Classics Project Book #6 ~ Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Peter Pan
by J.M. Barrie
Blackstone Audio
Originally published 1904
ISBN: 9781441715494

Barnes & Noble

Downpour
Powell's

Peter Pan is one of several classic children’s novels that escaped me in my youth. As an adult, I’m trying to make up for lost time and channel my inner child by reading them. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz delighted me, Alice in Wonderland is on the horizon and I just finished an adventure with Peter Pan.

So much of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is especially for the imagination and feeling of a child. Peter Pan is the boy who never wants to grow up. He’s gay (in the classic definition), innocent and heartless. As a child, he has the magical power to fly simply by tapping into “lovely wonderful thoughts”. He has very little sense of time and virtually no long-term memory because he is too consumed with new adventures and being a boy. While children often struggle with the limitations of their age, Peter Pan, the Lost Boys and their new friends Wendy, Michael and John Darling demonstrate that being a child is something special and that adults are at the disadvantage of not being able to recapture the magic of their youth.

Peter Pan lures Wendy, Michael and John from their cozy home, teaches them to fly and they have wondrous and sometimes dangerous adventures. The characters of Neverland include fantastical creatures like mermaids and fairies that children only read about in books but here are children interacting with them in their own exclusive world. The children are pitted against the most capitvating villain of their imagination: pirates. Neverland is exotic and different and a place where your average adults are not allowed.

I think the enduring legacy of the story of Peter Pan is it’s ability to tap into a child’s imagination in the most direct way possible. The story captures their imagination, speaks to their hopes and fears and provides them with heroes that they can identify with.

I enjoyed this book as an adult but do regret not having read it as a child. Most of the fantastical adventures were lost on me and I found myself more interested in the tail ends of the story when we're in the Darling home.

I got this book as part of a free audio book deal from Downpour.com . They are a great alternative to Audible especially if you don’t want to do business with Amazon. The audio book was narrated by Christopher Cazenove who I think did a wonderful job. It felt very much like a classic story time narration. I wonder what an audio narration would sound like with a much young narrator. I think it would be even better.

Classics Project Book #5 ~ The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

The End of the Affair
by Graham Grene
Audible
6 hours 28 minutes
Originally published 1951

Years ago I remember catching snippets of the 1999 film adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair. The film starred Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore and there was one scene has a permanent spot in my memory. It’s when Maurice Bendrix (Fiennes) puts stockings and shoes on Sarah Miles (Moore). He tells her he’s jealous of her stockings, of her buttons and of her shoes and it’s one of the most romantic and heart-wrenching scenes I’ve ever been privileged to witness (you can read the lines from that scene here ).

Fast forward to 2012 when Audible announced their A-List line of celebrity narrated classic and literary audio books. I signed up for Audible so I could download Anne Hathaway’s narration of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (read my review here) and Colin Firth’s narration of The End of the Affair. Both proved to be incredibly listening experiences!

The film plays up more of the love affair between Maurice and Sarah. The book stays true to it’s title and focuses strictly on the end of their affair. The story takes place during World War II in London. Maurice will do anything to possess Sarah. He’s a novelist who has more control with the imaginary worlds he creates in his writing than with real life. Sarah Miles is a gentle woman, in love with Maurice but still devoted to her mild-mannered husband Henry. Sarah abruptly ends their affair when in a moment of despair she promises God she’ll end the affair if only Maurice survived the bombing. Maurice doesn’t know this and is convinced that Sarah is having an affair with someone else. He hires a detective, reads her diary and is constantly obsessing over every minute detail of their affair and of her life.

“We are possessed by nobody, not even by ourselves.”

We as the reader are drawn in to Maurice’s story of jealousy and obsession. This novel is taut with emotion and we become fully enveloped in this beautifuly written yet haunting and dark story. The prose is magical, the characters feel real and the story is exquisite. Colin Firth’s narration is one of the best I’ve ever heard. He won the Audie Award for Best Audio Book of 2013 and it’s well-deserved (it was also nominated for Best Solo Narration - Male and Best Literary Fiction Audio). Die-hard Firth fans will swoon when they listen to this!

