I am waiting in the drive-thru bank line. There is a woman in a hoodie in the line next to me.
After she sent her deposit in the vacuum tube, she picked up a book and opened it with such a look on her face: a look of relish, of anticipation, of excitement.
And now bringing you a soapbox rant of comfortably non-lifethreatening purport and lacking in any sort of news worthy proportions: I discovered this afternoon that the paperback copy of Tale of Two Cities that I got for my daughter to read is abridged! It doesn’t say so anywhere in the book, especially not on the cover! How is it honest to publish a book as THE book written by Charles Dickens without mentioning that some ape has randomly hit the delete key several times every 5-10 words? I was reading along thinking there was something wrong with me because words happened that didn’t make sense –I kept thinking “wait, what happened?” –having to go back and reread and still events were foggy. Dickens is never foggy. Even when he describes fog, he does it in a manner to leave no doubt about the exact origin, dimension, mood,sight, taste, feel, and sound of said fog. The fog becomes a metaphor for the obscurity of man’s mind, nebulous fears in an unseen future and the steaming sweat of the downtrodden. Where was the Dickens? Turns out it wasn’t Dickens or me to blame. Puffin Classics let me down in a big way. Perhaps you now have to buy a book that specifically says it is unabridged? Reader beware. Publishers are changing our classics into empty, refined carbs.
My awesome cousin Allison clued me in:
In defense of all publishers in general, and Penguin Random House specifically, Puffin is their middle grade arm, which means that they cater to 10- to 14-year-old readers. A lot of their Puffin Classics series is abridged, and they say so on the copyright page. When a work is in the public domain the publisher does have the right to abridge when they want, and if they’re publishing a series for a younger audience (which the Puffin Classic series is) they will at times abridge long or dense works. If you want the original, look for an adult version (Penguin Classic, for example), or just check the copyright page.
My good friend Matt:
Dickens is never foggy? But what about all that London fog?
Seriously, though, there is absolutely no point in abridging A Tale of Two Cities. It is one of the most fast-moving, thoroughly entertaining, unputdownable books I have ever read.
Today I handed the girls a book about Egyptian hieroglyphics and told them to have fun. I snuggled the twins and read Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins. I couldn’t put it down. Though our lives have been quite different, I felt that our hearts are much the same, and she said things that I needed to hear, so much that I’ve been grasping at but not quite catching hold of.
Its all there, the joys of Motherhood, the agony of it, and redemption in the end. I rubbed shoulders with a kindred spirit today.
“We live in a world that operates according to a few general laws of nature…This exceedingly beautiful and elegant view of the world is the crowning achievement of centuries of work by scientists. There is intellectual and aesthetic satisfaction to be gained from seeing the unity between a pot of water on a stove and the slow march of the continents…The scientifically illiterate person has been cut off from an enriching part of life, just as surely as a person who cannot read.”
I am loving this book already, which I would not have stumbled upon if not for homeschooling.
Not all stories are well written enough to deserve 3 (or more) volumes. I resent having to read 5 books to get to the end of the poor written story.
If the volumes can’t stand alone, thats even worse.
The obligatory recap chapter at the beginning of every book after the first. UGH! And also, the little reminders about what happened in the last books, apparently these are supposed to help anyone who didn’t read book 1 or had to wait a year for book 2 (3-4-5).
But what they actually do is bore me and make me feel like the author thinks I’m too dumb to remember basic plot events.
There are never reminders about the really important tiny details (that I sometimes do forget ) that turn out to be the clue to everything. (Like remember her scarf had tassels? That’s going to be important later.)
Things that reconcile me to the multiple volume novels:
Harry Potter
.
.
.
Oh and
The Lord of the Rings
Little House on the Prairie
Ramona the Pest
I would like to point out that 3 of the 4 series on my list did not employ the recap chapter. Because it is lame.
Sleeps 6 or 7 hours a night (can I just say “WOW!”-none of the other baby pies did that)
Eats hungrily all the time so I get to feed her and read, read, read. I love it!
In the last month I’ve read:
Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Austenland by Shannon Hale The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller (condensed) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Scarlet Sails by Alexander Green (translated from Russian by Thomas P Whitney) Heaven is for Real by…Todd Burpo My Sergei: A Love Story by Ekaterina Gordeeva and half of The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
There are perks to being the Stay-Home Mom, and nursing a new baby is one of them.
