Classics Club: The First Year in Review (and a new Spin List!)

When I compiled my list last year, I made efforts to keep the number small and attainable.  It has grown since then, so I've been curious to see where I stand.

Here's What I've Read:

1. My Antonia
2. Watership Down
3. The Warden
4. The  Painted Veil
5. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
6. Frankenstein
7. Youth and the Bright Medusa
8. On the Road
9. How Green Was My Valley
10. One of Ours
11. The End of the Affair
12. Lady Windermere's Fan
13. A Lost Lady
14. Fellowship of the Ring
15. Persuasion
16. Pygmalion
17. River of Earth
18. The Beautiful and Damned
19. Crime and Punishment
20. The Professor's House
21. My Mortal Enemy
22. The Great Divorce

Doesn't look too shabby to me, especially because I'm currently working on 3 others (Grapes of Wrath, Hound of the Baskervilles, Eugene Onegin) and because they haven't all been a cakewalk (On the Road, Fellowship of the Ring, Crime and Punishment).  I think that it has definitely been beneficial to have them listed in one spot.  And it is certainly fun to be able to cross them off!

In other news, the Classics Club is doing another Spin List selection, and since the first one worked out so well for me (with The Beautiful and Damned) I thought I'd give it another go.  [update: looks like it's #6!]

5 Books I'm Afraid Of (because it weighs more than my cat, because it was written before my country began, because it's probably WAY too melodramatic, etc. etc.)

  1. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

  2. The Sorrows of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

  3. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy

  4. Native Son, Richard Wright

  5. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe

5 Books I Think I'll Like (but never got around to & am now ambivalent towards)

  6. Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope

  7. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte

  8. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

  9. Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell

 10. Cakes and Ale, W.Somerset Maugham

5 Novella Pairings (I need to get those novellas read!)

 11. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Marley & Stempenyu by Sholem Aleichem

 12. The Duel by Anton Chekov and The Duel by Alexander Kuprin

 13. The Nice Old Man and the Pretty Girl by Italo Svevo and The Touchstone by Edith Wharton

 14. The Man Who Would be King by Rudyard Kipling and May Day by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 15. Le Fanfarlo by Charles Baudelaire and Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf

5 Modern[ish] Picks (because most of my classics hail from the 19th century)

 16. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

 17. Things Fall apart, Chinua Achebe

 18. The Bell, Iris Murdoch

 19. Easter Parade, Richard Yates

 20. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

The Eternal TO READ Stack

I came across this photo today - taken in January 2009.  That's right, over 4 years ago.  The remarkable thing about this photo is not how huge that stack of books is, but rather the fact that I still haven't gotten around to six of those books.  SIX of them, after FOUR YEARS, even though they were on my Read Right Now pile.

Daniel Deronda? I know I started it.

Jubilee Trail? I don't even know when I bought this book.

A Little Princess?  Still haven't re-read it.

Man of the Family? Keep thinking I'll get around to it.

Ruth? Definitely started it...last year?

The Lost Continent? I've read other Bill Bryson books, does that count?

Looking at old stacks of books is always fun, but it can be a bit of a downer too.  Here I was feeling all proud of myself for getting some of those "eternal shelf" books read, and I find I have so much more to do.  Other than that, though, it is fun to look at those covers and remember what you thought about them.  From top to bottom, excluding [obviously] the ones I still haven't read: fabulous, fun, good, biased, okay, dumb, beautiful, very good, a bit boring, even boring-er, and very interesting.

I still want to read those 6 books.  If I didn't, it would definitely be time to let them go.  Too many good books to waste time on ones I'm not interested in.  But if I'm still interested, then they are more than welcome to a spot on my shelf, even if it is the eternal To Read shelf.  Maybe someday they'll make it off.

How I Finished Reading Crime and Punishment

Well, I managed to finish it.  

That really is the only lasting impression that I've kept regarding Crime and Punishment.  Kind of sad, considering that the book is actually quite well written & Dostoevsky obviously is familiar with mental anguish.  And considering that I adored War & Peace (the other Russian doorstop that it's super cool to brag about having read.)  Actually I love many 19th century Russian authors...Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgenev...but Dostoevsky?  Not so much.

What is it, then?  I'll tell you this: I have the same experience when I read Dickens.  Eerily similar experiences, actually.  I think it might have something to do with hope.

