Tag: Classics

Especially Retold for Young Readers

by Robert Hill

original author Johann Wyss, original publication date 1812
While reading Parasite Rex, I need a mental break once in a while, so in between chapters I read this for something quick, easy, and totally different. Then we had a power outage, so I wrote my thoughts about the book on paper, which got set aside. The week got busy, and I read other things that were more interesting, and completely forgot to post my review here! Ha. Shows you how memorable this was. I know I once tried to read a different version of Swiss Family Robinson, and didn’t get far because some details were just so unbelievable. Now I’m wondering if even that book was a retelling, because apparently this story has been rewritten and added to over and over, there are many different versions. This one of course, is much abbreviated and simplified, so much that it was for the most part boring. Even though it’s an adventure and survival story.   — SPOILERS GALORE
It’s about a family- parents and four boys- who get shipwrecked on an unnamed island. (Wikipedia tells me it was in the East Indies, but the animal life doesn’t seem to match that so who knows). The story opens very abruptly, with the family belowdecks during a storm at sea- there’s never any mention of why they’re even on a ship, or where they’re going. Just there’s a storm, and the captain and crew have already got into lifeboats, leaving this family behind. They survive the storm (never seeing the crew again) and make it to the island, along with some animals off the ship. Two dogs, and later they rescue and bring ashore geese, chickens, pigeons, a cow, goat, donkey and sheep. And I think there was a pig too. Very convenient! They take especially good care of the cow, because of the milk it provides.
The family is very industrious and resourceful and they all get along amazingly well (no arguments or whining from these kids) and don’t flinch at any of the challenges or hardships about surviving on the island. They quickly set up a tent from a piece of sail, take stock of their provisions, bring ammunition and weapons ashore, and go back to the ship several days in a row to salvage more supplies, plus broken wood for building materials. The father even at one point decides to cause an explosion on the wreckage so that it will break up and wash ashore more wood and other pieces they can use.
Soon they move from their tent to a tree with wide, thick horizontal branches that they build a treehouse in. They make a bridge over a stream nearby. They build stairs up inside the hollow tree (after relocating a wild bee nest and keeping some honey). It’s all very cleverly done, with the parents having an astonishing amount of knowledge how to do and make things. From using mathematics and angles on the ground to measure the height of certain points in the tree, to knowing how to process flax to make cloth, how to tan animal hides, how to smoke and salt fish, and so on. They have some food from the ship- and grow grain in an open field, and they also find pineapples, wild potatoes, flax and cotton, a plant (it must have been bayberry) that has waxy berries they use to make candles- just a wide array of very useful plants and of course they know how to harvest, utilize and process everything.
I remember now why I rolled my eyes at the original story – which was written in a response to the overwhelming popularity of Robinson Crusoe (this family isn’t even named Robinson, it’s just alluding to that other survival story). Apparently the author wrote it to inspire young people with the idea that God would always provide for them, no matter what circumstance or where they ended up. But you have to admit this family had a lot of very specialized knowledge (or did everyone in the 1800’s just know how to build a spiral staircase, skin animals and cure the hide, grow grain and cut and thresh it, etc?) and a lot of lucky fortune- all the stuff on the ship they were able to salvage, all the plants growing nearby that just happened to be so useful.
What threw me off, with the other more complete version I read, likewise this one, was all the wild animals that lived on this island where they probably wouldn’t exist together in nature. If I recall in the other book they were at one point looking on a scene that included kangaroos and penguins among other species, and I just started laughing (except now I realize maybe I shouldn’t have- Australia does have penguins!) This book doesn’t have any kangaroos. They find an onager that hangs around their donkey, so is then caught and tamed. They catch an ostrich and likewise tame it for one of the young boys to ride (not something anyone should do, btw). They also encounter bears, agouti, sharks and salmon. Some other animals I remember from before aren’t mentioned. But- they think they’ve landed in the Americas. Well, South America has agouti, but not ostriches or onagers. Maybe it was rhea, not ostrich that they saw. If it was the East Indies, onagers and bears could be possible, but not the agouti. It just irritates my brain trying to make sense of all this. I want it to fit together realistically, when really I should just enjoy the story. I suppose the original author just threw together a bunch of wildlife he didn’t know much about but they sounded exotic and a place with all of them together would be fantastic!
At the end, an English ship passes by the island, is alerted by gunshots, and lands to assist them. Two of the sons decide to leave and return to civilization, but the parents and other two kids, stay on the island! Even though during the story they had wondered many times if they’d ever see other human faces again, now with the chance in front of them, the adults decided they were so used to life on the island they’d prefer to remain. Well it did sound like paradise. But I’m sorry, it was a very boring read. Maybe in part because of how formal and polite the dialog was- especially the kids towards their parents- even if people used to talk like that, it sounded so stiff and unbelievable. Oh well.
Rating: 1/5
96 pages, 1973

