“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious l“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.”
Breathtakingly good. A rich novel. A grown-up Dickens. I rank this with the best of the historical fiction I’ve read, such as War and Peace, Wolf Hall, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Like these, it uses a captivating story to illuminate a complicated time.
Among the characters that come to life through Dickens’ detailed descriptions and marvelous metaphors, are Jarvis Lorry, a loyal Tellson’s Bank employee, a man of responsibility and business; Dr. Manette, broken by years of political imprisonment, attached to his shoemaking bench as his only way of salvation; Madame Defarge, a quietly ruthless revolutionary, as adept with a gun and knife as she is with her knitting needles; and Sydney Carton, a highly intelligent yet deeply troubled lawyer.
The tale is of the time before and during the French Revolution, and the two cities are London and Paris. We begin with Mr. Lorry, who orchestrates the reunion of Dr. Manette with his daughter Lucie, and whisks them back to safety in London, where they meet Charles Darnay, who has renounced his French aristocratic family and changed his name. Safety doesn’t last, however, and soon we are taken back to France where the Reign of Terror has begun and revolutionaries like Madame Defarge are lashing back against years of oppression with brutal massacres and beheadings.
“It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them.”
There is an unusual mutedness to Dickens’ characters in this story, perhaps because they are overshadowed by the main character, the collective, the group, the mob, which he describes at one point like a sea erupting into a spray. This mutedness gives the story a serious feel, in keeping with the subject matter.
The opening lines are iconic, but the closing lines should be too. From beginning to end, it’s action-packed, thought-provoking, and elucidating. It’s one of my favorite Dickens novels now, one I hope to re-read many times....more
This is not about a bookshop. A love of books may have been part of what sustained Francoise Frenkel, however, through her relentless struggle as a JeThis is not about a bookshop. A love of books may have been part of what sustained Francoise Frenkel, however, through her relentless struggle as a Jewish woman to survive Nazi persecution.
It begins in Berlin, where this Paris-educated Polish woman has decided to pursue her heart’s desire to run a bookshop.
“I loved my bookstore the way a woman loves, that is to say, truly.”
She opens the first French bookshop in Berlin in 1921, and stays through the ramping up of Nazi ideology. Only after Kristallnacht does she make the difficult decision to flee Berlin for Paris in 1939. The persecution follows her, however. One refuge becomes unsafe, and she is forced to find another. She has a deep love for France and the people who help her, and after several harrowing attempts, finally makes it to safety in Switzerland.
If this had been fiction, I would have suspected it to be a tragedy, because as I read, it seemed unlikely the heroine would survive. It’s true she was vigilant and perceptive. Her connections to France helped. And she did attract loyal friends. But she makes clear that her survival to write this memoir relied on a tremendous amount of luck that many did not have.
“Consequently, the number of escapes fell very quickly. Exhausted by the hardships they were enduring and weakened by their long confinement and the resulting inertia, the refugees had been sapped of their energy. Escape felt like a considerable undertaking with all-too-unpredictable results. Resigned, they ended up passively awaiting their fate, abandoning their plans and, at the same time, all hope.”
An important historical document and a detailed, matter-of-fact account of perseverance in the face of torment....more
This is a fun memoir about two college girls making a trip to Europe together in the 1920’s.
Written much later when the girls are adults with childrenThis is a fun memoir about two college girls making a trip to Europe together in the 1920’s.
Written much later when the girls are adults with children of their own, the writing style is chatty and conversational in a way other books about the 20’s or from the 40’s usually aren’t. In fact it seemed so deceptively modern that the reality of the time period kept surprising me. Wait, what do you mean movies were still in black and white?
Cornelia and Emily were quite a pair. Definitely elite girls--highly educated and from well-off families, but they were surprisingly naïve about what they called “LIFE,” and their innocence got them into all kinds of humorous scrapes.
Unfortunately many of the references, which may have been trendy spots or famous stars in the 1920’s, meant nothing to me, which did cut into my enjoyment of the story.
But I did relate to their excitement at exploring these countries for the first time, suddenly realizing that you found yourself in a place you had previously only dreamed of.
“'The Eiffel Tower!’ she whispered. ‘The Eiffel Tower is in Paris, France! The Louvre is there and Notre Dame and Napoleon’s Tomb, but not me!’”
