The Last Chronicle of V-Lit

July is over, and so is my Rereading July project.  Over the past month, I managed to reread seven wonderful books, all plucked from my V-Lit collection, and to finish off my reviews, I have one last little post to entertain you with - one last trip through time and space, if you please :)

*****

Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope, is the first of the six books known as The Palliser Novels, and it's a good book in its own right.  It tells the tale of Alice Vavasor, a young woman who breaks off her engagement to the worthy John Grey because she feels that she is unsuited to the kind of life he is planning to lead, a secluded, leisurely life on his country estate (which sounds wonderful to me).  After making this decision, she begins to gravitate back towards a former love, her cousin George, whom she decided not to marry earlier in her life because of his terrible behaviour towards her.  As Alice moves closer towards throwing her lot in with her impulsive (and possibly psychopathic) cousin, Trollope ask the reader a couple of questions: will Alice regret her decision, and, more importantly, can you, the reader, forgive her?

Funnily enough though, as well designed as this side of the story is, I really couldn't care about Alice (or John Grey) at all because the main order of the day is our first lengthy introduction to one of Trollope's favourite characters, Plantagenet Palliser, and his bubbly wife, Lady Glencora.  Palliser previously appeared in a bit role in The Small House at Allington, but here he takes centre stage as the character who will occupy the writer's mind for the next decade or two.  In fact, Palliser is the character who best represents Trollope's own opinions and beliefs - the epitome of the English gentleman -, and his relationship with his wife is a masterful, realistic depiction of love and companionship.

Rather than taking us up to the wedding day and then leaving the loving couple to live happily ever after, Trollope has married off a young heiress, against her wishes, to a good, but unloving, politician - and then stirred in a little unresolved tension with an old flame.  Over the next five books, we will see how, from an unpromising beginning, the relationship will blossom and grow into a true love match, despite the many bumps along the way (especially in this book...).

I've read this story several times, but I still wolfed it down, devouring the 800 pages (of admittedly large type) in just four days.  I simply love this kind of Victorian novel, where multiple plot strands are teased out over hundreds of pages (and, in the original format, over years - Can You Forgive Her? was originally published in twenty monthly parts...).  You know what is likely to happen - that is if Trollope doesn't actually tell you himself -, but the destination is relatively unimportant; it's the journey that matters.  And when that journey involves the wonderful Pallisers, the terrible George Vavasor and a cameo appearance from the writer himself (in the guise of a heavyweight literary fellow gamely following the hunt over the English countryside), it's a very good journey indeed.

And, as I suspected on starting this wonderful book, I think I have just committed myself to reading the rest of the series over the rest of 2011.  Life's hard sometimes :)

*****

My final book for the month, Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, is a slightly different novel to my usual Victorian reads.  It's a mystery, set in the Victorian era, and one of many 'sensational' novels of the time.  However, despite being lumped in with a multitude of other crowd-pleasing novels, Collins' work is a quality piece of writing with a groundbreaking style.

The Woman in White is told in a series of narratives by the person most closely involved with the events of the time, almost as if the course of a crime was being described in a court of law.  Our first narrator, young drawing teacher Walter Hartright, is walking home one night after paying a visit to his family.  He is walking along a deserted road in the darkness, thinking about the work he is shortly to do in the north of England...  when suddenly, from nowhere, a woman dressed all in white appears in the street.  Although his first meeting with the woman is fleeting, this chance encounter is to alter the course of his life, setting him on a journey where he will meet the love of his life - and some rather dastardly villains...

The style adopted by the writer allows him to build up the story from several different angles, and also permits him to poke a little fun at his characters' expense.  While the parts played by the major characters are played with a straight bat, some of the minor roles are definitely described tongue in cheek.  The part told by the housekeeper is full of "I'm not racist, but..." jibes at the foreign occupants of the house, while the section narrated by the self-absorbed, self-declared invalid Frederick Fairlie begins:

"It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone." Wordsworth Editions, p.266

a statement immediately indicating that this is a character who will struggle to gain our full sympathy ;)

Anyone who has read the book will know though that the most impressive character is that of the inimitable Count Fosco, a villain of the highest order, but with the most impeccable manners.  Belonging less in a Victorian novel than in a James Bond film, the mysterious Italian emigré, a magnificently intelligent, courteous (and corpulent) mountain of a man, plays with his pet mice and birds, bursts out into impromptu arias and effortlessly plots a monstrous crime without breaking into a sweat - all assisted by his sinister, devoted wife.

