Paris in July: The Martha series by Margery Sharp

 

I thought I'd start Paris in July with a short, fun book. Margery Sharp's Martha in Paris fit the bill perfectly -- only 166 pages and it was one more I could cross off my owned-and-unread pile. However, when I bought this at Strand Books several years ago I didn't realize it was second in a series. Naturally I would need to read them in order, so I had to track down the first book and buy that one too, though it's set in London, not Paris.

Published in 1957, The Eye of Love is the first book of the Martha series. Set in 1932, it begins with Martha's aunt, who was christened Dorothy Hogg but now goes by the name of Dolores Diver. Miss Diver, on the wrong side of 30 and fading, has just been left by her longtime lover Mr. Gibson, who is about to become engaged to the daughter of an associate, in order to preserve his failing furrier business. Times are hard and during the Depression, furs aren't selling well. Mr. Gibson and Miss Diver are despondent, but there's nothing to be done. He must leave his Spanish rose to marry an annoying woman he doesn't love. The least he can do is pay the lease on their love-nest through the end of the year, and give her all the contents which they've accumulated.

Miss Diver is also the guardian of her orphaned niece Martha, now ten years old and obsessed with drawing -- so much so that she basically eludes school and spends all her time sketching trees, stoves, and anything that catches her fancy. One day while sketching a tree she meets Mr. Phillips, who is looking for new lodgings, and he becomes their boarder, but soon suspects Miss Diver has some money and decides to make a play for her. 

I love this pulp novel cover - so dramatic! 

Meanwhile, Mr. Gibson has merged his business with the charming and steadfast Mr. Joyce, his future father-in-law, and they soon develop a deep friendship -- much more so than with his future wife Miranda. He cannot bear the thought of marrying her instead of Miss Diver but doesn't see any way around it. Coincidentally, Mr. Joyce, a lover of art, also encountered young Martha while sketching and sees that she has talent. Naturally all the stories converge, and without going into too much detail, I'll only say that it's witty and charming and has a very satisfactory ending. 

I really enjoyed it and was also enchanted by the sequel, Martha in Paris. The story has jumped forward and Martha is now eighteen. Mr. Joyce is now Martha's patron and decrees that she MUST study in Paris. Martha is still obsessed with her drawing and resists at first, but then sees the advantages and begins studying art while staying with a widow and her daughter. She's very focused and is oblivious to everything else -- in once instance, she doesn't even realize that while sketching in the Tuileries Gardens, the nice young Englishman named Eric sitting next to her is asking her out on a date. In a very amusing turn of events, she turns his invitation to Friday night dinner with his mother into an opportunity for a really good bath in their renovated English-style tub. 

This book is equally witty and charming and surprisingly feminist for its time (first published in 1962). Martha is portrayed as an artist completely focused on her work, but she actually struck me as someone who today might be considered on the autism spectrum. She's completely obsessed with drawing and art, and really bad at picking up at social cues. I'm no expert but if the book were published today I think readers would really speculate about that. 

This cover is just SO WRONG it's laughable. 
Martha wouldn't be caught dead in stockings and black pumps.
It's so bad I had to include it. 

My one tiny quibble about this book is that if the first book starts in 1932, the second would be set squarely in WWII and the French occupation of Paris. There is not a single mention of this and people are traveling back and forth over the Channel from England,so clearly, this book is set in an alternate universe in which the war never took place (but now I'm nitpicking).

I don't want to give away too many details for fear of spoilers, but Martha in Paris ends on such a cliffhanger I absolutely had to find out what happened next, and I found a online copy of the final novella, Martha, Eric and George online and read the whole thing in a couple of hours. If I gave any but the loosest setup it would absolutely spoil the plot of the second book. The third books picks up immediately after the end of the second, and after a couple of chapters, jumps forward ten years later with Martha as a successful artist who has to finally deal with the fallout of her actions in the end of the second novel. I loved the third novel as well as the first two but I do think it ended rather abruptly. 

I love this retro cover.

Like the second novel, it's also very feminist for its time (1964). Like Martha, author Margery Sharp was very successful and focused on her work. I also wonder if Martha's devotion to her work was a reflection of Sharp's own feelings about women working. I'm guessing some people will find Martha unsympathetic but if she'd been a man no one would have raised an eyebrow at her absolute dedication to her work and confidence in her talent. 

I've now read a dozen of Margery Sharp's books for adults (she also wrote the Rescuers children's series adapted into two animated Disney movies.) I've really enjoyed all of them and I'm happy to report many have been reprinted, including six recent paperback editions by the Furrowed Middlebrow imprint of Dean Street Press. The DSP editions are available on Kindle for around $3 or $4 US, a real bargain, and I'm sure I'll be downloading some of them soon. 

The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

He lived one of those lives that seem otiose because they are not linked to any community of interest, because all the riches stored in them by a thousand separate valuable experiences will pass when their last breath is drawn, without anyone to inherit them. -- A Summer Novella

Short story collections are tough for me to review, especially enormous volumes like this one -- normally I have to spread out the reading over several weeks or even months, and it's hard to remember all the stories to comment on them as a whole. But I loved The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig so much that I sped through it in just over a week. They're so wonderfully written I simply could not stop reading this 700 page volume.

