Lots of books this weekend! Once again we have two classics to talk about. One a mere attempt at reading it, the second, a bit more successful attempt.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy DNF 1%
Okay, I did not give it a fair chance. But while the writing seemed inviting, the story's opening, a husband affair with his children's governess has been discovered by his wife, devastating her. His hopes of reconciling with her seem futile since she is too devtered to even consider it. All this even before the title character has come on stage. I decided that the prospect of eight hundred plus pages of domestic affairs and intrigues of this sort would be just too daunting, or tedious, for me to push further. It's scope, too limiting, its subject, something that I find uninteresting. What was I thinking?
Besides, I've read his War and Peace. I've nothing to prove.
Onward!
Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy C
As with most of my reviews, this book's grade is more a reflection on me than on the book itself.
Thomas Hardy is, I believe, a popular author among the fans of classic English literature. Like the first book here, this was also suggested by Tristan, the BookTuber I go to for suggestions of classics, or at least, old books to read. He suggested this book in his video on short classic stories, as this is one of Hardy's shorter works. Also going for it is the fact that it is one of his apparently rare works that is quite upbeat. I gather Thomas Hardy's novels are generally quite grim. This was the longest story of the the suggested books, coming in at 66K words, but one that you could read in a two days. It took me several more than that, but I soldiered on and did finish it.
The story is set in rural Victorian England. It is a romance written as an ode to the old ways that were disappearing in the 1870's when this story was written. The romance plot centers around a new, and pretty, school teacher, who quickly gathers three suiters, a well-to-do farmer, the young new Vicar, and the son of a local hauler of goods, a waggoneer of sorts. The main subplot, relating to the decline of the old ways, is that the new Vicar intends to introduce an organ into his church services, replacing the string instruments and boys' choir that for ages had been used to provide the music for the church service since time immortal.
The story was a study of characters and rural life, neither of the two plot lines being overly dramatic. Yes, there were ups and downs in the romance, but everything grounded in the ordinary customs of the time. Nothing to write home about. I'm a fan of romances, but I, at least, never got close enough to the characters in this story to care all that much about them.
Perhaps the biggest impediment to my enjoying this story is the 19th century writing style, the denseness of it - one sentence had to be a page long, and the authenticity of the dialog, that 150 years later, whose meanings requiring both familiarly with the period writing and patience, neither of which I can claim to possess. I certainly have read, and enjoyed, books (Miss Read, D E Stevenson) that did not have any more plot or drama than this story offers, perhaps because they were much more accessible. There were some witty observations by the characters and writer, but I fear I missed much of the little details, meanings, and implications of what was said, and this greatly diminished my enjoyment of the story. Nevertheless, I plowed through to the end, without any great enjoyment. I had nothing better to read at hand.
Still, I can now say that I read a Thomas Hardy novel. It will be the only one, but still... I (now) have nothing to prove, when it comes to Hardy as well.
Have you reviewed War & Peace? Sorry if I missed it. I want to read the book someday; it's set in Napoleonic times, after all.
ReplyDeleteAs for Thomas Hardy, I divide his works into three eras:
1. his early light novels, of which "Under the Greenwood Tree" is one.
2. melodramatic romance (my favorite books of his, "Return of the Native" and "Far From the Madding Crowd" are in this category.)
3. bleak, miserable stories of relentless anguish and suffering. These are probably his most famous and "literary" works, like "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and "Jude the Obscure". These are well-written but horribly depressing.
What I've always found interesting about Hardy is how you can see him evolve over the years from romantic young man to embittered, cynical old curmudgeon quite clearly in his writing.
Glad you gave him a try, sorry you didn't enjoy it more.
Final note: whenever I think of Hardy, the first thing I think of is the Monty Python skit "novel writing" in which writing is portrayed as a sporting event, with Hardy sitting down to write while an announcer breathlessly comments on every word and the crowd of fans oohs and ahhs. I've often thought about this while I'm writing. :)
Thanks for commenting, Berthold. I read War and Peace on summer maybe ten years ago. My folks at a 2 vol. boxed set of the novel that I read. I don't know how that translation compares to any of the others. Russia under the Czars was a strange place, and probably is still today. I don't remember much of the story, save that it spanned years and included a variety of inner-connected stories. I have tried reading Tolstoy's more autobiographical work, but have not gotten very deep into it, and doubt I will.
DeleteI doubt I will give Hardy another try, but if I do, it will be one of those romances you mentioned. I like romances.
I think the first half of the 20th century, give or take a decade is the sweet spot for my taste in books. I've been giving some Victorian era adventure stories a try, with mixed results. Luckily, I generally by my favorite books, so I always have them at hand.