Classics Club Spin Yet Again!

Here it seems like we just had a Classics Club Spin and we’re having another one, #37! What is the spin, anyway? Well, if you are a member of the Classics Club you have posted a list of a number of classics you would like to read by a certain deadline, set by yourself. To participate, simply create a numbered list of 20 of the books on your list and post it by Sunday, April 21. On Monday, the club will post a number, and that number determines which book you will read for the spin. Post a review of that book by Sunday, June 2. It’s as simple as that. And don’t forget to add a link to that post in the Comments for the spin post on June 2nd.

With no further ado, here is my list. I no longer have 20 books left on it, so I have to repeat some:

1. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
2. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
3. The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
4. The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos
5. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
6. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
7. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
8. The Prophet’s Mantle by E. Nesbit
9. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
10. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
11. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Frances Burney
12. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
13. Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
14. Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe
15. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
16. The Book of Dede Korkut by Anonymous
17. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
18. Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
19. The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
20. The Prophet’s Mantle by E. Nesbit
21. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Classics Club Spin #36!

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin. What’s it all about? Members of the Classics Club select 20 books from their Classics Club lists (here’s mine) and list them by number on their blogs before Sunday, January 21. On that day, a spin number is selected by the club, and that number determines which book on the list the member will read by the spin deadline, which is Sunday, March 3. I am always ready to play, so here is my list:

1. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
2. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Frances Burney
3. The Prophet’s Mantle by E. Nesbit
4. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
5. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
6. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
7. The Book of Dede Korkut by Anonymous
8. Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton
9. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
10. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
11. The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos
12. Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
13. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
14. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
15. The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
16. Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
17. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
18. Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe
19. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862)
20. Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton

Review 2276: Classics Club Spin! The Tree of Heaven

Although the Preface states that the tree of heaven in this novel is stripped of its false identity in the end and shows itself as merely an ash—to symbolize the stripping away of Victorian sentimentality to realism—I have to say that depicting men’s deaths in World War I as glorious isn’t a bit realistic. But never mind. The book was written in 1917, so it pretty much had to.

The novel begins in the late 19th century when Anthony and Frances Harrison are young parents and have recently bought their house. One of the things Frances loves about it is the tree of heaven, which Anthony, a timber importer, states is nothing but an ash tree. The couple have four children, Dorothy, Michael, Nicky, and John. Frances is obsessed with her children, really the boys, to the point where Anthony feels left out.

This novel is about daily life in pre-war England through the microcosm of one family. Early on, as early as the first day depicted in the novel, when Michael refuses to go to a children’s birthday party, he demonstrates a fear of what he later calls the Vortex, which seems to be giving up his individuality because of the pressure of others’ excitements. As they grow, the children encounter situations which show and determine their personalities. The family takes in Veronica, the daughter of Anthony’s brother Barty and Frances’s best friend, Vera. Although Barty is family, he has become unbearable, and Vera leaves him for her long-time friend Ferdie Cameron. But Barty refuses to give her a divorce. Nicky, by then a schoolboy, becomes close to the lonely little Veronica, and it is thinking of her situation as a young man that makes him decide to marry a woman who is pregnant by another man, not for the woman but for the sake of the child.

As a young woman, Dorothy becomes involved in the suffrage movement, but doesn’t approve of some of their tactics. She too eventually backs off from the movement because of fear of the Vortex, while Michael joins a group of avant garde poets who renounce all previous poetry.

All of this leads up to World War I and the effect it has on the family and its friends. It is an interesting and well-written novel that provides a look at an ordinary (although well-off) family in the first couple of decades of the 20th century.

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Classics Club Spin #35

It’s time for another Classics Club spin. For the spin, members select 20 titles from their Classics Club lists and post them in a numbered list on their blogs. On Sunday, October 15, the club selects a number, and that determines which book to read for the spin. The goal this time is to read that book by Sunday, December 3, and post your review.

So, with no further ado, here is my list of 20 books:

1. The Book of Dede Korkut by Anonymous
2. The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
3. Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe
4. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
5. Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
6. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
7. Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
8. The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
9. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
10. Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton
11. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Fanny Burney
12. The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos
13. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
14. The Methods of Lady Waldhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
15. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
16. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
17. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
18. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
19. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
20. The Prophet’s Mantle by E. Nesbit

Since I have exactly 20 books left on my list, this will be the last spin that I can participate in for a while that doesn’t require repeating some of my entries. I’m interested to see how it turns out.

Review 2226: Dust Tracks on a Road

Dust Tracks on a Road is Zora Neale Hurston’s lively memoir, which I read for my Classics Club list.

Hurston was raised in what was essentially in the wilderness at the time in Eatonville, Florida, the first town in the country, she alleges, founded and run by Black people. She was an energetic and imaginative child, and though her family was poor, she seemed to have an idyllic childhood (if you don’t count being whipped, and she didn’t) until her mother died when she was nine. (Other accounts say four, but she says nine.) Not long thereafter, her father remarried and her stepmother soon ran her and her older brother out of the house. (If, when I read Their Eyes Were Watching God, I had realized she was writing about the founding of Eatonville, I think I would have paid more attention to the information about the town.)

I found it interesting that Hurston had a series of visions as a child and that all of them came true. The first was her mother’s death, the second years of wandering from home to home. Having to go to work at an early age cut into her schooling, but such was her determination to get it that after trying to earn enough at various jobs, she finally just returned to high school, ending up with degrees in anthropology and ethnography from Howard and Barnard Universities.

