Titus Andronicus

Possible illustration of Titus Andronicus

Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published:1588-1593?

It's about: Titus Andronicus, a Roman general, and Tamora, wife of the Roman emperor engage in a bloody, bitter feud. Their mutual enmity begins when Titus conquers Tamora's tribe of Goths, takes her family captive, and sacrifices one of her sons to avenge the deaths in battle of his own sons. Tamora feigns reconciliation with Titus and marries the Roman emperor, Saturninus. With the assistance of her Moorish lover, Aaron, she engineers gory, violent revenge against Titus' family. The ensuing cycle of violence far outstrips other Shakespearean bloodbaths in graphic intensity. Where Hamlet featured stabbings, accidental and duelling-related; poisoning, and off-stage drowning; Titus Andronicus proudly makes human sacrifice, dismemberment, maiming, cannibalism, rape, beheading, what can only be described as honor killing, and a final, uniquely vindictive execution central plot points.

I thought: The violence in Titus Andronicus is so sensational that this play has traditionally been the least critically-regarded of Shakespeare's. The critic Gerald Massey famously excoriated it as "a perfect slaughter-house...it reeks of blood, it smells of blood, we almost feel that we have handled blood." Other critics have defensively tried to claim that it isn't Shakespeare's at all, so graphically over-the-top is the violence. Current  consensus holds that Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare's, but an early, unrefined effort in the mode of Renaissance-era revenge plays.

The play's most intriguing dimension is its attempt to personify pure evil. While Tamora and Titus begin their violent rampage as bereaved parents, Aaron, Tamora's lover, gleefully lends his manipulative genius to her campaign with no other motive than his own sadism. In one particularly illustrative scene, Aaron overhears Tamora's sons Demetrius and Chiron fighting over the right to romantically pursue Titus' daughter, Lavinia. Aaron's ingenious solution to the conundrum is to encourage the young men to take turns raping Lavinia, then cut out her tongue and cut off her hands so that she can neither speak nor write the names of her attackers. Unlike most of Shakespeare's other villains, who are compelling in part because their motivations are innate to human experience (such as Claudius' ambition or Iago's jealousy), Aaron's evil is so unmoderated that it actually becomes rather enigmatic. When Aaron is asked if he is not sorry for his many evil deeds, he retorts "Ay, that I had not done a thousand more." At his execution, he exclaims

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers 
I should repent the evils I have done: 
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
Would I perform, if I might have my will;
If one good deed in all my life I did, 
I do repent it from my very soul. 

This actually has the odd effect of making Aaron seem rather modern as a character type. Like the serial killers, sadists, and psychopaths who haunt contemporary film, television, and literature, Aaron is compelling because he is alien. Murdering to avenge one's dead child is ghastly but comprehensible. But, like Hannibal Lecter or Joffrey Baratheon, Aaron engineers suffering simply because he is compelled to. He hungers for cruelty in a way that normal humans hunger for love.

Unfortunately, Shakespeare's foray into literary psychopathy goes flat when he uses Aaron's blackness to characterize him as evil. While associating darker skin color with evil certainly isn't Shakespeare's innovation, he uses a tired trope in a ham-handed and pointless way. When Aaron brags that his evil makes him "like a black dog" it feels more like a stupid pun than clever symbolism. I think this actually makes Titus Andronicus valuable as a metric for Shakespeare's development as a writer. Othello, a deservedly more popular play, also makes use of the association of dark skin with evil, but with a much more nuanced understanding of the way such stereotypes might pervert a good man to do evil. Othello's rival Iago plays on Othello's fear that his skin color makes him repulsive to Desdemona to manipulate him into murdering her in a jealous rage. Othello is a man hounded by a stereotype; Aaron might well be the stereotype hounding him.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf or Rubbish Bin? In-between. 

Reading Recommendations: Nick Schifrin studied American motivations for war in the Middle East through Titus Andronicus in this essay.

Warnings: Rape, murder, cannibalism, illegitimate births, mutilation, dismemberment, beheading, stabbing, human sacrifice.

Favorite excerpts:

Tis true; the raven doth not hatch a lark:
Yet have I heard,--O, could I find it now!--
The lion moved with pity did endure 
To have his princely paws pared all away:
Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,
The whilst their own birds famish in their nests:
O, be to me, though they hard heart say no, 
Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

 

via

 Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published: 1979

It's about: Cornelius Suttree, known to friends and his estranged family as "Buddy", has abandoned a life of prosperity and prominence to live among the riff-raff that collect along the shores of the Tennessee River during the mid-twentieth century. By day, he ekes out a living selling what fish he can catch. He passes his nights in mooonshine-soaked carousing, immersing himself in the hedonistic pleasures of his camaraderie with river's hookers and small-time criminals. Yet, even as he periodically loses himself in grotesque adventuring, Suttree's adaptation to life on the river is never quite complete or natural.

In contrast to the underclass crooks and prostitutes with whom he mingles, Suttree is a born philosopher and a keen observer of both human character and the sublime hideousness of the forsaken waterfront he frequents. His life has been darkened by death and his exit from social prominence was tinged with shame. Haunted by the stillbirth of his twin brother, and reluctant to examine his sudden abandonment of his wife, son, and mother, Suttree frequently protests to himself that life--both the work of building up a family, a career, and a community; as well as life in an essential sense--is inherently without meaning.

I thought: Suttree matches its anti-hero's aimless existentialism with a sprawling, episodic structure that never builds up to a definitive climax. McCarthy alternates lovely, dense descriptions of the physical filth and amoral, grotesque characters dotting the Tennessee River's shores. Like Suttree himself, McCarthy never suggests any sharply defined philosophical interpretation to the events of the novel, save to draw out a certain grace and beauty in the polluted river and the half-wild misfits who collect around it.

Suttree, by nature of its setting, heavily descriptive, virtuoso prose style; and deft employment of dark comedy fits in more closely (in some respects) with the works of Southern writers such as Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner than with McCarthy's better-known Western novels. McCarthy excels within the  vein of the Southern Gothic without being overshadowed by his predecessors. He makes his mark, in part by his exceedingly experimental approach to diction and punctuation, and by writing scenes of decay or degradation in prose that is at once elegant, heavy and voluminous.

