It's been one of my ongoing goals for the last several years to read more classics. I've been pleaed with the number of classics I've read the last couple of years. Last year I read 17 and the year before 25. I especially wanted to read more American classics this year. So far, though, I've only managed three classics and only one of them by an American author. Technically that's one a month so far, and surely such a hefty book as Hugo's Les Misérables should count extra, but at this rate I'm going into a steady decline. When I say classic I have a certain type of book in mind. I'm thinking of those core books that are read in school perhaps or that might show up on a list like this or this or even this , or that appear in Harold Bloom's Western Canon, so very many of which I feel as though I should have read but haven't gotten around to. Of course no list is perfect, and I guess that's why I like referring to so many different lists.
Anyway, what this is all leading up to is that even though I am actively working on Victor Hugo's classic novel, I am in the mood for something else in addition to my daily LM reading. Something shorter. I've come to the realization that Les Misérables is going to be a longer term read than I had planned on, which is fine, but I don't want to hold up progress. There are so many other classics waiting in the wings that I want to read, I don't want to wait until I finish Hugo. I've narrowed the list of possibilities down to a few. All but one are by American authors. I still hope to read all of Jane Austen's work this year. I cheated a bit and started early with Northanger Abbey, which was the last book I read in 2007. So Jane is my lone British author. Now, which to choose. Perhaps the 'first paragraph test' will help the decision process?
- The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton - "On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine
Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York."
"Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances "above the Forties," of new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to
dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music." - Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen - "The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex.
Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage
the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid
comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence." - This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald - "Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while. His father, an ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of drowsing over the Encyclopedia Britannica, grew wealthy at thirty through the death of two elder brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to Bar Harbor and met Beatrice O'Hara. In consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to posterity his height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at crucial moments, these two abstractions appearing in his son Amory. For many years he hovered in the background of his family's life, an unassertive figure with a face half-obliterated by lifeless, silky hair, continually occupied in "taking care" of his wife, continually harassed by the idea that he didn't and couldn't understand her."
- Washington Square, Henry James - "During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession. This profession in America has constantly been held in honour, and more successfully than elsewhere has put forward a claim to the epithet of "liberal." In a country in which, to play a social part, you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to combine two recognised sources of credit. It belongs to the realm of the practical, which in the United States is a great recommendation; and it is touched by the light of science--a merit appreciated in a community in which the love of knowledge has not always been accompanied by leisure and opportunity. It was an element in Dr. Sloper's reputation that his learning and his skill were very evenly balanced; he was what you might call a scholarly doctor, and yet there was nothing abstract in his remedies--he always ordered you to
take something. - My Antonia, Willa Cather - "Last summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden--Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I are old friends--we grew up together in the same Nebraska town--and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.
When I considered picking up another book I automatically turned to Austen, as I've been watching the Complete Jane Austen on PBS, and I'm very much in the mood to read her work. Then I thought, no, choose something by someone on this side of the Atlantic (though does Henry James count since he emigrated?--Washington Square does, since it is set over here). I keep planning on reading more Wharton. I'd like to read all of Fitzgerald's novels this year, since there are so few, and it's been ages since I've read The Great Gatsby. Then again, I should read Willa Cather, since she's a Nebraska author. Perhaps I'll just close my eyes and point? Ask my niece to pick the book she likes best (she's 9 and will go by the cover illustration!). I'll let you know how it turns out!