Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Hello and happy holidays to all who celebrate! What are your plans for December? I find myself planning for next year at this time, but we still have a month to go in 2022. Share your ideas for great books!

My plans for December are

Short Stories
Before the Party by W. Somerset Maugham
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann

books
I want to complete A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
Christy by Catherine Marshall

Not sure, but I've tried to read Sleeping Beauties 3 times since it came out and never made it past the first chapter. I'm going to grit my teeth and get through it this month. After that, I'm not sure. I'm trying to hold off on some of the books I have planned for next year. I got my copy of The Time It Never Rained in the mail yesterday and it is just staring at me from my bookshelf...read me....Read me...READ ME....

I plan to finish High Spirits which I started at the holidays last year and set aside after 1 January 2022, read the edition of the Nutcracker illustrated by Sendak and re-read The Crystal Cave.

I am also almost done with a number of books:
Silent Spring,
A Traveller in Time,
Here Be Dragons,
Cakes and Ale,
The Golem and the Jinni, and
Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII.

Then, if time permits, I will try to read a few of the other holiday books I've seen mentioned.

Now that I've finished my buffet challenges, I plan to read some of the books I have recently bought, along with a few I have just been waiting to get around to.

Wodehouse: Pigs Have Wings
✓Pratchett: Interesting Times
Stoppard: Leopoldstadt
Everett: Dr. No
Waters: Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance
Greer: Less
King: Fairy Tale
Parks: Topdog/Underdog
Keegan: Foster

A reading group I sometimes visit is reading Keegan's Small Things Like These. I really enjoyed that earlier this year, so I may reread it.

There are books that I am keeping for next year, because I am running out of truly great books as far as my scout system has brought to my attention.
With the year on its last legs (what a festive analogy), I want to commit to the spirit of the occasion by reading
Christmas Storms and Sunshine and Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories. After that I will read Hercule Poirot's Christmas, a BOTM for another group. Then, I'll read Lady Audley's Secret and The Story of Russia. After which I will breathe my last for the year 2022.

I'm having that familiar "uh-oh" feeling, when looking at my list for this month, so hoping for lots of extra reading time!

In Process
The Woodlanders (almost done)
A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living
Of Human Bondage
Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books

Group Reads
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King
Before the Party (short)
Life Among the Savages
"Sweat" (short)
Babylon Revisited (short)
Barn Burning (short)

Challenges
Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters
The Martian Chronicles

my "Core 8" for December:

Lanark Gray, Alasdair 1981 (latter half to finish)
Manuscript Found In Saragossa, The Potocki, Jan 1810 (latter half to finish)
Oscar And Lucinda Carey, Peter 1988
Oliver Twist Dickens, Charles 1838
Good Earth, The Buck, Pearl S. 1931
Hive, The Cela, Camilo José 1953
Hotel du Lac Brookner, Anita 1984
Riddle of the Sands, The Childers, Erskine 1903

Finish:)
The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 4*
The Morning Star Karl Ove Knausgård 4*
Little Women Louisa May Alcott 4 1/2 *
Five Women Robert Musil 3*
A Cry of Angels Jeff Fields 4 1/2 *

Begin and finish:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Gabrielle Zevin 4*
The Hacienda Isabel Cañas 2*
Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver 4 1/2 *
Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage Rachel E. Gross 4*
Stella Maris Cormac McCarthy 3* 4 * when combined with The Passenger
Against Nature Joris-Karl Huysmans 4 1/2*
Burger's Daughter Nadine Gordimer 3*

Shorts:
Chasing Homer László Krasznahorkai 3*
Before the Party W. Somerset Maugham 4*
Selections from Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories Robert Walser 2 1/2*
Selections from Mogens and Other Stories Jens Peter Jacobsen

Begin:
The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice Wilkie Collins

Rereads:
Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco
A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 3 1/2 *

Subject to change with library availabiliy, mood, etc.

Challenge reads:

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
The Town by Conrad Richter
The Winter People by John Ehle
Palladian or The Wedding Group by Elizabeth Taylor

I have begunLady Audley's Secret and I fear that it is going to be a somewhat long slog. That doesn't tip the balance though. I have been getting diminishing returns for a few months now.

If I DNF LAS, then what guarantee is there that I will not get an equally lackluster book? That is why, for the first time in my life, I am reading a classic that I should have DNFed since the first chapter.

I have tried every trick there is to get back into that hallowed and heavenly run of great books... books 4 or 5 stars relentlessly... but I figure that those days are gone.

