A Work in Progress

New Books!

 

My only reason for going to the bookstore this past week was to buy Sarah Waters' new book, The Little Stranger, which I've been really looking forward to.  As it turns out I went to two bookstores and neither of them had copies.  Hadn't everyone else been looking forward to April 30th for this particular reason?  Apparently not.  As it turns out the public library already had their copies and was actively cataloging them.  I'm glad I had got in line for it as I got one of the first ones on Friday.  In the end I may buy the book, but I will likely wait for the paperback and just read a library copy now.  More about The Little Stranger in a moment.

I only bought one book at the bookstore.  I found a bargain copy of Agatha Christie's Sad Cypress, which caught my eye.  At some point this year I think I may have a little Christie reading fest and read not only a few of her mysteries (have read far too few thus far in my life) but a biography of her as well.  I saw a film about her life not long ago and ever since have wanted to know more about her.

The other three books were bought online with an Amazon credit.  And by the way, they arrived without blemish this time.  My splurges: Georgette Heyer's Why Shoot a Butler, which I've been told is an entertaining read.  I've been reading a fair amount of her Regencies, so I really do need (and want) to give her mysteries a try as well.  Vita Sackville-West's The Heir is another book that has recently come highly recommended, and it's a lovely Hesperus Press edition.  I'm not familiar with the story, but the blurb tells me it is "a moving and beautifully told novella that draws on Sackville-West's own experiences of inheritance and loss."  And since Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage is out in paper I decided to get it as well.

Now for Sarah Waters' new book.  I'm not going to say much about it, as I'm only about two chapters in so far.  You may already know it's a ghost story.  So far I'm not really sure where things are going, but I am leaving myself in Sarah Waters very capable storytelling hands.  It's set right after WWII and again a wealthy family whose money has long since drained away is taking center stage.  The narrator is a doctor who was raised in the same village, the son of a once-nursery maid in the same great house, which is literally falling down around the family's shoulders.  I'm not sure why I'm drawn to stories like this, but I find the whole upstairs/downstairs way of life and its subsequent decline wholly fascinating and never seem to tire of the subject.  For a little taste of the story, I thought this was an interesting passage to share:

"The story ran on, Caroline and Roderick prompting more of it; they spoke to each other rather than to me, and, shut out of the game, I looked from mother to daughter to son and finally caught the likenesses between them, not just the similarities of feature--the long limbs, the high-set eyes--but the almost clannish little tricks of gesture and speech.  And I felt a flicker of impatience with them--the faintest stirring of dark dislike--and my pleasure in the lovely room was slightly spoiled.  Perhaps it was the peasant blood in me, rising,  But Hundreds Hall had been made and maintained, I thought, by the very people they were laughing at now.  After two hundred years, those people had begun to withdraw their labour, their belief in the house; and the house was collapsing, like a pyramid of cards.  Meanwhile, here the family sat, still playing gaily at gentry life, with chipped stucco on their walls, and their Turkey carpets worn to the weave, and their riveted china..."

I hope that wasn't taken too out of context.  Waters always gets the details and atmosphere just right, or at least it seems that way.  Needless to say she has me hooked so hopefully by this time next week I'll know just who or what the "little stranger" is!           

A Thursday (not) Thirteen: Girls Dressed as Boys

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I have a fascination with stories about girls dressing as boys.  While I realize there is a whole gender bending aspect to this phenomenon, for myself it's more an historical interest.  You've probably heard the saying that "well-behaved women rarely make history"?  It often seems that women have been stuck on the sidelines when it comes to adventures and escapades.  At least historically, though not so much today, thankfully.  One way to get around the dilemma of being female and stuck in petticoats was to switch from skirt to pants, long hair to short.  In essence a woman had to be someone she wasn't in order to open up otherwise closed avenues.  Sometimes she had to pass herself off as a man in order just to survive.  

This of course started me thinking of the stories I'd read where girls dressed as boys, or if you will, women as men.  I'm afraid I couldn't come up with thirteen novels, however.  I suspect there are loads out there that I haven't thought of or read.

This year there was Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with a shipwrecked Viola who as a woman alone finds it easier to move more freely about a foreign country dressed as a boy.  Needless to say, that caused just a little bit of havoc.