retold from the Daniel Defoe original

by Deanna McFadden

Okay, so I knew what I was getting into with this one, and I read it anyway. I was in my husband’s office and saw this on his shelf. Remembered that I had tried reading the original years ago, and didn’t get far. The beginning with all the details on the main character’s family background, his father’s occupation and who knows what else, really bogged me down. I had put it aside as another classic that stylistically I just cannot read. Now I thought: what the heck, it seems like a story I ought to know the basics of, so this version will give me that. It’s a very much abridged and rewritten version, aimed at elementary school kids. Personally, I found it rather dull (hence two stars) as the writing was so straightforward, but I guess that’s what you get.

Warning for SPOILERS here, as I’m going to summarize for myself all the major plot points. Lots of which took me by surprise: I thought the story was all about this young man who gets shipwrecked on an island and lives there alone for years before finally encountering a companion and getting rescued (the scene where he finds a footprint in the sand is in my head from ages ago, no idea where I first came across that). But there’s so much more before all that.

It starts with young Robinson fretting at home, because his parents want him to study and become a lawyer and he just longs for adventure- to go to sea! He finally breaks their hearts by leaving against all their warnings, and on his first voyage is immediately met with storms. That’s frightening, but it doesn’t shake his desire to travel and see the world. The next ship he embarks on goes to Africa where most of the crew succumbs to illness and fever. On a later ship, they get accosted by pirates, he’s taken prisoner, and forced to work as a slave in a foreign land until with two other slaves, he escapes when they’re supposed to be out fishing for their master (they just keep going). They get picked up by an English ship which takes them to Brazil, where Robinson (from selling the fishing boat and earning some wages) buys his own plantation and runs it for two years, with good success. But the old urge for adventure creeps up again and he can’t help finally going on board another ship. This is eight years after his initial voyage.

A good third into the book, Crusoe encounters the storm in the Carribean that strands him on the famous (to us) island. All his shipmates drown. Luckily the ship itself survives in part, driven on the reef, and after the initial shock of finding himself the only survivor, he spends a good two weeks going daily out to the wreckage and bringing back ashore all the supplies he can manage. Then works making himself a tent, and later a better shelter against a cave- though I don’t know why he had to fortify it so well, as he never mentions dangerous animals on the island? and never at this point saw another human being. He’s got just enough food from the broken ship to last him until he figures out how to grow a few crops, and locates fruit to eat, goats to hunt, etc. Teaches himself to make baskets, catches a parrot to keep as a pet, even has a dog that also survived the shipwreck.

