I know. How immature can I be? I can't help it. Well, my library didn't have any of the Austen books on hand, so I stuck my name on the hold lists and grabbed the next book down the line, Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac. I just wanted to inform anyone that is trying to follow along with my supposed "alphabetical by author" story (lies!).
My first impression of the book is that this is another French author, and the story takes place in the mid-1800's. It will be interesting to see Balzac's point of view on Paris and French coulture compared to Fournier. There is an introduction at the beginning of the book that explains that this is only part 1 of 2 books, the second titled Cousin Pons. I don't know why Bette is on The List, but Pons is not. I might have to read the other as well, but we will see how I feel after I finish this one.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Le Grand Meaulnes is pretty grand!
I finished reading The Lost Domain (or as it was originally titled, Le Grand Meaulnes) last night. It was definitely a tough read, even for being a little tiny baby-sized book. There are two reasons why I think this book was hard for me: 1. It was originally written in French, and although the translation is wonderful, some of the sentences are still a bit off; 2. The time/culture/environment of the story is not familiar to me at all, having never grown up in 1890's France. Now I know that I will probably say this about almost every other book on the list, since most were written/take place a hundred years or more ago. But this book was quite foreign to me, and hard, and so I use those excuses.
With all that said, I enjoyed this book so much that I will most likely be adding it to my book collection. Said collection includes Harry Potter, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Twilight series. Seriously, that's about it. Needless to say, this book will get its very own shelf because the others don't deserve to be near it (don't hate me!).
The Lost Domain is an interesting story narrated by not the main character, but by a character who idolizes the main character so much that no other characters are really examined. Le grand Meaulnes (pronounced like "moan"), as he is called in the story, is the only character that gets any real attention from the narrator. To be honest, I know very little more now about the narrator character than I did when I first started the book. The same is with all the other characters. So much so that I found myself having to go backwards in the book to find answers as to where a certain character came into the story, or the significance of that character.
The book is a romance in the very literal meaning of the word. From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a romance is (1) : a medieval tale based on legend, chivalric love and adventure, or the supernatural (2) : a prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved in events remote in time or place and usually heroic, adventurous, or mysterious. The Lost Domain is a romance and also a fairy tale, but what makes it truly wonderful and unique is that it includes very real to life themes - sorrow, pain, and death. The addition of the bad makes the good so much more satisfying.
In conclusion, never judge a book by its cover, but especially never judge a book by its size (or lack thereof).
With all that said, I enjoyed this book so much that I will most likely be adding it to my book collection. Said collection includes Harry Potter, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Twilight series. Seriously, that's about it. Needless to say, this book will get its very own shelf because the others don't deserve to be near it (don't hate me!).
The Lost Domain is an interesting story narrated by not the main character, but by a character who idolizes the main character so much that no other characters are really examined. Le grand Meaulnes (pronounced like "moan"), as he is called in the story, is the only character that gets any real attention from the narrator. To be honest, I know very little more now about the narrator character than I did when I first started the book. The same is with all the other characters. So much so that I found myself having to go backwards in the book to find answers as to where a certain character came into the story, or the significance of that character.
The book is a romance in the very literal meaning of the word. From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a romance is (1) : a medieval tale based on legend, chivalric love and adventure, or the supernatural (2) : a prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved in events remote in time or place and usually heroic, adventurous, or mysterious. The Lost Domain is a romance and also a fairy tale, but what makes it truly wonderful and unique is that it includes very real to life themes - sorrow, pain, and death. The addition of the bad makes the good so much more satisfying.
In conclusion, never judge a book by its cover, but especially never judge a book by its size (or lack thereof).
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Chapter 2: The Lost Domain Begins...well, maybe when I'm not so sleepy
So I went a little bit out of order by starting with Alcott before Alain-Fournier, but I'm not too proud to admit that I was scared. Just a pinch. But then I checked out the book, and the copy that I got is about 280 pages, but it is a tiny little baby book! Seriously, it is 4 inches by 6 inches at the most. I haven't measured it, but I just might in order to be accurate in my reporting. I'm not scared of a baby book.
