Giovanni's Room

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (1956)

A young American man named David is in the South of France, his girlfriend having just left to return to the US. David is about to return to Paris where Giovanni is being executed. He reveals the story of how he met Giovanni at a gay bar he visited with his friend Jacques, and how he began a relationship with Giovanni, eventually moving in with him. He knew it wouldn't last as his girlfriend Hella was in Spain only temporarily and would return, but Giovanni hoped otherwise. Eventually we learn what a huge mess David has made of everything and why Giovanni is being executed.

This is a very short book (my edition was 170 pages) but one packed with beautiful language and emotion. The atmosphere was one of a sort of tragic hedonism. David and his friends Jacques, Guillaume, and of course Giovanni drank a lot and drifted about aimlessly and hurt each other, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. The language almost romanticized it at times, but also sharply conveyed the more sordid and ugly parts.

Considered a gay classic, Baldwin's publisher apparently initially balked at it because of the content. More recently, it has been acknowledged to be bisexual - it seems weird that it wouldn't have before, but I guess it took a while to accept that bisexuality is actually a thing. David had a relationship with a boy before when he was young, but he also loves Hella and does want to marry her. Even Giovanni also had a woman in his life before he and David met, and one with whom he shared a loving relationship before it ended with tragedy.

This is the cover of the edition I read and it's a little odd - I never understand why occasionally an author's photo appears on the front cover. I would understand if the novel was more autobiographical, but I don't think this one is. Also, from what I can tell, the characters are all white. (David is described as blond and Giovanni is Italian.) But of course this is just one of many editions, I just really enjoy a beautiful cover and this one doesn't do justice to the story within.

I can't believe I haven't read James Baldwin before. Why did nobody tell me how lovely his writing is, and how compellingly genuine his characters? I know he also wrote a lot of nonfiction in the form of essays, as well as short stories, plays, and poetry, so there's a lot to choose from. If you have suggestions about what I should try next, please let me know in the comments!

Middlemarch

Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871)

I had no intention of reading this giant classic anytime soon (or possibly ever?) until a good friend invited me and another friend to read along with her this fall. I'll never turn down a read-along so of course I was on board! We began in October and gave ourselves until the end of December. Although Middlemarch is just over 800 pages - long but not monstrous - it's 800 pages of dense, tiny print, and Eliot's writing is the sort you really need to think about while you're reading. If I try to read something written in this style just before I go to bed, I end up reading the same sentences over and over without ever understanding them. So, I knew it would take a while and I knew I'd be reading other books at the same time. The danger is the very real possibility that by the time I finished, I'd forget everything that happened at the beginning. But I think I have a pretty good grasp of what I've read.

The story takes place in a small town in England in the 19th century and follows a few different threads, most of which relate to romance/marriage and everyone's difficult financial situations, and the relation between the two. At the center is Dorothea Brooke, a young woman who, despite appealing alternatives, decides to marry a cranky old man who is devoting his life to writing a bloated academic treatise. Dorothea, being a rather intelligent person who wants to be useful and productive, looks forward to helping him with his work, and spending hours discussing important issues and learning from him. But their marriage is not at all what she had envisioned, and she quickly becomes despondent. She befriends a young relation of her husband named Will Ladislaw, and the two strike up an intense friendship.

A young doctor, Tertius Lydgate, is a newcomer in town who has lots of newfangled ideas about medicine. He soon marries the widely-admired Rosamond Vincy, but when his practice is clearly struggling and he tries to suggest they cut back on expenses, Rosamond becomes extremely upset and accuses him of trying to make her life difficult. She just wants to borrow money from other people, and ignores Lydgate when he tries to explain that's not a sustainable way of living. Honest to God, I hated Rosamond so much. She was completely immature and self-centered and Lydgate didn't deserve being married to such a horrid person.

The other central relationship is between Rosamond's brother Fred and Mary Garth. Fred is sort of a good-for-nothing young men, well-meaning but unambitious. Mary - the most sensible woman in the book - refuses to commit to him until he can prove his worth. He just needs to grow up and figure his shit out. This story line was a little less present than the others, and I wish there was a bit more to it. I liked both Fred and Mary, and I was totally rooting for Fred to get his act together so they could marry. I wish Mary had more of a story because, as I said, she was the most sensible person in the book. But I guess when you're not making terrible decisions, there's not as much of a story.

Lest you think this novel is only about marriage, there are other plots, such as one about a man named Bulstrode who is hiding secrets from his past. He was not always from Middlemarch and it took a very long time to be thought of as anything other than a newcomer. But eventually he was accepted as a member of the community. But during the course of our story, a sketchy man named Raffles arrives and threatens to reveal unsavory secrets from Bulstrode's past. He blackmails Bulstrode, threatening to reveal everything if Bulstrode doesn't keep giving him money.

There are also some sub-plots about political/religious situations that I didn't entirely understand, so I can't really tell you about those.

In this society everyone just relies on others for money through inheritance, marriage, or borrowing. It's so weird seeing this as a 21st-century American, because all I could think throughout the book was, why don't you get a job? Or, maybe you need to spend less money than you take in, not more. It's just so weird to me for people to expect money to just be given to them. I know there were people a that time who did work their butts off for everything they had, and it wasn't much, but this particular book centers on those who seem to feel quite entitled and at times I wanted to smack them (I'm looking at you, Rosamond!)

There are a few things about the book I didn't like. About 3/4 of the way through, I made a note to myself that all the women in this book act like children. Eliot is not kind to her sex. When the women are upset, she describes their fat tears and trembling chins and pouting, none of which conjure images of adults. Rosamond was the very worst, but even Dorothea, the most intelligent and complex woman in the book, acted like a petulant toddler at times. Mary Garth was the most consistently positive character, with her strong ethics and good judgment, but even her goodness often came across as wide-eyed and childlike.

