Review 1310: Classics Club Spin Review! To the Lighthouse

When the Classics Club Spin chose To the Lighthouse for me from my list, I wasn’t sure how pleased I was. I first read it in college and remembered very little of it except that it wasn’t my favorite. On the other hand, our tastes change as we grow, and I had enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway.

The novel is divided into three sections. The first is about a day in the life of the Ramsey family, as they vacation on the Isle of Skye with their friends. The second is about the house and the passage of time. The third takes place there again ten or eleven years later.

Young James Ramsey has been begging for a trip the next day to the lighthouse, and both he and Mrs. Ramsey are irritated with Mr. Ramsey for so assuredly stating that the weather will be too stormy. The novel revolves around the presence of Mrs. Ramsey, a beautiful, quiet, assured mother of eight. Although we briefly see things from other characters’ points of view, the most prevalent are those of Mrs. Ramsey and of Lily Briscoe, a painter.

Nothing much happens in this part of the novel. The family doesn’t go to the lighthouse; Lily has difficulty with her painting, and although she has insight during dinner, she doesn’t finish it; Minta loses her brooch on the beach and accepts a proposal from Paul; Lily resists Mrs. Ramsey’s old-fashioned idea that she must marry and her attempts to pair her off with William Bankes. The action of the novel isn’t really the point, though, it’s the complex relationships between friends and family.

At times the narrative is a little hard to follow, because Woolf switches time and pronouns so that you don’t always know whether something takes place in the novel’s present or past or who is being referred to. The novel is impressionistic in its approach, both in its descriptions of characters’ thoughts and of the settings. Over everything is the strong presence of Mrs. Ramsey.

Time passes, the war intervenes, and the family does not return for more than 10 years. When it does, things have changed.

I enjoyed reading this novel, although I’m sure I missed a lot. I think it could be food for study and contemplation, but I did not have time to do so.

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Classics Club Spin #19

The Classics Club has announced a spin for the end of this month. If you post a numbered list of 20 of your Classics Club books by November 27th, the club will spin to pick the number of your next read for the club. The deadline for reading the book and posting a review is January 31, 2019, so the club has challenged us all to put our biggest tomes on the list because of the extra reading time.

So, with no further ado, here is my list. I will say ahead of time that I have no idea whether some of these books are tomes are not:

1. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
2. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett
3. Challenge by Vita Sackville-West
4. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
5. The Viscount de Braggalone by Alexandre Dumas
6. Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton
7. The Old Man’s Birthday by Richmal Crompton
8. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
9. Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
10. Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame
11. Evelina by Frances Burney
12. The Lady and the Unicorn by Rumer Godden
13. Joanna Godden by Sheila Kay-Smith
14. Mary Lavelle by Kate O’Brien
15. Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
16. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
17. The Prince by Machievelli
18. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
19. Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi
20. The Winged Horse by Pamela Frankau

Happy reading to everyone, and I hope the spin selects a good book for you.

As it is Thanksgiving Day here in the U. S., Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

 

 

 

Day 1258: Classics Club Spin #18! The Heir of Redclyffe

It’s a quirk of mine that, while I research the books for my Classics Club list, when I finally get to them, I don’t remind myself what they are about before reading them. So, when I got The Heir of Redclyffe in the Classics Club spin, I vaguely guessed from the title that it might be a gothic thriller. Boy, was I wrong.

In fact, in tone and attention to right behavior and emphasis on everyday family life, the novel reminds me more of works by Jane Austen than anything else I’ve read, although it lacks the Austen humor and sense of the absurd. In addition, it perhaps doesn’t translate as well to modern times because of its sense of piety.

The Heir of Redclyffe is the story of two cousins, the branches of whose families have long held a feud. Guy Morville is the heir, at the beginning of the novel a 17-year-old who comes under the guardianship of Mr. Edmonstone. Guy is a stranger to the Edmonstone family when he comes to stay. He has been strictly brought up out of his grandfather’s fear of his family’s violent tendencies. The Edmonstones find him charismatic and full of the joy of life but quick to temper, always attempting to control his darker impulses.

