Dickens in December – Readalong – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I read Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ for the readalong hosted by Caroline from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Delia from Postcards from Asia, as part of Dickens in December. Here are the readalong questions and my answers to them.

Is this the first time you are reading the story?

This is the second time I am reading ‘A Christmas Carol’. I read it the first time on Christmas Day a few years back. It was an interesting and a different experience re-reading it.

 

Did you like it?

I liked it very much, but in a different way, when compared to the first time. The first time I read it, I didn’t know the story. So, I was looking forward to finding out what happened next. This time when I read it, I knew the overall story, though I had forgotten the details. I was looking forward to discovering things that I missed the first time. For example, a couple of interesting things that I discovered was that the phrase ‘dead as a doornail’ in the first page of the book must have inspired the title of Charlaine Harris’ book of the same name. And the Ghost of Christmas Past inspired the title of the movie ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’.

 

Which was your favorite scene?

This is a really tough question to answer. I think it would be one of these three – Belle breaking off with Scrooge because she feels that he has become a person greedy for money, the Fezziwig family celebrating Christmas with their family, friends and employees and how at the end of that scene Scrooge says that happiness comes from things which are impossible to add and count, Bob Cratchit celebrating Christmas with his family.

 

Which was your least favorite scene?

I don’t think I had a least favourite scene. Because I think every scene was important to the story and was there for a reason, even if some of the scenes depicted characters who were not really nice or circumstances which exposed the not-so-good part of some of the characters’ hearts. I also wish that the third ghost had spoken. Just pointing the finger was not enough for me.

 

Which spirit and his stories did you find the most interesting?

I liked the second spirit very much, because it showed how people celebrated Christmas with a lot of joy and happiness whether they were rich or poor and how the spirit itself added to the happiness by its magic. The Christmas celebrations of the Fezziwig and Cratchit families were my favourite scenes from that part of the story.

 

Was there a character you wish you knew more about?

Probably Belle. Wish she had met Scrooge again and they could have become friends again.

 

How did you like the end?

I found the ending quite heartwarming and nice. I liked it very much. Though I knew the ending already, even while re-reading, it made me very happy. It was the perfect ending to the story.

 

Did you think it was believable?

I think from the perspective of a Christmas story, the ending was believable. But if I look at it as a real story, it is possible that a person might undergo such a major change in personality when he / she goes through a crisis. But it may not happen always. But it does happen sometimes

 

Do you know anyone like Scrooge?

One of the things I really liked about the story was that it doesn’t depict Scrooge as a completely selfish, miserly person, but shows that there are two sides to his character and one of the sides has been suppressed because of different reasons and circumstances. I think there are people like Scrooge everywhere or people who have some of his personality traits. For example, I have seen people who have money but who don’t know how to use it to make themselves happy or get themselves creature comforts. The disturbing thing though is that Scrooge’s indifference to the world, his refusal to become friends with anyone, his suspicious behaviour towards anyone who invites him for a dinner / party, the way he has constructed walls around his heart so that it is not accessible to anyone around – these are things which we see everyday.

 

Did he deserve to be saved?

I think he deserved to be shown a different perspective of life other than the cold, logical way that he looked at it. I am glad that the three spirits did that and I am glad that it changed Scrooge’s heart and made him a better person. I think everyone deserves an opportunity to become a better person.

 

You can find Caroline’s post on the readalong here and Delia’s post on the readalong here. You can find the answers by other participants in Caroline’s post.

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Readalong part 4 – The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

This is the fourth week of the readalong of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ by Ann Radcliffe that I am doing with Delia from Postcards from Asia. You can find the previous posts of the series here – part 1, part 2, part 3.

 

In volume 3, Emily had escaped from the castle of Udolpho with her friends and now she is at the Count Villefort’s home and has become friends with his daughter Blanche. Valancourt also makes an appearance there. Unfortunately, Emily discovers that he is not the same person with whom she parted and after Valancourt had gone to Paris, he had got into debt and had been keeping the company of not-so-good women. At the end of the third volume, we had left Emily on the verge of her meeting with Valancourt when he is expected to explain his conduct.

 

Volume 4 starts with the meeting between Emily and Valancourt. The meeting doesn’t go well. Valancourt says that he is unworthy of her without getting into the details, while Emily assumes the worst that she has heard about him. Valancourt leaves. Then the story starts moving at a rollicking pace. Volume 4 is the ‘good’ volume – in the sense that good things happen to all the good characters in the story. Emily and her friends get to know that Montoni has been imprisoned and then later he dies in prison. Emily’s aunt’s estates come to her. Emily stays for some time in the convent in St.Clair, but later moves on to her own childhood home. All the mysteries which are described in the earlier volumes are all revealed in this volume – the secret behind the veiled picture in the castle of Udolpho, the identity of the person in the mini portrait that Emily has, the mystery of the music which comes out in the night, whether the different castles are haunted by spirits or not, what was there in the mysterious papers that Emily’s father asked her to burn. Radcliffe is on the side of reason when all these mysteries are revealed – she gives logical explanations for all of them, even for the supposedly supernatural events. Towards the end of the fourth volume, it also turns out that Valancourt, though he is in debt, is otherwise a nice person and he and Emily unite. All’s well that ends well, Emily and Valancourt get married, Lady Blanche and St.Foix get married and everyone lives happily everafter.

 

One of the things that I liked about the fourth volume was that all the loose ends were tied and all the mysteries were revealed. There was not one loose end left. It showed that Ann Radcliffe had meticulously planned the story. One of the issues I had was on the way the mysteries were revealed. Emily doesn’t really discover the secrets by luck or after pursuing them, but the author describes them to us in her omniscient voice. She doesn’t ‘show’, but she ‘tells’. It takes away part of the enjoyment somewhat, because in my opinion, the beauty of a mystery is partly in the way it is revealed.

 

My favourite parts of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ are the one which describes Emily’s life in Gascony with her parents and the beautiful descriptions that Radcliffe gives us here, Emily’s time in Venice which are also filled with beautiful descriptions (this is the part of the book that I want to read again) and the part where Radcliffe evokes the scary, gothic atmosphere of the castle of Udolpho where Emily is imprisoned.

 

I read the introduction to the book after I finished reading the main story. I do it this way, rather than reading the introduction at the beginning, because most of the time introductions have spoilers. The introduction was by Jacqueline Howard and I liked it very much. One of the things that I liked about the introduction was what it said about how the story combined two different time periods – though the story happens in the sixteenth century, the good characters in the story all have eighteenth century liberal values, while the bad characters have sixteenth century ‘medieval’ values – and though some of it anachronistic, how it still works. The way Jacqueline Howard put it was by describing how Radcliffe was ‘imbuing her Catholic heroine with Protestant enlightenment’.

 

I think if ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ had been published as a serial in a magazine, it would have worked better, as there would have been a lot of time for readers to enjoy the beautiful descriptions, linger over the beautiful sentences and enter and stay in the beautiful world that Ann Radcliffe had created.

 

Many thanks to Delia for hosting this readalong. Eventhough I took six weeks to complete a four week readalong, I was glad to be part of it and read this interesting and beautiful book. You can find Delia’s thoughts on volume 4 for ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ here.

