North and South

I watched the British miniseries North and South and just had to read the book.  Wives and Daughters which is considered Gaskell's best is more fun.  This book has more of a social message and is different from that book but just as good.  It's also a romance. This deals with mill workers who are on strike.  Margaret Hale, the main character of the book, feels for the workers and even becomes friends with a worker Bessy.  Her father tutors the owner of the mill the hard-hearted Mr. Thornton.   She hates him at first.  However, the two gradually fall in love.  There's an interesting subplot with Margaret's troubled brother but that is wrapped up by the end.  Gaskell is one of the more famous female authors of the 1800s.  I've got to read more of her and generally female authors from that time period.   

Haunted Child Joe Penhall

This play was just ok.  I've heard that this isn't Penhall's best work so I'll read another play.  It's about an absent father who comes back to his family.  He's been brainwashed by a cult. The reason why he came back is that he wants to sell his belongings to the cult. His wife strongly objects to this.  The ending isn't surprising but it is realistic and kind of a happy ending.  I really do need to read more plays.  I was really into them as a teenager but then other genres took over.    

The Life and Death of Harriet Frean

This is a bleak short book from a British novelist.  It deals with a woman who wants to please her family and do the right thing.  However, "the right thing" may not always bring you happiness.  For instance, she falls in love with her best friend's fiancee.  He reciprocates these feelings.  Yet she decides not to go through with it because it would hurt her best friend.  I found this a different twist to this usual story. Friendship is not the most important thing.  You should think about your own self-interests too. It turns out to be the only love of Harriett's life. Harriett eventually becomes just a distant memory to the guy and lands up a spinster.  Her mother does something stupid as well just to save a few bucks and it jeopardizes Harriett's happiness as well.   There was a great company once called Virago Modern Classics that focused on mostly obscure woman writers.  Every once in a while I read a book that they published.  It's fascinating to read what these women of the past had to say.

Her Husband

I absolutely love Diane Middlebrook's biography on Anne Sexton.  So when I found out that she did a biography on Sylvia Plath I just had to read it.  I've already read a book on Sylvia Plath a few months ago, along with rereading The Bell Jar and her poems.  I have to admit that I'm not the best reader of poetry.  I find it hard.  I'm in my 30's and just getting into it.  Until I got into Sylvia Plath I never heard about Ted Hughes before. (I'm a beginner.)  I was surprised to find that this book is mostly about Ted Hughes.  It first covers their marriage and the writing process they had when they lived together.  Then the rest of the book is about Ted, his other poetry works, his second marriage, and a few of the flings he had.  I've got to read a book of his poetry.  In Sylvia's lifetime, she was just known as his wife who also wrote.  Now he's living in her shadow.  I think that what he did with her journals was horrible.  He burned one and "lost" the other.  But I don't know if I would have done differently if I was in his shoes.

Frost in May

This focuses on Nanda a girl in a Catholic school and her eventual expulsion. Her father is a new convert and happily sends her off to the school. Nanda wants to please and accept the lessons given by her teachers.  She even converts a girl.  This also looks at her friendships with the girls at the school.  I especially liked the dialogue between Nanda and Leonie.

Nocturnes

 I read The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly and I liked it so I decided to read this short story collection.  It was all right.  Frankly, I was hoping for more.  I plan to read the sequel to it though.  The story that really stood out was The Reflecting Eye about a detective trying to find out the reason for why a girl’s photograph is in a mailbox by a house that was a crime scene.  The detective and another man in the story had their children killed so they’re naturally upset and want to solve the case.  I also liked The Inkpot Monkey about a mediocre author and the inkpot that helps him finally become a good writer.  It reminded me of Little Shop of Horrors in the best way.    The first story The Cancer Cowboy Rides was good as well.  It reminded me of Stephen King about a man who passes on an evil disease to people who come his way.

Mrs. Warren's Profession

This was a controversial play when it first staged.  It only lasted a night.  It’s about a daughter who never really has known her mother.  She just begins to know her and is horrified that her mother owns a brothel.  Also, the boy she is interested in is her half-brother.  This play deals with hypocrisy as the girl didn’t mind her mother paying for her education but from a brothel well that’s different.  I didn’t pick a side when I was reading as I could see where both women come from.  I was shocked when I found out that my library didn’t have a George Bernard Shaw play in their collection.  Shouldn’t he be mandatory to libraries?  

