Paris in July 2015

It's almost time for Paris in July 2015!! If you're not familiar, it's an annual event hosted by Thyme for Tea. Bloggers are encouraged to explore all things French, including books, movies, food, music, etc. I already have a list of French Classics from my TBR Shelves (can count any of these as my Book in Translation for the Back to the Classics Challenge):

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (I'll probably combine this with an audiobook version since it's so long)
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
La Debacle by Emile Zola
The Fortune of the Rougons by Emile Zola

Books set in France:

Julius by Daphne Du Maurier
The Glassblowers by Daphne du Maurier

Nonfiction books about France:

Renoir, My Father by Jean Renoir (from my TBR Pile Challenge list)
The Black Count by Tom Reiss
The Gastronomical Me by M. F. K. Fisher (can count this as a nonfiction classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge)

and possibly A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse -- my daughter just read this and loved it.

So who else is signing up for Paris in July 2015? What are you planning to read?

Victorian Celebration 2015

I've already read two Victorian novels so far this summer . . . how many more can I finish? Allie from A Literary Odyssey is hosting another Victorian Celebration this summer, so signing up was a no-brainer for me. Here are just a few of the Victorian novels on my TBR shelves:

Red Pottage by Mary Chomoldely
No Name by Wilkie Collins
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden
Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
New Grub Street by George Gissing
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome
The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley
At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau

. . . plus about a fifteen books by Anthony Trollope. Seriously.

Right now, I'm leaning toward Thomas Hardy since I loved Far From the Madding Crowd; also, Return of the Native is on my Classics Club list, though I don't own a copy, so I've been putting it off. Allie is also allowing books from non-British authors, so I may read some Zola or Victor Hugo, which also counts for Paris in July.

Anyone else signing up for the Victorian Celebration? What are you planning to read? Have you read any of the books on my list?

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Well, it took a movie adaptation, but I think I am finally converted to liking Thomas Hardy. I had read Tess of the D'Urbervilles several years ago, which I thought dragged on forever, and The Mayor of Casterbridge later, which was better, but I didn't love it. However, with Far From the Madding Crowd I'm beginning to see the appeal of Hardy.

If you don't know the story, here's a brief setup. Independent and beautiful, but poor, Bathsheba Everdene first draws the attentions of sheep farmer Gabriel Oak. She rejects his proposal, and after a reversal of fortunes, she ends up giving him a job as a shepherd at the farm she has just inherited. Bathsheba has also caught the attentions of a wealthy older farmer, Mr. Boldwood, whom she also rejects. Bathsheba doesn't think she can be tamed by any man and wants to run the farm on her own. Both Oak and Boldwood wait patiently, loving her from afar, until the dashing bad-boy Sergeant Troy arrives and turns Bathsheba's head, and surprise! -- things do not end well for some of the characters. 

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It was quite an easy and straightforward read, and I really liked the character of Gabriel Oak. Bathsheba was a little frustrating at times, but I give Hardy credit for creating a strong, complex female character. It's a great story, with great writing and great characters. I can definitely see that Hardy was also a poet:

It was now early spring—the time of going to grass with the sheep, when they have the first feed of the meadows, before these are laid up for mowing. The wind, which had been blowing east for several weeks, had veered to the southward, and the middle of spring had come abruptly—almost without a beginning. It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts. (Chapter XVIII). 

Having now read most of Dickens and an awful lot of Trollope, I can see how different both of them are from Hardy. Hardy's books are more pastoral and poetic, Dickens' works have more gritty characters and settings, with social commentary and melodrama, and Trollope's books are usually middle and upper-class characters, with some sly satire. Hardy also makes a lot of insightful observations. Here's what he has to say about Bathsheba:

When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.  (Chapter XXIX)

Cary Mulligan as Bathsheba and Matthias Schoenaerts as Gabriel Oak. 

I confess, I probably would not have attempted this book if I had not seen the movie adaptation first -- I usually prefer to read the book first, but my husband surprised me by taking me to a movie with period costumes so I could hardly refuse. I now have the courage to tackle more Hardy. I have two of his books on my TBR shelves, A Pair of Blue Eyes and Under the Greenwood Tree; also, The Return of the Native is on my Classics Club list. 

Bloggers, how do you like Thomas Hardy? Has anyone else seen the movie? And which book by Hardy should I read next? 

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

Mary Barton was the first novel published by Elizabeth Gaskell, author of one of my very favorite books, Wives and Daughters. I'd had it on the TBR shelves for several years, and now that I'm getting down to the final books on my Classics Club list, I thought it was time to give it a try. (This also counts for the Reading England Challenge.)

