Madam, Will You Talk - Mary Stewart's 1st novel

For the Back to the Classics 2022 challenge, I decided to read Madam, Will You Talk for the Mystery/Detective/Crime category. Published in 1955.

I have long been a fan of Mary Stewart's novels, which are a delightful blend of suspense and romance, usually in exotic settings, and well-written to boot. My blogger buddy Constance, of Staircase Wit, has recommended this first of the Mary Stewart novels on more than one occasion, so I finally put it on a reading list...and, voila!

Here's the GoodReads blurb:

Widowed Charity Selborne had been greatly looking forward to her driving holiday through France with her old friend Louise - long, leisurely days under the hot sun, enjoying the beauty of the parched Provencal landscape. But when Charity arrived at their hotel in the picturesque French town of Avignon, she had no way of knowing that she was to become the principal player in the last act of a strange and brutal tragedy. Most of it had already been played. There had been love--and lust--and revenge and fear and murder.

Very soon her dreams turn into a nightmare, when by befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, Charity has inadvertently placed herself center stage. She becomes enmeshed in the schemes of a gang of murderers. And now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, is waiting in the wings.

I absolutely loved the setting, starting out in Avignon and ending up in Marseille, with terrific car chases, visits to ancient Roman and medieval French sites and landmarks, cafe lunches, moonlit strolls, kidnapping, and lots of derring-do along the way. Charity is a wonderful heroine in the Mary Stewart mold, literary, lovely, and full of the right stuff. Her relationship with David, the boy she meets at the hotel in Avignon, tells you all you need to know about the goodness of her heart. The romance is pretty sappy, but palatable. The suspense is marvelous--definitely couldn't put it down as I neared the end of the story.

This would make a great movie, but alas, I couldn't find one. I would love to see Hallmark devote some effort to bringing Mary Stewart's novels to the screen. 

You might enjoy Constance's travelogue to France from October 2021--her post on Avignon is what made me decide this was the year I finally read this book. And yes, Avignon is now on my must-visit list.

France 2021, Day 9, Avignon

The title is from a folk song called I Will Give You the Keys of Heaven from Cheshire.

The Marble Faun - by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I really had high hopes for The Marble Faun, the last completed novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Set in Rome and Tuscany, published in 1860, it ticked all the boxes for a wonderful classic. What I didn't take into account was the turgid prose, the stilted dialogue, and the insufferable condescension of Hawthorne himself. I haven't tried to read him since high school when I read The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Unlike many authors whom I suffered through in high school, Hawthorne did not improve with (my) age.

The Marble Faun is subtitled The Romance of Monte Beni, and it really is a romance in that there is a merging of mythology, religion, and fantasy in a dreamy world. Midway through the book, I was thinking that the story was actually pretty interesting and would work well if Hawthorne wasn't so long-winded and pompous.

The basic idea is that there are four friends hanging out in Rome together. Three artists and one young Italian nobleman, Donatello, the Count of Monte Beni, who happens to look exactly like Praxiteles' Faun and whose family is said to be descended from fauns...yes, really! The three friends, Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon are larking about and teasing Donatello, but Miriam has a dark secret. There is a man who haunts her steps and threatens her--all very gothic and mysterious. Donatello loves Miriam and Kenyon loves Hilda, but true love never did run smooth.

The problem is that Hawthorne fancied himself Milton and set out to create a 19th century version of Paradise Lost, with Donatello as Adam, an innocent fallen from grace and working to regain paradise. The symbolism is heavy-handed, the characters are wooden and one-dimensional, and so much of the plot points are unexplained and confusing. I ended up skimming the last quarter of the book just to see how it worked out in the end, but I really think that Hawthorne was never really able to grapple with all he set out to do. Also, he succumbed to using stereotypes rather than developing characters.

I didn't care for the book and found it a chore to read...except for the references to places in Rome, which I loved and looked up at every opportunity so it wasn't a waste of time and it does count towards my 2022 Back to the Classics challenge in the category "Set in a Place You Would Like to Visit." I won't be reading Hawthorne again any time soon, but hopefully I will be back in Rome in the next year or so!

There is a great review of the book on GoodReads by someone who didn't like the book any more than I did, but I enjoyed her review immensely. You can find it here.

Back to the Classics 2022

Huzzah! Karen at Books and Chocolate is hosting Back to the Classics challenge for the 9th year, and I couldn't be more pleased. While I have stacks of unread books, this is the one challenge that makes me dig deep and challenge myself.

Here is my tentative list--as always subject to personal whims as the year progresses.

 1. 19th Century Classic: Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen - I might now be in the triple digits with regards to rereading this favorite, but I did reread it for the 2022 JASNA AGM in Victoria, and linked this in-depth review I did on GoodReads.

2. 20th Century Classic: The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Monsarrat - a novel about the Battle of the Atlantic during WWII.

3. Woman Author: Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim - my first classic of the new year, and a tonic in the bleak midwinter.

4. Translation:  Family Lexicon, by Natalia Ginzburg 

5. BIPOC: The Big Sea, by Langston Hughes - fabulous memoir about the life of a poet as a young man.

6. Mystery/Detective/Crime Classic: Madam, Will You Talk, by Mary Stewart - I love Mary Stewart and this was recommended to me last year, and it definitely fits the category.

7. Classic Short Story Collection: Best Short Stories, by W. Somerset Maugham - I loved the Painted Veil when I read it last year and vowed to read more Maugham.