The Wings of the Dove

This Henry James book is good but way too long.  It was around 500 pages and I felt that it could have trimmed down a bit as the audience already gets the point of the novel after a while. It is about Kate and Merton, a couple that keeps their relationship private.  Kate knows that the wealthy Milly Theale is ill.  She tells Merton to get into Milly’s world seeing fortune ahead.  However, things don’t go exactly as planned.  I watched a BBC version of this from the 70’s and it was all right.   

Jane Eyre

I haven’t read this book for six years so it needed a revisit.  It’s still brilliant and there’s no question of it being a classic that has endured time.  Hollywood hasn’t figured out how to do a great version of this yet.  The William Hurt version I watched recently was a dud.  There was no mystery to Mr. Rochester in that movie.   Jane Eyre is the story of a homely girl becoming a governess and her relationship with her master Mr. Rochester.  Yet there’s one major drawback his crazy wife in the attic.  Women didn’t really have many options at the time of Jane Eyre time though.  It was either Mr. Rochester or Mr. Rivers.  I have to admit Mr. Rochester is far more interesting.   My older sister told me that Charlotte’s Villette is pretty good too so I purchased that recently. 

Wives and Daughters

I watched the BBC miniseries first and then I decided to read it.    It is unfinished since Gaskell died but the reader can pretty much figure out what happened afterward.  It is the story of Molly Gibson whose widowed father marries again.  Although she doesn’t get along with her stepmother that great Molly does get along with her stepsister Cynthia.  Cynthia manages to catch the fancy of the guy that Molly Gibson has a crush on Roger Hamley.   However, Cynthia has a past and it manages to come back and harm her.  I noticed that the stories behind the Hamley family weren’t as told about in the British miniseries.  It’s too bad about that.  I liked the novel overall.  This was my first Gaskell book.  I read The Bronte Myth earlier which criticized Gaskell for feminizing Charlotte Bronte.  I’m glad I took a chance on Gaskell anyway.  4/5

Pictures of Hollis Woods

Hollis’ foster mom Josie is experiencing Alzheimer’s so Hollis fearing she’ll be taken away runs away with her.  Hollis remembers when she lived with a loving family that worked except an accident scared her away.  Ultimately Josie needs care and everything in the book is resolved nicely.  Although this book was predictable, the characters seemed real and were likable.  You root for the main character.  This won the Newberry Honor.  

A Solitary Blue

This is the story of Jeff the guitar player in the Tillerman books.  His mother abandoned him when he was young.  She’s trying to get back in his life somewhat.  However, she’s cruel and manipulative.  He just wants to stay with his father, a professor.  Dicey from the previous Tillerman cycle book doesn’t come into the last third of the book.  It turns out that Dicey and Jeff have more in common than what was assumed in the previous books.  This was a good book although I have to admit I was hoping for the focus to be more on the Tillerman family.  

Expensive People

Joyce Carol Oates really knows how to start a novel.  She begins this book with the narrator saying that they are a child murderer meaning that they are a child who does murders.  This book shows the character as he goes to private school and his home life.  Joyce Carol Oates decides to include a short story in the middle of the book which I thought came across as a bit awkward and showed less focus on the novel itself.  The specific murder did come across as somewhat of a surprise for me although I should have seen it coming.  I’m more impressed by her short stories but I’m going to read more of her early novels.  

