Saturday, November 30, 2019

Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 – Wrap Up Post

Hamlet was the last work I needed to read to complete the Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate. 😃 Below is the summary of the 14 works I read:




I really enjoyed everything but if pressed, my favorites would be A Glass of Blessings and The Way We Live Now.  

I’m not sure if Karen is going to keep on hosting this challenge in 2020 – I’m crossing my fingers that she will. because I really do find it helpful to structure my reading and get in those classic titles I’ve been meaning to read.  I wish any of you, dear readers, luck in also completing the challenge. Remember, you only need to have completed six categories to be successful!  😌 My contact is naessa[at]yahoo[dot]com

27 comments:

  1. Congratulations! What a full year of classics you have experienced. I have enjoyed keeping up with your reading, Ruthiella. :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment jenclair! I love this challenge for the wonderful classic novels it encourages me to read. :D

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  2. Of course you did all twelve categories! ;D I only managed to finish eight of them. Oh, well. I can always try again next year. Congrats!

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    1. Thanks for the comment Lark! Eight books is nothing to sniff at. I really hope Karen does do this again next year so we both get another chance to read more classic novels. :D

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  3. Hi Ruthiella, Congratulations on completing the 2019 Back to the Classics Challenge. I so enjoy your reviews. I too chose The Way We Live Now. I finished Julius Caesar and must post about it but then on to book 12 The Way We Live now which I hope to read and post my thoughts by Dec 31.

    I too am hoping Karen K will continue the Challenge into 2020 although I know it must be alot of work for her and I am so grateful. I've taken the Back to the Classics Challenge for two years now and had the Challenge not been there I would never have read many of these classics and would have missed out.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Kathy! We both chose Shakespeare for the classic play! How interesting. I do hope you enjoy The Way We Live Now. As you know, I am a bit Trollope fan.

      I absolutely rely on the Back to the Classics Challenge to make me read those titles I have been meaning to read. I know it is a lot of work for Karen to do and like you I am very grateful to her for hosting. :D

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  4. Well done! I’ve finished 10 and I think I’ll leave it at that. Interesting to see which books were your favourites. What did you think of Barnaby Rudge?

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    1. Thanks for the comment Carol! I love Dickens and I did enjoy Barnaby Rudge. But it isn't a favorite of mine. It felt a little like Dickens was trying to write in a style that wasn't really his own...or he hadn't fully come in to his own style yet.

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  5. Congratulations! I've still got a couple of categories to go, but there's a whole month yet, so I haven't given up. Especially as I'm most of the way through House of Mirth (the one I'd always planned for tragedy) for Cleo's readalong.

    It's clear I should read A Glass of Blessings.

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    1. Thanks for the comment reese! Two books by the end of December will be a piece of cake for you, I'm sure. House of Mirth is perfect for the tragedy category. I read it a few years ago and am not commenting but am really enjoying the in depth commentary on Cleo's blog. P.S. Everyone should read more Barbara Pym. :D

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  6. Congrats, Ruthiella, on your wonderful reading list! It's always so much fun to see what others are reading (I just finished looking at Silvia's excellent list) although it CAN be just a weensy bit intimidating! Like you, I'm really hoping Karen hosts the Challenge again next year, as it really spurred me to read some great things I won't otherwise have read. My reading last year was rather lazy and aimless and I've found it quite useful to have a structure to plan my reading time around.
    I've enjoyed your reviews (another nice thing about the Challenge was it helped me discover some very nice blogs). It's great to discover a fellow-Pym lover. Glass of Blessings is one of my favorites, although I think Excellent Women wins out by a hair in that category! As you noted in your review, one of the joys of Pym's novels is noticing the little cameos she gives to characters from her other books. Wilmet, for example, has a walk-on in another novel (can't remember which one). One of my dream projects is to re-read Pym in the order in which the novels were written and do just what you suggested, i.e., note which characters pop up in the various novels. I actually came across a reference to a academic paper titled something like "reoccuring characters in Barbara Pym;" I'm really sorry that I didn't check it out. Anyway, I LOVE Barbara Pym.
    I'm also a big fan of both Trollope (haven't read your selection in many years, but I do remember how great it was) and Némirovsky; in fact your review of the latter had me pulling down books from my shelves (I ended up reading a short novella, "The Ball," but lazy old me never got around to reviewing it!). What a truly great writer she is and with such an interesting, if tragic, life. Another project here -- finish reading her works.
    I'm afraid we part company on Dickens. He's not one of my favorites (being forced to read Great Expectations in high school didn't help) although I will say I loved Bleak House! Also, when I re-read Expectations last spring (I audited an English lit class) I found my opinion of it had become quite a bit more favorable. Perhaps Dickens is one of those writers I need to re-examine. Any suggestions regarding which of his novels I should try next?
    A special congrats on finishing Wings of the Dove!!! A very difficult read and, although I love James, I must admit his readers definitely have to work for their rewards. I slogged through one of his mid-period novels earlier this year (one of my Classics Challenge choices) that was far more accesible than Dove, and I really struggled to get into that convoluted sentence structure and subtlety of emotion. There's no doubt about it, Henry breathed in a far more rarified atmosphere than the rest of us folks!
    And what a way to end your list -- Hamlet! (just finished reading and enjoying your review BTW, as I'm catching up on my blog reading). A wonderful but difficult play; I only got through it after several attempts and then only by taking an informal adult ed class. Really worth the effort but . . . definitely (at least for me) a challenge! As you noted, it's really fascinating to see all the different treatments/interpretations. Did you know there was a movie with Ethan Hawke, using the dialogue of the play but setting it in contemporary times? I think (it's been awhile now) that "Denmark" becomes the "Denmark Corporation," whose CEO is Hamlet's dad; it's headquartered in the Elsinore Hotel. Well, you get the idea. A bit cutesy but I remember being mildly amused. Also, in sorting through my books I discovered an old copy of John Updike's take on the story, Gertrude and Claudius (hmm. Might move that one back to the "keep" pile!).
    The Waugh novella sounds great and right up my alley . . . .