8. Pre-1800 Classic: Camilla, by Frances Burney - part of my project to read what Austen read. 

9. Nonfiction: Garden of the Gods, by Gerald Durrell - third in the trilogy by the author about his life growing up in Corfu between the wars.

10. Longest on your TBR:  Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte - I looked at my GoodReads list and this is the classic that has been languishing the longest on my tbr list.

11. Set in a Place You'd Like to Visit: The Marble Faun, by Nathaniel Hawthorne - set in Rome, need I say more?

12. Wild Card: Envious Casca (aka A Christmas Party) by Georgette Heyer  - this was a reread, but it's been 12 years and I had forgotten 99% of it anyway!

Looking forward to diving in. Happy Classics Reading!

Back to the Classics Challenge: 2021 - It's a Wrap

I actually finished my final book in November, but I've been so busy lately I have just now found the time to do my wrap up post.

 1. A 19th century classic: any book first published from 1800 to 1899 - The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope, 3rd in the Palliser series. Really enjoyed this book, one of my favorite Trollope's to date, and one of my favorite classics of the year.

2. A 20th century classic: any book first published from 1900 to 1971 - The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham. Not only did I really enjoy this book, but I was blown away by Maugham's writing and promptly went out and procured a handful of other books by him to read next year.

3. A classic by a woman author - Giant, by Edna Ferber. Absolutly wonderful. Made a vow to read more by this almost forgotten 20th century American writer.

4. A classic in translation, meaning any book first published in a language that is not your primary language - Pot Luck, by Emile Zola. Dismal. My least favorite classic by far, and that's saying a lot in a year with Martin Chuzzlewit!

5. A classic by BIPOC author; that is, a non-white author - To Sir, With Love, by E.R. Braithwaite. Absolutely first rate. Wonderful non-fiction, memoir.

6. A classic by a new-to-you author, i.e., an author whose work you have never read - Christ Stopped at Eboli, by Carlo Levi. Another incredibly good and moving book about a time and place, Italy in the 1930s, that interests me so much.

7. New-to-you classic by a favorite author -- a new book by an author whose works you have already read - Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens. Not my favorite Dickens, but now only two more to read before I can claim having read all of his novels.

8. A classic about an animal, or with an animal in the title -  Birds, Beasts and Relatives by Gerald Durrell. I love Gerald Durrell's stories about his family and life in Corfu. Charming.

9. A children's classic- I scanned the Newbury winners and selected Adam of the Road, by Elizabeth Janet Gray. Super enjoyed this children's classic.

10. A humorous or satirical classic - The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, by Henry Fielding. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Long-winded, yes, but funny and interesting.

11. A travel or adventure classic (fiction or non-fiction) - Pictures from Italy, by Charles Dickens. Not his best. Some parts were good, but mostly Dickens just made fun of the locals, which is not endearing.

12. A classic play - Inherit the Wind, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. Absolutely excellent. I really have to find the time to watch the movie. Timely for today's crazy environment.

Not sure if Karen is hosting this challenge again in 2022, but I will sign up if she is! janetgs05@gmail.com.

Happy Holidays to all my blogging friends. May your days be merry and bright.

Birds, Beasts and Relatives - Gerald Durrell

 

A couple of years ago I fell in love with the Durrell family via the TV series The Durrells of Corfu and in particular Gerry, the precocious child naturalist whose trilogy memoirs formed the basis of the series.

Birds, Beasts and Relatives is the second book in the trilogy, and it was absolutely delightful to read. Normally, I am a read-the-book first person, but in this case I liked having the cast of the TV series in my head as I read about histrionic Larry, gun-loving Leslie, fun-loving Margo, hapless Mother, and, of course, charming Gerry. 

I adored Theodore, Gerry's mentor as a naturalist, and his quirks, interests, and dapper style. Sven was also in the book, as was Spiro, who adopts the Durrells and guides them through life in Corfu. The Countess is also in the book, but only slightly--there is a more fully developed story for her in the series, but then maybe that part is included in the third book in the trilogy, The Garden of the Gods, which I plan to read next year.

I loved the family's adventures sailing and picnicing, harvesting olives, attending local festivals and community events, and all of the weird and wonderful animals Gerry collects, watches, studies, and loves. I also love his willingness to make friends with everyone, from prisoners on furlough to local fishermen who take him night fishing so that he can find new aquatic species.

I gave this book 5 stars on GoodReads because it was so incredibly enjoyable to read and Durrell is really an excellent writer, painting gorgeous word pictures of life in Corfu in the 1930s. If only I had a time machine, I'd be there in a minute!

This book, first published in 1969, qualifies for the 2021 Back to the Classics Challenge in the category of classic about an animal, or with an animal in the title.

To Sir, With Love

To Sir, With Love, by E.R. Braithwaite is the classic I choose for the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) author category for the 2021 Back to the Classics challenge.

First published in 1959, To Sir, With Love is the memoir about the author's experiences as a Black man teaching high school in London shortly after WWII. Braithwaite was born in the British colony, Guyana, and was Oxford-educated and served in the RAF as a pilot during the war. After the war, Braithwaite tried to find work in London as an engineer but no one would hire him once they met him and discovered he wasn't white.

He finally found a job as a teacher in an East End school that had a very liberal headmaster who was able to see past Braithwaite's skin color. 

The memoir covers Braithwaite's struggles to find work, his early days as a teacher, learning by doing and treating the rowdy, rough children in his care with respect and challenging them to treat him with respect in return. It also covers his relationships with the other teachers as well as some of the parents of his students and his struggles to find housing and the discrimination he felt in almost every aspect of daily life. 