About ten years after being alone on the island, he’s stunned to find a human footprint. Terrified, because he assumes it’s from someone who would harm him- “natives” or maybe pirates? He hides, but then doesn’t see another sign of humans for another two years. Finally now we get to the point where Crusoe meets the man he names Friday, when a group of men land on the island with two prisoners along. Crusoe startles them and frees the prisoners, and one becomes his companion- he apparently doesn’t want to leave. The time it takes for the other man to learn to speak English- at first they just communicate with gestures- is really glossed over. The two men work together, eventually building a seaworthy craft and are ready to leave the island for good. Then they encounter another ship coming to shore- this one the crew had mutinied. When Crusoe realizes what happened, he helps the captain take control again, talks most of the crew back to sense, and they sail off together. They leave behind on the island, those two men who had started the mutiny- all set up well for survival what with the shelters, supplies, tamed goats and growing crops that Crusoe had in place. I suppose they deserved the punishment, but after all Crusoe had suffered on the island (he ate well, the worst thing was solitude) it seems cruel he left others to that fate. It was twenty-eight years he had spent on the island.

From what I briefly looked up, the story of Robinson Crusoe was based roughly on the account of a man Alexander Selkirk, who was marooned on an island for four years. I have to wonder how much of the original Defoe story this rewritten one left out, there are parts in particular that I really wanted more explanation of, and lots of details are sorely lacking. But I think all the other details in the original would swamp me, based on the few pages I did get through in my previous reading attempts, and other reviews I’ve seen online. So I’m glad I read this to have a solid picture of the narrative in my head- if I ever do approach Defoe’s novel again, maybe it will be easier going.

Borrowed from a family member.

Rating: 2/5
151 pages, 2006

by Charles Dickens

Sometimes classics are great, and I surprise myself by getting through what looks at first like a tiresome slog- other times they’re just difficult. Like this one. I became interested in reading David Copperfield after enjoying Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I was plenty curious to see where she’d drawn her inspiration from. I think perhaps I should have left more time between the two, though. It made me feel a bit- discomfited- to recognize the characters Kingsolver copied. I know the original is old enough that this is not considered plagiarism, but still- some of the situations and people were so exactly duplicated it really jumped out at me, and it felt odd. I kind of wondered why the modern author didn’t come up with her own characters.

I was enjoying this at first. It is, of course, well-written and a lot of the narrative flows in an easy, lively fashion. It starts with David recounting some incidents surrounding his birth, and much of what follows is so familiar (from my reading of the other novel): the superstition about the caul, the mother re-marrying an unkind man who pretty much kicks David out after she later dies, the shiftless foster family that’s always planning to make it big (which never happens) and pawning all their belongings, the older spinster aunt who supports young women and is surprised when David shows up on her doorstep, the slightly not-quite-all-there but still very intelligent in his own way brother of hers, who writes his life story on kites and then flies them . . . what was missing for me was some actual connection to the main character. I felt as if I was reading David narrating everything that happened around him, without sharing much of his own reactions to or feelings for things. It seemed far more detailed about telling all the goings on of people around him, and the very interesting and quirky character traits. I did laugh out loud when I read of the aunt’s repeated protests when people rode donkeys across a bit of lawn in front her house. I think I feel much the same way about people letting their dogs crap on the hellstrip in front of my yard (because some of them don’t pick it up). Nearly two centuries later, and some things never change!

But I lost steam. I started this book right after The Great White Bear, and had to take a few breaks, interspersing some lighter reads. I was intrigued at first by the depictions of all the different people, amused at some of the turns of events and conversations, interested in the additional notes and explanations in the appendix (needing two bookmarks for this one) and even read most of the introduction which explains how much of this book is supposedly based on Dicken’s own life experiences. It’s fairly autobiographical. But after having another break to read Dancing with Bees, I just couldn’t get back into David Copperfield. I forgot what was going on and who the people surrounding the main character now were. I backtracked a bit to remind myself but then found my mind unfocused and wandering for pages. I tried again the next day, skimmed ahead a bit, perused all the illustrations, and sighed. It’s just not resonating with me now. I quit on page 266, which I make note of in case I decide to pick this one up again someday (even though I’ll probably start over from the beginning again).

