1956 Club: French Leave By P. G. Wodehouse

 

I've been reading a lot of P. G. Wodehouse lately and it occurred to me that it was very likely that he had published a book in 1956 that I could read for Simon and Kaggsy's 1956 Club! I depend on Wodehouse to cheer me up whenever I need a light read, and once again he came through with French Leave, a slight and amusing novel. 

This one digresses from the normal Wodehouse setting of London or the English countryside -- it's mostly set along the French coast, in fictional resort towns of Picardy and Brittany. The characters are primarily American and French and I don't think there's even a single English character which is very unusual for Wodehouse. 

But here's the setup. The book starts in America, on Long Island. The three Trent sisters, Kate, Jo and Teresa (known as Terry), are trying to make a go of a farm, selling eggs, milk, and honey, and having a pretty hard time of it. Conveniently, they have a windfall of $2000 each, and the two younger sisters, Jo and Terry, decide to risk it all on a trip to France, in search of millionaire husbands. Eldest sister Kate is aghast and is determined to go along as a chaperone. Jo and Terry will each pose as a wealthy American, with her sister playing her maid, for a month each. Jo goes first in Picardy but is unsuccessful and returns home; Terry continues to try her luck in St. Rocque.

Terry does meet up with some genuine millionaires, but she also meets the slightly shady and very broke Nicolas Jules St. Xavier Auguste, the Marquis de Maufringneuse et Valerie Mauberanne, also known as Old Nick. Old Nick is an impoverished French nobleman who prefers living off wealthy wives (he's had at least three), questionable business deals, and his son Jefferson, from his first marriage to a wealthy American. Jeff mostly lived with his mother in America but fought with the maquis, the French resistance, and has a dashing scar on his face to show for it. He's now a struggling writer who refuses to marry for money but is willing to help his father out of a tight spot. In return, Old Nick decides to set up his son with the delightful Terry Trent, whom he believes is loaded with American cash. 

Unfortunately this plot also includes spending time on a yacht with some other wealthy Americans, including Old Nick's second ex-wife Hermione Pegler, who believes that Terry is an adventuress (technically, she is) who will mess up her plans to marry off her niece Mavis. Mrs. Pegler wants to pair Mavis, a fizzy-water heiress, with Freddie Carpenter, another fizzy water millionaire (Mrs. Pegler owns considerable stock in both water companies, and hopes that a marriage between the two would be of financial and personal benefit). She thinks that Terry is after Fred's money, but Terry and Jeff are instantly smitten. The fact that neither of them has any money and assume the other one does leads to misunderstandings, tears, and a lot of physical comedic moments. This being a Wodehouse novel, everything comes right in the end. I can absolutely imagine adapted as a classic screwball comedy from the early 1950s. I recently watched Some Like it Hot and there are some elements that are similar -- wealthy Americans on yachts, husband-hunting, and characters climbing out of hotel windows.)

Not French, it's the historic Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego, California. It was the filming location for Some Like It Hot (which is actually set in Florida). 

I enjoyed French Leave, though it isn't a classic Wodehouse -- I think I've read 17 books by him so far, and I wouldn't count it among his best. There are some characters that seem superfluous, and some definite loose ends that are never resolved. However, it's a fun, short novel, and can easily be finished a day or maybe even one sitting (it would be perfect for a vacation read) -- preferably in a resort town on the coast of France. 

Thanks again to Simon and Kaggsy for hosting this event, can't wait to do it again next time! 

Alexander's Bridge: For the Hard-Core Willa Cather Fan

Last year I waited until the bitter end to complete my own reading challenge, and I am determined that I'll read way ahead this year for the Back to the Classics Challenge. I have thrown myself headfirst into my TBR piles this year and have already completed three books for the two challenges for which I've signed up (BTCC and the TBR Pile Challenge). 

Published in 1912, Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather is her first novel, and the last of hers for me to complete (except for the short stories). It is the story of Bartley Alexander, a successful American engineer, famous for creating unbuildable bridges. The story begins in Boston, where an old schoolmate Lucius Wilson has come to visit. Wilson meets Alexander's beautiful and gracious wife Winifred, and learns all about Alexander's success and how they met while he was building a famous bridge in Canada, his first big break. 

