Back to the Classics 2021 Wrap Up

I completed the Back to the Classics Challenge 2021 which is hosted at Books and Chocolate. My goal was to read books to fit 6 categories and I ended up completing 7. This means I get one entry into the challenge drawing and can be contacted at maryarussell (at) gmail.com if I win. 

Here are the categories I read for (each title links to my post about it):

• A 19th century classic - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 
• A 20th century classic - I, Robot by Isaac Asimov 
• A classic by a woman author - The Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth
  
• A classic in translation - The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
• A classic by a new-to-you author - Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
• New-to-you classic by a favorite author -  Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
• A humorous or satirical classic - Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis

The Second Sex

The Second Sex 

by Simone de Beauvoir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was first published in France in 1948 and is viewed as "confirming Simone de Beauvoir's stature as one of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century." (according to the jacket copy).

I read the 732-page English translation published in 1952 by H. M. Parshley which apparently left out a huge amount of the original book. 

The introduction (in the Vintage Edition) gives an overview of the books publication history and how it was received. Quoted from that introduction I think this is an excellent summary:

"British scholar Terry Keefe ... called it 'one of the most important and far-reaching books on women ever published,' but [he] also noted that 'this highly ambitious project leaves a good deal to be desired, for the book cannot be said to be very carefully composed, or even, on the whole, particularly well-written ... while almost every section contains some fertile ideas and valuable insights, argument of the highest quality is rarely sustained for long." (p. xiii)

I was struck by a few things as I read this:

1- it was written in a world VERY different from the one I live in

2- de Beauvoir often writes about women as if they are a species separate from herself

3- women have had a raw deal all around from the very beginning

The book ends with a call to arms:

"What is certain is that hitherto woman's possibilities have been suppressed and lost to humanity, and that it is high time she be permitted to take her chances in her own interest and in the interest of all." (p. 715)

Overall I wouldn't recommend this book, it is tremendously dated and a bit of a narrative mess. It is, however, an important foundation of feminist thought and as I have owned it since I was in college I am glad I finally read it. 

This book is from my Classics Club list and it counts towards the Back to the Classics Challenge as a classic in translation.

Great Expectations

Great Expectations 

by Charles Dickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Originally published in 1861 this is a coming-of-age story about a young orphan, Pip. It is full of wonderfully-drawn characters each acting according to their own view of right and wrong. These different ways of looking at the world are skillfully woven together to create the man that Pip eventually becomes. 

In discussing the ending (which was not the originally intended conclusion to the story) with his biographer Dickens said he had "put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could." It is only one of many pretty pieces of writing included in the novel. For example: 

"It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the large red moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud." (p. 432)

This book is from my Classics Club list and it counts toward the Back to the Classics challenge as a 19th century classic. 

Shadows on the Rock

Shadows on the Rock 

by Willa Cather
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a beautiful, quiet book about an apothecary and his daughter living in Quebec at the end of the 1600s. Cather's writing paints pictures of the place and captures the feelings of the people in simple but perfectly crafted language. These are people living in a harsh and unforgiving place, but whose lives are filled with love for their families and their God. 

"Quebec is never lovelier than on an afternoon of late October; ledges of brown and lavender clouds lay above the river and the Ile d'Orleans, and the red-gold autumn sunlight poured over the rock like heavy southern wine." (p. 27) 

"These coppers, big and little, these brooms and clouts and brushes, were tools; and with them one made, not shoes or cabinet-work, but life itself. One made a climate within a climate; one made the days,--the complexion, the special flavour, the special happiness of each day as it passed; one made life." (p. 160) 

"Good wine was put into the grapes by our Lord, for friends to enjoy together." (p. 217)

This book is from my Classics Club list and it counts toward the Back to the Classics challenge as a new-to-me classic by a favorite author. Because it is set in Quebec it also counts toward the Canadian Reading Challenge. 

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity 

by James M. Cain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have seen the movie based on this book many times (I highly recommend it) but had never read any of Cain's books. It was interesting how much the novel sounded exactly like the movie (I definitely heard Fred MacMurray's voice in my head as I was reading). The ending of the novel is quite different from the end of the movie which surprised me. 

The narrator of the book is an insurance agent who meets a woman who turns his head and inspires him to implement a plan to defraud the company he works for. The writing is very clean and tight and the tension kept me turning pages to find out what would happen (even though I thought I knew). I am definitely going to read more of  Cain's books. Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice are likely possibilities. Both of these were movies as well. I have seen MP, but not TPART. 

This book is from my Classics Club list and counts toward the Back to the Classics Challenge as a book by a new-to-me author. 

I, Robot

I, Robot 

by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a collection of stories tied together with the conceit that they are a series of interviews of a famous robot psychologist at the end of her career being done by a journalist. Each story is a different episode in the woman's career and all feature robots. 

Like any collection of stories there were some I liked better than others. They were all well written and showed facets of humanity by analyzing what the machines do. 

This is one of my classics club titles. It was first published in 1950 and could count toward the Back to the Classics challenge as a 20th century classic. 

 

Auntie Mame

Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't think I had read this book before, though the paperback has been on a shelf in my house for as long as I can remember (it was my Mom's originally). The story is totally familiar to me from the Rosalind Russell movie. In reading the novel I was struck by how much more vulnerable Mame was than I expected. It is told from the point of view of her nephew, and as contrasted to a woman in a newspaper story who took in an orphan as well. 

This title counts toward the Back to the Classics challenge as a humorous classic and it is on my Classics Club List.

Grey Mask

Grey Mask 

by Patricia Wentworth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book in the Miss Silver mystery series. When I compiled my Classics Club list I added this because I had not read any of this series. Since I made the list I realized that I owned Through the Wall, #19 in the series, and I have since read that and Ladies Bane (#22). 

Miss Silver is a a bit like Miss Marple, she knits a great deal, but with the qualities of a very strict school teacher who always seems to know what everyone is up to whether they want her to or not. All of the books I have read so far have been set in England and had interesting, complex plots. The books have a definite golden-age tone to them (they were written between 1928 and 1961). I definitely enjoyed them and will keep reading this series. I was completely surprised by who the villain turned out to be in Grey Mask.

This title could count toward the Back to the Classics challenge as either a classic by a woman or a twentieth-century classic.

Back to the Classics 2021

Books and Chocolate is hosting the Back to the Classics Challenge again for 2021 and I am signing up with the goal of reading 6 books. I hope to read 10 books from my Classics Club list in 2021 but some may not fit the categories for this challenge so I'm only committing to 6 titles.  

Here are the categories with some possibilities from my TBR list:

• A 19th century classic - Three Musketeers (plan to do the readalong at One Catholic Life)
• A 20th century classic - The Deep Blue Goodbye
• A classic by a woman author - The Grand Sophy
  
• A classic in translation - Madam Bovary
• A classic by BIPOC author; that is, a non-white author - A House for Mr. Biswas
• A classic by a new-to-you author - New Grub Street
• New-to-you classic by a favorite author -  Shadows on the Rock (love Willa Cather!)
• A classic with an animal in the title - Rabbit, Run or Lonesome Dove
• A children's classic -  Treasure Island
• A humorous or satirical classic - Auntie Mame
• I don't have TBR titles on my list for the last 2 categories: a travel or adventure classic and a play.