I admired Braithwaite's persistence and faith in his own intelligence, code of conduct, and capacity to loved and be loved. I found his courting a fellow teacher who was white to be fascinating. As isolated as he was because of the color of his skin, he had the courage to fall in love with a woman who shared his interests despite the stigma and danger involved in mixed-race relationships.

I think my favorite scene is when Braithwaite takes his class to the Victoria and Albert museum. Not only was it interesting to see how the children responded to the field trip, given that none had every had an experience like that, but it also showed how poor children are discriminated against as well and people of color. 

To Sir, With Love is a marvelous book, 5 stars on GoodReads, and clearly articulates the pain and frustration that is inevitable with systemic rascism. Even after Braithwaite became beloved by his students and accepted by his peers, the rascim and prejudice never went away. 

Once again, the movie version starring Sidney Poitier is a classic in its own right, and one that I have yet to watch, though I have had the title song from the movie, sung by Lulu, running through my head pretty continuously since I started reading the book.

Inherit the Wind - Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

For the Back to the Classics 2021 challenge, for the Play category I decided to pick something from the 20th century and settled on Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, which premiered in 1955.

The play is a fictionalized version of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial (aka The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes), which took place in 1925. John Scopes was charged with teaching evolution in his high school science class, which was illegal in Tennessee at the time. The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan (3-time presidential candidate and a big voice in the early 20th century), and the defense was led by Clarence Darrow, a prominent lawyer who embraced controversial cases.

In their notes on the play, the authors point out that the play "does not pretend to be journalism. It is theatre. It is not 1925. The stage directions set the time as 'Not too long ago.' It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow."

I would add to that...it could be today.

They have changed all the names of the characters, slightly. With Matthew Harrison Brady in the role of Bryan, Henry Drummond as Darrow, Bertram Cates as Scopes, and E.K. Hornbeck as H.L. Menken, who covered the trial for the Baltimore Sun. There is a love interest, a bombastic preacher, sniveling local politicians, and kids in the crowd.

After reading the play, I'm interested in reading about the real trial -- I know the bare facts, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, which he never paid.

The play basically portrays Brady (and by extension, Bryan) as a charlatan--a big man in love with himself and the sound of his voice, a politician and orator who needs his ego to be constantly fed, who is loathe to share the stage with anyone, and who adopts causes that he thinks will appeal to the "common people."  Drummond/Darrow, on the other hand, is portrayed as more complex. While he fights fiercely to demonstrate how the law that Cates/Scopes violated was a bad law (outlawing the teaching of evolution), in the end he shows himself to be a religious man. He is able to separate his personal beliefs from his understanding of his job as a lawyer. Brady, on the other hand, exploits the prejudices of the "common man," assuming a mantle of piety that hides his driving force of self-interest. Finally, Hornbeck/Mencken is portrayed as an opportunistic cynic who gets his comeuppance. I have no respect for Mencken, so this made me smile.

There is no question that Drummond is the hero of the play, and that the political climate of the 1950s (reactionary, McCarthyism) helped inspired the playrights in the same way it motivated Arthur Miller in his play, The Crucible.

The first movie version of the play starred Spencer Tracy as Drummond and Frederic March as Brady. I still haven't seen it and really want to find the time as it is a seminal movie. There have been three other film versions, and it looks like a number of very successful recent productions. I would love to see it on the stage.

The play's title is from Proverbs 11:29: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart." 

There is a lot to think about in the play, especially in light of the recent war on science and the very real consequences when individuals and communities opt for prayer over masks and vaccines. 

I would also like to read The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, another collaboration by this writing team.

The Eustace Diamonds - Anthony Trollope

I really enjoyed most of The Eustace Diamonds, the 3rd book in Anthony Trollope's Palliser series, and was happy in the assumption that I was reading another 5-star Victorian novel, and then I got to the stereotypical anti-Semitic characters (Mr Benjamin, the jeweler, and Mr Emilius, the preacher) and my heart sank.

You cannot say that Trollope was simply a product of his times and forgive him. The Eustace Diamonds was published serially from July 1872 to February 1873, 35 years after Charles Dickens gave the world Fagin in Oliver Twist and was taken to task for that stereotypical character. Knowing that the Holocaust was but 50 years away and knowing how stereotypes were used in hate-driven propaganda drives home the point that words matter and novelists have responsibility and accountability for their words and stories.

Apart from this glaring problem, The Eustace Diamonds is a bit of a mashup of Thackeray's Vanity Fair and Phineas Finn, the Palliser novel just preceding this one. The narrator acknowledges that Lizzie Greystock is cut from the same anti-heroine cloth as Becky Sharp - like Becky, Lizzie is attractive, seductive, selfish, manipulative, and really amoral. Despite all this, I found myself rooting for her a bit because like the other anti-heroine Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind, she is a prisoner of society--she has to marry in order to have the protection of a man who can represent her interests. Even though she is pig-headed and willfully ignorant of the law, there is an undercurrent of feminism that I latched on to. But seriously, Lizzie is a hard character to sympathize with much less like.

For most of the novel, Lizzie manipulates and exploits the good nature of her cousin, Frank Greystock, whose story is remarkably similar to that of Phineas Finn. Both are sons of clergyman with parliamentary ambitions that their meagre incomes cannot support. Both are tempted to marry for money so that they can live up to their potential. Both are torn between the love and devotion of a poor but virtuous maiden and their own ambition. I was a bit surprised that Trollope would replumb this same story line again in the next book in the series.