Soon after, Alexander travels to London for work, where he is reunited with an old flame, an Irish actress named Hilda Burgoyne. They had been madly in love years ago, but Alexander broke things off when he met and married Winifred. Hilda has now become very successful and she and Alexander keep meeting. One thing leads to another and soon they're having an affair which lasts off and on for several years, as Alexander travels back and forth between London and America, working on various jobs. The bridges that he builds are a metaphor for his struggles to connect his two lives. He loves both women and can't bear the thought of living without either of them. 

The book started out a little slowly but picked up when Alexander went to London and met up with Hilda. I think I appreciated it more because I've been to London a few times since moving overseas, and have been able to go to some of the theaters in the West End, so I could really picture that part of the story. The plot is very simple, but I didn't find the characters as compelling as in some of her later novels like Lucy Gayheart which I read last year. (Of course it's Cather's first novel and so it's not surprising.) I did find some of the writing beautiful and insightful. 

This was a very quick read -- I literally read this entire book in one sitting on an airplane (and it was a fairly short flight). It's not my favorite by Willa Cather but if you're a fan of her work, it's worth reading. 

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

A Pair of Blue Eyes is On the Verge of Victorian Sensation

I hadn't planned on reading two books by Thomas Hardy back-to-back, but Under the Greenwood Tree was so short that I felt like I hadn't given Hardy enough attention. (Also, my San Antonio library card is expiring soon, and the Air Force Library didn't have it on audio). A Pair of Blue Eyes is another of Hardy's lesser-known early works, but it was much better than I expected and I think I liked it nearly as much as Far From the Madding Crowd, which is my favorite Hardy book so far. It's got plenty of drama and pastoral scenes, and a really interesting premise. 

So. This is the story of young Elfride Swancourt, daughter of a widowed vicar in Wessex. When the story begins, she is awaiting the visit of an architect who is coming from London to make some drawings and plans for renovating her father's parish, where they have lived for a year or so. Unfortunately her father has had an attack of gout and is confined to his room, so Elfride will have to act as hostess to this dull man. Little does she know!

It turns out that this architect (assistant, really) is Stephen Smith, and he is young and handsome, and nearly the same age as she -- about twenty. Sparks fly, her father takes to Stephen, who is intelligent and well-spoken, and Stephen extends his visit as long as possible. Reverend Swancourt invites him to come back for a longer visit when he gets his holidays. Sounds great, right? But of course not, the path of true love never did run smoothly. It turns out Stephen is unworthy of Elfride, and after a secret engagement, he goes off to India to seek his fortune so he can make a proper offer. 

Meanwhile, Reverend Swancourt decides he needs to get Elfride married off as soon as possible, and produces a wealthy stepmother to help guide her along the way. After some time in London, the new Mrs. Swancourt (who is not the evil stepmother I was expecting) invites her cousin Henry Knight for a visit. Henry is a clever yet somewhat pedantic writer -- who happens to be Stephen's former tutor and mentor. (Where would Victorian literature be without these amazing coincidences?) Naturally, Henry becomes enamored of the beautiful Elfride, and she's challenged by his intellect. Of course, she begins to forget about Stephen, who is already en route from India. Thus the love triangle ensues. There is plenty of drama, and descriptions of walks in the woods, and a narrow escape from death on a cliff which I still can't picture exactly in my head. (Apparently this scene may be the origin of the literary term "cliffhanger.")

I really enjoyed this book but I definitely had some issues with some of the characters, especially Henry Knight, whom I would have loved throttling. Some of the symbolism was kind of heavy-handed and there was definitely a lot of foreshadowing, and a plot twist at the end that I saw coming from a mile away. 

Also, there's a lot of Victorian attitudes about women in this book that made me roll my eyes so hard I was afraid they'd fall out of my head -- hopefully that was Hardy's point. I don't want to give away too much but there were some parallels with this novel and Trollope's Linda Tressel -- but I liked this one much more, probably because there was a lot more character development and I guess I kind of expected the melodramatic ending from Hardy more than Trollope. I might even classify A Pair of Blue Eyes as a Victorian sensation novel -- it was published in 1873, only two years after Desperate Remedies, which apparently falls in the sensation category so I'd really like to read it also. 

