War & Peace - The wrap-up post

This is going up a bit late because... it is. Sorry!!

I am going to talk a bit about the epilogues at the end of the post in case anybody who hasn't read the book wants to read my overall thoughts.

But before I start answering the survey, I just want to say a huge thank you to Hanna for hosting the whole thing and providing excellent prompts, and to Charlotte for providing equally excellent prompts in the weeks that Hanna was unable to. And I think that all of us who participated deserve a pat on the back for making it to the end. YAY US!

And although this readalong was a bit painful at times (more on this below!), I am also so up for doing another one!! I just need a few months to enjoy reading at my own pace first, hehe.



1. Was War & Peace what you expected or did it surprise you?

I expected a really long book that had bits about war and bits about peace in it, so I guess it was! What I wasn't expecting though was how gossipy it would be, and I also wasn't expecting to kind of hate most of the characters, hehe.

2. What was your favourite part?

Oh, I don't know! I liked any of the parts that were sort of gossipy and full of scandal, they were definitely the most fun to read.

3. Least favourite part?

The epilogues. I didn't think it could get more boring than the hunting trip, but I was wrong!!

4. Have you learned anything from War & Peace? Either Russian history, or in a more abstract, how-to-read-big-books way?

I have learnt that the Russian aristocracy all spoke French most of the time. Also I feel like I have learnt a bit about how wars were fought at that time and about Russian history (the only bit of Russian history that I knew beforehand is all to do with the revolution and then the history up to now, so pretty much everything in the book was new to me!)

I learnt that reading big books is much more fun when you're doing it with a group of other people rather than going it alone! I really wish I had read infinite jest with a group now.

5. Be honest, how close did you come to giving up?

I think the closest I came was the week where I ended up really behind, but I was never THAT close. I idly toyed with the idea of giving up, but I think I would have been really annoyed at myself if I had. But if I had been reading it by myself, I think I probably would have given up the first time it went into a war section.

...Actually having written about the epilogues below, I have to say I came pretty close to giving up during the epilogues. But I would have kicked myself for that afterwards, so I'm glad I didn't. I do wish that I had gone with my other idea to just completely skim read most of it though, haha.

6. How did it feel when you FINALLY finished?

Like I had just wasted too much time reading the epilogues. Urgh. But I was also very happy that I was able to read something else, and I am impressed that I actually finished it! I'm allowed to be impressed with myself, right??

7. What's the first book you're going to pick up without Tolstoy-induced guilt?

The first thing I read after finishing was Ms. Marvel volume 2 (it was excellent!), and I am currently reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman, which I should really have finished by now, but I am not getting much reading done at the moment. I am enjoying it though!

8. Would you recommend this book to a friend? Would you reread it? 

Ooh that's tricky. If I had a friend who was considering reading it, then I think I would point out that it was actually way easier to read than I thought it would be and much more fun in parts, but that there were whole sections when I was shouting SHUT UP ALREADY TOLSTOY! in my head... so I'm not sure that would really be a recommendation. I think if someone I knew was already interested in reading it, I wouldn't try to put them off, but I don't think that I would particularly encourage them. And no. I would not reread it. Unless I ended up with wayyyy too much free time on my hands and no money to buy new books (libraries are not so much of an option for me).

But having said that, I did enjoy it way more than I thought I would, and I am really glad that I've read it!




And now, epilogue based talk. There will be spoilers from this point on, beware spoilerphobes!




The epilogues.... did anybody enjoy them? I really wish that they hadn't existed, because although they wrapped up the question of what was going to happen to Marya and Nikolai, and Pierre and Natasha, they didn't really clear anything else up or have any other purpose. They made me dislike Nikolai EVEN MORE, and honestly after I found out that both couples ended up together, I didn't care about anything else. And then the second half where he was just going ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON about how all historians are crap or... whatever it was he was talking about, I actually found myself going "OH MY GOD SHUT UP!!!" at the book a few times.

After having read the whole book, I have to say that I am very glad that people have sort of worked out what makes a story successful now, and that most modern authors know how to tell stories without including massive irrelevant bits in them. Let's face it, if this was a  manuscript that was submitted today, huge chunks would have been cut out of it, because there was so much stuff that just did not need to be there. Maybe people now do have shorter attention spans, but honestly I just found myself going "SERIOUSLY? You are still talking about this?!?!" quite a few times while reading.

So yes, in conclusion: Tolstoy needed an editor (or a better editor if he did actually have one!)


BUT WE DID IT!

*Happy dance*

War and Peace - Week 11

Wow, we got to the end of the actual book!!! *Is ignoring the fact that there's still 100 pages of epilogues*

Seeing as it wasn't in the questions... The prediction I made about one of the Rostovs dying was right!!!! I WIN!!! (I rarely predict things accurately so I'm happy about it, even though I feel like I probably shouldn't be celebrating Petya's death. After all, he wasn't one of the characters that I particularly disliked, although I feel like his enthusiasm for war was probably not too advisable). I found it weird that there was no mention of him for ages and then he showed up and was the centre of the narrative for a few chapters and then just died. But, that seems to be how this book goes!

1) Do you think the book ended in a funny place or did it seem like a logical place for the story to end?

I think actually I would be okay with it ending without any epilogues or anything, because I think there was enough to go on to guess what would happen afterwards. In other ways though, the novel kind of jumps around in time a bit anyway and glosses over important things that happened, so I'm interested in seeing what makes the epilogues different from the main text. If anything.

2) How do you see the characters five years on from now? Will everybody get a happy ever after? 

I... am no good at doing 5 years in the future things, so I'm just going to skip to the next part of the question! Hmm, it seems that Natasha and Pierre will (if getting married is a happy ending - I'm not entirely sure that any marriage with Natasha in is going to end happily, but in the book the definition of a happy marriage seems to be being able to put up with each other and not being openly mean about or to the other person, so they might manage that?

I'm trying to think who else apart from Pierre I actually care about... It seems like Marya and elder Rostov boy will end up being married, which I think would be good and a happy ending for Marya if Rostov stops being an idiot and grows up!

I'm worried about Sonya, but maybe she'll meet someone else or you know.. do something fulfilling with her life! That would be good.

I don't care about anybody else. Hehe.

3) Do you think Tolstoy is a biased narrator? If so, in what way?

Yes. Although I think he is trying to be as fair as he can about the war stuff, he is still obviously supporting the Russian side. I think he does a fairly okay job with not making all Russians out to be heroes or particularly nice people though, all in all. It's the kind of bias that is understandable, and I do like that he does make an effort to see things from the other side some of the time.

4) Are you still enjoying this book or are you honestly just waiting for the damn thing to stop talking?

Hmm, this is sort of difficult to answer. I'm not enjoying it like I enjoy my favourite books, but reading it has been really interesting and I do want to know how everything turns out. I'm not sick of it yet, but I am looking forward to it being over! Hehe. I honestly am very glad that I decided to join in with the readalong, there have been several points along the way when I've considered quitting (including before I started, and any time there were lots of war based chapters) but I am really glad that I stuck with it!