Every single chapter begins with an epigraph of some sort. Some are attributed, some are not, and some are in non-English languages and untranslated, as though even George Eliot knew we don't pay attention to them anyway. I don't know, maybe you do, but to me they feel so disjointed. They're not actually part of the text and I assume they allude to it in some way, but I'm just not going to go back to each one after reading the chapter so I can say, "Ah yes, now I see why she chose this." Honestly, I don't really see the point of using these, especially at the start of every single chapter.

My third and final criticism is that I'm just not convinced it was necessary for the book to be this long. I suspect I might be wrong in this. I think I just expected it to be more...epic? My view may be based more on the length it time it to me to read than the actual length of the book.

Otherwise, I did like the story.  I was thankful for the moments of humor that occurred now and then. From describing someone as "superfluously tall" to the scenes in which Dorothea's sister assumes everyone else is as obsessed with her new baby as she is, the lighthearted moments were a nice break from what is primarily a pretty serious novel.

I tend to like stories about domestic life in small English villages, pretty much in any time period. I liked the complexities and frustrations of the various marriage situations, and I appreciate the difficult position of the women in that time period. While I didn't love it, I did like it enough that I might be tempted to read some of Eliot's other works someday.

The Awakening

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899)

In this classic novel by Kate Chopin, we are introduced to Edna Pontellier, a young woman trapped in an unfulfilling marriage who suddenly realizes her true potential for happiness, though it may be out of her reach. The Pontelliers are vacationing in Grand Isle, Louisiana when Edna meets and befriends Robert, a single man in her social circle. They spend a great deal of time together and she hopes to continue their friendship when they return to town, but he, realizing his feelings for her are far beyond friendship, leaves for Mexico. Deeply upset, Edna tries to carry on and ends up befriending another man. Though the feelings are stronger on his side than hers, she pursues him until Robert returns to town unexpectedly. During this time she also moves out of her house, realizing how much happier she is when she does as she pleases.

I liked the general theme of this novel, which I know is heralded as a feminist classic. The prose was quite beautiful in parts, too. I especially enjoyed this passage, which comes at a pivotal point:

"There were strange, rare odors abroad- a tangle of the sea smell and of weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with the heavy perfume of a field of white blossoms somewhere near. But the night sat lightly upon the sea and land. There was no weight of darkness; there were no shadows. The white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the mystery and softness of sleep."

Isn't that lovely?

However, I was never very drawn to the characters, nor did I feel like I knew them well. Even Edna remained a mystery as I felt I only knew part of what was going on with her. She didn't expound on her feelings about her husband or why she married him. Chopin only really scratches the surface of the inner life of her characters.

Since this is a classic I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that it ends tragically, and I don't know that it was necessary. Why couldn't Edna realize the sort of life she envisioned for herself? She had already begun. She stopped waiting around the house on Tuesdays, her day to be called upon by her friends, and she moved into another place and made it her own. There were few consequences to these actions so I don't quite know what was stopping her from continuing on this way. Had something dramatic happened to pull her back into society, or had her husband forced her back, I would have been more convinced.

I had been quite looking forward to reading what I expected to be a feminist novel, but I'm afraid it fell a bit flat for me. If you have other early feminist classics to recommend, let me know in the comments!

Tender is the Night

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1934)

Dick Diver is a psychiatrist married to a former patient, Nicole, whose wealth affords them an elaborate lifestyle and assures her the best care possible. Young actress Rosemary Hoyt becomes obsessed with Dick when they meet on the French Riviera, complicating a marriage that already strains as Nicole becomes more healthy and strong than perhaps her husband counted on.

Both professionally and personally, Dick is widely admired. When we are introduced to him in this novel he is always the center of the party and everyone wants to be acquainted with him. As time goes on he is floundering, professionally and personally, drinking heavily, and he's become much less appealing to be around. Colleagues no longer hold him in such high esteem (and for someone who is supposed to be so respected, he hardly works at all throughout the course of the novel) and he barely tries to be charming anymore. At one point when his friend Mary admonishes him for not listening to her he says "But you've gotten so damned dull, Mary. I listened as long as I could." Which went over terribly well, as you can imagine.

Dick and Nicole's marriage was fascinating, but dark, her mental illness casting a shadow over everything. Their relationship was unequal because of their age difference and relationship as doctor and patient. Dick acts rather paternal towards her, his admonishments going far behind what is required for her mental health. I can't tell if that's supposed to be a negative characteristic or is just symptomatic of Fitzgerald's own views on women. Early on he says of Rosemary: "Like most women she liked to be told how she should feel..." And he describes Nicole's older sister as "...a tall, fine-looking woman, deeply engaged in being almost thirty" and goes on to describe her spinsterish ways.

The spare but evocative style is familiar to anyone who's read The Great Gatsby, and a few passages stood out to me such as Rosemary and Dick's taxi ride together:

"But there was little time to cry, and lovers now they fell ravenously on the quick seconds while outside the taxi windows the green and cream twilight faded, and the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs began to shine smokily through the tranquil rain. It was nearly six, the streets were in movement, the bistros gleamed, the Place de la Concorde moved by in pink majesty as the cab turned north."

I found the timeline of this novel incredibly confusing. In the first part, Rosemary meets and becomes quite fond of the Divers, falling in love with Dick. There's a lot of drunken debauchery with their friends that culminates in something very serious happening at the end of part one. When part two begins, it goes back to Dick first meeting Nicole and covers how their relationship began, and I expected that it would stop before the events of the part one, and then part three would continue the current story. But Rosemary appears in part two which means we've already rejoined the story in progress and I'm just not certain where that happens. Part three seems to pick up much later, though I could never tell how much time was passing at any point during the book. Furthermore, the events at the end of part one are never referred to again, which makes it even harder to place which parts of part two happened before or after that.

