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:

• 19th Century Classic – Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens
• 20th Century Classic – Native Son by Richard Wright
• Classic By A Woman – A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
• Classic in Translation – Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
• Classic Tragic Novel – The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
• Classic Comic Novel – Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
• Very Long Classic - The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
• Classic Novella – The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh 
• Classic From the Americas or Caribbean – One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Classic From Africa, Asia, or Oceania – My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin and Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge 
• Classic From A Place You've Lived – Cannery Row by John Steinbeck and The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier
• Classic Play – Hamlet by William Shakespeare

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

Back to the Classics Challenge: Hamlet

Well, rather surprisingly to me, the Classic Play that I read for the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate was Hamlet.  I was initially considering reading more Oscar Wilde and then I though instead maybe some Sheridan based on Reese’s excellent review of School for Scandal at the blog Typings.  I was looking for, you know, something light and comedic. Instead I read Shakespeare’s longest play and a tragedy to boot. I have a very good friend who teaches English and she convinced me to read it with her so we could discuss it since she is considering teaching it in future. Her go-to for teaching Shakespeare is Macbeth, which she can quote, amazingly to me, by heart.

I think like many readers, I was familiar with the play prior to reading it. I may have read it in high school or we may have only read the famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy…the farther I get from my teen years, the more trouble I have remembering the details. But regardless, like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet has permeated the culture of the English speaking world by osmosis. Originally I wanted to listen to it on audio in tandem to reading the text, but since it is such a long play, I couldn’t find an audio book with the full four and half hour production.

Like I said, I knew the story (and am assuming you, dear reader, know it too), so what is my take away from the play? I was surprised that Hamlet is so morose. As I read, I pictured him as a tortured, goth teenager moaning about his parents and how unfair life is. I do understand that Hamlet does have legitimate cause for complaint; his father had been only dead for two months and no one seems to care or notice. However, I did find him particularly mopey-just my take. I understand from a little internet research that there are a multitude of ways to play and interpret Hamlet, so I may have been reading into it, since I was a pretty mopey teenager myself once upon a time. I also didn’t know that Polonius is supposed to be such a pompous windbag and I had assumed that Queen Gertrude was complicit in Hamlet Sr.’s death, but she appears to be innocent. Clearly there were many details I was unaware of and I am glad I read it and set the record straight. Maybe one of these days I will watch an adaptation or even see it live now that I am better acquainted with the play.

One other thing I really enjoyed was discovering a lot of phrases that I already knew but did not know came from this play. A few examples are below:

“…though I am native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance.”

 “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t”

 “The lady protests too much, methinks.”

My friend and I had an interesting discussion on what we felt was the ultimate message of Hamlet. I wasn’t expecting a moral but she was, since she feels that Macbeth makes a clear point about the dangers of ambition. We decided there really isn't any one moral conclusion to Hamlet. Which is probably in part why the play has endured since it is so open to interpretation.

Back to the Classics Challenge: The Wings of the Dove

“Milly was indeed a dove; this was the figure, though it most applied to her spirit. Yet he knew in a moment that Kate was just now, for reasons hidden from him, exceptionally under the impression of that element of wealth in her which was a power, which was a great power, and which was dove-like only so far as one remembered that doves have wings and wondrous flights, have them as well as tender tints and soft sound. It even came to him dimly that such wings would in a given case – had, truly, in the case with which he was concerned –spread themselves for protection. Hadn’t they, for that matter, lately taken an inordinate reach, and weren’t Kate and Mrs. Lowder, weren’t Susan Shepheard and he, wasn’t he in particular, nestling under them to a great increase of immediate need?”

No lie: it took me over two months to read The Wings of the Dove. The edition I read had over 500 pages, but it wasn’t the length of the book that slowed me down, it was Henry James and his MANY, MANY, carefully chosen words.  I read pretty much every line twice if not three or four times and even then, I often wasn’t sure if I understood the sentence.  It’s a good thing that one of the main characters is also a little dense. When things had to be spelled out to him, it was to my advantage as a reader too. Also, I had seen the film waaay back in 1998 or so and was familiar with the plot.  But this is a psychological novel; the plot is barely there.  James takes paragraphs and sometimes pages to explain one thought or perception.  I realize that it might have been better for me had I a solid base in James and worked my way up to his later, more complex works.  I read his first novel, Daisy Miller, earlier this year and found it both delightful and not difficult in the least. My reason for reading the Wings of the Dove now instead of later were fueled by the fact that (a) I owned a copy of this book already and (b) it is on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list of the best English-language novels published in the 20th century from which I intend to someday read every title.  So I persevered. 

As I stated above, there is not much of a plot. The story is simple:  young Morton Densher and Kate Croy are Londoners who want to marry but feel they cannot due to certain social constraints that would be smoothed away if only either of them had any money. Along comes dove-like Milly Theale, a very rich but naïve (or is she?) American who has a crush on Morton and not too much longer to live. Will Morton marry Milly for her money as Kate hopes? Is Kate really doing Milly a favor as she would like to believe? Can Kate and Morton’s relationship survive this, whatever the outcome? 

While this book was a lot of work for me, it didn’t put me off Henry James. I am not much of an athlete and the analogy may be poor, but runners don't avoid running a marathon because it is too challenging, right?  I have at least two more "difficult" James’ titles that I HAVE to read due to my personal goal of reading all the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels and I would certainly be interested in reading some of his more accessible novels like Portrait of a Lady or Washington Square.  

I read this for the category Classic Tragic Novel for the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate.

Back to the Classics Challenge: My Brilliant Career and Green Dolphin Street

I was torn about my options for the category of a Classic from Africa, Asia or Oceania for the Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate. While I was very tempted to buy a copy of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o s A Grain of Wheat, I decited to be “good” and limited my choice to only books available from the library. Reviewing my library options, I couldn’t decide if I should read My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin or Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge, so I read them both!

The library edition of Green Dolphin Street that I read was published as part of a reprint series titled “The Best Seller Library” which had to have been issued at least in the 1970s or beyond since The Godfather was part of the series. Also included were (all 12 titles were listed on the back) were Gone with the Wind and Dr. Zhivago so you have an idea of what kind of book Green Dolphin Street is... EPIC.

First published in 1945, it is a historical novel that begins on one of the UK Channel Islands in the 1840s when Marianne and Marguerite Le Patourel are still children.  Marianne and Marguerite are sisters. They are six years apart in age and could not be more different in both looks and temperament. Marianne, the eldest, is small and dark while Marguerite is tall and fair. They are also quite different in personality. Marianne is driven and ambitious; a perfectionist. Marguerite on the other hand is far more carefree and openly affectionate. Unfortunately they both fall for the same boy, William Ozanne. This love triangle is the driving force of the novel. Eventually William ends up in New Zealand (which is how this book qualifies as set in Oceania) and he writes the Le Patourel family that one of the daughters should make her way to him and become his wife. But which one does he choose?

I have read a few of this type of historical saga throughout my reading life. They require a certain commitment since they tend to be long and detail-laden. The edition I read was 500 pages long with small font. I’ll be honest, at about the halfway mark, I began to flag. I rallied and finished the book, but it really wasn’t my cup of tea. I might have enjoyed it more had I read it younger, because it wasn't the length so much as the drama that wore me out. I much preferred Goudge’s contemporary novel The Rosemary Tree, which is a more intimate story on a smaller scale. What both books did have in common, however, is an infusion of Christian mysticism which I appreciated and I understand is typical of Goudge's writing. Some attitudes towards non-whites and the lower classes in Green Dolphin Street are dated, though on the whole, I felt the author was at least trying to be sympathetic to the Maori.

My Brilliant Career is an entirely different kettle of fish! It comes across as far more authentic. I don’t believe that it is entirely autobiographical, but Franklin published it in 1901 when she was only 21 and the teenage emotions in the book (which sometimes run VERY high) seemed very realistic to me. It is also much shorter than the Goudge novel which was the reason why I decided to read both.

