My Jane Austen adventure 2025

For our March meeting, our read on a theme bookclub theme was Classics. Given that it is Jane Austen's 250th birthday this year, it seemed like the time had come for me to read another book by her. I had previously read Emma and Sense and Sensibility, so this time I chose to read Pride and Prejudice, which I listened to on audiobook. It was narrated  by Rosamund Pike, who played the eldest Bennett sister, Jane, in the 2005 movie version. It has, somewhat surprisingly, started me on a bit of a Jane Austen path over the last few weeks.

I am not going to write a review as such, because let's face it, this book has been being reviewed for 210 years. My thoughts are somewhat irrelevant. I thought that, instead, I would provide a few comments and then ponder some instances of the impact of Jane Austen in modern pop culture.

Like a lot of classics, it is fair to say that I knew the story before reading the book. Sometimes I think that is the case and then find myself being surprised by some of the directions the book take. Not in this case though. 

There were other things that surprised me though, one of which was the wit in the dialogue. There were times when I did laugh as I was listening, particularly at Mr Bennet. For example, there is a scene where Lizzie is telling her father about Mr Collins proposal. 

An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.

His wry observations of his wife and daughters, of his heir and of life in general were somewhat amusing. He wasn't a great judge of character about everyone though. 

I also found myself pondering about Jane Austen's observations of the human condition. Whilst her setting was somewhat limited to the upper middle class of the early 1800s, many of the things that people worry about now can be reflected through the pages of the book. For example, Mrs Bennet was mostly concerned with the marriage of her daughters which would give them a home and financial security. Whilst these days we would not necessarily be concerned about the wedding itself, those same concerns for how our children will make their way in the world is real. When talking about historical fiction, I often think we can clearly see that while life in the 13th century, or 19th, or 21st century, the reality is that our main concerns are how do we keep a roof over our heads, food in our mouths, keep our loved once safe and make ends meet. It looks very different in terms of technology, housing, transport etc but the fundamental needs are similar.

Before I start to talk about some of the things that I have done recently, I have been thinking a lot about something that was all the rage around 12 years ago. If you were in the book world back in 2013, you may recall the phenomenon that was The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. It was a multimedia, episodic modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice using Youtube, Twitter and more as the storytelling vehicle. 

Like many others, I was completely obsessed with this show. I am always a bit of late to the party when it comes to fashion and social media trends so I came late to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, but that meant that I was able to binge the whole thing, which I did. I found a post in my blog archives where I talked about just binge watching the show from beginning to end over the Easter weekend, watching the first 40 episodes more than once, and then repeating other episodes over and over.  The same team then went on to give this same treatment to other books but it wasn't quite the same phenomen that The Lizzie Bennet Diaries were. Should I start watching the Youtube videos again? I really shouldn't. 

More recently, I went to the movies to watch Bridget Jones Diary 4: Mad About You. I realised that I didn't think that I had seen the second and third movies, and so I sat down and watched the first three in quick succession. There are many ways that BJD borrows elements from Pride and Prejudice, and not just because one of the two love interests is called Mark Darcy. It was fun to spot the Austen references from lines like "It's the truth universally acknowledged that the moment one area of your life starts going OK, another part of it falls spectacularly to pieces." to the rollercoaster emotions that Brigid has for Mark Darcy, and the Wickham-esque bad behaviour of Daniel Cleaver.  Helen Fielding openly admits that she got a lot of inspiration from the book!

And my thoughts on Mad About You? I laughed a lot. I cried even more. I was so glad that Daniel Cleaver was back. I missed Hugh Grant in the previous movie. Patrick Dempsey was good, but he didn't bring that naughty boy energy that is so Daniel Cleaver. And now, I think that Bridget Jones can stroll off into the sunset. I will probably watch the first and last movies again a few times. I might watch the third one again too, but I can take or leave the second one!

The French Film Festival is currently on here and last week I took myself off to the movies to watch Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. In the book, the main character is a massive Jane Austen fan and can find a JA recommendation for any occasion. She finds herself at a Jane Austen Residency writers retreat. The movie itself was a lot of fun, with some great scenes talking about books and reading, a nice romance, and it does show that the influence of Jane Austen is felt across the world. If you get a chance to see it, please do. Here's the trailer

The final thing that I have done recently is to go  to a library event. They had put on a one woman show where the actor depicts acts as the author whilst dressed in accurate period clothing, sharing letters that she sent and received, as well as excerpts from Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. Given that I have only recently read P&P, the section she read was very familiar to me!

