this is another installment of project long classics, a campaign in which, in theory, i read a chapter a day of a scwelcome to...THE JU(LY)NGLE BOOKS.
this is another installment of project long classics, a campaign in which, in theory, i read a chapter a day of a scary old book over a month to make it approachable, and in execution i fuel my penguin clothbound addiction and make puns.
i love feeling smart while reading a book written for 6 year olds. that's what children's classics are for.
MOWGLI'S BROTHERS little baby mowgli arrived amongst the jungle creatures, who have called a town hall meeting to see whether he's going to be homeschooled or lunch. then 10 years passed and they called another town hall meeting to kick him the hell out.
KAA'S HUNTING backtracking in order to talk about how monkeys kidnapped mowgli so he could teach them architecture and then kaa put the fear of god in them.
TIGER TIGER back to present day. mowgli got a human job as a cowherd and immediately lateraled his cattle into the killing of a tiger.
THE WHITE SEAL if you're wondering what the through-line is of these stories, i can officially tell you it is neither mowgli nor the jungle. we just spent 20 pages hanging out with a seal who lost his wig and formed a 10,000 creature army.
RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI this is about a verbosely named mongoose who becomes some kid's pet and kills an entire family of cobras to secure his position. kind of a metaphor for pulling the ladder up after you.
TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS i don't believe elephants should have to have jobs beyond being elephants. and you can quote me on that.
SERVANTS OF THE QUEEN i wasn't having a ton of fun with this book even before we brought the word servants into it. (it's a conversation between various animals made to carry stuff.) thus concludes Book I.
HOW FEAR CAME for me, it was "when i realized i'm not even halfway done." but for mowgli (because we have turned back in time and space to hang out with him when he was still in the jungle) it's mostly tiger-related.
THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT this is really bringing out the high-school-english-class siddhartha-hater contrarian in me.
LETTING IN THE JUNGLE this has that good old fashioned children's classic violence. and also a ragtag group of animals destroying the annual agricultural output of an entire village.
THE UNDERTAKERS i haven't read anything from this book in days, but i can explain. it's because i didn't want to.
there is a character in this called "the mugger," but he is not a city-based petty thief. he's a crocodile who has been shot with a gun.
THE KING'S ANKUS mowgli's back. he found treasure and poison snakes and scenes of hunt-related murder.
QUIQUERN took another few days off from this only to return to this story about starving dogs killing seals in the arctic circle. and they don't even talk. not to sarcastically quote from the classic seasonal hit SANTA BABY, but...think of all the fun i've missed.
RED DOG mowgli has killed stuff now and all the original animals are old / dead. this is possibly the least whimsical children's classic ever.
THE SPRING RUNNING family reunion <3
OVERALL if i was an english child in the world's dreariest town like 100 years ago, i feel like these would hit. but i'm not, so...i'll just say i'm not a rudyard kipling girl. rating: 2.5...more
this is project long classics, in which i read intimidating books over a whole month and my little treat is i get to come uwelcome to...OCTOBER TWIST.
this is project long classics, in which i read intimidating books over a whole month and my little treat is i get to come up with a title + time-based pun as i do so.
charles dickens books are some of the scariest of all, so only a truly irresistible (read: terrible) pun could convince me.
this has 53 chapters (ugh, it's almost like dickens didn't think about a 26 year old annoying person centuries in the future trying to divide evenly), so i'll read 2-ish per day.
CHAPTER 1: TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH why does this chapter title seem like dickens was immediately worried about hitting word count.
in this we establish that oliver twist's circumstances have been miserable from birth, other than the fact that his mom was hot.
CHAPTER 2: TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST'S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD there are little to no treats involved in either of these chapters, in case you were wondering. mostly just a lot of sarcastic comments about social issues in england.
please sir i want some more alert!
CHAPTER 3: REVEALS HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE, WHICH WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SINECURE sometimes if you really, really don't want to do something, such as homework or being indentured to a chimney sweep, you can just cry a lot and hope to be too annoying to deal with.
CHAPTER 4: OLIVER, BEING OFFERED ANOTHER PLACE, MAKES HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO PUBLIC LIFE would you rather be a coffin-maker or a chimney sweep? vibes are worse for a coffin-maker but i feel like the day-to-day is probably more chill than trying to dislodge ash or whatever.
CHAPTER 5: OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE FIRST TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVORABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER'S BUSINESS how much do you want to bet the titular new associates are, like, rats or spiders or something to display just how miserable oliver's life is.
ah, no. it was just a mean guy i think.
CHAPTER 6: OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO ACTION AND RATHER ASTONISHES HIM this chapter is only a few pages long and basically covers what the title does (and just slightly more verbosely).
CHAPTER 7: OLIVER CONTINUES REFRACTORY i feel like if i was a kid and i said to my friend "ok pal see you later, hope you're doing good" and they responded like "surely i won't do well by any means until the good lord sees it fit to call me back...for this world is cruel and punishing, and my suffering seems to abound..." i'd need to end that friendship.
CHAPTER 8: OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN i love a good walk as much as the next person but 65 miles in the winter with only a crust of bread seems a bit much.
CHAPTER 9: CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PLEASANT OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS HOPEFUL PUPILS i just know adjectives hate to see charles dickens coming. anyway it appears oliver is on the cusp of joining london's old timey bling ring.
CHAPTER 10: OLIVER BECOMES BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE CHARACTERS OF HIS NEW ASSOCIATES; AND PURCHASES EXPERIENCE AT A HIGH PRICE. BEING A SHORT BUT VERY IMPORTANT CHAPTER IN THIS HISTORY you're kidding me with this. now we're vouching for the quality of the chapters in their titles? this isn't even the shortest chapter so far. what are we doing here.
oliver just got bashed in the head (normal) and arrested for robbery (exceptional). you didn't have to tell me that the first entry on his felony record was "very important," chuck.
