Tag: classics

Review 2445: Illyrian Spring

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

This is a lovely book. In some ways, it compares to Elizabeth Von Armin’s The Enchanted April, but I think it is deeper and more thoughtful.

Grace Kilmichael has left her family. Although she is a famous painter, her husband Walter treats her art like a little hobby. He has always teased her about being stupid, but lately there seems to be an edge. He constantly makes admiring remarks about a female coworker and spends a lot of time with her.

Grace’s children are grown and don’t seem to need her, and she has lately had a poor relationship with her daughter Linnet, who no longer confides in her and acts impatient with her.

Accepting a contract for some drawings on her travels, she leaves without telling anyone where she’s going. She simply writes Walter a letter offering him the opportunity to leave her for Rose.

Lady Kilmichael has avoided meeting any of her friends in Europe, because she wants no one to know where she is. However, she runs into her friend Lady Roseneath in Venice. Lady Roseneath is traveling with her nephew, and when he appears, Grace realizes that she met him the day before on Torcello, where they had a conversation about architecture and he helped her correct a drawing of mathematical design that she plans to send to her archeologist son.

His name is Nicholas Humphries and he’s a little older than her sons. On an expedition the next day, he confides that he wants to be an artist but because he made the decision late and he wanted to be an architect as a child, his father is determined he will study architecture. The situation is made worse because his sister decided to be an artist before him, although she has little talent, and his father won’t stand for two artists in the family. When Grace sees his work, she realizes he needs to develop but has talent. So, eventually she agrees to help him learn.

She has told Lady Roseneath she is going to Greece because she doesn’t want her family to find her, but actually she goes to Spalato (Split) on the coast of Croatia, and the boy comes with her. Grace feels that he is giving her insights into her relationship with Linnet, and Nicholas, who was sulky when she met him, begins to be more happy.

As well as containing gorgeous descriptions of the towns and countryside of 1935 Croatia, the novel thoughtfully explores the relationship between the two protagonists. It describes Grace’s own personal growth and her insights into her relationships with her family members. It’s a lovely novel about personal development.

Related Posts

Young Anne

Three Weeks

Dangerous Ages

Review 2439: Classics Club Spin Result! The Prophet’s Mantle

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

I picked this book out of my collected works of E. Nesbit for the Classics Club as one of her first novels for adults. In fact, it is her first novel. So, I wasn’t aware until I looked for a hardcopy that it was publicized under the name of Fabian Bland. In fact, I was confused, because some editions showed both names, so I thought they were two different people. I don’t agree with the custom some publishers use of listing works under the most well-known name just to make more money, but I have had to revise my listings of this work because of this error and listed both so as not to confuse.

In the prologue to this novel, Count Michael Litvinoff prevents Armand Percival from drowning himself after gambling away all his money. Litvinoff takes Percival as his secretary to Russia. But Litvinoff is the author of a pamphlet that the Russian authorities deem dangerous, so the two have to flee. On the trip, it is reported that the secretary is killed by their Cossack pursuers.

It takes a while to see the connection between this story and the body of the novel, which begins with two brothers, Richard and Roland Ferrier. Their father leaves his mill to both of them, hoping to keep them friends, as they are rivals for the same girl, Clare Stanley. If they can’t run it together, the business will fold.

However, Richard believes a rumor in the village that Roland is responsible for the disappearance of Alice Hatfield, the assumption being that she left because she was pregnant. When Roland learns this, the two become unreconciled and the mill is closed. It’s clear from the beginning that Roland knows nothing about Alice, though.

In London, we again meet Count Litvinoff, a Nihilist (although Nesbit doesn’t seem to understand what one is, and although there is a lot of discussion about revolutionary principles, no one actually states what the characters believe) who has published several books and has been speaking around town. Clare Stanley is in town, and she is trying to attract the count, but after she hears a talk by another Russian, Mr. Petrovich, she begins to be interested in the cause. It soon becomes clear that it is Litvinoff, not Roland, who is responsible for Alice’s plight.

It’s not long before several plots are going. Who will win Clare? What will happen to Alice? Who is the mysterious Petrovich? Is Litvinoff a hero or a villain? Will Richard and Roland make it up? And what about the poor mill workers?

Despite its revolutionary theme and good intentions, I fear the mill workers get the short shrift. This novel goes in too many directions to really do a satisfactory job in 159 (small print) pages. I guessed all its secrets almost immediately, and only Litvinoff has anything approaching a rounded character. The novel is supposed to have a stunning romantic ending, but I wasn’t interested enough in the characters to care much. I think Nesbit’s young revolutionary fervor (she was a Fabianist) gets in the way of this being effective fiction.

