Back to the Classics Challenge 2015 - Wrap-up Post

Girl Reading in a Landscape by Ada Thilen, 1896

I've just finished the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015 and read a total of 12 books from various categories throughout this year. My original list is here but I made a few changes (as I knew I would) as I went along. I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge and read some books I might have passed over had I not had to include specific categories.
These are the 12 books linked to my review/thoughts on each one.


 1. A 19th Century Classic - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens


2.  A 20th Century Classic - The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie


3.  A Classic by a Woman Author - Persuasion by Jane Austen


4.  A Classic in Translation - Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert


5.  A Very Long Classic Novel - The Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton-Porter


6.  A Classic Novella - The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith


7.  A Classic with a Person's Name in the Title - Adam Bede by George Eliot


8.  A Humorous or Satirical Classic - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving


9.  A Forgotten Classic - I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall


10.  A Nonfiction Classic - The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis


11.  A Classic Children's Book - Bambi: a Life in the Woods by Felix Salten


12.  A Classic Play - All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare




Karen @ Books & Chocolates will be hosting another Back to Classics Challenge in 2016

The Abolition of Man by C.S Lewis (1898-1963)

I've read quite a few books by C.S. Lewis and have always found his writing very accessible but this book, despite its brevity, was stiff going.  I struggled to understand some of what he wrote, but reading this book more seventy years after it was published, I can appreciate his brilliance and the prophetic ring to his words.
The Abolition of Man or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools, was first published in 1943 and its main focus is moral relativism. The book is divided into three sections:

1. Men Without Chests

Lewis opens with an example from an English textbook written for schools, The Green Book. The book's authors, Gaius and Titius, argue that there is no such thing as objective value and that our judgements about value are subjective. You may value a painting for its beauty, but that's just your own subjective judgement. There is no outside standard by which beauty can be judged.

Although the authors may have unintentionally bred a philosophy of value while trying to strengthen the minds of their young students against ‘sentiment,’ Lewis cuts to the heart of the issue:

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.
The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments...a hard heart us no infallible protection against a soft head.

There are universal principles, natural laws, traditional values; beliefs that certain attitudes are true and others false. They have provided a framework for objective value throughout history and have been shared by successful civilisations and religious systems throughout history. He calls these principles the Tao, and devoted an appendix at the end of the book to illustrate the extent of its influence.

Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in 'ordinate affections' or 'just sentiments' will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science.

In an educational sense, if you stand within the Tao, the task is to train the student in those responses which are intrinsically ordinate or just. If outside the Tao, education will either remove all sentiments from the student's mind or else encourage sentiments that have nothing to do with their intrinsic 'justness' or 'ordinancy.'

This moral relativism produces Men Without Chests. The chest is the seat of Magnanimity:

Of emotions organised by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest - Magnanimity - Sentiment - these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man.

Modern philosophy gives Men without Chests the appellation of Intellectuals. The following quotes were a couple of my favourites:

This gives them (the 'Intellectuals) the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so...
It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

2. The Way

The practical result of education in the spirit of The Green Book must be the destruction of the society which accepts it.

Lewis believes that those who want to discredit traditional values often have their own set of values which they consider to be free from inherited restrictions. By removing these restrictions or sentiments, our real, basic values are allowed to surface. He uses this chapter to trace that thinking through to its natural conclusion.

The 'Innovator,' having dismissed the Tao, looks for a basic ground of value. He decides that ethics based on Instinct will give him what he wants.
But...
Telling us to obey Instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war...Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest.

The chapter concludes with the idea that the end result of stepping outside the Tao is the rejection of the concept of value altogether.

Let us regard all ideas of what we 'ought' to do simply as an interesting psychological survival: let us step right out of all that and start doing what we like. Let us decide for ourselves what man is to be and make him into that: not on any ground if imagined value, but because we want him to be such. Having mastered our environment, let yes now master ourselves and choose our own destiny.

3) The Abolition of Man

For the powers of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we gave seen, the power of some men to make other men what 'they' please.

