the future and note that date on your classics list of 50+ titles
- e-mail the moderators of this blog (theclassicsclubblog@gmail.com) with your list link and information and it will be posted on the Members Page!
- write about each title on your list as you finish reading it, and link it to your main list
- when you’ve written about every single title, let us know.
MY FOURTH CLASSICS CLUB LIST
50 books
December 19, 2022 to present
16 / 50
Adam Bede by George Eliot Adam Bede. It worried me. The main character is a man, and I often have trouble feeling a connection with male main characters. It was first published in 1859, and I sometimes struggle with older titles. The dialogue is written in dialect, and that can be difficult to read. But it is the first book scheduled for Chapter-a-Day this year, and it's written by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), and both of those were great reasons to push through my worries. So, now that I did and have, what do I think? It was initially a little bit of a struggle to connect with the character of Adam Bede. But male character Adam is rendered by a female author, and so comes across in a form that I can emotionally connect to. I did struggle with it in the same ways as I often do with older titles: The plot and dialogue and descriptions of settings and characters often seems overly drawn out; I want to say, Get on with it. And that happened, off and on, throughout Adam Bede. But it wasn't so annoying that I wanted to give up. The dialogue-written-in-dialect was really tricky for me. Sometimes I had to stop and read the dialogue aloud to figure out what the people were saying. But there was also a sense of accomplishment in doing so, almost like figuring out a clue in a crossword. Adam Bede is a marvelous book, with rich characters, both heroes and villains, heroes who blunder and act like villains, and villains who rise and act like heroes. It has a story that we can all connect to: falling for someone based on surface qualities and the results of doing that. It has a deep and thoughtful narrator who shares this story with us as if the narrator were in the room with us, relating the tale in person, with a sense of reflection about the happenings of the story that only time and age can give. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Edmond Dantès is a young man with everything---a woman who loves him, a career on board a worthy ship, and men who respect and admire him. Then he is falsely accused of treason and imprisoned, in isolation, in a fortress, without trial, and his life dramatically changes as everything is taken from him. It is three men who conspire to have Dantès disposed of, and it is against these three men that Dantès plots his revenge during the fourteen years he spends in prison, a revenge he feels that he will be unlikely to ever carry out. His life changes again when he comes to know the friar in the adjoining cell, Abbé Faria. It is this friar who teaches Dantès many important things and becomes a source of courage and wisdom amid the terrible life Dantès is living in the prison. I've never felt 1100 pages turn so quickly as I have while reading this amazing story. Love, hatred, evil, goodness, revenge, forgiveness---it's all in this book. And the tale is still as fresh as if it was published last week. The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien Kate and Baba are friends. Baba is nice to Kate. Kate loves Baba. Baba is mean to Kate. Kate hates Baba. On and on. With lots of Baba being mean. Kate's homelife is...well, bad. Her dad drinks, and he turns into a monster. Her mother tries to cope. But not well. Baba's home is where Kate goes when things go south. And then there is Mr. Gentleman, an older, married man. I was fascinated with this story of two young girls living in the country, going off to school with nuns, heading to the big city, all in 1960s Ireland. Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease It is Elizabethan England. A young boy, Peter, gets involved with a group that is trying to stop a lord from putting up a wall on common lands, and he ends up in trouble and on the run. He joins a theatrical group that puts on plays as they travel through small communities. And then he learns of a plot against Queen Elizabeth's life and he must act before the queen is killed. This is one of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up, and I'd say, yes, you should read it. It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis It can't happen here. Not in America. Surely... But it can and it does. Senator Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip runs for president on a platform to restore American prosperity and stature in the world, and Windrip rapidly becomes popular with the people. Within days of his election, Windrip and his people begin to shut down the legislative and judicial branches of government in the name of what is best for the country. Newspapers are shut down and reestablished with the control of Windrip's people. A citizen's military called the Minute Men is established and soon the thugs are running the country. The unemployed are put into labor camps and dissidents are put into concentration camps. Common people keep their mouths shut or face prison or death. It Can't Happen Here is a shocking picture of a world rapidly flipped upside down by people seeking power. It's a tragic story of an America marked by lies where it's hard to know what is true. It's a frightening depiction of how easily people will go along with an agenda that sounds like it will improve lives. It Can't Happen Here a cautionary tale for us all. Mistress Masham's Repose by T. H. White Maria is the ten-year-old orphan mistress of the poverty-stricken remains of the old Malplaquet estate, and her life is misery. She's been placed in the hands of a governess and a vicar who despise her and her only friend is an absent-minded professor who spends most of his time lost in the past. Then her life changes dramatically when Maria discovers there is a complete civilization of people, tiny people, only inches tall, living on an island in the far corner of her estate. The strength of this book, like the strength of the other T. H. White books I've read, is how he creates---whether they are charming or vile---endearing characters. You can't help but be riveted when White's characters begin to speak. Each character is unique and compelling. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie My first Agatha Christie! We listened to this mystery on a recent car trip. The big question is...What do I think of Agatha Christie? Well, I was surprised. Christie offered a lot of suspects, and I didn't even suspect who-done-it. The characters were all rich and well-fleshed-out. The story provided a lot of subtle humor. Well done, Agatha. Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens I did not like this book, so I am probably not the best person to review it. Why, I'd like to ask Mr. Charles Dickens, would you go to visit a place you find to be dirty and dilapidated and filled with people that are dirty and dilapidated? He seemed to like a couple of spots in Italy, especially parts of Rome and Florence, but the rest? It was hard for me to listen him tear down the spiritual practices of the people and the life in small villages and the art. On and on he went. I wish I had skipped this book. A Pony for Jean by Joanna Cannan Jean's parents have lost it all (something to do with pepper, we are told) and the family is forced to leave London to live in poverty in the country. Jean is sad at first, but she quickly learns the country, with chickens and a lovely cottage and more, is much more interesting than the city. Her cousins prove to be quite haughty, and that's a bit of a disappointment, but then the best thing happens---Jean is gifted with a pony, a pony that's skin-and-bones, to be sure, but a marvelous, smart, beautiful pony. Oh, the voice of this main character! One of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read. Original publishing date is 1937, but the story holds up well. A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold A Sand County Almanac is a collection of essays about nature written by author Aldo Leopold and compiled by his son after his death in 1949. Leopold considered the relationship of land to the people that live on it, the people who use it. Leopold writes with a wry sense of humor, and he tends to look upon humans as doomed to always put self-interest above the interests of the natural world. Here are some quotes from the book: “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.“ “Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.” “ I sit in happy meditation on my rock, pondering, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time!” “ Like other great landowners, I have tenants. They are negligent about rents, but very punctilious about tenures. Indeed at every daybreak from April to July they proclaim their boundaries to each other, and so acknowledge, at least by inference, their fiefdom to me.” “ Getting up too early is a vice habitual in horned owls, stars, geese, and freight trains.” “ I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.” “ In October I like to walk among these blue plumes, rising straight and stalwart from the red carpet of dewberry leaves. I wonder whether they are aware of their state of well-being. I know only that I am.” I can see why many people I know reread this book often. Silas Marner by George Eliot Silas Marner has left his homeland after being falsely accused of a crime. In England, he is regarded with suspicion, and, alone and friendless, he occupies himself by amassing gold coins. In Marner's town is a squire with two sons. The older son is being blackmailed by the wicked younger son; the squire does not know that the older son has secretly married an opium addict and has a child. The younger son needs money and, when opportunity arises, steals Marner's gold. Later, the secret wife of the squire's older son dies while attempting to bring the child to him, and the child survives when she is drawn by a warm fire to enter Marner's home. Marner takes the child, who he names Eppie, in, and gradually the village warms to Marner for his kindness. I love this story of Silas Marner. Perhaps I might take a fraction of a point away for Eppie's unremitting and slightly unlikely cheeriness, but the saving of a soul (Marner) by love (Eppie's) will always be my favorite sort of tale. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck Danny and his friends in Tortilla Flat spend their lives hanging out, telling stories, drinking wine, fighting, and spending time with women. It's a simple story of simple friendships that takes place in a time when people could scrounge for a bit of work, scrounge for a bit of food, and scrounge for a place to stay, and when people could spend most of their time doing the things they like to do---and that was enough. Jail time is an expected part of life. Drinking sprees are an expected part of life. Fist fights are an expected part of life. And friendship is the central value of all the men in the story. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster Some spoilers in the paragraph below... Widowed Lilia Herriton travels to Italy and falls in love with a much younger man, Gino. Family is sent to Italy to stop the upcoming wedding between the two, but brother-in-law Philip arrives too late. Lilia dies in childbirth, and Philip is sent back to Italy to retrieve the child... It's been a long time since I have read a book that left me thinking like this one did. Now I plan to watch the 1991 movie. The Wonderful Adventure of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf Nils is a little boy who causes trouble wherever he goes, especially among the animals on his farm. One day he captures an elf and when the elf gets free, he changes Nils into an elf. Nils takes off with the family goose, joining wild geese migrating over Sweden. The author weaves lots of intriguing folktales and stories into her book, folktales and stories that are more interesting and unexpected than the typically moralistic children's stories of that time. For me, these stories and folktales were the best part of the book. Nils grows in character as he experiences many trials on his trip with the geese, and that is interesting and unexpected, too. The descriptions of Sweden? Whew. Very, very detailed. I could have done with much less of that. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman MY THIRD CLASSICS CLUB LIST April 2, 2021 to December 17, 2022 Complete |
48/50 Updated November 2022
The Adventures of Baron Münchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe
Baron Münchausen travels all around the world righting wrongs and besting bad folks. Each chapter is a separate adventure, and all the adventures have the feel of a tall tale, with humor and wild exaggeration.
This is probably the most imaginative book I think I have ever read. Wild and unexpected twists and meanderings in the plot fill the book, and these delighted me.
This book was great fun, but I can't help feeling like this was a bad translation from the original German, with lots of big words that are strikingly awkward in the story. As often happens with older stories, there are some scenes that feature cultural stereotypes of the time in which the story was written, and, if you aren't keen on your children reading violence, you better not open this book.
The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher
It's a bit of a cheat to count this as a book read since I've already counted each of the five books that make it up as a separate book read, but this is the book I put on my Classics Club list and this is the book that, technically, I have now finished.
To simplify things, I will cut and past the reviews I previously posted about the five books that compose The Art of Eating below.
SERVE IT FORTH
Brilliant essays, loosely written on the theme of food.
“WHEN shall we live, if not now?” asked Seneca before a table laid for his pleasure and his friends’. It is a question whose answer is almost too easily precluded. When indeed? We are alive, and now. When else live, and how more pleasantly than supping with sweet comrades?
M.F.K. Fisher looks at food in history, sharing some little-known stories of the foods people found and put together to eat, stories of the way a means of sustenance turned into art.
Sometimes there were big meals.
“Fifty swans, a hundred and ten geese, fifty capons ‘of hie grece’ and eight dozen other capons, sixty dozen hens, five herons, six kids and seven dozen rabbits (strange place here for such lively fourlegged wingless little beasts!), five dozen pullets for jelly and some eleven dozen to roast, a hundred dozen peacocks, twenty dozen cranes and curlews, and ‘wilde fowle ynogh.’”
