A Room of One's Own

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

I really enjoyed this book as the writing style made me think of Sally, whom I love. There were so many fabulous feminist sentiments held within. The main idea that Woolf explores deeply is that for men to feel comfortable within themselves they need to feel superior, and what better way than to believe that half the population is innately inferior to them?

I would really like to buy my own copy of this book to highlight her wonderful arguments and turn of phrase. She deftly lays out the issue of women and men’s equality and how many men see women being brought up to their level as taking away their rights as a man. I’m not going to try to recreate the argument here, I have never been able to articulate it well and she is a master at it.

Woolf is not above admitting that she has biases and they will affect her writing. “Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping.” She does not purport to be an oracle speaking on women and fiction. I found her style of writing comfortable and enjoyable. Very stream-of-consciousness, but a consciousness that has been thinking deeply about these issues.

One of the things Woolf pontificates on is how much men have written about women. And how little women have written about everything. I read about a challenge where one would write their assignments at University referring only to books written by women. As much as I would have liked to achieve that for some assignments in my undergrad, I was mostly studying theology and I had to settle for one book written or edited by a woman – even that was often a struggle. I also recently read about Jack Heath who read only women authors for a year.

I was phenommed* to find that this book, which is clearly a seminal feminist work, was not on The List. In fact nothing by Virginia Woolf was on the list. The list has obviously succumbed to the patriarchy and I see it as my solemn duty to recover it. Thus, this review will be posted on the consensus cloud blog, because I will not have dictated to me that this year >75% of the books I read must be by men.

Everyone should read this book.


*it was phenomenal to me

Persuasion- written a little while ago

Well, I can tick another book off my list, I just finished persuasion. If that's not on the book list then I will just give up completely. There are spoilers , obviously.

I liked persuasion but far less than I liked pride and prejudice and northanger abbey. Its strange that northanger abbey is often left out or not read when i think its far more interesting than persuasion. Do you know what happens in persuasion? People get persuaded. Although I don't think any more persuaded than all the other books, its just, this time it happens to the main character so it gets the name. The main characters name is Anne. Plain old Anne. She is nice, reasonably attractive, able to get along with everybody and has a good set of principals. But I would never go for here. She is the kind of girl that is your best friend but in terms of love you always saw her as a bit asexual. I just want to shake her and say "get excited!! Fight for the attention of the one you love and have a bitch with your girlfriends about men." But noo, she is all about concealing her emotions with strategic head dips and walks to the piano on the other side of the room. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, I certainly wouldn't want to hang ut with her though, I'd probably knock her over and she would never get a word in edgeways, which I would feel guilty about. So that's Anne. She has a sister called Mary. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that there was someone in Jane austins acquaintance that she didn't like very much named Mary. Mary in pride and prejudice is an antisocial bore and Mary in persuasion is a pain in the arse. She is really jealous and precious and woe is me-ish. And she thinks she is so fricken entitled! And a hypocrite! My goodness she pissed me off, and her husband was such a great guy, I felt pretty bad for him. See, he actually proposed to Anne but she refused him I'll explain why in a sec, and so then he married Mary much to the chagrin of his sisters and mother who all like Anne much more than Mary.

So, when Anne was 19 she fell in love and got engaged to this spunk called frederick who was by all definitions a top bloke trying to make his way in the world of sailing. Her mother like figure (a robyn, if you will,) strongly advised her against the marriage because she would be marrying lower and there was no gaurantee of his becoming rich. Did I mention that her whole family, spare her, were proud, haughty and had a strong sense of self importance? So she was 19 and persuaded out of this marriage. He went away to mend his broken heart and get rich at sea while she 'got over' him, but mysteriously refused other marriage proposals for no good reason. Fast forward eight years- Anne is well and truly over the hill when captain Wentworth (spunky Fred) returns to town with all his spunkiness in search of a wife. I know what your thinking, they fall in love again. WRONG! He really doesn't seem that interested in her anymore and shows no signs of angsty silence that so afflicted Mr darcy ( and Edward Cullen) when in love. Him and Louise, one of Anne's mates and her sisters sister in law, hit it off and it seems on the brink of engagement when a bit of larrikining goes too far and Louise gives herself  a brain injury. Don't worry, she recovers. Anyway, I'm getting too bogged down in story telling. So Wentworth realises he loves Anne when Louise falls in love with someone else and he doesn't care (its more complex but I'll spare you) and then he goes to bath, where all the action happens, and has to vy with Mr Elliot, who has Anne's family's approval, for her love. Wentworth wins and they live happily ever after. So they did end up together After all.

I don't know, it was a tad boring for my liking and i thought a lot of really important aspects were brushed over while other stuff was over talked about. I tell you what though, I did not see Louise's fall coming at all. One minute everyone is having fun and the next minute Louise is lifeless on the concrete. For a good half a page I kept expecting her to open her eyes with wicked michief and say 'lol jks, you though I was dead.' She is the type to do it. So bravo Jane, a well thrown curve all. You should bowl for india, then Clarke might have actually gone out.