A row of bottles gone to the wall for stoning lay in brown and green and crystal ruin down a sunlit corridor and one upright severed cone of yellow glass rose from the paving like a flame. Past these gnarled ashcans at the alley's mouth with their crusted rims and tilted gaping maws in and out of which soiled dogs go night and day. An iron stairwell railing shapeless with birdlime like something brought from the sea and small flowers along a wall reared from the fissured stone. 

What connects Suttree with the The Border Trilogy or No Country for Old Men  (besides McCarthy's preference for experimental prose), is its protagonist's paradoxically aloof, yet romantic nature. The novel is mostly told through his point of view, but the audience is allowed to glean few hints about Suttree's past life, or to what degree he truly sympathizes with the carnality of his new associates. Even in the throes of a love affair or in the deepest reaches Tennessee's backwoods, Suttree maintains a persona of cool detachment. For all this, Suttree is clearly enthralled by the rich chaos of life on the river. In one of the most poignant passages Suttree observes in the night sky

A sole star to the north pale and constant, the old wanderer's beacon burning like a molten spike that tethered fast the Small Bear to the turning firmament. He closed his eyes and opened them and looked again. He was struck by the fidelity of this earth he inhabited and he bore it sudden love.

This scene is bookended by a vivid description of an illicit encounter between Suttree and his young lover, Wanda and Suttree's abrupt, brutal attempt to end his affair with her. His appreciation of the North Star is made especially ironic in light of his own inconstancy and by Wanda's unexpected death in a landslide a few pages later. This darkly ironic contrast between the human desire to impose consistency and personhood upon nature with the nature's unconscious cruelty is vintage McCarthy, and a draws a thematic line between Suttree and McCarthy's more popular later works. For fans of either Southern Gothic or McCarthy, this novel is essential reading.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Warnings: Poetically gritty sex and drinking.

What I'm reading next: Titus Andronicus

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Memorial to victims of 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, via

 Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published: English translation, 1984

It's about: A quartet of European intellectuals attempt to understand the upheaval and oppression of Soviet-era Czechoslovakia through marriage and erotic encounters. Tomas, a brilliant surgeon, is also a dedicated womanizer, driven by a desire to find that which is unique and essential in his female conquests through sexual intercourse. His wife, Tereza, an amateur photographer and auto-didact is despairingly faithful to him. A consummate dualist, Tereza blames her body for failing to capture Tomas' marital fidelity and privately desires to cut her soul free from it, believing that the metaphysical amputation would also free her from sexual jealousy. Sabina, Tomas' mistress and a painter, has come to view betrayal as the guiding principle in her life. In order to establish her own autonomy, Sabina resolutely refuses to be loyal to any political principle, lover, or nation. By contrast, her Austrian lover Franz is a true idealist. He sees his love for Sabina as a gesture of solidarity with the repressed Czech people; in fact, he derives his entire sense of identity from making similar futile gestures that, in his imagination, are full of nobility.

I thought: The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a post-modern novel. As such, it plays unpredictably with structure and delights in peeling back the curtains that more traditional novels draw over real phenomena (such as marriage, infidelity, and sexual intercourse) in order to make their fictitious renderings more appealing. Kundera eschews a linear narrative in order to skip back and forth through time and switch points of view, often discussing the same event multiple times. For example, he describes Tereza gripping Tomas hand tightly on their first night together two different ways, first from Tomas' point of view, and then Tereza's.

He never spent the night with the others....That is why he was so surprised to wake up and find Tereza squeezing his hand tightly. Lying there looking at her, he could not quite understand what had happened. But as he ran through the previous few hours in his mind, he began to sense an aura of hitherto unknown happiness emanating from them. 

Tereza, who is eager for self-improvement, believes the urbane Tomas is a passport into a life softened by high culture and refined emotions, a step forward from her vulgar family.

Even at the age of eight she would fall asleep by pressing one hand into the other and making believe she was holding the hand of the man whom she loved, the man of her life. So if in her sleep she pressed Tomas' hand with such tenacity, we can understand why: she had been training for it since childhood.  

Neither Tomas nor Tereza view the event exactly the same way, though both allow it have a profound influence on the years that they will spend together as a married couple. Tomas comes to believe that love (as opposed to sexual desire) is wanting to sleep with another in the same bed, and being happy to do so. Love, essentially, is contented cohabitation, something quite separate from erotic fascination. For Tereza, love is an irrevocable, all-consuming destiny. While both feel and, at times, resent the difference in their personal erotic philosophies, neither can quite articulate it to the other.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a graceful, nuanced work. In spite of its thoroughly post-modern sensibility, it unifies its quartet's geographic and sensual wanderings by setting up and exploring paralleled thematic opposites. The "unbearable lightness" of the title refers to Sabina's refusal to be tied idealogically, romantically, or erotically to anything. Tomas shares her philosophy to some extent, while Tereza and Franz, who long for idealized love, prefer the heaviness of fidelity and well-defined purpose. This heaviness versus lightness is the central philosophical concern of the novel, and to some extent, the four characters who perform the bulk of the novels action are created to be representations of the tension between weight and lightness. Nevertheless, the characterization of all four remains vivid, touching, and life-like.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.or Rubbish Bin? Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations: Doctor Zhivago explores similar philosophical territory through similar political terrain.

Warnings: Fairly explicit sexual and scatological passages. If you avoid R-rated movies, this book isn't for you. 

What I'm reading next: Sagas of the Icelanders.

If on a winter's night a traveler bY Italo Calvino

via

Reviewed by Susanna Allred

Published:1979 in Italian, 1981 in English

It's about: If on a winter's night a traveler is not a novel, but rather, fragments of many novels. The fragments are interspersed in alternating chapters with unifying thread about two hypothetical readers attempting to gather together and read the complete forms of the fragmented novels. However, the two readers, while succumbing to an obligatory romantic attraction, find themselves enmeshed in a byzantine web of conspiracies, totalitarian governments, fraud, dead languages, deceptive translators, and disorderly publishing houses.

