Review: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

When I first read this book in high school my impression of it was "What terrible drivel! And this guy is a literary heavyweight!?", which is just more proof that what is considered literature was not written for children and therefore children are not the best audience for these works. They're just not equipped to understand the nuances of the story and to read between the lines. Of course there's always the option that my teacher wasn't all that good or that I was a particularly dense teenager, but I prefer the first theory.
If you read up on Metamorphosis you'll see the opinion that Gregor's transformation into an insect was just a physical manifestation of what he already was. Another commonly-accepted view is that the more important metamorphosis was that of the Samsa family as a result of Gregor's transformation. These interpretations made me think about the significance of Gregor changing into a creature that is revolting, a creature the family tries to accept but at the end cannot, and I wonder, for what is that a metaphor? What kind of person is Kafka writing about, what is it about him that is so unacceptable to his family? There is a passage toward the beginning of the book that indicates that there's something wrong with the lower abdomen of the insect Gregor, that it's diseased in some way. Then toward the end there is a passage about Gregor wanting to kiss his sister's neck. Do these passages reveal something about the nature of this character that overnight makes him a pariah in his own family? I think they do, and maybe I'm over-thinking it, but when viewed through that prism the story makes more sense than when it's not.
I'm pleased to say that this re-reading confirmed for me that Kafka's work deserves every bit of its exalted reputation. He really was a master of weaving stories that feel very close when you read them, despite the fantastical nature. Reading this book you can see the Samsas' apartment, them, and their issues. You even somewhat understand why the family feel about Gregor the way they do, regardless of his present state. After all, you know the man who dreams about kissing his sister's neck was odd even before his transformation into a gigantic insect. In fact, Metamorphosis is full of such implied revelations, but you have to be paying attention to see them. I would definitely recommend reading closely to get the most of out this book, and indeed any other of Kafka's work, because it seems that the boldest ideas are the closest to the truth with this author. Just bear in mind that often his imagery is far from innocent.
I'm curious to read more of Kafka's work now and I'm fully prepared to take my time with every piece, because his writing is just not something you should breeze through. Should you decide to pick up anything he's written I recommend you prepare yourself to take your time as well.

Review: Light in August by William Faulkner

August in a small town of Jefferson, MS becomes the scene of life-changing events for guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.

I tend to be intimidated by classical literature. There's so much praise and admiration that more often than not I don't pick up these books for fear of them being too much or too little or just at the wrong time. So here I was, with another classic on my reading list, this one more recent than the rest and yes, I didn't jump right in, but the further I got the more I thought that I should have. It is beautiful and insightful and every word in it counts. I actually tried to skim on a number of occasions because of the assignment deadline and very shortly learned that I could not do that. Every time I tried I missed something, so I stopped trying.
Faulkner most likely wouldn't be to everybody's taste: his writing style is peculiar with unusual punctuation, he creates his own words by putting other words together, a lot of the characters behave in a reprehensible fashion and none are all that likeable. To top it all off his descriptions can take you off guard or confuse you if you're not paying attention. But if you are paying attention this book is worth every minute of your time. I couldn't help but read and reread some passages because they cut through all the superficiality and got to the very core of the human condition and human interaction.
I think Faulkner was a very attentive observer of people and when he set out to write a book about the not-so-pretty side of life he didn't hold back in using what he saw. Here's what he said about women: "Her own self one of the first ones to cut the ground from under a sister woman". If that's not brutally honest I don't know what is, because let's face it, we women often aren't too kind to our own. There's plenty more where that came from and combined with quite a bit of violence with no remorse it can be jarring.
An author can have all the writing mojo in the world but to have real staying power a novel has to have something that will touch the reader, something that will get them thinking about more than the plot. Light in August does that. It brings up issues of identity, fitting in, race, gender, family history and faith, things we all have to contend with at one time or another. Lena in particular made me think about believing that things will work out. I think books like this one can be re-read time and time again and every time something new would be relevant. I'm usually not one to re-read, but for a while now I've been wondering whether that's because most of the novels I pick up don't have as much to offer as books like this one do.
With this I'm going to leave you. Jorge Luis Borges is up next and I'm looking forward to seeing what his Ficciones hold in store.

Review: Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

When the proprietor of a law office in New York hires a new clerk for his practice he seems to have found a colorful yet beneficial addition for his already colorful team. But when the new employee begins to inform the proprietor that he "would prefer not to" perform his duties things get really interesting.

