BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, by Evelyn Waugh, copyright 1944/1945 and then Laura Waugh made a renewed copyright in 1972/1973. My book was published by Back Bay books which looks to be a division of Little Brown and Company. The cover page says that is a companion to the PBS television series, so I might have to watch it. This is a book that starts in the 1940's because WWII is happening and Evelyn Waugh was recuperating in the Chagford and writing this book.
The book starts off with the narrator of the story Charles Ryder coming with his unit to Brideshead, where they are to set up camp. This gets him to remember the past and the people who lived at Brideshead. The Flyte family is a well-to-do family of four children, an estranged father who does not live at either of the properties and his wife who is very pious. Charles is introduced to this family through college, Sebastian Flyte becomes one of his college friends. It is interesting because there is very much more than a casual relationship between the two men.
We see multiple relationships and alliances, dissolution of the same and the feeling that all is not right with any of the characters. It is a nice historical piece written at the time of conflict. I am amused by the feeling you get as we got closer to the actual time line of Charles Ryder, the belief that the war would not come to much, followed by Germany not having enough money to wage war, followed by the bombings and still the feeling that it was happening to others. An interesting perspective.
It was a pretty fast read and the characters are intricately woven, I may have to look up some of his other books. History and relationships fascinate me.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Friday, June 10, 2016
What is on my book plate?
I have started BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh and should be done by the end of the month, I love smaller books. I also have in my possession, TROPIC of CANCER and ULYSSES so they will probably be my July books. I think is appropriate since Cancer is the astrological sign for July. I know it is a stretch. For book club I will be reading FLIGHT BEHAVIOR by Kingsolver, so I will have to see how far I get with the other two books. Have fun reading this summer.
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Review: Lolita
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov, published in France in 1955 and not until 1958 by the Putnam Publishing group. My book was published June 1997, Vintage Books a division of Random House. I must say I have a love hate relationship with this book. I hate the book because of the subject matter, I love the book because of how it was written.
You can tell that Vladimir was a poet because of the prose in the book, his use words and not graphic detail to talk about how Humbert Humbert and Lolita interacted. You knew what was happening without being hit over the head with the act. The story goes into the mind of a man obsessed with what he calls nymphets. He is blinded by his own desires that he does not see that it is a one-sided affair.
In the book towards the end of the story our narrator Humbert Humbert says that he did not want his story released until Lolita and he had passed, because he did not want her harmed by the book. Humbert suggests that the time of release would be around 2000. This is interesting to me because I feel that we have been inoculated with all sorts of criminal behavior. However, having said that I recently read that this book was made into a play with the girl character being older and still it was not well received. This subject is touched on by many of the shows we see and it always makes me cringe. So why was I able to read this book.
I almost stopped at part one in the book, just like many of the publishers who rejected the book. But I decided to carry on, simply because I wanted resolution in the book. What happens to the characters are they stuck in this relationship forever, does she ever get rescued, does anyone ever find out? All these questions plagued me as I read, and he talked of murder in the beginning without saying who, so I needed to find that out. It is so well written that there were times I felt some sympathy for Humbert Humbert, before coming back to the fact that he put himself in this position because of his predilection for nymphets.
In the back of the book Vladimir talks about what drove him to write this book. He said he wrote a short story in France after reading a story about an ape who was kept behind bars, who scientist trained to produce a sketch. The sketch the ape produced was the bars of his cage. That is how Lolita must have felt, if she did what Humbert wanted she got a treat, movie, tennis, party, but if she did not follow the rules she was not allowed to do anything outside of the house.
A good book that I would recommend for adults. The subject matter is off putting and trying to understand the psychology is just too complicated for younger readers, in my opinion.
You can tell that Vladimir was a poet because of the prose in the book, his use words and not graphic detail to talk about how Humbert Humbert and Lolita interacted. You knew what was happening without being hit over the head with the act. The story goes into the mind of a man obsessed with what he calls nymphets. He is blinded by his own desires that he does not see that it is a one-sided affair.
In the book towards the end of the story our narrator Humbert Humbert says that he did not want his story released until Lolita and he had passed, because he did not want her harmed by the book. Humbert suggests that the time of release would be around 2000. This is interesting to me because I feel that we have been inoculated with all sorts of criminal behavior. However, having said that I recently read that this book was made into a play with the girl character being older and still it was not well received. This subject is touched on by many of the shows we see and it always makes me cringe. So why was I able to read this book.
