Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (1838, 485 pages)

When I saw Allie of A Literary Odyssey was hosting a read a long on Oliver Twist I decided it was time to reacquaint myself with Dickens.   About 15 years or so ago I read all of his novels in publication order.   It was one of the great reading experiences of my life.    During this period I read nothing but Dickens and I was lucky enough to be in London shortly after I finished the last book and I went to the Dickens House Museum.       Ford Madox Ford in The March of Literature  says the best of Dickens is on a par with Chaucer and Dante.  (By best of Dickens Ford means Great Expectations, David Copperfield and Bleak House).  

Oliver Twist is Dickens's second novel.      Dickens (1812 to 1870-UK) , though not an orphan like  Oliver, grew up in extreme poverty.     He was a professional writer and his books were all initially published in serial fashion in popular magazines.  


One of the most famous lines in all of English literature can be found in Oliver Twist.   Even those of us who have not read the novel  yet most likely know it:   "Please sir, I want some more".    Numerous movies have been made of Oliver Twist  and this scene in the orphanage is always one of the highlights.

The read along is generating a lot of good posts in which the various themes of the book are explored.  I will just make a few observations on the book.  To me  the best part of the book is the time we spend with Fagin and his youthful gang.     I did find it more than a bit annoying when Fagin was over and over referred to not by his name but as "The Jew".    I found the "evil" characters better realized and more interesting than the "good" ones.    I loved it when Dickens gave his  descriptions of life in London.    I felt very bad for Nancy and I hate Bill.

The book was a bit predictable and most people will know the plot from movies and even TV cartoons before they read it any way.    People who do not like his work sometimes say it is too sentimental.    This is what Oscar Wilde famously thought.  

After completing Oliver Twist I had an idea for an alternative ending.   Fagin and The Artful Dodger and the rest of the gang all  get transported to Australia.     Fagin founds a trading company which turns in time into one of the biggest banks in Australia.    He is treated as person of great import to his face but is still called "The Jew" behind his back.  Fagin is often quoted in local newspapers as he is famous for his astute observations.     He claims he never made the quotation most often attributed to him:   "I never know who the real thieves were until I started my own bank".     The Artful Dodger strikes it rich in an opal mine and ends up married to the daughter of an English Baron,  Charlie Bates starts a sheep ranch and marries into an Aborigine tribe.  The other dozen or so boys and girls that get transported all have their adventures.  


This time next year will be the 200th birthday of Dickens.   My guess is the book blog world will all over him then.    Oprah has picked two of his books for her book club, Great Expectations and Tale of Two Cities. 
Oliver Twist is not a "hard book" and you do not need a guide of any kind to enjoy it.     Give Oliver Twist a chance, have a little patience and I think you will be very glad you read it.    There are parts of Oliver Twist, in the descriptions of life in the poor side of London, that are simply amazing.

Mel u  
  

Elizabeth Bowen by Victoria Glendinning

Elizabeth Bowen by Victoria Glendinning (1977, 330 pages)

Elizabeth Bowen (1899 to 1973, Dublin) is a great writer.   So far I have read and posted on "Demon Lover" which I think is her most popular short story and one of her novels The Last September.  I really enjoyed both of these works.   I was very happy to discover that Victoria Glendinning had written a biography of Bowen.  I have already read and posted on her biography of Leonard Woolf and her biography of Vita Sackville-West, Vita, the role model for the central character in Virgina Woolf's Orlando.     

I like this  book best of the three works by Glendinning I have read so far and I liked the other two a really lot.   I like Elizabeth Bowen so much as a person and a writer.  Bowen was brought up in a castle in Ireland, Bowen court.   She was Anglo-Irish.   Even though her family had been Lords there for 300 plus years she was not Irish.   If you look at the pictures of Bowen you can find on the Internet she looks like a very serious very severe head mistress of a terribly expensive girl's academy.   She looks very intimidating.    You picture a woman who never took a drink or smoked a cigarette and would rather die than ever even kiss a man to whom she was not married. A woman devoid of humor of any kind  I was a bit shocked to learn she chain smoked (in this time smoking was not as looked down on as it is now), loved her Irish Whiskey and carried on a very passionate 30 year extra marital  relationship with a man some ten years younger than her.    She had a vast network of friends of all sorts.  She was a acquainted with many Bloomsbury figures but in simple terms pretty much out classed them all. 


