It Might Have Been International Women's Day But Fathers And Sons Is Better Than Wives And Daughters...And Other Books

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today,

Well have been reading a few books since we last chatted. So let's start with a biography of Robert Burns by John Sharp. If this book was a meal I'd describe it as edible but nothing more. I'm sure there are better bios to use your time on instead.

You may remember a few posts back that I chatted about Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell and that I didn't like it. Well in the random way I pick books to read the next book turned out to be Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (and it was random....honest!).

Whilst not perfect I enjoyed it. On the one hand you get the sons, with their youthful hopes,ideals cynicism, and disdain for their elders. Also properly discovering for the first time the mystery that are women. On the other there are the fathers. Men you feel are dissatisfied. The feeling that as their best years have passed them by they haven't yet found a certain peace within themselves.

There is more of the sons than the fathers, and as now I belong to the former I would have rather seen it the other way. Still of the books I'm chatting about today this was the best in my view.

The Angel of Terror by Edgar Wallace is one of those books that's perfectly acceptable as long as your brain is cruising in first gear. That said, Erle Stanley Gardner is better.

To be clear with regard to my criticisms of other Wallace thrillers it didn't strike me as racist and regard to sexist whilst the heroine has moments of dimness where she needs the help of men the cleverest villain is a woman. So I suppose that is some sort of equality.

Beowulf then. No one knows who wrote this epic poem but I think we can hazard a guess that it was a man, Indeed I'll go further by saying that it was not the sort of man who would wander lonely as a cloud and chat about daffodils either.

At the risk of being beheaded by the ghost of some Viking warlord what it didn't do is become one of those exceptions to my disregard of poetry. Ditto The Dalby Bear and Other Ballads by George Borrow.This time though I think this was my fault as I downloaded writers mentioned by Robert Macfarlane in his book Tracks ( W H Hudson was another) but in my eagerness to download everything I disregarded the fact that this is a ballad so probably better appreciated with music. I'll give George a pass.

Regular readers will know that there are certain writers that I describe as literary Switzerland in that whilst I don't dislike them I don't understand why they're considered great either. Anton Chekhov falls into this category and taken as a whole The Schoolmistress and Other Stories does not change anything.

There are exceptions. The title story (which is the best of the collection) and a few others make you sit up and take notice. But for the most part I just shrugged and moved on to the next tale.

In another tick off the literary bucket list the book I'm reading now is The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. Can't say I'm happy with the portrayal of the villain but I'll chat about that when I've finished.

Until the next time.

More Reading At Outpatients

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well last Monday I was at outpatients with my mother. And as per usual there was the wait, and then another wait, and then another wait. And in the meantime I read. Some of these books were started before we went into the hospital and others were finished afterwards but they all bar the first had the outpatients reading vibe upon them.

Romance of Roman Villas (The Renaissance) by Elizabeth Champney then. When I started this read I said I didn't know what it was going to be. Now that I've finished it I can truly say nothing has changed. I wasn't really sure whether I was reading a historical novel, or a biography or art history. One moment the Borgias were being discussed. The next there were quotes from William Morris. My head hurt.

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell was the next read. The good thing about this was that it's definitely a novel. And..... well.....that's it.

Written to be published in a magazine between 1864 and 1866 whilst this was (though obviously decades later) in a Jane Austen manner it was nowhere near as good. As regular readers will know Jane Austen is for me in that group of writers that comes in that neutral "literary Switzerland" territory.

Elizabeth Gaskell is however (based on the books I've read) more moving into the D H Lawrence blog villain category. Possibly this is to do with the reputation of North and South (which I haven't read) as a social novel in the Dickension mould. Wives and Daughters is anything but. Inconsequential is the best word I can describe this....and the most kindest.

A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov is another book which I didn't like, Essentially a collection of tales with the overall arc surrounding them all I can say is that I suspect I would have enjoyed it more if I was Russian.

So now it's a biography of Robert Burns by John Sharp. Let's hope I like it better than this lot.

Until the next time

On Reading Between Hospital Visits....Including A Mormon Western

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Emergencies aside Sundays at a hospital are dull affairs. The consultants are not there to consult. The big doctors are not there to do big things. No mainly medication is given and wheels are just made running until Monday. It is also eerily quiet. And for the patients of course irritating. As their futures

And of course there are the hospital visits.

So I'm seeing my mother and there is a gap between the afternoon and evening visits. It is pointless to go back to the house during the break. So armed with a coke bottle it's time to read whilst the few people around me eat,drink and chat.

So it's time to chat.....

Victorian Short Stories:Stories Of Successful Marriages is not as I assumed just by Elizabeth Gaskell but others as well. Unfortunately the stories were just, well, unsuccessful. Next was The Advocate by Charles Haversage. A small comic novel....just not so comic.

But the most interesting book was Riders Of The Purple Sage by Zane Grey published in 1912. This apparently was the novel that set the tenplate was the Western genre. I get it. There is the young buck character. the main females being feisty but whimpering when faced with "a real man" and of course the mysterious stranger, treated with suspicion because he's "not from these parts".

However, as the title of the post indicates, what makes this book different is the setting, Utah and the involvement of Mormons. No native Americans or bad guys in black hats here.

The book is readable. You can see how he had a career in writing. But as I was going through it I couldn't really decide whether this book has specific Mormon as villain or is generally anti Mormon the religion. My view is the latter but you can make the case for the former. The thing is if I did explain how then it would spoil things should you read it

It occurred to me also that I haven't a read a Western novel in decades. When I was young the Western was a staple of popular culture. Now it's a novelty.

Until the next time.

On Books: How Theo Is Now Terminated And How Engels Is Relevant Today

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

The question I know you've been asking on Friday evening is this. If you have to pick some writings to put in a collection from a writer famous in his/her time but now forgotten how would you go about it?

Well if the collection of Theodore Dreiser is anything to go by what you do is to put the best book by a EU twenty seven country mile (kilometre if you wish but the joke is not so good) Sister Carrie first. You put the second best book (Jennie Galbraith) next. And after that throw in potboliery twaddle like Titan or The Genius. Or dull work like Twelve Men or the short stories.

And that's it. Job done.

Truly Sister Carrie aside the only real pleasure I had in this collection was it's ending.

The next book was The Condition Of The Working Class in England in 1844 by Friedrich Engels. Whilst Freddie may not be the possessor of the ability to produce sassy titles. This book is relevant today.

I won't go into much detail. That would be a political spoiler. But when you read it things will begin to unnerve you. Because the Britain it describes then is not far removed from the Britain of today. For the poorest amongst us it's already there. For most working class families it's not a few steps away and even for most middle class families sudden bad luck would make it closer than they would believe.

You think that it's fanciful? The welfare state and the NHS are the two tangible things that are different from the Victorian era. And they are the two things the Conservatives are chipping away from the fabric of British society.

I'll give one example. Employers were complaining about laws to limit the working day to ten hours. Ten hours!

So whilst you shouldn't expect a rip roaring read. Don't avoid this book. For you might find that you'll experience the Victorian Britain it describes in your future.

The next book is Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Successful marriages. I'm expecting that the title is deceptive given that the author is Elizabeth Gaskell of North and South fame.

We shall see.

Until the next time.