Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

I usually open a Hardy novel with a sense of dread, but when several book friends said this was their favorite, I plunged in without my usual reluctance. And I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it - even with its hearty dose of pessimism. 

The book opens with a description of Gabriel Oak who on working days was a young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good character. On Sundays he was a man of misty views.... he went to church but yawned privately by the time the congregation reached the Nicene creed, and thought of what there would be for dinner when he meant to be listening to the sermon. 

Several of the main characters attend church, but it doesn't seem to make much difference in their lives. Another character, Sergeant Troy, has lived a profligate life and when he decides to do better, he finds, that Providence, far from helping him into his new course, or showing any wish that he might adopt one, actually jeered his first trembling and critical attempt. Biblical reference are sprinkled throughout the book, but most are verses misquoted by one of the farm hands. So although this was funny, you get the sinking feeling that Hardy was saying the Bible doesn't really have anything to contribute to the conversation.

Why would a book that seems to belittle God and his mercy merit my four star rating? Because in spite of Hardy's worldview, he vividly portrays human nature and shows sin for what it is. His characters are complex. Even the stereotypical playboy has his moments of reflection and remorse.

Almost all the characters in the story are motivated by their impulses: Fanny the servant girl, Troy the soldier, Bathsheba the farmer, etc. Sometimes those impulses are held in check by the desire for some higher good, but most often Hardy shows the realistic results of "following your heart." 

Our heroine, Bathsheba Everdene, is the object of desire of the three male characters. Through these men, Hardy explores different kinds of love. Passion is highlighted as a particularly disastrous form of love. Self-giving love is the ideal, but is the hardest because it promotes the welfare of the other person even at the cost of one's own happiness. I enjoyed seeing this type of love rewarded (but only after it had been through the valley!)  

This was not Hardy's first novel, but it was the one that established him as a respected writer. I wonder if any of the movie versions are any good. I can see how they might be racy when interpreted visually, although the book was not. 

Have you read Hardy? Do you have a favorite? Any opinions on movie versions?

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in October

Thanks to Agatha Christie, I'm finally out of my 2020 reading slump! It makes me so happy to have several books going at once when for so long it's been hard for me to get through just one.

I finished listening to book one of the Tommy and Tuppence series, The Secret Adversary, which I enjoyed immensely. I also listened to Jane Eyre while reading along in an annotated version that  was very helpful with the French phrases and obscure literary references. My other pick for Victober was Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell. I am overly sensitive to relentless suffering, so this was not an easy read (even though there was an eventual happy ending). 

I finished Knowing God after many months of careful reading. I am not a Calvinist so I saw more areas of disagreement than when I read it three decades ago. Still, it's a Christian classic for good reason. I've also been working my way through an old hymnal this year - one or two hymns per day - and finished it up early in the month. I read and enjoyed P.D. James Talking About Detective Fiction. Serendipitously, I read it at the same time I was reading book two of the T&T series, Partners in Crime, which was also a nod to the golden age of detective fiction. 

As far as movies go my husband and I watched the original True Grit with John Wayne. We liked it, but it lacked some of the haunting beauty of the recent remake. We also watched the Netflix program called The Social Dilemma about how internet platforms are designed to make us tech addicts.

I watched a few Hallmark mysteries: Aurora Teagarden: A Bone to Pick, Death on Duty: A Hailey Dean mystery, 15 min of Dead Over Diamonds (terrible acting) Mystery 101: Dead Talk, Emma Fielding: More Bitter than Death (both male leads were awful actors). I'm used to bad acting in the romance movies because the actors and sets are more eye candy than anything, but in general the mysteries have been far superior in that department. 

Anybody else read any Victorian lit this month? Watched any good, clean movies?

Blessings,

Victober Book Plans

Kate Howe is a delightful Booktuber whose channel has great reviews of mysteries, fairy tale retellings, and classic literature. Every October she hosts a reading challenge of her favorite genre, Victorian literature. Since my last few months of reading have been heavy on theology, I'm looking forward to joining her for some lighter books.