Victorian classics are wordy and over wrought, especially in chunky books. I knew that while choosing LAS to read through December. I wish there is a genre where writers rewrite classics for the purpose of changing the words - not a retelling - to fit a modern audience. Maybe this is too blasphemous a thought, but I can only wonder.

Going for my 2022 BINGO blackout and wrapping up Buffet Challenges with:

Concrete Bingo N1, Challenge #7
Memories of the Future Bingo G4, Challenges #5, #7
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King Bingo O2, Challenges #5, #6, #7
All Quiet on the Western Front Challenge #6

Luffy wrote: "I have begunLady Audley's Secret and I fear that it is going to be a somewhat long slog. That doesn't tip the balance though. I have been getting diminishing returns for a few months ..."

I hear you. I often feel the same.
I did find Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street to be very modern in writing style.

But if you ever decide to hang yourself, dip into The Theory of the Leisure Class. It will probably make LAS look like a page turner. I haven't been able to finish it yet because I keep editing while I read.

Luffy wrote: "I wish there is a genre where writers rewrite classics for the purpose of changing the words - not a retelling - to fit a modern audience. Maybe this is too blasphemous a thought, but I can only wonder."

Uh...CliffNotes? LOL

I used those as lot in college. (I have spent the last 30 years reading the actual books I was supposed to have read back then.) I am quite fond of the verbosity of Victorian classics. In one of my more snarky reviews, I remember suggesting to readers who didn't want to read wordy Victorian novels that there were several series of children's books that presented just the main storyline of classic novels.

But I'm intrigued. I might put Lady Audley's Secret on next year's TBR. It would be reading outside my comfort zone which is always good.

Squire wrote: "Luffy wrote: "I wish there is a genre where writers rewrite classics for the purpose of changing the words - not a retelling - to fit a modern audience. Maybe this is too blasphemous a thought, but..."

Cliff Notes is a good idea. I get comments about children's books on MY snarky reviews, so yeah.

My main concern - and I have few regarding classics - is understanding why people like verbose prose. I have deduced one or two points about this. First, people read classics because of conditioning... like joining a yoga class, harmless exercises. Secondly people love the Victorian period for reasons that are often obscure. E.g. many Americans love British art and history, just like the Japanese love Parisian architecture and food. Thirdly, people love to read meandering prose to prepare them properly for the next plot point, which may occur a few chapters away. It's like a delaying strategy. I had a fourth point, but I forgot it.

Klowey wrote: "Luffy wrote: "I have begunLady Audley's Secret and I fear that it is going to be a somewhat long slog. That doesn't tip the balance though. I have been getting diminishing returns for..."

Hi Klowey, nice advice there. I suppose you have got success with it in the past. Personally, I am slightly skeptical, but good effort nonetheless on your part.

I like it because I recognize that that was how they visualized (without the media we have today--obviously). A lot of the serialized authors were paid by the word also. I'm okay with that. I'm not a speed reader (nor do I listen to audio books--yet), so some of these books do seem to take longer to read, but I know that going into them.

I think a lot of modern readers are conditioned to need constant gratification on the quick resolution of plot points and that's okay too. It doesn't mean they are wrong (because there are great books in modern literature as well that use that technique).

It's all a personal choice, but as a lover literature, I enjoy reading books from all time periods. It shows how both the authors and their readers have developed.

But as far as being conditioned to read a book because it is considered to be a classic, most of Mark Twain's and J.D. Salinger's stuff (for me) fall into that category. LOL

Squire wrote: "I like it because I recognize that that was how they visualized (without the media we have today--obviously). A lot of the serialized authors were paid by the word also. I'm okay with that. I'm not..."

Thanks for the reply. At least you did not come up with stock answers and told me your personal likes. Wish you Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.🎄✨🎁

In all the meandering, Luffy, a world gets described to us, a world no longer in existence.

Even when we put ourselves in the minds of contemporary readers, say readers contemporary to Dickens, many of Dickens' readers either enjoyed reading of their very own London or liked to read about a faraway London, a London that they would not have the resources of time and money to visit even though they lived on the same island--just the fantasy and dream-tripping was a delight.

When I read social histories, I come across ideas that people on their farms and farming communities were rather lonely and enjoyed the idea that they were in a more exciting place. London was exciting with its industry and booming population.

Cynda wrote: "In all the meandering, Luffy, a world gets described to us, a world no longer in existence.