Overall, I’m glad to have met these two silly girls, and enjoyed following them on their journey of a lifetime....more
Even though this isn’t a Christmas story, I think the title is perfect. Deep down, don’t we want all holidays to change our life? Isn’t that a big reaEven though this isn’t a Christmas story, I think the title is perfect. Deep down, don’t we want all holidays to change our life? Isn’t that a big reason why we get away--to get a new perspective? That’s what happens to Charley Mason, a 23 year old young man from a happy and privileged life, when he visits Paris over his Christmas holiday.
Charley goes to meet his oldest friend Simon, now a journalist, and finds him full of revolutionary ideas and ascetic disciplines. Simon introduces him to Lydia, whose tales of her husband’s imprisonment and displacement from her native Russia fill his head with new impressions.
“… it seemed to him that a veil that painted the world in pleasant, familiar colours had been suddenly rent and he looked into a convulsed and writhing darkness.”
Charley is good-natured and kind, which allows him to slip into these worlds so different from his own, to be mocked a little but basically trusted and confided in.
A good chunk of the book is the story of Lydia’s husband Berger, now in jail. I started to wonder why I should care about this story within a story of a murderer and his crime in amazing detail and through multiple viewpoints. I got a little annoyed, but Maugham’s prose is so amazingly smooth that it was no trouble to just keep reading, so I did. Finally he got back to the real story, the story of Charley, and I realized all that was setup for the epiphany of our hero.
And this is Maugham, so of course there’s philosophy and art along the way, specifically communism versus democracy, the story of Simon’s hero the Bolshevik revolutionary Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, and even a detailed comparison of paintings:
Ingres [image]
vs Manet [image]
Decades ago, when I read my first Maugham, I remember looking at the long list of titles on the Also by this Author page, and I’ve never forgotten my feeling of awe at how prolific he was. What’s more, I somehow don’t think it’s possible he could ever disappoint me. I think I’ll make it a goal to read them all and find out....more
I first discovered Francoise Sagan decades ago, walking past the library shelves and coming upon her small, translated novels. They were light yet so I first discovered Francoise Sagan decades ago, walking past the library shelves and coming upon her small, translated novels. They were light yet so true. I don’t even remember now which ones I’ve read--rather than reading a story, I was just reading Sagan. I was glad to discover I still find her prose so very comforting. She writes with a soothing simplicity which I found again in these stories.
Sagan has this ability to take superficial situations and make them somehow meaningful, revealing, universal. She turns things in her capable hands, so we can look at them from different angles.
Maybe best I liked the fun, simply ironic stories here, like “The Cat and the Casino” with its revenge plot twist, and “The Exchange”--a romp where the characters pull off unexpected tricks on each other, and the exploration of who’s leaving who in “A Question of Timing.” But then there are the ones that offer surprisingly profound insights, like the title story’s view into a troubled marriage, and the almost novelistic life-changing tragedy in “A Country Outing.” They’re all good.
If you’re looking for something gently literary, try Francois Sagan. I have a goal now to read all of her books, and am pretty sure I’ll enjoy every one....more
“What! Work forty years of my life, carry sacks on my back, lard the earth with my sweat, and pinch and save my whole life long for you, my darlings, “What! Work forty years of my life, carry sacks on my back, lard the earth with my sweat, and pinch and save my whole life long for you, my darlings, who made all work easy for me and every burden light, only to see my fortune, my life, go up in smoke! If that were so I should go raving mad, and die.”
I’m afraid I didn’t like it. The story of greed and selfishness and social climbing in the years after the French Revolution was not all that interesting. Characters obsessed with getting the ball gowns and gloves and other accoutrements required to mix in fashionable society, and destroying others to do so … it just seemed so pathetic, though it is a sad reality, even today. We like to think we’ve evolved, but how different are our current attempts to keep up, on social media for example, that drive many to the brink? Will humankind ever learn to stop pushing the truly valuable out of the way to get to the superficial?
Balzac’s ability to relay details is certainly impressive, but personally, I liked the writing style even less than the story. I heard he drank 50 cups of coffee a day, and I have to say, the writing reflects it. It’s very jittery; a whole bunch of words packed in without really saying much; lots of exclamation points. I know I sound like that when I’ve had too much coffee. :-)
So a talented, well-loved classic author that I’m glad I tried, but I think one Baaalzac is enough for me. ...more
“The writing is atrocious, banal to the point of absurdity …”
A page-turner, I’ll give it that. A crazy conglomeration of hard-to-believe tales; storie“The writing is atrocious, banal to the point of absurdity …”
A page-turner, I’ll give it that. A crazy conglomeration of hard-to-believe tales; stories within stories; super meta.