For those of you who are interested in my opinion of what I read, (because I’m witty and brilliant and you wish you were in my book club)
Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy–This is at least the 2nd time I’ve read it. It is not my favorite by Hardy, but still good. I read it first when I was 13 or 14. I was in love with Diggory Venn and couldn’t believe that Hardy had originally not allowed Thomasin to marry him in the end. However, reading this book profoundly influenced my teenage years. #1 I learned to braid my hair in 4 strands–Thomasin braids her hair by the calendar. 3 strands for regular days, 4 strands for Sunday, and 7 strands for her wedding day. #2 I promised myself I would never be so prideful as to refuse to explain my innocence to the man I love–none of this “If you loved me, you would never suspect me; I refuse to answer your accusations” silliness. #3 I was completely enthralled by the beauty of Eustacia Vye and her power over men. I wanted to be so beautiful that a boy would think holding my hand to be the supreme experience of his life. When I read Return of the Native this time, I remembered my wish and I remembered a time in high school when it was fulfilled–but at the time, I had forgotten my wish and despised the boy as much as Eustacia despised hers–so I got no satisfaction at all from the experience. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer–very interesting, thought provoking, and fun to discuss with the Man of the House. (I never would have read it, if he hadn’t been) Jon Krakauer is arrogant and judgemental and skews his writing so you’ll agree with him, but he is a good writer and a persuasive one. I’ve also read Into Thin Air– his book about the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest. I read 3 books by others who were also there. Krakauer is so smooth and persuasive and so good at quietly turning good people into villains. Lucky for Chris McCandless (the boy whom Into the Wild is about) Krakauer likes him. Greg Morgenstern was not so lucky. The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller (reader’s digest condensed)–This is one of those books I’ve always felt that I SHOULD read and just never got around to reading. I felt uplifted and inspired to be better after reading it.
Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo–a true story about a little boy’s near death experience. Interesting perspective. Austenland by Shannon Hale–I’ve absolutely adored all of Hale’s young adult fiction. This is her first novel for adult women. It was okay. I was in the mood for love and this book satisfied that wish better than some of the others I read in the last 2 weeks. A single 30-something obsessed with Mr Darcy is bequeathed a 3 week vacation to Pembrook Park, a.k.a. Austenland, to dress and live like Jane Austen’s characters. The part I liked least about the book was that the heroine didn’t immerse herself immediately in the experience (as I would have done).
Just like in Eclipse, where Bella totally ruins the scene where Edward proposes to her by being all freaked out and not wanting to get married. How am I supposed to really enjoy that delicious marshmallow fluffy romantic proposal with Bella freaking out and saying no all through it?
But I loved the middle and the end of Austenland and forgave Jayne for being such a worry wart by the time I’d met those last few boyfriends of hers. I’m pretty sure I would have been incessentlyinsecently worried all the time, too.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins- a page turner for sure, but I was disappointed in the end. I read a great deal of young adult fiction because it isn’t raunchy like much of “adult” fiction. However, I’ve become tired of the love triangle plots that include 2 amazing boys and a girl who can’t figure out which one she loves. If Kat is going to break Peeta’s heart in book 2 or 3, I wish he would have died in the games instead. (I haven’t read them yet.) The plot reminded me a lot of Uglies and Pretties and Specials by Scott Westerfield, so that was disappointing too. I really dislike girl characters who have feelings but never stop to figure out how they feel. All that time Kat spends hunting food and she doesn’t have time to think about how she feels? I don’t buy it. I dislike that I am more interested in finding out who Kat loves than she, herself, seems to be.
This is the way modern young adult novels get rid of feelings–the characters just refuse to think about them. It is only slightly better than adult fiction, where feelings are completely eliminated. **warning, rant ahead.
My biggest pet peeve about “adult” books is that so often the characters don’t seem to care about themselves. They act, they don’t feel. At least they don’t think about how they feel or act in a way that I can understand how they feel, even when the book is written in first person narrative. Examples: The Stranger by Camus, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by …a writer I don’t like..google..Gregory Maguire, The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. hm, funny how those last two are both about painters.
How am I supposed to care about the characters if they don’t care about themselves? How am I supposed to understand them if they don’t understand themselves? How can life (or a book) be beautiful if no one in it notices the beauty?
When you take all the feeling out of a story, it seems coarse, raw, and dirty. It’s the modern style, I guess, but I don’t like it.
Scarlet Sails by Alexander Green (translated from Russian by Thomas P Whitney) Ah, a fairy tale of a novel full of beautiful things and the appreciation of them. The idea that mysterious beauty is attainable and that we can make our own fairy tales come true. I picked this book up in a library book sale years ago and have loved it ever since. And here is the thing. I think Gregory Maguire and Tracy Chevalier would have you believe there is no beauty in the world, only selfishness and lust and regret. Art is the only beauty and real life is a dissappointment. I, on the other hand, along with Alexander Green, believe in beauty seen and unseen. I’ve wandered through the forest imagining magical things. I’ve walked round a fat cedar tree completely sure that in just a moment I would find the doorway to Narnia. And not finding it didn’t discourage me or diminish my belief at all.
My Sergei: A Love Story by Ekaterina Gordeeva–Anyone who grew up watching Gordeeva and Grinkov skate will love the story, as I did. One thing I found especially interesting was Ekaterina Gordeeva’s perspective of her life. She says she had an idyllic childhood with no hardship or sadness. Then she describes her father–a dancer with exacting perfectionism, which perfectionism he required of his daughter. She was so afraid of displeasing him and felt that even her Olympic gold was barely satisfying to him–yet she is genuine in saying her childhood was idyllic. You can feel it. Jon Krakauer would have hated this father (in fact he did hate his own father for a long time.) I think most people would have found much to complain about. But Ekaterina knew her father loved her and that was enough. She did not think his requiring her to work hard was abuse, the way many people would. It was interesting to read about the life of someone who grew up behind the Iron Curtain–interesting to read it from someone who was not writing for political reasons. I loved her writing voice. It reminded me of my Grandma Hansen’s personal history–her voice is similar.
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler: THE MOVIE WAS BETTER
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 