☯Emily ’s Comments (group member since Jul 27, 2011)

☯Emily ’s comments from the Classics for Beginners group.

Hi Classic Lovers!

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE NOMINATING!

It's time for our February nominations. I would like for us to be challenged in our nominations this month. Please select a classic book that has a COLOR in the title. I hope we come up a diverse number of colorful books. All other nominations rules remain the same.

Nomination Rules
1. One nomination per person.
2. Classic books only (over 50 years old).
3. Books can be of any length, but if a book wins and is over 600 pages, we will read it over a two month period.
4. No book we have read before as a group read.*
5. No book from an author who we have read in the last 10 months.†
6. To facilitate poll creation, please use a Goodreads link to add the nomination by clicking on 'add book/author' above the text box.
7. Please indicate whether or not you would be willing to lead the discussion if your nomination is chosen.

*For a full list of books we have read before please check the master-list:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

(Note: lists sorted by book title, author surname, or date read)

†Authors not to nominate:
Ernest Hemingway (January 2018)
Edith Wharton (December 2017)
Elizabeth Gaskell (November 2017)
Grahame Greene (October 2017)
Madeleine L'Engle (September 2017)
Agatha Christie (August 2017)
L.M. Montgomery (July 2017)
Malcolm X (June 2017)
Yevgeny Zamyatin (May 2017)
Victor Hugo (March-April 2017)

You have until December 14th to nominate, when the poll will go up.

Nominations:
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux
The Red and the Black by Stendhal

In chapter 15, John Barton is called a Communist. However, it does not have the modern connotation of Communism. In 1848, the word would get its meaning more from the experiments in living conducted by Robert Owen and Prancois Fourier than from Marx and Engels. More about Robert Owen is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...

In the US, Robert Owen is know for establishing a Utopian society in New Harmony, Indiana. It was not successful. http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/...

Mrs. Gaskell seems to think that the problems between the manufacturers and the workers could be resolve with a little communication. Do you think that is the major problem? I really don't think that communication is the answer. The delegates went to London and were unsuccessful in bringing their plight to the owners and politicians. Surely, the rags of the workers and their half-starved bodies would have communicated their problems to anyone who has eyes and emotion.

This reminds me of the situation in Washington today. Workers who haven't had a wage increase in almost ten years and are financially strapped are begging for relief so the politicians "solve" the problem by giving corporations a large tax decrease and ignoring the people who elected them.

I read this book several years ago for a class I was taking, so I didn't have the leisure of putting the book down. I think the books gets much better and reads faster at about chapter 13, when the action really begins. I am now beginning Chapter 21, after reading about 70 pages quickly.

Edith Wharton designed her own home in Lenox, MA. You can visit the house. This is a little about her house: https://www.edithwharton.org/discover...

I didn't realize that The Age of Innocence won the Pulitzer prize in 1920. This is a brief biography of Ms. Wharton: http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/whar...

Heather L wrote: "Was finally able to get to this one Tuesday, but it's been slow-going. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through right now, about to start chapter 11. Guess I won't be finishing before the weekend is o..."

Ha! Neither will I. I guess we can discuss the book later.

Nina wrote: "☯Emily wrote: "Probably the best Greene book is The Quiet American, which is prophetic. He wrote it before the American involvement in Vietnam, but reading it now, you would think he wr..."

Actually Our Man in Havana is about a British spy agency, but I applied it to the CIA in my review. The issues discussed could well be applied to the CIA.

Probably the best Greene book is The Quiet American, which is prophetic. He wrote it before the American involvement in Vietnam, but reading it now, you would think he wrote it after USA got involved. However, my favorite book is Our Man in Havana, which is a farce about the CIA bungling in Cuba.

Most of all, I found the steps to sainthood improbable for a woman who never actually became a Catholic. (Actually, I found the "miracles" so ridiculous I almost started laughing in the park.) What did others think about the religious angle?

I did not like the narrator. He was mean and malicious. I could not understand why the woman loved Maurice. He was so insecure in their relationship. I could not understand why Maurice was so hateful to her and had her investigated after the affair ended.

I thought so many things were improbable including the husband and lover living together in harmony after the wife/lover dies.

I could say more in the review, but this should be sufficient: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Phil wrote: "Finished. My review:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

I have mixed feelings about it. I loved the beginning and the end. I'm wondering if it would ..."

Phil, I could not find your review.

I have finished the book and I was not impressed. Graham Greene has written some fantastic books, but this is not one of them.

If anyone is interested in reading another book with much of the same themes, you can read Hard Times by Charles Dickens, published in 1854, several years after Mary Barton was published. In 2009, I read both books for a class I was taking and it was this experience that convinced me that Elizabeth Gaskell was a much better writer than Charles Dickens. Read it and see if you agree

The last sentence of the preface refers to recent events on the Continent. Mrs. Gaskell published Mary Barton in 1848, a tumultuous year in Europe. Uprisings occurred all over Europe. Sparknotes gives a good summary of the rebellions and the failure to make lasting changes. http://www.sparknotes.com/history/eur...

Because the English called Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs. Gaskell, I have always thought of her as a prim, modest, elderly woman full of good works. However, the following biography shows that she was a lively, progressive woman who loved her family and her neighbors and was generous towards all. http://gaskellsociety.co.uk/elizabeth...

A note to my fellow readers: Do not read any introductions that your book may have. Mine has major spoilers! You can read the intro after you read the book. However, you should read the preface to the book, which is right before chapter 1.

This thread is to learn about Elizabeth Gaskell, the author of Mary Barton, as well as to discuss the first 23 chapters of the book. I would also like us to explore the Industrial Revolution. What was the effects of this revolution on the people of England? What were the abuses of the business owners? How does the author review the issues? Does she favor the rich owners or the poor workers?

Please, do not discuss anything that is not in chapters 1-23.

In this thread, we can discuss anything we want about the book! This is the spoiler thread.