Tag: classics

Review 1504: The Curate’s Awakening

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Thomas Wingfold is a curate who was brought up in the church but has never really considered what his beliefs are. When he is challenged by a cynical university man, George Bascombe, to prove that Christ even lived, he realizes he can’t do it. This sends him into a crisis of faith, during which he tries to form his own beliefs.

Helen Lingard is George’s cousin, a young woman who is described as someone who has never thought before. George comes to believe he can mold her thought to match his, in which case she might make a wonderful wife. However, Helen finds she needs someone to turn to when her beloved brother, Leopold, returns home in desperate trouble. After the curate begins preaching more heart-felt sermons about his search, she decides to confide in him.

This novel, written in 1876, is part of a trilogy called The Curate of Glaston, and it is meant to have a spiritual message. As such, it wasn’t a good choice for me, especially as it goes into great detail about Thomas’s conversations with his mentor and his sermons. It is perfectly readable, though, if you are interested in such a subject. I was, in fact, interested to find out what happened to Helen and Leopold, but although I tried very hard to finish this book, I couldn’t.

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Review 1503: The Battle Lost and Won

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The second novel in Manning’s Levant Trilogy, The Battle Lost and Won begins one day after The Danger Tree ended. Simon Boulderstone continues his leave after finding out that his brother Hugo has been killed. He tags along with Harriet and her friends for an evening in Cairo, but when he hears that the big push is coming up, he returns to his unit hoping to be in on the action.

This book continues the pattern of its predecessor by alternating the points of view of Harriet and Simon. Simon becomes more closely involved in the second battle of El Alamein while Harriet becomes more frustrated with her husband Guy. As usual, Guy occupies all his time with projects and saves none for her, nor does he agree to anything she asks for. He is generous with anyone but her. Without any job or other occupation, she gets dragged into the love lives of her flatmates Angela and Edwina.

Like many middle novels, this one does not have its own climax but works its way to the final volume. Still, I am interested to see what happens to Guy and Harriet, and to some extent, Simon.

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Review 1500: Sofia Petrovna

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The heroine of Sofia Petrovna is an ordinary Soviet woman, not political but a happy worker at a publishing house. She has a son, Kolya, a promising engineering student who is a dedicated party member.

Then things begin to go wrong. She hears of the arrest of some doctors, one of whom she knows. They have been accused of sabotage. She can hardly believe it. He seemed like such a nice man. But if they say it is true, it must be. Then Kolya is arrested.

Lydia Chukovskaya’s novella about the Great Purge under Stalin was written in 1939-40, and she kept it hidden for years. A Soviet publishing company accepted it for publication in 1962, but when it was almost ready, backed out. It was finally published in Europe in 1965 after having been smuggled out of the country.

This is a deeply interesting and harrowing novella about what happens to an individual when the world seems to have gone crazy.

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Review 1498: The Danger Tree

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The Danger Tree is the first volume of The Levant Trilogy, the second half of Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War. It begins with the adventures of a new character, Simon Boulderstone, a subaltern in the army who has missed his transport to his unit in Egypt. During the course of a day in Cairo, he meets Harriet Pringle, who seems at first as though she is going to be a minor character.

However, the book alternates chapters between Simon’s experiences in the desert and Harriet and Guy Pringle’s in Cairo and Alexandria. The last book of the Balkan Trilogy left the Pringles in Cairo after they fled Athens. It’s a year later. When they arrived in Cairo, Guy found Colin Gracey, his nemesis from Athens, in charge of the Organization, for which Guy works. Gracey is neglectful of his position, a characteristic that Guy despises, and has gone off traveling, so Guy has trouble meeting with him to ask about a position. Gracey has again employed the unqualified Dubedat and Toby Lush while ignoring the very qualified Guy.

Guy stupidly then offends Gracey by writing a limerick about him, which he hears of. As a result, Guy is finally posted to an unimportant school in Alexandria nearer to the front, and Harriet is stuck in Cairo living in one room in a pension and working for the American embassy.

The focus of Harriet’s portion of the book is the uncertainty in Cairo, as the Europeans wait for an attack from Rommel. For Simon’s section, it is the confusion he finds at the front.

This book made an interesting start to the second trilogy. I’m happy to follow Guy and Harriet a while longer as they make their way through World War II.

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Review 1494: #1920Club! Chéri

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I haven’t read any Colette for a long time, so I thought it would be fun to read Chéri for the 1920 Club. It is the story of Léa, a middle-aged but beautiful courtesan, and her young lover, called Chéri, set in 1913.

Léa has been with her spoiled, childish lover since he was a very young man, but now his mother, Madame Peloux, thinks it’s time he was married. So, he and Léa prepare to part. Once parted, though, they both realize that they loved the other more than they thought.

Colette’s world of wealthy and stylish early 20th century Parisians is in some ways more foreign to me than stories about cultures much further removed. I couldn’t help feeling how sterile are lives lived only for pleasure. Also, I don’t really understand the attraction of a young man who behaves like a petulant child. But this is part of the realization that Léa finally has, that it’s about time he grew up.

The descriptions of people, rooms, and clothing are evocative and lovely. Despite my not being over fond of it, this is a masterly examination of the human heart.

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Review 1480: This Side of Paradise

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I have a high opinion of The Great Gatsby, but I haven’t read any other Fitzgerald that I can remember. So, when I was making up my current Classics Club list, I put This Side of Paradise on it.

It isn’t a good choice for me, though. I have so far disliked almost every book about privileged males’ schooldays, especially when the boys think they are sophisticated (the exception being the beginning of Brideshead Revisited). The nostalgic tone they frequently take about boys behaving badly is especially grating. I don’t think This Side of Paradise is supposed to be nostalgic, but it is definitely smug.

