[image] I've always had a thing for books that use the Scarlet Pimpernel trope: the intelligent, capable person who hides behind a mask of inanity. So [image] I've always had a thing for books that use the Scarlet Pimpernel trope: the intelligent, capable person who hides behind a mask of inanity. So Emma Orczy gets extra points from me for popularizing this secret identity plot device in her 1905 book The Scarlet Pimpernel.
It's 1792, the early days of the French Revolution, and the Reign of Terror is at its peak: thousands of French aristocrats, men, women and children, are sent to the guillotine, regardless of actual fault. But a group of brave English noblemen, led by the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, are rescuing many of the condemned French aristocrats and spiriting them away to England. French authorities are outraged.
[image]
Meanwhile, Marguerite St. Just, a lovely French actress who inexplicably married the slow-witted, foppish but extremely wealthy Sir Percy Blakeney, is having issues in her marriage: she thought her rather foolish husband adored her, but they've drifted far apart, ever since she confessed to him that her accusation against a French noble family resulted in their deaths, while being too proud to explain the whole story to him. She's not quite sure why, but now she finds she misses the adoration of the big galoot.
[image]
But Marguerite has worse problems: the French envoy to England is blackmailing her into spying for him, so he can find out who the Scarlet Pimpernel is and make sure he dies the next time he sets foot in France. If she doesn't cooperate, her beloved brother Armand will be guillotined.
This is an old-fashioned adventure/romance novel, not all that well written and not terribly deep, but an easy, enjoyable read, for a hundred year old book anyway. It frequently gets high on the melodrama (I about lost it when Sir Percy passionately kisses the places Marguerite's feet and hand have touched, half-crazed with frustrated love) and it's incurably pro-aristocracy, though Baroness Orczy reluctantly admits that some of the French nobility had caused much suffering for the common people. And Marguerite, for a person who's supposed to be the cleverest woman in all of France and England, sure got smacked hard on the head by the Oblivious Fairy's wand.
But the exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his merry band are well-plotted and exciting to read, and the romantic relationship is unusual: can two married people who don't really understand each other and have become estranged, ever work things out?
[image]
I totally got sucked into it and was all, d'awww! at the end. Good times!...more
I read "The Story of an Hour," written in 1894, with my real-life book club, and we had an interesting discussion about the themes in this story and sI read "The Story of an Hour," written in 1894, with my real-life book club, and we had an interesting discussion about the themes in this story and similar ones in some other stories we read at the same time, like The Yellow Wall-Paper. Kate Chopin, a US author, was one of the earliest feminist authors.
Louise Mallard, a young wife with heart trouble, has just been told by her sister that Louise's husband was killed in a terrible train accident. She weeps wild and abandoned tears, then goes to her room and shuts herself away, to contemplate her life and what lies before her now. And what comes to her, I think, surprises even her.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Louise begins to realize that now she can live for herself, not bending to someone else who, even if lovingly, was imposing his will on her. It's a freedom that she never thought she would have. Louise runs the gamut of emotions in just a single hour of her life.
It's worth reading, and it's free online here. It's a good lesson about loving others without trying to manipulate and mold them, without regard to what they really might want and might be afraid to say....more
Sir Robert Chiltern, a moral, upstanding politician (pause while I take a moment to ponder whether there is such a thing), has a lovely young wife who idealizes him. But Sir Robert turns out to have a major skeleton in his closet: Many years ago, at the start of his political career, he sold a state secret about the Suez Canal in an insider trading sort of deal, and used that money to make his fortune and jumpstart his career. Now Mrs. Cheveley, an old classmate of his wife (who his wife detests), turns up at a party the Chilterns are hosting, blackmailing Sir Robert into publicly supporting a fraudulent scheme to build a canal in Argentina. It's one canal for another, she tells him.
Meanwhile the Chilterns' bachelor friend, Lord Goring, is flirting with Mabel Chiltern, Sir Robert's sister. [image]
Luckily for the frantic Sir Robert and his morally inflexible wife, Lord Goring also has some wise advice to dispense to all and sundry, along with a few other tricks up his sleeve.
An Ideal Husband isn't as hilariously witty as The Importance of Being Earnest, but it has a little more meat to it. There's a lesson here about how imperfect people still deserve love.
