A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett)

When I was about eight or nine my grandparents took me to a Chapters and allowed me to chose a book as a gift. I chose this very edition of A Little Princess. Yet, in my childhood, I never once read the book. I'd wanted the little golden locket that came attached to the cover of the book much more than I'd wanted the actual book. 

Two weeks ago, I picked up A Little Princess, in the same edition I had years ago, for $8. Needless to say, I read it this time. (I am however, just a little disappointed that the book did not come with a locket this time). 

I watched the Shirley Temple adaptation many times as a child, and read an abridged picture book of the story, so I knew the basics of the story going in. Sara Crew is the daughter of rich Englishman. At the start of the story her father is taking her from India, where she was born, to a boarding school in London. Sara is gifted and good, two qualities which cause her classmates to refer to her as a "little princess." After the death of her father, Sara is left as a penniless, starving, servant girl. Like all fairy-tales, she lives happily ever after, in the end. 

It's a sweet, heartwarming story--in many ways a re-telling of Cinderella, but as I read though, I found myself critiquing. Class barriers are very rigid in this story.  

The Shirley Temple adaptation paints a somewhat rosier picture. Sara's friend and attic-mate Becky is welcome into Captain Crew's open arms as a daughter in the film adaptation, but in the original story, this is not so. Sara's new guardian invites Becky into his home, not as a daughter, but as a maid for Sara. There is an implicit understanding that Becky is a servant and will always be a servant. In the same way that Sara is always a princess--no matter how rich or poor she is--because she was born a princess, Becky is always a maid or a servant, because she was born into that role. 

Regardless of the class politics portrayed, A Little Princess is an excellent book. I wish I'd read it as a child. 

Anne of the Island (L.M. Montgomery)

Anne of the Island is the third of six books in L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series. Originally published in 1915, this book, like all of the Anne books, remains timeless. Sourcebooks Fire published this particular edition, and Jacqui Oakley designed the cover. 

This novel takes Anne outside of P.E.I to Redmond College in Kingsport, Nova Scotia. At the start of the novel she is 18 and by the end she 20. We find her a lot more grown-up and less whimsical. She deals with the death of a friend, the marriage of another, and her own uncertain feelings for Gilbert Blythe. Not to give anything away (we all know that they end up together anyway), but this is the book where Anne finally realizes her love for Gilbert. 

Anne of the Island, like all the Anne books, is considered young adult. It took me a little over two hours to read all 268 pages of the book. I have to say, it was just as good as the first time I read it. 

Russka (Edward Rutherfurd)

Originally published in 1991, Russka is Edward Rutherfurd's second novel. Spanning from the year 180 A.D. to 1992, it tells the story of Russia through the lives of a loosely connected cast of characters. Rutherfurd's novels are famously long. Russka clocks in at a total of 945 pages.

While most of the characters and a few of the towns/cities mentioned are fictional, the novel does a fine job of outlining basic historical facts and events. Some of my favourite sections in the book are set during the eras of Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

I was disappointed, however, at the briefness with which Rutherfurd treats the 20th century. After the Russian Revolution of  1917, he spends a few pages on the twenties, thirties and forties, but then jumps right to 1992, as if nothing happened in Russia during the skipped time period. Of course I understand that Rutherfurd had a long time period to cover and perhaps he wanted to avoid a strong focus on more recent Russian history since it has often been the sole focus of other writers. Still, I feel like there's a hole in the novel.

At first glance, it looks as though Rutherfurd became tired or realized he was running out of pages and decided to just end the novel. After contemplating the gap, I realize there is another way to look at it. I'm no expert on Russia, but I do know that the history of the USSR is obscured--to even modern scholars--because of past censorship and official revision. Perhaps Rutherfurd skipped over most of the Soviet period to emphasize everything that was--and still is--lost and uncertain.

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed Russka and look forward to reading more Rutherfurd in the future.

A Little Christmas Present for Myself: Anne of Green Gables (Books 1-6)

I bought myself a little early Christmas present this week. These are the Anne of Green Gables books published by Sourcebooks Fire, an American publishing company. I fell in love with the covers when I saw them and thought they were well worth the $9-$10 I paid for each of them.