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: Abandoned
974 pages, 1850

More opinions: Attack of the Books!
anyone else?

a Tale of the Christ

by Lew Wallace

My first encounter with this book was in my father’s library. He has a beautiful hardback edition which was lovely to hold, the pages with rich texture, the illustrations interesting- but the words, oh what a slog. I couldn’t read it. I assumed back then (as a teenager) that I might appreciate it when I’m older. Some years ago now, I acquired a used paperback copy. Gave it another attempt and didn’t get far. A week ago I finally watched an old movie version- super impressive actually, considering it was made in 1959! Certain scenes were so familiar, I realize now that I must have seen this once before. Then I made a third attempt at the book, but it’s hopeless. Another reviewer online said this book is like a “tsunami of words” describing every little last detail, as if the reader wants to know the color of every fabric hanging in every room the main character entered during his whole life. I wholeheartedly agree. It’s not quite as bad as Last of the Mohicans, but pretty darn close. I didn’t get completely lost on every page, I just got rather bored, it was so tiresome. Maybe someday I’ll try it again, with an abridged edition that has all the extra lengthy passages trimmed? but only if I happen upon one by chance, not about to go searching for it. I could tell you the whole story synopsis from the movie, but it’s easy enough to find online. Suffice to say, the chariot race was definitely the most exciting part, the horses were great, probably why they’re featured on most versions of the book jacket I’ve seen! The ending seemed too- simple. Well, I’m satisfied that I know the story now. It is a great one, I can see why this is considered a classic, but I didn’t want to pour so much time into getting through it.

Rating: Abandoned
441 pages, 1880

or, Life Among the Lowly

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Another hefty classic, and one I honestly might have never opened except that I found a copy at a thrift store for a dollar. So I figured I’d better read it. Mostly because it was such an important book, helping to prompt the Civil War and end of slavery. Also I was interested to see how it compared to Gone With the Wind. I’m certainly glad I read it, but I doubt I will ever repeat the experience.         – – – warning for SPOILERS below – – –

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is based on a lot of true-life characters and incidents the author was acquainted with. She wove them all into a story that focuses on one enslaved black man named Tom, but also incorporates a multitude of side stories. So much so that sometimes I forgot completely about previous characters until they resurfaced and I had to remember who they were! (Also confusing is that there are two men named Tom, and two named George in the story- and in each case one was a slave and the other a white man.) As the book opens, a wealthy man who owns many slaves- and treats them decently- falls into debt and has to sell some of them. He determines to sell Tom and a young boy named Harry. Tom accepts his fate, partly because his master promises to try and buy him back someday. The boy’s mother, Eliza, is distraught at being separated from her child, so she runs away with him. There’s lots of chasing and fuss (other slaves on the farm are ordered to help track her down but they do everything they can to hinder the chase and give her a head start, which was somewhat amusing). She makes a desperate and very dramatic scramble across a river choked with ice floes, is taken in by some Quakers, and eventually makes her way to Canada via the Underground Railroad. The odd part is that right after a very intense scene where Eliza, her child and a few others are cornered across a ravine near a cliff by some tracking men with dogs- with firearms employed and shots exchanged- the narrative suddenly switches to following what happened to Tom, and doesn’t return to Eliza’s story until nearly the end of the book. I almost forgot where she was.

Tom ends up in a well-to-do family with some very interesting characters. Most prominent were an angelic blond child  who never did any wrong, talked religion nonstop and was fawned on by everybody. I’m sure she was admired by the public back when this book was published, but she just rubbed me the wrong way. Surely no child could be so perfect. I can imagine a teenager or young adult swept up in religious fervor maybe speaking the way this girl did, but a six-year-old? It really strained my credulity. In contrast to her, there was a black girl of the same age enslaved in that household who was an utterly beguiling, mischievous kid deep in the habit of lying and stealing without any remorse. (When asked why she did things she knew were wrong her reply was often: “dunno, ‘speck it’s ’cause I’s so wicked!”) I found her character much more interesting to be honest. I wish there’d been more Topsy in the book.

