On the Table: Books

Still plodding along in The Children's Book. Not that it's at all an unpleasant sort of plodding, but it is a book one has to read deliberately, and it is very long. But I do have a lot of other exciting books I'm looking forwards to.

First up is Past Imperfect, by Julian Fellowes. I know the fellow, of course, because he's an actor, notably in Monarch of the Glen. I can see him being a good writer, though, and the subject of the book sounds intriguing. The narrator is contacted by his old friend Damian, from whom he has been estranged for 40 years, asking for help. The narrator then revisits the summer of 1968, when the friends became estranged, in order to help Damian, and the book sounds particularly interesting to me because it takes place in the side-by-side and occasionally meeting worlds of the upper class, debutantes and such, and the "Swinging Sixties."

Also tempting is The Lodger Shakespeare, by Charles Nicholl. I originally talked about it here, so you might remember it.

I also have Selected Letters of Charlotte Brontë (the Oxford University Press edition). I love reading letters, but I don't tend to get through them all at once so I'll probably read this bit by bit. The Brontës are always fascinating, and I'm sure Charlotte's letters will offer an interesting look into her life.

Ages and ages ago, I read Jo Walton's Farthing, and started Ha'penny, and then school started and I got distracted by all sorts of other things. I'd love to get back to Ha'penny.

Last, Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock. I read some of this years and years ago, but I'm sure I was too young for it. The Children's Book brought it back to mind, and it's been on the to-read pile for a while, so hopefully I can get around to it soon.

So all that ought to last me at least until Christmas, at which point I will probably acquire more books that need to be read. Something from Persephone will have to be read at some point fairly soon, and I'm feeling a Jane Austen reread coming on.

Resurrected Reviews: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The log of books I've read that I have saved on my computer has reviews in it of books I read over two years ago back before I started blogging, which are really fascinating to me to reread and recapture how I felt on reading the book. I thought I'd post some of them, since some of these are interesting books that I definitely think should be more widely read. I'm not going to post them unedited, but for the most part it'll be exactly as I thought back then.

The first one I'll post is for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë, which I read in April of 2007.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is written from the point of view of Gilbert Markham, which I wasn't expecting. It's also written as a narrative to his friend whose name I can't remember who (I think) is his brother-in-law. He's a very likable fellow, although he can sometimes be annoyingly a man, if know what I mean. Occasionally a bit thick-headed. It tells the story of the coming of a reclusive sort of woman called Mrs. Graham and her son Arthur to a neighbourhood and Gilbert's rather foreseeable falling in love with her. There's a lot more of the story than that, of course. It's constantly enjoyable to read. It's not the kind of book that is read really fast because you want to know what happens, but it's the kind of book that you read steadily because you want to know what happens but you also want to take your time and understand everything and savour it. I love the first line:

"You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827."

Some books have great opening lines, the kind everyone knows even if they haven't read the book. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," and so on. I know this isn't one of them, but it should be.

I am struck as I was with Jane Eyre by the very impropriety of the storyline. It's not quite what you expect of a 19th century novel, and somehow this makes the characters slightly more human, because it transcends your sort of stereotyping expectations. This book doesn't match Jane Eyre in story, but I think it does in writing style, and it is perfectly lovely writing. Very interesting characters, also. I watched the miniseries a while ago and decided I would most certainly have to read it, and I'm glad I did.

Bronte one, Bronte two, Bronte three.

I'm definitely going to be posting here less often until the end of June, because this is my busiest time of the year, and I have ridiculous amounts of things going on. I have to graduate, put on a play, go to classes, and help Nova move out of the Mann building. I suspect my reading time will be rather cut short as well, but I am working on some things.

I started reading Wuthering Heights on Saturday, and am already well into it. Now that I can say I've read all three Bronte sisters, it's rather interesting to compare them. It was easy for me to get into Wuthering Heights, the story really jumps in quickly and it's put together in such an interesting way, with different people telling the story, even people who are totally tangential to the story. On the other hand, I have a really difficult time getting into Charlotte Bronte's novels, though Jane Eyre is one of my very favourite books. Of the Bronte's novels, I have read Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and now a good chunk of Wuthering Heights. I started Villette, but did not get very far. I think Jane Eyre is the most conventionally structured of these, in that it retains the first person narrative throughout the whole book, without changing narrators or throwing in diaries or letters. Nineteenth century first person novels still seem strange to me, though I'm not sure why.

I loved Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I am fully expecting to love Wuthering Heights too, though I suspect it will be less satisfying.

The Great Hulking To Be Read Pile

I have just read Richard III, I am deep into Beowulf (it's much more comprehensible the second time around, now that I'm older), and I have an enormous stack of books to read. I thought I'd take you on a tour through some of them.

Next up for school books after Beowulf is The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey, which I'm definitely looking forward to since I hear it's a mystery novel and it's been ages (like, years) since I read a mystery. Then I must get back to Mansfield Park and finish that, because I have to have all the Jane Austen read for the Jane Austen class I'm taking next semester, and I need that done by February. I am infinitely looking forward to this class, especially after reading Emma and loving it such a lot. It's a situation where it's a class that I completely don't need to take but that I will put before classes I kind of do need to take.

After these are done (they don't even look like too much written down like that), I have quite a lot of books I've acquired recently that I desperately want to read. Someone at a Distance and Villette are near the top, since I got them for Christmas and that was a while ago now; I've already started Someone at a Distance and I'd like to get more into it. Ducky (as my father is mysteriously called) loves buying me books, and has lately brought home The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy and The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton. I know nothing about either of them, but both look interesting if we may judge by the back covers. The Dud Avocado purports to be a sort of romantic comedy about a young American girl who goes to Paris in the 1950s. All elements I am fond of. The Slaves of Solitude is set in England during World War II (which I was wanting to read more about), and stars a middle-aged spinster who escapes the Blitz by moving to a dull sort of suburb, and I guess various hijinks ensue. I'm looking forward to them.

Today I got in the mail the book I won in one of the book draws over at dovegreyreader scribbles before Christmas. It's called The Story of a Marriage, and it's by Andrew Sean Greer. Also set in the '50s, this time in San Francisco. I'm looking forward to this one too.

And now, I am going to bed.

Here comes the Christmas post.

For Christmas, I got Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple, Villette by Charlotte Bronte, The Father Christmas Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien, and The Original Girl's Handy Book by Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard. Villette I already have, but this is a considerable smaller copy which may aid in my actually getting around to reading it. Apparently I cannot go a year without getting something related to Tolkien for Christmas (I was once a rampant Tolkien fan, and still am when I think of it).

I've started reading Someone at a Distance, which is another of those published by Persephone Books. I had never heard of it before, but Ducky asked me what books I wanted for Christmas and for once I thought of an answer, so I told him Persephone figuring they'd all be good. It looks very likely to live up to my expectations. The back of the book calls Dorothy Whipple the "literary heir to Mrs. Gaskell" which is very interesting. I love Elizabeth Gaskell entirely, and I don't quite yet understand the comparison but can see how it could be true.

As for what I've been reading over Christmas--I've had an awful cold all week, and what with that and the snow I haven't been able to go anywhere, so I've been doing quite a bit of reading. I finished Emma, which I was surprised to find is now battling it out for my favourite Jane Austen novel (along with Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, which have all been battling for ages with no results). Emma is an extremely well-crafted novel, the characters all develop very naturally and very pleasingly. I expected to find Emma herself annoying, but she's so human and so well-intentioned that I never did. This book is somewhat more class-conscious than the others are, which is a little weird, but it's not too hard to look past that. It was an extremely satisfying novel, and I love it very much.

I also finished The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute, which is a Senior Lit book that has been getting pushed out of my view by Emma for ages. I read it in rather odd clumps, with a fair amount at once and then none of it for a week, although I don't think that hurt it particularly. The Beans are a family of the poorest class, not always with electricity, not always (or ever) what is usually called couth, but always rather interesting. It's a strange little book, but the writing is very interesting. I enjoyed it, even though I was never really into it because I always wanted to be reading something else.

Flowers are blooming

It's been a while since I posted, but I have been busy. Doing what, I couldn't exactly say, but there you are.

I finished reading The Enchanted April. It was a rather charming book, though I think it could have used a better editor, and though it has elements of contrivedness it was still really very good. It was tremendously well described, and made picturing everything very easy--except for the gardens, which I can picture but don't feel like I've got quite right. That's probably because I've never been to Italy.

This really was a perfect morning to finish reading this book. It was bright and sunny when I got up, and I got to wear summery clothes, and ride the bus to work in the sun. I kept noticing flowers blooming everywhere.

My next book will have to be Pencillings, since I have that from the library and it's pretty short. After that it'll be either The Pursuit of Love or Villette, since I am determined to do something about that stack of books I bought. I should also reread at some point Jane Eyre, so that I can write a scholarship essay about it.

Apart from the reading, I started editing my novel, just about finished my summer internship at the Seattle Children's Theatre, and have been doing lots of research on college. I'm looking forward to having a couple of days off.

Books purchased

So, a day later than intended, here are my purchases yesterday at Couth Buzzard.

Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham (J.R.R. Tolkien), The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford), The Enchanted April (Elizabeth von Armin), Wives and Daughters (Elizabeth Gaskell), Stories (Katherine Mansfield), Villette (Charlotte Bronte).

The Nancy Mitford one has been on my to read list for a while, as was Katherine Mansfield, and partially The Enchanted April (I was looking for Elizabeth and her German Garden, but I saw the film of this one a while ago and have been vaguely meaning to read it). I already own Farmer Giles, but not Smith, and it's such a neat little copy of it. Wives and Daughters I've read already and just thought I ought to have, and Villette I definitely want to read, since I love Jane Eyre and I think I've heard people say they like this one even better.

I'm almost done with The English Patient (and loving it), so once I'm finished with it I'll head on to this lot.

In other news, I finished my novel today.