Hard Times

This may be one of Dickens' lesser known books, but it's just as good as David Copperfield, and slightly more manageable, because it's only 300 pages long as opposed to 900... *Don't read this if you're planning on reading the book, it will give it away completely*

The main theme of the book is facts, as in, the Victorian education system that taught children to learn and accept only facts and eradicate any sort of sentimentality or imagination in their lives. Even at the beginning we know that it's doomed to fail, just from a small glimpse of Thomas Gradgrind's schoolroom. He drills the facts into the children without teaching them the real life implications of what they're learning, so obviously they'll be totally unprepared for the real world. Gradgrind educates his own children, Louisa and Tom, according to his system, and neither end up successful in life. It's interesting how Dickens explores the different variations on the system, contrasting poor Louisa, whose creativity is eliminated from an early age, and the compassionate Sissy, who fails Gradgrind's system because she's too human in her emotions.

Louisa has all of the imagination squashed out of her, and it leaves her, as she herself recognises, cold and incomplete as a person. She marries Mr Bounderby, a man who abides rigorously by her father's system and is in fact his best friend (as far as his philosophy will allow such open displays of sentimentality). She is, of course, unhappy with him, but is restrained from being with the man she loves by her own crippled emotions.

Young Thomas Gradgrind becomes a thief, and unfairly relies on Louisa to lend him money. He even asks her to marry the DISGUSTING Mr Bounderby for his own benefit, because he recognises Bounderby's fondness for Louisa and knows he can take advantage of that.

Mr Gradgrind, however, once he recognises how badly Louisa's been damaged by his system of facts, always facts, does reform. He shelters her and supports her separation from a man who clearly doesn't understand her, which Dickens clearly thinks is the more reasonable outlook on life; he does change his system to make it more lenient, allowing facts to be twinned with compassion and human emotion.

Gradgrind's philosophy creates and shapes Coketown, where the book is set. He's a highly influential person in the society, and builds many factories, passing on his philosophy to his many employees. This is what leads to Stephen Blackpool, the most morally upright and good person in the book, being cast out of the town, and essentially, his death; he hurries back in the dark to clear his name, falls down Old Hell Shaft and dies of his injuries.

From my understanding, I got that Dickens is trying to impose the importance of twinning factual knowledge and emotional knowledge, and, by giving us different examples of the extreme, shows us his view of the correct way to act. Really really brilliant book, lots of plot twists and fantastic writing.

The Mysterious Mr Ripley

Finito! This was actually a compilation of three of the Ripley books: The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley Underground and Ripley's Game. So, in my defense, that's why it's taken me so long to update.

The incredible cast of The Talented Mr Ripley

The first Ripley book was all well and good; he casually kills Dickie Greenleaf, a man he's gradually building up a friendship with. This then leads to the murder of Greanleaf's friend Freddie Miles. This all happens within the first 100 pages, and it progresses with him nervously trying to cover up the existence of Tom Ripley, and essentially becoming Dickie Greenleaf. The nervousness and anxiety is sustained for the duration of the book, and it gets, frankly, really boring. Yes, he killed two men, but the first rule of a murder is never return to the scene of the crime, and definitely don't stay in the country it was committed in! Jesus, you would think that such a devious man as Tom Ripley would realise this, but apparently not. It all becomes very formulaic, with frequent visits from the police/Dickie's lover/Dickie's father. It ends with him escaping to Greece. It was all very predictable from the start and didn't have much else to set it apart from any other murder mystery-thriller.

The second book, Ripley Underground, was different in that it's set Villeperce, France. Tom's now a married man and has attempted to wipe the slate clean vis-a-vis the Dickie Greenleaf scandal. He's involved in an organisation that sells fraudulent copies of the fictional artist Derwatt's paintings. There's a person who knows the paintings are fakes, Tom kills him, spends the rest of the book covering it up, yada yada yada. Again, pretty much the same.

The last book is a drastic move away from the other two. It's about Jonathan Trevanny and his dabblings in organised crime. Tragic ending (I won't spoil it) and it's a teensy bit better than the other two, but honestly, it's pretty much the same plot. The ultimate failing of the series is that it's written in the third person but from Tom's point of view, meaning the reader doesn't get the full impact of how sick and psychopathic he really is. This means we just take it for granted that he's going to murder all of these people and get bored. Like I did.

There's another book after this, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, but I think I'll give it a miss. The film series, the first one starring Matt Damon, and the others John Malkovich, is a rare case of the films being miles better than the books. Next on my list is Hard Times, by Charles Dickens. Update you when it's all done!

