Publisher: Oxford World's Classics

The Monk by Matthew Lewis

Posted July 30, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Gothic / 0 Comments

Title: The Monk (Goodreads)
Author: Matthew Lewis
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1795
Pages: 456
Genres: Classic, Gothic
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

When The Monk was first published in 1796 it was surrounded by heated hatred and scandal. One critic claimed that The Monk was full of “Lust, murder, incest, and every atrocity that can disgrace human nature”; a line that now seems to commonly appear in the synopsis. While this novel is a transgressive gothic novel and possibly one of the first books to feature a priest in such a villainous way there is so much more going on within the pages. To begin, we must look at the context, and it is not surprising that this novel had so much anger towards it when it was released. The reader has to understand that this novel was released in a period of time where everything was changing. The church still played a huge role in English society but across the channel the French Revolution was raging on, so in the middle of a changing society came a novel that tried to explore the political and religious authoritarianism of the church.

The Monk is set in a sinister monastery in Madrid, were Ambrosio struggled between maintaining his monastic vows and falling to temptation. We follow this monk as desire turns to obsession, to rape and then murder in order to conceal the guilt. Ambrosio is a celebrated and devout monk of 30 years but we read his downfall due to desire and pride. This novel is a social commentary of everything wrong with the church as the author sees it. The Monk follows the story of Ambriosio’s disillusion, from a well-respected Monk, serving God to a psychologically scared man.

Matthew Lewis wrote this novel at 19 years old and I think it is important to mention that I don’t view The Monk as an indictment of God or the Church but more critique of the corrupting power that comes with the priesthood. When I read this I got the impression that Lewis wanted to explore the hidden struggles that come with the vows of a monk as well as the effects of power. When we think about all the evil the church has done, it is not God or religion that is to blame but rather the people. Guilt and power can corrupt and essentially we are looking at a man going to great lengths to disguise his transgressions.

This is not an easy read and I found myself struggling at times to get through this book but there is so much going on I found it hard to believe that when this was first published it was dubbed this gothic classic to be crude and lacking of depth. In the heavily censored edition of this novel published in 1798 saw all words like lust and desire removed from the text. Even words like enjoyment were removed and any mention of sex; I can’t imagine how the essence of The Monk would have remained with this heavily edited edition. While there was plenty of hatred toward the novel, the critics seemed to have mixed feelings towards it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge both praised and judged harshly in his article found in The Critical Review, saying “[the] underplot… is skilfully and closely connected with the main story, and is subservient to its development” and “The Monk is a romance, which if a parent saw in the hands of a son or daughter, he might reasonably turn pale.”

However The Monk looks at more than just the monastery, it even looks at what seems like an anti-feminist movement going on within the Church. The convent seems like a harsh place to live, the women brutally treated and never allowed to succeed. Woman are seen as the downfall of the monks and other woman but there is so much lust, desire and sexual misconduct that happens inside the walls of convents and monasteries. Matilda posed as a man in order to get close to Ambrosio, at first it wasn’t to seduce but to bask in his brilliance. She is portrayed as a she-devil but is it really her fault that Ambrosio gave into his earthly desires. As one critic stated “It is Ambrosio’s sexual ignorance and hence ‘innocence’ that makes him vulnerable to Matilda’s seduction” (Blakemore, 1998). This made me ponder and question the whole approach to life in a monastery, especially in an era where priests are more likely to be sexually ignorant.

I’ve mentioned a few times that The Monk was met with hatred and I think this is still true today; people tend to see the book as anti-religious, anti-Catholic and immoral but this is a problem with taking text to literally. The Monk is a satire and socially critiques the church in what feels like a comedic kind of approach. It happens that this is also a transgressive gothic novel so we have a very brutal and dark approach to the themes Matthew Lewis wants to explore. Near the start of the book I read the line “She was wise enough to hold her tongue. As this is the only instance known of a Woman’s ever having done so, it was judged worthy to be recorded here” and thought it was a little harsh; I soon began to see a real tongue in cheek approach emerging from this dark novel.