Philip Morville, Guy’s cousin from the other side of the feud, is long a friend of the Edmonstone family. He is a captain in the army, and the young Edmonstones have been used to think of him as a pattern of well-bred, right behavior. Charlie Edmonstone, an invalid, thinks him patronizing and sententious, and Amabel, who is shy, is a little afraid of him, but Laura, the oldest daughter, thinks he can do no wrong, and her parents rely on his advice.

Unfortunately, Philip takes a dislike to Guy that he does not recognize himself. Instead, he thinks he is concerned for Guy’s welfare when he interferes in Guy’s life and misconstrues his actions. Although Guy forms an excellent relationship with the Edmonstones, Philip creates serious trouble for him by almost willfully assuming the worst about him.

The latter part of this novel is  full of sentimentality and pathos similar to Dickens at his “worst,” but the characters seem believable and interesting, and we care what happens to them. Perhaps modern readers won’t find the quiet and delicate but determined Amy to be the most interesting heroine, but in contemporary times she was considered a pattern of womanhood, as Guy was the epitome of the Romantic hero.

I was interested to read that in her time, Charlotte M. Yonge’s books were as popular as Dickens’s and she wrote to the service of the Oxford Movement, yet these days we don’t know her name. Like many other women writers, she was probably pushed aside by editors and academics as not as worthy to be remembered as her male counterparts.

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Another Classics Club Spin!

The Classics Club has just announced spin #18, where club members post a list of 20 classics and the spin chooses a number. You then pledge to read and post a review of that book by August 31.

So, with no further ado, here is my list:

1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë
2. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett
3. My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather
4. Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton
5. Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson
6. Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
7. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
8. Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
9. The Heir of Redclyff by Charlotte M. Yonge
10. The Old Man’s Birthday by Richmal Crompton
11. Greenery Street by Denis MacKail
12. Mary Lavelle by Kate O’Brien
13. Challenge by Vita Sackville-West
14. I Go by Land, I Go by Sea by P. L. Travers
15. The Viscounte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
16. The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
17. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
18. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
19. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
20. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Time for Another Classics Club Spin

Classics Club announced its 17th spin on Thursday. If you want to participate, you must post a list of 20 books from your Classics Club list by March 9. The spin will select a number corresponding to one of those books, which they challenge you to read and post a review by the end of April. Here is my list of 20 books:

1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
2. August Folly by Angela Thirkell
3. La Morte D’arthur by Thomas Malory
4. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
5. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
6. I Go by Land, I Go by Sea by P. L. Travers
7. Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
8. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
9. Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
10. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
11. Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame
12. The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
13. Mary Lavelle by Kate O’Brien
14. The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker by Tobias Smollet
15. Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn
16. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
17. Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton
18. My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather
19. The Viscounte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
20. The Heir of Redclyff by Charlotte M. Yonge

There are lots of books on this list that I know nothing about, and only three that I have read before, so it should be an exciting spin.

 

Best of Five!

The Best Book of the latest five is Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore!

P.S. Before I posted on Friday, I forgot to check Classics Club to see what spin number came up. It was #4, so I will be reading Letters from Egypt by Lucie Duff Gordon by December 31.

Classics Club Spin #16

I have finished my first Classics Club list, although I have not yet reviewed all of the books. I’ll be reviewing the last one sometime this month, at which time I’ll post my second Classics Club list.

For a Classics Club spin, we post 20 books from our list and then a number is chosen, which determines the book we will read for the spin. Since I’ve finished my list, I will have to make up my spin list from my second, unposted list. So, here are my selections for the next spin, for which I will post a review by December 31.

1. August Folly by Angela Thirkell
2. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
3. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
4. Letters from Egypt by Lucie Duff-Gordon
5. The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
6. Mary Lavelle by Kate O’Brien
7. The Lark by E. Nesbit (This is sort of cheating, because I have already read and reviewed this book, just not before I made up my second Classics Club list in June.)
8. West with the Night by Beryl Markham
9. Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame
10. Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
11. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
12. The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
13. The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow by Mrs. Oliphant
14. Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
15. Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
16. Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton
17. The Priory by Dorothy Whipple
18. Consequences by E. M. Delafield
19. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
20. Vanishing Cornwall by Daphne du Maurier