The style is as winkingly playful as the plot. Calvino narrates the unifying thread in the second person singular; in other words "you" are the protagonist of If on a winter's night a traveler. Furthermore, the fragments of other novels are all written in widely varying genres, settings, and voices, though they are thematically linked (love triangles, for example, recur). These two characteristics, the unusual narrative voice and the array of novelistic styles are key to Calvino's major project in If on a winter's night a traveler, exploring how readers experience literature and why literature is written, given that so much of retreads similar themes and types.

I thought: This is a clever, witty book that clearly draws on Calvino's wide and deep knowledge of world literature while adopting a elusive literary style. The unifying thread of the two increasingly frustrated readers gradually ramps up absurdity in a uniquely post-modern style. As "you" draw closer to the end of "your" odyssey to scrape together the fragments of novels, "you" meet a seemingly-friendly ally in a chaotic dictatorship who tells "you"

I'm an infiltrator, a real revolutionary infiltrated into the ranks of the false revolutionaries. But to avoid being discovered, I have to pretend to be a counterrevolutionary infiltrated among the true revolutionaries. And, in fact, I am, inasmuch as I take orders from the police; but not from the real ones, because I report to the revolutionaries infiltrated among the counterrevolutionary infiltrators."

The fragmented novels themselves fall recognizably into distinct genres, among them the pastoral novel, the thriller, and the war novel. However, each novel seems to be telling a strikingly similar story, even though each one was supposedly written in a time and place disparate from the others. To be specific, each fragment includes a complex psychological drama among one or more erotically-charged love triangles. This extends to the unifying frame narrative as well, as "you" are partnered with a fellow female reader, Ludmilla, who has a sister, Lotaria, who is both antagonistic and attractive to "you.

The novel requires patience, attention, and perspicuity to follow. Being a post-modern novel, it doesn't exactly give up its meaning easily. Calvino does not argue vehemently for a single philosophical purpose driving the composition of literature, rather he suggests competing hypotheses through competing narrative voices. When "you" finally reach the library where all the desired books are supposedly held, you encounter, not books, but readers who, one-by-one parrot popular theories on "why we read."

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations: Don Quixote is the most obvious literary antecedent to If on a winter's night a traveler, but it's well-worth reading or re-reading.

Warnings: Some sexuality.

Favorite excerpts:

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the this barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. 

What I'm reading next:

The Last Man by Mary Shelley

 

Mary Shelley, via

Reviewed by Susanna

Published: 1826

It's about: The year is 2096. In the past few decades, England has retired the monarchy in favor of a republican government, Greece has reconquered Constantinople, and men have begun to travel long distances by hot air balloon. Now, however, plague ravages the globe, upending law and order, breaking down social barriers, and giving rise to a deadly messianic cult.

The end of the world is observed by Lionel Verney, an English historian who, by accident of fortune, is both immune to the plague and uniquely placed to document its progress. Verney's account begins as an autobiography: he spends the first third of the novel relating his and his sister Perdita's impoverished youth as orphans in the rugged countryside, his eventual friendship with the former Crown Prince of England, Adrian Windsor (who paradoxically cherishes republican beliefs); his courtship of Adrian's vivacious sister Idris; and Perdita's marriage to the brooding, tempestuous Lord Raymond.

The pastoral romance of the first third takes an abrupt, Gothic turn when a seemingly-abandoned ship drifts into an English harbor. Its lone surviving crew member lives only long enough to spread a deadly, voracious contagion to London. As England's population rapidly dies off, Adrian attempts to stave off chaos and lead the few survivors to safety across the English Channel, only to encounter warfare, accident, and further sickness.

I thought: Mary Shelley is better known for Frankenstein, but The Last Man is her lost masterpiece. At the time of its publication in 1826, the possibility of humanity's extinction was considered grotesque and almost offensive. Consequently, the novel languished in obscurity for over a century. It was only after the possibility of a nuclear holocaust was realized in the mid-twentieth century that critics began to revisit The Last Man and recognize its innovative and prescient nature. Specifically, Shelley is the first major writer to treat the theme of apocalypse as a primarily secular, scientific event, and to thoroughly explore is social repercussions. Novels like The Walking Dead and The Road, which prominently feature dwindling bands of survivors attempting to preserve some semblance of morality and civilization in the face of a dubious future, can claim The Last Man in their literary ancestry.

Nevertheless, The Last Man is a highly unique work that differs significantly from its modern descendants. Unlike the emotionally spartan works of fellow post-apocalyptic writers Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury; Shelley is an unabashedly emotive writer. She ably demonstrates her place in the pantheon of Romantic writers with numerous, rapturously beautiful descriptions of pastoral abundance and rugged wilderness. She is also adept at turning debates on moral philosophy between her characters into riveting, poetic exploration of psychology. These two qualities are united in Shelley's exploration of the psychological differences between Raymond who believes that

Our virtues are the quick-sands, which shew themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their durability finds them sink from under him.

While Adrian muses that

The choice is with us; let us will it, and our habitation becomes a paradise. For the will of man is omnipotent, blunting the arrows of death, soothing the bed of disease, and wiping away the tears of agony.

Shelley's skill at crafting elaborate Gothic thrills only fully comes to the fore in the latter two thirds of the novel, as she expertly conjures up bizarre and unsettling images, increasing their intensity and frequency as the horrors of the plague ramp up. They foreshadow social chaos by disturbing the orderly progress of natural events. As the survivors cross the English Channel

three other suns, alike burning and brilliant, rushed from various quarters of the heavens toward the great orb; they whirled round it. The glare of light was intense to our dazzled eyes; the sun itself seemed to join in the dance, while the sea burned like a furnace, like all Vesuvius alight, with flowing lava beneath.   

Her ability to seamlessly combine political commentary, horror, romance, and nature writing makes for a unique, complex reading experience that readers return to repeatedly. Fans of Wuthering Heights, The Road, and Edgar Allan Poe should make this lost classic a priority. 

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf!