The above quote is from one of this book’s narrators, complaining about another of its narrators. But how ridiculous, since all of the narrators fall into this banal style, so I’m forced to think it’s the author’s style. Surely he knows better, so what was the point? Why did he make it so hard to believe that any of these characters were real?
Yes, they are unreliable narrators. But it’s not that I didn’t trust them. It’s that the writing, the descriptions were so watered-down, so clichéd, that I could never even believe in them as characters. They never came alive, so the author was ever-present (perhaps that was the point?), a force I kept asking, “Why are you doing this?”
“He was like a child, a desperate child who made up things as he went along …”...more
“No one wants to be killed but the hardship, the long hours, the cold, the orders were things we would have endured anyway on the farms or in the town“No one wants to be killed but the hardship, the long hours, the cold, the orders were things we would have endured anyway on the farms or in the towns. We were not free men. He made sense out of the dullness.”
One of the most unusual books I’ve read.
Henri, from a French farming family, becomes a soldier and lands a weird post serving Napoleon endless chickens. During the “Zero Winter,” he meets Villanelle, the daughter of a Venetian boatman and a quick-witted risk-taker. From the harsh realism of both of their experiences, they wind up together in Venice, where things take a magical turn.
For me this was a book of lots of pros and one niggly little con.
The niggly con was, as unique and interesting as I found these characters, their voices were missing something. The story is told in their alternating perspectives, and I sometimes couldn’t tell the difference--Henri sounded like Villanelle, and vice versa. I’m sure this is a personal reaction and not something everyone would experience this way, but it bugged me. Voice is one of the things that really draws me into a character, and I felt a little held back.
The pros are many though: exceptional characters with fascinating stories; insightful prose; an unusual structure of four vignettes; and ideas that linger. I’m already enjoying basking in those lingering ideas, and am anxious to check out more of Winterson’s work.
“They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?”...more
“I wondered what it was like to be buried and not to be sitting in this pretty satin-papered dining room, eating the things the visitors ate, hors d’o“I wondered what it was like to be buried and not to be sitting in this pretty satin-papered dining room, eating the things the visitors ate, hors d’oeuvres and pâté, poulet a l’estragon, veal and steaks, salads and greengages, and I hoped I need never be dead.”
A wonderful story about growing up but, I think because of how it was told, transcending childhood to become a story we can all relate to.
An English mother takes her five children to France to visit a war cemetery in order to teach them a little appreciation. Staying in a hotel along the Marne river, they learn alright, but probably not what their mother intended. It includes detailed descriptions of their impressions of this new world, and the reader joins them in finding their way through it.
Through the eyes of Cecil, the second eldest, the reader sees the hotel with all its bizarre characters and unfamiliar customs. There is an abundance of French phrases, but Cecil translates most of them for us and for her siblings. How each of the children cope in their individual ways is fascinating.
“At Les Oeillets we had adopted certain places for our own, each one of us had chosen one or two. Willmouse had the bank under the cherry tree, of course, but he also owned the little salon; though he had never been in it, it was his. Hester liked the conservatory and a certain small bed of picotees because its warm close smell reminded her of the carnation Eliot had worn on our first night that now seemed ages ago. Vicky had the vine arbour, perhaps because it was near the kitchen, and she said she liked the bidets—‘they are like dear little baths for dolls,’ said Vicky. I loved the wilderness; it was poetical with its white statues and the white jasmine and, for some reason, I loved the staircase, which was why I so much resented the machine-gun holes.”
The tension mounts as a mystery unfolds. The children have a unique viewpoint, and in that way children relate to animals, Cecil relays how they are herded like cattle, everywhere like insects, and chased and cornered like rabbits.
This was the perfect read for me in these uncertain times. Deep and light at the same time. Lovely....more
Flaubert takes us to 19th century France, where a simple heart beats in the body of the house servant Felicite. The home where she serves is brought tFlaubert takes us to 19th century France, where a simple heart beats in the body of the house servant Felicite. The home where she serves is brought to life by Flaubert’s expert realism. “The dilapidated wall paper trembled in the drafts.”