I've never read any Victorian authors' works in order of publication, but I think that would be really interesting to see the progression -- I can see how A Pair of Blue Eyes is more complex and dramatic than Under the Greenwood Tree but it's not nearly as tragic as The Return of the Native or Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I still haven't read Jude the Obscure but I've definitely gained a new appreciation for Hardy -- I might even reread Tess and actually like it this time around.

I really did enjoy this book, which I've owned for more than ten years, and I'm looking forward to reading more Hardy. Which should I read next -- one of the early novels, like Desperate Remedies? Or should I skip to the end and tackle Jude the Obscure?

Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy

According to my Goodreads account, I joined on March 3, 2008, and started making a list of books (mostly classics) that I wanted to read. Some of those book are still on my TBR shelves and have been haunting me for more than ten years. Two of them are less-famous works by Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree and A Pair of Blue Eyes -- which I recently discovered were available on audiobook download from the library. After ten years, I was finally inspired to take a crack at Under the Greenwood Tree, which sounded like just thing to listen to while walking the dog in my pastoral neighborhood.

Hill near my house.

Some of the neighbors.

The book begins with a group of local musicians in the rural village of Mellstock. They're out making the rounds on Christmas Day, as one does. There are fiddlers and singers from the choir, and as they're out and about, one of the members named Dick Dewy sees the young schoolmistress and is instantly smitten. Fancy Day (her real name) is beautiful and educated, and the local vicar is planning on replacing the traditional choir with Miss Day as the new organist. The vicar is also very attracted to Fancy, as is Frederic Shiner, a local farmer. It seems like the odds are against Dick and Fancy's match, especially because Fancy herself is rather flirtatious with other men, and seems to take Dick's love for granted.

This is Hardy's second published novel, and though I enjoyed it, there's not that much to it. The writing was good (despite my dislike of dialect) but the plot isn't terribly complex and I didn't think the characters were particularly well-developed -- it almost felt like this could have been part of a longer novel with more back story or plot complications. This book had some good points but I really expected more drama given the circumstances. It's a very quick read, under 200 pages, and it wouldn't be a bad place to start with Thomas Hardy if you're a little intimidated by Tess of the D'Urbervilles or Jude the Obscure.

I still have Jude on the TBR shelves and I've just started A Pair of Blue Eyes so I plan on making lots of progress with my Hardy reading list. I'm also intrigued by Desperate Remedies which is apparently more of a Victorian Sensation novel, which sounds like fun. 

Anyone else read Under the Greenwood Tree? How do you think it compares to other books by Hardy? 

Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather is Beautiful and Tragic

After making up my list for the TBR Pile Challenge, I realized that quite a few of my selections were in the 500+ pages range. I was planning to read Testament of Youth in March for Women's History Month, but I'd just finished Wives and Daughters and was rather hesitant to start another 700 page behemoth right away. The answer was of course a nice short book -- Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather. 

One of her later works, it's set at the turn of the century but actually written in 1935, and is her penultimate book. The story begins in the small town of Haverford, Nebraska, somewhere west of Lincoln. Young Lucy Gayheart is home for the holidays. She's 18 and is a talented pianist, and has been working in Chicago. The story begins as she's out skating with Harry Gordon, the most eligible young man in town. He fancies himself in love with Lucy, and plans on marrying her and making her his most prized possession, but unbeknown to him, Lucy has dreams and aspirations that don't include spending the rest of her life in a small town.

The moment she shut the door on the baggage man, she seemed to find herself again. Out there in Haverford she had scarcely been herself at all; she had been trying to feel and behave like someone else she no longer was; as children go on playing the old games to please their elders, after they have ceased to be children at heart.

