I’ve decided I’m going to start over again. My involvement will probably be far less than it was before and I reserve the right to just stop blogging or omit blogging for a week or two here or there if I’m too tired of it, if life is busy, or if I otherwise just feel like it. This is once again for me, and not for others, although I’ll try to be a part of something.

As I mentioned, I redesigned the site. I changed my tagline too.It used to be:

Thoughts about fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, new and old

And I’ve changed it to:

Thoughts on reading & rereading classic fiction, nonfiction, & children’s books, old & new

The emphasis now is on classics before anything else. The emphasis is on old works before the new ones. The emphasis is on reading and rereading, of which I’m a big fan. I hope that my responses to classic literature on this site will be more thematic and overarching, rather than plot summaries and impressions. I hope to be less review-like and more reflective. I hope to have a greater variety of posts: some posts brief thoughts on a book I recommend, others longer essays on themes between two or three books I’ve finished.

As part of my site redesign, my menus above reflect the past (review archives), present (current reading lists, updated via Shelfari), and future (reading lists) of Rebecca Reads. I’m going to try to keep my sidebars clean of too many “buttons” and images. I’m not planning on joining any “challenges” and I’m officially dropping all I had signed up for, although I may have a personal project that I adopt that reflects a challenge. I still intend to tell you about challenges and projects that deserve your attention. The Classics Circuit is still on vacation. I need to wrap my mind around that a bit more.

Here I am in September and in actuality, I could just not blog at all. It’s not a pressing need in my life, which is quite a relief. It’s nice to not have to worry about it. However, I really do want to share my thoughts on what I’m reading. More than 85% of my blog hits are people coming from search engines, so there are readers out there even if I’m a less active part of the “community.” Besides that though, I do want to comment on your blogs about what you’re reading. I like the interaction, as long as it doesn’t become an obligation for any of us.

What have I been reading? I have been working on my Victorian summer, and I think I may make it a Victorian year, I love it so much. I finished three Victorian novels by women, including Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters, and George Eliot’s Middlemarch. All of them are interesting and enjoyable for different reasons. I’m also currently reading Great Expectations and my first Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?.

I went through a YA/children’s book phase where I read a few novels by Shannon Hale, one by Kate DiCamillo, a Roald Dahl classic, and the second novel of Westerfeld’s Uglies series. And I read three full-length novels aloud to my toddler: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Winnie-the-Pooh; and Peter Pan. Although he liked the stories (I would summarize the action before and after we read our pages), I think we need a break from dense and long novels! He certainly loves the picture books we’re reading, and he enjoyed the two summer reading programs we joined.

Since my recent classics book club read was Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, I went through a Twain week where I also reread Tom Sawyer and read for the first time Pudd’nhead Wilson. I really enjoy Twain, and look forward to sharing some thoughts on those. I reread The Stranger by Albert Camus and enjoyed it far more the second time (and after our club discussion). I also picked up two other novellas: one by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Chronicle of a Death Foretold) and one by Banana Yoshimoto (Kitchen). Neither of those novellas was a favorite, but I did love Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude a few years ago, so maybe a reread of that is in order to satisfy my magical realism craving.

And that is how the future will go: I’ll read whatever I feel like reading next, of course with my two book club schedules in mind. I’ll write thoughts about said books and/or write posts about reading in general whenever I feel like it. I’ll post when I feel like it, and not post about books I don’t want to talk about anymore. I’ll read other book blogs most weeks, and I’ll comment when I have something to add to your conversation (which is not all the time).

So anyway, I’m trying again. I’ll only post, read blogs, and respond to comments on my schedule, such as right now when my toddler is happy by himself. He also starts preschool next Tuesday morning. I can’t tell you how excited I am for that. Maybe that will let me have time to have a place in the blogging world.

I anticipate that the future of Rebecca Reads will be a bit different, but hopefully it will still be a satisfying hobby for me and a satisfying place to visit now and again for you, my fellow readers.

• My First Year of Blogging: A Contest with a Giveaway
• This Is NOT Goodbye
• Blogging as Storytelling and Blogging Tips from an Unprofessional
• Celebrating the Classics: A Dead Author Blog Tour? (An Idea)
• A Goodbye-for-now Haiku
• BBAW Voting is Open + Rebecca Reads Shortlisted!
• Introducing: My Victorian Summer
• Reading Journal (6 January): Starting Off the New Year
• Blogging Goals for the Coming Year
• BBAW Meme + Thanks for the Nominations

Happy memories,
pleasant friends, and blogs: good-bye
until I write next.

I’ve decided to stop blogging for a while. There’s an 80% chance I’ll come back at the end of August or maybe September. I’m going to try to write up some thoughts on the things I finish reading in the mean time just in case. I am still going to be reading. I have my twitter account and probably will tweet now and then. The Classics Circuit is on a permanent vacation.

As you know, I’ve lately been struggling to keep up with reading blogs, writing posts, and otherwise being an active part of the blogging community. I know that to expect comments, I must make them on other blogs, and to expect someone to want to read my literary ramblings, I must go read yours. Having a blog and yet not participating in the community is completely unfair. I love your blogs, and I’m glad for the friendships I’ve made through the web, but I also feel blogging and the friendships I’ve developed are taking me away from the friends and activities I should be enjoying in my day to day life (especially that of my toddler son and wonderful husband), and it doesn’t feel right. As I mentioned, I may come back, but only if I can keep balanced. My son is getting older and there are yet three years before he enters kindergarten, so I’m not sure when my life will possibly be balanced! I’ll have to see.

Recently, I’ve finished Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell and Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. I’m going to read some haiku and finish I Am a Cat by Soseki, and I’m reading Mark Twain’s Tom and Huck books this month (so far so good). If I feel like it, I’ll come back and give you some mini-roundups in a few months.

In the mean time, enjoy your summer and fall!

• This Is NOT Goodbye
• Blogging as Storytelling and Blogging Tips from an Unprofessional
• Starting Again
• Reading Journal (23 Sept): The Classics Circuit
• Blogging Goals for the Coming Year
• Google Reader Overload! + Blog Thoughts + Memelet
• Reading Journal (14 Oct): Blogging Burnout
• Like Water For Chocolate Winner!
• BBAW Meme + Thanks for the Nominations
• The What? When? Where? Why? and How? of Challenges

In terms of reading about Meriwether Lewis’ life and expedition to the Pacific, I found Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West to be disappointing as well. The book was dull in writing style, in research, and in cliché phrases. Just as with last month’s book club pick, I probably would not have read it if not for the upcoming get together. In fact, I would have abandoned this book completely if the group leader had not asked me to lead the discussion (she is out of town).

The Expedition and Story

I did find the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition rather fascinating. In an era before any transportation except boats, horses, and one’s own feet, Lewis, along with his co-Capitan William Clark, traveled from St. Louis (Lewis originally came from Washington, D.C.), to the Oregon coast and back again (8000 miles) by crossing the most formidable and then unknown mountains (in Idaho) in many feet of snow. His task was to travel through the newly purchased territory of Louisiana, converse with the Native American groups (and informing them that the United States now owned that land), find the head of the Missouri river, and hopefully find the long-desired Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. All tasks were attempted with great diligence and much adventure, although of course there was no Northwest Passage.

I enjoyed learning about Lewis and he surely seemed uniquely able to lead such an expedition. In the first 100 pages, which were about his childhood, I kept imagine him as a hobbit, especially when it was mentioned that he went hunting in bare feet in the winter snow. Lewis seemed to be a complicated man, but his relationship with in his co-leader Clark and his confidence in the success of the mission and the abilities of his men gave him a manner that I highly respect. Despite his character faults and the subsequent tragedies (like his suicide) which were to come upon his return to society, he was mostly grounded and certainly a leader to be admired while leading his expedition. The last 80 pages, which were about his life after the expedition and his suicide, were quite heart-breaking since I spent so many pages admiring his bravery and leadership.

Meeting some Natives on the lower Colombia River

However, even though the expedition, its goals, its adventures, and its people were quite fascinating, I had a sense of unease as I read about it, mostly because of the jingoism of the Americans towards the natives. In particular, I despised Jefferson’s and Lewis’ ideas of bringing the natives in to submission to the United States. These were young, rough frontiersmen showing up with beads and saying, “This is your new father” as they handed them a likeness of Thomas Jefferson. I was offended for the sake of the natives, who were consistently referred to as “children” and “savages,” and discussed by the expedition as though they needed to be overcome. The expedition could survive in neither the harsh Northern Montana weather nor the mild but wet Oregon weather. Rather, during both winters the travelers need the food and expertise that the natives provided.

Further, I hated that the expedition never seemed to acknowledge that they were the ones trespassing.  My book club chose a book about Lewis and Clark because they wanted something “patriotic” for the month of July. This was not a patriotic story: it was disgusting to me. The horrible thing was that this really happened, and this is not the fiction I wished it was. While I certainly can appreciate that times were different then, it is no less disturbing. I feel sick to my stomach when I realize how my American predecessors treated the natives in this country.

The Book

I did not know much about the Lewis and Clark expedition before I picked up Undaunted Courage, and I’m amazed that such an adventure was told in such a dry manner in Mr. Ambrose’s book. He quotes from other sources extensively¹, and he gives insignificant details such as exactly which path the adventurers followed at each point of the day and on which corner of the campsite was the latrine².  But as the Corps of Discovery is being attacked by a bear, the text is quite matter-of-fact. Seriously? Isn’t this exciting?

I did breathe a sigh of relief when the company made it back to St. Louis (civilization), so the book was a tense and therefore a somewhat exciting read.  Being previously unfamiliar with the expedition, I had not known how it would work out. But this excitement was due to the events as they happened, not Undaunted Courage. If I read one more “and this was the first time west of _[fill in the landmark]_ that an American did _[fill in the event]_”, I decided I would figuratively throw the book out the window. (It’s a library book, hence the “figuratively” qualification). Personally, I don’t really care if no other American before 1804 had an Independence Day celebration west of some important landmark. Is that really such a red-letter day? I guess I’m not easily impressed with “firsts” like that. Especially since I felt that it wasn’t really America but native lands that the Americans were appropriating from the Native Americans without their permission.

Buffalo skin bull boats

On the other hand, I wish there was more explanation about, for example, a group that had their horses stolen by Indians, made themselves a bullboat, and met up with the group. That sounds quite interesting. But what I’ve just said was all I know. Mr. Ambrose rarely expounded on such tantalizing events.

Mr. Ambrose also had the tendency to “wax poetic” with his own ideas. For example, just before Lewis committed suicide, Mr. Ambrose spent more than a page wondering what Lewis was thinking about at that moment, and listing out all the marvelous sites Lewis had seen and adventures he had had while on his expedition. This seemed nothing short of inappropriate for a biographer. I don’t mind seeing a little bit of the biographer, but the bulk of a text should be on the facts, and supposing the man’s thoughts for such a long section seemed completely irrelevant, especially since Lewis, as an obviously mentally distressed man about to commit suicide, most likely was not pondering the beauty of the Idaho mountains. This, and other such tangents, gave the book a decidedly ridiculous aspect.

I’ve mentioned before that I am an avid note reader. Mr. Ambrose’s endnotes are not worth referring to. Ninety-nine times in a hundred, they simply refer us to the source that said what Ambrose had just reiterated. The endnotes never elucidated the facts. Undaunted Courage was a book that could have been written in notes; instead, mundane details are put directly in the text. With some better organization and a lot of editing, the book would have been 150 pages shorter. (It was 485 pages as it was.)

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

I hope I am not misunderstood. I am a fan of history and biography, and I normally like history books. It may be that my current reading ADD has affected my enjoyment of this book. It could be that summer weather distractions have made me harder to please. It could be that I’m the wrong audience for this book, and it would be much better appreciated by a true Lewis-and-Clark buff. Then all the day-to-day details may have been very important. Nonetheless, I seriously disliked Mr. Stephen Ambrose’s book, and wish I had read different book to learn about Lewis and Clark. That’s really the bottom line.

That said, I’m off to pull some information together so we can have a nice book club discussion, regardless of this book. (I don’t think most people will have read it at all, let alone in full. I don’t know if that makes me more annoyed at having to suffer through it or relieved that we can just talk about the expedition…)

• Abraham Lincoln: A Man of Faith and Courage by Joe Wheeler
• My Victorian Summer: We Two by Gillian Gill and Armadale by Wilkie Collins + Reading Journal
• God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane
• Daughter of Destiny by Benazir Bhutto
• Social Issues in Literature: Depression
• Twenty Years at Hull-House by Jane Addams
• Jerusalem: The Eternal City by David Galbraith et al
• On Writing by Stephen King
• Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt

Much like Wooster from P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories (of which I’ve only listened to the audio for one of them), Three Men in a Boat is about a silly young man who tends to poetry, doesn’t work, and thinks rather highly of himself as a part of society. The audio for my edition (there are many available) was read by Martin Jarvis who is also an awarding-winning Wodehouse narrator, so the comparison is apt. In this novel, there are three such equally silly young men, and each thinks highly of himself! For various reasons, the three young men decide to take a river trip down the Thames in a boat.

But the story itself is not really about the boat trip. Rather, the narrator (called J) uses the boat trip to tell stories about everything from his opinion of wood paneling to his friend’s experiences in cemeteries. What ties the stories together is an underlying disdain of society and his own understanding of his supposed superiority in that society in so many ways. Because of that focus, the novel becomes a comedic satire of Victorian society and those in the middle class of that society, of silly young men, of vacations, and so forth.