The bright spot (literally) in Felicite’s life is the parrot Loulou, a castoff from her mistress, who becomes for her a symbol of transcendence.
This is Felicite’s story, but feels like it’s told more from the point of view of those she serves, something like, “Poor Felicite, she had so much hardship. She’s such a good girl though, so devout and devoted, she doesn’t seem to mind.” Well I think she did mind, I’d like to have seen a little more of that in this story.
Still, I love Flaubert’s style, and it’s such a unique little tale that I very much enjoyed it....more
“It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not preve“It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people.”
Well, I didn’t find them nice people at all, but then I didn’t have any of the wine.
And I didn’t like the story either. Jake Barnes and his expatriate friends drink and argue in 1920’s Paris, take a little fishing break, then drink and argue through the fiesta in Pamplona, Spain. I found the drinking tedious, the bull fighting horrific, and the frequent antisemitism offensive.
But despite all that, I must admit I do really enjoy Hemingway’s style. Not all the time, but it makes for a very refreshing break from more florid writing (such as the Dostoevsky I just finished--what a contrast!) It’s an excellent palate cleanser.
I’m sure others can describe his style much better than me, but I was struck by one thing in particular. When the narrator feels something, it’s so beautifully realized--so subtle and surprisingly touching. He leaves out all the typical descriptions, exposing the bare truth, and there’s something so vulnerable in the subtlety that it almost breaks your heart.
I wouldn’t presume to write a review about the value of Proust’s work or the meaning behind this first volume of In Search of Lost Time. I can say thaI wouldn’t presume to write a review about the value of Proust’s work or the meaning behind this first volume of In Search of Lost Time. I can say that, loving it as I did, I feel terribly sad at not getting to it earlier in my life. Catching up will not be a quick or easy process. I hope to read on to Within a Budding Grove later this year, and eventually, fingers-crossed, complete all seven volumes at the same leisurely pace I read this one.
The plot (if you can call it that) of Swann's Way can be described fairly quickly: A young boy recalls the obsessions of his childhood, then explores the past romantic obsession of a friend of his family significant to him in that childhood, then touches on a romantic obsession he himself had as a boy. He does all of this in what is, to many readers, tedious detail. But to me this detail was rich and juicy and endlessly thought-provoking.
As to the point, Proust seems to be trying to harness something from his past, which is not an uncommon effort, after all. Jay Gatsby thought you could repeat the past, and I think in a way, that’s what Proust is trying to do here by writing it out complete with so many sensual impressions, artistic and musical references, personal feelings and internal contemplations.
I’ve spent over two months reading his poetic words, a few pages a day. Proust’s writing could be seen as self-indulgent, and therefore the time I spent pondering its meaning and how it related to my own life and memories could also be seen that way. But was it valuable? Definitely.
Just a few of the things I learned: • What it means to be conscious. At the beginning, Proust spends time describing how it feels to awaken from sleep, which made me think about the value of awareness, and what awareness actually is. “… but then the memory, not yet of the place in which I was, but of various other places where I had lived, and might now very possibly be, would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me out of the abyss of not-being …” • Powerful art transforms the symbolic into something real. “But in later years I understood that the arresting strangeness, the special beauty of these frescoes lay in the great part played in each of them by its symbols, while the fact that these were depicted, not as symbols (for the thought symbolized was nowhere expressed), but as real things, actually felt or materially handled, added something more precise and more literal to their meaning, something more concrete and more striking to the lessons they imparted.” • How reading or experiencing genius or truth in art and literature can connect us to that truth. “…it was suddenly revealed to me that my own humble existence and the Realms of Truth were less widely separated than I had supposed, that at certain points they were actually in contact; and in my newfound confidence and joy I wept upon his printed page, as in the arms of a long-lost father.” • To better understand my desire (and resulting disappointment), as I get older, to compare the present with the past. “…how paradoxical it is to seek in reality for the pictures that are stored in one’s memory, which must inevitably lose the charm that comes to them from memory itself and from their not being apprehended by the senses.”
Proust isn’t for everyone, but he is for me, and I intend to cherish this late-in-life literary romance.
“Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, are nothing either. We shall perish, but we have for our hostages these divine captives who shall follow and share our fate. And death in their company is something less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less certain.”...more
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