The Brontes Rise Again

Dear Fellowette alerted me (and everyone!) to this fun challenge going on over Laura’s Review. And can I resist a Bronte Challenge? I think not. Can you?

The idea is to pick a bunch of Bronte books, written by them or about them and then naturally, write a review.  Or you can watch some movies and write a review about that.

So here’s my list:

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte. I haven’t written this since I was thirteen or so! for shame.

“Agnes Grey” by Anne Bronte. I wrote a paper awhile ago on Anne’s pleasure and escape from a difficult life in writing religious poetry and I remember really enjoying this particular novel (which I believe has some of that poetry) though I can’t remember a thing about the plot or characters. Again, for shame!

“Tales of Angria” by Charlotte Bronte. Which I have somewhere…

“The Life of Charlotte Bronte” by Elizabeth Gaskell. Long been on my list of things to read!

“The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte” by Daphne DuMaurier.  The title says it all, I believe.

“The Brontes Went to Woolsworth” by Rachel Ferguson. Kinda cheating since I read this last year but it’s oh so imaginative and believable. A rare combo in my book. I also want to puzzle over more what exactly happened near the end…

I think I’ll pull up here. More may happen, maybe less but this is the Bronte bedrock.

She’s got it all right…

How can a book about dull people be so fascinating? I don’t know the exact secret (and I may have to reread to ferret that one out) but all I know is that Frances Hodgson Burnett has done it with “The Making of the Marchioness”! It’s also a page-turning read into the bargain. I read “The Shuttle” by her this summer and oh, how I reveled in it. Hodgson Burnett writes so clearly- which is unusual for a Victorian writer and why she’s such an excellent children’s writer as well. In “The Shuttle”, I sailed through on her clear writing and it’s always interesting on how uncluttered writing presents melodrama. Because, of course, “The Shuttle” and “The Making of the Marchioness” have delightful melodrama (these aren’t children’s books by the way, they’re for adults). I suppose her good use of characterization prevents melodrama in it’s truest sense but oh! There are parts of “bad people doing thrillingly bad things” where I hugged myself in glee instead of thinking flatly, “well, that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of.”
The girl has got the goods. Hodgson Burnett may not be considered the 3l33t of the lit world but she knew her craft and she knew how to write a great story.

A dog named Flush

I just finished “Flush”, a novel by Virginia Woolf. I was surprised to run into “Flush” because I’m fairly acquainted with Woolf’s writing (I’m a huge fan of her Common Readers) but I had never heard much about this one. “Flush” is put out by Persephone Books and like all of their books, is a real gem.

Flush was Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel given to her a friend to cheer Miss Barrett up while she lay on her invalid bed doing invalid things. Like writing poetry and reading books and having friends occasionally visit while she cocooned herself up in Paisley Shawls. “Flush” then is the biography of Flush himself and it starts out with his ancestry and their love of chasing rabbits and running free as a breeze. Of course, this very great love of chasing things outdoors runs like quicksilver in Flush’s body but he is destined…for other things. And he resigns himself to the fate of living in a stuffy room and mostly eating and lying about. The first half of the book was difficult for me to get through. This clearly is no life for an energetic young dog. He rarely goes out and when he does in a park, it’s on a chain. Oh, Woolf whips it up all right and the puzzled longing of Flush to gallop about and play goes like nails into the heart. He loves Elizabeth, of course, but in his heart lies many turmoils…not just his need to race about in the sun…but there are jealousies and hurt feelings too.

The claustrophobic feel in the first half the book is pretty hard to get through. Elizabeth Barrett is cooped up in a room and sure, it’s been artistically and tastefully decorated but…it’s just one small room. She’s one of many children and an invalid and it’s hard to exactly know why she’s an invalid. She doesn’t feel well most of the time but it’s hard to think who Would feel good trapped up in a room nearly all the time. And why am I throwing conjectures about her when this book is about Flush? The book is about Flush but because he’s in this sweltering atmosphere, it gives us a good idea what Elizabeth Barrett is stuck in as well.