You know one thing I haven't ever done? Watched the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice from beginning to end. Maybe it is time to rectify that when we get back from holidays!

This week...

 

I'm reading

We have a public holiday here today for Labour Day so, in theory, that means more reading time! Well, not really, as I do have quite a bit of reading time already. 

Last week I finished listening to The Truth by Terry Pratchett. I originally started listening to this back in January, but then I put it aside to listen to Jane Austen. I do intend to write something about this, but I will say here that my favourite character was Otto the vampire iconographer who had a terrible tendency to disintegrate every time he took a photo with a flash! 

I have now gone back to listening to Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt by Lucinda Riley. This is a long book so I will probably be listening to this for a couple of months at least. 

I finished reading If You Could See Me Now by Samantha Tonge. I really like Samantha Tonge's books but they are a bit tricky to review because there are things that you definitely need to not know when you are starting the book. My review is here. 

I also read and reviewed The Jam Maker by Mary-Lou Stephens, which I really loved! I had been to see the author talk a few weeks ago. I really think going to author events really enhances the reading experience! This was a 5/5 read for me!

For a bit of a change of pace, I also devoured Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young. I had read a couple of chapters a couple of weeks ago, but this week I picked it up and started again and devoured it! This was my first book by her, but it will not be the last! I thought it was fab. 

I have two reviews due later this week so I read Love and Laughter (and Other Disasters) by Elora Canne, and started reading The Shadow on the Bridge by Clare Marchant. 

In other big news, I finished volume 1 of War and Peace this week. It is funny what you find when you look back in the archives of your blog. I was searching for something last week and came across this post from 2010 which is the last time I attempted to read this book. I have made it further this time than I did then, but I have to figure out what my strategy is going to be for when we go away for a couple of weeks. I don't really want to drag the book around with me, and I don't want to change versions or translations. Maybe I will read a few chapters ahead and then catch up when I get home!

We had our read on a theme book club meeting on Saturday. The theme was Classics and this is just some of what people read. I listened to Pride and Prejudice and will have a post up soon with some thoughts, not necessarily on the book, but on the enduring impact and legacy of Jane Austen or something like that anyway. Our next theme is Spy and I have a couple of ideas of what I am going to read.

I'm watching

You may recall that last weekend I went to the movies and saw the latest Bridget Jones movie. While I knew that I had watched the first one, I had no recollection of the second and third films at all, so this week I sat and watched the first 3 movies. If I had to rate the four movies I would say that the first and last movies are the best, followed by the third one and then the second one was the least entertaining!

The French Film Festival has just started and I am a little bit gutted that I am going to be away for most of it as there are quite a few movies that I wanted to see showing. I did go to the movies by myself on Friday night to see Jane Austen Wrecked My Life which was a lot of fun. It is about a woman who wants to be an author, but can't seem to finish any of her stories. Her friend sends a few chapters off and she gets accepted into a Jane Austen residency writers retreat in England. It is a fun movie!

Here's the trailer

Life



After book club I went to see the Yayoi Susama exhibition for the second time. The second half of the exhibition is so much fun, full of immersion rooms, polka dots, pumpkins with polka dots. It's a lot of fun. You can see a couple of photos from the first time I went here, and then below are some from my most recent visit.

Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: Author sisters
Blog Tour: If You Could See Me Now by Samantha Tonge
Weekend Cooking: The Jam Maker by Mary-Lou Stephens
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - February stats




I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz

Top Ten Tuesday: Author sisters

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Things Characters Have Said (Maybe a character said something really profound or romantic or hilarious or heartbreaking. You could share witty one-liners, mic-drop moments, snippets of funny dialogue between multiple characters, catchphrases, quotes that have become a part of pop culture–like “May the odds be ever in your favor.”, etc.)

I always struggle with TTT when the theme is about quotes as they are just not something I keep an eye out for, so I am going to go back to an old post I have had in draft for a while. I originally put this post together when the theme was Relationship Freebie (Pick a relationship type and choose characters who fit that relationship as it relates to you. So, characters you’d like to date, be friends with, be enemies with, etc. Bookish families you’d like to be a part of, characters you’d want as your siblings, pets you’d like to take for yourself, etc.), but I didn't get to post it at the time. I think we were away.