Reading Recommendations: The Wordsworth Classics edition has an engaging introduction and notes by Pamela Bickley and the Wikipedia entry contains a detailed plot summary and character list.

Warnings: None.

Favorite excerpts:

There were few books that we dared read; few, that did not cruelly deface the painting we bestowed on our solitude, by recalling combinations and emotions never more to be experienced by us. Metaphysical disquisitions; fiction, which wandering from all reality, lost itself in self-created errors; poets of times so far gone by, that to read of them was as to read of Atlantis and Utopia....

What I'm reading next: Angle of Repose

Review: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy, via

Reviewed by Christina 
(Pssst! Ingrid reviewed this waaaaaay back in the early days of tBB!  Check it out!)

Published: 1877

It's about: At surface level, this classic is the tragic tale of Anna Karenina's life and death.  Swept off her feet by dashing Alexei Vronsky, she abandons her dutiful family life and her place in society.  The world wasn't set up for a lasting relationship between them, though, and Anna struggles long and painfully to find a place for herself in it.  Her opposite, Konstantin Levin, is a fair-minded, moody, philosophical type.  He's trying to navigate his own more conventional relationships while also working out his ideas about government, agriculture, and religion.  Given that this is a masterpiece, we have plenty of subtle themes and brilliant metaphors to discover, as well as commentary about then-current Russian law, government, societal norms.  All the things you look for in Literature are here in spades.

Alas, my poor attempt at summary is falling short of this wonderful, beautiful novel.  So here's a much more snappy synopsis from the back cover of my movie tie-in edition:  "In their world frivolous liaisons are commonplace, but Anna and Vronsky's consuming passion makes them a target for scorn and leads to Anna's increasing isolation.  The heartbreaking trajectory of their relationship contrasts sharply with the colorful swirl of friends and family members who surround them, especially the newlyweds Kitty and Levin, who forge a touching bond as they struggle to make a life together.  Anna Karenina is a masterpiece not only because of the unforgettable woman at its core and the stark drama of her fate, but also because it explores and illuminates the deepest questions about how to live a fulfilled life."

I thought:  First a little background info, just for fun.  Remember how we had that Anna Karenina swag giveaway back in November?  Well, right around that time I was just the teensiest bit obsessed with the Anna Karenina trailer.  And I REALLY wanted to win that giveaway but I thought it probably wouldn't be ok to rig it in my behalf, seeing as the merch was really intended for the Blue Bookcase readers, not the writers.  So what did I do?  I found a bunch of other blogs that were doing the same giveaway and I entered them.  Kinda pathetic, right?  Only NOT PATHETIC AT ALL BECAUSE I WON ONE OF THEM.  Thank you, Evil Beet!

no.

SO.  That is the reason I read the edition I did, and I have a lot to say about it.  Namely: I wouldn't recommend it.  It's the Maude translation (not a particularly well respected one) and it has no introduction, no character list, no historical context, no author biographical information or timeline.  The footnotes are scanty, providing translations for all the in-text French but not the Latin, Russian, or German.  The Maudes over-anglicize Anna Karenina, changing all the characters' names to their English equivalents: just to name a few, Ekaterina becomes Catherine, Fyodor becomes Theodore, and (most absurdly) Alexei becomes Alexis.  Why retain the patronymics, then?  It's like they couldn't decide what level of Russianness they wanted to maintain.  All this Englishness is especially ironic given that a major theme explored by Tolstoy and his characters is the push-pull between European and Slavic tendencies in Russian culture.  (I guess I should admit that I personally am a bit of a purist here.  It took some willpower for me to not pretentiously put Lev rather than Leo in the title of this post.)

The Maudes continually use "tipsy" where all native English speakers would use "drunk," and translate "Congratulations" literally into "I congratulate you."  There were a bunch of silly, distracting little things like that.  Some of this might be in keeping with quaint 1910's translation fashions, but it's definitely not what I would have chosen if I were going out of my way to choose the best edition of Anna Karenina.  And, since I plan to read it again and again, I'm going to be looking for a better one.  (Recommendations?)

I hardly ever reread anything, but I will definitely read this book again, probably multiple times over the course of my  life.  I love it.  I love everything about it.  I love the fully-developed characters and their detailed inner monologues and their complex relationships with one another.  I love the setting (1870's Petersburg is so hot right now!) and Tolstoy/Levin's political/moral/legal philosophizing.  I love that this book highlights the societal double standards (still existing!) toward male and female adulterers.  So much of Anna Karenina still feels fresh and modern- philosophically, psychologically, politically, thematically, theologically.  Tolstoy's metaphors are subtle, svelte, original.  I can't help but compare Tolstoy with Victor Hugo since I read Les Misérables so recently, and I can firmly state now that I overwhelmingly prefer Russian Realism over French Romanticism.  (Assuming that both novels are representatives of their periods which, from what I understand, they are.)

Verdict: STICK IT ON THE SHELF.  But not this edition.

Reading Recommendations:  It's long.  Let yourself sink in.
About the movie:  I saw it before reading this.  Could I wait, after watching the trailer approximately eighty times in less than a month?  Of course not.  Anyway, I really liked it: it's visually stunning, has a great score, and Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna, Pride and Prejudice) is one of my favorite directors.  But it doesn't hold a candle to the book.  Anna's actions make sooooo much more sense and her relationship with Vronsky is infinitely more complex and passionate in writing than on screen.  And Levin and Kitty are, like, a cutesy little side note in the movie- nothing like the book.  So yeah, definitely read it even if you've already seen the movie.  And read it first if you haven't seen it yet.

See?  Gorgeous.

Warnings:  I guess I can't write "I love everything about it" without a few disclaimers:  near the end of the book, there is some passing, casual antisemitism and one horribly racist line of dialogue.  Shoot, Tolstoy, why you gotta try and spoil a beautiful book?  :(  I'm just going to attribute those things to the flawed characters and not to the author himself.

Favorite excerpts:  "She was not only disturbed, but was beginning to be afraid of a new mental condition such as she had never before experienced.  She felt as if everything was being doubled in her soul, just as objects appear doubled to weary eyes.  Sometimes she could not tell what she feared and what she desired.  Whether she feared and desired what had been, or what would be, and what it was she desired she did not know."