I started off thinking this was a gothic novel and it was going to be dark and serious but I soon found myself adjusting my approach. Once I got past my initial misconceptions I started to settle into this book and ended up really enjoying The Monk. It took a while to get into a groove and found the first part of the book to be particularly difficult to get through. Then the plot started to settle in and I was able to explore the themes and enjoy the journey I was taken on. I’m so glad I finally got around to reading this gothic classic, it is weird but wonderful. I hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I did.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Posted May 30, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Childrens, Classic / 10 Comments

Title: The Secret Garden (Goodreads)
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1911
Pages: 210
Genres: Childrens, Classic
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.”

I admit that when it comes to children’s literature, I’ve been a little slack. So much for the literary explorer, this blog only has two books review that would fit the genre. One being the wonderful Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which I read a long time ago and absolutely loved, the second was The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe. I’ve only read two children’s books for this blog. I was happy to see that the Literary Exploration Book Club on Goodreads (it’s a great group, join it if you want to try different genres) decided that it was about time we did a children’s book. There were some great nominations for this poll, including Charlotte’s Web, Pinocchio, Wonder but it all came down to a battle between The Wind in the Willows and The Secret Garden. I have very vague memories of The Secret Garden; I know it had adventure, a secret garden and it was centred on a young girl.

What I got when I started reading this novel was something truly amazing. It has a nice blend of the Gothic and Romantic ideology and, you know me, that is the type of novel that I crave. The story follows a young girl who is sent to live with her mysterious uncle when her parents died from cholera. It was established from the very first line that “everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen”. We get a sense from that line that no one likes her and add the fact that she grow up in India with servants we know she was an over privileged brat of a child. This is all from the first chapter, so I knew from the start that I was reading a children’s novel that was going to be very different to the ones of its time. The whole idea of the Victorian girl, the girl that is always well behaved and helpful in the kitchen and is spending her time getting educated and prepared for marriage was not going to play any part in The Secret Garden, in fact it was more likely to be similar to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island in the sense that we have a child out for adventure.

Now, I’ve stated that there are elements of the Gothic and the Romantic in this novel so let me just expand on that real briefly. Mary was a sickly child when she came to Misselthwaite manor; in fact she was described in the first paragraph to have “a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another.” Then when you get to chapter 11 you hear her say “’I’m growing fatter,’ said Mary, ‘and I’m growing stronger. I used always to be tired. When I dig I’m not tired at all. I like to smell the earth when it’s turned up.’” All this has been a result of communing with nature, the very essence of the Romantic Movement.

Now when it comes to the Gothic you obviously have the big manor on the moors with all the secrets housed within it. You can see the typical gothic tropes through out The Secret Garden, Mary often hearing mysterious cries in the house and has been told it is just the wind. The whole house and even the garden has secrets and it is this that makes up the architecture for the gothic within this novel. However you can take it one step further, I viewed Misselthwaite manor as a symbol of Mary’s psyche. All those locked rooms hiding the secrets are representative of the psychological damage Mary has been through and slowly has to deal with.

There are so many little elements you can study within this novel. I kept looking at the similarities between characters and tried to understand what would Frances Hodgson Burnett wanted to say. Look at the similarities between Mary and the robin; both orphans, both find refuge in the secret gardens and seeking friendship. Then you can compare the similarities between Mary and Colin; both ten years old, sickly, neglected and over privileged, spoiled little children. I spent a lot of time wondering the importance behind the parallel lives but in the end have just decided that Burnett did this to emphasise the themes throughout this classic children’s novel.

The major theme that I believe comes through The Secret Garden is the importance between friendship and companionship (with Mary and Colin or even the robin). The Christian Scientist idea of disease not being a product of the body but of negative thinking seems to come to mind when I think about this theme. Frances Hodgson Burnett had a keen interest in the Christian Science movement (as well as Spiritualism and Theosophy in general) which developed before she began writing The Secret Garden.

