Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 – Wrap Up Post

It’s a wrap!  I have officially completed the  Back to theClassics Challenge 2018 hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate.

AND I managed to choose and read all 12 titles from books I already had on my shelves. YAY!  

Details are as follows:

1. Fittingly, I started this literary journey off with A CLASSIC TRAVEL OR JOURNEY NARRATIVE, FICTION OR NON-FICTION.  I read Orient Express by Graham Greene, first published in 1933. It wasn’t as good as his better known books such as The Quiet American in my opinion, however.  

2. Then I moved on to a sure fire good read:  A CLASSIC CRIME STORY, FICTION OR NON-FICTION.  I read and really enjoyed  The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey.

3. The enjoyment factor took a nose-dive with my choice of  A 20TH CENTURY CLASSIC. While I am glad to have read Winesberg, Ohio  by Sherwood Anderson because I can now cross it off the Modern Library 100 Best of List, I think this was probably my least favorite of all 12. Too bleak and monotone for my taste.

4. I was pleasantly surprised with my choice of  A CLASSIC WITH A COLOR IN THE TITLE. I read The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorn and once I got past that unnecessary prologue, I found it really interesting and strange (in a good way).

5. My absolute star was the book I read for  A CLASSIC IN TRANSLATION.  I loved Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami. Such a great book about a really unpleasant man!

6. Next up was A CLASSIC WITH A SINGLE-WORD TITLE which I fulfilled by reading  Passing by Nella Larson, a short but very powerful read.

7. Possibly the hardest to choose for was the category RE-READ A FAVORITE CLASSIC.  I finally landed on Wuthering Heights by Emilie Bronte. This turned out to be a great choice because I think this is a book upon which one’s perspective can change dramatically with age and experience.

8. For the choice of   CHILDREN'S CLASSIC  I read and enjoyed the Newbery award winning Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, a book a never read as a child.

9. For my favorite category of A 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC I read  Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop which was not his best in my opinion, but nonetheless, wonderful because Dickens was a genius.

10. For A CLASSIC BY AN AUTHOR THAT'S NEW TO YOU  I read  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston which was pretty fabulous.

11. For the choice of A CLASSIC THAT SCARES YOU I girded my loins and read Light in August by William Faulkner, which wasn’t as difficult as I had feared.

12. Finally I read No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym for the category of  A CLASSIC BY A WOMAN AUTHOR  which I really loved as I have loved everything I’ve read by Pym thus far. 

As usual, I am so looking forward to the 2019 edition of this challenge and so pleased that Karen has graciously decided to continue hosting for another year. Contact information is: naessa[at]yahoo[dot]com.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2018: No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym

Like many readers, I buy books with the best of intentions and yet often don’t act upon them, i.e. read my own damn books. To wit, I own nine Barbara Pym but had only read two of them. Now I’m up to three! Because I read Pym’s No Fond Return of Love, first published in 1961, for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 category “Classic by a Woman Author”.

One of the most delightful things about No Fond Return of Love was the realization that there is a “Pymverse” of London in the late 1950’s in which many (maybe all?) of Barbara Pym’s characters operate. For careful readers there is a tiny Easter egg from Excellent Women in Less Than Angels and now I found another follow up tidbit from Less than Angels in No Fond Return of Love. I love this idea and really look forward to discovering more of these little surprises as I read more of Pym’s works.

No Fond Return of Love covers familiar territory found in her other books: academia, marriage vs singledom and the Anglican Church. The main protagonist is Dulcie Mainwaring who decides to attend a weekend conference on publishing (she works freelance as an indexer and research) to help her get over her broken engagement. Dulcie likes researching people as well. ‘I love finding out about people’, said Dulcie, ‘I suppose it’s a sort of compensation for the dreariness of everyday life’.  I have to imagine that Dulcie shares this curiosity about in the lives of strangers with Barbara Pym herself.

At the conference, Dulcie meets the rather difficult and sulky Viola Dace, a fellow indexer and Aylwin Forbes, a handsome, married forty-something author with whom both Viola and Dulcie maybe, sort-of fall in love. It’s all very Pymsian as their lives intertwine, making the London suburbs seem more like a cozy village rather than a sprawling metropole. And as usual, I laughed out loud multiple times. The humor is so subtle and surprising. I can see where Pym’s humor would not be to every reader’s taste, but when you get it, you really get it if you know what I mean.

