Life of Pi by Yann Martel, February 7th. Besides being very informative (I now know what to do if trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger) this book was very warm and absorbing, besides being terrifyingly real to me. This book is what I mean when I say that writing should transport you. I feel like, whatever I was doing when I wasn't reading this book, I was thinking about Pi and Richard the tiger, and wondering what was going to happen next to them. Combine with that the beautiful style and prose of Yann Martel, and you have a masterpiece.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, February 14th. An immensely depressing book that is impressive in its depression. Madame Bovary is the tale of an unfaithful, imprudent woman who gradually ruins herself and her poor husband, pitiful because he truly loves his wife. I like Flaubert's eye for details, always useful in books from another time, place or culture.
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, March 15th. This one took me about a month to read, but was well worth the effort. This classic tale of an American girl brought to Europe, who basically has the world at her feet, but purposefully, one might even say perversely, chooses to be unhappy, turning down several worthy proposals to marry a no-account louse she doesn't even like that much, who is having an affair with her friend. Henry James is an iconic writer, although not a personal favorite. I don't think he likes women very much, and I can never figure out why. He reminds me a little of T.E. Lawrence in that way.
Isabel's admirer, and by far the best match, trying to convince her to come away with him, or do whatever it takes to be happy:
"I swear as I stand here, that a woman deliberately made to suffer is justified in anything in life- in going down into the streets if that will help her! I know how you suffer, and that's why I'm here. We can absolutely do as we please; to whom under the sun do we owe anything? What is it that holds us, what is it that has the smallest right to interfere in such a question as this? Such a question is between ourselves- and to say that is to settle it! Were we born to rot in our misery- were we born to be afraid!"
Washington Square by Henry James, March 25th. Nobody writes quite like Henry James! There's a breathless quality to his prose, that brings me back to him, despite his poor opinion of women. In this novel, yet again a woman marries a man, despite all the wiser men in her life (in this case her father, in Portrait it was her gallant, dying cousin Ralph) warning her that the man's a crook. Perhaps even more depressing than Portrait, in Washington Square poor Catherine, who has never been pretty or clever enough for her father, is pursued by a young man for her fortune. Her father promises her that he will disown her if she should marry the young man, who promptly decamps for more lucrative pastures, breaking Catherine's heart. The father remains suspicious that she will merely wait until he is dead to marry the lout, and when Catherine refuses to promise she will not, his suspicions are confirmed, and he disinherits her, dies and leaves his fortune to charities. The young man returns years later, and an awkward scene ensues, in which Catherine reveals she was not waiting for him, and sends him packing. She basically ends up with nothing, except perhaps her self-respect.
Wuthering Heights, March 30th. Ah, the classic romance! I was surprised, however, at the very odd format of the novel, which asks you to believe that the classic tale of Catherine and Heathcliff was related to our narrator several decades after it actually happened, and then was written down in a diary, which we are presumably reading a century later, or whatever. All I have to say is, what memories! Didn't quite meet the hype, although parts of this story are very enchanting, particularly this passage, which kind of sums up the very love-hate (one might say stalker-ish) feelings between Heath and Cathy:
"Her senses never returned; she recognized nobody from the time you left her," I said. "She lies with a sweet smile on her face; and her latest ideas wandered back to pleasant early days. Her life closed in a gentle dream- may she wake as kindly in the other world!"
"May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there- not in heaven- not perished- where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my suffering! And I pray one prayer- I repeat it till my tongue stiffens- Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you- haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe- I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always- take any form- drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" p. 163-64
Pot Pourri: Whistlings of an Idler by Eugenio Cambacares, April 28th. This was a v. strange book, that took me a long time to read, with the result that I have no recollection what it was about.
A Little Princess by Francis Hodgeson Burnett, May 5th. My favorite children's book, mostly because it is so moral, not that I ever learned anything from these morals. I was so directly opposite little heroine Sarah in almost every way. Where she was patient and good and kind with the horrors life fed her, I always thought I should have railed and fought. But I loved her for her goodness, as I suppose her schoolmates did. I also loved the lavish descriptions of the fairytale she awoke to everyday with Becky, courtesy of the Indian servant, one of my favorite characters. Reading it from the perspective of adulthood changed little for me, to my delight. I felt like a little girl again, bookish and wishing I lived in London.
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, May 9th. I love this book for the wonderful images and descriptions of the paintings. The characters are very beautifully rendered. Griet is very outwardly quiet, with a rich inner life, possessing extraordinary perception. Ver Meer is quietly foreboding, relentless in the selfish pursuit of his art that brings about the ultimate destruction of the precarious balance between Griet and his wife.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, May 13th. An incredibly delightful book. Told through the perspective of about fifty characters from all different nationalities and walks of life, it tells the epic tale of a fictitious, incredibly realistic world zombie take-over, and how the world fights back and eventually recovers. Very vivid in its imagery and a well-thought out and executed view of a global holocaust. V. good read.
Wicked Witch, May 25th, and Wicked Curse, May 31st, both by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie. Terrible, never read. Not worth any kind of analysis at all. Can't believe I actually read two of this swill series.
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