Book Beginnings

 Each week Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings:

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

I've just started a book I've had for a while: The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman, which was published in 1962. Tuchman was a superb writer, and for this work she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1963. The book concentrates on the first month of World War I and opens with this paragraph:

So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

In the Foreword of my copy of the book, Robert K. Massie said that the paragraph above took her eight hours to complete.

Barbara Tuchman had a sardonic sense of humour which she used to describe some of William II, the German Emperor (Kaiser)'s antics. He hated his uncle and had come to England to 'bury Edward his bane; Edward the arch plotter, as William conceived it, of Germany's encirclement...'

He flew into one of his rages and scolded (King Leopold) for putting respect for Parliament and Ministers above respect for the finger of God (with which William sometimes confused himself).

Reading Europe: The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden (1958)

According to the author, The Greengage Summer is true, or at least partly so. In 1923, when Rumer Godden was fifteen years old and her elder sister Jon nearly eighteen, their mother announced,

  “We are going to the Battlefields of France and when perhaps you see the rows and rows of crosses for those young men who gave their lives for you, it might make you stop and think of your selfishness.”

In the Author’s Preface to my copy of the book (a lovely Folio Edition that I picked up for $3 in a secondhand book shop 🙂) she gives a brief outline of her childhood experience that became the basis for The Greengage Summer. In the book the two girls were called Joss and Cecil and they were aged 16 and 13 years respectively. Godden had two younger sisters and the book replaced them with three young siblings, Hester, Willmouse and Vicky.

The Greengage Summer is narrated by Cecil and I nearly gave up on the book in the first chapter until I realised that the thirteen year old’s perspective was so well done that it coloured the whole narrative and seemed to jump around in the telling. I’m very glad I persevered as its quite an unusual story overall as well as a rather scary look at five children who were basically left to their own devices in a foreign country. With their mother very ill in hospital after an insect bite became infectious on the trip to France and their father somewhere unreachable in Tibet on a botanical expedition, Joss and Cecil are thrust into an adult world in post war France - living in a French hotel alongside some questionable characters, expected to pay their way, look after their younger siblings and get by with their limited experience of life - they were quickly initiated into the vagaries of human nature.

Joss’s beauty complicated matters. A jealous Mademoiselle, her enigmatic lover who becomes infatuated with Joss; a feral young waiter and then a murder, The Greengage Summer is a combination of mystery, deception and coming-of-age that depicts young people trying to navigate the world of adults before they're ready for it. Added to all this is a good smattering of French throughout the narrative.

A tense read at times but it resolves well, and I have to say I LOVED THE ENDING!

The Greengage Summer wasn’t published until 1958 and it would be ten years later that Rumer Godden officially converted to the Catholic Church. Several of her later novels dealt with women in religious orders, for example, In This House of Brede, which is a very different book to The Greengage Summer.

Linking to the 2021 European Reading Challenge: France

A Gentleman in Moscow (2016)

It was 1922 in Moscow and Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stood before the Emergency Committee of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. After a self-imposed exile from his homeland, Rostov had returned to Russia. He was in his early thirties and was accused of returning to the Motherland in order to take up arms against the Revolution. 

Due to his reputation as a hero in pre-revolutionary days, he escaped the death penalty and was sentenced instead to house arrest in the Metropol Hotel where he had been living for four years.

If he ever stepped out of the Metropol he would be shot.

The Metropol was built in 1905

He was assigned to an attic instead of his elegant suite and denied his usual luxuries. His world had shrunk considerably.

But the Metropol was the world in miniature and in this world Rostov began to establish relationships and close bonds with a swathe of people. He learned that small things were important. As his physical life contracted into a tiny sphere, he had time and opportunity to make his soul. The relationships he cultivated grew him as a person and the lives he touched had far reaching implications in later years.

His has been a life of privilege and convenience but his reduced circumstances enlarged his life in ways that his prosperity and freedom never had. 

"I’ll tell you what is convenient," he said after a moment. "To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka - and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most."

I’ve always had an interest in reading about Russia during the heyday of Communist rule, but A Gentleman in Moscow takes a different route from my usual sorties into this time period. During his confinement within the Metropol, Rostov was shielded from much of the chaos and change that was happening on the outside, learning of it secondhand and intermittently, but the changes in Russia were reflected in the interior life of the hotel. It’s a unique way to view history to show the ripple effect that change and upheaval have on a society. 

"By the smallest of one's actions one can restore some sense of order to the world."

The kindness and friendship he had shown to people such as waiters, bellboys, the hotel barber, a  seamstress, and a precocious young girl, would be returned in ways he would not have imagined.

"Who would have imagined, when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia."

The author sprinkles the story with many literary comments and references, which I enjoy in a book, but sometimes it felt like a display of knowledge for its own sake, which might be a harsh observation...

An interesting and engaging story with a nice bit of adventure later on. I wasn’t sure about the very end, though. If you have read it, did you wonder what his plans were and if he was going to get away with them??

2021 Challenge - Reading Europe: Russia 

The Castle on the Hill by Elizabeth Goudge (1941)

 

Many of Elizabeth Goudge’s books have historical settings. The White Witch takes place during the English Civil War, Green Dolphin Country and The Dean’s Watch are set in the 19th Century. I expected The Castle on the Hill to be set at some remote period of time and was surprised when I started reading it that it was written at the beginning of WWII when England was being hammered by the Germans during the Blitz.

The outlook was grim and many people were feeling quite hopeless. It is into this insecure and desolate setting that Elizabeth Goudge weaves her story of loss and despair, love and hope, duty and sacrifice. There’s a good deal of sadness, as you would expect. No one quite gets what they were hoping for and have to settle for circumstances that weren’t their first choice. But, in typical Elizabeth Goudge fashion, sacrifice and duty are redemptive decisions that grow people’s souls. As one of her characters decided after surviving a bomb blast that crippled him, 

‘The other way would have been too easy a death for a man who had too easy a life. Now he would have time to make his soul.’ 

One of this book’s most likeable characters is Miss Brown, a nondescript woman of forty-two years who had nothing about her that stood out, ‘nothing to catch hold of.’ She had a gift for protective covering and managed to blend into the background wherever she was. She was a woman who loved more than she was loved. 