Even when we put ourselves in the minds of contemporary readers, say readers contemporary to Dickens, m..."

Thanks for the post. Books exist solidly, that is their force, and their inconvenience. These worlds are lost. Reading so many books would not bring them back, and even the best of older books do not make these worlds exist in the complexity they existed.

The Victorian world had to perish for the modern world to be. Take the examples of Latin books. There was a time when everyone literate could read them. But now they - understandably - require translation.
There will come a time when Victorian literature - and by association, our modern literature too - will need translation. All worlds perish, all languages change. As do rhythms, pace, structure, and prose too.

Yes worlds have to pass, never really perish. As a amateur historian, I look in multiple directions on the timeline--backwards, present, and future --and see how they flow into each other. . . . .I am not saying you should share my worldview. I am simply explaining it. If it serves, keep and use it as it serves.

Cynda wrote: "Yes worlds have to pass, never really perish. As a amateur historian, I look in multiple directions on the timeline--backwards, present, and future --and see how they flow into each other. . . . .I..."

Well, I came here just to share my sad predicament of slowly being starved of good books. Seems that I have got off topic for which I apologise to the mods.

This month I will read what I can of my remaining lists.

For me to be content I will have to finish my Pesonal Genre Challenge:
* Mystery: The Catherine Wheel by Patricia Wentworth
* Sci-Fi: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
* Fantasy: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
*Gothic: The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe

The current group read Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco I may have to start next month.

For me to be okay with my Nonfiction Committments/Challenges:
I will have to finish:
* Group Read. River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard
* City Study. Memior. Paris On Air by Oliver Gee
* City Study. Community Health. Contagious City: The Politics of Public Health in Early Philadelphia by Simon Finger

If I have time, I would also like to read these nonfiction selections:
* City Study. Transportation. Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars?: Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber, and Elon Musk by James Wilt
* City Study. Catastrophe. By Permission of Heaven: The True Story of the Great Fire of London by Adrian Tinniswood
* City Study. Disease Control. Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David K. Randall

I have a few (ok - honestly several, or stacks of books would be a better description) sitting here on my next up reading pile. A few that need finished, but mostly I'm going with reading just for pleasre with no plans.

I am just picking up things and reading without a plan right now...some Christmas stories and a revisit to some books I know I enjoyed the first time around. I'm enjoying it, so I might just take this right into the next year and have unplanned reading for my New Year's Resolution.

Sara wrote: "...so I might just take this right into the next year and have unplanned reading for my New Year's Resolution...."

Any kind of reading is good for a resolution! Well, as long as it brings joy.

Luffy wrote: "I have begunLady Audley's Secret and I fear that it is going to be a somewhat long slog. That doesn't tip the balance though. I have been getting diminishing returns for a few months ..."

Luffy I enjoyed the conversation your thought provoked. No need to apologize!

Hmmm your idea of changing the words without a retelling might have a solution. Look for books in translation that have been translated recently. There seem to be so many classic books from non-English authors that were translated in the late 1800s or early 1900s. These are of course good, but when I compare with a new, recent translation from the last decade or so the differences are just amazing! At least a dozen times I have sampled translation versions for books in our group reads list and found the newer ones really appeal to me. One that I can think of off the top of my head was A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert and another was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The translation can make a huge difference. It sometimes explains why books get a very low rating from some and a very high rating from others. Just like a poor narrator can ruin an audiobook, a bad translation can ruin a good book.

Sara wrote: "The translation can make a huge difference. It sometimes explains why books get a very low rating from some and a very high rating from others. Just like a poor narrator can ruin an audiobook, a ba..."

Wow I never thought of it that way. Different translators effecting ratings makes perfect sense.

Lynn wrote: "Luffy wrote: "Luffy I enjoyed the conversation your thought provoked. No need to apologize!

Hmmm your idea of changing the words without a retelling might have a solution. Look for books in translation that have been translated recently. There seem to be so many classic books from non-English authors that were translated in the late 1800s or early 1900s. These are of course good, but when I compare with a new, recent translation from the last decade or so the differences are just amazing! At least a dozen times I have sampled translation versions for books in our group reads list and found the newer ones really appeal to me. One that I can think of off the top of my head was A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert and another was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."

I am a lover of British culture and literature first and foremost. But I have to admit that recently I have been having a crush on French verbiage. I mean, I am a lot more proficient in English, but French language is starting to sound slightly more seductive than usual.