I read the first chapter of The Lost Domain last night and honestly will have to read it again because I remember nothing. This might be harder than I thought. Lesson learned: Just because a book is small and baby tiny does not mean it will be easy to read. Just like the fact that I could read all seven Harry Potter books in about 10 days. If it catches your attention and keeps it (and is fairly easy to read as far as vocab and junk goes), it will be a fast read. If not, it will be tough, no matter the size.
There's an introduction at the beginning of the book kind of explaining the different themes and blah blah blah in the book, but also a little background about the author. Alain-Fournier, or Henri Fournier, was born in 1886 in France and was killed in action during WWI in 1914. He was just under 28 years old. The book was published in French, obviously, in 1913, and then translated to English in 1959 for my reading enjoyment!
Okay, so totally off subject, but I wanted to tangentize for a minute. I find it very interesting getting books from the library. I do NOT like the smell of them like Carrie in SatC, but I do like to look at the old stamped on card things and see a little history of the copy I'm reading. My specific copy was first checked out on August 26, 1977 and then not again until February 10, 1982. Then there are no more stamps at all. I'm not sure when my library went to an electronic check out system, but I think it is safe to say I can feel a little better about not yet reading this book than I did about Little Women, right? Speak up if you have honestly read this book. (Crickets chirping). And scene.
I read the first chapter of The Lost Domain last night and honestly will have to read it again because I remember nothing. This might be harder than I thought. Lesson learned: Just because a book is small and baby tiny does not mean it will be easy to read. Just like the fact that I could read all seven Harry Potter books in about 10 days. If it catches your attention and keeps it (and is fairly easy to read as far as vocab and junk goes), it will be a fast read. If not, it will be tough, no matter the size.
There's an introduction at the beginning of the book kind of explaining the different themes and blah blah blah in the book, but also a little background about the author. Alain-Fournier, or Henri Fournier, was born in 1886 in France and was killed in action during WWI in 1914. He was just under 28 years old. The book was published in French, obviously, in 1913, and then translated to English in 1959 for my reading enjoyment!
Okay, so totally off subject, but I wanted to tangentize for a minute. I find it very interesting getting books from the library. I do NOT like the smell of them like Carrie in SatC, but I do like to look at the old stamped on card things and see a little history of the copy I'm reading. My specific copy was first checked out on August 26, 1977 and then not again until February 10, 1982. Then there are no more stamps at all. I'm not sure when my library went to an electronic check out system, but I think it is safe to say I can feel a little better about not yet reading this book than I did about Little Women, right? Speak up if you have honestly read this book. (Crickets chirping). And scene.
Chapter 1: Little Women Recap
I finished Little Women yesterday, after about two weeks of reading. I was pretty proud of myself, except for the fact that a 640-page book was in the CHILDREN'S section of my library. Also, that Ms. Alcott included many vocabulary-amplifying words that I could barely pronounce now, let alone when I was what, 10 or 11 years old? Holy. But I digress. I was very happy that I read the brick in such a small amount of time. I enjoyed it, but I did know everything that was going to happen, since I saw the movie. That is the one problem with seeing a movie that is based on a book before reading the book. I highly do not reccommend it.
My favorite character in Little Women is Beth, because of her gentleness and the way everyone acted differently/better when they were around her. When I was growing up, that type of a person was called a "peacemaker", and I remember always thinking that my mother was the peacemaker of our family. Beth was definitely a peacemaker, and my greatest hope is to be like Beth, and also my mother, someday.
Anyway, read Little Women, because it really is good! I probably am the only person in the world who hadn't read it, but still. Read it again.