CHAPTER 11: TREATS OF MR. FANG, THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A SLIGHT SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICE insane to name a bad guy "mr fang." i'm going to write a work of classic literature and name the villain "sir things-that-are-bad."
CHAPTER 12: IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF THAN HE EVER WAS BEFORE. AND IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL FRIENDS now oliver has been rescued by the man his colleagues robbed and spends his days laying bed and hanging out in the company of nice old ladies. otherwise known as the american dream.
CHAPTER 13: SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT READER; CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE RELATED APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY maybe i wouldn't complain so much about these chapter titles if all of them contained nice little compliments to me.
ok it appears this one was meant to be sarcastic. so never mind.
CHAPTER 14: COMPRISING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF OLIVER'S STAY AT MR BROWNLOW'S, WITH THE REMARKABLE PREDICTION WHICH ONE MR GRIMWIG OFFERED CONCERNING HIM WHEN HE WENT OUT ON AN ERRAND okay. i get that oliver's life has been really hard. and far be it from me to be unsympathetic to a literary character (something i dabble in approximately every day of my life)...but this kid cries too damn much.
CHAPTER 15: SHOWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST THE MERRY OLD JEW AND MISS NANCY WERE slang used to be so much more fun and less coherent. ah yes, of course, "jerk the tinkler" meaning "ring the bell." why didn't you say so.
CHAPTER 16: RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD BEEN CLAIMED BY NANCY clearly i am not the sweetest kindest largest-hearted reader in the world, but i'll get this on the record anyway: a book being as sad / tortuous as possible does not equal a plot to me.
CHAPTER 17: OLIVER'S DESTINY, CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION seems like dickens didn't heed my last-chapter warning. this is just all religious children begging for god to grant them mercy in the form of a swift death and innocent children being anecdotally convicted of social crimes.
CHAPTER 18: HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS REPUTABLE FRIENDS nothing scarier to charles dickens than a noun without a nearby adjective. anyway nothing happens in this chapter.
CHAPTER 19: IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON it basically goes without saying (check out some of these chapter titles!), but on top of this book being very boring and emotionally one-note so far, it's also wildly anti-semitic.
CHAPTER 20: WHEREIN OLIVER IS DELIVERED OVER TO MR. WILLIAM SIKES oliver is getting re-kidnapped in the dead of night to another criminal circuit's house and then they're arriving only to eat supper? i guess they dine at midnight like the spanish. how elegant.
CHAPTER 21: THE EXPEDITION whoa. this one is so...normal. concise, even.
i mean, not the chapter itself, which is an 8-page rendition of what amounts to a commute, but its title.
CHAPTER 22: THE BURGLARY wow. a whole day of just typing out the titles without having to check against the page 11 times to make sure i'm correct. charles, you spoil me.
CHAPTER 23: WHICH CONTAINS THE SUBSTANCE OF A PLEASANT CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR BUMBLE AND A LADY; AND SHOWS THAT EVEN A BEADLE MAY BE SUSCEPTIBLE ON SOME POINTS uh huh, yes, very clever, people being cartoonishly evil about poor people again. i get you. (i hate this book right now.)
CHAPTER 24: TREATS OF A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE; AND MAY BE FOUND OF SOME IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY in this chapter, an old lady on her deathbed confesses that she stole gold from oliver's mother as she died and that if she hadn't stolen it the mom would have lived and/or oliver would have at least been treated more kindly.
i thought the point of this book was that poverty is unjust and poor people are people too, but it seems like i may have been giving charles too much credit. it's more about one (1) unlucky kid.
CHAPTER 25: WHEREIN THIS HISTORY REFERS TO MR. FAGIN AND COMPANY i have to tell you, i began this book feeling a little bit daunted but overall neutral and every day since i have grown to dislike it more and more. can't wait to see what new evil surprises today has in store.
CHAPTER 26: IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE; AND MANY THINGS, INSEPARABLE FROM THIS HISTORY, ARE DONE AND PERFORMED it's pissing me off so much that every chapter is charles dickens being like "and by the way, this is relevant to the story." THIS IS THE STORY. THE WAY WE SPEND OUR DAYS IS THE WAY WE SPEND OUR LIVES, CHARLES.
CHAPTER 27: ATONES FOR THE UNPOLITENESS OF A FORMER CHAPTER; WHICH DESERTED A LADY MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY two of the people who hate poor people are getting married and another two of the people who hate poor people have been hooking up. we're more than halfway through now and this is as close to a plot as we've gotten.
CHAPTER 28: LOOKS AFTER OLIVER, AND PROCEEDS WITH HIS ADVENTURES we last saw the fellow, i'm pretty sure, as a broken body in a ditch after a robbery gone wrong, which i didn't mention because i'm so annoyed at the whole thing and i guess held out hope oliver had been put out of his misery and so too had we and the 300 remaining pages were just footnotes or something.
CHAPTER 29: HAS AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE INMATES OF THE HOUSE TO WHICH OLIVER RESORTED i was in such a good mood today, just vibing along with my other painful long classics project and my four non-project current reads, and remembering i hadn't done my daily chapters of oliver twist hit me like a cannonball. no one could be more miserable than me right now. and i'm counting oliver.