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    1. Hi Janakay! Thank you for your comment. I agree, it is great fun to see what everyone else chooses for the various categories…there is so much variety but also occasionally one finds a blogger who has read the same book for the same category and then it is interesting to compare notes.

      It is lovely to find another Pym and Trollope fan. They are well loved in the blogosphere for sure, but they don’t get the larger recognition that authors like Dickens or Austen gets in the greater world of books and reading. I have yet to dive into more Némirovsky but I did pick up The Fires of Autumn a couple of months ago at a library book sale.

      You are right, Wilmet makes a cameo in No Fond Return of Love along with her husband and two other characters, Keith and Piers and when they are touring a castle at the seaside.

      We can agree to disagree on Dickens. I understand he is not to everyone’s taste. If I had to rank my favorites, Barnaby Rudge would be pretty far down the list, with Bleak House, Great Expectations and Little Dorrit nearer to the top. I never had to read his books in high school. The first book of his I read was Martin Chuzzlewit and it made me a fan of Dickens for life…I didn’t want it to end. I hesitate to make any recommendations because, in my opinion, even the weakest Dickens novel is worth reading. Personally, I want to re-read David Copperfield because I didn’t love it as much as I expected when I read it so I would like to revisit.

      I am so glad I read Hamlet. I should really take the time to check out some of the various movie adaptations. I have hear of but not seen the Ethan Hawke version. I’ve also been told that the T.V. show “Sons of Anarchy” is a take on Hamlet. The Lion King as well – which I have seen actually.

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    2. Stocking you, Janakay, and butting into the conversation.

      This

      There's no doubt about it, Henry breathed in a far more rarified atmosphere than the rest of us folks!

      Amen to that.

      Ruthiella, I confess I threw Trollope under the bus while in a private email conversation. He is a generous writer. And Dickens. I may try his Chuzzlewit. I don't dislike him at all, it's, I believe, a matter of time and preference. These authors of long novels require commitment. It's like a spouse, I can be a literary polygamist, but my loyalty to some authors precludes me from paying the necessary attention to others. And to me, the reread and literature in Spanish and translation block much of my reading time.

      But I do love to hear you and Janakay wax about common loves, or your very own.

      I do love your reading lives and miss Janakay. But I know she's busy at the moment.

      Pym is going to be a must. And I have always wanted to watch that Ethan Hawke's Hamlet. I want 2020 to be a year when I watch more movies, good movies.