You also have the theme that suggests an importance of being outdoors; the notion of getting out of the house and exercising being healthy for young children runs throughout the novel. This could also been accredited to a Christian Scientist ideology or more a product from the changing times where fresh air and exercise for children have been promoted. There is the Romantic Movement that suggests the importance of communing with nature, which was a backlash against an emphasis on the enlightenment and scientific. The movement wanted to highlight the glory, beauty and power of the natural world. Both Christian Scientists and The Romantics believe the natural world to be a source of healthy thinking, emotions and ideas.

In the end, this book is great and a joy to read, I was wondering how so many people enjoyed the book when I feel like too many people get put off by unlikeable characters. Both Mary and Colin where the most disagreeable children (not entirely true but close) and I’m perplexed, I feel like people only hate a book with unlikeable characters when it suits them and looking for an excuse. Anyway I’m not going to go into that. Analysing The Secret Garden closely, I did wonder if this novel came off too preachy but I enjoyed it none the less. It has inspired me to read some more children’s classics but I’m not sure which one I’ll read next.

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Posted April 24, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic / 1 Comment

Title: The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goodreads)
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Translator: David Constantine
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1771
Pages: 160
Genres: Classic
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary novel that has influenced the Romantic Movement. Often known as the original ‘emo’, a term that I hate, this novel is a semi-autobiographical novel that brought huge success to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The novel is a collection of letters written by Werther to his friend Wilhelm. These letters are an intimate account of his attraction towards the beautiful Lotte; a young woman he meets in the village of Wahlheim. Despite knowing that she is already engaged to a man 11 years her senior, Werther falls for her and attempts to develop a friendship between the two in an effort to get closer to Lotte.

You can probably guess how this story goes; Werther, an artist of highly sensitive and passionate nature heading down a road that can only lead to heartbreak. I’m not one to enjoy a novel that revolves around a love triangle but when it is done properly it can be an effective plot device; I’m thinking of books like those mentioned in this post. There is no denying the cultural impact The Sorrows of Young Werther has had on the world; unfortunately the ‘Werther effect’ is the most common reference to the novel nowadays.

I’ll be honest, I wanted to read this novel because Frankenstein’s monster finds this book in a leather portmanteau along with Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost which gives you an interesting insight into Frankenstein. Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men to illustrate their common moral virtues or failings, while Paradise Lost is an epic poem on creationism and the fall of man. The Sorrows of Young Werther embodies the Romantic ideals; Werther being a sensitive intellect with an obsession of nature and values emotion over reasoning. All three novels represent different themes that Shelley wants the reader to explore when reading Frankenstein.

While this may sound like a morbid and depressing novel, Goethe shows the beauty behind the tragedy. One thing I loved about this book is the wording, and permit me to post a few quotes from the book to just show you the beauty in the novel.

“Sometimes I don’t understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!”

The major theme obviously is love; a look in how it can defy all logic. Werther can’t stop his heart from falling for Lotte, even if he knew it would lead to pain. The idea that the heart has more control over someone’s actions than their head is often evident in life and The Sorrows of Young Werther captures it perfectly. For me, that is what makes this novel spectacular and significant.

“I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strength, happiness & misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own”

However, you can look at this novel as something other than love; the idea that Goethe is portraying the decline in Werther’s mental health is also a vital angle that needs to be considered. The reason I hate the term ‘emo’ I won’t go into at this time but Werther’s overly emotional journey could also be symptoms of a bi-polar depression, though not a known diagnosis of the time. We have to consider the idea that his joy and sorrow is not just unrequited love but a deeper issue. The love triangle would have added fuel to his depression and we cannot ignore that this could be the root cause of Werther’s sorrow.

