It’s been awhile since I’ve participated in a Classics Club spin. I think the last one I participated in was #14 and it was a dismal failure which made me realize that I simply don’t have time to read the way I used to. So I stopped. However, with my new Classics Club list up, I really need to start to focus on some of these books before it’s too late. So here I am again, hoping for success.
Sigh! I usually get excited about the Classics Club Spin but this time, between my failures to finish my last spins and the load of books I already have on my plate, my enthusiasm is severely compromised. I should pass …..
…….. however, if I can finish up some of my reads, I don’t have much planned after them, AND I’m always trying to concentrate on my Classics Club List. So with these excuses in mind, I’m going to give it a whirl …..
I was going to resist the spin this time. I have too many books on the go and too many of them are atrociously difficult, or inordinately huge. But one of my goals for the year was to pare down my Classics Club list, so why on earth wouldn’t I participate in a spin?
With that said, I’m not shy to admit that I absolutely manipulated my list. Well, perhaps not completely, but I did change out about seven books for ones that I’m either currently reading, are shorter novels, or projects that I am struggling with (Shakespeare, that’s YOU!). Surprisingly, one of the manipulations was not The Faerie Queene.
Well, this was a very good choice for me. I’ve been trying to read through Anthony Trollope’s The Barsetshire Chronicles for about two years, and am at the halfway point. Number 8 for me is Framley Parsonage, book number 4 in the series.
For some reason, I’ve had a Trollope-block in the last year, and I really needed a push, so perhaps this is it. Now I just need to buckle down and read!
“The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.”
I read this book for the Classics Club Spin #11. Was it my spin book? No, it was Mockingbirds, Looking Glasses, and Prejudices spin book but I decided to read along with her. Why? Well, her book was much shorter than my Spin book, and I couldn’t imagine getting through God in the Dock in the allotted time frame. Yes, I’m breaking the rules, but it’s on my Classics Club list, AND at least I read something!
The unidentified Time Traveller has built a machine that he believes will transport him through time. After he explains to his dinner guests the concept of his invention, he puts it into practice, returning the next week to regal them with the fantastic details of his adventure.
Having sent himself to 802,701 A.D., he encounters a race called the Eloi, a diminutive race that behaves in the manner of small, wide-eyed children, even though they are of adult growth. They live an uncomplicated life of leisure, simply eating and resting, and having no initiative or curiosity to speak of. Expecting some sort of greatly evolved being living in the future, the Time Traveller experiences disappointment and puzzlement at their almost backward evolution, wondering how their lackadaisical way of life is supported. But the Traveller’s perplexity turns to dread as his machine mysteriously disappears. Pursing the theft using reason and action, he eventually discovers another race, living in the depths of the earth; the Morlocks, hideous, pale, savage, troglodyte-like creatures who are in possession of his time machine. Unlike the Eloi land dwellers, these cavernous people exhibit an industry and an ability to reason, but in a primitive way that is only based on their survival. The Traveller discovers that they are providing the means for the Eloi’s rather vacuous paradisical existence using underground tools and machinery, yet they are also the predators of their parasitical neighbours, catching them for food during the night. Eventually, he concocts a plan to retrieve his machine, his only link with human society, his only means of returning to a civilized world.
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| Source Wikipedia |
Trained as a biologist, Wells developed an interest in Darwinism, and the significance of evolution is apparent in this work. The Eloi and the Morlocks, descendents of the human race, are presented as two species that have evolved on completely different tracks, separated by social oppression and elitism. The Traveller observes:
“Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people —- due, no doubt, to the increasing refinement of their education, and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence of the poor —- is already leading to the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the surface of the land …….. And this same widening gulf — which is due to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the increased facilities for and temptations towards refined habits on the part of the rich —- will make that exchange between class and class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of our species along line of social stratification, less and less frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour ….”
The Traveller had expected unprecedented progress, but instead found a degeneration on each side, of intelligence, empathy, mercy, discipline, respect, etc., in fact most qualities which make us human.
Wells, a commited socialist, was extrapolating some of the problems faced in his own time, such as the widening gulf between the rich and the poor, and hatred or disdain along the same class lines. But instead of the poor simply being oppressed by the rich, Wells takes it a step further; the rich, in their mindless indulgence, become the prey. Wells intended to communicate not only these innate problems in society but the lack of success of the solutions that communism and utopian socialism offered for the betterment of society. It’s a very bleak picture of the future.
C.S. Lewis loved Wells’ fiction as a boy, but as he matured and his tastes became more discerning, he began to see cracks in their veneer. While he praised Wells for his original thought, and his desire to tackle the bigger questions, he found the works “thin” and “lacking the roughness and density of life.” I’m by no means a Wells expert, but so far I’d agree with that assessment. The book’s plot is entertaining but rather simple, lacking any subtleties or true character development. His characters often work on an elementary level, to illustrate the questions, but without being imbued with a life of their own. The questions themselves, while compelling, are treated quite swiftly, with the narrator often chronicling the issues instead of the reader becoming intimate with the characters and absorbing dilemma through their actions. While the pace might be useful for a movie, it doesn’t really give the reader time to process, so the ideas thump around in our heads a little but there is no true contemplating of them that leads to a greater understanding, or development that leads to possible solutions.
Ruth from A Great Book Study was also reading The Time Machine at the same time as Cirtnecce and I, so I’m including both of their insightful reviews below.
Yet realistically, I’m not going to finish this by February 1st. I don’t want to rush through it and miss the gems that Lewis has to offer, and I’d like to journal as I go to better understand what I’m reading. All of this will take time, so if I don’t finish on February 1st, I’ll be still plugging away. That’s my prediction although stranger things have happened.
Enjoy your spin books, fellow Bloggers!
As per usual, the rules for the spin are:
I don’t know why, but I’m not excited about this list. Is it because it seems unbalanced? I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because there is no book that really pops out at me and give me an anticipatory thrill.
So the book that I’ll be reading is The History of Napoleon Buonaparte by John Gibson Lockhart.
I’m actually very excited about this choice because it gives me an opportunity to finish this book that I’d already begun to read and had set aside, AND because I’m able to read a non-fiction choice. I really love non-fiction (and history), yet rarely have the time to read it; my pitiful performance in my Non-Fiction Adventure Challenge will attest to that.
I’m looking forward to spending some time with the great man, Napoleon!
I wasn’t going to participate in this Classics Club Spin. I am so behind with my reading due to various family matters that have taken up unusual amounts of time. Add to this, a very busy fall, and common sense told to me skip the Spin this time around. However, when have I listened to common sense when it comes to books ………??
So I went to my Classics Club list, sorted it with the random generator, and came up with my list.
Oh, help! Seriously, there are some ENORMOUS books in this group and, if they’re not huge, they’re mentally taxing. Why, oh why, am I doing this to myself?
Five Books I’m Dreading: (could we make it 18 books I’m dreading?):
1. Moby Dick (because of size and content)
2. The Fairie Queene (because of size absolutely!)
3. The Pickwick Papers (because of size)
4. Ethics (oh, my poor brain)
5. The Distant Mirror (because of size)
Five Books I’m Excited About:
1. The Prince (because it’s short)
2. The Heart of Darkness (because it’s short)
3. Wives and Daughters (I love Gaskell)
4. The History of Napoleon Buonaparte (because I’m half-way through it)
5. The Merchant of Venice
To be honest, I really like all the books on the list and all my dread comes from lack of time. We will see what the future holds on Monday ……