I think it has actually taken me quite a while to get into the rhythm of the book, and I am now finding that the war bits don't bother me so much because I know what to expect.... I think I would actually enjoy the book much more if I re-read it, but the chances of that happening are very very low. If nothing else, now that this week's reading has pretty much confirmed that Tolstoy is a massive misogynist (I was giving him the benefit of the doubt before, but that whole bit about intelligent women made me angry), I think I would be much more annoyed by the sexism if I re-read it.



Only the epilogues to go now! Woohoo!!! I am really looking forward to reading other things. So much so that I'm going to try to get through the epilogues today, yayy!!

War and Peace - Week 10

Well.. this week's reading wasn't particularly exciting, was it?! I am hoping for better things next week. I actually finished it on Wednesday and Thursday, and can't REALLY remember much of what happened in it, so this bodes well for the blog post doesn't it! Hehe.

I actually cannot believe that we have been doing this for 10 weeks. I don't think I have ever been reading the same book for so long, I am itching to go and read something else (I didn't have enough time last week to fit something else in and finish it, and I have realised that I don't like having two novels on the go at once and am really not in a non-fiction/short story place right now, so for this week I have prepared a small stack of comics to read, yay! I do really want to read another novel though, hehe).

1)  The only bit of this week's war-themed escapades that I really took in was a small section where it got interesting and the Russians started getting ready to attack the French but then got confused because they couldn't find somebody or other so they did it the next day and botched it again because they went crazy and just started trying to beat on some French people.  Does anybody feel as though they're learning?

I feel like I am learning a bit about what happened, but I also feel like although Tolstoy seems to be doing a good job of being fair to both sides, I can't quite trust his version of events. I have definitely learnt way more about the war than I knew before (which was basically that the French weren't prepared for a Russian winter), but I had no idea that they had occupied Moscow! I do not know much history at all, hehe. I would like to know more about European history but first I feel like I should learn a bit about the history of Japan seeing as I live here and everything! All I know really is a little bit about the Meiji restoration and then what has happened since - anything before then I'm a bit clueless about.

2)  Clearly Tolstoy's not a Napoleon fan - as far as Tolstoy's concerned, he's lucky at best. Thoughts?

Hmm, I got the impression that he thought that Napoleon was capable (especially earlier in the book), but that he was human and had maybe overestimated his talents. From pop culture in general I always got the impression of Napoleon being a complete arse, but this book has actually made me wonder if that is the case, hehe. I should really go and read up about Napoleon in general, but I'll be honest and say that it is very unlikely that I will.

3)  According to Shmoop, Pierre's only been in prison for four weeks.  And in four weeks he's decided to completely re-write his personality while shedding some pounds.  I've been surprised by how well Tolstoy has portrayed the French's treatment of their prisoners.  Maybe he's not so biased after all? [I realise that's not technically a question but I'm late so we're going with it]

Aww, poor Pierre! As I said up there *points* I actually feel like Tolstoy is pretty fair to both sides - he doesn't really imply that the Russians are completely amazing, and he doesn't really portray the French as evil or anything. I think that he is probably treating both sides as fairly as he could given that he himself is Russian and therefore obviously a bit biased. It seems to me that this whole era is pretty interesting, as most of the aristocracy speak to each other in French, and France seems to have been held in quite high regard before the war, so it seems like everyone is kind of treating the other side as humans, rather than just seeing them as the enemy. Does that make sense?

4)  This might be a ridiculous question given that some of you may not be flying by the seat of your pants and only just staying caught up (like nobody around here, obviously) but is anybody else worried that the final two books are going to be all about Napoleon trudging back across Russia and that we're only going to get back to the characters we actually care about in retrospect when we hit the Epilogues?!

I wasn't worried before, but I am now!!! Thinking about it, it is completely possible. I guess that we will just have to wait and see what this week's reading brings. I have sort of learnt not to expect major events to be properly covered, as Tolstoy seems to gloss over lots of things that I would have expected a book of this length to take time over, and then concentrate intensely on things that aren't at all important (like that stupid hunting trip!). So I don't really have that high expectations for the end of the novel - not that I am not enjoying the book in general! I am really glad that I joined this readalong, because I don't think I would have got through this in a million years if it was just me!

I think actually that if the final two books are just about the war and then everything to do with the characters that I mostly dislike is in the epilogues, I will actually be able to get through the epilogues, whereas if everyone's story is wrapped up in the last two books and the epilogues are about the war, I might struggle a lot! We'll see, I guess.

War and Peace - Week 9

Hello!

I accidentally fell behind with War and Peace BUT I managed to catch up and am only sort of late this week. Huzzah! I actually quite enjoyed reading a lot of it in one chunk as I did over the past week and a half, and although I am also looking forward to finishing it, I think I'll be a bit sad when it's over!

1)  With the multiple deaths, this week started to feel a little more like Tolstoy was starting to wrap up some of his characters' stories. How do you feel about the way Helene's death was dealt with compared to Andrew's?

Helene's death was so... glossed over. I feel like the only characters who actually get decent deaths in this book are men, which is annoying but oh well. It came out of nowhere for me, and I think she may have just died to make it easier for Pierre to go off and marry someone else.

2)  I certainly wouldn't go so far as to call myself a Pierre fan but his experiences as a prisoner were quite moving. How do you think Pierre is going to fare as we approach the end of the novel?

I actually think I like Pierre the most out of everyone in the novel. He does completely unnecessary things (like going off to war and just riding around seeing what was going on and getting in everyone's way... why?!), but in general I find his bumbling around quite endearing! I really hope he is heading towards a happy ending, even if that means marrying Natasha (which at this point is sort of inevitable, no? All the obstacles have disappeared!) who I am not a huge fan of, but if it makes Pierre happy I don't mind.

3)  Now the competition's opened back up, who are you backing for Nicholas Rostov's future wife, rich heiress Mary or devoted Sonya?

I dislike Rostov so don't think he really deserves either of them! However, it does seem like unless Sonya suddenly stumbles into a fortune he is going to end up with Marya, and that would make her happy it seems. I feel sorry for Sonya but at least she does have the Rostovs in general, whereas Marya has pretty much nobody at this point. Much as I dislike Nicholas I think he would actually treat Marya nicely, which is much better than if she had ended up with that annoying idiot (whose name I am blanking on, you know who I mean!!)

4)   The Rostovs have always been my favourite family in War and Peace and seeing them from Mary's perspective was a little bit sad.  How is everyone feeling about how things are going for them?

I feel bad for them. They do seem to always want to try and do the right thing and other people just take advantage of them. I feel like they might be happier in general to just give up a lot of their money and be a poor but happy family! I think that it will work out for them in the end though, hopefully! Although I still think that one of the Rostov boys might die. Have we actually heard anything about Petyr (is that his name??? Argh! I am not doing well today) since he joined the army?


Not much longer to go now!!! I am going to do my best to not fall behind again.

War and Peace - Week 6

I know everybody else seems to have got to the halfway point last week, but in my copy we passed it this week. Huzzah! I keep on saying this, but I honestly didn't think I would make it this far. This week's chapters were hardly inspiring though. Hmm. This probably wasn't helped by the fact that I've had a really bad cold since last Tuesday which has made my thinking a little bit foggy, so I'm actually kind of struggling to recall what happened in the book clearly, even though I finished the reading on Saturday. Oh well..