I've already noted Chandra Prasad's On Borrowed Wings about a young woman who takes the opportunity of a scholarship won by her brother (who died in an accident) in order to make a better life for herself outside the smally quarry town she was raised in.

Litlove suggested a Belinda Jack's George Sand: A Woman's Life Writ Large.  I read Sand's novel Indiana  a year or two ago.  Sand dressed as a man in public, which was no doubt highly scandalous, but allowed her access to venues where women were prohibited from entering.  (Must read this one!).   

Kingston by Starlight by Christopher John Farley is based on the true story of pirate Anne Bonny who goes to sea dressed as a boy.  I expect this happened quite often.

Clare Langley-Hawthorne's first Ursula Marlowe mystery, Consequences of Sin has Ursula dressing as a man as she travels by ship (alone) to Venezuela during her inquiries into the murder of a friend. 

In Jonatha Ceely's Mina a young girl whose family has perished in the Irish potato famine of the 1840s can only find work in a great house if she dresses as a boy.  She becomes the cook's assistant and embarks on a series of adventures/journeys that will eventually take her all the way to America.

Lastly, I'll be reading Georgette Heyer's The Corinthian soon.  In this unusual Heyer novel a young heiress decides she's not going to marry the man chosen for her (well, perhaps that part's not so unusual), and to make her escape she dresses as a boy. 

Dare I ask if anyone's read a book with a girl leading the adventurous life as a boy, so I can fill out my list?  I wonder how many women disguised as men fought in the Civil War (or other wars for that matter?).  I bet there must be examples going as far back as the Classics!

Reading Notes

The first half of Laurie King's A Monstrous Regiment of Women was really good, but the second half was excellent.  The Beekeeper's Apprentice was very much a first novel, but I say that only with the idea of a novel introducing two characters whose lives will intertwine and who will find themselves getting involved in a number of mysterious and threatening circumstances.  Laurie King's writing has been superlative throughout both novels.  I'm not going to go into any more detail about the story as by now you might well be Mary Russell'd out, but I will say that the second half has an 'edge of your seat' quality to it and was very hard to put down.  What happens is somewhat menacing, and if Mary Russell was really no more than a youth in the first book, she has very much come into her own as a mature young woman this time around.  Mary and Holmes come together as equals and yes there is a dash (but literally only a dash) of romance at the end.  Sherlock Holmes is a very prickly type of character and Mary an intellectual as well, so that aspect of the story was handled tastefully and believably.  While the first book was almost a hodge podge of items that needed sorting--introduction of characters, setting up of relationship, education of Mary, and yes, some mystery as well, this second novel was much more a straightforward mystery--very well planned and executed with all the right details to fill in the rest of the story.          

I've already pulled out A Letter of Mary, which is the next book in the series, but I will probably not start it right away (though I'm very tempted to do so).  I have a stack of mysteries that I want to read (not least these and these, which were recent purchases) and I always have such a difficult time choosing--something new or is it time to revisit a series I started to read some time ago (like Mary Russell).  At the moment I'm in the thick of things with Christianna Brand's Green for Danger.  It's set during WWII in a military hospital outside of London.  With the Blitz in the background an ordinary citizen is brought in with minor wounds from a recent raid.  He's nervous about being operated on, and although the nurse reassures him he'll come out of it all just fine, something happens and he dies on the operating table.  Worst case scenario, eh?  I've always had a fear of anesthesia!  Anyway a detective is brought in to sort things out as the patient shouldn't have died, and the only people with access to the victim are the nurses and doctors.  Apparently this is Brand's masterpiece and so far its' held my attention nicely.

In keeping with my 'Shakespeare Sunday' reading I had planned on starting Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage, but as I'm not really catching up on my reading as I had hoped (I do say some foolish things sometimes, don't I), I thought it better to spend time with books I'm already reading this afternoon. I also have the Slaves next book, The Post Office Girl ready to start very soon.  And I recently received my next postal reading group book in the mail.  If you're curious what it is, click here.  It's supposed to be a cross between a social satire and a comedy of manners.  I'm really intrigued by this one.  I had never heard of it before and am looking forward to seeing if it's as good as the rest of the postal book choices have been!          