 

I want to read ‘Northanger Abbey’ by Jane Austen now and find out what she has written about ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ in it. I also want to read ‘The Castle of Otranto’ by Horace Walpole, which has (according to the introduction here) “an animated portrait, bleeding statue, walking skeleton and dramatic appearances of gigantic Piranesi-like fragments of the murdered Alfonso…”. It looks like a book which should be read over a dark and stormy night

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Readalong Part 3 – The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

This is the third week of the readalong of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ by Ann Radcliffe that I am doing with Delia from Postcards from Asia. You can find the first post of this series here and the second post of this series here.

 

We left the second part of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ with Montoni imprisoning his wife, Emily’s aunt, in a remote part of the castle and Emily spending everyday in dread and fear. In the third part, one of the guards tells Emily that he will help her meet her aunt. But he has his own nefarious intentions and tries to get Emily out of the castle into the hands of Count Morano. Emily doesn’t realize this and goes to the remote part of the castle where the guard takes her and suddenly discovers that she has been locked into a dark room. Then she is taken outside the castle to be delivered into her captor’s hands. But before this could happen, her aunt’s maid Annette alerts Montoni and his friends and they come and drive away the new villains. This relieves Emily, but then she realizes that this is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Her imprisonment in the castle continues. Montoni gives her permission to see her aunt, and Emily discovers that her aunt’s health has declined considerably. Her aunt doesn’t survive this and dies one day. Then Montoni starts harassing Emily, asking her to sign away her aunt’s estates to him. Emily declines to do that. Montoni removes his protection on her and Montoni’s friends start stalking Emily. Emily finds it too hard to fend off these ruffians and so signs away all her aunt’s estates in return for a safe trip to France. Unfortunately, Montoni doesn’t keep his side of the agreement. Then Emily hears songs in the castle which are from her hometown Gascony and she suspects that it is that of Valancourt. She fears that Valancourt might be imprisoned in Montoni’s castle. Many things happen after this. Montoni seems to be the head of bandits who plunder nearby towns and castles. One of the owners of the nearby castles puts together a force and raids Montoni’s castle and besieges it. Montoni sends away Emily to a distant village to the care of one of his trusted men. Emily befriends this couples’ daughter Maddeleine. When the siege is over, Emily comes back. Then Emily discovers that the person who is imprisoned in the castle is not Valancourt, but another French admirer of hers called du Pont, who is the person who has written a poem admiring her in the fishing hut in Gascony. Emily, du Pont, Emily’s maid Annette and Annette’s boyfriend Ludovico hatch an escape plan and at one point escape from the castle in a couple of horses. The reach a port and get into a ship and sail for France.

 

At this point, Ann Radcliffe suddenly has an inspiration to create another heroine. She is Lady Blanche who is nearly the same age as Emily, who is beautiful and sensitive like her and who touches everyone around her with love and kindness like Emily does. She loves nature and writes poems on nature like Emily does (My favourite poem in volume 3 was ‘The Butter-fly to his Love’ written by Lady Blanche). She looks like Emily’s twin sister. I am hoping that towards the end of the story she will turn out to be the twin sister. Lady Blanche and her brother and parents have moved into a castle in the countryside from Paris, near the place where Emily’s father had died. One day a storm blows near the sea there and a ship is blown ashore. Blanche’s father, the Count, asks his people to help out and try to save the ship and the travelers in it and they rescue – surprise, surprise – Emily and her friends. Emily and Blanche become thick friends. Emily writes to her uncle and Valancourt and states that she has arrived back and is planning to join a convent. Valancourt comes back in search of Emily, but she discovers that he is a changed person. He also says that he is not worthy of her. Blanche’s father, the Count, also says the same thing to her and he gives supporting evidence for that. It seems Valancourt is no longer an innocent youth and has become a gambler and a man who hangs out with women of suspicious reputation. Emily is heartbroken. Valancourt wants to have a conversation with her and tell her about what has happened in his life and part 3 of the story ends on the eve of this conversation.

 

Too many fantastic things happen in part 3 and the story moves to different locations – from Montoni’s castle to the Italian countryside and then back to Montoni’s castle and then to the French countryside. I don’t know why Ann Radcliffe had to create another noble heroine in Lady Blanche. Maybe that will help unveil some of the suspense and tie some of the loose ends of the story later. It looked a bit artificial to me. Like some of the old movies where the hero or heroine suddenly discovers that there is someone else who looks exactly like him / her.

 

My favourite part of the third volume was the atmosphere which Ann Radcliffe creates throughout – the dark, scary, creepy, gothic atmosphere of the Castle of Udolpho and the labyrinthine corridors and rooms in it, in which one can get lost never to be found again, where unknown dangers lurk in every corridor and every room and where dark and deep secrets are hidden in rooms behind veils and screens. Radcliffe keeps on piling up the dark, scary, terrifying scenes one after the other that transports the reader into a medieval castle and gives the reader many a sleepless night.

 

I continued to keep an eye for interesting spellings of words and this is what I found in the third volume – ‘controul’ (for ‘control’), ‘enterprize’ (for ‘enterprise’), ‘secresy’ (for ‘secrecy’), ‘centinels’ (for ‘sentinels’), ‘antient’ (for ‘ancient’), ‘depictured’ (for ‘depicted’ – I love ‘depictured’, because it is a version of ‘pictured’ and seems more meaningful and rich than ‘depicted’) and ‘phrensy’ (for ‘frenzy’).

 

Some of my favourite passages in volume 3 were those spoken by Lady Blanche. One of them is this :

 

      ‘And have I lived in this glorious world so long,’ said she, ‘and never till now beheld such a prospect – never experienced these delights! Every peasant girl, on my father’s domain, has viewed from her infancy the face of nature; has ranged, at liberty, her romantic wilds, while I have been shut in a cloister from the view of these beautiful appearances, which were designed to enchant all eyes, and awaken all hearts. How can the poor nuns and friars feel the full fervour of devotion, if they never see the sun rise, or set? Never, till this evening, did I know what true devotion is; for, never before did I see the sun sink below the vast earth! To-morrow, for the first time in my life, I will see it rise. O who would live in Paris, to look upon black walls and dirty streets, when, in the country, they might gaze on the blue heavens, and all the green earth!’

 

Another one is this :

 

      ‘Who could first invent convents!’ said she, ‘and who could first persuade people to go into them? And to make religion a pretence, too where all that should inspire it, is so carefully shut out! God is best pleased with the homage of a grateful heart, and, when we view his glories, we feel most grateful. I never felt so much devotion, during the many dull years I was in the convent, as I have done in the few hours, that I have been here, where I need only look on all around me – to adore God in my inmost heart!’

 

This is a beautiful conversation between Blanche and her father which I liked very much :

 

Blanche : Did these scenes, sir, ever appear more lovely, than they do now? To me this seems hardly possible.

 

The Count (Blanche’s father) : They once were as delightful to me, as they are now to you; the landscape is not changed, but time has changed me; from my mind the illusion, which gave spirit to the colouring of nature, is fading fast! If you live, my dear Blanche, to re-visit this spot, at the distance of many years, you will, perhaps, remember and understand the feelings of your father.