There are twenty-two stories in this volume, but the hardcover edition more than two inches thick and weighs in at two pounds! It's an unwieldy chunkster, to say the least, but luckily one of the nearby libraries had an ebook copy, so I could read it on my laptop and even on my phone. I made a goal of reading one short story every day, but I sped through them and sometimes read three or even four. Some of them are fairly short, and some are closer to novellas, like Amok and Twenty Four Hours in the Life of a Woman.

Stories are arranged chronologically by publication date. As I expected, most of them are set in Vienna and eastern Europe, but others are set in Renaissance Antwerp, Malaysia and Scotland. Like the stories of W. Somerset Maugham, several of them are framed as a story being retold to an anonymous narrator. I'm not going to going to go through all 22 stories, but here are some quick thoughts on a few of my favorites. 

Nice cover on this German edition.
Could it be Lake Como or Lake Geneva?

The Star Above the Forest: A waiter falls in love with an unobtainable countess. One of the shortest stories, but heartbreaking, beautiful prose.

Wondrak: A heartbreaking story about a disfigured recluse living in the forest, and her desperate attempt to save her son from being conscripted to fight in WWI. Sadly, this story is unfinished so we'll never know how it ends. I wish this story were a full length-novel.

Conscription: Another story about a man struggling with the decision whether to obey his orders to fight in the war. In this case he's an artist living in Switzerland. 

Amok: Closer in length to a novella, it's riveting story of a man's confession to a stranger on a sea voyage. It reminded me very much of the stories of W. Somerset Maugham, possibly because of the colonial setting and the shocking ending (and, sadly, the anti-Asian racism, which disappointed me).

Letter From an Unknown Woman: Another novella, about a writer who receives an anonymous letter from a woman obsessed with him. 

The Invisible Collection: Melancholy story of an antique dealer visiting a longtime collector during the period of massive inflation in Germany.

Did He Do It?: A cautionary tale of overindulgent dog owners, with a horrifying ending. 

The Debt Paid Late: The most uplifting story in the collection, about a woman's chance encounter with a faded actor. 

Stefan Zweig

I'm both glad I finally got around to reading this, and annoyed with myself for waiting so long! I definitely want to read more Zweig. I've also read The Post-Office Girl and Chess Story, both of which I loved, and I still have Beware of Pity unread on my TBR shelves -- might save it for next year's European Reading Challenge! I'm also tempted to buy his Collected Novellas and some of his other works published by Pushkin Press. I had actually resolved not to buy any new books this year but I do have a birthday coming up in a few months!

I'm counting this as my Austrian read for the European Reading Challenge; also counts towards the Chunkster Challenge.

Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel: Anthony Trollope Finally Disappoints

Sorry for the poor image quality.
Not a lot of editions of this book.
For a reason.

It was bound to happen eventually: my favorite, most trusted, most reliable author has disappointed me. And not just with a book I found mediocre -- a book that made me so annoyed, so frustrated I nearly threw the book across the room. The culprit? Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel, two short novels published in one volume by one of very favorite authors of all time, Anthony Trollope. Harrumph.

This wasn't even my top choice of Trollope novels to read, but I chose them simply because they were short, and because they're the only two of Trollope's works not set in England. Nina Balatka is set in Prague (which I was lucky enough to visit last year); and Linda Tressel is set just down the road (well, 3 1/2 hours) in Nuremberg.

So. Nina Balatka is the story of a young woman in Prague who is in love (gasp!) with a Jewish man, to the horror of her family. Her mother has long since died and her aged father has fallen on hard times, and signed over the ownership of his house to the Trendellsohns, the family of his former business partner. Nina's father is ill so she has been dealing with the Trendellsohns, particularly the son, Anton. One thing has led to another and they fall in love, to the displeasure of both families. Nina's cousin Ziska Zamenoy is in love with her, and his mother is dead set against her marrying a Jew. She vows to do everything within her power to split them up, planting seeds of doubt in the minds of the two lovers. The big issue is that Anton never actually received the deed to the Balatka house, which is rightfully his.

This was not Trollope's best work. I thought the dialogue and writing seemed rather stilted, quite unlike Trollope's easy style, and the plot seemed to go over and over the same points repeatedly -- interfaith marriages are hard! Relatives are manipulative! It was like Trollope was beating a literary horse to death; also, there was one character in particular who was so saintly as to be unrealistic. It took me nearly a month to read this 200 page novella because it really wasn't that interesting -- I actually started it at the end of April and it just didn't grab me.

On the other hand, I zipped through Linda Tressel in just over 24 hours.  Right away, this novella held my interest -- the writing was much better and faster-paced. Aha, I thought, now this is the Trollope I know and love. Young Linda Tressel, about 20, was orphaned at a young age and is under the care of her aunt, her mother's sister. They live together in Nuremberg, Germany, in the house left to Linda by her father. To make ends meet they have a lodger, the 50-something Peter Stenimarc, who works for the burgermeisters. Linda's Aunt Charlotte is very religious, a strict Calvinist who basically has sucked all the enjoyment out of Linda's life. She's not allowed to have any friends, dance, read novels, and heaven forbid she should have a suitor or make any kind of decision for herself. 

Aunt Charlotte has decided that Linda needs a stabilizing influence and that she should marry Mr. Stenimarc, who is old enough to be Linda's father. Mr. Stenimarc is flattered by the suggestion and begins to think that young Linda would be lucky to have him. He's very interested in controlling pretty young Linda -- and her property! He and her aunt decide They Know Best and pressure Linda to accept his hand in marriage, even though she's horrified. 