Release comes in the form of Robert Browning, whom Flush despises at first but who ultimately whisks the pair off for a life in Italy and Elizabeth Barrett’s and Flush Barrett’s lives are ultimately changed…

I galloped through the second half, managing to take a little bit of time to linger in the Florence that Flush hustles through everyday and the Apennines which Flush barely concedes to notice but whom his mistress exclaims over…yes, the first half sets the second half off, like a foil for a jewel.

And there really can be no doubt on how Woolf felt about Victorians and their “invalids” and I really cannot forget how sick I felt over the straightened ribs of that lone room, holding dog and mistress in its crush…and now I’m grateful too that at least one woman and one dog escaped that savage confine.

(yes, it is really them!)

Think it’s too early for Christmas?

It’s never too early for Christmas! I feel incredibly lucky to have born near Christmas because it’s my favorite holiday of all. Of course, that begs the question, why do I love it? Because of my birthday or because of the holiday itself? And just like the chicken and egg question, it can never be answered.

Last year, I did a great online craft class by Elsiecake, one cool girl, and while I ripped my hair out over a few crafts, I really did enjoy it. *Note:  it’s only being a perfectionist that makes me rip out my hair while doing projects, after all.*  The class got me to steadily craft, at least for a few weeks and that was an entirely new experience. This year, I want to start the crafting mayhem again and I’ve started to rev my wheels. Of course, there are a few things that should be done before I start complete and utter crafting. One is stripping off all this ugly wallpaper and two is painting afterward. Three is painting a darling,  peeling stand-alone cupboard and four is painting a shelf for the wall. See how everything comes down to painting? And I have no compulsion to paint so I’m just going to have to craft. Maybe some painting will get slipped in there but that’s doubtful!

For this year, I’m thinking gingerbread. Gingerbread ornaments for the tree down in the finished basement and a gingerbread farm for…gingerbread farm animals, of course! I lived on a farm for a good part of my life and while we never had as many animals as I hoped for, this one will have The Animals. I kid you not. And of course, there’s many many presents to be made and decorations to come to life and so you see…painting just isn’t an option.

carrying on with this review thing

[spoiler warning! yikes!]

“The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” by Katherine Howe pretty much jumped at me from off the shelf and so swung me into its world. Its loaded with of my favorite story elements: an old decrepit family house, a long family history of powerful, magical women, plenty of scholarly studies going on and last but not least, amore.
I am still impressed that this book had all this going on and still held a real soul at its center. “A book with a soul?” you might inquire. “Let me continue,” I say.
Many years ago, a dear professor let me know, as I studied magical realism in literature, that as northern caucasian women, we would never be able to write magical realism ourselves. Our culture, our history was all wrong for it. This made me furrow my brows but I saw her point. At the same time, I didn’t see her point at all. And I’d like to think that “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” is a good candidate for magical realism in Northern American culture. Women coming over from England (around the 1600’s) brought over a lot of folklore, a lot of remedies, some which were contained in grimoires and other writings. These remedies, while using various things in Nature, had a strong magical bent and were carried out by “cunning” women and men.
This book explores the fictional history of one line of “cunning” women and how the earlier ones related to God in Puritan culture. And I think this is where the soul of the book lies. Whether these women had magical powers or not is pointless but they did have something special whether it be special knowledge and a healing gift or whatever. They had the gifting and they used it to help others. Deliverance Dane believed that God had given her this gift to share and to her that’s the point of this life, to give the help we contain in ourselves to others.
Perhaps because of where I am in life, this spoke to me very deeply. And despite those years ago, I remember that same thread of thought running through the magical realism books I had read before by Allende and Morrison and others. Whether we believe in God or not, giving whatever (flavor of) magic we contain in ourselves is one of those best things.
I  also appreciate how Howe took the time and effort to put a strong and gifted woman into a very difficult culture and to really ponder out what could have plausibly happened to Deliverance Dane. And not only that but to ponder out Deliverance’s beliefs in everything that was going on around her. The ending is a sad one, of course because this is the time of the Salem witch trials but this book is a rare treat and one I’ll enjoy again.