Chuck Colson said that ‘Naturalism (the belief that there is a naturalistic explanation for everything in the universe) undercuts any objective morality, opening the door to tyranny.’
In the final chapter of The Abolition of Man, Man’s conquest of nature turns out to be man using  Nature to exert power over other men - i.e. tyranny.

Through eugenics, pre-natal conditioning, propaganda and education based on ‘perfectly applied psychology,’ Man obtains full control over himself.

This final chapter had my mind in convolutions at times, especially when I lost the thread connecting it all to education. Re-reading some sections helped make it more cohesive. It really is a book that deserves multiple readings, and is listed as one of the National Reviews 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century. I highly recommend it, especially to parents and anyone involved in education.



The Abolition of Man is my entry in the Non-Fiction Classic category at the Back to the Classics 2015 Challenge.

The Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton-Porter (1863-1924)

'Now a great adventure may be killing white hippopotami in Africa to one man and commanding his own soul for an hour to another.

The reason a great adventure is an adventure is because things that happen are so very simple and so very natural. Why it is great is merely because one has not expected it, not because it could not very well have been expected had one's wits been working.'

After being wounded in combat during World War I, Jamie MacFarlane is repatriated to California for treatment. After a year in the best military hospital available, he is no better and the authorities decide to stop his treatment, and give his place to another. When he accidentally overhears this plan, he decides his days are numbered, walks out of the place with nothing but the clothes on his back, and turns north to begin his Great Adventure.

With the intention of placing as much distance between himself and the hospital, he makes his way north by hitching rides and finds himself running the gamut of humanity in his various encounters with kind travellers, cruel bandits and pickpockets.

...dimly he was beginning to formulate in his mind the feeling that the world is made up of good people and bad people, of selfish people and thoughtful people, of cruel people and kind people, and it was merely a case of luck as to which kind you met when you went on a great adventure.

By the time he reaches the coast he is at the limit of his endurance and ready to collapse. Seeing a small house in the distance and propelled on by the charm of its situation, he stumbles towards it and as he does, an elderly man reels out clutching his chest.

Jamie pushes past his own weakness and goes to the aid of the stricken man who is known as the Master Bee Keeper. A doctor is called and the Bee Keeper is taken to hospital for emergency surgery. Jamie, with nowhere else to go and no strength left to take him, agrees to look after the Bee Keeper's home and bee hives. With the help of Little Scout, he learns about the bees and their ways. Margaret Cameron, an elderly neighbour and close friend to the Bee Keeper, helps Jamie recover from his wound and later finds her life inexplicably linked with the young man she comes to respect and admire.

The Keeper of the Bees, written in 1925, was Gene Stratton-Porter's last novel and is set in California, where she made her home in 1923. Her childhood home was a cabin next to the Limberlost Swamp in Indiana and she was passionately devoted to the study of nature. She had only a little schooling but loved books and was determined to be a writer. Realising that the public would never be satisfied with just natural history studies, she combined a good story with her love of the natural world and the novel Freckles (which has sold almost two million copies) was the result.

I've thought much and written a little about self-education, especially in my role as a mother and in teaching my own children, and so was interested to read a little about the author's background.
She was married, kept a home and had a daughter to look after, but she made time to study and to write without neglecting those responsibilities.
She refused to be moved by editors who said her novels wouldn't sell if she included the nature references and her work was accurate enough that it was met with commendation from universities and other places of learning.
Speaking of her writing she said:

"To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be a gentler, saner, cleaner, kindler man, it is a wonder-working book.

If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step towards the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book, for one step into the miracle of nature leads to that long walk, the glories of which so strengthen even a boy who thinks he is dying, that he faces his struggle like a gladiator."

Some thoughts:

Whenever I read her books I always feel inspired to get out and do some gardening! She writes about the natural world so beautifully it really is inspiring.
Although I enjoyed this particular book, it isn't my favourite. So far I'd say that A Girl of the Limberlost is the book I've loved the most.

My older girls have read and very much enjoyed most of her novels.
I think her books appeal more to girls, although I read Freckles aloud to three of the boys and they didn't mind it.
If you've never read any of her novels or if you're looking at using them with children I'd suggest the following two first which were based on her farm childhood:

Freckles - an abandoned orphan is hired to guard an area of valuable timber in the Limberlost swamp. At first he is terrified of the wilderness but over a period of time he becomes fascinated with the birds of the forest and begins his journey of acceptance and healing. A beautiful book which makes a great read aloud for around age 10 and up.

A Girl of the Limberlost - also set in the Limberlost, this is a powerful story in which Elnora Comstock discovers the key to loving her emotionally distant mother. I cried most of the way through this. Reading this story made me want to be a better mother. I don't know that I'd manage to read this one aloud but I'd have to read it again to see if it has the same effect on me that it did when I first read it. Updated to add: I read this a long time ago & I just glanced over it to refresh my memory. Elanora's father was unfaithful to his wife at one point and as it is a factor in the mother's inability to express love to her daughter, it isn't something easily edited out. I'd save it for an older age group  even though the author is very discrete in her writing.

The Keeper of the Bees would be better left until around the age of 15 years as are some of her other books (I can't remember which ones exactly as it's been a while since I read them) mostly because they probably wouldn't be appreciated by a younger audience and her style is a little 'preachy' in this one. She does deal with slightly more mature content in some of her books but always in a wholesome and discreet manner.

This book is scheduled in Free Reads, Ambleside Online Year 11.


Gene Stratton-Porter's books are available free online at Project Gutenberg.
Historic site, Indiana State Museum.




The Keeper of the Bees is my entry for a Very Long Classic Novel (i.e. more than 500 pages) for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015.  At 526 pages it just scrapes in.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

The classic tales Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow first appeared in Washington Irving's Sketch Book in 1819-1820. I read both of these short stories for the first time this year. As with many other classics, I had a vague idea of the story line but had never actually read them for myself. Both books are included in the AmblesideOnline curriculum for Year 4, which is the year my daughter has just completed so I ended up reading them aloud to her. She enjoyed them both but really appreciated the humour contained in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
This book is a mix of both satire and humour and as I needed to choose something in that very category for the Back to the Classics Challenge I've been doing this year, I decided it would be my choice for this category. (Thanks to Nancy for suggesting this book to me earlier this year)

The same spirit of playful satire and protest against the restless energy and over wakeful enterprise of most of his fellow-countrymen around him seems to have inspired the author of the "Sketch Book" in selecting the title of this story.

Preface by the Illustrator, George H. Boughton.

The people of Sleepy Hollow, located on the eastern shore of the Hudson River, were given to all kinds of superstitious beliefs and fancies, but the belief in the legend of The Headless Horseman was the most pre-dominant.
Into this rustic area of the Hudson came the worthy schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, a native of Connecticut:

...a state which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions if frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters.

The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda...

Ichabod's appetite for tales of ghosts, goblins and the supernatural was equal to his appetite for food, and this propensity had been increased by his residency in the area. Although looked up to by the residents of the area as a man of learning and elegance, he was totally gullible when it came to the superstitious. 

'No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow.'

One of his pleasures was to pass long winter evenings listening to tales of haunted houses, goblins and of course, the headless horseman. He in turn would tell his own anecdotes of witchcraft and omens.
But it was one thing for Ichabod to tell his haunting tales sitting by the glow of a cosy fire but quite another to face his own shadowy spectres as he walked home by night.





Before long, Ichabod set his eyes upon pretty Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of a substantial Dutch farmer, and decided to visit her father, Baltus. Upon entering the farmer's house and laying his eyes on the delights it contained, Ichabod had made up his mind that he would gain her affection. However, he was up against a formidable rival, the young Tartar, Brom Bones.
Brom was chivalrous in a rough sort of way and would have settled the matter by open combat but Ichabod knew his opponent was physically superior and he made sure there was no opportunity for this.





One afternoon an invitation came to attend a 'merrymaking' at the Van Tassel's. Ichabod allowed his scholars to leave early and he spent extra time attending to his appearance before setting off. When he arrived at Van Tassel's his gaze was absorbed not by the beautiful young ladies present but the sumptuous array of food at the banquet, to which he did ample justice.

He was a kind and thankful toad whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer; whose spirit rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost imaginable luxury and splendour. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school- house; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron; and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade!