CHAPTER 30: RELATES WHAT OLIVER'S NEW VISITORS THOUGHT OF HIM anyways, temporary reprieve from my bemoaning my fate to get back to the plot, such as it is: oliver is roommates now with the people he tried to rob.
CHAPTER 31: INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION much like the one i'm taking on this book. buh dum ch.
CHAPTER 32: OF THE HAPPY LIFE OLIVER BEGAN TO LEAD WITH HIS KIND FRIENDS i bet this one will last a while. surely no tragedy related to poverty and/or crime will befall oliver this time.
CHAPTER 33: WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS EXPERIENCES A SUDDEN CHECK can't make this stuff up. the happiness in question lasted exactly one (1) chapter. what are we doing here.
CHAPTER 34: CONTAINS SOME INTRODUCTORY PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO NOW ARRIVES UPON THE SCENE; AND A NEW ADVENTURE WHICH HAPPENED TO OLIVER ok so oliver is actually still roommates with the people he tried to rob, but it seems like that is coming to a swift end? i don't know. the bummer of the last chapter was a girl got sick and almost died but didn't, which is actually paradise compared to the other plot points here so who knows.
CHAPTER 35: CONTAINING THE UNSATISFACTORY RESULT OF OLIVER'S ADVENTURE; AND A CONVERSATION OF SOME IMPORTANCE BETWEEN HARRY MAYLIE AND ROSE well, it appears we're most likely about 1-2 chapters and a handful of slurs away from oliver getting re-kidnapped. shock of the century. but i guess i'm supposed to care that oliver's sick roommate is turning down a proposal from some guy who just showed up?
CHAPTER 36: IS A VERY SHORT ONE, AND MAY APPEAR OF NO GREAT IMPORTANCE IN ITS PLACE. BUT IT SHOULD BE READ, NOTWITHSTANDING, AS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST, AND A KEY TO ONE THAT WILL FOLLOW WHEN ITS TIME ARRIVES does charles dickens think i'm reading these chapters in whatever order occurs to me? just throwing a bunch of pages in the air and reading whatever words i catch as they fall back down? good lord. so unnecessary.
CHAPTER 37: IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN MATRIMONIAL CASES we've spent 13 pages on the unhappy marriage between the two aforementioned poor-haters and 2 on a mysterious figure who will surely be of actual relevance to the plot. perfect.
CHAPTER 38: CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR AND MRS BUMBLE, AND MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW 20 pages to retell a story we've heard before (oliver's dead mom's stolen locket) and throw it in the river.
CHAPTER 39: INTRODUCES SOME RESPECTABLE CHARACTERS WITH WHOM THE READER IS ALREADY ACQUAINTED, AND SHOWS HOW MONKS AND THE JEW LAID THEIR WORTHY HEADS TOGETHER this shouldn't even be called "oliver twist." RANDOM GROUPS OF PEOPLE DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING INTERESTING would be a way more apt title.
CHAPTER 40: A STRANGE INTERVIEW, WHICH IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST CHAPTER please do not even get me started with "a sequel to the last chapter."
now nancy (oliver's girl roommate with the bad guys) and rose (oliver's girl roommate with the good guys) are talking about monks (the mysterious and plot-critical guy who we ignored completely in favor of irrelevant marital strife earlier) and his scheme to hide oliver's true identity (because he actually isn't poor, rendering any theme or point this book accidentally stumbled upon moot). also making a plan to be future roommates.
CHAPTER 41: CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SURPRISES, LIKE MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE why does oliver know how to read and write? did i miss a good will hunting-style prodigy sequence somewhere between the various kidnappings?
anyway. he's been reunited with a prior set of roommates, one of whom (elderly) kissed the good girl roommate for (truly) (no exaggeration) no reason (and then was like, you're not allowed to be upset, i'm old).
CHAPTER 42: AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF OLIVER'S, EXHIBITING DECIDED MARKS OF GENIUS, BECOMES A PUBLIC CHARACTER IN THE METROPOLIS so, to recap: oliver was born in a midwife's house, and then sent to a poorhouse, and then sent to a workhouse, and then sent to be a chimney sweep, and then walked to london where he ended up at the thieves' house, and then went to good guys' house #1, and was then kidnapped back to the thieves, and then was kidnapped to different thieves, and then was made to rob good guys' house #2 where he ended up living.
i mean good lord.
CHAPTER 43: WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE trouble? but how! his name is the artful dodger! surely he could've nimbly avoided it at the last moment!
we can only hope he escapes from prison, both because then he'd regain his reputation and because we'd be able to finish this book saying something happened.
CHAPTER 44: THE TIME ARRIVES FOR ROSE MAYLIE TO REDEEM HER PLEDGE TO NANCY. SHE FAILS this is rose maylie libel. she's not even present in this chapter. her only crime remains being boring.
CHAPTER 45: NOAH CLAYPOLE IS EMPLOYED BY FAGIN ON A SECRET MISSION nothing much actually happens in this chapter, other than making me crave buttered toast.
CHAPTER 46: THE APPOINTMENT KEPT no one has ever been destined to die like nancy. dark bad past, wants to redeem herself, unloved in the world, keeps talking about bad omens. charles dickens is going to kill her off in a misguided redemption arc / attempt at emotional investment and neither will work on me.
CHAPTER 47: FATAL CONSEQUENCES it actually feels so good to be proven right immediately. to make a prediction in one chapter that comes true the next...pure bliss.
CHAPTER 48: THE FLIGHT OF SIKES enough bragging about how amazing i am at trope-filled centuries-old books. i'll catch you up. basically, sikes, who has some sort of romantic but evil but paternal role in nancy's life preventing her from Becoming Good, just heard from fagin who heard from noah claypole that nancy snitched and, for lack of a better term, murdered the sh*t out of her.
