Book Review: Pride and Prejudice

It’s been decades since I last visited Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy between the pages of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I believe I was in my early 20s when last I read it, and I haven’t even watched any of the Pride and Prejudice movies, I confess. It’s not that I didn’t love the book or Jane Austen, it’s just that I read so very much of Austen, the Brontës, and the like at a particular season of my life that I hadn’t the energy to return.

But I do have fond memories of all of them. I’m going to be teaching Pride and Prejudice in the upcoming year during British Literature, so I thought I’d better reacquaint myself with it. Vacation is a wonderful time to read classics. I had ample time to get lost in the story without interruption, especially on an 11-hour car trip.I love re-reading a novel and having it seem completely new. I really hardly remembered any of the story at all.

But what can be said about Pride and Prejudice that hasn't been said before? But I am curious: which film adaptation is best? I'd also welcome any awesome project/lesson plan ideas for teaching Pride and Prejudice.

Book Review: The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)

The Remains of the Day is my second Kazuo Ishiguro novel, and it is utterly different than Never Let Me Go. Or is it?

The latter is set some time in the future; Remains of the Day dwells in the past. But both focus on people whose sole job it is to serve others, even when it means sacrificing—or not being allowed to have—a life of one’s own.

Mr. Stevens is a butler who has taken tremendous pride in his job—well, his life’s work. For him, there is no higher ambition than to serve his master perfectly. To be invisible at just the right moment, and visible at just right moment. To see a need before it is spoken, to flawlessly manage a household, to be prepared for any request at any moment. His own wants and desires are never considered, and he can’t imagine why any servant would want more than this life.

For 30 years Stevens served Lord Darlington until the master died and his estate was purchased by an American. Stevens can’t quite figure out his new master. He is unlike an English gentlemen and has a curious method of dealing with Stevens, who struggles to learn the art of bantering.

His American master suggests that Stevens needs a vacation and insists that he take a week or drive around the country. Stevens, though reluctant at first, obliges, and his adventures begin. His journey, though, gives him ample time to reflect upon his years of service, to question his motivations and decisions, and to perhaps concede that his master was, after all, terribly flawed—and Stevens as well.

I absolutely loved this book. We want to shake Stevens into seeing what is before him. I put the movie on my Netflix queue immediately and can hardly wait to see it.

Other Reviews of The Remains of the Day

• Book Lady's Blog
• Caroline Hooten
• Distant Heartbeats
• Bibliofreak
• My Book Club Reviews

Linked up with The Saturday Review of Books

Book Review: Comes a Time for Burning (Steven Havill)

Cholera strikes the people of Port McKinney, Washington, in 1892. Drs. Parks and Hardy, both New Englanders fairly new to the West Coast, race to stop the disease before it wipes out the entire town.

The writing itself isn’t great— somewhat choppy. The characters are flat and rather stock, with stories hinted at but not revealed. But I still enjoyed the book for its historical perspective. I’m fascinated by epidemics, by all those grave markers in various cemeteries we’ve visited where whole families are buried, taken by cholera or some other disease.

The author did a great job of detailing the disease itself; I’m sure I felt twinges in my stomach a few times when he described the smells of cholera. The techniques used by the doctors were also fascinating. I'm putting The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump on my TBR list. Its description reads: "In this gripping book, Sandra Hempel tells the story of John Snow, a reclusive doctor without money or social position, who--alone and unrecognized--had the genius to look beyond the conventional wisdom of his day and uncover the truth behind the pandemic. She describes how Snow discovered that cholera was spread through drinking water and how this subsequently laid the foundations for the modern, scientific investigation of today's fatal plagues." Sounds fascinating!

Linked up with Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books

Book Review: A Far Country

I picked up this book by Daniel Mason on a whim at the library, based really on the cover and the possibilities described on the jacket. I'm glad I did. This isn't a cheery novel. It has somewhat of a post-apocalyptic feel to it, although it certainly isn't post-apocalyptic.

Isabel and her family live in an unknown third world country in an unknown time, which gives the book its post-apocalyptic feel, and they are desperately poor. Their country is ravaged by droughts. Isabel's beloved older brother Isaias sets off for the city to find work. The next year, Isabel's parents send her off to the city to take care of her cousin's baby. At 14, she is terrified but determined: her only goal is to find Isaias. Over the course of the next several months, she drags the baby over the city in search of Isaias. All she knows is that Isaias, a musician, plays in a band, somewhere.