    As we see from reading the biography, Bowen was very much pampered growing up and there is a sense in which she maintained a childlike quality in someways throughout her life.   This is not to be seen in a negative way, but in a way Wordsworth or maybe even Bob Dylan would approve.     She was a friend of Virginia Woolf and numerous other well known literary figures.   She was acquainted with Katherine  Mansfield and was good friends with Virginia Woolf.  Bowen is not the towering genius that Woolf is or the ground breaking artist that Mansfield was but in the end she just might be a writer from whom we can learn more and her stories all seem a lot of fun.    She had her ups and downs in life.  She had a strange marriage to man she very much loved.   She was a great spender of money and loved to host big parties and have guests  come stay a long time at the castle, Bowen Court.  I think the scene in the book I loved the most was the one describing the visit of Eudora Welty to Bowen Court.  Welty worked on one of her short stories while she was there.   I know we all would have loved to been allowed to sit in tea time!


This is a rich book.  Bowen did a lot and wrote a lot of very good books.   Long term Glendinning says she may be most remembered for her short stories.   She traveled all over Europe and the USA giving talks and workshops.   At times she needed money and she wrote well paid magazine articles.  


I got the feeling Glendinning really loves Bowen.  She definitely deepened my understanding and appreciation for Bowen and her works.  I liked this book so much I delayed reading the last few pages for three days.   


Elizabeth Bowen was a class act pure and simple. 

  I like to imagine groups of writers conversing with each other in a real way, not just in the Great Conversation.  I imagined Bowen having tea with Colette, Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield and saying "ladies don't give the air to the men in your life that your are desperate for their company."   When Virginia Woolf tells everyone they need a room of their own to write in, Bowen responds, "oh if you like you can come write in a room in my castle like Eudora did."   



Mel u


  

Three Great 2011 Reading Challenges

This year I am cutting way back in the challenges I am doing.   Last year I signed up for 47 challenges and completed 44.   It was fun but this year I will do at the most ten.   With these three challenges I have signed up for seven so far in 2011.

GLBT Challenge

This will be the second year I have participated in this challenge.    I think it is a very well run challenge.   This year I  will focus on Colette.    I will read more Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde and Yukio Mishima also.   My blog will always be focused on Katherine Mansfield also.    I just discovered via reading Susan Sontag's "Notes on  Camp", Ronald Firbanks and I hope to read him in 2011.   I read a bit of him online earlier today and loved it.    If anyone knows where I can read a lot of his work on line please leave a comment.   He is now public domain.    I think once you read him you will for sure wonder where he has been all your literary life.

You can sign up here and read the rules for the GLBT Challenge

Oscar Wilde Challenge

Melissa at Armchair Archives is hosting the first Oscar Wilde reading challenge.   I have read The Picture of Dorian Grey a  couple of times and some of the plays.   I recently got into his short stories and hope to read a few more of them this year.   They are quite good if you have not read them.

You can sign up and read the rules here for the Oscar Wilde Challenge.

2011 Chunkster Challenge

This will be my 3rd year of participation in this challenge.   It involves read books at least 450 pages long.   I sign up to support this very well run challenge.   You can commit to various levels.  I will commit to read 4 books over 450 pages.

You can read the rules and sign up here for the Chunkster Challenge

I am signing up for these challenges to have fun, learn about some new books, support the international community of book bloggers and to continue to build my contacts.  

I thank the hosts of these challenges for their efforts and look forward to reading the great reviews from other participants.

Mel u

"In The Flower of Age" by Colette- Observation on The Collected Stories of Colette by Robert Phelps

  "In the Flower of Age" by Colette   (1932, 6 pages, translated by Mathew Ward translated)

The Collected Stories of Colette edited and selected by Robert Phelps (1989, 606 pages)

"It's absurd to divide people into good or bad,  people are either charming or tedious"  from Lady Windemere's Fan
"

It was just a question of time until Colette (1873-to 1954, Paris, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) became part of my reading life.      I would have read her sooner but I do not read French and  translations of her work are not in the public domain.   I now own a copy of  The Collected Stories of Colette edited and selected by Robert Phelps which contains 100 of her short stories.    I will be reading and posting on these stories for a while to come, starting with the longer more substantial ones.  

