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| 0199538204
| 9780199538201
| 0199538204
| 3.82
| 11,222
| Jul 21, 1841
| Feb 15, 2009
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liked it
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It has been a while since I delved into Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was the most recent volume I found at my used bookstore, and this summer seemed like a
It has been a while since I delved into Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was the most recent volume I found at my used bookstore, and this summer seemed like a good time—plus, I wanted to slow down my reading for a week, and this certainly did the trick. What I was²Ô’t expecting was such an interesting example of Dickens experimenting with his style and indeed the form of the novel itself. Barnaby Rudge is a delightful example of nineteenth-century historical fiction. The eponymous character does not actually loom large in the story. According to the introduction of my edition, Dickens originally intended to name the book after Gabriel Varden, the locksmith. The first part of the novel takes place several years prior to the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots before jumping forward in time to tell the story of the riots through the lens of the characters Dickens has established. In addition to Varden and Barnaby, you have Varden’s wife and daughter; John Willet, an innkeeper, and his son, Joe; Barnaby’s mother; Lord Gordon himself; Simon Tappertit, Varden’s apprentice; and Hugh, a ne’er-do-well who throws his lot in with Gordon’s crew because, hey, why not? This novel sees Dickens merge his slice-of-life social commentary with an attempt at retelling historical events and reinterpreting them for his contemporary audience. The “riots of eighty,â€� as he calls them, were sixty years past when he is writing. It’s so fascinating to read historical fiction written at quite a remove in history from the present day; Dickens himself needed to do research and read both contemporary and historical accounts of the riots to better understand them. As a result, I suspect Barnaby Rudge might be one of the more difficult Dickens novels for a modern reader to follow, simply because of how much it immerses itself in a time even more removed from the modern reader. The actual story is fine but never quite approaches the depth of tragedy or comedy that Dickens is best known for in his other works. Barnaby himself is a sympathetic figure. He has a developmental disability, and Dickens portrays Barnaby as existing in a state of atemporal, child-like wonder and contentment—even when he is about to be hanged for allowing himself to be swept up in the rioting. But some of the other characters, like Joe Willet or even Simon Tappertit, are just a bit too much of a caricature for my tastes. The novel is at its best when it is slowly building the scene towards a short-term confrontation. As the story wears on and the riots reach their peak, there’s actually a good deal of tension—this is especially evident in the imprisonment of Dolly Varden and Emma Haredale. Alas, the Dickensian resolution is rushed, with a trite marriage and a lot of reveals that are not as shocking as perhaps they should be. These issues aside, however, Dickens’s trademark enthusiasm for storytelling is on full display here. It’s hard to deny, or indeed fail to delight in, the cast of characters he has created. The dynamic between the Willet father and son, mirrored by that of the Chester father and son, is interesting, as is the nascent but largely unexplored friendship between Dolly and Emma (oh would a woman had written this book and chosen instead to focus on these two, what a story that might have been). There is much about this novel that can be fulfilling, yet you have to deliberately look for it. Additionally, as I mentioned at the start of my review, I really enjoy the historical nature of the story. It’s neat to see Dickens interpret the riots from his position and draw connections to what’s happening in the 1830s, especially around labour movements. Dickens clearly wants to tell a story about the dangers of dispossession and discontent, but because he has chosen to bind himself to a historical framework, he ends up projecting his ideas onto a series of actual events in a way that does²Ô’t quite work—but it is fascinating to see how things do²Ô’t quite line up. Tappertit, for example, could be such a sympathetic character given how he feels hard done by his employer. Yet he very quickly subsumes his pro-labour beliefs into the larger, more nebulous anti-Catholic sentiments as stoked by Gordon and Gashford. Overall, Barnaby Rudge is not the first work one thinks of when Dickens comes to mind, and I can see why. At the same time, I think this might be one of his more enjoyable works (at least of those that I have read so far), certainly one with a very congenial ending for most of the sympathetic characters. Originally posted on , where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 03, 2023
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Jul 14, 2023
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Jul 21, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0140432108
| 9780140432107
| 0140432108
| 3.71
| 77,206
| Dec 1847
| Jan 03, 1989
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liked it
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High time I read more nineteenth-century fiction! This summer I tackled Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë’s first novel. I knew that I had read
The Tenant of
High time I read more nineteenth-century fiction! This summer I tackled Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë’s first novel. I knew that I had read
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
prior to the pandemic and my transition, but wow—I did²Ô’t expect it to be five years ago! How time passes quickly. It’s difficult to compare these novels given that they are quite different in their goals. Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a superior work of fiction overall, but Agnes Grey has a lot of heart to its storytelling. Our eponymous heroine is the daughter of a clergyman who, because of his failing health, can no longer support his wife and two daughters. As Agnes comes of age, her prospects for marriage are slight (the introduction to this edition explains that, during the time Brontë was writing, eligible women outnumbered eligible men in England by a considerable margin, causing somewhat of a crisis!). She fixes on being a governess so as to earn money for herself and her family. This is easier said than done, however. Even after Agnes obtains a situation, she finds her charges very difficult to wrangle. The novel relates, from Agnes’s perspective, her time with the Bloomfield and then the Murray families. As Agnes struggles to find the respect and fulfilment she believes due to her as a governess, she also observes the lives of those around her. In this way, Brontë creates a delicate portrait of a slice of English life in the early nineteenth century. Let me tell you: this novel was giving me flashbacks to my own two years teaching English schoolchildren! Agnes complains about the intractability of two or three children—try thirty! Nevertheless, I found her a likeable protagonist especially with her flaws. A story of a super-governess might make for a good musical, but a governess who struggles to manage the children in her care makes for a far more interesting story. It’s tempting to read into this book much of Brontë’s own experiences, and indeed, the introduction does just that. Brontë worked as a governess for a time. Much like Agnes, Anne was at times treated like the baby of the family. While some of these similarities are undeniable, I think it is also important to read the work as a far broader attempt to chronicle the experiences of a young Englishwoman of a certain social standing. Much of the narration is incredibly descriptive in style: Agnes will spend the majority of a chapter painting us a picture of the faults of the children in her care or relating a specific event she witnessed. Despite this, Agnes also has a fair amount of agency in her story. When she realizes that she is more of an erstwhile companion to the Murray children than a true governess, she seems to relax and decides to make the most of the situation. This includes doing things like visiting elderly people in the village and salivating over the new curate, Mr. Weston. We get to witness Agnes’s disappointment at feeling of the same social standing (or nearly so) with her charges, yet she is treated as a servant. The ending comes upon us suddenly and wraps things up rather neatly. This is another area wherein Brontë shows her relative inexperience as a writer. Yet she makes up for this in the quality of feeling she puts into Agnes Grey. This is a book about teenage and new adult angst. It’s about not fitting in, feeling adrift. There’s probably even an argument to be made that Agnes is neurodivergent, though it’s difficult to ascribe that to fictional characters from the nineteenth century. For all these reasons, I enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to Brontë fans or indeed anyone looking to get into early Victorian literature. Originally posted on , where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 06, 2022
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Aug 12, 2022
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Aug 25, 2022
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Paperback
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| 0192840738
| 9780192840738
| 0192840738
| 3.79
| 8,803
| 1873
| Nov 03, 2005
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liked it
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Been a while since I read a new Thomas Hardy novel, mostly because I try to pick them up in gently used editions from my local used bookstore! I think
Been a while since I read a new Thomas Hardy novel, mostly because I try to pick them up in gently used editions from my local used bookstore! I think I have read all of his most well-known novels now and have just a few less celebrated ones, along with collections of short stories, left. A Pair of Blue Eyes is not Hardy’s first novel, but it is an early one and the first to be published under his name originally. According to the very brief introduction (I commend the Wordsworth Classics editors for not indulging in a 30-page academic treatise like some publishers do), this novel contains a scene that scandalized contemporary readers at the time! I was excited for that. Elfride Swancourt is a vicar’s daughter in a rural part of the country. She meets Stephen Smith when he comes to make drawings and measurements for his architect mentor to redo the church in a gothic style. Elfride and Stephen fall in love—young, puppy love if you will—but in a cruel twist of fate, it turns out Stephen is actually from the area! His father is a mere mason, and this combined with Stephen’s own architectural aspirations make him an unsuitable suitor in the eyes of Mr. Swancourt. After nearly marrying in secret, Stephen and Elfride part but swear to remain faithful. Stephen travels to India for a multi-year project where he hope he can make a name for himself and prove himself worthy of Elfride. What he does²Ô’t know is that a friend of his, Henry Knight, gets introduced to Elfride by way of another connection. Knight, unaware that Elfride is the one who got away for Stephen, soon falls for Elfride! So we have a love triangle amidst a series of unlikely coincidences. This book is a hot mess in the best possible way. The first third of the book, when Stephen and Elfride meet and fall for each other, is adorable. I love the hesitation, the way that Stephen is so reluctant to return because he knows he is falling for her and he also knows he is²Ô’t “good enoughâ€� for her. I can overlook the constant interjection of coincidence into the plot because it’s just so much fun! But what I think really elevates A Pair of Blue Eyes beyond its fun romance is Hardy’s trademark commentary on a revolutionary shift in English life and culture. This is commentary he later refined into a much sharper delivery in his more famous works like Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure . So for those of us who love luxuriating in Hardy’s novels, getting to see his first attempts at this commentary is a delight. Basically, this book is in part about urbanization and the resulting shift in cultural capital from landed gentry to a new upper–middle class of working people. In Mr. Swancourt we see a man very much concerned with heredity. When he first learns Stephen’s last name, he is convinced Stephen is related to a very prestigious family—of course we later that’s not true, and when Mr. Swancourt finds out, he looks down on Stephen. Despite he and Elfride living in a rural village, as a vicar he is an educated man and therefore sees himself as above the villagers like Stephen’s (presumably illiterate) mason father. Stephen has gone to London to study architecture to better himself—designing buildings surely is more prestigious than labouring over the actual building of them—but this is an upward mobility that Swancourt does²Ô’t recognize. In a contrasting irony, Swancourt himself attempts upward mobility through a channel he does see as valid: marrying up, by marrying a rich widow. He hopes to harness the same avenue for Elfride. So when Henry Knight, promising barrister, shows up, we see the effect this has on Swancourt. Henry comes from a “good familyâ€� and lawyers are not seen as tradespeople like architects. So he’s a far more attractive suitor. His attitude towards Elfride is also far more traditional than Stephen’s. Whereas Stephen was bewitched, perhaps even besotted, with Elfride, Henry is more enamoured of her. The distinction here, to be clear, is that Henry sees Elfride as a woman to love for being a woman. Her most attractive qualities are her feminine ones. He does²Ô’t greatly admire her writing—though he does, at one point, admit she has some talent. He rather expects her to conform, to marry (hopefully him) and be a good little wife. As Elfride falls for Henry, the narrator explains how she bites her tongue and develops the habit of not challenging him or his views. The result, then, is a novel about upward mobility, about gender roles, about propriety and who “deservesâ€� to marry a vicar’s daughter. As many have noted, there are plenty of autobiographical features to this text (notably Hardy being an architect by trade). I’m actually really glad I read this novel now, after having read so many of Hardy’s later works. This way I get to see the seeds of those later works in A Pair of Blue Eyes, and I think that enhances the book overall. If I had read this as one of my first Hardy novels, I understandably would²Ô’t have been as impressed. So that’s my recommendation: do²Ô’t, if you have the opportunity, make this your first Hardy novel. He has so many others that are unquestionably superior in both plot and theme. But if you have read one or two of those, and like me you recognize the skill that Hardy brings to discussing his changing country at the end of the nineteenth century, then read this book too. Originally posted on , where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 23, 2021
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Aug 29, 2021
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Sep 12, 2021
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Paperback
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| 1848587597
| 9781848587595
| 1848587597
| 3.85
| 31,130
| 1837
| 2012
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liked it
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I probably made a mistake by trying to read this at the beginning of a week off. I’ve attempted The Pickwick Papers twice before in the past year. Eac
I probably made a mistake by trying to read this at the beginning of a week off. I’ve attempted The Pickwick Papers twice before in the past year. Each time, the book eluded me, my interest in it slipping away before I was more than 10 pages in. Charles Dickens is, as usual, an excellent writer but one whose style is heavily idiosyncratic in a way that does not lend itself to the preferred prose styles of today. This, his first novel and serialized like most of his others, establishes many of the tropes for which Dickens becomes known over his impressive career. The eponymous Mr. Pickwick is the leader of a kind of gentlemen’s club, and as the book opens, we see that he has persuaded the club to defray the costs of his rambles around the English countryside along with a couple of his friends. Over the course of about 700 pages, Dickens gets Mr. Pickwick into various scrapes and funny scenarios. Knowing that this book is a farce is extremely helpful in seeking to enjoy it, for otherwise you might conclude that the book is incredibly contrived and unrealistic. That’s rather the point! See, this is entirely the reason I read 19th-century British literature. There are a few authors (particularly Eliot and Hardy) whom I adore and whose prose I think is truly exquisite. Dickens is passable at best, in my opinion—yet his characters, his stories, his ideasâ€�wow! Seriously, have you read A Christmas Carol? There’s a reason it has been adapted so many times and—depending on which starving and desperate Dickens scholar you track down in their tiny office at the end of a disused corridor three wings over from the actual English department at your university—it was a hefty contributor to the renaissance of Christmas celebrations in Victorian England that resulted ultimately in many of the traditions we celebrate today. But I digress. I read 19th-century British literature because a great way to understand a time is to read about it from the lips of people who lived through it. As mentioned above, Victorian Britain was hugely influential throughout the world. Reading Dickens provides valuable insight into the shape of that society, the warp and weft not just of its political decisions but of the lives of the everyday people who moved through it. As he does this, he loves to poke fun, to satirize and provide biting commentary. Much like Bleak House , my most beloved Dickens title, The Pickwick Papers places solicitors firmly in its crosshairs. There is a significant courtroom drama subplot here, complete with a fanciful and funny trial scene. Similarly, Dickens takes aim at the ridiculously stratified nature of debtorsâ€� prisons—not just that people who could not or would not pay a debt were imprisoned, but that for rich debtors it was basically a kind of holiday where you could obtain anything you wanted from beyond the prison if only you wanted to pay for it. In this way, there is so much enjoyment to be had from the cross-class depictions of characters Dickens delivers for us. From the wealthy, older Pickwick to his similarly well-off, younger companions to the youthful but poorer manservant that Pickwick engages, we have ourselves quite a diverse slice of urban English society. Many of the goings-on (from debtorsâ€� prison to brawls over political newspapers and elections to Pickwick’s embarrassment at walking in on a lady’s room in an inn) might seem very alien and perhaps less amusing to modern readers, who lack a lot of the assumed context for these jokes. This is the Achillesâ€� heel of comedy, of course: it is usually far too topical, and over time its sting fades because our understanding of that which it critiques has faded too. Nevertheless, if you read carefully, I still think there is a lot of fun to be had here. Really my dissatisfaction with the book is entirely subjective—it’s too long, too boring at times, and for some reason it really made me want to re-read Of Human Bondage (but I need a few palate cleansers before I tackle another huge book!). I suspect that if you like Dickens or Dickens-adjacent works, you will like The Pickwick Papers. If you tend to avoid Dickens like â€� well, like the Dickens, then this book probably wo²Ô’t be the one that changes your mind. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 27, 2020
