Category Archives: Read-Alongs

Le Morte d’Arthur Read-Along: Update #2

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Books VI through IX

Okay, this book just keeps getting stranger and stranger.  In this section, the reader first gets the honour of following Lancelot on his journeys.  We have more incidents of kidnapped knights, devious damsels, murderous giants, prison escapes and vengeance.  It always amazes me that these knights can be in the middle of a fight to the death but still manage to hold polite conversation with one another.   I’m still unclear as to the chivalric rules of when you kill a knight and when you let him live.  Do you only let him live if he’s honourable?  What if he’s honourable, yet he’s offended you?  I’m not sure.  And why, for heaven’s sake, do Knights of the Round Table fight each other?  Because there’s no one else handy?  Well, back to Lancelot …… our trusty knight further spent his time cutting cloth and stealing swords from corpses; refusing to kiss ladies who perished from their sorrow, and suffered foiled attempts at rescuing ladies from their murderous husbands who finally manage to lop off their heads.  Ay me, what fun!

Lancelot du Lac
N.C. Wyeth
source Wikiart

Beaumains arrives at court and has a fight with the greatest knight Sir Lancelot.  He nearly defeats Lancelot and only gives over when Lancelot promises to knight him.  He does this without Arthur’s knowledge, nor does he reveal that Sir Beaumains is actually Sir Gareth, the younger brother of Gawaine and Gaheris.  I have given up asking why in this book.

Sir Beaumains, with his hidden identity, proceeds to have his own adventures, attaching himself to a maiden who want nothing to do with him, and defeating everyone he meets.  Thankfully there is little killing, all due to the maiden who pleads for his rivals’ lives.  But, good gracious, does she have a tongue on her! She abuses and belittles him at every opportunity, yet Beaumains will only confess that Linet’s debasement of him makes him fight better.  O-kay ……  

Sir Gareth
source

Eventually Beaumains announces that he loves the lady’s sister, Liones, which doesn’t seem to bother Linet, but apparently the lack of knowledge of Beaumains’ identity does bother them, so, with their brother’s help, they decide to steal his dwarf.  That’s right. Beaumains’ dwarf.  Why they didn’t just ask Beaumains who he was, remains a mystery.  Well, our good Beaumains arrives at the castle to demand the return of his dwarf and the culprits comply since they have discovered that Beaumains is Gareth, son of a king and nephew to King Arthur.  The sparks fly between Liones and Gareth and they pledge their love to each other.  Are you with me?  Good, because it gets better …… or worse, as the case may be ……..  That night while sleeping in the hall on a couch (apparently knights need no better sleeping arrangements) a mysterious knight appears, he does battle with Gareth, and Gareth, even though severely wounded in the thigh, lops off his opponents head. Disgusting, yes, but there’s more.

The Green Knight preparing to battle
Sir Beaumains
N.C. Wyeth
source Wikiart

The lady Liones arrives, then her brother, but when Linet appears she immediately plucks up the head, smothers it with ointment, does the same to the neck, and then sticks the two together, whereupon the knight pops up and Linet takes him to her chamber.  Enough, right? Malory could not possibly continue the comedy.  But he does.  The next night, the knight with the re-attached head attacks again and this time Gareth takes no chances.  Once again, beheading him, he chops the head into hundreds of pieces and tosses his fleshy confetti out of the window.  Does this faze Linet?  Not one bit; she runs outside, gathers up the pieces and once again, by some sort of sorcery, re-assembles the hacked up knight.  One wonders what would happen if she missed a piece ……..   In any case, does this sound like a family you would want to marry into?  Well, Gareth does eventually marry the Lady Liones.  I guess it could come in handy having a healing sorceress as a sister-in-law.  As to the benefits of a rouge dwarf-stealing brother-in-law, I’m not sure …….

Tristram and Isolde
N.C. Wyeth
source Wikiart

Sir Tristram is also introduced to the reader in the last book and we learn of his love for La Belle Isould.  Again, it’s rather confusing and this post is getting long so we’ll perhaps save their shenanigans for next time!

So, all in all, an interesting read and I must say I’m enjoying it better than when I started.  My favourite story of this section is, as you can tell, the story of Sir Gareth.  My favourite name?  Definitely King Anguish of Ireland.  His name brings a sort of brotherly emotion to the spirit of the read!

Le Morte d’Arthur Read-Along: Update #1

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Books 1 to 5 are now read and I’m on track, but only because I’d started this book ages ago and had already read to Book 4.  I may fall behind but I’ll do my best not to.

