Books #46 and 47: An Assembly Such as This and These Three Remain by Pamela Aiden (Books 1 and 3 of the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy)

Okay, so this last week, I've been on the ultimate Pride and Prejudice kick, which was started by reading Among the Janeites a week or two ago. I read the book (but I won't count it since I've already read it this year, and don't have anything interesting to say about it), watched every movie/miniseries version I could find (both the 1980 and 1995 miniseries, the Keira Knightley version, and the Bride and Prejudice Bollywood version), and then I ordered this P&P fan fiction from the library and POWERED through them in less than 2 days. I could not put them down--it was really very fascinating because they were the story of Pride and Prejudice but from Mr. Darcy's perspective, and I actually really enjoyed Aidan's interpretation and Mr. Darcy's character from her point of view.

These books are specifically mentioned in Among the Janeites, when the author interviews the author of the trilogy and talks about how every raves about how the style of her books is so similar to Austen's. I saw that they got mostly good reviews on Goodreads as well, although many people did not really like the second novel in the trilogy, which covers a "silent" period in P&P, or a few months when nothing really happens and Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth don't see each other. Meaning, the second novel of this trilogy is just randomly made up by the author with no real relation to the P&P story, and so I didn't feel at all interested or obligated to read it. I think I would have been annoyed to be reading through that one and trying to find out what was happening with Elizabeth, only to find out that they NEVER see each other in that book.

But anyways, lots of people said that Aidan had a style similar to Austen's, which made this trilogy a very popular P&P fan fiction. But I did not believe her style at all--and I think that Austen would have been offended to hear that. It was MUCH cheesier and more flowery and ridiculous than Austen's. Absolutely EVERYTHING that Elizabeth did was "heavenly" and "lovely" and "graceful" to Darcy (our narrator) and he was always longing to see her and hold her and when she walked by "a dart of hope would cleave his chest and force his limbs to stand still" and her laugh was like "cascades of pure joy." It was obnoxious to read this description of Elizabeth because it did not seem to accord with my view of her from the book itself. But I guess it did kind of accord with how Mr. Darcy was "bewitched" by Elizabeth, so I'm not sure how else you could have depicted that.

Aidan started writing the book to talk/find out about how Darcy truly could have made his transformation from the prideful, rude man at the beginning of P&P to the considerate and caring one at the end, and I think that's where the real strength of this rendition lies. I do really enjoy seeing how he changed himself and the specific steps and mindset that came about through and from his efforts. I also loved hearing Mr. Darcy's thoughts in relation to Caroline Bingley and Georgiana and it was fun to see these other secondary characters who aren't in the original book come to life to help illuminate Darcy's character and the plot. All in all, I stayed up reading both of these until 2:15 this morning, even though I had to get up early to teach, and I don't really regret it. It was totally engrossing and I loved it enough to overlook the occasional annoying language that Aidan uses to describe Elizabeth.

Book #45: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Dun dun dunnnn! The big one! I am so glad I FINALLY finished this book. I've always meant to read it but I've always been so intimidated by how huge it is (over 1100 pages), which makes it so difficult to even want to start it. But a few months ago, our book club decided to make this our summer book, which was a good enough motivation for me to start it--and once I was into it, I didn't want to give up! It's kind of hard to think of what to say to "review" War and Peace, since it's such a iconic work, but I'll start with this: I really enjoyed it and I'm very glad I read it.

The narrative of the novel is amazing and engrossing. It tells the story of five main families throughout the early decades of the 19th century in Russia, through Russia's wars with Napoleon and Napoleon's invasion of Russia. There are several main heroes and heroines who we follow specifically (part of those families), namely, Pierre, Andrey, Marya, and Natasha, and we follow them in their romances and disappointments and discoveries about the meaning of life. The intertwining of these people and these families was the true heart of the book and definitely my favorite part. I loved seeing how they all fell in love with people and how they were searching for meaning and goodness and truth in their own ways.

I think my favorite character in the novel was Princess Marya, a quiet and very religious young woman who was terrorized by her father her whole life but forgave him and basically only tried to be kind to everyone. But she was humanized for me too by how she didn't like some people, even though she tried to be Christlike and patient with everyone. Natasha, arguably the main heroine in the novel, kind of drove me crazy. Someone said that they'd read that Natasha was even more likeable than Lizzie Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, but she seemed very overly dramatic and selfish to me. She was a teenage girl for most of the novel, though, so it is maybe understandable. Pierre and Andrey, several of the main male protagonists, both tried throughout the novel to find meaning in their lives in a number of different meaning systems (Pierre becomes a Freemason for a while, Andrey tries to find glory in serving in the army, they both try to find it through women, etc.) but all of their attempts fail and when terrible things happen, they find that they can't find answer so the question of "Why did this happen?"