The End of the Affair is referred to as one of Graham Greene’s Catholic novels and religion, personal belief, tradition and atheism are all explored. The theme of religion becomes much more important at the end of the novel. I didn’t quite understand why this was considered a Catholic novel until I got to the last third of the book. The book is also loosely based on Graham Greene’s real life affair with Lady Catherine Walston as well as his own struggles with converting to Catholicism.

I highly recommend this book if you like beautiful prose with intense emotion. The scene I loved from the movie ended up not being in the book which I didn't mind. The movie played up the romance and the book focused on the end of the affair which seems to be fitting for both mediums.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 
by Arthur Conan Doyle

Mystery is a new genre to me. I have been looking for more cozy reads and usually people find those in genre fiction. My issue is that I dislike genre fiction like fantasy, science fiction and romance but having not delved into mystery I thought I might find a type of genre fiction that I would enjoy! My interest in mysteries started with the Charlie Chan films and then branched out into other films with other detectives (Falcon is a new favorite!).

The Sync program offered The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a free audio book back in August so I thought I'd give this one a try. I enjoyed the short story format. I had read The Hound of the Baskervilles a long time ago and remembered liking it but I wasn't quite ready for another full novel yet. The stories took some getting used to. I was a bit bored by the first few stories but as I kept reading I found my stride and started to enjoy these mysteries. My favorites ended up being the last ones: The Adventures of the Noble Bachelor, The Adventures of the Beryl Coronet and The Adventure of the Copper Breeches. For me, reading mysteries has to be an acquired taste. It's not something I'll gravitate towards naturally. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a great way to introduce someone to the mystery genre. What better way to start than with short stories from the master of mysteries about the most famous fictional detective of all-time?

I listened to the audio book version narrated by Ralph Cosham. My biggest complaint about the narration is the fact that Watson and Holmes sound identical and Cosham didn't put too much effort into making them sound very different from each other. So if I wasn't being very attentive, I could easily confuse the character speaking thinking it was Holmes when it was Watson and vice versa. Cosham's voice was okay and I like how he did American voices in the Noble Bachelor story. However, I think someone else might have done a better job at narration overall.

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

Bless Me, Ultima
by Rudolfo Anaya
Originally published 1972

Audible
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
Powells

Oh dear. This one was a struggle for me. I really wanted to like Bless Me, Ultima. It's considered a classic in Latino Lit but I just couldn't connect with it.

Bless Me, Ultima follows the story of the young boy Antonio Marez. He lives in New Mexico and his life, his community, his culture is steeped in Roman Catholicism and the Pagan beliefs of the Llano (pronounced Ya-nu). The Marez family has just taken in the Curandera (healer) Ultima. Ultima is getting old and they wanted to pay her back for her years of service by taking care of her in her later years. Antonio learns a lot from Ultima and spends most of the book doing a lot of growing up. He struggles with becoming a man, sinning, the conflict between the Llano's pagan traditions and beliefs and the strict rules of the Roman Catholic church and all the death and grief he sees happening around him.

This is a coming-of-age book and to be honest I read too many of those for work as it is. I have a serious case of coming-of-age story fatigue. This book is great when placed with the right person. I'm just not that person. My biggest problem was being able to connect with what was going on in the story. I was raised religious so I usually connect with stories about religious beliefs or said beliefs conflicting with others. Whether the beliefs conflict with society, family members, work, life, etc., I usually can find something to identify with. I even love reading or watching stories about people in more extreme situations like Quiverfull families, polygamists, fundamentalists, etc. However, I was raised Protestant and I guess I can only really understand other Protestant stories. I'd probably have a similar struggle if the religion was Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or something else.

I received a free copy of the audiobook of Bless Me, Ultima from Sync, which is a wonderful online summer program that makes teen friendly audio books available for free each week. The audiobook was produced by Recorded Books and narrated by Robert Ramirez. Ramirez did a wonderful job with the narration. His accent and his fluency in Spanish made you feel like Antonio Marez himself was narrating his story to you.