The Bronte Myth

This is not so much a biography but an examination of the myth that surrounds the Brontes.  It says that rather than focusing on the lives of these three women (Anne, Emily, and Charlotte) that people should focus on their literary efforts.   It tears apart Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte which domesticated her.  It contradicts itself when it says that Anne is ignored but doesn’t even contribute a chapter of her to the book.  Charlotte gets the majority of the book and Emily has a few chapters devoted to her.  I’ll just have to read a biography of Anne’s life myself.  I agree with the book that the movie Devotion from Hollywood in the 40’s wasn’t that good.  I never heard about the myth that Branwell, their drunken brother, wrote Wuthering Heights.  Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca) even wrote a book about that so I’m planning to read it sometime. 3/5

The Love Object

I never heard of Edna O’Brien until goodreads came out with a list of the best short story collections ever.  A comment suggested that this should be put on the list.  I found it a rewarding collection and will read more of O’Brien.  Sister Imelda reminded me of Madchen in Uniform.  It’s a story about a student who has a crush on a nun.  The Connor Girls was probably my favorite story about a girl’s recollection of two strange sisters and their love lives.  The Doll was also interesting about a teacher stealing a doll away from one of her students.  

Eyes of the Killer Robot

This is like the billionth book I’ve read from Bellairs. He’s a fun writer. It’s about a robot that when you put eyes into it, it becomes evil.  The professor and Johnny Dixon’s original intent was to receive 10,000 from a baseball contest from this robot.  However, there’s more on their plate now with the inventor of the robot on their trail.  I’m really hoping that the upcoming The House with a clock in its walls movie is good.  If it is it could introduce John Bellairs to a generation of new readers.

Jean Stafford The Savage Heart

I’ve read the Collected Stories of Jean Stafford and The Mountain Lion. (I still need to read The Boston Adventure.)  She is a pretty much-forgotten writer from the 50’s which is sad as she was quite good.  I decided to read a biography of her since I was curious about her.  This book concentrates on her turbulent marriage to poet Robert Lowell and her problems with alcoholism.  It’s sad to read the final parts of the book as she was suffering from writer’s block for years.  I liked how the biographer went into detail about many of her short stories including ones which for some reason weren’t put in the Collected Stories of Jean Stafford.  Some of them sounded cool.  I don’t think we’ll be seeing a complete stories collection though. Unfortunately, the biographer didn’t put the short stories mentioned in the index.  I was thinking in the future that I might want to read the collected stories again and contrast the stories with what the biographer had to say but I can’t do that. 

Agnes Grey

This was the first novel written by the underrated Anne Bronte.  It discusses the life of a governess.  The first family she has are cruel people.  Agnes gets outraged when she sees the boy mistreat a bird.  She teaches him a violent lesson with the birds which results in her getting fired.  With the next family she steadily becomes friends with the flirtatious Rosalie who Agnes feels for after she ends up in an unhappy marriage.  Things are all right in the end as Agnes gets the man you want for her as well Mr. Weston, a parson.  Anne’s masterpiece is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall but this is a promising start.   I hope that Masterpiece Theatre does a production of it one day.  

The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford

Jean Stafford is a pretty much-forgotten author from the 50’s.  I read her novel The Mountain Lion and was highly impressed by it.   So I read her collected short stories which won the Pulitzer Prize.  The best story The Echo and the Nemesis is about a fat rich girl and her skinny friend.  The fat girl is haunted by her dead beautiful twin sister.  She tries to lose weight by going to places where the food is no good.  A Country Love story is about an ill husband and how the wife drifts into a dream world while all of it is going on.  Also, I liked The Healthiest Girl in Town about a girl who becomes friends with two girls with tuberculosis and lies about her father’s health just to fit in.  Jean Stafford does excellently on stories about adolescence.  Another story which deals with children is Bad Characters which is about a girl who becomes friends with a thief.  A Reading Problem about a girl who is finding it hard to find a place to read and finds it at the jail.  Stafford is an author that deserves another look.  

Dicey's Song

This is a good sequel to Homecoming.  In some ways, it’s better because the first book kind of drifted when the family was homeless.  In this the Tillerman family is being raised by the grandmother.  I liked the kids in the book.  They are all explored in this movie. A number of things happen in this book like Dicey gets a job at a grocery store and ends up helping the owner run the store.  She becomes friends with a guitarist and a girl named Mina.  Dicey’s sister Maybeth has problems learning how to read but becomes proficient at music.  It was a good book and I can see why it won the Newbery Medal as the characters feel real. 