But I love by the end of the book how they both find similar, very simple answers. Pierre is captured as a prisoner of war in Moscow, and during his captivity finds his answer: "In old days he had sought Him in the aims he set before himself. That search for an object in life had only been a seeking after God; and all at once in his captivity he had come to know, not through words or arguments, but by his own immediate feeling, what his old nurse had told him long before; that God is here, and everywhere. . . . He felt like a man who finds what he has sought at his feet, when he has been straining his eyes to seek it in the distance. All his life he had been looking far way over the heads of all around him, while he need not have strained his eyes, but had only to look in front of him" (1005). Andrey is consumed by bitterness after a bad break-up with Natasha, but is wounded in the war and comes close to dying. While in the army hospital having his wound dealt with, he feels an amazing charity towards everyone, and realizes that that is the secret he had been searching his whole life: "Sympathy, love for our brothers, for those who love us, love for those who hate us, love for our enemies, yes the love that God preached upon earth, that Marie sought to teach me, and I did not understand, that it why I am sorry to part with life, that is what was left me if I had lived" (745). I love how they both find these simple, everyday answers to their questions about life and how they both went on this search for meaning to find that their answers could have been found in front of their eyes years before if they had been willing to see them.

I loved the ending of the book especially though, how people get married and have babies and are happy together and live together as one big happy family. I love that they all love their spouses and their children and each other. I love what Nikolay says to Marya, "It's not those who are handsome we love, but those we love who are handsome. . . . When you are away, and any misunderstanding like this comes between us, I feel as though I were lost and can do nothing. Why, do I love my finger? I don't love it, but try cutting it off. . . ." (1051). It makes me happy to know that even though their lives aren't perfect, that everything turns out generally well for them in the end.

It was fascinating to me to learn about the history of this time, because I only vaguely remember learning about Napoleon and Russia. I had had no idea that Moscow was destroyed during Napoleon's invasion and that it was almost completely burned to the ground. I really liked learning about the culture in Russia at the time and all of the events that were covered during the book.

The book can be hard to read, though. First of all, there are tons and tons of characters who Tolstoy will name once and then expect you to remember later, and all of their names sound the same, and all the characters have tons of nicknames that everyone refers to them by. Andrey is called Andryushka and Marya is called Marie and Marusha and Natasha is called Natalie and Natalia and all sorts of variations. But once you figure that out (after about 400 pages of it), that's not too bad. I also was kind of bored by all of the chapters that went so in depth about the war and the generals making decisions about what to do, and I ended up skimming a lot of that. The harder part is getting through all of Tolstoy's philosophical discussions about the true meaning of history and power and life and war, which he sprinkles throughout the book in solid chapters of philosophy. It's concentrated a lot near the end of the novel, especially in the last Epilogue. He is really arguing against the theory that individual people can make decisions that can impact the course of history, and claiming that events happen because of the momentum of events that are already happening and because of the will and power of all individuals together. It's a pretty interesting argument and I really liked some of the points he makes, but man, he goes on and on and on about it all over the place and by the end of the book I was saying, "I GET IT ALREADY!" I think reading an abridged version would have made it more enjoyable, because it would be easy to take out most of those chunks and just keep all of the narrative, which was what I loved anyway.

I'm thinking about reading Anna Karenina now, since I'm already in the Tolstoyan mood. We'll see if it actually happens. But I need a new project!

Book #44: The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

Reading Among the Janeites piqued my interest in Jane Austen fan fiction (although this is a very specific type of JA fan fiction--not rewriting or continuing any stories she wrote or anything like that), so I checked out another book at the library that I'd heard about that was in a similar vein. I feel like I'd heard about this book a year or two ago, but for some reason never picked it up. But I read it all today (Dane napped for a long time--yay!) and it was definitely an enjoyable, quick read. It's a novel about six people (five women, one man) who start a Jane Austen book club and discuss a new one of her books every month, and about their lives and their relationships.