[image]
You can almost hear Wilde pleading for people to have more tolerance and forgiveness for his own still-hidden-but-beginning-to-fray gay lifestyle. But he makes his moral lesson go down easily, with lots of very funny and very quotable lines. A few sample quotes:
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
Talks more and says less than anybody I ever met. She is made to be a public speaker.
You see, it is a very dangerous thing to listen. If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person.
Lord Goring: I am going to give you some good advice. Mrs. Cheveley: Oh! pray don't. One should never give a woman anything that she can't wear in the evening.
I don't like principles, father. I prefer prejudices.
There are a few eyebrow-raisingly dated lines here as well (the worst is: "A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A women's life revolves around curves of emotions."). It's pretty infrequent, and is probably just a reflection of Victorian times, though I have to wonder whether Oscar Wilde was just playing with his audience's expectations. But other than those couple of needle-scratch moments, this is a very amusing play that gives us some great food for thought about relationships and forgiveness....more
Maybe 2.5 stars if I were just rating this on how much I actually enjoyed reading it. The 40 page Custom-House introduction was pure pain to pl[image]
Maybe 2.5 stars if I were just rating this on how much I actually enjoyed reading it. The 40 page Custom-House introduction was pure pain to plow through, no lie, and there are a lot of slow spots where Hawthorne gets hung up in the details.
But. 5 stars for the richness of Hawthorne's language, the intriguing symbolism, and the way he delves into the human heart. So I'll compromise at 4 stars.
The Custom-House part (which is just a framing device; seriously, I'll skip it if I ever read this again) tells of a man who finds the fateful scrap of red cloth: a scarlet A, beautifully embroidered with gold thread, along with a 200 year old manuscript telling the story of Hester Prynne. This man then retells her story ...
In the mid-1600s Boston is a Puritan settlement, so adultery was a huge scandal. Hester Prynne is led out of jail in front of a crowd, her baby daughter Pearl in her arms, and with the scarlet A on her dress, standing for "Adultress."
[image]
She's put in a scaffold and publicly shamed. Her elderly husband has been missing for years, so it's clear he's not the father of Pearl. But Hester resolutely refuses to name the actual father. What she doesn't realize at first is that her long-lost husband is in the crowd, hiding his identity from everyone. Going by the name of Roger Chillingworth (*shivers*), he settles in and patiently waits for his chance for revenge.
Boston officials try to take Pearl away from Hester, but a young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, pleads her case. The popular Dimmesdale has his own problems: a mysterious wasting disease and heart trouble. Maybe - just maybe - his problems are mostly psychological? And then (the secretly suspicious) Chillingworth decides to "befriend" Dimmesdale.
We may realize its value, in the present case, by imagining the book with the scarlet letter omitted. It is not practically essential to the plot. But the scarlet letter uplifts the theme from the material to the spiritual level. It is the concentration and type of the whole argument. It transmutes the prose into poetry. It serves as a formula for the conveyance of ideas otherwise too subtle for words, as well as to enhance the gloomy picturesqueness of the moral scenery. It burns upon its wearer's breast, it casts a lurid glow along her pathway, it isolates her among mankind, and is at the same time the mystic talisman to reveal to her the guilt hidden in other hearts.
The entire story - each character, each event, people's appearances, even objects - is filled with symbolism. Light and darkness, sin and secrecy, suffering and redemption, all have a role. It can be a little - or a lot - hard to wade through the old-fashioned language and viewpoint of The Scarlet Letter, but it really rewards the reader who's willing to look deeper....more
This 1895 play about mistaken and hidden identities is my favorite by Oscar Wilde. One of the wittiest plays ever!
Algernon is visited in his town homeThis 1895 play about mistaken and hidden identities is my favorite by Oscar Wilde. One of the wittiest plays ever!
Algernon is visited in his town home by his friend Ernest, who intends to propose to Algernon's cousin Gwendolen. Algernon manages to dig out his friend's secret: his name is actually Jack.
[image]
Jack has an 18 year old ward, Cecily, who lives in his country home. So he uses the name Ernest when he is in town so he can live it up a little, and then tells Cecily about his wastrel younger brother Ernest when he stays with her in the country. Algernon is instantly intrigued and wants to meet Cecily; Jack refuses.
Enter Jack's beloved, Gwendolen, with her mother, Lady Bracknell, the epitome of Victorian shallowness, materialism and moral superiority.
