Classics Club Spin #30

The Classics Club has announced another spin. To participate, members post a numbered list of 20 of the books from their personal lists, to be posted by this Sunday, June 12. The club announces a number, and that determines which book to read by Sunday, August 7.

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

1. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
2. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Fanny Burney
3. The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart
4. The Aeneid by Virgil
5. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
6. Miss Mole by E. H. Young
7. Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton
8. Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
9. Love’s Labours Lost by William Shakespeare
10. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
11. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Mrs. Oliphant
12. The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
13. Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
14. The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
15. The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût
16. Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
17. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
18. Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
19. Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabo
20. A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova

Review 1846: Classics Club Spin Book! The Dead Secret

The latest Classics Club Spin ended up with The Dead Secret as the book I should read. It is Wilkie Collins’ first full-length novel but unfortunately not his best.

Mrs. Treverton is on her deathbed at Porthgenna Tower, but she has a secret. She wants to disclose it to her husband but can’t bring herself to do it. So, she forces her maid, Sarah Leeson, to write it down. She makes Sarah promise not to destroy the confession or remove it from the house, but she dies before she can make her promise to give it to her husband. So, Sarah hides it in a ruined wing of the house and then flees.

Fifteen or sixteen years later, Mrs. Treverton’s daughter Rosamond is a young wife. She and her blind husband, Leonard Frankland, are on their way to Cornwall to take up residence at Porthgenna Tower, where Rosamond has not lived since she was five. They intend to renovate the house, including the ruined north wing, but they have had to stop their journey because Rosamond has gone into premature labor.

The local doctor, in seeking a nurse for the new mother and son, consults a householder only to have her housekeeper, Mrs. Jazeph, unexpectedly volunteer to do it herself. However, Mrs. Jazeph’s odd behavior that evening causes her to be dismissed. Before leaving, she tells Rosamond to stay out of the Myrtle Room.

With a ruined old mansion on the coast of Cornwall that is possibly haunted and a secret too awful to tell, this novel promises to be all that a sensation novel should be. However, Collins is clearly learning here, for this novel is dripping with sentimentality and soppiness. Moreover, the behavior of the maid (it’s not hard to guess who she is) is so exaggerated that I could hardly stand to read about her at times. Collins took Dickens for his model, and Rosamond is a typical type for Dickens—sweet, a little foolish at times, loving, needing the guidance of her morally correct husband. Without having spent enough time with Sarah for us to care much for her—in fact, at times her behavior is extremely irritating—he spends too long a time with a supposedly heart-rending scene.

The secret isn’t very hard to guess, nor are the events of the plot difficult to predict. This isn’t a terrible novel, but Collins has written better ones.

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Classics Club Spin #29!

It looks like the Classics Club is having another spin. Members can participate by making a numbered list of 20 of the books on their Classics Club lists and posting it by Sunday. On March 20, the Classics Club will pick a number, and that determines which of the books on your list to read by Saturday, April 30.

So, here’s my list for the spin:

1. The Aenied by Virgil
2. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
3. The Mayor’s Wife by Anna Katherine Green
4. Much Dithering by Dorothy Lambert
5. Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp
6. Music in the Hills by D. E. Stevenson
7. We by Yevgeny Zemyatin
8. Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
9. Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
10. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
11. The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins
12. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
13. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
14. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
15. The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell
16. The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart
17. Isa’s Ballad by Magda Szabo
18. A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova
19. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
20. The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof

If you choose to participate, good look on getting a book you enjoy!

My List for Classics Club Spin #28

The Classics Club has announced another spin. How do the spins work? I pick 20 books from my Classics Club list and number them. On October 17, the club picks a number, and that’s the book I will read before December 12, the deadline for this spin. So, here is my list for this spin. This time, I haven’t picked any of the difficult books on my list:

1. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
2. The Mayor’s Wife by Anna Katherine Green
3. The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp
5. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
6. Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
7. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
8. Miss Plum and Miss Penny by Dorothy Evelyn Smith
9. Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
10. The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins
11. Much Dithering by Dorothy Lambert
12. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
13. Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton
14. The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart
15. Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabo
16. Music in the Hills by D. E. Stevenson
17. Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford
18. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
19. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
20. The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof

Review 1710: Classics Club Spin Result! The Woods in Winter

I might have saved The Woods in Winter for a chillier time of year, but its number was chosen for me for the latest Classics Club spin. It’s a lovely tale.