OK I've started talking about cricket- a sure sign that this book review ought to end now.

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

This book was ridiculously tedious, uninteresting and incredibly difficult to wade through!
Had it been any longer I would probably have given up! However I became determined not to be beaten by a children's book*!
The character of Toad is horribly unsympathetic. The 'hijinks', such as they are, are unrealistic** and not overly engaging. Perhaps Toad was meant to be written as a duffer and a slimy character; but Rat is also condescending to Mole, not listening to him and presuming he knows more - much in the vein of Toad's behaviour. Even Badger is quite harsh to Toad. Perhaps that is what they believe Toad needs but being mean, lecturing and eventually imprisoning someone is hardly good manners.
In the case of Toad it is clear that he is not interested in changing his ways, so the others are really wasting time and energy.

Until half-way through, the book doesn't even suffer from the smurfette trope because there are no women at all. When we finally meet some, they are unfavourable caricatures of the worst traits of women (as perceived by men). The gaoler's daughter is stereotypical mother figure; caring for Toad's every need.

Her aunt is money-hungry and unrealistically willing risk her job to help a prisoner escape. 
The barge washer-woman entraps Toad into looking like a fool (how dare she!).
Notice that none of these women have names? Now, to be fair, none of the human characters have names and the animals are all named by their species. But seriously? No women animals? Otter, who has children, is not even mentioned to have a wife; let alone her having a part in the story.

Lastly, the animals eat chicken, ham, bacon and tongue. How is this okay? The first horse is mentioned to have a personality, despite being a beast of burden, but later Toad steals and sells a horse, a process throughout which the horse never offers an opinion - even when a price for him*** is being negotiated.

My recommendation is that no one ever read this book again. It isn't worth it.

Jocelyn.

*This may have been karma, on account of I was (am) trying to cheat by reading all the easy books, so that I will have read more than Emmeline, it would have taken less time to read a 'hard' book I'm sure!
** For example Toad receives a sentence of one year for stealing a car, three for 'furious driving' and 15 years for giving cheek to the police. All of which gets rounded up to 20 years. What? In what universe is 'giving cheek' 5x worse than reckless driving and 15x worse than stealing a car?? Also would Toad really be allowed to return to his house after escaping from a 20 year sentence - did the police not think to check there for the escaped prisoner?
***  I'm going to assume the horse was male - everyone else was

Emmeline: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Do you know what an ipad is?

Douglas Adams didn't, but he wrote about one, 31 years before they were released on the market. Except he didn't call it an ipad, he called it the hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy, a book with thousands of pages that could be accessed by pressing buttons. If in the form of an actual book, it would be far to heavy to carry around.

Most futuristic books appear hopelessly anachronistic once the actual future arrives. Mary Shelley's The Last Man, for example, was published in 1826, set around 2030, and the characters all run around in horse and carriage and sending letters by messenger.

Adams' book (and the whole series) is amazing because in it he writes about technology that the inventors hadn't even started imagining.

Reading this book was weird because I couldn't remember whether I'd read it before. The whole time I kept second-guessing myself. It was familiar but new all at the same time. Maybe I read it when I was a kid, or when I was drunk (less likely), or maybe it was just familiar from the movie (the Zooey Deshanel version).

So, should everyone read this book? I say probably, it's worth it, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if you didn't.

Retrospective Read: Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

[Spoilers start at the end of the second sentence]

I read Jane Eyre many years ago and it didn’t really capture me. I struggled to get into the story and later only had a vague idea of how the story went. When we lived in the US Emmeline was studying it and the college was to put on a play of Jane Eyre. There was some discussion around the book before the play, but not much as she had not finished and no one wants to be the person who accidentally spoils something (“Are you up to the bit where it is the wife in the attic?...no? oh, nevermind”). Poor Emmeline and her strict policy of reading books before seeing them performed was reading Jane Eyre right up until the lights were dimmed in the theatre.

As a theatrical device in said play, the red room and the attic were the same place. It made the story a little difficult to follow, but drew a comparison between crazy young Jane and the crazy wife. The idea of the crazy wife that has to be locked away concerns me as to Mr Rochester’s character as there was a time when it was du rigour to have your wife declared crazy and committed so that she was no longer a bother. If she wasn’t crazy before he locked her away I’m pretty sure being locked away would have been enough to make her pretty mad.

I reckon that the way in which he escapes being pigeonholed as such a man is the fact that he never actually had her committed because he didn’t want to not care for her and didn’t want her not living in an asylum. Given what we know about asylums, that was a good call if he did indeed wish to care for her.