I previously did a post featuring the word sisters in the title, so this time I am going to share some authors who are sisters! Let's start with some Australian author sisters:

Liane, Jaclyn and Nicola Moriarty - Whilst Liane is probably the most famous of the Moriarty sisters, Jaclyn and Nicola have also been writing successfully for a long time. Jaclyn writes more in the YA space and Nicola more women's fiction. My favourite book by a Moriarty is probably Paper Chains by Nicola.

Back in 2012 I did a Q and A with Jaclyn Moriarty and asked about the fact that all three of them were writers and this is what she said

Both of our parents are enthusiastic story tellers. We are always saying to Mum, ‘Give us the short version’, and Dad is always advising, ‘Never spoil a good story with the facts’. We had shelves full of books to read when we were kids. Also, instead of giving us pocket money, Dad would commission us to write stories. So I guess we grew up thinking it was the only way to make money.

Here's my review of A Corner of White (it's actually a joint review with Shelleyrae from Book'd Out which I had completely forgotten we did together), and a quote about doing Tim Tam Slams from Free-Falling by Nicola Moriarty

Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell - Kate Forsyth is one of my favourite Australian authors, even though I haven't managed to fit in any of her books for quite some time! She writes amazing fairy-tale retellings, is an awesome guest speaker and avid read. Her sister, Belinda Murrell, writes kids books. Interestingly, their great-great-great grandmother, Charlotte Waring Atkinson, wrote Australia's first children's book. Pretty amazing historical connection!

Here's my review of Bitter Greens. 

A S Byatt and Margaret Drabble - Whilst these two are sisters, they were estranged for many years .A S Byatt is best known for the book Possession and the book I remember reading from Margaret Drabble is The Red Queen. Here is my review.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte - It feels like it would be wrong to have a list of literary sister authors and not include the Brontes who have give us books like Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey. They also published a book of poetry under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Do you know of any other famous authors who are sisters?

This week...

I'm reading

It was a busy reading week this week! I read several books, a short story and finished an audiobook. 

Firstly, I finished The House of Light and Shadows by Lauren Westwood which I reviewed here. If you like a book where a house is an integral character in the story, then this might be for you.

Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering also has a house like that and for added measure each chapter is named for a famous house in literature. Here is my review.

I was then excited to see that The Bookstore Keepers by Alice Hoffman was available. This is the third short story in the Once Upon a Time Bookshop stories. These are the first Alice Hoffman stories I have read. I will be reading more as I am amazed how much story and feeling she fits into these short stories.

I was then hoping to get a bit of my reviews for March and also read an Aussie author, but the book I wanted wasn't quite ready. I therefore started A Santorini Secret by Rose Alexander which I really loved. Will be searching out some of her other titles. The review for this one will be up later this week.

I am now sneaking in a non-review read. A couple of weeks ago I went to see Mary-Lou Stephen talk about her book The Jam Maker and so I have started that one!

I also finished listening to Pride and Prejudice, narrated by British actor Rosamund Pike. I then started 

Mis-Directed by Lucy Parker which also has a couple of celebrity narrators, Nicola Coughlin and Gwilym Lee. I sat on the couch to listen to this and may have fallen asleep so I need to rewind a bit. Generally I listen to audiobooks on walks or in the car. 

I'm watching

We watched Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story which was heartbreaking and inspiring in equal measures. Jelena Dokic was a young tennis player back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She came to Australia as a refugee and then represented Australia, until she announced that she was going back to Yugoslavia. She was infamous because of the way her father, Damir, acted, even getting thrown out of major tournaments due to his aggressive behaviour. However, what the public saw was only the tip of the iceberg. The abuse that Jelena was receiving at home was horrific. She is now estranged from her father, and she is a respected tennis commentator and body image advocate. Here's the trailer

Tuesday night I went to see a preview screening of The Last Journey, a Swedish documentary in which a man and a friend decides to take his elderly father on a road trip to the south of France, to try and spark him back into life. It was a lovely movie, and we went to see it in a fab art deco theatre I had never been to before. The son and his friend, who are famous in Sweden, who produced the movie were at the screening and there was a Q and A session after. It was so touching, because when it started it was about the son not understanding how aging had affected his father, and by the end it was about him accepting that his dad was getting old. Along the way they reminisced about their summers in France. If you get the chance to see it, do so, but maybe take some tissues. It's now the highest grossing Swedish documentary of all time.