Ivy Gover (not Gower, as it says on the back cover of my Furrowed Middlebrow edition), three times a widow and a charwoman, is living in a tidy but small North London flat when she receives a letter. Not being able to read well, she takes it to her employer, Miss Helen Green, who tells her she has inherited her great-uncle’s cottage out in Buckinghamshire for her lifetime.

Ivy abruptly moves to the country but not before stealing a neighbor’s dog that she has heard barking for months and finds living in its own dirt. Although the cottage is primitive and has a hole in its thatch, she moves right in and begins befriending the local animals. For she has a touch with wild things and for healing, as Lord Gowerville finds out when she magically cures his dying dog. The next day, he sends someone over to fix the thatch in her roof.

As Ivy befriends the birds, a fox, and eventually a boy, her neighbors also have their adventures. The vicar is suddenly taken with Pearl Cartaret, one of two sisters who open a tea shop. Helen is sometimes nearby pursuing an affair with an elusive young man. Angela Mordaunt, a “spinster” brought up by her mother more as a well-bred boy than a girl, catches the eye of Sam Lambert, a kind farm laborer.

This novel was the last one published (in 1970) during Stella Gibbons’ lifetime and displays a longing for the England of 40 years before, when most of it is set. I just loved it. It is funny yet astringent, has some engaging and other very lifelike characters, and contains lyrical descriptions of the countryside around Ivy’s cottage as well as a conservationist conclusion. Ivy herself is a spunky individualist. I liked her a lot.

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Classics Club Spin #27

I just posted a new Classics Club list last week, and coincidentally, now they have announced a spin. The way it works is, if you want to participate, you pick 20 books from your list and post that list. The spin picks a number, and that determines which book you read next. The deadline for reading the book this time is August 22.

Since I have a new list to work with, I decided to pick 20 of the books I want to read most. Here they are:

1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
2. The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott
3. The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
5. Weatherley Parade by Richmal Crompton
6. The Woods in Winter by Stella Gibbons
7. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
8. Much Dithering by Dorothy Lambert
9. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
10. The Moon Spinners by Mary Stewart
11. Miss Plum and Miss Penny by Dorothy Evelyn Smith
12. Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp
13. Merkland, A Story of Scottish Life by Margaret Oliphant
14. The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins
15. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
16. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
17. The Methods of Lady Waldenhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
18. Music in the Hills by D. E. Stevenson
19. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
20. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Classics Club Spin #26

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin. I have been trying to finish my list in time for my deadline, which is coming up at the end of June. I’m not going to make it, but I’ve been scheduling in books that I read months ago to try to get most of the books reviewed by then, and I have been reading like crazy to finish the others. With any luck, I’ll only be a month or so late. That means that my list for this spin is going to be repetitive.

To participate in the spin, you post a numbered list of 20 of the books from your Classics Club list (or in my case, however many books you have left over and over to make a list of 20). The Classics Club picks a number, and that determines the book you’ll read for the spin. So, here is my list! We are posting these lists by April 18th, and the deadline to read the chosen book is May 31.

1. The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
2. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
3. The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. Evelina by Frances Burney
6. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
7. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
8. The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
9. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
10. The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
11. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. Evelina by Frances Burney
13. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
14. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
15. The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
16. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
17. The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
18. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
19. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
20. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

Review 1607: Classic Club Spin Result! Oroonoko

Oroonoko was the book I read for the most recent Classics Club Spin.

There are a few issues with Oroonoko, written in 1688, that might make it difficult for modern audiences. One is its acceptance of slavery (although the novel is viewed as an anti-slavery work), which in the 17th century was common. The other is its graphic violence, albeit off-stage, that has caused it to vary in popularity over time. (Apparently, even the publishers of the edition I read disagree about that, because the introduction says it was Behn’s most popular work, while the cover says it was not popular because of its violence.)

Oroonoko has been considered a novella rather than a biography, because there is no proof that such a man as Oroonoko existed. However, Behn writes the story in first person as herself, and she is known to have traveled to Suriname, where it is set, shortly before the country was ceded to the Dutch. So, you have to wonder.

Oroonoko is the prince of Coramantien, an area of present-day Ghana, the grandson of the king and a great warrior. He falls in love with a beautiful girl named Imoinda, and she becomes his betrothed. However, his grandfather sends her the veil, which means she is to join his harem, even though because of her betrothal that is a break in custom. Oroonoko must accept this or die, so he accepts it with the thought that the king cannot live long. However, the king regrets his actions and sees no way to recover the situation except if Imoinda was dead. He is unable to have her killed, though, so he sells her into slavery and tells Oroonoko she is dead.