One thing both books have is a very headstrong main character. Sybylla from My Brilliant Career grows up as a tomboy in relative comfort on a ranch in the outback somewhere. When she is about eight years old, her family move to Possum Gully to farm cattle which turns out to be a disastrous move. Within a few years, drought and alcoholism have impoverished the family. Sybylla is the oldest and she has never gotten along with her mother, who grew up in a more refined household and who struggles to maintain both her pride and her gentility against the odds. 

Eventually Sybylla is allowed to stay with her wealthy maternal relatives. Here Sybylla is pampered and spared the backbreaking work of Possum Gully. She can indulge in her love of music and literature. Sybylla has a secret wish to someday become a writer. While staying with her grandmother, Sybylla also meets a number of eligible men, from ranch hand jackaroos to the rich and handsome neighbor, Harold Beechman. But is Sybylla willing to give up her independence and the possibility of a brilliant career to marry?

I won’t give the ending away, but I can tell you that as a reader, Sybylla is very frustrating and the author defies a conventional narrative. As I wrote, the book was written by a very young woman and Sybylla displays all the contradictions and insecurities of a teenager. I remember, I was one too.

Back to the Classics Challenge: One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. “ This from One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most famous opening lines in literature. I mean, how can you not want to read on?

I opted to read this book for the category “Classic from the Americas or Caribbean” for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate.  As an American, I really felt I needed to NOT read a U.S. author in this case and I had a copy of this one already, so it fit the bill.  Another reason I picked  this classic over any other North American, South American or Caribbean classic is because it is just so damn famous. I do read for pleasure of course. But I also read for enlightenment and out of curiosity which means I sometimes read books that I appreciate more than I adore and this was one of those.  I'm glad to have read it; I feel like the experience makes me a better reader over all, but I can't say I'll be seeking out more from any Garcia Marquez soon. Lo siento Gabriel.

So what is the book about? It is about the Buendia family that establishes the village of Macondo in the jungle of Columbia at some point prior to independence from Spain. The patriarch, José Arcadio Buendia, is looking for a paradise near the ocean but ends up settling near a swamp instead. If I understood the book correctly, José Arcadio is a descendant of the indigenous inhabitants of Columbia whereas his wife, Ursula, descends from Spanish colonialists. Their families have, however, been intermarrying for generations and the two are actually cousins.  Macando remains isolated for many years with little outside contact except from traveling gypsies. José Arcadio and Ursula have two sons: the eldest named for his father and  the younger named Aureliano and a daughter, Amaranta.  

The names Arcadio  and Aureliano will repeat through seven generations of the family as Macando becomes a town and then a city with contact via railway to the rest of the country and eventually the establishment of an American owned and operation banana plantation nearby. Some Buendias do leave Macando for other places, but they almost always come back until the last generation dies out and with it the town. The family is somehow, without realizing it,  trapped in this place where history seems to repeat every generation and the house originally built by José Arcadio Senior is built up and allowed to fall in to ruin over and over again. The theme of incest, starting with the two cousins marrying, also is repeated throughout the book.  And of course, there is the magic realism where people float up to heaven, live for 150 years or are born with pig tails and no character in the book is startled by it. As a reader, one isn't really startled either because the narration has the same tone through out. 

I know I am not doing the book justice here. And frankly there are hundreds of better sources than I to expound upon what the book "really means" and the use of magic realism in the text. I think the more familiar one is with Colombian and Central American history, the more one will get out of the book. I think I got some of it, like the cyclical trajectory of successes and failures of the Buendia family work as an allegory of the imposition of Spanish colonialism and subsequent American imperialism in Central America. However, for me personally, I suspect I need to have a better grasp on the historical background to best appreciate this kind of book and I just don't know enough in this case.   

Back to the Classics Challenge: The Loved One

When I first posted my potential list of 12 books for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate, Joseph from the blog The Once Lost Wander suggested I read Three Men in a Boat after Native Son to cheer me up a bit…   Oops! I actually read Three Men in a Boat a couple of months ago. BUT it turns out The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh, which I read for the category Classic Novella, is actually a comedy as well,  albeit a dark one since it pokes fun at the funeral industry.

