2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, The Classics Club

Book 119: Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

So sometimes it sucks to be well read, or at least appear so. A friend visited last weekend and she mentioned the ending, thinking I was re-reading it, which marred the ending for me. I had no idea how the story ended and although I would’ve had a good idea leading up to the moment she mentioned, I spent more time wondering when ‘it’ would happen rather than enjoying the story for the last 300+ pages.

Anna Karenina counts for the Mount TBR, Tea and Books, Back to the Classics and The Classics Club – and more importantly it puts me over the 50% mark on ALL 2012 challenges. (Right on goal for the year!)

Overall I’m really glad I read this. If not for the challenges I joined this year I doubt I ever would have gotten around to reading it. Not only did it make me have a new desire to learn more about Russia and it’s people, but it made me want to actually visit Russia. (At least theoretically, I’m still leaving Doctor Zhivago on my Back to the Classics as a place I realistically won’t visit.) What was probably most surprising about the novel was that they were just normal everyday people like in all the other classics I’ve read – and that Russia isn’t all snow and ice! Russia has farming and society and all the things I never thought it had. I enjoyed Tolstoy’s various characterizations of Russian high society – some desperately wanting to be European, and some desperately wanting to stay independent/non-European, especially when they travel in Europe.

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Book Group, Books, The Classics Club

Book 118: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson

Congratulations Hollywood and hype! I had no idea how simple and eloquently written this novella is. From the few adaptations I’ve seen the bits of and the general idea of the story I’ve gleaned over the years I thought it was a much more over the top, dramatic and violent story. I’m not completely wrong, but I definitely had more action in my mind, but I can now remind myself it Stevenson wrote, and set the novella, in the late 1800s. (Part of this may be I feel I was merging Frankenstein and this novel together in my head, but who knows.)

This book is for my Books into Movies book group at my local library and conveniently also counts for one of my 100 books for The Classics Club! I’m holding my breath book group is better than last month. I don’t think there’s anything too contentious in this novel, but who knows with book group.

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2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 116: Mansfield Park – Jane Austen

[For an updated response check out my July 2015 reading of Mansfield Park.]

I finished reading Mansfield Park this weekend and I must admit that it’s still one of the best Jane Austen novels few people read. It’s a bit of a tome and the version I read with the tiny close quartered print was some times painful, but it’s well worth it. Mansfield Park counts for my Back to the Classics Challenge (Reread a classic of your choice) and also counts for The Classics Club. There will be an update later this week about where I am with my challenges and life.

I first read Mansfield Park sometime during college, not for a course, but because I realized I was never required to read Jane Austen and she was this entity that I found fascinating. So many of the teen movies from the early 1990s were based on her books (and Shakespeare’s plays) that I just had to read the originals. I remember reading them back to back but not what order, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Emma—and I eventually read Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sandition. I’ve enjoyed all of them but Fanny Price remains one of those characters who sticks with me no matter what I read.

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2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, The Classics Club

Book 114: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

Let’s start this review on a high note. It is rare that a book makes me fall in love with a character, and Francie is one of those few characters. The character was perfectly written and there was something about her that just made me fall in love. From her book obsession to her fierce pride and quick wit – Francie captured my heart and imagination. Even at the end when she started into her teen years and came across as somewhat hostile she kept her innocence and I just wanted to give her a hug.

There is a quote by the Federico Fellini that I believe Francie embodies, “Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that life is and things will come your way.” (Full disclosure – I found this quote via the film Under the Tuscan Sun.) Definitely check out the quotes at the end to get an idea of her character.

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2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 110: The Color Purple – Alice Walker

I must preface this post with the caveat that prior to reading the novel I knew little about it. I vaguely knew that Whoopie Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey were connected to the film, but that was it. And for future reference, this is how I approach most novels I read.

To be honest, it’s hard to know how to respond to a novel like this. When an author opens a novel with a scene as disturbing as that which opens The Color Purple, how can you respond other than viscerally? How can you relate to something that is foreign to you as a reader?

Take a look at the opening line and you can only imagine where the story goes from there.

“You better not tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.”

And that doesn’t even cover the shock/horror I felt in the first few pages of the novel. It doesn’t reveal anything, really. Clearly, however, Alice Walker wrote an amazing novel. Walker keeps the reader riveted, regardless of your relation of the experience, from the brutal opening scene to the emotionally exhausting closing scene.

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