The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

(Edited to remove a possible spoiler)

At last, I have finished; I have completed all six novels of the Barsetshire Chronicles!  It's more than 3,000 pages, more if you count the introductions and endnotes!!  I started back in 2009, but I really hit my stride last year, finishing Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage, and The Small House at Allington.  I started The Last Chronicle of Barset the day after Christmas and read it in bits and pieces for the past month.

If you're a Trollope reader, this is the book that ties up all the loose ends in Barsetshire.  Nearly every major character from the previous five books makes an appearance, from the first book to the last, and some new characters as well.  The reader sees how all the characters fit in together in the world of Barset, especially among the clergy (though I never could remember the difference between the dean, the bishop, and the archbishop.  Oh well).

Basically, the story starts out with a scandal, a mystery that brings all the characters together.  Reverend Crawley, a minor character from Framley Parsonage, has been accused of stealing a check for 20 pounds to pay his butcher's bill.  He refuses to get legal help and is arrested for theft.  Barsetshire is abuzz with the news, and people take sides, many of them jumping to conclusions long before the trial.  (I'm talking about you, Mrs. Proudie!)

This is further complicated by the fact that his eldest daughter Grace is the love interest of Henry Grantly, son of the Archdeacon, and grandson of Mr. Harding, the main character of The Warden.  The archbishop won't hear of his son marrying her while her father is under a cloud of suspicion, causing friction in the family;  meanwhile, we learn the fate of Johnny Eames, and many of the other Barset characters, including Dr. Thorne, Miss Dunstable, and the wicked witch of Barset, Mrs. Proudie.  The only character I really missed was the oily Obadiah Slope of Barchester Towers, who, sadly, makes no appearance.  And a few new characters are thrown in as well, just to thicken the plot.

I really liked this book and the way it tied up all the loose ends of Barsetshire.  However, I did feel sometimes that it was dragging on too long.  It's nearly 900 pages!  Honestly, the story of Josiah Crawley could have been trimmed a bit -- pages and pages are devoted to the fact that he won't come to his own defense and hire a lawyer because he's a little too ethereal to bother himself with everyday problems like paying bills.  I also thought some of the side stories were a little unnecessary.  And I still wanted to strangle Lily Dale. (Highlight if you want to know the answer).

Nevertheless, this is a really satisfying ending to the series.  I'm quite proud to have finished it -- now on to the Pallisers, another six-volume series, this one with a more political angle.  I'm sad to be leaving Barchester but I look forward to reading more Trollope.  I'll probably try and read a couple of the stand-alone novels before I tackle another series of Victorian triple-deckers.

I have another 40 novels by Anthony Trollope to enjoy!!  Any suggestions?  So far, the only one I've read (besides the Barset novels) is The Way We Live Now, which I absolutely loved.  Which of Trollope's stand-alone novels are the best?

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Here is a book that many people hate, and yet, it is one of my favorite books of all time.  Sadly, the people who hate this book were most likely forced to read it in high school.  I often bemoan the fact that I came to love many classics later in life, but I've also come to realize that if I had read this in high school English, it's quite likely I would have hated it as well (probably because the American Authors teacher was a terror; I took World Lit because I'd had that teacher for composition sophomore year and really liked him).  At any rate, I was happy reading Candide and 1984 (though The Mill on the Floss was a BIG mistake on my part) and my friends were suffering through The Scarlet Letter.

Nevertheless, I finally found Edith Wharton about seven years ago.  I read The Age of Innocence while on vacation in the Florida panhandle, but somehow, it didn't do much for me.   I really didn't get how wonderful Edith Wharton was until I read House of Mirth about a year later, which I could hardly put down.  Soon after I read Ethan Frome in a single sitting, and I've loved it ever since.  Since then I've enjoyed more Wharton, a writer who can write both heartbreaking novels, ghost stories, and wry and witty short stories -- if you don't believe me, just Google "Xingu" and try to read it without cracking a smile.

But, back to Ethan Frome.  If you don't know the story, basically, it is about a young man trapped in terrible circumstances.  (If you haven't read Wharton, this is pretty much the theme of her entire oeuvre.)  Told with a framing device, in flashback and conjecture, we learn that when Ethan was in his late 20s, he was trapped in a marriage with an older woman, Zenobia, a shrewish hypochondriac.  To help out, Zeena's distant cousin, Mattie Silver, had come to live with them, and Ethan is in love with her.  Once Ethan had a promising future as an engineer or scientist, but he's saddled with debts on a farm he can't sell, and now there's really no way out for him and Mattie.  Over the course of a few days, his life takes a tragic and ironic turn.