I had only read Brideshead Revisited from Waugh before and I didn’t know he could be funny or quite so mean.  The Loved One is a satire on British expats in Hollywood and that particular American funeral institution, Forest Lawn, called Whispering Glades in the book.  Seriously, google the original Forest Lawn in Glendale, California. You will see that Waugh did not have to add too many fictional touches to make his version of the cemetery and mortuary over-the-top and tacky.

No one comes off well in The Loved One.  It is about a washed-up expat Englishman, Dennis Barlow, who used to write for Hollywood but now works at a funeral home for pets called The Happier Hunting Ground.  Through circumstances Dennis meets Aimée Thanatogenos (very Dickensien, that name!), who works as a cosmetologist at Whispering Glades. Aimee began as a beautician for living people but has found her métier in the mortuary field.  The beautiful Aimee is pursued by Dennis, who plagiarizes classic poets to woo her, as well as by Mr. Lovejoy, the head embalmer at Whispering Glades, who makes the corpses she works on smile in a special way, just for her. Icky, right?  

If you like your humor dark, dry and a little morbid, The Loved One might be for you. I laughed out loud many times. And certainly it is miles apart from the much longer and more serious Brideshead Revisited. I still have to read A Handful of Dust and Scoop from Evelyn Waugh and now I really don’t know what to expect but am looking forward to them for that very reason!

Back to the Classics Challenge: Native Son

I chose this book for the 20TH Century Classic category for Karen’s Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge at Books and Chocolate.  This was a very uncompromising book about the life of a young black man in Chicago in the late 1930s who commits two horrific crimes.    The book was surely controversial when it was first published in 1940 and I would argue it is still so now.  

“He had done this. He had brought all this about. In all of his life these two murders were the most meaningful things that had ever happened to him.” 

“But what was he after? What did he want? What did he love and what did he hate? He did not know. There was something he knew and something he felt; something the world gave him and something he himself had; something spread out in front of him and something spread out in back; and never in all his life, with this black skin of his, had the two worlds, thought and feeling, will and mind, aspiration and satisfaction, been together; never had he felt a sense of wholeness.”

The story starts off with Bigger killing a rat in the shabby one room he shares with his mother, sister and brother. On that same day, Bigger will go for a job interview with Mr. Dalton, the kindly white man who wants to help Negros by giving them menial jobs and donating ping pong tables to community centers in black neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Mr. Dalton owns the company that rents that crappy one room to Bigger’s mother in one of the few crowded neighborhood where blacks are "allowed" to live in Chicago. Even when confronted with this fact later in the book, Mr. Dalton does not understand how no amount of ping pong tables will make up for that kind of systemic racism and discrimination.  

This book is terribly frustrating to read. Bigger goes to work for the Daltons as a chauffeur, which really is an excellent opportunity for him and he destroys that opportunity. But the reader also sees where Bigger is overwhelmed culturally, out of his element, so much so that he can’t consider any options, any other way of behaving. He knows how to act in his black neighborhood where he is a bully motivated mostly by fear, but he is flummoxed in the world of white people. And equally, many of the white people with whom he interacts don’t understand either that he comes from what might as well be a different universe from them. The view into Bigger’s thoughts and motivations do not excuse his actions, but they do help make them understandable. Even if throughout the book the reader wants to step in and set him straight constantly. 

The weakest part of the book for me was the endless, rousing closing argument made by Bigger’s lawyer at his trial. It’s a little too over-the-top and over long with its message when the book was doing just fine before I thought.  I’m not sure if Wright didn’t trust his readers to get it or if he just wanted to preach his points. Still, this is a book very much worth reading and still unfortunately relevant. I'm glad to have read it. I think next I need to check out James Baldwin's Notes from a Native Son which contains an essay about this novel. 

Back to the Classics Challenge: Suite Française

My choice for the category “Classic in Translation” for the Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate was Suite Française by Irene Némirovsky. This is one of those books that meets the Challenge’s bylaws in that it was first published in 2007 but actually written in 1942. The story of the author’s life and how the book came to be published is worthy of a novel itself. Némirovsky was originally from the Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) but had immigrated to France with her family as a teenager. She was a popular and well-known author in France. Her debut novel David Golder was a best seller and published when she was only 26 years old.