Mr Rochester is a more interesting love interest than Austin’s Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy. He seems to have more depth and not just be a pretty face. The relationship has its basis in communication and mutuality not longing glances, frission and high tempers. He is also much more worthy of love than the men in Wuthering Heights

Jane herself inspired me as a teenager reading the book because she was confident and a survivalist, but not at the expense of her own happiness. She took risks and they paid off. Lizzy Bennett (to continue the Pride and Prejudice comparisons) is confident in her own way, but she does not experience any threats to her comfortable way of life* and does not need to survive in the way that Jane does.

This is probably a book that I should reread at some stage, but realistically I probably won’t unless one day I’m lying around bored and it is the most appealing option. There are just so many books I want to read for the first time!!

I would recommend not reading Jane Eyre too young.

Jocelyn

*I will note that if Lizzy and/or her sisters do not marry reasonably well they will in fact be homeless and reliant on the kindness of others once their father dies, this is not an imminent threat but I imagine it would stress one somewhat (especially with Mrs Bennett harping on).

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

[Spoiler Alert]

Overall review:

Emmeline warned me that The Picture of Dorian Gray was depressing* so I was expecting something more along the lines of The Bell Jar. Unfortunately I knew the basic storyline of The Picture of Dorian Gray because on the tvshow ‘Freaky Stories’ I seem to recall one where a young man stabs his painting at the end. Emmeline was disappointed when I told her that because it robbed me of the ending, or at least of being able to guess the ending!

Throughout the book I felt a little as though it was an opportunity for Wilde to show off a large amount of knowledge he had amassed on a variety of subjects, rather than him just writing a book. The descriptions of Dorian’s obsessions went on too long and there was a tendency to skim after a while. Jeffrey Eugenides** writing the introduction claims that Wilde writes witty dialogue but struggles in other areas and needs actors to bring his work to life. What dialogue there is to be had is mainly found in the first third and last quarter and, especially when it involves Dorian or Harry flirting (including with each other) is indeed snappy and one can imagine it being performed on the stage with much chemistry between the characters.

The Picture of Dorian Gray leaves me hanging out to know what it is that Dorian does to lead others astray***. It is clear that he creates ‘fallen women’ and that is not too hard to understand, but I wonder how he ruins the lives of the young men whilst escaping unscathed himself. That being said, I also love that it is left to the imagination.

[I]n his search for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he would often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really alien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and then, having , as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his intellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that is not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament.

In the light of the previous sentence (and given Wilde’s own sexual proclivities) I like to imagine that not a few of the young men ruined were taken as lovers also. Dorian has the sort of sex appeal that does not discriminate. Beautiful and self destructive people are drawn to Dorian and he obliges them by flattering their beauty then destroying them.

A few notes I made as I read the book:

Lady Henry scores the best introduction in the whole book “She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest.” How does every woman not want to look like that?

As a language-nerd I was super-excited to see that the French that was in the book was not translated into English immediately afterward, however the conversation French phrases made it clear what was being said. When Dorian reads three particular stanzas of a French poem on Venice, they are relayed to us in their original form and the meaning is made clear in the reveal that follows. This is not always well done, in Anna Karenina**** Tolstoy throws French around like it’s Christmas and mostly I found it annoying and pretentious.

Harry to Dorian: “You will soon be going about like the converted, the revivalist, warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired.” There is indeed no one so passionate about the evilness of x than the one who has turned from x themselves!

Is this a book everyone should read? I can’t decide. I think it has some interesting ideas but the package does not call for universal recommendation.

Jocelyn
(read Emmeline's review here)

*she later retracted that statement saying that she meant something else

**Author of Middlesex which I have read and have yet to review, Emm’s review is here

***Apparently the first version which he was commissioned to write was ‘mawkish and nauseous’, ‘unclean’, ‘effeminate’ and ‘contaminating’ . I wonder if it details some of Dorian’s dalliances and if so are there still copies around?

****A book I read before we started the challenge and have not as yet retrospectively reviewed

Winne-the-Pooh

Winne-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

I may get accused of cheating, because I believe I am now in front of Emmeline book-wise, but that is only because today I read Winne-the-Pooh!

This is a really sweet book, I love Milne's style of writing, you can really imagine that it is his son's toys and he is telling the stories about them. When the real Christopher Robin is asking the narrator questions the answers are very much an adult storyteller's indulgent answers.

The whole thing is very sweet.

When Winne-the-Pooh was on tv the character I disliked most was Gopher, who I believe was introduced by Disney and was not an original Milne character. I also didn't like when the storylines were over the top. Those aspects that most reflect the nature of the book are what makes the show a classic and well-loved.

There is a tradition in my family of giving 'Now we are six' to children on their 6th birthdays and having read Winne-the-Pooh I may start bequeathing it and other Milne books on non-six birthdays!

I believe this is a book that everyone should read - it only took me 2 hours tops!