After the holidays, Lucy returns to Chicago, where she teaches piano and finds another job as a part-time accompanist to a famous singer named Sebastian Clement. Lucy is dazzled by his talent, and eventually falls in love with him, despite a large age difference, and the fact that he is married. She's unsure if he returns her feelings, but Harry visits her from Nebraska for the Opera season and she's forced to make a decision between a secure future with Harry and her dreams of Sebastian and a musical career. 

There's a major plot twist about halfway through the story, and it appears that Lucy's dreams are shattered. The second half of the novella deals with Lucy's attempts to comes to terms with her past decisions, and with her future. 

I had expected this to be similar to her earlier book The Song of the Lark, which is about a young woman from Colorado who also moves to Chicago to study music, but they're actually quite different. It's been several years since I read it, but The Song of the Lark deals much more with a young artist dealing with a developing career and interacting with other people. I think Lucy Gayheart is much more about there personal relationships than about her career -- it's the personal aspects that drive the story, not her career aspirations. I would say they're two different possibilities of how a person's life could change. 

Some people's lives are affected by what happens to their person or their property; but for others fate is what happens to their feelings and their thoughts -- that and nothing more.

I actually enjoyed Lucy Gayheart much more than The Song of the Lark -- it's definitely one of her best works, though I wouldn't have minded if it were longer (I actually thought the final section was a bit rushed and would have liked to have seen a little more character development among some of the secondary characters). I did love all the descriptions of both Nebraska and Chicago, two places where I've lived and loved. I particularly enjoyed some of the mentions of Chicago -- there's a scene where Lucy and Harry visit the Art Institute, and Cather mentions the famous lions on the front steps, and the French Impressionists (which don't impress Harry much!). Parts of the book also reminded me a little of Ethan Frome, which is one of my all-time favorite books. 

This is my fifth book for the TBR Pile Challenge 2018, and I've now read all of Cather's works except the short stories and Alexander's Bridge, which is her first novel. 

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.

Skylark by Dezso Kostolanyi

I'm a big fan of NYRB Classics -- they are really attractive and I'm always a fan of re-discovered classics. Skylark by Deszo Kostolanyi is one that had been on my to-read list for several years, and I was determined to read it this year because it dovetailed perfectly with the European Reading Challenge. 

Written in 1924 but set just before the turn of the century, Skylark is the story of a family living in a small Austro-Hungarian town called Sarszeg (inspired by Kostolanyi's own hometown of Szabadka, in which is now present-day Serbia). It's a dead-end place where not much happens. The Akos family consists of a husband and wife, Akos and Antonia, and their 35-year old spinster daughter, nicknamed Skylark. Akos is in his late fifties and is retired, spending much of his time researching ancient lineages and family histories. Skylark does most of the cooking and housework, and basically life revolves around her. Life is dull and routine, but one week in late summer 1899, Skylark takes the train to visit family for a week, and Akos and Antonia are left on their own.

This is another one of those book in which not much happens -- and yet, everything happens. Without Skylark, Akos and Antonia do things they haven't done in years. They eat out in restaurants and attend a performance in the theater, which never happens when Skylark is around, since she her cooking is better than any restaurant meal. Akos visits his gentleman's club, drinks, smokes cigars, and plays cards with his cronies -- before, Skylark wouldn't have approved.  Antonia plays the piano, which has barely been touched in years, since Skylark never really took to playing.

This description makes it sound like Skylark is some kind of tyrant, but I don't think she is. Kostolanyi is up-front about the fact that Skylark is a spinster because she's unattractive, which is why she's never married. While she's away from her parents, all three of them face some painful truths about themselves and their relationship, and I really found it rather sad, especially because that was an era when women had so few choices. Skylark is educated and hardworking, and in another time, she could have had a career -- even 15 years later, she could have been a nurse and served during WWI.

The publisher described this book as magical but I just found it really sad.

I'm counting this as my Hungarian read for the European Reading Challenge.

The Conquest of Plassans by Emile Zola

I'm getting near the end of the Back to the Classics Challenge and I'm much farther behind than I planned. The other day I was looking for a good short book and I decided it was time to read something in translation. It had been more than two years since I read anything by Emile Zola so I chose The Conquest of Plassans -- partly because it was short; partly because it was French; and partly because I loved the cover (and I've actually seen the original painting from that edition, The Orange Trees by Gustave Caillebotte. It's at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston).

