Tag: Back to the Classics

Books, Coursera, Personal Project

Book 310: Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll

Geoff W

I honestly didn’t think I would get back to Alice and her adventures. The Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was so ho-hum that I had no desire to read this one, but this was the second book I read as part of my first short-lived Coursera course. Unfortunately due to entirely way to many commitments and needing to read FOUR books for my 30 x 30 list over the next two months, I just couldn’t give up 10 weeks of reading time. I will most definitely take the course at a later date though!

I definitely found this book less whimsical than the first, which is funny as I’m convinced there are so many more made-up words in this novella. Honestly, I have no idea what it is that made me appreciate this one more. Was it that Alice actually started feeling the pressures of adulthood in this book? Or was it that the doom and gloom of the “chess match” of the looking-glass world spoke to me.

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Updates

December (and 2013) Recap

Geoff W

First, HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE! Not that you’re reading this on NYE, but I’m scheduling it to post on New Years Eve 😀 So YAY! I hope you’ve all had fun holidays and time spent with friends and family! I know I have and am exhausted but so glad to have the time with my family.

My Aunt had twins in September and I met them in Oct, but got to spend more time with them over the holidays!
I flew two hours just to drive five more hours, but at least the drive was beautiful.
As was the image I woke up to. Spending Christmas in the mountains is definitely worth the ridiculous travelling.

Second, as with last year I just want to thank all of you that read and interact with me on my little spot of the internet. Those of you that blog with me are amazing and make life difficult by talking about all of these amazing books that I want to read. I can’t believe I’ve stuck with this blog as long as I have, but you all definitely make it worth it for me! I can’t wait to see what 2014 brings!

Click here to see my Challenge Wrap-Ups and Top Books of 2013

2013 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 248: War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

Geoff W

And with this book I completed ALL of my reading challenges this year! I will do a wrap up post (year, challenge and month) on either the 31st or 1st, but for the record this was the 11th book of the Back to the Classics Challenge, the 6th book (but 8th counted – two were double) for the Tea and Books Reading Challenge and the 25th Mount TBR book!

But what is MOST shocking is how much I enjoyed this novel. There were portions I hated that I think were decisions of the translator and there were definitely parts that were beyond boring (the war parts, obviously), but overall I actually am glad I read this book and the investment of just over three weeks was definitely worth it. I’m not going to lie and say that I was excited about this novel and I won’t even say that it was easy, but I was a bit confused after reading this in the forward:

“The first readers of War and Peace were certainly surprised, but often also bewildered and even dismayed by the book. They found it hard to identify the main characters, to discover anything like a plot, to see any connection between episodes, to understand the sudden leaps from fiction to history, from narration to philosophizing. There seemed to be no focus, no artistic unity to the work, no real beginning, and no resolution. It was as if the sheer mass of detail overwhelmed any design Tolstoy might have tried to impose on it.” (loc. 140)

I didn’t think that the novel was that confusing. I can definitely see where the characters names are confusing! The introduction discusses the multitude of ways a character’s name can be modified and that did cause me to stop a few times but if I kept reading the context clues almost immediately told me who Tolstoy referred to.

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2013 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 242: Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

Geoff W

[Check out my updated January 2022 response.]

I planned to talk about how I wish I could say it is the romance that draws me obsessively to this novel, and in a way it is, but ultimately I know it is something much darker than that. For me this novel’s draw is its darkness, it’s the depth and light absorbing pit of Heathcliff’s devotion to his plans, no matter who they harm or what they require, throughout the years to achieve his ends. I can only imagine what this reveals about my personality and my own decisions in life.

As much as I am drawn to Pride and Prejudice (and Jane Austen in general) for its whimsy and lightness, I can’t help but appreciate and truly resonate with the depths of despair and the tortuousness all three Brontë sisters write about. And I don’t know why, it’s not like I’ve had a tragic love story. I mean sure I’ve had my fair share of unrequited love stories (more often than not), but I know that I’ll get over them and eventually find someone who loves me for me and I love them for them and we just click, but for some reason these darker novels resound with me on a deeper level. It’s as if they touch a part of me that I know is there but am too afraid to even consider bringing to the surface out of fear or terror of what I might actually feel if I let myself.

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2013 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 218: Les Misérables – Victor Hugo

Geoff W

If Les Misérables is one thing, it is too damn long. I’m sure there are people who will disagree with me and I partially disagree with myself, but 1,729 pages is just outrageous. My advice to you if you want to read this novel, unless you are seriously interested or enthralled by French history, is to read an abridged version.

Don’t get me wrong, the story is amazingly, heartrendingly beautiful, but there was a lot of history that, yes, adds to the story, but is a long hard slough to get through. I’m talking upwards of 900 pages is just history and setting and had very little consequence on the story other than to set the scene. By time I got to volume five of the book it was a struggle to get through. I mean there were fascinating facts like how much sewer there is below Paris, but I did not need to know who put it there and who mapped and cleaned it!

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