Tolstoy, for all his disillusionment with social structures and relationships, seeks purpose and meaning.  Pushkin, though his tales often revolve around a disaster, gives you the sense of noble pride - that all the drama is the essence of life!  Turgenev can seem rather disillusioned and fatalistic, but under it all is the feeling that there is a worthwhile purpose somewhere...if he could just find it.

But Dostoevsky?  No.  Face it, baby, life stinks.  Filth, poverty, wretchedness and debase behavior of all sorts, and then you die.  There might be the occasional angelic spectre, but that's not reality! Nobody can really live like that...because for every innocent being there are dozens of miserable ones greedy enough to steal their joy, and the sooner you come to terms with that, the better off you'll be.

So, maybe it has something to do with hope.  Or maybe it's because I'm not a fan of psychological dramas.  In any case, I had a difficult time getting through this one.  I had the suggested translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky (their translation of Anna Karenina was quite enjoyable) but had the hardest time staying focused.

When I reached the 2/3 point of the book and stalled out, I knew I was in trouble.  I gave up reading Dickens' Our Mutual Friend at the 2/3 point, as well as Irving's Owen Meany.  I have built a miniature track record for not finishing books that I've mostly finished.  I needed to come up with a solution, and quick - before my inaction became a default action.

I went to Audible, figuring that if someone was reading aloud AND I was reading along, it would be much more difficult to let myself get distracted.  After one false start (when I accidentally bought this version instead of the one I actually wanted) I was successful.  It worked.  And let me tell you, the story and the writing were actually pretty interesting after all, when translated by Constance Garnett and read aloud to me.  But what work it took to get me there!

Sigh.  And now, having read both The Eternal Husband and Crime and Punishment, I think I may safely say that it will be quite some time before I feel the need to read more Dostoevsky.  It doesn't bode well for Dickens either.  My apologies to all the fans.

The Illusion of Separateness by Simon Van Booy

I've seen Van Booy's name around the interwebs...it's an interesting name; it lodges in one's brain.  Every time one of his books popped to the forefront, however, I pushed it away: dismissing it as one in a crowd of inordinately popular pieces of fluff.

Boy was I wrong.

Little did I know when I opened my Indiespensable box and saw the unassuming galley lying there that I was about to be exposed to utter exquisiteness.  The writing, the characters, the story—all were wonderful.  From the first words I was hooked.

I've read books before that create a novel from a mix of seemingly unrelated short stories, but none done as beautifully, delicately, and organically as this.  Each sentence urged me to read the next, as if there were a shimmer of wonder cloaking each thought.

Plus, the title is fabulous.  It really serves as a basis for the over-arching theme of the book.  So many times we read (or hear) stories from different times and different places, and we look at them as isolated, confined experiences, but this book challenges the reader to look beyond, to wonder, to strive to be a part of a bigger story - one in which we are all connected whether we realize it or not.

This title is set to be released in June, and it is worth keeping in mind until then.  I'm going to need to buy a copy to loan out, a copy to keep as back-up, etc. etc.   I'm also going to need to read everything else he's every written.  In fact, I chose a collection of his short stories for my book club to read (The Secret Lives of People in Love) and while it wasn't quite as marvelous as The Illusion of Separateness, I still had that conflicting want-to-read-it-all-right-now/don't-want-it-to-ever-end thing happening.  Have you read anything of his?  What do you think?

For the Record: April 2013

For the first time in months I feel like I actually got through some books, and it felt GOOD.  I have to credit some of that amazingness to Audible, and the fact that there was a higher dose of current fiction (which, let's face it, is typically quicker and lighter reading material) than usual.

In the non-book-arena, I'm getting really good at making design decisions (a big deal for someone who takes forever to make decisions!)  Our house rebuild is trucking along, and I've spent so much time critically thinking abou the design that I'm pretty certain my brain-usage-percentage has increased.  Although my exhaustion level has also increased...but I'm going to go ahead and pretend that is unrelated.  I'm ready to be done with construction and design and just live in my house already, but we've got another year ahead of us I fear.  And that's why I prefer to talk about books!

11 Books Read in April: (29 year-to-date)

2 Classics:
  - The Professor's House, Willa Cather (4) [Another step through my Willa Cather Challenge, and again she didn't let me down.  Review here.]
  - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky (3) [I did it!  I finished it!  I'll be talking about how I finished it soon.]