Sometimes it was the presentation.
Flowers were often used thus by the Middle English, sometimes most fortunately. What could be more ludicrously lovely than a tiny crackled piglet all garlanded with lilies and wild daffodils? Or a baked swan in its feathers, with roses on its proud reptilian head?
The stunning changes that resulted from Catherine de Medici's decision to bring her chefs with her from Italy to France. A sad tale of a once-magnificent waiter's last night at the helm. The story of "a moment of complete gastronomic satisfaction."
If you call yourself a food reader, this and M.F.K. Fisher's other collections of essays are must-reads. And even if you are not, even if you are simply a lover of great writing, this and Fisher's other works will delight you.
CONSIDER THE OYSTER
One of the signs that M.F.K. Fisher is an amazing writer: Fisher can write an entire book about oysters and it's cover-to-cover fascinating.
I have eaten oysters. They were delicious. But I would be fine if I never ate them again.
Still, I read this book and I couldn't stop reading. If you are an oyster-lover, it's definitely a book for you. And even if you are not, you may want to read it anyway.
HOW TO COOK A WOLF
How to Cook a Wolf is a collection of essays focusing on frugality during difficult times. It was first published during World War II.
I'd love to hear what a young person would say about some of Fisher's suggestions. I imagine a young person would find them to be very extreme.
THE GASTRONOMICAL ME
M.F.K. Fisher tells the story of her life through the foods she experienced. Fisher begins with her forays into college life and her first marriage, and then tells of her gradual development as a food writer that was highly influenced by her move to France.
Fisher almost skips over key details in her life including her divorce and the decline and eventual suicide of her second husband, so I had to do a bit of research to fill in the gaps.
No matter what Fisher is writing about---whether it's her life or stories about people she meets or places she lives or the food she eats---her writing is mesmerizing.
AN ALPHABET FOR GOURMETS
As a person who reads 200+ children's picture books a year, I can firmly vow to you that this is an alphabet book like no other. Yes, it's organized alphabetically, with one essay for each letter of the alphabet, but, trust me on this, even if you read through the chapter titles, you will have no idea where Ms. Fisher is going to take you.
X is for Xanthippe, for example, uses Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, and her (presumed) behavior at meals (she is believed to be the epitome of a harpy) to share with her readers what not to do when dining together with others.
And Z is for Zakuski, the last chapter, is about hors d'oeuvres, which a logical thinker might wish to find in the A chapter. But Fisher has her reasons. And they are good ones.
N is for Nautical? M is for Monastic? And how do these fit into a book about food? Perhaps these are unexpected, but that is part of the delight of this book.
Even P is for Peas is not a straightforward treatise on the green vegetable, and that, too, is Fisher's charm.
To simplify things, I will cut and past the reviews I previously posted about the five books that compose The Art of Eating below.
SERVE IT FORTH
Brilliant essays, loosely written on the theme of food.
“WHEN shall we live, if not now?” asked Seneca before a table laid for his pleasure and his friends’. It is a question whose answer is almost too easily precluded. When indeed? We are alive, and now. When else live, and how more pleasantly than supping with sweet comrades?
M.F.K. Fisher looks at food in history, sharing some little-known stories of the foods people found and put together to eat, stories of the way a means of sustenance turned into art.
Sometimes there were big meals.
“Fifty swans, a hundred and ten geese, fifty capons ‘of hie grece’ and eight dozen other capons, sixty dozen hens, five herons, six kids and seven dozen rabbits (strange place here for such lively fourlegged wingless little beasts!), five dozen pullets for jelly and some eleven dozen to roast, a hundred dozen peacocks, twenty dozen cranes and curlews, and ‘wilde fowle ynogh.’”
Sometimes it was the presentation.
Flowers were often used thus by the Middle English, sometimes most fortunately. What could be more ludicrously lovely than a tiny crackled piglet all garlanded with lilies and wild daffodils? Or a baked swan in its feathers, with roses on its proud reptilian head?
The stunning changes that resulted from Catherine de Medici's decision to bring her chefs with her from Italy to France. A sad tale of a once-magnificent waiter's last night at the helm. The story of "a moment of complete gastronomic satisfaction."
If you call yourself a food reader, this and M.F.K. Fisher's other collections of essays are must-reads. And even if you are not, even if you are simply a lover of great writing, this and Fisher's other works will delight you.
CONSIDER THE OYSTER
One of the signs that M.F.K. Fisher is an amazing writer: Fisher can write an entire book about oysters and it's cover-to-cover fascinating.
I have eaten oysters. They were delicious. But I would be fine if I never ate them again.
Still, I read this book and I couldn't stop reading. If you are an oyster-lover, it's definitely a book for you. And even if you are not, you may want to read it anyway.
HOW TO COOK A WOLF
How to Cook a Wolf is a collection of essays focusing on frugality during difficult times. It was first published during World War II.
I'd love to hear what a young person would say about some of Fisher's suggestions. I imagine a young person would find them to be very extreme.
THE GASTRONOMICAL ME
M.F.K. Fisher tells the story of her life through the foods she experienced. Fisher begins with her forays into college life and her first marriage, and then tells of her gradual development as a food writer that was highly influenced by her move to France.
Fisher almost skips over key details in her life including her divorce and the decline and eventual suicide of her second husband, so I had to do a bit of research to fill in the gaps.
No matter what Fisher is writing about---whether it's her life or stories about people she meets or places she lives or the food she eats---her writing is mesmerizing.
AN ALPHABET FOR GOURMETS
As a person who reads 200+ children's picture books a year, I can firmly vow to you that this is an alphabet book like no other. Yes, it's organized alphabetically, with one essay for each letter of the alphabet, but, trust me on this, even if you read through the chapter titles, you will have no idea where Ms. Fisher is going to take you.
X is for Xanthippe, for example, uses Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, and her (presumed) behavior at meals (she is believed to be the epitome of a harpy) to share with her readers what not to do when dining together with others.
And Z is for Zakuski, the last chapter, is about hors d'oeuvres, which a logical thinker might wish to find in the A chapter. But Fisher has her reasons. And they are good ones.
N is for Nautical? M is for Monastic? And how do these fit into a book about food? Perhaps these are unexpected, but that is part of the delight of this book.
Even P is for Peas is not a straightforward treatise on the green vegetable, and that, too, is Fisher's charm.
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
Cosimo di Rondó, a young adolescent, leads an insipid life as the older son of a minor noble in Italy during the time of Napoleon, subject to the tedious and idiosyncratic rules that govern the lives of all the upper classes. One night Cosimo rebels against his father's instruction to eat the snails served to him, and he strikes out into a tree, vowing never again to touch the earth.
And he doesn't. Instead, he creates a whole new big life for himself, living in the trees, looking out on the world from a vantage point above everything else, considering the world, choosing for himself how he wants to use his time, engaging in adventures with pirates and revolutionaries, reading and discussing important issues with the great minds of his day, romancing women, leading people, all the while finding ways to do all of these things while remaining true to his principle of remaining aloft.
It's a modern fairy tale. It's a Utopia that Cosimo creates for himself. It's a parable. It's a children's story. It's an adventure tale. It's charming and it's clever and it's compelling and it's wise.
A delight.
And he doesn't. Instead, he creates a whole new big life for himself, living in the trees, looking out on the world from a vantage point above everything else, considering the world, choosing for himself how he wants to use his time, engaging in adventures with pirates and revolutionaries, reading and discussing important issues with the great minds of his day, romancing women, leading people, all the while finding ways to do all of these things while remaining true to his principle of remaining aloft.
It's a modern fairy tale. It's a Utopia that Cosimo creates for himself. It's a parable. It's a children's story. It's an adventure tale. It's charming and it's clever and it's compelling and it's wise.
A delight.
The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola
Florent Quenu has escaped from exile as a political prisoner, and he has returned to live in Paris with his brother and his brother's wife, Lisa. Though Florent was wrongly accused and sentenced, he continues to sympathize with the poor against those in power in France. He gets a job as an inspector, a job he took only to appease his sister-in-law, and he meets frequently with a group of others who seek to overthrow the government. Others, for petty personal reasons rather than for political ones, begin to gossip about Florent, and he is finally arrested and deported again.
Florent's passion for politics is compared in the book by Florent's artist friend, Claude Lantier, to Lantier's own desire to make art: "And—may I be quite frank with you?—if I like you it’s because you seem to me to follow politics just as I follow painting. You titillate yourself, my good friend.”
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 292). Kindle Edition.
The overriding theme of the book is what Lantier calls the Battle of the Fat and the Thin, with the fat wealthy bourgeoisie pitted against the thin lower classes. The story takes place in Les Halles, the huge market complex in Paris, and detailed descriptions of foods can be found throughout the book.
Some other favorite quotes from the book:
"No, Florent had never again been free from hunger. He recalled all the past to mind, but could not recollect a single hour of satiety. He had become dry and withered; his stomach seemed to have shrunk; his skin clung to his bones. And now that he was back in Paris once more, he found it fat and sleek and flourishing, teeming with food in the midst of the darkness. He had returned to it on a couch of vegetables; he lingered in its midst encompassed by unknown masses of food which still and ever increased and disquieted him."
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 19). Kindle Edition.
"Claude detected the entire drama of human life, and he ended by classifying men into Fat and Thin, two hostile groups, one of which devours the other, and grows fat and sleek and enjoys itself."
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 241). Kindle Edition.
'Beneath the stall show-table, formed of a slab of red marble veined with grey, baskets of eggs gleamed with a chalky whiteness; while on layers of straw in boxes were Bondons, placed end to end, and Gournays, arranged like medals, forming darker patches tinted with green. But it was upon the table that the cheeses appeared in greatest profusion. Here, by the side of the pound-rolls of butter lying on white-beet leaves, spread a gigantic Cantal cheese, cloven here and there as by an axe; then came a golden-hued Cheshire, and next a Gruyere, resembling a wheel fallen from some barbarian chariot; whilst farther on were some Dutch cheeses, suggesting decapitated heads suffused with dry blood, and having all that hardness of skulls which in France has gained them the name of “death’s heads.” Amidst the heavy exhalations of these, a Parmesan set a spicy aroma. Then there came three Brie cheeses displayed on round platters, and looking like melancholy extinct moons. Two of them, very dry, were at the full; the third, in its second quarter, was melting away in a white cream, which had spread into a pool and flowed over the little wooden barriers with which an attempt had been made to arrest its course. Next came some Port Saluts, similar to antique discs, with exergues bearing their makers’ names in print. A Romantour, in its tin-foil wrapper, suggested a bar of nougat or some sweet cheese astray amidst all these pungent, fermenting curds. The Roqueforts under their glass covers also had a princely air, their fat faces marbled with blue and yellow, as though they were suffering from some unpleasant malady such as attacks the wealthy gluttons who eat too many truffles. And on a dish by the side of these, the hard grey goats’ milk cheeses, about the size of a child’s fist, resembled the pebbles which the billy-goats send rolling down the stony paths as they clamber along ahead of their flocks. Next came the strong smelling cheeses: the Mont d’Ors, of a bright yellow hue, and exhaling a comparatively mild odour; the Troyes, very thick, and bruised at the edges, and of a far more pungent smell, recalling the dampness of a cellar; the Camemberts, suggestive of high game; the square Neufchatels, Limbourgs, Marolles, and Pont l’Eveques, each adding its own particular sharp scent to the malodorous bouquet, till it became perfectly pestilential; the Livarots, ruddy in hue, and as irritating to the throat as sulphur fumes; and, lastly, stronger than all the others, the Olivets, wrapped in walnut leaves, like the carrion which peasants cover with branches as it lies rotting in the hedgerow under the blazing sun.'