The discussion of the ownership of the Eustace diamonds was interesting. Are they heirlooms that cannot be given away or can the current head of a family dispose of his property as he wants to? The novel feels like it is documenting some fairly major shifts in English society with regards to primogeniture, individual rights versus societal conventions, and upward mobility. 

I found the story of the diamonds and the several attempts to steal them fascinating, with shades of the great caper stories that I love to read. Like I said, this should've been a 5-star novel. But, it's not.

This is my 19th century novel for the Back to the Classics Challenge - 2021.

The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham

First and foremost, Somerset Maugham is an exquisite writer. His prose has an elegant simplicity that is so moving and powerful. 

Written in 1925, the same year as The Great Gatsby, I found myself comparing the main character, Kitty, with Gatsby's Daisy. Cut from the same thin, wispy, pretty cloth, they share a shallowness and a weak will along with a loveliness that gets them into trouble. It is their ticket and their burden. 

Along the same lines, Charlie Townsend, the cad of the story, reminds me so much of Tom Buchanan in Gatsby as well. Handsome, philandering, selfish--a person who smashes things up and then retreats back into his money or "vast carelessness." 

Obviously, the parallels I saw between Kitty/Charlie and Daisy/Tom are my own retrospection and  thinking about the world of the 1920s--post Great War, post Victorian, post Edwardian, imperialistic.

The Painted Veil takes place in Hong Kong and a cholera-stricken village in mainland China, with bits and pieces in London. Narrated in the third person, this is Kitty's story--her journey from a London debutante to the wife of a doctor first in Hong Kong and then in mainland China and then back to London for the reckoning. 

It wasn't until Kitty and her husband Walter arrive in the village that I started marking passages. The scenes in Hong Kong are stifling, but scenes in the village are breathtaking.

The morning drew on and the sun touched the mist so that it shone whitely like the ghost of snow on a dying star. Though on the river it was light so that you discern palely the lines of the crowded junks and the thick forest of their masts, in front it was a shining wall the eye could not pierce. But suddenly from that white cloud a tall, grim, and massive bastion emerged. It seemed not merely to be made visible by the all-discovering sun but rather to rise out of nothing at the touch of a magic wand.

There were times that I felt so frustrated with Kitty, wanting her to be a heroine that I could admire, but that's not fair. Maugham gave me her story, shabby in parts and shameful in others, but one in which Kitty does grow in self awareness so that by the end she can declare to her father that she wants her unborn child, whom she believes to be a daughter, "to be fearless and frank. I want her to be a person , independent of others because she is possessed of herself, and I want her to take to life like a free man and make a better job of it than I have."

This is such a marked contrast to Daisy Buchanan who could only wish for her daughter to "be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool," that I have to say that perhaps Kitty is a heroine I can admire after all. 

The title is from the opening lines of a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which is actually a pretty good synopsis of the story:

Lift not the painted veil which those who live

Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,

And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear

And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave

Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love,

But found them not, alas! nor was there aught

The world contains, the which he could approve.

Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot

Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove

For truth, and like the Preacher found it not. 

There's another poetry reference that I particularly liked--it's from Oliver Goldsmith's An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. Remember, "the dog it was that died."

The only other work by Maugham that I've read is Cakes and Ale, ten years ago. Now I'm inspired to read The Razor's Edge, which I've owned for years but never read, and Moon and Sixpence. Not sure I have it in me to read Of Human Bondage though. And the movie version? I always say I'm going to watch the film adaptation of books but rarely actually get around to it. But, maybe this time...

Yep, another book for the Back to the Classics Challenge - 2021, in the category twentieth century classic.

Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens

Martin Chuzzlewit is basically a story in search of a hero, with a gallery of rogues and some exceedingly dreary scenes. Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in the midst of writing this serialized novel, and the basic premise of a grumpy old man redeeming himself is played out in Martin Chuzzlewit but in a much more circuitous way than in A Christmas Carol.

There were a few characters that I loved - Mark Tapley and John Westlock and Tom Pinch, once he grew a spine - but there were so many that were simply bad company, including both Martins until near the end.  Mr. Pecksniff makes my skin crawl, Jonas Chuzzlewit rivals Bill Sykes as a villain, Cherry and Merry Pecksniff and the various Chuzzlewit relations are all deplorable, and a little of Sairy Gamp goes a long way. The back of the book I read claims that this is Dickens's "comic  masterpiece." I really wouldn't put it in the category of comedy. I found it mostly leaden with a few bright spots.

As I knew he would be, Dickens was unrelentingly hard on the Americans that Mark and Martin the younger encountered in the US. I can appreciate that Dickens had lots of issues during his own first visit to the US, but he really beat the topic to death. I can recall only one decent American among the dozen or so that figured in the story, and it became quite tedious. It was clear that Dickens had an axe to grind, and I was so relieved when Martin and Mark returned to England, and the real story resumed.

I will say, though, that there is some good writing and more descriptive passages than I remember seeing in the earlier novels, so I think Martin Chuzzlewit marks somewhat of a transition in Dickens's evolution as a writer. However, I think the serialization approach to writing a novel presents problems that revising and editing and cooling off would have mitigated. 

Not sure this one will make it on to the reread pile, but now I have only two Dickens novels left to read for the first time, Barnaby Rudge and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

As you might have guessed, this book qualifies for the Back to the Classics Challenge for 2021, in the "new-to-you by a favorite author" category.