Although the audio narration was very well done, I did find myself confused at times listening to the book and never having read it. Because I often listened in ten to twenty minute segments as I drove, I’d often begin a car trip and not remember where the characters were or if J was once again providing a digression from the actual trip down the river.  Such details didn’t really matter to minute-by-minute amusing stories of the novel, but I suspect if I had read a hard copy of the book, I may have looked at a map (such as this one) to see where these places were (I am rather clueless on England’s geography) and to enjoy the progression down the river. If I ever am to go to England, I’ll have to reread this book for the ridiculous factoids given about each location.

I realize I have said nothing of the dog, and I suppose that is just as well, for the narrator never does say much about him either. I have neglected much of the humor in the book. Three Men in a Boat is quite fun and I’m proud to add it to the Victorian Literature category, since it defies the stereotypical expectations normally found therein. I highly recommend it if you like the Jeeves stories!

• Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The John Cheever Audio Collection
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman + Giveaway (Used Book)
• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell
• The Green Knowe Chronicles by L.M. Boston
• The Victorian Art of Fiction: Nineteenth-Century Essays on the Novel, edited by Rohan Maitzen
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Odyssey by Homer: The Story

So, I suppose it is not surprising that Lewis Buzbee’s memoir of bookstores, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, did not do much for me. It is a combination of a history of bookselling and a memoir of his own addiction to bookstores, and I spent the bulk of the book wishing it was about a love of books or a love of the written word or a love of a specific author. I was the wrong audience, and I had been hoping for a different book. I also speed read it in order to have a post ready for the Spotlight Series today. If I hadn’t made that commitment, I’d probably not have finished it at all or I’d have read it slower. Maybe if I had not read it all at once, I would not have been as irritated by parts of it. I’m not a memoir person, and this volume reinforced that.

The history portion of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop was at times quite interesting. However, the lack of footnotes or references of any kind made me suspicious. When I read nonfiction, I want to see sources. While I don’t doubt that Mr. Buzbee researched for this book and wrote true facts in the history portions, I wish I’d read the facts in a nonfiction history of bookstores, complete with references, rather than in a pseudo-memoir. There is no author’s note indicating where he did his research, and this detracted from the book for me.

And then the memoir portion honestly bored me, as memoirs often do.  I didn’t particularly like Mr. Buzbee, and details like his admission to stealing books from bookstores as a kid really did nothing to endear him to me. His personal stories of bookstores revealed an obsession that I could not relate to, and his comments about the insignificance of e-readers were hilarious in the lack of foresight (he wrote in 2005). I can’t blame him for that, I suppose, but as a whole such little details made him seem rather ridiculous to me. I found there to be little love of the ideas from books detailed in this memoir. There was some, but it more about acquiring the books rather than reading them. I cannot relate to that.

I like books. In fact, I love them. But most of the time, it is for the words, ideas, and stories in them, and not for the place from which I purchased it. As such, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop was not a memoir I related to.

All that said, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is a very attractive slim hardcover volume with deckled pages. If I was compulsive book buyer that frequented bookshops, I suspect that upon noticing The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, it would have been one that could end up in my possession for the prettiness factor. Since I am not a compulsive book buyer, I’m glad this was just a free library read.

• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
• My Victorian Summer: We Two by Gillian Gill and Armadale by Wilkie Collins + Reading Journal
• Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers
• On Writing by Stephen King
• Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
• Library Summer Reading Programs Completed!
• How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster
• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman

I intended to read the entire volume for the Circuit (about 600 pages), but I’m finding that summer living has made reading time scarce. Even reading half the volume, though, makes for quite a long post here, so I hope you don’t mind. I read the authors I had never read before and share my thoughts below: Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, Sergey Akaskov, Karolina Pavlova, and Ivan Goncharov. Some of them are writers that I intend to revisit. Other writers were a good read, but I’ll probably not revisit them.

According to Merriam Webster, superfluous means “exceeding what is sufficient or necessary: extra; not needed: unnecessary.” As I read the collection of stories, poems, and novellas, I couldn’t help thinking of that word. Ivan Turgenev wrote the novella “The Diary of a Superfluous Man” in 1850, which focused on one of the gentry who lived a rather aimless life. I haven’t read the novella (it is not in my Reader), but I read Mel u’s post about it early in the Classics Circuit Tour. As I read my selections, I kept thinking about how each story or poem seemed to discuss one of these “unnecessary” people in Russian society. Reading Russian literature in that light is quite depressing, yet the stories are, for the most part, wonderfully drawn together.

Alexandr Pushkin’s Poetry

In Russia, apparently, Aleksandr Pushkin is considered the greatest Russian writer, not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. Ever since I heard that, I have wanted to read his poetry. I love the little bits I tried, although there were only about 30 pages in the Reader. It was so beautiful, and want to read more. The longest poem given in the Reader is called “The Bronze Horseman: A Tale of Petersburg.” It begins as an “ode” to St. Petersburg, and it ends by describing a man (one of the “unnecessary” or “superfluous”) during a flood of the Neva. He takes refuge by holding on to a bronze statue, all the while hoping his loved ones are safe. It ends sadly, and to me it seemed to echo the “superfluous man” concept:

…Against the threshold carried,
Here lay asprawl my luckless knave.
And here in charity they buried
The chill corpse in a pauper’s grave. ¹

In the end, he was expendable.

I also started reading Eugene Onegin, Pushkin’s novel in verse, but I have not had time to make much progress. (It is not in the Reader.)

“The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol

Gogol surprised me. I knew he was a satiric writer, and that is about all I knew. Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat” was immensely satisfying, and I think it may enter my “favorite short stories” mental list. My thought when I finished it: simple yet sublime.

“The Overcoat” tells the story of a superfluous man. He is a very poor man, working a menial job in a boring routine. One winter, he discovers his overcoat is no longer repairable and a new one must be made to order. This is his story of that new overcoat.

I am not sure how to express why I enjoyed this story. Akakii Akakiievich is a nobody, but I liked him immensely, possibly maybe because I could so easily relate to him (It’s not that I’m quite that much of a nobody, but he certainly seemed realistic and I pitied him). But also, I loved how Gogol moved the story so seamlessly from what was realistic to the supernatural. It seemed Gogol just wanted to see justice be done, and it made it quite satisfying as a story. Things came full circle, as we’d want them too. It was unrealistic in that sense, because life doesn’t end prettily for us. Although it was about a “superfluous” person, it was not as depressing as some other Russian stories I read. I look forward to reading more Gogol.

“Princess Mary” (from A Hero for Our Time) by Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov’s Pechorin is also one of the “superfluous.” He is middle class and idle, except for what he can do to entertain himself. He is utterly despicable, from my perspective, and that is the point. “Princess Mary” is told as Pechorin’s journal entries, an extended excerpt from A Hero for Our Time. In Pechorin’s journal, we see that his motives are all selfish, and in the story “Princess Mary,” he essentially uses a woman’s emotions for his own entertainment, even though he could not care less for her.

In the introduction to A Hero for Our Time, Lermontov wrote:

A Hero for Our Time, gentlemen, is indeed a portrait, but not of a single individual. It is the portrait composed of all the vices of our generation in their fullest development. You will tell me again that no man can be as bad as all this; and I shall tell you that since you have believe in the possibility of so many tragic and romantic villains having existed, why can you not believe in the reality of Pechorin? … You will say morality gains nothing from this. … However, do not think that the author of this book ever had the proud dream of becoming a reformer of mankind’s vices. … He merely found it amusing to draw modern man such as he understood him to be… ²

An excellent write-up from earlier in the Circuit by Exiled By Accident got me interested in finding the rest of the volume at some point. The “Princess Mary” section is, apparently, more than a third of the entire Lermontov collection.

“Mikhail Maximovich Kurolesov” (from The Family Chronicle) by Sergey Aksakov

Amateur Reader wrote about Sergey Aksakov a few weeks ago for the Circuit, so if you are interested, I defer to his posts. My Reader had just one small excerpt (called “Mikhail Maximovich Kurolesov” after the main person within it) from the more lengthy collection, and I found it horribly depressing. There was not much about the characters that I liked. Kurolesov turned out to be a rotten and abusive overlord and husband, and he eventually met his just reward. I failed to personally connect to any of the characters, and there was no engaging plot to draw me in. The biographical note indicates that Aksakov’s The Family Chronicle (also called A Russian Gentleman) is based on his own family history. In terms of history, I think the story of the different classes could be found interesting. As an engaging story or novella, it fell flat for me.

Chapter 6 from A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova

Karolina Pavlova’s contribution in the anthology was quite different in tone. It was a story of an eighteen-year-old girls’ dance with the man she loves. I liked the look at society, and it seemed, on the surface, less depressing than the other stories I read in the anthology.

Cecily lay down to sleep with that abounding happiness which sometimes fills and eighteen-0year-old heart for a moment, and which is so alive that in quiet and solitude one becaomse almost ill with it. … Happy, she sighed sorrowfully, not knowing why. ³

Yet we know why she was sorrowful, because earlier in the chapter, Pavlova wrote:

So much is forgotten in life, the years change and reshape us so strangely! So many young, inspired dreams in time become tax farmers and distillers. So many carefree young idlers become owners of Siberian gold mines. So many flightly scoundrels become merciless punishers of ever kind of passion. Time is a strange force! ⁴

Hence, even though the short excerpt from Pavlova’s novel had some “happiness” in it, I suspect in the end it will still reflect the “superfluous” theme as a whole. The title of Pavlova’s novel is A Double Life, which doesn’t suggest happiness to me!

“Oblomov’s Dream” (originally a short story, later included in the novel Oblomov) by Ivan Goncharov

One of the main things I wanted to read when I did that research for the Classics Circuit was Oblomov. I loved that cover (at left), and the thought of a novel revolving around man who could not get out of bed seemed ridiculously intriguing. However, my TBR has to be cut somehow, so I decided that the 400-page novel was not on the soon-to-read list, despite the fact that Oblomov was more popular in its day than Tolstoy. Reading the excerpts from the novel hasn’t removed it completely (I’m still very interested), but it is not a “must read.”

The excerpt I read was an extended dream that Oblomov had of his childhood. I loved how Goncharov described a scene (such as the surrounding countryside) and the little comments about society were so amusing. For example, here’s one exciting evening when the Oblomov family is sitting together in the drawing room:

Half an hour seemed to pass like that [dead silence], unless of course, someone yawned aloud and muttered, as he made the sign of the cross over his mouth, “Lord, have mercy upon us!” His neighbor yawned after him, then the next person, a though at a word of command, opened his mouth slowly, and so the infectious play of the air and lungs spread among them all, moving some of them to tears. ⁵

And then after a few more pages of such descriptions, it continues:

In his dream Oblovmov saw not one or two such evenings, but weeks, months, and years of days and evenings spent in this way. Nothing interfered with the monotony of their life … They would have been miserable if tomorrow were not like yesterday and if the day after tomorrow were not like tomorrow. ⁶

There was something so sadly sweet in Oblomov’s discover of the transitory state of childhood. I liked it, and I want to see how it all affected the grown Oblomov, as I know that is what the novel itself focuses on.

He looked sadly about him, and seeing only evil and misfortune everywhere in life, dreamed constantly of that magic country where there were no evils, troubles, or sorrows … ⁷

For thoughts on the entire novel, see what Stefanie at So Many Books said earlier in the tour.

I still want to read more from the Reader. If you’re looking for a general overview of many different voices from Imperial Russia, you may also find it satisfying. It’s a great collection and a broad overview of the era. There is even a timeline in the beginning listing both the political happenings in Russia and the publication dates. (I know nothing, so this is helpful to me!)

Still for me to read are 250 or 300 pages of the following: Tolstoy (The Death of Ivan Ilych), a Chekhov play (Uncle Vanya), some Turgenev stories (I didn’t enjoy the two ones I read a few years ago, but he deserves a revisit), and an excerpt from Dostoevsky (the excerpt in this volume is from The Brothers Karamozov, which I read years ago but don’t recall anything about).

Which of these (if any) have you read?

• Stories by Tommaso Landolfi
• Caldecott Corner Author Spotlight: Simms Taback
• If You Are Looking for Georgette Heyer….
• Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Nevertheless, in a few years, when I’ve (hopefully) read a greater amount of Victorian literature, I’ll have to revisit the collection. I think having actually read the major novels they are talking about would make it even more enjoyable!

I first heard of this collection on Wuthering Expectations. Although the idea of Victorian essays about Victorian novels was an attractive one, what worried me was that I haven’t read enough Victorian literature to understand the essays. Amateur Reader’s response to that worry was this:

One thing to remember about Maitzen’s anthology – the essays are written by actual Victorians, so they haven’t read most of the classic Victorian novels, either, particularly the ones published after they are writing. And they have read mountains of books no one reads any more. So it all sort of averages out.

I think he expressed it perfectly. I have only read, probably, a dozen Victorian novels in my life. But it did not, for the most part, matter as I read the essays. In their essays, the Victorians were quoting the contemporary literature and the major contributions in the 1700s (of which I have read nothing, expect for Robinson Crusoe). But their essays revolved around issues: What is the purpose of a novel? Do these novels have morals, and should they? How do these novels reflect our society? None of the essayists question in so many words, but that is what I got out of their essays.

I don’t have lots of deep things to say about the essays I read. I think I’ll have to leave the analysis to the student at the University of Chicago who has requested this copy of the book and therefore cut my time with it short. I’m just an inexperienced beginning reader of Victorian lit who found this collection of essays by chance (thanks to the blogosphere). I really liked them. As I read an essay, I would think, “Oh, now this is the one I like best!” and then I’d begin the next essay and feel the same way.

One great example was George Eliot’s essay on “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” (written 1856). This essay is about the novels that have, shall we say, not endured the test of time. This essay, then, was somewhat similar to an essay by Margaret Atwood or maybe Toni Morrison writing about the qualities (or lack thereof) of Harlequin Romances (although, it should be noted, that the silly novels in question all had an underlying religious message, so therefore were not like a modern romance novel in any way). The quotes Eliot shared from these “silly novels” were outrageous to me and I enjoyed laughing. The fact is that no, I do not want to read all types of Victorian fiction. I just want to read the well-written, well-developed Victorian fiction, that which has withstood the test of time and remains somewhat pertinent today.