CHAPTER 49: MONKS AND MR BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION, AND THE INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT how many characters referred to exclusively by a last name that literally no actual human has ever had can i genuinely be expected to keep track of?
this chapter is like the inverse of a villain's monologue explaining his evil vision at the end of a movie: a good guy is info-dumping various scraps of backstory that vaguely connect all of these people. this, i assume, is what this book has instead of a "plot."
CHAPTER 50: THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE the titular escape is a reference to an accidental hanging. like, a guy randomly puts a noose around his neck, which just so happens to be tied to a chimney, and then without intention falls off a roof. i've said it before and i'll say it again: what are we doing here.
CHAPTER 51: AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE, WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN MONEY this whole sequence has been spent introducing and tying up a series of loose ends for no comprehensible reason other than story extension to make me miserable, specifically. oliver had his happily ever after 19 chapters ago, and in spite of my sarcastic predictions, that has not been messed with at all. nothing has changed since then. but oh, great, rose and oliver are rich siblings instead of poor orphans.
this book is driving me insane.
CHAPTER 52: THE JEW'S LAST NIGHT ALIVE oh, great. we get to spend our penultimate day enacting charles dickens's blood justice fantasies. at least i got an excuse to say penultimate. great word.
CHAPTER 53: AND LAST rose and harry got married (i never even told you who harry is — that's how little he matters); rose's mother figure moves in with them (sure); monks takes his half of his fortune, moves to america, and dies in prison (what a happily ever after); oliver gets adopted by one of his groups of roommates (and i'm not joking: it's not the one he's spent the last 21 chapters with); noah claypole (heretofore only referenced as a hater of the poor) becomes a professional snitch; the married poor haters become poor; two people i don't remember keep doing what they were doing; and one of the child thieves becomes a good guy.
extending this book by even 5 pages to give me these updates is adding insult to injury.
OVERALL i've said to many people this month that i hate this book and i can't wait to give it one star. that's a little bit of an exaggeration. i disliked it extremely and am giving it 2.
this is only my third dickens, but it's less funny, less coherent, less thematically consistent, and less emotionally impactful than the other two. but catch me right back here reading through all his others. rating: 2...more
i love old-timey horror. their idea of what's scary is like, A Cupboard Shutting or A Lady With The Right To Votei love old-timey horror. their idea of what's scary is like, A Cupboard Shutting or A Lady With The Right To Vote...more
it's fun to feel smart while consuming the same content as an old timey six year old. that's where children's classics come init's fun to feel smart while consuming the same content as an old timey six year old. that's where children's classics come in...more
and welcome back to another installment of project long classics, in which i spend a month reading an intimidawelcome to...TESS OF THE DECEMBERVILLES.
and welcome back to another installment of project long classics, in which i spend a month reading an intimidating work from the literary canon mostly as an excuse to a) make bad title puns and b) excuse my penguin clothbound addiction.
tess was my childhood family dog's name so i'm sure i'll be able to relate to this one.
this has 59 "chapters" (normal) divided into 7 "phases" (why), so i'll read 2 chapters a day. ish. (also, all of these reviews contain spoilers for books that are a million years old, if that counts as a spoiler to you.)
CHAPTERS 1 & 2 now we have met tess's dad, a drunk guy who just learned he's related to some knights (this is a big deal), and tess, who is really hot in a kind of not like other girls way and, case in point, has a red ribbon in her hair (this is a bigger deal).
CHAPTERS 3 & 4 well, tess was responsible for the gruesome death of her dad's horse, which has directly ruined her family. things are looking real bad at the moment. i understand why people did not have a great reaction to me assuming i could relate based on my childhood dog's name.
CHAPTERS 5 & 6 oh boy. our girl is being crushed on by a real creep.
CHAPTERS 7 & 8 tess's mom being like "maybe i should have double checked that the guy i just shipped my daughter off to isn't evil...oh well! hindsight is 20/20!" meanwhile the guy in question is using equestrian danger to manipulate said daughter into premarital kissing before they've even finished their commute.
CHAPTERS 9 & 10 so tess just manually brought each and every chicken on the property to be felt up by her blind great-aunt (?), took whistling lessons from her stalker, and nearly had to fight the town's hot girl while she was half-naked and covered in treacle. and none of that is a euphemism.
CHAPTERS 11 & 12 oh good lord. this is horrible. now i feel bad about all my dumb jokes.
CHAPTERS 13 & 14 ok, tess...i get that life is a series of unrelenting miseries, each one taking up the mantle of the last in a never-ending world of suffering...but do we really need to name the baby SORROW? he's going to have to live with that name his whole life.
...okay. so it does turn out that the rest of sorrow's life was 1 page. damn this book is sad.
CHAPTERS 15 & 16 we have entered "phase the third," and tess has a new job as a milkmaid. i have less than no confidence that life is going to get better — we're only at the 25% mark.
CHAPTERS 17 & 18 oh god, tess's former crush is one of her coworkers. STAY AWAY FROM HIM, TESS. MEN HOLD EVIL WITHIN AND YOU'RE VERY SUSCEPTIBLE. i don't care if his name is angel.
CHAPTERS 19 & 20 i can't believe that tess is the most beautiful girl in the land and her life still sucks. everything fairytales taught me was wrong.
CHAPTERS 21 & 22 the inciting incidents in these chapters are that angel is receiving cheek kisses from other maids, and the dairy accidentally invented garlic butter and british people are disgusted by seasoning so they have to manually locate and remove all of the garlic plants in the vicinity. across the board, some things never change.