2 for obligations (book club/ARC):
  - The Secret Lives of People in Love, Simon Van Booy (4.5) [I have a post about Van Booy in the works, but basically: if you haven't read him, do.]
  - Hikikomori and the Rental Sister, Jeff Backhaus (3) [Interesting, but didn't feel completely genuine.]

2 from my shelf:  [Review for both books here.]
  - Ireland, Frank Delaney (3) [Somewhat disappointing and boring, but still about Ireland!]
  - Annie Dunne, Sebastian Barry (3.5) [beautiful writing, as to be expected, but its introspective pace wasn't a great fit for this time in my life...took me moonnnths.]

5 others:
  - Benediction, Kent Haruf (4.5) [Purchased from my new local book shop...quick to read and just about perfect. Review here.]
  - Emily's Runaway Imagination, Beverly Cleary (3.5) [Read aloud to my 8yo, Cleary is always fantastic. Though this wasn't her best, the autobiographical element made it better.]
  - The Chaperone, Laura Moriarty (3.5) [Love the era, but would have much happier with this book if it had not told an entire life story & only focused on the "chaperone" period.]
  - Follow the River, James Alexander Thom (3) [Very enjoyable audio book, and pretty solid historical fiction, though it did lack appropriate character development.]
  - The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent (4) [Historical fiction worth reading.  About the Salem Witch Trials, but from a different perspective that really allows a whole picture to develop.]

                    


2 Current Reads:
  - Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Anne Fowler.  The writing is so "lite" that I'm having a bit of a struggle paying attention, but am enjoying reading about the 20s and the Fitzgeralds.
  - The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle.  Read-along at Unputdownables starts now!

    

On My Nightstand:
I'm hoping that this weekend will turn into a read-a-thon weekend, though weekends are never long enough in general. Here's what is on my radar:

    

A Smattering of Irish Stories

March had me really missing Ireland, wishing I was there, and thus reading Irish literature as a way to make do.  I finished a small assortment of Irish books, and felt like I'd keep finding more, but I think the craving may have receded for a while.

After owning it for 2 years (and having it partially read for just about as long) I have finally finished reading the stories in this volume. While many of the stories left me ambivalent or disappointed, there were a few standouts that I was very glad to have read. As a group, I think they made an interesting Irish portrait. Two authors I especially enjoyed, and anticipate reading more from, were Dermot Bolger and Orfhlaith Foyle.  

I was disappointedly not as enraptured with my first tastes of Roddy Doyle, Colum McCann, or Colm Toibin as I'd hoped I'd be.

"These mornings when I wake up - no longer even caring if I wake up - I feel oddly free. It's a terrible freedom, but it's the freedom that comes from knowing there is nothing more that life can do to you, that fate can have no more tricks up its sleeve.  I'm numb with grief, Maureen, I don't know if I'll ever feel warm again.  But I'm afraid of nothing now.  My sleepless nights are over because there is nothing left for life to snatch away from me." Winter, by Dermot Bolger


Ireland by Frank Delaney is a book that always caught my eye in the book store, so I finally received it through PaperbackSwap sometime last year, and then I ended up listening to it on Audible just recently.  Actually, it was a much more drawn out process than "recently" implies.  It was narrated by the author himself, and - though he has much experience reading aloud - wasn't very engaging.  The recording was some 20 hours long (thank goodness for being able to speed up the narrator's voice) and felt that long - and longer.

In the end there was much to appreciate, but I felt that Ronan's story was too bogged down by the lengthy "histories" that were the real point of the story.  The stories themselves weren't connected enough or interesting enough to keep me going.  Only the fact that it was on audio (and therefore multi-task-able) got me through it.  Makes me loathe to try his other titles, even if they are all about Ireland.

Sebastian Barry always writes beautifully.  If you are in the mood for some contemplative, gorgeous prose, pick up a Sebastian Barry novel.  His novel of WWI (A Long Long Way) is one of my most favorite books, and in fact, little Annie Dunne appeared in that novel, as she was the sister of the main character.  In this novel, life has passed her by for the most part, and we are treated to a portrait of her aged self.

Most of what I've read from Barry (this was my 4th novel) has a perfect (for me) balance of plot and sparkling composition, but Annie Dunne was definitely lacking a bit on the plot side—even for me, which is saying something!  I actually began reading it last autumn, and just now picked it up to finish it.  It took a level of focus I've found difficult to harness lately.