So. Set in the provincial town of Plassans in Provence, this is the story of Abbe Faujus, a mysterious clergyman who arrives in town with his mother and rents rooms from the Mouret family. Monsieur Francois Mouret is related to the Maquarts, and his wife, Marthe, was a Rougon. There are a lot of gossipy characters with nothing much to do other than speculate about the lives of their neighbors. Somehow Abbe Faujus manages to say very little about himself and yet others start talking to him and spill all kinds of secrets.

Eventually Faujus is able to gain the trust of the townspeople and local church hierarchy. He begins to claw his way to the top politically and socially and gain power over many of the locals, some of whom don't appreciate his influence. In particular, Francois Mouret becomes jealous and suspicious regarding the influence Faujus has over his wife Marthe, who becomes incredibly pious and obsessed with religion. 

Meanwhile, Faujus shady sister Olympe and her ne'er-do-well husband also arrive in town and threaten to expose all kinds of family secrets. They ingratiate themselves in the Mouret household which doesn't bode well. This being a Zola novel, a lot of these characters are basically train wrecks. 

The Conquest of Plassans is the fourth in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle, and the eleventh of the series I've read so far. Normally I tend to read series books in order, but when I started reading Zola about five years ago, some of the earliest books in the series weren't available in good English translations. (Luckily, Oxford World's Classics has been publishing excellent translations, like the one  I read). I'd heard that most of the books are really stand-alone novels that are loosely linked.

I'd already read the second and third novels, which are set in Paris, but this novel is set in Plassans, which is also the setting of the very first novel in the series. There are a lot of references to events from the first book especially in the endnotes. If you don't want any spoilers for the first novel, I would definitely recommend reading it before you read this one -- I was really regretting not having read The Fortunes of the Rougons first, especially since my library in Texas owned a copy. But buying a copy of the first book from Amazon didn't seem practical since the mail takes longer now that I'm overseas.

This book was OK but it won't rank with my favorites in the Rougon-Macquart series. I think some of his later books are really better. This one felt like it was kind of all over the place plot-wise. There's a whole sub-plot about political intrigues that basically went over my head, and I don't know if I just wasn't paying close enough attention, or if I should have done more research about the Second Empire, but either way I found it confusing. In general, I thought the drama centered around the families was the strongest part of the book, but I tend to enjoy stories about domestic life.  I also didn't like the way most of the female characters were portrayed. To be fair, the male characters were also awful, and Zola is a product of his time, but a couple of the women's portrayals were pretty sexist and made me really uncomfortable. 

I think in a way I put off reading this book because my last experience with Zola was not great -- a lot of people love Nana, but I really disliked it and it kind of put me off Zola for a while. I'd read ten of his books and I think I was worried that I'd read all the good ones already and the rest would be disappointing. Maybe there's a reason that some of Zola's novels don't have many good English translations. And in general, is it better to read an author's best work first, or should you save it for last? Bloggers, what do you think? 

I'm counting this as my Classic in Translation for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Determined to knock off a few books from my own TBR shelves, I picked up Journey to the Centre of the Earth the other day. I'd just finished Armadale, after a month-long read, and just couldn't bear committing to another dense Victorian. Specifically, I picked this one up because it had an introduction by the late Diana Wynne Jones -- which is why I probably purchased it in the first place. It's one of the charming Puffin Classics editions packaged for children. (Ithink it was a buy one, get one special at Barnes & Noble.)

So, if you were wondering about the plot, it is exactly as the title states. After finding an ancient code tucked in an old book, Young Axel and his eccentric scientist uncle, Otto Liedenbrock, leave their comfortable home in Hamburg and attempt to explore the center of the world, via a volcano in Iceland. Axel nervously agrees to the crazy scheme, believing there's no way they will actually get that far.

But clearly, they do, and make astonishing discoveries along the way, with the help of an Icelandic guide named Hans. The first quarter of the book are pretty standard let's-go-on-a-trip with all the preparations, sea voyage, and encounters with a different culture. But eventually, they make their descent through an dormant volcano, Sneffels, (better known in Iceland as Snaeffelsjokull).