The Seagull

I like this play.  It’s the first Chekhov play I’ve read.  It’s about a struggling writer, an actress, and a famous writer.  The actress is dating the struggling writer but dumps him aside for a famous writer who mistreats her. The struggling writer meets her again but it’s not a happy ending.  I watched the BBC Stephen Rea tv movie of this and liked it.  I’m not interested in the recent movie as I don’t see why it would merit a PG-13 rating.  

A Doll's House

A teacher I had insisted that Nora was both the antagonist and the protagonist of this story.  Actually, I think that this play could be examined in many ways.  Everyone is a villain in some ways and yes like Nora sometimes to themselves.  Nora is blackmailed by a banker named Krogstad for the forgery of a loan she committed years ago.  The news eventually is found out by her husband.  Nora begins to want to explore her own personal growth instead of what society dictates for a woman.  This was the first Ibsen play I read and I’ve read a number since.  I wish the Jane Fonda version were available as I think she’s a good actress and would pull this off.  

Them Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates’ book begins in an explosive way.  A girl Loretta finds the boy besides her in bed dead.  There’s no doubt it was her brother who killed him.  Then the rest of the book concentrates on her kids Maureen and Jules.  Maureen goes through prostitution and has an affair.  Jules also is questionable.  The book ends with the character Jules participating in the race riots of the 60’s.  I like Joyce Carol Oates stories more but this was all right.  I’ll probably read the other books in the Wonderland Quartet.  

Count d'Orgel's Ball

Raymond Radiguet wrote two books this, and Devil in the Flesh.  I remember liking the later more.  I need to reread it.  Count d’Orgel’s Ball is about Francois, a twenty-year-old who comes from a well to do bourgeois family. He meets the d’Orgels, a distinguished upper-class couple.  Francois finds him attracted to the wife Mahaut.  She likes him as well.  The wife, Francois, and the husband Anne are drawn into a triangle that has devastating effects on the wife.  The author died at 20.  This is pretty distinguished for someone of that age.  Jean Cocteau, a great writer in himself revised this book which says a lot.  

Lisa and Lottie

This German book was the source that the classic Hayley Mills’ movie The Parent Trap was based on.  It mirrors the two in that the girls meet in summer camp and switch places.  Also, there is a prospective woman for the father as well.  Other than that it is different.  The problem is that the composer father spends too much time composing in a studio across town.  He doesn’t spend enough time with his family.  Eventually, everything is resolved and it ends happily ever after.  I like The Parent Trap better though since it’s more spunky.  

The Troll Garden

The Troll Garden was a short story collection written by Willa Cather.  I found the stories in this book just ok until I read Paul’s Case.  It’s about a troubled teenager.  I was under the mistaken notion that Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye was the first work to do this.  (I’ve read The Member of the Wedding.  She is only 12.)  Since this got published in 1905 it’s obviously not true.  In this story, Paul gets expelled from school.  He evens steals some money and runs away.  It all ends rather tragically.  I’ve been getting into Willa Cather’s work lately.  I’ve read Death comes from the Archbishop and O Pioneers this year.  I feel there is more to come in this blog. 3/5

Homecoming

When I was 11 I quit reading children’s literature.  My older sister told me that I would regret it.  However, at 25, I decided to revisit the genre.  It amazes me how imaginative and innocent they are.  Too many adult books just resort to trash to make a buck.  I remember liking Homecoming when I was a kid so I decided to read it again.  My vague memory of this book was all wrong.  I remembered a science fiction book which it definitely is not.  Some children are abandoned by their mother.  It turns out that it’s a complicated situation though.  The oldest Dicey becomes the leader of the family.  A third of the book is just them surviving trying to find food and money.  Then you meet their cousin Eunice and their grandmother.  It’s interesting who ends up taking care of them.  Not everything ends the way you think it well.  I’m going read the sequel Dicey’s Song soon.  

My Brilliant Career

This is a semi-autobiography about a charismatic girl who rejects all the suitors that come her way and loves independence.  However, she falls for a guy Harold and you as a reader like him too much but you know that this gets in the way of her spirit.  When this book was published it was a scandal in Australia.  Franklin wouldn’t have it published again until a decade after her death.  It’s a feminist classic and I recommend the movie as well.  Miles Franklin had other men in her life but she never married.  She continued writing as well.  I need to read the sequel.