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Jul 02, 2020
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Jun 27, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0553212583
| 9780553212587
| 0553212583
| 3.90
| 1,932,099
| Dec 1847
| Oct 2003
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liked it
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**spoiler alert** I previously read Wuthering Heights over 10 years ago, and I might not ever have revisited it until my pal Julie roped me into a re-
**spoiler alert** I previously read Wuthering Heights over 10 years ago, and I might not ever have revisited it until my pal Julie roped me into a re-read. You can read her review here. Our reactions are quite different, although I think we share many observations about the nature of the story and its legacy. First, as always, a quick plot summary: the year is 1801 and a dandy gentleman named Mr. Lockwood shows up to assume tenancy of Thrushcross Grange, a smaller property near Wuthering Heights. Lockwood’s initial meeting with Heathcliff, the enigmatic owner of both properties, does²Ô’t go well. Neither do his subsequent meetings! Heathcliff and the other denizens of the Heights, Cathy and Hareton and the grizzled servant Joseph, are cold, unwelcoming, and somewhat off. Lockwood, being the nosy gadabout that he is, presses his housekeeper to spill the tea. Mrs. Ellen Dean does just that, and the majority of the narrative is told in her voice while she traces the intertwined histories of the Grange and Heights and two generations of two families, the Lintons and Earnshaws. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff (it’s a mononym) had a bit of a thing, but this is not a story of starcrossed lovers. It’s a story of intergenerational trauma, a story of terrible people being terrible to each other as well as other, slightly-less terrible people, the terrible-ness percolating down like the world’s worst drip coffee until it results in DEATH. Lockwood remains cheery and unaffected throughout. One thing my review of the previous decade did²Ô’t adequately convey is the sheer lunacy of this book’s events. Lockwood bumbles into Wuthering Heights like the world’s most awkward guest. He literally shows up during one subsequent visit by trudging through a snowstorm to the house, necessitating his stay overnight (which no one seems super excited about). This is one of the difficulties of reading a book like Wuthering Heights. Beyond language and social conventions, sometimes the environments are difficult for us to understand as modern readers. I live in a house in a city; the idea of leaving my house and being stranded at my neighbour’s house because of a snowstorm is a bit difficult for me to grasp. (This is not a criticism of the book—you’ll know when I get to those—it’s an observation of some of the challenges of reading Regency fiction set in rural England.) It just goes off the rails from there. There is a lot of domestic violence and child abuse in this book—it’s basically an advertisement for children’s aid services. In this way, Emily Brontë explores the major motif of nature vs nurture. So many characters refer to Heathcliff as an inherently dark, rogueish or evil person. Yet Brontë demonstrates that Heathcliff and Hareton’s attitudes are heavily influenced by their mistreatment at the hands of Hindley (uh, what’s with the H names, anyway?). Hindley is an incompetent and spiteful paterfamilias who alienates Heathcliff as well as his sister, Catherine while simultaneously gambling himself so far into debt that he creates the opportunity for Heathcliff to assume control of the estate. Is Heathcliff a villain? Sure. But he is an opportunistic villain in the sense that his actions are always a result of seizing opportunities that present themselves. He seldom goes out of his way to plan anything beyond his reaction to the latest slight. Catherine Earnshaw, on the other hand, is a piece of work. She is²Ô’t just attracted to the bad boys; she is a bad boy. One might imagine Emily pours into her all the darkest desires she herself experiences growing up in Haworth. Yet as with Heathcliff, Catherine is a product of her environment. If she is petty, if she is vindictive, if she is unwise, it’s only because those who had charge of her education and upbringing failed to instill better values. To an extent, Mrs. Dean recognizes this as she unravels her narrative, and laments the inefficacy of her own interventions while housekeeping for Catherine and Edgar at the Grange. Catherine’s decision to invite Heathcliff back into her life, despite the conflict between him and Edgar, and flaunt Heathcliff’s presence so cruelly, reverberates throughout the novel and influences Heathcliff’s meddling to bring about the marriage between Isabella and his own son. Although not a very long book, at times Wuthering Heights feels repetitive, and that’s one reason I did²Ô’t enjoy my re-read as much as I wanted to. Lots of dead mothers in this—and death in general. Emily tends to kill off characters who are²Ô’t needed anymore. I was tempted to read this as an inexperienced author’s beginner attempts at plotting. More charitably, though, I’d read this as Emily attempting to create cyclical patterns within her story. The repeated deaths of the mothers, for example, lead to a kind of scene-and-reprise structure that help the reader draw parallels between what happened in each generation that Mrs. Dean recounts. It’s actually a more sophisticated structure than a cursory glance might credit. (That does²Ô’t mean I like it any better, though.) Julie’s review discusses the miscategorization of Wuthering Heights as a grand romance. She comments, “It’s melodramatic like an outright telenovela at times, including people being kidnapped and trying to stab each other with knives.â€� I love this statement! And I agree that we have historically done this novel a disservice. More generally, I’d assert we do a terrible job these days of really explaining what “Gothicâ€� fiction actually is, what it entails, and examples of it in popular literature of the day. We also do²Ô’t talk enough about Wuthering Heights as a feminist work of fiction. The Gothic elements here are inextricably entwined with the lives of the female characters and the constraints in their choices. Each time one of the women gets married, she’s packed off to live at the opposite household and inevitably does²Ô’t enjoy her new situation. This is some interesting commentary from an author who never married and died fairly young. Emily makes it clear that she is²Ô’t impressed by the repressive options available to women of her station in the 1800s. My most favourite elements of this book, the parts that made me think the most, are the parts where I consider how Emily depicts the plight of her female characters at the hands of the patriarchy. Heathcliff, Hindley, and Hareton are all textbook examples of toxic masculinity, and Brontë is so good at demonstrating how even drive-by toxic masculinity has the worst fallout for the women of a family. Where I diverge from my esteemed buddy reader and many critics is simply in my enjoyment of Emily’s writing, storytelling, and characterization. Wuthering Heights is a good novel. But there’s a lot more that could be done or told here. Characters just kind of â€� go away â€� when not needed anymore. Heathcliff disappears and comes back, and we do²Ô’t really know what happened to him beyond Mrs. Dean’s speculation. I ca²Ô’t help but compare this approach to storytelling styles of Eliot and Hardy and find Emily wanting—is that unfair of me? Maybe. But that’s just my taste for Victoriana: I want these thicc books that telescope into their charactersâ€� lives (that being said, Bleak House excepted, I admit to not being too keen on Dickens). Brontë does²Ô’t deliver the depth I crave, which is not to say that I think she’s incapable of it. Alas, we did²Ô’t get any other works from her, so who’s to know to what other heights she could have risen? Wuthering Heights is all we have, and it might be all right, but that’s about as far as I go with this book. That’s why I write these reviews. An astute reader will notice I’ve rated this book 3 stars this time, rather than the original 5. That reflects my enjoyment of the book this time around. But stars ca²Ô’t convey the depth of what I really experienced—the nuances of the things I liked, did²Ô’t like, and what makes the novel worthwhile (regardless of enjoyment) as a piece of literature. That’s what reviews are for, and Wuthering Heights demonstrates the importance of thinking holistically about what we read. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 30, 2019
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Nov 09, 2019
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Oct 30, 2019
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 037575718X
| 9780375757181
| 037575718X
| 3.88
| 39,631
| 1878
| Feb 13, 2001
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really liked it
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I'm not sure if I reviewed the wrong edition last time, or if I bought another copy of The Return of the Native a while back having forgotten I read i
I'm not sure if I reviewed the wrong edition last time, or if I bought another copy of The Return of the Native a while back having forgotten I read it 3 years ago (my bookshelves are still in the disarray of nonexistence for now, so I'm not sure I know where all my Hardys are). Anyway, I’ll direct you to my review from 2016. It’s remarkable how similar my reactions were during this second reading. I immediately noticed Hardy’s obsessive descriptions of the heath. I once again thought the plot took too long to get going. I’m actually very proud of the first review—it took a book I did²Ô’t really “getâ€� and helped me like it better for the thinking about it. Even though this is²Ô’t one of my favourite Hardy novels, it was still nice to spend some time back in Wessex. I was having a downer weekend, and I enjoy reading Hardy when I’m blue, because no matter how bad off I am, his characters have got it worse. ...more |
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1
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Aug 31, 2019
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Sep 05, 2019
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Aug 31, 2019
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0333177592
| 9780333177594
| 0333177592
| 3.62
| 927
| 1881
| Jan 01, 1975
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really liked it
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There’s a particular pleasure that comes with having read so much of an author’s oeuvre that you find yourself reaching deep into the back catalogue f
There’s a particular pleasure that comes with having read so much of an author’s oeuvre that you find yourself reaching deep into the back catalogue for new experiences. I love reading the less-celebrated or more obscure works by a famous author. Sometimes they are less-celebrated and more obscure for good reason! Sometimes, though, as with A Laodicean, they turn out to be undiscovered treasures! I picked up this used copy at the same time I picked up a copy of The Pickwick Papers. I’ve been having this urge to re-read Bleak House but for some stubborn reason thought I should read a different Dickens first. So far Pickwick has proved impenetrable to me this year. It was thus with some trepidation I picked up Thomas Hardy’s book, because I wondered if I just was²Ô’t in the mood to work as hard as one must to translate these older works. I was so, so wrong. While it’s true that it takes a few sessions for my mind to adjust to the older language, Hardy is most emphatically not Dickens. Once you get past the recondite title and the heavy architectural jargon (and skip the pedantic introduction, obvs), you have what I can only describe as a pulp romance tale. It’s wonderful. George Somerset is an architect at the beginning of his practice. On his ambles across the countryside he stumbles upon Stancy Castle, now in the possession of young heiress Paula Power. She engages him to draft plans for revitalizing and restoring the castle, even as they begin a vacillating dalliance—Paula is the “Laodiceanâ€� woman referred to by the title, for her indecisive nature in matters spiritual and temporal. Somerset finds himself beset with two rivals, one professional and one personal: Havill, a local architect; and William de Stancy, who is manoeuvred into pursuing this woman who now owns his ancestral home. Both are assisted, in ways sanctioned and not, by the enigmatic and villainous scoundrel William Dare, whose identity links him closely to the de Stancys. Somerset desperately wants to win Paula’s love and affection, but she is afraid of commitment—and the machinations of Dare, de Stancy, and Havill might prove to be a wedge too wide for them to overcome. This book is just so delicious. It’s got intrigue. Dare is all about the falsified telegrams, the manipulated photos. You could totally take this story and adapt it to a modern-day romantic comedy, or even a Gossip Girl–style CW show—literally all of the ingredients are there. I thought I’d be getting a palate cleanser after reading some YA, but this is pretty much YA if the young adults were²Ô’t quite so young any more. You could transplant this to high school if you wanted: young, rich woman stuck in a love triangle, not sure who to commit to, while other characters manipulate the situation from behind the scenes. Dare’s villainy really clinches this aspect of the plot for me. He will basically stop at nothing; Hardy makes him out to be a despicable wretch of a man who puts so much effort into obtaining money dishonestly instead of getting an honest job. Somerset and Paula’s romance is²Ô’t the greatest, but it is²Ô’t the worst either. I like that the attraction is largely intellectual, or seems to be conducted upon that playing field. Paula appreciates Somerset’s architectural and historical knowledge, and his somewhat dissenting views from traditional religious and political dogma. Likewise, even the more physically capable military man of Captain de Stancy tries to impress Paula by sharpening and displaying his knowledge of European history and nobility. Paula herself is, like so many of Hardy’s other heroines, intelligent but also educated and possessive of a fierce sense of individual self-determination. She may be frustratingly indecisive, and perhaps to a modern reader, fickle—but I really empathized with the position she was in. Hardy is, once again, attempting to subvert the ideas of Victorian society when it comes to how men and women should court one another and ultimately marry. A Laodicean feels very progressive given its time. And a lot of what happens in the romantic plot feels relevant in today’s heteronormative society as well. Men are encouraged to pursue women and to stick with it, even if she is “playing hard to get.â€� De Stancy and Somerset both exhibit this ruthless perseverance. The former is constantly pressing his suit, while the latter literally pursues Paula and company across continental Europe. Paula, however, pushes back. In one memorable scene, she and de Stancy have been hiking the countryside. He is about to launch into another speech about why he would be an awesome husband, when she chides him: He again offered his arm, and from sheer necessity she leant upon it as before. I appreciate this portrayal, how Hardy shows de Stancy acknowledging his mistake and correcting his behaviour. For most of the story we’re supposed to see de Stancy as a somewhat likeable rival to the protagonist of Somerset, I expect—he is a noble figure. But the climax is supposed to reveal his true character, the way he has to choose between Paula and Dare and how his attitude suddenly becomes a mixture of imperious and pleading. It’s tempting to see this as inconsistent with his earlier character; on the contrary, it’s consistent with how Dare manipulates him throughout the book. De Stancy is noble but fairly weak-willed, according to Hardy: a good man easily led astray. Indeed, the characters who surround this central love triangle are interesting in their own ways. Charlotte de Stancy finds herself in a quandary when she learns how Dare’s deceptions have prejudiced Paula against Somerset. Does she intervene, reveal the truth, dash her own brother’s hopes of marrying her best friend? Or does she keep it a secret, even though it means breaking apart two people she knows are well-suited for one another? I ca²Ô’t say I’ve been quite in the same situation, but I can definitely sympathize with the difficulty of that choice. Close friendship of the kind between Paula and Charlotte often means having to make such choices—and also having to choose between what you want and what is best for your friend. Similarly, Havill is not quite a villain yet not an innocent either. He has a surprising amount of depth for a minor character. The ending of A Laodicean is probably one of the reasons it has²Ô’t received more attention, I suppose. It’s a fairly rushed, unsatisfying, and predictable sequence of events. For modern readers who are familiar with the romantic comedy formula, it’s going to feel very, very familiar in a lot of ways. For Hardy’s readers I wonder if it felt less so—certainly, Paula’s change of heart and the actions she undertakes as a result seem quite bold and brash for a woman in her position. Her final words, which close out the book, are also somewhat enigmatic. As I read those in a bath on Sunday morning, I leaned back and pondered what Hardy might mean by them. In my opinion, he’s reminding us that love is not a panacea. Paula might be content with what she has decided, might love someone, but that does²Ô’t stop her from wishing things were different anyway. It’s a flawed and very human admission and quite an interesting way to end the book. While by no means supplanting The Woodlanders or Tess as my favourite Hardy novels, A Laodicean was eminently enjoyable. It turned out to be exactly what I wanted to read right now, and it surprised me with its deftness of character and accessible, almost modern plot. Give me an adaptation! ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 12, 2019
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Feb 18, 2019