I have heard about this book from a friend of mine, who's read it with her book club, so I generally knew what to expect in terms of plot developments. I was however pleasantly surprised by the characters in this novella. They were all remarkable in one way or another and since they were all very distinct their differences stood out all the more. It seems that authors in the middle of the 19th century weren't afraid to make their characters full of personality, take Dickens for example, and Melville definitely followed the same tradition. I particularly enjoyed the character of the proprietor, who is the narrator of this story. He tries so hard to be on good terms with all of his employees, regardless of the trouble they cause him, and makes up excuses to not take any action that would make him look good in his own eyes.
What I didn't expect is how plodding the pace is. Now that I've read Benito Cereno I think that's something that is common in Melville's work. The same type of scene seemed to repeat over and over without furthering the plot or developing the characters. The only thing this repetition seemed to accomplish was to convince me further of utter and complete spinelessness of the proprietor, but I already knew that so it wore on me. I did enjoy the ending though. It seemed somewhat abrupt because events moved along faster than the rest of the story but it was very satisfying. In a way it was the only appropriate ending, anything else wouldn't have worked quite as well. It also redeemed the proprietor in my eyes somewhat, he did have a good heart even if his will was lacking. Despite the extremely slow middle of the novella the ending saved it for me and for a few days after finishing it I kept thinking about the characters and the story. I can see why Melville is considered such an important figure in American literature and why this particular piece is still widely read. I would recommend Bartleby if you want to read a work that will inspire you to think about people, their motivations and how they relate to each other.

Review: Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost

"The sweetness of her glance - or rather, my evil star already in its ascendant and drawing me to my ruin - did not allow me to hesitate for a moment..." So begins the story of Manon Lescaut, a tale of passion and betrayal, of delinquency and misalliance, which moves from early eighteenth-century Paris - with its theatres, assemblies, and gaming-houses - via prison and deportation to a tragic denouement in the treeless wastes of Louisiana. It is one of the great love stories, and also one of the most enigmatic: how reliable a witness is Des Grieux, Manon's lover, whose tale he narrates? Is Manon a thief and a whore, the image of love itself, or a thoroughly modern woman?

Remembering how intense my last Coursera experience was, what with needing to read a novel a week and do plenty of other related work I decided to give myself a head start on the Fiction of Relationships curriculum. Manon Lescaut will be the first novel we'll be covering and I'm glad I wasn't restricted in time when I read it. No, it's not long and it doesn't place any serious demands on the reader's faculties, but it does tax one's patience. At least it did that to mine.
It took me a while to get into the story because it is told in a very old-fashioned way, it begins at the end, then jumps to the beginning and works its way to the end again; it is also the perfect example of the author telling much more than showing. I did my best to remember that if this book is on the curriculum of a Brown University course there must be value in it, so I read closely in an effort to not miss this value among all the exceedingly flowery phrases and moralizing debates on the subjects of love and virtue. See, I read so closely that the floweriness has seeped into my brain! But I digress. I kept thinking that if nothing else this book provides an excellent example of how literature has changed since the 1700s and how I needed to pay attention to the relationships described in the novel since that will be the focus of the course. And then something curious happened: as irritated as I was by Manon's flightiness and Grieux's lack if backbone, as well as the archaic language, I soon found that the characters weren't entirely unsympathetic and began reflecting on all the reckless and crazy things people do in the name of love. Somehow this novel broke through the frustration and touched me.
This realization alone surprised me to no end and I continued reading with a certain degree of enjoyment. Imagine my surprise when I finished the book, looked it up online, and found that Manon Lescaut isn't as obscure as I imagined. Authors of novels hailed as classics referenced it in their work, it continues to inspire composers and dramatists, it is the subject of quite a few academic papers and it's still being published with the latest edition released in 2005! (Don't you just love Wikipedia?)
In the end although I wouldn't recommend this novel to a friend in search of an engaging and fun read I'm glad I read it, if purely because it's widened my literary horizons and showed that love has always been blind and young people have always been capable of highly imprudent behavior. It's human nature, after all!

