The Awakening

by Kate Chopin

The title of this book made me think of new beginnings, spring and hope; like awakening from a deep sleep and opening your eyes, seeing what is before you. What I discovered while reading was not an awakening by my definition, but rather a dark and gloomy depression.

I admit to not knowing little about this classic before reading it, but I had the impression it was about a married woman who "awakens" to a new life as she discovers her own independence.

I did not feel this was a story of finding independence - with independence and "freedom" comes feelings of completeness, satisfaction, contentment and energy. Edna, the main character in this book, never exhibits those feelings. I think she was depressed and because she had financial means, is able to indulge in the "luxury" of her depression. She ignores the running of the house, she ignores her children and allows them to go live with the maid and she moves into a little "pigeon-hole" house alone.

So many passages, so many of Edna's behaviors and feelings were characteristic of depression. There was a sadness to her life, a feeling of darkness and despair. Cutting the ties that bond her in her marriage and motherhood did not free Edna of the darkness. If the story was indeed about the smothering effects of marriage and motherhood, why didn't Edna ever feel relief?

I think the author was trying to decry the feelings of many woman, both in the past and still today, who feel like they are nothing more than possessions. I think the argument could have been stronger if the main character was not suffering depression. Was the author herself suffering from clinical depression and with no understanding of it, blaming those feelings on marriage moires.

This would be a good book for a face-to-face book group. I would like to bounce my ideas of others and see if anyone agrees with my feelings about the book or not. There would be many things about this book to discuss. I think I could better express my thoughts about this book in person rather than in a post.

One quote that stood out was something Robert, Edna's lover, said to her towards the end of the book.
"Why do you force me to idiotic subterfuges? I think you cruel. Maybe not intentionally cruel, but you seem to be forcing me into disclosures which can result in nothing. As if you would have me bear a wound for for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention or power of healing it."

BTW, I made it to TEN books this month for the NaJuReMoNoMo (National Just Read More Novels Month) Wahoo for me!

Bridge of San Luis Rey

by Thornton Wilder

I didn't realize that Thornton Wilder wrote anything but plays. He authored the Pulitzer Prize winning plays, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943), but he also wrote several novels. He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1928 for The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

When I first listed this book for the By-the-Decade Challenge as my 1920's selection, I thought it was a war story. Even before I read the book, I discovered that I had the story for The Bridge on the River Kwai in mind. Obviously my mind had criss-crossed paths before it ever reached 'The Bridge.'

Wilder's Bridge concerns itself with 5 people who fell to their deaths when Peru's finest bridge collapsed in 1714. A Franciscan monk, Brother Juniper, witnesses the tragedy and begins to wonder if what seemed like random misfortunes were actually part of God's plan. He spends years researching the lives of the five people and then compiles and publishes his findings. The results were unexpected.

I liked this book, both for it's quickness and the questions it posed: Is there an overall plan by an unseen God? Is there a purpose behind tragedy? Wilder doesn't really answer these questions. In fact, he doesn't even address them in so many words, rather the story unfolds and the reader is left asking these questions.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevens

After finishing Jekyll and Hyde I felt much the same as I did when I finished Dracula. Enlightened. All my life I have seen or heard tidbits of information from the book and I've seen distortions of the original story but now I KNOW the original. Puzzle pieces of information fit together, characters are more than a name or a bit of trivia, and in both cases, the original telling of the story is better than any movie or take off.

It's refreshing to read a classic that a regular person can understand why it's been a beloved story for so many years. As the story progressed I compared it in my mind's eye to eating an artichoke. Each leaf brought you closer to the heart of the matter, but revealed only a tantalizing morsel at a time. The story was told from Dr. Jekyll's friend's point of view. He had to work to reveal each part of the mystery. I can see that reading this book without knowing the heart, the climax, the end; the reader would be as confused and curious as Jekyll's friend. Even knowing the climax of the story, Stevenson's writing held me captive.

Jekyll and Hyde was published in 1886. It would have made a great pick for the 15 Decades/15 Books Challenge. I would encourage you to consider it for next years Decades Challenge.

Now to compare the book to the movie, rather the musical. That's right - a musical of Jekyll and Hyde. It's actually pretty good. Ready for another shock? The lead is played by David Hasselhoff! You know, the Bay Watch and Knight Rider guy.

I thought the musical was marvelous and Hasselhoff does a amazing job - amazing because I was surprised, but he was also good. His depiction of the battle between Jekyll and Hyde for control of their shared body is outstanding. You really need to see it.