Kwaidan

The movie of this is much superior to the book.  That is not to say the book doesn’t have imaginative tales.  It’s just that there was so much visual imagery and it took more time to develop the stories.  Hearn was not Japanese.  He moved there and found much inspiration.  I liked The Story of O-Tei about a girl who promises to come back again into a guy’s life.  It was sweet but of course with a supernatural edge.  Yuki-Onna is an example of a story that was much better in the movie.  A five-page story became a thriller onscreen.  The best story happens to be the best part of the movie too. The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi about a blind man who is covered with Japanese writing for protection.  I won’t tell more.  You have to see and read it for yourself.  

Trial Balance

This collection includes stories that William March wrote from the 20’s-40’s.  William March is most known for The Bad Seed, the classic novel that really started the evil child genre.  He didn’t get to see how successful it would be becoming a play and an Oscar-nominated movie.  He died the same year it was published. I was happy to find that he’s great at short stories as well.  The best story in this collection is easily the comic Woolen Drawers about a promiscuous woman who wears woolen drawers, instead of fancy petticoats one day.  She is too embarrassed to sleep with her date.  Her date mistakes her for being a prudish woman and falls for this image.  Gradually the woman changes as well.   I also like George and Charlie about an ordinary man who is changed by a radical, philosophical thinker.  A Shop in St. Louis is about a girl who doesn’t put family as a priority, saving money for a business elsewhere.  She comes to regret her financial decisions.  Miss Daisy is another story worth reading.  It’s about a boy who meets a phony old woman.   This is out of print but wasn’t hard to find.

The Wife of his Youth and other stories

I really like Chesnutt.  He was a mixed author.  He stated that he was 7/8’s white but was proud of his African American background.  I read his short story The Sheriff’s Children for school in my American Literature class.  It was one of the best stories featured in this collection.  It’s about a sheriff who realizes the African American person in his jail is his child.  I also liked The Wife of his Youth where a dark black woman tells a man a story about how she got sold into slavery but is still looking for the husband that she lost.  There’s a cool twist.  Also, A Matter of Principle shows hypocrisy well.  The Bouquet is a lovely story about a black girl who dearly loves her teacher but can’t attend her funeral because of racism.  I never heard of Chesnutt before until this year.  He’s not that well known compared to authors like Zora Heale Hurston but he’s worth discovering.  

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

  

I watched the Tara Fitzgerald tv version.  I had mixed feelings about it.  I liked it but it was too graphic for me.  I liked the ending more in the tv movie because the book doesn’t really have much of an ending.  This was written by the underrated Bronte sister Anne, the first book I’ve read of her.  Her sister Charlotte called this book a mistake.  I wonder if this is because Anne based some of Mr. Huntingdon on their drunken brother.  But then it could have been all imagination.  It’s about an artist Helen Huntingdon who has escaped her alcoholic husband with her kid.  A good guy Gilbert Markham falls for her.  However, she tells Gilbert the story of her nightmarish marriage.  At first, her husband Mr. Huntingdon fools her.  Then she sees what a rotten man he is.  Yet at the end when his health deteriorates she comes to his bedside.   Anne only wrote two books.  What a pity.  I bought the other one and plan to read it sometime.  

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

I was indifferent to The Complete Stories of Truman Capote at first.  I wasn’t impressed with the first few stories.  There was a gothic Southern feel to them but they didn’t capture my attention.  I felt that the middle of the book brought the good stories.  The best story here is a prison love story called A Diamond Guitar.  I also liked Master Misery about a woman who sells her dreams.  As well I enjoyed A Christmas Memory about a boy and his elderly friend making fruitcakes mostly for strangers.  The only story I didn’t like here was Mojave.  It was cynical and didn’t belong in a collection of stories mostly about small-town life.  Capote was a multitalented writer, writing nonfiction, novellas, and novels.  This shows what he could do in one form.  

