Review: The Forsyte Saga: In Chancery

I'm always surprised by finishing DailyLit books. I read a chunk of the book every day, and suddenly I'm ten from the end so I read them all at once, and suddenly I've finished a book I barely thought about reading.

However busy I was this quarter, I kept reading In Chancery every day. It's the third book of the Forsyte Saga, after The Man of Property and Indian Summer of a Forsyte, which is a novella. I read both of those last spring, and now I've finished the third.

It is 1899, or thereabouts. The Forsytes are growing older. The oldest generation are, one by one, dying. Their children are now in their forties, though middle age does not stop them living, having affairs, marrying. Their children are just growing up, falling in love, going off to fight in the Second Boer War. Like with the first books, the title is very apt, though you don't realize how apt until well into the book. The characters are in a kind of limbo--in chancery. They are trying to bring about changes in their lives, but this involves waiting for things to happen and making tiny movements towards the larger goal.

The main draw of the Forsyte Saga, for me, is John Galsworthy's writing style. The plot is interesting, but not captivating, and not many of the characters are really likable. You can sympathize with them, but they are not amiable, not charming. Usually, I like to read about people I like. Galsworthy's writing makes up for all that, however. He picks out moments and describes them beautifully. He talks about emotions without making anyone seem emotional. The inner workings of the Forsyte family are fascinatingly described. Galsworthy has developed a special language for Forystes. They have their own view of the world, their own systems of communication, their own way of getting things done. They are a very believable family. As someone who does not have a very large family (at least, not that I see), this is fascinating to me.

I thoroughly recommend reading the Forsyte Saga. It's wonderfully written, and a perfect portrait both of a family and of an era.

Review: Classic Shorts: Eight Stories for Summer

I've been using DailyLit on and off for years, getting small chunks of books or poetry sent to me every morning in my email. When I'm busy I tend not to have the time for it, but as it's summer I started up a couple of books, and now I've finished one of them. Classic Shorts: Eight Stories for Summer is a collection, compiled by DailyLit, with rather a nice variety of stories. None of them are especially summery, except perhaps Kate Chopin, but they were all interesting so I suppose it doesn't matter.

The collection includes Anton Chekhov, Kate Chopin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Leo Tolstoy, and P.G. Wodehouse. I wrote about the Chekhov story, "A Doctor's Visit", here. I loved the Kate Chopin story, "A Respectable Woman". I read The Awakening about a year and a half ago, and this story reminded me of that one. I may have to read more of her short stories.

I've wanted to read "The Yellow Wallpaper" for a while, and so was glad to see it in this collection. It lived up to my expectations very well. Herman Melville's story, "Bartleby the Scrivener", was intriguing, though I found it extremely slow-going and kept waiting for the end. I probably ought to expect long-windedness from Herman Melville. I've heard of "The Pit and the Pendulum" for ages, but I've never had any idea what it was about. I've never liked Poe very much, and this story didn't draw me in immediately, though by the end of I was rather enjoying it. I liked the Tolstoy story, "Ivan the Fool". It was very much a fairy tale, and the message was one I tend to agree with. P.G. Wodehouse was, as always, funny.

It's been nice to widen my experience of short stories, and also of authors. I've read novels by Kate Chopin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and P.G. Wodehouse previously, but this was my first introduction to all the others (apart from having read Poe's poetry). It was a very good introduction.

Foray into Chekhov

I don't read many short stories. I generally like them, but oddly they seem to take more work than novels. You have to consciously sit down to a short story when you want to read one, whereas you can always have a novel on the go and pick it up at any time, anywhere. Recently I've started up a new DailyLit book, though, Classic Shorts: Eight Stories for Summer, which I'm getting in my email three days a week. I've now finished the first story, which was "A Doctor's Visit", by Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1898, and is apparently also called "A Case History" or "A Medical Case" (so Wikipedia informs me). I've never read any other Chekhov, and this is an interesting introduction.

The daughter of a factory owner is ill, and the doctor is called to a factory just outside Moscow to see to her. Her illness, of course, is more mental than physical, a matter of her circumstances. But the story seems to have no real resolution. "A Doctor's Visit" is really all this story is, there and back. It is a passing meeting in different lives. A connection is made, perhaps, but it is not a connection that one expects to come to anything, and it may or may not do any good. But there is some simple beauty in the meeting, even in the factory and the uneducated, ordinary workers.

I've noticed before that I don't tend to enjoy reading stories set in Russia. I enjoyed this, though, so I think it's not the country but the cold. I don't like reading about cold climates in their cold seasons. This story is set in the spring, though, and I think that's what made the difference. An odd preference in my reading. I just like colour and brightness too much.

I may have to devote some time this summer to reading short stories. I'm looking forward to the rest in this collection.

Three in one

I spent nearly all of yesterday reading, which was very pleasant, and finished three books, which I'm very pleased with. It's been a long time since I spent an entire day curled up in my chair doing nothing much but reading, and I've definitely missed it. It was an especially good day for it, too, as it was grey and rainy most of the day and then come evening there was a brief thunderstorm and enough hail that it looks like it snowed. Silly weather.

I finished that new Tamora Pierce book, Melting Stones, which I enjoyed but wasn't terribly impressed with. It was first-person, which I like much less in general, and I think her third-person novels are better. Still, it's Tamora Pierce, whom I love, so it really doesn't matter how good the book was because it was comforting to read it. It was exactly the sort of book I needed. Although apparently it didn't entirely satisfy the need for such a book, as now I'm rereading The Will of the Empress.

I also finished two books I'd been reading through DailyLit, which I just kind of decided I was going to finish all in one go. This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie. I enjoyed This Side of Paradise a lot, though I see why it's less-read than The Great Gatsby--it struck me as being a bit of an experiment, like he thought, "Well, I'll write this whole chapter like it's a play, let's see how that goes," whereas The Great Gatsby is more tightly reined in and concrete. The actual writing, however, is as fabulous as ever.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first Agatha Christie I've read, and if I remember correctly the first one she wrote, and I liked it very much. I liked how the narrator was as fallible and disposed to assumptions as any of the characters (except, of course, Poirot), and he felt more like just another character than most narrators do, since he was very definitely not the main character. The writing was always very clear and free of any muddling, which is a quality that always reminds me of a lot of French literature. It kind of has to be clear, since the story of the murder is so complicated, and so little is known at one time or so much changes, that otherwise you'd get completely confused.

I'd like to read a biography of Agatha Christie, mostly because I want to know what her writing process was. The plot is so intricate that of course it must have been planned out in advance, but I can't imagine being able to write a novel that I've already plotted in such detail. Anyway, this just increases my idea that I should read more mysteries.