Of course I’m leaving so much out. There are many events and other characters brought into the book. Tom is close to the angelic blond girl (daughter of his master) because she’s so sweet and good, and reads the Bible to him while they encourage each other in religious devotion. But this tolerable, somewhat benevolent situation ends and Tom is sold again- further South to a dilapidated plantation on the edge of swamp. Here all the slaves are beaten regularly and treated very badly, basically worked to death. Tom does his best, uncomplaining, and supports those around him- helping his fellow men, encouraging them to have hope (mostly in the afterlife) and obeying his terrible master, except when he’s ordered to whip one of his fellow slaves. In the end, two of the younger black women orchestrate a clever escape, and Tom dies because he is treated so brutally when refusing to disclose information on their whereabouts.

It’s powerful storytelling. I did enjoy some parts of it, but others were very hard to read. Not only because of how inhumanely people were treated (even the well-meaning “kind” masters still owned people and bought into the system) but also the phonetically written dialect of the black people was cringeworthy, the moralizing and religious sentiments were very thickly laid over everything, and even though you know the author wrote this to show how wrong slavery was, and that black people are just as intelligent as anyone else- her descriptions of them were still to some degree insulting and derogatory. Many of the characters felt like mocking caricatures of types, not real people.

Yet I can well imagine how galvanizing this book was to public opinion, when it was first published a hundred and seventy years ago. Apparently it instantly outsold the Bible, and is considered to have been the first bestseller. However, I’m very ready to move on to other reading now.

Rating: 3/5
695 pages, 1852

by James Fenimore Cooper

Once again a classic that utterly failed me. Or I failed it? I thought that after making my way through the archaic doorstopper that was Tom Jones, I’d have an easier time reading this one. Not so. It’s high adventure, with romance and battles in a trek through the wilderness- the party includes two young English women, several Native American guides and a frontiersman. The area is rife with conflict between the British and the French, which have varied allies among the native tribes. There’s lots of danger to navigate. I just could not navigate the writing style. It is so flowery and obtuse I would make my way through dense descriptions only to reach the end of a page and have no idea what was going on. The conversations were no better. Did people actually talk like this, or was it written so expressively to be impressive? It’s really a case of getting lost in the forest for the trees. I tried several times to stick with it, reading a chapter now and then between other books for the past week and a half, but I just could not follow. Made such an effort because the 1992 film version is my husband’s absolute favorite move. Gave up after eighty pages. Well, another one to clear off my shelf!

Rating: Abandoned
372 pages, 1826

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

by Henry Fielding

I just spent three and a half weeks reading this book (interspersed with five much shorter J fiction books) and now am having trouble finding what to say about it. I suppose the first thing is to note why. I think it’s the longest book I’ve read since Moby Dick or Don Quixote. Both which I might read again someday- this one? probably not- although it was engaging, it’s also very tedious in parts. It had been on my TBR list for quite some time- as one of those books I always felt I ought to read, just to know where the phrase originated- you know, somebody being called a regular Tom Jones. Well, now I definitely know!

Tom Jones was a foundling- an illegitimate child that somebody convinced this country squire’s maid to literally put in his bed. When he found the baby in his sheets he had compassion, and kept the boy to raise alongside his own son. The two were quite a contrast- the true son very proper in his manners and behavior, but when things came down to it, obviously he didn’t care a fig for anyone but himself. Whereas Tom has an amiable, carefree personality, getting into trouble with his “wild” conduct, but then stoutly refusing to betray a friend, and when older often taking it in his own hands to assist those fallen on hard times- when everyone else turned away. His great fault was a liking for pretty women- he couldn’t resist their advances it seems. Even though he professed to truly love only Sophia, daughter of a neighboring wealthy man. Some hasty judgement of Tom’s misconduct got him kicked out of his adopted father’s house as a young man, then he travelled aimlessly.