Colette, Welcome to The Reading Life

I appreciate the work in assembling and translating 100 short stories.    The Collected Stories of Colette is a physically a beautiful book with a generous size type face.   I do not like the way the book is organized.   Phelps  has divided it up into sections based on what the stories are about.   I think  readers would be better served if the stories were in publication order, with the date of original publication in a note on page one of the story.   There are no dates of publication given on any of these stories.   The introduction tells us little or nothing of value about Colette.    I see myself doing at least 15 posts on Colette over the next few months and I will post  a bit on her life, art and cultural important in subsequent posts.    In addition to her huge literary output she heroically sheltered Jews from the Nazis in Paris during WWII, received a state funeral upon her death and is an iconic GLBT figure.    

"In the Flower of Age" is  a very interesting story that makes us rethink a lot of our assumptions about relationships based just on the beauty of one of the parties and the appreciation of the other party of that beauty.    This is a very fragile link and Colette does a wonderful job in this story about  an older still very full of life highly sophisticated person and his/her much younger lover which centers on just this matter. Most commentators quick summery of Colette's stories is going to be that they are about very worldly, sophisticated people, men and women very into fashion and culture and their domestic lives.    It is also about spectation.     The story does make use of a sort of surprise ending but it is, I  cannot help but say it, so sophisticated I marveled at it.      I am sorry to say that I do not think this story can be read online.     After Virginia Woolf died Elizabeth Bishop (more to come on her soon) said Colette was among her most admired living writers.


If anyone has any suggestions to help a Colette neophyte please leave a comment-

question-going back to 1964 and Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp", is Colette a camp?  

Mel u







    .  

"A Society" by Virginia Woolf A Wonderful Short Story

VW and her Father

"A Society" by Virginia Woolf (1921, six pages)

The Reading Life Virginia Woolf Project

"A Society" by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941-UK) was included in her first collection of short stories, Monday or Tuesday.     As the story opens a group of female friends have just finished their tea and they begin talking about their normal topic of conversation, namely how wonderful men are and how lucky any woman permanently attached to one is.     They start talking about the sad fate of a  member of the group, Poll.   Poll was left a fortune by her father under the condition  she read all the books in the London Library.     Unfortunately, Poll is so unattractive that not even her money will  attract a man to consider marrying her.    Poll begins to say how she hates having to read.    A discussion ensues based on some readings from books she has selected.   The men worshiping ladies cannot believe that men could have written such bad books.

One of the ladies comes up with a great idea:

But now that we can read, what prevents us from judging the results? Before we bring another child into the world we must swear that we will find out what the world is like.”
So we made ourselves into a society for asking questions. One of us was to visit a man-of-war; another was to hide herself in a scholar’s study; another was to attend a meeting of business men; while all were to read books, look at pictures, go to concerts, keep our eyes open in the streets, and ask questions perpetually. We were very young. You can judge of our simplicity when I tell you that before parting that night we agreed that the objects of life were to produce good people and good books. Our questions were to be directed to finding out how far these objects were now attained by men. We vowed solemnly that we would not bear a single child until we were satisfied.

The ladies go about this project for several years.   The reports of their visits are very funny, very clever and wicked social satire.    The interactions of the women with each other and the descriptions of their investigations are just so wonderful.    One lady disguises her self as a char-woman  and visits the rooms of Oxford dons.    I had to read her report three times it was so well done.

"A Society" can be read online

Mel u

Welcome to all Book Blog Hoppers Feb 5 to Feb 7

Welcome to all Book Blog Hoppers

Every Friday Jennifer of Crazy For Books hosts The Book Blogger Hop-The Book Blogger Hop is a great chance to meet new to you bloggers, find some new blogs to follow and gain some great readers for your own blog.   Every week about 275 or so bloggers from all over the world participate.    I have found some excellent new blogs this way and gained some wonderful readers.    I follow about 500 book blogs  and am always happy to find more.   If you follow me I will follow you.

