Book Review: Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853) First Look

I'll have a few posts about this book.  I wanted to throw out some initial thoughts on it.

The first two chapters are boring.  I'm not going to lie to you.  But you have to get through them to understand what the heck is going on.  Or I can just tell you.  Chancery court is where they haggled over disputed wills, divorces, alimony and that sort of thing.  Big deal, right?  Well, Victorian Britain had huge problems with their Chancery court, with cases lasting for years and years.  Sometimes decades.  The lawyers got rich, much like here in America.  In the end, the actual individuals - plaintiffs or defendants - ended up with junk.  They got smack, zip, nada.  Dickens was using this for his social commentary.

Oh Come Ye Next Apocalypse

The problem with apocalypses, as opposed to Christmas or New Years, is that they only come once and you really have to enjoy them while you can.  I feel like I didn't get enough out of this last end of the world.  Years ago I imagined having a huge Mayan World's End Bash.  But instead I went to bed early while the wife watched reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond.

A Midnight Tale

In the darkness of a winter's night, I lay in bed, fast asleep.  A sudden movement, and I am startled awake.  My wife is beside me.  She kicks the covers, then is still for a moment.  But in a sudden thrashing, she turns and spins.  In the gloom I can see her eyes.  She's staring at the ceiling.

A Word on Gothic Romances

We're not talking about goth kids and their weird vampire romance stuff.  That's not the definition of a Gothic Romance in literature.  No Buffy and Angel here.

Gothic Romance refers to a style of literature that arose in the 1700's and lasted until the early 1800's.  These works flourished in many parts of the western world, including England and Germany.  Black Forest mythos, for example, and medieval castles were popular subjects.

Book Review: A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843)

I review this because it's Christmas.  Plus, it's one of everyone's favorite Dickens' books.  Technically a novella, this is much smaller than some of his other works.

Three things about this book that I love are the well drawn character of Scrooge, the imagery of Victorian Britain, and the macabre subject matter.

A Note on 19th Century Literature

One of the reasons we read older literature is to be plunged into a different world.  It's a world apart from our own, separated by a gulf we can't cross - that of time.

When I read Sherlock Holmes, I am IN Victorian London.  I'm walking the old streets, I can feel the heavy fog.  It's the same with Mark Twain.  I'm pulled into a time and place that is long gone, and it only exists in literature.

Book Review: Roughing It, by Mark Twain (1870-1872) - More Stuff

This book deserves more than one post.  I bought the audio book and listened to a few sections of it again last night.  Absolutely wonderful.  Parts of it are so interesting, and parts are so comical, I have to share them.  By the way, if you get the audiobook, it should be narrated by Norman Dietz.  No one does Mark Twain like him.  Anyway, here's a few snippets from the book.

Book Review: Roughing It, by Mark Twain (1870-1872)

One of the best, funniest Mark Twain books.  It's a history of his early years.  I have read this book more times than I can count.  It is the story of his time out west.

Many people would be surprised at the idea of Mark Twain as a cowboy.  I don't mean he herded cattle, but I mean he lived out west in Nevada and California in the 1860s.  He wrote extensively of western life, from the Mormons to the American Indians to the gold and silver miners to the outlaws.  This is a jewel for anyone interested in frontier life, or life in the old west.  Roughing It is a wonderful period piece.

But it's far more than that.

Book Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1901-1902)

I won't argue whether this is Victorian literature or not.  It fits the bill.

This novella is filled with all the things that make a creepy old story all that it should be.  It takes place on a lonely moor.  There's a creepy old manor house.  You've got your ancient family curse, and a black devil hound roaming the moorlands at night.  Mysterious residents people the place, some odd, some quirky, some dangerous.  There are ancient ruins, bogs, and that foggy atmosphere that makes this a wonderful piece of fiction.

Confessions of a Lazy Reader

I'm going to be honest with you.  The main reason I read older classic novels is because I'm lazy.  It's true.  This will come as a surprise to those who know me and consider me a titan of industry, an energetic mass of effusion and movement, a mover and shaker in the world of literature and finance and espionage.

Book Review: Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)

Junk.

Sorry, but this might be the only 19th century novel I've read that not only do I not recommend, but I did not enjoy reading it and don't care to read it again.

Jude the Obscure received such a trouncing by critics that Thomas Hardy never wrote another novel.  As much as I love Hardy's earlier work, I have to say I'm not sorry if this is what he planned to shovel out.