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Feb 12, 2019
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Paperback
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| 0140431314
| 9780140431315
| 0140431314
| 3.83
| 74,249
| Apr 16, 1895
| Jan 01, 1998
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really liked it
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Nine years ago I listened to Jude the Obscure as a free (I love LibriVox!), mostly while cycling to and from my summer job at an ar
Nine years ago I listened to Jude the Obscure as a free (I love LibriVox!), mostly while cycling to and from my summer job at an art gallery. This was not my first Hardy (I had read The Mayor of Casterbridge for my first year of university), but obviously as his last novel, Jude the Obscure has a special place in Hardy’s canon. I quite like my original review, if I do say so myself, so this is just a short update based on what I thought this time around. Obviously I’m in a different place in my life right now, and so slightly different things resonated for me. This past year saw me move into my own house, and while I’m not married (and that is not on the horizon for me), I’ve definitely been adulting more and forming some of the first adult friendships of my life. So I paid a lot of attention to the way Jude conducts his relationships with Arabella and Sue, and in particular, to the way Sue vacillates in her desires for a relationship—and the nature of that relationship—with Jude. It’s fascinating because there is²Ô’t that much of a rivalry between the two women. Certainly they are wary of one another, and neither is really all that happy to have the other in Jude’s life. Yet theirs is²Ô’t so much a competition for Jude’s affection as it is an alternating of roles. Whichever one is²Ô’t living with Jude as his wife is automatically more attractive and desirable, because, of course, the grass is always greener. So much of this is wrapped up in respectability politics. Sue begs Phillotson to let her leave him, despite the hit he will take professionally for allowing that to happen. Sue and Jude essentially fake getting married because they ca²Ô’t stand the thought of actually marrying, yet they crave the respectability that the appearance of legitimate marriage might bring to them in these rural towns they inhabit. It does²Ô’t work, of course, because Hardy’s whole point is that once a group of people have taken against you and picked you as their morality whipping couple, they are²Ô’t going to let up because you pretended to get married. Jude’s presence in the liminal space between tradesperson and scholar also jumped out at me more. Specifically, I see now how his failure to obtain the education and position he originally desired is²Ô’t just a disappointment to himself: he is literally trapped between two worlds. He definitely is²Ô’t a scholar; there is no way he can hold any respectable scholarly position with what little he has studied so far. Yet his fellow tradespeople look down on him, mock him, or pity him, for aspiring to more than his class would let him be. It is²Ô’t just the scholars and academics policing Jude: even the people of the same class resent him for trying to make “betterâ€� of himself. I do²Ô’t know if I picked the worst or the best time to read this book â€� my dad has had some serious health issues this summer, prompting far too many hospital visits, and I read a good chunk of this while sitting in the ER with him very late one night/early one morning. Yet as depressing and bleak as this is (the whole fate of the children still freaks me out, although it was²Ô’t as bad this time around now that I was²Ô’t listening to someone else describe it to me), there’s something really â€� nice â€� about reading this when I’m feeling drained or down. For one thing, Hardy can write. His descriptions, of settings and of characters, are just so lush and detailed. This is what I love about the late Victorian novelists. Yes, sometimes they can be too verbose â€� but Hardy, I think, largely avoids that issue. He wraps himself in words just enough to immerse the reader in his Wessex, and it’s beautiful. Jude the Obscure is not a happy or uplifting book by any means, yet it is still a beautiful book to read. Hardy’s love of words, as evidenced in the poetry he would later go on to publish after leaving off novel-writing, shines through, particularly here. I also think the distance of the setting (more so in terms of time than place) is very comforting. It’s difficult for me to read about sad things happening in contemporary fiction, because that feels too real. But sad things happening to someone in the late 1800s? The culture and society are so different that it’s basically like science fiction (which I also enjoy reading when I’m down): I have to figure out the rules based on what exposition the author gives me, and I can feel sorry for how the characters are constrained by their society without feeling constrained myself. That being said, I’ll close with this thought of how we ³ó²¹±¹±ð²Ô’t changed that much from Hardy’s time. While leaving one’s spouse for a lover has become slightly more commonplace and perhaps acceptable (depending on your circles), in general, our society is still quite repressive and conservative when it comes to codifying relationships. We still emphasize marriage as a much bigger deal than it should be—that is, I understand that some couples want to get married, for various reasons, and celebrate their love, and they should be allowed to—but by the same token, people who do²Ô’t want to get married deserve the same respect and status—and people who elect to be single, likewise. While we have left Hardy’s time behind, we are still hung up on a lot of the same issues. And that’s why, some hundred odd years on, Thomas Hardy’s writing reaches out across time and space and still touches me. ...more |
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1
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Aug 17, 2018
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Aug 18, 2018
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Aug 16, 2018
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Paperback
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| 3.83
| 57,589
| Apr 04, 1860
| 1981
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it was amazing
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This is my second reading of The Mill on the Floss. You might want to read my original review of 6 years ago. I stand by it; however, I have additiona
This is my second reading of The Mill on the Floss. You might want to read my original review of 6 years ago. I stand by it; however, I have additional thoughts to augment what I said previously. George Eliot is one of my favourite Victorian novelists (one of my favourite novelists, indeed), and The Mill on the Floss is my favourite of her works and one of my favourite books—so much so that I actually own 5 copies. I have two different editions of the Penguin Classics, then a few antique editions I found in England. The edition I chose to read this time is relatively recentâ€�1981—published by the Franklin Library with illustrations by Herbert Tauss. To be honest, the illustrations are extremely lacklustre. They lack much in the way of detail, and there are²Ô’t even captions below them. Not appoint. However, the rest of this edition is quite beautiful and high quality, from the texture and weight of the paper to the cover to the print. It was nice to read. Re-reading my old review, I’m mostly struck by how verbose and descriptive I am, and how much plot summary I give. How things have changed in 6 years! Back then, I was deep into academia and writing essays. Nowadays sometimes I can barely be bothered to record my thoughts—but I do, because I love looking back and remembering what my past self thought about a book. In this case, my feelings remain the same, but my appreciation is rekindled. I’d remembered that The Mill on the Floss has some very feminist messages in it, but I’d forgotten how overt and continuous those messages are! From the very beginning of the novel, Eliot’s narrator points out that Maggie is going to suffer because she is far too clever for “a gellâ€�. Her mother laments her intractable hair and “darkâ€� colouring; her father laments that she was²Ô’t born a boy. We see Maggie wrestle with the conflict between what’s expected of her as the daughter of a fairly well-off, and then bankrupted, miller and what she desires as a curious, intellectually-driven individual. And we see the gatekeeping, the way that even people who recognize Maggie’s precocity attempt to channel it into socially-acceptable avenues, or suppress it simply because that’s what’s done. I did²Ô’t forget the importance of the sibling relationship to this novel, but I had forgotten how much of it takes place while Tom and Maggie are children. This time around, too, I was more sensitive to the way people treat Tom and force various expectations upon him. The difference, of course, between Tom and Maggie is that Tom has the privilege of proposing and, ultimately, taking courses of action. Even if his relatives disagree with him or think that he’s wrong, they will allow him to act as he sees fit. Maggie, on the other hand, is²Ô’t even responsible for her unplanned excursion with Stephen, yet she is held responsible and judged anyway. So much more appreciation this time around too for Mr. Tulliver’s legal battles and bankruptcy. Now that I’m older and I’ve bought property myself and hold a mortgage, maybe I’m just more sensitive to these issues! Eliot seems to want us to both sympathize with Tulliver and shake our heads at him, which I’m happy to do, on both counts. In general, though, I just love the development of this plot. I love the way that Tulliver is so confident he can always produce the money, that he can outsmart the “raskillâ€� Wakem, and the way that Mrs. Tulliver inadvertently provokes Wakem. There’s a delightful combination here of tragic flaws and terrible happenstance. One new criticism: the ending kind of feels hokey and contrived now that I read it. Actually, it reminds me a lot of some of Hardy’s endings, the way he conjures up nature as an avenging force. Compared to everything else that has happened in the book, the sudden flood and Maggie’s subsequent attempt to find and save Tom happens very quickly. It’s all over far too fast. But, like Tulliver’s ill-timed fall from his horse just as he’s having a go at Wakem, this all seems par for the course in novels from this era—a certain amount of convention, in the twists and turns of the story. In this case, Eliot gives us the best ending for this drama—she ca²Ô’t very well have Maggie and Tom grow into old age as if nothing else interesting happens in their lives, can she? One of my friends asked me what I was reading for my first book of the year while she was over, and I showed her The Mill on the Floss and explained my feelings for it. We chatted about nineteenth-century novels; she asked about the language in this, confessed she had²Ô’t made it through Pride & Prejudice as a result of the novel’s style. Here’s the thing: I love this book, love Eliot’s writing, and view both as sublime examples of human storytelling. Her grasp of the human condition, of the way families interact like constructive and destructive waveforms, of the tension between desire and duty, is second to none. I would love for nothing better than to see more people reading this book—but I’d also like them to enjoy it. And I also know that I just happen to be privileged to have the patience, tolerance, and background that lets me get through a book so far removed from our current literary styles and cultural touchstones. That is the thing about classics. Sometimes we forget that we do²Ô’t have to enjoy a classic, even if others do, because it might not speak to us. There are certainly classics I’ve put aside or given low ratings to because I could²Ô’t identify with it. And I think that if you do want to start reading older classics like this, you have to start from this position of understanding why they are more difficult to read. They are²Ô’t “harderâ€� in the sense that you need to be more intelligent; they’re just different. They may or may not be for you. But if you want to read them, and if you work at them, and you get help when you need it, then you just might find something spectacular. The Mill on the Floss remains, hands down, one of my favourite books of all time. This is how I chose to start my 2018 reading year. I hope this puts me on the right foot: now I move forward, seeking fresh books, new experiences, and more challenges. ...more |
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1
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Jan 2018
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Jan 03, 2018
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Jan 01, 2018
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Leather Bound
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| B0DSZKS5HR
| 4.02
| 124,386
| Jun 1848
| Jul 09, 1999
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really liked it
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I went into The Tenant of Wildfell Hall conjecturing that Anne Brontë would prove to be the underrated sister, and my conjecture was right. Although I
I went into The Tenant of Wildfell Hall conjecturing that Anne Brontë would prove to be the underrated sister, and my conjecture was right. Although I love and appreciate
Jane Eyre
, and I can see why others love and appreciate
Wuthering Heights
, where is the love for Anne? Charlotte and Emily get to become household names, more or less, their most famous works easily recognizable even by people who will never read them. But mention Agnes Grey or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and you’ll often get a blank stare. It’s not fair, because this book is pure gold right here. Indeed, I’ll venture that it’s raunchier than Jane Eyre and takes even more risks than Wuthering Heights; I thoroughly disagree with Margaret Smith’s claim in the introduction that Anne lacks “masteryâ€� of the novel form. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has not quite claimed my adoration in the way many of Hardy or Eliot’s works have, but it still has its own magic. Let’s start with discussing the narration, because it’s something that jumped out at me almost immediately. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an interesting example of the Victorian novel. Like many of its brethren, it is epistolary in nature. However, the initial narrator is not the eponymous tenant, as I expected it would be. Instead, the framing narrative is a series of letters written by Gilbert Markham to his friend, J. Halford. Only after eavesdropping of Shakespearean dimensions does Gilbert confront Helen and obtain the journals in her own hand, which he subsequently transcribes (without a photocopier, yikes) for Halford’s private amusement (great guy, this Gilbert). Thus the middle half of the novel transpires from Helen’s perspective, and is, in essence, a flashback that explains and justifies her presence at Wildfell Hall. After her journal concludes, the novel returns to Gilbert’s perspective, where he reacts to what he has learned and tries his best to make amends. This split narration allows Brontë to showcase her ability to write with both male and female voices. She aptly portrays a young country squire whose chief concerns are managing his family’s property, socializing, and keeping one eye open for marriageable young ladies in his social circle. Gilbert is kind but not particularly deep; he is mostly a foil to the scurrilous Arthur Huntingdon. Whatever his character, though, he is most striking because Brontë captures a young man’s voice so well. You see him confess his attractions to Eliza Millward, to Helen, even as he muses on how inappropriate these might be. Brontë depicts his insensitivity to (or insensibility of) Helen’s awkward social status as the reclusive tenant of Wildfell Hall. Gilbert understand propriety but sometimes allows his passion and youth to override his sensibilities. When we switch to Helen’s voice, we see propriety reinforced by a bulwark of staunch, salvationist Christian belief. Helen is quite moral, a characteristic both demonstrated by her actions and remarked upon by numerous characters, who frequently liken her to an angelic being. It seems important to Brontë that we perceive Helen as faultless, at least in the case of her marriage. Helen perseveres in her marriage to Huntingdon even when it becomes almost unbearable; she acknowledges she misjudged his initial character, but she sees it as her duty to stay entwined with him. She only leaves him, ultimately, for the sake of her son; ensuring he is raised properly is a higher duty than remaining with her husband. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has me itching to read Middlemarch again, which also features marriages that turn out unhappily. This is a recurring motif in many a classic Victorian novel, particularly those by women—probably because, with divorce requiring an Act of Parliament, marriage was quite a shackling state for both parties, but men were allowed to be much looser in their behaviour and dalliances than women could, if they wanted their reputations to remain intact. Brontë certainly remarks on this double standard, though she does²Ô’t go so far as to criticize it in the way that Eliot does. Multiple men offer Helen an opportunity to do as Huntingdon does; she rebukes each offer with harsh criticism. Brontë would prefer neither partner to be unfaithful. Both Alice Lowborough and Arthur Huntingdon are punished for the infidelity with death; the former dies “in penuryâ€� and alone while the latter has at least his faithful wife by his side. Only characters who take steps to reform, like Lord Lowborough or Ralph Hattersley, are allowed to live and prosper. This, along with Helen’s constant and consistent upbraiding of all the men she meets, from Hargrave to Huntingdon to Gilbert, creates a strong current of Christian morality throughout the book. Therefore, Brontë is reflecting on the tragedy of women essentially being forced into unhappy and unfaithful marriages, but she is also promulgating a moral duty, on the part of both men and women, to behave better to each other and make these relationships work. I love the gradual way in which Brontë shows Helen’s marriage deteriorating. First we have the actual courting, of course, with various and sundry characters opining one way or the other on the sense of marrying Huntingdon. In this society, this is perhaps the most important decision a woman will make. Across many such Georgian and Victorian novels, we often see that marrying for love does not, in fact, work out very well. The characters whose voices we initially ignore for their focus on status, or wealth, or simple propriety, turn out to be prescient in their assessment of the quality of a romantic match. Yet Helen succumbs, the marriage goes ahead, and then it starts to unravel. The warning signs, the rumblings, oh, the portents! He rushes her through their Continental honeymoon, because he had seen all the sights before! He abandons her frequently for months at a time to gamble and carouse in London. He is slow to love or appreciate their child, because young Arthur diverts Helen’s attentions from him. Yet Brontë true masterstrokes come in his transformation from rogue to outright villain. He is openly unfaithful, encourages his child to drink and swear, etc. These scenes are mild by our standards, but they are outright scandalous by Victorian standards, to the point where reviewers remarked that the book might not be suitable for ladiesâ€� eyes, such distress it might cause! In other words, Brontë pulls no punches in her portrayal of an emotionally abusive relationship. It is both disconcerting and delightful, in a literary sense, to see this happen before our eyes. This is where I disagree with the estimable introduction writer, Margaret Smith. She claims that Brontë shows us Helen through Gilbert’s eyes, but not vice versa. Moreover, we might “forgetâ€� Gilbert altogether in the middle of the novel because we do²Ô’t see him reacting as he reads and transcribes Helen’s journal. I’d argue, however, that we do²Ô’t need to see Gilbert through Helen’s eyes. This is²Ô’t a flaw in Brontë’s writing but a reasonable decision. We know what Helen thinks of Gilbert through her conduct around him, through the fact that she gives him these journals in the first place. Similarly, we do²Ô’t need to remember Gilbert in the middle part of the novel. His reaction at the end is sufficient. I concur with Smith that the ending is somewhat more sanguine than one might expect given the tragic body of this story. It all shakes out a little too well, a little too conveniently. Far be it from me to want a tragic ending (though, I do like some of Hardy’s more tragic talesâ€�). Nevertheless, after attempting to depict what she views as an unacknowledged reality within her society, Brontë opts for some marital hyperbole. I do²Ô’t see this as diminishing the power of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but the last few chapters are probably the least interesting parts of the book. This is a shame, because there is interesting commentary to be had on Gilbert and his understanding of his social status vis-à -vis Helen, whose situation changes dramatically in the last few chapters. It’s all just so rushed, though. There is a temptation—I certainly succumbed to it, at times—for modern readers to view books like this through a haughty lens. We snicker, or react with condescending horror, at the constraints that women faced in this society. For women in Helen, Millicent, Esther’s positions, marriage was often the only respectable escape, and marriage was, if not forced on one, at least foisted upon one like an unlooked-for extra helping of gruel. Brontë depicts this admirably, and we are entertained and a little shocked. But I have to ask—is it really all that better these days? I mean, yes, women have the appearance of more liberty in our society now. But we still see women marrying men because they view it as an “outâ€� from their present situation. We see women staying with men who are abusive, or at the very least unhealthy for them, for a panoply of reasons, ranging from children to, as Helen does, wanting to care for the partner who has let them down so completely. In many situations, women who leave their husbands still face censure; women who are unfaithful face a double standard compared to men who sleep around â€� the way we talk about sex and romance and relationships has definitely changed since Anne Brontë’s time, but the morality and mores seem quite similar. Judgment is swift for women who do not toe the line. So that’s what The Tenant of Wildfell Hall left me thinking about, not the society Brontë depicts for us in the book, but the one we currently inhabit. Feminism has made great strides, but we have much further to go before Helen’s situation seems almost too alien to fathom. Until then, this book still has incredible relevance to readers of today; it is also brilliantly, compassionately, empathetically written. Anne Brontë has as much skill, if not more, than her two sisters, and a truly just society would put all three Brontës into the literary spotlight. They are sublime, and this book is sublime, and I highly recommend it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 29, 2017
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Jul 02, 2017
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Jun 29, 2017
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0140620559
| 9780140620559
| 0140620559
| 3.88
| 39,631
| 1878
| Jan 01, 1994
|
really liked it
|
**spoiler alert** I’m not sure Thomas Hardy knows what love is. Or maybe I do²Ô’t know what love is. Does anyone know what love is? Haddaway has been z
**spoiler alert** I’m not sure Thomas Hardy knows what love is. Or maybe I do²Ô’t know what love is. Does anyone know what love is? Haddaway has been zero help, by the way. If I was worried I’ve been ploughing through Hardy’s novels too fast, I should²Ô’t be: my last review was over a year ago! Time to rectify that! It’s also a nice break from the YA/SF-heavy binge I’ve been on (and to which I will likely return shortly!). The Return of the Native is firmly in the middle of Hardy’s career as a novelist, and it shows. The novel opens with an exhaustive description of the picturesque Egdon Heath and its bucolic pre–Industrial Revolution furze-cutters and reddlemen. Hardy wants you to understand that this is the most beautiful green place in all the beautiful green places in England—and unlike the rest of England, in Wessex it only rains when Hardy needs pathetic fallacy. It also exists in a kind of bubble, with only the barest of interruptions—all of Wessex is like that, of course, but Egdon Heath seems isolated even from wider Wessex itself. There is something so profanely ironic about Hardy setting such unabashed tragedies within these idyllic pseudo-utopian worlds. So this book has the same environmental sensations as the earlier Under the Greenwood Tree and, like Far from the Madding Crowd, it flirts with the theme that loving “wronglyâ€� leads to disaster. Hardy’s fascination with Greek and Shakespearean modes of tragedy is on full display here. While the charactersâ€� downfalls are rooted in their personalities, arguably the tragedies that befall them are also an indictment of contemporary norms around love and relationships. This is a proving ground for Hardy’s cynicism, much more fully explored in his later novels and poems, about the influence of class, wealth, and misguided moralism on people’s happiness. As such, The Return of the Native might be simultaneously one of Hardy’s best and worst novels, for it has such deep, abiding passion yet also suffers from rough edges. I was not feeling this novel at first! It was²Ô’t just the seemingly-endless pages of description of the heath. None of the characters seemed remotely likeable or even sympathetic. Wildeve is a cad; Mrs Yeobright is stuck up on her high horse; Thomasin might as well be a washboard for all the personality she has; and Eustacia, while fuller in character, has a massive chip on her shoulder (to the point where I was starting to agree with Mrs Yeobright’s evaluation of her, and that made me feel weird). Even as the novel progresses and the actual plot emerges (this takes too long), I could²Ô’t bring myself to care. I did²Ô’t find myself wanting any of these people to be happy. I criticize Hardy for it above, and I’m only half-joking: the word love gets tossed around very lightly. I do²Ô’t really think this is Hardy’s fault; however, it does make the characters seem more like players in a melodrama than actual people. Eustacia convinces herself she is “in loveâ€� with Clym after about a night of spying on him. It’s pretty clear that this is wishful thinking on her part, a psychological duplicity visited upon herself because Clym, the eponymous native, is an enigmatic unknown to Eustacia who holds the possibility of rescuing her from her benighted existence on the heath. She falls out of love just as easily when—surprise, surprise—no such extraction to even greener pastures emerges. With this failure on Clym’s part to abandon his stupid schooling plan take Eustacia to Paris—or even Budmouth!—Hardy makes some genuinely interesting observations about our propensity for deceiving ourselves about others. Eustacia is convinced that, despite Clym being very upfront about his intentions prior to marrying her, the marriage itself will somehow help her change his mind. So, I mean, I can be critical of the ease with which Eustacia or Wildeve keep falling in/out of love with each other and other people. But real human follies lie at the heart of all these relationships. So we might summarize Hardy’s position as being, “Everyone is an idiot, so why does society punish us for it?â€� He acknowledges that people are making bad, rash decisions about things like marriage. But it seems self-defeating, and even cruel, for our society to make it so difficult to make amends. The Return of the Native is set in the 1840s, a decade prior to England’s first stab at proper divorce proceedings. Once hitched, our couples have but two choices: live together in discontent, or separate in semi-scandal. Hardy explores the former state with the Wildeves. It’s not so much that Thomasin does²Ô’t love Wildeve as I suspect she’s the type of person who does²Ô’t love any of these characters in a romantic way. Rather, my reading of Hardy’s subtext is that Thomasin represents the type of woman who loves being courted. Hence her excitement and breathlessness at Wildeve’s pursuit, particularly when his suit was forbidden by her aunt and guardian. Deep down, Thomasin knows—and rebels against—the pressure in English society to make a “respectableâ€� marriage. Hardy, as is typical of his somewhat proto-feminist writings, deftly illustrates how women of any class had few options beyond marriage; once married, even the rustic women who populate the Wessex countryside are judged more harshly than their menfolk if they stray. Thinking about it now, I’m actually getting angry about this: Wildeve knocks up Thomasin, and then while she is at home nursing their kid, he has the luxury of debating whether or not to run away with Eustacia. (I’m angry in part because of how Wildeve treats his wife and child, but also because a hundred years on, this kind of double standard still exists.) With the Yeobright–Vye marriage, on the other hand, Hardy gives us two people are just so ill-matched for one another, and everyone except them sees it from the beginning. Eustacia seems more classically suited to the judgement I passed on Thomasin above. She certainly loves the attention Wildeve pays her. But I think that’s more a symptom of her general boredom from life on the heath. And whether or not Eustacia really is suited for town life, she definitely thinks she is. She does²Ô’t love Clym so much as the idea of everything Clym represents, the possibility of escape from Egdon Heath. Throughout the novel, she remains remarkably consistent in this goal—hence, when Wildeve eventually presents her with the escape route, she seizes upon it immediately and fatally. Like Eustacia, Clym is a very driven individual; however, he allows himself to be seduced by the simplicity of furze-cutting life. There is a rich dramatic symmetry to the fates of the characters as well, once again hearkening back to classical tragedies. Eustacia wants to leave the heath, so she dies in the river—symbolically, she is now part of the heath forever. Wildeve is punished for wanting to leave his wife to follow Eustacia by being allowed to follow her in the universe’s ironically macabre way. Clym gets to live—but he essentially abandons his project of intellectual enlightenment in favour of moral enlightenment, because he recognizes that the universe has been punishing him for his hubris. Thomasin’s fate, even altered by the final chapter Hardy added at the end to appease serial readers, is a type of “punishment.â€� Venn loves her more than she loves him (again, see above, I do²Ô’t think she loves anyone). She essentially agrees to marry him because she does²Ô’t want to be a widow or dependent on her cousin. Hardy once more uses her to show the pragmatic attitude women often had to take towards marriage. The book’s original ending would have been Clym’s words: Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you se your way clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the treatment you received in days gone by. Clym totes would²Ô’t have been tweeting using #notallmen; he gets it! Hardy still manages to conclude the story with a focus on Clym (part of me wonders if Clym’s fate as revealed in “Aftercoursesâ€� is a kind of rebuke or “f uâ€� to the magazine/readers who demanded a happy ending). His epilogue is a philosophical return to the physical descriptions visited upon us by the opening of the book: Hardy disdains organized religions or philosophies and prefers instead simpler wisdom, simpler times. Typical Hardy. See, this is why I write reviews. Actually reading The Return of the Native was not as energizing as some of Hardy’s other books. There were certainly parts that I liked, moments that made me gasp or groan as I anticipated what was to come—everything that makes Hardy a great writer is here, on display, in one way or another. But it does²Ô’t have that central protagonist present in some of Hardy greater works, or that sublime plotting of The Woodlanders . In writing this review, however, I have had to grapple more intensely with the book’s meanings, and my appreciation has deepened as a result. There is plenty to talk about here, with this one volume, even without attempting to converse about it in the context of Hardy’s wider works. The Return of the Native is never going to vie with some of Hardy’s other novels as my favourite, nor would I consider it his “best.â€� I definitely see its appeal more now than I did when I began reading it, and I suspect any other Hardy fan will as well. I would like to conclude with a shout-out to my man Hardy for his mad naming schemes. Far From the Madding Crowd gave us Bathsheba Everdeen, and now here we have Eustacia Vye, Thomasin Yeobright, and Damon Wildeve. Hardy is a master of unusual naming, and it oddly makes these books that much more delightful to a modern audience. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 10, 2016
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Jun 12, 2016
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Jun 10, 2016
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Paperback
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| 1853267309
| 9781853267307
| 1853267309
| 3.71
| 4,269
| 1866
| Sep 25, 1997
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really liked it
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I make no secret of the fact that I think George Eliot is a literary badass, and Felix Holt: The Radical is just the latest example of these well-dese
I make no secret of the fact that I think George Eliot is a literary badass, and Felix Holt: The Radical is just the latest example of these well-deserved credentials. This is essentially a political and legal thriller set in 1832 England on the cusp of the passage of the First Reform Act. (Among other things, the Reform Acts of the 1800s redefined the electoral districts for the English Parliament and expanded the franchise ever so slightly.) The sleepy English town of Treby finds itself the centre of political action during the latest election campaign. Harold Transome returns home after fifteen years abroad and decides to run as the Radical candidate, much to the surprise of his Tory family. Meanwhile, in typical Eliot fashion, the Felix Holt does²Ô’t show up for the first fifty pages of his own book! Despite Transome and Holt’s self-declared Radicalism, the two butt heads, and soon it’s obvious neither really embodies the label they’ve chosen. Meanwhile, a dastardly lawyer plots possible revenge against Transome, and it all hinges on the question of paternity and inheritance of a preacher’s daughter. You hooked yet? Because I know that the language in novels like this can be an obstacle to enjoying them. Eliot is a fan of lengthy sentences and even longer paragraphs. Her description belabours points until they become entire discourses; her dialogue is more of a series of speeches fired back and forth like broadside salvos. With this style, however, comes a consummate ability to draw out the most intricate descriptions of human foibles and fragility. We see this quite early in Eliot’s portrayal of the ageing Mrs Transome, and later when we delve into Esther’s motivations for obsessing over the strange and somewhat offensive Mr Holt. Unlike modern thrillers, which tend to sacrifice depth of character for depth of field in the action, Felix Holt is a character-driven thriller in which Eliot asks how our upbringing, gender, and political convictions influence the choices we make and how far we will go to get what we want. First, we have Harold Transome. He comes back home after living in “the Eastâ€� (mostly Smyrna), where he had a wife (who since died) and a kid (whom he mostly ignores, in that great fashion of the English gentility). Like many a man convinced of his competence, he essentially swoops down on Transome Court like the North Wind: we’re doing things the Harold Transome way, and if you do²Ô’t like it, then tough. He engages the Transomesâ€� lawyer, Jermyn, as his election agent even while plotting to remove Jermyn at the most convenient opportunity. He ignores his mother and the tough time she’s been having of keeping up the estate—but that’s mostly because Transome ignores women in general, finding the weaker sex useless for everything except stroking his ego and likely stroking â€� well â€� you know what I mean. Transome runs as the Radical candidate for this district. I never completely understood why he was going for Parliament, except perhaps because he felt it was the prestigious thing to do. He certainly never evokes a sense of statesmanship. Although he good-naturedly (and naively) attempts to put a stop to the rabble-rousing activities Jermyn’s minion engages in on Transome’s behalf, Transome does not in and of himself spend much time espousing Radical views. His political allegiance seems more a reaction against the stagnant Toryism of the countryside than any conviction that England needs to change. I guess the most redeeming thing we can say about Transome is that he’s not a total dick. When he learns that Esther has legal claim to Transome Court, his first reaction is not to conceal the news but actually tell her and then kind-of-sort-of attempt to court her in the hopes he can keep the estate this way. (Now, the cynical would point out he’s just pre-empting the uncomfortable disclosure from Jermyn, and he obviously talks himself into loving Esther instead of harbouring true feelings for her. And there is something to that. But Transome is not a villain so much as an opportunistic upper–middle-class businessman; granted, the distinction between these two labels is not always clear.) Whereas Transome considers himself a “man of the worldâ€� in a quite literal sense and almost condescends to bring himself down to the worker’s level, Felix Holt is quite proud of his poverty. He looks down on the rich, in a moral sense. Like Transome, he identifies as a Radical but does²Ô’t necessarily embody that philosophy: he in fact discourages workers from getting it into their heads that they need to vote to effect political change. Holt wants everyone to behave nicely in the hopes that this will persuade the people in charge to be nicer in return. In her “Address to the Working Manâ€� included as an appendix to this edition, Eliot writes in Holt’s voice and explains that expanding the franchise to uneducated workers would be a bad idea right now, because it would encourage a kind of ignorant populism that would pull the country down. And so Felix Holt is fascinating, because it is not actually a very radical novel. At the time Eliot was writing it, of course, those in favour of Reform were seen as quite radical people (and then you had the unions, and later, the people advocating for secret ballots). But if anything, this novel shows that Eliot is herself calling only for gradual change. She does²Ô’t want workers to have the right to vote until they also have the education she feels is necessary for them to vote “properly.