 

Another of my favourite passages in this volume was about Emily trying to read. It went like this :

 

…Emily sought to lose the sense of her own cares, in the visionary scenes of the poet; but she had again to lament the irresistible force of circumstances over the taste and powers of the mind; and that it requires a spirit at ease to be sensible even to the abstract pleasures of pure intellect. The enthusiasm of genius, with all its pictured scenes, now appeared cold, and dim. As she mused upon the book before her, she involuntarily exclaimed, ‘Are these, indeed, the passages, that have so often given me exquisite delight? Where did the charm exist? – Was it in my mind, or in the imagination of the poet? It lived in each,’ said she, pausing. ‘But the fire of the poet is vain, if the mind of his reader is not tempered like his own, however it may be inferior to his in power.’

 

I can’t wait to read volume 4 now and find out what happened between Emily and Valancourt. As of now, Valancourt has gone down in my estimate and I don’t know whether Emily will forgive him for it. I also can’t wait to find out more about the secrets which have still not been revealed – how Emily is related to the lady in the mysterious portrait, what was there in the papers that Emily burnt and what did Emily see behind the veil in the Castle of Udolpho.

 

My questions for Delia on volume 3 of the story are :

 

(1)  Did you guess that the mysterious admirer of Emily, who visited the fishing hut in Gascony was not Valancourt?

(2)  Was the character of Lady Blanche required in the story? Doesn’t she look like an exact replica of Emily? Do you think the introduction of this new heroine was required for tying up the loose ends of the story?

(3)  Does Valancourt deserve Emily’s forgiveness (irrespective of what actually happens later)?

(4)  Which of the three volumes is your favourite till now, with respect to the gothic atmosphere and scary events?

 

You can find Delia’s review of volume 3 of the book here.

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Readalong Part 2 – The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

This is the second of week of the readalong of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ by Ann Radcliffe that I am doing with Delia from Postcards from Asia. You can find the first post of this series here.

 

This week we are covering the second volume of the book. Here is what I think of the second volume.

 

 

 

We left Emily, parting with her lover Valancourt at the end of the first volume. In the second volume, Emily and her aunt and her aunt’s new husband Signor Montoni leave France for Italy. The journey through the Alps is quite beautiful. They reach Turin and then Venice. They move into Montoni’s beautiful apartment which opens out to the waterfront. Emily spends every evening with her aunt and other friends going out in gondolas, listening to beautiful music by accompanying musicians and being courted by a gentleman called Count Morano. But Emily hasn’t forgotten Valancourt and so she rejects Count Morano. Unfortunately, the count is persistent. Montoni and Morano come to an agreement and Emily is told that she has to marry the Count and if she refuses she has to face the consequences. A date for her marriage is fixed. While Emily dreads the arrival of that hour, suddenly Montoni asks everyone at home to pack up and leave. They go on a long journey through mountains and reach the castle of Udolpho. Emily feels that she has escaped from being married to the Count, but then she has to face the terrors of the castle. The castle has many rooms which are locked and there are stories of a ghost of the previous owner of the castle passing through different rooms and there is also a rumour of a veiled portrait in one of the rooms. Emily once stumbles upon the veiled portrait, but her aunt’s maid, Annette, who is with her, refuses to help her unveil it. When Emily has a chance during the day, when it is bright, to go to that room again, she lifts the veil, but what sees beneath it terrorizes her and she faints. She realizes that it is no portrait but something which is extremely terrifying. What this terrifying this is, we the readers don’t know. Morano comes to the castle and continues pursuing Emily, but Montoni has a fight with him and sends him away. Relations between Montoni and Emily’s aunt break down, as it emerges that Montoni wants his wife to give away all her estates to him. Montoni imprisons his wife in a remote part of the castle. There are strange people in the castle who look like bandits and who listen to Montoni’s orders. Emily spends every day in dread and fear. The second volume ends here.

 

I loved the descriptions of Emily and her family’s journey through the Alps. I also loved the description of their time in Venice. I remember reading the description of Venice in Thomas Mann’s ‘Death in Venice’ and not being too captivated by it. But when I read Ann Radcliffe’s description, it seemed like a dream world, where everyone went out in gondolas in the night, with beautiful lights all around and melodious music being played by talented musicians. It looked like it was party-time everyday evening J

 

The second part of the second volume changes drastically in character. The atmosphere gets drastically transformed from gay, fun-filled Venice to the dark, terrifying castle of Udolpho. I liked very much the poems which continue to come in the second volume of the book. My favourite poem in the second part of the book is ‘The Sea-Nymph’ (you need to scroll to the end of the page at this link to read the poem). However, the poems which continue to flow in fun-filled Venice, suddenly stop when we reach Udolpho.

 

I liked the way Signor Montoni is described in the second volume. He seems to be a man whose thinking is clear and logical. He doesn’t flip-flop as some of the villains do. I liked this description of him in the early part of the second volume.

 

He had, of course, many and bitter enemies; but the rancour of their hatred proved the degree of his power; and, as power was his chief aim, he gloried more in such hatred, than it was possible he could in being esteemed. A feeling so tempered as that of esteem, he despised, and would have despised himself also had he thought himself capable of being flattered by it.

 

It made me think of people who take criticism more seriously than praise. They like praise, but they value criticism more, even though they might not like it. Montoni seemed to be such a man.

 

I continued to keep an eye for interesting spellings while reading the second volume. Here are some I discovered – ‘antient’ (for ‘ancient’), ‘intestine war’ (for ‘internecine war’), ‘lagune’ (for ‘lagoon’) and ‘shew’ (for ‘show’).

 

I loved the wordplay in the second volume, as in the first, especially when Radcliffe describes contrasting ideas in the same sentence. For example, this sentence increases the sense of horror by beautiful wordplay :

 

She now retired to her bed, leaving the lamp burning on the table; but its gloomy light, instead of dispelling her fear, assisted it;

 

And this also does the same  :

 

Daylight dispelled from Emily’s mind the glooms of superstition; but not those of apprehension.

 

And this sentence snippet plays with contrasting ideas too :

 

Her present life appeared like the dream of a distempered imagination, or like one of those frightful fictions, in which the wild genius of the poets sometimes delighted. Reflection brought only regret, and anticipation terror.

 

And this longer snippet plays with opposites too :

 

Thus it is always, when we attempt to describe the finer movements of the heart, for they are too fine to be discerned, they can only be experienced, and are therefore passed over by the indifferent observer, while the interested one feels, that all description is imperfect and unnecessary, except as it may prove the sincerity of the writer, and sooth his own sufferings.

 

There were three mysteries which were still unresolved at the end of the second volume – the content of the mysterious packet of papers which Emily burnt, the identity of the woman whose portrait Emily has and the portrait (or whatever it was) that was there behind the veil. There was also the identity of the person who writes poems addressed to Emily in the first volume. I can’t wait to find out the secrets behind all these mysteries.

 

The questions I have for Delia from volume 2 are :

 

(1)   Did you find the transition of the story from the gay atmosphere of Venice to the dark, somber atmosphere of Udolpho very sudden or was it convincing?

(2)   Does the sense of horror and terror in the second volume come more because of the atmosphere rather than because of the events in the story?

(3)   What do you think about the descriptions of Venice in this story, when compared to other descriptions of this city?