It took me a very long time to warm up to this book, and the whole time I kept thinking that i'd like it more the second time. I still think that though I did begin to really like it about 2/3 of the way through and more I think about it the more I like it. There's a lot to unpack and think about. I know that it's based on Fitzgerald's own relationship with his wife Zelda, and now I'm intrigued to read more about them. If anyone has a suggestion of a good book that covers their relationship, please let me know!

I read this for the Classic Book-a-Month Club. As I mentioned in my original post about that, I'm only planning to read along for 4 or 5 of the books. This is my second, after House of Mirth, and I'm looking forward to reading Raisin in the Sun next month. I've only ever read a few plays - there was all the Shakespeare I read last year and the only other one I can think of is The Cherry Orchard, which I read in college - so it should be an interesting change from my usual fare.

The House of Mirth

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)

Lily Bart is accustomed to a lavish lifestyle among the highest of New York society. Maintaining it will require a good marriage though, and she is already in her late 20s and getting desperate. It's clear that she is depending very much on others to maintain her place in society and her attempts to secure that place permanently are what contribute to her downfall.

Lily is clearly attracted to Lawrence Selden, and he to her, but he is not rich enough to keep her in the lifestyle which she insists is necessary. So she looks elsewhere for marriage prospects, pursuing Percy Gryce and then Simon Rosedale, neither of whom she actually likes and both of whom she fails to secure. In an attempt to invest what money she has, she seeks help from Gus Trenor, which turns out to be a huge mistake.

Gerty Farish was Lily's most stalwart friend, though ironically everything Lily did was to ensure that she didn't end up like Gerty, who was unmarried and lived alone in a small, modest flat and was excluded from fashionable social circles. I actually really liked Gerty who was probably the most genuine person in the book - being excluded from society means not being beholden to its requirements.

If Lily has a nemesis, it is surely Bertha Dorset, who contributes mightily to Lily's downfall. Bertha is notoriously unfaithful to her husband but deflects attention by spreading rumors and gossip about other people. She uses those around her for personal gain, manipulating them to serve her purposes. Lily comes into some evidence of one of Bertha's affairs and could have used it against her to help secure her place back in society, but in doing so would have also implicated Selden. As much as Lily could have been seen as being shallow and self-serving, she was definitely true to Selden.

I have no idea if high-falutin' New York society was actually anything like this during the Gilded Age, but if so I'm extremely glad I was not a part of it. Navigating one's life required the most intricate military precision, and I don't care how shallow and ridiculous you think these women were, they had to be smart and strategic in a way that I would completely fail at. I would have been eaten alive. At one point Lily laments: "All Jack has to do to get everything he wants is to keep quiet and let that girl marry him; whereas I have to calculate and contrive, and retreat and advance, as if I were going through an intricate dance, where one misstep would throw me hopelessly out of time." The language throughout the book reflected this strategic approach; for instance, when Lily doubts that Bertha Dorset's behavior towards a man will be sufficient to "effect his capture."

I've read three other books by Wharton and I don't recall the writing being so dense, but this took me a full week to read, which is unusual for me. I really enjoyed it until late in the story, and I'm trying not to let the ending color my impression of the whole thing. It did at first, but thinking back on it all to write this post has actually made me feel a bit better about the book as a whole. (It's a totally legit way to end, but just wasn't what I wanted to happen.) The social commentary was excellent and it was absolutely worth reading it just for that.

The House of Mirth was the March selection for the Classic Book a Month Club, and the first that I read for the year. I'll also be participating next month by reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which has been on my To Read list since I first had one, and which I managed to not read during my 2015 TBR Pile Challenge. This will finally be the year, folks!

The Tempest

The Tempest by William Shakespeare (1610)

Although I'm technically finished reading plays for my Bardathon Challenge, I'll be seeing a performance of The Tempest in December so I decided to read it ahead of time. In this play, the magician Prospero has been living in exile on a remote island with his daughter Miranda. He conjures a storm which brings to the island several people who had conspired together to oust Prospero. His complicated manipulations result in the marriage of Miranda to the son of the King of Naples, and Prospero's own restoration as the Duke of Milan.

My experience reading this was pretty meh. I enjoyed some of the wordplay and humor, such as when a ship was described as being "as leaky as an unstanched wench." When Trinculo notices the monster caliban he remarks: "What have we here, a man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish, he smells like a fish - a very ancient and fishlike smell, a kind of not-of-the-newest poor-John. A strange fish." Later, that same character says, again to Caliban, "Monster, I do smell all horse piss, at which my nose is in great indignation." So that was all amusing.

Again I read the Folger edition, as I've been reading with the other plays. This time I noticed that some unfamiliar words and phrases weren't explained, though "maze" was defined, which seemed a bit odd. I also had a hard time keeping track of the characters since so many of them seemed interchangeable. And I had a tough time understanding what was happening near the middle, but when all was said and done I think I get the idea.

At this point I sort of think if you've read one Shakespeare play, you've read them all so I probably won't be making a point to read any more. I'm looking forward to this play though - the island setting, storm, shipwreck, monster, and various spirits should lend themselves to a more visual experience.

Ten books I wish I read when I was in high school

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is a back to school freebie. They listed several ideas for topics, but I was thinking about how there are so many books I wish I had read when I was younger - for so many different reasons - so that will be my list.

Many of these weren't even published back then, which is kind of the point. We didn't really have much for teen books back in the 80s when I was in high school, and it's a shame because I really would have benefited from them. Pretty much all I read in high school was Stephen King and Danielle Steel. I still love Stephen King, but I really could have stood a bit more reading diversity. A couple of prevalent themes on this list are feminism and self-confidence, two things that I didn't realize I needed at the time.

1. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
One of my all-time favorite teen books. Frankie is the sort of girl I wish I was in high school. She had so much self-confidence and was so clever and used her smarts to infiltrate an all-boys secret society. She had a boyfriend, but didn't let him define her. I admire her so much!

2. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick
Another one of my favorites, I think I would have appreciated this story about a potentially-violent teenage boy and his unlikely friends. As a teenager, I could have stood to be a bit less judgmental, and this may have helped a bit.

3. Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer
Another one about trouble kids, plus it has a Sylvia Plath theme and I was kind of obsessed with her in high school.

4. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
I wish I had read some books about gay characters back then and maybe I would have been more sympathetic. (I grew up in a very isolated rural town.) The main character is also dealing with unexpected feelings after her parents' death, and since my father died while I was in high school, I think I would have appreciated this on a few different levels.

5. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
If there's one thing I could have used in high school, it was a healthy model for romantic relationships. This one even took place in the 80s.

6. How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
This kind of goes along with the healthy relationship model, but I could have used a big dose of down-to-earth feminism when I was growing up. Or any kind of feminism, but I think the kind with this much swearing would have really spoken to me. She talked a lot about growing up and her perspective would have been helpful.

7. Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit

Because one book about feminism isn't actually enough.

8. Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
This is on my extremely short list of books that I think everyone should read and the world would be a better place. I actually think I would have been interested in this when I was growing up because I did like to read "issue" books, and this is about a lot of different issues in people's lives.

9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I think I would have loved it even in high school. I loved dark books, and I think it would have given me more of an appreciation of the classics.

10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I wish I had read more classics. Obviously I read classics because I had to, and I liked some of them, but there are so many that I probably would have liked had I read them. Jane Austen is so different from what I read at the time, but I think maybe I would have liked her. It's hard to say really.

It was hard to narrow this down to 10, and I keep thinking of more. Basically I wish all the teen books, and the Harry Potter series, existed when I was a kid/teenager. And I wish I had just read more widely than I did, though I read pretty much everything I had access to at the time. We had a very small library in my town, but I was very grateful for it.

Who knows if I actually would have liked all of these as a teenager, much less if they would have affected my life in a positive way. Even without reading them in high school I think I've turned out ok, and I'm very happy I've read them at all!

Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1817)

This wasn't the next Austen on my list, but library copies of Sense and Sensibility were in sorry shape and Emma was a bit longer than what I wanted to read at the moment. But, happily, it seems that any Jane Austen is good reading.

Catherine Morland leaves her family with their friends the Allens to go to Bath. After days of feeling like they don't know anyone, Catherine befriends a young woman named Isabella and quickly forms a close friendship. She also meets an intriguing young man named Henry Tilney, befriending him and his sister, Eleanor. Young and naive, Catherine tends to believe the best about those around her, even while they continue to betray and disappoint. Various romantic entanglings commence and new delicate friendships are endangered, culminating in a trip to the Tilney's home, Northanger Abbey.

I like Catherine in the way you can't help like a gullible young women who is nonetheless very well-intentioned. It pained me to see how careless Isabella was with their friendship, but Isabella was just a fickle woman whose loyalties were ever-changing. Catherine tried to do what was right, but often became confused about the motives of others, because she couldn't believe that other people were less motivated by goodness than she was. When she was on her way to Northanger with the Tilneys, Henry told her a scary story about the Abbey that of course wasn't true, but when she arrived and found the same mysterious trunk in his story she became frightened and instantly concocted a horror story in her head about the family. She felt ridiculous later, but it was delightfully hilarious.

The end of the story felt a bit rushed, and I was never drawn in by real romance between Catherine and Henry. It was clear from the start that he was her romantic interest, and there were few obstacles. Aside from how he teased her with stories of the Abbey, I didn't feel like I got to know him very well but he seemed like a nice enough young man. I was glad she escaped the clutches of a truly awful man who was interested in her for a while.

Jane Austen always writes with a bit of satire about her times, so I enjoy such passages as: "...for a fine sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is." She is very conscious of the frivolity of her characters' lives and doesn't hesitate to make some of them transparently ridiculous. Much like Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Isabella would totally display her faults easily in the course of a conversation, making strong assertions based on no evidence whatsoever and contradicting herself. She was funny but also exasperating.

Northanger Abbey was fun and cozy, just the perfect thing to read in winter.

Walden

Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854)

I've gone to Walden Pond a number of times over the years and every time I've gone, I've been reminded about Thoreau's book that I still hadn't read. Thanks to the TBR Pile Challenge, I finally made it a priority to read Thoreau's musings on nature and his time living in a little cabin that he built himself out in the woods.

Somehow I expected it to be a detailed account of his life while he was living near Walden Pond, and I thought that he wrote it while he was there. But it's more like he's looking back on the experience, and though it contains some details about how he lived it's mostly filled with essays in which he meditates on various aspects of life and nature.

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this book. It contains some of the most beautiful nature writing I've seen, but it's also really slow going and kind of boring in parts. I also found him difficult to like based on many of the views he expressed.

Thoreau clearly has a sense of superiority over other people, and it is not deserved. One could argue that there are certain ways of living that may be objectivity better than others, but cutting oneself off from the world and criticizing those who don't is not one of them. It may be tempting to run away from the more social parts of life, but doing so doesn't make you better than other people. His essays display a love of nature, sure, but it's more of a dislike for being a part of society. He looks down on people who read the news, which he considers gossip. I don't really pay attention to news either, but it's not a bad thing to know what's going on in the world or your local community.

Although he speaks of sucking all the marrow out of life, he eschews travel or any sort of activity that is new or different in favor of just sitting on his front step for four hours at a time. I'm just going to come out and say it: This guy is lazy. He does not want to work. He ridicules people who have jobs. He even says, "He that does not eat need not work." I think part of his keeping his activity levels low is so that he won't have to eat that much, and therefore not have to work for it (either through a job or through hunting/farming, etc.) Well, you may as well lay down and die if you're just going to sit around all the time to conserve energy.