This is now the last book that I needed to read for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018. Not as early as some but still happy to be crossing the finish line in good time! My wrap up post will be forthcoming. :D

Back to the Classics Challenge 2018: Light in August by William Faulkner

I am just a lil’ bit behind on blogging.  I actually read Light in August back in August.  This book was my choice for the Back to the Classics Challenge category “Classic that Scares You”.  I think for most readers it is clear where the scare factor comes in! Faulkner is pretty famous (infamous?) for being difficult to read.  And this was the first book of his that I have ever finished (I started Wild Palms and Absalom, Absalom ages ago but never got too far in either). 

I finished Light in August, but did I understand it?  I am happy to report that it was very accessible, though not a particularly cheery book. Faulkner sprinkles portmanteau words like “fecundmellow” throughout the book which were interesting. I can see how they emphasize and add to the atmosphere. 

And this book has a lot of atmosphere.  The reader can almost chew it. The book opens with a young pregnant woman walking down a dusty road. Lena Grove has walked from Alabama to Mississippi because she has convinced herself that her baby’s daddy, Lucas Burch, just hasn’t gotten a chance to send for her yet.  When she gets to Jefferson, Mississippi she meets a former co-worker of Lucas’ named Byron Bunch who immediately falls in love with Lena.  Byron and his predicament, because he is an honorable man and feels bound to reunite Lena with the neer-do-well Lucas and Lena’s delusional devotion to Lucas, are almost the comic relief in the book. Only it is more of a tragic-comedy. 

Lena’s arrival in Jefferson coincides with a house on fire wherein a murdered woman has been found. The dead woman, Miss Burden, is an outcast, even though she is well off and white, because her father and grandfather were abolitionists from the North.  The book takes place in the 1920s but clearly the locals have long memories.  

That kicks off the story but there is so much more as the narrative twists and turns. The structure of the novel is interesting. I didn’t notice at first how far I had been lead from the opening until about half way through. The real focus is Joe Christmas, a drifter who had been living behind the Burden house and may or may not have been her killer and Joe may or may not be “black”.  The story eventually morphs into Joe’s story; how he ended up in Jefferson and why he behaves the way he does and it does finally lead back to where is starts. 

Light in August is a story of the South and a story of pathos, hatred, violence and racism.  Like I said, not cheery but definitely worth reading. Now that I’ve tackled Faulkner’s “easy” stuff I have to move on to As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury. Maybe next year? We’ll see

Back to the Classics Challenge 2018: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston

"When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then, after that some angels got jealous and chopped him up into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine."

I happily chose Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God for the 2018 Back to the Classics category “Classic by a new-to-you author”.   As my online friend Kathy pointed out in her excellent review at Reading Matters, readers have Alice Walker to thank for reviving interest in Hurston’s work in the mid-1970s.  

According to the Afterword by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in the Harper Perennial Modern Classic that I read (pictured), Hurston was the preeminent woman writer of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s. Gates suggests that her work fell into obscurity by the late 1950s and early 1960s possibly because her writing did not reflect the politics of other African Americans artists and thinkers of that era.  Gates goes on to compare Their Eyes Were Watching God with Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady. I’ve not read that novel, but I was reminded of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening because Their Eyes Were Watching God is, in my opinion, primarily about one woman’s attempt to break free of societal constraints put upon her sexuality and her ambitions.  The book does indirectly address racism, but it is incidental to the rest of the narrative.

First published in 1937, the story is about Janie Crawford who is raised by her grandmother. Nanny was born into slavery and has a conservative view about marriage and wants Janie to marry the older, financially stable Logan Killicks.  But Janie at 17 has a more romantic view of marriage and what adventure life can offer her, if she is willing to chance it.  Eventually she gets her opportunity and without giving too much away, I think that this is ultimately a very positive and life affirming book, even if there are struggles along the way.

The dialogue is written entirely in dialect while the narrative is in standard American English. This does take some getting used to and it would have been much easier to read if Hurston hadn’t imitated phonetic pronunciations quite so often. On the other hand, while I read the print version, this book in audio would be pretty amazing.

