Classics Club Spin #7 Results!

The results for the spin are in!

The number chosen is...

17

And so I will be reading...

I am slightly intimidated by the size - but who am I to be daunted by thousand-page tomes? I've read Les Miz AND Gone With the Wind TWICE. Clearly I have nothing to fear when it comes to the size of my spin book. 

Have you read Hunchback? What did you think of it?

And do you get intimidated by large books?

~Sophia

Classics Club Spin #7

It is time for another Spin! 
Here are the rules, for those of you not familiar with it.

1. I pick out 20 books from my Classics Club list and number them 1-20
2. The Classics Club announces a number on Monday, August 11th.
3. I read the book that I assigned to that number by October 6th!

Again, I'm going to reuse the list from my last spin, and replace the one book I've read since. (Wow, great progress - not!)
So here's the list:

Rereads:
1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
3. Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy

I Can't Wait to Read:

6. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather 

7. 1984 by George Orwell

8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

9. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

10. The Sea Wolf by Jack London

I'm Dreading:
11. Ben Hur by Lew Wallace (I started this one a few years back and only got a few chapters in.)
12. The White Company by A. Conan Doyle (Can you believe I've started this one twice and haven't finished it yet?)
13. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Well, this is both dreaded and anticipated. I'm both excited yet a little intimidated by the size...)
14. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I'm Neutral About:
16. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
17. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
18. The Man Who would be King by Rudyard Kipling

19. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

20. The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Good luck to all participating!

~Sophia

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell // Do You Have Gumption?

I finished Gone With the Wind yesterday, and goodness, that is some book! I know it was a reread, but I got ever so much more out of it than I did at 11.

In 1936, Margaret Mitchell was asked what her novel was about. This is her response:

"If the novel has a theme, it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; other don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."

The split between those with gumption and those without is pretty clear in the novel. Scarlett has gumption, that's for certain, and so does Rhett. Ashley doesn't, and neither does Mr. O'Hara, despite all his bombast. And then we come to Melanie. Does Melanie have gumption? You wouldn't think so, in the beginning. But as we progress further into the novel, we, along with Scarlet, discover things about Melanie that we would never have expected. She has her own kind of hidden, gentle gumption, almost more powerful than Scarlett's because it isn't obvious at first.

Scarlett has gumption and she knows it. She knows that it has helped her get where she is, and she is proud of it.
Melanie has no clue of her own strength and does not realize how many people depend on her.

I think that's the ultimate contrast in the book - Scarlett vs. Melanie, selfishness vs. selflessness, pride vs. humility. Everything Scarlett does is for herself and to further her own goals - everything Melanie does is for others.

I'm not at all like Scarlett - I can't just GO DO THINGS, and suddenly make friends with my enemies because that'll help me get where I want to be. I'd like to think that I'm rather like Melanie, but part of me is nervous that I'm actually more similar to Ashley. I haven't been tested yet.

If my world was completely torn apart, and nothing was as it used to be - what would I do? If nearly everyone I loved was gone, and I couldn't depend on anyone except myself, would I break down like Mr. O'Hara? Would I push it to the back of my mind to think about tomorrow and move ahead like Scarlett? Would I sit there wishing for the good old days to come back like Ashley? I'd like to think that I'd just go along calmly and loyally like Melanie, but a small part of me thinks that I might not be strong enough. I can see myself turning into the nostalgic, scared Ashley, who can't deal in a new, harsh world.

It sort of scares me. I'm living in a sort of perfect bubble right now, really, and I really don't want to have it popped. My grandmother and great grandmother had their bubbles popped, when World War II came to their small town in Ukraine. My great-grandma had Scarlett-like gumption, with a bit more selflessness. My grandma is very much like Melanie, to this day.Their gumption is what brought them here and what helped them survive. Would I have been able to do the same?

This post is turning into more of a self-reflection than a book commentary. But I suppose that's a good sign - excellent books make you reflect on your own soul. And Gone With the Wind is certainly an excellent book.

Have you read Gone With the Wind? What do you think of it? And how do you think you would fare if the-world-as-you-know-it crumbled around you?

~Sophia

Spin Results

So the results of the Classics Club spin have been revealed! The book I will be reading is...

(...drumroll please...)

This is going to be a reread for me, since I read this book back when I was ten years old. I was reading The Count of Monte Cristo at the time, but my friend insisted that I read Gone with the Wind next. Considering that Count is a rather long book, she was insisting for a rather long time - but I eventually read it. And loved it! 

But I haven't read it in a good many years so I'm looking forward to revisiting it. It's a little longer than I was hoping for, since I'm leaving for Italy in a week and would rather not lug a tome that heavy in my suitcase. Oh well. (More about Italy later this week.)

If you're doing the spin, what book did you get?

And if you've ever been to Rome (or Venice or Florence), got any recommendations on experiences I absolutely shouldn't miss? :-)

~Sophia

Classics Club Spin #6

So instead of doing a Top Ten Tuesday, I'm going to post my options for the Classics Club Spin #6.

For those of you who don't know, here are the rules of the Spin:

1. I pick out 20 books from my Classics Club list and number them 1-20
2. The Classics Club announces a number on Monday, May 12th.
3. I read the book that I assigned to that number by July 7th!