At the same time, we could all do well to spend a little time observing the natural world as he does. He may spend a little too much time describing the ice on the pond, but his account of ants fighting was both educational and amusing. He made his surroundings come alive in his descriptions: "All day the sun has shown on the surface of some savage swamp,  where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lists amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath..." There were many such passages I re-read just to savor the poetic language.

At times it was a bit of a slog, but it was nicely balanced with vibrant, lively discussions and observations so I'm glad I finally got around to reading it even if it wasn't the easiest book to get through. If you are thinking of reading it, I recommend the way I read most of it: in summer, while sitting outside.

The Painted Veil

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham (1925)

The Painted Veil opens on a post-coital scene in which Kitty Fane and Charles Townsend are discovered by Kitty's husband. He then whisks her out of Hong Kong to a village in the midst of a cholera epidemic, where he will be ministering to patients at great risk to his own health. Kitty quickly becomes bored with staying home and volunteers to help out at the convent, where she gains a new perspective on her husband and reassesses her past mistakes.

Kitty had married Walter out of desperation. She enjoyed her youth a great deal, passing up proposal after proposal until suddenly she was 25 and unmarried and her younger sister was engaged to a baron. Kitty's next proposal was from Walter, who was about to leave for Hong Kong, and she took it to marry quickly and escape her sister's wedding.

This isn't a recipe for a happy marriage, and Kitty spends much of the next few years in turmoil. First, is the affair with Charles, who she naively believes will divorce his wife and marry her. Then, her life in a cholera-stricken village as she gains new respect for husband, but that comes too late. What is most appealing about Kitty is that she is so genuine and her predicament so understandable. Maybe she's not the most strong and admirable woman, but who among us is?

Kitty really underestimated Walter. She made some serious decisions lightly, with unpleasant consequences. Throughout the course of the book she had to deal with many uncomfortable truths, but I think she became a better person for it. Poor Kitty just wanted to be happy, but her happiness was rare and fleeting. I felt hopeful at the end, even though she had lost so much by then, and I like to think she made a satisfying life for herself later. Here is a character I'd definitely like to check in on a decade or so down the road, just to see how she's doing.

I don't think I read any reviews of this book before reading it, but I know that what made me interested was that it is set in Hong Kong. Indeed, it reminded me a bit of The Piano Teacher, which was also about British people in Hong Kong having affairs.

There is a certain simplicity to the writing, but it is nonetheless beautiful. The style reminds me a lot of other books from the 1920s and I savored it the same way, enjoying the language as much as the story.

The Painted Veil was first published as a serial in Cosmopolitan, which just goes to show you how far that publication has fallen since the 1920s. I read a copy from my library, and almost didn't take it - it's the 1935 edition and has many interesting stains on it, but man, the pages are like resume paper. So satisfying. I don't think this is a classic that you hear about much, but I liked everything about it.

The Woman in White

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1860)

This classic sensation novel languished for far too long on my To Read list, despite recommendations from a couple of friends whose taste in books I trust, and who have told me over and over that I must read it. It centers on two half-sisters, Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie, who live with their useless, simpering uncle. Walter Hartright is hired as the young women's drawing teacher and he and Laura fall in love. But she is already promised to Sir Percival Glyde and despite her feelings - and warnings from a mysterious woman dressed all in white - goes ahead with the marriage. All too soon, she is sorry. The union sets off a whole series of events that make up a captivating story combining mystery, suspense, and romance.

There was almost no question about whether I'd like this book. A Gothic novel that inspired Fingersmith and was written by an author frequently compared to Dickens? Yes, please. Everything about it is exactly up my alley, I just kept putting it off because it's so long. Thank goodness for the TBR Pile Challenge lighting a fire under me.

The novel is written in first person through several different narrators, switching perspective throughout. This is common enough now, of course, but very innovative at the time. It adds greatly to the feeling of a mystery that we are piecing together as we read. Also rather emblematic of its time, the novel is filled with ridiculous assertions about the characteristics and role of women. I ignored these as best I could. It wasn't difficult as there was so much to enjoy in the book.

Here I met some of the best characters ever. First of all, I love Marian Holcombe. She is smart, resourceful, and strong. If I lived in this novel I'd want her as my best friend. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Mr. Fairlie, the weakest most pathetic character since Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. In fact, Frederick Fairlie was worse - his infirmities (whether real or imagined) kept him to his room at all times, and he didn't even walk. In one of my favorite passages he actually says "Gently with the curtains, please- the slightest noise from them goes through me like a knife." He is positively insufferable. Count Fosco is another colorful character. This corpulent Italian is secretive and conniving and has a menagerie that includes several birds, and also white mice which crawl over him at will. (Despite having had many pet rats, the thought of little mice crawling about my person positively makes my skin crawl.) Interestingly, Laura, on whom the whole plot centers, is not well-developed or appealing at all, just serving as an object of desire. Her most notable qualities were weakness and fragility. I don't know what Walter Hartright saw in her, besides being pretty, but I liked him anyway.

The title character is Anne Catherick, who bears a striking resemblance to Laura and seems to know awful things about Sir Percival Glyde. Uncovering these secrets is a major part of the novel. Ann dresses all in white because as a child she met Marian and Laura's mother, who told her that little girls look their best dressed in white. Neglected by her own mother, Anne latched onto this advice as she remained devoted all her life to the woman who said it.

Despite its length, I found it easy to lose myself in this novel and enjoyed it the whole way through, thanks in no small part to the excellent atmospheric writing.

"A white fog hung low over the lake. The dense brown line of the trees on the opposite bank, appeared above it, like a dwarf forest floating in the sky. The sandy ground, shelving downward from where we sat, was lost mysteriously in the outward layers of the fog. The silence was horrible. No rustling of the leaves- no bird's note in the wood- no cry of water-fowl from the pools of the hidden lake. Even the croaking of the frogs had ceased to-night."