CHAPTERS 23 & 24 workplace romances are weird when the workplace in question is a dairy. tell me why angel just declared his love from under a cow.
CHAPTERS 25 & 26 phase the fourth: the consequence. sounds like we're due for sunshine and rainbows.
CHAPTERS 27 & 28 probably the only book in global history in which the love interests take their relationship to the next level while breaking up masses of curds and putting them in vats.
CHAPTERS 29 & 30 far be it from me to criticize a woman...but it's stressing me out that tess is all "yeah, angel, i'll marry you. I WISH I HAD NEVER BEEN BORN!!! what? no i have no secrets." it's very love is blind to be like oh my motherhood? not really relevant to our relationship, babe.
CHAPTERS 31 & 32 okay. i will say we're on our 14th consecutive chapter of Angel Loves Tess And Tess Loves Angel And Is Spending Every Spare Second Loving Him And/Or Obsessing Over Whether To Share Her Tragic Backstory. we have got to wrap this one up sad as it's going to be.
CHAPTERS 33 & 34 okay now tess is just pissing me off. she slides an envelope under angel's door containing her confession a week before the weeding, never brings it up again, lives life as normal, and then decides THE MORNING OF to check if it's there, unopened, somehow under the carpet. YOU HAD FIFTEEN CHAPTERS, TESS.
CHAPTERS 35 & 36 i'm doubling up today because tess finally told angel, HER HUSBAND, who as it turns out also had a 48 hour hookup with some broad, and i have to know what happens next. surely his own experience and their holy matrimonial bond will make him understanding, i say sarcastically because this will certainly go poorly.
oh boy.
CHAPTERS 37 & 38 getting dumped and having to move back in with your parents...a nightmare rite of passage throughout time.
CHAPTERS 39 & 40 it's so funny that angel goes home to have dinner with his parents and they just so happen to essentially be throwing him an "A Godly Woman Is The Greatest Gift, And She Who Hast Not Sinned Is More Than Worthy Of Our Son" theme night. tess can't catch a break.
he just almost brought another girl to brazil??? this is wild.
CHAPTERS 41 & 42 well, tess just spent the night in a pile of leaves on a random farm after running away from her former harasser only to wake up and mercy-kill a large number of wounded birds. you can never guess where this book is going, only "sadly."
CHAPTERS 43 & 44 took like a full week off of this project because i was at my fiancé's parents' house. sorry, but when i am in a paradise of homemade pho and melona bars, this book is just not conducive to my vibe.
tess finding out that angel tried to take izz to brazil and being like "my fault, i should have written to him more." girl if you don't stand up...
CHAPTERS 45 & 46 welcome to phase the fifth: the convert. tess's ex is back, my friends. and he's a preacher now. and he still sucks.
CHAPTERS 47 & 48 casterbridge mentioned! funny to learn that this takes same place in the same universe as that relatively chill and fun book. although i guess it intended to be equally morally didactic.
well thank god! tess finally smacked one of these losers across the face.
CHAPTERS 49 & 50 foolishly i have allowed myself to believe that this book was going to be sad for a very long time, and then potentially have a nice little happily ever after. it is clear to me now that things will only get worse.
CHAPTERS 51 & 52 much more so than tess is sympathetic, the men in her life are the most lowly and detestable literary characters of all time. the only kind of happy ending i would accept is brutal death for alec (her baby daddy) and angel (her deadbeat husband).
CHAPTERS 53 & 54 i keep telling myself that actually i don't even care if angel, who is now flying through england in various belated and annoying attempts to find tess, tracks her down. but i think if he finds her in alec's clutches and rejects her again i might tear this book in half, so.
CHAPTERS 55 & 56 i was going to throw this book across the room, but now i'm glad i didn't. turns out i can't predict everything!
CHAPTERS 57 & 58 see, this is why you don't DNF books. i could never have predicted how much i would love where this book has gone. although i wish i could make it end right after chapter 57.
CHAPTER 59 oh, brother. (view spoiler)[i am so purely delighted by tess stabbing the life out of alec. i never expected such a gift from this book. but did angel HAVE to end up with liza-lu? bleh. (hide spoiler)]
OVERALL i've read three books by thomas hardy this year, and this one is definitely the best. through a relatively interesting plot (minus a few chunks of okay-we-get-it-you've-made-your-point), hardy conveys a lot of messages about great families, religion, temptation, and good versus evil. the fact that it pissed me off continually is part of the intent.
if quarter stars existed (lol when we don't even have half stars) i'd give this book 3.75, but as is: rating: 3.5...more
you know it, you love it. a bad month and title pun, an intimidating book, and me, at the beginning-ish of february. iwelcome to...A FEBRUARY TO ARMS.
you know it, you love it. a bad month and title pun, an intimidating book, and me, at the beginning-ish of february. it's another installment of project long classics, in which every(ish) month i read a long(ish) classic in small(ish) chunks to make them less scary.
because i'm picky about what i read. unless you put it on a list titled "books you must read in a lifetime." then i'm falling for it every time.
CHAPTER 1 this entire chapter was about 2 pages long and made up of a) setting description and b) one quick crack about the military not caring about lives lost.
i am so locked in.
CHAPTER 2 i traveled through europe for a bit in the fall with my sisters, and it's like i invented the concept of europe. i have become the stereotype of Annoying Girl Who Visits Somewhere And Makes It My Whole Personality.
all of this to say i'm having fun just reading dialogue listing places in italy.
CHAPTER 3 the dialogue in this! snappy! we've got a bunch of yappers on our hands!
