Classics Considered

These past two months have been a flurry of rereads and shorter reads—I am loving my reading life right now!

I just finished rereading and re-reviewing The Painted Veil this month. What a beautiful, heart-wrenching, and layered novel. It is deceptively simple on the surface, yet I found more ideas to consider this time around.

I am also rereading my favourite novel to Mr H: Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Susan Bernofsky’s translation brings out Kafka’s dry, sometimes dark humour, which is a joy to read. Mr H is enjoying it, too.

For Lent, together we are reading The Sickness Unto Death. We are both Kierkegaard fans, although quite honestly I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of his work, having mostly focused on his devotional writings in the past. The Sickness Unto Death is hard to get into, but I think it’s getting easier now I’m past the beginning.

I’ve read several short stories recently for various book clubs:

• “The Signal Man” by Charles Dickens – Recommended by the friend who does the Reading the World challenge with me. A spooky, understated story.
• Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of Red Death” (rereads) – I thought “The Tell-Tale Heart” was brilliantly written, and it’s only now I can appreciate how modern it was for its time.
• Maupassant’s “The Necklace” – This was my first Maupassant story, but I can’t say I was too impressed. I think it’s a bit of a silly story (maybe that’s the point), and a bit misogynistic in tone.

I’m still reading Villette, and I am also nearly done with Foster by Claire Keegan, which I was delighted to find at the local charity shop. I love novellas, though I’m a bit uncertain about this one. I am getting the sense that her stories tend to be slice-of-life instead of fully-fledged stories. I like slice-of-life… it just seems to me she teases a lot more than that, yet doesn’t provide the denouement one would hope for. We’ll see how I feel at the end of this one. :]

Last but not least, I have chosen my American novel for the year: Quicksand by Nella Larsen. I was utterly blown away by Passing—the way it built on its core idea and delivered above-and-beyond, taking me on a whole rollercoaster of ideas and emotions in just the span of a novella. Not sure Quicksand will be the same experience, but I want to give it a try. I might even reread Passing, since I now have both books in one volume. 😉

Some more books in the queue for this year:

• The Chronicles of Narnia reread – I am finding the ebook experience for LWW to be very dull, so I will resume this project once I can collect my paperbacks from America.
• Mrs Dalloway – I’m stoked to read my next Virginia Woolf novel for a book club in March.
• David Copperfield – I don’t know when I’ll be in a David Copperfieldian mood, but I do intend to read it this year.
• Paradise of the Blind – I believe this will be our next read for Reading the World. I had read half of it previously, but I’m in a better headspace now to read the whole thing, and I hope it will be a good choice for Vietnam.