"All that day she felt as if she were acting in a theatre with better actors than herself, and that her bad performance was spoiling the whole affair."

(And LOTS more.)

What I'm reading next:  True Medical Detective Stories by Clifton K. Meador

Review: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Reviewed by Christina

Published:  In French, 1862.  In an English translation by C.E. Wilbur later that same year.  I read a 2003 edition, edited and abridged by Laurence M. Porter.  (And if you care to read my musings about abridgments, here's a post.)

It's about:  You probably already know a little about this famous story, so I'm not going to put a ton of effort into summarizing The Brick.  Here's what the back cover says: "... Les Misérables tells the story of the peasant Jean Valjean- unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert.  As Valjean struggles to redeem his past, we are thrust into the teeming underworld of Paris with all its poverty, ignorance, and suffering.  Just as cruel tyranny threatens to extinguish the last vestiges of hope, rebellion sweeps over the land like wildfire, igniting a vast struggle for the democratic ideal in France."
(A pretty decent summary, though I disagree about Javert's malevolence being ambiguous, and I'm not sure I'd call the June Rebellion vast or wildfire-like.)

I thought:  When Les Misérables was first published it met with a varied, often negative critical reception.  But it was immediately popular, and has been ever since.  Is it possible for me to agree with both the critics and the populace?  Because I think I do.  I agree with all the fans that it is a moving, masterfully plotted piece of high drama.  I love M. Hugo's social sensibility and human sympathy.  His passion for mercy and fairness shine throughout.  I really loved reading this book, and I'm so glad I did.  It's a great story, a vivid portrait of post-Napoleonic France, and an unforgettable piece of literature.
But ugh, the sentimentality! The manipulative melodramatic devices! The pervasively moralistic platitudes on every single page!  I get that these are accepted Romantic things, just like I get that the story's over-reliance on coincidences is supposed to imply God's hand in human life.  Romanticism just doesn't do a whole lot for me, personally, and that's ok.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf

Reading Recommendations:  I'd recommend reading it fairly quickly; you'll lose track of the chronology and characters if you take long pauses away from the story.  So it's a good one for a slow period in your life.  I've loved reading it during the holidays because it makes me appreciate things I usually take for granted, like shoes and democracy and not having the Thénardiers for parents.

Warnings: nothin' but the sadness

Favorite excerpts: "The future belongs still more to the heart than to the mind.  To love is the only thing which can occupy and fill up eternity.  The infinite requires the inexhaustible."

"To love or to have loved, that is enough.  Ask nothing further.  There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.  To love is a consummation."

"Not being heard is no reason for silence."

“Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”

What I'm reading next:  Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Post: Abridge too Far (har har har)

poster advertising an illustrated edition, via

Post by Christina

Sooooo.  If you've been reading all the way to the bottom of my last couple of reviews, you may have noticed that I'm chipping away at one of the mightiest of the classics: Les Misérables.  My book club selected it for this month in anticipation of the forthcoming movie, and I definitely wouldn't have picked it up without that external motivation.  Here's why: it is LONG.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, people who love to read are supposed to laugh in the face of all those finely-printed pages, especially when it's a beloved classic we're talking about.  It's wonderful to be able to soak in an author's style and really live with the characters and be in their world for a month or so.  And generally I do love being fully engaged in a long book.  I just have trouble working up the willpower to get to that place when I've got 50 bzillion other shorter, easier books waiting on my shelf.  So what can I do to get myself up to speed on a classic without committing to a huge endeavor?

Should I... gasp... read an abridged version?

I suppose it's time to admit it:  I'm reading an abridgment of Les Mis.  Please don't tell me what a travesty this is- I have a finely tuned sense of bookish guilt about it already.  And, in my defense, I did choose my edition carefully.  It's the Barnes & Noble Classics edition, the original 1862 English translation by C.E. Wilbur, edited and abridged by Laurence M. Porter.  Here's what I like: Mr. Porter's fairly involved introduction gives plenty of historical and author biographical context as well as mentioning a few themes to look out for.  His notes are useful (though I wish there were more of them) and- this is the important thing- he summarizes the abridged sections.  So I know what I'm missing.  And it's still 800+ pages, so curious onlookers probably won't guess that it's an abridgment; I can hang on to a little of my pride while also skipping 400 likely boring pages.

When I went to pick up my copy of Les Mis, I almost traded it for a similarly-priced unabridged edition that had no introduction, no notes, no mention even of who had translated it from French.  I was tempted to buy it because I wanted to have the satisfaction of having read the full text.  But I know it wouldn't have meant nearly as much to me without some at least semi-scholarly commentary.  So here's my question: is it better to read a marginally respectable abridgment or an unedited mass market complete text?

Tell me now: what has been your experience with abridgments?  Should I be ashamed for choosing a bastardization of The Great French Novel of the 19th Century?  Are there certain classics that you would recommend only in a certain form, whether abridged or unabridged?  Have you read both versions of any one novel?

Review: Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman, illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Reviewed by Christina
[I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.]

Published: 1984

It's about: Most of us are fairly familiar with the basic story of the ballet: little girl Clara gets a Nutcracker for Christmas, then has an elaborate dream in which he comes to life, defeats a rat king, turns into a prince, and takes Clara to a magical candy kingdom where she watches a sort of multinational (and somewhat culturally insensitive, by today's standards) ballet variety show.  It's a classic Christmas tradition, set to Tchaikovsky's unforgettable score.  
But until reading this beautiful hardcover edition I never realized that the ballet is actually a watered-down version of a much stranger, darker, and more complicated story by Romantic author E.T.A. Hoffmann.  Here "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" is translated from German by Ralph Mannheim and illustrated by the late, lamented Maurice Sendak.

