This past month I've been alterating between classics and more contemporary fiction and what ever the genre all my reads have been great ones! All in all I feel that I've been really lucky with the books I've read this year. There have been only one I did not really like and then there is another one that I started and have not been in the mood for going back to (I will get to it eventually, however, as the novel itself is good, I just need to be in the appropriate mood for it). The funny thing is that since January I've made good progress with books that have sat in my bookselves for a long time and I can only wonder why have I not read them earlier??? One of those books is Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I count Austen among my all time favorite authors, but somehow I had always stayed away from Northanger Abbey. Maybe partly because I remember seeing a rather awful TV version of the story once. All I remember of the film is that there was lots of running around in dark corridors and gloomy gardens! It gave me the impression that Northanger Abbey was all gothic and nothing else and even though I love a good gothic novel as much as anyone, I had always tought that Northanger Abbey sounded too different from Austen's other novels to really interest me. Oh boy, was I (once again) proved wrong!Northanger Abbey tells about 17-year old Catherine Morland, who gets the opportunity to go to Bath and experience the fashionable society for the first time. In Bath she befriends Isabella, a flirtatious young woman a few years her senior, who introduces Catherine to gothic romances. Catherine also meets siblings Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who later invite her to visit their home, Northanger Abbey. Catherine's knowledge of abbeys is based largely on the gothic novels she's been reading and soon her imagination runs wild.Northanger Abbey was first of Austen's books to be completed for publication. She wrote it during the last years of the 18th century and sold it for a publisher (who ended up never publishing it) in 1803. Only in 1815 Austen bought the manuscript back from the publisher and next year she was working with the text of the novel. However, at that point Jane Austen's health was in decline. She suffered from a kidney disease and died in July 1817. Northanger Abbey was published posthumously in December 1817 (in the first edition the year is given as 1818).Northanger Abbey reads almost as two separate novellas. Larger part of the story plays out in Bath and through Austen's writing one gets a lively picture of the Bath society. Second part of the novel takes place in Northanger Abbey and includes some gothic elements. I must say that even tough I really liked the book I loved the first part and sometimes felt a bit frustrated with the heroine in the second one! On the other hand Austen depicts the naivete of a 17-year-old girl, a girl with quite a wild imagination, just perfectly! Northanger Abbey is the most bookish of Austen's novels. It is a nice defence of novels and novel reading written in a time when novel reading was seen as something inferior. Late 18th century novelists are discussed freguently. Charlotte starts reading The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and later her new friend Isabella gives her a list of other gothic novels she should read. Udolpho is mentioned frequently throughout the book. I actually have it & even though it might have been even better to read it before I read Northanger Abbey, it would still be interesting to read it now that Northanger Abbey is still fresh in my memory. Earlier today I also downloaded two novels by Fanny Burney, namely Camilla and Cecilia, both of which are also mentioned in Northanger Abbey. :)What can I say? I love my Austen. :) And Charlotte Morland may even have become my second favorite Austen heroine right after Elizabeth Bennet. The love story in Northanger Abbey is not in the scale of, say, Pride and Prejudice. I have cried more than once over Mr. Darcy saying: "My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever" and Elizabeth answering that she has changed her mind about Darcy completely. No tears were shed while I read Northanger Abbey. The romance felt almost secondary, but it was okay. What mattered most to me was the likability of the main characters and the brilliancy of Austen as a writer writing about society and manners. She was one of a kind! How lucky we are that still some 200 years later we are able to immerse ousrelves in these stories, these novels, and feel joy and sadness, be scared or delighted with Catherine and Henry and Eleanor, just like generation after generation of readers have done before us!I read Northanger Abbey for the Back to the Classics 2012 Challenge.
To be honest before 2010 I thought H. G. Wells was "only" a science fiction writer. I don't mean "only" as something inferior (I love science fiction), only that I did not know he had written also other kinds of books. I knew Wells as the author of The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds and The Island of Dr. Moreau. I had seen the movie The Time Machine and had -and still have- every intention of reading the book one of these days. I also thought that The Island of Dr. Moreau was definitely not for me. Then, while browsing some non-fiction book, name of which has escaped me, I saw mentioned this women's rights novel by Wells called Ann Veronica! I was intrigued and as my library had a copy I immediately borrowed the book. At that time I had some other books I had to read first and in the end Ann Veronica was returned unread. Some time later I saw this fabulous Orion Books edition of Ann Veronica at the book store and simply had to buy it. Isn't that dust jacket gorgeous?I have since learned that Wells was a prolific writer. Yes, many of his novels were what back then were called scientific romances, but he also wrote contemporary novels and non fiction. He is also considered the inventor of the first recreational wargame! Reading Margaret Atwood's essay on The Island of Dr. Moreau I was already converted into wanting to read that book, now I'm very interested in reading more contemporary novels by Wells and also some of his less known scientific romances.Herbert George Wells was born in 1866 into a lower middle class family. He tried a few things before finally getting into teaching. His personal life was rather unorthodox. He divorced his first wife after falling in love with one of his students Amy Catherine Robbins, whom he then married. Later he started an affair with Amber Reeves, who bore him a child. Wells and his second wife seem to have had an agreement that he could have extra marital affairs. Among his mistresses was writer Elizabeth Von Arnim. In 1912 feminist writer Rebecca West had reviewed Marriage, one of Wells' novels, for Freewoman. The review was not too favorable. West called Wells "the Old Maid among novelists" and mentioned that "even the sex mania on Ann Veronica...was merely Old Maids' mania". Wells responded by asking West to lunch. An affair ensued and in 1914 West bore Wells' a son. Learn more about Wells here, here and here.Ann Veronica tells the story of a young woman, Ann Veronica Stanley, one of the "New Women" of the early 20th century. Outraged by her father's overprotective behavior towards her, she decides she cannot stay under his roof any longer and escapes to London. Ann Veronica goes to London full of determination, but at that point she is still very innocent and ignorant of many facts of life. In London she has to face a number of tribulations and go through lots of self-reflection before she is ready to return to her parental home. At this point I thought, oh no, this is going to be one of those moral tales where the heroine returns chastised and meekly accepts her destiny as a someone to be married to the highest bidder. I'm happy to tell I was completely wrong! Ann Veronica returns on her own terms and is able to continue her studies. She studies biology in an institution very much like the school were Wells himself studied in the 1880s and she falls in love. And like Wells' Ann Veronica's love story is not a typical one. Ann Veronica, subtitled by Wells "a modern love story" was published in 1909. Its publication created a storm. Wells' usual publishers feared a scandal and declined to publish it. Another publisher, Unwin's, did publish the book and made good money of it, but the book did cause a scandal. Some of the reform groups (Fabians, suffragettes) did not like how they were depicted in the novel and parts of the plot outraged so called respectable people. I enjoyed reading Ann Veronica. Keeping in mind that it was first published in 1909 the story felt amazingly modern -and, luckily, also partly old fashioned. We women have come a long way since the beginning of the 20th century! I'm not sure whether I would call Ann Veronica exactly a feminist novel. If anything, the heroine of the novel end up beling rather critical about suffragettes, but it is a novel about the rights of women, the lack of them and finding ways to broaden them. If you like to read stories about strong, independent women or unconventional stories set in the beginning of the 20th century, I strongly suggest adding Ann Veronica into your TBR list.I read Ann Veronica for Room Beam Reader's TBR Pile Challenge.