Related Posts

That Lass O’Lowrie’s

Challenge

Sofia Petrovna

Review 2434: Family Ties

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

The Monsoon family was once better off but now not so much. The family consists of Charles Monsoon, now an old man, and his younger wife, who seems to be always referred to as Mrs. Monsoon. They have two grown sons, George, who is a solicitor but prefers to work on a book about butterflies, and Stephen, who is a market gardener. Both sons live at home with their wives. Stephen’s is Vivienne, who helps Mrs. Monsoon keep the house, and George’s is Amy, who, now that her two boys are away at school, does nothing at all.

At first, the novel introduces so many characters that I kept confusing them. There are the Rockabys, whose daughter Lavinia is engaged to Mr. Swan, the doctor’s son, who has come to the village to handle his father’s estate. There are also the Tyces. Mrs. Tyce has become eccentric, so her son Rupert has been summoned to take care of some problems. Then there is the vicar and various other characters. However, the novel eventually settles down to being mostly about the Monsoons, particularly Amy.

Amy is finding herself dissatisfied, not wanting to be thought of as only a wife and mother. She wants some other identity but doesn’t really do anything about it except mope. The time period is not specified, but later it is clear that it’s 20 years or so before the time the novel was written in 1952, so there probably isn’t much she could do, and Mr. Monsoon and the other characters keep making remarks about a woman’s place. Then she meets Rupert Tyce, who is surprised to find her reading Baudelaire in French. Rupert fancies himself a cultured man about town, so they begin spending time together.

George and Amy drift apart, and eventually the question becomes whether the marriage will survive.

This isn’t a serious novel, though. The characters are eccentric, and most of them do very little. A lot of attention goes to a stinking ditch and the excess of pigeons on the property. Mr. Monsoon does less and less, and when he hands the household affairs to his sons, they are shocked at how he has mismanaged them. Mrs. Monsoon is unappreciated and keeps taking to her bed. It’s all fairly silly in an entertaining way.

Related Posts

A House in the Country

Much Dithering

Not at Home

Review 2431: Forest Silver

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Forest Silver is a love story but not the kind you might expect. It is steeped in the love of the Lake District, particularly Grasmere.

It’s early in World War II, but Wing-Commander Richard Blunt has already been invalided out. He has received the Victorian Cross but been told his heart is not up to much. He has also broken off his engagement. Aware that the engagement news will be published soon, he jumps on a train to the Lake District to get away from everything.

Arriving in Grasmere, he finds it stuffed with evacuees as well as vacationers. He manages to get a room, but noting an island in the lake, he decides he’d like to live there and asks who owns it. He is directed to Bonfire Hall to speak to Miss de Bainriggs.

Much to his astonishment, he finds his prospective landlord is a tall teenaged girl who dresses like a boy. She agrees to lease him the island, which is occupied by a sort of barn called a hogg-house. However, there is some unpleasantness because a Gypsy woman named Jownie Wife has been living there and has to be evicted.

Corys de Bainriggs takes seriously her ownership of the estate and is determined not to sell an inch of it even though she is broke and a wealthy evacuee is offering large sums, foreseeing that the local hotels will be commandeered. However, Jownie Wife takes her revenge on Corys by burning down the house of one of her dependents, Old John. Old John refuses to live anywhere but his own home, and because she’s afraid he will die, she sells some lake acreage to Mr. Lovely so that she can rebuild Old John’s house.

Blunt befriends Corys and eventually understands himself to be in love with her. But Corys is much too young for such things. Things are made more complicated by the appearance on the scene of Gerald Lovely, a university student, and of Maimie Ozzard, Richard’s ex-fianceé, whose parents have been killed by a bomb and has no one to turn to.

The descriptions of the area are beautiful and the picture of wartime life in a place that has to adjust to so many new people is interesting and different than the wartime stories I have read. Ward is an evocative writer and storyteller.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

Related Posts

Tom Tiddler’s Ground

Cheerfulness Breaks In

Good Evening, Mrs. Craven

Review 2429: The Return of the Native

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

A love triangle—or rather a love pentagon—is at the heart of The Return of the Native. I put this novel on my Classics Club list because, although I read it years ago, I could remember nothing about it.