Merlin Taking Away The Infant Arthur
N.C. Wyeth
source Wikiart

I may have said before in some of my comments that this book was not what I expected.  And what did I expect?  Well probably something more similar to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where there is a quest, but an element of seriousness to it.  Arthur’s knights seem to meander around looking for a quest, often stumble onto some odd happenings, hack and stab and kill some other knights or perhaps spare their lives.  I’m not sure what has unsettled me about this read.  Is it because Malory tells and tells and tells, but never shows? Is it the very ignoble behaviour mixed in with the gracious knightly behaviour? Is it because the story is related in a very serious tone but somehow it metamorphizes into something that is somewhat comical?  I’m not really sure yet.

In any case, the story begins with Uther Pendragon coveting the Duke of Cornwall’s wife, Igraine.  Pendragon makes a bargain with Merlin that if he will give him Igraine, he, in turn, will give over their first born child to Merlin.  Of course, that child is Arthur, the one who pulls the sword from the stone and becomes King of all Britain, and also creates the order of The Kings of the Round Table.

” … and when they came to the sword that the hand held,
King Arthur took it up …”
N.C. Wyeth 1922
source Wikiart

What follows is the various adventures of his knights, with Arthur making appearances here and there.  Other knights, especially wicked, dark knights, grumpy knights and average day-to-day knights, play prominent roles in the tales, where Arthur’s knights usually kill, maim or become friends with their opponents.  Various ladies make appearances as well.

The Beautiful Lady Without Pity
Arthur Hughes 1863
source Wikiart

It was rather disturbing when Sir Gawaine managed to behead a lady while she was trying to protect her knight, but perhaps more shocking was Arthur’s slaughter of the innocent children born on May Day because of a prophecy that one born on that day would be the cause of his death.

Encouragingly, the plot began to pick up in Book 5.  Emperor Lucius of Rome has come to demand tribute from Arthur.  After a long and bloody battle, Arthur is victorious.  As he prepares to send the bodies of Lucius and many of his senators back to Rome, his words to them sent shivers down my spine:

And I suppose the Romans shall be ware how they shall demand any tribute of me.  And I commend you to say when ye shall come to Rome to the Potestate, and all the Council and Senate, that I send to them these dead bodies for the tribute that they have demanded.  And if they be not content with these, I shall pay more at my coming, for other tribute owe I none, nor none other will I pay.  And me thinketh this sufficeth for Britain, Ireland, and all Almaine, with Germany.  And furthermore I charge you to say to them that I command them upon pain of their heads never to demand tribute of me ne of my lands.

Just thrilling!

Le Morte d’Arthur Read-Along!

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Jean from Howling Frog Books has decided to do a Le Morte d’Arthur Read-Along in honour of her 2014 Arthurian Challenge.  Bless her heart, because I have been trying to get through this book all year, and for some reason it has become a slog that is not moving along very quickly.  A read-along is just what I need.

Have you ever read Le Morte d’Arthur?  Would you like to join us?  If so, then skip on over to Jean’s sign-up page and be part of the fun.  You’ll meet King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot and the Knights of the Round Table, and be part of battles, friendship, agony and betrayal.  What more excitement could you ask for?

C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy – Read With Me!

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Did you know that besides the scholarly, theological and children’s books that C.S. Lewis wrote, he also delved into fantasy?  Set on Mars, Venus and Earth, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength are vastly different works that grasp the reader’s imagination in a wholly unique way.

Beginning September 1st and reading one book per month, my Goodreads Group, The Dead Writer’s Society will be delving into this trilogy, and I have volunteered to lead this intrepid group of readers.  Do you like adventure and surprise?  Have you ever wanted to travel to another planet?  Then come and join us!  Head over to The Dead Writer’s Society and when you request membership, say that I sent you.  It should be a stimulating conversation!

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

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“In the latter days of July in the year 185–, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways —- Who was to be the new bishop?”

War has broken out in the city of Barchester.  The different factions are preparing by arming themselves with disingenuous weapons.  Tongues are being exercised, rapier wit is being sharpened, and soon a victor will be declared.

