Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
Archived Chit Chat & All That
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What Are You Reading Now?
Dave wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "I'm reading Dracula for the first time last yer. I don't read horror and I don't usually like Gothics, but I've been pushing myself to try classics I thought I wouldn't like. In this..."Was it the version with Alan Cumming and Tim Curry? I've recommended that one to a friend of mine who has a long commute and listens to audiobooks while she drives. Its supposed to be awesome.
I'm enjoying reading it because I can mark up my pb copy as I read. It helps me notice details. But I can imagine a good audiobook is amazing - and scary.
I got the creeps reading it one night - the "storm of the century" was moving past and we were having really heavy winds. My windows were rattling like crazy, and there was something flapping outside Lucy's window... Chilling is a good word for it. I put on some music and turned on a couple more lights.
I was curious if Whitby, England was a real place, so I looked it up. It is real, Stoker had stayed there and the books is very much based on the area. Some photos of it really evoke the book - the ruined abbey, the 199 steps, the harbor, etc.
Teri-K wrote: "Dave wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "I'm reading Dracula for the first time last yer. I don't read horror and I don't usually like Gothics, but I've been pushing myself to try classics I thought I wouldn't ..."Yes, the edition you mentioned. Also in the cast are Simon Vance and John Lee, two of my favorite readers. It is awesome.
Have you read “Frankenstein”? I read it also last year. Both books were so much more than their presence in modern conscience where most know the books thru multiple movies. Frankenstein is a completely different story with a long middle section narrated by “the monster”. As you mentioned, the primary thing that stood out to me was various powers of Dracula that I had never seen in movies. I am a movie buff and one of my sub genres is Dracula movies.
Dave wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "Dave wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "I'm reading Dracula for the first time last yer. I don't read horror and I don't usually like Gothics, but I've been pushing myself to try classics I thou..."I have not read Frankenstein. I really don't care for gothic novels, so I have to ration them. I have read that there's much more to it than the common understanding of the story, so I should push it up on my TBR.
Teri-K wrote: "Dave wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "Dave wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "I'm reading Dracula for the first time last yer. I don't read horror and I don't usually like Gothics, but I've been pushing myself to try cl..."Interesting, “a gothic novel” is an aspect of the novel I had not thought of. I believe I remember that Mary Shelly wrote it as a gothic novel and that is where it is placed in literary history. To me, a fan of gothic novels, I expected it to be. But it turned out to be a psychological novel with the lonely, misunderstood monster a character that relates to the modern reader as a connection to prejudice based on superficial judgement. There is only sketchy description of the creation of the monster for instance. The monster is a very intelligent and sympathetic character. The story starts and ends in the Arctic.
I will have to move it up my tbr, if it didn't register with you as really gothic. They tend to stretch my patience with all the atmosphere and emotion, so I need a palate cleanser afterward. Lol
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I also love epistolary books. That was a writing concept I really hadn't given much thought to until I read Letters of Two Brides by Honoré de Balzac. Now I see the epistolary format as a plus. I hope to read 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff which is epistolary. I read Dracula years ago in High School but I don't remember the format very much.
Lynn wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "I'm reading Dracula for the first time. I don't read horror and I don't usually like Gothics, but I've been pushing myself to try classics I thought I wouldn't like. In this case it'..."Another classic epistolary book is Address Unknown.
Les Liaisons dangereuses is one of the most famous epistolary novels (and well worth a read imo!)and I myself am about to start Rousseau's Julie, or the New Éloïse which pre-dates even LLD!
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Wow thanks for the recommendation of this one. It sounds fantastic. I am unfamiliar with the book and the author.
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You might like Daddy-Long-Legs"
That's a great movie!
I am reading The housekeeper and the Professor.
I am reading a physical copy pf The Ox-Bow Incident, listening to Demon Copperhead in Audible and reading Lessons on Chemistry on my iPad’s Kindle app.
Jos wrote: "I am reading The housekeeper and the Professor."Love that book.
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood it’s different and interesting and informative and a little bit confusing
Half way through Dracula by Stoker. I've not read it before, and I'm enjoying it more than I expected. It's more like mystery then horror, though the creepy factor is in there.Also better than I expected is The Remains of the Day. The writing is wonderfully subtle and the main character delightful.
