August Novels

Growing up I watched my father juggle several books at a time.  He didn’t literally juggle, though that would have been impressive, but he would regularly shift through multiple books at one time.  As a child I questioned this--why move back and forth between books?  Wouldn’t it be easier (and preferable) to start and finish one book and then move on to the next?  I have always preferred to do things one at a time: I eat my foods one at a time, rarely mixing my foods (mixing horrifies me), I prefer to do move through a list of tasks, completing one before moving to the next, and I only read one book at a time.

There is a common belief that we turn into our parents and over the years I have watched with mixed amusement and chagrin as I slowly began to prefer my parents’ taste in music, their taste in film, and my opinions softened towards the family business.  Most recently, however, I have discovered that in addition to using any nearby odd scraps of paper or coaster as a makeshift bookmark (a trait of my father’s that I mocked for years), I also find myself juggling novels.

This is, in part, a consequence of my several years as a student.  During school it was often necessary that I simultaneously read two or three books, so it is natural that I became accustomed to the practice.  I am more inclined, however, to blame this (as is the wont of my generation) on my parents.  Juggling books is as much ingrained in my nature as my preference for tea, the French impressionists, and Van Morrison.  I suppose it’s only time before I wander the house in long underwear making up rude alternative lyrics to popular songs.

The books I am currently juggling are:

• Going Solo, by Roald Dahl
• Emma, by Jane Austen
• Justice Hall, by Laurie R. King

Going Solo is the companion to Roald Dahl’s stories of childhood, Boy.  My father gave me a copy of Boy for my eighth or ninth Christmas, and I loved it.  We read Roald Dahl’s stories throughout my childhood, and I took delight in reading the story behind this beloved author’s life and his inspiration for novels like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I recently stepped into a local bookstore to purchase a copy of The BFG for a friend’s son and as I browsed titles, I found Going Solo.  I was so excited at the discovery that I think I even shrieked.  I started reading it almost immediately, delighting over each page.  I haven’t made it too far into the memoir yet, but thus far I have encountered Dahl’s amusement at Empire Builders, stodgy British expatriates and their adherence to English customs, and a crazy, streaking British major.  I anticipate more humor in the subsequent chapters.

*As a side note, one of the primary reasons I chose this particular list was the presence of Dahl’s The BFG.  To me, this signaled an open mind and a willingness to look beyond lofty tomes by classical authors in an effort to identify truly great novels, whatever their target audience.

My current pile of reading material, and requisite cup of tea

I started reading Emma immediately after finishing The Pursuit of Love.  I have not read Emma, but in my life I have encountered three or four film versions of the novel, including the very loose interpretation, Clueless.  I am quite familiar with the story of the meddlesome but well intentioned Emma Woodhouse and her journey towards maturity and happiness.  Thus far I have not encountered any aspects of the plot that are new or unknown to me, but I am surprised to discover that Ms. Woodhouse is much less likeable on paper.  In the various film versions, Emma has always appeared opinionated and interfering, but well meaning.  As a viewer I was always willing to forgive her these faults because she was young, because she felt genuine remorse when her meddling went awry, and because she appeared repentant and wiser in the end.  As a reader, though, I feel less willingness to forgive.  Admittedly, I have not finished the novel and Emma has not yet fully matured, so I should delay my judgment.  Nevertheless, I find it difficult to like Emma when she unabashedly destroyed the happiness of a simple farmer and then her friend Harriet, and after acknowledging the unfortunate consequences of her meddling, is unable to change her ways.  

Despite this, though, I am enjoying Emma.  Austen successfully created a small community of real and believable characters.  I am amused by the dynamics within this rural parish.  Mr. Woodhouse and Emma’s older sister are charmingly neurotic, with their passion for gruel and almost hypochondriac concern for health.  Their conversations frequently stray towards inane as they revert to citing their individual physicians and those physicians’ differing opinions on how to best promote wellbeing.  I am also quite interested in the ways in which the various characters treat Emma.  In many ways Emma is the queen bee in her little society.  The majority of characters treat her with respect and deference; her father and former governess indulge her while the neighbors are nearly awed by Emma’s presence.  The only character who treats Emma as a regular person is the upstanding, respectable and (in my mind at least) handsome Mr. Knightly, and thus far Emma has been quick to dismiss his opinions and warnings.

I’m about a third of the way through the novel, and a new plot twist is about to arrive, so I look with as much anticipation as the young Ms. Woodhouse to the formal arrival of the enigmatic Frank Churchill.

I like to read small passages to my plants to encourage
them to grow full and strong; they like it

The final novel that I’m working on is one in a popular series by Laurie R. King.  To be entirely honest, I am not reading Justice Hall, instead I am listening to it.  My daily commute requires me to be in the car for about an hour every day, and because my radio is spotty at best, I have turned to audio books on my iPod for entertainment.  I was first introduced to Laurie King’s Mary Russell as a college freshman.  I was taking a course dedicated to the evolution of mystery novels and the final book in the syllabus was The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, a charming story about young Mary Russell who, orphaned and relocated to rural England, encounters a retired Sherlock Holmes and becomes his informal apprentice.  King has ten novels in the Mary Russell series, and I am completely engrossed in the sixth novel, Justice Hall.  

Although the Mary Russell novels are mysteries, the stories often revolve more around characters and interactions than around the mystery Russell and Holmes work to solve.  In Justice Hall, and its companion novel O Jerusalem, the mystery is decidedly secondary to the character development and interactions.  In these two novels King crafts beautiful, dynamic characters with depth and feeling.  I frequently develop emotional attachments to literary characters, but I find myself particularly invested here.  I feel pain when the characters experience anguish, and have openly wept over their various trials and triumphs.

In addition to writing wonderful characters, King beautifully interweaves history with her fiction.  Because of her subject, intense research was necessary from the outset.  To write a novel involving the world’s most beloved detective, King had to extensively study Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories.  King mastered Holmes’ mannerisms, his patterns of speech, and his very being.  I have read almost all the stories within the Sherlock Holmes canon, and I grew up watching various actors portray the enigmatic detective on screen, so I feel as though I know Holmes quite well, and King’s interpretation of Holmes is incredibly faithful to the original.  After creating the characters of Russell and Holmes, King pushed her research further to embed them in realistic scenarios.  King places her characters in the post-Great War era, accurately portraying the various hardships the “lost generation” endured in the years following the war.  Her descriptions of trench warfare and the veterans’ attitudes towards the Home Front are striking and accurate to my historian’s eye.  It is clear that she has put much research into making her stories as honest and real as possible, and I often feel as though I’m getting a miniature lesson in cultural history as I listen to her stories.

Justice Hall revolves around a young soldier’s death in the final months of the Great War.  As Russell and Holmes work to discover the truth, they are forced to relive the soldier’s time in the trenches.  The fighting in France and trench warfare in particular was so terrible, so brutally destructive that many fervently hoped that war would never again occur.  The young men at the front were forced to endure freezing cold nights of sleeplessness due to constant shelling or the endless attacks of fleas and lice; they stood for weeks on end in swampy water, unable to adequately dry their feet; and these young men (often mere boys who had lied about their ages to enlist) lived in constant fear of shelling, poisonous gasses, snipers, and receiving a command from a detached superior who, far from the frontlines himself, demanded that the company cross No Man’s Land in a fruitless mission that would only cost more lives.  War is hell, and King so perfectly describes this version of hell that it has frequently brought tears to my eyes.  Much of my time as a scholar was spent during the Great War era, so this novel is particularly poignant for me.  I appreciate her attention to detail and her obvious research more and more with each chapter.

The Pursuit of Love (and Something Greater)

Having just finished Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, I must confess that, once again, I have been thoroughly charmed by the Brits.  To be more exact, I should say that I have been won over by a well written story with equal parts wit and wicked humor.  As with the last two novels I’ve read, the narration style, the characters, and the ever-present humor were all entirely, blissfully British to the very core.

Cool house I found in Portland that looked
vaguely Victorian so I included it...and it's my
blog, so I can!

The early chapters, which illustrate the more humorous aspects of childhood and growing up, are delightful. These chapters describe Linda Radlett and her colorful family, adventures at the family home, Alconleigh, and small stories of growing up in pastoral England.  I was particularly amused by the annual “child hunt,” a family tradition at Alconleigh where two or three children, selected by their father, set out across the family property, running wildly to create a trail for the hounds to follow.  Some time later their father would set out with his pack of well-trained, friendly hounds to track the children.  The “hunt” ended when the hounds caught up to the children and set about licking faces and receiving well-earned doggie treats.  The neighbors and friends thought this tradition barbaric (and indeed, it does sound…odd to say the least), but, I, like the Radlett children, thought it delightful and ingenious.
As the title suggests, the main story arc follows Linda as she searches for true love.  Besides describing “child hunts” and other similarly outrageous stories, the early chapters detail Linda’s obsession with love.  This obsession led her to marry the first man who charmed her; determined to find love, Linda convinced herself that she loved an utterly boring Tory named Tony.  Some time later, still a true believer in love, Linda left Tony to marry Christian the Communist.  Christian, too, proved a disappointment, and, alone at a train station in Paris, Linda finally met Fabrice.  She quickly became enthralled with Fabrice, experiencing real love and romance for the first time.  These are the chapters that ultimately won me over.  For the first time in the novel, Linda committed herself to something, throwing herself entirely into her new life with Fabrice.  She seemed to finally take interest in life and in love, giving the story greater weight and importance.  I invested myself in the story because Linda finally invested herself in her own story.
Although the story revolves around Linda and her quest to find happiness, I didn’t find her an entirely likeable character.  The narrator, her cousin Fanny grew up close to Linda, and the love Fanny felt for Linda makes Fanny a less-than-reliable narrator.  Where an objective observer would see a foolish, shallow, and self-centered (but certainly well-meaning) young woman, Fanny was more charitable, forgiving Linda her faults and shortcomings and, in general, portraying Linda in a favorable light.  Like Fanny, most characters in the novel instantly adored Linda, won over by her charm.  It took me most of the novel, though, to find myself truly invested in Linda’s story.  After Linda’s failed attempts at love, her absolute joy and happiness with Fabrice charmed me where her silliness and amiable nature couldn’t.  In spite of myself, I was so intrigued in Linda’s story that I was tempted to skip to the end to discover whether or not Linda found a happy ending.

This horse has absolutely no relation to any-
thing, but it's inherently beautiful (like the
novel) and I like pictures in my blog.  Deal.

As I said in my introduction, I have been charmed by the Brits.  This time it was Mitford’s quirky British humor that so appealed to me, as well as the fascinating clash of old attitudes and new, the Victorian versus Edwardian.  This was most notable in the various characters’ responses towards relationships.  On the one hand, most of the characters were appalled when Linda left her first husband, Tony; Linda’s parents stoutly refused to recognize Linda’s subsequent divorce and marriage to Christian.  No one looked harshly on Fanny’s mother, though, for repeatedly leaving her husbands for her next fling.  Though they called her “the Bolter,” the nickname was given with affection and everyone treated the Bolter with the same bemusement they would a mischievous child.  This coexistence of attitudes, this social hypocrisy, could have been present in America and American literature as well (and I’m sure that a perusal of twentieth century lit would reveal several instances), but the flair with which this story is presented is, to me at least, inherently, beautifully British.
I was also deeply touched by a small exchange between Linda, Fanny, and their uncle Davey.  The three, huddled together, discuss the Great War and the resumption of war in Europe.  Linda laments belonging to a “lost generation,” convinced that history would count the two wars as one, discounting entirely the inter-war years.  Davey contends that the era may not be entirely forgotten; instead, it will be portrayed as a “literary curiosity” as future generations become interested in the fashions and furniture of the 1920s and ‘30s.  The exchange is brief, taking up only a couple of paragraphs before slipping back into a lighter tone, but it’s striking nonetheless.  The discussion is notable in part because it is one of the few times that Linda adopts a serious tone.  More importantly, though, writing in 1944 or 1945, Nancy Mitford would not know how history or society would view the Lost Generation.  Nor did she know how the inter-war period would be portrayed, and yet she displays brief but keen insight.  Knowing how both the novel and the war resolve, this moment is memorable and touching.
I admitted in my last post that I can be rather pretentious at times.  I can now admit that, while I undertook this project in an effort to find some unknown element that my life is lacking, I have another motive.  I want to be one of those elevated figures who can wax on about the literary strengths and weaknesses of Dickens or Dostoyevsky, et al.  My heavy bookshelves would somehow enrich my life.  Thus far it has.  I have developed a better appreciation for the world of spy novels, having encountered two of its great foundations, and I have discovered several new points of interest for the historian and scholar in me.  More than that, though, I have found books that truly delight me.  I expected to like The Way We Live Now because I enjoyed the Masterpiece Theater production.  Being already acquainted with the characters and plot, I could focus on the various storylines and better appreciate Trollope’s themes and his critique of British society.  Novels like The Riddle of the Sands and The Pursuit of Love, however, were completely new to me.  Had I not undertaken this endeavor, I’m afraid I probably would have remained ignorant of their existence.  So while I look forward to reencountering old favorites like To Kill a Mockingbird or The BFG, and finally reading novels like Emma, I am also eager to discover more literary gems as I continue this project.