A Few More Notes on Twelfth Night

I'm still spending time with Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  I have another film version to watch (hopefully this evening), which was produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films.  I'll be curious to see if it follows the play more closely than the Trevor Nunn adaptation (which I thought was fabulous, but it was impossible to read along).  I've also picked up Marjorie Garber's Shakespeare After All.  I've started reading her essay on the play.  It's on the long side, so it may take me a few days to wade through it, but I can't recommend this book highly enough for some excellent analysis and criticism by a renowned Shakespearean authority (well, so says the book's blurb anyway).  

When I started reading Shakespeare's plays I wasn't sure how to approach them, but I'm finding a pattern I like that seems to work for me.  With Romeo and Juliet (the first play I read) I thought it would be good to read Garber's essay first, but it was confusing and I didn't have enough knowledge of the play to make sense of what Garber was talking about.  She discusses the play but she draws on similar themes from other plays.  I like that she writes about Shakespeare's work as a whole, though with only a few plays under my belt I don't always make the connections.  Still, as I continue to make my way through his work I'm sure I'll find many common threads running through the plays and see what he changes and how his work develops overall.  This is the first time I'm actually feeling like my head is above water as I'm reading.  Something is starting to finally click, which is sort of an exciting feeling.      

So once again I have a feeling that this post is really more for me than you, as I sort through themes and meanings in Twelth Night, or What You Will.  I may add to this post as I work my way through Garber's essay, but here are a few notes on the play:

Twelfth Night refers to the evening before January 6 (the twelfth day of Christmas), which is an English holiday.  It's also known as the Feast of the Epiphany when the three Magi came from the East bearing gifts for the Christ child.  Epiphany has the added meaning of "a sudden flash of insight, or a sudden recognition of identity".  This is, of course, a major theme in the play with its disguised identities and misunderstandings that only later work themselves out as real identities are unmasked.

Often in Shakespeare's comedies there is some sort of "middle world" (like the forest in A Midsummer Night's Dream), but Twelfth Night instead has a sinking ship off the coast of Illyria.  Here the sea world invades the land world.

"In Twelfth Night the 'outsiders' not only bring the comic elements of energy, desire, and fruitfully mistaken identities; they also bring key elements from another literary genre: romance.  The world of romance invades the world of comedy."

Rebirth is often a theme in Shakespeare's plays.  In this case rebirth from the sea, but in Twelfth Night there is the added theme of "sexual love and growth".  Twins have shown up in other plays, but here the twins are male and female.  Viola, dressed as a boy, is able to educate both Olivia and Orsino in love.  Coming from the "middle space" or in this case, "sea world", Viola is in disguise and and is both genders.

One more thing.  Apparently (and why not) "romance, the genre of Shakespeare's late plays,  was a popular Elizabethan mode".  Garber goes on to say, "a fundamentally narrative genre, which would eventually give rise to the modern novel, romance always turns on the epiphany, and on moments of rebirth".  Interesting, no? 

That's probably enough for one Sunday afternoon post.  It's fascinating stuff Garber writes about and I'm looking forward to reading more.  So I'll leave you now and get to it.

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or, What you Will.  Loved it.  Trevor Nunn's film adaptation. Loved it,too (more, even).  I've not read many of Shakespeare's plays, but this is my favorite so far.  So much so that I've already ordered the DVD.  I wisely divided  up the acts and read one or two each day last week (the first three being much longer than the last two).  My edition of the play estimated that a read through would average about three hours.  A careful read through taking in footnotes would take about six hours.  I'm a slow reader anyway, so six hours was a fairly conservative estimate.  It is a little clunky reading a play, I'll admit.  Sometimes I had to reread a passage after stopping to read all the notes, which really puts a damper on the flow of the story, but in the end it really helped as I was watching the film.  The dialogue would go so fast as I was listening that I couldn't catch everything, and even if I did I'm sure I still wouldn't have understood it all (despite a careful reading of the play), but I caught a lot of words and phrases and could follow the action and appreciate what was happening much more so than had I not been exposed to it first.   