Teri-K wrote: "Half way through Dracula by Stoker. I've not read it before, and I'm enjoying it more than I expected. It's more like mystery then horror, though the creepy factor is in there.Also better than I ..."
I love The Remains of the Day Teri-K!
Greg wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "Half way through Dracula by Stoker. I've not read it before, and I'm enjoying it more than I expected. It's more like mystery then horror, though the creepy factor is in there.Also..."
I'm feeling that way, too. And I'm so surprised - I didn't expect to.
It can boil down to how books are described, I think. With Dracula everyone says "horror" or "gothic classic", and it doesn't convey the mystery style or the growing friendships between the characters. Remains of the Day always says "restrained" and "bittersweet", but doesn't mention the lovely, quiet humor or great sense of place. But that's OK, I'd rather be pleasantly surprised then disappointed when I read a new book.
Finished the classically awful
Irene Iddesleigh by Amanda McKittrick Ros [2/5] review and currently reading
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Darren wrote: "Les Liaisons dangereuses is one of the most famous epistolary novels (and well worth a read imo!)..."I agree completely. It's known in English as Dangerous Liaisons, and the film version with John Malkovich and Glenn Close is amazing as well. Co-starring very young Keanu Reeves and Uma Thurman.
I finished my first two books of the year this weekend, both in the Mystery/Crime/Thriller genre: 
To Die in California by Newton Thornburg
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I finished The Ox-Bow Incident and Lessons in Chemistry. I am in the process of finishing Demon Copperhead. I have also started The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. We are just a little over a week into 2023, and I am having a grand time!
I finished Dracula and surprised myself by really loving it! It felt like a mystery to me, which I love.I've just started Middlemarch, a new-to-me book I'm excited about. I'm taking my time with it. Still enjoying The Remains of the Day, it's lovely. Also rereading Persuasion, which may be my favorite Austen, I'm never sure.
Teri-K wrote: "I finished Dracula and surprised myself by really loving it! It felt like a mystery to me, which I love.I've just started Middlemarch, a new-to-me book I'm excited about. I'm taking my time with ..."
I also surprised myself by really loving Dracula when I read it for the first time 2 or 3 years ago.
Milena wrote: "I also surprised myself by really loving Dracula when I read it for the first time 2 or 3 years ago."I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who misunderstood what the book would be like - and ended up loving it!
Digenes Akrites. One of those "Someday" books from my shelf. I found this in a used bookstore years ago (must have been in Pittsurgh, PA--I took my mother to her 60th year class reunion and for 9 days I needed something to do other than eat Primanti Brothers sandwiches, so used bookstores it was!) and slapped a plastic cover on it. And now, Someday has arrived! :D
I finished this small collection of the two short stories that inspired the Nutcracker ballet which has become a Christmas classic: 
Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Reading the very bizarre and dark Korean novel City of Ash and Red. Occasionally darkly funny, more often disturbing, but never yet boring. Oh this guy, this monster, this narrator - he is something else!
Lynn wrote: "Teri-K wrote: "I'm reading Dracula for the first time. I don't read horror and I don't usually like Gothics, but I've been pushing myself to try classics I thought I wouldn't like. In this case it'..."84 Charing Cross Road is a favorite of mine. :)
just finished reading Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic which I thought was superb
apologies to the vast number of GR friends that I've spammed with recommendations!
Currently reading
How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back by Diana Rowland, book 4 of that series the only urban fantasy i've tried,
The High Place by James Branch Cabell, just 5 left including this one in the Biography of Manuel and
The Dalkey Archive by Flann O'Brien. I bought a second hand Everyman's Library of O'Brien's complete novels, having previously read the Third Policeman.
I have heard he got more conventional as he went on due to discouragement from his publisher so i'm reading them in reverse order.
But if the first chapter is any indication the Dalkey Archive will still be a delight :) . FYI, we pronounce it Dawkey.
SPARE! A library loan. I have to finish it in 7 days. 400 pages😬Then it's back to Travels with Charley: In Search of America where I am totally in love with Charley.