What sounds like overexaggerated melodrama is raised above this by the book's format; Fosco is described by several of the narrators, each fleshing the Count out in a slightly different way, all (willingly or unwillingly) admitting the power of his persona.  In this way, Fosco becomes larger than life, a seemingly unstoppable genius, which makes the danger Hartright and his friends find themselves in seem palpable to the reader.

I'm not really one for crime novels, but The Woman in White is far more than just a detective story - it is a fascinating account of the lengths people will go to to get money, and a superb character sketch of a criminal mastermind.  Whether you are a fan of this genre or not, it's well worth the effort.

*****
So alas, Rereading July has come to an end.  Over the past month, dear reader, I have travelled far and wide through Victorian England: over hill and dale; through the bucolic Wessex landscape and up to the pleasant farm lands of the Midlands; up to a wild and wintry Yorkshire and across the Pennines to industrial Manchester; down to the great capital, the centre (at the time) of the civilised world and back up to the far-flung desolate north-west.  This is my country; at least, this is the country I visit in my imagination.  The more Victorian literature I read, the fuller my image of the England of the past becomes, and the more I want to know.  I'll be back very soon.

Welcome to the North

Well, you may (or may not) be surprised to hear that my return from 19th-Century England didn't last too long; to be precise, about as long as it took me to eat my dinner and pick up the next chapter in my Victorian odyssey.  So, without further ado, here are Tony's further adventures in the world of V-Lit :)

*****

With barely a pause for sustenance, I dashed straight from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights to the slightly less melodramatic, but equally wonderful, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, written by her sister Anne.  It is (like Wuthering Heights) a story within a story, a recount within a recount, as Gilbert Markham, a jovial middle-aged man, writes to his brother-in-law about events which happened earlier in his life.  He writes a letter in which he describes his encounters with a woman called Helen Graham, a widow who appeared one day in his village with her son in tow.  As Gilbert gets closer to the prickly Ms. Graham, he gradually becomes aware that she harbours a secret - and eventually we, the readers, are told it.

Markham's narrative is interrupted by Helen's diary, in which she relates exactly what happened in her married life to cause her to move to the relative obscurity of this northern village.  Once we are privy to her secret, Markham takes over again to tell us how the story ends.  Grim up north?  Not half as grim as it was down south, if Helen's marriage is anything to go by...

Anne is the least read of the three Brontës, a fact due both to limited output and sister Charlotte's oversensitive handling of Anne's book after her death.  While The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a wonderful exposé of the inequality of marriage in Victorian England, for many at the time it was simply too close to the bone - hypocrisy often trumped truth back in the 19th Century.

Ironically, in the 20th Century, it was criticised again by feminist theorists, who attacked it for its inherent support of male superiority.  The structure of the novel, with Markham's letter surrounding Helen Graham's diary extracts (which he has included in his letters) is said to perpetuate female submissiveness.  I'm sure Anne Brontë would have been amused to hear that her book was both too radical and too conventional at the same time... Whichever theory you subscribe to, one thing's for sure - this is a very good, and often overlooked, piece of writing.

*****

We'll remain, if you please, in the north of England for our second book today, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South.  This staple of English literature classes follows devout southern belle Margaret Hale as family circumstances conspire to send her off to the smoky skies of Milton-Northern (AKA Manchester), where she encounters the rough but courteous Mr. Thornton.  As our heroine struggles to adapt to the ways of the industrial north, and their slightly confusing language, she and Mr. Thornton (Mr. Darcy with an accent) find that when it comes to behaviour they really do come from different countries.

The title though is slightly misleading; it's not that Thornton comes from the North as such that makes him so exotic (Gilbert Markham, for example is also a Northerner), it's his role as a member of the manufacturing mercantile class which renders him so foreign in Margaret's eyes (and probably in the eyes of many of Gaskell's readers too).  Throughout the novel, our two protagonists are simply unable to understand what the other is doing, let alone thinking, and neither has a real inkling of the respect they inspire in the other.