However, when France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940, Némirovsky, as a woman of Jewish ancestry and denied French citizenship, began to feel the pressure put upon Jews by the French government under the occupation. Ultimately, she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered (she died actually of typhus but let’s call a spade a spade. There was never any intent that she should survive her deportation). Her daughters survived the war hidden by friends of the family. Némirovsky’s oldest daughter, Denise Epstein, had kept the manuscript but not read it thinking it was her mother's journal and fearing the experience would be too painful. When she later discovered it to be an unfinished manuscript she approached a publisher and the rest is history.

The novel Suite Française is the first two sections of what the author envisioned as a five-part chronicle of life during wartime under the occupation. Némirovsky was writing as the actual events were unfolding.  The first section is titled “Storm in June” and it depicts an ensemble of characters as they flee Paris at the onset of the invasion in 1939. It reminded me a bit of The Grapes of Wrath in how the best and the worst in people will come out in desperation as people traveled on foot or in vehicles with as much of their worldly possessions as they could carry with the situation becoming more and more dire the further they went. It was very vivid.

The second section titled “Dolce” is a little less tense and definitely more romantic. It takes place in a village located in Vichy France where German troops are sequestered and the characters are only tangentially related to those introduced in the first section. The story’s focus is an unrequited love affair between a French woman and a German officer with other characters showing some of the initial signs of underground resistance by the French and the burden of collaboration.

The edition I read had notes from the author at the back which give hints as to where the final volumes were headed plot wise.  I think the final version would have been epic and an instant classic had the author lived to write it.

Back to the Classics Challenge: Cannery Row and The Scapegoat

I read two books for the Back to the Classics category “Classic from a Place You’ve Lived” for the Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate and both are thanks to Jane who blogs at Reading, Writing, Working, Playing who encouraged me to read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck back when I posted my potential list in January 2019 and who wrote such an appealing review of The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier last month that I was impelled to read it right away. I even had an old Book of the Month hardcover edition of it, inherited from my mother. Another encouragement to read both was the fact that Cannery Row is so short; It wasn't stressful to read both books. 

The Scapegoat takes place in France (in a village called St. Gilles somewhere in the Northwest) and I lived in Bordeaux, France for a year in the late 1980s when I was in college. Later in the early 1990s I lived for a year in Monterey, California. I know I visited Cannery Row at least once while there, but I only remember it as being very “touristy”. I have fonder memories of the Monterrey Aquarium.

My journey through Steinbeck’s works has been up and down. I first read Travels with Charley, which I loved. But then I read East of Eden which I didn’t love. But when I read The Grapes of Wrath a few years ago, I was very impressed with the writing and that positive impression carries over to Cannery Row as well. The descriptions are vibrant and colorful.

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing. 

The book is collection of semi-connected vignettes about the inhabitants of the row, most featuring Doc, a marine biologist/procurer of marine animals, Mack the leader of a crew of lay-abouts, Lee Chong, the grocer. There is virtually no plot. At best, one could say that it is about Mack and the boys wanting to throw a party for Doc which goes awry. In some cases, Steinbeck borders on clichés with some of his characters, particularly that of the hooker with a heart of gold, but generally I found the characters to be realistically flawed and it was clear that Steinbeck had a real affection for all of them, whatever their moral weaknesses.

My history with du Maurier is equally mixed. In brief, no book has quite lived up to Rebecca in my estimation. But nonetheless, The Scapegoat was an interesting and propulsive read and boy does it have a plot! Two men meet by chance in Le Mans, France and they are by all accounts identical. One is an Englishman named John, a professor of French history whose command of the language is that of a native. The other is a French count called Jean.  I won’t say how, but in true soap opera tradition, they end up switching places.                                                                                            The book then follows mild mannered John who sees the chance to live another person’s life both a challenge and freeing. John is an orphan and a loner who has always had difficulty connecting to other people. When he steps into the rather profligate Jean de Gue’s shoes, he is thrust into a complicated familial and cultural situation that invigorates him. The book almost reads as a thriller as John navigates one tricky situation after the next. And at any time, the real Jean could return and then what? The Scapegoat’s plot is completely implausible yet du Maurier makes it believable.  My only niggle was the ending but not because it was a bad; it just didn’t end the way I wanted it to.  