   

   My blog for the last few months has been one third Asian literature, one third classics and one third short stories but I do read contemporary fiction also and even some YA once in a while.    I have various reading projects I am working on also.    My latest one is short stories by Australian writers of the 19th century and I also recently read  five stories by African writers in competition for the Caine Prize.    I am very into Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf.  

If you visit me please leave  a comment so I can return the visit-

Every week Jennifer poses an interesting question for us-

This we she asks us say what books we are reading now and why we are reading them

I am reading The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen because I really liked another of her books I read earlier, Last September.    I am also reading Oliver Twist for a Read a Long.    Most days I also read at least one short story.   

"Spunk" by Zora Neale Hurston- Short Story from the Harlem Renaissance

"Spunk" by Zora Neale Hurston (1925, 5 pages)


Zora Hurston (1881 to 1960-Alabama, USA) was one of the leading writers of the  Harlem Renaissance.   Hurston had a very interesting life.     Born in relative poverty she attended   Howard University until she was offered a scholarship  to attend Barnard college, an elite women's college at which she was the only person of color in attendance at the time.    She graduated, along with her very famous co-student Margaret Mead, with a degree in anthropology.     Her anthropological focus was on  the customs and speech of African-Americans living in the rural south of the USA.    Hurston studied and wrote about people from small towns in the Alabama and Florida very much as her mentor and former professor, Ruth Benedict did in her famous studies of the customs of the people of Polynesia.    Hurston also wrote and published a number of short stories, and novels.    Her most famous work was her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. ( Halle Barry played the lead character in a recent movie based on this novel.    It is too bad Hurston who died in poverty did not live to see this movie made!)   She co-wrote a play with Langston Hughes.  

In one of my posts for the Literary Book Blog Hop I said one of the things I do not really like in the works I read is attempts by writers to capture the speech of "country" people.    They often come across to me as patronizing, or worse.    "Spunk", in my opinion, illustrates why I said this.

"Spunk" is set in the deep rural south.   (You can almost localize it to rural Florida through the references to the trees in the story.)      "Spunk" centers on a married woman, her lover and her husband.   In a quarrel the lover kills the husband when he confronted him.        The husband had been pushed into fighting the other man by a group of his peers hanging out in front of a local store.     The lover then tells everyone he has been threatened  at night by a black bob cat who entered his house.    There is an interesting line at the close of the story so I will not tell more of the plot.

Hurston fell into disfavor among many people for her depiction of the speech of the characters in this story (and in her work generally.)      Her critics say she depicts the speech of the characters in her story in a fashion just as an extreme racist would.     As I read  the story how I thought that no publisher today would dream of publishing this story.    In addition to possible issues with the speech patterns the characters are depicted as violent people driven by their sexual impulses to kill one another over quarrels.   Hurston replied to her critics at the time, who included Ricard Wright, that she was simply a scientist recording what she saw.

"Spunk" is pretty good story.     It is historically interesting and you can read it online in under five minutes.
It is hard in 21th century not to see the depiction of the people in "Spunk" as pandering to the racial attitudes of Americans in  the 1920s.     You can decide in this brief sample if her critics might be right.

“Aw, Ah doan’t know. You never kin tell. He might turn him up an‘ spank him fur gettin’ in the way, but Spunk wouldn’t shoot no unarmed man. Dat razor he carried outa heah ain’t gonna run Spunk down an‘ cut him, an’ Joe ain’t got the nerve to go up to Spunk with it knowing he totes that Army 45. He makes that break outa heah to bluff us. He’s gonna hide that razor behind the first likely palmetto root an‘ sneak back home to bed. Don’t tell me nothin’ 'bout that rabbit-foot colored man. Didn’t he meet Spunk an‘ Lena face to face one day las’ week an‘ mumble sumthin’ to Spunk ‘bout lettin’ his wife alone?”


It only took me a few minutes to read this story.  It is well narrated and kept me interested.       I would endorse the story with the warning about the speech patterns.   It is part of American history.     Maybe it takes us a bit out of our comfort zone of political correct writing  styles but that is good once and a while.   


Teachers, would you teach a story like this today?




If you have read her work, what are your thoughts on her legacy?




Mel u