First, I'll be doing the read-along of Jane Eyre. (My 12th time to read it.) In addition I've combed through my Kindle to see if I have any books from that era that I might tackle. Here are the top contenders:

A Dish of Orts - Essays by George MacDonald

Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot (three of her early novellas)

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (or Gaskell's bio of Charlotte Brontë)

Apologia Pro Vita Sua - Spiritual autobiography of Cardinal John Henry Newman (or his novel Loss and Gain)

I'd like to explore at least two of these Victorian poets: Francis Thompson (GK Chesteron was a fan), Thomas Hood, John Clare, Mathilde Blind (who wrote poems in protest of Darwin's view of man), William Ernest Henley, Jean Ingelow or Algernon Charles Swinburne.

I'm also considering a book of love letters between Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Should be fun!

The link to Kate's introductory video is here. 

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in September

Life wasn't quite as crazy this month so I was able to read quite a bit and watch several better-than-average movies. After reading Barbed-Wire University, I watched the 1953 movie Albert R.N., which accurately portrays life in a European POW camp.

Christian movies are often sappy and theologically thin, so I was pleasantly surprised by Paul, The Apostle of Christ. The writing and acting were good and the ending was magnificent. (Quite a nice change from modern drivel that teaches if you come to Christ all your problems will go away.) One more movie I watched was The Trip to Bountiful. I'm a sucker for any movie based on a play because it usually has good dialogue. This 1985 film is about an elderly woman who dreams of returning to the town where she grew up. It is slow-moving, heartbreaking, and garnered the Oscar for best actress for Geraldine Page.

As far as reading goes, I slowly worked my way through C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity (3 to 4 pages a day) and loved every bit of it. I listened to The Scarlet Pimpernel (for the umpteenth time) whenever I was working in the kitchen. But that was only after I'd listened to House at Pooh Corner TWICE. Lovely!

Three books that were okay, but that didn't wow me, were Miss Read's Celebrations at Thrush Green, Anthony Trollope's Dr. Wortle's School, and 101 Great American Poems.

Anyone else familiar with Kate Howe's Victober Book Challenge? Every year in October she encourages her listeners to read more Victorian literature. I'm already a big fan, but I appreciate the nudge to add more of it to my literary diet. I hope to read one Charles Dickens title and one Thomas Hardy. Here's her video introducing the challenge.

Blessings,

The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason

A good name is more desirable than great riches; 

to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. 

Proverbs 22:1

What is honor? Once lost, can it be regained? At what cost? Is Pacifism equal to

cowardice? A.E.W. Mason's 1902 novel The Four Feathers seeks to answer these questions.

It took me a while to become invested in this novel, but I'm glad I stuck with it. The story

begins in 1870 with veterans of the Crimean war seated around a table together. As they discuss their past battles, a young, sensitive boy listens to their stories and wonders if he can successfully join in the tradition of his military ancestors.

Although Harry Feversham follows in their footsteps, he has no taste for military life. When he leaves the army, he is branded as a coward and must regain his honor in the eyes of those he loves. Since it takes him six years to do that, you won't find a lot of fast-moving action in this book. But if you enjoy better-than-average writing and some good ideas to chew on, you'll appreciate this book, which has been the source of at least four movie adaptations. 

My one quibble with the book is that in order to exonerate Harry Feversham, Mason depicts career military men as less than human. Early in the book a group of them is described as men of one stamp; no distinction of uniform could obscure their relationship—lean-faced men, hard as iron, rugged in feature, thin-lipped, with firm chins and straight, level mouths, narrow foreheads, and the steel-blue inexpressive eyes; men of courage and resolution, no doubt, but without subtleties, or nerves, or that burdensome gift of imagination;

Still, I enjoyed the book a great deal, especially because of the excellent narration done by Ralph Cosham. 


Blessings,

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

"She was left alone, lying on the sofa—books near her, 

wood crackling and blazing, wafts of wind bringing the beating rain against the window,

and so enhancing the sense of indoor comfort by the outdoor contrast."

This is just one example of the many lovely turns of phrase in Wives and Daughters, which is the story of a widowed doctor, Robert Gibson, and his seventeen year old daughter Molly. It tells of her struggles when her father remarries and her determination to think about her father's needs and not just her own. Though she is not always successful in subjugating her hurt feelings, Molly soldiers on, doing her best to love others unselfishly. Her selfless love is in sharp contrast to the shallow emotions of some of the more beautiful and sophisticated women in the book. 