Back to the Classics Challenge 2019: The Way We Live Now

One of my favorite things about the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate is the indulgence of the excuse to read Dickens and Trollope, my two most loved Victorian era authors.  Accordingly, for the category “Very Long Classic”, I opted to read the doorstopper, The Way We Live Now which just happens to be Trollope’s longest of the 40-plus novels he wrote over his long career.

Now, of course, the title could be changed to “The Way They Lived Then” since Trollope meant the book to be a commentary on late 19th century upper-class society and their twin obsessions with status and money. But as with so many classics, there is plenty in the novel which still applies to our modern lives. 

But how to write a short review of such a long novel? That’s the challenge. The story is rich with a variety of subplots and intrigues, but the majority of them all revolve around one man: Auguste Melmotte.  Mr. Melmotte is a financier, a capitalist, a man who makes nothing himself but is able to use the money of others to make more money, chiefly for himself. His origins are murky, his past checkered. But as long as he appears to have the Midas-touch he is courted by the upper classes outwardly while behind his back they despise him. There is particular interest in Melmotte’s daughter, Marie, who is to be sacrificed to anyone with a title, provided the groom is willing to only have limited control over Marie’s dowry.

Marie, however, has other ideas about who she will marry. She is enamored of  Sir Felix Carbury, Baronet. Felix is a useless idiot who loves no one but would like a way out of his debts. His mother, Lady Carbury, is all for the match since Felix, though he is her favored child, is rapidly depleting her own finances which she supplements by writing terrible books. Lady Carbury’s daughter, Hetta, has no problem with her mother’s favoritism. She only wants to be free herself to marry young but poor Paul Montague. But her mother wants Hetta to marry her much older cousin, Roger Carbury, who has an estate outside of London. 

Paul Montague wants very much to marry Hetta if only his can get his finances in order, which are ultimately tied up with Melmotte and his dealings. But that’s not all. Roger Carbury is his closest friend and a father figure to him. Marrying Hetta may destroy that friendship. And, to complicate matters further, Paul is pursued by a certain Mrs.  Hurtle, an American widow to whom he was once (and may still be) engaged.

There is so much more in terms of plot and characters than this bare bones outline, like the snobbish Longstaffe family who are inextricably bound up in Melmotte’s financial machinations or Ruby Ruggles, a country girl who wants to throw over her bumpkin finance John Crumb in the forgone hope that Felix Carbury will marry her. Also there is a wonderful parallel plot about gambling at cards among the aristocrats which satirizes the kind of high finance perpetuated by people like Melmotte.

I really enjoyed The Way We Live Now. I didn’t find it quite as charming as some of his previous novels, however; mostly because I found it hard to really root for any of the characters. They were all frustrating, though some such as Lord Nidderdale, Marie Melmotte, Hetta Carbury, Mrs. Hurtle, etc. were less egregious in the errors of their ways than others. But I always found them interesting and I was invested in their fates.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2019: Three Men in a Boat

'In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.”

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell.  From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it.  As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day.  They did not know, then, that it was my liver.  Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.'

I read Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome for the Classic Comic Novel category of the Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 hosted by blogger Karen at Books and Chocolate.  Apparently, the book started off as a travel guide for points of interest along the Thames.  That part of the book was a bit of a miss for me since I am not very well acquainted with British history. Nor am I familiar with boating and the technicalities of that such as using tow lines, punting, etc. 

Occasionally in the travelogue parts, the writing was flowery about sunsets and flowers and the like and the tone more serious.  But was it funny? Generally, yes. The sense of humor was very familiar; fairly broad and a bit silly. The punchlines usually weren’t terribly clever such as never finding a cab when you need one but when you don’t there are tons.  My first real laugh came when the narrator is describing his dog Montmorency, who “came to live at my expense…” That is a perfect description of the dogs and cats in my home. They live at my expense…total freeloaders! 😺

There is no plot. Three young men set off boating for two weeks on the Thames. Some shenanigans and minor disasters happen and there are many digressions, like the inadvisability of offering to store a wheel of cheese for a friend for any length of time or a friend who gets himself and his fellow tourists lost in a maze and almost lynched by the mob of people trying to get out.  