She had had to give up her home for military use and had just learnt that it was obliterated in a bombing raid and the news caused her to lose hope.

‘Her loss of everything she had hitherto known was making her feel as solitary as though she were the only human creature alive in the world. And what a world! It was June nineteen forty. Yesterday was gone, burnt up in the blazing inferno of its suffering. There was today, a tiny patch of foothold, but there was no to-morrow...Memory of the past and hope for the future are companionable things.’

Sitting outside the Free Library in London, feeling herself to be on the edge of a great abyss, a small thing lightened her despair. A violin played by a street musician began to reach her,

‘And she knew it was the truth she was listening to. She heard no words, she saw no vision, but she was slowly made aware that she was one of a multitude that went upon pilgrimage to something or other. She had no idea what the something was, or how they were to get there, all she knew was that the way was stony and painful, dreadful, terrifying; yet worth daring all the same.’

The music was Delius’ Song of Summer and hearing it played helped her transcend her circumstances. When one of Dostoevsky’s characters said that 'beauty will save the world,’ I think he was referring to this ability of beauty to reflect truth, inspire us with a sense of awe, and point to something beyond ourselves. 

Some favourite passages:

'Orderliness of life and thought must be maintained as far as possible. When these chaotic days were passed what was left of it would form the scaffolding upon which the new order could be built. “Order.” A good word. How passionately sane men longed for it, and how incapable they seemed of achieving it with any permanence. How passionately the insane hated it and how easily they could destroy it. Hitler’s contemptuous sneer at “the bourgeois virtues of peace and order” was typical of all the anarchists through the ages.'

'England, from the days of Ethelred the Unready onwards had never been ready for anything, and never would be, had not been ready with proper shelters when the Blitz came.'

'I wish I could live that afternoon over again and do it better...one ought to be given the chance to live certain scenes in ones life over and over again until one gets it perfect.'

As with every book I've read by this author, I found her characters very well described. Her writing progresses slowly because she spends so much time exploring personality and setting, which I enjoy. Her work is perceptive and reflects a deep understanding of human nature, much of it shown through the conversations and reflections of the characters in her books. 

She was living in Devon when World War II broke out and you get the sense that her own personal experience of vulnerability permeates the book.

Linking to Reading Europe: United Kingdom and British Isles Friday

Non Fiction: A Woman in Berlin (1954)

A Woman in Berlin is a firsthand account of the Red Army’s entry into Berlin during the last days of World War II. The anonymous author was a thirty-four year old female journalist who was living in the city at the time. Berlin had been bombed extensively and ninety percent of its buildings were destroyed. There was no running water or electricity. 

Hitler had rejected any idea of evacuating the two million civilians left in the city, thinking that his troops would defend the city more bravely if their wives and children remained there. The civilians were mostly women and children and included 120,000 babies and infants - young boys and old men had been forced into the German army as the Allies gained ground. 

The author recorded the events that occurred in Berlin during the time period of the 20th April 1945 up until the 22nd June, 1945 in a notebook. 

The diary was first published in an English translation in the United States in 1954 and not long afterwards in seven other languages, but when a German language edition was published in Geneva six years later it was very controversial and had a hostile reception in Germany. As a result, the author decided the book should not be published again while she was still living.

Her writing is considered important as a firsthand account as many of the atrocities committed against women, in particular, at the time have been repressed by both the Soviets and Germans. Not to mention the fact that history is often rewritten to fit in with current agendas.

‘This chronicle was begun on the day when Berlin first saw the face of war.’

The author’s account is harrowing and dreadful but she wrote in an objective, almost dispassionate manner at times which lessened the initial punch for me...for a little while, at least. Thinking back on her story, I almost wish I hadn’t read it. It's a book I'd be hesitant to recommend unconditionally because of the nature of the content so I'd suggest checking out these websites to know what you're in for if you do read it:

Here & here.

‘Our radio’s been dead for four days. Once again we see what a dubious blessing technology is. Machines with no intrinsic value, worthless if you can’t plug them in somewhere...At the moment we’re marching backwards in time. Cave dwellers.’

The author found some flowers growing and took them to a Frau Goltz, a lady she knew:

‘“What flowers, what lovely flowers.” The tears were streaming down her face. I felt terrible as well. Beauty hurts now. We’re so full of death.’

The author observed that she was ‘...coming down a level in way I speak...these are strange times - history experienced first hand, the stuff of tales yet untold and songs unsung. But seen close up, history is much more troublesome - nothing but burdens and fears... 

We are debasing our language in expectation of the impending humiliation.’

Before the Nazis surrendered, Hitler and Goebels sent out handwritten notices to rally the inhabitants of Berlin, but the residents were so used to the noise and fanfare of Nazi proclamations that these handwritten commands were ignored. One woman was heard to comment, “Well, just look what those two have come to.”

‘The handwriting looks pathetic and inconsequential, like something whispered.

Yes, we’ve been spoiled by technology. We can’t accept doing without loudspeakers or rotary presses...

Technology has devalued the impact of our own speech and writing.’

‘The cold doesn’t want to go away. I sit hunched on the stool in front of our stove, which is barely kept burning with all sorts of Nazi literature. Assuming everyone is doing the same thing - and they are - Mein Kampf will go back to being a rare book, a collector’s item.’

Linking to Reading Europe: Germany and Nonfiction Challenge: Wartime Experience

2021 European Reading Challenge (Belgium): William - An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton (1919)

 

This book is a gem!

Cicely Hamilton worked in administration in France during World War I and served at the Front as the Germans were advancing and the area was being bombed. Incredibly, she wrote this novel during that time, probably in a tent, and in between evacuations and mopping up efforts. The book was first published in 1919 and reprinted by Persephone Books in 1999.

I don’t want to give too much detail about the storyline except to say that its ending is very different from its beginning.

William- An Englishman tells the story of William Tully, a very nondescript young man of twenty-three living under the strict rule of his mother. According to his office colleagues William was ‘a negligible quantity’ and he remained so until a crisis occurred in his life and changed the direction of his life.