Set mostly in Manchester around 1840, Mary Barton is the story of two working-class families, the Bartons and the Wilsons. Barton and Wilson both work for the mills. Mr. Barton has a pregnant wife, a daughter Mary, aged about 13. Mr. Wilson has small twin sons, probably toddlers, and an older son, Jem, who's about 18. Mrs. Wilson has a disability from an accident she suffered before she was married. 

Mrs. Barton is grieving because her sister, Esther, has run off to be with a man, and they fear the worst. Soon after, tragedy strikes both families; Mr. Barton is depressed and becomes more and more involved with labor unions and the Chartist movement. 

Meanwhile, Mary has grown into a beautiful young woman, apprenticed at a dressmaker. Jem becomes a skilled worker, working with the factory machines. He's in love with Mary but her head's been turned by the attentions of Harry Carson, the mill owner. Times are bad at the mills, with job cuts at the worst possible time. Resentment between the workers and the mill owners comes to a head just as Mary's two lovers have a confrontation. After another tragedy, Mary is caught up in the middle of all this, and her loyalties are tested.

I liked this book, but it doesn't have nearly the charm or the characters of Wives and Daughters, North and South, or even the quirky Cranford. I found the characters rather one-dimensional, especially Mary, and the story itself is on the preachy side. It's also a little melodramatic and predictable. Still, it's interesting to read one of her early works. Mary Barton shows glimmers of  Elizabeth Gaskell's great talent as a writer. I still have Sylvia's Lovers on the TBR shelves, plus some of her Gothic tales. Has anyone read either of those?

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

I think the best thing about Adam's TBR Pile Challenge is that it inspires me to read those books that have been hanging around the bookshelves for far too long -- it's just wonderful to find treasures that I've been ignoring for far too long. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is exactly that -- one of those books that I really regret putting off for so long.

This award winning book is the story of the clash of cultures between the immigrant Hmong refugee community in Merced, California, and the doctors treating a young Hmong girl, Lia Lee, who showed symptoms of severe epilepsy starting at three months of age. She was first diagnosed in 1981. Her parents were refugees from Laos who resettled in California after the Vietnam war. The Hmong people are an ethnic minority living who are originally from the mountainous region of Southeast Asia, including China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, but they are fiercely independent and have never assimilated into any of those national cultures. Many Hmong people fought secretly for the CIA during the Vietnam War and for the Laotian Civil War in the 1970s. After fleeing to Thailand, the Lee family eventually settled in Merced, about two hours west of San Francisco, where there is a large population of Hmong refugees and their families. 

The book traces the cultural clash between Lia's family and their beliefs in traditional Hmong medicine and the American hospitals and staff, but it's also much more than that. There's a lot of background about the Hmong people and the wars in Southeast Asia, and most of the book is really about the cultural differences and how difficult it is for immigrants to adapt. It also makes a serious point about medical practitioners and cultural sensitivity. After I finished the novel, I went online to read more about Ms. Fadiman, and I found that this book is now required reading at Yale Medical school, and has had a strong influence in how medical professionals are now interacting with immigrant groups.

I found this book to be absolutely fascinating, extremely well-written and organized -- it's definitely one of my top reads of the year. I could hardly put it down and read it in just a few days, and I've been recommending it over and over to co-workers and library patrons. It would be a great selection for my non-fiction book group at the library, but unfortunately our system doesn't have enough copies -- maybe I'll have to persuade them to order some more so that we can put it on our reading list for next year. 

Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton

Well, it had to happen sometime: Edith Wharton has finally disappointed me. Twilight Sleep is the thirteenth book by Wharton that I have read, and it is officially my least favorite. Hardly anyone has reviewed this book on Goodreads, and my library doesn't even own it.

The set up is a little complicated. Published in 1927, this is the story of the Manford family, rich socialites living in New York in the 20s. Pauline Manford is the busiest rich woman in the world, with a schedule so jam-packed with committees, speeches, beauty treatments, appointments with new-age gurus, and social engagements, she has to schedule time in 15-minute increments, including a conversation with her own daughter Nona, who is 19. Nona is Pauline's daughter by her second marriage, to the successful lawyer, Dexter Manford, who represented Pauline in her divorce from her first marriage to Arthur Wyant, after Arthur had an affair with his cousin. Pauline also has a son, Jim Wyant, from her first marriage, and his own marriage is on the rocks. Jim's wife Lita is a Jazz Age party girl with a hankering for the stage, to the dismay of her husband's family. Following all this?

The story takes place over a fairly short period of time, in which Pauline is determined to devote her do-gooder energies to saving Jim's marriage to Lita, not realizing that her own marriage is crumbling and that her daughter Nona is in love with Arthur Wyant's cousin, who is trapped in a loveless marriage to a pious woman who won't divorce him. Lita is determined to leave Jim and go out to Hollywood. Dexter claims he merely wants to prevent a family scandal, but he's clearly falling for Lita himself, and all the characters are thrown together at the end in a climactic scene in Pauline's country estate. (I'm actually trying to mentally recast with all the characters from Downton Abbey, except Michelle Dockery would have to be the daughter-in-law and we wouldn't have the wonderful Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess).