CHAPTER 4 the thing about the authors i love, like hemingway and fitzgerald and steinbeck and salinger, is that everyone says it's a red flag to love them because they're super Male and Sexist.
so what is wrong with me for thinking they write the most interesting women.
CHAPTER 5 a hemingway romance moves pretty fast. if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
CHAPTER 6 okay never mind about what i said. this girl is crazy.
CHAPTER 7 i was reading an ebook copy of this but enjoying it enough that when i found the same edition in a bookstore, i bought it. to which my boyfriend said, "is that the book bradley cooper throws out the window in silver linings playbook?"
correct.
CHAPTER 8 this chapter ends in hemingway's version of a cliffhanger, which is when he does one of his long paragraphs of scenery and then abruptly stops.
CHAPTER 9 hemingway has this way of making things that should be clichéd and trite feel totally new. having anti-war dialogue in which the protagonist is pro and then is shelled and the horrors come to him...i knew it was coming but i felt jarred and convinced by it anyway.
CHAPTER 10 dialogue city. i love it.
CHAPTER 11 this is one of those moments where you're like, "oh, i love this character so much and i can't wait for him to have his happy life at home...oh he is going to die isn't he."
CHAPTER 12 we come to the end of book one, injured, on a train, and at war.
it reminds me of my college days.
CHAPTER 13 if i had to deal with a grave war wound to my legs without the marvels of modern medicine, i'd sure like to do so in italy.
CHAPTER 14 "when i saw her i was in love with her. everything turned over inside of me."
they did instalove better in the old days.
CHAPTER 15 more doctors should be italian men who give you a little kiss on the forehead for being brave.
CHAPTER 16 closed door sex scenes have nothing on hemingway's. he doesn't even say, like, "time passed." there's just a vague implication pages later.
CHAPTER 17 i have to say, being wounded in a mostly empty hospital in the 1940s isn't sounding like the stuff of nightmares i expected it to be.
CHAPTER 18 all this "we don't need to be married by the state to be married in our hearts" stuff is nice and romantic until you remember it was the olden days and the punishment for unmarried women was like, being hung up by the toes or tested for witch marks.
CHAPTER 19 everyone is way too happy for the not even halfway mark. untold horrors await.
CHAPTER 20 catherine barkley being like "there's way too many people here...can't we just get drunk by ourselves and bet on stuff." she's just like me for real.
CHAPTER 21 three months pregnant and still getting offered cognac in a hospital room. it was a simpler time.
CHAPTER 22 whoever heard of a vacation getting canceled because you're having too good of a time? (read: our protagonist lost his convalescent leave because he dabbled in alcoholism)
CHAPTER 23 sam in the comments said "the scene in the hotel room is easily the most important and most impressive," so i was a bit starstruck to stumble across it.
it is damn good.
CHAPTER 24 and thus we end book two. melancholy as hell.
CHAPTER 25 we are told that war has been very bad while we were away, but mostly so far it's been spaghetti dinners and sex jokes. foreboding.
CHAPTER 26 i cannot stress enough how much i dread the certain death of the priest. they don't make characters this sympathetic to give them happily ever afters, i'll tell you that.
CHAPTER 27 today it occurs to me just how much better this book is than for whom the bell tolls. tell that to their respective goodreads average ratings, i guess.
CHAPTER 28 happy valentine's day! we're spending it in the front seat of a car on the way to war, where two girls just hopped in and now we're desperately trying to convey that we aren't going to do anything untoward through a language barrier via asking if they're virgins.
the most romantic celebration.
CHAPTER 29 well, we just shot at a couple of random sergeants who were hanging out with us for a while and i do believe were on our side, so. i am losing the thread a bit here.
CHAPTER 30 if there is one thing i feel qualified to say that hemingway loves writing about, it's bridges that may or may not be on the cusp of exploding.
now i feel bad for being cavalier about the bridge, considering our first truly evil act of war was witnessed at the other end of it.
CHAPTER 31 a train stowaway moment! man, the action came out of nowhere in this one.
CHAPTER 32 and so we end book three, cold, wet, hungry, miserable, and lonely. typical boston winter.
CHAPTER 33 there is a part in this chapter where the main character eats three sandwiches and drinks martinis and i know in my heart that i'm not a martini drinker but damn it sounds good.
CHAPTER 34 i can't stress enough that if my friend were pregnant and unmarried during world war i i would also scream at the guy who knocked her up and cry at a dinner.
oh wait is THIS the hotel scene...too many hotels. this one is good too.
CHAPTER 35 i bet i would be more into fishing too if it was on a lake in italy and they had a bartender who rowed out to you.
CHAPTER 36 we are well and truly on the run. and i want a sandwich again.
CHAPTER 37 in this chapter is where i decide forever that catherine barkley is an angel from heaven. she spends all night in some shoddy canoe in the cold rain, sometimes rowing, and the whole time she's thinking about rolls and jam and butter and when she gets to breakfast they don't have any of it. i can't stress enough how i would ruin everyone's day if i were her.
and thus we end book 5.
CHAPTER 38 there is truly nothing funnier in this whole book than catherine barkley saying she'll drink another beer because the doctor says it'll keep the baby nice and small. THAT is literature. THAT is history.
but catherine saying that she wished she'd known all of our protagonist's exes so she could make fun of them to him is also pretty good.
CHAPTER 39 everything is so romantic and happy here in switzerland. we have just enough time left for it to all fall apart.
CHAPTER 40 it is a marvel that there is a surviving generation of babies born in the world war i era. this level of drinking is flabbergasting me.
CHAPTER 41 I SEE WHY BRADLEY COOPER THREW THIS GODDAMN BOOK OUT THE F*CKING WINDOW.