1) Honestly, by this point in the book (55% or so), do you think War & Peace could have been shorter or did it need to be this long?

It definitely could have been shorter. There are parts that I don't think anybody could really complain about being cut, like the boring hunting bit from a couple of weeks ago. I guess though with it being this length it does have something for everyone? Like the first chapter this week about why wars happen would be interesting if you liked philosophy, and the war bits in general would be interesting if you are interested in military tactics or how wars were fought then (this is the most interesting bit about the war parts for me - the way that people fought seems to be really radically different than how wars seem to work now. I am sure there are people who care more about the war stuff who hate when the novel goes into gossip/scandal mode, although those are my favourite bits!

2) Do you feel there's been another change in tone? Why do you think Tolstoy keeps doing this? Do you like it?  

Hmm I'm not sure I'd say it's a change in tone, in that the book is kind of a bit all over the place tonally anyway. It's definitely different from last week, but we have had these kinds of chapters before. I know it took a lonnnng time to write the book, so I wonder if the shifts in tone throughout the book reflect the time in life that he wrote certain parts? Maybe! I like it when it shifts to a tone that I enjoy, haha.

3) Natasha. AAAAAAAAAND GO.  

Natasha didn't really annoy me this week. Of all of the posts for last week that I saw, I seemed to be the least annoyed with her anyway, so I found her quite tolerable this week. And she apparently gave her family joy by being ill and giving them all something to do?? I think maybe everybody who is supposed to be good in this novel just has a massive martyr complex, it's weird. Anyway, she wasn't too bad although she obviously is still being quite selfish, but I think maybe she's taking the time to reflect on her actions and hopefully she'll end up being a better person?

4) Pierre has convinced himself (via numerology, obviously) that Napoleon is the Antichrist from The Book of Revelation. Is this in character for Pierre? How do you think he'll act on this?

Oh Pierre. He's so... gullible. And weird. I don't know. I think it is in character, as he did hear about the freemasons and immediately jumped on board with that, so yeah. I think he must just be really bored, so he just grabs onto whatever crazy thing floats his way. I don't know if he'll do anything about this! I bet it was just Tolstoy finding some book which mentions that at some point and going "YES! The novel definitely isn't long enough yet, now I have another weird tangent to go off on for no reason! Huzzah!". I did enjoy the way that Pierre played around with his name to get it to fit the pattern, and then was very pleased when it did even though what he did didn't actually make any sense. Oh Pierre.


------

Is anybody else thinking that now there are going to be two Rostovs off fighting, one of them is definitely either going to be horrifically injured, or die at some point soon? I have a theory about what is going to happen, so I am interested to see if I'm right. (I would write it here, but I hate spoilers myself, and I have read fan theories before that have actually turned out to be correct and I've ended up feeling disappointed. Mind you, I am REALLY BAD at predicting what is going to happen, even when it is apparently really really obvious to everyone else, so I'm probably wrong anyway!)

War and Peace - Week 5

Another week, even fewer characters that I don't actively dislike. Haha. I managed to finish my reading on time this week, yayy! 

1) Could the disastrous meeting between Marya and Natasha have gone any other way? Who was to blame?

I don't think so. They were both being a bit stupid about it in the first place (if I recall correctly - I think my brain was so overtaken by the Natasha/Anatole drama that happens later that I have forgotten the details!), so I think they share the blame. I would say that Natasha is more to blame for it, but can you imagine how awkward it would be meeting the family of your significant other without said significant other not actually being there!? So much as I grew to dislike Natasha this week, I don't think it's entirely her fault.

2) Everyone seems to be secretly considering Marya for marriage at the moment. Do you think it will ever happen for her? Was Boris right to pick Julie?

I hope not, because marriage doesn't seem to be a particularly great thing in this book! Seeing as she is one of the characters who I actually don't dislike, I want her to get away from her family and.. I don't know, do some charity work or something because she would be good at that. And I think she would be much happier than she is at the moment. Poor Marya! Although she could do with learning to actually stick up for herself and that she doesn't just have to accept what is going on around her.

Boris and Julie? I don't really care. Maybe Julie will be more likely to actually stand up for herself, which is good? I do feel though in some ways that the message of this book is that marriage sucks, so I find it hard to support anything to do with marriage!!

3) There's too much drama with Natasha for me to formulate an all-encompassing question, so... I don't know. Discuss.

Oh Natasha. The Rostovs are slowly slipping down my tolerability scale (seriously, I really don't like anyone in this novel at all. I don't mind not having any likeable characters, but given how many characters there are I was expecting to like at least a couple of them!). They all seem so completely naive and clueless as to what is going on around them, and don't seem to be able to grasp the idea that people might not necessarily be what they seem on the surface. I would like to give Natasha the benefit of the doubt and say that she probably didn't really mean to hurt people in the way that she did or act so horribly, but she seems completely incapable of thinking through anything that she does or considering the consequences of any of her actions.

I am not really the biggest Andrei fan (or a fan at all), but seeing as he does seem to be making an effort to be a better person, I do feel bad for him. I think though that Anatole deserves his fair share of the blame for what happened here, obviously, but Natasha could have just not gone OOH PRETTY and run after him the way that she did. If you're mooning over someone for months and going on about how in love you are with them, you don't then run off with the next handsome person who pays you a bit of attention!

Urgh. I don't know. On the one hand I do feel a bit sorry for her as her only purpose in life seems to be to get married, which must be pretty depressing. I sort of don't blame her for wanting a little bit of excitement in her life? Still though...

4) Lots of characters are being fairly dickish this week. Who wins the prize for the person you'd most like to slap?  

At the moment I just feel very grateful that I don't live in the same kind of world or society that is portrayed in the book! So I'm not really that angry with any of the characters, just grateful its not me. If I have to choose though, I think I'll go for Anatole, as he seems to just go through life lying to everyone so he can have affairs with as many women as possible, and thinking that being charming can get him out of anything. I mean, obviously it can because it seems to be working for him, but he is a completely despicable human being. If the women who are going into it knew what kind of man he was then I wouldn't have a problem with it, but he obviously manipulates people into doing what he wants like he did with Natasha (she is obviously not entirely blameless, but I do feel she is more the victim here of both Anatole and her own stupidity). I am so glad that I don't know anybody like that!


There was soooo much drama this week, which is good as I think I like this book best when it is drama filled! Fingers crossed for another drama filled week!!

War and Peace - Week 4

Yayyy week 4! And we're almost halfway through the book!!!

I had (another) bad week this week - I started reading the chapters on Sunday!!! I really could have done what I did last week and read the chapters early in the week too, but I was putting off doing my taxes, so also put off all of the other things that I wanted to do and instead spent hours on my phone doing nothing. Does anybody else do that? It's so stupid, if I'm not going to do stuff I'm supposed to be doing, I may as well do stuff that I want to do, rather than mindlessly play stupid games.

Then when I did start reading, the first two chapters were all about Prince Andrei who I still dislike so I was put off slightly by that, but once I actually got into this week's reading properly I zoomed through it. Who knew that this would be a book where catching up wouldn't actually be a painful process? Yay War and Peace!

Anyway, on with this week's questions! Thank you as always to Hanna for being lovely and giving us all set things to talk about each week!

1) Do you feel that the tone of the novel changed this week?