I almost stopped at part one in the book, just like many of the publishers who rejected the book. But I decided to carry on, simply because I wanted resolution in the book. What happens to the characters are they stuck in this relationship forever, does she ever get rescued, does anyone ever find out? All these questions plagued me as I read, and he talked of murder in the beginning without saying who, so I needed to find that out. It is so well written that there were times I felt some sympathy for Humbert Humbert, before coming back to the fact that he put himself in this position because of his predilection for nymphets.
In the back of the book Vladimir talks about what drove him to write this book. He said he wrote a short story in France after reading a story about an ape who was kept behind bars, who scientist trained to produce a sketch. The sketch the ape produced was the bars of his cage. That is how Lolita must have felt, if she did what Humbert wanted she got a treat, movie, tennis, party, but if she did not follow the rules she was not allowed to do anything outside of the house.
A good book that I would recommend for adults. The subject matter is off putting and trying to understand the psychology is just too complicated for younger readers, in my opinion.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Review: The Diary of Mattie Spenser
THE DIARY OF MATTIE SPENSER, by Sandra Dallas was published in 1997 through St. Martin's Press in New York. As the name suggests this is diary entries by a woman who is traveling as a newlywed to the Colorado Territories. The book is found in a small chest in the home of her granddaughter who is getting ready to move into a nursing home. Her friend decides to read the book and make a computer generated copy for Hazel. We go through the hardships, friendships and daily living on an unsustainable land.
Mattie is married at the last minute to a man who had been courting another woman. His proposal is matter of fact and is about as romantic as a watching cement dry. There are Indian attacks, death of friends and children, betrayal, unexpected romance and the hardening of the heart. This is all wrapped up in a 229 page book. It was a book that I did not want to put down, because I was rooting for Mattie as I became caught up in her life. The journal is written from 1865 to 1869, when Mattie decides not to write anymore about her life.
It took two days to read and if you want some history and some feeling of the wild west, then I suggest you might want to read this book. At last a book that did not take a month to finish.
Mattie is married at the last minute to a man who had been courting another woman. His proposal is matter of fact and is about as romantic as a watching cement dry. There are Indian attacks, death of friends and children, betrayal, unexpected romance and the hardening of the heart. This is all wrapped up in a 229 page book. It was a book that I did not want to put down, because I was rooting for Mattie as I became caught up in her life. The journal is written from 1865 to 1869, when Mattie decides not to write anymore about her life.
It took two days to read and if you want some history and some feeling of the wild west, then I suggest you might want to read this book. At last a book that did not take a month to finish.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
June Reads
I am having a in between fast paced mystery book between my book club book and my 100 book pick. I had to clear my head from all the sad looks at life I just read, before I continued with what I am sure will some hard hit areas of life. The book club pick is a book called THE DIARY OF MATTIE SPENCER, by Sandra Dallas. It looks to be a fast read about a woman who has traveled with her husband out west to Colorado Territory. This could mean that I can get two of my 100 book list in this month. LOLITA is my choice for my 100 books. I may also read BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, which had been turned into a miniseries for PBS. These three books should be finished by June or maybe a little in July. Sometimes, when I am not that enthralled with a book, I tend to misplace the book. I hope I do not do that with these three. The books I have left to read for my 100 book challenge, besides those listed above are:
TROPIC OF CANCER
UNDER THE VOLCANO
ULYSSES
DON QUIXOTE
THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK
IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME
LES MISERABLES (My husband says that the small version I read in French class does not count)
SLAUGHTER HOUSE 5
THE AMBASSADOR ( I am going to attempt to read this again)
Happy summer reading
TROPIC OF CANCER
UNDER THE VOLCANO
ULYSSES
DON QUIXOTE
THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK
IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME
LES MISERABLES (My husband says that the small version I read in French class does not count)
SLAUGHTER HOUSE 5
THE AMBASSADOR ( I am going to attempt to read this again)
Happy summer reading
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Review x 2: The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
You may wonder why do two at the same time, but these two books hit on similar subjects and have similar results at the end. One is a little better written than the other, sorry Ms. Rowlings. Maybe I thought I would be grabbed like I was with Harry Potter and maybe you made the characters and the election seem way to normal to bite us at the end, but the first half dragged on too long. Having said that the ending was brilliant, except for one sad bit. I will do both books individually and then bring in the similarities.