The last unit in my long-forgotten Master's course was in Intercultural Communication, and it was difficult to overlook the cultural differences dotted throughout the book.  One good example is the two main families' respective drawing rooms, seen through the eyes of the others on a visit.  The Thorntons regard the Hale drawing room as cluttered and unnecessary (and probably a nightmare to clean).  On the return visit, however, Margaret is appalled by the sterility of the Hale drawing room, a place to look at but not to sit in.

Even when Margaret and Thornton do decide to talk to each other, the cultural differences are evident.  Thornton is continually angered by Margaret's refusal to shake his hand, an offer she is unaware she is supposed to make, and their discussions on the conditions of the working class in the north generally deteriorate into point scoring and arguments.  As Margaret's father notes:

"One had need to learn a different language, and measure by a different standard, up here in Milton." (p.149), Wordsworth Classics Edition (1994)

The north really is a different country...

As an anthropological insight, North and South is a wonderful book, and it's not bad as a novel either.  However, the longer the book went on, the less interesting it became, and whatever the introduction in my edition claims, several of the plot strands (especially the one involving her brother's exile from Britain) seemed extremely contrived and convenient.  When the rather rushed and predictable ending arrives, you are left feeling that there was an opportunity missed.  If they had only stayed in the north and continued the story in Milton, the book would have been a lot better for it...

*****
So, is that all for V-Lit this month?  Pfft - as if.  Stay tuned for more antics in 19th-century England...

A Journey Through Rural England

As promised in a previous post, July has been reserved for old friends, and my first three books for the month are all very familiar friends indeed.  Let me take you on a little trip through time and space, from the south of England to the north.  It'll be a slow journey, but, I promise you, it will be well worth it...

*****

Our journey starts off down in Wessex, the ancient English kingdom appropriated by the wonderful Thomas Hardy as the setting for his Victorian novels.  Far From the Madding Crowd is a typically bucolic tale, describing a few years in the life of the young and beautiful Bathsheba Everdene.  This headstrong woman, who has decided to take on the running of her uncle's farm alone after his death, is pursued by three very different men: surly Farmer Boldwood; dashing soldier Frank Troy; and the honest, reliable shepherd Gabriel Oak.  While this early novel has a little more cheer than Hardy's later tragedies, there's still a lot that goes wrong for Bathsheba, and plenty of obstacles to overcome before she can settle down in peace.

I first read this at secondary school - and got an almighty telling-off from my English teacher when I did a surprise test in class on the book without having bothered to read any of it (I think it was the question where I said Bathsheba was a farmer with a beard that gave things away...).  Now, I love this book, with its luscious descriptions of the English countryside and its long, leisurely conversations between locals in ramshackle pubs.  Admittedly, Hardy never uses a short word when he can dig up (or invent) a horribly long and complicated one instead, but this minor fault is far outweighed by his elegant storytelling - which is why, on finishing this novel, I went straight to the Book Depository and ordered three more of his works :)

*****

Now let's (reluctantly) leave Wessex and move northwards, over the undulating southern hills, across the pleasant fields of Warwickshire, and onto the tranquil village of Hayslope in the (fictional) hilly county of Loamshire, for here we will encounter a fine example of the turn-of-the-(19th) century workman, Adam Bede.

George Eliot's admirable carpenter is one of the principal figures of her first novel, and throughout its 540 pages, he must learn to use his broad shoulders to support others in their time of need - and to bear the crushing disappointment he encounters in his own affairs.  Adam, a cut above the average English country-dweller (both mentally and physically), is in love with Hetty Sorrel, a beautiful (and empty-headed) young dairymaid.  However, when the heir to the local estates, Arthur Donnithorne, sees the pretty girl, events take an unfortunate and fateful turn (reminiscent of a certain Hardy novel), tainting the lives of all involved.

This novel, which I bought at a second-hand shop while I was living in Japan (and read to death!), has many similarities with Far From the Madding Crowd, and I constantly compare and confuse Adam and Gabriel (in my mind, they both look like an actor I saw in an ITV production of Hardy's novel!).  I'd have to say though that Eliot's story is the better of the two.  It has all of the wonderful depiction of how people in the country really lived, with less of the stark contrast between the language of the story and the philosophising.  Middlemarch is probably a better book, but Adam Bede is definitely my favourite Eliot novel.

*****

Alas, we must keep moving, and the way is becoming less pleasant now.  We pass through the bare, coal-stained hills of Eliot's Stonyshire, skirt the big industrial cities of the north, and venture out onto the wet, wild and windy Yorkshire moors - until we stumble, on completion of our journey, upon a pair of houses isolated on the moors: Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights...

