Jean’s Comments (group member since Dec 24, 2019)

Jean’s comments from the Reading Classic Books group.

I have read two so far:

Suns of Independence, by Ahmadou Kourouma (BIPOC and prize-winning) https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2022...

The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis (been on my TBR the longest) https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2022...

Here's my signup, looking forward to it! https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2022...

Woot! Excellent! I'll be excited to participate. :)

I've just been catching up with the 'bookkeeping' at my blog and for the 2021 challenge, I have one more title to go, or can count ZNH for two.

Here's my final post. I did read Four Quartets, but I didn't do the several-readings-plus-analysis that I wanted to do -- only about half of what I would like. So I don't have a post for that one. But here it is: https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

Here's my sign-up: https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

I'm in! But I don't like to pick titles ahead of time, if that's OK :)

Here, at long last, is my non-fiction pick: The Golden Bough by Frazer. It took me forever, but now I have read this giant tome of dodgy anthropology! http://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020/...

Just the poetry selection to go, and I'm reading T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Been meaning to do that for probably 10 years.

Katie wrote: "That's the one that Jane Austen mentions in Mansfield Park (or is it Northanger Abbey?) isn't it? ."

Yes, Northanger Abbey! Catherine and Isabella talk about it quite a bit, wondering what could be behind the 'horrid black veil,' and the novel pokes affectionate fun at the Gothic genre. I found out that one scene in NA is a direct take-off of a scene in Udolpho. :)

I did a summer readalong of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, which I'm counting for a classic written by a woman. https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

I read The Uncommercial Traveller, a collection of essays by Charles Dickens that were published 1860-1861. So I hope that counts for the 1800-1860 one! :) It was pretty fun -- and very long -- to read.

https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

Wow, you've fulfilled all the categories! Congrats!

Here is my classic set in a different country: Virgin Soil, by Turgenev, which is set in Russia. https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

Here's my 500+ page classic: The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, by Henry Handel Richardson, who was in fact Ethel. It's Australian and I think should be better known!

I also wrote the post a couple of weeks ago, and now I feel weird about posting about books when everything is terrible. So, just know that it isn't meant to be disrespectful of anybody; it just happened to be scheduled.

Here is my classic translation, from French: A Tempest, by Aime Cesaire.
https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

How's everybody doing with this lockdown? I was pretty discombobulated for a bit there.

This one is my banned title, if books banned in other countries can count. Red Cavalry, by Isaac Babel, is a beautifully written collection of short stories about the Soviet invasion of Poland in the early 20s. It was published in 1926 in the USSR and banned in 1933, never to be published again under the Soviet regime. Babel was arrested in 1939 and never seen again. Read all about it at https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

Here is my POC title: The Dark Child, by Camara Laye. Wow, it was great! Highly recommended. It's a memoir of growing up in Guinea.

https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

I read Teffi, a Russian author who is new to me, and I love her! She wrote short stories, mostly. https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2020...

It's been over at least 20 years since I read Passing, so I'm sorry I'm of no use. I do plan on reading in February for Black History Month. So, I'll let you know what I think.

I would love to know what you think when you read it! For some reason I had a vague idea that you'd read it recently; maybe I saw it on one of your lists last year or something. I wondered about Larsen, but neither my book's introduction nor the short bio I saw online said anything, which was kind of frustrating.

Well, I finished it, and I can't say I saw it. :/ Maybe other folks are smarter than I am. The introduction also said that people argue over the ending, and it seemed to me that it was obviously Irene?

Nella Larsen's "Passing," as far as I can tell (I'm on the first page, so I'm going on hearsay here), features some very subtle LGBT themes? Is that right?