THE CASUAL VACANCY by J.K. Rowling, copyright 2012, published in 2012 by Little, Brown and Company. One of the things I liked about the book was the definition of various terms, that I would have not know, at the beginning of each Part of the book. Part One we have the description of a Casual Vacancy - a vacancy that occurs under certain circumstances which it lists the three.
In Part One we have the sudden death of Mr. Barry Fairbrother who is taking his wife to their anniversary dinner when he drops dead while they were entering the Golf Club. This is a small parish, town, where everyone knows, everyone so the rumor mill starts churning with everyone vying to be the first to tell someone else about the news. He was on the Parish council for Pagford and this leaves his seat open. We also find out there are factions on the council some who want the Fields to be taken care of by the town and others who feel it is not their responsibility and it is eating into their town funds to clean trash etc. Also on the table is to ban the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic from using an abandoned church nearby. So all of this part is interesting, but then we get into a very long and drawn out, meeting of the characters and there thoughts and feelings and hints of things that might be happening behind the scenes with these people.
Eventually, it gets to the point where I connect to certain people and want them to achieve what they need. We find out the secrets and we laugh at the way they are exposed. But the book is sad and a reminder that not every book has a happy ending. SO, whereas I liked the book, I did not love the book. I had waited to read it so that my mind would not be skewed by previous books, but alas, the thoughts kept popping up. My husband said, " It did take 7 books to finish Harry Potter. So in that vain, not a bad book.
A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry, copyright 1995, published in 1997, by Vintage International a division of Random House books. This book is set in India during the period of 1975 to 1984. It starts off in a train heading to the big city. On the train two tailor's and a college student meet and start to talk. We find out their names where they are from and eventually where they are going. The two tailors are related, Uncle Ishvar and his nephew Om are headed to work as tailors for a woman named Dina Dalal. The young college student Maneck is also traveling to the same address but as a boarder not a worker. After some suspicion of the tailors, they travel together to Dina's residence. The young man checks out the residence, the tailors tell Dina they will be back with their work things next week.
We are taken back into time, to see how the tailors, Maneck and Dina end up in their current situations. Each situation unfolds, leading us back and forth through time, until we are entirely in their current time. A time when the Prime Minister rigs an election and then makes a policy to make what she did okay. A time when the corruption is rampant, various pocketing of funds and bribes to make things happen, even if those things are horrendous. The Beautification project, destroying the only homes the homeless have, than abusing them because they are homeless, rounding up beggars and anyone who happened to be on the street at that particular moment and throwing them into harsh working conditions. They would not listen to you even if you had a job. The tailors found themselves in these conditions all the time. The Parent Control situation, where they sterilized people because they could, again just going to a street or festival and rounding up as many people as they could, reminding doctors if they wanted jobs they would do what they were told.
SO many things I did know about the circumstances in India and thinking this was happening all in the 1970's and through the 1980's. I need to pick up or talk to some of my friends who come from India, but what if they were the ones whose families acted the way some of these families did hurting other people because they did not fit into the plan. It makes me shudder. Then ending of this book is so tragic because the one person who may have made it, ends his life. Good read, but it is very graphic in its telling of the brutality.
COMBO: At the beginning of this review I talked about the fact that these two stories have some similarities and of course some differences. They are both dealing with politics and the downtrodden. Both have people who want to suppress the problem by not dealing with it in realms of reality. In A FINE BALANCE we have the Prime Minister not caring about the people but that her streets look clean, removing people by force, castrating, sterilizing people without their consent and letting people get paid for the number of people they can do this to, which makes for a very corrupt situation. In THE CASUAL VACANCY, we have some members of the Parish Council ticked off that the Fields, which never should have been built in their estimation is encroaching on their territory, which means the drug addicts, welfare recipients and poor are using Pagford's funds to maintain the area. They want it to be gone, the difference is that on this council there is the counterpoint, where people believe that the people in the Fields could be helped and are pushing back. The problem is that the leader of helping the Fields is the guy who died.