Life

We went for a lovely lunch for Valentine's Day which I posted a bit about here. Other than that it was all about the dog this week.

Max

Our lovely boy had a relapse and is not well at all. Late last year he was really unwell and was diagnosed with Addison's disease, liver enlargement, muscle shrinkage in his head and brain, and hyperthyroidism. Despite that for the most part he is a happy dog. He is a Labrador though, so you know there is something wrong when he goes off his food and water, so we ended up at the emergency vet on Thursday. He now has a couple of more things medically and so the vets talk about him having a complex medical history. He takes more medication than Robert and I do combined!

He is recovering, but we have had to have some serious conversations about what happens next time. His a very handsome boy, and has a great nature but he is not genetically blessed and wouldn't have done well in the wild! 

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Have Never Reviewed
Blog Tour: The House of Light and Shadows by Lauren Westwood

Blog Tour: Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering

The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Weekend Cooking: What I Ate in One Week (Stanley Tucci Style)


I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz

Top Ten Tuesday: The Classics edition

 

 

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Favorite Heroines (or heroes, if you prefer!) but I am going to go off topic this week...again. I am currently listening to Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, so I thought that I would share classics I have read. I know that I should have read many more, but oh well. No guilt allowed right!

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne - Listening to this now!

Les Miserable by Victor Hugo - What a massive undertaking this was!

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - I read this last year for Cook the Books and thoroughly enjoyed it!

East of Eden by John Steinbeck -   There's several books on this list that I read thanks to Oprah's book club!

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald - I read this back in high school and then read it again 10 years ago.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - This was another Oprah read. I did end up going on to read and enjoy a number of his books.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen  - Still the only Austen I have ever read - Shocking I know!

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - I read this after reading Mr Pip!

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell - I did think about putting up the cover of the DVD of the BBC series as the picture here (hello Richard Armitage) but I restrained myself!

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - I really enjoyed this! Another Oprah read!

What's your favourite classic?

This week...

I'm reading

My read on a theme bookclub theme this month is book to screen. I was tossing around a few ideas but I have ended up landing on Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne on audio. I watched the TV series with David Tennant last year. So far I can't help but think how different it is from the book and how the things that I thought I knew about the book aren't in it so far!

I am also back reading The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan. I am reading this for Cook the Books, so I need to find something to cook from it so I can post about that when I share the post for Weekend Cooking over the next few weeks.

I'm watching

I went to the movies twice last week. I went to see The Whale, starring Brendan Fraser and then on Saturday night we went too see A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks. These are two very different movies. Both good but both different. The Whale was quite confronting and Otto was uplifting and feel good

We also finally finished watching Only Murders in the Building, so now we wait for the next series. We also started watching the final series of Picard and the second series of Jeremy Clarkson's series about running his farm, Clarkson's Farm. I don't always agree with Clarkson, but this show does make me laugh.

Life

Speaking of laughing, we went to see British comedian Sarah Millican live. It is the second time we have seen her and she was just as good the second time around.

Max

We started Advanced Manners training this week, although to be honest, I am pretty sure Max has forgotten all of his basic manners training.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Celebrating Later in Life Romances

One French Summer by Gillian Harvey

Weekend Cooking: The Library Book Edition

Sunday Salon: 2022 in Review

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Weekend Cooking/Cook the Books: Alice in Wonderland

This month's choice for Cook the Books is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It is such an interesting choice for Cook the Books as it isn't necessarily a book that you would consider foodie, but it is absolutely full of food references. It was also a fun read to revisit as an adult, especially when you consider that the book itself is over 150 years old, and yet it is timeless.

Reading this again reminded me of the White Night event that was held in Melbourne back in 2015. In honour of the 150th anniversary of the book being published, one of the themes for the event was Alice in Wonderland, with many of Melbourne's building being transformed into giant canvasses for projections. Here are a few of the Alice related pictures I took that night.

The adventures that Alice has after she follows the white rabbit down the rabbit hole are zany, and yet apart from the fact that the game of croquet is something that kids today might not be familiar with, pretty much everything else is still easy for us to understand. Although, I did tend to skip through the poetry but I do that in books like The Lord of the Rings too.

