Reading the Classics

     Any English major worth her sheep skin has to have read "the classics."  When I looked through the list of classic literature for Kindle available from the county library, I felt like I had an incomplete education.  I set about trying to correcting that situation.

Vanity Fair by William M. Thackery - This is a satire of 19th century British society published as a nineteen part serial in 1847 and 1848.  There have been several Vanity Fair movies and, of course, there is the magazine with the same name.   

Watership Down by Richard Adams - Richard Adams told his children stories on long car trips.  The result was Watership Down, a fantasy story about bunny rabbit society.  Mr. Adams mixes facts about rabbit behavior and physiology into the fantasy.  Children are sure to giggle and make yucky faces upon learning that rabbits make two kinds of poop: one that humans find useful for fertilizer and one that is full of undigested material that rabbits re-eat as soon as it leaves the body.  The real story is about survival, heroism, leadership, and the individual in the community.  Add to that rabbit religion and lapine language. 

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon - This is a sensation novel, a type of literature popular in Britain in the 1860s and 1870s.  The novel's heroine is a bigamist who tries (unsuccessfully) to kill her first husband by pushing him down a well.  She abandons her child, toys with the idea of poisoning her second husband, and sets fire to a hotel where some of her male aquaintances reside.  Evidently, people have always enjoyed reading about sociopaths.

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë - The three Brontë sisters wrote about governesses based on their own experiences.  This novel by Anne is semi-autobiographical.  For the most part, governesses are unappreciated or even mistreated.  Fortunately Agnes Grey (and Anne) find love, marry, and have children.  There is a secondary theme concerning the humane treatment of animals.

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell - Molly Gibson is happy living her life with her widowed doctor daddy, but dad thinks he should remarry so that Molly can have a mother and step sister.  The stepmom turns out to be a pretentious social climber and the step sister is a fast mover.  Molly grows up and ...  Elizabeth Gaskell died before she could finish the book. 

The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence - Alvinia Houghton's father is a failure at business.  He buys a theater, hoping that his daughter will have a proper upbringing and secure future if this business venture is a success.  The theater is no more successful than his other endeavors.  Alvinia ends up running off to Italy with Ciccio, one of the traveling performers her father hired.  But does she have a happy ending with Ciccio?   

My Ántonia by Willa Cather - This is an interesting story about the pioneers who settled Nebraska.  However, Cather's depictions of Afro-Americans are cringeworthy by today's standards.

Villette by Chalotte Brontë - Lucy Snowe is all alone in the world, so like so many women who are all alone, she ends up being a governess at a school in the fictional city of Villette.  Lots of adventure and romance ensues.  Lucy finds her soulmate (who sets her up with her own boarding school before going on a three year sabbatical to the West Indies), but he dies during the return voyage to Villette.  Some say the ending of the book is ambiguous, and Brontë said her ending was a "little puzzle."  I don't see it that way.  If you ask me, Lucy died an old maid.   

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells - No plot summary needed here.  We all know this one.