The novel is actually a story within a story (within a story) as a large part of the tale is told third-(and occasionally fourth-) hand by the feisty, and perhaps not all that trustworthy, maidservant Nelly Dean.  Through her long fireside stories to the convalescing tenant of Thrushcross Grange, Mr. Lockwood, we learn about the strange events that unfolded in recent years.  All begins when Hareton Earnshaw, the owner of Wuthering Heights, returns from a trip to Liverpool bearing a rather unwelcome sort of gift - a dirty, dark stray who soon comes to be known by the name of Heathcliff.  While Earnshaw's two children are initially repulsed by the intruder, his daughter, Cathy, quickly becomes the best of friends with Heathcliff, a tie which will endure lifelong... and perhaps beyond.

Emily Brontë's classic story is nothing if not divisive (as recent Twitter conversations have shown!), but I love this book.  Melodramatic?  Definitely.  Exaggerated?  Of course.  Stretching reality of behaviour to its limits?  Without doubt.  That's not the point though.  In the self-centred and slightly deranged Cathy, Brontë created one of the most fascinating heroines of the Victorian age (with the best theme tune too!), and as for Heathcliff... well, any character who bangs his head against a tree until it's covered in blood has to be worth engaging with.

This was probably the first piece of serious literature that I ever read (voluntarily anyway), back in those wonderful days when Penguin brought out their one-pound popular classics and widened general access to the literary greats.  I still remember struggling through the book, all the time trying to work out who Cathy/Catherine/Linton/Hareton actually was.  By the end of the novel, despite this difficulty, I was hooked on reading 'proper' books :)

*****
Alas, we must now turn our backs on the world of fiction; our time here is done.  And so, with our journey at an end, it's time to leave 19th-century England behind and return to the realities of 21st-century Melbourne: a large amount of planning to do for next term, a mountain of bills to pay and two noisy (but lovely) daughters to pay attention to.

Until next time :)

Tony's Month of Rereading

The other day, as I was idly flicking scrolling through my reading list (yes, it exists - it's on Excel, and it's growing longer by the day...), I happened to notice that my reading had slipped into a worrying pattern of late, with the last few months showing an alarming lack of books read for the second time (or more).  I decided to investigate this phenomenon further and instigated a thorough audit of my list for rereads - with a disturbing outcome.  Where in 2009 (from 93 books read) 34 books were rereads, and in 2010 (from 91 books) 22 were old friends, the result for the first half of 2011, from an impressive 67 books, was just... 6 :(

While some of you may be starting to wonder what the point of this post is - and others may be applauding my turn towards unfamiliar fiction -, there is a method in my madness.  You see, as I took up my usual, nay habitual, stance in front of my bookcases to muse upon this issue, noticing the many hundred paperbacks arrayed in front of me, a novel, and quite unpleasant, thought occurred to me...

If I'm only going to read new books, and have no intention of giving them a second go, then what is the point of my buying any books at all?!

A scary thought, and one I dismissed rather rapidly; however, it did make me think that I had been neglecting my old friends in favour of new and shinier ones - all of which brings me to the point of this post (and yes, there is one)...

Welcome to Tony's Reading List's Rereading July :)

That's right - I have decided that for the following month, it's in with the old and out with the new, a hello to familiar friends while new books are ignored, shunned and left to gather dust in the corner.  There are only three rules to Fight Club Rereading July (and you may talk about it to your heart's content):

1) The book must be somewhere on my shelves
2) I must have read it at least once (and possibly several times) before
3) The last reading must have occurred before I began my blog (1/1/09)

After a leisurely perusal of my collection, the following books clamoured to be read:

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto

Die Verwandlung by Franz Kafka

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Adam Bede by George Eliot

One Man's Bible by Gao Xingjian

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Seven Shades of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

The above list comprises a nice collection of old friends, representing a fair cross-section of my reading tastes: some V-Lit, J-Lit, a German-language classic, a smattering of translated fiction and a few good old Aussie novels.  I've already kicked off the fun with Far From The Madding Crowd and am very happy with my choice - in the long, cold Melbourne winter, it's nice to have a bit of comfort reading :)

You are welcome, dear reader, to join me (or not) - here's hoping for a wonderful month of things I've read before...