How did it compare to the book? The movie takes lots of liberty. In the book Jekyll is a middle-aged man (50-ish) and Hyde transforms into a younger, evil man. The movie has both men in their late 20s, and Jekyll is engaged to be married. There's no love interest in the book. Murders in the book - one; several in the movie. The movie is told from Jekyll's point of view and the book from the friend's.

My recommendation would be to read the book first and then watch the musical. Both worthwhile, but the book is the best.

Barometer Rising

by Hugh MacLennan

I have been typing and retyping this first sentence and I'm still not sure where to begin. This book is a masterpiece, worthy to be called a classic. MacLennan's writing is smooth and descriptive. I have no desires to be a writer but for those who do, this would make an excellent study. Not only does Maclennan do a examplary job of writing, the story is taut and compelling.

Barometer is set in Halifax, Nova Scotia during WWI. The book encompasses only eight days during the first part of December in 1917. There was a wonderful sense of place, so much so that I could feel the damp coldness, picture the overcast grey sky and hear the boats churning in the bay. The pace of the story continues to build towards the real life catastrophic explosion that occurred in the bay and had such a devastating effect on Halifax.

The story centers on Penelope Wain who believes her lover, Neil Macrae, has been killed by enemy fire shortly after being placed under court martial. Macrae's commanding officer was Penelope's father. In the two years Macrae was away Penelope has gained respect as a talented ship designer. And she has received a proposal of marriage from another soldier who served in the war in her father's squadron.

The main characters and supporting cast are so well depicted. Each seems like a real person with weaknesses, worries and strengths. MacLennan writes some of the best dialog I've ever read.

I highly recommend this book. One of my favorite quotes is from the man Macrae is depending on to clear his name of a military charge of insubordination.

"I do not understand very much, but I always have known what it is I have to do next, and if I lose the job at Wain's there will be another one somewhere else. We are told thea the Lord will provide, and there would be no use whatever in going to church if a man cannont believe a thing as easy as that."

Shadows on the Rock

by Willa Cather

I can't tell you what a treat it has been for me to read this book. Having spent 6 years of my life in Lincoln, Nebraska I knew about Willa Cather. Or so I thought. Cather also lived in Nebraska. She attended the University of Nebraska and wrote books that took place in Nebraska and New Mexico. We were taught about her in English classes.

So imagine my shock when I asked for suggestions of books with settings in Canada and Qinsina suggested a book by Willa Cather. I called my mother who graduated from the University of Nebraska (while raising 7 children) as an English major. She was as surprised as I was that Cather had written a book set in Quebec City. Qinsina included a great website that featured a Quebec tour of the places talked about in the book. The tour was prepared by John J. Murphy of Brigham Young University. I added the tour to my Microsoft Streets and Trips map. I bookmooched a copy of the book and packed it for the trip.

I don't remember just where we were on our trip when I decided I just couldn't carry that heavy Devil in the White City around in my carry-all and put in instead, Shadows on the Rock. I only read 5-6 pages a day - very slow going. There were times when we just sat in a park or by a lake or the ocean, and even though I held my book in front of me I didn't read because I was just soaking in the environment. So I didn't finish the book before we reached Quebec City.

Shadows on the Rock is about an apothecary and his daughter, Cecile, who came to Quebec in the late 1600's with their patron, Count Frontenac. Cecile describes looking up from the front door of the apothecary to the Frontenac chateau. Below are a couple pictures we took looking up at the Frontenac Hotel from Old Town Quebec. Standing there and walking around the area gave me a real feel for Cather's descriptions.

Obviously, there are more people milling around than in the time of the book. Many of the buildings have been rebuilt on the original foundations, but a few of the buildings date back to the late 1600's. This next picture shows the little church that Cecile and her friend visited that was dedicated to the infant Jesus.

We have pictures of the basilica that Bishop Laval enlarged and also his seminary, but the quality is not so great. The basilica has had to be rebuilt after a couple of fires, but it is the first basilica in North America and Bishop Laval was the first bishop. In the book he is depicted as a kind, humble man.

One more note: Shadows on the Rock was in my big cloth carry-all the night we attended the International Fireworks Competition held at Montmorency Falls near Quebec City. We arrived a couple hours early. I thought I would read some. It poured until a few minutes after the fireworks started and my bag and everything in it was soaked, including my book. I had to use the hair dryer to try and dry it when we got back to the hotel. It still has the water stains along the bottom. Good memories!