I really wanted to like Bless Me, Ultima and I haven't completely ruled it out as a wash. The story was very interesting when it wasn't being drowned with flowery language or religion. Perhaps a future and more appreciative reading might be in the cards for me.

Added Note: This book was recently adapted into a major motion picture. I'm really not sure how they did that but I am curious enough to want to watch it now that I have read the book!

Moby Dick in the News

There has been so much in the news about Moby Dick. The classic 19th century novel is undergoing a grand resurgence and it is very popular right now with no movie adaptation or major milestone anniversary to support it!

Moby Dick Big Read - Starting in mid-September 2012, one chapter a day is posted in audio format with a different narrator. 

Call me hygienic: Pennsylvania uses 'Moby Dick' to enforce hand-washing - New York Daily News 10/22/12 - first page of Moby Dick is used to encourage people to wash their hands after using the toilet.

Moby Dick becomes a Zombie Novel with Zomby Dick or The Undead Whale published on 10/31/12

Moby Dick for babies?  Cozy Classics releases Moby Dick as a board book News story hits 11/8/12

Nathaniel Philbrick's Why Read Moby-Dick? was released in 2011

On the weekend of 11/16/12-11/18/12 there was a Moby Dick Marathon in NYC

10/18/12 was the 161st anniversary of Moby Dick (it's book publication or serialization? not sure). Google celebrated with the above Google Doodle.

Obama is re-elected in November 2012 and Moby Dick is listed as one of his favorite books.

In August 2012 it was reported that Out of Print Clothing raised more than $29k Kickstarter to raise money to make classic book inspired e-reader covers including one for Moby Dick.

Actor Chevy Chase' favorite book is Moby Dick.

November 2012 - Moby Dick Beer - Powell in conjunction with Rogue Ale sells White Whale Ales

I will keep adding to this list as I find more Moby Dick references in the news.

Classics Project Book #3: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
9780061120084
Harper Perennial

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those mid-Twentieth Century classics that everyone reads in school. But somehow this classic has eluded me for years.

There were three English teachers in my high school and two of them were teaching To Kill a Mockingbird as part of their curriculum for Junior year. I had the third teacher. She was wonderful and while I don't remember her name I will never forget the novels she had us read. They planted the seed of a lifelong love of books in me. She also allowed us to pick our own classics for one term and that freedom to chose what I wanted to read was quite liberating. It was only a few years later that I decided to become an English major even with my long history of poor reading comprehension.

That disability was brought to light while reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I often times found myself confused and had to re-read sections. I couldn't quite tell if we were listening to Scout as an adult narrate her past or if it was Scout in the present. Or a combination of both. I've always had difficulty reading fiction and was hoping it would not have been so noticeable when I read this classic.

Despite my difficulties, I thoroughly enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird. Stories set in the South are some of my favorites. There is something about the culture matched with sweltering heat and isolation that produces amazing stories. As a child of 1980s Cartoons, I often found myself trying to get rid of the Jem TV show theme song every time I encountered the same name in the text. I felt like I wanted to get closer to the characters but they were held at a distance to me. Atticus is a character I would love to learn more about but he will just always be an enigma to me. I love how sensitive this book is to prejudice and racism and I'm sure it made a historic impact on the civil rights movement when the book was published in 1961 and the movie released the following year.

This book deals with some heavy issues and I feel that the young character of Scout provides a good entry way into the story for young folks which makes it perfect reading for school curriculums. If the novel had been from an adult point of view, I don't think high school students would have been able to identify with the characters or develop an interest in the plot as they would with a much younger character. Overall I am very glad I took the opportunity to finally read this book after so many years. Now on to the movie!

Disclaimer: I got a copy of this book from Harper Perennial for hosting a giveaway for the 50th anniversary of the movie on my film blog.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Armin

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Armin

From Goodreads:
"May 7th—There were days last winter when I danced for sheer joy out in my frost-bound garden in spite of my years and children. But I did it behind a bush, having a due regard for the decencies..." In this novel, Elizabeth's uniquely witty pen records each season in her beloved garden, where she escapes from the stifling routine of the indoors—servants, meals, domestic routine, and the presence of her overbearing husband.