I liked how Fowler intertwined narratives about each book club member's personal life with the discussions and themes of each JA book they were discussing. I liked learning about each character and member of the group. And that was my main complaint about this book, too--that it didn't happen enough. I felt like I barely got to know the characters as much as I would like. You learn a lot of stories from their background and childhood, but you hardly even learn what each person did for their day job and what their personality is really like. I don't know if the book just needed to be longer and more all-encompassing, or what, but I felt like we didn't get enough from it. It was a great premise though, and I had a fun time reading it.

Book #43: Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe

Tommy saw this book on the shelves at the airport bookstore while we were stuck at our layover on our way home from Montreal, and he walked back to where I was sitting and said, "I saw a book I think you'd like." And I liked the idea enough that when we got, I requested it at the library.

If you're a woman, and you read, you probably love Jane Austen (or at least Pride and Prejudice). But there are whole hordes of women (and men, let's be fair) who take that love to a whole other level--and they are called Janeites. The type of people who read all of her books twice a year and have read all of her letters and other, unpublished works and dress up in Regency clothes for the Jane Austen conferences. The author goes through all the different aspects of the Jane Austen obsession that "Janeites" today have, interviewing groupies who write P&P fan fiction and comment on Austen fan blogs every single day, and scholars who analyze her work and write academic journal articles about it. She visited all of the Austen historical sites and a number of Jane Austen conferences. It was all really pretty interesting, but I kind of felt like this book was a little more fluff that she got from her interviews than was really necessary--a lot of other people talking about their feelings and experiences with Jane Austen than actually explaining the Austenmania phenomenon, I guess. It did really make me want to revisit some of her books again (although it hasn't really been that long!) and it made me want to go to a Jane Austen conference. (Coincidentally, my aunt and grandma are going to the Jane Austen conference in Milwaukee next week, and it's the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, so I'm guessing it's going to be a big one.) I don't know when I'll make it but I think I'll put that on my bucket list.

Book #42: Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

I'm still working my way through War and Peace (that's going to be the book of the year, I can just tell) and I'm really enjoying it. But it's so BIG and heavy that it's hard to even tell if I'm making any progress, so it's sometimes nice to squeeze in a quick and fast book that makes me feel like I can check something off my list. I was at the library with Dane and Indie for library storytime and I walked through a few aisles with the two babies afterwards, and happened upon the Agatha Christie shelves, so I picked up two of her books I hadn't read before.

This one is a Hercule Poirot mystery, where Poirot is asked to dig up a long-ago supposed murder to shed some more light on the case. Amyas Crale, a famous painter was poisoned, and his wife was committed for the crime and nobody questioned it at the time. But their daughter comes to Poirot sixteen years later and asks him to clear her mother's name. And not to spoil the whole book or anything, but Poirot does it. It was a really interesting book, and it wasn't one where it felt like Poirot was just some magician who somehow managed to figure out the solution without any actual reasons. It only took me a few hours to read (I finished it in an evening) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

And now, back to War and Peace!

Book #41: Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs

I really liked Jacobs's book where he reads the Encyclopedia Britannica all the way through. I thought it was a fascinating idea and I loved learning all of the trivia tidbits along the way, and I liked how he intertwined the narrative about he and his wife trying to get pregnant. I also enjoyed his second book about living the Bible rules literally. But I don't know, it kind of seems like it's getting old. His wife and family must be getting tired of all of these hijinks he keeps thinking up (he wrote another book where he tried a bunch of experiments on himself or something--I didn't feel like it was compelling enough). The only reason I decided to read this book was because it was about health and diet, which is something I'm vaguely interested in right now (even though we're not working that hard on becoming the healthiest eaters ever or anything).

In this book, he decides to spend two years becoming the healthiest person in the world (why does he have to qualify it by saying he wants to be the BEST? Can't he just say he wants to spend two years living as healthy as possible?) and focuses each month on improving different parts of his body and trying different diets and exercise plans. I just felt like he didn't go into enough detail about what sorts of exercise he was doing and what he was eating, and he skimmed a LOT when talking about each body part (which, of course, he had to do, but it still just felt like we were getting the most bare minimum possible and I didn't feel fulfilled with it). I feel like he should have condensed it and just written it in twelve months and not focused on random body parts like the nose or ears, which weren't very interesting to me. I liked it enough to finish it, but I wouldn't read it again. There are better books about what to eat and how to exercise and be healthy out there.