Still, I'd recommend giving Barry a try.  As a first foray I'd recommend The Secret Scripture, as I remember it being a tad more plot-driven.  And as always, I'm up for recommendations also!

The Professor's House by Willa Cather

"He had never learned to live without delight.  And he would have to learn to, just as, in a Prohibition country, he supposed he would have to learn to live without sherry.  Theoretically he knew that life is possible, may be even pleasant, without joy, without passionate griefs.  But it had never occurred to him that he might have to live like that."

Largely hailed for her sense of place, I've always believed that Willa Cather's talent for writing a realistic character is one of the core qualities that make her books so easy to love.  She writes of struggles and sorrows familiar to us all.  The Professor's House was a look at a man coming to terms with the fact that his life had shifted gears, and not necessarily for the best.  Looking back at his life as he nears retirement, he thinks about Tom Outland - the man whose life so greatly affected his family in a variety of ways.

Willa Cather's most famous setting is, perhaps, the Great Plains of Nebraska, but she is equally as talented in her magnificent descriptions of the canyons of New Mexico.  Her love for the majestic serenity of the Southwest is apparent.  My heart has never sung in adoration of that locale, preferring the lakes and trees of the Sierra Nevada Mountains I call home, but the more I read of Cather, the more I develop that love and respect for a landscape so different from my own.

Makes me want to go visit! (photo credit)

As I've read through Cather's oeuvre, I've noticed a quirk to many of her novels: in construction, she seems to prefer segmenting her story into two or three distinct sections.  She may jump to a different time, place, or point of view—or in this case, all three.  The best part of this small book was the middle section: Tom Outland's Story.  What a vivid experience, and perfect companion towards shaping a view of America around the time of the Great War.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  By virtue of location, as well as circumstance, Tom's early life captured the imagination of the professor's young family when they first met, and it captured my imagination as well.

Quiet and contemplative, as is to be expected, The Professor's House was not my favorite Cather book I've read, but it is worth a  read for the middle section alone.  Check out my other Willa Cather reviews here, and for a fabulous summary (and more info and discussion about The Professor's House,) I highly recommend checking out this post by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis.)

"He had let something go—and it was gone: something very precious, that he could not consciously have relinquished, probably.  He doubted whether his family would ever realize that he was not the same man they had said good-bye to; they would be too happily preoccupied with their own affairs.  If his apathy hurt them, they could not possibly be so much hurt as he had been already."

Benediction by Kent Haruf

I believe I've read two previous novels by Kent Haruf.  One, Plainsong, I loved.  The other, (title unfortunately forgotten,) I remember loving until the ending—at which point it earned itself a spot at the bottom of the Caribbean.*  Benediction has redeemed my opinion of Haruf.

For being a story packed with things that could [quite plausibly] have been antagonistic or offensive, (the roles of religion, sex, and other beliefs and needs,) the book is surprisingly gentle, warm, and embracing.  Well, from my point of view at least.  I'm curious to see how it would hit others.**

Haruf uses beautifully fleshed out characters to explore the gap between our ideas and our actions.  What is good? What is bad? Why?  Do we believe (and live by) the ideas we profess?  What do our words and actions show our priorities to be?

This passage addresses what very well may be the crux of the problem:

People don't want to be disturbed.  They want assurance.  They don't come to church on Sunday morning to think about new ideas or even the old important ones.  They want to hear what they've been told before, with only some small variation on what they've been hearing all their lives, and then they want to go home and eat pot roast and say it was a good service and feel satisfied.

I am a Christian because I believe in Jesus Christ and his teachings.  The point and purpose is to improve my life and those around me by changing my actions to align with his. This takes thought.  This takes action.  This takes making difficult choices and challenging my built-in thought processes.  These are good things.  What on earth is the point of floating around in a little bubble of platitudes?  Why bother with the tremendous effort of keeping up appearances when you could be getting all the benefits that come with actually living out your beliefs?

Benediction represents one of the larger reasons I love to read.  It expands my horizons and exposes me to different ideas that I can bounce off my own—it allows me to see the world through different eyes and prevents me from becoming complacent.  I loved the complexity of the characters, the beautiful simplicity of the writing, the way it pulled me through in a few hours' time.  The characters seem to belong to their setting in the way that Willa Cather's are one with theirs: without effort, but with a vitality that makes the story that much more real.
_______________________

* It wasn't me who put it there.  Rather, my husband, himself inflamed at my griping, tore it from my hands and fed it to the fishes.  True story.