Mason's description of life among the poor in the Settlements, the slums of the city, is vivid and heartwrenching. Isabel is desperate to find her brother, yet she begins to make a life for herself in the Settlements. She has no hopes of ever getting out of the slums, and she seems content with her place in life—if only she can find Isaias.

Will she find him? I'm not telling. Read the book. Mason's writing is beautiful, and while the novel isn't the slightest bit happy, the journey with Isabel is worth taking.

Other Reviews
Life Wordsmith
The Observer
Powell's Books

Book Review: March (Geraldine Brooks)

Geraldine Brooks continues to amaze me: Year of Wonders, People of the Book, and now March. I am so happy that I have her newest, Caleb's Crossing, to look forward to.

I must admit I wasn't terribly enthused about the idea of March. I knew that the story was about Mr. March, father of Little Women's Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth. Somehow that just didn't excite me, perhaps because I was a huge Little Women fan as a girl. But March jumped out at me on my last library visit, so I grabbed it.

I loved it. Recently I reviewed Chris Bohjalian's The Double Bind, which I really liked largely because he wove a contemporary story in with the fictional The Great Gatsby, treating the characters in Gatsby as if they had actually lived. Although March isn't a contemporary story, Brooks uses the same device of expanding on a famous novel by giving marginal characters new life in their own story.

I haven't read Little Women in its entirety in probably 30 years, although I have read an abridged version and watched both the movie and a play in the past five years or so. But I read it multiple times as a tween/teen, and the story is quite vivid for me. But Mr. March was always a shadowy character, the father-at-war.

In March, we read his side of the story: the ugliness of war, the devastation, horror, and degradation he faces, all while putting on a pretty face in his letters back home. We also hear about his youth and courtship with Mrs. March, which includes some wonderful scenes with Emerson and Thoreau. These scenes are based on the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father, and brilliantly done.

Who is the real Mr. March? A devout minister, a coward, an adulterer, a doting father? Ultimately he is not the man his wife or daughters think he is, but he's also not the man he thinks he is.

There's a reason Geraldine Brooks won the Pulitzer for March. Highly recommended, even if you've never read Little Women. But you'll probably want to when you finish.

Other Bloggers Review March
Scrappy Cat
Fat Books and Thin Women
One Librarian's Book Reviews
The Blue Bookcase

Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express

When I was a teenager—probably around 14—I remember a summer that mostly involved sitting in a beach chair by the lake in my backyard, reading Agatha Christie novels and taking a swim or a sail every now and then. I had a great tan that summer, and I remember the satisfaction of finishing one mystery and picking up the next one immediately.

I've been telling my 13-year-old daughter about that idyllic Agatha Christie summer, so I picked up Murder on the Orient Express to see if the mystery still satisfied me. There was my old friend with the awkward name, Hercule Poirot, given the task of finding a murderer. (I read the books before I took French, so I can only imagine how I pronounced that name in my head.) And the mystery unfolded with layer after layer of lies and deceit, mixed with coincidences—or not. Of course I didn't have any recollection of how the whole thing turned out, since my last reading was 30 years ago. That was a nice surprise.

So am I going to go on another Agatha Christie reading spree? Nah. I might pick up another couple sometime when I need a break between heavy reading, but that's probably about it. But I do think I'll encourage my daughter to give Christie a try this summer. Too bad we don't live on a lake.

The Sunday Salon: March in Review

March was a fantastic month for reading. The books were many and for the most part really good. I hope this bodes well for the rest of the year!

Books Read in March
(Click for review)
The Diary by Eileen Goudge
The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
New Stories from the South, 2010
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
Born Under a Lucky Moon by Dana Precious
Tangerine by Edward Bloor (for a literature circle class, middle school)

Favorite Book of the Month
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. I laughed so much.

Books Read to the Kids
The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis
The Last Battle by CS Lewis

Started and Stopped
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. B-o-r-i-n-g.

Currently Reading
March by Geraldine Brooks. Love it so far.

Up Next
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Far Country by Daniel Mason
Pride and Prejudice (re-read)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (re-read)

Added to my TBR List
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks (Reviewed at Bookworm's Dinner)
Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake (recommended by Books and Movies)
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson