Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Bookish things I'm thankful for

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Topic for November 20, 2018: Thanksgiving Freebie – So I’ll interpret that as Top Ten Bookish things I’m thankful for

10. That some authors resist the urge for the Happily Ever After ending

9. That some authors still do end with Happily Ever After

8. That Artsy Reader Girl for carrying on Top Ten Tuesday

7. The Classics Club

6. That Orwell didn’t write LOTR and Tolkien didn’t write 1984

5. For rereads

4. Project Gutenberg

3. That no one has made a remake of Gone With the Wind

2. That screenwriters for The Lord of the Rings respected the author and rejected the producer who wanted to kill off one of the Hobbits
1. The Number ONE thing I am thankful for, in bookish terms:  my sixth-grade teacher Ms. Tina Banks of Burke School Elementary, who instilled in me the love of reading. 

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Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin (novel #114)

(translation by Franz Kuhn)

Your earthly destiny is fulfilled! Do not delay now, but follow us! ~ Buddhist monk and Taoist priest to Pao Yu

Dream of the Red Chamber (Hong Lou Meng), or The Story of the Stone (Shi Tou Chi), or 

Written mid-18^thCentury during the Qing Dynasty by Cao Xueqin (Tsao Hsueh-Chin), Dream of the Red Chamber is the most recent of China’s Four Great Classical Novels: [Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin]. If there were an Eastern Canon, this would be part of it.

It has also been described as the Chinese version of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past – but I think that’s unfair since Dream predates Remembrance by more than a Century – bit ethnocentric. We should say, Remembrance of Things Past is the French version of China’s great novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

Which doesn’t bode well for Dream of the Red Chamber, since I nearly hated Remembrance of Things Past. 

But Happily and surprisingly, I found Dream of the Red Chamber much more enjoyable and accessible. I have to make one confession though – I read an abridged version. I ordinarily refuse to read abridged versions, but the full version is like a billion pages. Additionally, there is great difficulty in translating this work; the full translation just doesn’t – ummm? – translate well. So much so, that my translation isn’t considered abridged, just a liberal translation. It’s still quite long – like a million pages (bit over 600 actually).

Dream of the Red Chamber is about the decline of the Chia clan, an aristocratic family, of two major houses: Ningkuo Palace and Yuongko Palace. It is thought to be semi-autobiographical and is largely a character driven story – and goodness, there are plenty of characters, 40 major characters and over 400 others. The main character is Chia Pao Yu, a young prince, probably around 14 at the beginning of the novel, of the Yuongko Palace who was born with a jade stone in his mouth. In a preface, the translator describes him as:

…a highly gifted but degenerate young aristocrat, a psychopath and a weakling, asocial, effeminate, plagued by inferiority complexes and manic depressions, who though capable of a temporary rallying of energies, founders among the demands of reality and slinks cravenly away from human society.

That’s about right. But somehow, I still liked him. His mother, and grandmother, the Princess Ancestress, spoil him, while his father terrorizes him, nearly beats him to death at one point – so he has some excuse for his foibles.

Between the two Palaces, there are countless cousins, siblings, half-siblings of concubines, and maids who are more familiar with their masters than is typical of Western domestics.

The other two main characters are female cousins, Black Jade and Precious Clasp. They are rivals for Pao Yu’s attention, though genuinely affectionate to one another. Again, the translator’s description:

Black Jade, of a nearly saintly chastity

Precious Clasp, womanly warm, sensible

When Pao Yu first meets Black Jade, the narrative of his impression is more poetic:

She was beautiful, but her beauty was clothed with the cloak of suffering. Her eyes were always glistening as if full of tears. And how faint and soft was her breathing. In repose she was like the dewy reflection of a flower in water. In motion she was like a willow branch trembling in the wind.

Early, I was pulling for Black Jade; with a name like Black Jade I couldn’t help but imagine her a rare beauty, but as time goes on, I found her insecure, simple, and needy. My hopes for Pao Yu turned to Precious Clasp, but no spoilers. Pao Yu was incredibly fickle, flirting with any and every female in the palace including his maids and half-sisters.