Meanwhile, there's a young man named Ludovic, a distant cousin of Peter's, who is also in love with Linda, but it turns out he may be disreputable -- or is this just what Charlotte and Peter say to keep him away from Linda? It seems like Linda has only a faithful servant to turn to, and there were some pretty surprising developments. The plot in this novel moved along much quicker than Nina Balatka, but I kept wanting to shout at her to grow a spine and tell Aunt Charlotte where to shove it (it's very hard for me as a 21st-century feminist to see people try to control women's decisions, even when they are fictional). Aunt Charlotte was masterful at using guilt to pressure Linda. And then PLOT TWIST [highlight for spoilers] after resisting Charlotte and Peter for months, Linda finally walks out and takes a train and a boat to Cologne to some distant relatives BUT CATCHES COLD ON THE BOAT. AND DIES. THANKS, TROLLOPE!!!!

I was so angry I can't stop thinking about this. It is a terrible thing when one's literary hero falls short. I'm taking it very personally. Anthony, I know you've been dead for 136 years, but seriously, how could you do this to me? I admit, after reading 28 of Trollope's novels (and his autobiography), I've been kind of spoiled because the quality is so high -- there have only been a couple so far that have been just meh -- all but one of them (Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite) have had at least parts that I really enjoyed. I did mostly like Linda Tressel but the ending made me so mad, I don't know if I want to read any more Trollope for a while.

Trollope, you hurt my soul.

Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas by Edith Wharton

It's been quite a while since I read anything by Edith Wharton. She's the author of some of my favorite novels, and I've read nearly all of her most popular works. When you get to the little-known works of a famous author, it's always something of a crapshoot -- are they less popular because they're simply overshadowed? Or is it because they're just not that good? My last two books by Wharton were The Glimpses of the Moon, which I loved, and Twilight Sleep, which was just okay. 

Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas includes four of Wharton's shorter works from various times in her career. I actually read these out of order, mostly because they were also available on iBooks and I read them in bits and pieces, mostly on my phone. It's kind of hard to review them all in one post, but I'll give it a go. 

Bunner Sisters is probably the most well-known of the novellas. Written in 1892 but unpublished until 1916, it's one of her few works not about upper-crust New York society. Spinster sisters Ann Eliza and Evelina are existing in near-poverty, working and living in a tiny shop where they make and sell hats, bonnets, and trimmings. Ann Eliza splurges and buys Evelina a clock for her birthday, and the two sisters both fall in love with the local clockmaker, the meek Mr. Herbert Ramy. What seems like a way out of poverty for at least one of them ends badly, of course. If you've ever read anything by Wharton you'll know her books rarely have happy endings. 

In Sanctuary, Kate Orme seems to have it all -- youth, beauty, position, and she's engaged to marry eligible bachelor Denis Peyton, who recently inherited a pot of money from his scandalous stepbrother. However, Kate learns the terrible secret behind the inheritance, and struggles to decide if she should marry someone with such a lack of character -- and if she does, will her children inherit their father's morals, or whether she her influence will be enough. This one was my least favorite. 

This cover is sort of creepy and really has nothing to do with the story.

The Touchstone is another story about a moral crisis. In this case, Stephen Glennard, a young lawyer, is in love but struggling financially. He wants to marry, but doesn't have enough to support a wife, and to keep the woman he loves from moving abroad with a rich relative, he struggles with a decision to publish some very personal letters written to him by a very popular writer who has since died. It seems like the right thing to do, but eventually he has a crisis of conscience.

Madame de Treymes is actually the shortest of the four, only about 80 pages, but I ended up reading it last. While in Paris, a wealthy American, John Durham, has reconnected with an old acquaintance, the former Fanny Frisbee, who had married a French nobleman but is now separated from him. Durham wants her to divorce her ne'er-do-well husband and marry him, but Fanny is certain his family would never permit the scandal of a divorce. Durham appeals to her sister-in-law, the eponymous Madame de Treymes, and doesn't know whether he can trust her to assist them in persuading the family to allow the divorce.

Overall, I enjoyed the novellas, but I'd forgotten that Wharton can be kind of wordy and very introspective, and her plots tend to move rather slowly. All the novellas have themes about decisions and moral crises, though Bunner Sisters seems rather the odd book out simply based on the class and financial circumstances of the subjects.

I still have three more books by Wharton unread on my shelves -- The Children, Hudson River Bracketed, and The Fruit of the Tree. I was thinking about reading one of them for the Back to the Classics Challenge. Bloggers, have you read any of them? Which do you recommend?

This is my fourth book for the TBR Pile Challenge 2018. Eight left to go!

Orient Express by Graham Greene: More Murders But Fewer Mustaches Than Agatha Christie

Over the past weekend we took a mini-break to Paris, which is in theory only three hours away by high-speed train. Unfortunately a technical problem cause our train to stop a mere 10 kilometers away from the station. After much radioing and banging and conductors walking back and forth, a backup train had to come out and literally drag our train into the station, causing our arrival to delay by nearly four hours -- at three a.m. instead of the more reasonable 11 p.m. !! Seriously, I probably could have walked to the station in the time it took. Not fun.

It was especially ironic since my choice of reading material for the trip was Graham Greene's novella Orient Express. I'd chosen it because I thought it would be fun to read a book set on a train while actually riding a train. Not so funny at the time, however. Ultimately, we did have a good trip and I did enjoy the book. (I'll post photos from the mini-break later this week).

