Elsa’s Comments (group member since Nov 22, 2013)

Elsa’s comments from the Reading the Classics group.

David wrote: "Just finished book 2 of 7 of Proust's In Search Of Lost Time, plan to finish all of them by year-end. Really enjoyed it but all of the commas don't make it a fast read."

Ok, I need to ask: Is there anything good about these books?
I thought about reading them several times, but everytime I look at them and I can't help thinking "Life is to short for this".

Monica wrote: "Just finishing 'The Grapes of Wrath.'"

I loved that book!

Hostetler wrote: "I am now reading Clarrissa By samuel Richardson,I am now only 175 pages into it(out of a 1400 plus paged book.I am enjoying it thus far(just starting it )any one else out their ever fead it?I have ..."

Hi! I read Clarissa Last year, and I liked it. I thought the book was well written and the characters were very interesting. Lovelace is an amazing anti-hero. Besides the romance, the book depictures, extremely well, how difficult life was for women in XVIII century, even if the women were rich.
The only problem is its length. The book is too, too big. In think Richardson dragged the story, he could have told the same story with less words.

I also have Pamela to read, but I have the feeling I won’t like it so much, although it does have one advantage over Clarissa… it’s much shorter!

Enjoy your reading.

Christine wrote: "Just finished War and Peace.... No comment... Now I am reading 84 Charring Cross Road. A novel in letters! So wonderful!!!"

Amazing book! One of my favorites.

Charlotte wrote: "Is anyone up for reading Treasure Island?" I just finish it last week! I'm here, if you want to talk about it. :)

Renate wrote: "Currently reading Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South again. Watched the 2004 BBC series last weekend and thought I should take it up again. It's been a few years since I've last read it, but it is a..." Amazing book! One of my favorites. It keeps getting better with every new read. I love the romantic story between Margaret and John, but I also adore the social background of the book: Industrial revolution, strikes, South Vs North, employers Vs workers. I just wish there were a little less deaths in the book, but…oh well we can’t have it all! :)

Isabel wrote: "Hi! I'm Isabel, from Portugal. I'm a law student. I found this group while searching for pages about Madame Bovary (I'm currently reading it). It looks like a nice group. Thanks for having me."
Hi Isabel, it's really nice to meet another portuguese reader :)

Annika wrote: "Elsa wrote: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a book is almost always better than the film, but there are some exceptions. My biggest disappointment ever was with “The last of the Mohica..."

I went to the the cinema to see it, and I was almost expelled from the room. I spent the entire film saying things like “why they have pigs inside the house?”, “Lizzy would NEVER show up at Netherfield with her hair down”, “Darcy go inside Lizzy’s bedroom to give her the letter?! Really!?” , “if Jane Austen saw this !”. It was really disappointing.

:) LOL!!! OK you convince me I'll re-read the book in the near future (after Peter Pan).

(I heard about the death of the tree, it almost made me cry, but I like the idea of small Anna's trees spread throughout the world)

I read Anne Frank’s Diary so many years ago that I can’t remember much besides the main story. I really need to re-read the book.

The last book I read about hope, strength of mind and of convictions was "Long walk to freedom", from Nelson Mandela. An amazing book.

Your last quotation is very beautiful. Who wrote it?

I was really surprised to discover this poem here, to tell the truth I didn't even know that these lines were an actual poem.

My father is a big fan of westerns, especially the ones with John Wayne, and in the film “El dorado” a very young James Caan recited this poem. I saw the film with my father and I remember a few verses of the poem, but only now I was able to read it all.

I’m not very familiar with Poe’s writing, I only read some of his tales and “The Raven”, but I like this poem, It’s a interesting representation of the waste of life that is to chase chimeras, and rainbows, and El dorados.

Of course, the real challenge in life is to know where to draw the line between fight for our dreams, and waste our lives chasing El dorados.

Just as a curiosity: a few years ago I read a story that the idea of “El Dorado” was invented by the Central American Indians in order to encourage the Spanish to go deep in to the jungle, were they would eventually die.

Julia wrote: "I totally agree, Elsa--I was a teacher for 31 years, and NEVER "told" students what a poem meant. We'd study the poet her/himself to find what THEY wanted to convey, but the students could always e..."

:)Maybe in our next reincarnation you can be my teacher.

I love this poem, it’s one of my favorites.

Hope has no limits, no restrictions, it doesn’t care about race, sex, social status or education, it’s born inside us, and no one, absolutely no one, can take it away from us (not without our consent).

Emily Dickinson say that hope is “the thing with feathers ”, and I think it’s a beautiful metaphor. Birds are small animals, but resistant. Their singing cheer us up, it announces spring, and remind us that after winter, any kind of winter, spring will inevitably arrive.