Male names were transliterated while female names were translated. The female names were beautiful and/or funny:

Beginning of Spring

Taste of Spring (becomes a secondary wife to the Emperor)

Grief of Spring

Greeting of Spring (the four Spring girls were not sisters, but cousins)

Mandarin Duck

Gold Ring

Pearl Musk

Bright Cloud

Autumn Wave

Cuckoo

Snowgoose

Painting Maid

And poor Numskull (who lived down to her name)

The title, is derived from a dream Pao Yu has early in the novel that foreshadows his life. It is filled with charming ethereal descriptions:

I am the fairy of the Fearful Awakening. I live not far from here in the Phantom Realm of the Great Void, in the Sphere of Banished Suffering, behind the Drenching Sea of Trouble, on the Heights of Liberated Spring, in the Grottoes of Everlasting Perfumes. I judge the Play of Wind and Clouds between human beings and settle the unbalanced debts of love between unhappy maidens and languishing youths. It is not chance but destiny which leads me to you today.

 This language was fun and proper in the dream, but would have grown pretty tiresome if it pervaded the novel. It doesn’t.

As one might expect from an 18^thCentury Chinese writing, there are mystical elements, such as the stone found in Pao Yu’s mouth at birth. There are other omens and occurrences that we would probably call magical realism – but I don’t think it correct to apply that label here. One of the more interesting such elements was a wandering and mysterious pair: a Buddhist monk and a Taoist Priest who showed up at various points, to offer sage advice, or prophetic warning, and who would then usually vanish.

I think they were probably representative of a spiritual message the author was conveying. The translator wrote:

From the Buddhist and Taoist points of view the answer might be: It is a story of the gradual awakening, purification, and final transcendence of a soul originally sunk in the slime of temporal and material strivings.

I enjoyed this read, though I didn’t quite love it, but it’s good to get out of my comfort zone, and it was interesting to learn about Imperial Chinese Aristocratic society. It was a reminder, that although we have very different ways and customs – people everywhere are remarkably similar.

My rating: 3 ½ of 5 stars

 

This novel satisfies – Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 – Category: a classic with a color in the title. It also completes the 2018 Challenge.

Other excerpts:

From the Pao Yu’s dream, description of wine he is offered:

It is prepared from the pollen of a hundred flowers, the juices of a thousand plants, the marrow of uniciorns, and the milk of the phoenix, and it is called A Thousand Delights in One Goblet

And this I found curios. At one period of studious determination in Pao Yu’s life it says:

Early to bed and early to rise was the watchword now.

Curious, because it is an apparent quotation of Benjamin Franklin, who could have been known to the translator, but probably not the author.

Finally of note, at one point in the novel a play is enacted, portraying one of the earlier Great Chinese novels, Journey to the West.

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The Five Orange Pips - a Sherlock Holmes short story

The Five Orange Pips by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a Sherlock Holmes short story

The Five Orange Pips is part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collection and Holmes’ 11^thcase.

I congratulate myself on two counts – First, I think I was actually ahead of Sherlock in solving this mystery. 

The client relates how his uncle and then father died under suspicious circumstances, after receiving ominous notes, each containing five orange pips, and that he, the client, has now received a similar communiqué.  The uncle emigrated to the United States, made a small fortune, fought for the Confederacy, and then returned to England, where he led a private and friendless life.

SPOILER ALERT – The following contains a spoiler.

When the uncle receives the threatening note, singed by K.K.K. I was immediately suspicious of the Ku Klux Klan. Doyle’s English readers were probably less familiar with the K.K.K., so it was probably more astonishing for Sherlock to draw upon his encyclopedic well of knowledge to make the connection – but for me, considering the victim's history, it was a fairly obvious nexus.

The case is unusual in several respects. Although Holmes solves the case, he fails to act quickly enough to prevent his client’s murder or to see the culprits arrested – though fate deals out justice quite nicely.

Oh yes, my second point of self-congratulation. I am slowly making my way through The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, which purports to put all of Holmes’ cases into chronological order, and I have detected an error in the arrangement. When discussing this case, Holmes asserts:

I think, Watson…that of all our cases we have had none more fantastic than this.

And Watson replies:

Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.

Which clearly refutes the order in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes in which The Sign of the Four does not occur for some time yet.

Perhaps I should take up sleuthing.

Two amusing bits of dialogue. When a visitor is noted on a particularly dismal London night, Watson wonders if it is one of Sherlock’s friends. Holmes replies:

Except yourself, I have none

A bit later, when the client expresses his impression of Holmes’ reputation, that he was “never beaten” Holmes, in rare humility admits:

I have been beaten four times – three times by men and once by a woman.

