Modern Classics: The Waves

Virgina Woolf described her book The Waves (1931) as 'playpoem' rather as a novel. It is in fact a highly poetical work and one of the essetial texts not only of Modernism but of English literature.

It is wise that readers follow Woolf's advice and approach this work as a poem. Once you accept that what you have on your hands is not a 'conventional' novel, reading it becomes a superbly rewarding experience.

Other books I have read by this author: Mrs Dalloway and A Room of One's Own.

Great Classics: Jude the Obscure

I have just finished reading Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (1895). I can see how this novel was shocking to the Victorians but I found Hardy's pessimism almost unbearable. Although I started off really enjoying the novel, and found Jude's character extremely interesting and complex after he elopes with his cousin Sue I just found myself reading gradually becoming more and more depressed.

I have recently bought a few Victorian novels that I intend to read over the next few weeks (perhaps months). I suppose I am trying to fill in the gaps of my education. In that sense, I am glad I've read Jude the Obscure.

Contemporary Reads: Cat's Eye

Cat's Eye (1988) was the ninth novel published by Margaret Atwood. It is a Bildungsroman charting the life of painter Elaine Risley.

This novel explores brilliantly the complex relationship between a bully, Cordelia, and her victim, Elaine. We also get to see how this relationship changes throughout the years from the victim's perspective. As with all books by Atwood I read to date, Cat's Eye does not fail to impress.

Other books I have read by this author: The Robber Bride and The Blind Assassin.

Great Classics: Silas Marner

Silas Marner (1861) is George Eliot's shortest novel. It tells the story of a lonely weaver in the town of Raveloe in the early 1800s.

Silas is a foreigner in the community. In his home town of Lantern Yarn, he had been a prominent member of a dissenting church until he is set up by a friend and falsely accused of stealing. When he settles in the village of Raveloe he leads a lonely existence until one night Dunstan Cass, son of a squire, steals his gold thus unleashing a series of events that will change his life.

When Silas announces that someone has stolen his life's savings, the village people rally around him and everyone starts seeing him in a different, more positive light. Soon after the theft, while all the prominent people, including Dunstan's brother Godfrey, are at a New Year's party, a stranger woman who is on her way to the village with her baby girl dies in the snow. The woman, called Molly, who we learn is addicted to opium is Godfrey's secret wife and the baby is his daughter. Silas finds them both and takes the baby to the party in search of a doctor. Even when he recognises the baby as his daughter and Molly as his wife, Godfrey does not own up to this and keeps it a secret for years while Silas raises the baby girl as his own. He names her Eppie (short for Hephzibah, his deceased sister's name).

16 years later, Dunstan is found dead and Silas gold is retrieved and return to its owner. Dunstan had died on the night he stole it. This discovery prompts Godfrey to confess his secret to his wife Nancy. The couple decide to go and see Silas and Eppie to reveal the truth and to propose they adopt the girl. Eppie is shocked to hear this and refuses to be adopted as she feels Silas to be her rightful father and does not want that to change. The novel ends with Eppie marrying Arron Winthrop.

This is a moral tale or rather an educating tale where love, loyalty and roots are important values. The reader will noticed that Silas is not a Christian, he does not celebrate Christmas or recognise Jesus. He will remain unconverted throughout the book. In fact, he changes very little, it is rather others' perceptions of him that gradually change after his gold is stolen and fatefully 'replaced' by an orphaned child.

Great Classics: North and South

North and South (1855) by Elizabeth Gaskell is a love story as much as a socio-political novel. Like most novels of its time it was originally published serialised. This accounts for its length and also for the fact that each chapter (there are 52 in total) ends with a cliffhanger.

The novel tells the story of how a Southern English family ends up living in the fictional Nothern industrial town of Milton (largely based upon Manchester). After Margaret Hale rejects a marriage proposal from Henry Lennox, she and her parents move up North from Hampshire when her father leaves the Church due to 'his opinions'. Her brother Frederick is living in Spain after having been expelled from the army after a mutiny he took part in. He cannot come back to Britain for fear of being recognised and hung.

A few chapters in, there is a shift from the idyllic discription of rural Southern England and its gentle society to the harsh, unrefined, industrial Milton. Mr Hale becomes the tutor of self-made man and factory owner John Thornton. Margaret also makes the acquaintance of ill ex-factory worker Bessy and her father Mr Higgins.

