Firstly, Happy New Year - I hope you've been sticking to your resolutions, or just thrown them out of the window, already disregarded your shiny new gym membership, opened the third tin of roses your in-laws bought you and haven't had one piece of fruit since the 30th December, because if you are in that situation, you're not alone. You're even more not alone if you didn't make any resolutions, because I didn't! I just made one promise to myself that I would finish all the books I was bought for Christmas in one year. Last year saw me enter head first (or eyes) into Classics, the more Classic, the better. I'm talking Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, D.H.Lawrence and the rest of the dead bunch. If the author (or authoress) is not dead, I'm not interested. I fell in love with Jane Austen about two years ago when I read Emma, which isn't the best book, its a bit long and nothing happens but Austen wrote in a very interesting style that had you hooked. So I started the year with another Austen Classic, but perhaps not the most well known...
This did not fail to entertain, my favourite Austen novel, a lot like Pride and Prejudice but with more personality-driven characters and a past that unfolds throughout the book - a very clever piece and quite modern for its time. I wrote my second ever blog entry on this - so take a look to see a summary of the book in more detail - there is a part where Captain Wentworth writes a letter to the heroine Anne Elliot and I almost cried - says a lot about a book! This book certainly changed my view on classics and made me think that I could actually like them. It also taught me that back then Children were classed as "invalid" and young ladies were sure to get a cold if they were to stand outside in winter. And that would never do.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Of course this is a Classic classic; I wasn't expecting the amount of detail but it is quite a long book, with a lot more characters than the film and a better storyline than the film. There isn't a lot I can say about this one as it speaks for itself, I highly recommend it as a summer read when you have time to read several chapters at a time as the story is difficult to follow at times - although always interesting. This made me quite in love with Jane Austen and my Tumblr blog description now starts with "Jane Austen books..." and I was right behind the woman who wanted Austen's face on paper money - I've calmed down a bit now as I started to read Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey but just couldn't get into them. So I decided to start on a new venture...
Well this was an eye opener, Oscar Wilde, the man who was sent to prison for "indecent acts with another man" and was married to a woman he couldn't stand, all this alongside having this book banned in most countries for a while. All of this comes across in his writing, there is clearly a man who has strong feelings for another man and another man who is very unhappily married, whose wife is always flapping around fussily. That aside, this book is by far the strangest for its year, (see my blog post on it for an intro), I didn't write in my post about the ending as Dorian Gray went crazy, he stayed young forever but his portrait became older and more withered as he committed more indecent acts that he hadn't had to worry about as it was only the portrait that was affected. The story is about love, death, drugs, sex, lies, murders, trust and friendship all of which are flipped into their opposites at some point during the book. The ending got a little obvious during the last few chapters but the way it was written was the work of a great author. A great read and a very different style and plot to that of sweet, love and marriage of Austen.
Vilette - Charlotte Brontë
I wanted to write a blog post about this but I didn't have anything to write about, nothing happens in this book and it is 615 pages long and 1/10th of it is written in French - not so bad if you know a few phrases but having to constantly check whole conversations with the appendix got rather annoying, especially whilst sunbathing! But, I'll give this book credit it was a bit of a The Picture of all over again. This was about ghosts, loneliness, love, unrequited love and death. I first was drawn to this book as it was about a woman who travels to France in order to be a teacher at an all girls school - the girls who were described as rather outrageous and often out of control, which slightly reminded me of my all girl school days... but the most outrageous thing they do is go out at 10pm, don't return till 1am and attend a ball without a Chaperone - absolute carnage in those days. But the story eventually progressed slightly but had the worst, saddest, most confusing ending ever. I was convinced we were getting somewhere by chapter 47 but we didn't and it hit a wall and the abrupt ending was explained as because Brontë had lost her two sisters (who were also authresses) and couldn't ask them for advice. Deary me, poor excuse Charlotte, nevertheless it was an experience and required a lot of effort to plough through but there really isn't much of a story line to it. There were a lot of storms which caused amnesia, ghosts of nuns, jealousy and a bit about Catholics and Protestants which was interesting but I wouldn't go galloping to this book in a hurry.
Lady Chatterly's Lover - D.H.Lawrence
Ah, Lawrence, a fellow Midlander who was clearly rather sexually frustrated as his book was also banned from England and the US as it contains rather "explicit content" if your idea of explicit content is something along the lines of not actually that explicit. Although somethings you read and think "oh my, Lady Chatterly!". The story is quite sad so far (I'm on chapter 4!) Lord Chatterly was left paralysed from the waits down in the First World War - which leaves Lady C's life rather "unfulfilled" shall we say. If you're currently wondering why this book is in my possession as I'm usually used to Austen's novels where characters don't even kiss before they get married, my mother said she read it as a 17 year old and thought I'd like it, seeing as I like classics. We'll see about that. So anyway, Lord C suggests that Lady C gets a "beau" shall we say. Which is a little too late for him to suggest and she has gone and done it anyway. As I'm only 30 pages in there is clearly a lot of the story left to go and I'm sure it will all work out for the Chatterly's...
If you are thinking of reading a Classic, start with Persuasion, if you like a bit more of a modern twist with a bit of 1920's 50 shades try Lady Chatterly's Lover - but if you really want a classic that you'll already know the story to try Pride and Prejudice (the Kiera Knightly film is brilliant but it is miles off the book which is a lot more descriptive and explains more about several other families). Either way these books over the past year have made me think, some quotes (especially those in Dorian Gray) are so powerful you want to get a poster made with it on and pronounce it to the world. My favourite of these is:
"Never marry Dorian, men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious, both are disappointed"
Happy reading
RHS x
