As I mentioned in an earlier post I am already half way through my Women Unbound Challenge suffragette level (8 books) goal. I haven't, however, posted any reviews yet, so, here comes:
The first book I read for the challenge was Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. This is the third book by this writer that I have read. I read The Girl with the Pearl Earring in Finnish (Tyttö ja helmikorvakoru) soon after it was translated back in 2001 and then continued by reading Falling Angels in English, but I had not read any other of her books before Remarkable Creatures caught my eye.
Remarkable Creatures tells the story of two women, middle class Elizabeth Philpot and working class Mary Anning, who both hunt for fossils. For Elizabeth, sent to live in Lyme Regis at the turn of the 19th century with her two sisters after their brother gets married, collecting fossils is something to do, someting to direct her energy in, for Mary it is a way to earn little something to help her family get food on the table. Despite their different circumstances the two women become friends.
The story is told alternatingly by Mary and Elizabeth. I think that kind of structure worked very well for this book. Chevelier also tells very subtly, but interestingly, about the difficulties the women encounter because of their gender in the male dominated world of scientists, and, well, in the male dominated world of the early 19th century in general. Thus, this was a perfect read for the Women Unbound Challenge. I really enjoyed reading Remarkable Creatures. It ended up on my top 10 list for books I read in 2009.
Mary Anning was a real person, an expert fossil hunter, who made some very important finds. She, for example, found the first ichtyosaur skeleton recognized as such and the two first plesiosaurs ever found. Read more about her here or here.
(As a sidenote: I just visited the Finnish Museum of Natural History on Wednesday and saw both an ichtyosaur and a plesiosaur fossil there. I'm quite interested in fossils now!)
My tiny little criticism is for the cover of the book. I like to colours and the picture, but the dresses of the women pictured do not match the time period the novel is set in!
Next I turned to two old favorites: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.Virginia Woolf is my favorite author (the fact that I might have mentioned a few times before in my posts :)). I have only read The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West, but really loved it, when I read it many years ago (after I had read Orlando for the first time and learned that it was dedicated to Sackville-West). As for achieving my goal of suffragette level in the challenge I am to read at least 3 nonfiction books. I chose Vita & Virginia: The Work and Friendship of V. Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf by Suzanne Raitt as my first nonfiction book for the challenge. As it says in the back cover of the book it "examines the creative intimacy between the two women, interpreting both their relationship and their work in the light of their experience as married lesbians."
This book was a fascinating read. I'm actually not a great fan of books about literary research, but this one was really interesting! I highly recommend this book for anyone who likes the works of Woolf and/or Sackville-West. Raitt's book makes you read Woolf and Sackville-West with new eyes.
I had thought to reread Orlando in 2010 as part of the GLBT Challenge, but after reading Raitt I just could not wait after new year. I found the chapter about Orlando in Vita & Virginia especially interesting. Orlando by Virginia Woolf is thus my third read for Women Unbound. It is a story, a biography really, of a young, English nobelman born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who desides not to grow old. We will then follow Orlando's life, loves and career until during his time as an ambassador in Constantinople in the 17th century something incredible happens to him. He falls to a long sleep and when he wakes up, he is a woman. After that Orlando returns to Britain and continues her life as Lady Orlando.
I have always thought Orlando a brilliant book and this reread did not change my opinion. After reading Raitt's book I now, however, paid more attention to how gender and the fluidity of sexuality was portrayed in the story. It made the reading experience even more interesting.
The fourth book I read was Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson. This is an interesting writer. She is originally from Sweden, but has lived in New Zealand since 1990. She writes her books not in her mother tongue Swedish but in English. To master another language so well that you are able to write fiction in it, that is something I always find very admirable!
Astrid & Veronika is Olsson's first novel. It was first published in New Zealand in 2005 as Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs. The American edition, as well as many other editions, is called Astrid & Veronika.
Again this is a book about friendship between two very different women: Astrid an old woman, a recluse the villagers call the witch, who has lived her whole life in a small community in Swedish countryside and younger Veronika, a writer trying to write her next novel in peace and quiet and to recover from something that has happened to her while she spent some time in New Zealand.
I had heard good things about Astrid & Veronika, but unfortunately I must say I was somewhat dissapointed with the book. Both Astrid and Veronika are characters you feel for and maybe one of my problems with the book was that both their stories were so sad (though there is also optimism in the book). There were some really touching moments in the narrative, but then again there were parts I just wanted to skip. I do understand that the Swedish midsummer traditions, using some Swedish words every now and then etc. must seem exotic for many, but it all just irritated me. It felt like a gimmick that, at least for me, did not work very well. And I speak Swedish, so I could understand all those "exotic" words and our traditions over here are pretty similar to our Swedish neighbours. Well, probably that just was the problem. The exotism was all lost in me. Though I must say I kind of had the same feeling about the beach scenes set in New Zealand and I have never been there.
I'm planning on reading Olsson's second novel Sonata for Miriam this year for the What's in a Name Challenge. We'll see, if I'll love that book more.
That's it this time! Have a great 01.01.10 everyone! I'm off to read some more Woolf now!
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