Classics Considered

If it is difficult to review a book that is nonfiction and follows a less-than-linear outline, then it is doubly difficult to review such a book from the Christian apologetics genre.  And, naturally, one must explain a rating of 5 out of 5 stars . G. K. Chesterton 's Orthodoxy is an account of how he came to hold Christian orthodox beliefs.  By the term "orthodoxy" (the lowercase 'o'), he is not referring to a branch or denomination of the Church, but rather ". . . the Apostles' Creed , as understood by everybody calling himself Christian until a very short time ago and the general historic conduct of those who held such a creed." I happened to read Orthodoxy during or just after my 20th cent. Brit. History course, which included references to H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and other people of letters.  There was not one mention of Chesterton, despite his friendship with both Wells and Shaw; he does not fit neatly into the agenda presented in su...

"My intention was . . . to write a Dickens novel, enriched by the sharper lights which I took from our modern times, and by the pallid ones I would have found in my own interior."   - Diaries (1946), qtd. in "Amerika (novel)," Wikipedia. It is rarely my choice to read Franz Kafka all the way through.  Which is to say, I frequently express the intention of reading Kafka, and I read parts of his writings, but I tend to stumble upon reading any work of his in its entirety.  Amerika: or, The Missing Person (1927) was no exception - choosing it as my third read for the Turn of the Century Salon was a spontaneous decision, especially since I had previously determined not to read it in any case (I had very low expectations for a Kafka novel set in the U.S., rather than in Europe). For this and many other reasons, irony is a good adjective to describe Amerika and Kafka in general.  To name one example - could anything be more ironic than Kafka writing a no...

When I chose Wieland: or, The Transformation for my history class, I was not expecting a masterpiece of plot, philosophy, or characters.  I did expect a good old-fashioned Gothic tale with a dash of melodrama, an eerie edifice, and maybe a ghost or two.  Sadly, this is the third book connected to my class that disappointed me, and while it was vastly more fast-paced, it was also quite a bit worse than The House of the Seven Gables or The Prairie .  Would I read more Charles Brockden Brown ?  Maybe, someday.  Not in the near future. Wieland introduces us to the narrator, Clara Wieland, her brother Theodore and his family, and their mutual friend, Henry Pleyel.  These characters live in a surreal sort of isolated, literati circle, centered around Theodore's home, Mettingen (which would seem to fit better in Victorian England than its actual setting: pre-Revolutionary America).  Their perfect lives become interrupted by seemingly supernatural occurren...

Chronologically last in James Fenimore Cooper 's Leatherstocking series, The Prairie follows the wagon train of Ishmael Bush and his family, who are journeying into the recently acquired Louisiana Purchase.  The Bushes make their own laws and shun society, even that of an old, solitary Trapper who stumbles across their campsite.  He does not fail to notice that one of their wagons is closely guarded, carrying something or someone that never sees the light of day.  A chance meeting with a Captain Middleton and a party of hostile Sioux sends events and characters into a crazy chase across the prairies, where friendships and hatreds arise from unpredictable sides. I had high hopes for this book, assigned reading in my Early American Arts, Music, & Lit class.  Even now, I would still like to read The Last of the Mohicans , which features the protagonist - the Trapper - in his younger years.  Overall, The Prairie was like Seven Gables in that the concept was g...

This is a remarkable book with an even stranger setting - written in 1863, set in 1960, and not published till 1994.  It's not such a stretch, however, to include it in the Turn of the Century Salon , as Jules Verne was writing novels up through the early 1900s, and he is always associated with the original "steampunk" genre from this time period.  Paris in the Twentieth Century is classic steampunk: a coming-of-age story combining 20th century technology with late Victorian culture. By Cezary Piwowarski (Own work) [ GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons His reputation sullied by a school prize for Latin verse, young Michel Dufrénoy comes to live with his aunt and uncle, who hope to convert him into at least an adequate banker and a "practical man."  Michel attempts to live up to his uncle's expectations, but it is soon found he is unfit for even the lowliest job in commerce and industry.  Eagerly, he resigns himself to the life of a ...

New England, early 1800s.  Hepzibah Pyncheon, a hermit-like woman with a severe face and a soft heart, lives quietly in the seven-gabled Pyncheon House.  She is rescued from poverty only when her young relative, Phoebe, comes to live with her and help her run a small shop.  Phoebe is interested to meet the other lodger at Pyncheon House, a daguerreotypist by the name of Holgrave, but more mysterious is Hepzibah's desperation to protect her brother Clifford from the influence of Judge Jaffrey, a cousin and seemingly benevolent man.  As Phoebe and Holgrave discover, the key to the Pyncheon siblings' troubles is deeply connected to the house's history, and that of its sinisterly respectable founder, Colonel Pyncheon. I must say I found Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The House of the Seven Gables to be overall disappointing, in comparison with The Blithedale Romance or The Marble Faun .  If this were a movie, I'd sum it up by saying that the concept was great and the exec...

"The law - 'tis bad to have it, but, I sometimes think, it is worse to be entirely without it." - James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie J. F. Cooper's The Prairie (1827) is the last book in the Leatherstocking series, of which his more famous The Last of the Mohicans is also part.  The beauty of this quote is that it succinctly sums up a classic theme of the Western genre - that is, lawman vs. outlaw, and the injustices done by both sides, in a time and place where towns were small and law officers were few. This comes up pretty frequently in my favorite TV series, The Virginian , which portrays both noble and corrupt lawmen, and the moral dilemmas that result. I am only about 1/3 into The Prairie (and taking a break to focus on other homework), but so far it's been pretty good.  Cooper has a delightful sense of humor - you gotta love Dr. Battius's Facebook-style friending/unfriending: "I rejoice greatly at this meeting; we are lovers of the same pursuits...