Teri-K wrote: "Milena wrote: "I also surprised myself by really loving Dracula when I read it for the first time 2 or 3 years ago."I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who misunderstood what the book would ..."
I felt exactly the same - I was imaging/expecting the media version delivered in cartoons growing up. The same was true when I read Frankenstein.
Teri-K wrote: "I finished Dracula and surprised myself by really loving it! It felt like a mystery to me, which I love.I've just started Middlemarch, a new-to-me book I'm excited about. I'm taking my time with ..."
The prose and the pacing of Dracula are shockingly modern. I gave it 5 stars, and have reread it since.
I’m reading The Book Of Life but,will be reading into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
I've started A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr. It's a short book, but the writing is so lovely I'm reading it very slowly. I'm pretty sure this will be a book to reread and savor over the years, so I'm glad I searched out a lovely cover for it. I like the little bits of foreshadowing - I have no idea where it's going or how much will actually be explained by the end, I'm just appreciating the trip.
I just started Dissolution by C.J. Sansom. I'm realizing that I don't know much about Cromwell and the activities of the time, so I'm learning as I read. (No, I haven't read Wolf Hall.) I've been interested in this mystery series for a long time, and I think I'm going to like the Main Character a lot. We'll see..
Still moving slowly through Middlemarch. I was pretty tired of Dorothea towards the end of book one, so I was happy to meet some new characters. I think that, in the book as she would be in real life, Dorothea may be someone I appreciate in small doses. lol Overall the book is interesting and it's easier to read than I expected - I thought it would be denser. I'm looking forward to seeing how things unfold.
I finished an addition to my All Time Favorites
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and I started reading the Russian Cold-War Era Science-Fiction classic:
Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
I just started David Copperfield! I read it, or parts of it, long ago, as a child. I am treating it as an entirely new read, and finding it delightful.
Finished Matilde Kimer: The war within (Krigen indeni).The book starts with the student protests in Kyiv in 2013 and running trough the war in eastern Ukrain in 2014. The book follows three people: 19-year-old nationalist law student Bogdan, Ukrainian Housewife Anya, and Danish war correspondent Matilde Kimer (the author).
Why would anyone want to read about that now, almost 10 years later? Because it is full of background knowledge for today's war and it is very well written. I would not say that Matilde Kimer has a death wish, but at some point she realizes that she believes that she cannot die in this war as she is a guest here. She usually travels with a photographer from the Danish national press (DR), and it seems she wears down three of them during the book.
"If Ukraine bombs the city tomorrow, this is where we have to be," I heard myself say. The photographer looked at me puzzled. "If they bomb the city tomorrow, this is exactly where we shouldn't be!..."
As far as I know the book has never been translated. If anyone have connection to the publishing industry, them may want to hint about this book.
In august 2022 Matilde Kimer was expelled from Russia (no surprise) but she also lost her accreditation in Ukraine. This should give you an idea of how balanced her reporting is: None of the sides like her! She is probably the most knowledgeable journalist in Denmark on Russia and Ukraine.
Squire wrote: "A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. One of those books with a too-long-residency on my my TBR."A Tale of Two Cities is on my reread list for this year. I haven't read it since I was young - and that's many decades ago. I hope I still like it, you never know...
I wanted to make another comment about Dracula. Apparently some people don't like it because of it's treatment of women. It does have a very strong "Angel of the House" vibe to it, but I thought Mina was the smartest person in the book.
She's the one who actually connects the threads and keeps them focused on the problem, even more so than van Helsing at times. So to me it was slyly amusing that the person they all wanted to exclude and protect was the person who figured things out and ended up "saving" everyone. Am I the only who saw it that way? Maybe, but it worked for me.
Just finished
, a collection of new stories by various authors; and then read
by Agatha Christie. I had never read a Christie book and it was fantastic! Looking forward to reading other Miss Marple stories.
I am currently reading
and
. Salem's Lot is part of my Goodreads Decade Challenge.
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
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I listened to a fully dramatized production of Dracula last year. It was my first fully dramatized production which I now prefer if I have a choice.
I enjoyed the novel for the reasons you mention. In concluded I described it as the most horrific reading experience I had ever had.