Alban Krailsheimer once wrote that Christianity was oddly missing as a subject in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris (aka, The Hunchback of Notre Dame). And I agree: that novel can seem like a merely secular story about a Christian cathedral. Les Misérables, by contrast, opens immediately with Christianity as a subject: its entire first … Continue reading Les Misérables – atheism and faith
I've started reading Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, and it's such a long novel that I'm going to start sharing partial impressions and thoughts as I go along. Victor Hugo was a lifelong opponent of the death penalty, which you may guess from the following passage in Le Miz: There is something nightmarish about the scaffold … Continue reading Les Misérables – guillotine and cross
Some new short thoughts on my recent read, George Eliot's "Adam Bede". Did Adam Bede really love Hetty Sorrel? The entire novel is built on the premise that he did. But he doesn't actively court her. Everyone in town has paired them off already as a couple, or at least a couple-to-be, and both Adam … Continue reading Hetty Sorrel and Adam Bede
Earlier this year I read John Steinbeck's "East of Eden," so I was very motivated to read his earlier classic, "The Grapes of Wrath." I've finished it now, and I hardly know how to say what a great novel it is, or what to say that has not already been said. I did see the … Continue reading The Grapes of Wrath
I finished "Animal Farm" recently. I am not certain that I read it in high school, though I remember it was assigned to us. Reading "Animal Farm" now, much of the story feels familiar, even in its details. I think in fact I probably read it in high school and the meaning went over my … Continue reading Animal Farm
In George Eliot's "Adam Bede," the titular character is a "sensible" man of high principles who falls in love with Hetty Sorrel, a superficial girl who does not love or understand him. He, in turn, loves Hetty but doesn't understand her. This is a common and very human situation, as Eliot observes with extended irony: … Continue reading Female beauty in Adam Bede
I've recently read George Eliot's first novel, "Adam Bede." It's a racier novel than I had come to expect, having read "Middlemarch" and "Silas Marner". Do people still speak of "racy" novels in this day and age? Well, I considered calling it straight-up sexy, but this is still 19th century Victorian literature, and it's still … Continue reading Lonesome Dove and Adam Bede
I recently read John Steinbeck's "East of Eden", a novel so rich, and long, that one blog post couldn't begin to uncover even 2% of it. But below I've quoted passages from the novel that I'll talk about both in themselves and in relation to certain texts: the Bible, principally Genesis and Job; Miguel de … Continue reading East of Eden
Back in 2009 Dominic Lieven wrote a book, "Russia Against Napoleon", that challenged Leo Tolstoy's view of history as expressed in "War and Peace." I read it recently and it's excellent, heavy on military analysis but brimming with other kinds of insights as well. The subtitle, "The True Story of the Campaigns of War and … Continue reading Russia Against Napoleon
I've checked out two excellent adaptations of George Eliot's "Silas Marner," one of them a modernization. Ben Kingsley stars in the other one, a straight adaptation of the story made by the BBC in 1985. Normally it takes me a while to get used to an actor's interpretation of a character from a novel, but … Continue reading Steve Martin, Silas Marner