Twelfth Night is a comedy (bear with me you Shakespeare whizzes, this post will seem pretty basic, but I'm still a novice when it comes to his work, so there won't be any deep critical analysis just my own little overview).  Much of the play's humor comes from a case of mistaken identity, which will reverberate throughout the play as various characters fall into love with each other, or they think they do anyway.  Viola and Sebastian, twins, are shipwrecked on the island of Illyria.  Each believes the other to be dead only they washed ashore in different places.  As Viola is now on her own in a foreign country, she takes on the guise of a man to move more freely about without fear.  She becomes a fixture at the court of the Duke of Orsino who is wildly in love with the beautiful Lady Olivia.  Only Lady Olivia couldn't give a fig about Orsino, and besides she's only lately suffered the deaths of her father and brother so is in mourning.  Orsino becomes close to young Cesario (our Viola), and sends him off in his stead to woo Lady Olivia, as he's too languid and melancholy to do it himself.  Of course you know who Olivia is going to fall for.  And you probably know who Viola is going to fall for as well.  Things will get messy.

Now, if all that wasn't enough to keep track of, Olivia's household is chock full of characters that are going to cause all manner of problems and grief.  Sir Toby Belch, is Lady Olivia's uncle.  His names fits him well.  He's a jolly drunk who delights in playing tricks on others and mooching off his friends.  Particularly off of Sir Andrew Aguecheek.  While Toby is stout, Andrew is lean and tall and as foolish as he sounds.  He's also in love with Lady Olivia (he's not the last, so hang on) and will be egged on by Toby to push his suit with Olivia.  There are also several servants and a jester who play important roles, if only to make the lives of other characters miserable.  Maria is Olivia's lady in waiting who plays a naughty trick on Malvolio, the steward.  Malvolio will come to believe he's in love with Lady Olivia as well, and that she reciprocates.  If it sounds a little confusing (and I've not even filled in any details), it is.  However, Sebastian's arrival later in the play will eventually help sort things out.

As you might imagine there is a lot of talk of love and identity and disguises.  It was great fun to read and especially to watch.  Surely Shakespeare was a genius in the way he winds everything and everyone up into a complicated twist and then lets it all unravel, and how he uses puns and plays on words and classical references to create this world.  Even though listening I didn't take in all the language, it was still so musical that it's a pleasure just to listen.  The film is excellent, gorgeously made, set in the Victorian period with beautiful costumes.  I tried to follow along with the book, but I quickly gave up as scenes were switched or cut to fit the adaptation.  It's a comedy and watching it, it really is very funny.  My favorite scene is a sword fight which is totally contrived by Sir Toby between Cesario and Sir Andrew Aguecheeck, and it's obvious that neither has any interest in fighting.  During classical antiquity Illyria was a region on the Mediterranean coast (now the Balkan peninsula), so there were lots of long shots of waves breaking on the shore and picturesque sunsets (my favorite!).  I have another adaptation to watch later, which I have a feeling won't be quite so lavish but might follow the play more closely (and be a good reinforcement of what I've read).         

Although I still plan on reading the Marjorie Garber essay and watching another Twelfth Night adaptation, I think Macbeth or Hamlet  will be next.  I won't tackle the next play for another month or so, as I'd rather savor the plays than rush through them (not sure it's possible to rush through a Shakespeare play, really).  I think I might even find a retelling in novel form of the latter two, which would be fun to read as well (not sure if there is such a thing for Twelfth Night?).  And I always have  a few other books to pick up and read as well. 

Beginning Twelfth Night (Notes to Myself)

This post may be more for me than for you as I work my way through Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  Actually I am only reading the introductory notes to the play at the moment, of which there seem to be many.  As there are five acts, I am hoping to read one act each day this week.  My original plan had been to read this during the holidays as twelfth night refers to the twelve days after the Christmas season--the time between holiday and partymaking and getting back to the normal "workaday" world.  

Normally I hate knowing the plot before reading anything, but in the case of Shakespeare the more I know ahead of time the better.  The play is set in Illyria at the court of Duke Orsino and the estate of Lady Olivia.  This is a comedy, so I am told that I can expect lovelorn characters trying to get together and many complications along the way.  I think I'm going to like Lady Olivia.  She's presented as an independent and powerful not to mention wealthy woman due to the deaths of her father and brother.  Her status in society makes her attractive and she has a number of suitors including the Duke.  I love some of these character names--Sir Toby Belch is a relative of Lady Olivia and Sir Andrew Aguecheek is one of her pursuers.  Into the mix are thrown two well-born twins, Viola and Sebastian who have been shipwrecked.  Each thinks the other didn't survive.  Viola passes herself off as a page (Cesario) at Orsino's court who sends her/him to Lady Olivia as his personal envoy.  Of course Lady Viola is going to fall for him/her.  Similarly Sebastian is irresistible to his own rescuer.  

Shakespeare certainly loved to play with language, didn't he.  I guess that is the beauty in his work, but  it's also the challenge.  At least it is for me.  First there's the general problem with words that are either no longer used or the meaning has completely changed in the last 400 years.  Then there is the difficulty of how he liked to flip his sentence structure around.  He apparently did this to create the right poetic rhythm.  I don't really have a problem with switching subjects and verbs, but when he interrupts the regular sentence structure "delaying the main sentence elements" I tend to get lost in all the extra meaning.  Thankfully the sentence structure in Twelfth Night is fairly straightforward.  But I do get to look forward to the use of puns (lots of those in this play) and metaphors.  Thank goodness for the text  notes which will be on the opposite page of the play.  By the way all this is a lead up to watching the play.  I know my library has this version and perhaps a few others.

Whew.  Now that I have all this straight.  On with the play.  I'll let you know next Sunday how everything went! 

Project Shakespeare Revisited

 

Well now that I've brought it up, perhaps it really is time to revamp Project Shakespeare, which started way back in 2007 and wasn't even thought about in 2008.  Did I really leta whole year go by without reading a single play?  I have wonderful ideas, but following through isn't always my strong suit. So I've been thinking maybe this can be my new Sunday reading activity.  Read a little Shakespeare, or something about Shakespeare, or his times and then write about it.  It's only an idea at this point, and I'll see how it goes.  I'm in no rush, so writing about it may only involve sharing a chapter I've read in a book or an essay, or whatever crosses my path. 

I would like to read a couple of his plays, however.  I had all along planned on reading Twelth Night next, so I'll start there.  I never quite know how to approach Shakespeare.  Read the play first, watch the play (or a film of it in my case), read the play again?  Yes, that's the Cliff's Notes you see to help me, because I will freely admit, Shakespeare is a huge challenge to me, even with footnotes or sidenotes.  I also have Marjorie Garber's Shakespeare After All, which is a critical guide to Shakespeare's plays (and has been a constant bedside companion since Ifirst came up with this idea, even if I haven't cracked open the bookonce in a year!).  I'll read Garber's detailed essay on the play at some point (maybe it would be best to do so after reading the play).  

And then for some additional material I still have Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage from the library, which I've heard is well done, and Germaine Greer's Shakespeare's Wife.  Plus my library must have just about every major (and no doubt many minor) film adaptation of his plays as well.  Anyone up for a read of Twelfth Night?  I might be more apt to stick with it, if I had company.       

A List and a Few Other Ramblings

I know I have spent a lot of time complaining this summer about the heat.  It feels like it has taken weeks and weeks of heat, humidity and storms, but this morning I have the window open and it is gorgeous!  So, no complaints today! The sun is shining and it is cool-ish.  I hope this is a sign of better things to come. 

I have been reading Peter Ho Davies's book, The Welsh Girl.  It is excellent!  I usually don't want to put it down when I start reading it and have been greedily rationing it out.  This is an author who is comfortable with words.  He tells his story with ease.  Some writing (and I mean other books here, not The Welsh Girl) seems sort of self-conscious, but this story just rolls along gracefully and fluidly.  The Odds are that McEwan will win the Booker.  Ho Davies only has a 16/1 chance.  That's a pity really as he's my favorite so far.  I'd say Ho Davies deserves to be shortlisted at least as much as McEwan, but then what do I know as this is only the third book I've read.  I do have a couple more Booker longlist titles that I am trying to get from the library, but I don't plan on reading all of the list by any means.  Booker nominee or no, I had my eye on this one from the moment I read about it anyway!  I just hope it gets some well deserved press and readership!

I've also finally gotten around to reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Actually I am about half way through.  For a play that might last at most three hours, it takes me forever to read the play script.  I read Marjorie Garber's essay on it earlier this week.  Although Garber writes as if the reader is familiar with Shakespeare's work--quoting liberally from the play and making comparisons between this and other plays, it is very worthwhile reading her.  I don't always get her references at first, but I am finding that the more I read the connections seem to come later even though initially a lot of it is over my head.  I have been reading each scene and then reading a separate summary and commentary afterward.  There are so many layers to this play, I feel like I need all the help I can get to keep it all straight in my mind.  The more I read Shakespeare and the more I read about him the more I am amazed by it all.  I could spend weeks on this one alone; I feel like I am just whizzing through it really.  I hope to finish reading this weekend and watch the play tomorrow night. 

One more thing.  I thought I would put the complete list of books with academic settings here.  There were so many great suggestions I thought it might come in handy to have links to them all here.  Plus it might be handy in case anyone wanted to print out the list:

• The Folded Leaf, William Maxwell
• A Separate Peace, John Knowles
• Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
• Gentlemen and Players, Joanne Harris
• Old School, Tobias Wolff
• I am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe
• Song for Summer, Eva Ibbotson
• Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh
• Lake of Dead Languages, Carol Goodman
• Chatham School Affair, Thomas H. Cook
• Secret History, Donna Tartt
• Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
• Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell
• The Book and the Brotherhood, Irish Murdoch
• The Small Room, May Sarton
• For Kings and Planets, Ethan Canin
• Moo, Jane Smiley
• Small World, David Lodge
• Changing Places, David Lodge
• The Groves of Academe, Mary McCarthy
• Straight Man, Richard Russo
• Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
• Blue Angel, Francine Prose
• Truth and Consequences, Alison Lurie
• Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie
• Well-Schooled in Murder, Elizabeth George
• Death in Holy Orders, P.D. James
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee
• Quieter Than Sleep, Joanne Dobson (mystery series with sleuth Karen Pelletier)
• Mean Boy, Lynn Coady
• Weekend, William McIlvanney
• Pictures from an Institution, Randall Jerrell
• Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents, Elaine Showalter
• Time of Hope, C.P. Snow (a series of books--Strangers and Brothers Sequence)
• On Beauty, Zadie Smith
• The History Man, Malcolm Bradbury
• In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross (mystery series with sleuth Kate Fansler)
• Men's Room, Ann Oakley
• Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis

Whew.  I hope I got all the suggestions.  That's quite a list--thanks, everyone! I have already found a copy of Francine Prose's The Blue Angel to mooch, and have dug out my copy of the first Joanne Dobson mystery to start with! 

Not Sure What I Think of These...

I came across this series of books at my work.  I'm not really sure what I think about them.  Generally I am quite laid back in terms of reading, but these sort of bother me. 

"To help students experience the joys and benefits of reading, Townsend Press presents the Townsend Library--a collection of high-interest classics. Each Townsend Library book has been carefully edited to maintain the original story while updating language and style for today's readers.  The books also feature an afterword with information about the author and a commentary to deepen readers' enjoyment."

You can read about their editing process here.  I am all for trying to make literature appealing and accessible to students.  I am not entirely sure who their target audience is, but I would say middle and high school students.  However, when you start manipulating the vocabularly and simplifying the writing style of the author, it seems to me it is no longer the same story--certainly not what the author intended.  When I read Bram Stoker's Dracula (one of the books they use as their example), I read it in great part to get a feeling for the time and place as well as for the entertainment of the story.  About Dracula they say:

"This story was written for people who were familiar with 19th century European geography, and the original contains countless pages of detail about cities, towns, rivers, ports, and travel routes that would make many 21st century readers’ eyes glaze over. Such detail, not at all integral to the story, has been reduced.

Another example: Stoker was very excited about the new technologies of his day—such as shorthand writing and Thomas Edison’s 'dictaphone' machine, which recorded the human voice on wax cylinders—and in the original Dracula, he goes on for many pages about these “modern” inventions. We minimized the number of details about these outdated inventions in order to get on with the story.