Some thoughts from George Eliot on the subject:

To judge from their writings, there are certain ladies who think that an amazing ignorance, both of science and of life, is the best possible qualification for forming an opinion on the knottiest moral and speculative questions. (page 134)

Every art which has its absolute technique is, to a certain extent, guarded from the intrusions of mere lef-handed imbecility. But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery. … [I commend this] at parting, to the consideration of any feminine reader who is in danger of adding to the number of “silly novels by lady novelists.” (page 144)

I also was quite intrigued by Margaret Oliphant’s essay “Modern Novelists – Great and Small” (written in 1855) and now I want to try one of her novels! I also liked the essay “Sensation Novels” by Henry Mansel (1863) simply because I’ve enjoyed the Wilkie Collins sensation novels I’ve read. These novels are mostly ridiculous in their plots, I know, and that was the fun thing about the essay because I could see all some of his criticisms and yet I didn’t care. On the other hand, he seemed to keep coming back to the bad moral lessons found in them. From my sensation novel experience, I have found that the bad guys seemed to lose in the end, but maybe I haven’t found the really “immoral” ones yet, he he he.²

In fact, many of the essays seemed to worry about the bad messages in the novels, something that doesn’t surprise me about Victorian literary criticism.

Although the aim of all fictitious literature is primarily to interest the reader … it would yet seem as if recently the determination to achieve that special kind of interest which consists in mere amusement, had prevailed too largely among our writers of tales and novels.  (David Masson, “Thackeray and Dickens,” 1851; page 43)

“We cannot conceal our estimate of the importance of this department of literature as medium for the diffusion, or at least the maintenance, of sound and healthy views of moral and religious responsibility.” (C.W. Russell, Novel-Morality: The Novels of 1853; page 102)

And to my surprise, even an old favorite of mine, Jane Eyre, was called in to question:

To say that Jane Eyre is positively immoral or anti-Christian, would be to do its writer an injustice. Still it wears a questionable aspect. … Let [the author of Jane Eyre] take care that while she detects and exposes humbug in other minds, she does not suffer it to gain dominion in her own. … Let her be a little more trustful of the reality of human goodness, and a little less anxious to detect its alloy of evil.” (Anonymous, Review of Jane Eyre, 1848; page 26)

Maybe because I mostly read the first essays in the collection (they were in publication order) or maybe because it’s one of the major novels I have actually read. At any rate, I felt I read a lot about Jane Eyre.³ It seemed to come up in most essays in one way or another. Obviously, it was an influential novel from that day. Since I love it so much, I especially appreciated Margaret Oliphant’s tribute to Charlotte Bronte.

No one in her time has grasped with such extraordinary force the scenes and circumstances through which her story moved; no one has thrown as strong an individual life into place and locality. Her passionate and fearless nature, her wild, warm heart, are transfused into the magic world she has created – a world which no one can enter without yielding to the irresistible fascination of her personal influence. Perhaps no other writer of her time has impressed her mark so clearly on contemporary literature, or drawn so many followers into her own peculiar path; and she leaves no one behind worthy to take the preeminent and leading place of the author of Jane Eyre. (Margaret Oliphant, Modern Novelists – Great and Small, 1855; page 120)

And with that, I’ll leave The Victorian Art of Fiction for now. I barely touched the surface of the essay collection, and each essay deserves its own lengthy response. I particularly miss the articles just about Dickens and Trollope essay about novel-reading. I wonder what other little gems I’m missing?

Maybe after I’ve read more Dickens (I’ve only read 3novels), Eliot (I’ve only read one), Trollope (none), the Brontes (one), the big novels of the 1700s (gulp), and … when will this list end? …, then I’ll return to the contemporary criticism of the era. For someone who likes criticism like me, I suspect it will be a nice reunion.

Do you like to read literary criticism?

• Introducing: My Victorian Summer
• The Book That Changed My Life, edited by Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannesson + Giveaway
• Victorian Second Helpings (The Moonstone by Collins and North and South by Gaskell)
• My Victorian Summer: We Two by Gillian Gill and Armadale by Wilkie Collins + Reading Journal
• Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome (narrated by Martin Jarvis)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• Reading Journal (21 Oct): Victorian Second Helpings + Giveaway of an Abandoned Book
• My Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance
• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
• The Life of Our Lord by Charles Dickens

I read the copy of Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang, published by NYRB; there are a total of four novellas¹ and two stories.

I’ll start with the story that I loved. In “Sealed Off,” a lonely but capable Wu Cuiyuan sits on a bus, utterly bored with life and wishing someone would notice her. Lu Zongzhen, self-important accountant also sits on the bus, criticizing those around him. For unnamed political reasons, the bus is stopped and unable to continue on its route. Lu Zongzhen wants to avoid talking to an acquaintance, so he begins talking to Wu Cuiyuan during the bus stoppage.

“Sealed Off” is a great story for many of the same reasons that I found “The Student,” by Anton Chekhov a great short story almost two years ago. If Chang’s story has any failings it is that it is not quite succinct enough in capturing the two characters. (I wanted it to focus on Cuiyuan a bit more than on the unpleasant man, but I realize it it is unfair of me to want it to be different.) But that said, it captures the moments on the bus so completely and so realistically that at moments I almost doubted that it is fiction. I also loved how it captured the two characters – both Cuiyuan and Zhogzhen – during their conversation. Chang switched back and forth between their thoughts, and in some respects, that made it a more complicated story than Chekhov’s. (Chekhov’s story was three pages; this was fourteen.) Finally, I loved the emotional progress of the story; I thought it was masterfully done. I felt Cuiyuan was the main character in this, and I most liked her tragic emotional realization at the end. I also loved the parallels of the bus being “sealed off” and the characters’ feelings being sealed up. In short, “Sealed Off” pulled me in and got me emotionally involved in the story.

“Love in a Fallen City” was probably my next favorite, although, as a novella, I struggle to place it. I think I struggle with novellas a little. Novellas are a little too short to really sink into, but as stories they are too complicated: they have too much back story, too many characters, and so forth. Nevertheless, I felt I learned a bit about Chinese history and culture, so that made it interesting to me. Sixth Sister, Bai Luisu, has finally been widowed: her abusive husband that she left seven years previous has died. When she meets Fan Luiyuan, a prospective husband for a younger sister, it becomes clear that he and she have struck up a friendship. As she meets with him in Hong Kong, her own position and what she had considered their mutual love is called in to question. She has been used. There are some satisfying twists, and I enjoyed learning a little bit about the history in Hong Kong. In the end, this story, as with “Sealed Off” was one about dissatisfaction: love only leads to disappointment. Even when you “win,” you lose.

Such was the feeling from the other stories in the volume. “Aloeswood Incense” (a novella) was about a young girl joining her aunt in society, only to be used. “Red Rose, White Rose” (a novella) was about a man’s relationships with his girlfriends, wife, and mistress. “Jasimine Tea” (a story) was about an unsuccessful man’s relationship with the only friend who is nice to him. Each story captures a sense of the overwhelming hopelessness of finding joy in life through relationships.

But that, ironically, is not to say that reading Eileen Chang was depressing. Rather, I loved her straight-forward way of description. I enjoyed the magical way she introduced some of the stories:

First, pour yourself a cup of tea, but be careful – it’s hot! Blow on it gently. In the tea’s curling steam you can see . . . a Hong Kong public bus on a paved road, slowly driving down a hill. (page 79, “Jasmine Tea”)

Although Chang won’t be a favorite for me, I really enjoyed her storytelling style, and I’m glad for the time I got to spend in Hong Kong and Shanghai. This was therefore an appropriate book for inclusion for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge: Asia.

• Great Short Stories by American Women + Thoughts on A Few Other Great Stories
• The Touchstone by Edith Wharton
• Bookworms Carnival: Relationships
• The Iliad by Homer, trans. Robert Fagles: Love and Hate But Mostly Love
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Stories by Vladimir Nabokov
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• Carmen by Prosper Merimee
• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
• Stories by Tommaso Landolfi

I read up on the whys behind each translation, I got four different translations from the library, and I compared them. I decided on the Hollander translation, and I began reading. To my surprise, I understood every single word. It was beautiful! To my further surprise, I was bored to death.  I had no idea what was going on. Let me rephrase that: due to the extensive notes, I know what is going on. I just cannot care less for it. I see no point.

I have read more than half of Inferno, and I’ve decided I am done for now. I suspect that this is one of those cases in which I’m reading at the wrong time in my life. I’ll try again in a few years.

Nevertheless, I’ve added Dante to my “Intimidation List.” This is my Books I Want to Read Before I Turn 40 list. That gives me 10 and a half years to get up the gumption to give it a try again. I may decide, in the next ten years, that I don’t really want to read the entire Divine Comedy, but I definitely will give Inferno another go at a different point in my life. Maybe summer, for one, is the wrong season.

Other works on the list right now:

• The Aeneid by Virgil. (I loved Homer, but have put off Virgil for some reason. After Dante, I’m even more intimidated.)
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Dante’s Divine Comedy
• Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (again, I may only read the first, but I will read it!)

I intend to add to this list as needed, but I certainly hope to be able to cross some of these off. For instance, my classics book club is likewise intimidated by War and Peace so we’re all going to read that in the coming year. Yeay! One down, many more to go.

Which books intimidate you but you still really want to read at some point?

• Reading Journal (21 Oct): Victorian Second Helpings + Giveaway of an Abandoned Book
• Abandoned Book: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• My Victorian Summer: We Two by Gillian Gill and Armadale by Wilkie Collins + Reading Journal
• Abandoned Book and Giveaway: Bridget Jones’ Diary
• Introducing: My Victorian Summer
• 35th Bookworms Carnival: Really Old Classics
• Bookworms Carnival Call for Submissions: Really Old Classics
• Really Old Classics Challenge
• Really Old Classics Mini-Challenge Round-Up
• What Are Banned Books? (Do I Favor Book Banning?)

I only wished, as I listened, that there was more of it. Only when I was nearly finished listening did I realize it was an abridgement of a longer book. (I hate it when that happens.) Still, there was something doubly wonderful about listening to President Obama narrating himself his hopes for the future of America. I’m not sure I would have loved it as much if I’d read it.

I consider myself neither a Democrat nor a Republican, neither a liberal nor a conservative. Although some of my political thoughts do lean one way or the other, I like to think of myself as a middle of the road citizen of the United States. Many of Barack Obama’s “thoughts on reclaiming the American dream,” resonated with my middle-of-the-road stance.

Listening to Barack Obama’s thoughts on his family and the future was purely delightful. I can’t really think of any other way to say it. While occasionally I’d think to myself “I really am not concerned about the issue he’s talking about” or “I don’t really agree,” for the most part, I enjoyed hearing his thoughts.

I’ve found that audiobooks are rather hard for me to write about, especially when, at less than 7 hours long, I finish it in a week and a half of driving around town. Not many solid details remain with me, but I did enjoy the time I spent listening. I think my favorite parts were the personal stories he shared of visiting with people across Illinois, meeting his wife and what it was like balancing his busy career, her career and their newborn daughters. Since I enjoyed his personal stories so much, I’m tempted to now go listen to his other book, his memoir of growing up.

If I’d been on the ball, I’d have written about this audiobook for Audiobook week as hosted by Devourer of Books. Or, I’d have had it posted this last weekend in time to suggest it’s a U.S. Independence Day post! As it is, I enjoyed it and would recommend it, albeit with the knowledge that the audiobook is unfortunately abridged.

What audiobook have you listened to lately?

• The John Cheever Audio Collection
• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
• Abandoned Book: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• What is Reading? and Audiobook Review of The Book Thief
• The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts
• Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
• Ongoing and Personal Challenges – 2009
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I never intended that my first post for My Victorian Summer would come a full month after the inauguration of my project, but I’ve found that with summer weather, long books, and family in town, my blogging is becoming less of a priority than before. To my surprise, I’m okay with this. I may continue to leave things rather “hands off” for the next little while. Maybe I’ll get back into a blogging groove at some point, but for now, I’m living my life.

The two Victorian-esque books I have finished this month are completely different.

We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, and Rivals by Gillian Gill is a non-fiction biography of the monarch and her husband. It was not, of course, written during the Victorian era, but I read it to get a sense of what made the Victorian Era a distinct era. I found the biography quite fascinating, even if the relationship between Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert was not quite as satisfyingly romantic as Hollywood made out in The Young Victoria.

Armadale by Wilkie Collins, on the other hand, was a fantastic sensation novel from the 1860s, complete with dual and mistaken identities, poison, attempted murder, and above all superstition. While the almost-700-page novel seemed a little slow to begin, the convoluted plots and depth of characters made it a satisfying and delicious book to devour.

I also share my current Reading Journal below.

We Two by Gillian Gill

I loved watching The Young Victoria, a recent Hollywood portrayal of Queen Victoria’s courtship and early marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. That movie prompted me to go on my “Victorian Summer” reading frenzy. Reading the true story of the couple’s life together was a bit disappointing after Hollywood, simply because theirs was rather a non-romantic and more practical relationship. We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, and Rivals by Gillian Gill provided a biography of both Victoria and Albert’s youth and then a biography of their life together until Albert’s premature death at age 42 of typhoid fever.

Princess Victoria of Kent was just a few months past eighteen when her Uncle passed away, leaving her Queen of England. Her first eighteen years of life were sheltered by her overbearing mother and her mother’s power-hungry associate Sir John Conroy in Kensington Castle. So upon receiving sovereign authority, she was determined to rule her way. She did not want to marry. She wanted to make a difference for her nation, which she loved.