William’s crisis led him to unburden himself to one of his work associates, a young man by the name of Faraday, who tended to keep to himself. Unbeknown to William, Faraday was a passionate Socialist and before long William, hitherto clueless about social issues, wholeheartedly embraced the same cause and devoted himself to it. Within a year he was in demand as a speaker and campaigner. He also became involved in the suffragette movement and it was in one of their meetings that he found his perfect match in Griselda. Like William, Griselda ‘had found peace of mind and perennial interest in the hearty  denunciation of those who did not agree with her.’

William and Griselda held to identical idealistic creeds. They were Pacifists when it suited them but knew next to nothing of history, science, literature or art.

They believed in, ‘a large, vague and beautifully undefined identity, called by William the People, and by Griselda, Woman; who in the time to come was to accomplish much beautiful and undefined Good; and in whose service they were prepared meanwhile to suffer any amount of obloquy and talk any amount of nonsense.’

William and Griselda believed their own intentions were pure and therefore the intentions of those who did not agree with them must be evil and impure. No dissent was permitted. The author played on this belief and the pernicious idea of isolating ourselves from those who hold opposing views. (There is nothing new under the sun, it seems.)

‘They were, in short, very honest and devout sectarians - cocksure, contemptuous, intolerant, self-sacrificing after the manner of their kind.’

William and Griselda were married and travelled to the Belgian Ardennes for their honeymoon where a fellow revolutionary had made her cottage in the forest available to them. There, in a foreign country, where neither of them knew the language and had no knowledge of or interest in world affairs, their narrow and idealistic thinking was shattered. For, the day before they had planned to return home to England, World War I was declared and the young couple were oblivious that the world had changed overnight.

Cicely Hamilton wrote with a brilliant combination of irony, sarcasm and humour about those on the sidelines of the war effort. William, Griselda and their associates were combatants in their own War; waging battle in scuffles at Cabinet meetings, suffragette protests, stirring up revolt and distributing pamphlets. Caught up in their own view of international affairs, armchair critics of everything military, they were completely unprepared for what awaited them.

I mentioned earlier that the book’s ending is very different from its beginning. As the story progresses there is a gathering intensity. The author keeps the sardonic tone but as their slightly ridiculous behaviour becomes pathetic rather than laughable, I felt a growing sympathy for the two of them.

‘So they trotted down the valley, humiliated, dishevelled, indignant, but still incredulous - while their world crumbled about them and Europe thundered and bled.’

‘...it is one thing to brave ridicule with an approving audience in the background, another to face it unapplauded, uncrowned with the halo of the martyr...’

I’ll leave my thoughts at that. I think William - An Englishman is a neglected classic that deserves to be noticed. I’ll be adding it to my daughter’s free reading for this year’s study of the 20th Century as I appreciate the way the author looked at the folly of dogmatically cutting oneself off from the views of others. The book is unusual in that it views World War I through the eyes of noncombatants. Another book I enjoyed in this vein was ‘Pied Piper’ by Nevil Shute, set in World War II.

 

Linking to Reading Europe 2021 Challenge at Rose City Reader: Belgium

 

Reading Challenges in 2021 - Updated

I've been looking over the books I own or want to borrow from the library and they fit into these two challenges. The first challenge is mostly my attempt to read through what is already on my shelves and also to help me choose books for my daughter who will be studying the 20th Century in 2021. So lots of books set in WWI & II and the former USSR. I mentioned below that I'd like to include more nonfiction and I'll likely include that in a European context. 

Updated to add some books I'm reading or planning to read:

Belgium - William: An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton 

Russia - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Netherlands - The Return of the Prodigal by Henri Nouwen

Italy - The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Armin

France - The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden

Romania - Dracula by Bram Stoker

The European Reading Challenge is hosted by Rose City Reader and the details are here:

The second challenge is the 2021 Nonfiction Reader Challenge which I did in 2020 because I wanted to balance out my reading more. I used to read more nonfiction than fiction until I started to make my way through as many classics as I could, which I've loved, but I want to level things out a bit more. I've also been pleasantly surprised and interested in so many of the new books that have come out in this category. I think the standard of literary nonfiction that is written for the layperson has increased significantly in more recent years, especially in the area of science. This challenge is hosted by Shellyrae at Book'dOut. She has twelve categories and there are four I'd like to do: Biography, Travel, Wartime Experiences, Disease and maybe some others.

Biography: Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

War Time Experiences: A Woman in Berlin (Anonymous)

Challenge details are here.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855)

After watching the BBC version of North & South multiple times and enjoying it so much, I decided it was time to read the novel.
What the movie doesn’t portray, due to obvious time constraints, is the depth of thought and exploration of character that Gaskell put into her work. Nuances, pertinent quotations at the beginning of each chapter, descriptions of landscape and people, the thought processes of the various characters etc. went by the wayside in the translation from book to movie. In some ways the movie and book were totally different experiences; almost two different stories, but in other ways they complemented each other.

If you’ve read Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell’s first book, it’s almost a foreshadowing of North & South as it takes place in an industrial town for the most part and deals with the social problems that surfaced in that setting.

Margaret Hale and her parents leave their beloved village in the south of England to live in the industrial north when her father gives up his role of vicar after struggling with a matter of conscience.
Their new life in Milton (a fictional town akin to Manchester) brings them into contact with mill owners and workers and they are caught up in the tension between the two.
The movie focuses on the relationship between Margaret and Mr. John Thornton, an abrasive, driven,  mill owner who had worked hard to rise from impoverished circumstances to his current position.
They meet when the Hales rent a house from him and over time Thornton comes to love her and declares himself. Margaret scorns him at first but over a period of time she begins to appreciate and understand him and see him differently.

The book shows a much better development of this relationship than the movie. I enjoyed this conversation between the two of them early on in their relationship after Margaret asked Thornton if he thought a certain man, Mr. Morison, was a gentleman:

‘I am not quite the person to decide on another’s gentlemanliness, Miss Hale. I mean, I don’t quite understand your application of the word. But I should say that this Morison is no true man. I don’t know who he is; I merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall’s account.’

‘I suspect my “gentleman” includes your “true man.”’

‘And a great deal more, you would imply. I differ from you. A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Margaret. ‘We must understand the words differently.’

‘I take it that “gentleman” is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as “a man,” we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself - to life - to time - to eternity. A cast-away lonely as Robinson Crusoe - a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life - nay, even a saint in Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by being spoken of as “a man.” I am rather weary of this word “gentlemanly,” which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and often, too, with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of the noun “man,” and the adjective “manly” are unacknowledged - that I am induced to class it with the cant of the day.’

