The Masterpiece [L’Oeuvre] by Emile Zola

In The Masterpiece, Zola captures the pain of creation, as he claimed himself:

I want to depict the artists’ struggle with reality, the sheer effort of creation which goes into every work of art, the blood and tears involved in giving one’s flesh, in trying to make something that lives.  (Introduction to Oxford World Classics edition, page ix.)

In telling the story of the doomed Claude Lantier, Zola does capture a painful side to creation. As a self-absorbed painter, Claude is unable to see beyond his skewed perception of the world, since he sees all through the eyes of his “impressionistic” painting style. (Although Zola does not use the word “impressionism,” it is clear that such is the era of art.)

I didn’t enjoy reading the story, but I certainly appreciated it as a whole. Zola shows a realistic disconnect for people who struggle with a vision, and I felt like I was glancing at real lives between the pages of the novel. Continue reading »

King Lear by William Shakespeare

Cordelia's Farewell by Edwin Austin Abbey (via Wikipedia Public Domain)

Shakespeare’s King Lear captures family relationships (father to daughter, father to son, brother to brother, sister to sister) in an undeniable tragedy. Lear is betrayed by his two eldest daughters and Gloucester is betrayed by his eldest (and illegitimate) son. But although there is broken trust and mourning, there are also tender expressions of true love from children to their parents. Cordelia and her father and Gloucester and Edgar give the play a gentleness that I did not at all expect in a high dramatic tragedy highly reminiscent of the Ancient Greek tragedies.

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Medea by Euripides

Medea is another ancient Greek play by Euripides, and yet, it is completely different from the other play I read last year. I read the Rex Warner translation in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces (seventh edition). As I haven’t read any other translations, all I can say is that this one was refreshingly easy to read. I loved it!

Part of what I loved was the character of Medea. She was a wronged woman, but ultimately a strong one. Medea had left her home to come to a foreign land, and now she was being cast aside.  Her husband Jason had not only cheated on her but had cast her away and married another, younger woman.

Medea’s reaction to the situation and her subsequent actions are extreme. Like Lady Macbeth, she casts aside her instincts of kindness and, particularly, her motherly love. She murders her own children. But unlike when I read about Lady Macbeth, I felt Medea was in the right. She is acting out of revenge, while Lady Macbeth had acted out of selfish desire for power. I was cheering for Medea as I read her story. Continue reading »

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

When I reviewed and analyzed Julius Caesar in depth back in June, I expected that I’d do the same with all the other Shakespeare plays I read while I have had this blog. And yet, I cannot “analyze” Macbeth. While I enjoyed reading Macbeth, it was not a “deep” reading experience for me. I’ve found I’ve been putting off writing this review because I don’t have such a deep analysis to give you. In fact, while I could reread it a few times, I’m ready to move on.

My first thought when I picked up Macbeth two weeks ago was, “Wow, this is perfect for Halloween.” Macbeth starts with thunder and lightning and three very spooky witches.

My second thought was that Macbeth was amazingly readable. I didn’t find myself stumbling over sentences (especially when I read it aloud with a bad Scottish accent, hehe), but beyond that the play itself is incredibly straight forward, more so than Julius Caesar was, which I read a few months ago. Unlike Julius Caesar, I didn’t need to read commentary to understand it or be fascinated by the setting Shakespeare created.

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The Door by Margaret Atwood

I always love to pick up a slim volume of poetry, a volume that contains poems all by the same author, because it helps me to pick up on themes, it helps me get to know an author, and it lets me really feel the emotions the author celebrates.

Margaret Atwood’s The Door was published in 2007, and as such is a reflection on life from a position of maturity. Atwood was born in 1939, and the poems reflect her growing realization that she is aging. Some of the poems are sad. Some seem almost bitter. The volume I got from the library also had an audio disc of Atwood reading half of the poems – a touch that gave these poems a personality beyond the mere(!) words.

One has to be careful not to interpret poetry as autobiographical, for often it is not. But even if these poems are fiction, they are so real, I felt they were real. I felt Atwood was telling me something about her life: she was telling me what it is like to be almost 70 years old, reflecting on the world, a life, and a career.

Can you tell I enjoyed reading this volume of poetry? After I read it all, I listened to the audio. And then I reread some of the poems, hearing her voice. Atwood’s poetry is more emotional and I’d suggest slightly more complex than Billy Collins’ poetry (reviewed here). But I still think it’s highly accessible to one unfamiliar with poetry. Continue reading »

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

There is something to be said for close, careful reading.

I must have read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with the rest of my tenth grade class, but I honestly didn’t remember any of it. I decided to read it this month as a part of the Martel-Harper Challenge, for which Yann Martel chooses “book[s] that ha[ve] been known to expand stillness.”

Reading Julius Caesar just once didn’t do anything to help “expand stillness.” I was confused: it started in the middle of a dramatic scene. I didn’t know who the characters were and why they were making the choices they made. Why did Caesar consider Brutus a friend? Why was Brutus called “honorable” when he was committing murder? What is “honor”? Did any of this really happen?

But as I spent a few days rereading portions of Julius Caesar, listening to the audiobook, watching the movie, and reading various commentaries about the play, I was enlightened. I think it did encourage “stillness” because I wasn’t just reading to turn pages; I was reading to learn and experience. I seriously loved the experience of truly reading Shakespeare, even by myself.

Note that this post contains “spoilers.” Continue reading »

Hippolytus by Euripides

What would a young man say or do if he learned that his step-mother had fallen in love with him?

In the play Hippolytus by Euripides, Hippolytus finds out that his step-mother has fallen for him. But what he doesn’t know is that the goddess Aphrodite has had her hand in these matters. Continue reading »