I chose this book for the January read for one of our book groups, and I think it was a good choice.  It's a short read, about 150 pages in most editions, and there's so much to discuss -- loaded with symbolism and great characterization.  Also, Wharton is just masterful at setting the scene.  I live in south Texas where we rarely get a hard freeze, much less a dusting of snow, and I just felt freezing cold while reading this book.  It brought back a lot of memories of winters I've spent in the Midwest -- about ten years ago we were stationed in Nebraska, and this story could have easily been relocated to the bleak, windy prairies.

I love Ethan Frome, but it always makes me wonder why I'm so attracted to it.  What does it say about me, if I love Wharton -- her stories are so tragic!   She does tend to write variations on the same story over and over, but she does it so well.  I've read about about seven of her novels, and I've loved most of them.  Sadly, I can only think of one that has a happy ending -- and that was her unfinished novel, The Buccaneers, which was finished by another author based on Wharton's notes.

I still have Twilight Sleep and The Glimpses of the Moon on the TBR shelves, plus The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, an NYRB Classic.  I want to read at least one of these this year.   There's a chance I may even get to visit Wharton's estate, The Mount, in the Berkshires this summer -- but that's still in the planning stages.

So, who else is a fan of Edith Wharton?  Do you love Ethan Frome, or hate it?  And has anyone been to The Mount?

This is the first book I've completed for the Back to the Classics 2013 Challenge.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2013

I did say I wouldn't sign up for any more challenges. . . but this is another great way of working on my Classics Club reading list, and finishing some more books from my TBR shelf!   It's Sarah's Back to the Classics Challenge 2013, hosted by Sarah Reads Too Much. Finish all six categories and blog about them, plus a wrap-up post, and you're entered into a drawing for a $30 gift card from Amazon.com, or a choice of book(s) from The Book Depository!  There are also five optional categories if you want to increase your chances.

Here are the categories:

1.  Any 19th century classic
2.  Any 20th century classic
3.  Any classic from the 18th century, or earlier
4.  Any classic related to the African-American experience
5.  Any adventure classic
6.  Any classic about an animal, or with an animal in the title

Anyone who completes all six of these is entered into a drawing at the end of the year.  Plus, there are five optional categories:

1.  A reread of a classic work
2.  A Russian classic
3.  A non-fiction classic
4.  A children's or young adult classic
5.  Classic short stories -- three or more works by the same author, or by connected by the same genre or time period.

So, here's my tentative list of reads for the challenge:

1.  19th century classic -- Can You Forgive Her?  by Anthony Trollope.  I'm nearly done with the Barsetshire series and I really want to start on the Pallisers novels.  Plus, my library now owns the audiobook, which will make it go faster.  Of course, half the books on my to-read list of classics is from the 19th century, so I have plenty from which to choose.

2.  20th century classic -- A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell.  A big fat book, and one from the Modern Library's Top 100 Novels.  Another series I'm hoping to finish someday.

3.  18th century (or older) classic -- probably Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, because I'm looking for an excuse to buy another of the beautiful Penguin clothbound classics!  Or maybe Moll Flanders, because it's fairly short. 

4.  African-American classic -- Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin.  Been on my to-read list forever. 


5.  Adventure classic -- Kim by Rudyard Kipling, which has been on the TBR shelf for awhile.  Or maybe A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs -- last year I saw the movie adaptation, John Carter, which was much better than I expected.  (Sadly, it was an incredible box office flop, so no chance of a sequel).

6.  Classic book about an animal -- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.  I'd like to read more books in translation, and classic sci-fi.  I also own Journey to the Center of the Earth, so that's also a possibility.  (Could switch these to the adventure category as well, if I find another book about an animal).  Or maybe Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau, if I'm in the mood for a long Victorian.

And some optional books, if I can get to them:

Classic reread  -- Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.  One of my all-time favorites.  I'm definitely rereading this one in January because I chose it for my library's book group. 

Non-fiction classic -- I have a couple of choices here.  Probably The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, but I also have some classic travel books -- Letters from Hawaii by Mark Twain; In Morocco by Edith Wharton; and Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens.  Or maybe The Flame Trees of Thika, since I'm fascinated by Africa.

Children's Classic -- The Railway Children by E. Nesbit.  I read The Story of the Treasure Seekers last summer and I absolutely loved it, so I'm looking forward to this one.