The main character, Amory Blaine, is described as an egoist. He spends most of his time putting people into snobby little categories and working the system to be successful in school. Successful, of course, means socially, not intellectually.

It’s not too much of a stretch to think that Amory is Fitzgerald himself, only richer and with a childhood spent in Europe.

I would like to think that Amory evolves in the book, but my understanding is he doesn’t, much. I stuck it out for nearly half the book but didn’t find anything in it to interest me, so I stopped.

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Review 1462: Not at Home

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Miss Elinor MacFarren is dismayed to realize that something must be done about her finances. With World War II just past, there has not been much recent demand for her beautifully illustrated books on botany. She decides, with the London housing shortage going on, that she must find someone to share her lovely family home, filled with treasures.

When she interviews Mrs. Bankes, whose husband is an American journalist, she has some misgivings, but Mrs. Bankes agrees to all her conditions, and she relies upon the warm recommendation of her friend, Harriet Greenway. It’s not too long after Mrs. Bankes moves in, though, that the house is noisy and disorganized. Miss MacFarren’s precious objects are being mistreated, and Mrs. Bankes is using up all the time of the shared housekeeper. She is even taking Miss MacFarren’s food from the kitchen.

Mrs. Bankes proves to be a manipulator and a liar, willing to do or say anything to get her way. The situation is complicated when Mr. Bankes arrives, because he is so nice and appreciative of the house. Miss MacFarren can’t bring herself to give them notice while he is there.

This domestic comedy is thoroughly enjoyable as Miss MacFarren gets out of her rut, meeting new people and re-evaluating old acquaintances. With their help, she tries to figure out how to eject her unwelcome lodger.

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

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Review 1461: Expiation

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Milly Bott, a plump little woman like a dove, is suddenly a widow after her husband Ernest’s accident. The respectable Botts gather around her to commiserate, but she appears to be stunned. Then comes the fateful news. Her husband has left her only £1000 of his huge fortune, giving the rest to a home for fallen women and ending his will with “she will know why.”

Of course, the family assumes that Milly has had an affair. They decide that the only way to avoid scandal is to rally around her. But Milly has other ideas. She decides to run off to London to get her legacy and then travel to Switzerland to stay with her sister, Agatha. For, the only other scandal in the Bott family was created when Agatha eloped with a Swiss. Milly decides she will confess her sins to Agatha and go on to live a life of expiation, for she has indeed had an affair.

But naïve and sweet-natured Milly is in for many disillusions, beginning with her first meeting with her sister in 25 years, for Ernest forbade the association. Milly has been writing to her sister secretly and encounters her in London.

Expiation is a social satire that is sometimes hilarious and sometimes touching. As the virtuous characters jump from one conclusion to another and behave with less Christian forgiveness the more religious they are, poor silly but penitent and unfailingly kind Milly unwittingly turns their lives topsy-turvy.

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

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Review 1459: The Charterhouse of Parma

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I found a nice hardcopy edition of The Charterhouse of Parma a while back and finally decided to read it. I have to conclude that I am not a fan of Stendahl. I read The Red and the Black a few years ago and deeply disliked its hero, who is essentially a sociopath.

The Charterhouse of Parma is about the life of a young Italian nobleman, Fabrizio, the second son of the Marchese and Marchesa del Dongo. When Fabrizio is a boy, the region where he lives, near Lake Como, goes back and forth between occupation by the French and rule by Austria. Although Fabrizio’s father is a conservative devoted to the Austrian king, Fabrizio grows up with romantic stories about Napoleon’s exploits. When he is a young man, extremely naïve and stupid, he runs off to fight for Napoleon just in time for Waterloo. He doesn’t even know how to join the army so ends up being mistaken for a spy and having so many ridiculous exploits that I thought I was reading a comedy. I wasn’t. In any case, this adventure results in his being accused by his elder brother of being a spy for the French so that he can no longer reside in Austria, which includes portions of Italy.

Meanwhile, his beloved aunt, the Countess Pietranara, is widowed. She eventually meets Count Mosca, a powerful person in the government of Parma, who falls in love with her. He offers to quit his position and move to Milan to be her impoverished lover (he is married) or to have her marry Duke Sanseverina in name only so that she can respectably move to Parma and be at court—and also be his mistress. She chooses the latter plan.

After Fabrizio’s return from the front, Duchess Sanseverina and Count Mosca try to help Fabrizio gain some position worthy of his birth. They choose the church and advise him how to behave. But Fabrizio is struggling between his instincts and his conscience and consistently falls into one mishap after another.

When I tell you that Tolstoy modelled his description of Waterloo—the least interesting part of War and Peace, which I consistently skipped over—after Stendahl’s, and when I say further that Waterloo, to me, was one of the most interesting parts of this book, you will guess how much I enjoyed it. Actually, I should say the first half of the book, because I finally stopped reading. I did not find Fabrizio interesting and didn’t really care what happened to him.

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Review 1429: The Old Man’s Birthday

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I’ve only read two books by Richmal Crompton, but she seems to be interested in studying the individual members of large families. In The Old Man’s Birthday, she focuses this interest around Matthew Rowston’s 95th birthday.

Matthew has led an exciting and sometimes disreputable life, but he married an extremely conventional woman and now lives in a village stifled by class consciousness and respectability concerns. To this birthday party, he has insisted on inviting his grandson Stephen, who is living with a married woman and has been cast off by most of the rest of the family. Part of Matthew’s motivation is a perverse desire to shock these family members, but when he meets Stephen’s partner, Beatrice, he is also reminded of a girl he loved when he was young.

This novel is about how the introduction of a single person into a group can change dynamics that seem fairly set. You may feel that a multitude of difficult situations are resolved too easily, but still, this is an enjoyable and touching novel. I read it for Classics Club and was glad I did.

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