Women In Love

I don't really know how much there is to say about this book, as nothing much really happens. It's all a big lead up to one event that happens 6 pages from the end, and it's worth the wait, but it takes 414 pages to get to it, which does seem a big excessive. And it's not really expected, which could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view. Mine is that if "The Thing" (as it shall henceforth be known) happens too suddenly then you don't get the real impact of it, and you can't quite understand why it's important in the context of the novel itself. That's what happened in Women In Love; there were a couple of hints and clues in the chapter beforehand, but nothing to lead you to suspect what would actually happen, which took the momentum away a little bit.

Apart from that, yes, it was a good book, but I can't quite see the point of it. The two male characters, Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich, are clearly both representations of D.H. Lawrence himself, which, once you've figured that out, seems boring and self-indulgent on his part. The sisters and "women in love" in question Ursula and Gudrun, seem too similar to really be considered as separate characters. Obviously they have separate personalities and traits to them, but when you consider them together, differences become hard to find. Both want to be loved by men in the ordinary, earthly way, although towards the end Ursula comes more to favour Birkin's way of viewing love as a gateway to a higher relationship. Both know exactly what they want and aren't afraid to get it, and both are highly contemptuous of others, but this shows more in Gudrun.

The long philosophical ramblings do become slightly tedious, but I was reading this book at a moment of adolescent soul-searching, so they've become very relevant to me. But anyway, next I'll be reading The Talented Mr Ripley, and the next two in the series, by Patricia Highsmith. Really looking forward to it, although I've already watched the film, so the ending of the first one at least is a leetle bit spoiled...!

Sons And Lovers

All over! Depressing, tragic, passionate, lovely, oh and just a little bit sexual. Well, that's Sons and Lovers for ya!

I can't really sum this one up in a couple of paragraphs, but I'll do my best. Basically, it's the story of a son's attachment to his mother and how this stops him from forming a successful relationship with women. Mrs Morel's love for her son Paul almost smothers him to the point of suffocation and gives him a sort of emotional handicap, as he's constantly searching for his mother's approval in all that he does. His first relationship with Miriam doesn't work out, because his mother doesn't like her. His second relationship with Clara fails because Mrs Morel is ill and he can't concentrate on anything else apart from her. OK, so this could just be the story of a standard mummy's boy who takes it a little bit too far, but it's a little bit more sinister and twisted than that. At one point, Paul takes his family on holiday to the seaside and goes for walks with his mother, treating her jealously if she pays attention to others, and treating her almost like a lover. Nothing is said explicitly that anything dodgy or incestuous is going on, and I'm not sure that there was, but there are certain undertones of a deeper sort of love that Paul feels for his mother.

Paul's only meaningful relationships are with his family and women, so it's interesting to see how he behaves with men; he only really gains male friends about 100 pages from the end. The contrast between the two types of relationships is clear. With the men, Paul is coarse and base, but with the women he allows himself to think more and to become more philosophical.

The whole book is a journey of not-quite-realisation for Paul, as he never really learns how to correct his ways and thereby move forward. We see him make the same mistakes over and over again and see his unavoidable demise throughout the book. It's definitely worth a punt, because it's genuinely fascinating and well-written (it's partly autobiographical, which gives some insight into D.H. Lawrence himself) and really beautiful. Next on my list is Women In Love, by D.H. Lawrence again, to see if Sons And Lovers was just a one-off hit! I'll keep you posted!

Tess of The d'Urbervilles

I am currently feeling very proud of myself, as this is the first (of hopefully many more to come) work by Thomas Hardy that I have ever read! Talk about depressing for the first taster, though. There is a succession of horrible and dramatic events, some of which include rape, an illegitimate child being born, true love being torn apart and much much more. If you're thinking " I could never ever not in a million years read that book! I would be in floods by the end of it" well, you are not altogether wrong. Yes, you would be in a torrent of tears by the end of it, but it would definitely be worth your while.

The description in this book is outstanding; the rich detail Hardy indulges us in is fantastic. Descriptions of the landscapes, characters and his or the character's observations on the world is astounding-almost like that guilty feeling you get after pinching an extra slice of your sibling's birthday cake...Not that I've ever done that...The immense, amazing and sometimes a little boring descriptions of the fertile landscape could be related back to Tess Durbeyfield and her position in the story, especially as a woman and therefore a vulnerable being. Hardy could either be drawing parallels between the purpose of a woman and the purpose of a landscape, or he could simply be describing what he takes in from looking at a Dorset landscape.