I came upon this title when I was listening to one of NPR's weekly book podcasts. It was presented in the segment Cowslips to Kingcups: Finding Joy in the Garden and I was won over immediately. I downloaded the audio version from Audible and listened to it. What hooked me in about the book was the presenter's claims that the book represents happiness in solitude and overall contentedness in a way that virtually no other book can.

I was disappointed with the book possibly because of my high expectations. Elizabeth and Her German Garden has no plot which for my intents and purposes is fine but may be difficult for others. The book is a year in the life diary and reads more as slice of life than as a complete story. It's a semi-autobiographical tale of a woman named Elizabeth who lives in a country side abode in Germany and has a delightful garden. She lives simply and in happy solitude. It's the presence of her misogynistic husband the Man of Wrath, her children who are all referred to by the months they were born in and her two visitors that poke a hole in her bubble of happiness. If they would just let her alone to be with her garden, her birds, her salads and her solitude, she would be the most content.

What made me unhappy while reading this was the Man of Wrath's proclamations of what he considers the ineptitude of women. He basically thinks we are all morons who can't form intelligent thoughts and only want to gossip, sew and cook.  It's comforting to see that the three women who are listening to the Man of Wrath's rant are horrified and know that what he is saying is based on male chauvinism rather than accepted ideas. Also, it greatly disturbed me that Elizabeth would capture a family of owls just because she can (they eventually come to a tragic end). It shows the mindset of the 19th century (the book was first published in 1898) in which man plays god with nature.

I love 19th century books and can usually place ideologies in context but this book was plain boring. I wanted it to be poetic prose about the solitude and splendor of living in the country than about the year in the life of Elizabeth and her motley crew.

On the audio version: I listened to the Blackstone Audio version narrated by Nadia May. I was disappointed in the narration. There were many (many many many) pauses in between sentences. It felt as though they recorded the book sentence by sentence and pieced it together. Nadia May does a good job with the German accents but otherwise it was a poor narration overall. This is one of the few times that I think it would have been better if I read the printed version instead of the audio.

On Reading Moby Dick and Moby Dick Big Read

I've been struggling with reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I was never assigned the novel in High School or even as an English Major in Undergrad and Grad school. And I never had any interest. But since my good friend Mark is currently working on a project of which Moby Dick is significantly influential, so I decided to give it a go and added it to my Classics Club Challenge list.

I'm currently on chapter 58 and I'm struggling. There are 136 chapters and I am not quite far enough into the text to power through. I'm languishing. I asked my friend Mark for help. He told me that the book is very flawed and is in need of editing which it didn't receive before it was published. It's disjointed, there are chapters that can be taken out and it was not how Melville intended it to be. Knowing that helps a bit.

Blogger Jill from A Room of One's Own [Update: blog is now defunct] posted about a new online event called Moby Dick Big Read. It started a couple days ago. Each day they post an audio clip of one full chapter being read by a different actor or narrator. They also post some relevant art material. It's such a genius idea! I would have to wait until 11/12 in order to get to the point where I'm at in the book to start the project. I might wait until they get to chapter 50 instead of chapter 58 because the last few chapters I read of Moby Dick didn't quite sink in. Or I might start even earlier! Who knows. The project would be complete by January of 2013. I wanted to finish Moby Dick by the end of this month but I don't think this is the kind of book to be rushed.

Are you going to participate in Moby Dick Big Read?

Classics Project Book #2 - Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

“You got de keys to de kingdom.” – Tea Cakes

What brought me to Their Eyes Were Watching God were two amazingly intelligent and talented women who shared a devotion to the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston. In an interview with Dr. Brown on African American Legends , they discuss how they came to write the middle-grade novel about Hurston’s childhood. Something interesting they talk about in the interview is Zora’s history with Eatonville, Florida. Eatonville was a primarily black town, inhabited and governed by African-Americans. That’s virtually unheard of during the early 20th Century. Hurston grew up in a community of equals and according to one of the authors interviewed “coming from that context in which there was black autonomy, [Hurston] never had this sense of black inferiority... inside of herself she carried that kingdom.” I thought this was really interesting. Also, the authors enthusiasm for Zora Neale Hurston was infectious and I knew I just had to try one of Hurston’s books.

