If you Googled anything today, you will already know that today is the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. I know I'm a bit late to the party, but if you've never read any of his works, I encourage you to give him a shot.
I will be bluntly honest. Literature that pre-dated the twentieth century by much had never really been my thing. I'd love to claim that I had a childhood love affair with "Huck Finn" or "Treasure Island," but I didn't. I guess when I was younger, I had a hard time getting accustomed to earlier writing styles. The references would throw me. And I just liked it to be easy.
I gave Dickens a try after reading the Jasper Fforde books. Miss Havisham features prominently in them, as does David Copperfield and Uriah Heep. If you feel as I used to about older books, Dickens will help dispel your prejudices. He writes in a warm, emotive style, and employs memorable characters and lots of humor. I do plan to read all of his books. I haven't gotten very far, just "Great Expectations," "A Tale of Two Cities," and "David Copperfield," but I certainly plan to keep the project alive. If you've been meaning to read one of his books, now is an excellent time!
Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
We wear the chains we forge in life...
Not long after I vowed to quit going to the library for a while and catch up on what I had here, I decided to go after all.
This time, I had a purpose. A few weeks ago, I posted that reading "A Christmas Carol" at Christmastime was on my bucket list. A co-worker had just taken his girlfriend to see a production of the play, so it was even more on my mind. I made the trek, partially on foot after picking up a poster for him from the theater company, and at first I thought: everyone else had the same idea.
I couldn't find the book, and the irritating parents of small children were making it harder. As part of the reconfiguration, the children's section got moved into the fiction section. It used to have a separate room. When I first saw that, I was worried about kids being loud. It turns out, I had to worry about parents being loud. The kids were as good as gold. When they raised their voices above a whisper, however, they'd get very loudly corrected. I was about two seconds away from saying something when I discovered that the book I wanted was in the other part of the library, with the literary criticism.
I looked it over carefully. I've been duped more than once by a book that says "George Eliot's Middlemarch" or something similar on its spine, and it turned out to be ESSAYS ON George Eliot's Middlemarch. I happened to get a wonderful edition, an Everyman classic with pen-and-ink sketches and other of Dickens' Christmas stories, too. I'm excited. I finished up to Ghost of Christmas Past last night, and although I kept picturing Daisy Duck breaking up with Scrooge McDuck, I quite like it. It reminded me how much I like Dickens. I'd been planning "Crime and Punishment" for after Christmas, but maybe I will go with "The Old Curiosity Shop" instead!
This time, I had a purpose. A few weeks ago, I posted that reading "A Christmas Carol" at Christmastime was on my bucket list. A co-worker had just taken his girlfriend to see a production of the play, so it was even more on my mind. I made the trek, partially on foot after picking up a poster for him from the theater company, and at first I thought: everyone else had the same idea.
I couldn't find the book, and the irritating parents of small children were making it harder. As part of the reconfiguration, the children's section got moved into the fiction section. It used to have a separate room. When I first saw that, I was worried about kids being loud. It turns out, I had to worry about parents being loud. The kids were as good as gold. When they raised their voices above a whisper, however, they'd get very loudly corrected. I was about two seconds away from saying something when I discovered that the book I wanted was in the other part of the library, with the literary criticism.
I looked it over carefully. I've been duped more than once by a book that says "George Eliot's Middlemarch" or something similar on its spine, and it turned out to be ESSAYS ON George Eliot's Middlemarch. I happened to get a wonderful edition, an Everyman classic with pen-and-ink sketches and other of Dickens' Christmas stories, too. I'm excited. I finished up to Ghost of Christmas Past last night, and although I kept picturing Daisy Duck breaking up with Scrooge McDuck, I quite like it. It reminded me how much I like Dickens. I'd been planning "Crime and Punishment" for after Christmas, but maybe I will go with "The Old Curiosity Shop" instead!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Brideshead Revisited: now for something completely different
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, was a completely random selection on my part. I have no idea what could have influenced it. I think I might have noticed a memoir about someone's relationship to that book and decided to read the real thing, but I'm not sure. I essentially had no idea what I was getting into. I knew nothing about Waugh other than that he was a man, was British, and lived sometime between 1850 and and 1960. In fact, at one point in my life, I'm pretty sure I thought this book was a sequel to something.