Mr. Hale tutored John, who not having had opportunity for a proper education in his youth, now sought to study the Classics. The two men became good friends and Mr. Hale thought highly of his student but realised that his daughter didn’t. In a conversation regarding this Margaret said:

‘He is a man of great strength of character — of unusual intellect, considering the few advantages he has had.’

And Mr. Hales very astute answer, which I think is a wonderful observation about intellect generally:

‘Not so few. He has led a practical life from a very early age; has been called upon to exercise judgment and self-control. All that develops one part of the intellect. To be sure, he needs some of the knowledge of the past, which gives the truest basis for conjecture as to the future; but he knows this need - he perceives it, and that is something. You are quite prejudiced against Mr. Thornton, Margaret.’

Hard times come upon John Thornton and he is tempted to speculate. His father had done so and when his attempts failed he had committed suicide leaving his wife to bring up John and his younger sister on her own. This had left a profound mark on John. His success as a self-made man and his moral character as to how he conducted his business dealings was something he was rightly proud of.
One night he was very low as he contemplated his future. I loved this conversation he had with his mother who was not very endearing in the movie but redeemed herself here:

‘I have so worked and planned. I have discovered new powers in my situation too late — and now all is over. I am too old to begin again with the same heart. It is hard, mother.’

He turned away from her, and covered his face with his hands.

‘I can’t think,’ said she, with gloomy defiance in her tone, ‘how it comes about. Here is my boy - good son, just man, tender heart - and he fails in all he sets his mind upon: he finds a woman to love, and she cares no more for his affection than if he had been any common man; he labours, and his labour comes to nought...
‘I sometimes have wondered where justice was gone to, and now I don’t believe there is such a thing in the world...’

‘Mother!’ said he, holding her gently in his arms, ‘who has sent me my lot in life, both of good and of evil?’

She shook her head. She would have nothing to do with religion just then.

‘Mother,’ he went on, seeing that she would not speak, ‘I, too, have been rebellious; but I am striving to be so no longer. Help me, as you helped me when I was a child. Then you said many good words - when my father died, and we were sometimes sorely short of comforts - which we shall never be now; you said brave, noble, trustful words then, mother, which I have never forgotten, though they may have lain dormant. Speak to me again in the old way, mother. Do not let us have to think that the world has too much hardened our hearts. If you would say the old good words, it would make me feel something of the pious simplicity of my childhood. I say them to myself, but they would come differently from you, remembering all the cares and trials you have had to bear.’

‘I have had a many,’ said she, sobbing, ‘but none so sore as this. To see you cast down from your rightful place! I could say it for myself, John, but not for you. Not for you! God has seen fit to be very hard on you, very.’
She shook with the sobs that come so convulsively when an old person weeps. The silence around her struck her at last; and she quieted herself to listen. No sound. She looked. Her son sat by the table, his arms thrown half across it, his head bent face downwards.

‘Oh, John!’ she said, and she lifted his face up. Such a strange, pallid look of gloom was on it, that for a moment it struck her that this look was the forerunner of death; but, as the rigidity melted out of the countenance and the natural colour returned, and she saw that he was himself once again, all worldly mortification sank to nothing before the consciousness of the great blessing that he himself by his simple existence was to her. She thanked God for this, and this alone, with a fervour that swept away all rebellious feelings from her mind.

It was passages like the one above that gave an entirely different aspect on the character of both mother and son, aspects that the movie didn't portray in any depth. In fact, John Thornton seemed to be quite an irreligious man.

Another character that the movie didn’t really show to advantage was that of Henry Lennox, Margaret’s other suitor. He is shown to be jealous and full of rivalry towards Thornton but he actually helped Margaret and John in the end by bowing out and allowing them to meet on their own. He realised that he would never win Margaret and had the decency not to begrudge another who could. I thought he got a bit of a raw deal in the film.

The more I read Gaskell’s work, the more I appreciate her literary skill and her ability to craft a rich & satisfying story, as may be seen if you compare even two of her books, say Cranford and North & South.
In North and South Elizabeth Gaskell’s Christian beliefs were woven into the story very naturally along with some very thoughtful themes on the nature of man and character traits: rich and poor, masters and workers, men and women, social problems, class structure, trade unions, family life, pride and humility, prejudice and understanding...this is an excellent read and the movie is lovely even if it only deals with a small portion of the whole. I totally recommend both!

Ebooks Adelaide has a free, well done Kindle version.

North & South is my choice for no. 8) A Novel with a Christian Theme in the 2019 Christian Greats Challenge.

#christiangreats

Back to the Classics: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1873-1877)

 One of the problems with classic literature is that we may think we know what the book is about before we even read it. I can think of many classic books that I’ve never read but could tell you their basic plot.

*SPOILER ALERT*

This was the problem I had with Anna Karenina because my ‘knowledge’ of it was basically:  Woman commits adultery and ends up throwing herself under a train. It was written by a Russian, so of course, it would have a mass of various names, patronyms, and diminutives to confuse the reader. I’d also never read anything by Tolstoy before so had no idea he was such a brilliant writer and that I could trust to his expert skill.

But, oh my! What a book this turned out to be. And what a shame to believe you know the crux of the story and to put off reading it because of this. I’m just very thankful I finally decided to read it.
I’m not going to attempt a ‘review’ but will share some thoughts, impressions, and quotations, and hopefully, if you’ve put off reading A.K. for whatever reason, you might just be persuaded to give it a go.

‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’

Tolstoy jumps into his narrative with the observation above.
Family, community, and society are central to the story as are country life and city life. Tolstoy was a master when it came to characterisation and getting into people’s heads. There are seven main characters in Anna Karenina and he succeeds in allowing the reader a certain intimacy and empathy with each of them.
Prince and Princess Shcherbatsky have three daughters. One is happily married, another unhappily, and the youngest has just refused Levin’s offer of marriage and has had her head turned by the dashing Vronsky. The Prince thought highly of Levin but his wife disliked him in ‘his sharp judgements, his awkwardness in society (caused, as she supposed, by his pride), and his, in her opinion, wild sort of life in the country.’ 
She thought that Vronsky was far superior but the Prince was furious with his wife for her attempts at matchmaking:

‘It’s loathsome, loathsome to look at, and you’ve succeeded, you’ve turned the silly girl’s head. Levin’s a thousand times the better man. And this little fop from Petersburg - they’re made by machine, they’re all the same sort, and all trash...I see a man who has serious intentions, that’s Levin; and I see a popinjay like this whippersnapper, who is only amusing himself.’