(4)   Is the absence of poems in the second part of the volume by accident or by design? Do you think poems heighten the atmosphere of horror in a story?

 

I can’t wait to read the third volume of the book and find out whether some of the mysteries are revealed in it.

 

You can find Delia’s thoughts on the second volume of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ here.

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Readalong Part 1 – The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

I have been away from blogging for a while. I got into a book reading slump and it took me a while to get out of it. I managed to read a few books though – a children’s book by Susie Morgenstern, a few comics, a collection of tales of Edgar Allan Poe, a John Steinbeck novella, a collection of fairytales, a Lewis Carroll book. I also watched lots of movies. (I think these two deserve their own posts. So I will come back with a couple of them later this week.) I am happy now to get back to what I love doing the most – writing about my favourite books and commenting on my favourite bloggers’ posts.

 

Now about Ann Radcliffe’s book. I discovered ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ through the movie ‘The Jane Austen Book Club’. There is a mention in the movie that Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’ was inspired by ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, or rather Austen took a dig at gothic romances like ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ in her book. There is a conversation in the movie where one of the characters says that he went and read ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ after reading ‘Northanger Abbey’ because of this connection and another character exclaiming that she didn’t know that it was a real book. So, I got Ann Radcliffe’s book after watching this movie. But because it was a chunkster – my edition has 632 pages of small print, which will probably translate into 900 pages of normal size fonts, and the poems in the book are in really tiny font – I was waiting for the right time to read it. When Delia from Postcards from Asia suggested that we do a readalong of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, I happily jumped at the opportunity. The book is divided into four volumes and we will be reviewing one volume each week and asking questions on each volume and discussing on it. Here is what I think about the first volume.

 

 

The first volume of the book lays the basic groundwork for the story. It describes the life of the St Aubert family. Monsieur and Madame St Aubert live in a beautiful chateau in Gascony in the banks of the Garonne river, surrounded by beautiful mountains, trees, forests and valleys – the kind of place all of us dream of living in. They have a beautiful, grown up daughter called Emily. The St Aubert’s spend a lot of time together taking walks in the mountains, spending time reading, listening to music, having intelligent conversations and enjoying the sights, sounds and music of nature. Once during one of their walks, Emily discovers that she has a mysterious admirer because there is a poem written in a fishing-house they frequent, which is addressed to her, and which grows with the addition of new lines everytime they visit this place. Other than this unknown admirer, things are peaceful and tranquil for the St Aubert family. Then one day tragedy strikes. Madame St Aubert becomes ill and doesn’t recover from her illness and dies. It is a huge blow to the family and it deeply affects Monsieur St Aubert. The father and the daughter decide to take some time off and travel to nearby places as they feel that a change of scene would be good for their health. During their travels they meet a young man called Valancourt, who helps them during a few occasions. Monsieur St Aubert likes the young man and Emily and Valancourt discover that they have a lot in common and have long conversations and strike a friendship. Valancour however departs after a while leaving the father and the daughter to continue with their travels.

 

During the journey, Monsieur St Aubert’s health deteriorates. They stop at a place where a peasant family takes care of them. But, unfortunately, it is to no avail. Monsieur St Aubert dies, leaving Emily in the care of his sister. But not before he extracts a promise out of her. The father tells the daughter that there is a set of papers which is hidden under a floor board in their chateau. He asks Emily to take them out and burn them. He also expressly forbids her from reading them. Emily promises her father that she will do the same. Later, Emily returns to her home, very depressed after having lost both her parents in a short period of time. After sometime she finds the papers and accidentally reads a few lines from them. She is shocked at what she reads. But we, the readers, don’t know what she has read. Then she burns the papers as she had promised her father, but she is not able to take her mind off what she has read. Meanwhile, Valancourt comes back and he professes his love for Emily. Emily loves him too, but in the absence of parents or elders at home, she feels that she can’t entertain him at home.

 

At this stage, Emily’s aunt Madame Cheron walks in, tells Emily that as she is Emily’s guardian now, Emily has to move to her home. After this point the plot starts moving faster. Valancourt asks for Madame Cheron’s permission to meet Emily and Madame Cheron refuses because she thinks that Valancourt’s family’s status is questionable. But when she discovers that Valancourt is from a good family she allows him to meet Emily and even agrees to their marriage. Then a mysterious Italian called Signor Montoni appears on the scene, courts Madame Cheron, marries her and tries to take over Emily’s life. Volume 1 ends with Montoni forcibly breaking off Emily’s engagement with Valancourt, the lovers parting tearfully, and Emily and Madame Cheron leaving for Italy with Montoni.

 

I found the first part of volume 1 quite leisurely with lots of descriptions of nature. The main characters are either taking a walk through beautiful places or resting somewhere and enjoying the beauty of the mountains and the forests. There are many beautiful passages in this part of the book, especially if one loves Victorian English. One of my favourites was this passage :

 

The deepest shade of twilight did not send him from his favourite plane-tree. He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through aether, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation. When the moon shed her soft rays among the foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits was often spread beneath it. Then, on the stillness of night, came the song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness, an awakening melancholy.

 

There are pages and pages of descriptions like this, which are a pleasure to read.

 

In another place, there is a description of a face in a picture, which goes like this :

 

It was of uncommon beauty, and was characterized by an expression of sweetness, shaded with sorrow, and tempered by resignation.

 

So beautiful, isn’t it?

 

The subtitle of the book reads ‘A Romance : Interspersed with some pieces of poetry’. At the beginning of every chapter there is a poem or a snippet from a poem (typically written by another writer), while at many places in the book there are poems written by Radcliffe herself. I found this quite interesting, because I haven’t read a book which was interspersed by poems before. It changes the pace of the book and makes it an interesting reading experience, as in many places poems are used instead of prose to describe a scene or the feelings of a character and so it is not something that the reader can skip over.

 

On page 12 of the book I encountered the word ‘tremour’. I know that many words have different spellings in British and American English (for example ‘colour’ and ‘color’), but ‘tremor’ is the same in both. So, I was surprised at this spelling. The dictionary tells me that it is the archaic version of ‘tremor’. After encountering this word, I thought I will keep an eye for further interesting deviations like this. Some of the interesting ones I discovered were ‘vallies’ (instead of ‘valleys’) and ‘expence’ (instead of ‘expense’).

 

I also found some interesting stereotypes in the book which were probably the way people thought about things in late 18^th century England or probably the way authors tended to represent things in their books during that era. Pastoral life is regarded as more pure and beautiful and innocent and the preferred way of living when compared to city life, natural forests are regarded as more beautiful than manmade parks and gardens, the main characters who are likeable are French who live in a natural environment, the not-so-good characters are French who live in the cities and the really bad ones (not confirmed yet, but whom I suspect so) are Italians.

 

I have always thought that I have read a few gothic romances. But while starting this book, I thought about it and I discovered that I can’t remember any that I have read. The standard elements of a gothic romance – a castle with mysterious rooms and with strange things happening, a beautiful heroine screaming with terror, a vile Count as the villain, a handsome chivalrous hero coming to the heroine’s rescue – were all part of my story-reading mind, but I couldn’t think of a single novel in which these elements were all there. There are historical romances by Walter Scott which I have read and loved but they are not gothic romances. The closest to a gothic romance that I have read is ‘The Woman in White’ by Wilkie Collins, but if I remember right, there is no castle in the story (but there is an evil Count). It is interesting how we feel that we have read books from a genre, but when we sit back and think, we haven’t read any.

 

I am looking forward to reading volume 2 now and finding out what happens to Emily in Italy, what the evil designs of Montoni are and what Valancourt’s plans are to win Emily’s hand.

 

You can find Delia’s post on volume 1 of the book here.

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Readalong Part 3 – Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the third week of the readalong of ‘Prodigal Summer’ that I am doing with Delia from Postcards from Asia. This week we are covering chapters nineteen through thirty-one from the book.

 

 

The third part of the book expands the stories of the four main characters – Deanna the forest ranger, Lusa the farmer and the neighbours Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley. There are some subtle attempts by Barbara Kingsolver to link the three plot arcs in different ways – none of them direct but always subtle and understated. There are connections revealed between Garnett and Lusa and Nannie and Deanna. But on the whole, the three plot arcs proceed mostly independently of each other. The plot isn’t fast-paced with a lot of action-filled scenes but is slow and delicate, like the way a flower blooms, without revealing itself easily to the naked eye. At the end of the book, though, one realizes that the story has taken the reader from one place to another and all the main characters have been transformed. There are beautiful conversations in the third part of the book – between Lusa and her niece Crys and her nephew Rickie and between Nannie Rawley and Garnett Walker. I loved these conversations.

 

There are discussions and descriptions of wild life – on butterflies, coyotes, bugs and others. For example a conversation between Lusa and Crys goes like this :

 

      “Luna moths especially like hickories. Those and walnuts. They lay their eggs on the leaves because that’s what their caterpillars eat.”

      “How come?”

      “That’s just how their stomachs are made. They specialize. You can eat the seeds of wheat, for instance, but not the grass part.”

      “I can eat all kinds of stuff.”

      “Other animals should be so lucky. Most of them have pretty specialized diets. Meaning they can eat only one exact kind of thing.”

      “Well, that’s dumb.”

      “It’s not dumb or smart, it’s just how they’re built, like you have two legs and walk on your feet. A dog probably thinks that’s dumb. But yeah, specialization makes life more risky. If their food dies, they die. They can’t just say, ‘Oh, never mind, my tree went extinct, so now I’ll just order pizza.”

 

There are discussions on organic farming – on how it is better than using pesticides and insecticides. There are discussions on how predators are an important part of the food chain and how killing them is going to have a detrimental effect on the ecological balance including to the lives of humans. For example, there is a conversation between Deanna and Eddie which goes like this :

 

“The life of a top carnivore is the most expensive item in the pyramid, that’s the thing. In the case of a coyote, or a big cat, the mother spends a whole year raising her young. Not just a few weeks. She has to teach them to stalk and hunt and everything there is to doing that job. She’s lucky if even one of her kids makes it through. If something gets him, there goes that mama’s whole year of work down the drain. If you shoot him, Eddie, that’s what you’ve taken down. A big chunk of his mother’s whole life chance at replacing herself. And you’ve let loose an extra thousand rodents on the world that he would have eaten. It’s not just one life.”

 

To me a significant part of the book was a paean sung in the glory of wildlife and forests and organic farming. Readers who are looking for a fast-moving story might be frustrated with these conversations and passages but those who love long conversations on ecology will love this. I loved it.

 

I have noticed that sometimes writers who write novels with a lot of descriptions, beautiful passages, and deep philosophical monologues want to add some spice at the end of the book and so bring in a tragic event at the end of the book. Sometimes they kill off the main character or someone’s heart gets broken or someone gets struck in an accident. I don’t know why writers do that, because this one scene changes the character of the whole book. Because the book changes from one which asks profound questions on life to one which is trying to grab the reader’s attention by making her / him sad. But I have seen at times that writers can’t resist doing it. Probably they feel guilty for not worrying about the plot for nine-tenths of the book and so suddenly want to introduce an unexpected scene to grab the attention of the reader. I have mixed feelings about this device. Some writers are able to pull it off with this sudden ending, but most of the time it feels like an unnecessary intrusion into the book. I would prefer a book to stay faithful to its original vision rather than try to become a Hollywood movie in the end. So, when I was reading ‘Prodigal Summer’ and I reached the last few chapters, I noticed that the author had revealed all her cards and the story was moving in a particular direction to a predictable conclusion. I asked myself – “Is Barbara Kingsolver going to succumb to the popular temptation? Is she going to kill off someone? Is Deanna going to be betrayed by Eddie? Or is she going to be killed by a mountain lion? Is Lusa going to die in an accident? Is something going to happen to Garnett Walker or Nannie Rawley?” As I read on till the end, I discovered that none of these things happened. There were one or two small surprises, but to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that Barbara Kingsolver didn’t try to tack-in a surprise ending to the story. I think that takes a lot of courage. I love Kingsolver for that.

 

‘Prodigal Summer’ is a beautiful meditation and evocation of summer. It is also about the forest, trees, wildlife, coyotes, moths, butterflies, birds, life in the farm and in the forest,  the pleasures of summer and love in its many forms. It made me remember Ray Bradbury’s ‘Dandelion Wine’. Though I liked Bradbury’s book more, I have to say that I liked Kingsolver’s book very much. I will keep coming back to my favourite passages in the book again and again. I can’t wait to read my next Kingsolver book.

 

I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from ‘Prodigal Summer’.

 

One of the skills of grief that Lusa had learned was to hold on tight to the last moments between sleep and waking. Sometimes, then, in the early morning, taking care not to open her eyes or rouse her mind through its warm drowse to the surface where pain broke clear and cold, she found she could choose her dreams. She could call a memory and patiently follow it backward into flesh, sound, and sense.

 

He hated a weed on principle but could not help admiring this thing for its energy.

 

      “Our mammaw and pappaw got to keep their dignity, just working right up to the end and then dying of a bad cold one day, with most their parts still working. But then along comes somebody inventing six thousand ways to cure everything, and here we are, old, wondering what to do with ourselves. A human just wasn’t designed for old age. That’s my theory.”

      “That’s one of your theories.”

      “Well, think about it. Women’s baby-business all dries up, men lose their hair – we’re just a useless drain on our kind. Speaking strictly from a biological point of view. Would you keep a chestnut in your program if it wasn’t setting seeds anymore?”

      “I don’t think of myself as obsolete.”

      “Of course not, you’re a man! Men walk around with their bald heads bare to the world and their pony put out to pasture, but they refuse to admit they’re dead wood. So why should I? What law says I have to cover myself up for shame of having a body this old? It’s a dirty trick of modern times, but here we are. Me with my cranky knees and my old shriveled ninnies, and you with whatever you’ve got under there, if it hasn’t dropped off yet – we’re still human. Why not just give in and live till you die?”

 

You can find Delia’s thoughts on the third part of ‘Prodigal Summer’ here.

 

Have you read ‘Prodigal Summer’ by Barbara Kingsolver? What do you think about it?

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Readalong Part 2 – Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the second week of the readalong of ‘Prodigal Summer’ that I am doing with Delia from Postcards from Asia. This week we are covering chapters nine through eighteen from the book.