Ichabod was in his element that evening as he danced with Katrina, but the lovesick Brom Bones sat jealously in a corner by himself, brooding.
As the evening advanced, the supernatural stories began and various hair-raising tales were narrated with zest. Brom Bones rose to the occasion, matching the various stories by the vivid account of his adventure with the Galloping Hessian, the headless horseman of legend.
At the end of the evening, Ichabod lingered behind to speak to Katrina of his intentions, but he was repulsed and left the farm crestfallen. In desolation he made his way towards the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been set...
His rival had taken the measure of the gullible school master and had laid his plans accordingly.

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane by John Quidor (1858)

An interesting connection with this story: What "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Tells us About Contagion, Fear and Epidemics.







Back to the Classics 2015: Humourous or Satirical Classic

I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall (1955)

I initially picked up this book knowing it was an Australian Classic but with little knowledge of its content. It had been on our bookshelf, unread for years, until a few months ago when it caught my eye and I decided to use it for our read aloud. It is a fictionalised autobiography of the author and has sold over three million copies.

In the early 1900's, not long after Alan Marshall had just started school, a polio epidemic swept through Victoria. Very little was known about Infantile Paralysis (poliomyelitis) at the time and the word 'Paralysis' was associated with idiocy. When it became known that Alan had been struck down with the disease, the first question many people asked was, "Have you heard if his mind is affected?"

After he contracted polio, Alan's legs were left paralysed. Not long afterwards, the muscles in his legs began to contract and the sinews behind his knees tightened,  forcing his legs into a kneeling position. It was decided that he needed surgery and so he was admitted to the hospital twenty miles away. 

Reading about a young boy's hospital experience in the early 1900's makes you realise and appreciate how much things have changed over the years.
Alan was the only child in a ward full of adult males. Visiting hours were strict; parents were not allowed to stay with their children and not much was communicated to either patients or families about anything. Admission to hospital was a frightening enough experience for an adult, let alone a six year old boy.
After he had recovered from his surgery, Alan returned home. His parents didn't have enough money to buy a wheelchair so his father made him a long, three-wheeled vehicle out of an old perambulator and each morning he was pushed to school in the pram by the children who lived down the road. Once at school, he left his pram near the door and walked into the school on his crutches.

'Children make no distinction between the one who is lame and the one who has the full use of his limbs. They will ask a boy in crutches to run here or there for them and complain when he is slow.'

Alan's father was a horse trainer and Alan had always wanted to be a horseman. After his illness his father explained to him that he could never ride - not until he was a man and could walk again - his legs could not grip and as he had to hold onto the pommel to keep his balance upon the horse, he had no control of the reins:

'I listened to him in silence. I did not believe what he said was true. I wondered that he believed it himself. He was always right; now for the first time he was wrong.
I had made up my mind to ride.'

This book is not just the moving story of a little boy who defies and overcomes a major disability but it is also a picture of a period that has passed. In the preface to his book Marshall writes:

'The men and women here described are a product of that period and they too are passing. The influences that made them self-reliant, forthright and compassionate, have given way to influences that can develop characters just as fine, but the mould has changed and the product is different.'

Some of the most memorable and inspiring features of the story concerned Alan's attitude to his 'disability.' As far as he was concerned, he didn't have one.

'Having a normal mind my attitude to life was that of a normal child and my crippled limbs could not alter this attitude.'

This is an inspiring book to read. Both poignant and humorous, there are some beautifully written nuggets contained within its pages. One of my favourite passages is here, when Alan is taken out into the sunshine after his prolonged stay in hospital. Although Marshall wrote the book as an adult looking back on his childhood, he never lost the ability to see with the eyes of a child. My ten and fifteen year old's enjoyed this description of Alan's science lesson:

'Once a week we were given a lesson called "Science." I liked this lesson because then we were allowed to stand round he table and you could push and shove and have fun. 
Mr. Tucker opened the cupboard contains some test tubes, a spirit lamp, a bottle of Mercury and a leather disc with a piece of string attached to the centre. He placed these things on the table and said, "Today we are concerned with the weight of air which is fourteen pounds to the square inch."