Classic short stories -- I have stacks of these as well.  I have unread volumes by Edith Wharton, Evelyn Waugh, and W. Somerset Maugham on the TBR shelves, so I'll probably choose one of these authors.

I'm not even going to try and choose a Russian to read -- all the Russians on my to-read list are incredibly long, such as Crime and Punishment.  I'll have to finish all the other books for this challenge first! 

Any suggestions regarding the list -- any real clunkers?  Which are must-reads?  And who else signed up for this challenge?  What books are you hoping to read?

2012: My year in reading.

Well, bloggers, I've been kind of absent lately -- December was really hectic for me.  It ended well, however, with an incredible week in New York City -- I ate some great food, saw some amazing sights, and, naturally, came home with another stack of books.  But that should be another post.

Anyhow, before this year is officially over, I'm going to post a quick recap of my year in reading (questions and logo borrowed from Jamie at Perpetual Page-Turner).  First of all, I made my goal of 100 books!  I didn't blog nearly as much as I wanted, so some of the books mentioned below don't have reviews posted.  But these are my thoughts on my year of reading in 2012. 

1. Best book(s) I read in 2012: This is a tough one.  I read so many good books this year!  I think Anthony Trollope would win the prize as my favorite author -- I completed three of his books this year, and I've started another.  I just love him and hope to read all 47 of his novels someday.  

However, for my very favorite, number one book, I would have to say Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.  It was a reread for me, but it had been so long since I read it, it was just like reading it all over again.  And I was sorry I'd waited so long!  It was just as wonderful now as when I first read it as a freshman in college.  Just brilliant.  

2.  Book I was excited about and thought I would love but didn't: I'm sorry to say it was A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin -- because his Song of Ice and Fire series was my favorite discovery of 2011, and his books showed up on my 2011 Best of List over and over.  I'm hoping his next book doesn't take five more years -- and that it isn't another disappointment!

Second would be The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen.  Just meh.  

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2012: Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens.  Nobody ever reads this book, but it's full of great stuff.  Not the best Dickens, but definitely worth reading.  I thought it would be a complete slog but I loved it.  

4.  Books I recommended most to people in 2012:  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  By far, one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read.  The story is both shocking and sad and heartwarming.  It should be required reading in schools.  Just brilliant. 

5.  Best series I discovered in 2012:  The Gideon Trilogy series by Linda Buckley-Archer.  It's a great historical children's series -- two thirteen-year olds get transported in time to 1763 and have to elude a scary criminal known as the Tar Man, while trying to get back to the 20th century. My daughter recommended it and I finally got around to reading it this year. 

6.  Favorite new authors of 2012:  I thought Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre was just wonderful.  He's written several books about WWII, so I'm looking forward to reading more of them.  

7.  Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2012:  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  It wasn't the best book I read in 2012, but I read almost the entire book in one day.  

8.  Book(s) I most anticipated in 2012:  Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire Chronicles.  I started out reading Doctor Thorne, which I loved, and I'm currently in the midst of the final book in the series, the Last Chronicle of Barset.  I have about 600 pages to go, so there's no way I'll finish it this year -- works by Trollope will be bookends for the year, I suppose!

9.  Favorite cover of a book I read in 2012:  It's a tie:

I love this cover.  I think it's taken from a historical travel poster.  Doesn't it make you want to visit England? 

And I love this classic cover of The Hobbit: 

10.  Most memorable character in 2012:  Cathy Ames from John Steinbeck's East of Eden.  Just creepy, one of the most evil villains in literature.  Amy Dunne from Gone Girl is also particularly memorable.  Just read the book and you'll see. 

11.  Most beautifully written book in 2012:  Probably Of Human Bondage.  I kept putting sticky notes in to save my favorite quotes.  

12.  Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for me:  The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. I hadn't read it since middle school, and decide it was time for a re-read before I saw the movie.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it -- I never made it through the Lord of the Rings, though I liked the movies.  All I could remember was Gollum and the ring, so it was fun to reread it. Might tackle The Fellowship of the Ring next year!

13.  Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2012:  Again, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, with Of Human Bondage as a close second.  

14.  Book you can't believe you waited until 2012 to FINALLY read:  A Bell for Adano by John Hersey.  It is by far, the book I have had on my to-read shelves the longest, for, ahem, close to 20 years.  It was wonderful.  Also East of Eden by John Steinbeck.  I love Steinbeck, I don't know why I took so long to read it!

15.  Book you read in 2012 that would most likely to be reread in 2013:  Probably a classic, most likely a short one.  Maybe Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham, which is really a novella.  Or A Room With a View by E. M. Forster. 