A Tangled Web (L.M.Montgomery)

Many readers know L.M. Montgomery for her classic Anne of Green Gables series, or perhaps her renowned Emily of New Moon novels, but over the course of her life, Montgomery published a total of twenty books, the majority of them set on Prince Edward Island.

As I have long known, Christmas is a wonderful time to revisit old classics and discover new ones (as I did today). A Tangled Web, although one of Montgomery's lesser known novels, is perhaps one of her most underrated. I fondly remember reading about Anne and Emily in my childhood, but I never heard a thing about the Dark and the Penhallow families, or the ailing Aunt Becky with her antique, sought-after vase until this morning when I opened the pages of A Tangled Web. 

Set in a small P.E.I town where most residents hold either the Dark or the Penhallow last name, this novel is a comedic--and sometimes hilarious--look at the lives of some of the town's most colourful characters, including two widows, a young woman just engaged, a couple who separated on their wedding night ten years before, and a wandering man who loves and speaks to the moon.

This novel is more than an entertaining series of sketches, however. Montgomery introduces the idea of love at first sight early on. Characters fall in love so quickly that the reader is left reeling and asking herself, can this be real? Surely these men and women have been badly disillusioned. The outcome of the many romances says more about love at first sight than any essay, or internet forum ever could. Like many of Montgomery's novel's A Tangled Web presents readers with a lesson about life and love. It is an indispensable read for any fan of L.M. Montgomery or fan of early and mid-century Canadian Literature.

The Communist's Daughter (Dennis Bock)

The Communist's Daughter is a war-time novel by Canadian author Dennis Bock. Set mostly in Spain and China during the 1930s, the story is told through letters written by a doctors to a daughter he's never met.

Reviews on Goodreads are mixed. Some reviewers complain about the slow pace and the pretentiousness of the narrator, while other praise his "gorgeous writing." One reviewer from 2007, calling himself Billy, refers to the novel as an "Achingly beautiful and complicated portrayal of non-romantic idealism and political commitment, and the demands they make on one's humanity, with the extremes of war as a backdrop." I couldn't agree with this statement more.

The characters in The Communist's Daughter are just barely likable, but this book is not about the characters so much as it is about the politics and moral dilemmas of the time period, so that's okay. I came to like the characters precisely because they were so flawed and unlikable. I felt sorry for them, plagued by their weakness, and carried along by events beyond their control.

I would definitely recommend this book, but if you do pick it up, don't expect a thriller or a story about bloody battles. This is a novel about the people on the sidelines of wars, trying to live and struggling to carve out their own space in inhospitable places.

A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)

I used to tell anyone who asked me that I hated Hemingway. Then I read A Moveable Feast this past September and it changed my mind. While I didn't love A Farewell to Arms, a novel published in 1929 and set in Italy during World War I, I'm glad I read it. 

For readers who don't know anything about Hemingway, in brief, he was an American author and Noble Prize winner who penned classics like The Old Man and the Sea (I've never read either of these) and For Whom the Bell Tolls. He also happens to be one of the most famous alcoholics in American literary history, a factor which may have contributed to his suicide in 1961. 

Many readers consider A Farewell to Arms to be Hemingway's best novel. Unfortunately, it didn't move me the same way A Moveable Feast did. In fact, I had hard time feeling emotional attachment of any kind for the characters in this book. I wanted to like this book, but it left me without much feeling at all. 

There's nothing particularly romantic about the love story involved, but perhaps that's the way Hemingway meant it to be. The characters meet and fall in love way too quickly. I don't buy it. Of course, their love is a sham at the start--a piece of acting which they both see through--but then it becomes real. Even when it is real though, I still don't buy it. Perhaps it is because Hemingway offers the reader no real glimpse into the emotional lives of the characters. All we're allowed to see are actions, dialogue, and minimal thoughts.  

I suppose Hemingway's writing style is just not my cup of tea (and I enjoy a wide-variety of teas). That doesn't mean I dislike his works, though. If anything, I would say I'm neutral. I neither love nor hate him, and I can appreciate certain pieces of his work like A Moveable Feast. 

The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window: Everyman's Library (Raymond Chandler)

I am a long-time fan of Everyman's Library editions. Modern Library is beautiful and Penguin Classics aren't too shabby either, but there's nothing quite like an Everyman's Library. I love the old editions (the little pocket size hardcovers in the colourful jackets) and I love the new editions. I fell in love with the look and feel of this Raymond Chandler collection the moment I picked it up. 