My favorite character in Little Women is Beth, because of her gentleness and the way everyone acted differently/better when they were around her. When I was growing up, that type of a person was called a "peacemaker", and I remember always thinking that my mother was the peacemaker of our family. Beth was definitely a peacemaker, and my greatest hope is to be like Beth, and also my mother, someday.
Anyway, read Little Women, because it really is good! I probably am the only person in the world who hadn't read it, but still. Read it again.
Table of Contents
So here's the deal. I'm not a real "words" person. With an English major mother and very creative storywriter sister and amazing songwriter brother, I am very aware of my shortfalls when it comes to language. I enjoy reading, but have never really pushed myself to read "hard stuff". Whenever I see a movie that is based on a book, I always try to go read that book. Well, obviously everyone else has the same idea because I'm always around 346th on the hold list at the library. So, not wanting to wait that long - or shell out the bucks to buy books I might never read again - I started thinking of other books I could read.
I remember in middle school/high school when my English teachers always handed out the "Classics List", or "Must Read in Order to Call Yourself Smart List" with a bunch of books that I've always considered boring or waaaay too long. Well, the time has come for me to deal with the boring and long and so I decided to read The List. Dun dun dun (scary suspense music). My local library has all the necessary items, even including a "Smart People Read These" list which they have titled "Classics in Fiction". So, I started with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and will go pretty much alphabetically by author from there.
My goal is to realize that what I thought was boring and long when I was a wee child will now be rewarding and enlightening, even if it is a bit challenging. And also to be able to do the Jumble with my fam without being shunned. Time will tell!
Here's the list if you want to follow along with me!
A
Alain-Fournier: The Lost Domain (also known as Le Grand Meaulnes)
Alcott: Little Women
Austen: Emma
Austen: Mansfield Park
Austen: Persuasion
Austen: Pride and Prejudice
B
Balzac: Cousin Bette
Balzac: Eugenie Grendet
Bennett: The Old Wives' Tale
Bronte: Jane Eyre
Bronte: Shirley
Bronte: Wuthering Heights
C
Camus: The Plague
Camus: The Stranger
Cather: My Antonia
Cervantes: Don Quixote
Collins: The Moonstone
Collins: The Woman in White
Conrad: The Heart of Darkness
Conrad: Lord Jim
Conrad: Nostromo
Crane: The Red Badge of Courage
D
Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
Dickens: Bleak House
Dickens: David Copperfield
Dickens: Great Expectations
Dickens: Martin Chuzzlewit
Dickens: Oliver Twist
Dickens: The Pickwick Papers
Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Dostoevsky: The Idiot
Doyle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas: The Three Musketeers
E
Eliot: Adam Bede
Eliot: Middlemarch
F
Fielding: Joseph Andrews
Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Forster: A Passage to India
Flaubert: Madame Bovary
G
Gaskell: Mary Barton
Gaskell: North and South
Gaskell: Wives and Daughters
Gide: The Counterfeiters
H
Hardy: Far From the Madding Crowd
Hardy: Jude the Obscure
Hardy: The Mayer of Casterbridge
Hardy: Tess of the D'Ubervilles
Hasek: The Good Soldier Svejk
Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
Henry: Short Stories
Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi)
Hesse: Siddartha
Hudson: Green Mansions
Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo: Les Miserables
Huxley: Brave New World
J
James: The Golden Bowl
James: Portrait of a Lady
James: The Tragic Muse
James: Washington Square
James: Wings of the Dove
Joyce: Ulysses
K
Kafka: The Trial
L
Lawrence: The Rainbow
Lawrence: Sons and Lovers
Lawrence: Women in Love
London: Call of the Wild
M
Mann: The Magic Mountain
Manzoni: The Betrothed
Maugham: Of Human Bondage
Maupassant: Short Stories
Melville: Moby Dick
O
Orczy: The Scarlet Pimpernel
Orwell: 1984
P
Poe: Short Stories
Proust: Remembrance of Things Past
R
Richardson: Pamela
S
Scott: Ivanhoe
Smollett: Roderick Random
Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck: East of Eden
Sterne: Tristram Shandy
Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift: Gulliver's Travels
T
Thackeray: Vanity Fair
Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
Tolstoy: War and Peace
Trollope: Barchester Towers
Trollope: The Warden
Turgenev: Fathers and Sons
Twain: Huckleberry Finn
Twain: Tom Sawyer
W
Wharton: Ethan Frome
Woolf: To the Lighthouse
I remember in middle school/high school when my English teachers always handed out the "Classics List", or "Must Read in Order to Call Yourself Smart List" with a bunch of books that I've always considered boring or waaaay too long. Well, the time has come for me to deal with the boring and long and so I decided to read The List. Dun dun dun (scary suspense music). My local library has all the necessary items, even including a "Smart People Read These" list which they have titled "Classics in Fiction". So, I started with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and will go pretty much alphabetically by author from there.