In short, I'm very glad I finally got around to reading The Woman in White. There is good reason it's a classic! Although it did take me over a week to read, it didn't feel long because it wasn't drawn out at all. There were no lengthy descriptive passages or irrelevant sidetracks; it was all important the story and all very enjoyable to read. If you enjoy the classics, this one is not to be missed.

Bridge to Terabithia

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (1977)

Jess Aarons is determined to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. He practices all summer, getting up early to go running before breakfast every day. Then on the first day of school he's beaten anyway - by a new girl named Leslie Burke. Despite being outshone by this tomboyish girl, the two become friends and create a magical kingdom in the woods that they call Terabithia.

Bridge to Terabithia was published when I was four, and it reminded me a whole lot of my childhood somehow. Partly I think it's because Paterson captures the imaginations of young people so well, but it also has a distinct 70s feel to me. But I don't think it feels dated, just a bit old-timey. (Jess does have to milk a cow twice a day, after all.)

I loved how Jess and Leslie created a secret magical place, one that probably looked ordinary to everyone else. They fancied themselves king and queen, even naming their dog Prince Terrien. It's a safe respite from the real world, Jess's family's money troubles and Leslie's ostracism at school.

Paterson doesn't talk down to kids, and there's some pretty tough talk here compared to more recently-written books. There's mention of a kid whose father beats her, and the response was basically "So? Whose father's doesn't beat them?" an attitude you'd be hard pressed to find in any book these days. She even compares drawing to drinking whiskey, which of course would never happen in a children's book now, unless perhaps it was part of a moral tale about alcoholism. But it was a pretty vivid comparison that made a lot of sense.

Jess's parents exhibited some subtle prejudices that perhaps are a little out of date - they disapproved of Jess's "hippie" art teacher, for instance. And Jess couldn't admit his interest in art because when he was younger and proudly told his father he wanted to be an artist, his father grumbled about the teachers at his school, "Bunch of old ladies turning my only son into some kind of a -" The thought wasn't finished, but we can guess. (Way to go, Mr. Aarons. See if your son ever confides in you again.)

Still, despite these minor outdated attitudes I appreciated the timeless themes about facing one's fears, the importance of friendship, and the perennial problem of bullying. Reading books written in different time periods really puts some of our social mores into perspective, while highlighting certain aspects of growing up that apparently never change.

You may notice, with my recent reading of Charlotte's Web and now this, that I'm trying to catch up with some children's classics that I've missed. This might be all for now, but it's been fun to finally read these old classics.

Edited to add:  I just realized this is on my TBR Pile Challenge list as an alternate. So I'm more ahead on that challenge than I thought!

Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (1952)

As far as I know, this was my first time reading Charlotte's Web. It's entirely possible I read it as a child eons ago and just forgot. But it seems like the sort of story I would have remembered so I think somehow I actually did manage to miss it.

For anyone else who also passed this one by, it's about a little girl named Fern who saves a runt pig and names him Wilbur. Wilbur befriends a spider named Charlotte who lives above his pen, and when they learn that Wilbur is to be slaughtered in the fall, Charlotte devises a plan to save him.

I've always been a sucker for an animal story, and I found Wilbur to be quite a charming pig (though I must admit I've never met a pig I didn't like.) His unlikely friendship with a spider was actually rather touching and I found Charlotte rather appealing for an arachnid. I've got to respect someone so clever, even if she has far too many legs for my comfort. There was a supporting cast of sheep and a rat named Templeton, all of whom were rather mean or selfish, I suppose to highlight how kind Wilbur and Charlotte were to each other.

This edition was illustrated by Garth Williams, whose style was instantly recognizable from my many readings of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I've always liked the way his drawings are simple without being cartoonish or cutesy, and they are very integral to my memories of the Wilder books. I was happy to recognize him here.

I'm kind of interested in how childhood is treated by different generations, and couldn't help but take note of a passage that described a swing hung from a hayloft that was apparently both exhilarating and terrifying:

"Mothers for miles around worried about Zuckerman's swing. They feared some child would fall off. But no child ever did. Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will."

Are there still parents who would let their kid swing on a swing they thought was dangerous? Or would Zuckerman haven taken it down from fear that a kid would get hurt and he'd be sued? Or was this not even representative of parenting at the time it was written? I realize I'm putting way too much thought into something minor, but this is what happens when I read children's books as an adult.

Although I didn't find it sad like I was probably supposed to, Charlotte's Web was nevertheless an endearing little story and I'm glad I finally took a little time to read it. Better late than never!

David Copperfield

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)

I have just spent what I'm pretty sure is the longest two and a half weeks of my life reading David Copperfield. My edition was over 1000 pages, but even so I can't explain why it took me so long to read it. It was really tough to get through, but now that it's behind me I can look back somewhat fondly on Copperfield's life and the people in it.

The story begins with David's early life, which I can barely remember now because I read that part so long ago. He was orphaned fairly young and associated with a series of colorful characters as he grew up. As with any good Dickensian character, he was misunderstood and mistreated. The novel only has a plot insofar as any of our lives has a plot, and I think that's part of the reason it was so difficult to read. I love Dickens, but my god that book meandered.

A couple of my favorite characters were Clara Peggotty (known simply as Peggotty) and Betsey Trotwood. Peggotty was a servant from David's earliest years who became a mother figure to him after his own mother died, and he always remained fond of her. After she married, David was left in the care of his stepfather, Murdstone, and ended up working at his company until he became fed up and left to find his aunt Betsey. David's aunt hadn't seen him since the night he was born, when she became indignant that he was male and and could not be her namesake. When he finds her, she is standoffish at first, but their relationship developed into one of mutual affection. Aunt Betsey frequently mourns the loss of his sister, Betsey Trotwood, and compares David to her. She even begins referring to him at Trotwood, a nickname he keeps throughout his life.