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (pp. 266-267). Kindle Edition.
"The gossips looked at each other with a circumspect air. And then, as they drew breath, they inhaled the odour of the Camemberts, whose gamy scent had overpowered the less penetrating emanations of the Marolles and the Limbourgs, and spread around with remarkable power. Every now and then, however, a slight whiff, a flutelike note, came from the Parmesan, while the Bries contributed a soft, musty scent, the gentle, insipid sound, as it were, of damp tambourines. Next followed an overpowering refrain from the Livarots, and afterwards the Gerome, flavoured with aniseed, kept up the symphony with a high prolonged note, like that of a vocalist during a pause in the accompaniment."
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 270). Kindle Edition.
Florent's passion for politics is compared in the book by Florent's artist friend, Claude Lantier, to Lantier's own desire to make art: "And—may I be quite frank with you?—if I like you it’s because you seem to me to follow politics just as I follow painting. You titillate yourself, my good friend.”
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 292). Kindle Edition.
The overriding theme of the book is what Lantier calls the Battle of the Fat and the Thin, with the fat wealthy bourgeoisie pitted against the thin lower classes. The story takes place in Les Halles, the huge market complex in Paris, and detailed descriptions of foods can be found throughout the book.
Some other favorite quotes from the book:
"No, Florent had never again been free from hunger. He recalled all the past to mind, but could not recollect a single hour of satiety. He had become dry and withered; his stomach seemed to have shrunk; his skin clung to his bones. And now that he was back in Paris once more, he found it fat and sleek and flourishing, teeming with food in the midst of the darkness. He had returned to it on a couch of vegetables; he lingered in its midst encompassed by unknown masses of food which still and ever increased and disquieted him."
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 19). Kindle Edition.
"Claude detected the entire drama of human life, and he ended by classifying men into Fat and Thin, two hostile groups, one of which devours the other, and grows fat and sleek and enjoys itself."
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 241). Kindle Edition.
'Beneath the stall show-table, formed of a slab of red marble veined with grey, baskets of eggs gleamed with a chalky whiteness; while on layers of straw in boxes were Bondons, placed end to end, and Gournays, arranged like medals, forming darker patches tinted with green. But it was upon the table that the cheeses appeared in greatest profusion. Here, by the side of the pound-rolls of butter lying on white-beet leaves, spread a gigantic Cantal cheese, cloven here and there as by an axe; then came a golden-hued Cheshire, and next a Gruyere, resembling a wheel fallen from some barbarian chariot; whilst farther on were some Dutch cheeses, suggesting decapitated heads suffused with dry blood, and having all that hardness of skulls which in France has gained them the name of “death’s heads.” Amidst the heavy exhalations of these, a Parmesan set a spicy aroma. Then there came three Brie cheeses displayed on round platters, and looking like melancholy extinct moons. Two of them, very dry, were at the full; the third, in its second quarter, was melting away in a white cream, which had spread into a pool and flowed over the little wooden barriers with which an attempt had been made to arrest its course. Next came some Port Saluts, similar to antique discs, with exergues bearing their makers’ names in print. A Romantour, in its tin-foil wrapper, suggested a bar of nougat or some sweet cheese astray amidst all these pungent, fermenting curds. The Roqueforts under their glass covers also had a princely air, their fat faces marbled with blue and yellow, as though they were suffering from some unpleasant malady such as attacks the wealthy gluttons who eat too many truffles. And on a dish by the side of these, the hard grey goats’ milk cheeses, about the size of a child’s fist, resembled the pebbles which the billy-goats send rolling down the stony paths as they clamber along ahead of their flocks. Next came the strong smelling cheeses: the Mont d’Ors, of a bright yellow hue, and exhaling a comparatively mild odour; the Troyes, very thick, and bruised at the edges, and of a far more pungent smell, recalling the dampness of a cellar; the Camemberts, suggestive of high game; the square Neufchatels, Limbourgs, Marolles, and Pont l’Eveques, each adding its own particular sharp scent to the malodorous bouquet, till it became perfectly pestilential; the Livarots, ruddy in hue, and as irritating to the throat as sulphur fumes; and, lastly, stronger than all the others, the Olivets, wrapped in walnut leaves, like the carrion which peasants cover with branches as it lies rotting in the hedgerow under the blazing sun.'
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (pp. 266-267). Kindle Edition.
"The gossips looked at each other with a circumspect air. And then, as they drew breath, they inhaled the odour of the Camemberts, whose gamy scent had overpowered the less penetrating emanations of the Marolles and the Limbourgs, and spread around with remarkable power. Every now and then, however, a slight whiff, a flutelike note, came from the Parmesan, while the Bries contributed a soft, musty scent, the gentle, insipid sound, as it were, of damp tambourines. Next followed an overpowering refrain from the Livarots, and afterwards the Gerome, flavoured with aniseed, kept up the symphony with a high prolonged note, like that of a vocalist during a pause in the accompaniment."
Emile Zola. The Belly of Paris: (Annotated Edition) (p. 270). Kindle Edition.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is the Native American story of the American West. In many ways the many stories told are all the same story: Native Americans are living happy lives in the West, and non-natives arrive and see the beauty of the land and make treaties with the native peoples and then immediately begin to break the treaties and scheme and lie and fight and kill in order to take their land. And it happens over and over and over again.
'"So tractable, so peaceable, are these people," Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of Spain, "that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation."' This, of course, makes the stories even more tragic.
The Navahos...the Cheyennes...the Apaches...the Nez Perces...the non-natives meet them, sign treaties with them, and then amend or ignore the treaties, and soon we see the native peoples shuttled off to land that can't support life or killed in horrendous massacres.
I am left with a feeling of deep sadness for the Native Americans. This is a terrible story, but it is a story that all Americans should know.
'"So tractable, so peaceable, are these people," Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of Spain, "that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation."' This, of course, makes the stories even more tragic.
The Navahos...the Cheyennes...the Apaches...the Nez Perces...the non-natives meet them, sign treaties with them, and then amend or ignore the treaties, and soon we see the native peoples shuttled off to land that can't support life or killed in horrendous massacres.
I am left with a feeling of deep sadness for the Native Americans. This is a terrible story, but it is a story that all Americans should know.
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
| A woman visits the town of Dunnet Landing, Maine for several summers. Her landlord makes sure she becomes familiar with all of the residents of the town. This little book is a collection of stories of the characters the woman meets and comes to know. This is a beautifully written book, a quiet book, a small book, a book that feels so true that I have the feeling that this is exactly what Dunnet Landing, Maine was like at the turn of the twentieth century. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton Undine Spragg relies upon her beauty to bring her the things she wants in life---clothes, jewelry, friends, parties, admiration, respectability. And her beauty does bring her men, but each man who comes into her life, she soon realizes, is not able to bring all the things she wants, and so, after a short amount of time, she quickly discards each man for another. But discarding a man brings consequences, too, and often these result in loss of one or more of the things she wants. No man seems capable of giving her everything. She is perpetually dissatisfied. Though Undine is markedly limited in her interests in life, what a complex character Wharton creates in Undine Spragg. I couldn't help both hating and loving Undine, being alternately drawn to and repulsed by her. And the poor men who ended up with her...how quickly most of them realized the terrible mistake they had made in choosing Undine. A few quotes from the book: "Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. She wanted to surprise every one by her dash and originality, but she could not help modelling herself on the last person she met, and the confusion of ideals thus produced caused her much perturbation when she had to choose between two courses." "Her mind was as destitute of beauty and mystery as the prairie school-house in which she had been educated; and her ideals seemed to Ralph as pathetic as the ornaments made of corks and cigar-bands with which her infant hands had been taught to adorn it. He was beginning to understand this, and learning to adapt himself to the narrow compass of her experience. The task of opening new windows in her mind was inspiring enough to give him infinite patience; and he would not yet own to himself that her pliancy and variety were imitative rather than spontaneous." "She had found out that she had given herself to the exclusive and the dowdy when the future belonged to the showy and the promiscuous..." 'It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman—what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again—I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM."' "The flame of love that had played about his passion for his wife had died down to its embers; all the transfiguring hopes and illusions were gone, but they had left an unquenchable ache for her nearness, her smile, her touch." "The turnings of life seldom show a sign-post; or rather, though the sign is always there, it is usually placed some distance back, like the notices that give warning of a bad hill or a level railway-crossing." "(H)is musings on man's relation to his self imposed laws had shown him how little human conduct is generally troubled about its own sanctions." "If only everyone would do as she wished she would never be unreasonable." ""A man doesn't know till he tries it how killing uncongenial work is, and how it destroys the power of doing what one's fit for, even if there's time for both." '"And you're all alike," he exclaimed, "every one of you. You come among us from a country we don't know, and can't imagine, a country you care for so little that before you've been a day in ours you've forgotten the very house you were born in—if it wasn't torn down before you knew it! You come among us speaking our language and not knowing what we mean; wanting the things we want, and not knowing why we want them; aping our weaknesses, exaggerating our follies, ignoring or ridiculing all we care about—you come from hotels as big as towns, and from towns as flimsy as paper, where the streets haven't had time to be named, and the buildings are demolished before they're dry, and the people are as proud of changing as we are of holding to what we have—and we're fools enough to imagine that because you copy our ways and pick up our slang you understand anything about the things that make life decent and honourable for us!"' "She could never be with people who had all the things she envied without being hypnotized into the belief that she had only to put her hand out to obtain them, and all the unassuaged rancours and hungers of her early days in West End Avenue came back with increased acuity. She knew her wants so much better now, and was so much more worthy of the things she wanted!" "Little as she understood of the qualities that made Moffatt what he was, the results were of the kind most palpable to her. He used life exactly as she would have used it in his place. Some of his enjoyments were beyond her range, but even these appealed to her because of the money that was required to gratify them." And, my favorite quote, from the end of the book: "Even now, however, she was not always happy. She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them." |
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
David Copperfield relates the story of his life from the moment he was born to a time he has settled into his career as a writer. Copperfield meets an astonishing array of people---Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Uriah Heep, Steerforth, Mr. Micawber, Peggotty, Dora, Little Em'ly---who are themselves now classic characters of literature, and he experiences an equally astonishing array of life experiences that shape him from a naive boy into a thoughtful man.
David Copperfield relates the story of his life from the moment he was born to a time he has settled into his career as a writer. Copperfield meets an astonishing array of people---Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Uriah Heep, Steerforth, Mr. Micawber, Peggotty, Dora, Little Em'ly---who are themselves now classic characters of literature, and he experiences an equally astonishing array of life experiences that shape him from a naive boy into a thoughtful man.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Ten young people have hidden away from the plague that is ravaging 1340s Italy in a castle outside Florence. To pass the time, they tell stories.