The most well known food reference is probably the mad hatter's tea party, but there were so many others, and I had several ideas of what to make.  I  ended going with something that wasn't directly related to the story. If you google for ideas there are so many elaborately decorated items - topsy turvy cakes, giant tea pots etc. Unfortunately my decorative skills do not extend to such skilled designs. I do taste good, not necessarily looks amazing!

Some of the ideas I considered were a big cake surrounded by small cakes to represent the food that Alice ate that had the effect of either making her grow big or small. I also thought about making a treacle tart or an onion tart. There were so many options.

So what did I make? We were having our first guests here for dinner at the new house, so I wanted to make something dessert worthy. I also love making chiffon cakes, so once I found my tin in one of the still packed boxes, I decided to make an Earl Grey Chiffon Cake, inspired by all the tea references in the book.

I ended up adapting a recipe which was made with French Earl Grey tea. I only had a couple of bags of French Earl Grey, and I really wanted to use just normal Earl Grey (British I guess) tea instead. The original recipe also called for orange to be included but I didn't have any. I also took some inspiration from a couple of other recipes that I found online by including some of the tea leaves in the cake mixture.

I do love making chiffon cakes (also known as angel food cake). I have made a lemon flavoured one before and a coffee cream cake that isn't called chiffon cake but uses exactly the same techniques. I might try to make a chai flavoured one next. (editted to say....the next one will be a vanilla one as per my husband's request)

The flavour might have been stronger had I used more teabags, but you could definitely taste it, particularly on the second day. There wasn't a lot left for the second day as all the family loved it, especially my nephews who both came back for seconds!

A couple of important things to note when making these kinds of cakes. Firstly, you do not butter the cake tin. You want the cake mixture to stick. It is important that the cake is left to completely cool whilst still upside down. This prevents the cake from collapsing in on itself and ensures that the texture is extremely light.

Earl Grey Tea Chiffon Cake

4 Earl Grey teabags
160ml ( ⅔ cup) boiling water
185g (1¼ cups) self-raising flour
30g (¼ cup) cornflour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
6 eggs, separated
200g caster sugar, plus 110g (½ cup) extra
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
100ml vegetable oil
Icing sugar, to dust


Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Place an ungreased 21cm angel food cake tin on an oven tray. You can also use a bundt tin.

Place the tea bags in a small jug, pour the boiling water over and set aside to infuse until the water is warm.

Sift the flour, cornflour, cream of tartar and salt.

Whisk the egg yolks and 200g caster sugar on high speed until thick and pale then whisk in the vanilla.

Squeeze the tea bags so that you get as much flavour as possible into the water. 

Cut one of the teabags and add the leaves to the egg and sugar mixture.

Add 125ml ( ½ cup) of the tea to the oil. The tea should still be warm but not hot. Add the oil mixture to the egg mixture and whisk on low speed until well combined. 

With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and whisk until just combined. Set aside. 

In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Add the remaining caster sugar and whisk until thick and glossy and the sugar has dissolved. Add about a third of the egg whites to the yolk mixture and use a large metal spoon or spatula to fold through until well combined. Add the remaining egg white mixture and fold until just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the ungreased tin and gently smooth the surface with the back of a metal spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Immediately turn the cake upside down still in the tin so it is suspended, for a minimum of 2 hours. If you are using a bundt tin for this, you can invert the cake over the top of a bottle to have the same effect.

When the cake is completely cool, run a small knife around the side of the tin to release. 

Dust with icing sugar and serve with whipped cream and strawberries. 

I have also linked this post up with Foodies Read hosted at 

 Weekly meals

Saturday - Out for dinner

Sunday -  Roast Pork

Monday - Beef Chilli with sweet potato wedges

Tuesday - Hainanese Chicken with bok choy and rice

Wednesday - Chicken enchiladas with rice and beans

Thursday - Out for dinner

Friday - Prawn Paella

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Sunday Salon: On reading Les Miserables

If you have been taking note of the books that I have listed as Currently Reading at the bottom of every Sunday Salon post, you may have noticed that I have had the same book listed there for a couple of months. My intention was to finish Victor Hugo's Les Miserables before I went to see the movie. In the end, I went to see the movie a couple of weeks ago, so today I am going to post about my experience of reading the book because I finished it this week (yay!) as well as about how seeing the movie when I did affected my reading experience. Bree from All the Books I Can Read started the book around the same time as I did but finished it much earlier. It seemed like a good chance to have a discussion about the book.

This is the first part of the discussion post. You can read the second part of the discussion at Bree's blog.