Review: The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

This collection of short stories is considered to be one of the best examples of science fiction, yet Ray Bradbury himself says that it is not science fiction but fantasy. Pretty curious, isn't it? After some deliberation I decided that it is sci-fi after all - in this bibliophile's universe fantasy has magic and while Bradbury's Martians have some nifty abilities they do not have magic. Sorry, Mr. Bradbury, but that's how you wrote them.
The book is organized as a collection of separate episodes from several decades in the future when humans applied themselves to colonizing Mars, and an attentive reader will see clear parallels with the history of the North-American continent in these stories. In some cases they couldn't be any more obvious. Chicken pox, need I say more? Some characters make multiple appearances which contributes to the cohesiveness of the book, but mostly it's episodes from lives of people who've never met, which makes the account more well-rounded than it would've been with just one or two protagonists and their limited perspectives.
My impression of the book as a whole is not too enthusiastic, although several stories made a strong impression on me. One, There Will Come Soft Rains, doesn't have any characters at all and it reminded me of the 19th century literature where so much is inferred as opposed to being clearly stated. Others, such as Night Meeting and Ylla, are incredibly full of humanity despite the fact that Martians are the key players. And one, The Off Season, left me incredulous: I simply couldn't understand why the Martians would effectively give half the planet to the guy who would destroy their heritage given the right mood. I'm still wondering if they thought his greed would keep him on the planet when everybody else left.
Another reason I liked this book was because of terribly obvious things stated in a beautiful way, making the reader think about the obvious with a fresh mind. In almost every story there was a "couldn't have said it better" moment, all because of passage like this:

We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn't set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose.

This particular passage reflects a common theme for the collection and by the end of the book I had a deep sense of regret when it comes to the destructive nature of humanity because after all it is true, we'll ruin anything with no regard for its history and value beyond the obvious as long as it suits our profit-hungry nature. A sad state of affairs, really, especially if you consider that when all's said and done this book is about humanity, Mars is just an unreal enough place to tell the truth without riling up the masses.
I would have liked The Martian Chronicles a lot more if the stories weren't so obviously deliberately polished, which, strange as it is, is my only real complaint about the book. All the clever turns of phrase and the unexpected similes were great individually but when considered together made it impossible for me to lose myself in most of the stories: I was simply too busy noticing all the cleverness. Bradbury's works are highly esteemed in the field of science fiction and I would recommend this book, especially if the said friend is exploring sci-fi literature.

Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

A shipwrecked gentleman named Edward Prendick, stranded on a Pacific island lorded over by the notorious Dr. Moreau, confronts dark secrets, strange creatures, and a reason to run for his life.

I've been curious about this novel for some time now but always managed to put off reading it, which seems to be how it goes with me and the classics: they've been around for a while, the shiny novelty has worn off and there are too many books everybody is talking about today for the classics to manage to get to the top of my reading list. Fortunately it was on the syllabus for the Fantasy & Science Fiction course I'm taking through Coursera so it climbed to the very top, along with some other tried and true novels of years past.
This book managed to surprise me and at the same time it had a comforting familiarity about it, so it was an interesting experience. I didn't actually know anything about the plot before reading the novel so the nature of Dr. Moreau's experiments caught me unawares, and although I suspected that something wonky was going on when Prendick started feeling uneasy about Morris' servant the extent of it was not something I expected from a 19th century novel. My modern imagination did however work out the details before Prendick, for whom even what we now know as plastic surgery was already an advanced and awesome thing.
The comfort came from the circumstances that cushioned the adventure itself: Prendick ends up on the island by accident and when he returns from it he is not entirely happy to be back at home. This is a notion that was present in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and if memory serves Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and is a curious one in and of itself. In a way it remains true to this day and I've experienced it myself: wherever we travel we feel that we are outsiders and yearn for the place that is home, yet when we get back there the adventures abroad have changed us and we are no longer truly at home in our homeland and miss the familiarity of the place that transformed us. The only way I think to avoid that would be to never go anywhere new, but where's the fun in that?
The thing I enjoy about old novels is that the authors tend to manage to create characters who are complex and simplistic at the same time. Take the protagonist himself for instance: he at first seems one-dimensional enough in his decency, but then you think back to his time stranded at sea and you wonder what really happened to his fellow shipwreck survivors, and then all of a sudden he doesn't seem so decent after all. Authors of that era seem to have been a lot more subtle than the modern ones when it came to developing their characters, and taking their usual brevity into consideration I have to admire their skill.
Reading this novel I kept thinking about Bulgakov's The Heart of a Dog, which explores the idea of similar surgical experiments. I haven't read that novel but Wells made me want to give it a try, although I understand that it is chock full of social criticism of the early post-Revolution era in the Soviet Union and that makes me want to read it less.
This was my second book by H.G. Wells and something tells me it won't be my last. I hear The Time Machine is quite good.