The actual Snaeffelsjokull in Iceland.

Things get pretty interesting after they descend into the a series of underground caverns, with dangers and discoveries and miraculous escapes (of course). Suffice to say it's all slightly ridiculous to the modern reader, but for its time, it must have been pretty fantastic. I'm not sure how this version compares to others (this one was translated in 1965 by Robert Baldick) but it was a quick, easy read. I do know that a lot of the translations in English made a lot of abridgments -- one audio version actually changes the names of the characters completely! But I mostly liked it, though in retrospect, the characters weren't very practical about planning and packing for the journey, and there's one part that's sort of racist which I found a little annoying. There's also a lot of geology and such that I will admit I mostly skimmed.

A couple of years ago I tried listening to an audiobook of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but I eventually gave up on it -- after awhile I got bored and I remember it just seemed like a lot of lists of undersea flora and fauna. I did get a bit of that in Journey to the Centre of the Earth as well -- I know Verne did a lot of research and I can only guess that he wanted to pack everything in.  I'm afraid I did tend to skim over a lot of the scientific details of this book, especially the parts about calculating depth and suchlike. However, it has inspired me to consider visiting the Natural Bridge Caverns, which are just a short drive away.

Underground lake in Natural Bridge Caverns.

I had originally intended to count this as my Classic Science Fiction choice for the Back to the Classics Challenge, but I don't know that I'd necessarily call it sci-fi -- though one could call it that because of the speculative nature of their discoveries, I'm really more inclined to count it as my Adventure Classic -- really, most of the book is taken up with exploration and discoveries (though if someone else wants to count this as their Science Fiction Classic, that's fine with me).

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 Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

Okay, quick survey. . .  what is the worst cover of a book you've read so far in 2014?

And how does it compare to this one:

Honestly, is this not the CHEESIEST book cover you've ever seen????  (Unless, of course, you are a regular reader of paperback romances, or the illustrator of this cover, in which case I apologize in case I've offended you. )

And my next question is this:  I know that book covers will attract readers to books, but have you ever been so put off by a book's cover that you actually refused to read it?  I ask this, because I bought this book more than six years ago after reading rave reviews by some of my favorite bloggers.  However, I could never bring myself to read it because I was too embarrassed.  Seriously!!

I finally decided I'd give it a try the other day -- I honestly wanted something from my TBR shelves that was short, and that was the complete opposite of Moby-Dick, which I had just finished, after six weeks of listening to the audio in the car.  I had also started reading a Zola novel which just wasn't doing anything for me.   

This is the story of Valancy Stirling, who lives somewhere in Canada with her mother and aunt, and is completely cowed and browbeaten by her entire extended family.  At twenty-nine, she is an old maid, and her family will never forget it.  When I  actually started reading it, I still didn't crack my lousy mass-market paperback -- I read the first chapter or so via the e-book version from Project Gutenberg Australia.  

I was pretty much hooked when I read this paragraph in Chapter I:

Aunt Wellington, of whom Valancy stood in abject awe, would tell her about Olive's new chiffon dress and Cecil's last devoted letter. Valancy would have to look as pleased and interested as if the dress and letter had been hers or else Aunt Wellington would be offended. And Valancy had long ago decided that she would rather offend God than Aunt Wellington, because God might forgive her but Aunt Wellington never would.

Things get very interesting when something absolutely life-changing happens to Valancy.  Without telling her family why, she decides to take matters into her own hands and live her life the way she wants, without giving a fig about what other people think.  This completely shocks her family and most of the population of her small town, and the reactions of her family members are pretty hilarious.  I don't want to give too much away, but this part of the book is full of wry observations and some laugh-out loud moments.

This book was written by L. M. Montgomery, the beloved writer of the Anne of Green Gables series.  I discovered Anne fairly late in life -- I never read it as a child because I somehow got it confused with Pollyanna, and I assumed Anne would be a sickly-sweet goody two-shoes.  I never read Heidi either.  Still haven't.  (If there are any Heidi and Pollyanna fans out there, please tell me if I should reconsider). The Blue Castle is Montgomery's only book meant for adults, and it does remind me a bit of what Anne would have been like as a grown-up, though I can't for a minute imagine her as browbeaten as Valancy is in the beginning of the book -- so, really, Valancy is like Anne after she takes charge of her own life.