The woman is almost certainly Irene Adler – of the three men, I am uncertain. Holmes has not yet encountered Professor Moriarty.

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Six Degrees of Separation: From Vanity Fair to 1984

Six Degree of Separation is a monthly meme hosted by Kate @ Books Are My Favorite and Best.

This month’s chain begins with Vanity Fair by William Thackeray which I have read and loved; however, I also used Vanity Fair in the August version of six degrees. So, I will force myself to a different path. 

Vanity Fair is subtitled A Novel Without a Hero. So, I decided to follow the “no hero” path, but it was a bit difficult, as I have read many novels that had no hero. I decided on, one of the greatest novels of all time, and yet without a hero…

The Great Gatsby – which has a certain vibe that reminds me a little of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I think it’s partially the café society, opulence, and hedonism, but more so, it was a similarity between Jay Gatsby and Holly Golightly; both shamelessly pursuing their goals, aloof to the disapproval of others. Holly, as an intrepid female lead, reminds me of…

Dagny Taggert from Atlas Shrugged (just the intrepid part, they are very different otherwise). Nonetheless, in Atlas Shrugged there is a hidden civilization – a sequestered utopia, which reminds me of…

Shangri La in Lost Horizon. In fact, there is a very distinct similarity. Both authors depict someone hearing music that they find unmistakably in the style of some dead or missing composer – and the reader later learns it is indeed from the very composer – who isn’t dead after all, with a piece of their music leaking to the outside world. James Hilton should maybe sue Ayn Rand. But, back to six degrees: in Lost Horizon, utopia isn’t really all that, much like the…

Brave New World – one of the great dystopian novels ever. But if I follow that tack, THE greatest dystopian novel is probably…

1984.

And that – is how you get from Vanity Fair to 1984.

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The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky (novel #113)

(translation by Eva Martin)

I made up my mind to be honest, and steadfast in accomplishing my task. Perhaps I shall meet with troubles and many disappointments, but I have made up my mind to be polite and sincere to everyone; more cannot be asked of me. People may consider me a child if they like. I am often called an idiot, and at one time I was certainly so ill that I was nearly as bad as an idiot; but I am not an idiot now. How can I possibly be so when I know myself that I am considered one? ~ Prince Muishkin

This is the first time I’ve read The Idiot and the third novel I’ve read by Dostoevsky. Due to my previous experiences and a peek at a synopsis, I was anticipating a very enjoyable read.

But no! I was quite disappointed. I really wanted to love this for both my admiration of the author and my interest in the premise: the story of a man so sincere, so kind, so artless, that he was thought an idiot by his acquaintances. The title character is Dostoevsky’s

…positively good and beautiful man

Characters in the novel said of him:

You are more honest than all, and better, nobler, kinder, wiser than all. There are some here who are unworthy to bend and pick up the handkerchief you have just dropped. ~ Aglaya Ivanovna

 

I ought to tell you that I never in my life met a man anything like him for noble simplicity of mind and for boundless trustfulness. I guessed that anyone who lied could deceive him, and that he would immediately forgive anyone who did deceive him… ~ Nastasia Philipovna

To be astonished by nothing is a sign, they say, of a great intellect. ~ Hippolyte commenting on the Prince’s unflappable character

Besides wanting to love the novel, I also wanted to love the protagonist, Prince Muishkin, and I did – at first. But as the novel wears on, I confess I began to think him rather absurd myself, though not quite an idiot.

But most of the characters were absurd. Aglaya Ivanovna – the fickle and flighty love interest of the Prince; Nastasia Philipovna – her beautiful and bitter rival; Rogojin the vicious and vain antithesis to the Prince; Hippolyte the tedious and tubercular nihilist; Elizabetha Prokofievna the proper and passionate mother of Aglaya; and on and on.

Perhaps it suffered in translation, translation not of words, but translation of 19^thcentury Russian society vs 21^stcentury Western society – perhaps, but that can’t really explain it fully. I loved The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment after all.

Perhaps I’m the idiot, but this just didn’t work for me. I’m sorry brother D, but I feel I’m being generous to even give this…

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dostoevsky said himself:

I do not stand behind the novel, but I do stand behind the idea.

I agree with that.

This novel satisfies – Back to the Classics Challenge 2018 – Category: a classic in translation.