Vronsky had never know family life, barely remembered his father, and had no respect for his mother:

‘In his soul he did not respect her and, without being aware of it, he did not love her, though...he could not imagine to himself any other relation to his mother than one obedient and deferential in the highest degree, and the more outwardly obedient and deferential he was, the less he respected and loved her in his soul.’

‘Vronsky...despite the full realisation of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realisation of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happpiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realisation of desires.’

Levin was an interesting person, full of self-doubt, idealistic ideas, and awkwardness. Tolstoy opens the window into his mind and his inner struggles and it was quite comical at times.

‘I need physical movement, otherwise my character definitely deteriorates.’

In Part Seven, Chapter XIV, Levin’s wife is having her first baby and Levin was convinced she was dying. He doesn’t understand how the doctor can sit in another room smoking and chatting...

‘Suddenly there was a scream unlike anything he had ever heard. The scream was so terrible that Levin did not even jump up, but, holding his breath, gave the doctor a frightened, questioning look. The doctor cocked his head to one side, listened, and smiled approvingly.’

When he went into the room his wife seized his hands and said, ‘Don’t leave, don’t leave!’ and then pushed him away.

‘No it’s terrible! I’ll die, I’ll die! Go, go!’ she cried, and again came that scream that was unlike anything in the world.’
‘Doctor! What is it? What is it? My God! he said, seizing the doctor by the arm as he came in.
‘It’s nearly over,’ said the doctor. And the doctor’s face was so serious as he said it that Levin understood this ‘nearly over’ to mean she was dying.

Around the time I was reading this part of the book, our eldest son and his wife had their first baby. My daughter-in-law had a long labour and then delivered a whopping 11 pound boy. When our son rang us he said he had no idea that childbirth was going to be like what they experienced.
‘It was brutal!’ were his words. I immediately thought of Levin.

Levin had rejected his childhood beliefs and tried to reason his way through life. He undergoes some dramatic changes, struggling with his idealistic ideas that fall flat in real life.

...while his wife was giving birth an extraordinary thing had happened to him. He, the unbeliever, had begun to pray, and in the moment of praying he had believed.

Dolly, married to Anna Karenina's philandering brother, Stepan, felt that she had lost herself in the process of being a mother. Alone in a carriage on her way to visit Anna she has time to reflect on her fifteen years of marriage,

'pregnancy, nausea, dullness of mind, indifference to everything,,and, above all, ugliness...Labour, suffering, that last moment...then nursing, the sleepless nights, the terrible pains...'

Released from her everyday cares, she falls into a reverie where she questions the point of it all and considers that she should have left her husband and found happiness somewhere else. 
As she spends time with Anna and her crowd, she has a feeling of unhappiness and that she is poorly playing a part in the theatre with actors better than her.
She decides to go home earlier than intended:

Those painful cares of motherhood that she had hated so on her way there, now, after a day spent without them, presented themselves to her in a different light and drew her to them.


Tolstoy describes Anna Karenina as she follows a course that rapidly changes everything in her life and her exclusion from the society she desperately needed to belong to.

Anna said whatever came to her tongue, and was surprised, listening to herself, at her ability to lie. How simple, how natural her words were...She felt herself clothed in an impenetrable armour of lies. She felt that some invisible force was helping her and supporting her.

Towards the latter part of the book the stream of consciousness narrative that Tolstoy uses with regards to Anna is superb and reminded me of Dostoevsky’s character, Raskolnikov, in Crime and Punishment - psychotic and paranoid.

Death is a theme throughout and interestingly, only one chapter has an actual title and that is Ch XX - ‘Death.’
I could fill this blog with excerpts from this outstanding novel but so much needs to be read in context. It is multilayered, thought-worthy and deeply spiritual. I don’t know how Tolstoy managed to intersperse so much humour amid the pathos and tragedy, but he did. And to my surprise, I was able to keep up with the Russian names quite well, referring to the 'List of Principal Characters' at the front to the book - Crime & Punishment confused me no end with that side of things.
An impressive book in all respects!

Book Depository has 53% off the lovely Penguin HB pictured above at the time of writing. This edition was translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky and it flowed beautifully.
The free Kindle version here is translated by Constance Garnett, which I haven't read so can't comment on, but she is highly regarded as a translator.


Updated to add some articles on translations of Anna Karenina:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/books/review/new-translations-of-tolstoys-anna-karenina.html

https://mirabiledictu.org/2016/06/05/translations-of-anna-karenina-constance-garnett-maude-or-pevear-volokhonsky/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/anna-karenina-tolstoy-translation



Linking to Back to the Classics 2018 - Classic That Scares You

Green Dolphin Country by Elizabeth Goudge (1944)

Earlier this year I was introduced to Elizabeth Goudge through her book The Rosemary Tree and after reading that I knew that I’d read more by her. I ordered Green Dolphin Country because a good friend recommended it but I was surprised when it arrived that it contained 743 pages. I don’t usually commit to a book of that length unless it’s a Russian classic or a Norwegian saga because I don’t think there are many authors who have the skill to weave a story over that many pages without losing the plot and the reader.

However, once I’d bought the book I decided to read it and ended up enjoying it very much. Goudge certainly doesn’t write like a Russian novelist or a Norwegian saga writer but she is an expert delineator of character.

Green Dolphin Country is a work of fiction but it was based on an actual event. The story begins on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel where we meet the three main characters. It continues in New Zealand with details of the lives of two of those characters, alternating with scenes from the life of the one left behind. It ends with the meeting of all three again back in Guernsey in their latter years.
The personalities who populate this story are rendered in such a way that they become real. We see how the three main characters develop and change over the course of their lives. Goudge's insights into humanity with its weaknesses and strengths, fears and hopes, is skilful and infused with humour.
To me, this story was in essence a tale of love and disappointment; of choosing to love and acting on that choice when there was no corresponding feeling of love; of kindness and humility, of finding a way to make things work when there seems to be no way.