16.  Shortest and longest book of 2012:  Without doing an actual word count, I'm pretty sure the shortest is Up at the Villa -- my edition is 209 pages, but the print is large, double-spaced, and the margins are huge.  Seriously, you can read it in an hour or so.

By the same token, A Dance with Dragons could be considered the longest book at 1017 pages, but the print isn't that small, and there are only about 957 pages of text -- there are a lot of appendices at the back.  I think all the Dickens books I read this year are longer -- I read somewhere that Martin Chuzzlewit has 375,000 words, one of his longest works.  I'm sure it's the longest book I read in 2012.  I'm pretty sure it took me the most time.  

16. Book that had a scene in it that had me reeling and dying to talk to somebody about it?  (A WTF moment, an epic revelation, a steamy kiss, etc., etc).  No spoilers! 
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  If you haven't read it, go get it.  Buy it, download it, put yourself on the waiting list at your local library (I'm sure there are a LOT of holds).  That's all.  
Just for fun, here are some statistics of my 2012 reading: 

Here's a breakdown of what I read:

Number of books: 100
Approximate number of pages read: 34,758, slightly less than last year.

Nonfiction:  17
Children's:  9
Young Adult:  10
Rereads:  7
Classics: 29
Persephones: 9

Books by male authors:  41
Books by female authors: 59
Books in translation:  3

Repeated authors and number of books per author:

Suzanne Collins - 2
E. M. Delafield - 2
Charles Dickens - 3
Susan Hill - 2
George R. R. Martin - 2
W. Somerset Maugham - 3
Barbara Pym - 2
John Steinbeck - 2
Anthony Trollope - 3
Emile Zola - 2

And my favorite statistic. . .

Books from my own shelves:  50!!  (Okay, 7 were rereads, but it's a vast improvement over 2011 -- only 29 reads last year were from my TBR shelf.)

I also completed a bunch of challenges, details of which you can see here.

So how about you, bloggers?  Was 2012 a good reading year for you?  Which books were your favorites?

TBR Pile Challenge 2013

It's time to sign up for the TBR Pile Challenge 2013!!  I really loved this challenge because it really forced me to read some of the books I've been ignoring for so long.  And it's very reasonable -- I pretty much read one off the list every month, and I finally finished it a few weeks ago.  I read 11 books from my original list, plus two alternates, and most of them were pleasant surprises -- with only a couple of exceptions, I was sorry I'd left them unread for so long.

Basically, you just look at your unread books and select 12 that you've owned for at least a year and still haven't read.  Complete details of the challenge can be found here.  It's a great way to read those neglected books, plus there's a drawing at the end -- if you complete the challenge, your name goes in a drawing for a $50 gift card from Amazon or The Book Depository!

Here's my list:

1.  Wild Swans:  Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang.  A book from my list of 50 Nonfiction Books in 5 Years.  Completed 10/28/13.

2. Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Berniers.  Purchased more than 10 years ago for a book group.  I read the beginning and liked it, but for some reason got distracted and never finished it.  I've since moved it to four different houses.  Completed 3/15/13.

3.  The Duchess by Amanda Foreman.  I was supposed to read this for my Jane Austen book group last year, but I just never got to it.  Everyone in the group loved it though, and I'm always trying to read more nonfiction.  Also on my list of 50 Nonfiction Books.  Completed 11/14/13.

4.  Fidelity by Susan Glaspell.  One of the first Persephones I ever purchased, for an online readalong about 2 years ago.  Never opened it, except to admire the beautiful endpapers. Completed 2/10/13.

5.  The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hacek.  Another book purchased for a (different) online reading group.  Completed 8/24/13.

6.  Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence.  This was one of the books I received in the Big Box of Penguin Classics a couple of years ago -- I still have a few more I have to read (Moby Dick is another unread book from the box, but I think I have enough doorstoppers on this list!)  Completed 6/15/13.

7.  Collected Novellas by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Definitely, the book that has been owned-and-unread the longest.  My husband gave me this before we were married, after I read Love in the Time of Cholera.  This year I read the other book I'd owned the longest for the TBR Challenge, and I absolutely loved it, so I'm hoping this one will be as good.

8.  My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.  A Christmas gift from my friend Amanda couple of years ago.  She's the one who encouraged me to blog, so it's appropriate that I add it to the challenge.  Completed 6/19/13.

9.  Giants in the Earth by A. E. Rolvaag.  Another one I've been carting from house to house unread.  A good friend gave me this when I moved to Nebraska -- it's actually set in the Dakotas, but he also gave me O Pioneers and I think he was looking for something else besides Willa Cather.  Completed 7/9/13.