Yes, a little... for one thing, there was almost no focus at all on the war aspect, it just seemed to mostly be about the mundane details of everyday life. Nothing that much really happened this week, which was a bit of a change from the whirlwind that was week 3!

2) Do you think that the story is uniquely Russian, or could it have been set somewhere else?

I feel like I don't have enough knowledge about either Russia or anywhere else at this period of time to be able to answer this! I do end up feeling quite a big culture gap sometimes when reading as I find it difficult to see how conversations work sometimes (as in, somebody will ask a question and then somebody else will reply with something that doesn't seem to make sense to me - is this a Russian thing, is it just the translation I'm reading, or is it just me being thick?)

But if a completely uninformed answer is okay, I feel like for the most part the peace parts could have easily been set in any European country with an aristocracy at the time and not really change THAT much, but seeing as half of the story is about war, I guess that part would be really different if it wasn't about Russia.

3) How about Andrey and Natasha's nupitals? Will they ever get married and do you think it will work out?

Although I still dislike Andrei, I did end up warming to him slightly this week if only because of his new association with the Rostovs and Natasha, who I think I might like, although I don't really understand her behaviour a lot of the time. So I do kind of hope that it works out, and that they actually have a happy marriage and change each other for the better! But I have to say that I found myself, as I do with all classics that I read, annoyed by the fact that the feelings of lust that they were both clearly having were talked about as being love. I really think that true love is something that takes time to develop, and sure, you can be infatuated by somebody when you first meet them, but until you actually know them properly I'm not sure that you can love love somebody. (On a personal, slightly soppy note, I say this as someone who actually experienced "Love at first sight" as described by most literature with my husband, but although I sort of knew somewhere that he might be "the one" (and I'm not sure that I believe that there is one person for everyone) when we first met, I would still say that it took a good while before I knew that he was the one for me for sure.)

Anyway, I do hope that it works out. It would be nice to see a healthy relationship in this book!! I think the signs are good so far as nobody really seems to have manipulated them into this.

4) Could Rostov have done more to help out his parents with their financial situation?

Yes. He annoys me a LOT. His mother begs him to come home and help sort stuff out and dig them out of the mess that he helped create (although it seems like his dad is just kind of useless with money anyway, so Rostov being an idiot has just made what would have already been bad slightly worse), and then when he comes home he's like, oh actually sorting stuff out is too hard, I'm going to go hunting all of the time and arse around instead.

I am not impressed. Although I'm not really impressed with his parents either, be more sensible with money you fools!!! (I am a weirdo who actually enjoys saving money, and is sensible to the point of being very boring about spending it, so it pains me to see people still making silly decisions about money when they're in financial difficulty. I end up having to remind myself that I am lucky that managing my money sensibly comes naturally to me, and that for some people it is as difficult as it is for me to stop myself from stuffing my face with chocolate a few times a week.)

I am glad though that he decided not to marry for money, although I do get that this would probably have helped his family a lot. But I hope that somebody in his family gets their act together and actually does something about their money situation, even if that is just changing their family's lifestyle so they're living within their means. I guess at least it seems like they are helping out a lot of other people with their stupid money decisions, even if they're not helping themselves.

5) How do you feel about the lengthy hunting descriptions? Did you read the whole thing?

Boring. I read it, but in a way where I was just sort of seeing the words but my mind was somewhere else. This happens sometimes anyway, but normally when it does and I realise I go back and re-read what I have missed, but I didn't bother this time. I still don't really know what happened in those chapters, but oh well!



Overall, I am still enjoying the book and finding it pretty easy to read, but I do feel like this week's chapters weren't the most interesting, especially the last part. Although all of the talk of instruments that I had never heard of led me to listen to some Russian folk music which wasn't at all what I imagined Russian folk music would be like, so that was interesting! I hope that the next section has less lengthy descriptions of hunting and more plot development!

On a side note, I got annoyed at how patronising the men were being about Natasha's horse riding ability (I'm sure they thought they were being complimentary, but shhh, silly men). Did they realise that she was managing to ride as well as they were and doing it all side-saddle, which seems to me the most illogical way to ride a horse ever?! BE MORE IMPRESSED! I never really got why it was women who ended up riding horses this way, as surely it would make more sense for men who have very sensitive parts between their legs. Women's sensitive parts are at least hidden away and protected somewhat! I also never really understood why trousers were seen as a men's thing, when they make SO MUCH MORE SENSE for women.

Ahem, anyway... I am going to start reading the next bit today, so hopefully I will end up finishing on time!!! I do seem to have a fallen into a pattern of being behind every other week, it's irritating me!!!

War and Peace - Week 3

Wow, the chapters for week three were pretty exciting! So much happened! I have said this in various comments, but I raced through the reading and finished it all on Wednesday. Of course, this means that unlike last time when I had literally just finished reading before I started writing the post, I have had more time to get mixed up about who did what, but never mind!

I was planning on writing a longer post tomorrow for week three's reading, but I don't think I will have enough time to unfortunately. Maybe I should just face facts and realise that I will never be able to write a decent length post about it? Oh well!


1) Are you managing to keep all the characters straight in your head?

All of the important ones, yes, I think. I didn't have any moment this week where I realised halfway through that the character they were talking about was completely different to the one that I thought they were talking about. Phew!

2) Have your tactics that we discussed in Week One changed since beginning this book?

This week's chapters were so enjoyable that I didn't need to make much of an effort to read them, but I have actually decided to focus on trying to get all of my war and peace reading done early in the week so I can definitely finish on time, and so I can squeeze another book in towards the end of the week if I want to! It worked amazingly well last week, so I am going to try and do it again this week. Although this week I also have sorting out a new passport and taxes to contend with, so we may have a repeat of week 2. Hmm.

3) Aww, poor Pierre. Do we feel sorry for him or is it his own fault for marrying for lust?

I sort of feel sorry for him, but on the other hand he does just seem to be a complete idiot. I really hope that by the end of the book he will have a good friend (not Andrei!) who will point out when people are taking advantage of him or tricking him in some way.

4) Do you think Dolokhov will get his comeuppance - not only for sleeping with Helene, but for basically bankrupting Rostov?

Yes. I hope so, anyway! Although I find it hard to feel sorry for Rostov, because he, like Pierre, just seems to be a bit stupid. Although he is supposed to be pretty young so I guess he can be forgiven for carrying on even though it was more his family that he was getting into trouble, rather than himself. Silly Rostov.

5) Who knew the FREEMASONS were part of War & Peace!? How do you feel about this?

I had no idea! I don't know! I wonder how it is going to end up, because at first I thought they were going to take advantage of Pierre and somehow trick him out of all of his money, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case, and they do actually seem to be changing Pierre for the better, maybe. I'm not sure.

6) Do you think Tolstoy dislikes women as much as he seems to, or is it a form of satire?

Again, no idea! Hehe. I expect though that the attitudes shown in the book are more general attitudes that were prevalent at the time more than anything else, and that if it is a satire then he probably deserves a gold star for being light years ahead of most other men at the time! I think I might have to wait until the end of the book to comment properly on this one.


Other random notes:

Early on in the reading I was feeling a little bit sorry for Andrei, but then he was going on about the difference between the aristocracy and the people who work for them and I wanted to reach into the book and punch him, so BOO ANDREI! Stupid Andrei.

