Gertie MacDowell started reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, …
A rather moody enigma with a plethora of fascinating interests.
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44% complete! Gertie MacDowell has read 8 of 18 books.
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, …
This was an interesting book from the standpoint of social conventions in upper crust society at the turn of the 20th century. Undine Spragg is very much the antihero leaving a trail of destruction in her wake as she crawls up the social ladder marriage by marriage. One wonders whether Meghan Markle should have read it before becoming entangled in the British royal family given the subject matter.
It's a bit hard to relate to so much of the novel partly because it's over a hundred years old, but also because I am not of the New York elite and therefore unfamiliar, even baffled by some of the social aspects of the story. Having to have your mother respond first before you can seems bizarre and so when Undine breaks some of these rules, it is difficult to appreciate the effect it should have on the reader.
One of the …
This was an interesting book from the standpoint of social conventions in upper crust society at the turn of the 20th century. Undine Spragg is very much the antihero leaving a trail of destruction in her wake as she crawls up the social ladder marriage by marriage. One wonders whether Meghan Markle should have read it before becoming entangled in the British royal family given the subject matter.
It's a bit hard to relate to so much of the novel partly because it's over a hundred years old, but also because I am not of the New York elite and therefore unfamiliar, even baffled by some of the social aspects of the story. Having to have your mother respond first before you can seems bizarre and so when Undine breaks some of these rules, it is difficult to appreciate the effect it should have on the reader.
One of the main thrusts of the story is that then, as now, money is seen as a cure for all ailments, real and psychological. Undine's constant need for more coupled with the limitations she comes up against make for a relevant argument against rampant consumerism. A somewhat novelty at the time, it remains a potent point today, and it isn't hard to read between the lines as Wharton skewers beliefs and actions she saw as vulgar and reflecting the emptiness of the people involved.
Rather straight and to the point, Wharton's writing style reflects the serialised nature of the book as it was first published but it never wearies the reader.
Overall, 'The Custom of the Country' is worth a read and it's prompted me to add more Wharton books to the reading list.
I liked this book even if I did not, per se, 'enjoy' it. Charles Dickens was correct to demand the title be 'North and South' because to have called it simply 'Margaret Hale' would be a disservice to the story, and the reader. By far. it's the themes of the story that rise above the characters in it. Conflicts between the urban and rural, rich and poor, male and female, and indeed, north and south provide the overarching sky under which things take place and without which, the story would not stand out amongst its contemporaries.
I cannot say that I liked the characters in 'North and South' as much as I did Gaskell's other work, 'Cranford', but their various interactions gave the story a much needed conflict and friction.
It's perhaps hard from the 21st century vantage to appreciate the dramatic crisis of faith Mr. Hale undergoes that gets …
I liked this book even if I did not, per se, 'enjoy' it. Charles Dickens was correct to demand the title be 'North and South' because to have called it simply 'Margaret Hale' would be a disservice to the story, and the reader. By far. it's the themes of the story that rise above the characters in it. Conflicts between the urban and rural, rich and poor, male and female, and indeed, north and south provide the overarching sky under which things take place and without which, the story would not stand out amongst its contemporaries.
I cannot say that I liked the characters in 'North and South' as much as I did Gaskell's other work, 'Cranford', but their various interactions gave the story a much needed conflict and friction.
It's perhaps hard from the 21st century vantage to appreciate the dramatic crisis of faith Mr. Hale undergoes that gets the ball rolling. Yet it is not hard to appreciate the various trials and tribulations that everyone within his orbit must undergo by way of collateral damage. Margaret Hale therefore is a commendable protagonist who shoulders everything as best she can while maintaining her dignity.
Like many Victorian novels, I found the ending not so much too good to be true, but, shall we say, unsurprising. It also brought the novel's great themes to a crashing halt and we are left to wonder what happened afterward.
Overall, 'North and South' is a historical book that can help place modern times in the right context. Disparity of wealth and power, geography and people, all seeming so shamefully current are, in such a light, neither so new or so uncommon. While we have moved beyond the 19th century in so many ways, in many others, we have never budged. Reading 'North and South' is a good reminder of that.
Edith Wharton's satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century appeared in 1913; it both …
When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in …
When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in …
Content warning Obvious topics related to mental health and death
I'll admit that I did not like Sylvia Plath when we had to study her poems in school. However, times and tastes change and what prompted me to read 'The Bell Jar' was finding that it references 'Finnegans Wake'. They had a copy at my library and so I decided to give it a go.
It's not a 'happy' book but it is an enjoyable read. Plath's writing style seems a bit immature but then the author is supposed to be barely 20 years old. That said, the writing seems natural for the first person and Plath throws in so many great lines seemingly out of nowhere. A favourite: “There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.”
The gradual decent of Esther into mental illness is portrayed quite naturally, as you would expect Plath's firsthand experience to allow. She makes it all seem so rational when, as the reader, your viewpoint is entirely contradictory. Yet you are never left wondering 'how?', Plath serves up plenty of justification and so Esther's actions never come across as desperate. Perhaps this is the novel's greatest strength: portraying the path to suicide as something as natural as booking a holiday, complete with decisions to make and obstacles to overcome.