[image] "Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that."
Gwendolen is delighted to accept Jack's proposal, but her mother refuses to approve the engagement: Jack is a foundling who doesn't know who his parents are.
"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
So things are at a standstill ... until Algernon sneaks off to visit Jack's country home and meet Cecily. He introduces himself as Jack's wayward brother Ernest.
[image]
Love at first sight, and comedy heaven, ensue. Both Gwendolen and Cecily are bound and determined to marry a man named Ernest ("There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence"). You can see the clash coming, but it's even better when it happens than you could imagine.
It's a quick read, just under 100 pages on my Kindle. Everybody wants to be earnest (or Ernest) ... but nobody really is ... or are they? It's the most intriguing combination of delightful frothiness and absurdity, but with a strong streak of social satire and criticism of society's shallowness and materialism running through it. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Reading this is great, but seeing it is even better. I haven't seen the 2002 film with Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon and Judi Dench, which sounds fantastic. But I can vouch for the 1952 film, which is an absolute delight, with Michael Redgrave and Dame Edith Evans (in the role of her life as the imposing Lady Bracknell).
Upping my rating from 3 stars to 4 on reread. Mansfield Park isn't as easy to love as most of Jane Austen's other novels, but it has a lot of insightsUpping my rating from 3 stars to 4 on reread. Mansfield Park isn't as easy to love as most of Jane Austen's other novels, but it has a lot of insights to offer into the personalities, strengths and weaknesses of not just Fanny, but all of the other characters who live in and around Mansfield Park, a country manor in England. Like Kelly says in her truly excellent review of this book, it's called "Mansfield Park" - not Fanny or Foolishness and Awkwardness - for a good reason.
The other thing that helped me was mentally repeating the mantra that stood me in good stead when I was rereading Rebecca: This is not a romance novel. If you read it with the standard romantic expectations, you're likely to be disappointed. A starry-eyed view of romance and happily-ever-after is not the point of Mansfield Park (and, really, not of any of Austen's other novels, Darcy and Wentworth notwithstanding). Here it's much more about the social commentary, and often about the ways people hurt others through their selfishness or lack of consideration.
After rereading both Mansfield Park and Persuasion, I think that Fanny is just as good a heroine as Anne Elliot, and actually they have a lot in common in their personalities: sensitive, rather shy, physically weak, kind-hearted and giving to a fault. Anne just got the benefit of a better romantic plot line and (sorry/notsorry, Edmund) a far more appealing hero in Frederick Wentworth.
Once I stopped trying to squeeze Fanny and Edmund into the roles of romantic heroine and hero, I was able to appreciate how nuanced and realistically Austen drew these characters. Fanny is the poor cousin who is taken in by her Aunt Bertram's family as a young girl. She's a sensitive soul and a quiet personality, with an unfailing moral compass. Fom the modern point of view she can be a bit of a prig at times, but she was in line with the social expectations for her time, especially for a dependent young woman.
Fanny struggles with her health, partly because of her Aunt Norris' unflagging (and unasked for) efforts to keep Fanny humble and always, always useful, and to save the Bertrams' money at Fanny's expense: her rooms are bitterly cold in winter; there's never a fire in her sitting room until her inattentive uncle realizes it one day. (Aunt Norris, by the way, is a brilliant creation, a shockingly appalling person that still makes you laugh.)
And Fanny also struggles with her unrequited love for her cousin Edmund, the only truly loving person in the Bertram family toward her. So it's a rough blow for Fanny when the fashionable, self-centered and worldly brother and sister team, Henry and Mary Crawford, sweep into town and upend everything at Mansfield Park. Edmund's sisters, Maria and Julia, fight over Henry's attention (Maria's engagement to another man not posing much of an obstacle in her mind; she'd love to trade up personality- and intelligence-wise). Edmund promptly falls for Mary Crawford, who can't quite believe she's really giving a second son - and one who's going to be a clergyman! - the time of day. Edmund is still absentmindedly kind to Fanny, but he's completely head over heels for Mary, to Fanny's vast chagrin.
I never thought Mary quite as unworthy a person as Fanny does, though that may be my modern perspective talking. Henry clearly starts out as a player and a user, but Fanny's sweetness and goodness start to change his jaded heart.
Mansfield Park is so insightful about people’s faults and foibles and personal relationships. Just, look somewhere else if you want a soul-satisfying romance.