The Return of the Native is Hardy’s most contained novel, all of it taking place on Egdon Heath. The action begins on Guy Fawkes night with the lighting of bonfires. The occupants of one barrow are discussing the supposed marriage that day of Damon Wildeve and Tamsin Yeobright. But Tamsin returns home in distress and unmarried, saying Wildeve made a mistake with the license.

Wildeve has told Tamsin they can marry on Monday, but on that very night he goes to see Eustacia Vye, the girl he dropped for Tamsin. Eustacia is a vibrant, proud woman, and there is no doubt that she is tempted to get revenge on Tamsin.

Tamsin and her aunt view themselves disgraced if the marriage doesn’t come off, even though Wildeve lets weeks go by as he tries to court Eustacia. But Eustacia has heard of the return after years away of Tamsin’s cousin Clym, an educated man who works as a diamond seller in Paris, and sight unseen, she decides he’s the man for her. She hates the heath and wants to go to Paris. So, she misses a rendezvous with Wildeve and he marries Tamsin.

With this ill-conceived marriage, we are halfway set up for the tragedy. Then Eustacia marries Clym even after he tells her he plans to run a school for the poor on the heath, thinking she can easily change his mind after the wedding. The fifth point of the pentagon is occupied by Diggory Venn, a rettleman, or man who sells the red substance used to mark sheep and whose skin and clothing are dyed red from handling it. Although the Introduction to my edition explains that Hardy meant him to be a rather freakish figure about the heath, he ends up using him as a sort of deus ex machina, always in aid of Tamsin.

A strong theme of snobbery is inherent in the novel as we learn (1) that Wildeve was meant for better things but ended up owning the neighborhood pub, (2) that Tamsin turned down a proposal from Venn even when he was a respectable dairyman because he wasn’t good enough for her, (3) that the only suitable suitors for Eustacia in the neighborhood are the morally dubious Wildeve or the unambitious Clym. And Mrs. Yeobright clearly disapproves of both her son’s and niece’s choices.

So, we’re all set up for one of Hardy’s tragedies, in which he lays into the Victorian idea of marriage while making all his characters suffer. I usually like this stuff, but Hardy was forced by his publisher to add on the last section, thus providing a happier ending and making the story seem to last a little too long.

Related Posts

Far from the Madding Crowed

Tess of the D’Urbervilles

The Mayor of Casterbridge

Review 2426: Mrs. Martell

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

Mrs. Martell is not a nice person. She is beautiful and ambitious. Her goal has always been to marry a wealthy, influential man. She’s always had plenty of attention from men, but somehow she has not been lucky. Mr. Martell was a mistake, of course.

Cathie Martell never paid much attention to her cousin Laura until Laura married Edward West, wealthy and with great connections. Since then, she has made it her business to befriend Laura and has almost succeeded in detaching Edward for herself, but somehow he stays married to Laura.

Just in case Edward doesn’t come up to scratch, Cathie has encouraged the attentions of Mr. Hardy, a young newspaper reporter, who is able to get free tickets for shows. He is madly in love with her, but she doesn’t want Edward to find out.

This darkish social satire rivals the story of Becky Sharp, only Becky is more likable. Eliot’s prose is sharp and biting, although she tends to shift point of view without warning, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph, which I found confusing at times. Still, I was driven to find out if Cathie would succeed or get her comeuppance.

Related Posts

Alice

Burmese Days

The Eustace Diamonds

Review 2333: The Halt During the Chase

~ whatmeread ~ 5 Comments

Sophie is an intelligent, vivacious young woman who is in love with Philip, whom she considers perfect. It’s clear, however, that she is subduing her personality and dressing to please him. She, her mother, and friends have been waiting for a proposal of marriage, but none has been forthcoming. Then, during a romantic tryst in a hotel room, he says something that she finds unforgivable, and it becomes clear to her that, although he loves her, he wants a wife with money.

Sophie realizes she needs to be more independent of her mother, too. After attending some “spiritual” lectures that sound like they are about self-realization, she realizes that their relationship as it is, with her coddling and reassuring her mother, is bad for them both.

Sophie decides to split from Philip, although it is difficult to do so because she still loves him. But she wants to live her own life. Her elderly friend Pussy has told her that once she tries to leave, he will try to get her back, and he does.

This novel is intelligent and funny. It contains unusual turns of phrase and vividly conveys emotions. Sophie is a sparkling heroine. I just loved this novel.