This didn't make sense to me but the fact that I was standing beside Maggie Mulligan made me wish to shine so I proffered the information that my father had told me the fuller you are with air the lighter you are and you couldn't sink in the river. I thought this had some bearing on the subject...
The teacher was not impressed...
He then wet the leather disc and pressed it in the desk and none of us could pull it off except Maggie Mulligan who ripped the guts out of it with one yank and proved air didn't weigh anything.'

I Can Jump Puddles used to be required reading in Australian schools but it has largely been forgotten and most of Marshall's books are out of print. It's surprising that a book that deals with overcoming disability, written by someone who has been such an inspiration to children and adults in many different parts of the world has been neglected, especially when we now have a greater awareness of the needs and rights of the disabled.

Alan Marshall was awarded the O.B.E. for his services to the physically handicapped in 1972 and died in 1984.

This article was written for the 100th anniversary of Alan Marshall's birth and I quote from it below:

'...I think sooner or later, the Education Department will once again promote his work as an example of not giving in to adversity. And I think that's one of the reasons he was universally accepted. You could take his story and present it to any people in any country, and they could identify with his struggle against his pain and suffering. He really made good.'

I read this book aloud to a 10 and 15 year old & edited some parts for my younger listener. It would be a great read for older children in high school around 14 or 15 years of age. As with 'A Fortunate Life,' another wonderful Aussies classic, the author ultimately rejected God. I think this is important to discuss as it gets to the heart of what we believe about the character of God and why people suffer.

I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall is my entry for 'A Forgotten Classic' in the Back to the Classics Challenge.

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

The Man in the Brown Suit is the fourth book I've read by Agatha Christie, the 'Queen of Crime.' I read Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile years ago and wasn't inspired enough to read any more of her novels but a couple of my children really liked The Secret Adversary so I eventually decided to read that. This is the first of Christie's Tommy & Tuppence books (she wrote five starring these two characters) and the setting involves the World War I sinking of the Lusitania. I did enjoy this book, probably because Hercule Poirot wasn't in it. I really don't like his character and it was interesting to read that even Agatha Christie got fed up with him and his idiosyncrasies.

I was trying to decide on a title written in the 20th Century as part of the Back to the Classics Challenge. I had a few books in mind but the other week I decided to clean our floor to ceiling bookshelves and discovered a whole lot of books that I'd forgotten or hadn't read yet. They included a row of Agatha Christie titles. 

I've always wondered why she has been so hugely popular - her books have been translated into over one hundred languages and she is the best-selling novelist of all time. I really didn't think Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile were notable at all. The Secret Adversary gave me some hope that I might actually enjoy some other titles.

Then along comes The Man in the Brown Suit and I think I've totally changed my mind about Christie. 

Published in 1924, this book was a pleasure to read. Fast paced and delightful - and no Hercule Poirot. 

Anne Beddington, an attractive young woman, is left orphaned and penniless when her archaeologist father dies. When she witnesses the accidental death of a stranger who falls and is electrocuted on an Underground platform, she also sees a man in a brown suit examine the body, pronounce him dead,  and then quickly leave. As she turns to go also, she sees the 'doctor' break into a run, dropping a piece of paper as he does so. With this piece of paper and its cryptic message, Anne embarks on a journey which takes her all the way to South Africa on a wild adventure. With a backdrop of political intrigue and murder, stolen diamonds, kidnappings and threats on her own life, Anne determines to solve the mystery of the man in the brown suit.

The book is written by two narrators: Anne, and Sir Eustace Pedler, MP and it is a thrilling story. I really enjoyed the humour sprinkled throughout this book, which was in keeping with Anne Beddington's personality, and the conclusion of the story was novel and unexpected.

It's an excellent introduction to Agatha Christie for ages around 14 years and up.

The Secret Adversary is a good introduction to Agatha Christie for a younger reader as it lacks the romantic elements of The Man in the Brown Suit.

'I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.'

Agatha Christie 

 

The BBC archives have a short video from 1955 in which Agatha Christie talks about 'her lack of formal education and how boredom during childhood led her to write 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles', which was completed when she was still in her twenties. She outlines her working methods and discusses why it is much easier to write plays than novels.'

