SparksMarks

Archive for the ‘Classics’ Category

I kicked off my recent push to finish all of the works of Shakespeare with The Taming of the Shrew. I know I at least started this in high school, but I’m not sure if I finished or if I did finish it, if I actually understood most of it. I read it after I saw 10 Things I Hate About You, which is loosely based on it, so I knew the basic story, but wasn’t sure if I caught some of the details and nuances of the plays since I hadn’t read a lot of Shakespeare at that point.

In reading it this time, I’m pretty sure I did actually read the whole thing. Certain scenes seemed quite familiar and not just because of the plot. It’s one of his easier plays to understand, so maybe I didn’t have too much trouble with it back then after all, or maybe it’s because I saw the movie version with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

The introduction to my version, which is in the Riverside Shakespeare, mentions that this play is usually enhanced greatly by seeing it performed, even more so than other plays. In just reading it, I think it comes across as more misogynistic than when viewing it. In the movie version, Katerina’s behavior is so terrible and blatantly needs to be corrected that you’re rooting for Petruchio to succeed. When reading it, however, you don’t see as much of Katernina’s bad behavior and therefore are much more sympathetic with her. And I can certainly understand her desire to to behave in such a way as to detour potential suitors rather than be pawned off on some guy she doesn’t like.

I also think the movie was more palatable because you see Katerina and Petruchio fall in love more, whereas in the play I’m not even sure that they really like each other even at the end. The humor is also more evident when performed because you get to actually see Petruchio’s odd and amusing actions. They are actually quite funny even in print, but seeing him in his very strange wooing outfit would make more of an impact in person.

I had an odd connection that came to mind when I read this. It made me think about reverse psychology, which makes me think of one of the Baby-Sitters Club books that I loved growing up. In one of them, Stacey uses reverse psychology on some of her terrible charges. When they don’t want to clean their rooms, she agrees with them that rooms are better when messy and makes them messier. When they demand she do something for them, she starts doing everything for them. She takes everything a step too far and it’s not too long before the kids correct their behavior. It was pretty funny and was a tactic I sometimes used when tutoring. I think it usually shocked the kids into behaving and it only didn’t work for me once.

Anyway, if you’re someone who doesn’t think they can understand Shakespeare, this is a good play to start with.

I didn’t expect to like Moby Dick. My experiences with Herman Melville thus far have been less than satisfactory. In the words of Bartleby the Scrivener, “I would prefer not” to read any more Melville. And yet, Moby Dick taunted me. “Are you too lazy to read me? Too unintelligent? Can you really consider yourself well versed in the classics without reading me?” the book seemed to say to me.

And so, I’ve finally given in. I’m reading it on my Nook, which I think makes it a little easier because I’m not lugging around this massive tome that reminds me of how far I’ve got to go.

I was surprised to actually like the story from the start. It begins by talking about the importance of travel, how foreign places call to you and entice you, how you begin to feel trapped if you can’t temporarily run away from your daily life to see new sights. As someone who loves to travel, I instantly connected with Ishmael.

I believe it also helped that for about the first 150 pages, Ishmael is still on land. This reassures me that I don’t have nearly 850 pages of being on a boat to read about. We learn why he wants to go to sea and how he prepares for the trip, we meet Queequeg and learn about his interesting background, and we get to know Ishmael. Eventually, he gets the position on the boat and begins hearing rumors of Captain Ahab well before we meet him, which helps build interest.

My own interest was held until about 200 pages in, once they get on the boat. All of the chapters up until this point are very short, often just 5-10 pages. This has helped me feel like I’m making great progress even when reading in short bursts, which is great because I primarily read from my Nook during my lunch break. However, suddenly I’m met with a never-ending chapter on whales. Yes, I realize Moby Dick is about a whale. So, it’s good to receive some information on whales. But it is not necessary to include a much longer than any preceding chapters chapter on every type of whale known to man. The tone in this chapter suggests that Melville pulled paragraphs straight out of an encyclopedia. It is not Ishmael’s style at all. I found myself frantically pushing the forward button to see how long this thing lasted. Unfortunately, I didn’t count the total pages and don’t want to flip back and relive that chapter or I might not move forward, so I’m not sure how long exactly the chapter is. I would guess about 30 pages, so three times as long as the longest of most of the early chapters. It’s never good when you’re pulled out of a story and left wonder what the editor was thinking in allowing that to stay in.

I’m hoping that Moby Dick picks back up so that I can start enjoying it again. I don’t usually post reviews in parts unless I’m participating in a readalong, but since Moby Dick is so long and I already had several items I wanted to share, I decided to do at least two posts. I may continue to post about every 200 pages if I have interesting updates at that point.

Have you read Moby Dick? Did you find the chapter on whales as odd as I did?

 I was familiar with the story of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe before reading it. I read Faust by Goethe in college, which follows the same story but in an expanded novel form. I enjoyed that story, so I expected to like Dr. Faustus as well.

The story is about a man who makes a deal with the devil. The devil can have his soul in exchange for 24 years of knowledge and pleasure. Of course, this doesn’t end well.

I like the basics of the story – the idea of being tempted, the quest for knowledge, that getting what you want isn’t always a good thing. But while Faust had a lot of depth, I felt that Dr. Faustus just skimmed the surface of the story and used a lot of filler “comedy” scenes.

The beginning and the end were strong and mirrored each other nicely. Dr. Faustus begins by wanting to have infinite knowledge, to be more than human. In the end, he realizes that by giving his soul away he has lost his humanity and has an eternity of torture ahead of him. He wishes he were an animal, who lives and dies with no soul to linger on forever.

When I read the intro to my edition after reading the play, I saw that it is speculated that Marlowe wrote only the beginning and the end of the play and that collaborators wrote much of the middle. Perhaps that’s part of the reason for the unevenness. It also didn’t appear until about 18 months after his death, causing some scholars to wonder if Marlowe left it unfinished and others completed the work after his death. I should also note that there are two texts of Dr. Faustus. I read the A text, which is considered to be closer to what Marlowe actually wrote. The B text appeared after the A text and is much longer and the language is very different. The Norton Anthology includes the A text and the copy I happened to own was also the A text so that’s the version I read. Most scholars today tend to favor that version.

Overall, I would encourage you to read Faust by Goethe if you’re interested in this story, unless you just want a quick overview of the story.

My first Persephone! I was so excited when I saw this at my library. I’ve been quite jealous of all of the other book bloggers reading their Persephones and I’m quite glad to finally join in. Persephone publishes classic women authors who were popular during their time but who have fallen into obscurity for the most part. Good Evening Mrs. Craven and Other Wartime Stories is a collection of short stories framed by two non-fiction letters by Mollie Panter-Downes that were written for The New Yorker during WWII. She wrote for them for nearly 50 years!

Panter-Downes was more known for writing the London Letter for The New Yorker, a letter about goings-on in London that started during the war and continued on for decades. The two letters included in this collection provide a real-life frame for the short stories included, which all focus on England during the war. I just happened to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society recently and it was fun to read the two close together and learn more about what it was like to live in England during the war. Both books do an excellent job of transporting you back through time, and I felt like I was really there with them through the stories.

I actually haven’t read many stories that take place during WWII. I tend to read either even older classics or contemporary novels, not much from that time period. And what I have read typically just mentions WWII in the background, such as C.S. Lewis does in the Chronicles of Narnia. The short stories in this collection focus on the women – those who are at home worried about their husbands, separated from their children who have been sent to the countryside for protection, dealing with husbands who want to serve but can’t, and/or handling strangers as houseguests for indefinite amounts of time.

I’m not usually a fan of short stories, but I really enjoyed how all of the stories in this collection fit together to show you snapshots of the effects of the war on English women. I felt like I was peeking in through the windows of one house, then moving over to another and peeking in there, then yet another. It is an extremely effective use of the short story.

The theme that spoke to me the most was about how their homes were no longer their homes. Many people lost their homes in air raids or were evacuated to the countryside. Others had to accept strangers into their homes, usually with a parcel of children. The thought of welcoming a random family with a pack of kids into my home indefinitely frightened me more than the thought of the men fighting the battles. Your home should be a place of comfort and rest and these women – both those providing a home and those seeking one – had to go without that comfort at the same time that they were separated from their husbands and loved ones.

A related theme was the change in societal positions. Women were joining the workforce in non-domestic positions, including upper-class women, domestic servants also moved into these types of positions, leaving the upper-class to fend for themselves. One story focuses on a woman whose estate is filled with soldiers. As a result, she begins taking her meals in the kitchen with her servant, who is resisting the change more than the rich woman. That same story had a man who came home to visit and it didn’t even feel like being home. The house and land had changed, and nothing would be the same again.  

Overall, this was a great introduction to the Persephone books for me. I’ve also got Miss Pettigrew Lives for  Day checked out and recently bought The Making of a Marchioness (which is by my favorite children’s book author – Frances Hodgson Burnett) and can’t wait to get to those as well. As we’re supposed to get more snow tonight I bet it will be a good week for lots of reading.