Some highlights

On the one who always wanted to be in control:

It was no good waiting on fortune. Her favour was inscrutable and uncertain. What one wanted one must get for oneself. A man could use his will like a sword but a woman had mostly to use hers like a shuttle.

...for the first time in her life she had taken her hand off the tiller and was waiting patiently for something beyond herself to take her in charge.

The worst thing about sin was that its punishment could not be borne by the sinner alone. Why did one not realise that before it was too late?

Goudge has a knack of illuminating ordinary things and highlighting hope. One of my favourite passages is this one about the unseen aspects of prayer:

There were days when the impossibility of seeing the result of one’s prayer was disheartening almost to the point of faithlessness. One prayed for those in peril, but though one might seem to hear the beating of wings in the wind the eyes of the body could not see the angel who took the prayer from one’s outstretched hands, held it as a shield between some human creature and the death that it was not yet the will of God should come upon them. One prayed for courage for those who had turned back upon the path, that they might turn again, but one’s own body did not experience the shock of realisation, the reversal, the gathering of strength. One prayed for the faithless but it was not granted to one’s ears to hear the crumbling of the walls and the shouting of the trumpet and the ‘I believe...’

There might be utter humiliation but that’s not the end of the story.

The sort of love he had given her, deliberately created, not drawn irresistibly forth by the loveliness of the beloved, implies no merit in the object of it and was not worth having. No, she had nothing - nothing.

She was too humiliated just at present to dare think that the virtue of humility might one day be her own.

How desperately hard it must have been for him. What a price he must have paid for her salvation! That was what love was - a paying of the price.

This is a very redemptive type of story and I love it for that fact alone.


Linking to Back to the Classics 2018: Classic with a Color in the Title

Back to the Classics: Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (1882-1949)

My monthly book club scheduled The Wreath, the first book in Sigrid Undset’s trilogy, Kristin Lavransdatter, for the month of May.
I didn’t have the book and had no idea if it could be read as a stand-alone, so I decided to order the Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition which includes all three titles in the trilogy. I’m thankful I did because The Wreath doesn’t have a satisfying end! Each book deals with a different time in Kristin’s life and The Wreath ends with Kristin’s marriage and the revelation of a secret her mother had kept hidden from Kristin’s father. If you decide to read Kristin L, make sure to get either the book above or the individual books - 'The Wreath,' ‘The Wife,’ and ‘The Cross.’

Kristin Lavransdatter is Sigrid Undset’s most famous work and is set in medieval Norway. It is a saga, the pilgrimage of a woman from childhood to the end of her life, transporting the reader back in time and place to 14th Century Scandinavia. Despite its setting, and the peculiarities of the time period, this story could fit right into our own times. There is nothing new under the sun and time doesn't alter the fact that we all struggle with wrong decisions, weakness of character, and our own wilfulness.

Kristin Lavransdatter was originally written in Norwegian between 1921 and 1923. It was translated into English soon after but the result was considered to be severely flawed with omissions, archaic language, and misunderstandings. The Penguin Classics' Edition is the first unabridged English translation of the trilogy and I found it easy to read - all 1,144 pages of it. The only difficulty I experienced was keeping up with the different Scandinavian names and some vagueness as to what the author meant or implied in a couple of instances but it certainly wasn’t something that marred the story.

Regardless of whether you were wealthy or poor, life was harsh in that northern clime. Lice, plague, feuds, superstition, the bitter cold, were either constant companions or looming threats. I sat by the fire as I read a good part of this book thinking about Kristin getting up from under her pile of skins in the dark to get the fire going for the household. That alone would have been enough to kill me!
The overarching theme of Kristin Lavransdatter is that of actions and consequences - sowing and reaping. Following your heart isn't a recipe for a happy life, despite what we are told.

Kristin was betrothed to a young, steady man named Simon but she asked to go to a cloister for a short time before they married. It was while she was away from home that she met the charismatic and impulsive Erlend and secretly began a relationship with him.

She began looking for evidence that other people, like herself, were not without sin. She paid more attention to gossip, and she took note of all the little things hints around her which indicated that not even the sisters in the convent were completely holy and unworldly.

She deceived her father, persuaded him to break off her betrothal to Simon and he reluctantly agreed to her marrying Erlend. The deception she played upon her father was to haunt her ever afterwards and much of her anguish over her own children was to stem from this act.

The monotonous drone of the waterfalls resonated through her overwrought body and soul. It kept reminding her of something, of a time that was an eternity ago; even back then she realised that she would not have the strength to bear the fate she had chosen for herself. She had laid bare her protected, gentle girl’s life to a ravaging, fleshly love; she had lived in anguish, anguish, anguish ever since - an unfree woman from the first moment she became a mother. She had given herself up to the world in her youth, and the more she squirmed and struggled against the bonds of the world, the more fiercely she felt herself imprisoned and fettered by them. She struggled to protect her sons with wings that were bound by the constraints of earthly care...

But always with that secret, breathless anguish: If things go badly for them, I won’t be able to bear it. And deep in her heart she wailed at the memory of her father and mother. They had borne anguish and sorrow over their children, day after day, until their deaths; they had been able to carry this burden, and it was not because they loved their children any less but because they loved with a better kind of love.

There is much about motherhood in this book. Kristin struggles with hopes and fears in the midst of  her tumultuous relationship with her husband and his influence on their seven sons. Her upbringing was so different to Erlend's and she didn't value the stability and love she grew up with until she became a mother herself. She reflected much on the path she had chosen for herself by following her own desires and rejecting her parent's choices.

Was this how she would see her struggle end? Had she conceived in her womb a flock of restless fledgling hawks that simply lay in her nest, waiting impatiently for the hour when their wings were strong enough to carry them beyond the most distant blue peaks?
...They would take with them bloody threads from the roots of her heart when they flew off, and wouldn’t even know it.