I thought:  Well, was this book a surprise!  I read a few chapters each night to my five-year-old daughter, Isobel, and we finished it in a week.  It is by far the most literarily advanced thing we've read aloud together, and I loved discovering with her this wide departure from the familiar ballet story.  A good deal of plot probably went over her head- the language isn't always child-friendly, with fairly long and convoluted sentences and uncommon words like "roseate" and "scaramouche."  (Although I should thank Hoffmann/Mannheim for the happy moment during the ballet when Isobel correctly identified hussars!)  But still, if she were writing this review I know she'd have positive things to say and as a mom I have to give it some points.

Will we read it every year and love it again and again?  I'm not sure.  As much as I adore Maurice Sendak's books, the Nutcracker illustrations didn't thrill me.  I suppose I'm too accustomed to the visual beauty of ballet accompanying this story; Mr. Sendak's characters are more straightforward and cartoonish.  And sometimes they really don't accurately illustrate the physical attributes, settings, and action of the text.  That was confusing, especially to Isobel.  If Hoffman describes the prince as having a red coat, why is he wearing a purple one in the picture?  And why are there all these beautiful but tangentially-related full-spread illustrations?  I suppose, since I'm not an artist or illustrator myself, I don't understand the urge to depart so much from the text.  The pictures, especially the full-spread ones, are very nicely done.  But personally I would prefer them to be lavish and glistening.

Still, this is a good edition to look for if you want The Nutcracker's text as it was originally conceived, and if you are a big Sendak fan you'll probably appreciate his illustrations more than I did.  I enjoyed it and I'm happy to have it in my family's collection of holiday books.  And if my kids request it year after year, I will likely come to love it more passionately than I do now.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations:  I'd definitely recommend reading this a little bit at a time over the holidays, preferably with snuggly adorable children listening.

Warnings:  Nothin'.  Non-religious readers might not appreciate that this story is slightly more Christian than the ballet.  Very young children might be frightened by some of the darker elements: mild peril, scary rats, toy battle sequences, disfiguring magic spells.

What I'm reading next:  Still Les Misérables

Review: The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll

Alice Liddell (right) with her sisters in a photo by Lewis Carroll

Reviewed by Christina

Complete Title and Author info: The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition by Lewis Carroll with illustrations by John Tenniel.  Edited and annotated by Martin Gardner.

Published: 1999

It's about:  This edition includes both of Lewis Carroll's classic children's books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, with their original illustrations as well as a "suppressed" episode called "The Wasp in a Wig."
"Each of these texts is accompanied by a lengthy marginal commentary [by Carroll scholar Martin Gardner] that identifies historical and literary references and allusions, explains Carroll's logical and mathematical puzzles, and interprets colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions. Gardner's commentary is sufficiently detailed to be informative without burdening Alice with excessive pedantic baggage." (Library Journal Review)

I thought: If I had read any other edition of the Alice books, I feel certain that I would not have enjoyed them.  I've always avoided reading Lewis Carroll (despite his being a childhood favorite of my husband's) because the idea of nonsense literature is unappealing to me.  I didn't appreciate the Alice story even when I was a kid; the idea of a world where nothing makes sense was so confusing and exasperating (even a little frightening) that I couldn't find the intended humor in it.

So I'm very surprised at how much I loved reading The Annotated Alice.  I learned so much about Lewis Carroll (and his math prof alter-ego, Charles Dodgson) and Victorian England, while at the same time exploring the dream world of Alice Liddell.  It was almost like reading fiction and nonfiction at once!  Awesome!  And you know, with historical and biographical context most of the nonsense makes some kind of sense.  I could never have appreciated these texts without that context.  In fact I enjoyed Gardner's commentary at least as much as the story itself.  Most of the information in the annotations could probably be found online (the wikipedia articles alone are decent) but I don't think I would have done the research on my own- I loved having it right there in the same book next to the text.

One thing I've been thinking about:  there are some pretty scary/disturbing images in these books, considering the intended audience.  I'm thinking about Jabberwocky and the "Pig and Pepper" chapter in particular.  Alice is seven when the books take place, so I think that's probably the approximate age group Carroll had in mind.  I've been thinking about how children's literature has changed since the Alices were first published in 1865.  Were Victorian children unsettled by certain chapters and/or illustrations in these books?  Did they enjoy them partly because of the scariness?  Do we baby children in our storytelling nowadays?  What do you think?

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf!  There are probably readers out there who would prefer to read these stories without commentary so that they can draw their own conclusions about Carroll and his intended meaning (or lack thereof).  But I'm definitely not imaginative or creative enough for that business.

text on the left, annotations on the right.

Reading Recommendations:  Give yourself time to sort of study this one.  I loved reading it slowly enough to absorb the information in the notes.

Warnings: nada

Favorite excerpts: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

“Take care of the sounds and the sense will take care of itself.” 

What I'm reading next:  Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Review: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Anne Taintor

 Reviewed by Christina
I read this as part of A Year of Feminist Classics.  Head on over there for some discussion about it! 

Published: 1963


It's about: "In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to publish an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish her article."  (wikipedia)
The book, now a classic, served as the spark for 2nd-wave feminism.  Thanks to its widespread readership and popularity, Betty Friedan was able to connect with other feminists and take measures to change the situation of women in the United States; she started NOW in 1966.

I thought: Wow, was this a reading experience to remember.  Rarely do I read something that makes me examine my own life choices and the culture that influences them.  I honestly feel a little twilight-zone-y after reading The Feminine Mystique.  More about that in a minute.

1st ed.

Though it's nearly 60 years old now, the basic tenets of The Feminine Mystique are still sound: Housewifery is not fulfilling in itself for most women, especially for women who were drafted into it by societal default rather than making an educated, informed, mature decision.  And yes, it's important to develop one's own identity first, rather than depending on husband/children/home to supply that identity.  Every person deserves to express him or herself through creativity, leadership, and/or meaningful work.  These ideas are not radical to most modern readers; we accept them as basic "right to pursue happiness"-type truths.  But in Betty Friedan's time, these things needed to be said.  They needed to be argued for, and she lays out the history of feminism and antifeminism brilliantly.