I think I'm going to be lazy and grab my list from the last spin. I just will replace a couple books.
So here's the list:

Rereads:
1. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
3. Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy

I Can't Wait to Read:

6. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather 

7. 1984 by George Orwell

8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

9. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

10. The Sea Wolf by Jack London

I'm Dreading:
11. Ben Hur by Lew Wallace (I started this one a few years back and only got a few chapters in.)
12. The White Company by A. Conan Doyle (Can you believe I've started this onetwice and haven't finished it yet?)
13. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Well, this is both dreaded and anticipated. I'm both excited yet a little intimidated by the size...)
14. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I'm Neutral About:
16. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
17. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
18. The Man Who would be King by Rudyard Kipling

19. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

20. The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells // So Much Content in Such a Small Book

The Island of Doctor Moreau was my Classics Club Spin book, and I was supposed to finish it by April 1st.

Whaddaya know, I finished early! :-)

Note: there is a spoiler warning a couple paragraphs down - skip that section if you haven't read the book.

The Island of Doctor Moreau is about a shipwrecked traveler who winds up on a mysterious island, where the title character is conducting gruesome vivisections on animals, attempting to transform them into humans. I've already started and deleted five different beginnings to this post, because there's so much to talk about. Do we start with the basic plot and writing style? Do we go into characterization? Do we discuss the idea of man vs. beast, and what defines each? Or do we address the concept of religion and God (which is a very clear theme in the book)?
For a short, 130 page book, The Island of Doctor Moreau is loaded with layers and layers of meaning.

Let's work backwards, and start with the most intense of the above questions - Wells' commentary on religion and God. If we look at Doctor Moreau as a sort of human version of God, then his Man-Beasts are bestial versions of humans, God's creations. The Man-Beasts have a set of laws that they must follow them, but they don't really know why - their brains aren't human enough to understand why they shouldn't walk on all fours, or why they shouldn't attack other animals and eat them. There is a Sayer of the Law, who reminds them of the rules, but the Man-Beasts are constantly breaking them, because they forget. They still have an innate bestiality in their souls.

Wells is showing us what could potentially happen if a human tried to become God, and took it upon himself to "create" rational creatures. But Wells is also comparing us to the Man-Beasts, and commenting on following a religion, cult, or other group mindlessly, and believing everything that the self-instituted leader says.

********SPOILER WARNING!*******



After Moreau dies, Prendick takes a position of semi-leadership, and tells the Man-Beasts:

"He [Moreau] has changed his shape - he has changed his body... For a time you will not see him. He is... there" [pointing upward] "where he can watch you. You cannot see him. But he can see you. Fear the Law."

Is this not like Jesus' death and ascension?



******End of Spoiler**********

Wells is criticizing those Christians who follow blindly, and haven't given thought to why they do the things they do as Christians. But this is a good thing for those of any religion to think about. Why are the traditions in place? What is the meaning behind them? By looking into the history and reasons for the traditions and customs within our religion and culture, we can better understand it, and not just be mindless followers, following the Law just because it is the Law.

The second thing I want to talk about is the idea of man vs. beast. Though in the modern world, we think of humans as being animals as well, in Wells time, this was not the case. Vivisection of animals was an approved practice, and this just made Moreau's gruesome experiments even more of a moral dilemma. If they were animals, then of course it was fine what he was doing (in the standards of the time). But if they were humans, then his was a barbaric practice.

I, thinking about it from a 21st century perspective, feel the DEEPEST sympathy for the poor creatures. Never once did I feel that revulsion that Prendick so often experienced when in their company. The poor things don't know what they are doing. Their minds are only half as advanced as ours, and so they are confused by their new lives as (sort of ) rational beings. In my opinion, the Man-Beasts only need some love, but Prendick is disgusted and Moreau thinks of them as experiments. Their only hope lies in Montgomery, Moreau's assistant, but he is trying to figure his own life out, and isn't much help. Montgomery is, possibly, the most sympathetic character of the book - outside of the Man-Beasts themselves.

I suppose that that's touched on almost all the points brought up in the beginning. But there is just so much more that I haven't even mentioned. The Island of Doctor Moreau is much, much more than just a science fiction tale - it's a commentary on life, religion, and the definition of human-ness.

Classics Club Spin #5

Yay, my first Classics Club Spin! This is coming out a little late... forgot to post it until now...
For those of you who don't know, here are the rules of the Spin:

1. I pick out 20 books from my Classics Club list and number them 1-20
2. The Classics Club announces a number on Monday, February 10th.
3. I read the book that I assigned to that number!

It's a really convenient way for me to pick my next reading project. :-)
I do have a TBR list in my head, but I haven't read a classic in a while, so I thought I'd do the Spin...

Anyways, here's my list, in four different categories:

Rereads:
1. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
3. Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy

I Can't Wait to Read:

6. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather 

7. 1984 by George Orwell

8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

9. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

10. The Sea Wolf by Jack London

I'm Dreading:
11. Ben Hur by Lew Wallace (I started this one a few years back and only got a few chapters in.)
12. The White Company by A. Conan Doyle (Can you believe I've started this one twice and haven't finished it yet?)
13. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Well, this is both dreaded and anticipated. I'm both excited yet a little intimidated by the size...)
14. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
15. Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

I'm Neutral About:
16. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
17. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
18. The Man Who would be King by Rudyard Kipling

19. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

20. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

So there you have it! On Monday I'll post the results of the Spin...

~Sophia