Set between the wars, Orient Express is of course about a group of disparate characters who get to know one another while on the three-day journey from Ostend, Belgium to Istanbul; ultimately, the trip changes the lives of all of them, for good and for bad. The major characters include Coral Musker, an English chorus girl; Carleton Myatt, a wealthy Jewish businessman; Dr. Richard John, a British doctor with a mysterious past; an aggressive journalist named Mabel Warren with her companion Janet Pardoe; and a German robber named Josef Grundlich.

Greene does an excellent job of showing just how a small incident can connect these people and how this will change the direction of their entire lives. Coral, the chorus girl, falls ill and Myatt gallantly offers her his first-class sleeper cabin, and he asks Dr. John to assist her. The journalist Mabel Warren had come to see Janet off for a holiday, but recognizes Dr. John, and boards the train at the last minute, hoping for a scoop that will become the story of a lifetime. Greene weaves all the characters together with a plot that doesn't seem at all contrived or forced, and the writing is really wonderful. He's really good at describing scenes and character's inner thoughts without the writing getting too flowery.

I also found it very interesting that Greene tackled anti-Semitism in a time when it was so prevalent. He also touches on Communism, revolution, and is pretty open about a lesbian relationship between Mabel Warren and Janet Pardoe, which I found surprising considering it was published in the 1930s. Of course the book shifts the focus between the characters, but I much preferred the relationships between the people over the a subplot about political drama, but then political thrillers have never really been my genre. Also, I wish it had been longer, as it got even more interesting at the end and I would have liked to learn more about what happened to everyone.

I'd always wanted to read this because I love Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, my favorite mystery of all time. If you are interested in this book because the title is nearly the same as Christie's, you may be disappointed. Both books are written and set in the 1930s, and both take place on the Orient Express with disparate characters thrown together -- that's to be expected in a story set on a train -- but that's the end of the similarity. There are two murders, but they both take place off the train, and there's no mystery about them, and certainly no detective like Hercule Poirot. This could even go so far as to be called a crime classic (I did think briefly about using this for the crime classic category in the Back to the Classics Challenge, but I still want to use one of my British Library Crime Classics for that one). Also, Greene's novel begins in Ostend, Belgium, and travels east to Istanbul; Christie's novel starts in Istanbul and travels to Calais, France. Greene's novel was originally titled Stamboul Train and there is a very interesting explanation about the similar names here.

I'm counting this as my Classic Journey Narrative for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

Mrs. Oliphant Is Just Getting Started With The Rector and The Doctor's Family

Snapped this stairwell mural discreetly. Shhhh.

Last year I went to Detroit for Spring Break to visit family (not nearly as exciting as Italy, it's true.) One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to John King Books, a former glove factory which is now a treasure-trove of used books on multiple levels. It's dim and dirty and you're not supposed to take photos. Don't tell.

I did, however, come home with a large stack of books, including some classic green Viragos:

The skinny little one in the middle is The Rector and The Doctor's Family by Margaret Oliphant, the Victorian writer who created the Chronicles of Carlingford. She's not much read nowadays but wrote about 120 books and was a best-selling author. A couple of years ago I read and loved Miss Marjoribanks which was described as very Jane Austen-ish, so when I saw this green Virago I bought it. 

Anyway, The Rector and The Doctor's Family are second and third  in the Chronicles of Carlingford, and they're so short that the combined edition is only 192 pages. I tucked it into my bag on a recent weekend trip because it was so small I could carry it around town without any trouble.

Originally published in 1863, the first novella, The Rector, is only 40 pages long, and it's really closer to a short story. It starts out with a young curate, Mr. Wentworth, visiting two sisters named Wodehouse -- a nod to Jane Austen, perhaps? There's a new rector in town, the middle-aged Reverend Morley Proctor, and naturally, conversation turns to whether he is a single or married man. The two miss Wodehouses are single, and the elder remarks that perhaps Reverend Proctor will someday marry her younger sister Lucy! Now, I'm not sure if she meant that Rev. Proctor is intended as the groom, or that he'd officiate at the ceremony, but young Lucy is about 18 and quite taken aback (as is Mr. Wentworth, who clearly has feelings for her). The elder Miss Wodehouse is 20 years Lucy's senior, and naturally there's speculation that she would be an excellent companion to Rev. Proctor. 

Now, I thought this was going to be a sweet story about Rev. Proctor choosing between the two sisters, but it isn't. Soon Rev. Proctor has a career crisis and can't decide if Carlingford is the place for him, and the story ends pretty quickly. I wasn't much impressed except for some very amusing parts with Mrs. Proctor, Morley's elderly mother, who is rather deaf and isn't shy about speaking her mind. I was a little perturbed that they implied how ancient she was when she's only 70, and Miss Wodehouse as rather elderly -- she's not quite 40! 

The second book in the volume, The Doctor's Family, is the far superior story. Dr. Edward Rider, a youngish single man, has started a practice in Carlingford and is tolerating an extended visit from his wastrel older brother Frederick, who seems to do nothing but lay about, read novels, and smoke. There's some implication that Edward had to leave a previous position because of something that Fred did, but it's never really explained. Edward's life seems sort of dull and hopeless until one day two strange women turn up, claiming to be Frederick's wife and sister-in-law, whom he abandoned in Australia -- with three small children! 

