Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Posted on December 18, 2016 by cleopatra

“When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.”

Would you like to read a book with the setting in southern rural England, populated by stoic farmers, simple and often comical peasants, one that explores complex relationships between men and women of that time? It sounds like a wonderful beginning doesn’t it?

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Back to the Classics Challenge 2017

Posted on December 9, 2016 by cleopatra

One challenge I participate in every year is the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate. I’m under the mistaken impression that because I read mainly classics, that this challenge will be easy to complete. Ha! My 2016 challenge is still lacking three books and one extra review. I’ll have to go back through my reads and do some fill-ins. Whether I achieve successful completion is anyone’s guess.

The 2017 challenge has familiar categorizes and those which have been changed up. Here are the guidelines and rules:

The challenge will be exactly the same as last year, 12 classic books, but with slightly different categories. You do not have to read 12 books to participate in this.

Complete six categories, and you get one entry in the drawing
Complete nine categories, and you get two entries in the drawing
Complete all twelve categories, and you get three entries in the drawing

And here are the categories for the 2016 Back to the Classics Challenge:

1. A 19th Century Classic – any book published between 1800 and 1899.

2. A 20th Century Classic – any book published between 1900 and 1967. Just like last year, all books MUST have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify. The only exception is books written at least 50 years ago, but published later, such as posthumous publications.

3. A classic by a woman author.

4. A classic in translation. Any book originally written published in a language other than your native language. Feel free to read the book in your language or the original language. (You can also read books in translation for any of the other categories).

5. A classic published before 1800. Plays and epic poems are acceptable in this category also.

6. An romance classic. I’m pretty flexible here about the definition of romance. It can have a happy ending or a sad ending, as long as there is a strong romantic element to the plot.

7. A Gothic or horror classic. For a good definition of what makes a book Gothic, and an excellent list of possible reads, please see this list on Goodreads.

8. A classic with a number in the title. Examples include A Tale of Two Cities, Three Men in a Boat, Slaughterhouse Five, Fahrenheit 451, etc.

9. A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal in the title. It an actual animal or a metaphor, or just the name. Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, The Metamorphosis, White Fang, etc.

10. A classic set in a place you’d like to visit. It can be real or imaginary: The Wizard of Oz, Down and Out in Paris and London, Death on the Nile, etc.

11. An award-winning classic. It could be the Newbery award, the Prix Goncourt, the Pulitzer Prize, the James Tait Award, etc. Any award, just mention in your blog post what award your choice received.

12. A Russian Classic. 2017 will be the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, so read a classic by any Russian author.

And now, the rest of the rules:

All books must be read in 2017. Books started before January 1, 2017 do not qualify. All reviews must be linked to this challenge by December 31, 2017. I’ll post links each category the first week of January which will be featured on a sidebar on this blog for the entire year.

You must also post a wrap-up review and link it to the challenge no later than December 31, 2017. Please include links within your final wrap-up to that I can easily confirm all your categories.

All books must have been written at least 50 years ago; therefore, books must have been written by 1967 to qualify for this challenge. The ONLY exceptions are books published posthumously.

E-books and audiobooks are eligible! You may also count books that you read for other challenges.

Books may NOT cross over within this challenge. You must read a different book for EACH category, or it doesn’t count.

Children’s classics are acceptable, but please, no more than 3 total for the challenge.

If you do not have a blog, you may link to reviews on Goodreads or any other publicly accessible online format.

The deadline to sign up for the challenge is March 1, 2017. After that, I will close the link and you’ll have to wait until the next year! Please include a link to your original sign-up post, not your blog URL.

You do NOT have to list all the books you’re going to read for the challenge in your sign-up post, but it’s more fun if you do! Of course, you can change your list any time. Books may also be read in any order.

The winner will be announced on this blog the first week of January, 2018. All qualifying participants will receive one or more entries, depending on the number of categories completed. One winner will be selected at random for all qualifying entries. The winner will receive a gift certificate in the amount of $30 (US currency) from either Amazon.com OR $30 worth of books from The Book Depository. The winner MUST live in a country that will receive shipments from one or the other. For a list of countries that receive shipments from The Book Depository, click here.

Possible choices could be:

The Histories
City of God
The Taming of the Shrew
Travels with a Donkey in Cevennes
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Twelve Caesars
Shirley
The Mill on the Floss
O Pioneers!
The Merchant of Venice
A Small House at Allington
The Last Chronicle of Barset
1984
Dr. Zhivago
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
We
Crime and Punishment
Dead Souls

With a dearth of challenges that have been catching my eye for 2017, this one should get some particular focus. Wish me luck and if you’d like to participate, pop over to Karen’s blog and join the fun!

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Posted on December 6, 2016 by cleopatra

“Alexey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner of our district, who became notorious in his own day (and is still remembered among us) because of his tragic and mysterious death, which occurred exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall relate in its proper place.”

What a marvellously mysterious first sentence which brings all sorts of questions to mind. Why was the Karamazov father only remembered because of his horrific death? What else did he do in life? Why has the narrator waited thirteen years to tell the story? And why does it need to be told in its “proper place”?

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The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

Posted on September 20, 2016 by cleopatra

“Inside the great building of the Law Courts, during the interval in the hearing of the Melvinsky case, the members of the judicial council and the public prosecutor were gathered together in the private room of Ivan Yegorovitch Shebek, and the conversation turned upon the celebrated Krasovsky case.”

Wow! My last Tolstoy novel read was War and Peace over two years ago and I’d forgotten the depth that Tolstoy could create within his stories with a clear, straight-forward narrative. The Death of Ivan Ilyich appears to be merely a tale of the last days of a Russian court judge, yet Tolstoy brings the human condition into vivid and startling colours.

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Metamorphoses by Ovid

Posted on April 20, 2016 by cleopatra

“My soul would sing of metamorphoses.

but since, o gods, you were the source of these

bodies becoming other bodies, breathe

your breath into my book of changes: may

the song I sing be seamless as its way

weaves from the world’s beginning to our day.”

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in Sulmo, east of Rome in the year 43 B.C. As a son of an upper middle class family, his father sent him to be educated in Rome to distinguish himself in a career in law or government. Ovid was known as an exemplary rhetorician and worked at minor magisterial posts before quitting his public career to pursue poetry. Immediate success followed his first published elegy and by 8 A.D., the year in which Metamorphoses was published, he was one of the foremost poets of Rome.

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Villette by Charlotte Brönte

Posted on April 3, 2016 by cleopatra

“My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton.”

What on earth have I just read? This book simply cannot be written by the same author who wrote Jane Eyre! The mind rebels! The heart rebels! It cannot be! Am I sounding very dramatic and flourishing and vocal? That’s because I’ve spent 572 pages being lulled catatonic. What happened …..??

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Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Posted on March 26, 2016 by cleopatra

“No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.”

While Northanger Abbey was the first novel written by Jane Austen and sold to a publisher by her brother, Henry, in fact it was repurchased by the author and not published until six months after her death in December 1817. Austen’s parody of 17th century Gothic novels is told with a good-natured humour, but a valuable lesson lies beneath the surface of its narrative.

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Spenser’s Images of Life by C.S. Lewis

Posted on March 10, 2016 by cleopatra

Normally, I don’t read introductions or commentaries on books or poetry that I plan to read, until after I’ve finished the work. I prefer to experience the art from a point of innocence (or perhaps, ignorance is a better word!), forming my own opinions without influence, even if I struggle with my first read through. However, this time I threw all my ideals to the winds and called for help.

In April I’m reading The Faerie Queene with O, Cirtnecce, Jean, Ruth, and Consoled Reader, and considering the length and complexity of this poem, I confess that it was wiser to admit my complete ineptitude and look for someone who was very familiar with this type of poem and era to give me a little boost. Since C.S. Lewis’ expertise was in Medieval and Renaissance literature, I suspected that he would be a good place to start. His book, Spenser’s Images of Life is a compilation of lectures notes, put together by Alastair Fowler, to give students a deeper insight into The Faerie Queene.

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Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

Posted on February 25, 2016 by cleopatra

“It is difficult to make a dull garden, but old Mr. Wither had succeeded.”

Stella Gibbons writes rather odd books. Cold Comfort Farm, her best known and highly acclaimed novel, follows an orphaned, pert young woman to a mucky, rural farm and observes while she neatens and tidies all the morose, lurking, and deranged occupants into their proper places, finding love in the process. Gibbons has a knack for depicting rather unusual and sometimes bizarre characters, and this flair for the unique has continued in her writing of Nightingale Wood. The introduction to the story labels it as a “fairy tale” and it is, although not along the usual lines one would expect from such a tale. Gibbons’ evil creatures often have angelic faces, and her happily-ever-afters can leave the reader uncertain of reality. In playing with her characters, Gibbons appears to play with society and even the reader himself. Her writing is not easily defined.

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Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus

Posted on February 8, 2016 by cleopatra

“You citizens of Cadmus, he must speak home
that in the ship’s prow, watches the event
and guides the rudder, his eyes not drooped in sleep.”

Produced in 467 B.C. and winning first prize in the City Dionysia drama competition, The Seven Against Thebes is assumed to be the last of a trilogy of plays which dealt with the Oedipus cycle, the other two being called Laius, and Oedipus, both lost, as was the concluding satyr play, The Sphinx. Driven mostly by dialogue, this play requires some background history to add some further insight.

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