Then there were the horrible, unappealing characters. As a young man, David fell in love with Dora Spenlow, a simpering idiot who he eventually married. She asked him to call her his "child-wife" which I think is a bit twisted, but appropriate, as she is just as useless as a child when it came to household matters. She accused David of being cruel to her when he suggested that, for example, perhaps they shouldn't allow their servants to rob them blind. The true villain of the novel though is Uriah Heep, a manipulative and sly man who constantly professed to be "umble" as he came from little means, but insinuated himself into business, stealing money and causing others (including Betsey Trotwood) financial ruin for years  before finally being confronted. The description of Heep's strange mannerisms, such as his constant writhing, added to his deviousness and made him easy to picture, and very memorable.

Those are just a few of the major characters, which were so numerous that I had difficulty remembering who some of them were when they left and reappeared much later. Many weren't very well developed when I first met them which made it even more difficult to remember them later, such as David's school friend Traddles who he becomes close to again as an adult. (And I am totally naming my next pet Traddles, which I think would be a fantastic name for any animal.)

One of the more interesting parts of the plot to me was when a few of the characters decided to emigrate to Australia. The Micawbers, a family always perilously close to financial ruin, and Emily, who caused a scandal by leaving her fiance and running off with another man, were among a small group who did not have a bright future awaiting them in England. But in Australia one could leave the past behind and start fresh, and many opportunities awaited those who were willing to give up everything and go. Now this was an intriguing story I wish Dickens had written.

Having complained my entire way through this lengthy and slow-moving tome, I feel a little strange saying that it was pretty good. I'm glad I know the story and the characters now, plus it's always good to have read a classic that is so frequently referenced. The other Dickens book I've been wanting to read is Bleak House, but now I don't know if I have it in me to read another of his super long novels. Next time I have a hankering for Dickens, I may re-read Great Expectations, which remains my favorite.

Persuasion

Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817), narrated by Juliet Stevenson 

Eight years ago Anne Elliot was engaged to Frederick Wentworth, but broke it off because her friend Lady Russell disapproved. She has regretted it ever since. Anne's family in the meantime has come into financial difficulties, and they are forced to leave Kellynch Hall and rent it out. When the new tenants arrive, it turns out the wife is none other than Captain Wentworth's sister, and soon Wentworth himself returns to the area. But there are many single ladies also hoping to make a good marriage and Captain Wentworth seems to pay little attention to Anne. After waiting so long, will Anne finally be united with the man she loves, or is it time to finally give up all hope and move on?

I liked Anne Elliot as much for her vulnerabilities as for her strengths. Like Pride and Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennet, she would not settle for a man just because he was interested in her if she was unable to respect him. But when it came to the man she really did love, her insecurities came to the fore. Already 27, Anne knew she was past her prime (!) and not as attractive as she once was. Yet she felt she was still essentially the same (probably much like my 40-year-old self is convinced I'm just the same as when I was 25.) Every time she was around Captain Wentworth she tried to gauge his reaction to her and to the other, younger women around them. She wasn't pining away pathetically; she just knew that ending their relationship so many years ago was a bad choice and hoped he knew that too.

There is much more romantic intrigue than just the non-relationship between Anne and Captain Wentworth. A friend of Elizabeth Elliot's is trying to insinuate herself into the good favor of their widowed father. The intriguing Captain Benwick is still mourning the death of his fiance. Anne's cousin William Elliot also returned after years of estrangement, and was clearly seeking out a love interest. In addition to Anne, eligible young ladies included those of the family that Anne's sister Mary married into, the Musgroves. There were enough characters of both sexes to keep me wondering who would end up with whom, without getting everybody confused.

I can't figure out what is so satisfying about Jane Austen's books (of which I have only read two so far.)  I love being immersed in this world, though I certainly wouldn't want to live it. The social obligations alone would do me in, but the utter boredom that these people must feel sometimes could not be borne, I don't think. None of them have jobs or careers, and the young women occupy themselves only with gossip and the hopes of someday being married and having children, presumably just to give them something to do. How could they stand it? And yet. To have so few responsibilities, so much time to think, seems positively luxurious sometimes.

This was a difficult book to listen to, though not through the fault of the wonderful narrator, Juliet Stevenson. Austen's sentence constructions can be tough to follow out loud, but it was so good that I didn't mind skipping back to listening to bits of it over again when needed. I did that a lot. I also grabbed a paperback copy from the library and read parts of it after listening to make sure I didn't miss anything. I might read this again, or listen to it again. I don't know what it is about Jane Austen that bears so much repetition, but I likely won't grow tired of this story just as I haven't grown tired of the BBC production of Pride & Prejudice which, despite the 5-hour length, I have watched over and over again. I will look for this narrator again, especially if I decide to listen to another of Austen's books.

I'll certainly be consuming more of her work in some form or another. Austen fans, which title do you recommend I try next?

The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

I last read this classic Hemingway book back in high school, along with The Great Gatsby, for a project on the Lost Generation. All I remembered about it was a bunch of American expatriates in Europe, getting drunk and going to bull fights. But surely there was more to it than that. High school was a long time ago. Last week I read it again for a booktalk at work and was surprised to find that I really wasn't forgetting much. The Sun Also Rises is short on plot, but long on hedonism and feelings of disillusionment.

The narrator is Jake Barnes, injured in World War I, now drifting aimlessly around Europe. He is joined by other friends, most notably Lady Brett Ashley, not yet divorced but already being fought over by two of Jake's friends before she runs off with a bullfighter named Pedro Romero who is much too young for her.