The way this book unfolded reminded me very much of how Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter unfolded. In modern books, you typically get the backstory, the incident that drives the rest of the book, and a bit of character development right up front. Take, for example, Ron McLarty's The Memory of Running, a book no one would accuse of being terribly plot-driven. Yet, right away, you find out that the narrator is an overweight middle-aged man who is unmarried and works a shitty job in a factory. Both of his parents die in a car accident, then he receives a letter from a California coroner saying that the body of his sister, who disappeared decades earlier due to mental illness, had turned up in their morgue. He has a conversation with the paralyzed girl next door, who is still in love with him, then gets on his bkie and goes out, cross-country, after his sister.
All of that in about 40 pages. Whereas, with Brideshead Revisited, I didn't quite know where things were going until they got there.
The book has an aura of things lost about it, in fact, I'd say that's its central theme. It's a flashback told by Charles Ryder, an army commander in World War II who is moving his troops to a donated country home, only to find out that it's one he spent a great deal of time at on and off throughout his life. He remembers those times, first coming there with his friend Sebastian from Oxford. I think many people had a Sebastian of one sort or another in their lives at college, a friend who was intensely interesting, lots of fun, very smart, but there was some sort of darkness there, too.
As the story wears on, Charles gets to know the whole wealthy, eccentric family. Lady Marchmain, called Mummy by all of her children, who managed to turf her husband out yet make herself seem abandoned at the same time. Brideshead, Sebastian's religious older brother who spends much of his adult life collecting matchboxes. Julia, his sister, who discovers that the bad thing about making a good match is that you then have to live with the gentleman. Cordelia, also religious, who transforms from a young girl to a grim nurse caring for war wounded over the two-decade sprawl of the book. Sebastian himself, who still carries a teddy bear around, and descends into alcoholism.
The book does a reversal on you, as you think it's going to be about a long friendship between Sebastian and Charles, it shifts to the events following a chance meeting between Charles and Julia. Since one of the pleasures of this book for me was seeing everything unfold, I don't want to give away too much along the lines of plot. Although it wasn't exactly a happy book, it felt good to read, and I'd reccomend giving this one a chance.
The way this book unfolded reminded me very much of how Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter unfolded. In modern books, you typically get the backstory, the incident that drives the rest of the book, and a bit of character development right up front. Take, for example, Ron McLarty's The Memory of Running, a book no one would accuse of being terribly plot-driven. Yet, right away, you find out that the narrator is an overweight middle-aged man who is unmarried and works a shitty job in a factory. Both of his parents die in a car accident, then he receives a letter from a California coroner saying that the body of his sister, who disappeared decades earlier due to mental illness, had turned up in their morgue. He has a conversation with the paralyzed girl next door, who is still in love with him, then gets on his bkie and goes out, cross-country, after his sister.
All of that in about 40 pages. Whereas, with Brideshead Revisited, I didn't quite know where things were going until they got there.
The book has an aura of things lost about it, in fact, I'd say that's its central theme. It's a flashback told by Charles Ryder, an army commander in World War II who is moving his troops to a donated country home, only to find out that it's one he spent a great deal of time at on and off throughout his life. He remembers those times, first coming there with his friend Sebastian from Oxford. I think many people had a Sebastian of one sort or another in their lives at college, a friend who was intensely interesting, lots of fun, very smart, but there was some sort of darkness there, too.
As the story wears on, Charles gets to know the whole wealthy, eccentric family. Lady Marchmain, called Mummy by all of her children, who managed to turf her husband out yet make herself seem abandoned at the same time. Brideshead, Sebastian's religious older brother who spends much of his adult life collecting matchboxes. Julia, his sister, who discovers that the bad thing about making a good match is that you then have to live with the gentleman. Cordelia, also religious, who transforms from a young girl to a grim nurse caring for war wounded over the two-decade sprawl of the book. Sebastian himself, who still carries a teddy bear around, and descends into alcoholism.
The book does a reversal on you, as you think it's going to be about a long friendship between Sebastian and Charles, it shifts to the events following a chance meeting between Charles and Julia. Since one of the pleasures of this book for me was seeing everything unfold, I don't want to give away too much along the lines of plot. Although it wasn't exactly a happy book, it felt good to read, and I'd reccomend giving this one a chance.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Characters welcome?
Despite my belief that long books are better in the winter, I dove headfirst into David Copperfield three weeks ago. I don't know why. I bought it at Barnes and Noble a few months ago, and suddenly, there was nothing I wanted to read more. I finished it over the weekend.
I liked it, overall. But I know this is one book that frequently has the "boring" charge brought against it, and I can sort of understand why. Most of the stuff that happens develops rather slowly, and there is quite a bit in there that's not relevant to the main plot, which in itself is hard to define, since it's just a coming-of-age story and you could argue that everything that happens to you while you're growing up is relevant in a coming-of-age story.
And it's all there in David Copperfield. We get treated to accounts of what he ate in the inn on his way back to boarding school, what the interior was like of every door he darkened, and lengthy scenes with random characters. I think Charles Dickens liked making interesting characters so much that he just couldn't restrain himself.
And all of the random characters are pretty interesting. His beautician-dwarf made me think of the beautician-dwarf in the Tales of The City book where Michael goes to London. The cheerful funeral outfitters were interesting too. My co-worker was coincidentally re-reading it at the same time and pointed out that there was a great deal of foreshadowing in the book, and she's definitely right. Steerforth is described in too glowing terms not to have a dark side, and Uriah Heep is just shady as hell. But really, the cahracters make this one. And I love character-driven books.
Even though I liked Great Expectations better (it was much funnier), I enjoyed David Copperfield so much that I picked up Our Mutual Friend and Ye Old Curiousity Shoppe this weekend at B&N.
I liked it, overall. But I know this is one book that frequently has the "boring" charge brought against it, and I can sort of understand why. Most of the stuff that happens develops rather slowly, and there is quite a bit in there that's not relevant to the main plot, which in itself is hard to define, since it's just a coming-of-age story and you could argue that everything that happens to you while you're growing up is relevant in a coming-of-age story.
And it's all there in David Copperfield. We get treated to accounts of what he ate in the inn on his way back to boarding school, what the interior was like of every door he darkened, and lengthy scenes with random characters. I think Charles Dickens liked making interesting characters so much that he just couldn't restrain himself.
And all of the random characters are pretty interesting. His beautician-dwarf made me think of the beautician-dwarf in the Tales of The City book where Michael goes to London. The cheerful funeral outfitters were interesting too. My co-worker was coincidentally re-reading it at the same time and pointed out that there was a great deal of foreshadowing in the book, and she's definitely right. Steerforth is described in too glowing terms not to have a dark side, and Uriah Heep is just shady as hell. But really, the cahracters make this one. And I love character-driven books.
Even though I liked Great Expectations better (it was much funnier), I enjoyed David Copperfield so much that I picked up Our Mutual Friend and Ye Old Curiousity Shoppe this weekend at B&N.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Paging Mr. Darcy
When I wrote about another book in the canon of English literature this winter, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, I mentioned the difficulties I have blogging about such well-known books. My general M.O. is to simply share all of my impressions of what I've read: to discuss what I liked or disliked about a particular book, and to give anyone stumbling through enough of a sense of character, plot and style to know whether it's one they may want to pick up or not.
All of this is a lot harder when it's a novel that has been admired, respected and beloved for nearly two centuries, like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. After I finished the book, I moseyed on over to Dishin' Dat, who is not only my source for all things Project Runway, but maintains two Jane Austen blogs. And there is a whole world of Jane Austen out there. There were articles on the fashion and design of the period, on ballroom etiquette, politics, women's roles, everything imaginable. There were pop culture references and links to more scholarly blogs. So this presents a pickle: anything positive I say about the book will be pretty stale, as will any attempts at analysis. Anything negative will sound like a tenth-grader dissing Shakespeare.
All I can really do is provide my personal, gut reactions. Basically, I liked this book a great deal. Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series was what piqued my interest in this book. Before that, I'd had little desire to try any Jane Austen, but I hate feeling like I don't understand his jokes, so I decided to give Pride and Prejudice a try.