There is a 1994 BBC mini-series that I may watch to see how the screenwriters dealt with the novel. I think Julia Sawalha (aka Lydia Bennet) is perfectly cast at Merry Pecksniff.

Adam of the Road

For the 2021 Back to the Classics reading challenge, children's literature category, I decided to scan the list of Newberry Medal winners and see what struck my fancy. There were a lot of great books to choose from, most of which I hadn't read. I landed on Adam of the Road, by Elizabeth Janet Gray, which won the award in 1943.

Adam of the Road is exactly the kind of book I loved in elementary school, and had I discovered it then I surely would have counted it as a lifelong favorite. Set in 1294 during the reign of Edward I, the novel is about Adam Quartermayne, twelve-year old son of a minstrel, Roger. Adam aspires to be a minstrel like his father and loves to sing, tell stories, play his harp, and play with his dog, Nick.

Not only was it great fun to read about Roger's life on the road, but Adam of the Road is chock full of interesting details about life in medieval England, age appropriate, of course. The book starts out with Adam in school St Alban's Abbey, where he is biding his time while waiting for Roger to return from France, where he has been learning new songs and stories for his lord, Sir Edmund De Lisle. So, we learn about life in a medieval abbey--the schedule of prayers and services, the work of the monks and their interaction with the town folk, and their role in the early education of scholars.

Then, Adam and Roger go to London and live in the De Lisle's city home. So, we learn about how people of the time travelled, life in London, squires, knights, ladies, and the education and training of knights. 

Then, it's off to Winchester for St Giles fair - Adam is separated from both Roger and Nick enroute and has lots of adventures and meets loads of interesting people while trying to find both his father and his dog. He swims the river Wey, he attends a miracle play, he is caught up in a "hue and cry," and he works on a farm, laboring half the day for the lord of the manor. 

Finally, Adam ends up in Oxford, so we learn about how universities worked in medieval times, and Adam is given the opportunity to choose what kind of a life he wants--that of a scholar or that of a minstrel. Will he choose a quiet life of study or a tumultuous, and occasionally precarious, life on the road?

As you can tell, I really enjoyed this book. Adam is a sweet, lovable, plucky boy, and the book is a wonderful way to introduce children to medieval history, from the food, to the clothing, to social structure, to architecture, to holidays and celebrations, and even to politics. Thankfully, I didn't have to read about the dark underbelly of society as this is a children's book. For as much time as Adam was on his own and at the mercy of strangers, the book didn't go into his vulnerability, nor disease, nor the heinous punishments for even trivial crimes that marked the time period. But that's okay, it was a delight to read a sunny adventure book.

Now I'm torn between wanting to read more books by Elizabeth Jane Gray (aka Elizabeth Gray Vining) or more Newberry Medal winners. Or maybe, both?

A Sand County Almanac And Sketches Here and There - Aldo Leopold

 

Earlier this year, I read the fabulous Where the Crawdads Sing in which the main character Kya reads and rereads Aldo Leopold's classic A Sand County Almanac. Kya's relationship to this book inspired me to finally get a copy and read it.

The version I read included the main work as well as Sketches Here and There, which are a collection of essays that made Leopold the champion of the conservation movement. Eloquent, passionate, and reasonable, they were a pleasure to read. Were I not already a conservationist, they would be life-changing.

A Sand County Almanac is essentially a journal of a year in Sand County, Wisconsin in the early 20th century. It is full of weather, animals, habitat, and a keen sense of wonder of the natural world. Leopold was a hunter, especially in his youth, and I would have been happier with less hunting and guns, but his respect for the natural world and his ethics related to hunting enabled me to give him a pass. 

Actually the part of the book I enjoyed most was part 3, The Upshot, which contained essays on conservation, wilderness, and wildlife in American culture. 

I found myself quoting this book a lot on Twitter. Here are the quotes I shared:

"For the last word in procrastination, go travel with a river reluctant to lose his freedom in the sea."

"Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in."

"To promote perception is the only truly creative part of recreational engineering." 

"Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind."

"...the most fun lies in seeing and studying the unknown."

"If the forty-niners are worth commemorating on the walls of state capitals, is not the scene of their mighty hegira worth commemorating in several national prairie reservations?"

"Recreation is valuable in proportion to the intensity of its experiences, and to the degree to which it differs from and contrasts with workaday life."

"Wilderness is a resource which can shrink but not grow." 

And then there are the illustrations, which punctuate the prose and always make me smile in appreciation. 

This book qualifies for the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge in the category, Classic with Nature in the Title.

Back to the Classics - 2021

I haven't yet finished up my reading for the 2020 version of Back to the Classics, but I'm already chomping on the bit to get going with the Back to the Classics Challenge 2021, hosted again by Karen of Books and Chocolate.

Here's my tentative lineup.

 1. A 19th century classic: any book first published from 1800 to 1899 - The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope, 3rd in the Palliser series.