This book is somewhat like a Trollope novel in that you have to wade through a lot of pages (almost 600 on my Kindle version) to get to the happy ending, but I enjoyed how well each character was fleshed out and I liked the occasional literary references such as this one from page 234: "She had confessed with her English tongue that she loved him soundly with her French heart," which Gaskell's readers would have recognized as a quote from Shakespeare's Henry V.


Because I'm a fast reader, I stuck to my Kindle version for the most part, but whenever I was working in the kitchen, I switched to the lovely Librivox version. (25 Hours!) Elizabeth Klett does a terrific job with all the accents, but I especially enjoyed her soft Scottish burr for Mr.Gibson.

Two important caveats: The book contains a few unfortunate references to the lack of intelligence of "black folks" (Ethiopians). And Elizabeth Gaskell passed away before completing the book so although it's very clear how the story will end, it is lacking the final chapters.  But please don't let that keep you from reading this gentle domestic drama, a true gem of the Victorian era.

The BBC DVD version is lovely too.

Blessings,

The Laws of Murder by Charles Finch

I read a lot of books that I never review because I want to recommend only the best. But I'm breaking my rule for this particular series because it's too good not to mention. Please note that I've read just one book (#8 of the Charles Lenox mysteries), so I can't speak for the other books.

Basic story: Charles Lenox has always loved solving mysteries. After a career in Parliament he decides to become part of a detective agency, but business is tediously slow. When a former colleague is murdered, Lenox plunges headfirst into crime-solving again.

Author Charles Finch was educated at Oxford and Yale, majoring in English and history, and it shows. He gives little sketches of Victorian practices throughout the novel that enrich the story. His writing is excellent in spite of the occasional use of profanity. This particular story includes some references to prostitution, but never crosses over into the tawdry. I appreciated Finch's restraint.

The mystery was good, but it was not what kept me reading. The reason I highly recommend the series is because Finch does a bang-up job of creating characters that you really care about. (90% of the fiction I read in 2016 had unappealing protagonists, which has left me slightly traumatized.)

Charles Lenox is happily married (imagine that!) and so is his friend Dr. McConnell. Other friendships and relationships include the young widow Polly, the former butler who is now in parliament, and amateur detective Lord Dallington.  I loved them all and look forward to meeting them again as I read the whole series. (Although I had not read the previous novels, Laws of Murder gives enough of a back story so that you know who's who.)

The kindle versions of Finch's books are pricey ($10 range) but some of the hardcovers are already available for one cent from Amazon and for free at PaperBackSwap. I got my copy as a free e-book download from my Michigan library. Where there's a will, there's a way!

Blessings,

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Some books make your heart race like a shot of caffeine. Others, like Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, are as soothing as a cup of hot chocolate. Do not read it unless you are perfectly relaxed or you won't be able to appreciate these simple, witty vignettes of small town life in 19th Century England.

The novel centers on the lives of half a dozen spinsters who live in genteel poverty. (The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirted out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the head; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. p. 2) It tells the story of their bravery and faithfulness to one another in the face of life's trials. The main characters are Miss Deborah Jenkyns, and her sister Matilda. "Miss Matty" has always lived under the shadow of her strong-willed sister and defers to her opinions in everything - even after her death.

Although naïve about finances, men, and the world in general, Miss Matty has a strong sense of right and wrong and is unshakable in her integrity. When she opens a small tea shop, she is determined not to take business away from Mr. Johnson's general store. Before she could quite reconcile herself to the adoption of her new business, she had trotted down to his shop, unknown to me, to tell him of the project that was entertained, and to inquire if it was likely to injure his business. My father called this idea of hers 'great nonsense' and perhaps it would not have done in Drumble, but in Cranford it answered very well; for not only did Mr. Johnson kindly put to rest all of Miss Matty's scruples, and fear of injuring his business, but, I have reason to know, he repeatedly sent customers to her, saying that the teas he kept were of a common kind, but that Miss Jenkyns had all the choice sorts. (p. 219)

Miss Matty, while considering herself completely inadequate, is at the same time a rock in the community because of her unwavering principles and her kindliness. Although I was frequently exasperated with her lack of gumption, I was finally won over by her quiet dignity and moral equanimity. She is proof of what George Eliot wrote in her closing lines of Middlemarch:

“the good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and [the fact] that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life....”