To Kill a Mockingbird

By Harper Lee
This is another book that I didn’t read when I was younger, but I did see and love the movie. Again, the book is even better, but I can’t wait to get home and watch the movie again. Candleman commented how delightful it was to listen to Scout just after reading about Anne. Both are such loveable characters; and so wise. They taught me so much. Of course, I’ve forgotten the specifics and only retain that feeling of innocence and wonder and gratitude.

I talked with a young man (senior in high school) I met on the ferry from St. John, New Brunswick to Digby, Nova Scotia. He had read To Kill A Mockingbird a couple of years ago. He didn’t feel like Gregory Peck fit the part of Atticus in the movie. I thought he was perfect. He said he had seen Moby Dick first and always associated Peck with Ahab. We had a good discussion of books. Later his parents joined us. Candleman and I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them. Also, they gave us some great book suggestions.

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maude Montgomery

What can I say? This book was totally delightful. I can hardly wait to reread it and to read more in the series. This is my first time reading Anne, though I’ve seen the movie. Loved them both. As in most cases, the book is even better than the movie. Isn’t that girl adorable? Oh, I love her and her positive attitude. Her outlook on life and her use of such delectable words brought many a smile and several good laughs. It was fun listening to it with Candleman on our trip to PEI, where we are looking forward to seeing the musical.

A New Classics Challenge

Kathrin from Crazy Cozy Murders is hosting a summer/fall Classics Challenge. I am joining up and hoping this time of the year will lend itself to reading classics better than winter did, for me at least. All the classics I've chosen overlap with other challenges, providing me with a double kick in the rear to get these read.

1. Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
2. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy Emmuska
3. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
4. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
5. One more that I haven't decided on yet

The challenge is to read 3 to 5 classics between July 1 and November 31. That's one classic per month. I really like the sound of that. It allows time for other reads in between.

Alice - Through the Looking Glass

by Lewis Carroll
I finished my last classics challenge book! Yeehaw! Whippee! I mean to tell you I had a hard time reading classics - five in a row - during Jan and Feb. If we do this challenge again it cannot be during Jan. I just wanted to snuggle up with some cozy mysteries and had to keep denying myself. It was horrible!

I did like Through the Looking Glass much better than Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Part of that might be because I actually sat down and read TLG in chunks. Wonderland I read a page or two at a time. I even have some favorite parts from the Looking Glass.

I enjoyed the conversation, if you can call it that, between Alice and Humpty Dumpy. My favorite part of the book was Alice's encounter with the White Knight. I read Gardner's Annotated Alice and there were lots of helpful comments.

Gone With the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

I read Gone With the Wind for my 4th book in the classics challenge , my 2nd Chunkster challenge book and for my 3rd TBR challenge. It makes me feel much better about reading this book that I can kill 3 birds with one stone.

The size was daunting, but it was the racial slurs that made this book so hard to read. I understand that this was realistic for the 1860's and, probably even for the 1930's when this book was written, but to read these derogatory terms today assaults my sensitivities. It was interesting to learn there was a class of whites, just above the po' white trash, that were called Crackers (with a capital C). I don't know why but I thought that was a more current term.

I found that I really did not like Scarlett, Rhett or Ashley in the book, whereas I did like them in the movie. Scarlet was so selfish and self-centered. Every action and every decision was made based on what she would get in return. Even when she appeared to be doing something nice, there was ulterior motives. I found myself forgiving Rhett some of his 'rascalness' towards the end of the book. Or maybe what I really felt at the end of the book was pity for everyone, except maybe Melanie, who I felt sad for because of the happiness she might have had if it were not for Scarlet and Ashley.

Gone With the Wind was the only book Margaret Mitchell wrote. It was published in 1936, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and was made into a movie in 1939. Mitchell's work relates the story of a rebellious Georgia Southern belle named Scarlett O'Hara and her experiences with friends, family, lovers, and enemies in the South during the antebellum period, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction era.

I'm glad that I finally did read this classic in American literature, but I will not be joining the ranks of those who reread it. I thought it was a splendid work, but it is so terribly tragic.

Madame Bovary

by Gustave Flaubert
The only thing I knew about this book before reading it was that it was about a French woman who had an affair. It's a tragic tale, really, of a beautiful, young woman who is an incurable romantic, swayed in her ideas by novels of love and adventure. Emma Bovary yearned for adventure. She was bored with the dullness of day-to-day existence. She longed for the pampered life of an aristocrat, but the reader knows that even that would not have made her happy. Emma would soon tire of anything that became routine. I think Madame Bovary suffered from bipolar disorder in addition to dreaming of the unattainable.