For such a small novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther packs a huge punch. This is the type of book I can see myself reading again and again, not just because of the Romantic ideas but what it has to say about love and mental illness. I can’t help but think that The Sorrows of Young Werther is just a better version of The Catcher in the Rye, in the sense that is a journey of a self-absorbed protagonist, but maybe too difficult for high-school student. The Sorrows of Young Werther is an important book, not only did it influence the greatest literary movement we’ve seen but it still relevant today, almost 250 years later.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Posted March 20, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic / 2 Comments

Title: War and Peace (Goodreads)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Translator: Aylmer Maude, Louise Maude
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1869
Pages: 1392
Genres: Classic
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

When people thing of big books often War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is mentioned. This Russian classic depicts the French invasion of Russia in 1812. True to Tolstoy form, War and Peace also looks at classes and the impact of the Napoleonic invasion on the Tsarist society. While this book can be considered an epic historical war novel, for me this was a work of philosophical ideas. This is one of the hardest books to review, not because I have nothing to say but rather there is so much to cover and I have no idea where to start.

Just to put things into perspective, I started this book in October and have been slowly chipping away at it for four months. It is a hard battle and you really need to take your time with a book like this because Tolstoy has a lot to say. This is the kind of book that feels like you‘ve climbed a mountain when you finally finish and you can just feel your pretentious levels rising. For those interested, I read the Oxford World’s Classics edition which has the translations by Aylmer and Louise Maude. Many people debate on which translation is the best but I thought going with an Oxford World’s Classics would be a safe bet; I love this publisher and know I’m always getting a decent copy of the book.

Right off the bat you are flung into this world and you meet so many people. Tolstoy has an amazing ability to give the reader a sense of a person with a few lines, so even the minor characters in this book get some sort of personality. There are hundreds (over 500) characters within War and Peace and I often found it difficult to keep up with them all but thanks to Leo Tolstoy’s writing ability I could relax a little because even if I forgot about a character, when they reappear further in the book I still had a sense of who they are. This is possible due to the way this book was originally written and I will talk more on that later.

Most of the major characters within War and Peace are members of the aristocracy and it is interesting to see them all fighting for a higher position in society, government or the military. People like Boris rise in society while others like the Rostov fall, Dolokhov gets demoted while Pierre plots an assassination. Not only do we have the Napoleonic war happening within these pages, a battle for social standing rages through this novel. It is all about power but paradoxically the people with the most power within this book are the ones that seem to give up control.

If you don’t have the knowledge of Russian or Napoleonic history, this novel accommodates the reader. I found myself at times looking up information about the history just to satisfy my curiosity but as the book progressed, my research subsided. It is in Leo Tolstoy’s style to give you as much information as possible, this does make the book longer but for me I think it was a huge bonus. But you must realise this is a work of fiction and most of the people are fictional. Tolstoy was telling a story of the invasion and the harsh nature of war. You can even look at the second epilogue and read more of the authors thoughts on the subject and the philosophical ideas held within this book.

War and Peace was originally serialised in the literary magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867. This magazine plays host to many of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novels. This means that originally people read War and Peace over the course of three years. This means at times the novel may feel repetitive and covering plot points done before but this is just a result of the original format. It comes in handy with characters as they are reintroduced and because I took my time reading this classic, it became a vital part.

There is so much going on within War and Peace and it took me a long time trying to work out what I wanted to say and what to leave out. This is the kind of book that needs to be revisited in the future, Tolstoy has a lot to say and I’m interested in exploring the themes. I loved this book; it is a roller-coaster of emotions and philosophical ideas. I’ve only scratched the surface of what is happening in this novel and then wrote a small amount of what I discovered. I can’t imagine ever being able to fully understand the brilliance of Tolstoy and War and Peace. For me, Fyodor Dostoevsky is a better writer but Leo Tolstoy has a unique ability to capture the lives of everyone involved in one war.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Posted February 10, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic / 0 Comments

Title: Robinson Crusoe (Goodreads)
Author: Daniel Defoe
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1719
Pages: 321
Genres: Classic
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

When Robinson Crusoe gets shipwrecked on an island, everything changes for him. Now stuck on the island of despair, Crusoe has to learn how to survive. Daniel Defoe’s classic survival novel has been the inspiration for many stories to come. Most people know the story so I won’t go into too much detail summarising the book.

Some may disagree but I found that Defoe set out to shatter the misconceptions that Europeans had towards colonialism. When Robinson Crusoe lands on the island he adopts colonialism, as it is familiar to him and the political nature he recognises. You see the progression of this social structure from when Crusoe first found himself on the island. He built his shelter, farmed the lands and hunted. Then when other people were introduced, the social order fell into place, putting himself as lord and master. Others like Friday and his father were slaves, but the Spaniard and the Englishmen were treated completely differently.

Another theme I noticed while reading Robinson Crusoe was the idea of isolation; this was portrayed in a literal sense. Stuck on the island, Crusoe had so much time on his hand he spends it contemplating society, religion, politics and the world. What was interesting to note is the fact that there was no real mention of women in the book; there were some but none played a significant role. This detail is something I spent a lot of time contemplating, it felt like with all his reflections, women never were an important part of the world. I’m not sure what Defoe meant by this but I’m sure it is something worth investigating.

I found Robinson Crusoe fascinating; I was studying it for university so I had to look at what Daniel Defoe was trying to say about colonialism. However there is something that really annoyed me about the book and that is the way the writing style kept changing. It felt like Defoe wasn’t sure how he was writing the novel, switching between diary entries and first person narrative. It didn’t feel intentional just changing whenever it suited him and that, in turn, just felt sloppy.

Robinson Crusoe isn’t a great book; I’m glad I read it but it just isn’t something I can praise. It wasn’t a problem with the themes or the style; it just focused too much on survival and missed opportunities to explore other topics. Sure, this is a classic and you have to give a book credit for staying around so long, but Robinson Crusoe just wasn’t for me.

Frankenstein (1818 Edition) by Mary Shelley

Posted December 27, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Gothic, Science Fiction / 5 Comments

Title: Frankenstein (1818 Edition) (Goodreads)
Author: Mary Shelley
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1818
Pages: 261
Genres: Classic, Gothic, Science Fiction
My Copy: Audiobook

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Victor Frankenstein is a student of science, obsessed with discovering the cause of life. One night he bestowed animation upon a lifeless matter and created a monster. He recoils from his hideous creation and the monster is cast out and left tormented by isolation and loneliness. Evil is unleashed and a campaign for vengeance against Frankenstein has begun.

Most people are aware of my passion for Frankenstein, I may not read it every year but I do come close. Picking up this book is like coming home, the joy that sweeps over me as I emerse myself into the text is indescribable. Have you ever had that feeling where a book can bring you so much joy, I even have to buy different versions of this novel just to have on my self. I have some rather handsome editions; a leather-bound copy, an annotated edition and a nice illustrated hardcover released by Dark Horse Comics.

So imagine my shock to discover that the audiobook I was listening to was a little different to the novel I was accustomed to. With a little research I discovered Dan Stevens (the narrator, yes the one from Downton Abbey) was reading from the 1818 edition. Not the heavily revised 1931 version, which is most commonly printed. I didn’t even know there were two different versions; this was an exciting day for me. Not only can I continually read Frankenstein and gain immense pleasure from it, but I can also switch between two different versions of the story.

I was familiarising myself with the text of Frankenstein for a university course, so I had decided to look at the book a little differently. For an older review, one I still think is pretty good click here. I knew a little more about Mary Shelley this time, so I was looking at Frankenstein with some context. Before Shelley wrote Frankenstein she had given birth to a daughter, two months premature. This daughter only lived a few weeks, a year later she gave birth to William Shelley. After the birth of her son she suffered from postpartum depression.

The birth of William happened a few months before the story of Frankenstein was conceived, so it wasn’t too surprising to see William’s name in the novel. William was Victor Frankenstein’s youngest brother, who was strangled to death by the monster. So I have two lines of thought here, one being that Mary Shelley’s depression manifested an urge to strangle William, the second is a little more complex.

I want to skip over the whole parody of creationism within Frankenstein, which would have to be an entirely different blog post (maybe when I read it next time). Life was created (without the need of a female) and then rejected. He has no loving mother; he is born fully grown but still has the intelligence of an infant, he was rejected before he could learn about the world. Again I’m left with two thoughts, is this about growing up without a mother or was this rejection of her child? I’m not really good at forming arguments (something I need to learn) but I wanted to leave you with those thoughts, and one other. In a journal entry in 1915 Mary Shelley wrote about the death of her first child, and being tormented by the idea of it coming back to life.