Miss Matty and her companions fail to live up to popular ideas of success and adventure, but they infuse their uneventful days with the joys of friendship and sacrificial love. I felt quite privileged to catch a glimpse of their richly mundane world.

This quiet little classic has been made into a lovely DVD series, which you will especially enjoy if you are familiar with the cream of the crop of the BBC's actors and actresses. Judi Dench plays Miss Matty, and the wonderful Jim Carter ("Mr. Carson" from Downtown Abbey) has a small role.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Maybe it was because I just finished one more insipid "Christian" novel, but the fine language in this book was like a stream in the desert and I gulped it down like a parched Bedouin.

North and South was written about the industrial revolution, but it is not a black and white treatise on the evils of the industrial age. Gaskell does a marvelous job of showing the attitudes and  beliefs of both the factory owner and the factory worker.

Margaret Hale's father steps down from his role as vicar of Helstone (in southern England) and moves his family to the manufacturing town of Milton (in the north), resulting in an immediate clash of cultures. The refined Margaret is disdainful toward "factory people" and dislikes the noise and clatter and busyness of the town. Her father, on the other hand, revels in the activity. After a quiet life in a country parsonage for more than twenty years, there was something dazzling to Mr. Hale in the energy which conquered immense difficulties with ease; the power of the machinery of Milton, the power of the men of Milton, impressed him with a sense of grandeur. (p. 54)

 As Margaret befriends some of the families in the village, she becomes more sympathetic and understanding toward them. Though she learns to admire and respect Mr. Thornton, the owner of Marlborough Mills, she believes she is too far above him for any romantic relationship to be possible. Gaskell writes beautifully of how these two head-strong adults change their perceptions of one another.

In addition to the fine writing, the book has some of the classic themes found in Jane Austen's novels (the prejudice of Darcy in P&P, the faithful/hopeless love of Anne in Persuasion, the selfless love of Colonel Brandon from S&S, and the character development of the heroine in Emma).

It's a very literary read since each chapter opens with a few lines of famous poetry and Gaskell sprinkles famous poetry and prose throughout. (My Penguin e-version had helpful footnotes explaining their origin.)

I chortled through the repartee between Margaret and her godfather as they walked in the woods together. She asks if he is tired. . . .

He replies: You would think it romantic to be walking with a person 'fat and scant o' breath' if I were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Have compassion on my infirmities for his sake.
She: I will walk slower for your own sake. I like you twenty times better than Hamlet.
He: I am content to take your liking me, without examining too curiously your motives. Only we need not walk at a snail's pace.
She: Very well. Walk at your own pace, and I will follow. Or stop still and meditate, like the Hamlet you compare yourself to, if I go too fast.
He: Thank you. But as my mother has not murdered my father, and afterwards married my uncle, I should not know what to think about, unless it were the chances of having a well-cooked dinner or not. (p. 314)

Maybe it's only delightful in context, but it's just one example of why the book is far superior to the BBC movie, which was unable to show the subtleties of each personality.

If you love sparkling language, well-developed characters, subtle wit, and faith dialogue that isn't completely ridiculous, you'll enjoy this title.

Worthwhile Movie #13 Lark Rise to Candleford

Lark Rise to Candleford is one of BBC's best kept secrets. I only found out about it on Black Friday when Amazon had it for 75% off. I bought it based on the rave reviews and I'm so glad I did. Every tea-sipping, book-loving anglophile should see this series.

Postmistress Dorcas Lane is the central figure in the town of Candleford. Not the "big city" by any standard, it is still considered "uppity" by the villagers of nearby Lark Rise. The series highlights the conflicts between the townspeople from both places.

If you are used to fast paced dramas, this will seem, oh, so slow, but if you are patient, you will gradually learn to love each and every character in the show: the slow-witted Twister, bee-keeping Queenie, impressionable Laura, surly Mr. Timmins, the feckless Mrs. Arless and many more.