For the first three years of her reign, she worked closely with Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, making mistakes but really putting her all in to her work. Yet, after a few years at court, she found that she longed for male companionship; her cousin, Prince Albert, had been groomed since childhood to be her husband, and so she consented to the marriage. It is evident that the two were quite fond of each other and certainly in love, but theirs was a convenient marriage: neither really seemed to have much choice about who they married.

Reading of Victoria’s and Albert’s life was somewhat of a tutorial in gender and family politics in England in the 1800s. The fact that Victoria was a married female altered her ability to rule England in part because of the Albert’s view of women; Albert was the one who made a political difference for much of their married life.

Had Queen Victoria not been quite so fertile (or as Gill points out, had they had any type of understanding of natural birth control), she may have dominated the political scene. She was prepared to lead and be a dominating force. As it was, she had pregnancy after pregnancy for the first two decades of her reign, left physically exhausted by the wear on her body. Also, Prince Albert was raised in a misogynistic environment and therefore seems to have stifled Victoria’s abilities somewhat.

Prince Albert, although not legally a monarch of England, was therefore the behind-the-scenes leader of England. So many of the things that seem definitively “Victorian” are really “Albertian.” His upbringing had been to prepare him to be consort to the isolated and virginal Princess Victoria, and since his family was known for their debauchery, he had been the family exception, raised to conform to a different morality than his brother and uncles. His arrival in the English court may have been what prompted the Victorian morality that we now think of. Further, Albert’s influence on the “Great Exhibition” is also an example of how he influenced England to think ahead. He was fascinated by developing technology, he had an interest in social innovation, and he was well trained in political discourse. He was, like Victoria, a born leader.

Gillian Gill’s biography of the two focused on their relationship, and the book was well researched and engagingly written. It was only a bit disappointing to read the truth, especially of how dominating Prince Albert was. (For example, it was Queen Victoria who always begged forgiveness when there was a disagreement between the two; in their relationship, Prince Albert expected her to see her place as a woman, which was of course below himself.) When their marriage came to an end with Albert’s early death, it was Queen Victoria who had succumbed to Albert’s position on women: no longer was she the strong teenaged queen, eager to make a difference in the world and unexcited about being tied down. When Albert died, she was the dutiful wife who proclaimed the goodness of her dead husband. Despite the fact that she was the sovereign ruler of England, Queen Victoria was also a wife as trapped in the familial duties just as many other women in Victorian England. She did have nannies and fine medical care, but she was still trapped in her role, with a domineering man at her head.

I’m glad I read about Albert and Victoria, even though it was rather disappointing to me. As I read the novels from the era, I think it may help to remember the influence of the queen and her consort. Since I love history, it was also fascinating to see how the family fit in to the international political picture.

I should note that Gill does not come to the same conclusions that I’ve mentioned above in so many words; that’s what I got from their story. At just under 400 pages (plus notes), We Two is not a comprehensive account, and much is left unsaid. Yet, if you are interested in reading the story of Queen Victoria and her husband, We Two is great place to start.

Armadale by Wilkie Collins

And then we go to fiction.

Oh, Wilkie Collins. I love you so much! The Woman in White was delightful and may have been better written than Armadale (a reread is in order to determine if that is so). The Moonstone, as a mystery, was well developed but simply okay for me, a non-mystery person. But Armadale just topped them both in terms of suspense and emotional attachment. No one beats Lydia Gwilt as a complicated villain.

Twenty years ago, two boys named Allan Armadale vied for the attentions of a young woman. Now (in 1851), their two orphaned sons – each also called Allan Armadale – cross paths. The mysterious money-hungry redhead Miss Lydia Gwilt shows up and things get a little bit crazy.

Like the other Wilkie Collins novels I’ve read, Armadale dealt with the question of identity: people had multiple identities and multiple names. It also dealt with generational identity as the Allan Armadale that form the bulk of the action are the children of men of the same name. Armadale seemed to ask questions: Are these young men destined to be their father’s sons? Are they, by nature, destined to similar wrong choices, for example? Collins also drew heavily on superstition because the story keeps circling back to Allan Armadale’s mysterious dream. Do these characters have choices or are events destined?

Another theme that seemed central was the one I most enjoyed, the question of good and evil. The first two hundred pages of this chunkster seemed a bit slow, but once Lydia Gwilt began to interact with the men at Thorpe Ambrose, I did not want to put it down. Miss Gwilt is a villain through and through, but I couldn’t help feel sorry for her. Wilkie Collins doesn’t quite excuse her actions but as we progressively learn more about her, the story truly becomes hers and we see a bit of where she is coming from. I liked her, ridiculous and bad as she was even on good days. I absolutely loved how Collins created her character, for she makes this story the fascinating page-turner that it is. She was captivating in a way no one else in the novel was. Collins gave us pages of her journal (progressively more throughout the book) so we’d see just what she was thinking and how she was developing. Though the book is called Armadale, I believe that Miss Gwilt is the main character within it.

Collins puts in plenty of excitement (poison, attempted murder, coincidence, and a lunatic asylum), yet it is utterly convincing and real. I feel I have barely touched on the main points and the depth that is in Armadale. Believe me when I say it is a fun ride.

For more insights into the novel, see Shelf Love, Bibliolatry, Novel Insights, Becky’s Book Reviews, and Savidge Reads.

Reading Journal (30 June)

I’m trying to let go of schedules a little bit more and just read what I want. I have so many Victorian reads on my radar I could just read Victorian for the rest of the year!

Recently Finished: The Audacity of Hope (audiobook, abridged) by Barack Obama

Recently Abandoned (for now): The Inferno by Dante, Hollander translation (I may have a post about this abandonment)

In Progress: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (for My Victorian Summer); Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (audiobook, for My Victorian Summer); Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (for Orbis Terrarum/Asia); Nineteenth-Century Russian Reader (for Imperial Russia Classics Circuit); I Am A Cat by Natsume Soseki (my personal JLit Challenge); Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose (for my other book club)

On Deck: The Art of Victorian Fiction (essays for My Victorian Summer); Great Expectations (for My Victorian Summer); The Stranger and The Plague by Camus (the former for my Classics Reading Group); The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee (for the Spotlight Series); whatever other books as please my fancy.

• Introducing: My Victorian Summer
• The Life of Wilkie Collins (Biographies by Clarke and Peters)
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• Victorian Second Helpings (The Moonstone by Collins and North and South by Gaskell)
• May and Milton in May in Review + Challenges Update and Reading Journal
• Reading Journal (16 December): A Classics Circuit TBR List from Wilkie Collins to Harlem
• Reading Journal (21 Oct): Victorian Second Helpings + Giveaway of an Abandoned Book
• Reading Journal (18 Nov): Planning for a Quiet December
• November in Review + Reading Journal (2 Dec)
• Reading Journal (29 July): Summer Mode to Blog Reading

Jerusalem: The Eternal City, then, has a very specific audience. It is not a universal book about Jerusalem, and its limited audience does give the book some flaws. When I read this book ten years ago, prior to my own experience in Jerusalem, I was in love with everything to do with the city and its history, and this book got me more than a little excited to walk the streets of Jerusalem myself. Despite the flaws, I still enjoyed rereading Jerusalem: The Eternal City, and it reminded me of my time there.

Some of the flaws might be considered strengths. The ancient sections about the city rely almost exclusively on Biblical histories, and for those who want a scriptural overview of Jerusalem’s history, Jerusalem: The Eternal City amply provides that. The sections on modern political situations and possible solutions, while very interesting and seemingly balanced, did seem immature from my own immature political perspective. Of course, because the book is now 15 years old, such political perspectives may simply outdated. Each of the later chapters focused on a different part of recent history (political, religious, etc.) and were therefore repetitive about some historic events.

Finally, as a religious person myself, I did enjoy the religious perspectives of the book, but found myself hoping for more anthropological and archeological history in addition to the religious details. I think anyone approaching this book needs to understand that it’s a religious history and discussion before anything else. It’s not meant to balanced.

For me, the most interesting sections were those on Jerusalem at the Meridian of time (how the city was during the life of Christ) and the subsequent history of Jerusalem during the nearly two millennia that followed. (It started feeling repetitive during the discussions of the 1800s and after.) It was fascinating to see how three different dominant religions found the land and that specific city central to their faith. The later chapters, about possible religious futures for the city were, from a religious perspective, very interesting, and I liked reading the collection of scriptures about the city, all in one place.

Finally, because I had the opportunity to stay in the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, I was fascinated to read how such a center came about. I also have a separate book about the Center (Grafting In: A History of the Latter-day Saints in the Holy Land by Steven W. Baldridge), and I liked how Jerusalem: The Eternal City had the Center’s history condensed into one chapter. What I enjoyed about this history is how the Center was built into the land, and that the entire purpose to the center is historical and religious education (for college-aged American Christians) and unification of people and personality. It is right on the border between the West Bank and the city of Jerusalem, and when I lived there, the Center employed both Arabs and Jews, as well as Christians, a highly unusual arrangement. I am not sure that my 19-year-old self realized how unusual it was to have Arabs and Jews working side by side in the cafeteria in a West Bank educational center.

Since I read Jerusalem: The Eternal City as a reminder of my six to eight weeks living in Jerusalem (we also spent some time in Galilee, Jordan, and Egypt, although Jerusalem was our base), I think it might be appropriate to share some of my photos of the most beautiful city on earth. (A rabbi said that whoever has not seen Jerusalem in all its splendor has never seen a beautiful city in his life, quoted on page 2).

I used a dozen rolls of film when I was there. In retrospect I wish it had been the age of digital photography, since then I’d have taken more than twice as many photographs!

(Note: Click on a picture to see it larger. I scanned these pictures from the prints I have; they are out a bit fuzzy and somewhat out of focus. I was not a photographer and my camera was not an impressive one.)

The Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies (where I lived for 8 weeks). Hebrew University can be seen in the background.

The Western Wall

My study abroad group at the Dome of the Rock (I am in the second row for the bottom, sixth from the left)

View of the City of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

Golgotha in two different seasons (the top is June when I left the area, the bottom is from April when I first arrived)

The Garden Tomb (my favorite retreat)

Me at the Garden Tomb

I read Jerusalem: The Eternal City in May and the first half of June as my project book.

• Palestine by Joe Sacco
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman + Giveaway (Used Book)
• Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
• Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
• Love in a Fallen City and Other Stories by Eileen Chang
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg
• Nineteenth-Century Mormon Architecture and City Planning by C. Mark Hamilton
• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

In the case of Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Guy Delisle’s perspective may be one of the few such memoirs of a visit to North Korea. Although I knew that North Korea was a communist nation, the facts that Delisle shares of his two months working there are quite astonishing. It’s hard to believe that such a dystopian country exists contemporary to my own. For the less ignorant, Pyongyang won’t be a shock. Regardless, the comic reads like a novel, and I’m glad for the glimpse into a world I didn’t quite know existed as such.

I wondered a little bit, as I read, if Delisle had this book in mind when he began his trip. The novel he decides to bring with him is George Orwell’s 1984, and he seems to seek out edgy things to say and do. Yet, maybe it was hard not to. Pyongyang the city had no entertainment and as a new visitor, I’m sure I’d likewise be clueless. Before reading this, I didn’t realize that Orwell’s 1984 was a reality in a nation on the earth.

The similarities between 1984 and the North Korean world Delisle portrays are striking. Here are just a few things that seemed right out of Orwell:

• Pictures of Big Brother on the walls (i.e., Kim and Kim Jr.).
• “Volunteers” cutting the grass with a sickle.
• Restaurants named with numbers.
• A classroom of cookie cutter children playing the accordion perfectly (as depicted on the cover).
• The lack of entertainment.
• The lack of contact with the rest of the world.
• The sense of country-worship Delisle’s guides obviously express.
• The lack of any disabled people.
• The fact that everyone informs on everyone else as “spies.”

It was rather scary and certainly uncomfortable.  This is today. This is not a dystopian novel!

Although the political situation was uncomfortable, the graphic novel as a whole was actually quite funny. Delisle was bored, so he found things to do. And he had some great discussions with his guide and his translator. I loved the scene where he asked his translator what he thought of the novel he’d lent him (1984). Oh my, did that man hurry to return the novel. “I don’t like science fiction!” he exclaimed, sweating profusely. I do wonder, though, if North Korean authorities are going to find that man and make him pay for that simple appearance in this novel (similar to the aftermath of newspaper photos of Tiannaman Square). It worried me.

In the end, it was a great read. I learned about the world but I also was entertained. I enjoyed the artwork too. It helped me see this world that seems to foreign from my own.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell
• Victorian Second Helpings (The Moonstone by Collins and North and South by Gaskell)
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
• Daughter of Destiny by Benazir Bhutto
• Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
• Speeches of Winston Churchill
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Jerusalem: The Eternal City by David Galbraith et al

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, depicts how in the futuristic world of Panem, which emerged from the ashes of a war-torn North America, the government produces a televised reality show in which 24 teenagers kill each other. The purpose of the Hunger Games is to illustrate how the government provides everything for the populace and that without the government’s wise support, anarchy and personal battle will reign over the land. People in the far-off districts depend on the Capitol for support. The Hunger Games illustrate what would happen if people rebelled against authority: chaos and murder.

Yet, The Hunger Games is not about savagery or murder. It is about defiance. Katniss volunteers herself, eager to save the life of her twelve-year-old sister Prim, whose name has been selected from the lottery. And from the beginning of the games until the end, Katniss hates the games, hates the Capitol’s philosophies, and hates the forced murdering game she is a part of. In that sense, she is a hero.