I read the unabridged text in physical form but because it was only two hours and twenty minutes, I also later listened to the abridged audio version narrated by Hugh Laurie  which was delightful.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2019: A Glass of Blessings

Unlike the single, excellent women who have been the mainstay of the other Pym novels, the protagonist of A Glass of Blessings is a young, married woman.   She and her husband, Rodney, have settled into a complacent but comfortable, childless marriage.  They live with her mother-in-law, Sylvia, in Sylvia’s London home in the mid 1950’s.  Between Rodney’s hours at the office, Sylvia’s assistance at home and the servants, Wilmet has little to do. She thinks she would like to do good works and she attends services at a nearby Anglican church regularly. But she hasn’t yet developed the kind of dedication or flair required for the selfless activity of organizing church bazaars or rummage sales. 

Wilmet yearns for something more exciting from life. When she meets with her best friend Rowena, they reminisce about their time spent in Italy during the war when they were both WRENs and their now husbands were then dashing officers.  Throughout the book, Wilmet entertains the idea of an affair (or maybe just some heavy flirting). She considers a relationship with Piers, the rather feckless brother of Rowena.  Also, Rowena’s husband Harry would like to be more than just friends with Wilmet. And there is a darkly handsome new assistant priest at St. Luke’s…

A Glass of Blessings was a very low-key sort of romantic comedy; not much happens, yet subtly lots of things happen. Interestingly, it was narrated in the first person. I checked and of the six Pym novels I’ve read so far, only Excellent Women was also in first person.  For what ever reason, I feel that worked better with Mildred in Excellent Women, maybe because Wimet is often fairly clueless and I often wished for some authorial confirmation that she was being obtuse. 

Now that I know to look for them, I found many connections/references to other characters from Excellent Women, Less Then Angels and No Fond Return of Love as well as one to one I haven’t read yet (Jane and Prudence) which provided an added layer of enjoyment to the book. Some one needs to write a companion book listing all the characters and places and their crossovers for the entire Pym oeuvre similar to what Hilary Spurling did for Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time series. 

I read this for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 run by Karen at the blog Books and Chocolate for the category “Classic by a Woman”.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2019: Barnaby Rudge

I will lead in with what everyone notes about Barnaby Rudge: it is probably Dickens’ least popular novel.  The introduction by John Bowen the Penguin Classic edition that I read gave some explanations for this and the one that made the most sense to me was that Dickens’ prior phenomenal success with The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicolas Nickleby and The Old Curiosity Shop got in the way of his fifth novel.  Had it been his debut, Dickens would probably have been pleased with the results, but while it sold well, but couldn't touch the run-away popularity of his previous works, in particular, The Old Curiosity Shop.  Furthermore, Barnaby Rudge was inspired by the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott and I also agree with other readers that the adherence to a standard historical romance sort of cramped Dickens’ style.

While  Barnaby Rudge might not make the tippy-top of my list of favorite Dickens’ oeuvres,  I enjoyed the novel  more than I initially anticipated and I learned a lot since I knew nothing of the historical events depicted.  Also, for the fans, it has plenty of typical Dickens flourishes such as out-sized characters, comedic relief, amazing coincidences and biting social commentary.  

The book opens in 1775 cozily enough with a ghost story told in the Maypole Inn in Chigwell, about 20 miles outside of London.  The story is about an infamous murder that took place at the nearby Haredale estate some 15 years earlier. The estate is now run by the murdered man's brother, Catholic Gregory Hardale. Haredale is also responsible for his orphaned niece, Emma. At the Maypole, the reader is introduced to the blowhard inn-proprietor John Willet and his much put-upon son Joe. Later, we meet the true-hearted locksmith Mr. Varden and his shrewish wife and beautiful daughter (loved by Joe Willet) as well as the smooth and wily Mr. Chester and his noble son Edmund (who loves Emma Hardale). The titular character, Barnaby, is a young man we would probably term developmentally disabled now. He lives in London with his widowed mother but spends lots of time at Chigwell as well. 