** It got me thinking.  Why wasn't Benediction offensive to me when Flight Behavior was?  In a way, they both took a small town setting to address some big issues...yet Flight Behavior felt smug and preachy, while Benediction felt compassionate and peaceful.  The subject of Flight Behavior (global warming) isn't as personal to be as the subject of Benediction (beliefs etc) so it seems that my reaction should be opposite...unless Benediction was in fact written with more respect, more peace, more compassion.  I'm compelled to think it must be so.

For the Record: March 2013

Abysmal.  That's how reading went in March.  I moved house, which ending up including many more hours on So. Cal. freeways until the new school bus route could be fixed.  Not my favorite time-suck.  Our 1960s house rebuild is progressing slowly, but we will soon be moving onto all the framing/plumbing/electrical and so many final decisions are needing to be made - all of which take TIME.  I'm missing reading and blogging, though, and am making efforts to have a better book month in April.  Here's the rundown for March:

4 Books Read in March: (18 year-to-date)
1 for Classics Club Challenge:
  - The Beautiful and Damned, F.Scott Fitzgerald (4.5) [I simply love the era and this was a wonderful way to learn more about it. review here]

3 from my shelf:
  - Some Tame Gazelle, Barbara Pym (4) [fun & cozy]
  - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie (3.5) [lent to me by a book club member and very good until the abrupt and odd ending.]
  - New Irish Short Stories, var. (3) [purchased in Ireland 2 years ago, and finally finished in a surge of wanting to be back there once again.  Wide range of quality, overall good experience.]

      


2 Current Reads:
  - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky.  Yikes.  Still.  And stalled out to boot.  Must re-motivate! Get it done!
  - The Professor's House, Willa Cather.  I had to take a break to finish The Beautiful and Damned by April 1st, but am looking forward to picking it back up.  [update: finished already! April might be a good reading month after all.]
  - Ireland, Frank Delaney.  Listening to this on audio and almost done! Not very good...but it's about Ireland so it balances out somehow. [update: finished this too!  Onto my next audio book: The Chaperone read by Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern.]

      

On My Nightstand:
I'm away from home right now, so my "nightstand" is currently a "bookbag" which contains the following:

    

The Beautiful and Damned: Classics Club Spin List Selection

I finished my selection - The Beautiful and Damned by F.Scott Fitzgerald - just after midnight on the 31st...squeaking in a final March read and barely accomplishing this goal.  Sometimes I forget how much more I accomplish when I have deadlines.  I should probably give myself more of them.  I'm definitely glad that The Classics Club gave me this one!

First published in 1922 and said to be a largely autobiographical look at the author's own marriage, The Beautiful and Damned was an intriguing mix of the expected and the unexpected.  It seemed to drag a bit in the middle, but was otherwise a captivating read.

I expected (and received):

1. New York, alcohol, and parties
2. All the fashion, glitz, and glam that goes along with the Gilded Age
3. Poetic Prose
4. A somewhat depressing, hopeless outlook

I didn't expect (but enjoyed):

1. A different writing style than Gatsby - a bit more straightforward
2. Many film and literature references
3. The intricately complex and precise portrayal of mental/emotional dysfunctions
4. The shocking number of similarities between that age & the current age.

F.Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald
(did you see them portrayed in Midnight in Paris?)

One of the things I loved most about this book was how the era was portrayed.  Reading about the first quarter of the century through the eyes of the authors who lived it just can't be beat.  It's a better learning experience than any history lesson.  There is a similarity to the experiences, (a flavor, a vibe, a sort of stunned observance of the massive changes happening in America,) that seems to place me directly into the time period as if a movie is happening around me.  From Willa Cather's O Pioneers! to Edna Ferber's So Big, and then to F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned - the stories stick with me, the characters are as real as life, and they make me hungry for more.

If you have a passing fancy for the era, or any interest at all in Zelda's life, I recommend this book.  It wasn't a very happy book, but it was a fascinating character study and peek into the culture of the times.    It kept me reading and interested, and I have a feeling that it will stick with me for a while.  Between Prohibition, the entrepreneurial spirit, the contrast between rural and urban areas, and the cocky American pride in the face of the First World War, I can't seem to get enough of the literature of the day.  Do you have any suggestions of other authors/titles I should try?