The same way stars shine brighter in a dark night, hope sings “sweetest” in our darkest moments, and many times, its music is the only thing that can help us to keep despair at bay.

Tia asked what we thought about the last two lines, to me those verses are about the boundless strength and generosity of hope. Birds don’t need much food to survived, any crumb will do. Hope can also survive in the most dire circumstances, it can survived when everything is against her, when the future seems as dark as a moonless night, and we know that nothing will ever be as good as it was before.
Even in these cases we can still feel a small string of hope that keeps humming in our head, saying that things will, eventually, get better, that tomorrow will be easier than today, and we don’t need to pay anything for this little crumb, it’s always at our disposal because the human heart and spirit has unlimited resources of hope.

In the worst day of my life, I recited this poem in my head over and over again. The words did not produced any miracle that made everything all right again, but it help me to endure that day, and the others that follow, and to believe that with time my family life will be Ok again.

I guess this is the reason why I love this poem so much, because it is more than just words put together in a harmonious form, it has the power to make us believe in Hope, and considering how the world is today, we really need to believe that tomorrow will be better.

Dear Julia,

I love poetry, I’m not ashamed to say that sometimes I have no idea what the poem is talking about, and other times I’m not sure if my interpretation has anything to do with the poet’s ideas and feelings, but ,to me, poetry is like a mirror that changes depending on the person who looks at it.

Fernando Pessoa, a great Portuguese poet, wrote a poem that says that each poem has three different “feelings”: The first is the one the poet feels, the second the one that he puts in words, the third is the one the reader feels when he read the poem.

I believe in freedom of interpretation, that’s why I only “discover” poetry after I finished school, I hated that each poem had only one correct interpretation, and I also hated the way school has always taught the same texts of an author just because twenty years ago someone decided that those were the best, the most important.

Sometimes I don’t like nor understand, the complete poem, but there are some verses that are so beautiful and meaningful, that I can't take them out of my mind.

I’ll enjoy become acquainted (this word is so Jane Austen!) with new poets and poems, and with the persons who read them.

Everyman wrote: "Elsa wrote: "Please, please, don’t tell me that this “Discussion Board” is closed?
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find someone to enjoy classic poetry? I discovered it a few years ago ..."

:)Thanks for your reply. I’m really happy to discover this group of discussion. I always found it interesting how nationality influences our literary knowledge and taste. I never read a single word from Stephen Crave, nor Philip Larkin, in fact, I never heard anything about them, but it will be a pleasure to discover them and many others that I never heard about.

I never read Tintern Abbey, the romantics are not my favorite, but I’m willing to review my opinion, with the right encouragement, and examples! :)

Please, please, don’t tell me that this “Discussion Board” is closed?
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find someone to enjoy classic poetry? I discovered it a few years ago a few years ago, and it was a brave new world!
I like so many poets like Yeats, Auden, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but I love Emily Dickinson. Her poems are so amazing!
I’ll leave you with my favorite one, it may not be her best, but it was the poem that made me star reading her poetry, I know it by heart.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Hi, I’m Elsa, I love to read and I enjoy reading all kinds of books, but I always had a soft spot for the classics.
I have never belonged to a book club, and I’m really looking forward to be in one. Part of the pleasure of reading is sharing our opinions and feelings with other readers, unfortunately although I had studied literature in university, I´m not working in that area anymore, and I really miss intelligent talks about books and authors.
I never read Peter Pan, and I can’t wait to start.

Colleen wrote: "I hated Madame Bovary quite a lot."I hated it too. It was one of those books that I had to force myself to finish. I also didn't have the strength to apreciated "Doctor Jivago","Dracula", "Heart of darkness" (although in this case I think I'll try it again before placing it in the lost cases category) , and "The last of the Mohicans" (I confess, I couldn't finish this one. It was so boring!)

You're not offending me at all. I totally agree.
:) I'm glad I'm not alone in this.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a book is almost always better than the film, but there are some exceptions. My biggest disappointment ever was with “The last of the Mohicans”, I love the film and the book is so bad! The other cases, for me, are: “Dracula” (book Vs Francis Ford Coppola film), “The painted veil”, “Out of Africa”, “Shawshank redemption”.
I love Gone with the wind (film), but for me the book is better, the film cut one of my favorite characters: Will Benteen. I also liked North & South, but it’s one of those (rare) cases where I think that the book and the film are equally good, like Pride and Prejudice (1995). I hope I’m not offending anyone when I say that I can’t watch Pride and Prejudice (2005 film), there's so many things that was misrepresented that I don’t even know where to start criticizing.