â€� I find this paradox fascinating, because in some ways she has hit on the crucial point: franchise is no good if the people enfranchised have little knowledge on which to base a decision. Simply guaranteeing everyone over 18 the right to vote is not enough, then; we are obligated to provide civic education—and in this respect, I do²Ô’t think our present government does nearly enoughâ€�. So Holt, then, is the “common manâ€� who nevertheless acts as a voice of caution. He is continually trying to apply the brakes, as seen in his foolish and ill-fated attempt to curb the rioting on election day. It sometimes seems like Eliot focuses less on him than on any other main character. Nevertheless, his role as titular character is deserved more because he ties all the other characters together. He interacts with everyone else, subtly shaping the nature of the conversation. It is the not-quite-love-triangle among Holt, Esther, and Transome that precipitates the novel’s conclusion. In Esther we see Eliot wrestle with ideas of femininity, education of women, and the duties that children have for their parents. I’ve always lauded the way Eliot’s writing has a feminist tone for the Victorian period in which she lived; and, by all accounts, Mary Ann Evans was a pretty spectacular woman. Nevertheless, Esther demonstrates some of the limits of Eliot’s endorsement of “women’s liberation.â€� On one hand, Eliot mocks those women around Treby who look down on Esther for being “over-educatedâ€� for a preacher’s daughter and for putting on airs. On the other, she uses Felix as a foil for Esther’s ego and high opinion of herself: after a single meeting, Esther becomes desperate to prove to Felix at every turn that she can be humble and be open to being lead by a man (i.e., him) in matters of substance. Eliot places Esther in a role complementary to the men in her life: she must support and aid her ageing father; be led by the man she chooses as a husband; and nurture the children in her charge, whether it’s as a mother or a teacher. In this respect, while Eliot is quick to call out the double standards that adversely affect women’s quality of life, she is not quite ready to tear down conventional gender roles. Felix Holt culminates in an election, a riot, a trial, and shenanigans over estate ownership. It all ends in tears, and then a wedding, and finally a happily-ever-after, for most involved. The winds of change are evident throughout the novel, but the ending seems to assure us that all will go on as it largely was before: the rich will be rich, the poor will be poor, and there will be Tories and Whigs and the occasional Radical doing whatever it is men of means do in Parliament while your average worker drinks and works the mines. This is not, therefore, that radical of a book. But Eliot manages to deliver an amazing story full of intrigue, backstabbing, characters who are all out for themselves. I picked an excellent time to read this as well. And I do²Ô’t just mean because Thanksgiving Saturday was unseasonably pleasant and I could read this outside while listening to the new Florence + the Machine album. No, I mean that in Canada we’re a week away from a federal election. The campaigning in this book reminded me of the lengthy campaigning happening here. Eliot’s coverage of the Reform Act is a potent reminder that we are lucky we have the right to vote—and by we, I do²Ô’t just mean land-owning white men. While I completely understand why some people are discouraged by our political system and do²Ô’t believe their vote will “count,â€� I’m still disappointed when someone I know shrugs off the idea that they should vote. It is a duty, and it is not one we should take for granted considering that some of us have had it for less than a century. And it’s certainly in the interests of the people in power to keep you from voting, particularly if you are young, or poor, or from a minority group and interested in expressing your opinions. This might sound trite, but one of the most radical things you can do as a Canadian on October 19 is vote. Go do it. And then go read Felix Holt. It’s far from my favourite Eliot novel, but it shows the beginnings of all the skill and ability with character and setting that makes her one of my favourite authors. Eliot manages to convey a sense of entirety, that microcosm of the human experience: she is not overly cynical or overly optimistic; she simply shows what is—and what might be. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 06, 2015
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Oct 11, 2015
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Oct 06, 2015
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Paperback
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| 0140431268
| 9780140431261
| 0140431268
| 3.97
| 161,226
| 1874
| 1978
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really liked it
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I learned I’d prefer to save my Hardy reading for the summer. There is nothing better than being able to read Hardy outside in summer, when the warmth
I learned I’d prefer to save my Hardy reading for the summer. There is nothing better than being able to read Hardy outside in summer, when the warmth and greenery makes it easier to imagine the bucolic setting of the Wessex novels. Plus, having the day available for reading allows me to sink my teeth into novels like Far from the Madding Crowd, which are meant to be read in big gulps rather than sipped here and there as free time allows. I’ll re-read this one day, in a summer, and I know I will like it even better then. For now, though, I’m content to say that I liked it—as I was bound to do, with Hardy being one of my favourites—but it does²Ô’t have that weight of his later works. I know some view that as a positive: this is Hardy at his most upbeat. I could totally see Hollywood doing an adaptation of this in the style of 10 Things I Hate About You’s adaptation of Shakespeare—this is an almost-textbook romantic comedy that happens to have been written in the Victorian era. Even this early in Hardy’s career as an author there are hints of his iconoclastic willingness to skirt the bounds of propriety. At the same time, there are conventions—Oak’s bald-faced proposal to Bathsheba not weeks after meeting her for the first time is one—that are more than comical by our standards. Now, I bought this copy used, as I like to do with classics. (There’s just something that feels right about reading a classic that has been read before.) And this copy comes with a bonus: reader annotations! It bears the price tag of Mount Allison University’s bookstore, and as far as I can tell, it once belonged to a student in a Victorian literature class. I assume the student is male, because of the messiness of the writing and the way the notes are â€� phrased. Every chapter has two or three thoughts jotted at the end to summarize the key events, and passages here or there throughout are marked up with choice commentary on the part of this reader. I love annotating books. I do²Ô’t do it often enough, even with books I own, because I am lazy. (And I do²Ô’t do it with books other people own, unless they give me express permission. And I do²Ô’t do it with library books, because the library would frown at me and kindly ask me to refrain from ever patronizing it again, which would make me sad.) Discovering the comments of a previous owner in the margins of a book is one of the benefits of buying used. I feel like I’m part of a long-delayed conversation, and I’m always keen to discover if the past reader and I share sensibilities and reactions to the story—or if we differ and diverge along the way. These notes, though â€� these are fascinating, in an anthropological kind of way. So rather than review Far from the Madding Crowd directly, I instead present to you Review of Select Commentary on Far from the Madding Crowd. The first few chapters suffer from a dearth of commentary. In Chapter 3, we get a few passages underlined; the sole note at the end of this chapter is “coolâ€� in reference to the chapter’s closing remark: “‘Now find out my name,â€� she said teasingly; and withdrew.â€� Clearly this person is getting sucked into the plot! We do just that—find out her name—on the next page. It’s Bathsheba Everdene. Either this student is a stone wall, or he’s reading this prior to The Hunger Games, because there is no comment on how much that sounds like “Everdeen.â€� May the odds be ever in Bathsheba’s favour—she’s going to need it. The notes do²Ô’t really pick up until Chapter 10, when the student correctly picks up on the importance of Bathsheba’s interaction with the people who work her land. The student has some interesting comments on Hardy’s dry observations about marriage. In this quotation, about one of the wives of Bathsheba’s farm workers, the student underlines the sentence I’ve emphasized: She was a woman who never, like some newly married, showed conjugal tenderness in public, perhapbe because she had none to show. He marked this up with an arrow and “PDA.â€� Actually, I thought it said “POAâ€� and struggled with it, until a coworker quite rightly corrected me: it’s public display of affection, anachronistic but nonetheless accurate. The passage and commentary continues: “Oh, you are,â€� said Bathsheba. “Well, Laban, will you stay on?â€� The above highlighted passages are annoted, respectively, with “Ball nâ€� chainâ€� and “Bitch.â€� Classy. This is also the chapter with the first real summary note at the end—just quick observations on the important characters here. Chapter 13 is interesting, though. When Bathsheba and Liddy unwisely cook up the prank valentine they send to Boldwood, our intrepid reader writes: Flip the book. *slow clap* Could not have said it better myself, really. But wait, what’s this on the next page, at the end of the chapter? Did it cuz mad cuz he no look at her. On some level, he’s correct—if not really willing to look much deeper into Bathsheba’s motivations. But I do²Ô’t get it. You’re a university student who clearly has enough intellect to pick up some of the subtext of this book. Why the hell are your abbreviating “becauseâ€� as “cuzâ€�? In Chapter 14, we get to see how Gabriel Oak interacts with the other labourers on the farm. This portrayal, so essential to the Hardy vision of rural England, the student boils down to: They admire Gaberial cuz he's “smartâ€� Gaberial, folks. Ca²Ô’t even be bothered to spell the main character’s name right in your notes. It’s literally a few centimetres up the page. By the end of Chapter 18, though, he has clued into the fact he can just abbreviate Gabriel’s onerously long name, and he does it correctly: Gabe knows of letter Those mindfucking lady farmers, I tell you. Boldwood clearly ca²Ô’t take it, because in Chapter 20 he breaks down and begs Bathsheba to marry him. Let’s look at how the student interprets this scene: Boldwood “Begsâ€� for marrige Hey, I know I’m being cheeky in my commentary on this commentary, but I’ll level: questionable syntax and spelling aside, that’s not a bad summary of what happens in this chapter. The top of Chapter 20 shows the student took a break and also switched pens, because the formerly red ink is now blue. Squeezed above the chapter header, we have: Should treat Farmer Boldwood fairly sez Oak The student picks up on all the hinky sexual and romantic symbolism in “The Great Barn and Sheep-Shearers,â€� noting (in red pen again) that it is “very imp chapter = read again, very symbolic,â€� and I hope they did. So far, his level of insight continues to bely his hopelessly crude notetaking skills. I continue to vacillate in my opinion regarding whether the student is just lazy or genuinely has bad spelling. This is a pretty insightful summary for Chapter 26: very imp Really, if we all wrote our literary criticism like this student, would²Ô’t the world be a better place? Sometimes, as is the case at the end of Chapter 31, the student gets even more real: Boldwood sez “Fuck you bitch for fucking with my mindâ€� He stole yr heart with his lies I’ll kill him “you've hurt me bitch!! And back in blue pen at the top of Chapter 32: Troy must marry or else shell be thought a slut cuz everyone knowz about her woody fer Troy OMG, did you hear about Miss Everdene’s woody? She’s, like a total slutbag! I know, right? Why ca²Ô’t she just choose between Gale or Peeta already?!! Like, WTF? She certainly seems DTF with Troy. Unfortunately, as we learn in Chapter 41, Troy is DTF with someone else and totally 3 Bathsheba’s heart: Bash an Troy fight cuz Bash finds lock of other gurlz hair. Troy wo²Ô’t burn it cuz loves other girl Oh no he did²Ô’t. Interestingly, the student is pretty quiet on “Fanny’s Revenge,â€� the pivotal chapter in which Bathsheba looks in the coffin—even though she should²Ô’t—and discovers Fanny actually had Troy’s child. Oops. There’s a lacklustre summary at the end of the chapter but none of the inline commentary during the important scene. There’s plenty of underlining but a dearth of commentary in the subsequent chapters, mostly very short summaries and little notes like “read again.â€� At this juncture, the student was probably reading the book at a healthy clip in order to meet some deadlines, and just absorbing the basic plot was good enough for him. Hopefully he clued into the foreshadowing that while Fanny’s fate is a tragedy in and of itself, it is merely the opening act in a much more involved tragedy that wrecks Bathsheba and Troy’s marriage not once but twice. And yes, this is still one of Hardy’s lighter works. The last two or three chapters are entirely devoid of notes or even underlining. And so I am left in suspense. Did he even finish the book? What did he think of it? There’s not even a “Niceâ€� or “Coolâ€� on the last page to let me know he is satisfied with the happy ending. Did you read this book for a Mount Allison University Victorian lit course, only for it to somehow end up in a used bookstore in Thunder Bay? Did you annotate it in red and blue pen? Let me know what you thought of the end of the book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 17, 2015
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Feb 21, 2015
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Feb 17, 2015
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Paperback
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| 0307271129
| 9780307271129
| 0307271129
| 4.31
| 976,781
| Jan 15, 1846
| Jun 02, 2009
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it was amazing
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Second reading, addendum: September 5, 2017 It has, coincidentally, been exactly 3 years since I first read The Count of Monte Cristo. I bought a house Second reading, addendum: September 5, 2017 It has, coincidentally, been exactly 3 years since I first read The Count of Monte Cristo. I bought a house this summer; I have my very own deck now. I decided that on my week off I wanted to sit outside and work my way through this classic behemoth during what might be our last nice days before the autumn chill kicks in. I was, for the most part, successful in this goal. Reading this book was every bit as pleasurable, diverting, and moving as it was the first time; everything reaffirms my original sentiments regarding this book’s place in history and Dumasâ€� talents as a storyteller, if not perhaps as a writer. I do²Ô’t have anything substantive to add to my first review, below. If I were to attempt a new review, I’d basically recapitulate what I said already: this is the real deal, one of those timeless stories. What makes The Count of Monte Cristo so amazing is the sheer breadth of human experience that Dumas includes in his story, even as he focuses with laser sharpness on the effects of obsession with revenge on Edmond Dantès. If you can get past the sheer weight of words and the cumbersome phrasing in the writing style, this is a magnificent emotional experience with all the highs and lows of great art. This is an opera in literary form. I hesitate to name Desert Island Books, because I love so many books. Why choose?? Seriously, though, The Count of Monte Cristo would²Ô’t just be on the list; it would be my top pick for such a book. There is so much variety in here, so many different stories, that I could read it in bits and pieces, even out of order, and remain inspired and entertained for a long time. First review: September 17, 2014 I did²Ô’t plan on reading The Count of Monte Cristo so soon after The Three Musketeers . But on my first visit to the Thunder Bay library after my return from the UK, I saw this lovely edition with an introduction by Umberto Eco, one of my favourite authors. The introduction is²Ô’t much to talk about—it’s short, which is actually a point in its favour; and it’s informative but not quite insightful. I gave The Three Musketeers five stars and a glowing review. The Three Musketeers has nothing on The Count of Monte Cristo. This is indubitably superior to the former work in all respects. It is an amazing tour de force of a text that was well worth the 10 days it took me to read it. Whereas T3M has achieved immortality as a dashing adventure romance, TCMC is the revenge plot done up in the finest of clothing and served with the most sumptuous of (cold) repasts. Alexandre Dumas delivers one of the most detailled and compelling stories I have ever experienced. Sure, the novel starts slowly, introducing the young Edmond Dantes, so buoyant with hope. He’s about to become captain of a trading vessel and marry a pretty Catalan girl who is madly in love with him. He’ll be able to provide for his old, infirm father. Life is good. Slowly, Dumas arrays the forces of jealousy and envy against him, in the form of the villains Danglars and Fernand. I can easily forgive a reader who finds the first few chapters of TCMC stultifying in their boredom; the plot does²Ô’t really begin to thicken until Edmond is imprisoned, and the pace does²Ô’t take off until he escapes and reinvents himself as Monte Cristo. The beginning is slow, but it provides essential contrast to Edmond’s later conduct