Having listened to the usual audiobooks in English, I was left puzzled. But when I started to listened to The Witcher prologue audiobook, I discovered that some French aspects appeal to me. It will take me 20 years to be as good in writing the latter language as well as in English if ever.

I mean look at the English commentators for football matches. I used to moan about not having English commentary on football matches when I had Canal+, but now that I have got my wish, my mind wanders to French journalists. There is no new John Helm or Ian Darke on the scene.

The above ramble is inspired from the semi final match between England and France, in the World Cup. I wanted England to win, but I predicted a loss of 0-1 or 1-2. England duly lost by 1-2.

Seriously though, my favourite anime is the French version of Cowboy Bebop, and all my classmates from school used to say that Agatha Christie is better in French than in English. Let's hope Richard doesn't know of this post though. He is a real lover of the French language, and a better adept at it.

Sara wrote: "The translation can make a huge difference. It sometimes explains why books get a very low rating from some and a very high rating from others."

I read a translation of Checkov's play The Marriage Proposal and one of the characters left a gathering by saying "Cheerio!" Ever since then, I've been wary of certain translations. I haven't rated it because, well, I was helping out a friend for his "Basics of Directing" class in college and it wasn't MY character that had to say that. lol

One of my favorite books is The Tale of Genji, an 11th century Japanese novel. There are 4 complete English translations of the book and I've read 2 of them (I have plans to read the other 2 at some point. Hopefully, I 'll get around to one of them in 2023.)

The Tyler translation provided a more cultural experience for me than the Whaley translation and I prefer it.

That was one of the great things about the heyday of physical bookstores. I could often read a few paragraphs of three different translations on the spot and take home the one that appealed to me most.

For me, there's always a balance between scholarly accuracy and being a pleasure to read. If I were doing doctorate research, I might prefer the driest and strictest translation. But as a reader, I prefer something that preserves the style and manner but with enough latitude to still be alive on the page and a pleasure to read.

Luffy wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Luffy wrote: "Luffy I enjoyed the conversation your thought provoked. No need to apologize!

Hmmm your idea of changing the words without a retelling might have a solution. Look for bo..."

NO way! My favorite anime is the English Cowboy Beebop. It is so moody!! lol

Anime shouts at me. There's always one character whose mouth become their entire face when they speak. And they SHOUT at me. Some terrific, complex and really dark stories, but I don't like animation that shouts at me.

So I'm SOL when my friends get in an anime mood.

Lynn wrote: "Luffy wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Luffy wrote: "Luffy I enjoyed the conversation your thought provoked. No need to apologize!

Hmmm your idea of changing the words without a retelling might have a solutio..."

Yes! I like the first 15 episodes only though. And the homages in Bebop made me be aware of the fact that the Rolling Stones had terrific lyrics in their best songs.

Squire wrote: "Anime shouts at me. There's always one character whose mouth become their entire face when they speak. And they SHOUT at me. Some terrific, complex and really dark stories, but I don't like animati..."

That's okay, even if there are many examples of anime that do not contain what takes you out of the moment. You love books, just like I do, so yeah.

RJ's DECEMBER 2022 READS

Will Finish
The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry
To Die in California by Newton Thornburg
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr
Nutcracker and Mouse King and the Tale of the Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Will Read But Won't Finish
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
Intensity by Dean Koontz
The Cartel by Don Winslow
The Road to Amber by Roger Zelazny
Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964 edited by Robert Silverberg
The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

I planned four books and actually read three of them!!

Short Stories
Before the Party by W. Somerset Maugham
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann

and
A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

other things I read were
A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

and children's books
Roadrunner's Dance by Rudolfo Anaya
The Real Story of Stone Soup by Ying Chang Compestine

I finished 7 of my "Core 8" for December:

Lanark Gray, Alasdair - 3.5 Stars
Manuscript Found In Saragossa, The Potocki, Jan - 4
Oscar And Lucinda Carey, Peter - 5
Oliver Twist Dickens, Charles - 2.5
Good Earth, The Buck, Pearl S. - 3
Hive, The Cela, Camilo José - carrying over into 2023...
Hotel du Lac Brookner, Anita - 3
Riddle of the Sands, The Childers, Erskine - 3.5

This is a service announcement of sorts. The Chit Chat Thread has become very large and difficult to search, so last summer I started moving some threads to archives. At the end of each year I am moving out the old monthly threads that are more than two years old. You may still search for them in "Archives Retired Folder Threads". We only started putting the year on the monthly threads last summer, so the older ones may be more difficult to search for.