Simon remains on the scene throughout and although he eventually marries twice, he always retains a place for Kristin in his heart. He proves himself a loyal friend and is a contrast in character to Erlend.
Another character who plays a major part in Kristin’s life is Ulf Haldorsson, Erlend’s kinsman. For a while he seemed to be a surly, unreliable sort of character but he turns out to be a true friend of both Kristin and Erlend and has a fatherly relationship with their boys. He loved Kristin but didn't allow his feelings to manifest. They only come to the surface when he confides in a priest many years later.

Undset magnificently portrays the historical events and Norway’s religious climate of those times. The reader feels the bitter cold, smells the smoke of the cooking fires, cringes at the lice ridden beds, and grasps the uncertainty of the political and family feuds.
Although the Christian faith came to Norway in the 9th Century, the old pagan practices arose from time to time. Superstition was still ingrained in people’s minds and became mixed up with religious beliefs. These beliefs tended to surface during such events such as childbirth e.g. it was thought that if a pregnant woman looked upon a burning building her child would be born with a blood-red birthmark.
There is a melancholy feel to the writing which stems partly from the medieval setting and also from the Kristin's emotional turmoil.

She had seen the water from the well back home. It looked so clean and pure when it was in the wooden cups. But her father owned a glass goblet, and when he filled it with water and the sun shone through, the water was muddy and full of impurities.

Her eyes had been open to the fact that after the burdens and toil of a young mother comes a new kind of fear and concern for the aging mother.

Judging by some of the reactions from others who have either read this trilogy, or started and never finished, there is possibly a time of life when reading this epic would be difficult. Maybe it should be read after you’ve weathered a good number of years of marriage, or when your children have grown up; when the reality of life has softened your idealism. I think I may have found it depressing had I read it twenty years ago, but at this stage of my life, I was able to be absorbed in the story without it burdening my thoughts.
On the other hand, Kristin’s choice to follow her heart is a cautionary tale. She knew so little of Erlend to begin with and their relationship which began in haste leaves her repenting in her leisure. Perhaps it is a good book to read prior to entering marriage.....

I glanced over some literary reviews of the book and I thought they were a bit over the top and made the book sound almost R-rated. It was no more like that than something that came from Thomas Hardy’s pen. Madame Bovary was more discomfiting for me than Kristin Lavransdatter. Kristin at least had a brain and a conscience.

Some background context:

Sigrid Undset converted to Catholicism in 1924 after writing Kristin Lavransdatter and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928, at the age of forty-six, "Principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages."
She was involved with the Underground during WWII and when the Nazis invaded Norway she fled to the USA travelling by train through Russian and Japan to get there. Undset must have put an enormous amount of research into her writing. Here are some of the people, places & events she mentioned in her trilogy:

The Church in Norway

Some Norwegian history - many of these people were mentioned in Kristin Lavransdatter

Ingeborg of Norway

Magnus IV of Sweden & Norway

Erling Vidkunsson - Norwegian nobleman and regent of Norway

Norway's Black Plague also here




Kristin Lavransdatter is my choice for the Back to the Classics Challenge, 2018  : A Classic in Translation

The Refugees by A.Conan Doyle (1892)

The Refugees by A. Conan Doyle is subtitled, A Tale of Two Continents as it takes begins in France and continues in Canada.
In 1598 the Edict of Nantes was signed by King Henry IV of France, granting the Huguenots certain freedoms and rights and putting a temporary stop to the religious wars between them and the Roman Catholics that had been going on in France since the 1560’s. In 1685 the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV, Henry’s grandson. The Refugees begins just before the Edict was revoked and takes the reader into the court of Louis XIV at a time of great intrigue and machinations.
Louis has a mistress, the volatile and ruthless Madame de Montespan, but he has had enough drama and would like a more peaceable wife. In fact he loves Madame de Maintenon, a very gracious, pious, and beautiful widow, whom de Montespan had employed as a governess. He was impressed with her character and she was considered to be a good influence upon the King, therefore the Church leaders were keen to encourage the relationship for the good of the country.
With encouragement from the Catholic Church leaders, Madame de Maintenon is advised to acknowledge her love for the King and agree to marry him. One of the conditions the Church leaders place on the marriage is that Madame de Maintenon, an ardent Catholic, would influence the King to revoke the Edict of Nantes.
Amory de Catinat is a guardsman in the service of the King. He also happens to be of Huguenot descent and is engaged to his cousin, Adele Catinat, daughter of a famous Huguenot cloth maker. Amory has risen quickly through the ranks of the army and has served his King well. The young man is ambitious and idealistic but when the King puts Amory’s fidelity to the test by asking him to sign an order that the Huguenots give up their beliefs or suffer banishment or captivity, at the same time as he promotes him to a major, Amory refuses.

“Man, you are surely mad! There is all that a man could covet on one side, and what is there on the other?”
“There is my honour.”
“And is it, then, a dishonour to embrace my religion?”
“It would be a dishonour to me to embrace it for the sake of gain without believing in it.”

Driven, but feeling no way out of his predicament, the King asks Madame de Maintenon, now his wife, what he should do and her reply, together with the admonishment of the Bishop and the Abbe, persuades him to sign the document.

De Catinat had taken a step forward with his hand outstretched. His ardent, impetuous nature had suddenly broken down all the barriers of caution, and he seemed for the instant to see that countless throng of men, women, and children of his own faith, all unable to say a word for themselves, and all looking to him as their champion and spokesman. He had thought little of such matters when all was well, but now, when danger threatened, the deeper side of his nature was moved, and he felt how light a thing is life and fortune when weighed against a great abiding cause and principle.
“Do not sign it, Sire,” he cried. “You will live to wish that your hand had withered before it grasped that pen. I know it, Sire; I am sure of it. Consider all these helpless people - the little children, the young girls, the old and feeble. Their creed is themselves. As well ask the leaves to change the twigs on which they grow. They could not change. At most, you could but hope to turn them from honest people into hypocrites. And why should you do it? They honour you. They love you. They harm none. They are proud to serve in your armies, to fight for you, to work for you, to build up the greatness of your kingdom. I implore you, Sire, to think again before you sign an order which will bring misery and desolation to so many.”

As a result of Amory’s intervention, he loses his commission on the spot and rushes away from the palace. Flying to his betrothed's home, he urges her and her father to get ready to leave France.
What follows is a mad dash for safety on board a boat, a pursuit by the King’s men, and a shipwreck.
When they finally reach Canada, their danger is not over for now they have not only the Roman Catholic Frenchmen seeking them in order to send them back to be tried in France, but also the savage Iroquois on the warpath.