War and Peace - Week 2

I fell behind a little with this week's reading. Not in any way because I wasn't enjoying the book, I am definitely enjoying it. I just didn't feel like reading that much. Does anybody else have weeks like that? Normally I just end up not reading for a couple of weeks when I feel like that, but this readalong made me pick up the book again over the weekend, and I am glad that I did! Thank you readalong!

I think I said I was going to do better at writing a proper post this week, but I'm not. Haha. I SERIOUSLY need to start taking notes.

So, answers to the prompts kindly provided by Hanna!

Note - I actually ended up reading about half of this week's section (thank you insomnia!), but I have answered the questions based on the week 2 reading, rather than what I know now!


1) Do you feel that the tone of the novel has changed this week? Has that affected your enjoyment?

Yes! This week saw a lot of war related action, which I thought might be bad news for me. One of the issues that I have with books sometimes is that I find it hard to picture big action scenes, and can easily get disoriented and confused. But I didn't really have any issues here, although I will admit to not really paying that much attention to some parts.

I did find it weird to be reading something that, whilst showing the horrible side of war, also had the characters excited to be fighting. Most of the things that I've read or seen up to now (not much to be honest) have focused on how horrible and miserable war is, so it was slightly jarring to have some of the characters be so happy about the whole thing. A sign of the times that it was written in? Or is it just that I haven't exposed myself to enough things about war?

2) Do you feel comfortable telling other people that you're reading War & Peace?  

Yes. Although, I don't tell people unless I either know that they are similarly bookish or they ask me. I have only had positive responses so far, and a few people have told me that I'm brave (I say a few, I think that apart from the people in this readalong, only 4 or 5 people know, hehe). I think the danger here is people thinking that you're pretentious for reading it, but I'm not sure anybody could accuse me of reading pretentiously, given that I'll read pretty much anything as long as someone I trust has told me it's good!

3) How do you feel about Helene and Pierre's marriage? Happily ever after or mildly doomed?

Doomed. Completely doomed. Poor Pierre is a bit of a dimwit really, isn't he? He needs a good friend who will point out that people are only being nice to him because he's rich.

4) Should Marya have married Anatole or should she have stayed at home with her Father?

Neither. Marrying Anatole would obviously have ended in heartbreak for her, and staying at home with her dad who apparently cares about her but has no idea of how to show that in a sane way means she's just consigning herself to a sad life. She is the one character that I would really like to bring to life and bring to the modern world, to show her that she does have other options!

5) Andrei has featured in a lot of the war-related chapters so far. Do you think he'll ever make it to military greatness?

I thought as I was reading the chapters that that seemed to be where it was heading, but with him contemplating what is really important in life at the end of this week's reading I'm hoping that he will realise that he should maybe pay a little bit more attention to his poor wife!

I have to say that as I was reading the chapters, initially I was annoyed at all the focus on Andrei, but I think that maybe overall he is not as big of an idiot as I thought he was after last week. This may be purely because he hasn't really interacted with any women for a while. We'll see!


Other random observations:

I am looking forward to Rostov realising that he is actually in love with the emperor (or Tsar or whatever) and them running off together. I think the things that Rostov thinks about the emperor are the most passionate that any of the characters have been so far in the novel, even for the people who they supposedly love. Poor Sonya.

That bit with the ice was pretty horrific. I'm actually pretty scared of falling through ice, so it might have affected me more than the average person, but... urgh.

I really haven't read or seen that much based on any wars earlier than the first world war, so reading the battle scenes has been pretty interesting for me. It seems so weird that the characters could actually speak to the enemy before the battle (like Dolokhov and those French guys).

I think there were fewer characters to worry about this time, but I definitely feel like I'm getting a firmer grip on who everyone is. I think this is partly thanks to the Schmoop chapter summaries I've been reading (I find that I sometimes need a summary to make sure that I've actually got the main points, especially during the war parts as I do have a tendency to get slightly lost sometimes). On the other hand, there are only a few characters whose names I could also say if asked to, although I recognise their names on the page. It's like learning a language - the amount that you can actually verbalise is always less than the amount that you can understand!
---

That's it for this week!
As I said above I am already halfway through the next block of reading, and it's pretty eventful so far, so I am actually really looking forward to getting back to it. I honestly never imagined that I would enjoy the book this much, I'm so glad! <3

I think this means that I definitely need to buy a paper copy to have on my shelves after this finishes.

War and Peace - Week 1

So, we have reached the end of the first week of reading War and Peace. And I have to say, I am actually enjoying it! I finished the week's reading on Tuesday or Wednesday, and I am actually looking forward to going back to it! Yay! Unfortunately I don't have much time to write a post, so I'm just going to answer the questions kindly provided by Hanna, who is also the lovely host of this readalong. Huzzah!

1) What pre-existing ideas did you have about War & Peace?

That it is LONG. I also thought that a lot of it was based in the country and was mainly about normal everyday people, not the aristocracy. I'm not sure why I thought that though. I don't think I ever really imagined that I would read it, so I never spent much time thinking about it, haha.

2) On that note, is it as bad as you'd expected? :P

Well, I didn't really expect it to be bad! It is as long as I expected, but it is also quite easy to read and interesting. I'm really enjoying it so far!

3) What strategies are you employing?

I'm reading it on my kindle, because I had the whole holding a massive book experience when I was reading Infinite Jest, and it's not something I'm that excited to repeat! So far I have just been reading it when I feel like it, and that really worked for the first week, so I'm just going to carry on doing that!

4) How are you getting along with your translation?

Okay. I am reading the Pevear and Volokhnosky translation, and it doesn't seem to be problematic at all. Apparently it is actually fairly representative of the actual style that Tolstoy wrote in, rather than being changed a lot to read nicely in English, which in theory I approve of, but it's leaving me wondering whether I would prefer a translation where more focus is put on the readability of the English. I think if I enjoy the book enough that I want to re-read it at some point, I might try a different translation to see what the difference is.

The only thing that has really annoyed me so far about the translation is the French bits. I am not annoyed by the French remaining in the text at all (because YAY LANGUAGES!) but the translations (which are in foot notes) only have the translation of the French in. So if you have a character who is speaking a mixture of French and Russian, you have to look back to the original speech and put in the Russian. I'm sure this wouldn't be a problem really with a paper copy, but on the kindle it's irritating (if nothing else, the footnotes box thing covers up the text that the footnote is for quite often!), so I wish that they had left the Russian (translated into English of course, hehe) in there in italics or something. That is literally my only complaint though, and the amount of French seems to be decreasing as I get further into the book so it's only a minor one!

Also, I saw some talk of this on twitter, but if there are two princesses talking, it would help if their actual names were used rather than just princess!! Hehe.

5) Most and least favourite characters?

Just like in real life, it takes me a while to get to know characters well enough to say that I actually like them, so I don't really have any favourite characters yet. I dislike Prince Andrei because he is being a complete arse towards his poor wife, and what's his face and what's her name who were trying to make it so that Pierre wouldn't get his inheritance are quite nasty too! As you can see, I already have a very firm grip on all the character's names.

6) How do you feel about the way women are treated in the book?