 

This book is my entry in the Back to the Classics: 20th Century Classic category.

All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare (1604)

All's Well That Ends Well was based on a story from the Decameron (a collection of tales written in the 14th Century) and is often described as a problem play. It appears to be a comedy - it contains humorous scenes such as the interrogation of Parolles, and love wins out in the end - but there are other aspects of the play which are unlike Shakespeare's other comedies.

The story takes place in Rossilion, Paris, Florence and Marseilles.

 Helena & the Countess, Folger Shakespeare

The Main Players

Rosillion

Countess of Rossilion (or Rousillon)

Bertram - her son, the Count of Rossilion after his father's death Helena - a gentlewoman of the household
Lavatch - the Countess's clown
Parolles - a friend of Bertram's

Paris

King of France

Lafew (or Lafeu) - a old Lord

First & Second Lord Dumaine - Lords in the King's service  

Florence

Widow Capilet

Diana - her daughter

The Storyline

The King of France is ill and no one can cure him. When his friend Count Rossilion dies, he commands Bertram, the Count's son, to attend him at court.

Bertram takes leave of his mother and goes to the King in Paris.

As the King reminisces about Bertram's father, he laments that the skilful physician, Gerard de Narbon, is also dead and cannot help him.

Helena, the physician's daughter has been living under the care of the Countess Rossilion and secretly loves Bertram. When Bertram goes to Paris, Helena follows him and by using knowledge learnt from her father, she cures the King.

The King rewards her by allowing her to choose a husband from among the bachelors at his court and she chooses Bertram.

Bertram declares he cannot marry Helena because she is of an inferior class, but after threats from the King, he goes ahead with the marriage. Unwilling to consummate the marriage, he tells Helena to go to his mother under some pretence and he immediately runs away to the wars in Italy with his friend Parolles.

Bertram writes to Helena from Florence and says:

When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a "then" I write a "never."

The Countess is furious with her son's behaviour and blames Parolles' influence. Helena goes on a pilgrimage to Florence and there she meets the Widow Capilet and her daughter Diana, who is being courted by Bertram. When Helena reveals her situation to the Capilet's, they fall in with her plan and Bertram is told that Helena is dead. Under cover of darkness, Helena takes Diana's place and goes to meet Bertram, who has promised to marry Diana. He gives Helena his ring, believing her to be Diana, and in return receives the ring that the King gave to Helena after she had cured him. Helena conceives a child that night and Bertram returns to his mother's house unaware that he had shared his bed with his wife and not Diana.

The King is also at Rossilion and expresses his grief over Helena's death. Bertram asks for his forgiveness saying that he did love Helena but when the King sees the ring he gave Helena, Bertram is suspected to have done her harm.

Diana arrives not long after which compounds affairs even more until Helena finally enters, tells Bertram that she has fulfilled both conditions he placed upon her and he declares that he will love her dearly, forever.

The king's a beggar, now the play is done; All is well ended, if this suit be done...

We listened to the BBC Arkangel audio as we read the play, spreading it over about 11 weeks. I read along with the Cambridge School guide and Benj read it from this website
 

Some thoughts:

Bertram - initially I was a little sympathetic towards him as he was expected to marry someone he had no wish to. His attitude and behaviour quickly put an end to that. He was self-seeking and callous; immature and easily led. His change of heart towards the end of the play seems a little strange.

Helena - a mixed bag. I thought she was rather insipid at times but she did end up displaying some strength of character. Did she really love Bertram or was she just ambitious? Why would she want to marry a man who had been so indifferent to her?

Countess Rossilion - a just, sensible woman who, although she thought Parolles was a bad influence on her son, didn't make excuses for Bertram's bad behaviour.

Parolles - was the source of some light hearted moments in the play even though he was a rogue. He learnt some humility towards the end.

Lafew - the quick witted old Lord discerned Parolles' true nature.

The King - benevolent and kind; his behaviour in the scenes towards the end of the play where the situation comes to a head is amusing.