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  7. It is, indeed, quite exciting to share Trollope and Pym, particularly as I agree that both tend to be underrated outside the blogosphere. I can sort of see it for Trollope -- even in his own day folks such as Henry James tended to deride (perhaps too strong a word, but at least critique) his work and those big sprawling 19th century novels DID fall out of favor, when writers such as Woolf came along. There's also (IMO at least )a certain over-the-top soap opera/sentimental quality to some of his novels, which is probably one reason they're such great reads! (I'm thinking of a few of the Barchester Novels here (Lily Dale/Johnny Somebody duo) & NOT the The Way We Live Now, which I really need to re-read BTW). But Pym's case really has me baffled -- she's so great! And, to me at least, NOT at all like Jane Austen, to whom she's frequently compared. Pym's just as funny as Austen, and an equally shrewd observer of the human comedy, but much -- kinder (?) perhaps; more forgiving, less judgmental; the irony is there but it's more muted or something; you sense that Pym includes herself in the general mess she's writing about, which I don't think Austen does (don't get me wrong -- Austen is my goddess! I'm simply gropping for some way to distinguish the different emotional tone of the two writers). I think the Austen comparison has actually been detrimental to Pymn, who's almost as wonderful but in a different way. If you read Pym expecting Pride & Prejudice, you'll be disappointed and perhaps fail to appreciate her own very different qualities. (Have you read Quartet in Autumn BTW? I found it very differnt from Pym's other novels, so much so it took a second read, years after the first, to appreciate it).
    Regarding Dickens, I'm not sure we disagree, or at least not regarding his merits as a novelist -- he IS truly one of the greats. I think it's more a matter of personal taste and, even here, I feel mine changing, as demonstrated by my very different reaction last spring to Great Expectations. One of the wonderful things about reading is noticing these interior shifts in one's self, as demonstrated by changing taste in books and valuations of certain authors. I think that's one reason I'm into re-reads -- returning to a book over a period of years is akin (in a weird way) to comparing cholesterol readings or bone x-rays -- instead of indicating the state of the body, re-reading indicates where you currently stand vis a vis a work of art. I'm always very excited when I find my opinion about a book (or a painting) has changed -- it means SOMETHING is going on there, that I'm engaging with the work rather than just being a passive recipient.
    On dear -- I do sound terribly heavy for a Saturday morning, don't I? Blame it on all those boxes (I'm on break right now from attacking the basement. If you don't hear from me again, the basement critters have napped me! (I'm not totally joking here)) . I haven't seen the Lion King (was it good?) but I ADORED Sons of Anarchy in all its tacky, sleazy, tawdry glory! And, yes, Jax was Hamlet; tortured soul (and hot dude) struggling to find his place as heir to the biker gang and growing increasingly suscipious of his mom and step-dad, its current first riders . . . . . .

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    1. Hi Janakay,
      You are right. It is a disservice to compare Pym to Austen though, as you point out, there are parallels. Pym really is her own thing…Pymsian. I read Penelope Lively’s novel According to Mark a few years ago and one of my friends on Goodreads described is “A rather Pymsian Lively” which is perfect shorthand if one has read Pym before. I have read Quartet in Autumn. Last year. I want to read all her books through once and then read them again in order of publication. As you write, re-reading is so very rewarding.

      Absolutely, the sentimentality (but nowhere near the level of Dickens – Trollope is restrained compared to him) and romance of Trollope’s novels is very much part of his appeal to me as a reader. I also love how Trollope often addresses the reader directly in the text. I know this isn’t an uncommon technique but when Trollope does it, it always gives me a bit of a thrill…that he really is talking to ME from the pages and across the decades.

      I will send in the calvary if you don’t surface from the basement soon. :D The Lion King is definitely is good enough to hold the attention of and entertain both adults and children. The soundtrack is pretty good too.

      If you are willing to try another Dickens novel then, I might recommend Little Dorrit to you then, since you have already read Bleak House and Great Expectations. I still have Dombey and Sons to read and then I will have read all his finished novels.

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    2. True. I remember how thrilling it was when I heard Trollope talking to me. I jumped!

      Now Pym is sounding so great to read. And rereads are so wonderful.

      Send the calvary, Ruthiella, please, LOL.

      I never knew that Lion King was inspired on or by Hamlet. It makes sense.

      And your description of Sons of Anarchy is priceless, Janakay.

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    3. I am glad I am not the only reader who gets a kick out of Trollope speaking to her personally. :D

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  8. WOO HOO!!! We did it, we did it! I appreciate your support and encouragement. (and now I know who Naessa AT yahoo is.... :D

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  9. Congrats on finishing the challenge--you read some marvelous classics this year. I'm looking forward to reading The Way We Live Now myself - after I finish the Palliser series. I agree--I hope this challenge continues in 2020 as it is my favorite and is the only one I really commit to anymore.

    That said, I have yet to do my wrap up post, but I concede the Tragic category. Just couldn't get it done.

    Happy Solstice!

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    1. Hi Jane! Thank you for the comment! I have only The Duke's Children to read and then I will have finished the Palliser series myself. Trollope has really become one of my all time favorites. I look forward to your wrap up post. 11 out of 12 is still fabulous!

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  10. Ruthiella... I don't know what's wrong. I've not gotten your latest posts, or something.

    Anyway, I see the latest ones, and a long conversation with Janakay, so I can't wait to come here later today and indulge in reading, and even if late to the party, contribute to your always stimulating thoughts.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Silvia. I am always interested in what you have to say about what I've read! Computers are a boon and a bane, right?

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  11. Well done. Some of my favs here (and some unfits), gonna go see what you thought of them.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Joseph! With every list, there are hits and misses I find. :D

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  12. Congratulations on your completion of this challenge! Brava! My favourites on your list is Three Men on a Boat and Hamlet. I hope she offers this challenge again next year!

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    1. Thanks for the comment Cleo! I also hope that Karen returns to blogging in 2020 and offers the challenge again. It is my favorite reading challenge.

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