Of the difficulties with the novel, it is hard to relate to the treatments described as so many have been discredited or superseded. Even being committed to an institution is far rarer than in the early 1950s. But given broad public knowledge of such treatments (through other books, movies, etc.) it is not hard to comprehend the experience.
Overall, The Bell Jar is a great book and it really makes one wonder what other novels Plath would have turned out had she lived.
I started Finnegans Wake knowing only a few things. Namely that it was not a traditional novel, that it was incredibly difficult to read, and that it confounded many (if not all) who did. I certainly agree that it is not a traditional novel, and that is clear from page 1! I do not agree that it is difficult to read, or that it is particularly confounding. It is, however, difficult to comprehend, and that's by design.
What struck me almost straight away is that this is Joyce having fun with language. Puns and double meanings abound. An early one describes a drink as a 'foamous ale', i.e. 'famous ale' but throwing in the common description of ale as 'foamy' or 'foaming' into the same phrase. I very quickly realised that there was going to be a lot of this in the book and I was not proved wrong! Every …
I started Finnegans Wake knowing only a few things. Namely that it was not a traditional novel, that it was incredibly difficult to read, and that it confounded many (if not all) who did. I certainly agree that it is not a traditional novel, and that is clear from page 1! I do not agree that it is difficult to read, or that it is particularly confounding. It is, however, difficult to comprehend, and that's by design.
What struck me almost straight away is that this is Joyce having fun with language. Puns and double meanings abound. An early one describes a drink as a 'foamous ale', i.e. 'famous ale' but throwing in the common description of ale as 'foamy' or 'foaming' into the same phrase. I very quickly realised that there was going to be a lot of this in the book and I was not proved wrong! Every word is so clearly intentional in its placement and spelling!
Joyce described Finnegans Wake as being 'about the night', and I think that's a wonderful description because it alludes to the infinite number of interpretations that can be made out of it, as we each could our own, individual, night of sleep. He takes us on an adventure into the unknown before returning to reality only to start all over again. I can't describe the anticipation of seeing how the ending would line up with the beginning (as I knew the first and last sentence were one and the same).
The one thing that really helped me in reading the book was the notion that there is something funny on every single page. Sometimes it produced a smirk, but often it produced a good laugh. Joyce could be said to have a wicked sense of humour and that is plain to see here. What the funny thing is is for you to find, and the notion of a continual treasure hunt kept me going when I so often felt fatigued.
The one complaint I have is that Joyce crammed so much (SO much) into every single page, line, sentence, and word, that you simply cannot skim. You have to read with concentration. At one point I was having to convince myself that I had to get through just five pages a day. It was hard to get the kind of rhythm going that you usually do with book. Of course, when even one page packs more into it than most bestsellers do over hundreds of pages, it's kinda forgivable that taking your time is necessary.
Overall, Finnegans Wake is my new favourite book. NOT my new favourite novel, but by far my favourite book as I can see myself coming back to it again and again and again and never ever failing to uncover some new and delightful discovery.
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the …
Follows a man's thoughts and dreams during a single night. It is also a book that participates in the re-reading …
Specially printed limited edition release for the Miskatonic Literary Society.
Content warning Plot spoilers herein
Hot on the tails of 'Jane Eyre', I read 'Wuthering Heights' not knowing anything beyond that it concerned two families and their warring relationship.
This did not prepare me for the utterly gripping yet despicable plot. There is not a single likeable character in the entire novel. Even the narrators are not exempt and I found Nell particularly unreliable being an active participant/manipulator of events.
It is such a dark story! Yet it can mean different things to different people and that helps to explain its status as a classic. One can read the setting as a symbol of hell wherein nobody can ever escape from their torment, among many other themes that have been uncovered down through the years.
I did not like a single character however, I found Isabella's development the best of all. She not only escapes Heathcliff, but Brontë also offers us a glimpse of character depth when Hindley shows her his knife and gun and she shares the inner feeling that holding the knife brought to her. No other character gets such an opportunity to share such a hidde admission.
I plowed through this book and its structure supported if not enabled such progress. It started fairly quickly and kept going at a constant pace.
Would I read it again? Perhaps. I certainly share the respect it deserves as a classic of English literature, but I cannot love it like I do other books. It is just too dark for my usual preferences. But if you have not read it, I encourage you to do so.
This was my first ever Brontë novel (no, really). I was of course familiar with the literary family but had never read any of their work (for no purposeful reason). So it was with a degree of excitement that I started Jane Eyre wondering what the popular Victorian novel could hold.
I enjoyed it from the start, and I enjoyed it more as I devoured it over three days of a holiday. Certain anachronisms aside, the social commentary was informative, and the character of Jane Eyre remarkably fresh given her age. Her personal growth throughout the novel (along with other characters') was probably the best I'd read up until that point.
Some aspects of the story I found a bit weak but overall it was a satisfying ending in the context of the time and place.