Back to the Classic Challenge 2018: The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Possibly my favorite category on the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate is to read a book from the 19^th century because I love Dickens and Trollope and look for any excuse to read them.  This year I chose The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens, published in 1841.   

According to the introduction by Norman Page of the Penguin Classic edition that I read, The Old Curiosity Shop was not intended to be serialized but rather was meant only be a short story about the inhabitants of a  London curiosity shop related by the fictional Master Humphrey  in a periodical titled “Master Humphrey’s Clock”.   But Dickens’ reading public didn’t want short stories narrated by Master Humphrey; they wanted a novel about Little Nell and her Grandfather from the shop.

And so the author obliged them by writing a story about Little Nell and her Grandfather’s quest to escape the clutches of the evil money-lender Quilp.   Quilp tries to mastermind their retrieval with the help of the obsequious lawyer Samson Brass, Brass’ sister Sally (who may be a villainess but is still a better lawyer than Samson though not allowed to practice due to her gender), and Nell’s ne’er-do-well  brother Fred.  Tangentially allied to this side is also Fred’s drinking buddy Dick Swiveller.  On side of righteousness is Nell and Grandfather’s former servant Kit who is thrown out of a job when they leave London but who regains his fortunes and finds support in the most unlikely corners. As usual, Dickens loves writing about coincidences and chance encounters. Most of his novels in my experience couldn’t happen without them!

As often is the case with Dickens’ novels, the bad guys are the most interesting characters. Little Nell honestly does not have any personality other than her saintliness.  My favorite character was Dick Swiveler. As his last name suggests, he is able revolve or pivot and his character arc, while only a small part of the novel as a whole, was most interesting to observe.

I only have two more Dickens' novels to read: Dombey and Son and Barnaby Rudge.  I would rate The Old Curiosity Shop on the lower end of my personal list. While all Dickens novels revel in sentiment, I personally found that this one was particularly obvious in its depiction of good vs. bad.    This observation should be taken with a grain of salt, however, because essentially I adore Dickens and think he is a genius. His least successful effort is well worth reading in my opinion and The The Old Curiosity Shop was wildly popular in its time.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2018: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

This title was recommended to me by blogger Kathy at Reading Matters in her review of The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  In that review, Kathy mentioned that Johnny Tremain was a a children's classic  in which the child protagonist was allowed to be imperfect, which made for a more complex and ultimately more fulfilling reading experience. 

So imagine my surprise and joy when I discovered that I actually had a copy of the book! I am not sure how I obtained it. It might have actually belonged to one of my siblings and just migrated to me. The copy I read does not have the Newbery stamp in gold foil on the front (unlike the pictured version in this post ) and it is priced at only $3.50, so it must have been first purchased sometime in the late 70's/early 80s.   

I agree with Kathy that Johnny is an interesting and realistic character. He is not idealized and he does not always make the "right" decision.  His arrogance gets him into trouble more than once. But he is also quick thinking and loyal which earns him friends and support when he most needs it.

For a book aimed at 12 year olds written 75 years ago, I thought the story was pretty gripping reading it as an adult now!  Only the last chapter sort of loses the plot a bit.  I was a little disappointed that the book completely sidesteps the issue of slavery but I guess that is not uncommon for a book written in the 1940's. 

The story takes place on the cusp of the American Revolution in Boston. Johnny becomes involved with many of the key players in that conflict, such as Paul Revere and John Hancock and he also takes part in certain events like the Boston Tea Party. There were quite a few names that I had to google; if I learned about them in elementary school, I have since forgotten.  

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 hosted by Karen on the blog Books and Chocolate for the "Children's Classic" category.  

Back to the Classics 2018: Passing by Nella Larsen

For the category “Classic with a Single Word Title” in the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate I chose to read Passing by Nella Larsen.  This book had been on my list for quite a while now so I was really glad to use this excuse to get to it. Passing is one of my favorite kind of books in that it is a novella that reveals multitudes in just over 100 pages (114 in the pictured Penguin classic that I read). I am always in awe of authors that can successfully pull that off.