As soon as he gets over this surprise, Edwards discovers that Fred's wife Susan is whiny and self-absorbed, but her sister Nettie is forthright and assertive; also, young and pretty. Edward has never met anyone like her and is instantly smitten, but Nettie is only concerned about taking care of her sister's family, especially the children. Edward desperately tries to think of a way that he and Nettie can be happy together without the baggage of his family, but then a disaster occurs. I was really rooting for Nettie and and Edward to get together.

The second novella was far more interesting than the first, and I wasn't quite sure how it would all play out. The turn of events was pretty satisfactory, but Nettie's character seem to change dramatically. It does seem that some of the characters in the Carlingford series seem to repeat (Miss Marjoribanks is mentioned quite a lot, though I don't think she actually has any dialogue) so I'm hoping that if I read more of the series I'll find out a bit more about what happened to them. 

These novellas were entertaining, and the second was definitely an improvement over the first, though neither was nearly as good as Miss Marjoribanks. I do want to read more of the series and fill in the gaps about the Carlingford Characters. 

I'm counting this as my novella for the Victorian Reading Challenge. 

Invisibility Is a Terrible Career Move

I love this cover, it's from a 1949 edition.

I'm not a huge science fiction fan but The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells is so short I thought I'd give it a whirl. I'd actually started it a few years ago and for some reason never read past the first couple of pages, which was a mistake. I recently found a downloadable audiobook from my library, and was amazed that I was absolutely gripped by it -- it reads like a thriller and I couldn't wait to find out how it was going to turn out.

The story starts with a mysterious stranger, covered in a coat, hat, scarves, and goggle-ish sunglasses, who arrives at a boarding house in Surrey, where he takes rooms. The landlady begins to wonder if her new tenant has had some terrible accident or is disfigured because she never sees his face or hands uncovered, and he never eats in front of anyone else. He has mysterious boxes and parcels delivered, and is working on something scientific. She finds him eccentric but ignores it, because he pays well and on time.

Eventually, people become suspicious, especially after a break-in at the local vicarage coincides with the stranger's inability to pay the rent on time. After a confrontation, the locals realize his secret and he's on the run. After some plot twists and turns, he finds refuge with an old schoolmate who coincidentally lives nearby (it's a Victorian story so there has to be at least one amazing coincidence, right?) Wells uses this meeting with the old classmate to give the Invisible Man a chance to explain the back story of how he became invisible, and we finally learn his name. 

Of course things take a turn for the worse and it becomes quite thrilling. Anyone who thinks Victorian novels are boring has clearly never read this book, because it's quite a page-turner. I think H. G. Wells was very clever to start the novel in the thick of the story, so you become intrigued by the mystery of the Invisible Man, and curious about his history. I was also really sympathetic towards the Invisible Man until I learned the back story; then it was all action and I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. I did listen to the entire thing on audio and found myself walking just a little longer so I could find out what happen next. I actually preferred it to the print version because the narrator was so good. (It was the OneClick Digital version narrated by Victoria Morgan, in case any one is wondering).

The first edition -- what a great cover!

I think I've now read all of Wells' most famous science fiction works except The Time Machine (I still haven't read that one because I was terrified by the Morlocks in the 1960 film version which I watched all alone as a child. I am still scarred by it.) This one is by far my favorite -- I found The Island of Doctor Moreau to be creepy and disturbing and War of the Worlds was a little boring in parts. This one was very engaging and I was only slightly bored by the technical explanation of how the Invisible Man actually became invisible, which is rather short and vague anyway. This was so good I may give The Time Machine a try after all. I also want to read Ann Veronica which is one of Wells' social satires. I've also read Kipps a few years ago and really liked it.

I'm counting this as my Book I've Started But Never Finished for the Victorian Reading Challenge.

The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien

Last summer I was lucky enough to visit Paris, which is only a three-hour train ride from our new home in southwest Germany. Of course we had to visit the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore which is on the Seine, just across from the Notre Dame Cathedral. Not only do they have a great selection of books -- all in English -- they also have a tiny collectible bookstore, and tables out front with some used books as well. One of my finds was The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue  by Edna O'Brien, which I chose as my 20th Century Classic selection for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

This book is actually a omnibus of three novellas: The Country Girls (1960); The Girl With Green Eyes (also known as The Lonely Girl) (1962); and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964). The edition I read also includes the epilogue that O'Brien added in 1986. It's the two story of two young women, Caithleen and Barbara, growing up in the early 1960s. The girls are childhood best friends in a small town in western Ireland. Eventually, they move to Dublin and ultimately to London. 

The first two books are narrated by Caithleen, also known as Kate. In the first volume, Kate is a rather poor, bookish girl, sweet, but dominated by her more assertive friend Barbara (also known as Baba). Baba's dad is the local veterinarian so they have a pretty comfortable life, but Kate's father is a heavy drinker and they are struggling to hold on to the family farm which is heavily mortgaged. Kate gets a scholarship to a convent school, and Baba attends as well (though she makes it clear she is NOT on a scholarship). It's mostly the story of their teenage years adjusting to the convent school, girlhood crushes, and friendships. Baba is the more dominant in the relationship and the way she treated Kate sometimes made me really uncomfortable, but ultimately, Baba and Kate are always there for one another. 

In the second volume, The Girl with Green Eyes, the girls have moved to Dublin, and Baba is mostly in the background as Kate is navigating her first real love affair with an older man, to the displeasure of her relatives and all the people back home who decide to get involved. It was appalling to me how these outsiders felt they had a right to interfere. I've never lived in small town but I can't imagine everyone knowing my business. 