Curse You, Facebook!

This is why I hate Facebook.

I ran across something on Facebook the other day that really chapped my hide.  It's a couple.  These are two people I never needed to see again.  When I was 14 I was so in love with this girl.  It was 1979.  We were both in the 9th grade.  But she fell in love with another guy.  We'll call him X, for Xtremely Getting In My Way.  X was in the 11th grade.  X and Y (for Y didn't you pick me!) started dating at that tender, young age.  She was freaking fourteen!  She wasn't supposed to find her "forever love".  But she did.  And now it's like a hundred years later and they are still together.

There's a picture of them on Facebook and they're all so freakin' happy and sappy together, him with his graying hair and pictures of their grown kids and everything.  Sheesh.

See, the problem is I never had my chance.  This dude swooped in before I could get puberty under control and talk to her.  She was my first love.  But her first love was X.  I guess he was her last love.  What a freakin' waste of time to know all this crap, all thanks to Facebook.

Book Review: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884-5) - The Conflict

Here is the conflict, in a nutshell.  Huck is helping Jim escape from slavery, and he feels guilty about it.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself.  He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them. 

Book Review: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884-5)

This may be one of the most reviewed books in the history of people like me reviewing books.  In fact, entire books have been written to review this book.  Then you have to review those books, and it just never ends.

So I'm not going to fester on this.  I'm mainly interested in how well it stands up to modern readers, which I have mixed feelings on.  I'll go over a few things that struck me about this book.

Book Review: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain (1874) - A Modern Second Look

I just read a few scenes of this to my daughter, and immediately something became apparent.  This thing can be hard to understand.

That's actually one of the first things I noticed when I first read it back in high school.  Combine Mark Twain's flowery descriptions with the 19th century vernacular, along with the various slang terms thrown in with characters' speech, and that's a bad combination.

Book Review: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain (1874)

This is easily one of the best stories for young people I have ever read.  Wait, I take that back.  It's one of the best books period.  You've got romance, adventure, mystery, and best of all - treasure!

I read this as a teenager and enjoyed it.  I read it again in college.  And again.  And again.  In fact, I don't think I ever plan to stop reading it.  I have it on audiobook and whenever I have trouble sleeping, this is on my list of things to listen to.

Book Review: A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain (1880)

Interesting sequel to The Innocents Abroad, but not one of Mark Twain's best.  Wait, was this supposed to be a sequel?  It sort of felt like one to me.  There are parts of this book that I love to read, parts that make me laugh.  But also several parts that are tedious.

The premise is Mark Twain, about a decade or so after The Innocents Abroad, decides to return to Europe.  He's going to hike this time.  And he makes a noble effort at it, but in the end we don't really care how he gets about.

Book Review: The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain (1869)

Mark Twain's first book, The Innocents Abroad or the New Pilgrims' Progress, was a huge success.  Even today people love reading an American's take on the "old world".

This is one of my all-time favorite books.  There's no plot, no mystery, no surprise ending.  It's not a novel, it's one of Mark Twain's five books of travel.  The others are Life on the Mississippi, A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, and Roughing It.  They are all memoirs, or travel logs.

Book Review: The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens (1837) - more thoughts

I read this book when I was young, and it was my first Dickens book.  Maybe that's why it's my favorite - nostalgia.  But since then I've read some of his later books.  Now that I've reread Pickwick with that experience under my belt, I can see the difference.

His more elegant writing doesn't show up in Pickwick.  In books like David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities, it has a more serious tone that lends itself to more serious and sophisticated writing.  But I guess those turns of phrases and exquisite descriptions took a few more years to develop.  I kept waiting for the beautiful similes that Dickens is famous for, but in Pickwick...not so much.

Book Review: The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens (1837)

This will always be my favorite Dickens' book.  I wonder if some writers start out writing humorous pieces but move into more serious storylines as they get older.  I know that was the case with Mrak Twain.  This book is Charles Dickens in his younger years, more light-hearted, less satirical.  I won't say this book is all fun and no social commentary, but The Pickwick Papers is so far the only humorous Dickens book I have read.

It's the story of Samuel Pickwick and his various travels and adventures.  The basic plot is simple.  Pickwick is the founder of the Pickwick Club, and his mission is to go on a walk-about into the world (greater London and the surrounding area) and learn all he can.  Then he writes it down and reports back to his club.