I had a quiet weekend, both figuratively and literally! No dance practise, just some tennis on both days, but I also tried to talk as little as possible as my throat has been a bit sore and on Friday & Saturday I had a rather funny voice. Luckily it's almost back to normal now.I must say that this post is a rather random collection of thoughts, as the three books I'm about to write about are all totally different and range from pretty heavy stuff to the lighter side of romantic fiction! But, here comes:The Madman of Freedom Square by Hassan BlasimBlasim is an Iraqi-born writer and filmmaker who came to Finland as a refugee in 2004. The short story collection The Madman of Freedom Square is his first book. He wrote it in Arabic and the collection was translated into English by Jonathan Wright. Blasim's stories are powerful pictures of what life has been and is like for Iraqis either in Iraq or in exile from the time period of the Iran-Iraq War to the present. There is war and insanity, nightmarish and macabre moments in the stories, but also atempts to love, to survive, to find a way to live inspite of all the odds. One of the stories that made the biggest impression on me was Ali's Bag, where Ali, disgusted by the way his older brothers and his father always treated his mother takes his revenge after the mother's death by digging up her bones and carrying them in her old travel bag all the way to Europe in the hope of finding a safe place to bury them. My favorite story, however, was the title story The Madman of Freedom Square, mainly because first it is almost fairytale-like and much more optimistic than most, if not all the other stories, and then the ending is so dramatic! Blasim's stories are not easy reading. He writes about difficult, ugly things, but that is exactly why this is an important book. As the backcover of the book tells us "these stories afford us a rare glimpse of Iraq from the inside."The End of the Affair by Graham GreeneHave you seen the 1999 movie made of this novel starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore? I haven't, but after reading the book I would really like to. This slim novel tells the story of a love affair between Maurice Bendrix (based on Greene himself), a writer, and Sarah Miles (based on Greene's then lover Lady Catherine Walston), the wife of civil servant Henry Miles, who Bendrix meets when he wants to get information on civil servants for a novel he is writing. We know from the start that the affair is going to end and we also know very soon than Sarah is going to die. What is interesting is how we get to the end and what happens afterwards. Greene himself has said that The End of the Affair is one of the only two books we wrote which is not melodramatic. Maybe so. At least the way some of the characters react to adultery and even death are almost too civilised. Henry Miles must really be the most understanding husband in the history of literature! Or how many betrayed husbands would not only befriend their late wife's lover but ask them move in with them? I had hard time believing some of the plot, but what I loved from the beginning was Greene's writing. This was the first novel by Graham Greene I've ever read and I want to read more just because he definitely was a very skilled writer. Mayde I'll try one of his spy stories next...Lucky Loser by Yolanda WallaceLast year the book I was most dissapointed in was Grand Slam by Samantha Brenner. It was supposed to be a satirical lesbian romance set in the world of women's professional tennis, but the satire was totally lost in me. When I learned that there was another novel, also this one a lesbian romance, set in the world of tennis, I approached the book with equal amount of fear and hope. :) I hoped it would be a nice read. It surely could not be as unlucky a reading experience as Grand Slam had been! And it wasn't! :)I very seldom read romantic novels, but I'm happy I chose to read this one. Wallace had done her homework and the tennis bits were well researched, even though I must say Sinjin Smythe served a little too many aces in her Wimbledon matches! The story tells about Sinjin, a British player trying to come back from an injury and her French friend and former doubles partner Laure Fortescue, whose feelings for each other start to turn into something more than a friendship. I found it a bit amusing that Wallace had borrowed some characteristics of real tennis professionals for her fictional characters. And my only criticism (but just a tiny little one :)) comes from the fact that Laure Fortescue shared a bit too many characteristics with my all time favorite tennis player Amelie Mauresmo! However, all in all Lucky Loser was a lovely comfort read and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a feel good novel set in the world of tennis. I'll add Lucky Loser into my list of LGTB books read this year.Ok, now I'll retreat back to nursing my sore throat that is fast starting to turn into a runny nose... :-)ps. The End of the Affair is missing from the photo as I already returned it to the library.