Review: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

When I first finished Frankenstein I was glad it was over, primarily because of Victor Frankenstein, the selfish brat that he is. I just couldn't stand how nothing was ever his fault or responsibility, how self-absorbed he was, how uncaring and unkind. I also felt sorry for the monster, who is a victim of circumstance if there ever was one. And then I thought about it some more, after all there has to be more to it than it simply being one of the first novels that are considered modern science fiction for it to have stood the test of time.
The first thing that popped into my mind was "Ok, I can see the moral lesson: don't be like that guy, he's awful". Then the layer of "faults of obsession" registered. Then the cliche "don't judge the book by its cover" surfaced, along with examples from the text and ruminations about what this kind of judging does to the book, as it were. Then the new thought came to mind that although Victor Frankenstein refers to his creature as the monster it is he who is truly monstrous. Not a new idea, but it was new to me. And so I found depth in the novel and looked past the fact that a creature who barely learned to speak was reading the works of prominent philosophers and had no trouble processing and applying it all, or that the scientist is an abhorrent creature. I appreciated the lesson of applying moderation to the pursuit of passions, as well as the lesson of not forgetting those who love you while chasing after a dream. I fully understood why it's still around after almost two centuries.
It's still too slow-paced for the modern reader and the heart-rending terror Mary Shelley was going for is not anywhere as effective as it might have been in the 1800s (I imagine too many episodes of Law & Order, CSI, Criminal Minds and local news broadcasts are to blame for that) but although I didn't love it I still recommend it as an excellent examination of certain sides of the human character and nature, as well as for the value of taking a closer look at the forerunner of an entire literary genre. Just don't expect a mute green creature with bolts sticking out if its neck, that's all Hollywood's doing.

Review: Dracula by Bram Stoker

The first time I read Dracula was in high school and I read it purely for entertainment. Back then it seemed ok, definitely entertaining but I remember thinking that I didn't know what all the fuss was about. Fast forward 15 years. I signed up for a fantasy and science fiction course on Coursera and Dracula was on the syllabus. I was curious to read it again and see how different my impressions would be.
I don't know whether it's because this time I was watching for more than a bloodsicking monster in order to successfully complete the course assignment or because I am generally more attentive in my reading these days, but this time around it seemed like I was reading a completely different book. It still didn't spook me (people in Stoker's time were much more impressionable) but I did understand why it's considered a classic and is so highly esteemed in the literary circles.
Stoker's theater experience informed him in the importance of voice in character development, which sometimes made it necessary to read out loud but at the same time gave the narrative flavor. Stoker got the regional and international accents to sound authentic and my husband and I still joke around using Van Helsing's reference to an episodic character as "loud and red of face but a good fellow all the same". Another fun Suspence was a vital part of the book and while some ends were never tied it made the generally familiar story seem fresh. I didn't always see the point of how many characters there were and that spoiled the experience a little bit - there are only so many people this reader can keep track of!
My favorite part of this novel was the incredible layering of social, psychological and economic issues. I would've never noticed this before so the discovery was that much sweeter. There were references to the early feminist movement rerred to as the New Woman, classes, position in society, insanity, a look into what it takes to deceive in broad daylight and how to make witnesses more forthcoming with information. I felt like I was peeking in at a real society while reading this novel, because while things like bribes and break-ins may not be a daily occurrence they are a part of life and I liked that Stoker included them in the book.
Reading the novel this time I noticed Mina's references to the New Woman, which made me curious about this movement. Having looked it up I saw that she was in a way an early feminist: she had a job and undertook additional training in disciplines not very common at that time, such as typing and stenography. She was very intelligent and enterprising, and she was the center of the "six degrees of Mina" group (which in this case is more like two than six). Her input was crucial and her health is an indicator of the group's progress. And yet she was traditional in a very old-fashioned way, which combined with the general attitude towards women as feeble-minded and neurotic to the point of ineffectiveness irked me. The more Van Helsing praised Mina's "man's brain" I wondered what the wide-spread opinion about "woman's brain" was at the time. I didn't get a sense that it was particularly complimentary. Without a doubt life for women in the 19th century left much to be desired.
If you haven't read Dracula yet, whether that's because you don't read vampire books or because you only read modern fiction, I highly recommend that you make an exception - this book isn't so much about vampires as it is about 19th century England and about human nature, which isn't subject to time.