The Refugees is an exciting historical novel delivered in Conan Doyle’s wonderful literary style. From start to finish it is full of action, adventure, and historical insight. Interspersed with some humour at times, this is a great read, and as always, I’m left impressed with the author’s knowledge of history and his ability to weave this into an engrossing narrative.

The age suitability for this book is about 14 years and up. There are some mild adult themes to do with the King's mistresses but it doesn't go into too much detail. It is also fairly gory in places and mentions some forms of torture used by the Iroquios.
The book is free online in a nicely done Kindle version here.

Inheritance Publications in Canada has reprinted this book. I've ordered books from them after emailing them for postage & delivery details, and although the books took a couple of months to get to Australia, (which they informed me about) they arrived in good condition & the postage was very reasonable. This is a good option if you were interested in buying a number of books, otherwise if you're in Australia, you'd probably be better off getting the Dodo Press version from Book Depository. I have a few books from this publisher and they are quite good.

The Refugees is my choice for a 19th Century Classic in the 2018 Back to the Classics Challenge.

It's also one of my 2018 TBR Pile Challenge reads.

Finding Plutarch in Unexpected Places: The Forgotten Daughter by Caroline Dale Snedeker - Newbery Honor Book, 1934

The Forgotten Daughter is an outstanding book by an author who was well-known for her dedication to historical accuracy. Caroline Dale Snedeker (1871-1956) wrote numerous books for children and this book is a fine example of the research she undertook to produce an historically authentic work of fiction.

The Forgotten Daughter is a captivating story, an adventure, and a powerful tale of love, loss and forgiveness. It plunges the reader into the Ancient World; into the second century before Christ when Tiberius Gracchus was Tribune in Rome.
As I was reading this book, I felt a certain familiarity with the background historical narrative but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before. And then the author mentioned Plutarch. Yes! We’d read about the Gracchi and Cornelia, their mother, who devoted herself to her sons’ education:

Those she so carefully brought up, that they [became] more civil, and better conditioned, than any other Romans in their time; every man judged, that education prevailed more in them than nature.

We’ve been reading two to three selections from Plutarch’s Lives each year for the past six years, although at first I wasn’t convinced he was worth it. I wrote a post for Afterthoughts: 31 Days of Charlotte Mason relating to this and we have continued with studying the Lives because Plutarch really is worth it. Reading Snedeker's book, which was published in 1933, just made me all the more aware of how highly regarded Plutarch has been in the past.
Plutarch’s Life of Tiberius and Gaius (Caius) Gracchi is the basic material out of which The Forgotten Daughter is fashioned, and Snedeker intertwines Plutarch’s observations into her narrative to flesh out her story. This makes for a high interest story with a sense of authenticity.

The Forgotten Daughter tells a beautiful story that concerns a young girl named Chloe, the daughter of a noble Roman. Chloe’s mother and her companion, Melissa, both Greeks, had been captured by Laevinus, a Roman centurion, when their town was raided. Laevinus was so taken by Chloe’s mother that he was willing to marry her, and afterwards took her to live on a farm in the country as his wife.
Everything went well for a time, but one day Laevinus left for Rome to take some produce to market, and he didn’t return. Chloe’s mother was certain he would return and worried that he had become ill or had been involved in an accident. She was later informed that her husband had married another woman in Rome, and before long she was reduced to servitude and banished to a hovel with Melissa as her only company.

Inside the hut all the hill beauty was quenched like a candle - windowless, dim...

There, unknown to Laevinus, she gave birth to his daughter, Chloe, and not long afterwards she died, leaving Melissa to take care of the child.
Melissa and Chloe were mistreated by the supervisor of the farm and suffered a great deal.
As Chloe grew, Melissa passed on in song their Greek origins, the meeting of her mother and father, his desertion and her mother’s anguish. Chloe imbibed the atmosphere of her mother's homeland and a rich cultural heritage through these songs. This was to serve her well in time to come.

For these two there were no books or the knowledge to read them. So the sweet source of song was open to them. That source from which all books are taken, but from which no book is able to gather all the living sweetness. Melissa’s song was rude and simple, but it had that power.

Chloe grew up with a seething hatred of the father she never knew. She was beaten by the farm supervisor and lived a life of misery, and all the while Melissa strove to comfort and protect her for the sake of the friend she had loved.

In such a life there was no hope; no use to save or build up. Why they lived at all is strange. They simply awoke, worked, ate, slept, and awoke again. They were indeed the machines which the Romans thought them.
Forever besetting mankind is this temptation - to make other men into machines. Always in a new form it comes to every generation, and always as disastrous to master as to slave...

The life of a slave in the Roman Republic was keenly portrayed and Snedeker had some very insightful observations to make on Rome and Roman philosophy.

...in Roman days, after every victory, thousands of slaves were sold on the battlefield to speculators for the equivalent of eighteen cents each. They were cheap because so many of them died on the long march to Rome. So many committed suicide. So it was with slaves. But in the end Rome died itself because of them - rotted to the heart.

And this gem:

Despair in the old is a grievous thing, but not so bad as despair in the young. The young have no weapons, no remembrance of evils overcome, nor of evils endured. They have no muscle-hardness from old battles. They see only what is present, and they believe it to be forever. And they are very sure.

The Forgotten Daughter is recommended for ages 12 years to adult. I’d add, a mature 12 year old, not so much for content but Snedeker’s style is so lyrical and her comments on human frailties and philosophy are likely better suited to a young person who is thoughtful about this type of thing. But then again, the story also has action, danger, suspense and romance, which would appeal to a wide audience.

It is strange how people will try to mend their lives when the garment is torn to shreds. It is strange, too, how life’s garment, unlike human weaving, grows whole with the mending. It is as if some invisible kindness out of the air had set to work with you - here a little and there a little.

If your child has been studying Plutarch’s Lives, this is a wonderful book to further expand their pleasure in looking at the lives of the Gracchi, Crassus, Scipio, Marcus Octavius and also Ancient Rome.


The Forgotten Daughter by Caroline Dale Snedeker is my choice in Back to the Classics Challenge 2017 for an Award-winning Classic