In both stories it is the children who suffer, in A FINE BALANCE, Om loses his entire family because of the caste system, which was supposed to be abolished, but not in the small mountain villages. His father is tortured for standing up for his rights and the man in control makes sure the whole family disappears. Om is in the city with his uncle and is spared for the moment. For Dina it is the notion of the men having the power, her brother is abusive and hates that his sister is smarter than he is and when the parents die basically enslaves her. Trying to get her to marry one of his friends and hates when she marries someone she actually loves. He considers her an embarrassment. For Maneck who just wants to be home in the mountains with his parents, he is depressed because progress in his small village means his father fears their small store may not be enough for Maneck and sends him to boarding school and college where he is abused sexually by the other students there. He does not tell his parents and they do not tell him how much they wish he would stay at home with them. Instead he feels like they do not want him around and he falls into depression.
THE CASUAL VACANCY is full of parental abuse, (beware there are a ton of characters in this book, so I will be brief). Andrew is called names by his father, punched, smacked and ridiculed her wants nothing more than to find an excuse to destroy his father. Sukvinder is constantly being told by her mother she is a useless person, why could she not be like her siblings. In addition, one of her classmates keeps saying nasty things to her in person and on the internet, she cuts herself. Fats the abuser has to deal with his father and his secret. He goes to school where his father is in charge and his mother is a counselor, so he is always trying to mess with his father. Krystal is the saddest of the characters, always cursing always getting into trouble, sexually active and dealing with her mother the drug addict. She is in charge of taking care of her baby brother making sure he is clean, fed and at nursery. All the parents, except Krystal's are about the power of position and do not care who they tread on to get it. Krystal is in the power of the system and hoping her mom gets clean so she does not have to lose her brother. She has already lost the only person who believed in her, Barry Fairbrother.
These books have a fair amount of death, not only of lives, but spirits being trampled just for the sake of money and power. They both end in tragedy. A tragedy that could have been averted if they only felt they had a way out. I have to say I do enjoy a happy ending, but it is nice when something is not sugar coated. Life is not sugar coated and these two books are all about life, whether it is a corrupt nation or a corrupt small town Parish. I liked the books, but hope my next books are not as depressing.
THE CASUAL VACANCY by J.K. Rowling, copyright 2012, published in 2012 by Little, Brown and Company. One of the things I liked about the book was the definition of various terms, that I would have not know, at the beginning of each Part of the book. Part One we have the description of a Casual Vacancy - a vacancy that occurs under certain circumstances which it lists the three.
In Part One we have the sudden death of Mr. Barry Fairbrother who is taking his wife to their anniversary dinner when he drops dead while they were entering the Golf Club. This is a small parish, town, where everyone knows, everyone so the rumor mill starts churning with everyone vying to be the first to tell someone else about the news. He was on the Parish council for Pagford and this leaves his seat open. We also find out there are factions on the council some who want the Fields to be taken care of by the town and others who feel it is not their responsibility and it is eating into their town funds to clean trash etc. Also on the table is to ban the Bellchapel Addiction Clinic from using an abandoned church nearby. So all of this part is interesting, but then we get into a very long and drawn out, meeting of the characters and there thoughts and feelings and hints of things that might be happening behind the scenes with these people.
Eventually, it gets to the point where I connect to certain people and want them to achieve what they need. We find out the secrets and we laugh at the way they are exposed. But the book is sad and a reminder that not every book has a happy ending. SO, whereas I liked the book, I did not love the book. I had waited to read it so that my mind would not be skewed by previous books, but alas, the thoughts kept popping up. My husband said, " It did take 7 books to finish Harry Potter. So in that vain, not a bad book.
A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry, copyright 1995, published in 1997, by Vintage International a division of Random House books. This book is set in India during the period of 1975 to 1984. It starts off in a train heading to the big city. On the train two tailor's and a college student meet and start to talk. We find out their names where they are from and eventually where they are going. The two tailors are related, Uncle Ishvar and his nephew Om are headed to work as tailors for a woman named Dina Dalal. The young college student Maneck is also traveling to the same address but as a boarder not a worker. After some suspicion of the tailors, they travel together to Dina's residence. The young man checks out the residence, the tailors tell Dina they will be back with their work things next week.
We are taken back into time, to see how the tailors, Maneck and Dina end up in their current situations. Each situation unfolds, leading us back and forth through time, until we are entirely in their current time. A time when the Prime Minister rigs an election and then makes a policy to make what she did okay. A time when the corruption is rampant, various pocketing of funds and bribes to make things happen, even if those things are horrendous. The Beautification project, destroying the only homes the homeless have, than abusing them because they are homeless, rounding up beggars and anyone who happened to be on the street at that particular moment and throwing them into harsh working conditions. They would not listen to you even if you had a job. The tailors found themselves in these conditions all the time. The Parent Control situation, where they sterilized people because they could, again just going to a street or festival and rounding up as many people as they could, reminding doctors if they wanted jobs they would do what they were told.