Not particularly happy, but I think that it is a product of the time it was written in so I'm trying not to let it get to me! The things that I have read about the book have told me that Pierre is supposed to be the character who sort of represents Tolstoy in the book, and he hasn't been particularly awful to women so far, so I'm choosing to think that Tolstoy was just depicting general social attitudes at the time, rather than agreeing with what his characters are saying.


Alas, that is all that I have time for! As I said, I am really looking forward to getting back into it, so hopefully that is a sign that this will be an enjoyable few months!

War and Peace Read-along: Here we go!

For the next three months I am going to be reading War and Peace. I'm not entirely sure what I'm getting myself in for, but hopefully it'll all be okay.

I have never read any of the Russian classics before (or anything that was originally written in Russian, I don't think - I did at one point know how to say "I like little pies" in Russian, so there's that), and I don't think I've read anything in translation for ages, so it should be interesting!

I am a bit of a language geek (it comes with the being a translator territory I think!) so I am actually looking forward to seeing the differences in translation between the different editions that everyone is reading. It also means that rather than seeing the French in the first few chapters and going NOOOO, I was more like, ooooh I'm going to try to figure out what it means! I have heard there might be some German later, which I might actually be able to understand some of without looking at the footnotes. And if there is any Japanese in it (I seriously doubt it, but on the off-chance) then I'll be happy! Although actually thinking about it, any Japanese from that time period would actually be quite different from modern Japanese so I might just end up feeling sad at my inability to understand. Anyway, I'm pretty sure there isn't any Japanese, so I will stop rambling now!

The length of the book is obviously somewhat intimidating, but I have read A Suitable Boy and Infinite Jest, so I'm confident that the length shouldn't be an obstacle as long as I don't hate the book.

I already read a few chapters yesterday, and I am not only NOT hopelessly lost, but I am also actually enjoying it, which is a good sign! I also enjoyed the first few chapters of the Pickwick Papers though, so feel free to take my endorsement of the beginning with a pinch of salt. Looking back though, I can see how my experience with the Pickwick Papers turned from enjoyment to rage, and I can't really see the seeds of that here, so I'm being cautiously optimistic.

If you are not already involved in the read-along and you're interested in joining in, you can see the schedule and follow a link to the sign-up page here.

Dickens in December: I give up.

You may have noticed the lack of a Pickwick Papers update on Thursday. I was putting off formally giving up on it because I thought that I might sit down and catch up over the weekend, but I didn't, and I haven't got the slightest inclination to read any more of it. It's actually stopping me from reading other stuff, as I was feeling guilty about not reading it. So enough is enough, I quit!

You have defeated me once again, Dickens! Curse you!

Oh well! I read more than half, and I think that's a perfectly respectable amount to have read. 

I don't really understand what happened though, because I really enjoyed the first few chapters that I read. I don't know if it's because I was in a different state of mind when I was reading them, or whether it was just that the things that I was enjoying hadn't been repeated ad nauseum yet, but yeah, maybe that's just a sign of how inconsistent the book is. And how pointlessly long it is. And how desperately in need of an editor it is. I think this might be the first time that I have enjoyed a book so much at first and then ended up giving up on it. I quite often start not really liking something and warm up to it halfway through, but this is definitely a new experience for me! It's weird, I don't like it.

Still, I'm glad that I took part in the readalong! I think that this, combined with A Tale of Two Cities last year has firmly led me to the conclusion that I really don't particularly like Dickens. But if it has a plot, as Tale of Two Cities does, I can muddle through even though I dislike the way that he writes in general and find that I have to force myself to concentrate in order to figure out what is actually going on. So thank you to Bex for organising the readalong, and I'm very sorry that I wasn't able to see it through to the end.

I am glad that I didn't invest in a nice copy of the book now though! Hehe.

Is anybody still actually carrying on with the readalong?

Blog related note:

So you know, there may not be very many/any more posts from me this year. I am going to the UK for Christmas for the first time in 6 years, and need to actually start preparing for that (I'm SO EXCITED!), and I'm going to be over there until the end of the year. So if I don't post again, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas/whatever other seasonal thing you celebrate/end of December!

Dickens in December: The Pickwick Papers readalong, part 3

I did much better at reading the chapters in time this week, and my suspicions were correct: I do definitely enjoy this book more when I'm reading it at a more leisurely pace.

That being said, is it just me or was there a lot of fairly racist stuff in this week's chapters? I have no examples, because I'm not that organised, but there were a few bits where I noticed it. Sigh. Also, I had noticed this earlier but all of the female characters in this book seem to faint a lot! Was fainting actually that prevalent in that time (something to do with wearing corsets, perhaps?) or is it just Dickens being an arse?

I also feel like I'm supposed to like Sam, or empathise with him much more than with the other characters, but he is kind of leaving me cold. I don't mind when he's interacting with the main characters, but as soon as he goes off to see his father or does anything on his own he starts grating on me. How does everyone else feel about him?

Onto more positive points - I am definitely enjoying Winkle's ineptitude at everything. He is like me, although nobody would ever look at me and assume that I would be good at anything sporty, hehe. I really liked the ice skating chapter in general, although when Pickwick fell through the ice my first reaction was to think that he was going to almost die like in every other thing that I've ever read/seen where that happens.

I also like that most of the scrapes that people get into are as a result of them being extremely British and not actually talking about stuff for fear of embarrassment/embarrassing the other person.

When someone at some point started reciting (or whatever - yeah, I made no notes, sorry) A Christmas Carol, I really thought that we were going to get some prototype version of the later A Christmas Carol, which we didn't, but the goblin story was an awful lot like A Christmas Carol, right? I always think it's interesting to see stuff in earlier work that is then expanded on in later work. Makes me feel like some kind of literary detective! Although you know, the goblin story was quite boring. Why have goblins if you're not going to use them well? Silly Dickens.

When I saw that the trial had a whole chapter of its own I groaned a bit, but I actually really enjoyed the trial. It was all completely ridiculous, of course, but that is definitely not a bad thing.

Anyway, although I am enjoying some parts of the book, I am finding the whole thing is getting a bit stale. It is also far too long. If it was cut down so that only the actually interesting and amusing bits were in there, it would be much better! I am generally against abridging books, but I think I would enjoy an abridged version of this much more. This is also where actually have a plot would save the book somewhat, as at least I would (probably) want to know what happens next. As it is, I end up hoping that the next anecdote will be interesting each time I pick up the book, and I'm disappointed more often than not.


Some quotes that I enjoyed/that confused me:

‘What, Sammy!’ exclaimed the father. ‘What, old Nobs!’ ejaculated the son. And they shook hands heartily.

- I think I need to start using "What, old Nobs!" as a greeting.

"‘Fine time for them as is well wropped up, as the Polar Bear said to himself, ven he was practising his skating,’ replied Mr. Weller." 

- What is Sam going on about here? Or any of the time when he's talking?

"The chief features in the still life of the street are green shutters, lodging-bills, brass door-plates, and bell-handles; the principal specimens of animated nature, the pot-boy, the muffin youth, and the baked-potato man."

- I have no idea what a muffin youth is, but I want to be one. Or a baked-potato (wo)man. Mmm, baked potatoes.

"Veil, young brockiley sprout, wot then?"