The Feminine Mystique will probably be most strikingly relevant (eerie, really) to readers who, like me, come from an especially conservative religious background.  There are still communities in which "career women" are vilified and all women are expected to embrace SAHM-ness as their divinely-appointed role.  That's why I think this book was a healthy one for me to read.  I feel justified in wanting more than I get from staying home with my kids, and I feel better about taking anti-feminist religious teachings with a grain of salt, now that I know a more about the cultural history that may have had a strong hand in creating them.

One of the typical criticisms about The Feminine Mystique is that it is grossly and offensively outdated in its references to and research about homosexuality, and yes- that absolutely stood out to me.  It's very uncomfortable to read.  Another criticism is that it focuses on the plight of middle to upper-class white women, brushing everyone else under the rug.  That's unfortunate, too- there is a heavy dose of privilege here, with housewives complaining about how they want more out of life while other, unmentioned women are living in dire circumstances.  But I justify Betty Friedan's perspective with a little "ends justify the means" philosophy: The Feminine Mystique led directly to 2nd wave feminism, which in turn resulted in changes to improve life for ALL women- not just desperate housewives.  

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations:  I wish I had read this in closer tandem with Perfect Madness, which is a sort of updated version.  If you're interested in the subject and you haven't read either, read them together and tell me what you think!

Warnings: Journalistic/statistical discussions about sex.  Nothing graphic.

Favorite excerpts: “In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination--tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination”

What I'm reading next:  Cairo Modern by Naguib Mahfouz

Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier, via

Reviewed by Christina

Published:1938

It's about:  An unnamed first-person narrator is plucked from her humdrum middle class life by Maxim de Winter, a moody widower millionaire who owns a beloved coastal estate called Manderley.  The narrator tries to adjust to being lady of the house, but she runs into trouble as she realizes that the de Winters' household staff and friends are all still enthralled with Maxim's late wife, Rebecca. 

I thought:  As I mentioned in my read-along post last week, Rebecca has been recommended to me by at least a dozen people.  Almost every time I've mentioned it, people have told me how much they love it.  So, despite the harlequin-y cover, I had pretty high expectations.

Shoot!  I hate when I have high expectations for books!  I'm always, ALWAYS disappointed when I finally get down to it, and I'm sorry to say that it was the same for Rebecca.  I thought it was a good, solid novel.  Entertaining, well-plotted (except for an extremely slow start), nicely written, etc.  But I just don't really get what all the fuss is about.  I failed to connect with the weak and pathetic narrator and for most of the book I despised Maxim and his condescending attitude toward her.  Then, when he suddenly turns over a new leaf after 200+ pages of jerkiness, I just didn't buy it.  I didn't care enough about him to share the narrator's feelings about the central conflicts at all.

Part of my problem might just be that I didn't read it quickly enough.  It took me forever to get into it because I was trying to read during an insanely busy week.  Another part of my problem might be that I read this on the heels of The Robber Bride, which has a character who is really just a more complex version of Rebecca.  Wish I could go into more detail about that, but I'm trying to avoid spoiling anything.

I may be the only person who didn't go gaga over this book.  So, if you loved it, please tell me why.  I really want to understand!  I'm hoping the Read-Along discussion and my book group meeting will help me appreciate it a little more.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.  I enjoyed reading it and I think it's a good piece of literature.  I just didn't adore it the way everyone else does. 

Reading Recommendations: Somebody please read The Robber Bride in tandem with this one so that we can do a compare and contrast together. 

Warnings: Kinda scary plot elements?  I mean, really nothing major.

What I'm reading next:  Jackie After O by Tina Cassidy

Post: Reading Ulysses on Bloomsday

Our Man 

Post by Ingrid

That's right, I'm going to read Ulysses today! (Well, part of it.) o from delaissé is hosting a little Ulysses-reading event today to celebrate Bloomsday. As you may or may not know, Ulysses takes place within a single day, June 16, 1904. And because we're cool like that, we're going to try to read as much of the book today, June 16, 2012.

I'm not sure how many of them plan to read the entire book today, but that seemed to be the goal. I know that o reads insanely fast, so go check out her blog and see how she's getting along. She's also provided a wonderfully helpful breakdown of the novel here. Also, go check out the sign up post to see the other participants.

I found a cheater version of Ulysses on my Kindle that has summaries and explanations at the end of each chapter, so maybe that will help with smoother sailing ... I'll update this post as I read and let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck!

10:30 am: Well hi. So I started last night by reading some of the extra material in my Shmoop ebook edition (Oh look, here it is online.) It was a nice, easy introduction to what I know will be extremely difficult reading. I like how the writer(s?) of this guide encourage different interpretations of the text instead of only presenting one, as if that is the definitive interpretation (like Sparknotes does.)

This morning I've read about half of the first section, Telemachus. It is quite difficult but the Kindle dictionary is helpful (prepuces=foreskin? Nice.)

Here's a quote from the Shmoop guide about Joyce's difficult writing that I quite liked:

[S]ome of Joyce's sentences can be quite hard to process. You read the same sentence over and over again and you really have no idea what he's saying. Frustrating as these may be, you have to realize that as you struggle with the sentence, Joyce has forced you to bring much more attention to his words than you would have otherwise. Your eyes can't just move idly over the page in Ulysses. It's an active book, and as a reader you have to put in a great deal of effort in order to figure out what the sentence is saying. One way to think of these sentences is as Gordian knots, seemingly impenetrable riddles. But once you undo the knot and make the sentence go flat, you'll often find that the realization inside is pretty remarkable and probably couldn't have been communicated any other way.

Now back to reading!


4:15 pm: Alrighty. So I just finished the second section, Nestor. I'm starting to realize what makes Joyce's writing so difficult - he doesn't explain what is happening really at all. When he writes in stream of consciousness, he's just inserting all of these random bits without writing something like, say, "Stephen thought." It's just ... there. This forces you to read the book differently, and it's uncomfortable at first. (Well, it's still uncomfortable for me, but I'm hoping that as I get used to it that will change.)


It's also difficult to tell when people are making fun of things. I didn't catch on that those Latin phrases in the first section were there because Mulligan was making fun of the Catholic mass until the nice Shmoop guide explained it to me. It seems like it would be impossible to read this book without some help! 