The third volume alternates between the third person story of Kate, and Baba's story, told in her own voice. Baba's narration is darkly funny but ultimately, I found this book really sad. As late as the 1960s, women in Ireland (and England) had so few rights, it was infuriating. The book is well-written and the characters really came alive for me, but it was quite depressing. There were a few funny moments but parts are quite heartbreaking.

I'm counting this as my Classic Set in a Place I'd Like to Visit (Ireland) for the Back to the Classics Challenge and also my first book for the European Reading Challenge 2017. 

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

 

I took this one off the shelf at the library the other day because it was my lunch break and -- gasp! -- I'd left my book at home. The horror! But The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford was a) on my Classics Club list and b) short, under 200 pages, so it seemed like a win-win. It's a very short book, and yet I could talk about it for hours. 

Essentially, this is the story of two Edwardian-era couples with extremely dysfunctional marriages.  Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, a British couple, meet an American couple, John and Florence Dodwell, at a German resort, and begin a friendship that lasts for years. The narrator, the hapless John, has no idea that his wife Florence has been carrying on an affair with Edward for years, until both Edward and Florence are both dead. In a rambling narrative, the reader gets the story of the couples' friendship and the subsequent affair, just as though one was sitting down having a series of drinks with John and he was recounting the tragic story in person (possibly on a veranda in the tropics, with an ocean view and some nice cocktails, or seated in deep leather chairs in a gentleman's club.)

What seems a straightforward, though tragic story is eventually revealed to include a lot of twists and turns, with lies and hypocrisy and characters you just want to shake or smack upside the head. The ending left me flabbergasted and full of questions, and I so wish that I had chosen this book to discuss back when I belonged to a face-to-face classic book discussion group a few years ago. 

This book was published 100 years ago, in 1915, and I imagine it was groundbreaking for its time, mostly because of the style of writing -- I wouldn't call it stream-of-consciousness, but it doesn't really follow a linear progression. It digresses and rambles, but it's still really insightful and beautifully written. The Ashburnhams are trapped in a loveless marriage, yet they are loathe to admit it or even consider divorce. The Dodwells are from old moneyed families from the northeastern U.S., but I imagine that's fairly similar in regards to the upright, "stiff upper lip" sort of attitude of most of these characters. 

As I was reading it, I immediately recalled another book that really stuck with me, Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, which I finished just a few weeks ago. I can definitely see how Ford must have influenced Greene -- the two books are almost companion pieces, with Greene's being the flip side, the adulterer instead of the cuckolded husband. The marriages of these characters are both tragic and heartbreaking, but at the same time, I felt like the characters mostly deserved what they got, in the end -- yet another case of fascinating train wrecks. 

Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham

Liza of Lambeth is the first novel published by W. Somerset Maugham, in 1897.  I've been a big fan of Maugham's work ever since I read Of Human Bondage as a freshman in college, so I thought Liza would be a good choice for my Classic Novella selection for the Back to the Classics Challenge. (It also counts towards the Reading England Challenge). 

This is the story of Liza Kemp, a young woman of about eighteen or twenty who lives in Vere Street in Lambeth, a neighborhood of London.  Liza is pretty and spirited, and she doesn't seem very satisfied with her life.  She lives with her widowed mother, who seems to do nothing but drink and complain about her rheumatism, and her boyfriend Tom bores her.  At the beginning of the story, it's a beautiful day in August, and the neighbors are hanging around outside when an organ player wanders down the street.  Spontaneous dancing breaks out as Liza is walking home in a new dress, and she joins in.  The sight of Liza dancing in that new dress catches the eye of a new neighbor, Jim Blakeston, who changes Liza's life forever.  He's married, with a houseful of children, and he's old enough to be her father.  But Jim is so different than her boyfriend, Liza starts a relationship with him that sends her on a downward spiral.  

It's quite short, only 137 pages, and one could easily read it in a day or possibly even a single sitting, but I had to put it down a few times because I did find the story quite depressing. It's quite obvious to the reader that this isn't going to end well, and it doesn't.  Maugham was working as a doctor in working-class London at the time he wrote the book, and it struck me that he must have seen many girls  like Liza. 

It was a little difficult to read because all the characters speak in a dialect which I can only assume was Cockney. (Please feel free to correct me in the comments I'm incorrect.) Though the story is well written, and the characters are well developed, I can't say I really recommend it because I found it so sad.  I did appreciate it as fan of Maugham, but I can't say I'd ever want to read it again.  I've read The Painted Veil and Up at the Villa several times but Liza of Lambeth won't be on my list of favorites. 

The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck

I hadn't read anything by John Steinbeck in ages -- looking back, it's been nearly two years since I finished East of Eden.  I mostly love Steinbeck, but I think his work is a little uneven -- I tend to love the longer works but the shorter works are hit or miss.  I loved Travels with Charley and Cannery Row, but I never felt the love for Of Mice and Men.  The Pearl was just so tragic, and I couldn't even get through The Red Pony.  

Recently I'd just finished Kim, which took me a really long time for such a short book.  I wanted a short classic to cross off my list, and something totally opposite from Kipling -- Steinbeck was just the thing, and I could count it as my Classic about War for the Back to the Classics Challenge.  The Moon is Down is extremely short, just over 100 pages.  I probably could have read the whole thing in one sitting.