Anyway, this book is funny and charming, and there's a nice little love story, though the ending is a bit unrealistic.  But it's a fun fast read, just over 200 pages in most editions.  It's a great summer read if you can get past the horrible cover.  Clearly, the publishers never actually read it, because the couple on the front look nothing like Valancy and the love interest.  I only wish I'd bought a later edition with this cover:

or even this one: 

(Also cheesy, but not nearly as bad as the first one.)

Or even this one:

This one's better, but to be fair, Valancy's mother and aunt would faint dead away before they let her near a window with this much skin showing.  And don't get me started on the makeup -- this book was published in 1926.   

Anyway -- what books repelled you before you even opened the covers?  And has anyone actually read Pollyanna and liked her, or does she make your teeth ache?  

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 Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig

After a recent viewing of The Grand Budapest Hotel (which I LOVED -- who knew Ralph Fiennes was hilarious?) I was searching the internet for background of the movie.  I was delighted to read that director Wes Anderson was inspired by the novels of Stefan Zweig.  I had an unread copy of The Post-Office Girl on my TBR shelves, so it seemed serendipitous, so I put it in my carry-on bag for my recent European vacation (OK, Austria is not the same as Italy, but I just wasn't in the mood for I, Claudius.)

I've not always had good luck with NYRB Classics -- sometimes I love them, and last year, I bought two that I disliked so much, I returned them the same day I bought them.  But The Post-Office Girl is a real keeper.

The story begins with the eponymous post-office girl, Christine, a young twentysomething girl whose youth is being wasted in a tiny Austrian town after the Great War.  She's eking out a pretty miserable existence, caring for her ailing mother and just scraping by, since her father lost his entire business during the war years.  Her dull life takes an exciting turn when, out of the blue, she receives a telegraph transmission at the post office that is actually for her, which has never happened before.  Apparently, she has an aunt who ran off to America years before.  She's now visiting Europe with her wealthy husband, and wants to reconnect with the family.  Christine's mother is too ill, so instead, Christine uses some vacation time to visit her in an Alpine resort town, and her life is changed forever.

At first, this is like an amazing Cinderella story.  Christine blossoms in the mountain air, her aunt buys her clothes and gives her a makeover, and she's swept up in to the hotel society.  But naturally, it's all too good to be true, and after a series of misunderstandings, Christine's aunt drops her and she's plunged back into her dismal everyday world, stunned.  Now that she's experienced a taste of the good life, nothing in her tiny provincial time will ever satisfy her.

In the second portion of the book, Christine tries to change her life, and meets a disillusioned war veteran who is bitter and just as dissatisfied as she is.  Without giving away any more of the story, I'll just say that the story took a turn that I didn't expect at all.  

I loved this book.  Christine and the other characters were so real, and I thought it was a really interesting portrait of life between the wars for regular people.  Most of the inter-war books I've read have been English, and life probably turned out very differently for other Europeans in that time period.

My one complaint about this book is that it ends abruptly -- it seemed so unfinished, like there was a third portion that was missing.  After reading it, I found out that the novel was published posthumously, in 1982.  Stefan Zweig was a very famous writer during the 1920s and 1930s.  During World War II, he was exiled by the Nazis, and eventually settled in Brazil.  Like Christine, he became disillusioned and depressed, and he and his second wife committed suicide in 1942.  I'm not sure if the novel ends that way deliberately.

Anyway, I loved this book and now I'm intrigued and want to read more of the works of Stefan Zweig.  I'm counting this as my Classic by an Author That's New To Me for the Back to the Classics Challenge.   (I was thinking about counting as my Classic in Translation, but I will probably read a Zola novel for that one).

Has anyone else read anything by Stefan Zweig?  Which of his books should I read next?  And who loved The Grand Budapest Hotel as much as I did?

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.