My goal is to realize that what I thought was boring and long when I was a wee child will now be rewarding and enlightening, even if it is a bit challenging. And also to be able to do the Jumble with my fam without being shunned. Time will tell!
Here's the list if you want to follow along with me!
A
Alain-Fournier: The Lost Domain (also known as Le Grand Meaulnes)
Alcott: Little Women
Austen: Emma
Austen: Mansfield Park
Austen: Persuasion
Austen: Pride and Prejudice
B
Balzac: Cousin Bette
Balzac: Eugenie Grendet
Bennett: The Old Wives' Tale
Bronte: Jane Eyre
Bronte: Shirley
Bronte: Wuthering Heights
C
Camus: The Plague
Camus: The Stranger
Cather: My Antonia
Cervantes: Don Quixote
Collins: The Moonstone
Collins: The Woman in White
Conrad: The Heart of Darkness
Conrad: Lord Jim
Conrad: Nostromo
Crane: The Red Badge of Courage
D
Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
Dickens: Bleak House
Dickens: David Copperfield
Dickens: Great Expectations
Dickens: Martin Chuzzlewit
Dickens: Oliver Twist
Dickens: The Pickwick Papers
Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Dostoevsky: The Idiot
Doyle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas: The Three Musketeers
E
Eliot: Adam Bede
Eliot: Middlemarch
F
Fielding: Joseph Andrews
Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Forster: A Passage to India
Flaubert: Madame Bovary
G
Gaskell: Mary Barton
Gaskell: North and South
Gaskell: Wives and Daughters
Gide: The Counterfeiters
H
Hardy: Far From the Madding Crowd
Hardy: Jude the Obscure
Hardy: The Mayer of Casterbridge
Hardy: Tess of the D'Ubervilles
Hasek: The Good Soldier Svejk
Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
Henry: Short Stories
Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi)
Hesse: Siddartha
Hudson: Green Mansions
Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo: Les Miserables
Huxley: Brave New World
J
James: The Golden Bowl
James: Portrait of a Lady
James: The Tragic Muse
James: Washington Square
James: Wings of the Dove
Joyce: Ulysses
K
Kafka: The Trial
L
Lawrence: The Rainbow
Lawrence: Sons and Lovers
Lawrence: Women in Love
London: Call of the Wild
M
Mann: The Magic Mountain
Manzoni: The Betrothed
Maugham: Of Human Bondage
Maupassant: Short Stories
Melville: Moby Dick
O
Orczy: The Scarlet Pimpernel
Orwell: 1984
P
Poe: Short Stories
Proust: Remembrance of Things Past
R
Richardson: Pamela
S
Scott: Ivanhoe
Smollett: Roderick Random
Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck: East of Eden
Sterne: Tristram Shandy
Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift: Gulliver's Travels
T
Thackeray: Vanity Fair
Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
Tolstoy: War and Peace
Trollope: Barchester Towers
Trollope: The Warden
Turgenev: Fathers and Sons
Twain: Huckleberry Finn
Twain: Tom Sawyer
W
Wharton: Ethan Frome
Woolf: To the Lighthouse
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