as the Count. Young Edmond is almost stupidly naive. Despite some careful warnings from Caderousse and others, he ignores the ill will emanating from Danglars and Fernand. He is cavalier about a trip to Elba during a time when even the whiff of Bonapartism was a good way to get thrown in jail. Dumas goes out of his way to make Edmond as innocent as possible. And just when it seems like Fernand’s scheme will fall through, Edmond falls victim, through no fault of his own, to the intrigue of Villefort. Edmond is an innocent, a good man. He does²Ô’t deserve what happens to him—unlike the three against whom he exacts his revenge. But the Count of Monte Cristo? Ah, the Count is not a good man. But he is a great one. The Count of Monte Cristo is basically the Most Interesting Man in the World: [image] The Count of Monte Cristo has been everywhere, done everything, seen it all. He is absurdly, fabulously rich—and, more interestingly, very good at spending his riches. He plays blindfolded (TVTropes). His servants and entourage are devoted to him. Everyone in Parisian society becomes infatuated with him. The Count of Monte Cristo is²Ô’t badass; he is the badassest. When he descends upon Paris, two decades have elapsed since the betrayal that led to his imprisonment. No one recognizes him. Danglars, Villefort, and Fernand have risen to important titles in Parisian society. But the Count does²Ô’t take revenge quickly. Oh no. He totally buys the whole “best served coldâ€� part of the adage. Months pass as the Count integrates himself into Parisian high society, attending operas and throwing lavish dinner parties and generally charming the pants off everyone. He enacts a series of increasingly fiendish and increasingly complex plots to place his enemies in financial or social difficulty. Even when unforeseen circumstances arise to throw off his otherwise intricate planning, the Count rises to the occasion and improvises with aplomb. He seems, in short, unstoppable. It’s awesome, watching it all unfold. No CGI explosions. No explicit sex scenes. Just one amazing character on a mission of revenge. I read the unabridged version, because I like to suffer when I read classic literature. I hear there are abridged versions out there (did I mention this book is in the public domain?). I assume they cut out the hundreds of pages of digressions and backstories of secondary characters. In the introduction to this edition, Eco discusses the paradox of Dumasâ€� terrible writing yet enduring brilliance: TCMC is simultaneously a poorly-written book yet an incredible feat of storytelling. Its wordiness makes Dickens look concise. It took me ten days to read when the similarly-thick The Wise Man’s Fear took less than half that. I enjoyed it all the same â€� but I’m willing to admit that there are some things that could have been cut. Maybe. So I wo²Ô’t blame you if you read the abridged version. You really should read this, somehow. TCMC’s length reminds me of another epic classic, War and Peace . The similarity does²Ô’t end there, however. Much like Tolstoy’s epic, TCM has oodles and oodles of characters. Wikipedia has . Keep in mind that Dumas serialized this thing, and it really does read like a weird, nineteenth-century French soap opera. There’s something very fulfilling about coming across a character first mentioned hundreds of pages ago and realizing their new importance to the plot. And as with Tolstoy’s story, there is so much more happening here than Edmond’s revenge. Every one of the secondary characters has their own intricate history (which Dumas never fails to recount) accompanied by a complex set of motivations and goals that impact the Count’s plans. Truly, egregious purple prose aside, TCMC is one of the most masterful examples of plotting in literature. The Count of Monte Cristo is like War and Peace but with a more uplifting ending. The ending is rather inevitable, and it’s where the earlier depiction of early Edmond becomes so important. Having succeeded in getting his revenge, the Count sails off into the sunset in search of further adventure. There’s no other way to end it. He was a character devoted entirely to one goal: once he achieved it, what was he supposed to do? Then again, he is more than a man. He’s a myth, a self-made myth in the style of Jay Gatsby, whose very existence is sustained by the stories and rumours that swirl around him. Edmond’s enemies managed to transform him into something he could never have become on his own—but his quest for revenge is not one that leaves him unscathed. And it’s an open question whether Edmond has managed to break the cycle of revenge or merely extend it for another generation. This is a novel that does²Ô’t pull punches. Dumas ruthlessly explores the extent to which obsession and desire can chart the course of someone’s life and alter the lives of all those around him. Yet he manages to do so with wit and persuasive charm. It is no wonder that like T3M, The Count of Monte Cristo has inspired so many adaptations and looser works based on its themes â€� but there is no substitute for the original. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Aug 27, 2017
Sep 07, 2014
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Sep 05, 2017
Sep 17, 2014
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Sep 07, 2014
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Hardcover
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| 0141028033
| 9780141028033
| 0141028033
| 4.10
| 337,753
| Jul 1844
| 2007
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it was amazing
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Thrilled by the excellent recent adaptation by the BBC, I decided it was time to finally read The Three Musketeers. I have vague memories of borrowing
Thrilled by the excellent recent adaptation by the BBC, I decided it was time to finally read The Three Musketeers. I have vague memories of borrowing a book with a yellow hardback cover from the library when I was much, much younger. But at that precocious age I found the nineteenth century language and over-the-top tropes of romance and revenge difficult to enjoy, and I do²Ô’t recall if I ever finished it. This time, I did a little research and discovered that Richard Pevear has a relatively new translation out, and that my UK library had a copy! Strangely, the title page promises that this edition is “Translated with an Introduction by Richard Pevear,â€� but there is no introduction to be found. Huh. It seems almost silly to give much of a plot summary of The Three Musketeers. Everyone knows the story, right? Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are the eponymous black sheep within the musketeers: the ones who do²Ô’t play by the rules but nevertheless still hold to the ancient rites of honour. D’Artagnan is a young Gascon man eager to make his name by joining the musketeers, and he quickly befriends the Three and joins them on many adventures. Together they fight the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu and his minion, the irredeemable Milady de Winter. Except, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Alexandre Dumasâ€� story is one that has become so popular, been adapted so many times, that its original narrative has become snarled and twisted and confused in public consciousness. Having now read the book, I can see why: this is a massive novel that plods on and on in a series of interrelated episodic adventures that can be repetitive at times. It’s not difficult to understand why the various writers of adaptations have streamlined and simplified the story for television and movies. In so doing, they have associated the three (or four) musketeers with the ideas of heroism, courage, and bravery. Also, they have a chocolate bar named after them. How many literary characters can say that? Most of the adaptations manage to portray the heroes with flaws as well as virtues: they capture the carousing, the drinking, the gambling—oh, and the irrepressible urge to duel. But they elide over some of the most memorable moments. For instance, the musketeersâ€� four respective manservants play crucial roles in the books, almost as important as the musketeers themselves—and, for the most part, the musketeers treat them like shit. Athos does²Ô’t let his speak, and Dumas goes out of his way to describe how d’Artagnan forbidding his servant to quit his service actually endears his servant to him moreâ€�. Meanwhile, a lot of the problems in the book are the result of the musketeers drinking and/or gambling too much. They tend to pick fights where none are necessary. Then they go running to hide behind Captain de Tréville’s skirts, using their special friendship with him to get out of trouble. When they need more money, they chat up bored wives for loans. So the musketeers are²Ô’t the shining heroes we have made them out to be in popular culture. They are, to Dumasâ€� credit, much greyer and more morally complex than that. The same can be said for Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Although it’s easy to mistake this book for a florid romance set two centuries before it was written, it is a far richer story of how personal whims and ambitions and relationships affect the political tapestry of a continent like Europe. For his love of Queen Anne, Buckingham betrays his nation. D’Artagnan finds himself set against Richelieu not necessarily because they are so different but because Richelieu’s methods conflict with d’Artagnan’s sensibilities. One thing that surprises me in the novel is the very fair treatment that Dumas gives Richelieu. He is not a one-dimensional, transparent villain. It’s clear that Richelieu is acting for what he believes is the good of France. This is a perilous time for the kingdom, which has remained staunchly Catholic in the face of rising Protestantism, and has managed to alienate even the other Catholic countries in Europe—namely, Spain. Richelieu is legitimately worried about alliances between these countries and invasion or rebellion, and his scheming is, ultimately, an attempt to make sure that France is prepared. Peter Capaldi captures a sliver of this side of the character in the BBC adaptation, but his Richelieu is also a more personally self-absorbed character. I wonder if Dumas was secretly fascinated by seventeenth-century France, so much so that he ached to write a political thriller about the events therein, only he knew that it would sell better if he couched it in the contemporary ideas of the romance. By our standards he is incredibly sexist—women are, to Dumas, the fairer and weaker sex, and indeed, part of Milady’s villainy is her presumption to “rise aboveâ€� the proper stations of motherhood and companionship as a woman and seek a man’s destiny in life. (He also has this weird obsession with women’s hands.) But for his time, Dumas might have been perceived as fairly liberal, for a male writer, in his depictions of women characters. That’s not saying much, of course. It’s sufficient that Dumasâ€� women have more agency than fenceposts. There are basically three important female characters (I’m not counting Kitty): Anne, Constance Bonacieux, and Milady. Although Dumasâ€� portrayals of them are far from faultless, he nevertheless manages to capture the dangerous and difficult nature of being a woman in seventeenth century France. He shows the empty court life that Queen Anne must lead, the emotional gulf that separates her from her husband and leads her to seek love in an English ambassador. And, oh, did this book make me love Constance even more than I did in the BBC version. In the latter, she is merely d’Artagnan’s landlady rather than the queen’s seamstress. But this additional dimension in the original text makes her character much more interesting. She and Anne are both victims of the oppressive, patriarchal nature of the time. They lack the power to do much about their situations, and they ceaselessly exercise the little power they do have to make their lives better, only for men to swat them down again if it’s inconvenient. But it’s in the portrayal of Milady de Winter that Dumas truly excels at a nuanced portrait of women’s struggles. As I note above, there are very problematic aspects to Milady’s use of her sexuality to get what she wants, and the ending of the book seems to say that Dumas is punishing her for having the gall to act, essentially, the same as the musketeers do. She is the Cardinal’s agent in the same way that the musketeers are the king’s/queen’s/whatever. In fact, it’s arguable that Milady has a more legitimate claim to being a loyal French agent than the musketeers. Richelieu sends her to assassinate Buckingham—who, let us not forget, is English—because it would prevent the launch of an invasion fleet. That kind of seems like a good thing to do if one is concerned for French sovereignty, no? But the musketeers rush to stop her, and then condemn her for engineering Buckingham’s death, despite the fact that he is clearly an enemy of state and she totally had the Cardinal’s permission. Who is the wrong now, hmm? Indeed, there is a delightfully subversive edge to this, the major plot of The Three Musketeers. For a long time prior to achieving her goals, Milady is imprisoned in a castle in the English countryside. She laments the fact that, as a woman, she is unable to merely fight her way free and escape through physical feats. Instead she must resort, as always, to her beauty and wiles. And my interpretation of this is not that Dumas is painting Milady as a sociopathic viper but as an unfortunate, psychologically scarred woman who has to do a lot of unsavoury things in order to survive. She is aware of how her gender has affected her life, has made things harder, and she has been forced to hone whatever few weapons she could forge from her disadvantages. So even though there is something fairly unfortunate in how Dumas portrays Milady’s vituperative scheming against d’Artagnan and her consequent fate, I also think that she is a far more complex character than she might seem at first glance. These layers, then, are what result in the wonderful and transcendent quality of The Three Musketeers. On one level it is a straightforward romance, a tale of swashbuckling heroes against scheming villains. It has swordfights and chase scenes and all the melodrama that anyone could want—and I love it for that reason, far more than I suspected I would. On another level, it depicts the difficult life of musketeers in seventeenth-century France. The four musketeers are complicated and flawed characters who make mistakes and essentially function as vigilantes. Dumas captures the tense political situation in Europe at the time. And onto that additional level, he overlays the ambitions and relationships of individuals—both men and women—depicting how these alter and affect the fates of nations. The Three Musketers is an adventure novel, yes, but it should never be dismissed merely as that. It is nothing short of an amazing and impressive work of literature that deserves its status as a classic. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 29, 2014
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Jun 02, 2014
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May 29, 2014
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Paperback
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| 0140431233
| 9780140431230
| B001KTMLFC
| 3.64
| 14,106
| 1872
| Jan 01, 1985
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liked it
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Another somewhat well-preserved Penguin Classics paperback of Hardy, this time acquired not in a used bookstore abroad but taken abroad after receivin
Another somewhat well-preserved Penguin Classics paperback of Hardy, this time acquired not in a used bookstore abroad but taken abroad after receiving it as a gift from someone who went to a used bookstore. The very slimness that signals its brevity also makes it quite attractive as a travel book. Since it’s Hardy, I knew I would be in for a treat, for prose that is both readable and poetic, for characters who are truly interesting specimens of rural England. Under the Greenwood Tree also has the unique reputation of being rather optimistic for a Wessex novel. The plot of this book is, in some ways, the prototypical plot that Hardy is trying on for the first time and will later perfect throughout his novel-writing career (perhaps most notably in The Woodlanders ). There are echoes of these characters in later works too. As someone who has read many of Hardy’s later novels before coming to this book, it feels both familiar and strange simultaneously. I try to put myself in the position of someone for whom this is an introduction to Hardy; while I hope the book would give a favourable impression, I do²Ô’t think it offers an accurate showcase of Hardy’s impressive skill as a writer. The central conflict in the book concerns whether Dick Dewy will be able to marry Fancy Day (agh, the names to my modern ear—“fancy dayâ€� indeed!). Dick and Fancy are in love, but Fancy’s father considers her too good for the son of a village tranter (carrier and hauler of goods). It’s the same old story, and Hardy does²Ô’t do anything new here. Dick has a rich rival whom Fancy does²Ô’t love, and there’s a related subplot about the village choir being replaced by Fancy playing the organ. Perhaps the most surprising part of the whole plot is the relative timidity with which it develops: for most of the novel, Dick’s courtship proceeds without many setbacks; it’s only when Dick and Fancy seek her father’s permission for marriage that they encounter a real problem. Regarded in this light, Under the Greenwood Tree is underwhelming, valuable mostly for its role as precursor to the greater novels that Hardy would go on to produce. I’ll be honest: it grabs me nowhere near as much as The Woodlanders or Tess of d’Urbervilles did. The latter works are undeniably crisper, more well-developed, better. But it would be a mistake, I think, to dimiss this book so quickly. Visible in Under the Greenwood Tree, even more so than many of the later novels, is Hardy’s poetic regard for the Dorset landscape that inspires his Wessex. In his descriptions of the forests and meadows through which his characters travel, Hardy strives to capture the beauty of their surroundings. That beauty, for him, is inextricably linked to its origins in nature. Mellstock and its surrounds are idyllic villages, small eruptions of humanity amidst an otherwise undisturbed world. Casterbridge, the nearest big town, is close enough to be within reach yet far enough that it can seem like a different world entirely. Of course, this is a world that never actually existed. Being an idyllic vision of rural England, Mellstock is Hardy’s attempt to impose his ideal, Platonic image of rural England onto the real thing. Under the Greenwood Tree acknowledges the beauty that he finds in the simple life, and it also shows how this life is vanishing amid “progressâ€� in the replacement of the choir with an organ and organist. Hardy is chronicling the disappearance of a world he loves dearly, even if this means that, at times, he idealizes that world in his fictional portrayal of it. For related reasons, I found Hardy’s descriptions of the charactersâ€� dress and mannerisms very fascinating. There’s a memorable episode in which Fancy makes much out of what dress she should wear on Sunday. She invites Dick to wait in her rooms while she fixes the dress she wants to wear, and the task takes overly long. Meanwhile, Dick is brooding about the fact that she is taking such care over her appearance when he wo²Ô’t be there to appreciate it. He’s not satisfied with her explanation that she wants to appear in a dress the other girls ³ó²¹±¹±ð²Ô’t seen yet. To our modern sensibilities, these problems can seem absurd and farcical. (There is a scene much earlier in which Hardy makes much out of heavier men having to discard their outer coats while at a country dance because they are so warm.) But it’s a valuable depiction of what country life and social norms were like in the middle of the ninteenth century. Fancy is reasonably well-off compared to Dick, but she still does²Ô’t have that many dresses. She takes pride in what she owns, cares for these garments. Yet she has been raised with certain expectations regarding her appearance, which places constraints on what she can wear. When considered in more general terms, it’s something we can still identify with, even if we happen to own more dresses these days, and can thus more easily avoid the embarrassment of wearing the same one twice in front of the same people. Freed of extra layers of subtext and characterization that Hardy deploys in later books, Under the Greenwood Tree provides a more streamlined glimpse of these things. That does²Ô’t elevate it in my eyes to be on par with Hardy’s other novels. However, it’s enough to convince me that there is something interesting and worthy to this book, something more than its context relative to Hardy’s other works. Although its simplicity and upbeat tone makes it very accessible, I’d still hesitate to recommend it as a starting point; it lacks some of the more typical conceits that Hardy eventually makes his own, and so it’s still not quite representative of the author. It is, instead, better as a quick read, maybe as a used book squeezed into the top of an over-stuffed backpack bound for adventures far beyond any greenwood tree. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 07, 2014
