I prefer at least Jane Eyre (the rest I have not read yet). Austen just dwellt on the same topic all the way. I do not think she could have got into the classics list if she hadn't been of real use. Although she is witty, she is nothing more but witty. But she does it well...Originally Posted by jocky
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
I saw the Burton version- there's a trailer on YouTube if you're interested. Dench's production of the play is pretty spot-on, I'd say, and Branagh captures Jimmy's antagonism and yet his...anachronism very well, not tipping over the edge between Jimmy just being a...well, I don't think I can swear here
+ 1
I threw War and Peace in the bin three times while I was reading it, and fished it back out again because I had promised myself I'd read it. I hated every page!
zw3
It never ceases to amaze me that people submit themselves to books for which they are temperamentally unsuited and struggle on because it has "classic" status. I haven't read War and Peace because I know what it is about and intimate family sagas set against panoramic backgrounds of historical events don't particularly appeal to me.
I much prefer to be selective in the kind of books that I read and am definitely not swayed by any feeling that I am obliged to read certain classics.
This is where the cinema is useful, I saw the American version of War and Peace and I knew I would not enjoy reading the story. Similarly, I saw the US version of The Brothers Karamazov and was bored to distraction.
My current Film Guide says that it was a rather stodgy MGM epic but, given the plot line, I fail to see how it could have been anything else.
I didn't think I was temperamentally unsuited to it, that's the thing. I don't have a problem with intimate family sagas set against backgrounds of historical events. I loved Middlemarch and Shirley and Jude the Obscure and North and South (not the John Jakes one). War and Peace irked me because I expected to find exactly what you have described, and what I read sounded like Tolstoy's Hymn to Himself (extended mix). And not in the good, Leaves of Grass sense of the phrase. I kept reading in the expectation that it would eventually stop setting my teeth on edge, but it didn't. I'm sure Tolstoy's traumatised
I love the first part of War and Peace. Then I can't do it anymore.
See, now that book could never be a decent film. Perhaps you've read it and agree, but if not you should give it a go. The narration is what makes it so fantastic and is certainly something that cinema cannot capture.
Only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts? - Faulkner
kelby_lake, cool tipping me off about the video on Youtube. I want to take a look at that Burton version. I saw the extra commentary on my DVD, with a now 'older' Branagh discussing their production; but he mentions the earlier production with Burton. He is very respectful and gracious about it. It's interesting to listen to Branagh's descriptions of their own first production of this play on stage in a huge ventue. He said it was like seeing the characters as postage stamps. I can't imagine them pulling it off in that way; nor how actors can project that far and still maintain all the emotions and the nuances of their performance. He said there were a lot of mixed reactions; some cheered and some even booed. He seemed to take it all very lightly and in good humor. I really loved the way he played it on the DVD. I know what you mean by the blanks...I can fill them in...NO, one can't use those words on here - the program would just look like this ****!I saw the Burton version- there's a trailer on YouTube if you're interested. Dench's production of the play is pretty spot-on, I'd say, and Branagh captures Jimmy's antagonism and yet his...anachronism very well, not tipping over the edge between Jimmy just being a...well, I don't think I can swear here
"It's so mysterious, the land of tears."
Chapter 7, The Little Prince ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I did not like "Madame Bovary". I do get the point and I understand her, I can see where all her problems come from, how the situation evolves and why for the given conditions there is no other alternative to the ending. I just can't bring myself to read it out of pleasure. It's like a piece of work that conveys only a message but no style.
"The Sufferings of Young Verther" absolutely irritated me. I could not get the point of any of his actions. I found Verther thoroughly and unjustifiably passive, a very non-typical young person. Youth is full of energy and love, full of courage and hope!
Sometimes I wonder whether I feel this way because I have read these books while still young. Still, I have also read Joyce and Zweig at quite a young age and I am blindly in love with both of them.
In the end, maybe that was the point of both books. Maybe Verther is supposed to be inssuportable, maybe it is meant for one to get tired of him fastly. Maybe "Madame Bovary" becomes boring and ureadable for the exact purpose of illustrating Emma's dull life, for giving the example of failed expectations...
You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.
James Joyce
It is a fatal miscarriage, so ill to order affairs, as to pass for a fool in one company, when in another you might be treated as a philosopher. Jonathan Swift
I had to read Heart of Darkness for English class, and I did not like it.
It's like a piece of work that conveys only a message but no style.
Madame Bovary no style!? Its all style. The language is absolutely magnificent.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
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I agree even more stukes. Flaubert did an excellent masterpiece. Primarily for the stylistic precision and dispassionate rendering of psychological detail. He diligently researched his subjects and infused his works with psychological realism with the goal of achieving a prose style “as rhythmical as verse and as precise as the language of science.” That perhaps made Madam Bovary qualify as one of the World's most well-written work of art.
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
I couldn't stand Kate Chopin's The Awakening. I did manage to finish the book (thankfully it's short), and I can most certainly understand and appreciate the value that many see in it, but it just didn't connect to me.
I simply found little in the book that was relevant to my life, although it shouldn't be surprising that an 18-year-old male couldn't connect with a turn of the century feminist story. Overall, I didn't feel particularly connected or empathetic towards Edna (again, should be unsurprising) and felt that she was rather shallow in her actions and her motives for those actions than being a truly empowered individual. To me, it just felt like Chopin was skimming the surface of what could have been a much more powerful story, but didn't quite reach what she was aiming for.
Of course, I may be placing a more modern, extreme standard for "rebellion" on Edna than was truly reflective of society in her times (does that even make sense?). Regardless, The Awakening is a novel I don't intend to revisit.
I am sorry, I did not mean no style in that sense.I acknowledge that literary it is a very good piece of prose, although I don't enjoy it even in that sense. Pardon me if my conception of style confused you.I agree even more stukes. Flaubert did an excellent masterpiece. Primarily for the stylistic precision and dispassionate rendering of psychological detail. He diligently researched his subjects and infused his works with psychological realism with the goal of achieving a prose style “as rhythmical as verse and as precise as the language of science.” That perhaps made Madam Bovary qualify as one of the World's most well-written work of art.
Style to me is not just the way a work it is written. Style to me does not signify words alone, poeticity... Style to me is what a writer uses to convey the message, how I, as a reader, understand what he has given me. Style is the ability of the writer to get in me, to slide in me through narrow passages... I call it style when I can not only grasp the meaning of goal of the author, but I can grasp it beautifully. Even if it's a horror story.
Maybe, as I said, I will have a different view when I grow up and re-read the book. For now, since even style is a private and personal conception, "Madame Bovary" remains one of my least favourite works of literature.
You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.
James Joyce
It is a fatal miscarriage, so ill to order affairs, as to pass for a fool in one company, when in another you might be treated as a philosopher. Jonathan Swift
the one classic i cannot stand to read would have to be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. i understand the impact it had during its time but throughout the book i found myself thinking "what is this?" and "when is it just going to end!". previously to it i read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, much like many other kids have done, and enjoyed it, however in Huckleberry Finn i began to loathe the character Tom Sawyer and, frankly, just wished he would die. the only character in there that i liked was jim and found, suprisingly, that he was the only smart one. i mean for god sakes it made no sense to me how tom could read so many books and yet be so stupid! i disliked it so much i refused to read, however i had to for my english class. i also found the majority of my class hated it as well.
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