I rather liked this novel but I was sort of puzzled by it. It starts out describing Pauline's busy life and packs in all the other characters in such a rapid succession I could hardly follow them. I suppose Wharton is trying to show the fast pace of life in the twenties and the whirlwind schedules of these wealthy characters, but I just found them shallow. I hadn't ready any Wharton books in a while but I do remember that typically the character development was better and the pace was slower.

Wharton is known for her novels about rich society people who are unhappy. Pauline seems shallow but has so much energy, it made me wonder what this character could have done if she had lived in the 21st century -- she could have been a CEO of some Fortune 500 company instead of filling her time with making inspirational speeches, visiting charlatans trying to do emotional healing, and doing eurythmic exercises.

I suppose this novel is supposed to be a satire of the Jazz Age, and she does get in some good shots about society types. My favorite bit in the entire novel is when Pauline and Dexter both decide to visit Lita's eccentric aunt, Kitty Landish. Kitty's latest obsession is remodeling her home, No. 1, Viking Court, in the authentic style of the Vikings who just may have landed close by hundreds of years ago:

. . . the room contained only a few relentless-looking oak chairs, a long table bearing an hourglass (for clocks would have been an anachronism), and a scrap of dusty velvet nailed on the cement wall, as to which Mrs. Landish explained that it was a bit of a sixth-century coptic vestment, and that the nuns of a Basilian convent in Thessaly were reproducing for eventual curtains and chair-cushions. "It may take fifty years," Mrs. Landish always added, "but I would rather go without it than live with anything less perfect."

So. Overall, not a terrible read, but not up to what I normally expect from Edith Wharton. I was originally going to count this as my 20th Century Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge, but since nobody reads it, I don't really think it applies.  I still have some novellas and a couple of her earlier works on the TBR shelves. Hopefully they will not disappoint.

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

The Woman Warrior is the seventh book I read from my 2015 TBR Pile Challenge. I chose it in honor of Asian-Pacific American Heritage month, and though I finished this book almost two weeks ago, I'm having a really hard time writing about it. 

Published in 1975, The Woman Warrior is Maxine Hong Kingston's memoir is the story of growing up as a child of Chinese immigrants, but it's not just about her -- it's really about the experiences of the women in her family, both in China and after arriving in the United States. It's a fairly short book, just over 200 pages, and is divided into five sections. Each of the sections is centered around a different woman in her family -- herself, her mother, and her aunts. The book is beautifully written, but mostly heartbreaking. The parts that really got to me were how badly women and girls were treated. The first chapter starts with story of an aunt, her father's sister, who got pregnant after her husband had left for America to make his fortune, and her shame was so terrible she threw herself and her newborn child into a well. Kingston doesn't even know her aunt's name -- the shame is so terrible that her name is never mentioned, and she is instructed never to speak of it to her father. 

There's also a chapter about her mother's sister, who came to the United States to confront the husband that had left her and a daughter behind in China years before; a chapter about her mother studying to be a doctor in China after her husband had gone to America; and a retelling of the Fa-Mulan woman warrior myth. Although it's considered a nonfiction memoir, there are definitely elements of fiction woven throughout. Like some of the earlier memoirs I posted about this year, I did wonder a bit how much was fact and how much was fiction. 

Not the edition I read, but I really like this cover from 1977.

Overall, I liked it, but it was a difficult read at times -- it becomes really painful sometimes to read how badly women are treated in many cultures. It's also tough to read about how difficult it is for the children of immigrants who are caught between two different cultures. 

Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather

Classics Spin #9! My selection was Shadow on the Rock by Willa Cather, a book I've had on my shelves for several years. I hadn't read anything by Willa Cather for a while so I was looking forward to this one.

Published in 1931, this is a work of historical fiction starting in 1697. Euclide Auclair, the apothecary of Quebec, lives with his twelve-year-old daughter in the remote settlement of French Canadians. As the story begins, Auclair watches as the final ships sail up the river, leaving the settlement isolated for a the long winter. The story unfolds in slightly more than a year, until after the last ships leave again the final year (plus a short epilogue). Euclide came to Quebec from France years before, when Cecile was a baby, following his patron, the wealthy Count de Frontenac.

The story is divided into six books, each focusing on a different character. It's really a series of vignettes about life in Quebec, more than an over-arching narrative. There's really not much plot to speak of. The "Rock" in the title refers to the mountains surrounding Quebec, so I suppose the shadows are the stories in the book. However, Cather is masterful at creating a sense of place. I remember that was the thing I've liked best about all her books so far: the Midwest in My Antonia and  Song of the Lark; the Southwest in The Professor's House; and antebellum Virginia in Sapphira and the Slave Girl. 