Except, reading as the games played out felt to me like being a voyeur watching a reality show. Certainly, it was a gripping read, and Katniss and Peeta are heros working against the norm of Panem. But I was still watching a horrible display of survival skills in which teenagers, mostly rotten ones, are killing each other. I hated it. I didn’t like the writing (present tense, which at times seemed invisible and at other times jarring). I didn’t like the romance element (Katniss pretends to be in love in order to win). I didn’t like the ignorance (Katniss is ignorant that Peeta loves her; Katniss is ignorant of the danger of rejecting the Capitol, which seemed to take away from the power of her defiance). I just plain didn’t like it.

From the time I learned the premise, I had no desire to read The Hunger Games. This was probably my problem from the beginning, and I should have followed my gut. But since I have a book club on Thursday night and I didn’t go last month, I decided I’d bite the bullet and read it so I can go and socialize. Besides, so many people have praised this novel that I felt it couldn’t be that bad. In fact, I hoped to be blown away. That did not happen. I read fast so I could be done with it. I’m not sure I can discuss it without being sick.

I read the entire plot summary of the second book and it sounds just as horrible, with another set of games in which people must kill each other. Next time I want to read a young adult novel (which is about once a year) about defiance against a repressive society, I’ll finish reading the Uglies series. That was not so physically sickening.

In fact, the more I think about Uglies, the more I prefer that book to this. Both young adult novels are similar. In a futurist world, people are forced to do horrible things that they are brainwashed into thinking are good. The main character (a teenage girl) decides to reject the government’s plan. In Uglies, though, Tally seems to constantly be making difficult decisions that can be considered parallel to a modern teenager’s life. I don’t think the murderous survival choices Katniss made in The Hunger Games are very parallel to modern life, noble as they may be. I also thought Tally to be a much more developed character, a more likable person, and a better role model than Katniss was, who bothered me from beginning to end.

I’ll keep this short and end now. There are hundreds of book bloggers out there who love The Hunger Games. Find one of their reviews via Fyrefly’s Book Blog Search. Personally, I’m done with it.

• Hunger: An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell
• Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
• Hunger by Knut Hamsun
• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
• Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth
• The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

I’ve finished my Milton project, although I’ll have to say I really started losing interest by the end. One month would have been plenty (I spent six weeks). There were even more Milton writings I wanted to read, like Samson Agonistes and Milton’s non-epic poetry.

My next project, my Victorian Summer, is well under way. Because I’m reading very long books (such as Armadale and Wives and Daughters) it may still be two weeks before I have a post for that. I’m also really enjoying the biography of Victoria and Albert. I think it was a great way to start the project.

Challenges

I’m rethinking the purpose of “challenges” for me. When I began blogging, it was a great way to organize my reading. Now that I have less time for blogging and reading, I have found that my reading is far too organized. I just need to read what I want to read when I want to read it.

Challenges should, therefore, be a challenge to me. I should join these public challenges to read things I don’t normally read. My goal in joining challenges is to then get in a habit of adding such books to my regular reading. For example, I joined the Japanese Literature Challenge last winter; I read The Pillow Book and then The Housekeeper and the Professor. I liked them so much, I gave myself a personal challenge to read more Japanese Literature in 2010. Now it’s a habit and I have a long list of books I want to read. The same thing is happening with the Orbis Terrarum Challenge, which is to read world literature. Now that I have lists of various books from the different continents, I have a huge desire to keep reading world literature. The challenge helped me develop a habit.

So from now on, I’ll be joining challenges that help me develop reading habits that I want to develop. But I’m going to try to resist challenges just for the sake of a challenge. I need less structure in my reading. I’m not joining any new challenges right now, not even the fourth annual Japanese Literature Challenge. Since I’m already in the middle of a Japanese literature book and I know which one I’ll read when I finish that, joining the challenge wouldn’t be a “challenge.”

This month, I’m calling a few challenges “finished.” The Once Upon a Time Challenge was to read fantasy, folklore, mythology, and fairy tales. I read three: The Two Towers by Tolkein (fantasy); Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood by Tony Lee (folklore); and Paradise Lost by John Milton (mythology). For fairy tales, I was going to reread Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede, which was a favorite book of mine when I was a pre-teen. But, I started it and preferred the idea of reading my Victorian novels, so I stopped for now. Maybe it’s best kept as a childhood favorite without trying to revisit it. This challenge was for “fun.” I learned it’s important to just read something because I might want to (the Robin Hood story, for example). Counting Paradise Lost for this challenge was somewhat cheating since I was reading it anyway.

I’ve also read a  number of comics for the Graphic Novel Challenge. Last year, I think I read one all year, so I decided to read more this year. This year, so far, I’ve read the following graphic novels. You’ll note that these have a wide range of genres: classics retold, nonfiction, memoir, fiction, folktale story retold. I enjoy some more than others, and I think I’ll keep reading graphic novels when I need a break from something dense like, say, Armadale. My favorite was I Kill Giants but I also liked the Darwin adaptation a lot.

• The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Graphic Novel by Oscar Wilde, I.N.J. Culbard, and Ian Edginton
• Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation by Michael Keller
• I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly
• Outlaw by Tony Lee
• Pyongyang by Guy DeLisle

Finally, I’m calling myself done with the Women Unbound Challenge. See that link for the lists of books I’ve been tracking for that. So many novels I read feature women that it seems silly to keep tracking them all under the guise of a challenge. I do have a few more nonfiction books about women that I’d love to read. But now that I’ve been doing the challenge for a while, adding those books to my reading schedule does not feel like a challenge any longer! That is success.

Obviously, right now my focus is on Victorian literature. But I still intend to read some Sir Walter Scott for the Scottish Literature Challenge and a few more for the Black Classics Challenge as well. I’m undecided how I’m going to tackle poetry for the rest of the year. Drama and short stories have also gotten the shaft lately.

Reading Journal

In Progress: We Two: The Story of Albert and Victoria, Armadale, Wives and Daughters (all three for My Victorian Summer), Nineteenth-Century Russian Lit Sampler (for the Classics Circuit), and I Am a Cat (for my personal JLit Challenge).

Coming up: Inferno (for the Dante read-along; I still haven’t begun it!!), Love in a Fallen City (for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge/Asia), The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop (for the Spotlight Series), and The Plague and The Stranger (the latter for my classics reading group for next month).

Finished Previously/Reviewed May

• The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein (400 pages; fiction)
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (100 pages; fiction)

Finished Reading in May (and First Half of June)

I’ve linked below to anything I’ve already discussed on the site.

• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (250 pages; fiction)
• God’s Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousame (240 pages; fiction).  Began in April.
• I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura (about 180 pages; fiction/graphic novel)
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (250 pages; fiction)
• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham (250 pages; fiction).
• Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers (260 pages; fiction)
• Great Short Stories by American Women (about 160 pages read; fiction/short stories)
• Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood by Tony Lee, Sam Hart, and Artur Fujita (about 160 pages; fiction/graphic novel)
• Hunger by Knut Hamsun (190 pages; fiction)
• The Makioka Sisters by Junichuro Tanizaki (530 pages; fiction). Began in April.
• Silence by Shusaku Endo (200 pages; fiction)
• Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski  (240 pages; fiction). Read in June.
• The Home-maker by Dorothy Canfield (290 pages; fiction). Read in June.
• Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac (215 pages; fiction). Read in June.
• Jerusalem: The Eternal City by David Galbraith, D. Kelly Ogden, and Andrew Skinner (495 pages; nonfiction). Began in May.
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy DeLisle (176 pages/graphic novel; nonfiction/memoir), Read in June.
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (206 pages; children’s fiction). Read aloud to my son in June.
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (375 pages; YA fiction). Read in June.

Milton in May: Milton-ish Works Read (with links if available)

See all my Milton-ish posts under the tag Milton in May.

• “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” (10 pages/about 400 lines; poetry). No thoughts shared.
• Comus (20 pages/1000 lines; dramatic poetry)
• “Lycidas” (3 pages/about 200 lines; poetry)
• “Areopagatica” (35 pages; prose)
• John Milton: A Biography by Neil Forsyth (235 pages; nonfiction)
• Paradise Lost (300 pages; epic poetry)
• A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis (120 read of 140 pages; nonfiction/literary criticism). Finished in June.
• Paradise Regained (50 pages; poetry). Read in June.

Short Stories Discussed

I wasn’t a huge fan of reading so many short stories at once. Here are just the ones I mentioned on the site.

1. “Sweat” by Hurston
2. “Sanctuary” by Nella Larsen
3. “A New England Nun” by Freeman
4. “Trancendental Wild Oats” by Alcott
5. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman
6. “Smoke” by Djuna Barnes
7. “The Stones of the Village” by Alice Dunbar-Nelson
8. “The Storm” by Kate Chopin
9. “The White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett
10. “The Angel at the Gate” by Edith Wharton
11. “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather
12. “A Jury of Her Peers” by Glaspell
13. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
14. “A Pair of Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin
15. “The Revolt of Mother” by Mary Wilkins Freeman

Children’s Books Reviewed

I need to review some more in the coming weeks. My son and I have been reading a lot!

• Captain Duck by Jez Alborough
• Duck in a Truck by Jez Alborough
• Duck’s Key Where Can It Be by Jez Allborough
• Fix-it Duck by Jez Alborough
• Hug by Jez Alborough
• It’s the Bear! by Jez Alborough
• My Friend Bear by Jez Alborough
• Some Dogs Do by Jez Alborough
• Super Duck by Jez Alborough
• Tall by Jez Alborough
• Watch Out, Big Bro’s Coming by Jez Alborough

• Reading Journal (May 4) and April in Review
• March in Review + New Challenges + A Brief Reading Journal (7 April)
• Milton in May: A Paradise Lost Read-Along
• Any Interest in a May Read-Along of Paradise Lost?
• February in Review and March Reading Journal
• Reading Journal (July 1): Summer Reading
• January in Review: A Good Start to 2010
• November in Review + Reading Journal (2 Dec)
• November Month in Review and December Reading Journal
• Milton in May (erm, and June): Paradise Lost, Books 10 to 12 + Two Reading Aids

Reading Balzac certainly gave me a different perspective. In a sense, it’s kind of a mix between Dumas (humorous exaggeration) and Zola (heart-breaking realism). Honoré de Balzac, who wrote Père Goriot in the 1830s, is named the “father of realism” and this book seems an apt precursor to Zola’s sagas (one of which I read earlier this year).

Père Goriot is not a book I’ll label as a favorite. It was overly dramatic and yet full of humor that I didn’t find funny. But beyond the writing, I simply didn’t like the story and failed to seriously care about any of the characters. I wanted to care. I wanted to overly moved as Balzac  warned in the beginning that I would be:

you who sink down in your soft easy chair, saying to yourself: Maybe this book is going to be fun. And then, after you’ve read all about Père Goriot’s miserable secrets, you’ll have yourself a good dinner and blame your indifference on the author, scolding him for exaggeration, accusing him of having waxed poetic. Ah, but let me tell you: this drama is not fictional, it’s not a novel. All is true – so true you’ll be able to recognize everything that goes into it in your own life, perhaps even in your own heart. (page 6)

Balzac succeeded in writing of universal things, but as we discussed in our book group, it’s a somewhat negative portrayal of human nature. In Père Goriot, Balac depicts a young man (Eugéne de Rastignac) who will do anything to get to the top of society. At times, he seems to struggle to balance his upbringing with the questionable activities he seeks after. Yet, for the most part, it seemed to me that Eugéne was abandoning and using his mother, even as he was upset with Goriot’s daughters for abandoning and using their father. What a negative view of humanity to equate Eugéne’s desire for power to the politicians and business people today who likewise abandon family for positions of prestige! Yet, such is Balzac’s point.

Not all humanity is power-grubbing and selfish. The sweet scenes between Eugéne and the old man are precious, and I did get rather chocked up towards the end. But even Goriot was a man who had cheated his fellows during the years of the Revolution, spoiled his daughters, and lived for a powerful life (not that he succeeded). In some respects, his miserable end seemed to me what he deserved. But that makes me sound rather heartless.

I read this for my classics book club, and we had a great discussion Wednesday night. Will I be reading more Balzac? Probably not. But I’m glad I read this and could discuss it with a book club.

I read the Norton Critical Edition, translated by Burton Raffel. I loved the translation: it was easy to read and yet had a depth of writing that the other I tried (Henry Reed) didn’t have.  While I didn’t read much of the end matter, that which I did read was very interesting.

Have you read Balzac? Do you like his “realistic” portrayal of society?

• Possession by A.S. Byatt
• May and Milton in May in Review + Challenges Update and Reading Journal
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• A Taste of Imperial Russian Literature
• The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (In Chancery and To Let)
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Thoughts on a Reread)
• Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
• Baby’s Sunday Salon, January 4
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Besides being an interesting look at 1920s gender roles in raising a family, The Home-maker by Dorothy Canfield was, to me, a reminder at what it means to “make a home,” particularly by making it in to a pleasant place. l loved the reminder that being a stay-at-home parent is not about nagging my child and scrubbing the floor but rather watching him learn and grow. It was so beautiful.

Home-maker Evangelina Knapp is an energetic perfectionist, who cannot do anything halfway. Her husband, Lester, is a thinker, one who cannot stand living by a clock and meeting exacting deadlines. He prefers to consider all people and situations with a little bit of poetry; nothing is clear-cut or obvious.  Since it’s the middle of the 1920s and they live in a small New England town, their lives are pretty much decided for them: Lester is the unhappy and unsuccessful breadwinner of the family and Eva is what she considers to be a perfect mother, full of unrealistic expectations for her young children.