10.  The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki.  Supposed to be sort of a Japanese version of Pride and Prejudice.  I'm always looking to read more Japanese writers so this is a good choice. Completed 4/25/13

11.  Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson.   Bought the book shortly after I started reading about the TV adaptation on the blogosphere.  The TV series never aired here, but I haven't watched any of the DVDs, and the book is still untouched on the shelves.

12.  Kipps by H. G. Wells.  Bought after an author raved about it at the St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading, back when I lived in Florida and began my quest to read more classics.  Since then I've read two other books by Wells and was underwhelmed by both; hopefully I'll enjoy his realistic fiction more than the sci-fi, which really isn't my thing.  Completed 12/4/13

Alternates:

Nella Last's War by Nella Last -- a Christmas gift from a couple of years ago.  It's also on my list of 50 Nonfiction Books in 5 Years. Completed 5/27/13.

The New York Stories of Edith Wharton -- I have about thirty unread books of short stories on my TBR shelves.  I have no idea how they pile up like that!  Maybe I need to do an entire short story challenge next year.  Completed 8/02/13.

The list includes one Persephone; six books from my 75 Classics in 5 Years Challenge; one NYRB Classic; one book from my Big Box of Penguins; three books from my 50 Nonfiction Books in 5 Years Challenge; and four books in translation.  Plus, it includes four of the books I've had on the TBR shelves the longest:  I've owned Collected Novellas since (ahem) 1990; Giants of the Earth since 2000, Captain Corelli's Mandolin since 2001; and Kipps since 2005, so it'll be nice to finally get those off the TBR shelf.

Well -- good list or bad?  Which ones should I read first?  And who else is signing up for this challenge?  

Two Alternate Reads from the TBR Challenge List

During the mini-break I took from blogging, I did not stop reading -- frankly, I can't NOT read.  As Harper Lee wrote in To Kill a Mockingbird, "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.  One does not love breathing."

Anyhow, whilst on my break, I was in need of some light entertainment to break up some of my heavier reads, including two books from my TBR shelf that happened to be alternates from my 2012 TBR Challenge.  It's been a few weeks since I read them, but I'm really anxious to post something so I can officially complete the challenge!!

First, I read The Provincial Lady in America by E. M. Delafield back in early October, mostly while waiting in an emergency room for treatment for an ear infection.  (It's a very quick read -- lots of white space on every page, HUGE margins. And charming illustrations!)

If you are not familiar with the Provincial Lady, this is sort of a 1930s version of Bridget Jones' Diary, but if Bridget were older and married, with two children, a husband, and a couple of servants in a small country house.  This is the third book in the series.  The first book is a thinly veiled account of her daily life; in the second, the Provincial Lady has had great success publishing the first book, and is spending more time in London, working on her writing and meeting the literati and all kinds of interesting people.

In this third volume, the Provincial Lady goes on a whirlwind literary tour of America, crossing the Atlantic in rough weather, meeting all kinds of people -- some pushy, some fawning, but mostly very nice.  It's fun to read her impressions of America, especially when she visits the Midwest, from which I hail.  However, this having been published in 1934, it's somewhat racist, and I found myself cringing when she refers to Negro porters and makes some very un-PC comments.  It wasn't quite as fresh and funny as the first book, but I definitely enjoyed it overall.  There are two more volumes about the PL, in which she visits the Soviets, and then the final volume, during WWII, which do sound interesting.  My library doesn't have a copy of the fourth book, but they do have the last one, which is good because it's out of print and used copies are horribly expensive.

The final book on my TBR Challenge Pile (well, excepting a book of short stories, on which I've given up) is another alternate read, Don't Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford.  I had three unread Mitfords on the TBR shelf, purchased and received after I read Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love with great delight.  However, it had been several years since I read the first pair of Mitfords, and that made it harder -- I remembered Fanny, the narrator, who's now older, but I'd almost completely forgotten all the rest of the characters.  Also, quite a bit of time has passed -- Fanny's now middle aged, (though naturally she hasn't changed a bit and can still fit into the same dress size); and two of her three sons are all grown up now.  The third is at prep school with her adopted son, child of her late cousin, the scandalous Linda Radlett.