The story is told from the point of view of Irene Redfield, an African American who is light-skinned enough to pass as “white”, though she only occasionally chooses to do so for small things where this gives her an small advantage, such as having a glass of iced tea in a Chicago hotel restaurant that would normally not allow blacks in.   In all other respects, Irene lives what she considers to be a fulfilled life in 1920’s Harlem, NY, an active member of the growing black middle class.  However, while having her refreshing glass of iced tea one hot afternoon, she runs into an old school friend, Clare Kendry.  What Irene soon discovers is that Clare doesn’t just "pass" from time to time but lives permanently as a white woman. No one in Clare’s social circle, particularly not her white husband, knows about her true origins, which means that she has had to cut off all ties with her former black neighborhood and friends. This chance encounter brings Clare back into the orbit of Irene’s life which has both seductive and dangerous consequences for both women.

As previously stated, there is a lot packed in these pages. Clearly the construct of race and racism, both overt and internalized, is the main focus, but there’s a lot of other subtext that can be read between the lines. The introduction by Thadious M. Davis emphasized repressed sexuality between Clare and Irene which isn’t something I picked up on personally, but I did think there were interesting intimations about marrying for security and the roles one plays in marriage as a woman that one can also tease out of the narrative.   

Back to the Classics Challenge 2018: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The category Reread a Favorite Classic from the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate was definitely the hardest choice!  I rarely re-read, but if I "have" to, what book to choose from so many favorites? 

I ultimately decided to re-discover Wuthering Heights.  The first time I read this book I was 21 years old and my real inspiration to read it was the Kate Bush song (♫♯"Heathcliff, its me Cathy, I've come home, I'm so cold, let me in at your window..."♪).  I am glad to have read the book so young and to have the opportunity to re-read it now 30 years later. The book portrays destructive and all consuming passion which I think as a young adult I could inhabit and even admire. Now in middle age, I see the tragedy and senselessness of it. I don't think that either interpretation is right or wrong; it is more a matter of age and experience playing into the reader's perception. And in my mind, that is what makes a classic "classic" in part: the ability of the work to engender different impressions or interpretations upon multiple readings. 

It is also so interesting to read this on the heels of Bel Ami since there isn't any likable character in Wuthering Heights either.  Even Nelly Dean, the servant telling the tale to Mr. Lockwood, is suspect in my mind.  First of all, we only have her word that what she is relating is how it happened and secondly, she does cause small amounts of harm when she withholds information from the other principals in parts of the story.  

I think that most people are familiar with the story of Heathcliff and Cathy who due to their upbringing and personalities can't live without each other but also can't, in the society and world they inhabit, live with each other.  The  result of their inability to be together as they wish leads to tragic misunderstandings, long memories and cold-blooded (or maybe fiery-hearted?) revenge. 

Upon re-reading I did not remember ANY of the second volume! Which makes me wonder if I did read it 30 years ago...I think I did but with little thought to what I was reading if that makes sense!

What I really enjoyed most upon re-reading (Note: I actually listened to most of this on audio, narrated by Carolyn Seymour) was the structure of the book and the way the narrative is framed.  Mr. Lockwood is renting Thrushwood Grange 20 years or so after the events of the book take place and the story is then related to him by Nelly over the course of a few nights. I just love the way the story is wrapped in a story which is wrapped in a story. 

Back to the Classic Challenge 2018: Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant

For the Classic in Translation category for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate, I read Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant.  I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I only picked up this title last year because I had planned to buddy read it with a friend. As French authors go, I was aware of de Maupassant but never felt the urge to read any of his books; Zola and Balzac cried out to me more loudly, for whatever reason. But I am so very glad I did read this book because I loved it!

Bel Ami is chock full of despicable characters but I didn’t mind that at all. The story is about a young provincial named Georges Duroy who, when discharged from the French military moves to Paris to seek his fortune.  Georges is moderately intelligent but physically very good looking. When the book opens, he is so hard up he only has enough cash to see him through one meal a day until his next payday.  His luck turns, however, when he runs into a former acquaintance from his service days in Algeria, Forestier.  Forestier is a journalist working at an upstart broadsheet called La Vie Française run by a financier who largely uses the paper to launder money and promote politicians who support his financial dealings.  Forestier gets Georges a job on the paper too and there begins, in fits and starts, Georges rise in Parisian society as he learns, often the hard way, how to get ahead.