Bonus material: After reading Mansfield Park, I jumped into Sherwood Smith's Henry and Fanny: An Alternate Ending to Mansfield Park to see if she could convince me that, just maybe, Jane Austen got the ending wrong here. She is pretty convincing! Give this a shot if you’re interested. It’s one of the few JAFF (Jane Austen fan fiction, for the uninitiated) works I think is really good.
Initial review: Fanny always struck me as a sad sack, and Edmund as needing a nice big shot of testosterone so he could step it up a notch. I really need to reread this one to see if I can develop more appreciation for the main characters.
Maybe my problem is that I want all of my Austen heroines to be more like Elizabeth Bennet....more
I read a lot of poems as an English major back in the day.* Not many have stuck with me over the years, but The Waste Land is one of them: T.S. Eliot'I read a lot of poems as an English major back in the day.* Not many have stuck with me over the years, but The Waste Land is one of them: T.S. Eliot's lamentation about the spiritual drought in our day, the waste land of our Western society, lightened by a few fleeting glimpses of hope. It's fragmented, haunting, laden with symbolism and allusions, difficult, and utterly brilliant.
A diverse cast of characters take turns narrating the poem, or having their conversations overheard by the narrator, including:
✍ a Lithuanian countess, reminiscing about her childhood and life ("I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter") ✍ a prophetic voice, like Ezekiel, examining the barrenness of civilization ("Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter ...") ✍ Madame Sosostris, a famous but fake clairvoyant, telling a fortune with tarot cards ("I do not find the Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you.") ✍ a bored woman of leisure, talking to her husband, who answers in his mind ("What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think. / I think we are in rats' alley Where the dead men lost their bones.") ✍ Two women talking in a bar about sex and abortion ("Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart. He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you To get yourself some teeth.")
... and many more. Those are just the main ones in the first two (of five) sections). Symbols of drought and fertility, spiritual waste and renewal, surface and resurface, showing a different facet each time. I'd forgotten that the Holy Grail (cup) and Holy Lance (spear) doubled as a nifty set of female/male sexual symbols!
This is a poem that deserves to be read, taken apart and studied, and then simply read again and appreciated.
"These fragments I have shored against my ruins..."
*I still have my 2600 page The Norton Anthology of English Literature, which has extensive analysis and footnotes. It also has my helpful handwritten margin notes from 30+ years ago, written in the most amazingly lovely, minuscule handwriting imaginable (seriously, the letters are about a half a millimeter high) that I could never in a million years recreate now....more
Jane Austen famously wrote: "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."
My initial take: Truer words, Jane. Truer words. EmmJane Austen famously wrote: "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."
My initial take: Truer words, Jane. Truer words. Emma is wealthy and beautiful, the queen bee of society in her town, and boss of her household (since her father is a hand-wringing worrywart, almost paralyzed by his fears). She’s prideful, self-satisfied and convinced she knows best, not just for herself but for pretty much everyone in her circle. When Emma decides she’s got a gift for matchmaking, trouble soon follows.
[image]
[image]
But.
On reread, I realized that Emma is a better character than I previously gave her credit for (of course, Mrs Elton makes any other woman look like a saint). She’s intelligent and essentially kindhearted, she has almost endless patience with her exasperating father, and she’s not so proud that she isn’t able to learn from her mistakes (view spoiler)[and even take a little criticism to heart (hide spoiler)].
Not a whole lot happens in Emma, plotwise. It takes place in a small town among a limited group of people; nobody is saving the world or doing anything earth-shaking. But Jane Austen has a gift for creating a vivid world of memorable people, and drawing believable characters both wise and foolish ... and the wealthy people can be just as silly and blind as the poverty-stricken ones. Emma learns and grows over the course of the novel, and ends up quite a bit wiser than when she started.
Jane Austen is very cognizant of the different classes of society, even in a village. There’s no real criticism of that from Austen here; in fact, a lot of trouble results when Emma tries to pull her friend Harriet from a lower sphere of society into her own, higher one. It would have been nice to see more challenges to the assumption that everyone should stay and marry in their own class. There’s amazingly insightful social commentary in Emma but ultimately not much movement ... except within the heart and mind of Emma herself. And maybe that’s enough, for this particular story from this particular day and age.
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
>
Books:
bingo-2017
(8)
Loading...