2. A 20th century classic: any book first published from 1900 to 1971 - The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham

3. A classic by a woman author - Giant, by Edna Ferber 

4. A classic in translation, meaning any book first published in a language that is not your primary language - Pot Luck, by Emile Zola

5. A classic by BIPOC author; that is, a non-white author - To Sir, With Love, by E.R. Braithwaite

6. A classic by a new-to-you author, i.e., an author whose work you have never read - Christ Stopped at Eboli, by Carlo Levi

7. New-to-you classic by a favorite author -- a new book by an author whose works you have already read - Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens

8. A classic about an animal, or with an animal in the title -  Birds, Beasts and Relatives by Gerald Durrell

9. A children's classic- I scanned the Newbury winners and selected Adam of the Road, by Elizabeth Janet Gray

10. A humorous or satirical classic - The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, by Henry Fielding

11. A travel or adventure classic (fiction or non-fiction) - Pictures from Italy, by Charles Dickens

12. A classic play - Inherit the Wind, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee 

Karen did a great job in selecting this year's categories, including my favorites from years past and adding some new twists to keep it fresh.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else will be reading from the classics shelves.

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I've read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday multiple times, along with Of Mice and Men and East of Eden. Last year I finally read Travels with Charley and a few years ago I read Tortilla Flat, and I've visited his house in Salinas as well as the National Steinbeck Center.

All that said, I wasn't a fan of The Grapes of Wrath. Like for most American teenagers in the 1970s, it was required reading in high school. Those were the years when I discovered Jane Austen and the Brontes, and I simply didn't want to read about an ex-convict and his destitute family trying to reach the Promised Land of California only to learn that the promises were empty. I struggled through it, wrote my paper, and couldn't imagine rereading it.

Now, 45 years later and hopefully more mature, I did decide to reread it. It was incredible. Truly a 5-star book worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it won in 1940. The writing is excellent with Steinbeck at his best. The structure is artful and effective. The characters and their story poignant, inspiring, heartbreaking, and very, very real.

Here's what I liked:

• Steinbeck alternated chapters that were specific to the story of the Joad family with chapters about the plight of the Oklahoma farmers who faced depression, a dust bowl, and corporate takeovers of mortgaged farms that forced them to forsake the land their forbears had homesteaded and head west in order to survive. This technique married the specific with the general, making the story literature--that is, a story that transcends the particular and is universal.
• The relationship of Jim Casy, the ex-preacher, and Tom Joad. Jim was one of my very favorite characters--definitely a Christ-type character who seeks to help the poor and downtrodden and oppressed. He gives Tom sage advice and is colorful and honest and willing to sacrifice himself for the people. His example inspires Tom to essentially become his disciple.
• I loved Tom's Ma. She literally holds the family together and demonstrates that at our core, we are really a matriarchal species. 
• I think it was very effective that the first half of the book was the journey to California, and the second half was what they found after they got there. It would be like Austen writing a novel that included what happened after the wedding.

I'm not sorry I read it in high school. Yes, that reading made me think I didn't like the book, and I certainly didn't appreciate it. But, I think reading it might have helped develop the sense of compassion and empathy that my parents tried to instill in me. I may not have liked it, but reading a book this powerful must have shaped or affected me to a degree I will never know. I know my three kids read it in high school also--interestingly, they liked it more than I did at the same age. I'm glad it's still required reading for high school students. We need more compassion and empathy in the world.

This book is my 20th century classic for the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge.

The Mayor of Casterbridge

I'm trying to keep some semblance of normalcy in my life, and blogging about books is one of those things that has been part of my life for over ten years now, so onward.

I finally got around to reading The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy. It was on my Back to the Classics list for last year and the one book I didn't read in the challenge. Thankfully, the Goodread group The Victorians read it in March, which was incentive enough for me to dive in.

Interestingly, I really liked the book, and didn't find it as heartrending as I expected. The main character, Michael Henchard, was not sympathetic enough for me to feel much real angst at his spiral into tragedy. When it comes to tragic flaws, his is clearly being impulsive, acting before thinking and then regretting his actions almost immediately afterwards. And, you cannot simply blame his plight on drunkenness. Even when cold sober, he is foolishly rash.

Near the end of the book, it struck me that the story was really that of two mayors of Casterbridge, and as I read on it fell into place that this was basically an archetypal story, that of the new young king challenging and defeating the old king. A tale as old as time, as old as Oedipus.

Donald Farfrae is, of course, the young king, who is young, buoyant, handsome, clever, and at first Michael embraces him as a son. But then the prince outstrips the king, and the people clamor for him, and he steals the old king's woman. Michael is so threatened by Donald that he fights him, and then slinks away to the woods to die.

It is beautifully written--you can tell that Hardy saw that his true calling was to be a poet. I love his turn of phrase, the symmetry of his storytelling.

Here is one of my favorite little passages, when Michael seeks out a soothsayer to predict the weather:

“By the sun, moon, and stars, by the clouds, the winds, the trees, and grass, the candle-flame and swallows, the smell of the herbs; likewise by the cats' eyes, the ravens, the leeches, the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnight in August will be—rain and tempest."

I'm not quite sure why I dreaded reading this so much. Despite the tragedy of the story, I enjoyed it immensely. It gave me much to think about, and the writing really is first rate.

For the Back to the Classics Challenge - 2020, this is for the category Classic with a Place in the Title.

And, drum roll please, this completes the 50-book Classics Challenge that I started back in 2013. I didn't complete the challenge in 5 years, but that's life! I'm not sure I want to sign up for another 50 new classics. Right now I feel the urge to reread classics I love or read so long ago they'll be like new.

Stay safe and healthy, all my book-loving friends.

Stay calm, and read on.

Back to the Classics - 2020

Karen at Books and Chocolate is hosting Back to the Classics 2020 - thanks, Karen, for hosting again. You have many loyal fans and I know it takes time and effort to host a challenge.