Although the scenery is idyllic and the costumes and filming provide a visual feast, this is no sugar-coated fairy tale. Yes, the villains are "light" by today's standards, but the conflicts in the stories don't come from outside influences as much as they come from people's inward struggles with pride, insecurity, fear, etc. In short, the characters are delightful, but full of very human flaws.

The themes and dialogue are superior in every way to the drivel on television. Family, marriage, children, honesty, hard work, and forgiveness are just a few of the themes covered in seasons One and Two. (We have all four, but are only half way through.)

If you enjoy BBC productions, you'll recognize Brendan Coyle as Mr. Timmins (Mr. Bates from Downton Abbey), Julia Sawalha as Dorcas Lane (the silly sister in the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice) and Claudie Blakely as Mrs. Timmins (Elizabeth Bennet's plain friend in the 2005 version of P & P). Blakely is amazing in this role and has become my favorite female television character of all time because of it. The Timmin's marriage is a highlight of the series because it provides a wonderful look at two very different, imperfect people who are committed to love each other "till death us do part."

I could quibble about some of the imperfections of this production (mainly that the one professing Christian is a dolt), but, honestly, my husband and I have never laughed and cheered our way through any series, as much as this one. Highly, highly recommended.

Victorian Challenge Wrap-Up

One of my goals for 2013 was to read one Victorian author per month. I read ten authors and had mixed feelings about them. As I wrote earlier, the more obscure novels (even some by well-known authors) have fallen off everyone's radar for the very good reason that they don't hold up over time. These are the last two books I read, neither of which merited a review of its own.

Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales by Juliana Horatio Ewing - While I did not love this book, it did grow on me. In several stories, foolishness is severely punished rather than virtue being rewarded (a little hard on modern sensibilities). Half of the stories were very good and the other half were forgettable. Unfortunately the book starts out with the mediocre tales. The story of the two widow ladies who live at the base of a monastery is a classic which needs to be revisited. I loved the introduction, which is quoted here.

Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems by Matthew Arnold - Arnold was a lover of classical Greek literature and many of his poems have themes relating to those well-known (at the time) stories. But this makes his poetry obscure to most modern readers. Helpful explanatory notes for each poem are in the back of book but were virtually unusable on my Kindle since it’s very difficult to page back and forth.

The tweaked list:
1. George Eliot - Adam Bede - really liked it

2. Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone - liked it but didn't love it
3. Robert Louis Stevenson - The Master of Ballantrae - really enjoyed it
4. Charles Dickens - David Copperfield - really enjoyed it
5. Anne Brontë - Tenant of Wildfell Hall - liked it
6. Margaret Oliphant - The Marriage of Elinor - strongly disliked
7. Charlotte Yonge - The Heir of Redclyffe - didn't make it to this author
8. Mary Louisa Molesworth - The Carved Lions - okay
9. Juliana H. G. Ewing - Fairy Tales - see above
10. Thomas Hardy - A Pair of Blue Eyes - liked it, but didn't love it
11. Matthew Arnold - Sohrab and Rustum and other Poems - see above
12. Anthony Trollope - The Claverings - okay

The Carlingford Chronicles by Margaret Oliphant

Good writers ruin you for mediocre ones. I should never have read George Eliot before picking up Oliphant.

I had written earlier about discovering Margaret Oliphant through G.K. Chesterton's book on Victorian authors. I did not like the first book I tried and followed someone's suggestion to read the Carlingford Chronicles. According to Wikipedia they are loosely related stories which take place in the same city yet involve different clergymen. I was hoping for some Trollope-like insights into clerical life, and was sorely disappointed. Actually, I liked the first book I read, The Rector, but following the Wikipedia list I assumed I had to go back and read Salem Chapel (first in the chronology). Big mistake.

Salem Chapel doesn't fit the description of a prequel to The Rector. In fact, without having read The Rector first I would not have know about the relationship between Lucy Wodehouse and Wentworth that is just hinted at in SC.  This book had none of the lighthearted wit of the second.  In fact, Arthur Vincent, the protagonist, is an insufferable bore. Not only is he too proud to reach out to the simple folk in his parish, he's self-centered, jealous, vengeful, sullen and unbending. Furthermore, this was a typical example of a Victorian "sensation" novel complete with a villain out to ruin a lady's virtue and the subsequent necessity of her having brain fever so no one really knows what happened till she comes out of it. UGH!

The sequels (The Doctor's Family, The Perpetual Curate, Miss Marjoribanks, and Phoebe Junior) are all on my Kindle, but I am not sure I'll be making the effort to read them.

If you've read any of the above titles and can recommend them, please let me know.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

The intro to The Tenant of Wildfell Hall said that if it hadn’t been for the Brontë name attached to it, it would long ago have fallen into oblivion. I disagree with that assessment based on the fact that I’ve read many Victorian novels this year and this one is much better than most of them.

The year is 1827 and Gilbert Markham falls in love with Helen Graham, a beautiful, mysterious widow who moves to the neighborhood. But there exists a huge impediment to their happiness and the characters must decide if they will pursue their own desires or submit to God’s will.

I enjoyed this book very much. Unlike the annoying heroes and heroines in Margaret Oliphant’s novels, the main characters in this book learn and grow from their mistakes. The writing is good.( I loved savoring the words “diffidence, salubrious” and “termagant.”) The antagonist in the story is thoroughly despicable, making the book hard to put down. Brontë gives much food for thought on the subjects of love and marriage. And the outcome is satisfying.

BUT, I didn’t love this book. Although I admired Helen for her faith and her sense of duty, she is never as endearing as a Jane Eyre or a Lizzie Bennett.  Literarily speaking, she was “weighed and found wanting.”  Still, after so many duds, I was glad to read a Victorian novel that was a cut above. Tenant is often touted as a feminist novel because Helen is outspoken and unsubmissive, but I disagree based on her behavior toward Arthur Huntingdon later in the book. You’ll have to read it yourself to decide.

The Benefit of Fairy Tales by Juliana H. Ewing

Fairy tales have positive uses in education, which no cramming of facts, and no merely domestic fiction can serve. Like Proverbs and Parables, they deal with first principles under the simplest forms. They convey knowledge of the world, shrewd lessons of virtue and vice, of common sense and sense of humor, of the seemly and the absurd, of pleasure and pain, success and failure, in narratives where they plot moves briskly and dramatically from a beginning to an end. They treat, not of the corner of a nursery or a playground, but of the world at large, and life in perspective; of forces visible and invisible; of Life, Death, and Immortality.

They cultivate the Imagination, that great gift which time and experience lead one more and more to value - handmaid of Faith, of Hope, and, perhaps most of all, of Charity. (p. 6)

from intro to Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales by Juliana Horatio Ewing (Victorian children's author)

Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson

Don't ask me why I was expecting this to be a tedious read. It was anything but.

Master of Ballantrae is the story of two brothers, one good and one bad. James, the wicked one, is heir to the family fortune, is daddy's favorite, and can charm the rattle off a snake. The good brother, Henry, is quiet and self-effacing and not much liked by anybody. The narrator of the story is Mr. MacKellar, the steward of the Durrisdeer estate and one of Henry's only true friends.

The novel is set in England in 1745.  James, "the Master", runs off to join Bonnie Prince Charlie who is striving to restore the Stuarts to the throne.  When James does not return after several years, he is presumed dead and Henry marries Allison, his brother's fiancée, and becomes the new heir. 

But the Master is not dead, nor does he die at several other opportune moments.  He seems to have nine lives and with each one he comes back to haunt and torment his brother. Honestly, to read of his constant villainy juxtaposed with his power to beguile and deceive gave me the shivers. And it made the book very hard to put down. As G.K. Chesterton said in his book on Victorian authors, "In The Master of Ballantrae Stevenson proved with a pen of steel that the Devil is a gentleman, but is nonetheless the Devil."

I kept wondering why I've never heard anyone talk about this book. Maybe its because there is no happy ending.  Hatred destroys everything. Then why would I recommend it? For one thing, it shows how even a good man can be corrupted when he harbors bitterness. Second, the book is beautifully written. I am already a huge Stevenson fan because of his lyrical and enchanting poetry (Child's Garden of Verses), but this is the first time I've dipped into one of his adventure novels.