Hester

In Hester, John Vernon walks off with the bank’s money.  Catherine Vernon saves the town from ruin.  After this, she is in a position of power and is treated with utmost respect. Later on John’s daughter, Hester and Catherine are enemies.  Hester doesn’t know about the act of her father yet despite this the two mutually hate each other.  Throughout the book, Hester has a number of suitors: Harry, Roland, and Edward.  Edward is the one she wants, although Catherine looks upon him as a son.  It isn’t until Edward does something of a dishonest nature that Catherine and Hester build a relationship.  I read this book because I don’t know enough about female writers from the 1800’s, that is except the Brontes and Jane Austen. Although it was more than 400 pages I got through it in a reasonable time.  The author Margaret Oliphant wrote works about the supernatural as well.  I'll have to look into those. 3/5

The Man in the High Castle

I’m disappointed that the Amazon series of this has nudity as the book doesn’t include that.  I won’t be a viewer of that show as I’m trying to watch the media I see. I’m sad about that as this has much potential.  Philip K. Dick’s book though is amazing.  It’s about a world where Germany won World War II.  American antiques before the war have become a big thing among the Japanese.  An antique dealer Robert Childan discovers that one of his antiques is a fake.  What he doesn’t know is that most of the antiques are fakes and they are coming from the Wyndam-Matson Corporation.  A Jew who has disguised himself named Frank Frink and his friend Ed decade to make jewelry for a living, a business which is first discarded but then is looked upon as a smart idea.  All of the characters are reading this banned bestseller going around called The Grasshopper lies Heavy, an alternate history book about if Germany lost the war.  I also liked the Japanese couple Paul and Betty who treasure the past and listen to old blues records.  I really need to get into that genre.  My sister was into that way back when we were in high school.  I would hear it in the background of our house and tell myself I need to listen to her stuff.  It’s about time I got around to it.  Anyway, I read The Man in the High Castle book within a week. I found it riveting.   I already read Do Androids dream of electric sheep years ago and thought it was fantastic as well.  I like Philip K. Dick and plan to read more of his books in the future.   4/5

The Blood of the Vampire

This was a pretty entertaining vampire book from the 1800's.  It was released around the same time as Dracula.  It doesn't have the traditional neck biting so it's different.  It's about a woman who drives people to their death.  First, it happens with a baby she takes care of.  It also happens with lovers.  The first lover is driven away by her past.  Her father was a disturbed scientist and her mother a voodoo priestess. Then she meets a man who could care less about her past but unfortunately, his love isn't good enough to beat her curse.  You root for the girl but know she's destined to doom.   It didn't blow me away but it was interesting enough to read the whole way through. 3/5

The Ways of White Folks

I’ve never read Langston Hughes until my American Literature class where we learned about the Harlem Renaissance.  I read some of his poetry.  I was surprised at how easy it was to read and how unpretentious it was.  Poetry can be hard to read sometimes.  It’s a literary art form that I’ve never really gotten into.  I need to sometime though.  Anyway, I found out that Langston wrote a book of short stories.  I love short stories so I definitely had to read it.  The Ways of White Folks is easy to read and full of interesting stories about racial conflict.  Three stories stood out to me.  The Blues I’m playing is about an African American pianist who has a rich patron but cares more about romance than music, something her patron doesn’t understand.  Little Dog is about a middle-aged woman who has a crush on a black man.  She asks him for dog bones as an excuse for his company.  The final story though is pretty cool.  Father and Son is about a mixed boy who refuses to let his white father have control over him.  The story ends pretty tragically.   The stories were interesting and it was involving enough that I read it within a few days.  I definitely need to look more into Langston Hughes’ poetry.  4/5

O Pioneers

Growing up I dismissed Willa Cather as probably a more adult Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I was not interested in reading her books.  This is weird since I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder as a kid.  However, I had to read Death comes for the Archbishop for school and I loved that book.  It was moving and yet funny at times too.  I had to read more.  I watched the Jessica Lange tv movie of O Pioneers before I read it.  Yet it was forgettable.  I forgot most of it before I read the book which is just fine.  This book is not boring.  It has murder and adultery in it.   The book is centered around Alexandra, a smart businesswoman and her brothers who farm the land.  She has a thing for her friend Carl.  Alexandra's brother Emil falls for a perky married woman Marie and that eventually leads to their downfall.  Luckily my library has a number of Willa Cather's books and I will be reading more.  3.5/5 stars