Here's my tentative lineup for this challenge. Feel free to throw out suggestions for the categories which are still undecided.

1. 19th Century Classic. Any classic book originally published between 1800 and 1899.

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope - 2nd in the Palliser series

2. 20th Century Classic. Any classic book originally published between 1900 and 1970. 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - haven't read it since I was in high school, so definitely due for a reread. Was phenomenal--definitely worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it won.

3. Classic by a Woman Author.

The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton - one of the few remaining books on my Classics Challenge; I liked the mini-series from long ago, so I have high hopes for this one.

4. Classic in Translation. 

The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello - I love Italy and hope to visit again soon. Interesting classic by a Nobel prize-winning author.

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5. Classic by a Person of Color. Passing by Nella Larsen. Excellent novel from 1929, Harlem Renaissance time period.

6. A Genre Classic. Leaving Cheyenne, by Larry McMurtry - I enjoy Westerns, and while this isn't a shoot-'em-up, round-'em-up story, I liked it and liked the sense of place and character.

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7. Classic with a Person's Name in the Title. First name, last name or both.

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.

8. Classic with a Place in the Title. Any classic with the proper name of a place (real or ficitonal) - a country, region, city, town, village, street, building, etc. 

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy - really first rate retelling of the Oedipus story.

9. Classic with Nature in the Title. A classic with any element of nature in the title (not including animals). 

I ended up reading A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.

10. Classic About a Family. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott 

11. Abandoned Classic. Choose a classic that you started and just never got around to finishing, whether you didn't like it at or just didn't get around to it. 

The Italian by Ann Radcliffe - I started it in 2019 but ran out of steam, but I would like to finish it.

12. Classic Adaptation. Any classic that's been adapted as a movie or TV series. 

I reread A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - enjoyed it immensely and had planned on watching an adaptation this season but haven't yet made the time to do so. I also didn't write a review -- out of time.

Happy New Year and Happy Reading in 2020!

Travels with Charley

I read this John Steinbeck memoir of a cross-country trip slowly and savored not only the language but Steinbeck's perspective of America in 1960. Starting from his home in Sag Harbor, New York in September, Steinbeck and his elderly poodle Charley traveled in a camper, named Rocinante (after Don Quixote's horse), across the upper part of the continental U.S., down California, and then across the lower part of the country, and then up the eastern seaboard.

I love traveling, road trips, and Steinbeck, and so this book was a joy to read, not only in terms of seeing the country unfold along a ribbon of highway but also in how Steinbeck seeks to understand and talk with people he meets along the way. I loved how he and Charley struck up conversations so that they could listen to people's stories. The subtitle of the book is "In Search of America," and I think this is a noble ambition--to hit the road and try to understand what common threads constitute the warp and weft of the American experience.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?

I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found...

Eventlessness collapses time.

I think my favorite part was when Steinbeck stopped in a redwood forest and wrote of the magic hush that these magnificent, ancient trees impose upon us mortals. Also, I absolutely, positively have to visit Deer Isle, Maine!

The hardest part to read was the part in Louisiana, where Steinbeck witnessed the shameful ugliness of racial hatred during the time of forced integration of schools. This part was hard to read but I'm glad that Steinbeck included it. Today, almost 60 years after Steinbeck hit the road with Charley, we are still struggling to be inclusive and sweeping the past under the rug is never wise or good.

John Steinbeck with Charley in Sag Harbor.

I'm counting this book as my classic from the Americas category in the Back to the Classics challenge.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

What a perfect first book for RIPXIV!

Picnic at Hanging Rock has been on my TBR list for decades, and I decided to make it my "Classic from Africa, Asia, or Oceania " for the Back to the Classics challenge this year.  Set outside Melbourne, Australia in 1900, written by Joan Lindsay (she was 70 years old) and published in 1967, it is an intriguing story about the disappearance of three school girls and their teacher on February 14, 1900 at the picnic grounds at Hanging Rock, Victoria, Australia.

Hanging Rock is a real place (although actually lots of places carry this name).

The girls attend the Appleyard College for Young Ladies, and the four girls who disappear are senior girls, about 16 years old, who get bored and decide to go have a look at the rock formation up close.  They are followed by one of the teachers who is chaperoning the picnic.

Mrs. Appleyard, the proprietress of the school for girls, has stayed behind at the school and is, of course, distraught when the party of picnickers return and she learns that some are missing.

The rest of the novel focuses on the efforts to find the girls and teacher--first by the police, and then by a young Englishman visiting relatives in the area who glimpsed the girls when they walked by his own picnicking party. He and the local groom take it upon themselves to search for the girls, with some luck.

The story of the novel is really about the effects of the stress that the disappearance of the girls and teacher have on the other girls and teachers and staff of the school, the two young men who were the last to see them, and Mrs. Appleyard, who must not only inform the parents of the missing girls but also face the prospect of closing the school due to negative publicity.

Be forewarned, the novel ends without any explanation of what happened to the girls and teacher. According to the foreword to the edition I read by Maile Meloy (who suggesting reading the novel before reading her foreword!), Lindsay did write a chapter that explained the disappearance but her "publisher told her to cut it, so she did." She did give the chapter to her agent with instructions to allow its publication after her death.

I agree with the publisher--the book is really good in setting the reader up to be engaged in wondering what could possibly have happened to the girls and teacher. Reading what the missing chapter contained was a bit of a letdown, so my advice is to read the book cold and then read about it after finishing it.

