Summer Reading Plans

The Classic Bribe
Perusing Kill Me If I Stop, I found this challenge. I'm not putting it on the main page at the top because a] that page is getting rather long and I need to figure out out to make page tabs, but alas who has time to fiddle with html and b] it's for summer only. I'm thinking it will help me read at least one...gah...one...of my books for Back to the Classics and/or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen of la Books.

Here's the challenge from Quirky Girl Reads

The Classic Bribe – Challenge & Giveaway:

• Read at least 1 Classic over the summer – between Memorial Day and the end of Labor Day Weekend, September 3rd
• You can have begun the Classic prior to Memorial Day, but it needs to have been completed between the challenge dates above
• Post a review on your blog of each Classic that you read during the challenge period and reference a link to this “The Classic Bribe” challenge page
• Link to each of your reviews separately by clicking on Mr. Linky below
• Each linked review counts as 1 entry – no entry limit per blogger – read and review as many as you like
• Each entry builds up $1 toward an Amazon gift card – the more entries the higher the balance can grow – capped at $35
• Random winner selected Labor Day weekend from all entries- no restrictions on region
• Winner receives the full Amazon gift card balance accumulated based on entries received

Splash into Summer
This next Summer read item will take place a delicious week in July. I still feel guilty for having missed Irish Short Story Week this year...crazy month of March here at the ranch, but this summer fun activity will sort of scratch that itch. It's called Splash into Summer and is hosted by Literally Jen and Bonnie at A Backwards Story

The week of July 9th will be all about mermaids. *squee*

The Conscientious Reader
July 9th     Introduction, Why I love mermaids, recap of my mermaid things thus far,
                Pinterest board, MerBooks blog etc.
July 10th   Review: Sea Change
July 11th   Review: Everblue
July 12th   Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings: Chocolate Mug Cake...yeah, I'm making
                it and talking about it
July 13th   Recap of Splash of Summer: favorite post, links

Teen Text Talk
July 9th     Introduction, Giveaway
July 10th   Review: Sea Change
July 11th   Review: Everblue
July 12th   Review: The Lure of Shapinsay
July 13th   Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings: Chocolate Mug Cake...yeah, I'm making                it and talking about it and Giveaway winner announced Monday

Pinterest, MerBooks, three book reviews, a giveaway and chocolate mug cake...I can't wait!!!

Kate's Book Club: Summer Reading Game
Another challenge that I think will help me with my bigger year-long challenges is the following from Kate's Book Club. The ten type of books are listed below and there's no specific end or start date, so I'm going to start July 1st and end September 30th. If there is a book I've had in mind, I've listed it below the challenge and will add more as I think of more to add.

1. One Book Recommended By A Friend.

On the Island (by my friend Jen R.)

2. One Book That Has Been Sitting On Your Shelf For Over A Year.
The Lincoln Lawyer

3. One Book You Read A Long Time Ago And Don't Remember.
The Last Unicorn

4. One Book From Your To Be Read List.
The Night Circus

5. One Book You've Never Heard Of.

Lost in a River of Grass

6. One Classic.

The Bloody Spur (also titled While the City Sleeps)

7. One Book You Started But Never Finished.

The Garner Files

8. One New Release.
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

9. One Book That Is Outside of Your Typical Genre.

Warrior's Rise

10. One Chunkster (A Book That Is Over 400 Pages).

Infinite Jest

Oh and I promise to talk about all our summer trips...sometime before the end of the season. We've been having a blast!

55 Books in a Year: Book #23 Robinson Crusoe

So, it should be illegal to have illustrated classics...they are very misleading. From about the age of 10 until I started this book, I thought Robinson Crusoe was just about a guy who got stranded on an island, met a properly clothed native named Friday and got off the island a rich man.

And, I thought it would be a bit of an easy read.

11 pages and at least one 160 (approximately) word sentence in, I realized so many things about weren't exactly as they appeared.

Let me break it down

A guy who got stranded on an island
Yes, Crusoe gets stranded on an island. He gets stranded on an island for almost 29 years and about 3 years in he realizes that he can't get off the island alone. There's also about 100 pages of detail about how he goes against his father's wishes and goes out to sea, makes a fortune and loses it and makes a fortune again, becomes a slave, runs away, owns a plantation and plans the voyage that is to be his final one for a long time. He also goes on and on about praying and religion and how he does both well in times of stress. He builds a house. He talks about how money really is a waste. He details planting crops and taming a parrot and shooting cats. He watches cannibals eat people. It's not as exciting as it sounds.