Meanwhile Sophia (to make a long story short) refused to marry the man her father chose for her. Tom as a “bastard” was seriously frowned upon by the family. Sophia’s father locked her up in her room (more than once), later she managed to run away. She aimed to find Tom but they nearly crossed paths and missed each other several times. There’s many dalliances at inns and in stranger’s houses, with lengthy conversations over meals and so many side characters or travelling acquaintances determined to tell their life stories to Tom (and thus the reader). Unbelievable how long-winded some of them were! Chapters where I felt like I was just wading through piles of words.

So why did I keep reading? It was amusing! And surprisingly easy, how well-told, how the conversations just flowed by- I found myself turning page after page. Intrigued to find how very much the same human nature is, even now two hundred and seventy years later! People doing good when you least expect it, women conniving against each other, arrogant men casually ruining the livelihood of others, men being bribed to give false testimony, restaurants substituting cheap fare, you name it. At the same time a rich glimpse into what daily life was like back then: some things so very different. Like how terrifying it was to travel after dark. Or how devastating a simple illness could be- there’s one chapter where a man goes to bed with a mere headcold, suffering from a low fever- and people in the household immediately start squabbling over his will, assuming he’s going to die. I know some of it is exaggerated, but still!

About halfway through this long book, I started thinking: what was his point? Did Fielding just want to tell a good yarn? Maybe to point out that social status didn’t make anyone better than others. That all people are a mix of good and bad characteristics. There were plenty of cases in this novel where highborn, respected people turned out to be really devious or unkind, just better at hiding it because no one suspected. Or where lesser, scorned folk proved to have kinder hearts and forgiving natures. I thought at first the author wanted to point that Tom couldn’t escape the evil of his birth- that since he was born out of wedlock he’d have loose morals himself? Of course that’s silly, but also it turns out in the end that Tom is of noble birth after all! There was a misunderstanding earlier about who his parents were. I found that kind of annoying, but also hilarious how people instantly revised their opinion of him- even though they’d known him all along. He didn’t change, just their idea of him did, based on one small fact that didn’t even matter. To be fair to Tom, he did swear to change his ways at the end, to quit dallying about and be faithful to Sophia, but I wonder if he’d really be able to do that.

There’s so much I’m leaving out here. How can I do justice to such a full lengthy novel in this little space? Even though I have never read a Jane Austin novel, I’ve made a few attempts and can easily see now how Fielding’s work inspired her. And I must mention again, it’s remarkable how readable this is, a few centuries later, in spite of the fact that nearly the entire story is told and not shown. A writing method which I usually find tedious or dull, not enjoyable! It’s just so well done here. Even though the author intersperses himself for pages upon end, too. Describing how hard it was to make a a living as a writer, or his response to public criticism, or how he gathered his skill from observing real-life circumstances, not just reading books himself (though he makes many nods to both classics and his contemporaries, a lot of them I was wholly ignorant of so the 43 pages of explanatory endnotes came in handy- yes I read most of them. I kept two bookmarks in this volume, one at my reading spot and one at the corresponding page in the endnotes!) Then there’s bits like this (following an explanation of a particular failing in human nature):

As this is one of those deep observations which very few readers can be supposed capable of making themselves, I have thought proper to lend them my assistance; but this is a favour rarely to be expected in the course of my work. Indeed, I shall seldom or never so indulge him, unless in such instances as this, where nothing but the inspiration with which we writers are gifted can possibly enable anyone to make the discovery.

Insulting his own readers? But much later there’s this, which made me laugh out loud:

We would bestow some pains here in minutely describing all the mad pranks which Jones played on this occasion, could we be well assured that the reader would take the same pains in perusing them; but as we are apprehensive that after all the labour which we should employ in painting this scene, the said reader would be very apt to skip it entirely over, we have saved ourself that trouble. To say the truth, we have, from this reason alone, often done great violence to the luxuriance of our genius, and have left many excellent descriptions out of our work, which would otherwise have been in it. And this suspicion, to be honest, arises, as is generally the case, from our own wicked heart; for we have, ourselves, been very often most horridly given to jumping, as we have run through the pages of voluminous historians.