In the full version of this book, the ten people tell ten stories a day for ten days. This audiobook is abridged, however, with sixteen stories. The stories pack a punch, all of them bawdy, with tales of misadventures in bed, full of fun twists and unexpected turns.
In the full version of this book, the ten people tell ten stories a day for ten days. This audiobook is abridged, however, with sixteen stories. The stories pack a punch, all of them bawdy, with tales of misadventures in bed, full of fun twists and unexpected turns.
The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
A woman living in the provinces keeps a daily journal of her activities with her husband, her two children, and her household staff. It’s delightfully amusing, told with clever wit and humor. Though it was written a hundred years ago, I can see that I would love to be friends with the provincial lady.
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
I've finished it.
What can I say about it?
I think I summed up my thoughts about it best on my blog last week: "I will be finished with The Divine Comedy in just days, after reading on it every day for three and a half months. I will be glad to be done with it. All the levels of punishment for sinners and all the theology and all the names of various good guys and bad guys known to Dante...whew! Reading it was exhausting, honestly. Still, I'm glad to have read it. Just don't ask me to read it again, and I'm not sure I really even remember enough to talk about it with you."
I liked best a bit I read in the commentary at the beginning of the book: "...Hell is every sinner’s own guilty conscience." It was a fabulous voyage through happy and unhappy lives, but I would like to remind people that it is a fictional story. There are not, as far as we know, circles of Hell that come after we die. Do we suffer because of the terrible things we do in this life? I think we do, and that is one of the things Dante is presenting to us. Of course, maybe he was just having fun tossing his enemies into various nasty circles of the Inferno. I got a lot of personal pleasure imagining Donald Trump in the Underworld...I wonder if it would be possible for him to be placed in all of the circles for which he has made transgressions...sort of like a vacation in Hell...stopping to be tortured a few days in the circle for liars and traveling on to be further tormented in the circle for treating women like objects (surely that's a circle).
Here are a few quotes from the book:
"He (Satan) is fixed into the ice at the center to which flow all the rivers of guilt, and as he beats his great wings as if to escape, their icy wind only freezes him more surely into the polluted ice. In a grotesque parody of the Trinity, he has three faces, each a different color, and in each mouth he clamps a sinner whom he rips eternally with his teeth."
"Dante’s share of bitterness can be tasted in the Comedy’s invectives and many ironic allusions—launched Dante’s mind on one of its greatest drives: to understand the problem of evil, and to try to solve it. What could lead the head of the church, of all Christendom, vicar of the Christ who scorned the hypocrites and drove the money-changers and shopkeepers from the Temple, to engage in the fraud and perfidy of the Florentine conspiracy? How could such a man rise to such a position? What hope was there that men in general might be persuaded to a just life in this world and salvation in the next when they saw their spiritual leaders behave in such a way? Surely such a marvelously ordered physical universe, created for man’s enjoyment, must contain somewhere a clue to a better political organization or government than that of Dante’s day."
"...in a poem dedicated to the demonstration of how, by their merits or demerits, men make themselves subject to reward or punishment, there is one central, all-important question to be treated—that of Free Will and the individual’s responsibility for his actions."
"The higher one climbs from sin to repentance, the easier it becomes to climb still higher until, in the Perfection of Grace, the climb becomes effortless. But to that ultimate height, as Virgil knows, Human Reason cannot reach. It is Beatrice (Divine Love) who must guide him there."
"In the presence of God the soul grows ever more capable of perceiving God. Thus, the worthy soul’s experience of God is a constant expansion of awareness."
What can I say about it?
I think I summed up my thoughts about it best on my blog last week: "I will be finished with The Divine Comedy in just days, after reading on it every day for three and a half months. I will be glad to be done with it. All the levels of punishment for sinners and all the theology and all the names of various good guys and bad guys known to Dante...whew! Reading it was exhausting, honestly. Still, I'm glad to have read it. Just don't ask me to read it again, and I'm not sure I really even remember enough to talk about it with you."
I liked best a bit I read in the commentary at the beginning of the book: "...Hell is every sinner’s own guilty conscience." It was a fabulous voyage through happy and unhappy lives, but I would like to remind people that it is a fictional story. There are not, as far as we know, circles of Hell that come after we die. Do we suffer because of the terrible things we do in this life? I think we do, and that is one of the things Dante is presenting to us. Of course, maybe he was just having fun tossing his enemies into various nasty circles of the Inferno. I got a lot of personal pleasure imagining Donald Trump in the Underworld...I wonder if it would be possible for him to be placed in all of the circles for which he has made transgressions...sort of like a vacation in Hell...stopping to be tortured a few days in the circle for liars and traveling on to be further tormented in the circle for treating women like objects (surely that's a circle).
Here are a few quotes from the book:
"He (Satan) is fixed into the ice at the center to which flow all the rivers of guilt, and as he beats his great wings as if to escape, their icy wind only freezes him more surely into the polluted ice. In a grotesque parody of the Trinity, he has three faces, each a different color, and in each mouth he clamps a sinner whom he rips eternally with his teeth."
"Dante’s share of bitterness can be tasted in the Comedy’s invectives and many ironic allusions—launched Dante’s mind on one of its greatest drives: to understand the problem of evil, and to try to solve it. What could lead the head of the church, of all Christendom, vicar of the Christ who scorned the hypocrites and drove the money-changers and shopkeepers from the Temple, to engage in the fraud and perfidy of the Florentine conspiracy? How could such a man rise to such a position? What hope was there that men in general might be persuaded to a just life in this world and salvation in the next when they saw their spiritual leaders behave in such a way? Surely such a marvelously ordered physical universe, created for man’s enjoyment, must contain somewhere a clue to a better political organization or government than that of Dante’s day."
"...in a poem dedicated to the demonstration of how, by their merits or demerits, men make themselves subject to reward or punishment, there is one central, all-important question to be treated—that of Free Will and the individual’s responsibility for his actions."
"The higher one climbs from sin to repentance, the easier it becomes to climb still higher until, in the Perfection of Grace, the climb becomes effortless. But to that ultimate height, as Virgil knows, Human Reason cannot reach. It is Beatrice (Divine Love) who must guide him there."
"In the presence of God the soul grows ever more capable of perceiving God. Thus, the worthy soul’s experience of God is a constant expansion of awareness."
Dubliners by James Joyce
Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories all set in Dublin and all featuring classic Irish characters:
"The Sisters"
"An Encounter"
"Araby"
"Eveline"
"After the Race"
"Two Gallants"
"The Boarding House"
"A Little Cloud"
"Counterparts"
"Clay"
"A Painful Case"
"Ivy Day in the Committee Room"
"A Mother"
"Grace"
"The Dead"
I remember reading this collection of stories long ago, and I remember that the stories surprised me with the memorable characters and unexpected plots.
I was not quite as taken with the stories or the characters this time. Did I remember what was going to happen? Is that what led to my disappointment with the second reading of Dubliners? Or was it simply that I am at a point in my life where I hope to find some characters who have admirable qualities in the pages of the books I read, and this did not happen? I'm not sure what happened, but I didn't connect as strongly with the plight of the characters or with the difficulties of the characters' lives on this read.
"The Sisters"
"An Encounter"
"Araby"
"Eveline"
"After the Race"
"Two Gallants"
"The Boarding House"
"A Little Cloud"
"Counterparts"
"Clay"
"A Painful Case"
"Ivy Day in the Committee Room"
"A Mother"
"Grace"
"The Dead"
I remember reading this collection of stories long ago, and I remember that the stories surprised me with the memorable characters and unexpected plots.
I was not quite as taken with the stories or the characters this time. Did I remember what was going to happen? Is that what led to my disappointment with the second reading of Dubliners? Or was it simply that I am at a point in my life where I hope to find some characters who have admirable qualities in the pages of the books I read, and this did not happen? I'm not sure what happened, but I didn't connect as strongly with the plight of the characters or with the difficulties of the characters' lives on this read.
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
Elizabeth tells the story of her year in a diary kept while she and her family lived on her husband's estate in the country. Elizabeth gently mocks her husband, her friends, and others she knows as she tells how she made efforts to create a beautiful garden.
A few samples from the book:
"...if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple."
"Happiness is so wholesome; it invigorates and warms me into piety far more effectually than any amount of trials and griefs, and an unexpected pleasure is the surest means of bringing me to my knees. In spite of the protestations of some peculiarly constructed persons that they are the better for trials, I don't believe it. Such things must sour us, just as happiness must sweeten us, and make us kinder, and more gentle."
'"I hope you are not going to be ill," said Irais with great concern, "because there is only a cow-doctor to be had here, and though he means well, I believe he is rather rough." Minora was plainly startled. "But what do you do if you are ill?" she asked. "Oh, we are never ill," said I; "the very knowledge that there would be no one to cure us seems to keep us healthy."'
A few samples from the book:
"...if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple."
"Happiness is so wholesome; it invigorates and warms me into piety far more effectually than any amount of trials and griefs, and an unexpected pleasure is the surest means of bringing me to my knees. In spite of the protestations of some peculiarly constructed persons that they are the better for trials, I don't believe it. Such things must sour us, just as happiness must sweeten us, and make us kinder, and more gentle."
'"I hope you are not going to be ill," said Irais with great concern, "because there is only a cow-doctor to be had here, and though he means well, I believe he is rather rough." Minora was plainly startled. "But what do you do if you are ill?" she asked. "Oh, we are never ill," said I; "the very knowledge that there would be no one to cure us seems to keep us healthy."'
The Far-Distant Oxus by Katharine Hull
A group of children heads off on their own for a series of adventures.
It sounds a lot like some of the most popular English children's books of the first half of the 1900's, doesn't it?
One of the novelties of this book is that the authors themselves were teens when they wrote the book.
The children travel on horseback around the moors of England (and, later, aboard a raft down the river to the sea) without adult supervision. It's that lack of adult supervision that might seem most shocking to contemporary readers.
It sounds a lot like some of the most popular English children's books of the first half of the 1900's, doesn't it?
One of the novelties of this book is that the authors themselves were teens when they wrote the book.
The children travel on horseback around the moors of England (and, later, aboard a raft down the river to the sea) without adult supervision. It's that lack of adult supervision that might seem most shocking to contemporary readers.
Favorite Folktales from Around the World collected by Jane Yolen
Folktales are old. Folktales arise from an oral tradition. Folktales are good because they are old and because they arise from an oral tradition. No one retells a story that is not good. Stories get better as they are told more and more.
This is a wonderful collection of folktales from around the world. The stories are about love and old age and trickery and work and families---all the important things---and they are testaments to both the unfailing wickedness and the unfailing redemption available in the world.
This is a wonderful collection of folktales from around the world. The stories are about love and old age and trickery and work and families---all the important things---and they are testaments to both the unfailing wickedness and the unfailing redemption available in the world.
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
I've never experienced war.
I know almost nothing about battles.
For the last four months, I've been reading Barbara Tuchman's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Guns of August.