Met a properly clothed native named Friday
Friday is about to be eaten by cannibals. He is, in fact, part of them. Crusoe teaches him to be a good Christian, this, of course, means that he can no longer eat people and he must wear clothes. Crusoe points out that Friday is a better Christian than he is because Friday is naive. I liked reading about Friday the most as I found Defoe's description of Crusoe's view of Friday quite progressive. Crusoe treats Friday as an equal and considers him a friend, although he is dark skinned.

Got off the island a rich man
I have no idea why I thought this book was more like Treasure Island or Swiss Family Robinson with island treasure hunts and jewels and such, but I did. I was amazed to find that Crusoe had made his money before he left and instead of spending more years wasting it by creating adventures and buying stuff, it accrues value and he, alone on the island, learns how to take pleasure in the simple. If only every man got to spend time away from society during his most wayward years.

To say I disliked this book would be a bit harsh. I am glad I read this adult version of this book. There are so many allusions I understand on a deeper level, especially all of those presented by Betteredge in The Moonstone. I don't really see myself going back to it as a reference and if I want a Crusoe fix, I think I'll stick to that mini-series starring Pierce Brosnan.

55 Books in a Year: Book #14 The Moonstone

Writing about The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins without giving anything away is going to be hard, as there are so many red herrings that I want to talk about extensively, but doing so would give away the book.

I would like to warn people...if you read The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher and/or know anything about Wilkie Collins then ending could be given away. Might I suggest not researching this book, and might I also suggest not reading the Whicher book first as it talks about the Saville Kent murder (a case that mirrors so closely the story of The Moonstone that I had no trouble guessing most of the Collins book a section into the narrative). 

I want to look at this book stylistically, as a detective novel, and in comparison to the Kent murder.

Stylistically

The story of the theft of the Moonstone, a large yellow diamond stolen from the forehead a mystic Indian statue,  is told from the stories and notes gleaned from 11 different characters and I suppose if you didn't just allow yourself to go on the adventure this could be quite tedious. At the behest of Franklin Blake, each narrator has something to tell and each narrator in his or her own way sets out many red herrings as to who might have taken the diamond. The chief narrator is Betteredge a long-time servant of the Verinder family. Although he is the chief narrator he is the most unreliable of the lot and I spent most of the time he narrated digging through his interpretations to find the truth. Please know he doesn't lie, he just sees things differently. The most annoying narrator would be Mrs. Clack as she is blindly and hypocritically religious. All the narrators vary in character and tone (for this I give Collins much credit), my favorites are Franklin Blake, who I suppose is the hero of the tale, Mr. Bruff, the lawyer and Ezra Jennings as they tell the story in a straight forward manner. Once you get to the conclusion of a certain narrative I promise you that you'll want to read on to the end.

As A Detective Novel

This book is considered by many to be the epitome of the detective novel and I can totally see why, written many years before the first Sherlock Holmes, Sergeant Cuff is definitely the prototype for all detectives hence. Cuff enjoys growing and talking about roses, he is quick to offend as his gruff manner is offensive to some, and he knows the culprit years before the others. He is smug enough about it to write the name of the thief on a sheet of paper and seal it in an envelope for others to read after they figure it out. He deduces aloud, makes conclusions that others don't agree with, but in the end knows the truth better and more thoroughly than anyone. If Betteredge is good at throwing out red herrings, all the reader as to do to combat this is read what Cuff has to say. Just like most detective novels, this book at three major plot twist, the final one is the most impressive. We also learn that any character could be the culprit, and that things get bumbled by the local police.

In comparison to the Kent Murder

In 1860, three year old Saville Kent was taken out of his bed in the middle of the night and murdered. The only evidence was a smear of blood on a night gown and the fact that the timing indicated that it was committed by someone in the house. While the theft of a diamond in no way compares to the murder of a child these stories share many similarities, in both the biggest evidence was a smear on a night gown, both were committed by someone in the house, both were committed without an accomplice of sorts, both would have been solved earlier had the people in the house understood that it was an inside job. The final comparison is the most important, Detective Whicher is the model for Sergeant Kent and both had to wait years to be told they're assumptions were correct.

This book is loads of fun and I can't wait to read more by Collins.

5 Stars

If you can't tell I enjoyed this book immensely!

55 Books in a Year: Book #8 The Fox

The only DH Lawrence I ever read before tackling this book was "The Rocking-horse Winner", an odd little story about love that borders on the Oedipal and luck that borders on insanity. While I could write a paper about it, I'm still not sure I get it. When I tell people that they just say, "That's Lawrence for you."


When I started The Fox I had "The Rocking-horse Winner" in mind, however, I wasn't really ready for the whole story and these plot synopses gave no indication as to what I was getting into.