Published in 1942, this novella is the story of an anonymous town that's suddenly overrun by an invading army.  The names are vaguely American but the setting seems Scandinavian -- it's an coastal town with a coal mine, and it's terribly cold and snowy.  The invaders, who are obviously Nazis but are never specified as such, 

The cast of characters is small -- a few officers from the invading army; the Mayor; the town's doctor; and a few townspeople.  Basically, this is a fable about how an invading army assumed it would be easy to take over a town by surprise, with little opposition, and how they underestimated the will of the people.  Steinbeck wrote this novella during WWII, as a piece of propaganda to encourage resistance against the Nazis.  It was quickly translated into a multitude of languages, and almost as quickly banned by the Nazis.   

I found this story particularly interesting because it was written and published while the war was still going on -- I think the perspective must be quite different than writing a book in hindsight, when the author knows the outcome of the war.  

I liked the story, though it's short and there isn't a huge amount of characters or character development.  Parts of the book are a little preachy.  I found the introduction (which I always read after I've finished a book) especially interesting, as it gave a lot of historical perspective about how the book was received and reviewed.   Apparently, there was a lot of backlash against Steinbeck because he made the invading characters somewhat sympathetic -- at least, not completely evil.  They were believable as people who could have had some good characteristics, although they were on the wrong side.  

The introduction also gave a lot of insight as to how this book was received in other countries -- although it was blasted by Americans, it was very well received by Norway and many other countries, in Europe and farther abroad as well.  

Overall, a good quick read, though not my favorite Steinbeck.  I still want to read Sweet Thursday, the sequel to Cannery Row, which I loved, so maybe I'll choose that for my American Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Bloggers, what's your favorite book by Steinbeck?  And how is everyone coming along with the Back to the Classics Challenge?  This takes me up to 7/11 -- I'm more than halfway done!

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

Recently I made the mistake of reading three really long books at the same time (well, technically, two very long books, and a very long audiobook).  I'm currently in the midst of an audio version of Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser (17 discs); Few Eggs and No Oranges: the Diaries of Vere Hodgson, 1940 -1945 (590 pp) and I just finished Miss Marjoribanks, which clocked in at 512 pages.  The WWII diaries are good, but hard to read -- I'm only midway through 1941 and pretty much every entry is about surviving the Blitz one more night.

Needless to say, I wanted a short read for my next pick.  Originally, I thought I'd use The Return of the Soldier to fulfill the Classic Novel About War category in the Back to the Classics Challenge.  However, I'm not really sure if it's a book about war after all.  

Here's the setup:  in the midst of The Great War, the narrator, Jenny Baldry, is living with her wealthy cousin's wife, Kitty, while he is off fighting. They haven't heard anything from Kitty's husband, Captain Chris Baldry, for some time.  Out of the blue, a strange woman arrives and says that she has news about Chris.  She's rather frumpy, middle-aged, and lower-class, and Kitty is suspicious.  It turns out that Chris has had a concussion, and has lost all memory of the last fifteen years, and this woman, Margaret Allingham, is the long-lost love of his youth.  Having no memory of Kitty whatsoever, Chris has managed to contact Margaret.

What follows is the struggle of love triangle, and between Chris's distant past and the traumatic memories of the war, and a far more recent tragedy.  Margaret tells Jenny the story of her ill-fated romance with Chris, and Jenny is torn between wanting Chris to regain his memories and her reluctance to cause him any more pain. 

I suppose this is a book about war because if it weren't for the concussion, Chris wouldn't have lost his memories, but the story only mentions the WWI peripherally.  I really think the book is more about the struggle between classes and the inevitable changes that are about to take place in the social structure of England.  It's also about lost loves and memories.

The book also takes on a different perspective if the reader knows anything about Rebecca West, who was the mistress of H. G. Wells for ten years, and had an illegitimate child by him.  He never divorced his second wife for her, and had affairs with a lot of other women as well.  The Return of the Soldier was published in 1918 before the end of the war, just a few years after the birth of her son, so I'm sure the book reflects a lot of her own life.  

This was a really good, quick read, though not exactly uplifting.  It gave me a lot to think about for such a short novel, just about 150 pages.  And Rebecca West was an absolutely beautiful writer -- I could turn to almost any page and find a beautiful passage to use as an example for a quote.  I opened a page at random and here's one from p. 67:

Before I started I went to the pond on the hill's edge.  It is a place where autumn lives half the year, for even when the spring lights tongues of green fire in the undergrowth and the valley shows sunlit between the tree trunks, here the pond is fringed with yellow bracken and tinged bramble, and the water flows amber over last winter's leaves.

The whole book is full of passages like that -- just beautiful.  So I've decided not to count this as my Book about War selection -- instead I'm going to count it for my 20th Century Classic.  Anyway, it's a really great read if you're looking for a short classic.

The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow by Margaret Oliphant

Well, we got the results of our Classics Spin two weeks ago, and my selection is  #14, The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow by Margaret Oliphant!  Yes, the only Persephone on the list, and the third one I've read in two months.

This was a little different than most Persephones, because first of all, it's a Victorian, written in 1890, and secondly, because it's actually two novellas published together, each about 100 pages.  (Persephone also published The Making of a Marchioness together with its sequel, but these two books stand alone, though they have related themes.)