You know that “never meet your idols” phrase? I never really understood it; sure Mary Shelley wasn’t a ‘nice’ person but who is? She was tormented and complex and from that sprung forth a novel with so many layers that you could write a book on it. This was what made her my literary idol, not being a good person. I know I will keep reading this novel and try to write a review on each different perspective I find. Who knows it could make up and interesting collection of posts. Look for my next Frankenstein post (possible next year), not sure what it would be about; Creationism, Paradise Lost, Feminism, Slavery, Revolution, or something else. If you haven’t experienced the joys of a book so complex and layered, don’t you think it’s time you did so?

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Posted October 4, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Gothic / 0 Comments

Title: The Mysteries of Udolpho (Goodreads)
Author: Ann Radcliffe
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1794
Pages: 693
Genres: Classic, Gothic
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Emily St. Aubuert was imprisoned by her evil guardian, Signor Montoni. We follow her misadventures from his dark fortress in the Apennines as she suffers physical and psychological terror. The Mysteries of Udolpho is told in a dream-like hallucination that gives the reader a sense of Emily’s psychological state.

Writing a synopsis for this novel was one of the hardest things about this review. There are so many fragments in this book which makes it difficult to summarise what this book is about. Written in four volumes, Ann Radcliffe’s gothic romance manuscript has reported to have been brought for £500 in 1794, I’m not sure if that takes into account the inflation, if not that seems huge I can’t imagine an author receiving that much for a book nowadays.

This classic novel is a quintessential gothic romance but there are fragments of so many other genres with the supernatural, psychological mysteries that fill the pages. I really wanted to enjoy this book but I found it incredible wordy and at the time I was not in the right frame of mind for it, but I will do my best to be fair. The major downfall for me was the extensive descriptions of the landscapes; in particular Pyrenees and Apennines which while stunning just caused the book to drag on.

Emily is orphaned after the death of her father and taken in by her aunty Madame Cheron who married an Italian brigand Count Montoni. As romance between Emily and Valancourt, Montoni became increasingly frustrated and Cheron disapproved, believing him too poor, until she realised his aunt is Madame Clairval. When Count Montoni and Madame Cheron married he refused to allow Emily to married as he figured he could sell her. The major theme I got from this novel was the idea of indifference and the cruelty that can go along with it. Count Montoni is the definition of the gothic villain archetype; evil, sinister, greedy, and motivated by money. Even his marriage to Madame Cheron is for mercenary reasons and tried to force her to sing over her estates.

The novel is not all dark and gothic, I did mention that this was a gothic romance. Emily’s devotion to Valancourt is unshakeable and his heart seems to belong to her as well. He does make some mistakes and his behaviour eventually causes Emily to renounce him but even after that her thoughts were always towards him. The devotion or loyalty is always fighting against the gothic themes of this novel as you expect from a novel like this. Even the romance between Annette and Ludovico’s is not always happy, especially when he locks her up for her safety. Gothic romance is an unusual genre and you always get a sense that the entire book is fighting to counteract the romance, but then this is the type of book I enjoy.

This is a hard novel to review, there are so many plot lines and if I go off and talk about each of them this post will just go on and on. I know trying to condense the review down to a blog post doesn’t really do the book justice but I tried to focus on the main plot line. While the book felt wordy and dragged on, this was an interesting book, one I feel needs to be revisited sometime in the future. It would be interesting what I can pull out of the book once I have improved my critical reading skills. Have you read this classic? If so I would love to know your thoughts on it.

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Posted May 21, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic / 0 Comments

Title: Mrs Dalloway (Goodreads)
Author: Virginia Woolf
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1925
Pages: 185
Genres: Classic
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Clarissa Dalloway goes around London preparing to host a party that evening. It’s a nice day and she finds herself being reminded of her youth in the Bourton and wondering about her life and her choice of husband; marrying the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the mysterious and challenging Peter Walsh, as she never had the option to be with Sally Seton. These conflicts have been reintroduced when Peter pays her a visit.