Diana - both she & her mother were decent people and wanted to do what was right. She had a good head upon her shoulders and didn't allow herself to be taken in by Bertram's flattery.

Something that stood out to me was that apart from Bertram, all the people of rank and position in the play were honourable and well-intentioned. The Countess, for example, loved Helena and was happy for her to marry Bertram even though she was beneath him in rank.

This play is probably best left until highschool unless you use an abridged version such as Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare. There are some interesting ideas & themes for discussion in this play regarding relationships and morals.


All's Well That Ends Well is my choice for A Classic Play as part of the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015.

Adam Bede by George Eliot (1819-1880)

Adam Bede is an unusual book in many respects, which shouldn't be surprising, as George Eliot was an unusual woman.

*  George Eliot was the non de plume of Mary Ann Evans

*  Eliot was a fervent Evangelical up until her early twenties, when she rejected her Christian beliefs

*  Although she rejected her faith, she believed Christian ethics to be valuable

*  She is regarded as one of the greatest novelists of the nineteenth century

*  Adam Bede was first published in 1859, the same year as Darwin's Origins of the Species; Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities and Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White

For a woman living in the Victorian Era, George Eliot had some radical ideas and she openly defied the social customs of that time. I expected this to colour her writing to a large extent, but instead, the strong Christian ethic which formed her younger years permeated the whole story. It is perplexing to read Adam Bede, with its strong Christian undertones and commendable Christian characters, knowing that the author did not share the beliefs of the characters she wrote about so sympathetically.

Invitation to the Classics, edited by Louise Cowan & Os Guinness sheds some light on this puzzle:

Eliot's fiction...employs Christian ethics - as a form of goodness without God - to create a model in which morality evolves through suffering, sympathy, and duty.

Eliot...believes in a radically nontraditional world that is evolutionary and unpredictable. She still relies, however, on such traditional values as kindness, sympathy, a fellowship of suffering, self-sacrifice, and duty as guides for living in that world.

I'm not going to say anything about the actual story - except that I loved it. For the first couple of chapters the colloquial language slows the story down as it takes a little getting used to, but before long it becomes an engrossing tale, peopled with believable and loveable characters.

I had a pencil in hand most of the time I read, underlining regularly. Eliot's skill with words is wonderful and her characters come alive beautifully. She also has a biting sense of humour, as her portrayal of Mrs Poyser, one of my favourite characters, highlights when she stands up to the conniving old Squire:

"Thee'st  done it now," said Mr Poyser, a little alarmed and uneasy, but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's outbreak.

"Yes, I know I've done it," said Mrs Poyser; "but I've had my say out, and I shall be th' easier for 't all my life. There's no pleasure i' living, if you're to be corked up forever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel. I shan't repent saying what I think, if I live to be as old as th' old Squire; and there's little likelihoods - for it seems as if them as aren't wanted here are th' only folks as aren't wanted I' the other world."

An interesting historical aspect of the book is its portrayal of early Methodism. One of Eliot's characters is a greatly respected young female preacher who plays a very important role in the story.

I think it was Virginia Wolfe that said George Eliot was for grown ups - not because the content of her books is unsuitable  - but perhaps because her probing into human behaviour, character and the role suffering plays in its development, may require some maturity to appreciate.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a man's critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character.

 

When I told my 22 yr old daughter I was going to read George Eliot she mentioned she really didn't like Middlemarch when she read it (in her mid-teens, I think) but thinking of Wolfe's comment, and another similar comment I read by another author somewhere else, I suggested she try again. I also think Adam Bede would be a better book to start with than Middlemarch.

It was a still afternoon - the golden light was lingering languidly among the upper boughs, only glancing down here and there on the purple pathway and its edge of faintly-sprinkled moss: an afternoon in which destiny disguises her cold awful face behind a hazy radiant veil, encloses us in warm downy wings, and poisons us with violet-scented breath.

(He) would so gladly have persuaded himself that he had done no harm! And if no one had told him the contrary, he could have persuaded himself so much better. Nemesis can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences - out of the suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused: there is rarely metal enough there to make an effective weapon.

When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

This post is linked to the Back to the Classics Challenge under Classic With a Name in the Title