OVERALL this book has remarkably little to do with war, which is kind of a surprise considering 100% of its synopsis and marketing revolves around it being The Great American WWI Novel, but it does have some very memorable characters.
even if it does upset me a bit to think that the boys from All Quiet on the Western Front probably would've loved to spend the wartime drinking wine in italy. the best war novels convey the utter soullessness of it, and while this shows the brutal moments of life, it sure doesn't do that. rating: 3.5...more
it's a new month, i'm reading a classic, i'm doing a bad pun: it's another installment of project long classics, in which iwelcome to...STON(OVEMB)ER.
it's a new month, i'm reading a classic, i'm doing a bad pun: it's another installment of project long classics, in which i read old intimidating books in small chunks over several weeks in order to assuage my fears.
this one is not really all that long, but i just finished oliver twist and therefore deserve only ease in my life.
let's get into it.
CHAPTER 1 i would read anything published by the new york review of books, which is honestly my main reason for picking this one up. other than that i have no idea what this is about, but i'm guessing A Guy.
i'm happy to inform you that thus far, i love it.
CHAPTER 2 well, if i wasn't already pretty anti-war already, that would do it. it got me on the futility of life, though!
CHAPTER 3 what's so striking about this book is that it's about a person who is ostensibly an adult, and yet is learning how to live completely on his own. he's somehow made himself so separate from social expectations that he is creating something completely new for himself.
in other words he's now engaged to someone who seems to not care if he lives or dies.
CHAPTER 4 well, let me just say i hope that stoner is supposed to cut a pretty unlikable figure at this juncture. at the beginning it was hard to imagine a character i could feel for more, but those days are gone and i'm mostly #FreeEdith right now.
CHAPTER 5 edith was simply born in the wrong generation. sorry edith you would've loved bed rotting and psych meds.
CHAPTER 6 took a day off of reading to scream cry throw up at the state of the world yesterday. you know, my own personal version of skipping the wwi draft to go to grad school. but now let's get back into it.
i'm back in on stoner and his meager expectations for happiness and his self-constructed dream library. it seems again like there's never been a more sympathetic character.
CHAPTER 7 well, stoner has just discovered love — of his daughter and of his work — and his tentative and grateful learning of things we take for granted is convincing me this book is going to ruin my life.
CHAPTER 8 oh my god. stoner. DO SOMETHING!!!!
CHAPTER 9 well, at least my guy's pathological passiveness doesn't extend to his teaching. but it seems like that will be yet another way that the world plots his specific downfall.
CHAPTER 10 i'm just lashing out because never have i immediately felt so fond of a character i knew was destined simply for suffering. i feel in some ways like this book holds itself to spare style and plot in order to not get caught for reaching almost soapy fever-pitch emotion.
over a pass / fail oral exam!
CHAPTER 11 things only get better in order to get worse than before.
CHAPTER 12 i'm happy for my man but i just know that edith has something up her sleeve that will absolutely ruin this semblance of contentment, as with all the others. i pride myself on being a hater but i have nothing on edith.
CHAPTER 13 damn. i underestimated edith and overestimated that creep lomax.
you should always fear a blond man.
CHAPTER 14 stoner heard "dress for the job you want, not the job you have" and changed it to "make the job you have the one you want." king of taking manifesting into his own hands.
take that, lomax.
CHAPTER 15 the real sympathetic character here is grace. hard to feel much for either side of literature's worst marriage when there's a 12 year old girl having her life permanently ruined by her parents' status as freaks of nature.
CHAPTER 16 my guy really does love life in his way.
CHAPTER 17 sheesh.
OVERALL this book is called a lot of things like "an unassuming classic" and "a quiet masterpiece," but it only seems to be a simple story. the emotions contained within this book are so large-scale, so grand and consuming, it rivals a soap opera. stoner's series of disappointments and essential solitude in spite of his wishes are trivial compared to some literary tragedies, and yet, with deft writing and thoughtfulness, become almost too painful to bear reading.
this book is one of the great editorial achievements: 2,000 pages of incomplete and incohesive content winnowed down into one comparatively slim, compthis book is one of the great editorial achievements: 2,000 pages of incomplete and incohesive content winnowed down into one comparatively slim, comparatively consistent book.
but compared to the invisible man, one of the great writing achievements...i mean. how do you follow that up.
the various articles and essays about this work are fascinating and worth the read, but to boil it down, ellison had the same question. he began his second novel shortly after his first won every award ever, and then just...kept trying until his death 40 years later. in that time, he published excerpts, he pretended his progress was devastated in a fire, and he never finished a draft.
this has moments of true brilliance, and its existence is a marvel in and of itself, but there just isn't enough there there. many times i flipped back through pages, sure i'd missed something that wouldn't be found. much like ellison must have lamented, it just never quite came together like you felt it should.
that's right. it may have been several months. the book in question may be several reasonably sized classics welcome to...THE COMPLETE CLAU(GUST)DINE.
that's right. it may have been several months. the book in question may be several reasonably sized classics bound together. the pun may be worse than ever.
but it's another PROJECT LONG CLASSIC installment. (this is when i read a set amount of a long and intimidating book every day for a month, like a coward, and also the smartest girl in the world.)
as mentioned, this book is actually 4 books, and because of that i am far too lazy to go through and count the number of chapters in each one and divide accordingly. so i will be reading 20ish pages a day.
i love being optimistic (buying long books as if i'll ever read them) and being rewarded.
let's get into it.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 1 i have actually already read the complete short works of colette in another of my devilish little projects, and another of her normal books in one of my normal reading experiences, so i am feeling excited. and ready. and intimidated. and like i already want a baguette.
that was fun!!