SO many things I did know about the circumstances in India and thinking this was happening all in the 1970's and through the 1980's. I need to pick up or talk to some of my friends who come from India, but what if they were the ones whose families acted the way some of these families did hurting other people because they did not fit into the plan. It makes me shudder. Then ending of this book is so tragic because the one person who may have made it, ends his life. Good read, but it is very graphic in its telling of the brutality.
COMBO: At the beginning of this review I talked about the fact that these two stories have some similarities and of course some differences. They are both dealing with politics and the downtrodden. Both have people who want to suppress the problem by not dealing with it in realms of reality. In A FINE BALANCE we have the Prime Minister not caring about the people but that her streets look clean, removing people by force, castrating, sterilizing people without their consent and letting people get paid for the number of people they can do this to, which makes for a very corrupt situation. In THE CASUAL VACANCY, we have some members of the Parish Council ticked off that the Fields, which never should have been built in their estimation is encroaching on their territory, which means the drug addicts, welfare recipients and poor are using Pagford's funds to maintain the area. They want it to be gone, the difference is that on this council there is the counterpoint, where people believe that the people in the Fields could be helped and are pushing back. The problem is that the leader of helping the Fields is the guy who died.
In both stories it is the children who suffer, in A FINE BALANCE, Om loses his entire family because of the caste system, which was supposed to be abolished, but not in the small mountain villages. His father is tortured for standing up for his rights and the man in control makes sure the whole family disappears. Om is in the city with his uncle and is spared for the moment. For Dina it is the notion of the men having the power, her brother is abusive and hates that his sister is smarter than he is and when the parents die basically enslaves her. Trying to get her to marry one of his friends and hates when she marries someone she actually loves. He considers her an embarrassment. For Maneck who just wants to be home in the mountains with his parents, he is depressed because progress in his small village means his father fears their small store may not be enough for Maneck and sends him to boarding school and college where he is abused sexually by the other students there. He does not tell his parents and they do not tell him how much they wish he would stay at home with them. Instead he feels like they do not want him around and he falls into depression.
THE CASUAL VACANCY is full of parental abuse, (beware there are a ton of characters in this book, so I will be brief). Andrew is called names by his father, punched, smacked and ridiculed her wants nothing more than to find an excuse to destroy his father. Sukvinder is constantly being told by her mother she is a useless person, why could she not be like her siblings. In addition, one of her classmates keeps saying nasty things to her in person and on the internet, she cuts herself. Fats the abuser has to deal with his father and his secret. He goes to school where his father is in charge and his mother is a counselor, so he is always trying to mess with his father. Krystal is the saddest of the characters, always cursing always getting into trouble, sexually active and dealing with her mother the drug addict. She is in charge of taking care of her baby brother making sure he is clean, fed and at nursery. All the parents, except Krystal's are about the power of position and do not care who they tread on to get it. Krystal is in the power of the system and hoping her mom gets clean so she does not have to lose her brother. She has already lost the only person who believed in her, Barry Fairbrother.
These books have a fair amount of death, not only of lives, but spirits being trampled just for the sake of money and power. They both end in tragedy. A tragedy that could have been averted if they only felt they had a way out. I have to say I do enjoy a happy ending, but it is nice when something is not sugar coated. Life is not sugar coated and these two books are all about life, whether it is a corrupt nation or a corrupt small town Parish. I liked the books, but hope my next books are not as depressing.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Running Behind
Still in the midst of reading A FINE BALANCE and my book club book A CASUAL VACANCY. I have been trying to read one or two chapters a day in both books, I promise that I will be done soon. I do have one thing to say about A FINE BALANCE, whomever picked the title of the book and the cover of the book, made an excellent choice. This book is all about living life balanced on a pinhead, one step the wrong way and your life could be over. I am hoping that this brutality is just fiction, but I suspect like all fiction there is a truth in this story.
For all mom's out there, Happy Mother's Day and strength be with you if your children cannot be with you this mother's day. My kids are hiking the AT and working in DC, so they are not with me in person but always with me in love.
For all mom's out there, Happy Mother's Day and strength be with you if your children cannot be with you this mother's day. My kids are hiking the AT and working in DC, so they are not with me in person but always with me in love.
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