Throughout the ensuing chapters, Margaret begins to appreciate life in Milton and to understand its social workings. Some significant events take place: there is a big strike, Mr Thornton falls in love with Margaret and Bessy dies. Mrs Hale herself becomes very ill and asks Margaret to write Frederick a letter requesting he comes to England at once to see her.

Mrs Hale dies during Frederick's visit. When Margaret accompanies her brother to the train station and drunkard recognises him and Frederick pushes him to the ground before boarding his train. A few hours later, the drunkard dies. When the police comes round to see Margaret she falsely denies her being at the train station that evening. Mr Thornton stops the police enquiry after the death as he is aware of Margaret's involvement. However, he wrongly believes Frederick to be Margaret's lover and shares this with his mother.

This event takes John and Margaret farther apart as the former holds a low opinion of the latter and the latter feels obliged to keep her secret for her brother's sake. She is also tormented because of her lie and because she thinks John believes her to be a liar.

Mr Hale dies in Oxford while visiting his old friend and Milton man, Mr Bell. Before Mr Hale's passing, Mr Bell promises him he will look after Margaret as he had grown fond of her during a recent visit to the North. Margaret moves to London with Auntie Shawn, cousin Edith and her husband Captain Lennox and his brother Mr Lennox. She learns that Frederick has got married in Spain and does not wish to ever set foot in England again. Upon Mr Bell's death, Margaret becomes an heiress and, in a turn of fortune, John Thornton's landlady (or landlord as it says on the book).

Mr Higgins, who is now working for Mr Thornton, tells him the story about Frederick's visit years ago. Margaret's character is restored on John's eyes and he travels down to London for their reunion on the final chapters.

North and South, like all Victorian novels, is plot-heavy so I have left out many plot developments. I believe, however, that I have outlined the main ones of this great classic.

Contemporary Reads: The Story of the Night

The Story of the Night (1996) by Colm Tóibín is set in Argentina during the 1980s. Its protagonist and narrator is Richard Garay, a half English Argentinian young man living in Buenos Aires.

The novel is made up by three distinct parts:

Much of the first part is devoted to Richard's relationship with her staunchly English mother, his casual gay sex encounters in the city, and his work as an English teacher. One of his students is Jorge whose father Sr Canaletto fancies himself as candidate to the presidency. By the end of the first part, Richard meets Jorge's brother, Pablo, who has just come back from California after 10 years.

The second part gets really political and I found it really interesting. In this part, Richard and Pablo start a relationship. I particularly appreciated Tóibín's erotic writing which made their relationship really believable and touching.
The thrid and final part is quite harsh as it is when both lovers find out, separately and after they have broken up that have AIDS. After a chance meeting at the clinic they find out that they both have it and move it together again.

The book has certain inconsistencies and some of the episodes depicted somehow lack cohesion. However, I did not mind this much as the novel is so moving and shocking and truthful to the male gay experience that I would put it next to some of the novels by Edmund White, Allan Hollinghurst or David Leavitt.

Other books I have read by the same author: The Master.

Contemporary Reads: Life of Pi

Life of Pi (2002) by Yann Martel became an International publishing sensation after winning the Man Booker Prize. It tells the story of how an Indian teeneager, Piscine Molitor Patel or Pi, survived a shipwreck in the company of a Bengal tiger.

The book is divided in three parts:

- In Part I, we learn about Pi's upbringing in the Indian town of Pondicherry. His interest in religion will see him becoming a Christian and a Muslim while still remaining a Hindu. Aside from religion, his other main interest is animals (his family runs the local zoo). Later in life he'll major in religious studies and zoology.

- In Part II, the family decides to leave India to emigrate to Canada. They sail across the Pacific in a Japanese ship with most of the animals on board. Amid much confusion, before the ship sinks Pi is thrown into a boat and is, thus, the only survivor. The only human survivor, that is, since on the boat there are also a zebra, a hyena, an orang-utan and a tiger! Soon the hyena eats zebra and the orang-utan and the tiger eats the hyena. Both the Pi and the tiger hilariously known as Richard Parker survive for many months and after a brief sojour on a meerkat infested island they arrived to Mexico.

- In Part III, two members of the Japanese Ministry of Transport who find Pi's story unbelievable. So he changes it just by substituting the zebra by a Taiwanese salior, the orang-utan by his mother and the hyena by a French cook. Finally, the Japanese officials decide to stick to the story with animals and it is the one that 'sounds best'.

This is a highly imaginative and shocking novel.