From the first page, I despised the mother. Eva was overly critical to a fault, and when she literally made her son sick with her nagging at his imperfections, I wanted someone to interfere physically, since I couldn’t. There seemed to be no end to her taking her frustrations out on her children, and I wondered why she and everyone else in town thought she was such a great mother. After the first dozen or so pages, I put the book down. I thought I couldn’t stand any more.

But then we met the father. Lester was frustrated with his wife, his job, his inability to take the time to talk to his children, and pretty much everything about his life. He’s unable to get promotion because he’s so bored and unsuccessful at his job, and I felt there was no end to his frustrations either. Could I take much more of this? Life really was horrible for everyone in this family.

Then, when their roles were suddenly reversed, I fell in love with the novel. Although some readers may most love seeing the way Eva blossomed in her new role, I most related to Lester and his coming to terms with being a “home-maker.” Mostly, I loved how for him that term didn’t mean “keeping the house spotless” as it had for the compulsive Eva. Rather, for him it meant reaching out to his children, loving them for who they are, and watching them grow into themselves. I loved when he started telling his young son the story of Pilgrim’s Progress. And there were many such memorable scenes. In the Persephone catalog online, they say, “The scene where he surreptitiously watches his youngest child learning to use an egg whisk is one of the great scenes in the literature of childhood.” I have to agree. I even cried, especially as I pondered my own young son’s learned curve. Lester was the embodiment of patient nurturing in a parent. I wish I had a dose of such patience.

The characters are two extremes. One loves working outside of the home and seems to have a never-ending supply of energy. The other has an endless supply of patience for such tasks as learning to cook (even cracking an egg for the first time) and listening to a rowdy child. I think most parents, whether they are a stay-at-home mom or a stay-at-home dad or a full-time employee, are a mix of both extremes. I suspect that most parents need some outlet so they don’t get frustrated (as Eva did in the novel) and most full-time employees need time off from the job to unwind. I think it helps that now, 90 years later, the tasks of being in a home have lessened, from cooking (take out, anyone?) to darning the socks (we normally just buy new ones) to refilling the coal furnace every day (how Lester Knapp disliked that task in his “down time”!).

Since it was written in the 1920s, The Home-maker was mainly about the gender roles that were expected: Lester, the man, was expected to bring home the bacon. Eva, the mother, was to be the home-maker. Both knew their roles, and it took a tragedy to allow them to have a chance at swapping them. Some of the conversations stood out to me.

“Do you know what you are saying to me, Mattie Farnham? You are telling me that you really think that home-making is a poor, mean, cheap job beneath the dignity of anybody who can do anything else,” said Lester.

… “How dare you say such a thing!” [Mattie responded.] “I never dreamed of having such an awful idea. . . . Home-making is the noblest work anybody can do!”

“Why pity me then?” asked Lester with a grin, drawing his needle in and out of the little stocking. (178-179)

And that is what I loved about this book, for home-making was celebrated. As a full-time home-maker, I am sometimes a bit frustrated like Eva was. I am sometimes just dying to get out of the house and out of two-year-old conversations, which is why I volunteer at the library one morning a week and blog in any free time. But I was also frustrated and bored to death for the five years I worked full-time. The day I quit because my son was coming was a day I felt I left a cage that had entrapped my soul. (I really related to Lester’s feelings on that.) I love being a stay-at-home mom!  I can’t say I love cleaning toilets and sweeping the floor (and I loved Lester’s solution to mopping….) but most of the aspects of home-making are much more to my satisfaction than working full time. I don’t want pity today, just like Lester didn’t want pity.

And Lester kept getting pitied. The 1920s shock of having a man be the home-maker reminded me how necessary it is for all people to be taught to nurture, listen, and have patience. This book made me glad for the times I’ve seen my little son hugging his baby doll and saying, “Mommy, baby doll is crying. You give him a hug too?” It made me glad that he loves to help me cook and he mixes up his own invisible creations in a bowl with a spoon, saying “Yummy!” It also made me glad that he types on the computer “working,” and helps dig in the garden with me, and sweeps the kitchen floor, and is otherwise a worker. In short, I’m glad my son is well-rounded!

There were things that bothered me about the novel, especially the lack of communication between the husband and wife. Maybe this is a reflection of the 1920s, when intimate conversations about gender roles were not acceptable. Dorothy Canfield’s preface to the novel had some interesting comments on gender roles. She says, in essence, that each family should do what works for them, and not succumb to “tradition” if it’s not working out. Couples should communicate.

Once again, this is a book I wish that my library had a dozen copies of so I could suggest it to my book club which has a few stay-at-home moms and some working moms. We’d have a great discussion!

Ironically, once again the only copy my library system had was not the new Peresphone-published copy but the Center Point Large Print edition. I am not sure about the faithfulness of the text, since even the back cover has a typo (“Selected as one of the 500 greatest books every written by a woman…”). This is one book I’ve love to own in the Persephone edition, for I think I need to reread it every time I start to get Eva-overwhelmed and need a Lester-reminder of what home-making really is about.

• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
• Home Buying for Dummies and Three Other Books
• The Odyssey by Homer: The Story
• Aucassin and Nicolette by an Out-of-the-Box Medieval Author
• The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (In Chancery and To Let)
• Death in Children’s Literature: Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
• Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
• Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

Paradise Regained

There are two main characters in Paradise Regained: the Son of God (Jesus Christ) and Satan, who appears in disguises to try to tempt the Son of God. This is the story of Christ’s temptations in the wilderness, shortly after his baptism. It shows Christ as he’s just coming into himself. He is just beginning to understand his unique role on earth and especially his ability to resist the illogical temptations of the devil.

Satan is completely different in this than he was in Paradise Lost. He still appears among his devils in a brief exchange, but he is a weakened creature. His speech to the other devils seems unsure. He doesn’t have any of the majesty or confidence he had as he addressed the swarms in the beginning of Paradise Lost. He needs advice:

…I summon all
Rather to be in readiness with hand
Or counsel to assist; lest I who erst
Thought none to be my equal now be overmatch’d. (II.143-146)

This council among the devils doesn’t last long. Most of the discussion in Paradise Regained is Christ’s interior monologue (in which he ponders his calling on earth) and discussion between the Son of God and Satan.

I believe that the undeniable hero of Paradise Regained is the unsure yet mighty Son of God. In the beginning, he is rather unconfident, and to me, it seems so very accurate as a portrayal of how Christ must have felt. He ponders his past, his unusual childhood, and he realizes he is meant for greater things. He has just been baptized, after which

Heaven open’d her eternal doors, from whence
The Spirit decended on me like a Dove;
And last the sum of all, my Father’s voice,
Audibly heard from Heav’n, prounc’d me his,
Mee his beloved Son, in whom alone
He was well pleas’d; … (I. 281-286)

Yet, it is not until he recognizes Satan in his disguises and calls Satan on his faulty logic that he fully realizes his strengths and his role, it seems. Each book ends with Satan’s disgrace. “So fares it when with truth falsehood contends.” (III.443)

In the last passages, Satan falls multiple times. Ultimately, Angelic Choirs sing of the Son of God:

…now thou has aveng’d
Supplanted Adam, and by vanquishing
Temptation, hast regain’d lost Paradise,
And frustrated the conquest fraudulent:
He never more henceforth willd are set foot
In Paradise to tempt; his snares are broke:
For though that seat of earthly bliss be fail’d,
A fairer Paradise is founded now
For Adam and his chosen Sons, whom thou
A Savior art come down to reinstall (IV.606-615)

I loved the last sentence of the poem, for after all of these events, he “home to his Mother’s house private return’d” (IV.639). To me, that appropriately reinforced the mortal side of this eternal being. This poem was about his ability to resist Satan’s temptations; he, the Son of God, our Savior, has the ability to do so perfectly. Yet, that little reminder (and the others) that he had a mother who worried about him seems so touching, and it’s appropriate to address his mortality as well as his eternal nature. Milton brought everything full circle, and I loved that.

This is officially my last post for my extended Milton in May project in 2010. I had intended to also reread Samson Agonistes, which I enjoyed when I read it in college, but I am not interested in reading it right now. Maybe next year I’ll do a Milton in May mini-read, where I read some of the things I missed this year!

• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 4-6
• Milton in May (erm, and June): Paradise Lost, Books 10 to 12 + Two Reading Aids
• Milton in May: A Paradise Lost Read-Along
• Milton in May Week 1: Introduction and Paradise Lost Books 1-3
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 7-9
• Milton in May: Thoughts on Some Early Milton Poems
• Milton in May: Areopagitica and Adam and Eve’s Choice in Paradise Lost
• Milton in May: Comus and Lycidas by John Milton
• Any Interest in a May Read-Along of Paradise Lost?
• May and Milton in May in Review + Challenges Update and Reading Journal

The first part of the month was taken up by reading a Dover Thrift anthology of stories by American Women. Edited by Candace Ward, the volume had thirteen stories, one of which I skipped because I couldn’t get into it. (That story was “Life in the Iron-Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis. The blurb about it compared it to Emile Zola, and that was enough to turn me against it. It also started quite slowly.) The anthology has (mostly) public domain works in it; I’ve found an online link where available.

The stories I did read, with my thoughts about them, were as follows. This is the order I read them in. A dark red font indicates it was one of my favorites.

1. “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston. An unappreciated laundry lady deals with her adulterous husband. I thought this was an interesting story, but the writing was not as impressive as I thought Hurston’s other works are. As in her novels, Hurston writes dialog in dialect, and the characters and situations were realistic. This was her first major publication, and it appeared in one of the Harlem Renaissance journals, so I appreciated it for its historical value as well, even though it wasn’t a favorite story.
2. “Sancturary” by Nella Larsen. Loyalty is put to the test when a young man shows up in Annie Poole’s house seeking a hiding place. I have Larsen’s novel Passing on my TBR, so I was really hoping I loved this story, which was one of her last published works. It was so short that I felt I couldn’t get into the characters. Yet, the theme is one that couldn’t have been extended. It was a plot and issue-based story, not a character one. Read it online >>>
3. “A New England Nun” by Mary Wilkins Freeman. Louisa has been waiting fifteen years for her lover to return with his fortune and marry her; the time has come. I think it’s a great short story because the characters and setting are well introduced, and I also have an emotional connection. In the end, there is a catharsis, and someone is changed by the end of the story. I had read this before and once again I found it subtly satisfying. Read it online >>>
4. “Trancendental Wild Oats” by Louisa May Alcott. A family settles in an utopian community. The note in my book indicates that this was semi-autobiographical, and I could sense Alcott’s bitterness toward the event. As a short story, though, I found there to be little point to this story. I didn’t connect with any characters, I didn’t think it was humorous, and I was plainly bored. (Apparently, this is a satire. I totally missed that!) Read it online >>>
5. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A woman is put on house rest to calm her mental state, only to find the wallpaper tormenting her. I’ve read this many times before, and I’ve always enjoyed it. It was definitely time for a reread. Although it was not my favorite story from this collection, I think it’s a necessary story because it does such a great job of capturing a tormented woman’s mind.  Read it online >>>
6. “Smoke” by Djuna Barnes. The weakly child of a strong couple struggles to meet their expectations for the family. This was the most unmemorable story that I read in the volume. I wasn’t impressed with the writing or the story line (such as it was). I didn’t feel drawn in to the characters in any way.
7. “The Stones of the Village” by Alice Dunbar-Nelson. A mixed-race young man tries to escape the racism of his past by “passing” for white. While I knew a lot of Harlem Renaissance stories dealt with “passing,” I haven’t read any, other than Schuyler’s satire. I found this quite interesting for that historical reason. I didn’t feel drawn in to the characters or the story but there is plenty there in this story. Maybe it deserves a reread someday so I can give it another chance.
8. “The Storm” by Kate Chopin. During a violent rainstorm, a happily married man stops in the house of a former lover, who is now a happily married woman. This was a great story. It was incredibly short but the two characters’ thoughts were foremost in the action, and the concept of the raging storm was an appropriate symbol for the passion of the young people. Chopin did a great job of capturing people and characters in little space. It made me want to read more Chopin (see below). Read it online >>>
9. “The White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett. A young New England woman meets a traveling young hunter who wants her to reveal the home of the local white heron. I read this years ago and I had hoped I’d “get” it more now. Unfortunately, I still didn’t really enjoy it much. The introduction indicates that Sylvia’s decision (help the man or save her friend the heron) allows her to gain “an awareness both sexual and spiritual.” I didn’t see that at all. I just never connected to the characters and I felt bored as I read it.  Read it online >>>
10. “The Angel at the Gate” by Edith Wharton. Paulina feels it is her duty to keep up the House of her famous ancestor, even though no one else remembers him.  Wharton always seems to write about “duty” and makes us think “what would you do?” From what I’ve read by Wharton, this was not her strongest work. I didn’t feel any sense of connection with Paulina. But I’m not one to hold on to strange traditions for no reason; maybe if I did, I’d have related to Paulina’s predicament more.
11. “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather. A young man seeks for his place in the world, only to be constantly thwarted. This was a complicated story. At parts, I felt like I was getting to really know Paul, but other times he felt just out of reach. In some respects, I think that was the point. Paul was supposed to appear non-understandable. Since I’d hoped to love Cather’s contribution, I was disappointed, but this may be because I was getting bored with the short story overall by this point. Read it online >>>
12. “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. A quiet and unassuming local woman is accused of murder and her neighbors visit her house to try to figure out what happened. I loved this story! Although it was plot driven and not character driven, it was a refreshing look at how women were underestimated and discriminated against in a small community at the turn of the last century. I connected with the women in the story and loved the ending punch. Read it online >>>

After I finished this volume of stories, I decided to read my volume of Chopin’s stories. (I have her novella The Awakening, with about 10 short stories afterward). I wasn’t, overall, impressed with the Louisiana short stories. I struggled with the dialect, the French, and the unfamiliar themes. But I really enjoyed the stories about women in distinct situations. Two stood out to me.