My first steampunk novel!

“…and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.” This is excerpt from the back of the book “Soulless” by Gail Carriger and while all the “he’s so hot” adjectives left me cold, the idea of Queen Victoria employing a werewolf made me sit up straighter. What? Wwhhhaaaatwhoooooohooooowww?  What?Who?How? are the first questions for falling into true book love and I rushed out to buy myself a copy. I’m never one to resist falling for a book. My library and husband can both attest to this.
So I went and found and was thrilled to find that “Soulless” is only available in mass market paperback. Mass markets are smaller, cheaper and so easy to carry around and to hold while reading. I took my copy home and began and was surprised to find…
A strong, self-assured and cranky heroine. She joked and verbally clawed at everyone and my, how refreshing it was. Now there’s other things about this book too, like steam punk professors with special eyeglasses that clink through various lenses and copies of writing made with metal and the fact that the supernaturals like vampires and werewolves have all come out and have helped England become the mighty Victorian superpower that it was and all this is good and exciting…but what really got me was Alexia Tarabotti, soulless female extraordinaire. She bops ill-wishers with a weighty parasol and fights with her skirts and infinite petticoats so she may fight others. You try kicking someone hard with one of those huge Victorian dresses on and all the myriad of layers it cocooned the wearer in! Yes, exactly. The dress must be conquered so that the enemy may be.
She has a caustic tongue, lives with her family but does her best to not be in it and is lonely for companionship on so many levels. With someone like that, there’s bound to be adventures and there is. I hate to give away the plot so I won’t but it’s chock full of zany characters and lots of fun suppositions come to life.
There is only one thing about this book that I regret and that while it’s a fun and zippy read (dirigibles anyone?), I was hoping for a little bit more substance. There’s evil but it’s rather absurd and everyone’s rather mean for the most part but I wanted something nuanced to chew on, be it morality or whatever. This is not that book, ah well. Still tho’, I’m ready to be on to the next!

Also…I find it odd this is my first steampunk novel…I dressed steampunk for years without even knowing it. And of course, I always feel pretty much at home while reading Victorian lit. hmmm.

Old made new again…

Now that autumn is rolling in, all cold and rainy, I’m reminded of school and Betsy Ray. That’s right! Thinking of school always reminds me of Miss Betsy Ray from Deep Valley and how much I need to take a trip to that world.

The Betsy series actually starts up when Betsy’s a little girl and book after book carries us through grade school, high school, a trip to Europe and finally marriage. I have to say that though the books about Betsy’s childhood are sweet, they don’t hold much for me anymore. What I truly still get into are the books about her high school and then adult years. Betsy is a highly autobiographical character and there’s no doubt about it, the author, Maud Hart Lovelace, loved life and people with a happy zest. And it’s such a wonderful view to get into, especially on these dark and coldish days. I also love the time period it’s set in, the early 1900’s and seeing what teenagers did for entertainment in this era. Fudge and singing and dancing! And instead of women being irked how long clothes took to have made, everyone seems to anticipate finally getting a lovely new dress or skirt and waist.  There’s something to be said for anticipation. What I also like is how Betsy’s agenda is always about having a good time and how she struggles to grow further than that and the set backs and victories she has. She’s a social bee, no doubt about it but she’s also a writer and she has to find a way to balance the two. She also has a kick-ass quirky family and I’m glad they exist forever on the page!

And then there are the books themselves…I battled internally over getting old used copies or the new trade paperbacks where two books are packaged in one. I settled for the new because of the new still have the awesome old illustrations (yes! there’s illustrations!), the cheerful happy covers and I want these books to stay in print! so it’s always good to buy books that are really worthwhile.

autumn brings some quiet…

I’m pretty sure Jeff and I successfully made it through a move followed by a week trip over to Paris. No one got lost for too long, nothing got broken during the move, everyone and everything is accounted for. Except perhaps the wonderful 20 pd bag of bird seed I had for the birds this winter. It turns out that chippies are able to get into our new home’s garage and they ate that 20 pd. bag in a week. It’s strange because they left little behind. it’s almost as if I moved an empty bag to the garage…and never was it ever full…

So it’s day two of being back in the States and certainly the rhythm of life is very different here than in Paris. What I’m really grateful is coming back to my own home (no apartment dwelling now! whee!) and having this big yard to ponder over. I’ve been sitting outside on the privacy of my own deck and just watching the sky…which is about all one can do when suffering from jetlag.

The cats are very possessive of us now, never letting us getting out of their eyesight unless, of course, they’re asleep! I wondered if they would remember us and they did and they do, very very well, which is rather touching.

So I’m here and I’m back and it’s been a long long ride. I’m glad the summer is closing because this summer has been very madcap. Every month since May we expected to move here to this house and every month it got moved back till finally there was a week till Paris and something had to happen. And it did. We got in and then we left. But now we’re back and I think I’ll unpack very very slowly and just relish this Non-rushing about. I’m not a very good rusher anyways.

Summer Reading Continued…

I heard Charlaine Harris (author of the Sookie Sackhouse series) speak a few nights ago. Her recommendation on how to get yourself to write: “Put up or shut up” made me consider the same. Harris was a funny speaker and she had that gentle southern drawl I remember so well in my own grandmother’s voice. Harris is very sparky and alive and it’s easy to see how Sookie is her brain-child. She insisted that all her characters were different parts of herself and I liked that idea too.  My only sorrow was hearing that she’s going to discontinue the Harper and Tolliver series after this next book. Harris has done a lot of series besides just Sookie and this other series centers around Harper and her stepbrother Tolliver. Harper got hit by lightening as a teen and ever since then can sense where dead people are and how they died. The series centers around herself and her brother (her sidekick) traveling around the US helping people find their dead loved ones or Harper being able to tell how that loved one died (if there are any questions). Needless to say, they’re surrounded by controversy and the fundamentalist community does not take kindly to them though they want to find their dead loved ones as much as anyone else. It’s a dark series and sometimes hard to read…though that didn’t stop me from reading each book in one day! Harris related in her talk that each book took tons of work since each book opens up with a whole new cast of characters besides the mainstays, Harper and Tolliver. And there’s the completely new setting besides that too and she’s found it’s just too much work. But she promised a new series after this since she always works away at two series at a time. You gotta wonder what her quirky mind will cook up next. I’m looking forward to it!

Mixed in while reading that series, I picked up Greenery Street by Denis MacKail. Now I have to admit, when I started this book, I was a little worried it might be too sugary. But I continued on and I’m so glad I did. Greenery Street is a comedy and a loving one at that. It centers on a couple, Felicity and Ian Foster, as they settle into their first home and it’s about all the little kinks and the maddenings parts that couples get to work out together. I alternately wanted to shake Felicity and then Ian and then Ian and then Felicity, etc, etc but in a laughing way and not at all violently! P.G. Wodehouse adored this book and it’s not hard to see why. Isn’t that endorsement enough?

A month ago or so, I claimed I would read all of L.M. Montgomery books in a week. A little foolhardy. I didn’t do that but I’ve been steadily chewing through them since I wrapped up Harris’ series and Greenery Street.  I decided to read her books in chronological order using Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery as a companion since it has a chapter on each book. What have I found? I’ve found that Montgomery’s writing takes me towards a mental vacation. There’s something so relaxing and satisfying about her books. Everyday life is the setting and mixed into the everday is nature, sweeping our souls towards the sublime. I really love how she’ll mention someone knitting lace and then a few paragraphs afterward are purple prosy descriptions of the outdoors. Reading her books as a young girl gave me an immense love of the outdoors and nowadays I find that the easiest way to get my head screwed on straight is to take a walk outside. Being outdoors always pulls me towards something bigger than the immediate goings-on. I owe Montgomery a huge debt for what she gave to me when I was a kid.

There’s also been an announcement that Penguin is going to print The Blythes are Quoted in its entirety. It was the final book she completed shortly before her death. Part of it was printed as The Road to Yesterday but a fair amount of the original writing was taken out as being deemed “too dark.” But it’s really excited this is coming out as it shows Montgomery was experimenting and trying new ways of writing.

And well…of course this book would be dark. Montgomery survived two world wars and besides that was addicted or at least heavily on, bromides and barbituates that no doubt led to her early death. She had a son who gave her terrible problems (it’s speculated he was a psychcopath) and her husband lost his  mind a few times. I’ve read through two sets of her journals and wow…she really gave us the joyful part of her in the books. I believe in her later works Montgomery can do tragedy just as well as comedy and I’m looking forward to seeing what this new book will add to the legacy of her writing.

And finally…”I believe you [men] capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as - if I may be allowed the expression, so long as you have an object. I mean, while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.”
—–– Jane Austen, Persuasion

I could not stop thinking that as I watched “Letter from an Unknown Woman” directed by Max Ophuls and taken from a short story by Stefan Zweig. (sorta spoilers? beware) The movie is taken from the viewpoint of a letter, written by a woman while she is dying to her former lover who has completely forgotten her. It is the story of a loving and noble person who is never recognized for her value. Her letter ends in “Oh, if only you could’ve recognized what was always yours, could’ve found what was never lost. If only…” I managed to somehow not cry at the end though her faithless lover didn’t quite manage that himself. This is such a beautiful film and though it’s sad, it does end with a splendid cry of hope.

Summer Reading

It’s taken a little while to get here but a book I read propelled me forward. It’s not a book I’m going to go into because it deserves little mention. It’s “Castle” by J. Robert Lennon and after I got over my revulsion of the thing, I decided it was time to write about good books. Good books meaning those that aren’t trash. So let’s start, shall we?

“Coming Home” by Rosamund Pilcher is a massive paperback but a wonderful summer read. The book is set mostly in Cornwall and Pilcher evokes the place pretty good- enough that I must go see it someday! There are quite a few characters that sail in and out but the book centers on Judith Dunbar whom we meet at age 14. Her mother is about to leave to go back to India and she is about to head off to boarding school, all by her lonesome. She befriends a glamorous wildchild, Loveday Carey-Lewis at school and the adventures take off. The friendship twines in and out of their lives and we watch the pair grow and see the choices they make and how they turn out. The book is set near the eve of WWII and Pilcher does a decent job of that though I wish at times there had been closer details, just things like how it was to cook on so much less, etc. Sad things happen, good things happen and it’s definitely a fabulous beach read.

The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries-  Sookie Stackhouse inhabits a strange world no doubt about it. The author agrees with how strange it is as well. I’m on the 5th book and while the number of characters are growing a bit out of control, Harris is steering things along all right and keeping the pace going. It’s never dull in Bon Temps, Lousiana and thank God for that. This is a series read happily with a cold drink in hand. If you dig the whole “what if vampires and fairies really were real?” this may be the series for you…I love it for the Southern setting as well. While this isn’t Flannery O’Connor here, I feel she primed me for this series.

“The Shuttle” by Francis Hodgson Burnett is one of those rip roaring pre-war rides that’s great fun. Okay, so the villian is villianous in the narcissistic way that hits close to some people I’ve known but it felt quite cathartic to see his ending.  “The Shuttle” also possesses a heroine that’s beautiful and good and yet…somehow, I can’t hate. This rarely happens (witness Dickens) and yet Burnett pulls it off. I’m eagerly looking forward to “The Making of the Marchioness” by her that’s coming over from Persephone Books.

Which puts me in mind of Persephone Books. I found them through Danielle over at A Work in Progress- which is a great blog to read about reading, btw! Persephone Books resides London and they print wonderful 20th century books which are out-of-print and undeservedly so.  Wandering through their website is a real treat and their books are fine quality and something I’m entirely addicted to. I really can’t say enough good things about them…they’re a pleasure to do business with.

So that for now but more books for later as I come across them…