Hurston relates her life in a lively way with lots of anecdotes, folk stories, and even songs and poetry. Although many of the recollections of her earlier life are very particular, the closer the memoir gets to when she was writing it, the more general it becomes, so we don’t find out much after her first ethnographic studies and novels are completed. Instead, Hurston finishes with a series of discursions on her opinions, which I found less interesting than the story of her childhood and young adulthood.

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Review 2223: A Double Life

Published in 1848, A Double Life is the only novel written by the Russian poet Karolina Pavlova, who was well known in her time but forgotten by the time of her death. Almost more interesting to me than the novel was the biographical information about Pavlova, who was reviled as a Russian woman for daring to consider herself a poet. I read this novel for my Classics Club list.

Cecily is a young, innocent girl in the top levels of Russian society. Her mother, Vera Vladomirovna, has brought her up strictly to be submissive and ignorant of life. Vera Vladomirovna has noticed Prince Viktor’s interest in Cecily and hopes to marry her to him. But she doesn’t realize that her friend, Madame Volitskaia, intends him for her daughter Olga, Cecily’s best friend.

Upon hearing of the death of a man she never met, Cecily dreams about him that night. These dreams, related in poetry, end each chapter.

The prose narrative is full of satire against polite society, although Cecily doesn’t understand any of it. The poetry is more romantic and mystical, and I didn’t always get the point of it except the end result of it is to awaken Cecily to what life is really like.

The novel is very short, with a strong feminist message for the times. The dream sections are written with a romantic floridity that reminded me of the works of George Sand.

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Review 2206: The Ten Thousand Things

I picked out The Ten Thousand Things from a list of the New York Review of Books publications for my Classics Club list without knowing anything about it. It is an unusual book, but beautiful.

It begins with an extended vivid description of an island in the Moluccas, referring along the way to the island’s stories and myths. It does this for so long that you begin to wonder where it is going, but finally it comes to the story of Felicia. Felicia spends her childhood on the island, visiting her grandmother in the Small Garden, hearing stories about objects and ghosts on the property, and examining her grandmother’s box of treasures, many of them stones with properties or unusual or valuable shells. However, eventually there is a dispute between her grandmother and her mother, so her mother insists her immediate family move to Holland. Felicia’s grandmother gives her some valuable jewelry so she can afford to come back.

She returns a young mother, her husband, who married her for money, having taken all her money and jewels and disappeared when he learned she was pregnant. She has had to take out a loan to return.

Most of the bulk of the novel is the story of her life on the island raising her son Himpies. Although this is not a novel in the magical realism genre, the island, with its tales of ghosts and monsters and its extreme beauty, seems magical. Dermoût spent her childhood on such an island and clearly loved it.

About 2/3 of the way through the novel, which is only about 200 pages long, it abruptly moves to some other characters on the island, then does it again. This is at first surprising, but Dermoût returns to the Small Garden and wraps everything up beautifully.

I think I can fairly describe this novel as haunting—sad and just lovely.

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Another Classics Club Spin!

Classics Club has just announced another spin. How does the spin work? Club members select 20 books from their Classics Club list and post them in a numbered list by this coming Sunday, June 18. The club then picks a number and that determines which book you read next, attempting to post a review by Sunday, August 6. So, with no further adieu, here is my list for the spin:

1. Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
2. The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
3. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
4. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
5. A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova
6. Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
7. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
8. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
9. Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
10. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
11. The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
12. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
13. Miss Mole by E. H. Young
14. Merkland: A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
15. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
16. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Frances Burney
17. Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
18. The Book of Dede Korkut by Anonymous
19. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
20. The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos

Are you participating in the spin? Which book would from your list do you hope is picked?

Classics Club Spin #33!

Classics Club has announced another spin. How does a spin work? Members post a numbered list of 20 of the books from their Classics Club lists by Sunday, March 19. The club picks a number, and that’s the book members try to read and post a review of by Sunday, April 30. Anyone can participate who has a Classics Club list registered with the club.

So, here is my list for the next spin:

1. Isa’s Ballad by Magda Szabo
2. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Fanny Burney
3. The Book of Dede Korkut by Anonymous
4. Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
5. Miss Mole by E. H. Young
6. Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton
7. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
8. A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova
9. Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe
10. The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
11. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
12. The Prophet’s Mantle by E. Nesbitt
13. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
14. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
15. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
16. Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
17. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
18. The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell
19. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
20. The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût

Hope some of you will join me. Have fun with the spin!

Review 2095: We

I am pretty well up on the 19th century Russian novelists, so when I was making my Classics Club list, I asked my husband to recommend someone more recent. He mentioned We.

The introduction calls Zamyatin an inconvenient citizen of both the czarist and Communist regimes, because he believed in complete freedom for the individual. His novel We is the granddaddy of dystopian novels and an inspiration to Orwell.

D-50 is a good citizen of the OneWorld, where everyone eats, sleeps, and works in unison. He is also the creator of INTEGRAL, which is going to be shot off into space to make the entire universe uniformly happy. He is writing a record to explain to the citizens of the universe why they should want to be uniform.

He thinks he is happy with O-90, whom he periodically requests for sex (the one time when they’re allowed to close the blinds of their glass apartments) until he meets I-330. There’s something mocking about her, and he thinks she’s up to something. Then she begins dragging him into situations that he should report her for to the Guardians. But he doesn’t, and soon he is madly in love with her and behaving strangely.

This novel is both dystopian fiction and a satire of some of the beliefs of Communism. At times, it is quite fevered in tone, and I wasn’t always sure what was going on. Characterization doesn’t even make sense in such a novel, so Zamyatin picks out weird facial features to identify people. Not my genre, but interesting.

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