Set in the late 1950s, Fanny's been leading a quiet life as the wife of an Oxford don when her life is turned upside down by the news that her husband Alfred has been appointed the Ambassador to France!!   Suddenly, she finds her self embroiled in diplomatic tangles, a clash of cultures with the French, government upheavals, a twittering social secretary, and relatives that are driving her up a wall. Hilarity ensues -- it's sort of like a low-key late 1950s screwball comedy, set in an Embassy.  Fanny is the voice of reason throughout, it's all the surrounding people that are constantly causing trouble.

I did like it, though I had a hard time relating to what was going on -- I suppose it would help if I knew more about late 1950s French politics;  apparently, there were constant changes in government and votes of no-confidence and that sort of thing.  Also, since it had been a few years since I'd read the first two books, I had a hard time remembering who all the other characters were.  One side character, Grace Allingham, is actually the subject of a different Mitford book, The Blessing, and when I chose Don't Tell Alfred I didn't realize there was another book in between -- I wondered if I'd skipped a book.  Also, it ended really abruptly, and felt almost unfinished, like Mitford had run out of things to say.

Anyway, this was a funny, light read, though I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two.  I will have to go back and read The Blessing, and another Mitford novel, Wigs on the Green, which is on the TBR shelf.  I also have a biography of the Mitfords, The Sisters by Mary S. Lovell; plus I picked up Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford on a bookstore sale table last year.  The Mitfords were such an interesting family and I want to learn more about them.

So that's it!!  I've finished my TBR Challenge for 2012.  Time to make my list for 2013!  Is anyone else still participating in this challenge?  How is your progress?

Saplings by Noel Streatfeild

Well -- I'm winding my way down through the TBR Challenge.  Finally, I have completed Saplings by Noel Streatfeild, a Persephone Classic, and one that's been on my shelves for a couple of years.  Normally, I love Persephones, and I don't know why I took so long to pick this one up.  I did try it a couple of months ago and it didn't grab me right away.  I finally gave it another shot and I'm so glad I did, because it was really good.

Here's the setup:  on the eve of WWII, the Wiltshires are an upper-middle or upperclass family, and from the outside, they seem perfect.  Alex Wiltshire is working for the family business, engineering something for the war effort; his beautiful wife Lena is gorgeous and devoted to him; and they have four beautiful children, two boys and two girls, ages ranging from about 12 to five years old.  The war hasn't started, but there are rumblings afoot, and the family is taking a seaside holiday with the children's governess and nanny.

At first, all seems idyllic, but Streatfeild quickly cuts to the heart of what makes this family tick:  Alex is a devoted husband and father, but his wife is more interested in her husband than her children.  The author makes insightful and fascinating psychological observations about the family dynamic and the personalities of each of the children, more so than I've ever read in any book about a family before.  Streatfeild has the amazing ability to get into the essence of these people, especially the children, and examine their personalities and foibles.

Of course, with the onset of the war, this "perfect" family begins to fall apart.  The children are separated from their parents, sent off to the country to stay with their grandparents; the eldest go off to boarding school.  Later, a tragedy strikes that upsets the whole balance of the family, and things start to unravel.  The characters aren't necessarily likable, but they're so realistic, I couldn't wait to find out what happened to them.

Apparently, Streatfeild was one of the first authors to really examine the psychological impact of the trauma of the war on children.  Of course I knew that millions of children were evacuated and separated from their families because of the war, and I'd heard that psychologically, it was probably more damaging for the children to be separated from their families than for them to be together.  I can't imagine having to make a choice like that!

Another of my favorite Persephone books, Doreen, also deals with the story of an evacuated child, but in that situation, both the child's mother and the country family who host her love her and want to keep her.  It's interesting to compare the two.  I reviewed that book as well, and if you're interested, you can read my thoughts here.

This is my 42nd Persephone -- I haven't read that many lately and I've been hoping to read more, especially since they recently published their 100th book!  So congratulations to Persephone, I look forward to completing the other 58 on my list.

Has anyone else read Saplings?  Any other books by Noel Streatfeild?  Or any other Persephones that you love?

The Univited Guests by Sadie Jones

I am way behind on my historical fiction challenge, and since this is a book I think I've checked out from the library two or maybe three times and never had time to read, I thought it would be a fun break from from the classics I've been immersed in lately.  And of course, Downton Abbey is all over the blogosphere, even though I won't get to watch it on this side of the Atlantic until January.  So, a fairly short book about a country house party set in 1912 seemed like just the thing.

I thought this book would be like Downton Abbey, but as if Cora hadn't had any money to save the estate.  In one respect this is right, because the eldest daughter, Emerald, is the hope of the Torrington family -- if she can snare a wealthy husband, they'll be able to save the family home.  However, any resemblance to DA ends right there.  