The Guns of August tells the story of the outbreak of World War I. It's absolutely mesmerizing to read, seeing the lies told by the Germans to justify their invasion of their fellow Europeans, the brutality of the Germans as they occupy and take over other countries, as well as the missteps of the unprepared Belgians and French and British and Russians.
It's also been a vocabulary-enriching experience to read this book. I've learned lots of war words. Some of these I've heard and I had a vague idea of what it meant, but none were clear to me before I read this book.
corps. a main subdivision of an armed force in the field, consisting of two or more divisions.
regiment. a permanent unit of an army typically commanded by a colonel and divided into several companies, squadrons, or batteries and often into two battalions.
platoon. a subdivision of a company of soldiers, usually forming a tactical unit that is commanded by a lieutenant and divided into several sections.
division. a group of army brigades or regiments.
flank. the right or left side of a body of people such as an army, a naval force, or a soccer team.
pennon. a long triangular or swallow-tailed flag, especially one of a kind formerly attached to a lance or helmet; a pennant.
front. the foremost line or part of an armed force; the furthest position that an army has reached and where the enemy is or may be engaged.
shrapnel. fragments of a bomb, shell, or other object thrown out by an explosion.
bayonet. a blade that may be fixed to the muzzle of a rifle and used to stab an opponent in hand-to-hand fighting.
artillery. large-caliber guns used in warfare on land.
billet. lodge (soldiers) in a particular place, especially a civilian's house or other nonmilitary facility.
infantry. soldiers marching or fighting on foot; foot soldiers collectively.
I can't resist sharing some of the great quotes from the book.
The mentality of the time: 'War, he stated, “is a biological necessity”; it is the carrying out among humankind of “the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law of the struggle for existence.”'
'Character is fate, the Greeks believed. A hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting for its hour. The voice was Schlieffen’s, but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe, of Hegel who saw them leading the world to a glorious destiny of compulsory Kultur, of Nietzsche who told them that Supermen were above ordinary controls, of Treitschke who set the increase of power as the highest moral duty of the state, of the whole German people, who called their temporal ruler the “All-Highest.”'
The German war machine: "From the moment the order was given, everything was to move at fixed times according to a schedule precise down to the number of train axles that would pass over a given bridge within a given time."
"With their relentless talent for the tactless, the Germans chose to violate Luxembourg at a place whose native and official name was Trois Vierges. The three virgins in fact represented faith, hope, and charity, but History with her apposite touch arranged for the occasion that they should stand in the public mind for Luxembourg, Belgium, and France."
'Sir Edward Grey, standing with a friend at the window as the street lamps below were being lit, made the remark that has since epitomized the hour: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”'
'Next day, with the assault on Liège, the first battle of the war began. Europe was entering, Moltke wrote that day to Conrad von Hötzendorff, upon “the struggle that will decide the course of history for the next hundred years.”'
"The impetus of existing plans is always stronger than the impulse to change."
The Germans executed Belgians who resisted them. '...the executions were meant as an exercise in frightfulness according to the theory developed by the Emperor Caligula: “Oderint dum metuant” (Let them hate us as long as they fear us).'
"The prodigal spending of lives by all the belligerents that was to mount and mount in senseless excess to hundreds of thousands at the Somme, to over a million at Verdun began on that second day of the war at Liège. In their furious frustration at the first check, the Germans threw men recklessly against the forts in whatever numbers would be necessary to take the objective on schedule."
'He (William the Crown Prince of Germany) had made himself the patron and partisan of the most aggressive militarist opinion, and his photograph was sold in the Berlin shops carrying the inscription, “Only by relying on the sword can we gain the place in the sun that is our due but that is not voluntarily accorded to us.”'
"When the Battle of the Frontiers ended, the war had been in progress for twenty days and during that time had created passions, attitudes, ideas, and issues, both among belligerents and watching neutrals, which determined its future course and the course of history since. The world that used to be and the ideas that shaped it disappeared too, like the wraith of Verhaeren’s former self, down the corridors of August and the months that followed. Those deterrents—the brotherhood of socialists, the interlocking of finance, commerce, and other economic factors—which had been expected to make war impossible failed to function when the time came. Nationhood, like a wild gust of wind, arose and swept them aside."
Thomas Mann's thoughts about Germany: "Germans being, he said, the most educated, law-abiding, peace-loving of all peoples, deserved to be the most powerful, to dominate..."
After Germany cruelly leveled Belgium, the sentiment was strong against Germany. "To the world it remained the gesture of a barbarian. The gesture that was intended by the Germans to frighten the world—to induce submission—instead convinced large numbers of people that here was an enemy with whom there could be no settlement and no compromise."
"When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion."
Even if you are like me and you know little to nothing about war, reading The Guns of August put me right there with the generals making the decisions, with the soldiers in the trenches. I marveled at the ability of author Barbara Tuchman to tell this powerful story.
I know almost nothing about battles.
For the last four months, I've been reading Barbara Tuchman's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Guns of August.
The Guns of August tells the story of the outbreak of World War I. It's absolutely mesmerizing to read, seeing the lies told by the Germans to justify their invasion of their fellow Europeans, the brutality of the Germans as they occupy and take over other countries, as well as the missteps of the unprepared Belgians and French and British and Russians.
It's also been a vocabulary-enriching experience to read this book. I've learned lots of war words. Some of these I've heard and I had a vague idea of what it meant, but none were clear to me before I read this book.
corps. a main subdivision of an armed force in the field, consisting of two or more divisions.
regiment. a permanent unit of an army typically commanded by a colonel and divided into several companies, squadrons, or batteries and often into two battalions.
platoon. a subdivision of a company of soldiers, usually forming a tactical unit that is commanded by a lieutenant and divided into several sections.
division. a group of army brigades or regiments.
flank. the right or left side of a body of people such as an army, a naval force, or a soccer team.
pennon. a long triangular or swallow-tailed flag, especially one of a kind formerly attached to a lance or helmet; a pennant.
front. the foremost line or part of an armed force; the furthest position that an army has reached and where the enemy is or may be engaged.
shrapnel. fragments of a bomb, shell, or other object thrown out by an explosion.
bayonet. a blade that may be fixed to the muzzle of a rifle and used to stab an opponent in hand-to-hand fighting.
artillery. large-caliber guns used in warfare on land.
billet. lodge (soldiers) in a particular place, especially a civilian's house or other nonmilitary facility.
infantry. soldiers marching or fighting on foot; foot soldiers collectively.
I can't resist sharing some of the great quotes from the book.
The mentality of the time: 'War, he stated, “is a biological necessity”; it is the carrying out among humankind of “the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law of the struggle for existence.”'
'Character is fate, the Greeks believed. A hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting for its hour. The voice was Schlieffen’s, but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe, of Hegel who saw them leading the world to a glorious destiny of compulsory Kultur, of Nietzsche who told them that Supermen were above ordinary controls, of Treitschke who set the increase of power as the highest moral duty of the state, of the whole German people, who called their temporal ruler the “All-Highest.”'
The German war machine: "From the moment the order was given, everything was to move at fixed times according to a schedule precise down to the number of train axles that would pass over a given bridge within a given time."
"With their relentless talent for the tactless, the Germans chose to violate Luxembourg at a place whose native and official name was Trois Vierges. The three virgins in fact represented faith, hope, and charity, but History with her apposite touch arranged for the occasion that they should stand in the public mind for Luxembourg, Belgium, and France."
'Sir Edward Grey, standing with a friend at the window as the street lamps below were being lit, made the remark that has since epitomized the hour: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”'
'Next day, with the assault on Liège, the first battle of the war began. Europe was entering, Moltke wrote that day to Conrad von Hötzendorff, upon “the struggle that will decide the course of history for the next hundred years.”'
"The impetus of existing plans is always stronger than the impulse to change."
The Germans executed Belgians who resisted them. '...the executions were meant as an exercise in frightfulness according to the theory developed by the Emperor Caligula: “Oderint dum metuant” (Let them hate us as long as they fear us).'
"The prodigal spending of lives by all the belligerents that was to mount and mount in senseless excess to hundreds of thousands at the Somme, to over a million at Verdun began on that second day of the war at Liège. In their furious frustration at the first check, the Germans threw men recklessly against the forts in whatever numbers would be necessary to take the objective on schedule."
'He (William the Crown Prince of Germany) had made himself the patron and partisan of the most aggressive militarist opinion, and his photograph was sold in the Berlin shops carrying the inscription, “Only by relying on the sword can we gain the place in the sun that is our due but that is not voluntarily accorded to us.”'
"When the Battle of the Frontiers ended, the war had been in progress for twenty days and during that time had created passions, attitudes, ideas, and issues, both among belligerents and watching neutrals, which determined its future course and the course of history since. The world that used to be and the ideas that shaped it disappeared too, like the wraith of Verhaeren’s former self, down the corridors of August and the months that followed. Those deterrents—the brotherhood of socialists, the interlocking of finance, commerce, and other economic factors—which had been expected to make war impossible failed to function when the time came. Nationhood, like a wild gust of wind, arose and swept them aside."
Thomas Mann's thoughts about Germany: "Germans being, he said, the most educated, law-abiding, peace-loving of all peoples, deserved to be the most powerful, to dominate..."
After Germany cruelly leveled Belgium, the sentiment was strong against Germany. "To the world it remained the gesture of a barbarian. The gesture that was intended by the Germans to frighten the world—to induce submission—instead convinced large numbers of people that here was an enemy with whom there could be no settlement and no compromise."
"When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion."
Even if you are like me and you know little to nothing about war, reading The Guns of August put me right there with the generals making the decisions, with the soldiers in the trenches. I marveled at the ability of author Barbara Tuchman to tell this powerful story.
The Hills is Lonely by Lillian Beckwith
It's been a long time since I've read a book that simply delighted me, but that's what The Hills is Lonely did for me. Lillian Beckwith is ill and, at the direction of her doctor, she heads into the country for a respite. But quite unexpectedly she opts for the Hebrides rather than Kent as she'd planned. And off she goes, to a land that feels almost as alien as another planet. And it's a delicious and silly romp.
The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
Two runaways travel together to escape troubles in their lives. They join with talking horses and discover a plot to go to war with Narnia, and they race to expose the plot before it is too late.
Jungle Tales (Cuentos de la Selva) by Horacio Quiroga
| Jungle Tales is a classic collection of stories set in the jungle written by Uruguayan author Horacio Quiroga. It's one of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read. The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis It's the last book of the series and it's the last battle. An ape dresses up a donkey in a lion skin and tells the creatures of Narnia that the donkey is Aslan. This donkey-Aslan doesn't behave like Aslan has in the past, and the creatures aren't sure how to proceed, but donkey-Aslan responds to its creatures with quick retribution and all the creatures fall in line. Soon the king of Narnia is alerted to this danger and the children from Earth appear and the children and the king must go to battle against the donkey-Aslan and the ape and those who profess to follow another leader than Aslan. The racism of the series is strong in this book, so be prepared for that. In The Last Battle, Lewis translates the themes of the book of Revelation into a story for children. I was most taken with the confusion and discord that occur when those in a search for power spread lies and half-truths. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis Four children go to stay with a professor in the country during the blitzing of London. The youngest child, Lucy, is first to enter the wardrobe and to find her way to Narnia, but soon all four children visit there. And Narnia is in need of the four children as it lies under the enchantment of the White Witch. With the guidance of the lion Aslan, the four take on the task of saving Narnia and, in the process, also change their own lives. I will be reading all seven Narnia books during 2022. This is my first book of 2022. |
A Little Tour in France by Henry James
I was in the mood for a bit of travel. Why not take a little tour of France? And how about having Henry James as my tour guide?