Review: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

via

Reviewed by Connie

Published: 1927

It's about: To the Lighthouse centers around the Ramsay family as they visit their beach home in Scotland along with their friends and acquaintances in 1910-1920. Little happens, but there is much philosophical reflection and plenty of introspection.

I thought: Virginia Woolf is a literary goddess. Who else can capture the intricacies and subtleties and idiosyncrasies of the mind with such accuracy and truth? To the Lighthouse is yet another powerful example that despite (or is it because of?) her self-proclaimed "madness," Woolf understands the psychology of thought better than any other author to date.

Reading To the Lighthouse feels like reading your own mind. This book is a perfect example of my definition of "literature" -- psychological insight over plot. Little happens in this book, or in any of Woolf's books I have yet encountered, and yet its pages are remarkably profound.

I read this book much more slowly than I read other books, because I savored every last word. Should you decide to read this, I highly recommend doing so when you are at your leisure, and when you have a fully loaded pen ready to underline the crap out of that book.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf

Reading Recommendations: If you are not a fan of stream of consciousness, or you're looking for an exciting, fast read, this is not for you. If you are looking for something beautiful and quiet and brilliant, then by all means, pick this book up.

Warnings: none

Favorite excerpts:
"How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking?"

"And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach."

"A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance."

"No, she thought...children never forget. For this reason, it was so important what one said, and what one did, and it was a relief when they went to bed."

What I'm reading next: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Review: My Antonia by Willa Cather

Nebraska prairie (via)

Reviewed by Ingrid

Published: 1918

It's about: Jim Burden goes to live with his grandparents in Black Hawk, Nebraska after his parents die. A Bohemian (Czech) family with a beautiful little daughter the same age as Jim arrive in town on the same train. Jim develops a fascination for this girl, named Antonia Shimerda. This book is a narration of her life as seen through his eyes.

I thought: I've only read one other book by Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, when I was in high school and didn't like it at all. I've been hesitant to pick up another of her novels since then. My mom wrote her master's thesis on Willa Cather's work and has always encouraged/pressured me to give My Antonia a chance. When I found it for free in the Kindle Store ... I knew the time had come.

Aaand I loved it. The characterization in this book is absolutely phenomenal. I especially appreciated how Cather showed Antonia develop into a strong, independent woman. Her characters are all great. However, Willa Cather is known best for the way she writes about the land and how it affects her characters emotionally and psychologically. For example:

Between that earth and that sky, I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night: here, I felt, what would be would be.

The landscape is so much a part of this novel that it becomes a character in itself - in fact, this is probably what most people think of when they think of Willa Cather, the landscape as its character in her novels. It is at once idyllic and violent, and always lurking in the background of every scene. I liked how engaging this story was, though it didn't have a traditional plot structure - the story unfolded like the prairie itself. Lovely. An easily accessible and beautiful read.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Willa Cather (via)

Reading Recommendations: Our blogger friend Chris wrote a lovely little poem (which you can read here) based on his experience visiting the grave of Anna Pavelka, the woman who became Cather's inspiration for Antonia Shimerda. Chris also took the picture of the Nebraska prairie I put at the top of this post.

Warnings: One attempted (though not successful) rape scene. Pretty scary stuff.

Favorite excerpts: "There was a curious social situation in Black Hawk. All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the family to go to school. Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had got little schooling themselves. But the younger brothers and sisters, for whom they made such sacrifices who have had 'advantages,' never seem to me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated. The older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Antonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new. I can remember a score of these country girls who were in service in Black Hawk during the few years I lived there, and I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them."

What I'm reading next: Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Review: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

via

Reviewed by Ingrid

Published:1982

It's about: This book is made up of letters written by a young black girl named Celie and her sister, Nettie. Celie was sexually abused by her father, had two children by him, then married young to an abusive husband. This novel documents her life over about 40 years. She befriends a woman with whom her husband had a years-long affair and develops an intimate relationship with her that teaches her more about herself and how she can learn to deal with her circumstances. During this time, Celie's sister Nettie joins with a missionary family and travels to Africa. Though Celie and Nettie are apart for most of the book, and most of the letters don't make it through the post, their sisterly bond keeps them going through extremely painful circumstances.  I believe Alice Walker wrote this book as an example of one person's individual journey to come to terms with a racist and sexist world. It's an intellectual feel-good book.

Oprah Winfrey as Sofia, Celie's strong-willed
daughter-in-law in the film adaptation of The Color Purple

I thought: I've had bad experiences with epistolary novels and tend to stay away from them (ahem, Pamela.) But this book was tremendous, and the epistolary form just made it that much better. I loved Celie's unique voice, and how her voice develops and matures through the novel. I love how Celie learns from Shug how to be come a strong independent woman with a voice that matters. I loved how Alice Walker wrote so honestly about how life was for black people in this era. There are White people in this story with realistic lives, with prejudices common and widespread to the time, and sometimes with good intentions, but these people aren't central to the story as they weren't central to Celie and Nettie's lives. There's no White person who comes in to fix racism (ahem .... The Help.) There are strong, mature Black women who learn to help themselves and each other. I loved how Nettie traveled to Africa and developed bonds with Black people from her native continent - and also how Walker realistically portrayed the tensions between African Blacks and American Blacks. I loved Celie's relationship with Shug. And I love, love, love,  loved the beautiful ending to this book. I just felt so dang GOOD when I finished, and not in that cheap, sentimental kind of way, but in that this-world-really-can-be-a-good-place kind of way. 

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations: If you have yet to read this book, now would be a great time! I've noticed it's been placed on many a display table in bookstores around the country in honor of Black History Month. I suggest you pick yourself up a copy. Also, check out this awesome review of The Color Purple over at Homorazzi (where I found the picture of Alice Walker at the top of this post.) But watch out ... some of their ads and pictures are NSFW, so proceed with caution.

Warnings: Sex, incest, violent physical abuse. (And an inspiring journey to overcome these things.) 

Favorite excerpts:
"Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. . . .
     It? I ast.
     Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It.
     But what do it look like? I ast.
     Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
     Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose."