Reading in Reykjavík

After I wrote the last entry I picked up the book again and read it more or less in one session. Final thoughts:  All the character descriptions are brilliant. Some characters are summed up in one pithy sentence or one short paragraph, and you know exactly what kind of people they are, and yet none of the primary or secondary characters are stereotypes, because their words and actions then take over and show them to be more than mere cardboard cut-outs. This takes skill. The disapproving Mrs. Yorke, for example, is shown to hate youth and beauty, but is perfectly capable of changing her mind about said youth and beauty when it is suffering (e.g. Mr. Moore), when she turns out to be a mother hen type. There are passages that seem to serve no particular purpose, or which at least could have been shorter, but taken altogether the story does not sag badly at any time. It sails on at its own pace and gets there in the end. I am certain there are readers who would have wished the e...

I'll start with a quo te from Chapter 21 :     'Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I hope?'     'Sometimes - whenever I can get them, indeed; but romance-writers might know nothing of love, judging by the way in which they treat of it.'     'Nothing whatever, my dear!' assented Mrs. Pryor eagerly; 'nor of marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be too strongly condemned. They are not like reality: they show you only the green tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or truthful hint of the slough underneath.' So, not a new sentiment, then. -- As you can see I have finally picked up Shirley again, to find lots of things happening: a funny clash between the C of E followers and the other congregations in the neighbourhood and an attempt by the Luddites to storm the mill repelled with lethal force. Emotionally a lot going on as well: Shirley possib...

Shirley has arrived, and she is, as I surmised, the young owner of Fieldhead Hall and therefore Mr. Moore's landlady. So far the narrator has shown her to the reader only from the outside, i.e. her emotions and thoughts are not revealed, and so she is just a little bit mysterious. While Shirley owns the book's title, the protagonist so far has been Caroline Helstone and it looks like an interesting little love triangle is going on between her, Shirley and Mr. Moore, with both ladies in love with him and he wavering between the penniless Caroline, whom he seems to feel some regard for, and Shirley and her money, which he is in dire need of. I only hope it will not lead to the very tiresome trope of one of the ladies dying to make way for the other to marry the gentleman. The death would have to be that of Caroline, because there have been possible foreshadowings of that nature, although there has also been an indication that it will not happen. I hope it doesn't - it'...

Chapter VII and still no sign of Shirley.  The chapter begins with a charming description of what it is like to be eighteen: ...at eighteen the true narrative of life is yet to be commenced. Before that time we sit listening to a tale, a marvellous fiction, delightful sometimes and sad sometimes, almost always unreal. Before that time our world is heroic, its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dream-scenes; darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters, sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits, wider plains, drearier deserts, sunnier fields than are found in nature, over- spread our enchanted globe. What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our hearts at her aspect bears witness to its unutterable beauty! As to our sun, it is a burning heaven - the world of gods. It goes on for two more paragraphs, but I'll let this suffice. You can look it up if you wish to read the whole thing. -- This novel has an omnisc...

Editied, with additions in blue . I'm three chapters into Shirley and wondering when the titular character will make her first appearance. As with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , my first Brontë Project read, I took care not to read anything that could give me an indication of what the novel is about so that I would come to it with a (metaphorical) clean slate. You see, I am one of those people who absolutely hate reviews and forewords to books that blithely give away important plot points, as if the writer assumes that everyone must already either have read the book or at the least know everything about it so that it's okay to drop spoilers on the reader. As a result, I now read forewords only after I have read the book. But back to Shirley . That the title character is female I only found out accidentally. I had read somewhere that before Shirley Temple rose to Hollywood fame, Shirley was a man's name, so I assumed - since this book was published in 1849 - that Brontë...

Differences in the characters of Helen and Gilbert. Helen is a fascinating woman, strong, determined and intelligent and a proto-feminist, albeit she is sometimes a bit too fond of preaching morality. Gilbert comes across as hot-headed, rash and ever so slightly stupid, albeit also quite a solid and decent guy (as seen mostly in his interactions with her son), and it's a bit of a stretch to imagine why such a fascinating woman as Helen would fall for him. Possibly it's that he is the first potential suitor she has come across who is also a decent human being? In any case , the only thing they seem to have in common is a liking for suffering and a love of literature. -- An interesting note on class in the story is in the final chapters of the novel when Gilbert Markham begins to have doubts about the possibility of ever getting together with Helen, because he at some point realises that they come from different social classes. I had him pegged at the beginning as a member of t...