- Young brockiley sprout, hehe.

Dickens in December: The Pickwick Papers readalong, part 2

So this is going to be short and sweet as I am not feeling particularly well.

I knew that Jingle would be back! Yay, I predicted something correctly for once! (It doesn't happen often).

I enjoyed the side anecdotes more this time round (maybe because I was expecting them and was thus mentally prepared for the break in tone from the rest of the book), but I still don't really think they belong in the story, and I kind of wish that Dickens had had a much more aggressive editor.

Ode to an Expiring Frog was amazing.

I couldn't have cared less about any of the election related stuff. My eyes kind of glazed over for most of that chapter.

I liked the old fashioned mic drop at the end of the story that the old man who was obsessed with inns was telling:

As the old man concluded his tale, he advanced to a peg in one corner, and taking down his hat and coat, put them on with great deliberation; and, without saying another word, walked slowly away.

(Although to be honest I'm not sure that the story that he told warranted it, but whatever)

I left it a bit late to start reading this week's chapters, so I'm going to try and start earlier next week. I definitely seem to enjoy the book more when I'm reading at a more leisurely pace without worrying that I'm getting behind.

I will have a more substantial post next week, I promise!

Dickens in December: The Pickwick Papers readalong, part 1

It's time to break out the Dickens again for another Dickens in December readalong, hosted by the wonderful Bex of An Armchair By The Sea.

I totally meant to do an intro post but um, I didn't, so let's just say here that before I started reading it I knew next to nothing about the book. In general I'm not really a massive Dickens fan (I like the stories, not too sure about the writing style), but last year I also joined in with the readalong of A Tale of Two Cities, which overall I would say that I enjoyed, but I did still struggle with somewhat. This meant that I was slightly nervous going into The Pickwick Papers in case it all became too Dickensy for me. But to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the first section a lot!

First of all, it's funny. The first chapter immediately sets up the idea that the whole novel is going to be lightly poking fun at everything, which is sadly necessary for me as otherwise I have a habit of taking things which are supposed to be funny at face value and being confused when I read reviews afterwards talking about how funny the book was (although I don't think it necessarily would have been a problem with this book!)

Another good thing about it is that it's pretty fast paced, so if you aren't particularly interested in what's going on then it's very likely that the next chapter is going to be about something completely different. It feels like it has been a long time since I have read a book that focuses more on small events happening throughout the book than on an overarching plot. It actually feels weirdly nostalgic to read, as a lot of the books (particularly classics) that I read when I was younger were more along those lines - Little Women, A Little Princess, What Katy Did At School, What Katy Did Next (weirdly I can remember these two much more vividly than the first book), a lot of Astrid Lindgren books (I will always love you, Bullerby children). I seem to have fallen out of the habit of reading these, but honestly this whole thing is reminding me that I should probably have some books like that mixed into my reading.

As far as the characters go I definitely love Pickwick and Tupman already, although I feel like the other members of the Pickwick club have not really had a chance to shine yet. Hopefully they will in the rest of the book. I also enjoyed Mr Jingle, and I sort of hope that he keeps on popping up throughout the novel to stir things up.

The one thing that I don't quite get though is why there are so many anecdotes included in it, that are either told by other people or written down and read by one of the characters... like, I don't really get why they're there at all? The ones so far have not really been that interesting to me, and they have a decidedly different tone to the rest of the novel, it just seems a bit odd to have them there. I guess though, it is Dickens, so he has to do some moralizing at some point, and they are there to fill his moralizing quota? Perhaps.

Anyway, I am definitely enjoying it, and I think that one of my main issues with this readalong might be actually making myself stick to the schedule!

Yay for enjoyable, very readable Dickens! Let's hope that the book carries on in this vein.

A few quotes that I enjoyed:

Now general benevolence was one of the leading features of the Pickwickian theory, and no one was more remarkable for the zealous manner in which he observed so noble a principle than Mr. Tracy Tupman. The number of instances, recorded on the Transactions of the Society, in which that excellent man referred objects of charity to the houses of other members for left-off garments or pecuniary relief is almost incredible.

‘Mr. Tupman,’ rise,’ said the spinster aunt, with averted head—‘I can hardly speak the words; but—but—you are not wholly indifferent to me.’

- I wish that I had used this at some point to respond to somebody asking me out.

"Who could continue to exist, where there are no cows but the cows on the chimney-pots"

...who indeed.

P.S. I'm still on the lookout for a pretty printed version of the book, as I could only find very old battered looking penguin classic versions (the ones with the black spine) at all the bookshops (only 2, to be honest, but it's not like I'm surrounded by bookshops with a decent English fiction section) I looked in here, so I ended up getting an e-book version as well (although not a free one, because I don't think I could deal with awful formatting). Anybody have any recommendations? (I can get hold of both US and UK versions equally easily)

A Tale of Two Cities - Tickle tickle, pickle pickle (or, the final installment)

So it's a day late, but I finally finished a Tale of Two Cities! I say that like I was struggling to get through it this whole week, but honestly I only started reading the last bit today (in spite of what I said in my last post, I got distracted by shiny things).

Spoilers from here on in, beware!

I started reading the last bit this morning and actually got annoyed when my husband woke up and interrupted my reading. If any of you know him, don't tell him that! Hehe.

So... what an ending! I knew that Sidney was going to do something good, and I am happy to be proven right. (Although if I knew, that probably means it was super super obvious.) I knew that the last line was also famous, but I couldn't recall what it was, and didn't look it up while reading, otherwise I might have guessed the ending much earlier.

I'm sad that Lucie continued being pretty pathetic throughout the whole thing, but never mind. Her and Darnay were both pretty stupid: Darnay for going back to France when it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to be safe, and Lucie for following after him for no apparent reason, and taking her child?! Okay, so the reason was probably love or whatever, but I'm not sure that taking the kid along was the best idea in the world. Honestly.

I also found the way that Darnay was portrayed to be quite... unrealistic. He was shown to be very brave and whatever to the end, but honestly, how many people would actually behave like that?! I think that might be one of the problems that I have with Dickens (the Dickens that I know, anyway)... The whole Sidney storyline made sense, but unless I completely missed it I don't think that any reason was given for Lucie to be so damn perfect (and irritating), or for Darnay to be that good. The other characters were all much better drawn, I think.

I'm really glad that I came into it not knowing the story at all. I think that a problem with reading classics sometimes is that the plots are generally pretty well known, so it's rare to go into a classic book without knowing really anything about what happens.

General thoughts on Dickens - I definitely don't dislike him like I thought I did. Once I got a few chapters into the book I started to get on better with his writing style, and by the end I was having no problems with it at all (although some of the things that his characters said were slightly bewildering - "I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off HER head comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off ITS head comes. All the family!"... Tickle tickle pickle pickle?! What? I wonder if that was the reaction that people were supposed to have when reading, to make them think that that character was slightly insane, or whether that was actually a thing? I'm guessing that that line is not included verbatim in any adaptions of A Tale of Two Cities, hehe.

So all in all... I really enjoyed the readalong! If it wasn't happening, there is no way that I would have made it through the book this month, and I probably would have always been slightly afraid of tackling Dickens. But now, while I don't have a particular burning desire to start reading his other stuff straight away, I definitely do want to tackle one of his other books at some point, yay!