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Apr 10, 2014
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Apr 11, 2014
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 4.02
| 1,391,849
| May 26, 1897
| unknown
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it was ok
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I enjoyed NBC’s new Dracula series an inordinate amount. It was a fun, thrilling experience of storytelling and characterization. And it got me thinki
I enjoyed NBC’s new Dracula series an inordinate amount. It was a fun, thrilling experience of storytelling and characterization. And it got me thinking that, despite happily watching various adaptations over the years, I’ve never actually read the original novel. What with it being public domain and all, I put the on my tablet and sat back to see how the original stacks up to its adaptations. (If you ³ó²¹±¹±ð²Ô’t already, you really should donate to support Project Gutenberg. They are doing an amazing job cataloguing and providing free access to public domain works.) Dracula is essentially a psychological drama in epistolary format. But it’s more than that. It’s a complex tale of courage against an overwhelmingly dangerous force of nature (or, in this case, the supernatural). Bram Stoker harnesses a combination of European folklore, Gothic convention, and the shifting landscape of Victorian attitudes towards sexuality and machismo. For the modern reader, Dracula is an interesting portal into the past. Unfortunately, a number of factors work to undermine these strengths—namely, this book is very long, very sexist, and very poorly characterized. While there’s nothing wrong with epistolary novels as a rule, in this case I found the writing could approach tedium at times. This is a relatively long book in which very little happens; its length is mostly a consequence of the extended descriptions Stoker uses to pad out his letters and diary entries. But my main objection to this format is simply that it constrains the way in which Stoker can reveal certain information, and so he occasionally has to find very contrived ways to shoehorn it into a telegram or letter. The next thing that jumped out at me while reading was the crushing, latent sexism within the writing. Even by Victorian standards it’s somewhat laughable. There are some fairly tame phrases, such as Mina’s wish that “when we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathanâ€� through her mastery of shorthand and typewriting. But then there are gems such as Lucy’s lamentation: “My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?â€� (This is upon receiving not one but three proposals in the same day.) Later on at the start of Chapter 8, Mina and Lucy consume a hearty meal, and Mina reflects that “I believe we should have shocked the ‘New Womanâ€� with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them!â€� In the very same paragraph: Some of the “New Womenâ€� writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman wo²Ô’t condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too! Tehre’s some consolation in that. There’s always some danger in conflating an author’s personal opinions with the opinions expressed by characters. But Mina and Lucy are not the only characters to express these opinions; the men in the novel think much the same, and if Stoker disagreed with any of them, one would have hoped to see at least one character with more progressive politics. The very fact that Mina herself expresses these opinions belies any attempt to establish her as an independent and “strongâ€� character. So really, Dracula consists of two women becoming damsels in distress and a quintet of adventurous men working to save their souls, with one of the two women being allowed to help in a very reduced capacity. To make matters worse, no one ever argues. Everyone goes on for pages and pages about how great, smart, thoughtful, and brave everyone else in the group is. Mina is so grateful to Jonathan and Van Helsing for being considerate of her womanly nature when making their plans. Arthur is so grateful that Dr Seward summons Van Helsing, whose diagnosis of vampirism requires them to decapitate and mutilate the corpse of Arthur’s fiancée. Jonathan is so grateful that Mina shares his secret journal full of mad tales with Van Helsing (whom she had just met, mind you). When I started writing this review, I wanted to explain how Dracula is interesting in a psychological sense â€� the more I think on it, however, the less this seems to be true. Stoker does²Ô’t seem to care about creating realistic people in his characters, for they act instead like automatons, executing his plot with military precision. Everyone is melodramatic, enthusiastic. There is never any conflict in the group. Van Helsing consistently comes out with crazier and crazier theories and “factsâ€�, and aside from Seward and Arthur’s initial bout of scepticism, no one ever stands up to him. (I love how Stoker blithely has him transfuse blood from himself and Seward in complete ignorance of blood types. It’s the kind of thing that could only ever be hilarious in an anachronistic sense.) This lack of character conflict is very disappointing in a book that otherwise attempts to probe some of the darkest impulses of the human heart. Stoker’s decision to appropriate the vampire as his monster of choice was an inspired one. The vampire, after all, is sex, and Stoker was writing at a time when discussions of human sexuality and libido were still very much frowned upon. Dracula, though he is a monster to be vanquished through external force, represents the latent desires and appetites of the everyday person. He preys upon the feminine yet decidedly non-sexualized Lucy and Mina, and his defeat at the hands of Jonathan and company signifies the triumph of the traditional attitudes towards this subject over the more liberal ones. In this respect, Dracula has the potential both to scandalize and to reassure its contemporary reader. Perhaps its single best contribution to literature, however, is as an example of how it is possible for material to inspire adaptations far superior to their source. These days, fans tend to be rather protective of source material—and I suspect this is largely a result of an abusive relationship with Hollywood. We tingle with excitement whenever an adaptation of a favourite novel or series is announced while simultaneously cringing at the thought of how Hollywood has “updatedâ€�, “tweakedâ€�, or otherwise altered the material for consumption by the masses. And even in situations when the finished product receives acclaim, such as Game of Thrones, there are those who sniff at any significant departures from the source material, forgetting that translation can never be just transliteration. Such is definitely the case with Dracula. This book has not aged well. It is a classic for its influence on the media that has come afterwards, but the novel itself is underwhelming. I enjoyed NBC’s new series substantially more—orders of magnitude more—even though it distorts Stoker’s narrative. Dracula is an example of how once something transcends its original form to become a cultural mainstay, it is no longer just about the original form: the modern conception of the vampire is a compelling idea we owe to Stoker, but it has grown up. You’re missing that much by missing out on this book. For the hardcore fans, it’s only a download away. For the rest of us, there are innumerable retellings and reimaginings, with more undoubtedly on the way. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 25, 2014
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Jan 29, 2014
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Jan 25, 2014
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ebook
| |||||||||||||||||
| 1857150597
| 9781857150599
| 1857150597
| unknown
| 3.82
| 25,975
| Feb 01, 1859
| Mar 19, 1992
|
really liked it
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So far I’ve been reading George Eliot’s work in a reverse-chronological order. For my third experience I’ve chosen Adam Bede, her first novel. I didn�
So far I’ve been reading George Eliot’s work in a reverse-chronological order. For my third experience I’ve chosen Adam Bede, her first novel. I did²Ô’t realize this until I read the introduction after finishing the book. In hindsight, I can see how her style is less polished than her later works; however, at the time, I was captivated by all the hallmarks of Eliot’s writing that make her my favourite Victorian novelist. The plot of Adam Bede really is one of the simplest of all time (though it takes a while to become evident). The titular character is an upright and eligible young carpenter. He is a paragon of responsibility and moral propinquity. A major incident early in the book concerns Adam having to make up work left unfinished by his ailing father, who has succumbed to alcoholism in his later years. Adam’s plainspoken attitude, amplified by Eliot’s use of a strong dialect, casts him as someone who views life in very plain, black-and-white terms. He is not someone I’d like to disappoint. Throughout the novel, Eliot uses him as a pillar of stability during trying times in the village. It’s only when Adam himself undergoes a crisis that we get to glimpse the more flawed side of his character. This crisis is personified in Hetty Sorel, the love interest. She’s a young, impoverished girl living with her aunt and uncle, the Poysers. Eliot talks up her appearance as the kind of beauty that only comes along once or twice in a generation. It’s not a beauty striking so much as it is innocent and, as Eliot describes Hetty, kittenish. It’s the type of beauty that makes other people feel sorry for her and do things for her. And all this goes to Hetty’s otherwise empty head, creating a small pocket of vanity that blossoms under the tender ministrations of the carefree Arthur Donnithorne. Hers and Arthur’s romance is of the flirtatious yet forbidden variety, for they are separated by too wide a class divide to make marriage practicable in those times. Yet it is Hetty’s relationship with Arthur that ultimately scuttles Adam’s hopes for happiness with her as his bride. The advantage of using such a time-worn plot, of course, is that it allows Eliot to sit back and focus on developing her characters and her setting. The reader, whether contemporary or modern, knows what to expect of the roles the characters will play. But this very expectation heightens the enjoyment of the story: we know Arthur is going to lead Hetty towards a bad end; we know Hetty will end up dashing Adam’s hopes at the last minute in a desperate, selfish bid for a freedom that can never be hers. It’s this very foreknowledge that keeps us on the edge of our seats in happy anticipation as we watch these people spiral towards the inevitable climax around Hetty’s trial. Even in her first novel, Eliot demonstrates the deft ability for description that won me over in Middlemarch . She has such a way with words, an ability to capture not just descriptions of external environments but also the hearts and minds of people. She writes with a keen awareness of that the sensibilities of her time are fleeting and prone to change; her narration takes on a perspective that is, in some senses, archaeological, as it attempts to chronicle and capture the emotions of a past era. (This is perhaps aided by the fact that, technically, Eliot is engaged in writing historical fiction here, and so she too has the benefit of hindsight, albeit at less of a remove than us.) Eliot presents the contours of rural English life at the height of the Napoleonic wars, mixing news of distant world events with the slow turn of the wheel on a more local level. These distant events intersect the charactersâ€� lives—Arthur is in the military; Seth would have had to serve had Adam not paid a significant amount of money in his stead—but for the most part, there is a sense of isolation impossible to achieve in the burgeoning cities that were then in the throes of the Industrial Revolution. This isolation is especially evident in those moments when someone like Adam or Hetty is walking for a distance alone. Having now lived in England for some time, I appreciate how things here are much closer together than they might be in, say, Canada â€� yet I still do²Ô’t think I’m all that interested in walking for several miles now that I have access to cars and buses and trains. Oh, how spoiled we areâ€�. Much like the scenery and setting, Eliot’s characters are themselves delightful studies of the sort I love finding in Victorian works. Adam himself, alas, is a rather flat character. He does²Ô’t actually do much, and I find his love for Hetty rather perfunctorily developed, as if Eliot is more concerned with the consequences of this plot than its inception. More interesting are the supporting characters—they make the novel. Mr Irwine, the local pastor and magistrate, is a magnificent combination of wisdom and fallibility. During his tense conversation with Arthur, who desires to make a confession about his dealings with Hetty but is²Ô’t sure how he can broach it, Irwine bungles the job by being far too forward and prodding. Once again, Eliot’s masterful ability to penetrate the thoughts of her characters and portray, in parallel, two people’s thinking processes is put to good use here. We see simultaneously Irwine’s deductions about why Arthur might have visited and Arthur’s struggle with whether to turn the conversation to more personal matters. Arthur is perhaps the “villainâ€� of Adam Bede, so much as it is possible for the novel to have a villain. I appreciate how Eliot goes to lengths to make none of her characters caricatures. Yes, Arthur behaves recklessly and reprehensibly when it comes to Hetty. He should be more sensitive as to how their difference in class compromises her status in the village. But Eliot is quick to establish that he is a good, well-meaning person: he was not consciously using Hetty so much as genuinely ignorant of the profound ramifications of their dalliance. And I think this is a more effective and more accurate portrayal of a nineteenth-century country dandy than a moustache-twirling rake would be. Arthur is a man who makes mistakes, stumbles, and tries repeatedly to make amends. Hetty herself is a character who can be the source of much ambivalence. On one hand, there is a genuine lack of sensitivity within her: she is very self-involved, very aware of herself and her appearance. On the other hand, no one seems to have educated her on the dangers of becoming involved with someone like Arthur; she is naive as to so many aspects of the real world, such as the cost of simply journeying from Hayslope to Windsor. So she is sympathetic and pitiable but not entirely innocent: her downfall is a product of her own indiscretions made worse by how others have used her. At the risk of speculating about Eliot’s intentions, it seems like Eliot is striving to examine the difficult realities of a woman in Hetty’s position. The only part of Adam Bede that I ca²Ô’t truly appreciate is the ending. It is²Ô’t so much abrupt as it is discontinuous from the rest of the novel. After so many ups and downs, Eliot steadfastly pursues a happy ending. I only wish it seemed more credible. This is perhaps where the relative weakness of Adam’s characterization comes to the fore again: until now, there has²Ô’t been much of a hint as to his feelings for anyone else; it seems like it’s only the fact that his name is on the cover that he receives such good fortune. I feel a little mean for wishing Adam more unhappiness. Yet the swift and contrived method of rendering him once more content undermines the careful work Eliot has done throughout the rest of the book. Middlemarch blew me away, affecting me in the way few novels have done before or since. I did²Ô’t think The Mill on the Floss could top that—but it did. So I went into Adam Bede unsure of what to expect, but knowing better than to think that I had seen the best of George Eliot. Well, this is²Ô’t my new favourite of hers. It’s rougher than those other two books, more prototypical in many ways. But it was enough to make me reflect while reading, "Ah, it’s so good to be reading another Eliot novel again". Some authors seem like old friends: it does²Ô’t matter which of their books you pick up; you’re just happen, for a brief time, to be immersed again in their writing, their thoughts, and their stories. Eliot is this way with me, and Adam Bede has created more fond memories for me. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 15, 2013
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Nov 21, 2013
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Nov 15, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 0140620516
| 9780140620511
| 0140620516
| 3.83
| 632,193
| 1886
| Jan 01, 1994
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really liked it
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This one of those tales that have percolated down through culture but that most of us have never actually read. I assigned it as a short reading assig