Marg: In a way I am often a little bit concerned about trying to review a classic like this book. While I felt a profound sense of achievement when I closed the book for the last time a few days ago, the reality is that I am not the first one to do so! Having said that, I often find when I do read such well known stories that I assume that everyone knows what the book is about, and often it isn't the case. I haven't seen the musical of Les Miserables, but I knew that the main characters were Jean Valjean and Fantine, and and so I expected the novel to focus on them I was therefore somewhat surprised when Fantine played a pivotal but short role. Other than that, I didn’t really know a lot about the story. Did you know much about the story before you started it?

Bree: To be honest - absolutely nothing! Some classics I have a vague idea of the plot and the characters but Les Miserables is one of the ones where I really didn’t know anything at all about it before beginning. I picked it up on a whim really - after you’d mentioned a read-a-long you were going to participate in, my original reaction was 1200p over 4 weeks? No way! But the more I thought about it, the more it interested me. I’ve made it a resolution to read more classics (don’t ask me how I’m going with that) and this one is iconic. So I decided to tackle it. Like you, I felt a huge sense of achievement when I finished the novel. It’s a long book, it’s quite involved and quite honestly, after the first 60-odd pages, I wasn’t even sure I was going to continue. Victor Hugo never met a tangent he didn’t love to embrace and at times I struggled with some of these. But there’s a great core story weaving through the book, isn’t there?

Marg: Definitely, the story itself is great, but oh, those tangents. The book begins on a tangent, with many pages talking about the bishop in a small town, about his habits, his background. Now, he was important in terms of his impact on the former galley slave Jean Valjean and he certainly shaped the man that Jean was to become, but that was a lot of background! Those kinds of tangents continued with pages and pages about Waterloo, and even towards the end lots of pages about the Paris sewer system.

I couldn’t help but wonder what this book would have looked like had it been published today. It would probably have been at least halved in size! There would not have been the slow build up at the beginning and a lot of the other extra information, like an extended discussion about the difference between a riot and a revolution, would most likely have not been included!

In terms of the core story, Jean Valjean is a man who was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. Originally imprisoned for 4 years, his sentence was extended several times because he kept on trying to escape before finally being released after 19 years. The rules for released prisoners are very strict, so when Valjean breaks the rules, he is in effect once again a fugitive.

Bree: I totally agree about what would’ve happened to the novel, should it have been published today. Chunksters of the 1200p variety aren’t too common these days and it seems like most stories get a pretty ruthless edit and anything not immediately useful to the story gets the chop. For me, the novel started when Jean Valjean appeared, that’s when I became interested and every time it deviated from that, I lost a little bit of interest until he reappeared again. He reinvents himself so many times during this novel, he’s such a fascinating character. He loses 25 years in a prison, so he’s already middle aged when he’s released the first time and really ‘begins’ his life on the outside. Then he chooses to devote himself to raising Cosette and he’s more than just a guardian to her. He’s a father, a grandfather, a friend - for a long time he’s all she ever really had. Their relationship is a real triumph in the novel, I think. Hugo says a lot about them with the glimpses he gives the reader into some of their time together at various stages of Cosette’s life. I think the two of them might have been my favourite part.

Marg: That is definitely the strongest relationship in the book by far, especially seeing as the thread that connects them was rather obscure in the beginning, although I did enjoy Marius’ story a lot as well.

One of the things I found myself pondering when I finished the book was the links between the characters, the way that they were all connected and were drawn back together even after years apart. Jean Valjean, Fantine and her daughter Cosette, Marius and his father, the Thenardiers, and even Inspector Javert seemed to be locked into a connection that just would not let them go.

Bree: There are a lot of.... coincidences in this novel! I’m not entirely sure how large a city Paris was at this time, but I’m assuming it was big enough for all of these to be extraordinarily unlikely, but they do make the book quite fun, puzzling out all of the different ways in which characters are related to one another, or how they have crossed paths in their past.

Marg: When I saw the movie, I did lean over to my friend and wonder if Javert was the only policeman in France at the time!

I know that you haven’t seen the movie (you really should!), but I did find it helped me get through the last half of the book, because I had a fair idea what was coming. Given that we talked before about all the tangents, I actually missed some of the details that were in the book. For example, when we first meet Fantine in the movie, she is working in the workshop and her baby is already being looked after by the Thenardiers, with Fantine sending money to them regularly. What we didn’t see is anything about the relationship, about how she came to leave Cosette at the inn. We also didn’t get the background on Marius and his family and their complicated relationships.