After I wrote the last entry I didn't touch the book for several days. Not because I wasn't interested in continuing, but because I had other things to do. My mind occasionally (very occasionally) goes wandering in other directions than reading and I had a few days during which I simply didn't feel like picking up a book. On with the journalling, but first a BIG FAT SPOILER WARNING : Read no further if you don't want any surprises revealed to you about the story. I finished it yesterday. I found the middle section, consisting of Helen's account of her courtship and marriage an utterly realistic portrait of a marriage entered into with more haste than forethought. Both parties has unrealistic ideas of the other. Huntingdon seems to have married out of a spoiled, egotistical, hedonistic man's desire to make a conquest of something he sees as utterly desirable - in this case a living, breathing woman (or girl, really) - that didn't quite turn out to be as d...

This is either very profound, or very trite, I can't decide which. I just know I like it: Helen to Gilbert, at their parting: "We are children now; we feel as children, and we understand as children; and when we are told that men and women do not play with toys, and that our companions will one day weary of the trivial sports and occupations that interest them and us so deeply now, we cannot help being saddened at the thoughts of such an alteration, because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so fondly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with ours in higher aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less truly good for that, while yet both we and they remain ...

I have gotten a bit ahead of myself by posting some reading journal entries for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall before posting an introduction to my little Brontë project. For one reason or another, the Brontë sisters have been on my mind lately. First I got into an enjoyable discussion about Jane Eyre and then I had two occasions, within a short interval, to mention my horrid experience of reading Wuthering Heights . Then I reread Stella Gibbons' gem of a novel, Cold Comfort Farm , in which one of the characters, Mr. Mybug, is writing a life of Branwell Brontë, who he claims wrote all the novels attributed to his sisters. This naturally brought up the titles of some books by the Brontës, including Shirley and Villette, and it occurred to me that I really should read them. This led to a decision to read all of them, because Why Not? JE and WH may be the most popular of the sisters' oeuvre, but the others wouldn't be mentioned so frequently in other books and literary di...

Since I'm on my coffee break at work I decided it was a good time to write down more of the thoughts I am having about this book. I like the story so far. I am a little further on into Helen's narrative than I was last time, and things are progressing . Her narrative is diary entries, whereas Gilbert's opening narrative is letters to his brother-in-law, but this is no "dear diary" kind of thing. She is clearly writing for an audience (the reader), but since she of course doesn't know she is a character in a book one must assume the audience is, who? Herself? Or was Anne just being clumsy when she wrote it? The man who I assume will turn out to be the cause of all her troubles and the father of her son is the charming but obviously somewhat rakish (to the reader and certain of the characters, although not Helen, who seems to think he is just a lovable rascal) Mr. Huntingdon, which brings me to the names of the characters. Gilbert's surname is Markham...

Remember the scene where Gilbert tries to give Helen the book?  Love it. It's so lovely, with the lovesick swain trying to win his lady's favour with a gift, and his mortification when she insists on paying him for it. I think it may also be a pivot point, the place where she begins to regard him in the light of more than a friend, even though she acts as if friendship is the only way for them:      But, while I gazed, I thought upon the book, and wondered how it was to be presented.  My heart failed me; but I determined not to be such a fool as to come away without having made the attempt.  It was useless waiting for an opportunity, and useless trying to concoct a speech for the occasion.  The more plainly and naturally the thing was done, the better, I thought; so I just looked out of the window to screw up my courage, and then pulled out the book, turned round, and put it into her hand, with this short explanation:    ...

I‘m reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë and really feel I need to write something about it at this point. For those who have read it, I am at the point where Gilbert‘s narrative has ended and Helen‘s narrative has just started. I deliberately didn't read about the story before I started reading it and just about the only thing I knew about it before commencing is that it's probably a romance. Such a storm of emotions already, falling occasionally over the verge into highly enjoyable melodrama: Gilbert falling violently in love with Helen (quite believably, I think, people being prone to fall for those they see as unavailable), H repelling him but eventually showing signs of loving him back (not quite as realistic as his feelings for her as it isn't explained why she would love him), and G assaulting the man he believes H is having an affair with, possibly in the belief that the victim has seduced her and is using her, or possibly because G is, when it come...