Alana’s Comments (group member since Apr 19, 2013)

Alana’s comments from the Classics Without All the Class group.

I liked the introspective version of Bond, but I found the chauvinism and coldheartedness much more pronounced than in the films, and it just didn't work for me. I found his "change" near the end completely unbelievable. No one just changes their mind that quickly. Or maybe he never really did?

I didn't realize there were two versions. I had the one with the ants and geese, then later when those same sections were also in Book of Merlin, I found them rather boring, since I'd already read them. The ants were certainly very heavy-handed, as far as White's morality tale, but it was still interesting.

Haha, I'd forgotten all that in the movie! It was a lot of fun to watch it after reading this, because I caught so much more of the story!

I read this for another group a few months ago and quite enjoyed it. It's witty and funny and silly. The other four sections, though, are much more serious and dark, and each was more brutal to get through than the last. I would recommend stopping after Sword, unless you're just really determined.

I read the short story in that collection, I just wasn't sure if that whole collection kind of corresponded with each other or if they're all completely separate stories. Are the other stories good?

It very interesting that there is a play on words in English (White Night vs. White Knight, as in, rescuing knight in shining armor) but I doubt that the connection exists in Russian. Works out well in translation though!

Beth wrote: "By today's standards, if a man approached a young woman and poured his heart out bitterly in rhetorical questions like he did, she would likely run away for fear that he was deranged and a potentia..."

Well stated, I need to look at it from that perspective, because I was honestly viewing him as a crazy stalker. If a man approached me and was babbling like that, I'd be looking out for the windowless van! But you make a good point about the time and culture.

Jeane wrote: "Welcome to White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky! This is a complicated (and somewhat short) romance novel set in Russia and published in 1848. It's in the public domain so you should be able to find ..."

I didn't realize it was considered a novel? It was barely 40 pages on my Kindle, so I can't imagine it was published as a novel?

I am just picking this up, but looking forward to what everyone's final thoughts were when I get to the discussion thread!

You should be able to get a copy from somewhere like Project Gutenberg, as well. It is in the public domain, I believe.

Gaurav wrote: "Kat wrote: "House of Leaves is hard but worth it, Took me six months to read it, though, because I was so scared."

Six months! I'm afraid how you'd have kept yourself reading it for such a enormou..."

Took me that long to get through the last of the Song of Ice and Fire books, but that's hardly classic literature, so I give myself a pass on that one :)

I agree, the descriptions of Atlanta as a growing and reborn town were fascinating!

I understand his resentments as a child, but the revenge against everyone associated with the Linton family is beyond ridiculous. Young Cathy, Linton, Hareton and even Nelly never did anything to him, yet they are the one he's trying to destroy! Certainly nothing justifiable about kidnapping, forceable marriage, wheedling away all the property, brutal violence, not to mention all of the mental and emotional abuse he heaps on everyone. If he lived today, he would have been locked up ages ago.

Daniel wrote: "I vote redemption. I'm voting this way because at the end of the book, the two housesare united (Linton and Earnshaw). I think the happy couple at the end (Catherine the younger and Hareton) are th..."

That's a good summary and way of viewing it. It's like the purging of the "bad blood" to restore the natural order, for lack of better terms.

I think she draws out the whole "nurture vs. nature" argument: was Heathcliff evil because he was made that way by the way he was treated growing up, or was he that way because he had an evil nature? Same for Linton: would he have turned out a different kind of person, even lived, if Heathcliff had not gotten ahold of him?

And what makes Hareton suddenly become a much more respectable human being? Was it in his nature all along, or does Cathy's sudden affection create it in him?

I didn't really feel sorry for Heathcliff: I pitied him, in that he destroyed any hope of happiness for himself, but I certainly couldn't feel sorry for him. He ruined those around him and was the most hateful human being imaginable.

How are they even able to say that all of this is legal? A girl is forced to marry someone because she is being kidnapped, underage, and the law is basically like "Oh, well, it's done now." Is that really how it worked? Or was it just that Heathcliff had so arranged things financially that it would only hurt the rest of them to deny the marriage?

I can't make Nelly out either. On the one hand, she seems all noble and wants to be very Victorian and do the right thing, but on the other, she does a lot of looking the other way. Can't seem to balance her out.

I feel like I really had no idea what this book was about, as I always thought the whole story was about Catherine and Heathcliff, I didn't realize that Catherine was dead halfway through the story. I really have no idea ultimately where all of this is headed, so I'm intrigued.

Jim wrote: "This was a great history lesson packaged in a very entertaining fiction story."

Well stated :)

We're definitely getting a level of unreliable narrator, though I like Nelly: she's remembering details from decades ago, telling them to a stranger who's just moved in, and we're hearing it from his perspective. While Nelly was there for most of these events, it's still quite removed from the original happenings, which gives the story that much more of an air of the mysterious and ghostly.