Getting back to the plot, Valjean reinvents himself once he gets out of prison and becomes a gentleman of independent means. When he decides that he is going to rescue Cosette from her living hell with the Thenardiers, they come to Paris. Having narrowly escaped from being arrested by Javert again, the two of them settle into a quiet, contented life. One day, at a park in Paris, a young man named Marius notices the beautiful Cosette and so begins a period of unrequited passion between the two.

How did you find this section?




You will need to go and read the second part of the post to find out the answer to this question, plus a discussion about translations, footnotes and more!


Rating 4/5

Synopsis

Sensational, dramatic, packed with rich excitement and the sweep and violence of human passions, Les Miserables is one of the greatest adventure stories ever told. It is a novel peopled by colourful characters from the nineteenth-century Parisian underworld; the street children, the prostitutes and the criminals. In telling the story of escaped convict Jean Valjean, and his efforts to reform his ways and care for the little girl he rescues from a life a cruelty, Victor Hugo drew attention to the plight of the poor and oppressed. Les Miserables is a masterful detective thriller, a comic and tragic story of romance and revolution, and ultimately, a tale of redemption and hope.

This counts for the 'Book with an emotion in the title' category of the What's in a Name 6 challenge, and I read this for the Historical Tapestry readalong

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Teaser Tuesday: The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

My book club book for January was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. For me, this is a reread as I read this book, and I think Tender is the Night, during my high school years.

It is interesting to see what you can and can't remember from reading a book that long ago. I remembered certain parts, but others, like the ending, had left me completely. I think most of us had read it previously but we all seemed to enjoy it. At least, no one admitted to not liking it in the group! We all agreed that it was nice to have a short book to read over the holidays. The next book that we are due to read is even shorter!

A lot of the ladies in my book club are a bit older than me, so we had lots of discussion about the Robert Redford movie. I think I have seen it, but I am not sure. I am thinking maybe I have just seen clips of it rather than the whole thing. There was also a brief discussion about the upcoming Baz Lurhman version which I think we will go and see together. I wasn't all that fussed about going to see it because I am not that much of a Leonardo Di Caprio fan, but I think I will now as a result of having read the book again.

One thing that I think definitely enhanced my enjoyment of reading this book right now was having watched Midnight in Paris a couple of times over the summer, not so much because it represented anything to do with the story but just the overall presentation of lifestyle. The Fitzgeralds weren't my favourite portrayal in the movie though. That honour belonged to Hemingway. So intense, so good!

I thought that for today's Teaser Tuesday I would share a few thoughts about some of the passages in the book. A couple of them are pretty famous quotes from the book, but I guess that is okay. There must be a reason why people like them.

One of the things I really liked about Fitzgerald's writing was his ability to provide a picture of a character without relying on description of the physical aspects of the character.

Here Daisy talks, and to me you can see just how much depth she has, or hasn't as the case may be:

"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about - things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was god knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. "All right," I said. "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in the world, a beautiful little fool."

"You see I think everything is terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so - the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything! Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated - God, I'm sophisticated!"

And here, our narrator Nick talks about the title character - the great Gatsby!

He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with the quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished - and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.

Even with just a few words, Fitzgerald conveys much. I particularly loved the second half of this sentence:

Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of Mrs Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by.

I know a lot of people don't really like this book because of the shallowness of the characters and to a degree the plot, but this didn't actually bother me. I am pretty sure that the idle rich lifestyle that is portrayed in the novel would be familiar to some people even now. Maybe the toys that the rich and famous get to play with are different but the fundamental humanness of these characters is never far from the surface, despite the fact that they are the kind of humans that most of us wouldn't necessarily want to associate with.

I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made....

And, the best place it seems to finish up this series of quotes:

"They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together!"

This may well have been a prompt that I needed to both revisit Tender is the Night and also to read some of the books that I haven't previously read by Fitzgerald.

Rating 4.5/5

Synopsis

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby brilliantly captures the disillusion of a society obsessed with wealth and status. Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby appears to have it all, yet he yearns for the one thing that will always be out of his reach, the absence of which renders his life of glittering parties and bright young things ultimately hollow. Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream is often cited as the Great American Novel.

By the way, I will be sharing one final quote from the book on Friday!