We also replaced words that might be unfamiliar or confusing to today’s readers: for instance, the old French word 'diligence' is changed to 'stagecoach'; the phrase 'toilet glass' is changed to 'shaving mirror'."

Although the detail may not be integral to the action, it is quite typical to Victorian literature and for myself, that is precisely why I like Victorian literature.

I have also come across these sorts of books when looking for Shakespeare's plays.  No Fear Shakespeare puts out the plays using modern language side by side with Shakespeare's original language.  For example, as Shakespeare wrote it:

"Hamlet: To be, or not to be?  That is the question-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?"

And the No Fear text:

"The Question is: is it better to be alive or dead?  Is it nobler to put up with all the nasty things that luck throws your way, or to fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them once and for all?"

I realize Shakespeare is very hard going and perhaps using modern language will help a student trying to make sense of what he or she has read.  At least in the case of the plays by Shakespeare, the modern language and Shakespeare's language are side by side on opposite pages.  Although I also find Shakespeare a challenge, I have opted to not buy these books. 

But then I wonder, maybe books like these are not such a big deal?  If a student is able to read and enjoy Dracula  or Shakespeare in this format, perhaps it is better than not reading them at all?  I am sure there have been children's versions of classics for ages and ages to introduce them to the story, which were essentially retellings.  Of course those are for children rather than young adults.  I think I would always rather read a book that is as close to what the author intended rather than something that has been altered and edited by someone else.  Certainly I would rather see students reading the original as well.  It sort of feels like the text is being dumbed down, and I hate that idea.  What do you think?

A Last Ditch Effort...

I've decided to make a last ditch effort to complete Carl's challenge.  Can I do it?  I admit I can be a lazy reader sometimes--easily distracted and ready to move on to the next shiny new book or reading challenge.  I had all but given up on this when Carl left a comment on a recent post urging me on just the tiniest little bit.  That coupled with my desire to actually finish something I start out to do (remembering all those many lists I've made all year...) has made me want to see this one through.  Or try to anyway.

I had planned all along to read Angela Carter's Saints and Strangers (for my folk tale choice).  It is a slim little book of only 125 pages/8 short stories.  Actually I am not sure they can be called short stories really.  The blurb says "drawing on American history, literary legend, and folk tale, Angela Carter transports us to that shadowy country between fact and myth."  I started reading last night and hope to finish later today (I am almost halfway through already).  All I can say so far, Angela Carter's writing is quirky--or at least the stories she tells are.  As much as I wanted to read this (and do want to read this), I think what put me off was the overwhelming sense that these were going to be dark sorts of stories.  Not tragic, but dense and heavy--just look at the cover art.  I'm not sure how to characterize her writing style yet.  But I'll let you know how it goes.  Carter seems to have a fairly substantial body of work (she died very young in 1992), and I think she is an important contemporary author, so I do hope to read more later.

The challenge ends tomorrow, which is the summer solstice.  I plan on watching A Midsummer Night's Dream tomorrow night.  If I read along does that count?  Since Midsummer is not for a few more days yet, I hope to actually properly read the play after I have seen a film version.  It worked for me well to watch/read/watch, so I want to try that again.  I have been doing a tiny bit of preparatory reading, as I am completely unfamiliar with this story.  What I've learned so far?  Shakespeare wrote this during a very creative period when he was approaching a more mature style.  It is likely that he wrote this to be preformed at a wedding that Queen Elizabeth would have attended.  There are four separate plots within this play: 1.) the story of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, 2.) Hermia and her three friends, Helena, Demetrius, and Lysander--young lovers, 3.) the magical world of the fairies ruled by Titania and Oberon, and 4.) the adventures of Quince, Bottom, and the other amateur actors.  I get the feeling the play is about love and lust.  And, well, that is as far as I have gotten.  There is no sense in rushing a Shakespeare play!  I still have my Garber essay to read and all of the other extra material in my book as well.  Really this is the impetus I needed anyway to get going on Shakespeare once again!  It seems fitting to be reading it right now, doesn't it?