Once everyone is established, the story then jumps five years later to the events leading up to the Gordon Riots which were violent, anti-Catholic demonstrations that took place in London.   Dickens being Dickens, he naturally manages to involve every character in the riots in some manner and tie up all the disparate narrative strands neatly by the end. 

I think this is possible the most violent Dickens I have ever read. Even more so that A Tale of Two Cities.  My favorite character was Hugh, who is actually one of the villains of the book.  I found him to be frighteningly realistic and also terribly pathetic.  

Also, for a nice note of trivia, Barnaby has a pet raven named Grip who often steals the show in the novel. Allegedly Grip inspired Edgar Allen Poe years later when he penned his possibly most famous poem The Raven. 

This book is my first completed book for the The Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 run by Karen at Books and Chocolate for the 19th Century Classic category. 

Back to the Classics 2019: My List

Happy New Year everyone! I am the worst at making resolutions and sticking to them BUT I have successfully completed the Back to the Classics Challenge ever since 2014 when Karen at Books and Chocolate took it over from blogger Sarah at Sarah Reads Too Much.  Below is my proposed list for the Back to the Back to the Classic Challenge 2019. 


1. 19th Century Classic. Any classic book originally published between 1800 and 1899. 
Because I can use Trollope for another prompt below, I think I am going to choose Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens for this category. 

20th Century Classic. Any classic book originally published between 1900 and 1969.  
I will continue to chip away at the Modern Library’s 100 Best of  the 20th century list. I have 26 titles left to go! I might choose Native Son by Richard Wright since I own a copy. 

Classic by a Female Author.
I think I will read  A Glass of Blessings by Barbra Pym.  I own a copy and weirdly, though I love Babs, I only read her it seems when this particular challenge “makes me” do it. Same with Dorothy Whipple. 😟

Classic in Translation. 
Maybe that copy of Suite Française translated from the French in to English that has been languishing on my shelf for ages? On the other hand, Sylvia at silviacachia is going to host a Don Quixote read-along which would fit perfectly in this category if for some reason I STILL don't get to the Némirovsky title.

Classic Comedy.    
I think I might go for Three Men in a Boat. I have a copy already -are you sensing a trend here?  😃

Classic Tragedy.  
I may have to *gasp* get a book from the library or buy one to fit this category.  I do have a copy of The Wings of the Dove, which I think would probably qualify (as Karen points out in the introductory post, comedy and tragedy are subjective.  But I have never read any Hardy and maybe I should? On the other hand, other than The Turning of the Screw, I’ve never read any Henry James…

Very Long Classic. Any classic single work 500 pages or longer, not including introductions or end notes.
And here’s where I get my Trollope in. (There was one year where I could have actually read a Trollope for almost every category and I’m kind of sorry I didn’t! LOL).  Either I will read The Way We Live Now or my next in the Pallliser Series which is Phineas Redux. 

Classic Novella. Any work of narrative fiction shorter than 250 pages. 
I’ve got a few from my shelves that would fit here: The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (would work for the comedy prompt too) or The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. 

Classic from the Americas (includes the Caribbean). 
Possibly I will read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I own a copy that I found on the street walking my dogs (don’t worry, it was probably left over from a yard sale…I didn’t quite pick it out of someone’s trash can).  

Classic from Africa, Asia, or Oceania (includes Australia). 
I have to buy or borrow for this category.  I really do want to read more Elizabeth Goudge so I might steal the idea of reading Green Dolphin Street from Karen.  On the other hand, I am interested in reading anything from Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. He has at least three titles older than 50 years and all are published in the beautiful Penguin Black Spine editions…so tempting!  

Classic from a Place You've Lived. 
If only I’d lived in the UK so I could pick another Trollope title. 😁 I might go super specific here and pick Cannery Row since I lived for a year in Monterey, California.  Or maybe I'll read the second Philip Marlow book in the series by Raymond Chandler. Either way, I will borrow the book from the library.

Classic Play.
I think I will pick something from Oscar Wilde again because he is so much damn fun!  Again, I will have to borrow from the library, but that’s OK. I own a couple of Shakespeare’s plays but frankly don’t enjoy reading them. I prefer to see them performed