39 reviews found
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It has been a while since I delved into Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was the most recent volume I found at my used bookstore, and this summer seemed like a good time—plus, I wanted to slow down my reading for a week, and this certainly did the trick. What I wasn’t expecting was such an interesting example of Dickens experimenting with his style and indeed the form of the novel itself. Barnaby Rudge is a delightful…
High time I read more nineteenth-century fiction! This summer I tackled Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë’s first novel. I knew that I had read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall prior to the pandemic and my transition, but wow—I didn’t expect it to be five years ago! How time passes quickly. It’s difficult to compare these novels given that they are quite different in their goals. Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that The Tenant…
Been a while since I read a new Thomas Hardy novel, mostly because I try to pick them up in gently used editions from my local used bookstore! I think I have read all of his most well-known novels now and have just a few less celebrated ones, along with collections of short stories, left. A Pair of Blue Eyes is not Hardy’s first novel, but it is an early one and the first to…
I first read and reviewed Middlemarch in 2009, so you can read my first review if you like. This review will reiterate some of the points of my earlier review, but enough time has passed and I have changed enough that I definitely took different things from this book this time. Nevertheless, still a classic and a masterpiece.
Middlemarch is a sublime example of Victorian authors recognizing and attempting to chronicle a disappearing lifestyle. Eliot…
I probably made a mistake by trying to read this at the beginning of a week off. I’ve attempted The Pickwick Papers twice before in the past year. Each time, the book eluded me, my interest in it slipping away before I was more than 10 pages in. Charles Dickens is, as usual, an excellent writer but one whose style is heavily idiosyncratic in a way that does not lend itself to the preferred prose…
I previously read Wuthering Heights over 10 years ago, and I might not ever have revisited it until my pal Julie roped me into a re-read. You can read her review here. Our reactions are quite different, although I think we share many observations about the nature of the story and its legacy.
First, as always, a quick plot summary: the year is 1801 and a dandy gentleman named Mr. Lockwood shows up…
There’s a particular pleasure that comes with having read so much of an author’s oeuvre that you find yourself reaching deep into the back catalogue for new experiences. I love reading the less-celebrated or more obscure works by a famous author. Sometimes they are less-celebrated and more obscure for good reason! Sometimes, though, as with A Laodicean, they turn out to be undiscovered treasures!
I picked up this used copy at the same time…
Nine years ago I listened to Jude the Obscure as a free LibriVox audiobook (I love LibriVox!), mostly while cycling to and from my summer job at an art gallery. This was not my first Hardy (I had read The Mayor of Casterbridge for my first year of university), but obviously as his last novel, Jude the Obscure has a special place in Hardy’s canon.
I quite like my original review, if I do say…
This is my second reading of The Mill on the Floss. You might want to read my original review of 6 years ago. I stand by it; however, I have additional thoughts to augment what I said previously.
George Eliot is one of my favourite Victorian novelists (one of my favourite novelists, indeed), and The Mill on the Floss is my favourite of her works and one of my favourite books—so much so…
It has, coincidentally, been exactly 3 years since I first read The Count of Monte Cristo. I bought a house this summer; I have my very own deck now. I decided that on my week off I wanted to sit outside and work my way through this classic behemoth during what might be our last nice days before the autumn chill kicks in. I was, for the most…
I went into The Tenant of Wildfell Hall conjecturing that Anne Brontë would prove to be the underrated sister, and my conjecture was right. Although I love and appreciate Jane Eyre, and I can see why others love and appreciate Wuthering Heights, where is the love for Anne? Charlotte and Emily get to become household names, more or less, their most famous works easily recognizable even by people who will never read them.…
I’m not sure Thomas Hardy knows what love is. Or maybe I don’t know what love is. Does anyone know what love is? Haddaway has been zero help, by the way.
If I was worried I’ve been ploughing through Hardy’s novels too fast, I shouldn’t be: my last review was over a year ago! Time to rectify that! It’s also a nice break from the YA/SF-heavy binge I’ve been on (and to which I…
I make no secret of the fact that I think George Eliot is a literary badass, and Felix Holt: The Radical is just the latest example of these well-deserved credentials. This is essentially a political and legal thriller set in 1832 England on the cusp of the passage of the First Reform Act. (Among other things, the Reform Acts of the 1800s redefined the electoral districts for the English Parliament and expanded the franchise ever…
I learned I’d prefer to save my Hardy reading for the summer. There is nothing better than being able to read Hardy outside in summer, when the warmth and greenery makes it easier to imagine the bucolic setting of the Wessex novels. Plus, having the day available for reading allows me to sink my teeth into novels like Far from the Madding Crowd, which are meant to be read in big gulps rather than…
Last year around this time, I read Adam Bede, George Eliot’s first novel. It’s fitting that when I was rummaging around my to-read box, I found Daniel Deronda, Eliot’s last novel. I wanted a meaty, socially-conscious novel with a diverse cast of well-realized characters. Eliot does not disappoint, and Daniel Deronda captivated me to the point that I began scribbling some notes in the margins of my lovely used copy.
I love George…
Thrilled by the excellent recent adaptation by the BBC, I decided it was time to finally read The Three Musketeers. I have vague memories of borrowing a book with a yellow hardback cover from the library when I was much, much younger. But at that precocious age I found the nineteenth century language and over-the-top tropes of romance and revenge difficult to enjoy, and I don’t recall if I ever finished it. This time,…
Another somewhat well-preserved Penguin Classics paperback of Hardy, this time acquired not in a used bookstore abroad but taken abroad after receiving it as a gift from someone who went to a used bookstore. The very slimness that signals its brevity also makes it quite attractive as a travel book. Since it’s Hardy, I knew I would be in for a treat, for prose that is both readable and poetic, for characters who are truly…
I enjoyed NBC’s new Dracula series an inordinate amount. It was a fun, thrilling experience of storytelling and characterization. And it got me thinking that, despite happily watching various adaptations over the years, I’ve never actually read the original novel. What with it being public domain and all, I put the Project Gutenberg edition on my tablet and sat back to see how the original stacks up to its adaptations.
(If you haven’t already, you…
So far I’ve been reading George Eliot’s work in a reverse-chronological order. For my third experience I’ve chosen Adam Bede, her first novel. I didn’t realize this until I read the introduction after finishing the book. In hindsight, I can see how her style is less polished than her later works; however, at the time, I was captivated by all the hallmarks of Eliot’s writing that make her my favourite Victorian novelist.
The plot…
This one of those tales that have percolated down through culture but that most of us have never actually read. I assigned it as a short reading assignment for my sixth form English class, something we could cut our teeth on while we start looking at the possibilities for texts to study this year. They were all familiar with the general idea, though I was surprised to find out that one of them was surprised…
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