My favorite story this month is one I think all should read. In “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin follows the thought process of one woman when she gets news of her husband’s death. It is so perfect, and I love the irony at the end. Because it is incredibly short, I don’t want to say anymore. Instead, go Read it online >>>

The other Chopin story I really liked was “A Pair of Silk Stockings.” In this, a busy and frugal woman spends her $15 on herself instead of on her children. Chopin doesn’t follow the woman’s thoughts, but rather her actions in this. I loved it because, I admit, I can relate to some extent! Mothers certainly need time to splurge on themselves. I felt sorry for this woman who hadn’t had the chance to do so for so long a time. Read it online >>>

I also have a volume of Mary Wilkins Freeman short stories, and since she’s contemporary to these other authors, I thought I’d give hers a try to. At this point in May, though, I was quite tired of short stories. I only read a few Freeman’s stories before I ended the project early.

The one Freeman story that I really did like was “The Revolt of Mother.” As with the last Chopin story, this is an action-driven story rather than one that follows the character’s thoughts. I cheered for the woman’s choices, for she was also a slighted woman who deserved something for herself. Read it online >>>

In the end, I have decided that a short story a day is far too many. I don’t like them that much, and reading that many shot stories gets tiring. I like a plot and characters that I can sink into, and short stories can’t do that. That said, I have rediscovered some old favorite stories, and I need to read more of them at some point. Just maybe not all at once.

What are your favorite classic short stories? How often do you read short stories? Do you get tired of them if you read them in bulk?

• Stories by Anton Chekhov
• The Student by Anton Chekhov: A Perfect Short Story
• Stories by Guy de Maupassant (Favorites)
• Stories by Guy de Maupassant (Introductory Thoughts)
• Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers
• Love in a Fallen City and Other Stories by Eileen Chang
• Stories by O. Henry (and Another BBAW Giveaway)
• How to Read and Why: Short Stories Retrospective
• Stories by Vladimir Nabokov
• Stories by Flannery O’Connor

And so, I come to the end of Paradise Lost. If you’re still reading it, feel free to leave your thoughts whenever you do finish it. There is no time limit to this project: read at your own pace and join in when you’ve finished.

For myself, I don’t think I “understood” it any better than I did the first time I read it seven years ago. That time, I was discussing it in a classroom. This time, I read it for enjoyment. We have been discussing it online, and I’ve been trying to further discussion through relevant questions and my own comments. I’ve come to a little bit of a discovery, though: everyone reads things in such a unique way that it’s very difficult to create relevant questions and it’s difficult to answer questions about something so huge as Milton’s Paradise Lost, even if you’re the one creating the questions to begin with. I think I need to read it a few more times in my life in order to better “discuss” it in any format.

This post, then, is a bit different. I leave us all with a series of related questions. My thoughts follow the jump.

• What was Paradise Lost about from your perspective? What did it mean to you as you read it?
• Milton says in the beginning that he wrote it to “justify the ways of God to men” (I.26). Did he succeed?
• In the end, what did you take away from Milton’s epic?

My Thoughts: Books 10-12 and The Entirety of Paradise Lost

I liked Book 10 but the last books kind of dropped off. I liked them, but they weren’t as majestic as the first few books, those with Satan. Was this intentional? In the commentary I read by C.S. Lewis, he suggested Milton got tired and hurried to an end, which I think is a bit silly to say. I would have to reread it myself to get the full effect. I think I got tired and wanted it to end.

For me, Paradise Lost was about obedience, choice, and consequence. Everything in the poem seems to revolve around laws and the consequences for disobeying them, as well as the wonderful example of human autonomy. First Satan, and then Eve and Adam made choices. Satan’s choice (rebelling against God) caused him to be cast out of heaven; Eve and Adam’s choice required that they leave paradise.

According to Merriam-Webster, “justify” means, in part, “to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable b (1) : to show to have had a sufficient legal reason.” Did Milton “justify” God’s plan in Paradise Lost? I think he did, but that’s because so much of what Milton suggests resonates with my own Christian beliefs. My read was a personal one.

In the Norton Critical Edition, there is commentary by Scott Elledge following the text of Paradise Lost. He says a number of things that I found useful in putting my thoughts together, so I share them here.

The consequence of eating was knowledge of a certain kind – knowledge that good could be gained only by knowing evil. … Milton recognized in perfect Adam a thirst for knowledge that is best understood as a passion for contemplating God’s works for the right purpose – that of knowing God and glorifying him. (page 470)

The poem does not convince us that Adam should be glad he fell – only that Christians maybe glad that the consequences were so good for mankind. The final justification of God’s ways is the manifestation of his grace in the redemption of man through the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ. (page 471)

My person beliefs about the fall are that it was not a sin but a transgression, and that all “will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgression” (Article of Faith 2). That is not what Milton is saying: he follows traditional Christianity’s look at the Fall as the first sin of man. For me, though, Milton’s portrayal of God’s attitude toward Adam and Eve’s taking the fruit was similar enough that it resonated to me.

To explain: Milton’s God was not a vengeful God out to punish, but a God of laws and consequence that had the foresight to provide a second-chance plan (the Son of God) once he realized that Satan’s temptation would cause the two humans to fall. See God’s observations III, 80-134. (“I made him just and right, / Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.” III, 98-99.) The Son of God’s response is at III.227-264. (“Behold me then, me for him, life for life/ I offer.” III, 236-237.) This discussion occurs before Eve and Adam take the fruit, and Satan has not yet conversed with them. I certainly thought Milton gave justification to God’s ways.

At any rate, whether or not Milton succeeded in echoing my own understandings or in justifying God’s ways, what I got out of Paradise Lost overall is a sense of overwhelming need to reread complicated things. I didn’t reread this since I sat down to write these thoughts, and my first read was so long ago (seven years maybe?) that it seems a vague memory. I feel like I need to reread Paradise Lost a number of times in order to properly respond to it. And I suspect I’ll read it again. It could bear rereading every few years.

In addition to skimming some of the Norton Critical Edition end matter, I also read a few others books this month as I read Milton.

John Milton by Neil Forsyth

Neil Forsyth admits that his work is not a definitive biography. It is, after all, less than 250 pages. In his introduction to John Milton: A Biography, Forsyth writes:

I have tried to transmit to as wide a readership as possible the result of the scholarly researches of others, along with some of my own opinions. My task, as I saw it, was to write a biography of Milton that would excite readers who might merely be curious. (page 7)

I found this biography to be perfect for my needs. If anything, it lacked details on Milton’s personal life, but given the fact that this was 400 years ago, I suspect such things are hard to prove. As it was, it gave a great overview of Milton’s life, with his works placed in to a historical context. Since much of what Milton wrote was political and I am not familiar with his era, this was very helpful for me. I highly recommend this biography if, as he writes in the introduction, you are curious about Milton the man and his era.

A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis

Just as the biography of Milton gave Milton’s politics context, C.S. Lewis’ Preface gave context to Milton’s format (the epic) and religion (Christianity). Although I am Christian, Milton’s and Lewis’ Christianity follow different precepts, so I appreciated the background. That said, while I enjoyed Lewis’ commentary overall, I found it incredibly dry. I read about 120 of the 140 pages, skipping some parts of more boring chapters. There were quotes I enjoyed as I read that helped me put Paradise Lost into context, but I neglected to mark them and can no longer remember them.

The most interesting parts were C.S. Lewis’ opinion chapters on the specific characters in Paradise Lost. He is very emphatic on the fact that Satan is not a hero in this text. Satan was, I would say, the most interesting character, but I’d have to agree with Lewis on most points that he was not the one we’d like to spend any time with. He was a bit too selfish to be pleasant. At any rate, Lewis’ literary criticism is not what I’d recommend reading if you want commentary. He put some things into context, but it was a slog to get through.

• Milton in May Week 1: Introduction and Paradise Lost Books 1-3
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 4-6
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 7-9
• Milton in May: Paradise Regained
• Milton in May: Areopagitica and Adam and Eve’s Choice in Paradise Lost
• Milton in May: A Paradise Lost Read-Along
• Any Interest in a May Read-Along of Paradise Lost?
• Milton in May: Thoughts on Some Early Milton Poems
• Milton in May: Comus and Lycidas by John Milton
• May and Milton in May in Review + Challenges Update and Reading Journal

Little Boy Lost

In the aftermath of World War II, Englishman Hilary Wainwright is trying to come to terms with his life, which is now in tatters. Since he’d been living in Paris before the war, friends are no longer where they once were, and post-occupation Paris is nearly unrecognizable as itself. His beautiful European wife, Lisa, has been captured and killed by the Gestapo. Most significantly, his son, John, whom he met only on the day he was born, has been lost.

I honestly had never considered the impact of the war, occupied France, and so forth, on the families that had been living in France. As I read, I felt the pain that Hilary was going through. I felt like I was emotionally on edge at the stress of the situation and the heart-breaking events of occupied France, from families torn apart to fear and betrayal. My own son is two years old, and so I was constantly thinking of him as Hilary thought of his own son. In that respect, I could better relate to Lisa, the mother who had been killed but who had first found some way of protecting her son. I loved how the story all worked out.

In some respects, I think Laski wrote with a detached perspective. I never felt quote like I was completely relating to Hilary, and only in retrospect do I see that that is how it needed to have been done. Laski was writing herself very close to the horrors of the war. She herself could not immerse herself into the horrors; she needed to have a little bit of distance as she presented the facts. The best part of this approach was that I never felt manipulated. I was emotionally drawn in, but never tricked into emotion. That is a successful novel.

The title, I think, refers not just to the young child but also to the man Hilary, who is looking for his son. He also is lost without love, and he’s afraid. I love how it all comes together in the end. For a while I was pretty frustrated (and horrified) by Hilary’s selfishness. It made him truly real, though, for after all the heartache and loss he’d been through, feeding his passions and loneliness through superficial means did make sense.

I read Little Boy Lost because after all the reviews during Claire and Verity’s Peresphone week, I thought I’d give another Peresphone book a chance. Claire at Kiss a Cloud had a very short glowing post about Little Boy Lost that caught my eye and then Nat at In the Spring is the Dawn also had a review. I was able to find a copy of it in the state of Illinois via Worldcat, so I was pleased to be able to read it. Note that, ironically, the only copy I found is not the new Peresphone-published copy but the original 1949 printing. Nonetheless, the book is the same!

In the end, I enjoyed it. It was a perfectly satisfying quick read that let me become emotionally attached to the characters and left me thinking. It’s given me a definite interest in reading more Persephone books! In fact, I’m off to search for more that may be in my library system or in the state of Illinois somewhere.

• I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Nimura
• Any Interest in a May Read-Along of Paradise Lost?
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Milton in May Week 1: Introduction and Paradise Lost Books 1-3
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 4-6
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 7-9
• Milton in May: A Paradise Lost Read-Along
• Milton in May: Areopagitica and Adam and Eve’s Choice in Paradise Lost
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Milton in May (erm, and June): Paradise Lost, Books 10 to 12 + Two Reading Aids

Silence

Yet, to some extent, Silence seems similar to the other Japanese novels I’ve read (Naomi, The Makioka Sisters, The Old Capital) because all occurs under the conflict of Japanese society versus western society; Silence happens to take place 300 years earlier, showing that such conflicts are long-rooted in Japan. Silence, although at its heart a Christian novel, is likewise a Japanese novel in the way it adopts the common struggle toward accepting western ideals that seems to recur in Japanese literature (at least, in the ones I’ve read: I suspect this is a common theme).

The main character in Silence is Father Rodrigues, a priest coming from Portugal to discover why the other fathers have disappeared from contact. Surely, those faithful men did not apostatize from the faith? At this point in the 1600s, Christianity has been made illegal, and anyone found practicing Catholicism is tortured, priests especially. Father Rodrigues is entering a place from which he will not emerge the same.

The novel’s writing felt uneven to me: it switched from first-person narration to third-person narration to “reports” by unknown officials. I didn’t like this writing style, I didn’t like the change in perspective, and it felt odd to constantly be searching for ground when I picked it up. I was not crazy about the novel for those reasons. The subject, however, made this a book I had to keep reading.

Although I am a Christian, I am not a Catholic. I don’t worship idols or images, nor do I consider such items sacred. The people’s specific faith and Father Rodrigues’ presence seemed very ritualistic and “western” to me. Father Rodrigues clearly had a strong faith in Christ. Yet, his relationship to the people seemed to be as a leader of ritualistic importance, from confession to providing rosaries and crosses. Despite the fact that the Catholic elements were not familiar to me, the need for missionary work in an area where it is not appreciated reminded me strongly of occurrences elsewhere in the world and in scripture.

The novel’s title, Silence, refers to the Father’s frustration with the heavens not stopping the atrocities happening to the faithful Christian people. He didn’t feel he’d received any understanding as to why these things were happening. Similar atrocities to people of faith have happened throughout history, from the early Christian missionaries to the Jews in the Holocaust.

One scriptural example from the Book of Mormon seemed to echo through my mind as I read Endo’s book. I share it simply because it gives me comfort to see that (1) God takes the righteous into his care; (2) God allows people to have agency, even when they choose poorly; and (3) God will hold people responsible for the ways they treat others, even if retribution is not evident here on earth.

Contextual note: After the missionaries Alma and Amulek taught the people in the community of Ammonihah, persecution arose and the missionaries were kept in jail while the righteous were tortured and killed. Amulek own family is probably among the wives and children.

8 And they brought their wives and children together, and whosoever believed or had been taught to believe in the word of God they caused that they should be cast into the fire; and they also brought forth their records which contained the holy scriptures, and cast them into the fire also, that they might be burned and destroyed by fire.

