Amy's Classic Battle

[Polka Dot Rock]

Here I am again, wading in with yet another challenge that ties in with my heaving TBR list (http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/forum/showpost.php?p=56689&postcount=1).

I've decided to put Modern Classics here too, which will be in the pink. These will usually be post-1900, although not always!

January
Vanity Fair - W.M Thackeray (8/10)

March
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (6/10)

April
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (5/10)

May
Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier (8/10)
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons (10/10)
My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier (8/10)

TBR
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Money - Martin Amis
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen
Villette - Charlotte Bronte
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (trans. Edith Grossmann)
No Name - Wilkie Collins
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier
The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
Franny & Zooey - J.D Salinger
Anna Karenina - L.N. Tolstoy
To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

[Kell]

Ooh, some interesting ones on your list (I have one matching and a couple of matching authors on top of that). I'll look forward to hearing what you think of them. :)

[Polka Dot Rock]

Thanks Kell :) I'll be keeping an eye on your progress too ;)

I'm thinking of saving The Mill on the Floss for my upcoming hols - seems quite summer-y, strangely.

[Polka Dot Rock]

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141439839,00.html) (1853)


"Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?"

The blurb:
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles – military and domestic – are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray’s gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

So, I finally finished this monster-sizes brick of a novel! I nearly gave up towards the end as it was taking ages, but I'm so glad I didn't.

My favourite aspect of Vanity Fair has to be the delicious narrative voice: as contemporary readers, we have become used to the idea that a novel's narrative should not be interpreted as the writer's own. Well, Vanity Fair completely turns that on its head! The voice Thackeray inhabits is most definitely that of a gossipy writer - constantly curious and judging the characters, as well as rifling through their private thoughts, whilst insisting that he couldn't possibly know. I love how he claims Amelia as a true and good woman, yet bluntly comments on how naive and wet she really is.

What also makes this classic novel interesting from a contemporary perspective is the way that Becky's character is handled. Rather than the stereotypical fate of a socially rebellious woman (i.e. death), Becky get away with it all - and gloriously so! The narrative voice is particularly wonderful when discussing Becky: Thackeray is mock-horrified at Becky's outre behaviour, yet he can't resist admiring her spirit and wit. Therefore, although Becky can be downright bitchy at times, the reader can't help but love her. Let's face it, if we had to choose which literary heroines to be, I'd definitely be first in line to claim Becky!! Much more fun than Tess or Cathy...

However, Becky is certainly not my favourite character: that honour goes to the loyal and true Dobbin. Such a sweet and patient that at times, it's quite hard to resist the urge to feel like slapping Amelia over the head for choosing who to give her love to so unwisely.
Apparently, Thackeray based Dobbin upon himself as the writer was also in love with a friend's wife. Dobbin is a richly realised character, and he injects a novel swimming with cynicism with a much needed sense of humanity and pathos. The couple of chapters are probably amongst the most exhilarating writing I've ever read. The moment when Dobbin finally tells Amelia how foolish she has been in her life-long rejection of him and leaves makes you want to cheer and cry simultaneously! And I love that Becky helps to redeem herself in her own eyes by sacrificing her own connections with Amelia so that she can aid Dobbin and Amelia to happiness.

It is easy to sometimes become frustrated with Vanity Fair's occasional habit of going into a bit too much inconsequential detail, but you find yourself quickly becoming accustomed to the novel's pace, so you can easily skip irrelevant passages without causing yourself confusion later.

For such a lengthy book, I was wholly satisfied by its conclusion(s) and I feel I will miss the company of Becky, Dobbin and Amelia. I also found it very easy to read, and was surprised by how contemporary the writing it seemed.

A novel that fully deserves its classic status: clearly groundbreaking, and full of sharply drawn characters with a witty, engaging narrative. A very British epic!

8/10

[Polka Dot Rock]

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857) (http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140449129,00.html)


The blurb:
"Oh, why, dear God, did I marry him?"

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and when real life continues to fail to live up to her romantic expectations the consequences are devastating.

Flaubert’s erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: ‘Madame Bovary, c’est moi’.

This modern translation by Flaubert’s biographer, Geoffrey Wall, retains all the delicacy and precision of the French original. The edition also contains a preface by the novelist Michèle Roberts.

I definitely think this will be a novel that I will re-read in the future.

It didn't particularly 'grab' me but I still kept on reading. I think it may be that I'm quite ambivalent about the 19th century European and American 'realists/modernists'. I studied quite a bit on my American literature course, and a few bits I loved (like Frank Norris' McTeague) but the rest I was quite "meh" about (like Henry James).

I think I could do with reading some critical work on Madame Bovary then re-read it again. I had a similar thing with Wuthering Heights and that's now one of my favourite novels!

I was very surprised by how graphic the ending was! I thought it'd be more a case of, "Oh we can't wake her up. She's a funny colour. Oh god, she's dead!" Instead it was really very explicit and stomach churning. Moral of that story: suicide by poison really isn't a breeze...

I'd still really like to read more French literature :) So I'll be looking to Judy for more tips!

[JudyB]

I'd still really like to read more French literature :)

So I'll be looking to Judy for more tips!

Ooh thanks Amy :smile2: - I'm about to start reading The Earth by Emile Zola as my April Classics Challenge.

Love your avatar by the way - I think the Moomins are gorgeous - have you read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson?

[Polka Dot Rock]

The Summer Book by Tove Janssen

I think I remember hearing that The Summer Book is semi-autographical...? Or I may have misheard it... Hmm.

As you've probably noticed, I'm on another French theme as I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities: who knew the French said "Thou" and other such Shakespearan-type-phrases a lot?! :lol: Erm, interesting idea, Mr Dickens!

[Polka Dot Rock]

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141439600,00.html)

The blurb:
‘Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; – the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!’
After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil lanes of London, they are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

I've now embarked on Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, as it's a novel that I've heard referenced to an awful lot throughout my life, so thought it was high time I read it.

However, I did struggle with it, which makes me wonder if my Victorian reading sensibilities are a little rusty... However, Dickens' dialogue is so wonderfully evocative, when I get to it, it's like a part of brain/imagination is instantly fired up.

I liked the sense of injustice and protest that Dickens weaved throughout A Tale of Two Cities. It's interesting that some elements of society that Dickens protested about can still be seen today.

However, I'm disappointed to say that I continued to struggle with it 'til the very end :( I'm a particular fan of Dickens' way with characters, and I found the characters in this rather flat and bland. All poor Lucie seemed to do was faint!
The story wasn't enough to keep my interest and I'd find myself getting confused because I'd drifted.
I did enjoy the depiction of Madame Defarge and how she slowly emerged from a background character to a become pivotal force in the novel. It was also intersting to see how it may have influenced Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

But it hasn't put me off Dickens at all :) With such a prolific writer, I know there's more where Great Expectations came from (one of my favourite novels).

[Icecream]

I was bored with Great Expectations. I wrote some good essays on it when I read it for GCSE coursework, but that is as far as my interest goes. I loved reading Oliver though. The book is much better than the muaical! I've never read any others. Maybe I should have a classics reading list..

[Polka Dot Rock]

Maybe I should have a classics reading list..

:) I think you're doing remarkably well with reading as it is, as a first time mum.

Maybe you could start reading Classic children's fiction, so you'll be ready to indoctrinate Katie! :lol:

[Icecream]

Maybe. I have 80 books with the title children's classics upstairs.