I have also realised, yet again, that I try to read way faster than I actually can. I think with some books this is okay (pretty much any YA, for example), but I kept on having to go back and reread stuff because I was getting confused. So, more careful reading in the future for me!

I'm really looking forward to my next readalong now! Yayyy!!!
Thank you to Bex for hosting it, and making me face my Dickens fears.

A Tale of Two Cities readalong - part 2!

So to be honest I struggled to get through this weeks bit. Happily it wasn't because of the story, but because I had a cold, ended up working late most nights (always fun when you're not feeling well!), and didn't have the time or the concentration to read when I got home. I did manage to finish off the remaining chapters this afternoon though, so I'm all caught up! Huzzah!

And as with the last post, for anyone who hasn't read the book, this post is pretty spoiler heavy so be warned!

I find myself really not being that bothered about anything to do with Lucie (also I find the spelling of that to be irritating), as she is still such a non-entity of a character. She's just there to worry about all of the men in her life, and be perfect, it seems. Boring. Also I don't know if it's just me being dense, but in the chapter where it's talking about her having children, I spent the whole time until it was specifically stated that the children existed going "Oh, has she had kids then? Is this like her seeing into her own future? Is it some huge kind of metaphor for something that I'm too stupid to get?! What?!". I think that someone should go through the books and add a little explanatory sentence for me at the side of some of the passages saying "Yes, this means that he is dead", "This is the guy they were talking about a few chapters ago", or "The children are real!!!". Hehe. I'm sure I used to have good reading comprehension skills at some point. Sigh!

I find the Sidney storyline quite interesting.. I can't quite see where it's going now, but presumably he is going to play a really important role in the last part of the book.. you don't bring in a morally corrupt man who says that he doesn't have the ability to do good without letting him do something good at some point!

I am also glad that I completely get the design of the cover of my book now! Knitting is useful! Although hearing about that really made me want to see how exactly things were being encoded into the knitting, which I'm sure is not something that most people reading would care about, hehe.

I'm really hoping I'll be able to find more time to read this week, although it doesn't seem tremendously likely at the moment. I want to know what happens next, but seeing as the first few chapters for this week didn't even touch on the major event that happened at the end of last week's section, I'm guessing Dickens might make me wait a while for it. *Shakes fist at the past*

A Tale of Two Cities readalong - Like a marine ostrich

As this is my first readalong (and I haven't actually read most of the readalong posts on the blogs that I follow, as I don't want to be spoiled for stuff that I've read) I'm not entirely sure that this post is going to be along the right lines or not, but meh, I'll try! Obviously this post is going to have spoilers in it, so if you're spoilerphobic like me and you haven't read it, stop reading now!

Before I get into the book, here's what I knew before I started reading it:

It is about 2 cities.
It features the French revolution
It was written by Dickens, and it's supposed to be one of his best
It apparently has some connection with knitting, as on my copy (the clothbound classics one, which is a pleasure to read!) has a knitting based design on the front cover.
The opening line is "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

...that's it!

The copy that I have has an introduction in it, but I'm never sure whether book introductions are going to be spoiler heavy or not, so I avoided reading it... and so went into the book knowing only the things that I've listed above. Which is unusual for me!  Normally I have at least some idea of where a book is going when I start reading it.

I also haven't been reading most of the endnotes in my edition, only the ones after sentences that really confused me, so I'm sure there is lots of stuff that has been going over my head.  Although I did look at one in chapter 9 of the second book (the last chapter I read) after this bit:

'...You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?'
'Yes.'
'With a daughter?'

The endnote said "The Marquis's spied have evidently followed Darnay to England", which was kind of obvious from the context?! Why is that an endnote? I only looked at it because I was wondering what deeper meaning that could possibly have... So I'm thinking that my choice not to read them on the first read was the right one. Maybe! If anyone is reading the same edition and is finding them useful, tell me and I might start actually looking at them properly!

So far.. it's taken me a while to get into the writing style, but I think I'm there now. It's been a long time since I've read something that wasn't written at least in the 20th century, and I think Dickens has a particular style which is really not the kind of style that I read normally. He occasionally describes things in bizarre ways, like "The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich." ...like a marine ostrich?! What? I could understand just saying "Like an ostrich", but what the hell is a marine ostrich?! If you google it, you can find threads of people asking if that's a specific kind of ostrich, hehe.

Reading this has made me realise that it probably isn't Dickens that I had a problem with when I read a Christmas Carol, it was more that I was being forced to read it in school, and so forced to spend a long time on passages which I would have just read once if I was reading on my own. I wonder how the people in my class who weren't readers anyway felt about it...

So let's talk about the opening line... I wonder how many people thought that it was just "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" like I did. I honestly had no idea that it went on for a whole paragraph! 

I found the first bit of the book a bit confusing, as I had no idea who anybody was and have apparently completely lost my ability to remember character names (apart from Mr. Lorry... is that actually a surname? Wait... were lorries invented by somebody with the surname Lorry?!), plus although it is for the most part centered around the same few characters, it seems to jump around a bit and I wasn't entirely sure that I was following it. I enjoyed the last 2 or 3 chapters though, where it started following the Marquis. Who is a sort of nice charicaturey portrayal of a horrible person, which is exactly what I was expecting from Dickens!

Also, the first mention of knitting! I have no idea what the significance of the knitting woman by the fountain after the baby was killed is, but I'm assuming that there is more mention of knitting later. Knitting! Yay!

Writing this post has made me realise that I should probably be taking notes or something while I read this, so I can be slightly more coherent next time.

I'm not really sure what more there is to say, but I am enjoying the read, which is good because I really had no idea whether I would or not. I am going to schedule this post to go up later, because I'm pretty sure that otherwise it will be ridiculously early compared to other people's (I'm writing at 9.30 am on Sunday morning, Japan time, which is 9 hours ahead of the UK, 14 or so hours ahead of New York), but I had to write it now as the end of the last chapter made me really want to carry on reading! I'm looking forward to seeing other people's thoughts on it. Yayyy!

A Tale of Two Cities readalong

So... after thinking about it way more than I should have, I finally decided to actually join the tale of two cities readalong. How exciting! It's going to be my first readalong, which I'm a bit anxious about as the rebel in me tends to go NO! AHH!! when I have something that I'm supposed to do (even if it's a fun thing! My brain is stupid)... I'm also slightly worried about the fact that it is Dickens. I have only fully read A Christmas Carol in school, and ended up going OKAY SO HE WAS DEAD GET ON WITH THE STORY! A lot. I also tried reading David Copperfield after seeing a TV adaptation of it (with adorable tiny Daniel Radcliffe! Awwww), but got bored after a while. Or got distracted by something shiny or cheese or something. BUT I am hoping that with those experiences being at least 10 years ago when I was a teenager and stupid(er), I stand a good chance of enjoying the book.

Of course, the main reason that I'm doing it is that I wanted an excuse to get the clothbound classics edition of the book. It's so pretty. Soooo pretty.

Anyway, anyone else reading this who hasn't joined should join too! And quickly because it starts in December!

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Yayyy!!! *excited dance*

...And I am going to get around to posting about other stuff at some point. Honest!