9 And it came to pass that they took Alma and Amulek, and carried them forth to the place of martyrdom, that they might witness the destruction of those who were consumed by fire.

10 And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.  Alma 14:8-11

And so Silence also seems to me to echo the issues surrounding Milton’s Paradise Lost. People have agency to choose what they do, just as Eve and Adam did in the garden. The military leaders in Japan in the 1600s probably weren’t quite sure about Christianity; I don’t think those leaders fully comprehended the doctrine of the priests that they were torturing. Nevertheless, whether they did or didn’t, God knows: he will take all in to consideration and he will hold them responsible.

As for the novel: *spoiler* Personally, I don’t think Father Rodrigues truly apostatized, and maybe that is the point. He still believed. Putting one’s foot on an image, while breaking his faith to some extent, didn’t mean that he stopped believing in Christ. The last section of the novel, which was a series of “reports” from the era, seemed to suggest that Rodrigues was still secretly teaching of Christ. Christianity had to change tactics and go “underground.”

Silence is a Christian historical novel, and also a purely Japanese one. There is a definite conflict between East and West in it, and yet the main conflict is an internal one. It is a story of a man of faith coming to an understanding of the world and his place in it. Although his faith is tested in a violent situation, his story is one that I suspect resonates in Christians today, for who has not questioned the “why”s behind the relationships of God and man?

• Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki
• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
• Abraham Lincoln: A Man of Faith and Courage by Joe Wheeler
• The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki
• Divine Songs by Isaac Watts (Poetry Friday)
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

Nonetheless, I have been planning my summer reading, and I’m so excited I’ve already begun my reading for my project. This summer will be My Victorian Summer.

Between now and the end of August, I plan on immersing myself in as much Victorian fiction (and nonfiction about the era) as possible. I decided to do this because I’ve been slacking on my Our Mutual Read books and I really have been craving Victorian literature lately.

The idea is to enjoy Victorian literature, so I’m focusing on what is most loudly calling my name, which is early and middle Victorian novels. I’ll leave poetry for another time and I’m avoiding the later fiction, which just seems different in my mind. (I admit, I’m afraid of Hardy.)

That said, here are some things I want to read in the next three months.

Nonfiction

We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill. I recently watched The Young Victoria and I am now fascinated by the Queen. I most want to see how her life and influence may have created the opportunity for the social change and flowering of literature that was the Victorian era. This book seems somewhat succinct and still long enough to cover a lot of ground as I look at the royalty. If you’ve read a better book that might do that, please suggest it!

Victorian London by Liza Picard. Nymeth recently reviewed this book, and out of all the nonfiction about Victorian England that I found in the library, I think it seems the most attractive. Picard also focuses on early and middle London (until 1870), and that’s the same era that I’m most interested in. I think it sounds perfect.

The Victorian Art of Fiction: Nineteenth-Century Essays on the Novel edited by Rohan Maitzen. Amateur Reader has been writing about these essays and I love hearing the contemporary comments on the Victorian novels. I hope these essays put things in context, but since I haven’t read most of the classic Victorian novels, I hope it’s not “above” me. I had to ILL request it, and I still don’t know if I can actually get it. I’m debating splurging on actually purchasing it (*gasp*).

Fiction

This is what I am most excited about this summer: great classic novels.

Armadale by Wilkie Collins (written 1866). I have already begun (about 60 pages in) and I’m so excited to love this as I loved The Woman in White. I hope (and suspect) I will not be disappointed.

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (written 1865). I have already begun (about 30 pages in). I am not sure what to think so far. For me, Gaskell has been both wonderful (North and South) and mediocre (Mary Barton).

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (written 1860-61). I’ve enjoyed all the Dickens’ novels I’ve read so far, so I’m ready to read this one. It seems many people read this when they were in high school. I feel I’ve been missing out.

Middlemarch by George Eliot (1869). I’ve owned this one for years and when Nymeth mentioned a summer readalong, I decided it was a perfect time to add this in too.

These four books are the definite reads for the summer (I hope). Somehow, they all ended up being 1860s novels. I’d like to add some earlier Victorian novels too, but I’m not sure which ones. These are also rather long, so I’m hoping for some shorter ones as well. Here are others on my “maybe” list for the summer.

• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1847-48). I admit, this doesn’t appeal to me for some reason. Maybe because it is very, very long. However, it’s an early Victorian novel and it seems to be one of the “important” books.
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848). I could save this for the RIP challenge in October. It sounds “spooky.”
• Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope (1864). The first of the Palliser novels, which I won on Twitter from Oxford World Classics. Just owning a pretty book is encouragement to read it.

Who am I missing? Nominate your favorite early/middle Victorian author and/or novel and I may get to it instead/as well.

One note: I do have some non-Victorian “must reads” this summer for my classics reading group (Balzac, Camus, and Mark Twain), the Classics Circuit (nineteenth-century Russian and another that it still to be announced), the blogosphere readalong of Dante (one book a month, starting now), and Orbis Terrarum (my holds came in for a book from Africa/Sudan and a book for Asia/China).

That comes to a lot of reading, so I don’t know which books will get read. Nevertheless, my entire summer bodes to be a wonderful one. I may not be travelling anywhere, but I sure will be reading well. I’m immensely excited for My Victorian Summer.

Do you want to join me? Whether or not you do, make sure you tell me your favorite Victorian books!

• My Victorian Summer: We Two by Gillian Gill and Armadale by Wilkie Collins + Reading Journal
• The Victorian Art of Fiction: Nineteenth-Century Essays on the Novel, edited by Rohan Maitzen
• Starting Again
• Reading Journal (17 Feb): A Brief Post
• Library Summer Reading Programs Completed!
• Reading Journal (29 July): Summer Mode to Blog Reading
• Reading Journal (July 1): Summer Reading
• Reading Journal (21 Oct): Victorian Second Helpings + Giveaway of an Abandoned Book
• Reading Journal (24 February): My First Vlog
• Reading Journal (March 3): Swapping Books

I was once on this site accused of being a book banner because I disliked a book and I was not nice in the comments on this site. When I started a discussion post about it last year, you were all quick to give your opinions on what it means to be a book banner, and to reassure me that I didn’t sound like one. Nevertheless, I have often thought about “book banning” and what does it mean in this day and age.

Reading about the English civil war, the Interregnum, and Restoration England this month has put censorship into perspective. In John Milton’s day, censorship was a reality. In fact, books were required to be licensed by the government. As both a political and religious man who happened to disagree with much of what was happening at various times, Milton certainly did not want to have to get his writings government approved.

Milton’s response to the licensing issue, “Areopagitca,” was praised in a book I read as the best prose in the English language, so I thought I’d read it for my Milton in May project. I am glad I did because to my surprise it was both an engaging read and completely relevant. It reminded me strongly of Paradise Lost and I found it to be a good companion read to that.

The title comes, I learned from the Milton Reading Room, from a tract by Isocrates called Areopagiticus: “Isocrates’s tract, which outlines a program for political reform, specifically mentions the degradation of the judges of the Court of the Areopagus, the highest court in Greece.” The Greek court is thus compared to England’s parliament. Apparently, it also references a speech by Paul in the New Testament (I would not have made that connection on my own).

I intended to write this post about Milton’s views of censorship. There is so much in this 30-page essay. But as I sought out quotes, I kept being drawn to Milton’s commentary on freedom to choose in general, Adam’s choice in Eden, and other aspects that seemed to clarify Milton’s latter purposes in writing Paradise Lost: to “justify the ways of God to man.”

For example, Milton writes about the need for both good and evil in the world. (Quotes come from the Milton Reading Room copy online. Hence, there are no page numbers.)

It was from out the rinde of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evill as two twins cleaving together leapt forth into the World. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evill, that is to say of knowing good by evill. As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdome can there be to choose, what continence to forbeare without the knowledge of evill? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. (italics added)

So Adam, before he had received the “knowledge of good and evil,” could not really know good. And he can only be a good man if he’s been challenged to choose between good and evil. He couldn’t do that in the garden before he’d received the knowledge of the two. A little later, Milton adds:

[M]any there be that complain of divin Providence for suffering Adam to transgresse, foolish tongues! when God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had bin else a meer artificiall Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We our selves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he creat passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly temper’d are the very ingredients of vertu? They are not skilfull considerers of human things, who imagin to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universall thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remains entire.

I really like these quotes. Sorry they are long, but I think Milton says it so well.

“Areopagitica” has so much in it. The bottom line is that I need to reread it. Maybe as a part of Banned Books Week, I’ll read it for the great censorship discussion and share some of the details with you. It is very well done. At this point, I just can’t stop seeing it as a parallel to Milton’s later Paradise Lost (which I am, of course, still reading).

I’ll leave you with one more Milton quote, this time a short one:

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 4-6
• Milton in May (erm, and June): Paradise Lost, Books 10 to 12 + Two Reading Aids
• Milton in May: Paradise Lost, Books 7-9
• Milton in May Week 1: Introduction and Paradise Lost Books 1-3
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Any Interest in a May Read-Along of Paradise Lost?
• Milton in May: A Paradise Lost Read-Along
• Milton in May: Paradise Regained
• Milton in May: Comus and Lycidas by John Milton
• Milton in May: Thoughts on Some Early Milton Poems

In the introduction, Knut Hamsun’s Hunger is compared to works by Camus, Dostoevsky, and Kafka. I’ve only read one Camus, The Stranger (thoughts here), which dealt with the hopelessness of life. Hunger certainly did make things seem pointless: the narrator was just trying to live, and the stories and articles he tried to write just seemed ridiculous in the middle of his extreme poverty.

On the other hand, Hunger was a perfect novel to read so close on the heels of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (thoughts here). Much as Raskolnikov, the unnamed narrator in Hunger thought highly of himself. Trained to be a scholar and writer, he imagined himself a class above the people he met on the street. When a beggar (of a lower class) stopped him and asked for a bit of money to buy food, the narrator immediately went to the pawn shop and sold his vest for one and a half krone. He gave one krone to the beggar, saving only 50 øre for himself, despite the fact that he hadn’t eaten for more than a day himself (page 9).

Later, when he stays in the police station overnight because he’d lost his house key, he was too proud to request a free breakfast:

A ticket, a ticket for me too! I haven’t eaten for more than three long days and nights. A loaf of bread! But nobody offered me a ticket and I didn’t dare request one. That would have aroused instant suspicion. They would begin to poke around in my private affairs and find out who I really was… (page 70)

Despite the fact that he was starving, he feared admitting to strangers that he was not a journalist who had simply lost his room key; he did not want to admit that he was a starving writer that hadn’t written anything worthwhile in some time. He was prideful, as I saw Raskolnikov as prideful.

The narrator also couldn’t allow himself to steal, which ironically reminded me of Raskolnikov. Although the later did steal, he could not, in the end, tolerate his own action. Similarly, when the narrator inadvertently gained some money (a clerk gave change when it wasn’t due) and decided to use it for food, he ultimately felt guilty and gave it all away to a vendor: he wanted to keep his conscience clear of guilt, even when he hadn’t eaten for quite some time.

There are some religious elements to the narrator’s struggling, but it wasn’t as strong a theme as Raskolnikov’s internal religious struggles. On the contrary, the religion of Hamsun’s narrator actually appeared rather ridiculous, rather than helpful.

And then: Kafka. While I haven’t read Kafka, there are some aspects of this reading that made me think of him. I feel somewhat ridiculous referring to a “Kafka-esque” style when I’ve never read Kafka. Yet, the introduction used this section as demonstration of the Kafka-esque style, and I’d noticed it myself as I read:

I felt I was myself a crawling insect doomed to perish, seized by destruction in the midst of a whole world ready to go to sleep. (page 27)

But beyond the analogy to a bug (which recurs later in the text), the narrator occasionally shifted tenses from the general past tense (he told the bulk of his story in retrospect) and present tense, as if he is still living it. I found such tense shifts utterly fascinating. It seemed that telling the story brought the narrator back to those moments. But this also reminded me of Kafka (which again, I have never read): the narrator is becoming something he is not. For example, take this sample of tense shift that came just before the above-quoted insect passage:

Quite instinctively, I had again gotten paper and pencil into my hands, and I sat and wrote mechanically the date 1848 in every corner of the page. . . I sit there on the bench and write 1848 dozens of times; I write this number crisscross in all possible shapes and wait for a usable idea to occur to me… (page 26-27)

When the tense began to shift in the middle of a paragraph, it made the narrator seem a little less mentally complete. When I think of an unreliable narrator, I often think of narrators that are lying, whether obviously or subtly. In this case, the narrator was trying to be honest as he told his story. He still became unreliable, though, because his present was confused with the story he was telling. The pain (both physical and emotional) of starvation was very prescient even in retrospect.

Knut Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1920 mainly for his 1917 novel The Growth of the Soil, a saga about Norwegian settlers told in third person. Hunger (in Norwegian: Sult) was written in 1890, when Hamsun was a relatively unknown beginning writer. It is told in a fascinating first person, and seems intensely personal, possibly because it is semi-autobiographical.

If this is Hamsun’s powerful early novel, I am quite excited to see how he treats his family saga. Hunger was a wonderful introduction to a novelist I look forward to reading more of.

A note on the translation, which is from Norwegian by Sverre Lyngstad: The translator’s note indicates that “the two English translation of Hunger hitherto available are both marred by egregious flaws.” Such flaws include the excision of erotic passages and misreading of the text, including elimination of the tense shifts that made it so interesting. As such, I’m grateful I read the translation I did. Beware the free online options! More likely than not, they are the flawed translations.

• Hunger: An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome (narrated by Martin Jarvis)
• The Odyssey by Homer: The Story
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
• Jazz by Toni Morrison
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• The Elements of Cooking by Michael Ruhlman