Apparently there were two awful movies based on this book. (1953 with Errol Flynn as James, and 1984 with Michael York) Better to stick to the book.

The Claverings by Anthony Trollope

I recently looked up a list of Trollope titles to see if it was a reasonable goal to try and read them all.  I found an article by English poet/novelist H.S. Davies who wrote that the best of Trollope is found in his two series (Barsetshire and Palliser) but that two other novels (of 47) are good examples of Trollope's tremendous talent. The first is The Way We Live Now (1873) and the second is The Claverings (1867).

Last week I gave a hint there about my dissatisfaction with this book because I had a hard time appreciating Harry Clavering, a double-minded man when it came to love and marriage. As I watched him waffle on his engagement to Girl #2 when Girl #1 became a widow, I wished for a hero with more backbone. (Septimus Harding, Dr. Thorne and Plantagenet Palliser are men from other Trollope novels who are not perfect, but, nevertheless, are men of conviction.)

This novel was similar to an Austen novel in that everyone is seeking to make an advantageous marriage. Harry is jilted initially by Julia because he has no money.  Mr. Saul is refused by Fanny because he is penniless curate.  After Julia becomes a rich widow, several men seek her hand purely for financial gain.  Interestingly, those who have married into money are the most unhappy people in the story.  Yet Trollope isn't totally against the security that comes from wealth since most of the main characters in the book end up with well-feathered nests. I can't tell any more of the story without giving spoilers.

In spite of my irritation with Harry Clavering, I enjoyed Trollope's witticisms, especially with regards to Archie (one of Julia's suitors) and his friend Boodle.  Also, the narrators at Librivox did an unusually good job on this one.

A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

I have thought and thought about how to review A Pair of Blue Eyes without giving away the story line.  But it's almost impossible. The title is deceptively lighthearted, but the story is not. A young inexperienced vicar's daughter gives her heart to the first eligible man she meets. When her father forbids the marriage based on the young man's poor family connections, the suitor goes away to try and better himself. Meanwhile the young woman meets another man who is much more her intellectual and social equal and the trouble begins.  It's a love triangle that ends quite badly.

Honestly, I could hardly put this book down.  I kept wondering, Would Elfride do what was right? Which man would win her heart? Was one of them really more worthy than the other? Was Elfride ever going to show any backbone?  Dozens of similar questions haunted me throughout the book.

Although it may sound like it, this is no fluffy romance and the ending will surely disappoint the "happily ever after" crowd.  Still, I can't say I didn't like it.  The repartee between Elfride and Mr. Knight is delightful. And Hardy is by far the best Victorian writer that I've read so far this year.

Here are a few examples:

"He drew himself up with the sensitivity of a snail."

"The churchyard was serrated with the outlines of graves."

"But Elfride possessed special facilities for getting rid of trouble after a decent interval.  Whilst a slow nature was imbibing a misfortune little by little, she had swallowed the whole agony of it as a draught and was brightening again.  She could slough off a sadness and replace it by a hope as easily as a lizard renews a diseased limb."

A Pair of Blue Eyes is one of Hardy's more accessible novels and might be a good starting point for becoming acquainted with his style. 

The Carved Lions by Mary L. Molesworth

The Carved Lions is another title from my personal Victorian challenge.  It was published in 1895 and is the story of a little girl sent to an English boarding school because her father has been assigned a job in South America.  She’s very unhappy, but manages to squeeze a cheerful ending out of all of her trials.  (The definitive book with the same theme is, of course, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, which had been published seven years earlier.)

There was nothing dreadfully wrong with this book.  It was not overly didactic or moralistic - even though young Geraldine reads quite a few preachy books that were popular in the 1850’s.  My main complaint against the book is that Geraldine is an unappealing heroine. As narrator, she makes too many excuses for herself and for the faults of others. All the mistakes she made in her school had to do with her being sick and not hearing well, or being naive and not responding well.  She never seems quite real.  Or likable.