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Some time ago I started reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen for the Classics Circuit. I never quite got around to finishing the book, but as a result of Jane Austen Week over at Historical Tapestry I decided that it was time that I finished off those last pages of this book, and I did!

I posted about my initial reactions to the book, but now I thought I would just post something more because I feel quite accomplished that I have finally finished an Austen novel!

My favourite scenes in the later part of the book included where Marianne confesses that she should have been modelling her behaviour on that of Elinor and also this passage:

Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain - Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment. The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection for the sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable nature.

One of the things that you hear about Jane Austen's writing is that she is excellent at writing the human condition, but that she has not lost relevance in these modern times. I have to say that when I read the first part of this passage it was very reminiscent of the constant comments that you hear about "kids today"!

I am so glad that I finished the book eventually. Now I need to decide which of her books to read next. I am leading towards Persuasion, but if you strongly recommend another read let me know in the comments.

Rating 4/5

We still have some Jane Austen Week giveaways happening over at Historical Tapestry so head on over for your chance to win!

Classics Circuit - Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

I wonder if there is a word that describes people that make the same confession over and over again? If there is, I am about to be guilty of it.

This is my confession:

I have never read Jane Austen.

I know that I have shocked people before when I have confessed this, but somehow I made it through school without reading her, and then managed until now without picking up her books despite being an avid reader for most of my adult life.

This year it is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense and Sensibility so I signed up for the associated challenge with the vague intention of reading Austen at some point this year. It was really only when the call went out for this Classics Circuit event that I got the incentive to start. I had read a Dickens book a couple of years ago so now was the perfect time for me to finally, finally read Jane Austen.

I think there are a couple of reasons for not having read Jane Austen. The first is that I was a bit concerned that maybe I might be one of those people who doesn’t actually like her writing (and they do exist!). It’s not the quickest read as you do have to concentrate on the language but I am enjoying the characterizations, the dialogue and the sharp observations on the society of the time.

The major reason for not reading the books is that I already knew the story that was contained within the pages, particularly in relation to Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and to a lesser extent Northanger Abbey. What I am finding though is that I only thought I knew the story. I have only partial memories of the story of Sense and Sensibility which I gained through watching bits and pieces of the mini-series. I found myself reading something early in the book and thinking how can there be more than 200 pages to go if this is happening now! I am finding that I can’t help but see Alan Rickman whenever Colonel Brandon enters the narrative, and similarly Hugh Grant every time that Edward Ferrars is mentioned, but that isn’t a totally terrible imposition really.

So far, I like the book. I am not quite finished, but I can definitely see myself reading more. It’s not all plain sailing though. Let’s start with the not so good aspect. Reading this book, particularly the section where we first meet Colonel Brandon makes me feel very old! I am rapidly approaching the end of the decade where my age begins with a 3, so when this is the first description that we read of Colonel Brandon, I wasn’t particularly thrilled:

He was silent and grave. His appearance was not unpleasing, in spite of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike.

Perhaps he is so gentlemanlike because he had so much practice! A bit further on there is reference to the rheumatism he occasionally suffers from. In context, I know that the expected life span was much shorter when the book was written, and that when you are 19 years old, then 35 does look like a long way away, but when you are past that point, you don’t necessarily feel old.

There were plenty of times that I really could appreciate Austen’s ability to comment on the human condition. This passage, for example, very much sums up how I think I am thought of by all but my very closest friends:

"Brandon is just the kind of man,” said Willoughby one day, when they were talking of him together, “whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delight to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.”

As I think about the characters, it is clear to me that Austen either likes her characters, or she doesn’t. There isn’t always a lot of nuance. I do expect that this is partially because this is her first published book and so will be interested to see if this changes in future books. To be fair, for several of the characters like Mrs John Middleton for example, there isn’t much to like, and for those sensible characters like Elinor, Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon there is obvious affection from the author, which this reader shares.

I have about 80 pages left to go, and I have every intention of finishing the book in the next couple of days. Not only do I want to get to the end so that I can say that I have finished it, but also because I will have yet another reason to watch the mini series again, and then this short clip from Vicar of Dibley, just because I can (not a blatantly gratuitous Richard Armitage posting - honest).

And then, it will not be another 20 to 30 years before I read another book from Jane Austen.




To see all the stops on the Dueling Authors: Austen vs Dickens tour, check out all the tour stops here