I guess it's been quite a long time since I have done serious analysis of literature and when I came to Their Eyes Were Watching God I was a bit rusty. What threw me off perhaps was the dialect in the dialogue spoken by the different characters. It took some getting used to. I'm never one to turn down a linguistic challenge so for the first few chapters I read the dialogue out loud until I became used to it. However, it did slow down my reading overall and this book took a lot longer than I would have liked. The beautiful poetic language at the beginning of each chapter was something I longed more for as I continued to read. Perhaps there is another Hurston novel, not so heavy on the dialogue with more of the poetic prose that I could read?

What I enjoyed about the novel was the intimacy with the characters. We are right in Southern Florida, traveling alongside the main character Janie as she moves from husband to husband and town to town. I felt like I was right there with the characters, fully immersed in their world.

However, I lost any sense of theme and I never got the bigger picture. I appreciate the afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at the end of the Harper Perennial edition. He states at one point that Janie was an object with her first two husbands and only found her own personal identity and became a subject when she married her third husband Tea Cake. I guess I could see this if I really compare all three husbands. Tea Cake adores Janie in a way that her other two husbands didn't. I am not sure what the feminist or anti-feminist message is here. Janie was held back from knowing her true self because of her relationships with men? Or Janie needed a man in order to become her true self?

Personally, I could relate to the book because of my own romantic relationship with my soon-to-be Husband. Like Janie, I discovered that relationships are never what we want them to be and they are a lot harder to maintain than we expect. Janie enters her last relationship at an advanced age and with some good life experience under her belt. This allows her to be more clear-minded when making the decision to be with Tea Cake. I met my fiance when I was in my late '20s and by that point I had already lived on my own, had finished my education (including post-graduate) and already had an established career. I was in a much better position to make a big life decision at this point than I would have been several years earlier.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is not a new favorite but it hasn't put me off reading another work by Zora Neale Hurston in the future.

The Classics Club Challenge - 50 Classics in 5 Years

The Classics Club is an event/challenge hosted by Jill of the book blog A Room of One's Own [Update: Jill took down her blog and The Classics Club is now handled by other people]. I loved reading the classics as a teen and in college but as an adult I haven't devoted as much time to catching up with my personal library of unread classics as well as exploring some new-to-me classics and re-discovering some old favorites. Jill's challenge is to read 50+ classics within the next 5 years. I thought that was a doable goal so I decided to jump on board.

Below are my 50 classics. Most of them I haven't read but I threw in a few of my very favorite classics that I want to re-read. I left some slots open just in case I discover any classics that I hadn't thought of before.

I'll be updating this list with links to my reviews. Are there any classics not on this list that you think I should read?

1) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
2) I, Claudius by Robert Graves
3) The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
4) The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe
5) The Monk by Matthew Lewis
6) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (re-read)
7) Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen (re-read)
8) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
9) Les Miserables by Hugo Victor
10) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
11) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
12) A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
13) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
14) The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
15) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
16) Don Quixote by Cervantes
17) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
18) Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
19) The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
20) The Book of Sand by Jorge Luis Borges
21) Flatland by Edwin Abbott
22) The Warden by Anthony Trollope
23) Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (re-read)
24) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
25) The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
26) The Golden Bowl by Jenry James
27) Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
28) The Decameron by Giovanni Boccacio
29) Summer by Edith Wharton
30) The Mabinogion by Anonymous
31) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
32) The American by Henry James
33) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
34) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
35) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
36) The Republic by Plato
37) Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
38) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
39) North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
40) Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo (re-read)
41) The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
42) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
43) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
44) The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
45) Like Water For Chocolate/Como Agua Para Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
46) House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
47) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Expurey
48) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
49) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
50) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll