Back to the Classics 2017 Wrap Up

I completed 7 categories for the Books and Chocolate Back to the Classics Challenge (which gets me 1 entry in the drawing).

• A classic about an animal: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
• A gothic classic: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• 20th century classic (first published in 1914): Dubliners by James Joyce
• A classic by a woman author: Orlando by Virginia Woolf
• a 19th century classic (first published 1811): Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• An award winning classic (it was the winner of the 1933 Femina Vie Heureuse Prize): Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
• A classic set in a place you'd like to visit (much of it is in London): Cakes and Ale by Somerset Maugham

If I win the drawing I can be reached at maryarussell(at)gmail.com.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This wonderful book has the same narrative tone that I loved in The Magician's Nephew, but is a bit more serious. Lion was the first book written in the Chronicles of Narnia but comes second in the storyline. I am reading the series, in a beautiful boxed set, with illustrations by Pauline Baynes. 

In this book we meet Aslan who is a huge and frightening powerful lion who is also kind and wise, "good and terrible at the same time" (p, 126). That seems to me the key to the whole story--characters who are both good and terrible--and it is what makes it timeless. 

My favorite supporting character in this tale was Mrs. Beaver. I love how she arranges things and lets the others know when they should have listened to her. She is very cozy and domestic--she was at her machine sewing while Mr. Beaver was out and about--but is ready with practical plans when adventure calls. 

This book counts as a classic about an animal for the Back to the Classics challenge.

Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Inspired by Jane Eyre, this novel in three parts is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a woman from the Caribbean who weds Rochester and ends up a prisoner in the attic of his bleak English country house.
The pictures that Rhys paints of the islands are lush and a bit frightening which sets the tone for the terrible things that go on. 

"Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible--the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touches. One was snaking looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles bare of leaves handing from a twisted root. Twice a year the octopus orchid flowered--then not an inch of tentacle showed. It was a bell-shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see. The scent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it." (p. 19)

This book could count toward any of several categories for the Back to the Classics challenge: 20th century classic (published 1966), a gothic classic, or a classic by a woman author.

Dubliners

Dubliners by James Joyce
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.” 

This collection of short stories takes the reader on a tour of Dublin, Ireland at the turn of the 20th century.
I have found Joyce hard-going in the past, but this volume was enjoyable and the stories were easy to follow. I liked the contrast between the various lives being led in a single city. In a couple of cases a person from one story popped up as an incidental character in another. I would have liked more connections like that as it would have given a bit more cohesion to the collection.
This book is one of my classics club titles (it was my Spring 2017 spin title, in fact). This title could count toward the Back to the Classics Challenge as either a 20th century classic (first published in 1914) or as a classic set somewhere I would like to visit.

Orlando

Orlando by Virginia Woolf
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was quite different from Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse and is definitely my least favorite of the three. There is an excellent post about this novel at Conceptual Fiction which explains the novel much better than I can. There were things about the novel that I liked: the voice of 'the biographer' that Woolf takes when dealing with time transitions and other awkward story transitions was very clever; the comments on the 'great men of letters' were very funny; and the whole section about the romance with the Russian princess was excellent. Ultimately though the book just didn't come together for me. 
This book could count toward either of two categories for the Back to the Classics challenge: 20th century classic, or a classic by a woman author.

Sense and Sensibilty

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought I had read this before, but I don't think I had. I did see the movie and had Emma Thompson in my head the whole time I was reading. 

This was a good novel, but I felt like it dragged in sections and I found Marianne less than sympathetic. Elena Ferrante had an interesting article about this book in The Guardian in 2015.

For the Back to the Classics Challenge this title could count as a 19th century classic (first published 1811), a classic by a woman author, or a romance classic (it is all about who will marry whom).

Cold Comfort Farm

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This comic novel by Stella Gibbons was written in 1932 and takes place "in the near future." It seemed to me to be a bit of a spoof of the 19th century British novels of writers like Jane Austen and the Brontes. It even includes a very funny character with a weird theory about the novels of the Bronte sisters.
The main character, Flora Poste, is a practical young woman (in her own mind anyway) who sets about arranging things in a very Austen-like way and making observations on the world as she finds it.
“You have the most revolting Florence Nightingale complex,' said Mrs. Smiling.
It is not that at all, and well you know it. On the whole, I dislike my fellow beings; I find them so difficult to understand. But I have a tidy mind and untidy lives irritate me. Also, they are uncivilized.” 

This book could count toward several different categories for the Back to the Classics challenge: 20th century classic, by a woman author, a romance, or an award winning classic (it was the Winner of the 1933 Femina Vie Heureuse Prize).
This book also counts toward the What's in a Name challenge as an alliterative title.

Cakes and Ale

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book made me laugh from the very first page. 

“I have noticed that when someone asks for you on the telephone and, finding you out, leaves a message begging you to call him up the moment you come in, as it's important, the matter is often more important to him than to you.”  

It is a satire of the world of letters, and also of a small British village. It is alleged that the great writer he describes is meant to be Thomas Hardy. The story is told in the first person and moves back and forth in time quite seamlessly. Now and then the narrator speaks up in his role as author of the novel, but mostly he sits back and unwinds his recollections and observations of the world (and himself) for the reader. The writing is excellent, the observations spot-on, and the story well structured. My only quibble with it is that I would have liked to have a better sense of how the narrator became the man he did. We learn a lot about his boyhood, and the kind of boy he was, but it felt like there was a big change between the boy and the man telling the story which wasn't accounted for fully.

This book is one of my Classics Club titles and could be counted toward the Back to the Classics challenge as either "a 20th century classic" (first published in 1930) or "a classic set in a place you'd like to visit" (much of it is in London).

Back to the Classics 2017

Since one of my goals for 2017 is to finish up my Classics Club list the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted at Books and Chocolate fits in perfectly. The goal is to read between 6 and 12 classics (at least 50 years old), one for each category. This year's categories are:

1. A 19th Century Classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899.
2.  A 20th Century Classic - any book published between 1900 and 1967. Just like last year, all books MUST have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify. The only exception is books written at least 50 years ago, but published later, such as posthumous publications.
3.  A classic by a woman author. 
4.  A classic in translation.  Any book originally written published in a language other than your native language. Feel free to read the book in your language or the original language. (You can also read books in translation for any of the other categories).
5.  A classic published before 1800. Plays and epic poems are acceptable in this category.
6.  A romance classic. I'm pretty flexible here about the definition of romance. It can have a happy ending or a sad ending, as long as there is a strong romantic element to the plot.
7.  A Gothic or horror classic. For a good definition of what makes a book Gothic, and an excellent list of possible reads, please see this list on Goodreads. 
8.  A classic with a number in the title. Examples include A Tale of Two Cities, Three Men in a Boat, The Nine Tailors, Henry V, Fahrenheit 451, etc. An actual number is required -- for example, Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None would not qualify, but The Seven Dials Mystery would. 
9.  A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal in the title.  It can be an actual animal or a metaphor, or just the name in the title. Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, The Metamorphosis, White Fang, etc. If the animal is not obvious, please clarify it in your post.
10. A classic set in a place you'd like to visit. It can be real or imaginary: The Wizard of Oz, Down and Out in Paris and London, Death on the Nile, etc.
11. An award-winning classic. It could be the Newbery award, the Prix Goncourt, the Pulitzer Prize, the James Tait Award, etc. Any award, just mention in your blog post what award your choice received.
12. A Russian Classic. 2017 will be the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, so read a classic by any Russian author.