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 2 i could not have possibly imagined how sapphic this book would turn out to be. i am refusing to read critically. this is the best.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 3 this is soooo jane austen emma coded...heavenly.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 4 thank god i was too lazy to divide this into chapters. i just hit the end of the first one. ON THE EIGHTIETH PAGE.
oh, the humanity.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 5 took the weekend off because i'm evil and there is no way today is catch-up day.
claudine's opinions are infallible to me at this point. i love a mean girl more than my own life.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 6 i can relate to claudine, as a girl who also went on a class trip to a city in france and was trapped in her shared hotel room by the teacher-chaperone following a perceived wrongdoing.
i did not manage to escape, though. in spite of some discussion of walking across some decorative windowsills outside like a heist movie.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 7 no matter how much time passes, standardized exams don't change. this whole section was like the old-timey french equivalent of when you'd go on twitter after AP exams to look at the memes.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 8 probably i will think of the phrase "that bitch of an Anaïs" for all my days.
and we are officially caught up!!!
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 9 and just when you think this book can't get any more perfect, there's a boob joke. this was made in a lab. a pretty french lab.
CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL, DAY 10 and thus we conclude our time with claudine at school how we spent it: with sex rumors, drama, insults, and pretty dresses.
i'm going to miss this cast of characters! but claudine will find more people to make fun of and it'll be all the same to me.
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 1 claudine has just tragically informed us her hair has been cut to below her ears, and i am mourning the occasion like a character died.
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 2 our titular girl spending a paragraph bemoaning the fact that she had to leave her friend back at school, suffering, and couldn't bring her to paris...and then ending the paragraph with (besides, I didn't want to).
greatest there ever was.
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 3 suddenly chapters are now only a few pages long, as if we're in a normal classic rather than a hundred-page-section hellscape of demonic creation.
paris changed you, claudine.
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 4 eating chocolate and making herself feel sad and nostalgic over bygone times she didn't actually enjoy while she was in them...she's just like me fr.
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 5 reunited and it feels so good!!!
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 6 not if you gave me a thousand guesses would i be able to uncover the half of this luce reveal. good lord. i am growing nervous about the looming end of this book — we haven't the time to resolve half of this!!!
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 7 oh, no...no no no...
i've been afraid of a certain outcome since approximately day 3 and i am ready to call it. i don't think we're getting out of this one alive. welcome to the worst case scenario, claudine stans.
old-timey kinda-incest.
CLAUDINE IN PARIS, DAY 8 for the first time, this statement brings me no joy to say:
i was right.
but this was worse than i ever could have anticipated...claudine should be unmarried and mean and beating children up forever. and if she absolutely had to get married, it shouldn't be to some guy she sees AS A FATHER!!! good lord in heaven.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 1 had to take a rare day off from this project due to the sincere trauma of claudine marrying some old guy because she wants a daddy...only to be greeted with the renewed suffering of having to read about said elder swiping the v-card. sheesh.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 2 WE'RE BACK AT SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!! and we are caught up! and my tarnished soul is healed.
for now.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 3 donate to my gofundme: Raise Money For Claudine To Annul Her Marriage, Find Her Cast Of Characters And Move Back To Montigny For A Lifetime Of Sexually Charged Bullying.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 4 oh thank god. we have a replacement luce.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 5 i hate when people say "i could write a 40 page dissertation on this," but...i could straight up write a 40 page dissertation on gender in claudine.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 6 in many ways this book is just about getting the ick.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 7 i will set the whole of fictional old-timey paris ablaze. i will hunt down rezi and renaud. i will hunt down claudine too if she ever so much as dares to leave montigny again.
it's like "only bad things happen in philadelphia" but only bad things happen when claudine leaves montigny.
CLAUDINE MARRIED, DAY 8 well, the unthinkable has happened: for the first time in my life, i have been proven wrong.
it seems bad things can happen even with claudine safely staying in montigny.
i hate you, renaud. you big old freak.
CLAUDINE AND ANNIE, DAY 1 who the hell is annie.
at one point claudine is referred to as "colette"...i stan these even harder for the confirmation that colette wrote the coolest funniest girl in the world as a self-insert character.
CLAUDINE AND ANNIE, DAY 2 if this isn't a luce situation i'm going to lose interest fast.
or i guess lose it permanently. i'm already not interested.
CLAUDINE AND ANNIE, DAY 3 overall this book has the feeling of the weird anne of green gables books that were about other characters and written out of order. this is not what i wanted!!! you are tainting me and claudine's beautiful memories!!!
CLAUDINE AND ANNIE, DAY 4 goddamn if claudine isn't 200% more charming from her own perspective. enough of this annie girl. enough time has passed that i can't even really hold out hope she'll do something crazy.
CLAUDINE AND ANNIE, DAY 5 well. she did do the crazy thing after all.
OVERALL i love me some claudine, and while the last book was annoying and unnecessary and desperate to make me rage-lower this rating, i refuse. because the first book was perfect and the middle two weren't half bad either.
and the extremely unnecessary, redundant, and untimely reviews are in: this one is a classic for a reason!!!
this was creepy andbetter late than never.
and the extremely unnecessary, redundant, and untimely reviews are in: this one is a classic for a reason!!!
this was creepy and well-written and compelling. crazy that i'm extolling the virtues of a short story everyone was required to read at the age of 14 and a half but i was late to the party and i still wanna hop on the bandwagon.
sorry for the mixed metaphors.
bottom line: put me in sophomore year english! i'm ready now!...more
