Tag Archives: France

Book 28: Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell

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Orwell, George - Down and Out in Paris and LondonI chose this novel because it has an awesome name. I had a vague idea of what the book was about, but didn’t have any particular views going into the book and didn’t realize it was nonfiction (or mostly so apparently) until after I finished reading and verified it because I wasn’t quite sure.. I knew it was an ‘adventure’ of sorts and thus I stuck it into my Back to the Classics challenge as a Classic Adventure and it conveniently qualifies also for my Mount TBR and my longer term The Classics Club Challenge.

It only took about two days to read the book and what I primarily noticed was that people are really interested in Orwell. I had multiple people ask me what I was reading on the T. I assume this is because Orwell’s name is in pretty large letters across the cover and that portion stuck out of my back pocket. It was a bit strange, but it was nice to talk to strangers. I feel like most people have only read Animal Farm or 1984 like me, but those who have read most (or all) of Orwell say that this one is his best work and it’s interesting as it’s his first ‘full length’ work.

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Book 16: The Mysteries of Udolpho – Anne Radcliffe

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Radcliffe, Ann - The Mysteries of UdolphoWordPress decided to move this post to the trash bin and I, assuming it was duplicate draft, permanently deleted it. The first three paragraphs are verbatim as I was able to recover them via caching, however after that is a poor substitute of what I spoke about previously.

I  had to add this to my Classics Club list because of its reference in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. I wish I would’ve spaced things to read Northanger Abbey immediately before or after, but I didn’t and I’m sure I will enjoy it just as much when I next read it.

The Mysteries of Udolpho counts for every challenge I’m currently participating in. It is first and foremost the 20th book in my Classics Club list and signifies my 1/5th completion (right at the year mark, so keep an eye out for a longer post later this week)! In addition it counts for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge, Back to the Classics Challenge and through a bit of questionable math as a bonus book for my Tea and Books Reading Challenge (the physical copies average out to 666 pages).

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Book 13: The Suitors – Cécile David-Weill

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David-Weill, Cecile - The SuitorsAfter my amazing luck with John Boyne’s The Absolutist last year, I decided to always keep an eye on Other Press releases and I’m glad I did. I requested a copy of this book directly from the publisher and I quite enjoyed it. This is my honest response and I received nothing in return.

To start, I’d like to say that the only other review on Goodreads is worthless (to me, at least). Why bother reviewing a book if that’s all you’re going to say? The person has, in essence, re-written the synopsis of the novel (on the back cover), without any additional insight or synthesis and it came across as snide to me. If you didn’t want to read “frothy froth about rich French people and their angst,” then why’d you read it? It never pretended to be anything else and that’s why I appreciated this novel. It’s times like this when I wish I could give half stars on Goodreads because it’s not quite what I would consider 5 stars, but not quite as low as 4 stars. Now on to my response.

This novel is everything that it claims to be, an amusing inside look at the codes, manners, and morals of high society, and it’s nothing more.So if you don’t want to read a comedy of manners, then don’t. It’s sort of what I imagine Austen’s works were like when they were first published and reactions were similar to the Goodreads reviewer’s.

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Book 74: By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept – Paulo Coelho

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Coelho, Paulo - By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and WeptThis is Coelho’s second book I’ve read and although it wasn’t as good as The Alchemist, it was still incredibly well written and moving. I do have a couple more of his books on my shelf and plan on saving them for when I need a break from other books. However, I might need to read the other two books in the ‘trilogy’ (according to Wikipedia) Veronika Decides to Die and The Devil and Miss Prim sooner rather than later.

Deepika, over at Purplebooky reviewed this book and there’s really not much more to add. It’s a deceptively simple love story with religion interwoven and provides a lot of lessons on love, life and faith. Compared to The Alchemist, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept lacked some impact (the love was definitely there, it just wasn’t as powerful) and the story is a bit less monumental. This is definitely not a bad thing because the simpleness of this story is part of what makes it so beautiful.

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Book 64: The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith

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I have to say I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to. It was an easy read and even though it felt like nothing happened, and I remember the movie being very slow because of this, the book went by quickly. I’m still not sure I fully understand the purpose or premise of the story. I guess it’s somewhere between a murder mystery/thriller, told from the murders point of view, and a comedy of errors.

I have never read anything by Patricia Highsmith, but her writing was easy to follow and her descriptions were, I felt, better than her action sequences. I do know there are three additional novels in the Ripley series, but I don’t think I will go out of my way to read them. This first one was enough for me, but if Highsmith’s writing had had more of an impact and not left me just sort of blase at the end of the book I would definitely want to check them out. Surprisingly I had more of a desire to find out more about Ripley after the end of the film, which is distinctly different unless it’s blending in parts from another book. (Anyone know?!)

I will definitely be interested in book groups take on this novel as the film stayed pretty close to the book but only hyper-exaggerated a few aspects, such as the potential for homosexuality and the seeming instability of Tom Ripley towards the end of the novel.

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