Our Mutual Friend

Finally finished! It's weird for me to take two weeks and spend it just reading one book, especially when my pile of to-reads from the library is stacking up. But, for Dickens, I couldn't help it. It takes a lot to read a Dickens book. It needs extra attention and the longer breaks I take from it, the harder it is to get back into the language and the complex plot. BUT, as I just said, for Dickens it's worth it.

I loved this book. There are so many memorable characters (always Dickens' strong point) and the plot here is incredible. So many stories lines woven together with such skill. There's a lot of both mystery and romance in this book. The love stories are so so good. So sweet, so heart-breaking at times. As for the mystery, well, it wasn't too much of a surprise (because I watched the movie first :D) but was still enjoyable. This is, arguably, one of Dickens' darkier and scarier works, especially as we get inside the mind of one Bradley Headstone, who is a truly terrifying character. I won't give away any more, but this is a bite-your-nails kind of read. I knew how everything would turn out and I still got completely into it and could hardly put it down.

Also, the most recent movie adaptation of this book (1998 from the BBC) is a little-known gem of British drama.

 If you love Austen movies this is one I'd recommend. It also plays out almost exactly as the book does. Almost all of the dialogue is Dickens' and the actors and actresses all do a great job portraying their roles.

And if you're hesitant to read a Dickens' novel (no easy feat) watching a movie adaptation first is a great way to get to know the characters and plot lines so you don't get lost while reading the book. It also helps me to know which scenes are not as important to the plot so I can skim when Dickens gets long-winded about society. Which he does. A lot. Anyway, it's a super movie and I recommend it. (Content advisory: There is one scene with nudity, so when you see Bradley Headstone heading into a river to wash off in episode three, close your eyes if you don't want to see his ugly backside. :D It's a very brief moment and easily fast-forwarded through)

Anywho, I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes from Our Mutual Friend. Dickens is, after all, enjoyable quotable.


"No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot."

Mr. Boffin: But there's nothing like work. Look at the bees.
Eugene Wrayburn: I beg your pardon, but will you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to the beest?
Boffin: Do you?
Eugene: Ye-es. They work; but don't you think they overdo it? They work so much more than they need - they make so much more than they can eat - they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them - that don't you think they over do it? And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of the bees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don't? Mr. Boffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast; but regarded in the light of my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the tyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest respect for you.

Eugene and Mortimer, on being told to pretend to be lime merchants while they spy in a tavern:
'You hear, Eugene?' said Lightwood, over his shoulder. 'You are deeply interested in lime.'
'Without lime,' returned that unmoved barrister-at-law, 'my existence would be unilluminated by a ray of hope.'

"There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blind confusion. The name of this article was Twenlow and he was in frequent requisition."

“[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.”

One Miss Peecher, the schoolmistress:
"She could write a little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at the left-hand top of one side and ending at the right-hand bottom of the other, and the essay should be strictly according to rule. If Mr. Bradley Headstone had addressed a written proposal of marriage to her, she would probably have replied in a complete little essay on the theme exactly a slate long, but would certainly have replied yes. For she loved him."

Jenny Wren: "You are wise as wise can be godmother (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?"

'No one is useless in this world,' retorted the Secretary, ' who lightens the burden of it for any one else.'

"And oh, there are days in this life, worth life and worth death."

Bella: "Dear John, your wishes are as real to me as the wishes in the Fairy story, that were all fulfilled as soon as spoken. Wish me everything that you can wish for the woman you dearly love, and I have as good as got it, John. I have better than got it, John!"

“Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman.”   

“A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.”   

“Are you thankful for not being young?'
'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see?...”   

Bella: "Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy."

Wives and Daughters

*sigh* Loved it. It was such a pleasure to read. I've loved the movie for a few years, so I don't know why it's taken me so long to read this book. Everything great about the movie times ten. I enjoyed getting into all the character's heads and figuring out what they were thinking and feeling The ONLY bad thing about this book is that it's not finished. Yeah. Elizabeth Gaskell had one chapter left to write when suddenly, in the middle of tea with friends and in the middle of speaking a sentence, she fell over dead (according to the introduction in my book).

How DARE she????

Anyway. It's not all that bad, though, because there was a nice section at the end of my copy going over how Elizabeth Gaskell had planned to end the book. It gave a bit of closure, but my solution was to immediately spend the next couple of days watching the mini-series and drinking up that last scene.

Oh it's so good.

If you like Austen, you really need to check out Elizabeth Gaskell. North and South is another big favorite of mine.