First, a bit about Mrs. Blencarrow.  Frankly, I can't say too much, because I'd basically give away the entire mystery -- though once the plot is set in motion, the answer is pretty obvious.  Bascially, this is the story of a wealthy youngish widow, Mrs. Blencarrow, who lives on an estate with her children.  She's got several children, and the oldest is nearly of age, so she can't be older than her late thirties.  Mrs. B. is very self-possessed and well-respected, but in the first chapter, someone mentions that there is "something curious in Mrs. Blencarrow's eyes. . . . She looks you too full in the face with them, as if she were defying you to find out anything wrong about her."  Well, heaven forbid -- she must be up to something!

What's interesting is how everyone reacts to their suspicions.  Nasty rumors fly about, her brothers come rushing in to confront her -- it's very Victorian and overly dramatic to the 21st century reader.  Mrs. Oliphant was obviously trying to make a point, and ultimately, it's poignant and sad.

The beautiful endpapers from The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow
(Persephone edition)

The second novella in the volume is Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond.  Published in 1886, this is also a story about a strong female character, a married woman named Mrs. Lycett-Landon, the wife of a wealthy Liverpool businessman, again with a houseful of children.  Mr. Lycett-Landon is forever traveling back and forth between London and Liverpool, and though the family appears quite happy from the outside, they're always a little happier when Mr. LL is away on business.  Gradually he spends less and less time in Liverpool and hints are dropped, and his wife decides to do a little digging, with some shocking (to her) results.

Again, not so much a mystery to modern readers -- I could guess the plot twist almost immediately -- but maybe it was for Victorian readers.  I preferred the second story.  I also appreciated that the publishers included an afterward instead of a forward -- I hate it when publishes spoil the plot, I rarely read introductions until after I've finished the story.

Anyway, the afterward includes some background and insights into the novellas and the author.  Mrs. Oliphant was a Scottish widow, a woman with very little education who became a prolific writer during the Victorian era.  She began publishing novels when she was 21, and her finished works totaled more than 100, which is astonishing for a woman writer in that era.  At the time, she was as well known as Dickens, Trollope, and Eliot, though few of her works are still in print.  Besides this one, I think the only other one currently in print is Miss Marjoribanks, which is still on my to-read shelf.  It's quite long but now I'm inspired to read it and will hopefully get to it by the end of the year.

This also counts as my 19th Century Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2013. 

The Diary of a Pilgrimage by Jerome K. Jerome

Before I started reading Victorians, I thought they were all so long, and so serious, and had so many words. . . . and a lot of them do.  But I was really surprised to people had a sense of humor back then. If you haven't read Jerome K. Jerome, he's hilarious -- his most famous work, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) is one of my all time favorites.  If you haven't read it, it's the story of J., a slightly dimwitted Victorian man known as J.,  who takes a boat trip down the Thames, with two equally clueless friends and a hyperactive fox terrier, Montmorency.  (I've often compared it to Jeeves and Wooster -- if Bertie went on a trip and took a dog along instead of Jeeves.  Hilarity ensues). 

I'd never seen anything else written by JKJ, other than the sequel, Three Men on the Bummel, in which the friends reunite and take a bicycle trip through Germany, though I still haven't read it.  However, I was poking around Half-Price Books a couple of years ago and found a Nonsuch classics copy of Diary of a Pilgrimage, which I'd never heard of.  It was by Jerome K. Jerome and it was only $4, so I couldn't resist.  (It then sat on the shelf with all those other books I HAD to buy, then promptly forgot.)  The Victorian Celebration was the perfect time to re-visit Jerome.  

The setup is very similar to the other books -- basically, a travelogue is the excuse to make witty observations about life and travelers thrown in different situations, with some witty asides.  In this story, the narrator and his friend "B" take a trip to Oberammergau, Germany, to see the Passion Play, a traditional seven hour play about the life of Christ, which the locals have put on every ten years since 1634, during the height of the bubonic plague. 

Though the Passion Play is the purpose of the journey, it's mostly just an excuse for Jerome to make funny comments about travel and tourism, and life in general.  For example, after he's invited on the trip, the narrator considers the invitation:

I pondered for a moment, looked at my diary, and saw that Aunt Emma was coming to spend Saturday to Wednesday next with us, calculated that if I went I should miss her, and might not see her again for years, and decided that I would go.

Jerome also pokes fun at tourists, packing, railway journeys and saving seats, maps that are out of date, and things of that nature.  I was delighted to discover that Jerome's journey from London to Bavaria was nearly identical to the route that I took many years ago with my sister -- we were poor students and took the Trans-Alpino from London to Berlin, an overnight journey of 22 hours which I will never forget.  We took a night train from London to Dover, changed to a ferry, and then we went to Ostend, Belgium -- just like Jerome.  In the middle of the night we switched to a train which took us to Cologne (Jerome talks about the famous cathedral towers, which we sadly missed).  Jerome's journey was about 100 years before mine, so the trains were slower and his trip lasted several days; he and B. stop several times to do sightseeing and stay overnight in inns, unlike my sister and me.  Still, it was fun to read about someone in a book take nearly the same route as us.

This book is short, less than 200 pages, and my edition was a cute little paperback, only about five by seven inches; plus it had illustrations so it's a very quick read.  It's broken up into short chapters so it's easy to pick up and read a bit when you have time.  It's a really nice antidote to some of the heavier (and longer) Victorian on my to-read list.  If you're looking for a short Victorian, it's just the thing.