I'll back up and give a better synopsis -- it's the weekend of Emerald Torrington's ninteenth birthday, but her stepfather is missing the party, since has to go off and try to borrow money to save the family's estate, Sterne.  It's to be a small party, just a couple of old friends, Patience Someone-or-Other, and her mother, and at the last minute, a handsome young landowner, John Buchanan, is given an invitation as well (since he has a LOT of money and is fond of Emerald).  It's a small shindig because the family can barely afford to pay for servants and coal, much less updating the house with electricity and modern plumbing.  

However, things begin to unravel.  Patience's mother begs off with influenza and sends her son Ernest instead, and meanwhile, a railway accident has sent dozens of survivors up to the estate with nowhere else to go until things are sorted out.  What started out as a quiet weekend party for six or seven people quickly spirals out of control, especially when one of the railway refugees turns out to be someone from  the family's past. 

This book had a lot of potential -- a historical book about a country house in England, one of my favorite settings, and some interesting and quirky characters.  Unfortunately, I thought the story itself began to spiral out of control.  I could spot some plot developments right away, and I thought the author got carried away with the quirkiness, bordering on absurdity.  One of my favorite blogs, Books as Food, described it as "Downton Abbey meets the Addams family," but to me the story just got silly, and towards the end I just started skimming pages to get through it.  And I thought the ending was just odd.

I still want to read more historicals this year -- I have quite a few on the TBR shelves and even though I've made barely any progress on my historicals challenge, I've nearly finished all the other so I might make of a go of it anyway. 

What about you, bloggers?  Read any good historical fiction lately?  Or is everyone sick of the Downton Abbey hype?  

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

Well, this book has been sitting on my TBR shelves for at least five years, and I finally started to read it about a month ago.  It took me a long time to get through it, and I was completely perplexed.  I just did not get this book at all.  

Here is the setup: set in 1930s London, sixteen-year-old Portia Quayne, who was recently orphaned, moves in with her much older half-brother Thomas and his wife Anna, who have no children.   Thomas' father left him and his mother when he was a teenager, after he'd had an affair with Portia's mother, who became pregnant.  The first Mrs. Quayne magnanimously decided it was better for everyone if Mr. Quayne divorced her and married his mistress, so that the unborn child would not be illegitimate.  Mr. Quayne, the second Mrs. Quayne, and Portia lived cheaply on the Continent, until Portia's parents died one after another and she was left with no one but Thomas.

Anyhow, now she's moved in with him and his wife, who are childless.  Thomas has an advertising agency, and a youngish friend of Anna's, Eddie, has gotten a job with Thomas' firm.  He's 23 but he starts hanging around Portia.  Basically, the story is about how Portia's innocence is lost.

It all sounds like it's going to be very sordid and scandalous, but basically, this is a book in which nothing happens.  My last book, Barnaby Rudge, was a book that was all plot and very little character development, and this one seemed like just the opposite -- it's all character's and dialogue, and very little action.  I kept waiting for something really shocking to happen, like the underage Portia having an affair with someone much older, but nothing like that happened.  The most shocking things are that Eddie is (gasp!) holding hands with another girl;  and . . . wait for it. . . Anna reads Portia's diary!!!!  Ye gods!!

Now, I know that this is a book that many people love.  Goodreads and the blogs are full of people who rave about it.  It has also been listed on Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century, which is where I first heard of it.  It was not a difficult read, and I agree, some of the writing was very beautiful and insightful (I'll try to find a clever quotation to insert).  But most of the time I wanted to smack Portia and say Get over yourself!!!  There's a very brief mention of Mussolini at one point, and I wanted to scream at the characters, "Any day now, the Luftwaffe are going to start dropping bombs all over London.  Then you'll see what real problems are."  (Okay, that's unfair, since the book was published in 1938;  it's easy for me to make this judgement knowing what's about to happen since obviously Elizabeth Bowen couldn't.)

Of course, I had a relatively uneventful, boring childhood.  Nobody died, nobody had any affairs or divorces;  I don't have any illegitimate siblings anywhere, so maybe I have no right to complain.  Really, I didn't see why Anna and Thomas didn't just ship Portia off to boarding school.

And the ending just seemed very abrupt and unresolved.  Maybe I just need someone much less pragmatic to explain it all to me.  I don't feel like it was a complete waste of time, because parts of it were quite enjoyable.  I just don't see what the fuss is about.  If someone out there in the blogging universe is a huge fan, I apologize if I've offended you -- and please tell me if there's something obvious that I missed.

Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

Well.  It's been more than a month since I posted anything -- I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I've just been busy, work and travel and the Jane Austen Society Annual General Meeting, which was fabulous.  I've really been wondering if I need to give up blogging for awhile.  But fear not, I have been reading!

Before I give up on blogging, I need to make a case for Barnaby Rudge, probably Dickens' most least-popular work -- yes, less popular even than Martin Chuzzlewit or Dombey and Son, both of which I've read in the past two years.  It's a shame really, because after I finally gave it my full attention, I actually liked BR better than the other two.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Barnaby Rudge was published in 1841, just after The Old Curiosity Shop (one of the most popular) and before Chuzzlewit, one of the least popular.  Dickens was inspired by the works of Sir Walter Scott to write a sweeping historical story -- his only other historical work is A Tale of Two Cities, and I can definitely see in BR glimmers of the great writing to come.  Barnaby Rudge is "A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty," but it's not just a historical novel.  It's about fathers and sons, a double murder, two feuding families, divided lovers, an abduction, even a talking raven -- tons of great stuff, right?

The real Grip the Raven, Dickens' pet, now on view at the Free Library of Philadelphia

It starts out in 1775, in a small village about ten miles or so from London, and much of the action centers around a inn called The Maypole.  John Willet is the proprietor and his son Joe is much-maligned and dissatisfied; there's also another unhappy father and son, the rich and sleazy Mr. Chester and his noble son Edward.  Edward is in love with the local beauty, Emma Haredale, but a long-time feud between the Chesters and the Haredales threatens to separate them forever.  Also, Emma's father was murdered years before under mysterious circumstances, along with his faithful steward Mr. Rudge, father of the eponymous Barnaby, the local village simpleton with a heart of gold, who owns a talking raven, Grip.  We also meet another family, the Vardens.  Gabriel Varden is a locksmith with a shrewish wife, a beautiful, coquettish daughter Dolly; a scheming apprentice, Simon Tappertit; and a shrieking maidservant, Miggs, who provides most of the comic relief.

The first half of the book sets up all these different characters and gives some back story, along with a mysterious stranger.  Then, about halfway through the novel, the action jumps forward in time five years, to the beginning of the "No Popery" riots of 1780, also known as the Gordon Riots, which I'm sorry to say I knew nothing about.  My sincere apologies to any British readers, but is this a subject that anyone ever learned in school?  My shoddy Yank education regarding the 18th century was much more centered on the American Revolution.

If you didn't know either, the Gordon Riots were a backlash against Catholics, that culminated in anti-Catholic mob violence and riots, including a mob of at least 40,000 that marched on Parliament in June of 1780.  Churches, embassy, and prisons were burned, including Newgate.  (If you want to read more about it, click here).

I really think that's one reason Barnaby Rudge isn't popular -- honestly, a lot of people know enough about the French Revolution and the guillotine to make ATOTC a much more compelling subject.  And Barnaby Rudge is a terrible name, right up there with Martin Chuzzlewit.  I know Dickens has a talent for giving his characters goofy names to reflect their personalities, but surely he could have come up with something better!  Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and even Edwin Drood have mystery, romance, or some other interesting qualities to entice readers.

My biggest problem with this novel is how it shifts.  The first half sets up the mystery and the characters -- there are so many, it's confusing and there really isn't that much development of any of them -- and then -- ta-da!!!  The story jumps forward in time five years, to just before the Gordon Riots, and we get very little information about what's happened to most of the characters.

Don't get me wrong, the part about the riots and the mobs are extremely well-written, and I was riveted -- and I'm normally bored by big action scenes.  Dickens is really good at describing the mobs and the violence, and it's pretty scary.  But I really wanted more about the characters, and the story itself was kind of all over the place.  After the riots, things wrap up very quickly, and I just felt it was uneven.  Having read most of the Dickens canon, I can see hints of all the great stuff to follow -- Bleak House is a great murder mystery, and so many of his later novels have complex plots and multiple characters, plus there's all the great history in A Tale of Two Cities.  (Barnaby Rudge even has a little shout-out to Oliver Twist, with mention of a pick-pockets' gang).

Anyway.  I'm really glad I finished Rudge;  I'm nearing the end of my quest to complete all the works of Dickens -- only three left to go of the major works:  The Old Curiosity Shop, The Pickwick Papers, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Has anyone else read Barnaby Rudge?  What did you think?  Am I crazy to want to complete all of Charles Dickens' works?