From the outset Georges is a venial character and the embodiment of the perfect anti-hero.  He is never satisfied with what he has and is ever eyeing others who are better off, envious of their good fortune. He is ignorant of social norms and affectations and consequently often puts his foot wrong, sometimes avoiding total embarrassment only by the skin of his teeth. Georges uses people, particularly women, to get ahead with no self-awareness or sense of shame.  With every stumble Georges made I wondered if NOW was the time he would get the comeuppance he so richly deserved.  I won’t give away whether he does or not! 

Is this book a satire?  I am not sure because the behaviors and events are not exaggerated but rather all too realistic. It is very critical of Parisian society and politics without ever overtly stating so.  In some ways the plot reminded me of The Red and the Black by Stendhal which has another amoral social climber and is set in an earlier generation, but I enjoyed Bel Ami so much more!

BACK TO THE CLASSICS CHALLENGE 2018: THE SCARLET LETTER

For the Back to the Classics 2018 Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate I opted to read that old chestnut, The Scarlet Letter for the category “Classic with a color in the title”. 

I think I may have read an excerpt from this book in high school although I am fairly sure it we did not have to read the whole book.  In any case, the “plot twist” as it were was known to me before I started the book but I had never read the story in full of Hester Prynne, a woman living in a 17th century Puritan community who is forced to wear a red letter “A” on her clothing as punishment for having an adulterous affair.  The liaison resulted in a child, Hester’s husband is AWOL and Hester refuses to reveal the name of the man with whom she had the affair. 

I certainly can see why this title is often selected for American High Schoolers to read and write essays on.  It is relatively short, deals with America colonial history and it is chock full of potential themes for essays. But, on the other hand, it is extremely verbose and melodramatic.  It took me a comparatively long time to read 250 pages. And the prologue, which had scant little to do with the actual book, was a dull distraction for me personally. Although it was interesting to note that what Hawthorne was satirizing  about American politics hasn't changed much in the past 160+ years. 

Despite my occasional struggles with the windy prose, I did like it. It was really forward thinking for its time. In fact, I would argue for many it would STILL be considered forward thinking. Hester is a very interesting female character to have been written in the mid 19th century, strong and principled in her way.  And it was wonderfully Gothic with lots of supernatural elements that I did not expect that at all, such as scarlet letters burning in the sky.

My favorite character in the book was the love-child Pearl.  She is and isn’t a “normal” child as portrayed in the book, but she was a breath of fresh air amid the dourness of the adult charachters.  I like how she represents all that the adults in the novel could not outwardly express; she is  living embodiment of Hester's shame but also her refutation of that shame.

BACK TO THE CLASSICS 2018: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

For the Back to Classics Challenge 2018 hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate  category  20th Century Classic” I chose Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.   My reason for this title over many others was due to the fact that it is short and it is included on the Modern Library’s list of the  best 100 novels of the 20th century that I have been working my way through since 1998.

Winesburg, Ohio  is a collection of  vignettes (they are not short stories in my opinion) about certain residents of a small Ohio town in the late 1800’s, just before economy and society  moves from farming to factories.    As indicated in the first section of the book, “The Book of the Grotesque” the characters portrayed are shown in a very exaggerated, distorted way which often focuses on the unpleasant; those aspects of a person that one usually keeps hidden.

I am certainly glad to be able to tick this book off my list, but I didn’t really like it.  As short as it was, I found it difficult to read about such unhappy people over and over.  Almost everyone is yearning to escape and connect. But even those who do escape ultimately end up back in Winesburg. There are few happy exceptions.   People determined to finally express themselves lack the courage when finally faced with the opportunity.

Anderson’s writing has many admirers, Hemingway and Faulkner among them as I discovered n the introduction by Irving Howe in the Dover Thrift edition that I read.   But I found the description of the characters’ unhappiness and their expression of despair to be pretty unvaried as the book wore on.

BACK TO THE CLASSICS 2018: The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey

My second completed book for the 2018 Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate is The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey.  It fills the category of “Classic Crime Story”. The book was published in 1929 and was Tey’s first book as well as the first Inspector Grant Mystery.