Here's one of my favorite passages:

. . . Cecile got away unobserved into the nearest wood. She went through it, and climbed toward the ridge in the middle of the island. At last she came out on a waving green hayfield with a beautiful harp-shaped elm growing in the middle of it. The grass there was much taller than the daisies, so they looked like white flowers seen through a driving grey-green rain. Cecile ran across the field to that symmetrical tree and lay down in the dark, cloud-shaped shadow it threw on the waving grass. The tight feeling in her chest relaxed. She felt she had escaped for ever from the Harnois and their way of living. She went to sleep and slept a long while. When she wakened up in the sweet-smelling grass, with the grasshoppers jumping over her white blouse, she felt rested and happy, -- though unreal, indeed, as if she were someone else. 

I liked this book but I found it a somewhat slow read. Though the prose is beautiful, the lack of plot didn't really compel me to pick it up again. Also, I felt like the story didn't have much focus. I really enjoyed the parts about Cecile and her father and the day-to-day life of the Quebec residents and the hardships they faced, but I felt it got bogged down with some of the politics which kept the Count in Quebec, plus the competition between two rival bishops got a little boring.

Not one of my favorites by Cather, but worth reading overall. And now I only have three more books by Cather to finish -- and only 18 left on my Classics Club list!

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

The Eustace Diamonds is the third novel in Anthony Trollope's Pallisers series. This is the 19th novel by Trollope that I've read so far, and it's one of my favorites.  Basically, much of the plot revolves around Lady Elizabeth Eustace and her diamonds -- and whether they actually belong to her. Lady Elizabeth Eustace, nee Greystock, is a young, beautiful woman of good family, but not much fortune. She marries well, to Lord Florian Eustace, who has a fortune, a title, and good family, but unfortunately, poor health. Lizzie knows all this and uses it to her advantage; poor Florian doesn't realize he's married a sly mercenary until it's too late. He dies young with a pregnant widow, and relatives who are very unhappy with this interloper who is permanently attached to the family.

The diamonds in question are a necklace worth about 10,000 pounds, about $750,000 in today's money. Lizzie claims that her husband gave them to her before he died, as a gift, but Eustace lawyers disagree, saying they're part of the estate, and must be passed down to his son and heir. (Lizzie has also received a life interest in an estate in Scotland and an annual income of 4000 pounds, so she's not hurting).  She decides she needs a man to help her fight the nasty lawyers, and waffles between her cousin, Frank Greystock, a poor lawyer and MP; and Lord Fawn, a financially struggling aristocrat (and a former suitor of Violet Effingham from Phineas Finn, the previous Palliser novel). Lord Fawn pops the question first, but quickly tries to back out of the engagement when he hears about Lizzie's legal troubles. Lizzie then makes a play for Frank, but he's already engaged to Lizzie's childhood pal, Lucy Morris -- who also happens to live with Lord Fawn's mother, as governess to his youngest sisters. Following all this so far?

Lizzie then tries to twist Frank around her little finger and get him to fight all her battles, both against the lawyers and Lord Fawn. She also wants to play the great lady and host guests at her Scottish castle and go fox hunting, so we have the requisite Trollope scenes where they're all riding to the hounds. Trollope makes it all sound very exciting, except of course for the poor fox. There are also love triangles, some appearances by Palliser regulars Lady Glencora and the Duke of Omnium.

Compared to Phineas Finn, there's much less politics and much more domestic intrigue. About halfway through this book I thought it was going to be standard Trollope, but then there was a major plot twist I wasn't expecting at all -- and then it twisted around again. And then again! This book really had me on my toes, and I finished the second half of the book in just a few days. Lizzie Eustace is so sly and manipulative, I wanted to jump into the book and throttle her -- she definitely reminded me of Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair. The parts of this book with the legal wrangling over the ownership of the diamonds also reminded me a bit of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce from Charles Dickens' masterpiece, Bleak House. 

This is a fairly long Trollope, but I really think it's one of his best. It's the third book in the Pallisers series, but Lady Glencora and the other characters from the previous two books are really quite minor to the plot, so I think one could easily start reading the series with this book. I'm really glad I jumped right into this book after finishing the second book in the series, and I'd really love to finish the last three volumes of the series this year. Plus, this is one of the books from my Classics Club, so I'm happy to cross it off my list.

Anthony Trollope Bicentennial Celebration: Second Giveaway Winner!

And the winner of the second Anthony Trollope giveaway is. . . . 

Amy of Sadie Belle Reads!

She's won her choice of Anthony Trollope paperbacks via The Book Depository.  

I'll be contacting her via email. 

Congratulations, Amy, and happy reading!!