As to Tess herself, I have to say that although I do sympathize and do attempt to empathize with her situations throughout the book, I cannot say that I like her very much at all. I know, I have sinned against the Bible of all classic novels, but I honestly do not think that Tess is a very likable character. If she were living today, we would probably have her referred to a therapist for being a masochist. Truly, the girl seems to love being hurt over and over again by the ones she love. She forgives her rapist, and (spoiler alert) marries him (even though she is already married. That sure sounds like bigamy to me, which I'm sure wasn't legal back then, either) she refuses to tell him to GO AWAY AND STOP BEING A CREEPY STALKER and just lets him carry on stalking her and attempting to gain a way back into her life. She seems (again, I am about to sin) like a bit of a drip, if I'm honest. I could say that for all of the characters, though. Alec d'Urberville is a complete idiot who one wishes she could kill (I shan't spoil it for you) and he refuses to admit that he did any wrong by raping her, and insists that it was her fault for "tempting him"-Hardy's words, not mine. Angel Clare is lovely and I have fallen slightly in love with him. However, I can't forgive him for leaving Tess, drippy as she is. Sorry, I shall stop spoiling and get off the blog. Next, dear followers, I shall be reading, in accordance with what I have just read, a biography of Thomas Hardy, namely The Time-Torn Man, by Claire Tomalin. More updates when that's finished!

Fathers And Sons

Sooooooo... Hard-hitting, morally deep, philosophical Russian novel. Yup, sounds pretty true to type so far. But (although I say this about pretty much every book) there was something different about it which made it thoroughly fascinating to read.

From what I could gather from my dad, who seems to know everything about every book ever, it's the first book of its kind to portray the new breed of "nihilists", who were just emerging in the new generation of Russians in the 1860s. The nihilists basically believed in nothing without explicit proof that it worked or existed. For example, one of the characters, Bazarov, who is a hardcore nihilist, is training to be a country doctor like his father, but when asked if he believes in medicine, he replies that he doesn't. His friend Arkady, on the other hand, professes to be a nihilist, but has romantic inclinations (a romantic was a thing desperately despised by the nihilists for their utter willingness to believe in poetry, music, etc.) meaning that his heart isn't really in it. There's an interesting conflict between Arkady's uncle, Pavel, and Bazarov on their beliefs, but I'll leave it to you to discover the outcome...!

The ultimate test of Bazarov's beliefs comes when he falls in love with Madame Odintzov, a wealthy aristocrat who inherited all of her money from her husband who is, conveniently, deceased. He can't quite accept that he's falling in love as it goes against all of his fundamental beliefs (or non-beliefs, as it may be). His inner conflict (cue Made In Chelsea voice) is incredibly interesting to watch as it starts to define him in a way he doesn't know how to accept.

Well, tres bon indeed, and I thoroughly recommend that you read ca livre! Next, staying with the family theme, I shall be embarking on Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence, my first Lawrence EVER, so very excited to see how it turns out...

P.S. The translation that I've got of Fathers and Sons was genuinely awful. It anglicized all the Russian names and made some sentences very very hard indeed to comprehend! My advice: don't go second-hand with this one, you're gonna need to get a Penguin Classics or Vintage Classics, they've got the best modern translations.

The Longest Journey

Not your conventional book about love or family, but tres fascinating all the same...

First of all, Rickie. Being the main character, we do expect him to be flawed, but not to such a great extent. His views on Agnes when he first meets her are fundamentally wrong. He thinks that, as a man, he is made to love everything, and so fixates his "love" onto Agnes, and, as is so common in these sorts of books, refuses to recognise her flaws. He also fails to acknowledge the flip side of a man's love, which is a woman's. According to Forster, a woman can only truly love one man throughout her lifetime; we see this played out in Agnes, and the two opposite concepts eventually cause disaster.

Being the reader, we recognise this and dramatic and tragic irony is immediately set up (don't blame me, I'm doing Romeo and Juliet at the moment in English, so all of these words are being ingrained in my being) and we immediately begin to pity Rickie, especially when the chapter about his family and upbringing comes around. His unloving father and his distant mother all have some part to play in the making of his character, but the main thing is his lame leg. It comes to define Rickie and essentially determine the course of his life (I promise I won't give anything away!)

A really really good one, I thoroughly recommend it! Next I'll be reading Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, although I'm not sure how good the translation is, but I'll let you know soon enough!