The mystery/crime is established in the first chapter when a man who had been waiting in a crowded line of people, all pressing and pushing to get their SRO tickets for London’s hottest musical is found stabbed to death.  The other theatergoers of course saw nothing as they were paying more attention to  getting to the front of the line than they were about the people around them. The case is then handed over to Scotland Yard’s rising talent, Inspector Alan Grant.  The man had no identification on him so Inspector Grant has not only to find out who killed him but also who the victim was. 

I quite enjoyed the procedural aspects detection in this book: tracking down tie manufacturers, tracing bank notes and so on.  I equally liked the undercover aspects of the story as Grant sends his sergeants disguised as peddlers or down-on-their-luck soldiers to gather information from gossipy maids and he himself travels to the Scottish highlands posing as a casual angler, but of course he is casting for more than just fish!  I also think that Tey really does excel in her characterization. The supporting cast in this book is really well drawn, in particular Miss Diamont and Mrs. Everett in my opinion. I think either of them could have walked off the pages and on to their own novels!  I think it is a pity that Tey didn’t write many non-genre novels, though she died fairly young (in her early 50s), so who knows what she would have accomplished had she had more time?   

Where the book is weakest, is in its plotting.  And while, as I stated above, there is a lot of interesting detective work in following up clues,  Tey breaks one of the “rules” of detective fiction in allowing her main detective to be ruled by intuition over facts sometimes.  That said, I enjoyed some of the red herrings in the story anyway!

Just as a caveat, as is often with books of this era, there is a fair amount of casual sexism and racism contained within the pages.  Also,  The Man in the Queue  isn’t going to knock The Daughter of Time off its top spot as my favorite of Tey’s books, but I did find it a satisfying read. 

BACK TO THE CLASSICS 2018: Orient Express by Graham Greene

The first book I have completed for the 2018 Back to the Classics Challenge is Orient Express by Graham Green which was published in 1933. This title fits the category “A Classic Travel or Journey Narrative, Fiction or Non-Fiction”. 

Despite its title, this book is not a mystery a la Agatha Christie. Nor is it not a sexy spy thriller a la Ian Fleming, which the above cover of the Batam paperback that I read seems to suggest.  

Instead, the novel is really quintessential Greene, or maybe prototypical Greene based on the other novels of his that I have read. In my experience, Greene used his novels to ponder deeper moral questions about right and wrong, all the while with the understanding that humans are flawed. 

In Orient Express, the story begins in Ostend, Belgium and the reader is introduced to a few of the characters as they board the train which will travel through Cologne, Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade on the way to its ultimate destination of Istanbul, Turkey.  

Principal among the passengers are Carol Musker, a chorus girl and Carleton Myatt, a young, Jewish business man, both of whom are going to Turkey for work purposes and Richard John, a schoolteacher who is traveling under a British passport but who is clearly not English.  Richard John's true identity is recognized at the platform in Cologne by Mabel Warren, a journalist, who is seeing off her lover Janet Pardoe. Mabel then jumps on the train for what she thinks will be the scoop that will make her career.  Finally, in Vienna, a criminal boards the train to escape arrest.  Mix and stir, the characters will intersect and miss each other as the train rumbles further eastward. 

I found the dialogue a bit dated and stilted at times, which is to be expected I guess. Also there is some quite virulent anti-Semitism expressed by some characters that I believe the reader is supposed to understand as wrong, but also the author utilized quite a few stereotypical prejudices about Jews which I doubt he considered harmful. However, for this modern reader, it was pretty jarring to read. I enjoyed Orient Express for what it was, but if you are only going to read one of Greene’s novels, I would recommend The Quiet American or The Heart of the Matter over this one. 

Back to the Classics 2018

It's back!  Karen at Books and Chocolate is hosting the Back to the Classics Challenge for2018.  Like most if not all of the participants, I think making up the list is half the fun of the challenge. So here are some I might choose to satisfy this year’s categories:

 1.  A 19TH CENTURY CLASSIC - any book published between 1800 and 1899.  This is the easiest category for me to fill.  I will for sure read both a Trollop (The Eustace Diamonds and/or The Way We Live Now)  and a Dickens title (next on my list is The Old Curiosity Shop) in 2018.

2.  A 20TH CENTURY CLASSIC - any book published between 1900 and 1968. As in previous years, I will try to pick a book here that fits with the Modern Library 100 Best of List; probably it will be Winesberg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson which was published in 1919.

3.  A CLASSIC BY A WOMAN AUTHOR – I have a lot of unread Barbara Pym on my shelves. A few other options among the books I already own are Passing by Nella Larson,  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston or Evelina by Frances Burney.

4.  A CLASSIC IN TRANSLATION.  Any book originally written published in a language other than your native language.  My native language is English. Now I could of course choose Les Miserables for this category and maybe I will, but I would also like to read a translation from the French of Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami.   

5. A CHILDREN'S CLASSIC.  I may try The Jungle Books again by Rudyard Kipling.  They didn’t grab me the last time I tried them for this challenge but maybe the second time will be the charm?

6.  A CLASSIC CRIME STORY, FICTION OR NON-FICTION.  Another very easy read for me to fulfil; I can binge read Agatha Christie titles like nobody’s business and I love a good classic whodunit.   I also have a handful of Josephine Tey titles on my shelf to read and may try The Man in the Queue since Jane also has this one lined up for 2018.

7. A CLASSIC TRAVEL OR JOURNEY NARRATIVE, FICTION OR NON-FICTION. I will try Orient Express by Graham Greene, first published in 1933.

8. A CLASSIC WITH A SINGLE-WORD TITLE. Both Passing by Nella Larson or Evelina by Frances Burney would work here as well.

9. A CLASSIC WITH A COLOR IN THE TITLE. I think I might read The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorn or maybe The Red Badge of Courage by Stephan Crane.

10. A CLASSIC BY AN AUTHOR THAT'S NEW TO YOU.  Any of my women authors noted above with the exception of Barbara Pym would fit this category.

11. A CLASSIC THAT SCARES YOU.  Light in August by William Faulkner. Apparently this is one of his more accessible titles.

12. RE-READ A FAVORITE CLASSIC.  Too many to list.  I will say that if possible I will listen on audio rather than read with my eyes.  I am a bit weird about audio books but for re-reads they work really well for me. 

So that is my preliminary list.  All of the specific titles listed above are BOOKS THAT I ALREADY OWN! It has been a goal of mine in recent years to acquire less and read more of what I already have at home. I am comfortable with unread books on my shelves, but at the moment I have "too be read" piles obscuring the spines of other books which does bug me. I want those piles to be wrangled into something more manageable over the next few years.   

Back to the Classics 2017: My Final Wrap-Up

Wally is not as impressed with my efforts as I am.

JUST UNDER THE WIRE.  Well, not really. There are still 5 days left in the year.  ☺  But I am currently reading furiously books from the 2018 Tournament of Books long list plus there is the usual end of year/holiday activity so I did actually cut it a little too close for my comfort this year!

Below are the 12 books I read for this challenge, with links to my reviews.

1. A Russian Classic: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
2. A Romance Classic Dragonwyck by Anya Seton 
3. A Classic in Translation : The Red and the Black by Stendhal  
4. A 19th Century Classic:  Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
5. A Gothic Classic: No Name by Wilkie Collins and The Monk by Matthew Lewis 
6. A Classic by a woman author: Less than Angels by Barbara Pym
7. An award winning Classic: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 
8. A 20th Century Classic: Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
9. A Classic About an Animal or With an Animal in the Title:  The Call of the Wild by Jack London
10. A Classic with a number in the title: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Père 
11. A Classic set in a place you would like to visit: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay 
12. A classic published prior TO 1800:  The Oresteia by Aeschylus  

My favorites were Nicholas Nickleby, No Name, Less than Angles and The Yearling.  My  least favorites were The Red and the Black and The Monk. I am glad to have read all of them however, and bonus points to me  for having read Go Tell it on the Mountain and The Call of the Wild which I can also now tick off my list of Modern Library 100 Best that I am making my way through.

Many thanks to Karen at Books and Chocolate for hosting and doing all the heavy lifting!