This part of the book expands all the three story strands in detail. We get to know more about how Garnett Walker is trying to revive the American chestnut tree by cross pollinating it with the Chinese chestnut so that the new breed which comes out has the properties of the American chestnut, but is resistant to blight as the Chinese chestnut is. The small skirmishes between Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley come out in the open. Both of them start writing letters to each other describing their thoughts on how a farm should be run and what they think about insecticides and pesticides. Garnett believes in the modern way of doing things – use a lot of insecticides and pesticides and kill unwanted pests so that the crop can survive. Nannie is old-fashioned in her thoughts – she feels that pesticides are counter-productive and they are also not good for the people who eat the farm produce. She believes in organic farming. Garnett and Nannie have long conversations on this topic – through letters and in person. In the first part of the book, I tended to side with Garnett and found Nannie a bit irritating, though she made only a fleeting appearance in that part of the book. However, in the second part of the book, I tended to side with Nannie and started liking her more, after her conversations with Garnett.

 

The second part of the book also explored the story of Deanna and the stranger she is attracted to, Eddie, in more detail. Eddie starts coming more often to Deanna’s cabin in the forest and staying with her. Deanna discovers that there is a coyote family which has moved to this part of the mountains. She knows that farmers hate coyotes and kill them when they see them. According to her, coyotes don’t trouble farmers and mind their business, but people are conditioned to dislike them and kill them. Then to her shock she discovers that Eddie dislikes coyotes and is probably a coyote hunter. She is in a difficult spot, trying to balance her love for Eddie and her love for coyotes. This part of the story also reveals that Nannie Rawley and Deanna are related in a way – that Deanna’s father and Nannie Rawley were seeing each other for a while and even had a daughter, who died young.

 

The story of Lusa gets interesting in this part of the book. She is struggling to cope with the loss of her husband. She discovers new things about him from her in-laws, which surprise her. For example, he was a romantic as a farmer – he didn’t want to grow tobacco but wanted to grow other produce which was useful, but had to give up after years of trying, when it turned out that his plans were not financially viable. Interestingly and unexpectedly, she also becomes friends with Jewel, one of her sisters-in-law and discovers that her in-laws are not bad at all. She also becomes friends with Rickie, the son of one of her sisters-in-law. One of my favourite parts of this story was when Lusa and Rickie have a long conversation, when he comes to visit her – they talk about life in the farm, about her husband Cole, and other things. During the course of this conversation, Lusa tells Rickie that she is planning to rear goats in her farm to generate money to run the farm and he helps her with information on how to rear goats and also asks her to talk to Garnett Walker who is regarded as the expert in goats in that area. In a later chapter, Lusa invites all her in-laws for an evening at her home and the whole family is there. During the course of the evening Lusa discovers that her in-laws are friendly in their own way and they are not that as bad as she thought. Lusa also gets to know Jewel’s daughter Crys, who seems to look like a trouble-maker from the outside, but who Lusa discovers is a gentle and tortured soul inside.

 

This part of the book expands the stories of the three main characters – Deanna, Lusa and Garnett. It also introduces some new interesting characters like Rickie and Crys and explores some of the previously introduced characters in depth like Nannie Rawley and Jewel.

 

There is a little bit on coyotes in this part of the book, but there is not much on the Luna Moth. There is more conversation and the plot picks up pace, but there is less on nature, when compared to the first part. However those beautiful passages on nature – Barbara Kingsolver keeps them coming.

 

When I read the first part of the book, my favourite character was Deanna, though I warmed up to Lusa towards the end. During the second part of the book, I still liked Deanna, but I also felt that Lusa’s character was getting fleshed out more. Kingsolver spent more time describing Lusa’s life in the farm and the story picked up pace here. There were some wonderful conversations in this story strand – between Lusa and Rickie, Lusa and Crys – and they were a pleasure to read. At the end of this part I liked Lusa as much as Deanna, maybe a little bit more. I also started warming up towards Nannie Rawley as she started making more appearances in the story.

 

Another interesting thing in this part of the book was the connections which Kingsolver reveals between the three story strands. Deanna seems to be related to Nannie Rawley, while the cabin that Deanna stays in, in the forest, was built by Garnett Walker’s family. Lusa calls Garnett Walker for information regarding rearing goats. Deanna and Lusa don’t seem to have any connection till now, but I will look forward to finding out whether they talk or meet in the third part of the story.

 

I read the second part of the book faster than the first part, because the plot picked up pace and there was a lot of dialogue. What will happen in the third part? Will Garnett be able to revive the American chestnut? Will Deanna be able to save the coyotes? Will Lusa’s plan of rearing goats work? Also will Lusa be able to continue her friendship with Jewel, Rickie and Crys? I can’t wait to find out.

 

I will leave you with some of my favourite passages.

 

The loudest sound on the earth, she thought, is a man with nothing to do.

How pointless life could be, what a foolish business of inventing things to love, just so you could dread losing them.

She breathed deeply and tried not to hate this snake. Doing his job, was all. Living out his life like the thousand other copperheads on this mountain that would never be seen by human eyes, they wanted only their one or two rodents a month, the living wage, a contribution to balance. Not one of them wanted to be stepped on or, heaven forbid, o have to sink its fangs into a monstrous, inedible animal a hundred times its size – a waste of expensive toxin at best. She knew all this. You can stare at a thing and know that you personally have no place in its heart whatsoever, but keeping it out of yours is another matter.

She pulled the blankets over her head, leaving a small window through which he could watch his careful, steady hands place kindling inside the stove. She thought about the things people did with their highly praised hands : made fires that burned out; sawed down trees to build houses that would rot and fall down in time. How could those things compare with the grace of a moth on a leaf, laying perfect rows of tiny, glassy eggs? Or a phoebe weaving a nest of moss in which to hatch her brood? Still, as she watched him light a match and bring warmth into the cabin while the rain pounded down overhead, she let herself feel thankful for those hands, at least for right now. When he climbed into bed beside her, they held her until she fell asleep.

 

You can find Delia’s thoughts on the second part of ‘Prodigal Summer’ here.

 

Have you read ‘Prodigal Summer’? What do you think about it?

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Readalong Part 1 – Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

I discovered Barbara Kingsolver through a book club friend. Then many other friends of mine recommended her works, especially because of the way she depicts nature in her works. I was thinking that I will read ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ first because it seemed to be her most famous work. Then during one of my browsing sessions at the bookstore, I discovered ‘Prodigal Summer’. I read the blurb on the back cover and the first page of the book and I loved it and got it. When Delia from Postcards from Asia suggested that we do a readalong of ‘Prodigal Summer’, I thought that was a wonderful idea. We decided to read the first eight chapters of the book and post on it this weekend and take it from there. Here is what I think of the first eight chapters.

 

‘Prodigal Summer’ has three story strands. One is about Deanna, a forest officer, who lives in a cabin in the forest and who likes solitude and tracking animals which are rare or unusual to that geography. Her present interest is in following the trail of what looks like a family of coyotes. One of the days she is on the trail, she meets a stranger who seems to have followed her silently. They have a brief conversation and she waves him off and he disappears. He comes back a few days later. This time it is difficult for her to resist having a longer talk with him. Deanna is attracted towards him and they spend time together. Then the stranger disappears again and Deanna starts missing him. After a while he comes back again and Deanna is torn on what to do. She loves her solitude but she is also intensely attracted towards this stranger who has shattered her solitary, tranquil existence. The second strand of the story is about Lusa, who has recently lost her husband Cole in an accident. Both of them had been married for just a year. Lusa was a researcher at the university in the nearby town, before she got married. Cole is a farmer. Lusa is from a multicultural background, while Cole is from a traditional farming family. So, when they get married, Cole’s sisters and in-laws and other people around find it difficult to accept Lusa as part of their community. Or atleast she feels that way. Now Cole is gone and Lusa struggles to cope with her grief. Cole’s farm comes to her, but Lusa doesn’t have the knowledge and the experience to handle it. There is one particular scene where her in-laws want to help her plant tobacco and Lusa resists it. She wants to plant something useful in the farm – like tomatoes or potatoes. Because she is idealistic in her thinking – she thinks that tobacco is harmful while vegetables are useful. But then she discovers that it is difficult to make money, even for survival, by planting tomatoes or potatoes, while if she planted tobacco, she can manage the expenses for the next year. It is a struggle between doing the good thing and being practical. While she is torn between what to do while simultaneously coping with her grief, Lusa discovers an unlikely ally and friend in her sister-in-law Jewel. During her conversations with Jewel, Lusa discovers an unknown, romantic side of her husband Cole. The third strand of the story is about an old man Garnett who has frequent fights with his neighbour Nannie Rawley, an old lady who is smart and clever, loves nature and frequently foils Garnett’s plans.

 

Two things that I really love about ‘Prodigal Summer’ till now are Barbara Kingsolver’s beautiful prose and her descriptions of nature. Her love for nature and wildlife comes through in every page and every sentence. The book starts with this paragraph :

 

Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits. But solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen. All secrets are witnessed.

 

How can one not fall in love with a book, with a first paragraph like that? I love the way Kingsolver shifts perspective in the second sentence itself and shows the world from a totally new angle.

 

Barbara Kingsolver also talks a lot about nature in the book. Some of them are factoids. Others are beautiful descriptions in poetic prose. Some readers might find the factoids a bit digressing. Not me. I loved them. Two of the things she talks about are the coyote and the luna moth. It was fascinating for me to read about both of them. I didn’t know that coyotes were matriarchal, and there was an alpha female which gave birth to cubs while other females in the family helped in raising the cubs. Coyotes seem to be fascinating animals. It was also interesting to read about the luna moth – that it doesn’t have a mouth and so cannot eat, has only a lifespan of a week and has to find a mate before that time and procreate. It felt both romantic and tragic – romantic because a luna moth’s only purpose in life was to find love and tragic because it cannot eat and live like the rest of us.

 

Some of my favourite passages in the book, till now, are these :

 

It seemed unbelievable that his disturbance of the branch could release a burst of scent that would reach her here at the house, but the breeze was gentle and coming from exactly the right direction. People in Appalachia insisted that the mountains breathed, and it was true : the steep hollow behind the farmhouse took up one long, slow inhalation every morning and let it back down through their open windows and across the fields throughout evening – just one full, deep breath each day. When Lusa first visited Cole here she’d listened to talk of mountains breathing with a tolerant smile. She had some respect for the poetry of country people’s language, if not for the veracity of their perceptions : mountains breathe, and a snake won’t die till the sun goes down, even if you chop off its head. If a snapping turtle gets hold of you, he won’t let go till it thunders. But when she married Cole and moved her life into this house, the inhalations of Zebulon Mountain touched her face all morning, and finally she understood. She learned to tell time with her skin, as morning turned to afternoon and the mountain’s breath began to bear gently on the back of her neck. By early evening it was insistent as a lover’s sigh, sweetened by the damp woods, cooling her nape and shoulders whenever she paused her work in the kitchen to lift her sweat-damp curls off her neck. She had come to think of Zebulon as another man in her life, larger and steadier than any other companion she had known.

 

Arguments could fill a marriage like water, running through everything, always, with no taste or color but lots of noise.

 

The dawn chorus was a whistling roar by now, the sound of a thousand males calling out love to a thousand silent females ready to choose and make the world new. It was nothing but heady cacophony unless you paid attention to the individual entries: a rode-breasted grosbeak with his sweet complicated little sonnet; a vireo with his repetitious bursts of eighth notes and triplets. And then came the wood thrush, with his tone poem of a birdsong. The wood thrush defined these woods for Deanna, providing background music for her thoughts and naming her place in the forest. The dawn chorus would subside in another hour, but the wood thrush would persist for a long time into the morning, then pick up again in early evening or even at midday if it was cloudy. Nannie had asked her once in a letter how she could live up here alone with all the quiet, and that was Deanna’s answer: when human conversation stopped, the world was anything but quiet. She lived with wood thrushes for company.

 

You can find Delia’s first post on ‘Prodigal Summer’ here.

Have you read ‘Prodigal Summer’ by Barbara Kingsolver?

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German Literature Month – Week 3 : Part 2 – Effi Briest Readalong

This is the third and final week of the Effi Briest readalong. Here are my answers to the readalong questions for the third week.

 

 

Why do you think Effi kept Crampas’s letters?

 

It was quite interesting that Effi kept Crampas’ letters. Maybe she didn’t want to let go off her affair and she had those letters so that she can read them sometime and be reminded of the good times she had, though they might not have been socially acceptable.

 

Did Innstetten have a choice?

 

I think as an individual, Innstetten had a choice. But as he says sometimes society dictates how one lives and it is difficult to defy those norms. And if one defies those norms, then one might become an outcast. It takes a lot of courage to defy norms. This is true even today in the 21^st century. But the fact is that Innstetten stil had a choice. If he had wanted, he could have defied norms. Or he could have kept the affair quiet.

 

Are there any events in this final section that make you feel outraged?  Is that how Fontane wants you to feel?

 

I felt sad at the way the story took the turn it did. I was hoping that Innstetten would show some character and talk things over with his wife and calm things down. But he didn’t. I was hoping that Effi’s reunion with her daughter will go off well. But it didn’t. I was hoping that Effi will find joy in being an artist and will meet someone her age who is interesting and exciting. It didn’t happen. And the ending was so sad.

 

Is there a villain in this piece?

 

I don’t think there is a villain in the story. I think the strength of the novel is that it depicts people as complex, paradoxical, imperfect and realistic beings.

 

Discuss Effi’s reaction to her mother’s accusation “You brought it on yourself”.          

 

I felt sorry that Effi believed that she was wrong and her husband was right. I will put it down to 19^th century values, but there were circumstances which led Effi to do what she did and I think her husband could have been kinder and more sensitive to her and tried to understand her instead of pulling the trigger. Especially when, if the situation had been reversed, and if it had been Innstetten who had been having an affair, he wouldn’t have suffered the way Effi did. Things might have gone merrily for him. Unless he had a rival who challenged him to a duel and shot him like he did Crampas. But I guess this is me trying to impose 21^st century sensibilities into a 19^th century novel. The position of women in those days was, regrettably, not equal to that of men. Any amount of ranting by me is not going to change that. Fontane describes this aspect of his era quite realistically.