Other excerpts:

In a word, the world spoke well of the girls; [Aglaya and her sisters] but they were not without their enemies, and occasionally, people talked with horror of the number of books they had read.

A fool with a heart and no brains is just as unhappy as a fool with brains and no heart. ~ Elizabetha Prokofievna

Exactly as is a mother’s joy when her baby smiles for the first time into her eyes, so is God’s joy when one of his children turns and prays to Him for the first time, with all his heart. ~ Prince Muishkin

Things are hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes. ~ Lebedeff

References to Classic Literature

Don Quixote

Gogol

Hamlet

Moliere

Madame Bovary

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The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (novel #112)

All men, however highly educated retain some superstitious inklings. The feeling that is called “eerie” came upon him. ~ narrative of Dr. Kemp’s feelings as he enters a room, not knowing the invisible man is present.

This was a reread, so I knew what to expect. Wells does a good job of describing the terror and panic the invisible man creates, added with just a bit of comic relief. But like my previous read, Dr. Jekyll, I think there was some profound commentary on the nature of man that is bigger than the scary story.

The reader does not encounter Griffin before he makes himself irreversibly invisible; however, with a few reminisces, the reader can only assume he was a fairly decent chap.

But then – endued with this tremendous power, he is quickly transformed into a pretty awful human being. He steals without scruple, and eventually murders. He reasons that he will have to murder again and is quite comfortable with the notion. He eventually threatens

…a reign of terror.

I think Wells was demonstrating that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don’t think invisibility is exactly absolute power, but nonetheless is certainly corrupts Griffin.

Less profound, but very interesting was another nuance to invisibility that Wells was clever to point out – that while invisibility has some advantages, it certainly has severe inconveniences as well:  such as the need to be completely naked, and the inability to hold or carry objects without detection.

It was a fun read, entertaining, good – not great.

My rating: 3 ½ of 5 stars

This is the second Horror/Thriller I read for Halloween and The Classics Club – Get Your Goth on Dare. (the other being The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

Reference to other classic literature. The invisible man’s footprint is described as

…isolated and incomprehensible to them as Crusoe’s solitary discovery

Interesting fact: if a person were completely invisible, they would be blind. Something to do with the way the eye reflects light, and the brain interprets the sensory input. Invisibility would mean light would pass through the invisible eye without reflecting, and the person would be blind. Of course, in fantasy anything is possible.

Note: The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells is not to be confused with Invisible Man [without “The”] by Ralph Ellison.

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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (novel #111)

…all human beings, as we meet them, are comingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil. ~ Dr. Jekyll

This is one of those novels (novella actually), that even though I’d never read it, or even watched a movie version, I was quite familiar with the plot. 

However, it was not what I expected: a classic thriller, pursuit of a maniacal villain, grotesque horrors, and satisfying justice. Nope.

Which in one sense was disappointing. I decided to read a few macabre tales for Halloween, and even though this is typically classified as horror, it isn’t very scary. It wasn’t quite what I hoped for. There is little portrayal of Hyde’s villainy – the reader is simply asked to believe he is despicable at the assertion of Dr. Jekyll.

In one sense, disappointing; in another more profound than I anticipated. I think more was intended than just a fantastic tale. Stevenson quite clearly believes in a dichotomy within man – the divine creation and the depraved sinner struggling within a single human vessel. Something akin to the familiar portrayal of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, arguing with our conscience. By experimentation, and unlucky chance, Dr. Jekyll concocts an elixir that is able to isolate his two natures. Under its influence, he is transformed into the villain Mr. Hyde. 

I am of a similar mind as Stevenson. I think every human has the ability to do good and evil. More than just ability, competing proclivities: a divine spark endowed by the creator and a bent to sin inherited from Adam. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an interesting drama of the contest between the two, though I am unnerved by the apparent conclusion – that man cannot subdue his depraved nature.

Well actually, I agree with that but would add: apart from divine grace.

My rating: 3 ½ of 5 stars

I read this for The Classics Club - Get Your Goth on Dare.

And now, for my next Halloween-themed Horror, another tale that explores the two natures of man: The Invisible Man.

Excerpts:

Most of the story is told from the point of view of London attorney Gabriel Utterson. Both excerpts are descriptions of Utterson.

In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. 

Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the light-hearted and loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company, practicing for solitude, sobering their minds in the man’s rich silence after the expense and strain of gaiety.

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