Review: Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

When I first read about Alice's adventures in Wonderland I closed the book in complete bewilderment because I just didn't understand what made it so popular and gave it such staying power. There was no plot, the story was utter nonsense, the characters were beyond strange and to top it all off the whole thing was a dream. Needless to say I didn't pick up Through the Looking Glass.
Fast forward to last week when I was supposed to read both books for a course I'm taking on fantasy and science fiction. Upon first reviewing the syllabus I gave an inward groan, but when time came to read I had to bite the bullet. Alice in Wonderland was first up and it was still nonsense, there was still no plot and the characters were still strange, but now approaching it from an academic standpoint and knowing that the whole thing is a dream I was able to enjoy it much more. I noticed things such as clever play on words and tried to guess if the strange animals were symbolic of real-life people who real-life Alice would be able to recognize and would delight in, as children tend to do when they solve a riddle. I also kept noticing things that would appeal to adults and children on different levels and for different reasons, which reminded me of the Shrek cartoons. And so having had a decent experience with Alice in Wonderland I cheerfully moved on to Through the Looking Glass.
What a transformation the storytelling and the characters underwent between these two books! While in Wonderland, which is referred to as Nursery Alice, it was all about adventure and emotion, which younger children can understand and relate to easily, and in Through the Looking Glass there is an actual plot, things make sense so much more, and characters don't appear and disappear in completely random ways. These changes alone would've been a sufficient enough upgrade for me, but then I looked at the larger picture of cards vs. chess, read some of the poems out loud, googled a few things and decided that Surprise! this one I actually did enjoy. I even have a favorite rhyme:

"In spring, when woods are getting green
I'll try and tell you what I mean.
In summer, when the days are long,
Perhaps you'll understand the song.
In autumn, when the leaves are brown
Take pen and ink, and write it down."

Lewis Carroll really was a very clever man.
I think the next step would be to get my hands on the audio books and listen to them since having read them on the page I've become quite convinced that they were meant to be read aloud. They are children's stories after all.

P.S. If you are waiting for me to say something about how Disney has taken far too many liberties with Lewis Carroll's creation you'll be disappointed, for I enjoyed the Tim Burton's Alice quite a bit (although Anne Hathaway's jet-black eyebrows were incredibly distracting when compared with her general whiteness).

Review: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Cruel miser Ebeneezer Scrooge has never met a shilling he doesn't like... and hardly a man he does. And he hates Christmas most of all. When Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come, he learns eternal lessons of charity, kindness, and goodwill.

Merry Christmas, my friends! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and spent lots of time with your loved ones. My family's Christmas celebration is always fun and I'm always happy to be surrounded by such great people on holidays. This year we toned everything down a bit, the food, the presents, and just enjoyed each other's company, and I'm glad to say that the day wasn't any worse for it!
When thinking about what to read over Christmas break I remembered that I've never read A Christmas Carol and decided that there couldn't be a better time than now to pick up a copy, especially since it's so easy to get carried away by all the "things" and forget about the true meaning of Christmas. It was difficult at first to adjust to the archaic writing style and strange sentence structure (sometimes whole paragraphs reminded me of Yoda) but by the time the second ghost made his appearance I had no trouble reading Dickens' English and enjoyed the pictures he painted with words.
It was interesting to see that although generations have passed some things never change - we worry about all the family members making it home in time for the celebration, we hope that there's enough food for everyone and that every dish turns out just right, and the hostess will always talk about the adventures that accompanied the cooking now that all is well and the guests have paid her many compliments. At the same time it was interesting to get to peek into the lives of Victorian Londoners. I didn't realize that the poor had to take their dinners out of their homes to be baked!
As I read the book I wondered whether Dickens wrote it for adults or children. The plot was much too simple and the mystery much too transparent for an adult reader but would be completely engrossing for a child, but the vocabulary he used appears to be more suited for an adult reader. It's understandable of course that some terminology that was widely used then has become outdated since his time but there are plenty of words that are still common today, just not so common as to be part of our regular speech. Do you by any chance know who was Dickens' intended audience?