I can see why this is a considered a classic. I think there are times in any married woman's life that she could relate to Madame Bovary, when we look across the room and study the man we married with contempt. Unlike Emma's husband, I suspect most husbands occasionally look at their wife in a similar way. Emma never learned to look at the good things in her husband and her life. She was always unsatisfied, because she was always selfish and self-centered.

I probably would not have read this book if Lotus Reads had not suggested it. Thank-you, Lotus. I enjoyed it. I think it is interesting to note that all three classics I've read so far were published in 1850-1860's, and yet are so different.

A few passages I liked.

The less Charles (Emma's husband) understood these elegant whims, the more they captivated him. They added something to the pleasure of his senses and the charm of his home. They were like a layer of golden dust sprinkled over the narrow path of his life. It's interesting to note this passage after finishing the book. I can see the foreshadowing of Charles's granting Emma's outlandish desires even though they later get out of hand. When I first read this passage I thought what a delightful way to appreciate charming things in life.

A man, at least, is free; he can explore the whole range of the passions, go wherever he likes, overcome obstacles, savor the most exotic pleasures. But a woman is constantly thwarted. Inert and pliable, she is restricted by her physical weakness and her legal subjection. Her will, like the veil tied to her hat with a cord, quivers with every wind; there is always some desire urging her forward, always convention holding her back.

She was exasperated by Charles's apparent unawareness of her ordeal. His conviction that he was making her happy seemed to her an idiotic insult, and his placid confidence about it struck her as ingratitude. For whom was she being virtuous? Was he not the obstacle to any kind of happiness, the cause of all her miser, the sharp-pointed tongue in the buckle of the strap that wound around her, binding her on all sides.

This is how they wished they had been: each was creating an ideal into which he was now fitting his past life. Speech is a rolling mill which always stretches out the feelings that go into it.

Why did everything she leaned on instantly crumble into dust? . . . But if somewhere there existed a strong, handsome man with a valorous, passionate and refined nature, a poet's soul in the form of an angel, a lyre with strings of bronze intoning elegiac nuptial songs to the heavens, why was it not possible that she might meet him some day? No, it would never happen: Besides, nothing was worth seeking - everything was a lie! Each smile hid a yawn of boredom, each joy a curse, each pleasure its own disgust; and the sweetest kisses only left on one's lips a hopeless longing for a higher ecstasy.

Doesn't Flaubert write beautiful. He captures the longing, the aches of an insatiable appetite so well. Haven't we all felt that same pain? Rereading these passages has increased my respect for Flaubert's writing and the beauty of this book.

Alice in Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll
This is my second classics read. I was reminded of Dr. Seuss as I read this nonsensical work of genius. I didn't understand very much even though I read the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. It did help to know that most of the poems mentioned were based on songs or poems familiar at the time of Carroll. I suspect the Liddell children were entertained by Carroll's silliness much the same as modern-day children enjoy Dr. Seuss.

I have read some of the introductory materials in the book, but I want to do more research on this man and his works. I feel like I would gain more from this book if I was taking a college class on Carroll.

The Woman in White

by Wilkie Collins
Rating 5/5
I've finished my first classic! Thanks to so many other bloggers for their glowing comments about Wilkie Collins. Without your comments I may never have heard of or read any of his works. I loved this book and found myself comparing it to another gothic novel that I read recently, The Thirteenth Tale. I rated TTT a 5 as well, but I must confess that there is NO comparison. The Woman in White is masterfully written, drawing the reader's interest from the start and holding through every phase of the story.

The mystery of The Woman in White is told by various narrators, who each reveal to the reader only those parts of the story they know or have discovered. The main narrator is Walter Hartright, who is employed by the odiously hypochondiac, Mr. Fairlie to instruct his two nieces, the half-sisters Laura and Marion.

A couple of the characters are so well formed that I'm sure they will stay with me for years. Although I don't fully understand Marions intense devotion to Laura, she is a very likeable person. She is intellegent, loyal and charming. Another powerful figure is Count Fosco, who is a large jovial man with a lust and love of life that you cannot help liking him even if you don't trust him.

I do not want to discuss the book too much. I knew nothing about the storyline, the characters, or even the genre of The Woman in White and, so was pleasantly surprised on all accounts. I know there are several who are reading this for the classics challenge and I'm anxious to hear how others felt about it.