The novel begins with Clarissa’s point of view and follows her perspective closely, travelling forwards and back in time and in and out of her mind to construct an image of her life. Clarissa is bubbly and lively, caring a great deal about what people think of her, but she is also self-reflective. She is often questioning life and constantly wondering whether happiness is truly possible. Though she is happy with her marriage to Richard she feels both great joy and dread towards her life and struggles to strike a balance between her desire for privacy and her need to connect with others.

Her husband Richard Dalloway is a member of the conservative government and plans to write a history of The Brutons, a great military family. He is a loving husband and father and devoted to social reform while appreciating English tradition. Peter Walsh is a close friend of Clarissa, once desperately in love with her. When she rejected his proposal, he moved to India; though frequently having romantic problems with women throughout the novel he is currently in love with a married woman in India. A socialist and highly critical of people, he is conflicted about everything in his life. Then there is Sally Sutton, a close friend of Clarissa in their youth, she was a wild handsome woman who would say anything. They were sexually attracted to each other as teenagers. Sally now lives in Manchester where she is married and is known as Lady Rosseter.

This is primarily a novel about life and relationships, with Clarissa reflecting on her life and wondering if she has made the right choices when it comes to marriage. There are so other themes that play a big part within this novel as well; some of these include disillusionment towards the British Empire, fear of death, oppression and balancing life between the need to keep up appearances and having some privacy. I won’t go into these themes in any detail, for the simple reason that I feel that Virginia Woolf leaves it very open to interpretation and it is up to the individual reader to make of it what they will.

For me, the major theme that came out was the struggle Clarissa had with trying to play the good hostess by drawing people together through her parties and her introverted nature. I saw Clarissa as an introvert, though she has a bubbly personality, she is often feels shrouded within her own reflective soul and thinks the ultimate human mystery is how she can exist in one room. She likes the idea of being independent and able to spend time to reflect but she is also aware of the inevitable loneliness that comes with a life of self reflection. If you understood something completely different from this novel, please let me know how you read this book in the comments below.

Now that I’ve looked at the themes of this novel, I want to have a quick look at some of the motifs and symbols used in Mrs Dalloway. The most important of them is time, which is so important to the structure, themes and characters of this novel that Virginia Woolf almost called it The Hours. Time keeps order to this novel; with all the thoughts, memories, and encounters within Mrs Dalloway, it becomes a vital element to the book. Also the old woman in the window across from house symbolises the life Clarissa desires; a private life with time to reflect. You also have things like the flowers with all their colour, varieties and beauty being a motif for emotions, Shakespeare and poetry representing these emotions as well and water suggesting the possibility of death.

Virginia Woolf can be a difficult author to read and requires a lot of thought but as I’ve now discovered with Mrs Dalloway, it is worth the effort. I remember reading To the Lighthouse and really struggling, but when I was told it was about sex, I thought I really missed the point. It’s a novel I plan to revisit again but as I mentioned in this review, I think Woolf writes her novels in such a way that you can interpret it anyway you want.

I don’t know if I would call myself a Virginia Woolf fan now, but I was really impressed reading and studying Mrs Dalloway. I will admit that that I’m planning to read A Room of One’s Own and reread To the Lighthouse. Maybe after that I might call myself a fan but I would recommend reading Virginia Woolf for all serious literature readers and studiers and anyone that needs to increase their pretentious levels. For me, Mrs Dalloway was both an interesting book and an interesting endeavour into improving my critical reading skills.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Posted May 8, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic / 0 Comments

Title: Heart of Darkness (Goodreads)
Author: Joseph Conrad
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1899
Pages: 225
Genres: Classic
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Heart of Darkness tells the tale of Charlie Marlow’s journey on an ivory transporter down an unknown river in the Congo. What he sees horrifies and perplexes him, calling into question the very basis of civilisation and human nature. The story follows this commercial agent and the object of his obsession, the notorious ivory-procurement agent Mr Kurtz. This novella has become an important piece in the western canon for its range of themes and scholarly values.