Next, an English slave trader whom Oroonoko has sold slaves to invites him for a party. When he and his men have passed out from drink, the trader enslaves them and puts them on a ship for Suriname. It is when Oroonoko arrives there that he meets Behn and her traveling companions and they learn his tale and witness the rest of the action.

Oroonoko might be the first anti-slavery novel, although it is subtle about it, showing some of its abuses while not really commenting on the institution. Behn reveals the dastardly behavior of a series of Europeans, either slavers or owners, and contrasts it with the image she builds up of a handsome, brave, forthright black hero and his beautiful and virtuous lady. The novel was interesting, but I found what happened to Imoinda through Oroonoko’s hands distressing and the reflection of a type of thinking I did not find admirable—and the ending was just plain gruesome.

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Classics Club Spin #25

It’s time for another Classics Club spin. The way it works is that Classics Club members pick 20 numbered books from their lists and post these lists by Sunday. The Classics Club selects a number, and that’s the next book you read, for a deadline of January 30. I’m glad of the long period this time, not because I usually have trouble finishing but because I plan my schedule of posts out about six weeks, so often I have to make adjustments to my schedule to add in my book for the spin. Not so this time. I think this change is a good idea anyway, because there are people who have difficulty getting the book read on time for the spin.

Without further ado, here is my list for the spin. I see I no longer have 20 books left to read, so I will have to repeat some:

1. I Go by Land, I Go by Sea by P. L. Travers
2. August Folly by Angela Thirkell
3. Evelina by Fanny Burney
4. The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
5. The Prince by Machiavelli
6. The Viscounte de Braglonne by Alexandre Dumas
7. The Winged Horse by Pamela Frankau
8. Edward III by Christopher Marlowe
9. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
10. Joanna Godden by Sheila Kay-Smith
11. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
12. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
13. My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
14. Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
15. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
16. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
17. Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn
18. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
19. The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
20. August Folly by Angela Thirkell

Review 1558: Classics Club Spin Result! Kennilworth

Here’s another book for RIPXV!

Reading Kenilworth for the Classics Club Spin made me contemplate the question of how important it is in a historical novel to stick to the historical facts. Of course, historical novels are fiction, so by definition something is invented. And there have been really interesting historical novels where the author purposefully changed some facts to speculate on other outcomes. But do historical novels have the license, just for a more dramatic story, to change what actually happened?

Kenilworth is the novel that famously reawakened interest in the story of Amy Robsart’s death. Amy Robsart was the wife of Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Amy’s death is the classic mystery of did she fall or was she pushed? At the time of her death, the rumor in court was that Leicester colluded in her death because he believed he could then marry Elizabeth.

In the novel, Amy is a young bride who has run away from home for a marriage with Leicester that is secret because he is afraid for his position in court, having married without royal permission. Amy’s jilted fiancé, Tressalian, comes looking for her on behalf of her father, believing that Amy was seduced away from her home by Varney, Leicester’s master of horse.

Varney is the villain of this piece. He has Amy kept as a virtual prisoner, and eventually Amy has reason to fear for her life. So, she flees to Kenilworth, Leicester’s estate, where he is preparing to entertain Elizabeth and the court.

I fear that Scott has woven a romance with very little basis in fact, as he did with a Crusader-based novel I’ll be reviewing in a few months. First, in Kenilworth, Amy and Leicester are newly married when in fact they were married about 10 years. Next, their marriage was no secret; in fact, she was allowed to visit him in the Tower of London when he was imprisoned by Queen Mary as a relative of Lady Jane Grey. Did Leicester have a hand in her death? I read a novel a while back that posited that (it may have been Alison Weir’s The Marriage Game, but I’m not sure), but we’ll never know. More recently, historians are inclined to believe that she simply fell down the stairs. By the way, she was not being kept captive in a moldy old house but visiting friends.

So, that is a strongish negative for me, at least. I could accept a premise that Leicester ordered his wife’s death because we don’t know, but playing with the chronology of the marriage for drama’s sake (and to have a younger, dewier heroine) and making it a secret (as it was also in a movie I saw several years ago) is throwing in a bit too much fiction.

On the positive side, Scott’s descriptions of the Elizabethan court are vibrant and his attempts at Elizabethan dialogue are convincing. Also, if he was not distorting history I’d say that his plot is quite suspenseful. At the time of its publication, historians slammed The Talisman just because Scott created a fictional Plantagenet, even though he did much worse things historically in that book and in this one.

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