Myself, I think I would have liked reading the detailed descriptions rather than the author’s examination of their fallout, but that’s all as well. I’m prone to skimming long books myself, and probably did so more than once in this tome.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
916 pages, 1749

More opinions: Arbie’s Unoriginally Titled Book Blog
anyone else?

by Ernest Hemingway

Set in World War I, narrated by an ambulance driver on the Italian front who gets injured and falls in love with a nurse. I did not get very far- just past the part where he was wounded and in the hospital, about sixty pages. Then started to wonder why am I using up my time reading this? I thought I could see what the author was doing- showing how casual people kept their attachments when anyone might die senselessly at any moment, how pointless the war was, how inane their conversations- but I found nothing artful in the way he did it. The dialog particularly felt very stiff. I suppose the style was intended to be the way things were, but it was hard to stay interested in the words. So brief and matter-of-fact and unemotional. I couldn’t find it in me to care about any of the characters, and I wasn’t drawn into the surroundings or events either. Another case where a classic falls totally flat for me. I think I just really do not like Hemingway. I am baffled why he is considered a great writer- honestly. Even more baffled why this edition contains not only visual reproductions of his handwritten manuscript with crossed out lines and rewritten passages- so readers can admire how he crafted the novel- but also a myraid of alternate endings in the appendix (like movie outtakes, haha). I do like studying preliminary sketches by artists- sometimes I feel like I can see how their mind was thinking to lay down certain lines- and often I even like the sketches better than the finished paintings! but reading how phrases were different before the writer committed to his final draft, I get nothing from that. Probably because I didn’t care for the final product, here.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: Abandoned
330 pages, 1927

and Other Writings

by Henry David Thoreau

I finally read this, after two previous attempts (years ago) and a break in the middle for something easier. My copy contains not only Walden: or Life in the Woods but also Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown and Life Without Principle.

Here’s the thing: this is not at all what I expected. I always thought it was some wonderful if slightly archaic nature writing full of observations on the weather, birds and creatures, growing things etc. Not really. It’s a lot more about politics (as they were back then), protests on slavery, umbrage at modern developments ruining mankind (there’s pages and pages about how the train makes people hurry and rush about), how government should or should not affect our lives, why people should be engaged in something useful and soul-lifting instead of just working to earn money, etc. He criticizes his fellow man a lot. He does mention a few birds here and there, how peaceful it is to just sit under the trees, how much he appreciates the simple life. But he wasn’t far off in the woods in isolation. Tons of people visited him all the time it sounds like, really curious what he was doing out there by himself. The train ran very close to his cabin, the pond was a regular fishing spot for many, farmers and kids out picking berries walked close by, and he could hear cattle in the adjacent fields. It was walking distance to the village. He eschewed coffee and other so-called luxuries to live pretty much just off what he grew or gathered (I think): mainly his beans, and fish he caught. I thought there I would relate, there’s a whole chapter about cultivating the bean plants and I\’m a gardener too, but nope. It starts out about hoeing the beans and how nicely meditative that task can be, but soon unravels into other lofty topics that supposedly relate to what bean plants with their nice broad leaves made him think of but I can’t make head or tails out of it.
That was my main problem. Thoreau is very much a philosopher and it either makes my mind wander, or go in circles, or I have to read a passage three, four, five times in a row and I still don’t get what he was saying. So many pages of this book I was actually thinking about something else as the printed words marched through my head unheeded. The parts I liked? where Thoreau describes in detail the ice on the pond, the air bubbles in it, the way it forms and later on breaks up in the springtime, the industry of hired people who come to cut blocks of it, harvesting for use in summer- people had ice-boxes back then, not fridges and freezers, so this was interesting to read how that was done and how it was stored to prevent melting. How mud makes weird shapes during the spring thaw (but again he turned this into some lyrical comparison I did not get). The voices of owls, a mouse that got used to his presence, the geese he observed on the pond and fish under the clear water. I liked reading how he undertook to plumb and measure the pond’s depth, as people in the vicinity claimed it was bottomless, but nobody had ever really tried find out. I liked a lot of his sentiments and agreed with many of his opinions on what’s valuable in life etc, but it sure was tough to wade through all the words. Philosophy and political rants are really not my thing.
Note on below: this is obviously one of those great books which I personally have difficulty appreciating. I didn’t exactly enjoy reading it, though I do feel enriched by it. It was pretty hard to get through. If it had been easier and more enjoyable, definitely would have given it a 4. The publication dates noted span the five works in this volume.
Rating: 3/5
368 pages, 1849-1863