Review: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

When Elizabeth Bennet first meets Mr. Darcy she can't help but dislike him. After all he is proud and arrogant and he seems to be setting his best friend against courting Elizabeth's sister, robbing her of her chance at happiness. But is there more to the man who doesn't trouble himself with being even a little bit pleasant? Can their mutual dislike turn into affection? May be there will be a wedding after all.

The story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy was my first foray into the world of Jane Austen. At first the language presented a bit of a problem, what with unusual vocabulary and manner of speaking, but soon I was lost in the life of English middle class gentry with plenty of daughters and not enough money. I loved how every character had a distinct and quirky personality, especially the Bennets. Mrs. Bennet and her cases of nerves and Mr. Bennet and his belief that half his family are extremely silly women were a source of constant amusement.
Austen does a wonderful job of creating a society filled with interesting characters where the ones that change are highlighted by the ones who stay static. I enjoyed the transformations of both Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy from set-in-their way and so sure of themselves to people who all of a sudden find themselves reconsidering and reevaluating what they thought of each other and how the difficulties and near tragedies they face help them grow. No problem is a matter of life or death here but I rather enjoyed one's reputation and happiness being at stake for a change. I also think that there is value in developing characters in a setting of Austen's time, it allows us to see their personalities revealed in circumstances that are more tame and more similar to our own non-action-packed lives than a post-apocalyptic intergalactic battlefield. I love me some sword-fighting and gun-wielding protagonists but let's face it, water-cooler conversations are more like salon intrigues than a war with monsters.
The story started out pretty quaint but picked up speed about half-way. Things started to really happen! I liked how the change of pace coincided (intentionally or not, only Miss Austen knows) with a change in Elizabeth's feelings for Mr. Darcy. It's like she was stuck in a rut of her small social circle and then when she left its confines and saw more of the world she got the opportunity and the experience to see deeper into him, understand him and herself better. It got a bit confusing with a rather sudden addition of a relatively large number of relatives in the midst of some pretty stressful time in the life of the Bennet family and eventually I gave up on trying to keep them straight. After all it's Elizabeth and Darcy who mattered, not the various uncles and aunts, no matter how nice and helpful.
I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending because I always feel that scoundrels should be punished and the scoundrel of this story didn't seem to get too harsh of a punishment. And yes, in real life this happens all too frequently but when I read period novels the girl who likes the evil witch to die wakes up and starts demanding justice much more so than when I read contemporary fiction or even historical fiction. What can I say, a happily ever after with no trouble from pesky ill-wishers is a nice concept!
This is one of the books where I wish I could keep talking about it but then the post would be riddled with spoilers and that's against the rules so I won't. There is one more thing I'd like to talk about though. It's not specific to Pride and Prejudice but it is relevant and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Here's what it is:
If you've read any reviews of Jane Austen's works you most likely have seen the disparaging ones, the ones that say that all her stories are about women finding husbands and dismiss them for that being the main characters' only goal in life. On the surface that may be true but it's not just about finding a husband, any husband. It's about marrying for love when marriages of convenience were so common, it's about staying true to oneself and finding happiness and quite frankly I don't see anything wrong with any of these. Back then a woman's prospects were extremely limited, a good match was essentially at the top of her list of aspirations and those who didn't follow the traditional path, like Jane Austen herself, were either considered unlucky or very odd. We, women of the 21st century, have a lot more options. We can choose to have families, careers, interests outside of our homes but I believe that finding one's true partner and living a happy life are things we all wish for, even if we don't readily admit it for whatever reason, and staying true to oneself despite the pressures and demands of our lives is difficult to overestimate. Some people may see Austen's chosen themes as archaic but I see them as timeless. What do you think?

Review: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The highest praise for a book is when you turn the last page and immediately want to go back and read it again and when days, weeks, months, even years later you still return to it in your thoughts. Jane Eyre was that sort of book for me. It's not a large volume, I imagine few books published back then were, but it has everything that I enjoy: it has a strong, intelligent heroine who's not afraid to speak her mind, adventure, romance, mystery and a happy ending. It is written in such a way that wherever the heroine is you feel like you're right there with her, experiencing what she is experiencing, the plot developments are never contrived and flow naturally and the ending, while happy, isn't so happy that it seems unrealistic and fake.
It is my all-time favourite book and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes an unhurried narrative without gratuitous drama and enjoys historical fiction.