I remember reading this book a few years back and while I thought it was an interesting book, I never really grasped it completely (and I’m not sure if I ever will) but for comparison to what I know now and then, check out my review here. To begin with we need to gain an understanding of Joseph Conrad’s life because there are a lot of life experiences in this book. Born Josef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski in Russian-ruled Poland in 1857; this part of Poland is now part of Ukraine. Both parents were political activists and as a result of their participation in the Polish independence movement they were exiled to Northern Russia in 1863. At sixteen he dropped out of school to work on a French merchant ship, sailing the West Indies as an apprentice. Later he joined a British ship where he served as a merchant for ten years, during this time he gained the rank of captain and became a naturalized British citizen. During a trip in 1890 sailing through the Belgian Congo and Congo River he got really sick and had to retire from sailing and focused his energy on writing. This means Joseph Conrad must have grown up speaking Polish and Russian, learning French at some point and then English. Although he often struggled to write in his adopted language, he is now considered one of the greatest prose stylists in English literature.

There are many themes explored in this book, so much so that I think I would need to keep reading this book again and again to discover them. Though major themes include slavery (the effect the British had on Africa) as well the author’s problems with Colonialism and Imperialism. There are a few other themes I would much prefer exploring. First of all, the idea of alienation; both Conrad and Marlow are both outsiders. The entire novel questions what alienation and loneliness can do to a person over an extended period of time, especially since they are in hostile environments. Even the doctor warns Marlow prior to his departure of changes to his personality that may be produced by a long stay in another country. Prolonged solitude seems to have damaging effects on the sailors, which leads me into another major theme; insanity. In the case of Kurtz, the loneliness lead to literal madness, while others like Marlow’s predecessor, Captain Fresleven was described as a gentle soul that transformed into a violent one.

There are other themes I really would love to talk about but for the sake of keeping this review a decent length I will just highlight them. Heart of Darkness also looks at the way Belgium is exploiting the Congo, order verse disorder, duty verse responsibility, doubt verse ambiguity, race verse racism and finally violence and cruelty. All these, plus many more, are reasons why this book has been studied. It is a very difficult book to explore, I found myself rereading passages trying to get more out of it. I know at one point near the start of reading this I thought I would never get enough meaning out of this book but eventually it opened up to me.

There are a lot of symbols within the book as well, beginning with the title and the setting; Heart of Darkness deep in the heart of the Congo, the centre of the deep dark Africa. Even the fact that the entire story is told in the late afternoon as the sun sets is a motif of Africa. There are a lot more in this novel but I want to quickly talk about the movie adaptation Apocalypse Now. Sure there are some similarities but not enough to really consider the movie to be based on this novella. There are more similarities with Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in the way the book starts out, also with Bram Stokers’ Dracula with the suspension between life and death. So how are they the similar, since one is set in the Congo and the other during the Vietnam War? The very basic answer would be that both look at the deterioration of humanity as a result of conflict, one via imperialism and one by war.

I would love to talk about the narrative and how there are two narrators, Marlow and someone anonymous. And how all the scenes on the Nellie are obviously an introductory and critique to the story that it doesn’t go away after the intro. Marlow’s narrative is often interrupted by this unnamed narrator as they listen to the story as a way for Conrad to tell the reader to notice different themes. There are also the proses in the book, poetic and while difficult, you can get swept away and not really notice just what Conrad is trying to do. So many things I want to talk about but I have to cut this review short.

Heart of Darkness is a really complex book but if you take the time to break it apart and explore the text critically, you’ll find there is so much to appreciate. It’s like a fine meal, it can be enjoyed without any thought, but if you take the time to see how each element complements each other you end up enjoying the novella a whole lot more. It all comes together with a sense of satisfaction that while you might not know everything Joseph Conrad was trying to say, you know enough for the book to have real value.