by Pearl S. Buck

I think this book may have sat longest unread on my shelves, and it’s actually been there twice. I had a different copy and tried it a few times when I was in high school, didn’t get far, re-shelved it. Weeded it out once, then after finding that I liked Peony, decided to give this a second chance when I came across another copy.

This is about the Wang family, in China. When the story begins Wang Lung is a young farmer on his way to get married. It\’s an arranged marriage, with a woman who has been a slave in a wealthy household in the town. She’s not beautiful but he’s satisfied because she’s a faithful wife, a hard worker, and bears him many children (promptly going straight back to work in the fields after each birth, without complaint!) The family survives through floods, drought, and locust plague. Every handful of years one or the other natural cause results in a famine and people around them starve. During one famine (so bad that people are literally eating dirt) Wang Lung takes his family south to a big city where they live in deplorable conditions, beg, and work at hard physical labor for very little pay. There’s no way to get ahead, until unrest sweeps through the city. The homes of the rich are broken into, Wang is swept up with the mob and intimidates a terrified wealthy man into giving him handfuls of silver. Then they flee the chaos and return to the countryside. Wang uses the money to rebuild his house, and eventually buy more land. Soon he needs help with the harvest, eventually finds himself as a landowner instead of a farmer- with hired help and overseers, never actually working the fields himself anymore. He moves his family into the town. Being frequently idle now, he starts to explore the pleasures of the wealthy class- and dissatisfied with his wife’s appearance, takes as second wife a much younger woman. He thinks that having success and money will ease all his troubles, but new problems arise instead- unpleasant relatives connive him into letting them live in his household, there’s constant friction between his two wives, and his growing sons have their own interests- none of them really want to keep or work the land as he did. As the book closes, Wang is an old man and his sons are inspecting the fields, talking among themselves of selling the land that Wang had worked so hard for, and built the security of his family upon.
I can well see why The Good Earth is a classic. It’s not very descriptive, the writing style is kind of plain- in the manner of he-said-this and they-did-that which usually bores me. But this was compelling nevertheless- I read it straight through in just a few days. In the end, I didn’t like the main character Wang much- I felt like he sometimes made selfish or poor decisions, thinking of prestige and appearances more than I expected, when he came into wealth. In particular I felt bad for his first wife. Overall women are not treated well in this story. It’s simply a fact that in the era and culture it depicts, girls were not valued and if the family was in need, they were often sold as very young children to be slaves or prostitutes. During the famine times some poor families quietly performed infanticide rather than see their babies suffer and starve. In this case I was glad of how sparse the prose is, reading about such hardships and terrible things people did to survive.
The story really shows a broad spectrum of human character. It wasn’t only what people stooped to when their survival was at stake, but also what they indulged in or did with their money when fortunes changed, that seemed to demonstrate what they were really made of. Or what they cared most about. I think that’s why I liked and felt most for Wang’s first wife. She was steadfast, never asked much for herself, saw and did the work required in hard times as well as good. Wang really was unkind to her in the end.
There’s a sequel called Sons. I’ll probably read it at some point. But I’d have to be in the right mindset, this one takes a particular kind of mood to appreciate it.
Rating: 3/5 
357 pages, 1931

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