A Little Tour in France is based on a six-week trip to the provincial towns of France taken by writer Henry James and first published as a serial in 1883 through 1884 in the Atlantic Monthly. James takes us through Tours, Bourges, Nantes, Toulouse, La Rochelle, Caroassonne, and Avignon.
I enjoyed the conversational style of James and he starts each chapter with a strong lead. But he focuses on architecture and he never mentions food, and how can you possibly have a good travel book about France without mention of food?
I'd love to see someone take this book and use it as a starter for a contemporary version of A Little Tour. What is still there? What has changed?
A Little Tour in France is based on a six-week trip to the provincial towns of France taken by writer Henry James and first published as a serial in 1883 through 1884 in the Atlantic Monthly. James takes us through Tours, Bourges, Nantes, Toulouse, La Rochelle, Caroassonne, and Avignon.
I enjoyed the conversational style of James and he starts each chapter with a strong lead. But he focuses on architecture and he never mentions food, and how can you possibly have a good travel book about France without mention of food?
I'd love to see someone take this book and use it as a starter for a contemporary version of A Little Tour. What is still there? What has changed?
Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton John Durham wishes to marry Fanny de Malrive, but Fanny's husband won't give her a divorce. Durham speaks to Fanny's sister-in-law about the matter, and gets a surprising response. A very short novella of manners and social conventions set in Paris. The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis Polly and Digory meet and become friends, and Digory's crazy magician uncle captures the two children and sends them off to another world with some magic rings. Digory and Polly meet an evil witch who tags along with them and they all end up at the very beginnings of Narnia. This is probably my third favorite Narnia book after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I enjoyed seeing how Narnia started and I also loved the chapter where the witch follows the children to our planet. Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw I listened to Man and Superman on audio, and isn't that the perfect way to approach a play? I found Shaw to be startling, with the voice of a philosopher, using humor to blunt the sharpness of the truths he shares. Here are a few quotes from Man and Superman. Decide for yourself if this is a play for you. "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." “A movement which is confined to philosophers and honest men can never exercise any real political influence: there are too few of them. Until a movement shows itself capable of spreading among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority.” “OCTAVIUS. Even if it were so—and I don't admit it for a moment—it is out of the deadliest struggles that we get the noblest characters. TANNER. Remember that the next time you meet a grizzly bear or a Bengal tiger, Tavy. OCTAVIUS. I meant where there is love, Jack. TANNER. Oh, the tiger will love you.” “Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?” “MENDOZA. I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich. TANNER. [promptly] I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor. Shake hands.” “You may remember that on earth—though of course we never confessed it—the death of anyone we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them.” “At every one of those concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. Well, there is the same thing in heaven. A number of people sit there in glory, not because they are happy, but because they think they owe it to their position to be in heaven. They are almost all English.” "But my conscience is the genuine pulpit article: it annoys me to see people comfortable when they ought to be uncomfortable; and I insist on making them think in order to bring them to conviction of sin. If you don't like my preaching you must lump it. I really cannot help it.” “There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.” Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” Even if I had only read this one beautiful sentence from Man's Search for Meaning, this would have been a worthwhile read. To experience terrible event after terrible event during Viktor Frankl's time in the concentration camps...to feel moments of wonder at small miracles during his time there...to see times where, despite the horrors of the camps, humans rise up to be their best selves...this is the reason so many people have read and loved this book. “The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal.” This reminds us all that we all have a choice every minute of our lives to add a deeper meaning to our lives even in the midst of suffering. “For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.” And the power of Love. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell Mary Barton is the story of a young woman living in industrial Manchester. Her mother has died and her brother has starved to death and her father has been laid off and is living in despair over all the things he has lost. Mary herself is learning to be a seamstress and she is loved by two men, one rich and one poor, and she favors the rich one. Until she abruptly does not. And then the rich man is found dead and the poor one accused of his murder. I found the story deeply melodramatic, with the good very, very good and the bad concerned only with themselves, but I liked how the story highlighted the terrible lives of the working man and woman of the time. The story was compelling though I came to expect that if something could go wrong, it would. The ending felt improbable but satisfying. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot When you read a chapter-a-day on a book for three months, you tend to get fiercely attached to the characters, either positively or negatively. That's what happened to me with The Mill on the Floss. I liked Maggie from page one. She is everything I love in a character. Her brother? Her mother? Even her father? Not so much. All of these people as well as her extended family members and her fellow townsfolk forced Maggie into a box that limited her in many ways. Maggie was judged from the very start by her coloring and her dislike of doing the things her mother and others expected from girls and women. Her many strong assets were ignored and she wasn't allowed to develop them in ways that would benefit her or the world. What a tragedy. And I quickly grew to wish that Maggie would find a way to find happiness in life without relying on the opinion of her brother. Of course, that wasn't going to happen. Again, a tragedy. And, worse, her brother blocked all of her ways of finding happiness. How small others made Maggie. Reading this book has made me sad for the women who have come before me and who were unable to be allowed to pursue their dreams. My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir My First Summer in the Sierra is a diary naturalist John Muir kept during the first summer he spent in the Sierra Mountains. He worked as a sheepherder, but he had a lot of time to observe nature, write about nature, and to make pictures of nature. I was taken by Muir's knowledge of nature and his detailed observational skills. He is also a brilliant writer, with fresh comparisons and surprising thoughts. Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux Journalist Joseph Rouletabille, along with his friend Sainclair (narrator of the tale), is sent to investigate an attack on a young woman, Mathilde Stangerson, daughter of the owner, at the Château du Glandier. Oddly, Stangerson was attacked with the doors locked on the inside. So who did it? One of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. Nana by Émile Zola We first meet Nana as the lead in an operetta at the Théâtre des Variétés. Everyone in Paris is talking about her, and we see right away that though Nana cannot act or sing, there is something about Nana that draws men to her. In every case, the men drawn to her lose everything in their attempts to keep her for themselves. As the novel continues, Nana goes from being a street prostitute to a high-priced call girl supported by rich men, by men of position and power. But Nana is easily bored, and she runs through the money of a man and discards him. Eventually she brings many men to ruin, and she ends up dying a horrible death. Nana, like many women I have known, depends on her beauty and sex appeal to get along in life. She treats people like objects to be bought and thrown away; Nana is truly an awful human being. I can't say I enjoyed reading this book. I was happiest reading the last pages in which Nana's corpse is gruesomely described, and even then I couldn't really take satisfaction in seeing a terrible end for this woman who was treated so badly as a child and as a young woman and who was never really loved for herself. Nana is a picture of a world I have never visited before, a world I would rather not visit again, a world I wish did not exist. Native Son by Richard Wright Bigger is black, twenty, living with his family in a one-room rat-infested apartment in Chicago, going with a girl he doesn't care about, hanging out with friends he doesn't like, unemployed. He is forced to take a job to keep his mother and siblings in their apartment. The job is acting as a chauffeur for a rich white family. On his very first night as chauffeur, everything goes wrong and he kills the daughter. Native Son is a starkly realistic picture of life as a young black man in a big city in mid-20th century America. Nobody's Boy by Hector Malot Rémi learns that those he thought were his parents are not, but are instead people who took in a child who was found abandoned. His foster father decides to send Rémi off into the world with a traveling musician Vitalis for money. Rémi finds Vitalis is a good master and he learns much from him. I can easily see why this is one of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read. It's a fantastic story of loss and love and learning and life. Oranges by John McPhee Oranges...everything you might want to know about this fruit, or at least everything known in 1967...it's all in this little nonfiction classic. The Otterbury Incident by Cecil Day-Lewis Two groups of boys in Otterbury spend their days play-fighting each other but one day a window in the school is broken. To pay for the window, the two groups come together to earn money, but before the money can be given to the school, it is stolen. The boys must quickly figure out who committed the theft and recover the money before the payment for the window is due. An exciting story, full of action, well told, with occasional illustrations. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley What a delight this book was to read! It's the story of a woman approaching middle-age who impulsively decides to buy a traveling bookstore on a cart, pulled by a horse. The book is a joy for anyone who loves books. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson Tarka the Otter. What a story. The life of a male otter, from the time he was born until he dies, with all the playful fun of an otter as well as the deadly dangers from hunters and their hounds and traps. The story is told from an emotionally neutral narrator, almost as if one were scientifically observing nature. It's rich in detail; it feels like you are right there in the rural part of 1920s England, swimming, catching fish, finding a mate, caring for cubs, evading the jaws of a snarling hound. No doubt about this one. A fabulous five-star read. A book everyone should read. If I'd looked up (and been able to find a definition for) every word I didn't know, I'd be reading this book the rest of the year, I think. Here are a few of the words (along with a bit of the other text) I didn't know from the early pages: Sere reeds...Salmon and peal from the sea...Voles...Alder and sallow grew on its banks...Musical over many stretches of shillet...Straying from the wood beyond the mill-leat...His holt was in the weir-pool...At dimmity it flew down the right bank of the river...Seeds of charlock...A ream passed under the stone bridge...Where a gin was never tilled and a gun was never fired...The nightjar returned...He yikkered in his anger...His mother, tissing through her teeth...The pair of cole-tits that had a nest...Like brown thong-weed...Hound-taint from a high yelping throat...A dozen hounds were giving tongue...Chiffchaffs flitted through honeysuckle bines...The shock-headed flowers of the yellow goat’s beard...A grey wagtail skipped airily over the sky-gleams of the brook...Paler than kingcups...Her rudder dripping wet behind her...Here burred the bumblebees...The grunting vuz-peg...At dimpsey she heard the blackbirds...The breaking of rank florets and umbels...They came to a bog tract where curlew and snipe lived... I gradually began to be able to read along fairly well, figuring out nature words and onomatopoeia from the context, almost the way you gradually learn to read in another language. I can't think of another book I have read in the past ten years that had more beautiful language. A completely delightful read. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte There's a mysterious new tenant at Wildfell Hall and all of the town is talking about her. Helen, we are told, is a young and beautiful widow with a young son. Neighbor Gilbert Markham meets Helen and her son and is immediately enchanted with them both, but Helen is oddly elusive. Slowly, Gilbert learns Helen's secrets and the whole story is revealed. Oh my. Helen made a poor choice early on, against the wishes of her aunt, and she had to pay the price of her poor decisions. Back in the early 1800s, the price a woman had to pay for making a poor choice was absurdly high; there really were no good ways to get out of a bad decision. It's a story that's a heartbreaking one. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis How embarrassed I feel to admit that I haven’t read this book before now? Very embarrassed. It’s been recommended to me a million times. But the truth is that sequels often disappoint me; it’s hard for a sequel to live up to the original book. VDT lives up to the original book. I would even say (gasp!) that it surpasses the original book. Crazy. Action. Adventure. Bad guys. Good guys. Good guys who are a little bad. Bad guys who are a little good. Great plot. And all aboard a ship. Fabulous. Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry If you love The Little Prince as I do, as millions of others do, you will seek out other books of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Wind, Sand and Stars is probably the book that you will consider. I wanted to like this book. And I did love the chapter about Saint-Exupéry's disastrous time in the desert. I did love Saint-Exupéry's beautiful writing. Saint-Exupéry is also a brilliant philosopher. But my eyes glazed over when Saint-Exupéry went on and on about the airplane and the technology that put us in the air and flying. He certainly does go on and on about these things. I had to smile as I read about little details that he would go on to include in The Little Prince like the tracks of foxes he found in the desert and his speculations about the stars. But all in all I would have been happier to spend the time I spent reading this book in rereading The Little Prince, I think. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson I've been on a quest in the past couple of years to understand America. Some of the books I've read have been recent nonfiction: Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse by Timothy P. Carney Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam Our Towns: A 100,000 Journey Into the Heart of America by James M. and Deborah Fallows Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt by Arthur C. Brooks The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It by Robert B. Reich The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel I've shared my thoughts on my blog here and here. These nonfiction books have been helpful. But I've also learned a lot about the way America is and the way America was from fiction. I read and reviewed Main Street earlier this year. And now I've just finished an amazing book, Winesburg, Ohio. Winesburg, Ohio is a series of linked short stories about the people of the small-town Midwest. It was first published in 1919. What is the common theme of these stories? The characters are all filled with a sense of isolation and loneliness. They are unable to communicate with each other, even within families, even those who are married to each other. Some of the characters try to escape their isolation and loneliness in various ways, but nothing seems to help. Winesburg, Ohio reminds me a lot of Main Street. Characters in both books are unable to satisfy their deepest needs and settle for living shallow and unfulfilling lives. It's startling to see America almost exactly a hundred years ago was much as it is today. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins Walter meets a mysterious woman in white when he first arrives in town to become an art instructor at Limmeridge House. He later is told that the woman, Ann, has escaped from a lunatic asylum, and he notes that she bears a strong resemblance to his pupil, Laura. Walter and Laura soon fall in love, though Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde. Glyde and Laura marry, and the real troubles begin. The Woman in White is considered to be one of the earliest mystery novels. MY SECOND CLASSICS CLUB LIST May 9, 2019 to April 1, 2021 My Second Classics Club announces my second list. I began it on May 9, 2019. Here is my second list. Update: 50/50 (March 2021) All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West Lord Slane is dead---what will become of his 88-year-old widow? The six children discuss this, and Lady Slane listens to all the plans and says, "I am going to live by myself." She goes on to say, "...I have considered the eyes of the world for so long that I think it's time I had a holiday from them. If one is not to please oneself in old age, when is one to please oneself? There is so little time left!" "I am going to become completely self-indulgent. I am going to wallow in old age." And so Lady Slane rents a favorite house and makes new friends and reflects back upon her life and encourages her young granddaughter to make the choices she did not make, picking the choices of one's heart. On old age: "The mind was as alert as ever, perhaps more alert, sharpened by the sense of imminent final interruption, spurred by the necessity of making the most of remaining time; only the body was a little shaky, not very certain of its reliability, not quite certain even of its sense of direction, afraid of stumbling over a step, of spilling a cup of tea, nervous, tremulous; aware that it must not be jostled or hurried, for fear of betraying its frail inadequacy." A little more on old age: "Those days were gone when feeling burst its bounds and poured hot from the foundry, when the heart seemed likely to split with complex and contradictory desires; now there was nothing left but a landscape in monochrome, the features identical but the colours gone from them and nothing but a gesture left in place of speech." Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell A modern soap opera aint’ got nothing on Crawford. A wayward son who leaves home abruptly, and his mother dies in her grief at his departure. A bank scandal and a rich woman loses everything. A high-and-mighty woman arrives, townspeople are kept from her because they are not good enough, and it is learned that the woman wasn’t even rich enough to ever see the queen. A fabulous picture of small-town England in the mid-1800s. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
The Emperor of Ice Cream and Other Poems by Wallace Stevens
The Essential Rumi by Rumi I've finished Rumi. In a way. I've come to the last page. I've closed the book. But I'm pretty sure I will never really finish Rumi. I will come back to Rumi again and again. Rumi is a mixed bag. Brilliant, so much is brilliant. And then there are a few pieces that I thought, Huh? Really? But mostly brilliant. And wise. Read Rumi. You know you want to. See what you think. For yourself. The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett The Family from One-End Street is a three hundred page children's chapter book originally published in 1937. It's the story of a poor family. Mom is a washerwoman and Dad is a dustman (I had to look that up...he is what we in the US refer to as a garbage collector). The family has seven very different children. Lily Rose is the oldest and finds her name to be embarrassing. Kate is bright and does extremely well in school. The twin boys, Jim and John, like adventure. Jo, short for Josiah, tries to find ways to get enough money to go to the cinema often. Peg is the youngest daughter, and William is the baby. The family has struggles and little adventures and great joys, and it's all set in a small town in England in difficult economic times. There are beautiful little black-and-white drawings throughout the book. It's just the sort of story I would have loved when I was a child, with something for everyone. The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis C. S. Lewis takes on love. Lewis defines four loves: affection (storge), friendship (philia), romantic love (eros), and charity (agape). Lewis is wise and yet somehow accessible. The book is stuffed full of brilliance. I enjoyed it by reading it, and then listening to the delightful YouTube C.S. Lewis Doodle. French Fairy Tales by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy
Friday's Tunnel by John Verney There are 1001 Books you almost give up hope of ever reading; some books are long out of print and completely unavailable in your country. But then, suddenly, unexpectedly, you see one of these impossible-to-find books has been picked up by a new publisher and reissued, and your heart is filled with happiness. This is the story of one of those wonderful, zany families you always wished you could be a part of, with a plethora of kids, an adventurous father, a clever mother, and oodles of fascinating family friends who are scientists and madcap race car drivers and world leaders and journalists and even, possibly, spies. Friday Callendar (yes, the children all have quirky names, too, as suits the members of such a tribe) is digging a tunnel, their father is off (or is he?) to a remote island where trouble is stirring, and his sister February is trying to help solve the mysteries that surround her: Where is February's father? What is happening on the strange island of Capria? Who are the odd people she encounters in the nearby village? Is there such a thing as caprium? And, if there is, what does caprium do, and why do America and Russia want it? You will love all the characters in this book so much that you will wish John Verney had written a long series with all these folks. Happily, it does seem that there is a second book, and I think I must look for it. You mustn't miss this Friday's Tunnel. The Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter I don't want to make it sound like it's perfect, but it is an awfully good story, a hopeful story, an inspiring story, and I never would have read it if I hadn't seen it on the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read list. A Girl of the Limberlost is the story of a girl, Elnora Comstock, who desires above all things to go to high school. Elnora's mother, sadly, seems determined to thwart her every attempt to do so. Elnora meets tremendous obstacles and nevertheless finds ways to overcome them. A Girl of the Limberlost addresses caring for nature and the abilities of women to achieve, both of which must have been astonishing to the readers of the time when it was first published in 1909. There are many quotes I enjoyed reading: "I believe the best way to get an answer to prayer is to work for it," muttered Elnora grimly. What you are lies with you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music, carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others. Never mind the calico dress, and the coarse shoes. Work at your books, and before long you will hear yesterday's tormentors boasting that they were once classmates of yours. What you are lies with you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music, carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others. Never mind the calico dress, and the coarse shoes. Work at your books, and before long you will hear yesterday's tormentors boasting that they were once classmates of yours. To me, it seems the only pleasure in this world worth having is the joy we derive from living for those we love, and those we can help. "There never was a moment in my life," she said, "when I felt so in the Presence, as I do now. I feel as if the Almighty were so real, and so near, that I could reach out and touch Him, as I could this wonderful work of His, if I dared. I feel like saying to Him: 'To the extent of my brain power I realize Your presence, and all it is in me to comprehend of Your power. Help me to learn, even this late, the lessons of Your wonderful creations. Help me to unshackle and expand my soul to the fullest realization of Your wonders. Almighty God, make me bigger, make me broader!'" The world is full of happy people, but no one ever hears of them. You must fight and make a scandal to get into the papers. No one knows about all the happy people. I am happy myself, and look how perfectly inconspicuous I am." The Limberlost is life. Here it is a carefully kept park. You motor, sail, and golf, all so secure and fine. But what I like is the excitement of choosing a path carefully, in the fear that the quagmire may reach out and suck me down; to go into the swamp naked-handed and wrest from it treasures that bring me books and clothing, and I like enough of a fight for things that I always remember how I got them. I even enjoy seeing a canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying: 'Ware the sting of the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I did old Limber's.' I like sufficient danger to put an edge on life. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
Howards End by E. M. Forster
In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust I listened to an audiobook of Swann's Way. It was over seventeen hours. Like my writing teacher said yesterday when I told her I was listening to an audiobook of Swann's Way, it's the perfect classic to listen to (unless, she added, you are going to be tested on it), as it goes on and on with details that are superfluous to the story. There are really two parts to the book. The first part is the story of the narrator as a child, and I have to say that I much preferred this part of the book. The narrator tells stories of his childhood, his deep fears, his need for his mother, his peculiar aunt, and each story is filled with rich and sensual details. The second part is the story of Swann, a friend of the child's parents, and Swann's obsession with Odette. Swann only grew to be intrigued with Odette after he realized she did not care for him, and that seemed oddly true. Nevertheless, I quickly grew tired of both Swann and Odette; I kept hoping the story would return to the child, but it never did. Will I read on? After all, there are apparently six more volumes. I don't know. Maybe. There is an allure to this writing. Introduction to French Poetry edited by Stanley Appelbaum A nice overview of French poetry, from the earliest poets to modern-day poets, with a little biographical information about each, along with a sample poem in French and English. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book is a collection of seven stories, three of which (my favorites) center on Mowgli. Mowgli is a human child raised by wolves in the jungle. Mowgli learns how to survive in the jungle from his animal teachers. The laws of the jungle are clear and the consequences of not obeying them are stark: generally death or death-like exclusion from the group. I've never seen the movies and I knew little about the book until I began to listen to the audiobook this week. I wasn't as captivated by the other stories (the mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi; an elephant-handler; the animals of the English army in India; and, oddly, the story of a seal in the Bering Sea), but I was so intrigued by Mowgli that I listened to those stories twice. One of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read. King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
L'Assommoir by Emile Zola I am now officially a Zola fan. I finished my first Emile Zola book while I was in Paris, and it went straight to my list of Favorite Books Ever and Must-Reads. L'Assommoir is the story of a poor washerwoman, Gervaise, and her decline into deeper and deeper poverty and decadence and despair. It's a brilliant portrait of a woman's life during the mid-to-late 1800's. Les Malheurs de Sophie by Comtesse de Ségur
Maigret by Georges Simenon
Moby Dick by Herman Melville  I've been a little obsessed this month. I read Moby Dick. I'm not an expert. I'm just a regular, ordinary person who loves to read, a person who felt like I should read Moby Dick., and so I did. It took me all month. I read the book while listening to narration, either from the Moby Dick podcast or the Moby Dick Big Read. I found myself thinking about Moby Dick. A lot. Of what did my Moby Dick experience consist? I read a lot of books about Moby Dick. Kid books. Comic books. Whale nonfiction. Historical fiction about a (possible) relationship between Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. A whole book on why people should read Moby Dick. I wrote reviews for ten Moby-Dick-related books: Moby Dick: 10 Minute Classics retold by Philip Edwards and illustrated by Adam Horsepool Moby Dick (Classics Illustrated, No. 5) Comics - 1943 by Herman Melville The Whaleship Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick by Jil Fine Moby Dick retold by Lew Sayre Schwartz, illustrated by Dick Giordano Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick The Whale: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson In the Heart of the Sea The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare The Sea Mammal Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta I loved the vocabulary in Moby Dick. I wrote a lot about the wonderful words in the book: Moby Dick: Great Words to Note and Save and Use Moby Dick: Odd Words We Should Add to Our Vocabularies Today Moby Dick: Whale Words and Boat Words I wrote four other posts about Moby Dick and talked about Moby Dick covers, Moby Dick characters, Moby Dick art, and Moby Dick themes: But What is Moby Dick About? Why Everyone Should Read Moby Dick Classic Book Characters from Moby Dick: Who is Your Favorite? A Sea of Moby Dicks: Who Knew There Were So Many Covers? Moby Dick: Art  I watched a Moby Dick movie.  I listened to Moby Dick music. I made a Moby Dick poll: The Moby Dick Character I Like Best. What are my take-aways from reading Moby Dick? 1. Many people have told me they have tried to read Moby Dick and came away thinking it was a daunting book or a boring book. Another huge group of people told me they never want to read Moby Dick. It is possible that Moby Dick is the classic that the least number of people ever plan or want to read. 2. A very small group of people have told me they read Moby and loved this book. Moby Dick has a tiny, but devoted group who are obsessed with this book. 3. Reading Moby Dick is daunting. The Great Gatsby is 7.3 on Accelerated Reader's ATOS readability scale. Tom Sawyer is 8.1. Anna Karenina is 9.6. War and Peace is 10.1. Moby Dick is 10.3. 4. I thought Moby Dick was the story of a captain who hunted a whale. It is. But Moby Dick is so much more than just the story of a man seeking a whale. It is the story of a man seeking a new life by going to sea. It's the story of man vs. nature. It's the story of whales. It's a story of adventure, drama, and even comedy. 5. I expected Moby Dick to be structured like a typical adventure novel. It is not. Moby Dick reads like a contemporary novel, with chapters written as plays, with chapters written as soliloquies, with chapters written like nonfiction text, and with paragraphs full of action but intermingled with deeply philosophical thoughts. 6. I thought if I read far enough into the novel I would grow to love it, and that happened. I did. I loved Moby Dick, but it took me 655 pages to decide that. In the process of reading it, I also disliked huge portions of it. I can't imagine that I will reread it, but I'm terribly glad I read it. Have you read Moby Dick? My Friend Mr. Leakey by J. B. S. Haldane
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre Three people are escorted into a room, a room where they are to stay for all eternity. All three are dead. We come to know each character and are not surprised to learn that each has lead a life of great wickedness. "Hell is---" one of the three tells us, "other people!" 100 Poems from the Japanese edited by Kenneth Rexroth American poet Kenneth Rexroth has translated and collected over one hundred poems from the Japanese in this thin book of poetry. "Japanese poetry does what poetry does everywhere: it intensifies and exalts experience," Rexroth tells us in his introduction to the book. Here are a few of my favorite poems: Have you any idea How long a night can last, spent Lying alone and sobbing? I have always known That at last I would Take this road, but yesterday I did not know that it would be today. That spring night I spent Pillowed on your arm Never really happened Except in a dream. Unfortunately I am Talked about anyway. No, the human heart Is unknowable. But in my birthplace The flowers still smell The same as always. Autumn evening — A crow on a bare branch. No one spoke. The host, the guest. The white chrysanthemums. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford Fanny Logan narrates the story of her cousin, Linda Radlett, the central character in The Pursuit of Love. The Radletts are a curious and wealthy family, and the children grow up between the wars in England. Fanny writes, "Linda was not only my favourite cousin, but, then and for many years, my favourite human being." The Radletts are a large family; (t)he great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life’s essential unfairness." "But, while they (the Radletts) picked up a great deal of heterogeneous information, and gilded it with their own originality, while they bridged gulfs of ignorance with their charm and high spirits, they never acquired any habit of concentration, they were incapable of solid hard work." Yes, odd, but charming and fun. I delighted in the characters and in the subtle humor of the writing. Here's a little example, with Linda describing her attempts to take on doing housework for the first time during her second marriage to a poor man: "But oh how dreadful it is, cooking, I mean. That oven—Christian puts things in and says: ‘Now you take it out in about half an hour.’ I don’t dare tell him how terrified I am, and at the end of half an hour I summon up all my courage and open the oven, and there is that awful hot blast hitting one in the face. I don’t wonder people sometimes put their heads in and leave them out of sheer misery. Oh, dear, and I wish you could have seen the Hoover running away with me, it suddenly took the bit between its teeth and made for the lift shaft. How I shrieked—Christian only just rescued me in time." Some of the funniest lines are Linda's thoughts about revolutionaries of her time: "And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly." "He was really only interested in mass wretchedness, and never much cared for individual cases, however genuine their misery, while the idea that it is possible to have three square meals a day and a roof and yet be unhappy or unwell, seemed to him intolerable nonsense." It's a light comedy but with tragic overtones. And now I'm adding the sequel, Love in a Cold Climate, to my future reading list. Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse Need a good, hearty laugh during these strange, dark days? I encourage you to seek out Jeeves. Jeeves is the valet to rich and idle Bertie Wooster. Jeeves is extremely clever, described by author P. G. Wodehouse as "a walking Encyclopedia Britannica." Wooster, as Jeeves' boss, is both pompous and unaware of Jeeves' true worth. It's the wonderful, deferential relationship between the servant and his master that sparks the comedy in the story. Completely delightful. The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson In 1951, after researching her subject for eight years, Rachel Carson published The Sea Around Us. It's the story of the ocean, including its origins, the minerals in it, the tides, the currents, the life that resides in it, and more. Carson writes in a way that is both beautiful and yet scientifically accurate (for her time). She explains complex systems in a manner that makes them explicable to even the least scientific (me) among us. Selected Stories of O. Henry by O. Henry Author O. Henry has become iconic, associated in people's minds with the idea of a trick ending in short stories, so much that he has had a preeminent award in short story writing named after him. He also lived most of his short life in Texas. For these reasons, I was curious enough about him to choose a book of his short stories for my Classics Club list. I listened to an audio of much of the book. I also read many of the most well-known stories again, including "The Last Leaf" and "The Gift of the Magi." My takeaway? O. Henry was a master of the short story, taking the reader instantly deep into the lives of characters in only a few pages. He, like no other, saw the sometimes humorous-often disconcerting-always true paradoxes of life and he peopled his stories with folks characterized by these paradoxes, and he related his tales brimming with these paradoxes. Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner “But in Australia a model child is - I say it not without thankfulness - an unknown quantity. It may be that the miasmas of naughtiness develop best in the sunny brilliancy of our atmosphere. It may be that the land and the people are so young-hearted together, and the children's spirits are not crushed and saddened by the shadow of long years' sorrowful history. There is a lurking sparkle of joyousness and rebellion and mischief in nature here, and therefore in children.” This is a classic children's book, the story of a family in Australia with seven rather difficult children. You can't help but like this family, with real children who disobey their parents, act willfully, and speak back to their elder; with a real stepmom who tires easily from the work that goes along with trying to keep the children in line; with a real dad who is constantly forced to discipline the children. The children are willful, yes, but charming, too, and the dad is strict, but loving. All isn't joy and happiness in this world; I don't want to say too much, but there are several very sad parts of the story. One of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
Stories by Anton Chekhov We never read Chekhov in high school. Or college. Why? Why did no teacher share the wonder that is Chekhov with me? This is a short collection of stories, seven of them, read by Stephen Fry, and it includes An Avenger, A Blunder, Boys, The Huntsman, The Lady with the Dog, Misery, and Oysters. Chekhov starts right in with the action, with characters in trouble; all the extraneous material has been sliced away, leaving only the important. The stories are as mesmerizing as any I've ever heard before, with boys threatening to run away and doing so, with an estranged couple, with a starving man and his son nearing a restaurant, and more...I already want to read these again. Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are foster gum-nut brothers who live in the Australian bush. Together they set off on an adventure to find humans. Mr. Lizard accompanies them, and along the way they meet Ragged Blossom, who also join them. They meet many new friends, but find they must fight the wicked Mrs. Snake and the Bad Banksia Men. Snugglepot and Cuddlepie is one of Australia's best-loved children's books. It was first published in 1941. One of the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read. Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes Tom Brown is sent off to school when an epidemic breaks out in his local school, and, at first, his times at school are scarred with incessant bullying. But then Tom is befriended by Harry East and he is given charge of young George Arthur, and things begin to change. Tom gradually becomes a man of character. I enjoyed this look at British schools in the 1830s, especially after learning that the author based the story on his own time away at school. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith A Tree Grows in Brooklyn tells the story of Francie Nolan and her family, from her childhood to her young adulthood. Francie grows up fast, often hungry, with her mom working in the poorly-paid job of janitor, and her dad seldom working. It's a powerful story, set in early-20th century Brooklyn, and Francie suffers many setbacks including the early loss of her father and having to quit school to go to work. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
We by Yevgeni Zamyatin D-503 lives in One State, a nation created to invoke perfect harmony and happiness, a nation that runs on laws of logic and by requiring all the citizens of the state to subsume their own wants to that of the state. D-503, like all the other members of his society, sees One State as a paradise...until he meets I-330, and she challenges all he has thought of as ideal. The stilted language, probably a result of the translation, and what I saw as the triteness of the storyline together combined to create a meh-experience for me in reading this book. Wilderness Essays by John Muir
MY FIRST CLASSICS CLUB LIST January 14, 2018 to May 2, 2019 I began on January 14, 2018 on The Classics Club: Fifty Classic (ish) Books I Will Read in the Next Five Years. Here is my first list:
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Wow! Good on you for finishing your first 2 Classics Club lists so quickly; and already you're on a roll with a third! I haven't joined the Classics Club as of yet, but sounds like a great idea. So many books I've never heard of but hopefully I can try reading some of them :-)
ReplyDeleteR. E. Chrysta commented on "The Classics Club"
ReplyDeleteMay 10, 2022
Wow! Good on you for finishing your first 2 Classics Club lists so quickly; and already you're on a roll with a third! I haven't joined the Classics Club as of yet, but sounds like a great idea. So many books I've never heard of but hopefully I can try reading some of them :-)