Middlemarch

I always feel like giving myself a nice round of applause and a hearty pat on the back when I complete an 800+ page Victorian era British novel. I enjoy them, but they are a piece of work to read sometimes. Middlemarch is one of the more complex novels I've ever read. There are several plots going on at once, and it took a while to get into it and figure things out. There were also a few ultra long (and boring) descriptions on politics that I found myself slogging through, and I'll admit that I glanced ahead to see when things would get good again a few times and speed read through the worst parts.

But it was all worth it! This book is descriptive and emotional. By the time I got into it I was hooked. I was so personally invested in the characters' lives and stories that I had a hard time dragging myself away for such menial tasks as feeding children. I was so attached to one story in particular that I cried a couple of times (am I allowed to admit that on this blog?) and even *gasp* dogeared a couple of pages that I found particularly heartwrenching so I could go back and read them again later.

Like Dickens, George Eliot (who is a woman, by the way) captures the lives of people from a wide range of backgrounds. No one in the small town of Middlemarch is exempt from being affected by the main characters or affecting them in turn. The plot is woven together seamlessly. I have serious admiration for any author who can write like this.

There is a Middlemarch movie, made in 1994, which is waiting for me at the library. I'll let you know what I think. Even better, though, they are making a brand new Middlemarch which should make an appearance on Masterpiece in a year or two. Andrew Davies is doing the screenplay (1995 Pride & Prejudice, 1996 Emma, 1999 Wives & Daughters, 2005 Bleak House, 2008 Sense and Sensibility, 2008 Little Dorrit), so you can imagine that I'm very excited to see the results of that!

Frankenstein

Ah, Frankenstein. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading this. Truly. I'm not much for horror, but this book is so great. I'm not saying that everyone will enjoy it, simply that I did. This book was the final thing I read for my British Lit class last semester and in a way it was a great accumulation of everything I'd studied over the semester. There were so many references to Mary Shelley's contemporary authors and their works in this book, that I'm sure if I'd read it before taking my Lit class I would have been thoroughly confused. Instead, I understood exactly what Mary Shelley meant in the plot when she referenced Percy Shelley's poems, Wordsworth's poems, Byron's life, Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.

All that aside, this book has some good universally enjoyable qualities. It's really quite surprising. The plot is not what Hollywood would want you to believe. There's no gory horror. I found that the same thing is true with this book as it was with Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde: the plot is simple, symbolic, gripping, and open to interpretation. Thus, the many different variations on it by popular media.

This book carries some interesting and unexpected themes, such as how what you read affects you (the monster - who is unnamed, by the way... Frankenstein is the doctor protagonist - reads three books after being shunned by his creator and they each have a profoud effect on what he later becomes), the responsibilities of parenthood, the possibility that society creates its own criminals, the inner workings of outcasts, promethean science (do men go too far into that realm that belongs only to God?), and the fact that the monster is what any human could be if he or she let his or her emotions run wild.

After reading this book I couldn't stop thinking about it. There was so much to learn and digest from it that I still occasionally come back to it in my thoughts during those rare still moments. I characterize books like this as uplifting, a word I would never have thought I'd use to describe Frankenstein before reading it.

North and South

I loved this book! It's probably second to Evelina for favorite book read this year. Aside from the really great romance story, this book explores differences in culture between the north and south of England, class differences, and differences between life in an industrial town and life in the country. Unlike Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell goes into the lives of the servant and working classes, which I found very interesting. My only complaint is that the ending was very sudden. I really wanted more! I've heard that there's a good movie based on the book, so I plan on heading over to the library website to see if I can find it.

Evelina

It's a new semester and that means neo-classic British literature for me! This book was recommended to me by my good friend Kristen as well, so when I saw it on our reading list I was excited. I loved it. LOVED it. I don't think I've enjoyed reading a book this much in ages (and I have read a lot of really great literature!). I don't know if it was the fact that I broke in my new couches by spending a day in them reading this with my fireplace on, but something about reading this book was extremely enjoyable. This is my kind of book. It's pre-Austen, but contains a lot of the Austen elements that I enjoy. It's a totally different writing style than Austen, of course. Fanny Burney is a fantastic writer, and I really loved the format of this book (it's told in letters). I'm going to start petitioning PBS to make a movie version of this for Masterpiece Theater. If you are an Austen fan, you will love Evelina.

Oroonoko

More lit for my British lit class. Oroonoko is, to be frank, gruesome and horrible. There's no getting around that fact. All the same, it is an interesting piece of history. It's a good reminder that not all slaves were poor workers; some slaves were princes. This story has love, suspense, mystery, slavery, and a violent (really way too detailed in my opinion) ending.