Related Posts

Sing Me Who You Are

Sally on the Rocks

Beneath the Visiting Moon

Review 2328: Tom Tiddler’s Ground

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

At the beginning of World War II, socialite Caroline Cameron takes her baby daughter to stay in a country village with her old school mate, Constance Smith. Caroline is witty but spoiled, and she has begun to feel that her husband John is coddling her too much. She thinks that Constance is nice but naïve, and her husband Alfred, who married up, is a social climbing bounder.

Caroline is surprised by how involved she gets with the lives around her. Constance also has an evacuee mother and baby staying with her. The mother is a sullen girl who pays little attention to the badly underweight baby. Once Nurse and Caroline change his food, he begins to gain weight and Constance begins to care for him.

Alfred is embarrassed because his half sister Mary moved to town as the grocer’s wife. He tries to avoid her, but Constance welcomes her.

Caroline, however, is being tempted into an affair with Vernon, an actor friend. She is displeased with her husband because he doesn’t want to discuss his first marriage, which she’s heard conflicting stories about. When she is in town with Vernon’s friends, she finds herself telling stories about her country friends and then feeling a little disloyal to them.

Although it deals with some serious issues, this is a charming novel about growing to understand other people.

Related Posts

Company in the Evening

Begin Again

Which Way?

Review 2322: A Well Full of Leaves

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

Laura is from a poor family, but lack of money isn’t the problem so much as lack of love. Her father earns very little and is often drunk. Her mother constantly complains, offers no affection to her children, and tells them they are ungrateful.

At the opening of the novel, Anda, the oldest at 16, is beautiful but selfish. Robert, at 14, loves reading about history but has been made to quit school for a job as a clerk. Both pick on Steve, the youngest at 11, who deeply feels the lack of affection. Only Laura, who is 12 or 13, seems to care about him, and she has learned to adapt to their circumstances by losing herself in the tiny details of life, to enjoy living. She tries to teach her outlook to Steve, but he just becomes more bitter.

A crisis comes when Steve is 14. Although he is the best student of Greek in school and has a good chance at university, their mother tells him she removed him from school so he can work. This is just meanness, because Anda is leaving home, and Robert and Laura are working, so the household is better off than it ever has been. After a huge family fight, Steve burns all his books.

The novel begins to be about the relationship between Laura and Steve. Steve becomes a famous actor with a very bad reputation. He has many affairs but says he loves only Laura. Once their father dies, Laura goes to live with Steve. The real crisis comes when Laura falls in love.

Although I agree with a lot of Laura’s ideas, Myers expresses them far too often and in a florid writing style that seems to belong to the early Romantics. Sometimes, I had no idea what she was talking about and other times, I didn’t want to think about it enough to figure it out. Parts of the novel are absolutely fraught in tone, especially at the end.

Related Posts

Which Way?

The Old Man’s Birthday

The Other Side of the Bridge

Review 2321: Classics Club Spin Result! Weatherley Parade

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Note: the name on this cover image is misspelled. The cover on the book I have looks the same but is spelled correctly.

In Weatherley Parade, Richmal Crompton takes a look at changes in society through the lens of one upper-class family, the Weatherleys. Her novel begins with the return of Arthur Weatherley from the Boer War in 1902 and ends in the midst of World War II in 1940.

The novel is written in vignettes, chapters that take up a few hours, a few days, or a few months. What with children, grandchildren, and other relatives, there are many characters. No one is completely lovable or unlikeable. They are shown with their good points and flaws.

During the years, there are many events—happy and unhappy marriages, separations, a divorce, and deaths. Among these events, there is one treatment of a child that is hard to forgive.

Among some of the characters is Aunt Lilian, a young woman in 1902 of whom her brother Arthur despairs. He can’t understand why she keeps jilting one fiancé after another. She runs with a fast crowd and seems restless and bored. At first, I thought she was just ahead of her time, dissatisfied with traditional women’s roles, but I liked her less as time went on, and she eventually turns to alcoholism.

Arthur’s two children are Clive and Anthea. Clive is a boy who thinks everything should be done properly and by the rules, which doesn’t make him a popular schoolboy or, later, schoolmaster or father, even though his intentions are good. Anthea likes to have people’s attention, which works well when she is the mother of many children but isn’t so successful when they begin leaving the nest.

The novel stops in to visit these characters and their descendants at key periods of their lives. The scope here is broad rather than particular, so we don’t get to know any characters extremely well. I thought the depiction of changing times and attitudes was interesting, but I felt fairly neutral about most of the characters.

Related Posts

Family Roundabout

The Old Man’s Birthday

Greenbanks