Here's the breakdown from Wikipedia:

The Fox is a novella by D. H. Lawrence published in 1923. Set in Berkshire, England during World War I, The Fox, like many of D. H. Lawrence’s other major works, treats the psychological relationships of three protagonists in a triangle of love and hatred. Without the help of any male laborers, Nellie March and Jill Banford struggle to maintain a marginal livelihood at the Bailey Farm. A fox has raged through the poultry, and although the women—particularly the more masculine Nellie—have tried to shoot the intruder, he seems always to elude traps or gunshot.

and Goodreads:

The Fox (1923) is a short novella by D.H. Lawrence that is set in the Berkshire district of England in 1918, just after the First World War. Two women, Branford and March, both in their thirties and unmarried, live together on an isolated farm. One day, like a fox, a man enters their farm and lives. Lawrence uses the fox as a symbol of masculinity and through it explores male sexuality.

The Fox is down right sexy. I hear from those of you that know Lawrence that in his misogyny he can be pretty sexual. I read about March and Banford and thought, "Well, are they? Aren't they? Will they?" I was drawn to March and her battle with the fox in the hen house. And, then I was drawn to the fox, in the form of Henry, in the hen house. Every description left him more attractive than the next. Every description of March, though his eyes, makes her more beautiful and, dare I say, more feminine. The more the narrator refers to her trousers and her eyes and her neck and her boots and her legs in a dress, the more Banford shrinks and became a tiny, shriveled screw. The more the reader sees March as sexy too. Even the barren farm with its chickens and lack of cow seems inviting and sensual.


And, the whole entire triangle is reminiscent of the triangle in Ethan Frome and I can't decide which character I feel more sympathy towards. Heck, I can't tell if the women are supposed to be lovers supplanted by the boy, I can't tell if things had ended differently if March would have felt differently, I can't tell if March loves the boy, I can't tell if the boy really loves March and while there isn't out and out sex, there's this neck kiss that left me a little breathless and there's this confrontation between Banford, March and Henry that was just one step shy of a full sex encounter, although no one took off their clothes and everyone was very angry. In the end I can't tell if Henry is still the fox or if March is still the strong one. I can't tell if this book is pro love, or anti-feminist.


But, hey, that's Lawrence for you.


4 Stars   

I was entranced by this book and the story and Lawrence's writing style, but when it ended and I caught my breath I felt a little let-down, I'm not really sure by what.


You can read the whole novella here.


Read the novella and feeling frustrated? Check out these lovely reviews.
The Reading Life
Tony Crisp

55 Books in a Year: Book #4 Around the World in 80 Days

It all started innocently enough...I was catching up on my Pierce Brosnan. How does one do that you ask? Watch all his Bond movies, think about watching Thornbirds (then realize that's Richard Chamberlain, not Pierce), move on to a season of "Remington Steele", then dig deep, finding old gems like "The Lawnmower Man" and watch the whole mini-series "Around the World in 80 Days". And, if you're like me, this will prompt you to read the book as you've never read the book before and you've put it down as part of your Classics Challenge and will feel compelled to start it immediately.

This book is a delightfully easy read written during one of Verne's and France's low-points, but accents, what I'm sure many believe, the highest point of the British Empire. I am positive that if you read this book and "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell (an essay about the shooting of an elephant in India, written about 60 years later) you will have a perfect picture of British Imperalism and a well rounded idea of the British Empire.  If Orwell's is the Modern, not so positive aspects than Verne's is the Victorian, idealized version. Phileas Fogg can do no wrong. He is punctual, precise and phelgmatic. He fires his valet for the tiniest of errors and can be counted on to do exactly what he as always done. When one of the members of his prestigious gentlemen's club says he can't possible make it around the world in 80 days, he calmly says he can and will. Betting £20,000 (half of his whole worth) he leaves that night with the French valet he has just hired. 


The best part of the book is reading Fogg's conversion from a stodgy and eccentric man to a man that has gained love and true friendship; even if he does keep all of his Britishness--not that this is in any way a bad thing.

Some things that are in the book that aren't in the movies and visa versa:

1. An extra girl (in the mini-series, at least) who never appears in the book.

2. I've always seen and thought of Passepartout of being the comic relief falling over himself and others and getting into trouble. In the book it seems like he helps Fogg as much as he hinders, and actually does a lot more good than I thought originally.

3. And, the biggest one...There isn't a hot air balloon in the book, don't get too excited about that. There are steam engines and boats and carriages, but no hot air balloons. Yeah, I was fooled by every...cover...I've...ever seen...ever.

Anyway, read the book and imagine Pierce Brosnan, you'll have a grand time.

4 Stars