 

The lot of the real-life Effi, Elizabeth von Plotho, was a much happier one. Why do you think Fontane made the outcome for Effi much harder?

 

I was surprised to know that Effi’s character was based on the real-life Elizabeth von Plotho. When I read more about her, I could imagine how the story of Effi Briest must have emanated with readers of that era, because it was based on the life of a real person. I am not sure whether Elizabeth von Plotho’s story had a happy ending – because she seems to have suffered the same way as Effi did. But, fortunately, she got reconciled with her children and also outlived her husband by more than thirty years. But her sufferings while being ostracized from her family and community were probably very real. Fontane has probably depicted the life of Effi quite similarly except for the ending.

 

Were you surprised by the ending?

 

I was surprised and saddened. A more life affirmative ending would have been to build on Effi’s interest in art which could have resulted in her being a famous artist in the end. But probably a 19^th century audience wouldn’t have accepted that kind of ending – the redemption of an adulteress. It is amazing how reading taste and cultural values have changed so much in a century.

 

Where would you place Effi in the pantheon of C19th fictional adulteresses?

 

I haven’t read the other two novels with which ‘Effi Briest’ is compared – ‘Madame Bovary’ and ‘Anna Karenina’. So, it is difficult for me to answer this question. I would say that ‘Effi Briest’ probably gives a German perspective on this topic.

 

Do you think you would ever reread Effi Briest?

 

I hope to read atleast some of my favourites passages again. One of my favourites was :

 

Everything that is to give us pleasure must come at the right time and in the right circumstances, for what delights us today may be valueless tomorrow. Innstetten felt this deeply, and as certainly as he had formerly laid store by honors and distinctions coming from his highest superiors, just so certainly was he now firmly convinced that the glittering appearance of things amounted to but little, and that what is called happiness, if it existed at all, is something other than this appearance. “Happiness, if I am right, lies in two things: being exactly where one belongs–but what official can say that of himself?–and, especially, performing comfortably the most commonplace functions, that is, getting enough sleep and not having new boots that pinch. When the 720 minutes of a twelve-hour day pass without any special annoyance that can be called a happy day.”

 

If I get to learn German sometime, maybe I will try to read this book in German.

 

You can find links to replies of other readalong participants here.

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German Literature Month – Week 2 : Part 2 – Effi Briest Readalong

This is the second week of the Effi Briest readalong. I could’t post about it last week, because I joined the readalong quite late. Here are my answers to the readalong questions for the second week.

What strikes you most in this novel,  what do you like or dislike the most?

I like the descriptions of Effi’s house in the initial part of the book – about how Effi is a playful girl who is playing with her friends and how in less than an hour her life is going to change in a fundamental way. I also found it interesting that Fontane doesn’t describe the major events in the novel – for example, Effi’s wedding or the music session by Marietta Trippelli. (I don’t know whether this is the translator’s doing or whether Fontane himself shies away from describing these events. I assumed that Fontane was the one who did it.) For some reason Fontane shies away from describing these important events in the novel. Even the affair between Effi and Crampas, which is an important part of the novel, is implied rather than described. I found this quite interesting. It seemed like Fontane wanted the reader to read closely and work hard to follow the story. Or he seemed to imply that what we consider important and what we consider common place in our lives, are all the same in the long run. I don’t know what Fontane thought, but I found this aspect of the novel quite interesting.

Do you think Fontane likes Effi? Whose side is he on?

Effi is the heroine of the novel and Fontane takes a lot of space in describing the events surrounding her life. I am not sure whose side Fontane is on. I felt that he tried to describe nineteenth century German values quite realistically and beautifully in the book and tries to show the world of that era from different perspectives.

What do you make of the story of the Chinese and the haunted house. How would you interpret it? And what about Crampas’ interpretation?

The story of the Chinaman and the haunted house was quite interesting. It succeeded in providing an eerie and haunting atmosphere for part of the book. I don’t know whether this is a feature of nineteenth century German literature, because I am discovering haunting and eerie descriptions in novels by different nineteenth century German authors. The haunting of the upstairs room seems to be real from Effi’s perspective. But as readers, we are not sure whether this is just a dream or a hallucination of Effi as a result of her conversation with her husband and her maid on the Chinaman, or whether the haunting is real. Crampas’ interpretation of the haunted room is interesting. I didn’t like it when I read it, because it looked like a smooth guy’s way of poisoning a girl’s heart. But when I read the book further, I wasn’t sure. Because there seemed to be some element of truth in what Crampas said that her husband was using the haunted house description to make his wife think in a particular way.

Descriptions are an important part in Effi Briest. How do you like them and how important do you think they are for the novel?

I liked the descriptions in ‘Effi Briest’. The descriptions in the initial part of the book which describe Effi’s carefree life are a pleasure to read. One of my favourite descriptions in the book comes in the last chapter (so this is a spoiler). It goes like this :

The only one who remained calm during the welcoming scene was Rollo himself, who either had no appreciation of time or considered the separation as an irregularity which was now simply removed. The fact that he had grown old also had something to do with it, no doubt. He remained sparing with his demonstrations of affection as he had been with his evidences of joy, during the welcoming scene. But he had grown in fidelity, if such a thing were possible. He never left the side of his mistress. The hunting dog he treated benevolently, but as a being of a lower order. At night he lay on the rush mat before Effi’s door; in the morning, when breakfast was served out of doors by the sundial, he was always quiet, always sleepy, and only when Effi arose from the breakfast table and walked toward the hall to take her straw hat and umbrella from the rack, did his youth return. Then, without troubling himself about whether his strength was to be put to a hard or easy test, he ran up the village road and back again and did not calm down till they were out in the fields.

It struck me while I was reading this novel how Fontane pairs descriptions of cozy and scary. Did you notice this as well and if so, what did you make of this?

I didn’t notice this when I read the book. But when I think about it now, I think it is true. Fontane’s pairing of contrasting situations – cozy and scary –  is quite interesting. He definitely plays with opposites to create an interesting effect.

What do you think of Crampas?

I didn’t like Crampas much. His character is not really explored in depth in the book, though it serves an important part in the central theme of the book. He starts out as a playboy kind of character, and I didn’t find that changing much. Though towards the end I found it sad to read about him.

Fontane chose to describe more than one Christmas in this novel, what do you think Christmas signifies?

Fontane describes the contrasting Christmas weeks during different times of the novel. They reveal the pulse of the current moment in the story – the initial happy days of Effi’s married life, the days leading to her affair with Crampas and the time when she spends Christmas alone, cutoff from the world. In one way, reading the description of Effi’s Christmas during these three times, we can discover the central theme and plot of the story and its ebbs and flows.

What kind of mother is Effi?

She loves her daughter and accepts her as she is. And later pines for her. And is disappointed with her reunion with her daughter.

Where will the novel go from here? What do you think will happen next?

At the end of Chapter 24, Effi has settled down in Berlin and the second phase of her life has started. We hope that it will be peaceful for her and her family and the uncomfortable events of the past are forgotten. But the past has a way of coming back into one’s life. So, it will be interesting to wait and see what happens.

You can find the link to other participants’ readalong posts here.

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