This was my first time reading Chandler. I ordered this book off amazon on a whim (one of my late night accidental book buying episodes) because I remember watching the Humphrey Bogart adaptation of The Big Sleep when I was a teenager. 

All three titles in this collection are detective novels, written in the 1930s and 1940s, about private investigator Philip Mallow. For the first time in my life (outside of the movies and TV) I heard the classic detective narration, and I swear, every other page in these novels, Mallow was lighting cigarettes and pouring drinks. 

In The Big Sleep Mallow is hired by a client who is being blackmailed. In Farewell, My Lovely, Mallow is drawn into a murder when he meets a man just out of prison looking for a girl named Velma. In The High Window Mallow is hired to retrieve a stolen rare coin and find a rich window's missing daughter-in-law. 

The world of Philip Mallow was a wonderful and exciting place to pass away a few hours in. These are light, short novels stretching about 200-250 pages each. I read through each of them in a couple of hours. I should note, for sensitive readers, that Chandler's writing--while good--is plagued with sexism and racism. I could excuse him, by saying he was of his time, but I won't. 

It is what it is, however. Chandler should be read with the same frame of mind as one might read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a 1960s Harlequin, or Huckleberry Finn. A critical eye is important. 

My Salinger Year (Joanna Rakoff)

First off, sorry for the glare on the picture. Library bindings don't tend to photograph well. Second, I really enjoyed My Salinger Year. I don't often read brand new books, but this 2014 memoir sounded too interesting to pass up.*

In 1997, Joanna Rakoff was fresh out of University with a degree in literature, a mountain of debt, and few job prospects. Perhaps one of the reasons this book is so popular now, is because 1997 could just as easily be 2014. Newly graduated students with masters degrees have mountains of debt and no job prospects. The same uncertain feeling that Rakoff experienced in 1997, is still felt by young people starting out into the world on their own now. 

In 1997, Rakoff was lucky. She scored a job as an assistant at the literary agency who represented J.D. Salinger, the author of Catcher in the Rye, a book I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I have never read. I suppose that's okay, because when Rakoff began working at the literary agency, she too had very little experience with J.D Salinger's writing. 

Earning about $18 000 a year, a salary her father thought was too little even back in 1997, Rakoff lived in a tiny chilly apartment with her boyfriend. While trying to sort out her personal life, and assist her boyfriend with his own writing, she secretly worked on her own writing.  

Rakoff is also the author of the novel A Fortunate Age. 

(If you feel inclined to, you can check out Joanna Rakoff's personal website here: 

http://www.joannarakoff.com/) 

*My arts writing prof. from this past semester says I shouldn't use "interesting" to describe anything because it is an insincere word. I don't care. I'm not insincere. For me, "interesting" is the highest of complements. 

The Tales of Beedle the Bard (J.K. Rowling)

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a Harry Potter spin-off collection of fairy tales, was first published for the general public in 2008. The book, which contains five stories, corresponds to the collection of fairly tales mentioned in the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 

I loved these. They read like authentic fairy tales, and bring to mind Anderson and Brothers Grimm. I also love the beautiful hardcover binding and gold lettering on the spine and boards of my 2012 box set edition. 

As For Me and My House (Sinclair Ross)

On of my local thrift shops had a bag sale last Thursday night to celebrate the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. For $5, I filled a plastic grocery bag with books. I was pleased to find, along with a Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, a number of New Canadian Library editions, including As For Me and My House by Sinclair Ross. 

As For Me and My House has been in my mental TBR for years. The title has popped up again and again on my radar. So, on Friday, I read it. 

It's a small book, not more than a few hundred pages. The setting is domestic. The plot is simple; an unhappy preacher's wife feels unloved by her husband. She views her neighbours cynically and suspects her husband of an affair. In the midst of her emotional turmoil, she tries to keep her family fed and tend a garden patch in the dusty soil of the depression-era Prairies. The story is told through a journal, leaving the reader to wonder how true and accurate the relayed events actually are. 

I didn't love this book, but I didn't hate it either. I did like it. It filled an enjoyable two hours and I may even read it again someday.