The end of the book contained fascinating reviews written during Moleworth’s lifetime:  “Christmas would hardly be Christmas without one of Mrs. Molesworth’s stories.  No one has quite the same power of throwing a charm and an interest about the commonplace everyday doings as she has, and no one has ever blended fairyland and reality with the same skill.”  Her stories were referred to by one Victorian critic as “neo-fairy” stories. Another referred to her as “the queen of children’s fairyland.”  The words “healthful moral tone,” were often used to describe her writing.  

That last phrase made me wince since I'm suspicious of any author who sets out to write a book to teach children something. I don't mind books with a healthful, moral tone, IF they don't make me feel like I'm taking my vitamins.

Chesterton mentions Mrs. Molesworth in his The Victorian Age in Literature as a writer of true talent and compares her with two other writers for children, Juliana Ewing and Charlotte Yonge. (p. 32) Both Ewing and Yonge are on my list to read this year so I look forward to comparing them myself.

The Marriage of Elinor by Margaret Oliphant

Why, when Chesterton recommended Oliphant’s finest novel to be A Beleaguered City, did I pick the first free Kindle title that came up on the screen?  The Marriage of Elinor was one of over one hundred books written by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897) and, obviously, not her best work.

I tried very hard to like this book, but the main character, Elinor Compton, was so willful and headstrong that it was hard to root for her.  Everyone knows she is heading into a disastrous marriage, but she refuses the counsel of her best and dearest friends and marries badly.  George Eliot wrote two books about women with bad marriages (Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda) but the heroines endure, they grow, and they come out better than when they went in.  But throughout Oliphant’s book, Elinor stubbornly denies the consequences of her bad choices and continues ignoring the loving advice of close friends. She goes her own way for the entire (very long) book. She suffers, but never shows signs of growth.  In the end, when it all comes crashing down upon her, you almost don’t care anymore.

In The Victorian Age in Literature, G.K. Chesterton calls Oliphant a successful, but second tier author (George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, etc. being first tier).  Interestingly, he labeled Oliphant “a much mellower and more Christian Eliot.” And he esteemed her for infusing her “timid Victorian tales with a true and intense faith in the Christian mystery.” (p. 116-117)

That said, I did not find Marriage of Elinor to be particularly preachy. (Thank goodness!)  Although I did not love this book, I cannot write this author off.  Because of Chesterton’s raves, I plan to give her another try, but probably not anytime soon.

This is the second title in my Personal Victorian Challenge.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

I read The Moonstone as a part of my Victorian Challenge because when G. K. Chesterton called it “the best detective tale in the world,” I couldn’t resist.

I had previously enjoyed Wilkie Collins’ A Woman in White and was surprised at their difference in tone.  Woman in White is straight drama. The first fourth of Moonstone, however, is written from the tongue-in-cheek perspective of the Verinder’s trusted family servant, Gabriel Betteredge.  His commentary is so humorous that I initially had a hard time taking the book seriously.  His self-deprecating witticisms and his devotion to the book Robinson Crusoe (as a cure for every ailment) had me chuckling throughout.

The moonstone is a diamond with a troubled history.  Stolen from a hindu temple in India it has been smuggled to England where it is given to Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday.  The uncle who willed it to her had a grudge against the family and some believed that he willed it to her out of spite because of the curse connected with it.  The diamond is stolen the night of the birthday party.  Suspicion points to the servants, those who attended the party (including Miss Verinder herself), and to the three mysterious men from India who have been snooping around the neighborhood.

Add to that a former thief who works at the house as a servant, a self-righteous old biddy who hands out tracts,  the rose-loving Sergeant Cuff, Miss Verinder’s two suitors, the ostracized Ezra Jennings and Gooseberry the messenger boy, and you have quite a cast of characters. You'll never guess who did it!

May I make a confession here?  Although I liked Moonstone, I did not think it was the best detective tale in the world.  Granted, it was one of the first detective novels ever written and Chesterton didn’t have much with which to compare it.  I thought the writing was good, but not terrific, and that the novel took way too long to reach the denouement (after which it rambled on a bit more). Having just read Josephine Tey, I was homesick for her fine, tight prose.

Still, I’m glad I got to read the “granddaddy” of all detective novels.