Hemingway's style is not for everyone. He writes in a series of short, declarative sentences. I did this, then I did something else, then I went here, then I bought two more bottles of wine, etc. There is little description or emotional depth and though his style isn't my favorite, I at least find it easy to read. And there were a few moments with just enough description to convey the wonderful feeling of, for instance, lunch on a sunny day outside in an old European city.

It's hard to feel bad for these disillusioned folks, as unhappy as they are. Although they frequently complain about not having enough money, they seem to manage ok considering that none of them seem to have jobs. (A couple are writers, but don't seem to ever be writing.) They manage to pay for the hotels they stay in, the food they eat, the bullfights, and the copious amounts of alcohol they consume.

Perhaps when I was in high school I was convinced that if I played my cards right, this could be my life. Of course it's not the 1920s and my life isn't a work of fiction, so now it all seems rather unreal. It's always interesting to read a book I last read so many years ago, and it was an interesting little trip down memory lane. If I had to read more Hemingway it wouldn't be a terrible thing, but I probably won't make a point of it.

Rebecca

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)

The young, unnamed narrator is working as a companion to an American woman in Monte Carlo when she meets an older widower, Maxim de Winter. They agree to marry almost immediately, and after their honeymoon return to his English estate, Manderley. The new Mrs. de Winter tries to settle in, but is uncomfortable by the continuous comparisons to Maxim's first wife, Rebecca. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is an especially sinister figure who loved Rebecca a great deal and is less than welcoming to Maxim's new wife. Mrs. de Winter comes to feel that Maxim doesn't love her because she cannot possibly compare to his apparently-perfect first wife. But Manderley holds many secrets, and soon they begin to unravel.

Rebecca is dark, gothic, and beautiful. Du Maurier's descriptions of Manderley in the first chapter are full of foreboding, and the few pages in which she describes the vegetation set up the atmosphere for the whole story. Reading descriptions of estates can positively bore me, but there was action in the way the Manderley vines twisted around other plants, choking them, and in how the menacing trees impeded those trying to come up the drive, the fifty-foot rhododendrons towering over it all like dark sentries. This novel hooked me from the very first page.

The characters, too, are mysterious and shady. Mrs. Danvers is sinister from the start, but with others it can be difficult to know whose side they are on. And the new Mrs. de Winter is in the midst of it all, coming into a household that has been operating in its own way for years, and expected to slip into the role of someone who is dead, but was a completely different person. The previous Mrs. de Winter used to sit at this particular desk in the mornings and write letters with this pen, so the new Mrs. de Winter is expected to do the same. It's so deliciously ominous.

I'd love to read lots of deep meaning into the fact that the narrator is unnamed, but the author's note explains that she just couldn't think of one. And it works perfectly. Somehow it is appropriate that our heroine, who is under-confident and constantly overshadowed by her dead predecessor, has no name of her own. Our heroine, who it's difficult to especially like or dislike because she is so young and unformed, avoids confrontation at all costs and is happy to surrender decision-making to others. But as the story progresses and she learns more about her husband and about the perfect, beautiful Rebecca, she begins to come into her own. This is not the sort of coming-of-age story you are used to.

Although I've been trying to catch up on classics for several years, this one escaped my notice until recently, probably because Du Maurier doesn't have a huge body of work like Dickens or Austen. The short story "The Birds" is the only other work of hers I'd heard of and I didn't realize she was the author until now. What made me want to pick this up was Simon from The Readers who manages to mention it at least once during every podcast and whose blog header includes the cover image. Thank you, Well-Read British Man I've Never Met. Rebecca is just fantastic in many ways, and I'm sorry it's taken me this long to read it for the first time. I suspect it won't be the last.

Yee gods and little fishes!

Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain (1941)

As anyone in town would tell you, Mildred had great legs. She was also a fantastic cook, resourceful, and wouldn't take crap from any man. At the opening of the novel, Mildred is kicking out her husband Bert, who is having an affair. Left alone with two daughters, she is barely scraping by and sucks it up and starts looking for a job. But it's the Depression and work is scarce, and Mildred is picky, thinking she is too good for most of the jobs out there. Finally landing a job as a waitress, she gets a very ambitious idea and despite the tough times ends up opening her own restaurant. It would have all been very tidy if it weren't for the poor choices Mildred made in her personal life. She unfortunately had two major weaknesses: she kept getting wound up with the wrong kind of men, and she let her daughter Veda walk all over her.

Despite her flaws, I felt a kind of kinship with Mildred. She was admirable in many ways, but would also be fun to hang out with over cocktails. She not only works hard, but knows how to have a good time. But the poor gal, she couldn't resist certain money-sucking cheating lying men. Furthermore, the musically gifted Veda, for whom Mildred sacrificed so much, was not only ungrateful and snobby, but completely manipulative and dishonest. Veda had little respect for her mother, of whom she admitted to being ashamed, and was very free with the insults, name-calling, and emotional blackmail. Mildred had only herself to blame for allowing such horrid behavior and by indulging Veda's every want, but I don't think she ever came to realize that she contributed so much to the way Veda turned out.

The story arc had some unexpected turns, a major tragic event coming almost halfway through the book and taking me by surprise. I like Cain's steadily paced writing, straightforward and peppered with a lot of short action statements. "Then she hopped in. Then she started the motor. Then she started the wiper. Then she tucked the robe around her." In particular, I liked the industriousness of the descriptions of Mildred's business, how she managed her restaurants and baked her pies. The reader will not forget the era in which the story takes place - the talk of Prohibition, bootlegging, and FDR keeps us firmly rooted, not to mention that the language and expressions are very much of the time. I didn't always know exactly what the characters meant when they spoke, but I liked it all the same.

Mildred Pierce was my book group's August pick as part of our effort to read classics in the summer. Less well-known than many titles that spring to mind when we think of classics, it was an excellent pick (if I do say so myself). If you've overlooked this title, I urge you to give it a try. There's a lot to love about it!