This one of those tales that have percolated down through culture but that most of us have never actually read. I assigned it as a short reading assignment for my sixth form English class, something we could cut our teeth on while we start looking at the possibilities for texts to study this year. They were all familiar with the general idea, though I was surprised to find out that one of them was surprised that Jekyll and Hyde were the same person! Oh, yeah, oops â€� spoilers. Anyway, this is a lovely psychological thriller packaged up in the gloomy philosophical meditations indigenous to Victorian London. Dr Jekyll is a “good manâ€�, in the sense that he is generally an upstanding member of the community, with patients who respect him and friends who look up to him. Yet he yearns for something more, for the ability to give into his vices without all the nasty consequences such a thing would entail. So he turns to science â€� and science turns on him. One thing I did²Ô’t realize prior to reading the book is the central role of Utterson as narrator. It’s true that Jekyll predominates in the last act, but for most of the book, Utterson is the main character, observing the actions of Jekyll and Hyde from afar. This is more effective than telling the story purely from Jekyll’s point of view. He gets his chance to be an unreliable narrator towards the end, but Utterson provides a sense of objectivity that Jekyll necessarily ca²Ô’t. As an outsider, and a layperson, Utterson is the Victorian everyman who can be simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by the mysterious Mr Hyde and his ambiguous connection to Dr Jekyll. I love how Stevenson puts us through the paces with Utterson as he considers all the possible explanations for the Hyde/Jekyll connection. This is probably just a sign of how much television has gotten to me in my senescence now that I’m 24, but I can imagine this as a short miniseries. (I’m aware numerous films and television adaptations exist, including quite recent efforts, but I’m thinking of something a little more faithful to the plot.) The pacing is pitch-perfect, with Stevenson drawing out the mystery until we can bear it no longer. As Jekyll’s star seems to wax and then wane, Utterson becomes impatient. He seeks Jekyll out, only to be rebuffed at every turn. The big pay-off comes after the shift in narrator, though, and Jekyll finally explains his reasons for transforming into Hyde. This book is just such a nice, neat bundle of Victorian attitudes towards criminology, science, and philosophy. Hyde’s physical appearance is that of the grotesque, atavistic criminal: shorter in stature, his skull so obviously deformed in all the usual “criminalâ€� ways. The very idea of a potion that could effect such a transformation, though obviously fanciful, plays on the limitless sense of potential prevalent throughout educated people in an era of tumultuous scientific discovery and publication. Finally, Jekyll’s chilling, selfish reasons for undertaking this project speak volumes about Victorian obsessions with morality, with the problems of good and evil and how to control one’s darker impulses. I can see how this would be a chilling tale in its time, and it remains a chilling tale to this day. Stevenson challenges the idea that there are “goodâ€� people and “badâ€� people, contending instead that we all have evil within us, and that we would very much like to let it out once in a while. This is a morality tale of the dangers of combining moral hubris with scientific hubris. In an era where the possibilities of science suddenly seemed limitless—electricity could bring the dead back to life, the very age of the Earth was in question—Stevenson explored the possibility of using science to suss out morality. The consequences, for Jekyll, are an indictment against such meddling. By giving into his impulses to let his evil side roam free, Jekyll breaks down the barriers that keep those impulses in check, letting Hyde take over more and more often until it becomes impossible to keep him contained. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a classic and timeless tale that speaks volumes about the society of its time while still touching similar fears and ideas in the souls of the present. This is one of Stevenson’s most well-known works, and having finally read it after absorbing its cultural echoes all my life, I understand why. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 15, 2013
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Sep 16, 2013
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Sep 15, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0140431454
| 9780140431452
| 0140431454
| 3.89
| 17,324
| 1887
| May 28, 1981
|
it was amazing
|
**spoiler alert** My mad love affair with the work of Thomas Hardy deepens and continues with The Woodlanders, the latest of his novels to grace my sh
**spoiler alert** My mad love affair with the work of Thomas Hardy deepens and continues with The Woodlanders, the latest of his novels to grace my shelves. I found this well-preserved Penguin Classics paperback in a used book shop in Edinburgh for £2. I bought it (and a few other books) more so I could say I bought some books from a used bookstore in Scotland than for any other reason. But Hardy is one of those authors whose entire oeuvre I intend to consume, book by book. Though The Woodlanders is a relatively slim volume compared to some of his other works, and though I had the entire week off work thanks to the half-term, it took me an entire week to read it (compare this to the three days over which I read
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
). Sometimes, when it takes me that long to read a book, I lose patience with the plot, and my enjoyment suffers no matter how great the book is. This was not the case with The Woodlanders. I’m aware I come across as an insufferable fanboy, but I want to be honest from the start of this review: with each Hardy novel I read, my appreciation of him as an author grows more than I ever expected. Words alone cannot express the intense enjoyment that devouring Hardy’s words provides. In many ways, the plot does²Ô’t start simmering until Grace and Fitzpiers tie the knot and those inevitable dominoes of marital woes begin to fall. However, I love the chapters that lead up to their marriage precisely because Hardy does such a good job of showing the reader why this marriage will be a rocky one, while at the same time keeping us interested. Hardy could have started the book just prior to their marriage and forced a bitter pill of an unwieldy prologue down our throats, but it would²Ô’t have been the same. Thanks to my familiarity with Marty South, Giles Winterbourne, the Melburys, and Fitzpiers, Grace and Fitzpiersâ€� marriage had a lot more significance when it finally happened. I , “Grace just married that scoundrel Fitzpiers. This will all end in tears.â€� (Actually, I’m pleasantly surprised by the ending, but we’ll get to that.) I’m not sure what it is about Hardy that gives me the urge to tweet as I read; I did it quite often for Tess, and I did it a few times for this book as well. I think it’s the operatic nature of the plot, the fact that the narrative deviates well into melodrama at several points. From the dashing but somewhat dastardly Fitzpiers to confused, uncertain Grace Melbury, Hardy’s characters are a complex mixture of conflicting and contradictory desires and deeds. There is plenty of interpersonal conflict in this book, but almost all of it originates not in malice but simpler, more sympathetic misunderstandings owing to differences in class, education, temperament, and opinion. As a result, bad things happen—quite a bit—but the question of whether any of them happen to bad people is more complicated. This is the chief reason I fell so hard for The Woodlanders. Coming off the juggernaut of Tess, I was sceptical that this more obscure work would have anywhere near the same impact. I had calibrated myself for enjoyment more of the Two on a Tower or perhaps Jude the Obscure level. (I have to revisit the latter now, because so many people comment on how it is a maturation of the themes Hardy explores in this book. So if I loved The Woodlanders, maybe there is hope for Jude yet.) While this book might lack the central, defining incident of Tess, it shares Hardy’s incredible grasp of the subtle shades of human character. Even the people in this book who serve as antagonists, such as Fitzpiers with his philandering, are sympathetic. Through judicious use of the limited third person narrator, Hardy allows the reader to understand why each character makes the choices that they do. So yes, Fitzpiers is a cad, and it’s easy for us to see what will happen to their marriage before Grace does â€� but he’s not a cad of the irredeemable, moustache-twirling variety. He’s a complex person trapped by his upbringing, his prejudices, and his flaws. Similarly, Grace—who, by her very name, is supposed to be the sympathetic heroine of this story—is trapped by her own naivety, as well as her father’s confused ideas about what will be the best for his little girl. Mr Melbury’s designs on Grace’s future tugged at my heartstrings. He loves his daughter deeply and, having the means at his disposal, invested in her future by sending her away to an expensive school. As a result, she is more educated and more refined than the other inhabitants of Little Hintock. Melbury has promised himself that he will marry Grace to Giles Winterbourne, as a kind of apology for marrying the woman Gilesâ€� father wanted to marry. Yet he worries that Grace is now too good for Giles, that having her settle for him will doom her to a simpler life than she deserves. Melbury vacillates throughout the entire first part of the book, debating whether to go ahead with his cockamamie attempt at karmic balance or to encourage Grace to follow her heart. This essential indecision in his character returns later, after he debates how to advise Grace during her estrangement with Fitzpiers. I can sympathize with the class conflicts Hardy presents in these events. Little Hintock is a very isolated place, something I think Hardy tries to emphasize from the beginning, with the slow, rambling cart ride that takes us into the town and ultimately to the house of Marty South. Melbury, as a wood merchant, is one of the most successful and powerful men in the village, and he wants to give his daughter the best. If that best means escaping life in the village—as the companion of the young widow, Mrs Charmond, or the wife of the village’s new, up-and-coming doctor—then so be it. Of course, it does²Ô’t quite cross Melbury’s mind to ask Grace what she wants. It is tempting to read The Woodlanders and interpret it as a criticism of the institution of marriage. Indeed, in his study here, Hardy shows how it can be found wanting—for both sexes. Yet there is more to it than that, for Hardy portrays all different manners of relationships. In Grace and Fitzpiers we have the unhappy marriage. Felice Charmond provides the perspective of a widow, as well as Fitzpiersâ€� latest and most enduring object of infatuation. And Marty South wants nothing more than to be married to Giles, who wanted to be married to Grace! In this complex daisy chain of relationships, Hardy demonstrates that happiness is not as simple as being or not being married. It depends on subtler, more elusive alchemy than that. Will Grace and Fitzpiers eventually be happy? Hardy, unlike Dickens, does not provide a neat little epilogue with any definite conclusions. If Grace’s father is correct, Fitzpiersâ€� infidelity will continue in time, and it remains to be seen whether Grace can cope with that. But it’s notable that Hardy ends the book not with Grace and Melbury but where he started it, with Marty South. He ends the book with Marty at Gilesâ€� grave, alone because Grace is no longer there to accompany her: “Now, my own, own love,â€� she wispered, “you are mine, and only mine; for she has forgot ’ee at last, although for her you died! But I—whenever I get up I’ll think of ’ee, and whenever I lie down Ill think of ’ee againâ€�. But no, no, my love, I never can forget ’ee; for you was a good man, and did good things!â€� This choice to end reflecting upon Gilesâ€� role in events seems to hint that Grace’s time with him, and particularly his death, has altered her forever. Grace “forgetsâ€� Giles because his death, and Fitzpiersâ€� subsequent absolution of her role in it, is a catalyst that allows her to reconsider her estrangement from her husband. Here, Hardy reminds us that even if Fitzpiers remains unchanged, Grace has been through much, and that will be a factor in whatever lies ahead for them. The ending, then, is not a happy one. Marty’s unfulfilled love for Giles notwithstanding, it is not a tragic one either. It seems that, with The Woodlanders, Hardy strikes the balance of the human condition: real life seldom admits purely happy or tragic endings, but rather tends towards a solemn compromise of the mediocre. Grace and Marty’s respective choices result in their respective outcomes, neither of which are very dramatic but are simply â€� life. And so, in an isolated village in one part of his Wessex, Thomas Hardy manages yet again to impress and astound. The Woodlanders is powerful because it is simple on the surface but profound in its subtext. With a small but complex cast of characters and straightforward but compelling plot, this book reaffirms my admiration for one of the greatest novelists of the nineteenth century. As I wrote in one of my comments below, Thomas Hardy is off the fucking chain. In my opening, I referred to “devouring Hardy’s wordsâ€�, and that’s precisely the type of verb necessary to describe the intense pleasure of reading his work. Some books are meant to be read; others are meant to be inhaled and consumed. The Woodlanders is certainly one of the latter. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 18, 2013
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Feb 23, 2013
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Feb 20, 2013
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Paperback
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.82
|
liked it
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Jul 14, 2023
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Jul 21, 2023
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| 3.71
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liked it
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Aug 12, 2022
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Aug 25, 2022
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| 3.79
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liked it
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Aug 29, 2021
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Sep 12, 2021
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| 3.85
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liked it
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Jul 02, 2020
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Jun 27, 2020
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| 3.90
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liked it
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Nov 09, 2019
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Oct 30, 2019
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| 3.88
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really liked it
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Sep 05, 2019
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Aug 31, 2019
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| 3.62
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really liked it
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Feb 18, 2019
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Feb 12, 2019
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| 3.83
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really liked it
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Aug 18, 2018
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Aug 16, 2018
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| 3.83
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it was amazing
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Jan 03, 2018
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Jan 01, 2018
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| 4.02
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really liked it
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Jul 02, 2017
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Jun 29, 2017
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| 3.88
|
really liked it
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Jun 12, 2016
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Jun 10, 2016
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| 3.71
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really liked it
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Oct 11, 2015
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Oct 06, 2015
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| 3.97
|
really liked it
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Feb 21, 2015
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Feb 17, 2015
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| 4.31
|
it was amazing
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Sep 05, 2017
Sep 17, 2014
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Sep 07, 2014
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| 4.10
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it was amazing
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Jun 02, 2014
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May 29, 2014
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| 3.64
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liked it
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Apr 10, 2014
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Apr 11, 2014
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| 4.02
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it was ok
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Jan 29, 2014
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Jan 25, 2014
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| 3.82
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really liked it
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Nov 21, 2013
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Nov 15, 2013
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|||||
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| 3.83
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really liked it
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Sep 16, 2013
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Sep 15, 2013
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|||||
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| 3.89
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it was amazing
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Feb 23, 2013
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Feb 20, 2013
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