Other thoughts - I really liked how Lindsay showed how insignificant humans are in the world. Throughout, she talked about all the creatures who inhabit the landscape of Hanging Rock (the snakes, the insects, the animals, the vegetation), and how their worlds and ours coexist with little real interaction. I think Lindsay's vision is that sometimes these separate worlds collide and those collisions rip holes that cannot be mended.

A great spooky thriller with a grimness to it, set over 100 years ago in a mysterious, exotic setting.

With regards to adaptation...Peter Weir did a classic version in 1975 (which I have yet to watch), and then there is a 6 episode series from 2018 (also haven't seen).

Finally, here is a fascinating article about the writing of the novel and the making of the Weir movie.  Lindsay said many of the scenes came to her in dreams, she wrote the whole thing in a few weeks, and was inspired by this painting, "At the Hanging Rock," by William Ford.

The Song of the Lark - Willa Cather

This year's Back to the Classics challenge has a category for books set in a place you've lived. Since I am the definition of a homebody, I needed to find a book set in Colorado as I have never lived anywhere else. Novels set in Colorado are not all that common, and I could only come up with ones that are not yet 50 years old - Centennial, The Shining, Kent Haruf's eastern plains stories, a variety of mysteries (cozy and otherwise), but no real classics. Fortunately, I learned that Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark is set in the north east corner of Colorado, and that sealed the deal.

I absolutely loved The Song of the Lark. It is the story of Thea Kronberg, one of many children of Swedish immigrants, who is blessed with not only tremendous musical talent but also a string of friends and mentors who enable her to reach her potential.

At first, Thea sets out to be a pianist, and studies dutifully and advances rapidly, but her real destiny is to become an opera diva who gravitates to Wagnerian roles.

Song of the Lark - painting by Jules Breton

There is so much to love about this book...let me count the ways.

1.  Heart stopping descriptions of Colorado--from the eastern plains to the Front Range, from the light in Denver in January, to the cool magic of the stars on the plains, to the arid beauty of the landscape, to the ever-present fringe of mountains on the horizon. This is from early in the book, when Thea as a young girl is traveling to Denver by train with her friend Ray Kennedy, who works on the railroad.

They were now about thirty miles from Denver, and the mountains looked very near. The great toothed wall behind which the sun had gone down now separated into four distinct ranges, one behind the other. They were a very pale blue, a color scarcely stronger than wood smoke, and the sunset had left bright streaks in the snow-filled gorges. In the clear, yellow-streaked sky the stars were coming out, flickering like newly lighted lamps, growing steadier and more golden as the sky darkened and the land beneath them fell into complete shadow. It was a cool, restful darkness that was not black or forbidding, but somehow open and free; the night of high plains where there is no moistness or mistiness in the atmosphere.

 2. Thea's collection of men friends who recognize her talent and unique drive to excel and open doors for her and teach her and coach her and love her. Dr Archie is such an interesting character and his story arc would make a fascinating novel in and of itself. Her first music teacher, Wunsch, is a deeply flawed person who cultivates Thea's taste and hones her work ethic. I loved her embracing of Spanish Johnny and her interactions with the Mexican population in her town. Her music teacher in Chicago, Harsanyi, and his wife were also marvelous, and I suspect based on a real person. And then there's sweet Ray Kennedy, who made Thea's dreams a reality--he gave all he had so that she could succeed. Finally, Fred Ottenberg was another original character, who defied stereotype to become a lasting pillar in Thea's pantheon of gods.

3. Thea's relationship with music and her respect for and acknowledgement of her talent. One of the things I love about Thea is that she is not coy about her abilities. She knows she is gifted, she knows she has to work hard to cultivate those gifts, but the music she plays and later sings is something that is connected to her innermost self, her soul, for lack of a better term. Last year, I passed up the opportunity to hear Wagner's Ring cycle, and now I am so wishing I had made the time for it as having seen the operas and not just having heard them would have enhanced the book so much.

One of Thea's first roles was a Rhine maiden in Wagner's Das Reingold. I picture Thea as the maiden on the right

4. Thea's mother - Thea has a cast of men who help and support and enrich her, but when it comes to her parents, her father fades into the background while her mother emerges as her first and best champion who was willing to acknowledge that Thea's gifts outstripped those of her other children. Not that Mrs. Kronberg loved Thea more than the others, but she accomodated Thea more. As with O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark is definitely a riff on the immigrant experience--seizing the brass ring when you have the chance.

5. The time Thea and Fred spend in Arizona in Panther Canyon, finding rejuvenation within the ancient cliff dwellings. I absolutely love the Southwest landscape and always feel the magic quality of the sandstone, endless blue skies, mesas, and thunderclouds. I have never read a novel before in which someone actually lives in these cave dwellings, but it stirred my own soul.

6. I've read that this book is the most autobiographical of Cather's stories, and she used it to explore the creative process, a topic that never ceases to fascinate me. I am inspired to read a bio of Cather and find out how much of Thea's story is her own--obviously, Thea's gifts were musical rather than literary, but Cather must have had a deep familiarity with music and opera to be able to write in such detail about Thea's training and the physical toll that performing took on her.

7. Cather's writing is such a pleasure to read. My battered paperback is pockmarked with earmarked pages as I turned down page after page that contained exquisite prose. Her writing contains deep insights into the life of an artist, the landscapes that shape personality and soul, and the bonds between people of all walks of life that enable the power and beauty of art to be born.

Absolute 5-star book, and another notch in my Back to the Classics challenge.