Tag: challenges

Day 893: Classics Club Spin! A Wreath of Roses

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

wreath-of-rosesToday is another Classics Club Spin, and the book that was chosen for me from my Classics Club list is A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor. Compared to the other two books I’ve read by Elizabeth Taylor, this novel seems less blighted in its setting. It takes place in a countryside that is lushly described. But before we get there, a shocking event occurs in the railway station that foreshadows the atmosphere and events to come.

Camilla is on her way for her annual holiday, which she has spent for years with her closest friend Liz and Liz’s former governess, Frances. Frances has become a famous painter, and they stay with her in her home. But this year things are different. First, Camilla has met a man, Richard Elton, on the train. Although she ordinarily wouldn’t have even spoken to him, categorizing him as a certain type, the incident at the train station has shocked them both. Then, Liz has brought along her baby Henry. Liz’s marriage to Arthur, whom Camilla dislikes, has created distance between the two women, and Camilla isn’t interested in the baby. Finally, Frances is looking like an old woman. She has difficulty painting, and has radically changed her style.

But the focus of the novel is on Camilla’s relationship with Richard Elton. When we see him on his own, we realize he is a liar who has difficulty telling his own lies from the truth. He may also be dangerous. He has told Camilla stories about violent activities during the war, but they seem unlikely. And he keeps reading in the paper about the murder of a woman.

Camilla is both repelled by and attracted to Richard. At first, she agrees to see him only to irritate Liz, but then she begins to feel sorry for him. Also, she sees herself drawing ever closer to a sort of dried-up spinsterhood, while Liz is positively blooming in her fecundity.

Although some of Taylor’s other novels are depressing in their realism, A Wreath of Roses is much darker. It juxtaposes the heat and lushness of its country setting with Camilla’s feelings of sterility and the themes of murder and suicide. The novel is disturbing yet compelling.

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Classics Club Spin #12!

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

Cover for The MoonstoneHere is my list for the next Classics Club Spin. As I mentioned last time, I have fewer than 20 books left on my list, so I am having to repeat books to make up a list of 20. We are to read the book corresponding to the number chosen and post a review by May 2.

  1. Henry VI, Part II by William Shakespeare
  2. The True Heart by Sylvia Townsend Warner
  3. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
  4. Ada by Vladimir Nabokov
  5. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  6. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
  7. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  8. A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
  9. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  10. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  11. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
  12. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
  13. Middlemarch by George Eliot
  14. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  15. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  16. The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro
  17. The True Heart by Sylvia Townsend Warner
  18. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
  19. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  20. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Classics Club Spin 11!

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

Cover for Far From the Madding CrowdClassics Club has announced another spin. This time I have exactly 20 items left on my Classics Club list. But I don’t want to end up with Henry VI Pt. III before Pt. II, so I’ve done some creative listing, picking an entry to list twice. Classics Club will pick a number on Monday, and that’s the book I’ll read. (Although to be honest, I’ve read some of these already and just haven’t posted my review yet.)

I do wish the Classics Club would stop making their spin deadline be the first of the month, because I can’t tell you how many times it has ended up being the same day as Literary Wives, which is the case this time. The reviews are to be posted by February 1, so I’ll have to post mine earlier. Anyway, can’t wait to find out one of the books I’m reading in December and January!

  1. Henry VI Pt. II by William Shakespeare
  2. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
  3. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
  4. Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley
  5. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  6. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  7. Middlemarch by George Eliot
  8. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  9. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  10. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  11. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
  12. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
  13. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  14. The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro
  15. Ada by Vladimir Nabokov
  16. That Lady by Kate O’Brien
  17. A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
  18. The True Heart by Sylvia Townsend Warner
  19. Night by Elie Wiesel
  20. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Day 794: Classic Club Spin #10! Selected Poems of Robert Frost

~ whatmeread ~ 15 Comments

Cover for Selected PoemsMy book for Classics Club Spin #10 is Selected Poems of Robert Frost. I have to confess to not having quite succeeded in finishing my selection this time, but more than 300 pages of poetry is a lot of poetry to read. I got about halfway through the book.

Poetry is just not my thing, I guess. I did enjoy many of the poems in this book, but they were the same ones I’ve enjoyed before, so it was like visiting old friends—“Mowing,” “Mending Wall,” “After Apple-Picking,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Acquainted with the Night,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Most of these, I notice, are devoted to observations about nature or are about rural work.

I do not so much enjoy what Robert Graves refers to in the introduction as his “poignant country dramas,” like “The Death of the Hired Man.” They seem more like prose to me, which is ironic, since I am generally more comfortable with prose. But they are not what I come to Frost for. I come to him for things like this:

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.

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Classics Spin #9!

~ whatmeread ~ 18 Comments

Cover for The MoonstoneI always enjoy the Classics Club spin, where the club invites members to post a list of 20 book from their Classics Club lists, draws a number, and then you promise to read the book corresponding to that number by the deadline. Unfortunately, the date for posting that list always seems to fall on the same day as Literary Wives club, so I’m posting it a little early. Here is my list, and I will read the book chosen by May 15.

  1. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
  2. Henry VI Pt I by William Shakespeare (chosen by the spin)
  3. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  4. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
  5. Night by Elie Wiesel
  6. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
  7. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  8. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
  9. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  10. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  11. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
  12. The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro
  13. Ada by Vladimir Nabokov
  14. Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley
  15. A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
  16. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  17. Middlemarch by George Eliot
  18. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
  19. The True Heart by Sylvia Townsend Warner
  20. Beloved by Toni Morrison