The new chaplain, Mr. Obadiah Slope has arrived in Barchester with the new bishop Proudie and his termagant wife .  Whilst Mr. Slope shows the high opinion he holds of himself, the clergy and certain townspeople take a strong dislike to his oily sycophancy and the fight is on.  Will Archdeacon Grantly be able to run Mr. Slope out of Barchester? Or will Mr. Slope become the new Dean?  Yet his marriage to the widow Eleanor Bold, Mr. Septimus Harding’s daughter, is a certainty.  Or is it?  Bertie Stanhope, the indolent son of Dr. Vessey Stanhope, is a contender for her affections but, oops ….. into the picture strides Mr. Arabin, vicar of St. Ewold and Grantly’s ally, to further muddy the marital waters.  And, as for the battle over the appointment of the new warden of Hiram’s Hospital, will Mr. Harding recover this honoured position, or will Mr. Quiverful triumph over his competitor, effectively providing his wife and children with the support they had heretofore been lacking?

In a town amongst characters, where black can seem white, and up suddenly down, the romping hilarity of the story firmly keeps the reader engaged and attentive.   Trollope, himself had a personal love for his masterpiece:  “In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight.  The bishop and Mrs. Proudie were very real to me, as were also the troubles of the archdeacon and the loves of Mr. Slope.”  Sadly his publishers were not initially in accord, claiming the novel to be full of “vulgarity and exaggeration.”  How fortunate, in spite of this initial critique, that this novel has captured the imagination and humour of readers worldwide for nearly 160 years, and has given the people of Barchester an immorality that was originally in jeopardy.

The Barsetshire Chronicles

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

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“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”

I had disliked Hemingway ever since I attempted to read The Sun Also Rises as a teenager, but when Hamlettte from The Edge of the Precipice  announced her read-along of The Old Man and the Sea, I decided to give him another try.  Perhaps we would get along better this time.

This novella was an unexpected surprise and delight that has, well, perhaps not made me a Hemingway fan, but at least has made me very open to reading more of this works.

Imagine that you live in a small town in a simple hut and your life consists daily of fishing for a catch that will bring you your wages when you sell it in the market.  Now imagine going 30 days without a fish, then 40 days.  You lose your only helper, a boy, because you are now viewed as unlucky, and he is sent to work with more successful fishermen.  Day 60 passes but still you sail out as every other day, confident you will catch something.  By the time our story begins, most men would be worn with worry and care, but not the fisherman of this story, Santiago, who prepares his boat and sets sail as he has the previous 84 days that he did not return with a catch.  On this particular day, Santiago ventures into the Gulf Stream north of Cuba to set his lines and wait for his luck to change.  And does it change!  Hooking an enormous fish, Santiago begins his battle which lasts three days and pulls him out into the depths of the ocean, perhaps without the possibility of return. Yet return he does, but tragically his magnificent catch has been worried by sharks, and resembles nothing but a bony carcass.  Does this worry the old man?  Not one bit.  He makes the same climb to his shack that he has made the last 84 days, yet this time he is a different man.  Falling onto his bed, he dreams of lions and his youth.

While Santiago is fighting against defeat in the novella, at the end of the novel, instead of being defeated by the fact his catch returned only as a ragged skeleton, he returns a hero and his dreams of youth indicate the experience has given him life and vigor that had been missing before that day.  It was not the result of his struggle that mattered; it was the struggle itself and its purpose, that brought meaning back into the old fisherman’s life.

Ernest Hemingway and Henry (“Mike”) Strater
with the remaining 500 lbs of an estimated 1000 lb marlin
 that was half-eaten by sharks before it could be landed
 in the Bahamas in 1935.
source Wikipedia

Hamlette @ The Edge of the Precipice has given us some excellent questions that we can choose to answer for the read-along:

Some people say this story is full of symbolism, maybe even an allegory.  What do you think things like the old man, the fish, and the sharks could symbolize?

The book How To Read Literature Like a Professor states that The Old Man and the Sea is a “nearly perfect literary parable”, full of Christian imagery.  We encounter images of Christ in the story when, after grasping the line all night to hold the fish, Santiago made an exclamation that, as Hemingway tells us, is reminiscent of an exclamation “someone would have while having a nail passed through their hand into a piece of wood”.  After the completion of his voyage, Santiago stumbles up the hill, carrying his mast on his back, bringing the image of Christ carrying the cross to Golgotha, and when Santiago falls asleep in his house on his bed, are arms are spread wide, as if in the shape of a crucified Christ-figure.

source Wikipedia

Were these symbols intentionally put into the story?  Who can know for sure.  Hemingway, himself, when questioned, said:  “There isn’t any symbolism.  The sea is the sea.  The old man is an old man.  The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish.  The sharks are all sharks, no better or no worse.  All the symbolism that people say is sh*t.  What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”  Personally I think that Hemingway used these images to convey meaning.  He didn’t intend to make Santiago, Christ or a Christ-type figure, he simply used images that all readers would be familiar with, to help us feel the old man’s struggle, pain, and sacrifice, and to share his triumph when he returned with the experience of the catch of his life.

Thanks for this excellent read-along, Hamlette.  Here are some other participant reviews:

The Old Man and the Sea Read-Along

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Hamlette from The Edge of the Precipice has decided to have a read-along of The Old Man and the Sea beginning July 21st.  Shall I join?  But, of course!

I have to admit, I just finished reading The Old Man and the Sea, but I’m going to revisit it during the read-along.  Why?  Because read-alongs give me a deeper understanding of the book that I’m reading, and it’s fun to have the company of other readers.  And I may need some help appreciating Hemingway because, honestly, the first book of his that I attempted to read years ago was a big flop.  Let’s hope the second read is a charm!

So please join us if you want to read a small book, with an unlucky man and a very big fish!

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

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“We were in Study Hall, when the Headmaster entered, followed by a new boy dressed in regular clothes and a school servant carrying a large desk.”

Emma Roualt has been raised in a convent but during her formative years and religious education, she has somehow managed to get sentimental romance novels smuggled in to her.  When she leaves the convent, the sisters are relieved to see her go as there is some indication that Emma is not the pious, compliant young woman that they were hoping to produce.  Does Emma come by her stubborn and idealistic outlook naturally, or are the novels responsible for corrupting her character?

Soon after Emma returns to her father’s house, she meets the doctor, Charles Bovary, and imagines the feelings of emotion she experiences under his regard, love.  When the first wife of Charles passes away, Emma is happy to become his wife, yet almost immediately begins to wonder why the passionate, overwhelming feelings of a romantic love seem to elude her.  Quite soon she seeks admiration and passion outside her marital relationship, first with Leon Dupuis, a law clerk, and then with the sophisticated Rodolphe Boulanger. Drawn into a web of deceit by her need for a story-like romance, Emma begins an affair, first with Rodolphe and later with a more worldly Leon, who has now spent years in the city and knows how to conduct himself like a truly indulged and hardened man-about-town.  Neither man truly cares for her.  Each is attracted by her beauty and her passionate regard for him, yet soon these shallow emotions begin to unravel and the men tire of their paramour.  Emma, now heavily in debt and still lacking the love and desire that she equates with a meaningful life, decides to take poison and her death culminates in the tragic death of Charles and the sentencing of her daughter to a life of poverty and toil.

The Death of Bovary
Charles Léandre (1931)
source Wikimedia Commons

And so, what can we say about Emma?  She is certainly not a sympathetic character and it seems rather apparent that Flaubert didn’t mean to make her one.  How is responsible is she for her fate?  Does she perpetrate her own demise or is she an unwilling victim of circumstances?

One could certainly make excuses for Emma and say that she was trapped, not only in a simple, colourless and rigid society, but in a loveless marriage (on her part), and in a situation where she had little opportunity for following anything other than the status-quo.  However, Emma had been given an education of a type through the nuns, and though it might not have been wide in its scope, it certainly should have taught her the importance of honesty and virtue and goodness.  Emma chooses to sneak sentimental romances into the abbey to read, just as she chooses to believe what she reads should be the way of life, in spite of the evidence in front of her face against it, and she chooses to have adulterous affairs at the risk of the ruin of her reputation and that of her husband’s.  She also chooses to borrow money, placing her family heavily in debt and, the means of borrowing the money are brought about with deceit on her part to keep her actions hidden.  So I don’t really buy the “poor Emma Bovary, she is a victim of circumstance” excuse.  She keeps her illicit relationships secret, as well as the fact that she is borrowing money, and by the very fact that she does these things covertly, she MUST know that these actions are wrong.  Instead she chooses to do them anyway, for her own selfish emotional gratification and, as we see, she reaps consequences that were perhaps beyond her scope of imagining.

I didn’t dislike this book, but when I read I like to find something that stirs an emotional or an intellectual response, which is part of the conversation with the author.  With Flaubert, while there were certainly moments that sparkled, overall I was left a little flat.  The whole plot was built around a shallow, vain, deluded young girl who was supposedly corrupted early in life by her choice of reading.  No one noticed and, judging by the manner in which Flaubert portrays the setting and characters, even if they did, they perhaps would have done nothing to enlighten her.  While I wanted to pity Emma and make excuses for her, there was something fundamentally wrong with her thinking and the mechanisms she used to process life and the world around her.  Was it due to her reading material, or was she already a damaged person and the books only served to increase the self-serving, emotional fantasy-life that was already expanding within her?  I don’t think we can know.  For me it would have been infinitely more interesting if Flaubert chose to investigate this issue but instead we only see the effect of her delusions without being able to truly surmise the cause.  And that is a tragedy because Emma Bovary deserved a story that generated compassion for her and not distaste and impatience at her emotionally bankrupt behaviour and dramatic actions.  In spite of some spots of brilliance, I feel Flaubert missed a great opportunity and, once again, Emma seems to be the one that pays for it.

Translated by Lydia Davis

Madame Bovary Read-Along Part III

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Madame Bovary Read-Along Hosted by ebookclassics &         Cedar Station

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Part III

This is going to be a quick post to finish up my read-along comments before my review.  I’ve been left little time for reading lately, let alone posting, that I’m falling behind!

Honestly, the drama and copious introspection about how and why people commit adultery is getting rather wearying, especially given the limited aspects of Emma’s character.

Her reconnection with Leon Dupuis is telling, as he is no longer the simple, infatuated provincial law clerk but now a sophisticated man-about-town, after his three-year stint in the city.  They begin a passionate affair, yet meanwhile her debts are piling up as she is regularly cheated and manipulated by M. Heureux.  Although Emma still attempts to delude herself into believing she is living a fulfilling life, her spiral downward increases.  For me, the most tragic part in the novel is where Emma, feeling the screws of debt tighten around her, asks for help from a number of people who either try to use her in her desperation, or cruelly turn her aside.  Rodolphe, her former love, rejects her in her need and this final abandonment appears to extinguish any hope.

The Death of Madame Bovary
Albert-August Fourie
source Wikigallery

Finally, rejected by each man she hopes will save her yet neglecting to go to the one who will (Charles), Emma takes arsenic and her death brings further consequences.  Charles is immersed in a grief which finally brings about his death and poor Berthe, their daughter, is condemned to live in poverty and toil.

I must admit I was somewhat glad to see this book come to a close.  I’ll try to gather my scattered thoughts into a coherent review in the next few days.  Many thanks to C.J. at Ebookclassics and Juliana at Cedar Station for being wonderful hosts for this read-along!

Madame Bovary Read-Along Part II

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Madame Bovary Read-Along Hosted by ebookclassics &         Cedar Station

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Part II

Well, the change of scenery has improved Emma’s spirits in one aspect, at least ……….. she has found someone to worship her.  Quickly disillusioned with her marriage, Charles is barely thought of as she seeks to satisfy her self-important ego by engaging a worshipful admirer.  Leon Dupuis, a law student, takes one look at Emma and falls in love.  Yet while soaking in his adoration initially, she tortures the young man by springing from flirting with him, to ignoring him, to a nervous ennui.

In spite of giving birth to a lovely little girl, Emma barely gives her a thought as she pursues her idea of  a fulfilling life.  I didn’t get the impression that she despised motherhood, only that she was ill-equipped for it; children must not have been a part of her sentimental novels, and she doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with them, therefore the easiest course is to ignore her daughter.

The operation on Hippolyte had tragic results but gives more insight into the character of Charles; he is entirely well-meaning but not the best judge of human character or circumstances.  He also does not like to face anything unpleasant, which leads us to believe that even if he had insight into Emma’s character, he would not have known what to do with her dalliances and would have retreated from the problem instead of facing it.

Albert Fourié (1885)
source Wikimedia Commons

The scene at the agricultural fair in chapter 8 was an attempt at brilliance by Flaubert.  What irony to have the illicit private seduction of Madame Bovary (by Rodolphe), occur in the middle of the festivities and raucousness of the townspeople during the speeches.   The personal nature of the act contrasted against the backdrop of the merry, yet public celebration added to the tension.  It brought to mind a symphony.

Again, Emma turns to books to justify her emotions.  Lacking a moral compass, she does the only thing she has learned to do, trust her emotions and support her desires with her reading material.  She is in a circular spiral to tragedy but Emma, because of her self-deception, is the least likely to see it.  She is rather a pitiful figure and I wonder if it was Flaubert’s intention to make her so.  Her mood swings, rather than being a psychological manifestation, appear designed to illicit the response that she requires from the person she is engaged with, and the expected response is based on bad plots from sentimental novels.  So far Emma doesn’t appear to be able to realize that, since her relationships do not appear to be going the way she wants or expects, perhaps there is something wrong with her expectations. Instead she attempts force and manipulate all behaviour and emotions to fit into her fantasy world.