For those of you who don't know, the heart of the book is basically the world's oldest romantic tale. It probably has its origins in cave paintings and pops up in literary and dramatic works from Shakespeare to sitcoms and all the way through the spectrum. When Elizabeth Bennett first meets Mr. Darcy, a close friend of their new neighbors, she hates him. He strikes her as a typical pompous ass, and she soon hears reports of him that takes her dislike to an entirely new level. He seems to essentially return the sentiments until he comes to her out of the blue, confesses his love, and asks her to marry him. She shows him the door, but it turns out that she's much mistaken about him...and you can most likely imagine the rest.
There is more to the tale than that. Elizabeth has four sisters and comes from a family which is respectable but not wealthy, so the stakes for all five of them to make successful marriages are high. Their mother is constantly scheming to this effect. By the end of the tale, three of the five are married, although each takes a different, twisting path to get there.
I also found it a fascinating glimpse into another era. Modern readers will have it brought home to them once again how thoroughly society has changed. For example, when one of Elizabeth's sisters absconds with a man known to be of low character, the family is naturally hysterical. But while a modern person may be concerned about financial exploitation or domestic abuse, the Bennetts were concerned about the girl's reputation and wanted to see her married to this man as soon as possible. And when the sisters of the man Elizabeth's older sister Jane is in love with attempt to break up the match (due to their own marital ambitions), she has little recourse. Societal conventions forbade Jane from simply writing a letter or paying a visit to get it all cleared up. The language, too, is a little difficult to get past at first: the connotative meanings of certain words have definitely evolved in the past 175 years. But it's worth it. This one deserves to be a classic, and it's enjoyable besides.
All of this is a lot harder when it's a novel that has been admired, respected and beloved for nearly two centuries, like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. After I finished the book, I moseyed on over to Dishin' Dat, who is not only my source for all things Project Runway, but maintains two Jane Austen blogs. And there is a whole world of Jane Austen out there. There were articles on the fashion and design of the period, on ballroom etiquette, politics, women's roles, everything imaginable. There were pop culture references and links to more scholarly blogs. So this presents a pickle: anything positive I say about the book will be pretty stale, as will any attempts at analysis. Anything negative will sound like a tenth-grader dissing Shakespeare.
All I can really do is provide my personal, gut reactions. Basically, I liked this book a great deal. Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series was what piqued my interest in this book. Before that, I'd had little desire to try any Jane Austen, but I hate feeling like I don't understand his jokes, so I decided to give Pride and Prejudice a try.
For those of you who don't know, the heart of the book is basically the world's oldest romantic tale. It probably has its origins in cave paintings and pops up in literary and dramatic works from Shakespeare to sitcoms and all the way through the spectrum. When Elizabeth Bennett first meets Mr. Darcy, a close friend of their new neighbors, she hates him. He strikes her as a typical pompous ass, and she soon hears reports of him that takes her dislike to an entirely new level. He seems to essentially return the sentiments until he comes to her out of the blue, confesses his love, and asks her to marry him. She shows him the door, but it turns out that she's much mistaken about him...and you can most likely imagine the rest.
There is more to the tale than that. Elizabeth has four sisters and comes from a family which is respectable but not wealthy, so the stakes for all five of them to make successful marriages are high. Their mother is constantly scheming to this effect. By the end of the tale, three of the five are married, although each takes a different, twisting path to get there.
I also found it a fascinating glimpse into another era. Modern readers will have it brought home to them once again how thoroughly society has changed. For example, when one of Elizabeth's sisters absconds with a man known to be of low character, the family is naturally hysterical. But while a modern person may be concerned about financial exploitation or domestic abuse, the Bennetts were concerned about the girl's reputation and wanted to see her married to this man as soon as possible. And when the sisters of the man Elizabeth's older sister Jane is in love with attempt to break up the match (due to their own marital ambitions), she has little recourse. Societal conventions forbade Jane from simply writing a letter or paying a visit to get it all cleared up. The language, too, is a little difficult to get past at first: the connotative meanings of certain words have definitely evolved in the past 175 years. But it's worth it. This one deserves to be a classic, and it's enjoyable besides.
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