"...But All Their Intercourse Had Been Made Up Of Just Such Inarticulate Flashes, When They Seemed To Come Suddenly Upon Happiness As If They Had Surprised A Butterfly In The Winter Woods..."

I'm sure this has been said many times before by many different individuals who have read works by Edith Wharton, whether it be a casual reader or a more seasoned literary expert, but damn ya'll, girlfriend has a gdamn way with words.

Ethan Frome felt more like a really long short story to me because it had that feeling of every single word being filled with intent, to convey a specific meaning and evoke an exact emotion. There wasn't anything superfluous. The story begins with a narrator telling of his discovery of and interaction with Ethan Frome and how he puts together the story or Ethan's past that has made him the way he is. The storytelling then shifts to the actual events of Ethan's life, of his "sickly" (and kind of awful) wife Zeena and her young cousin, Mattie, who has come to take care of Zeena, having no other family to turn to. Mattie becomes the shining light of Ethan's otherwise dreary life and he aches with the uncertainty of her feelings for him and it only accentuates the dismal circumstances of his own marriage to see the beauty and joy in Mattie, in spite of her own challenging upbringing. 

The longing in these two characters and trepidation in bridging a gap that could ruin them both is so well-written. You feel their heartache, most acutely, Ethan's. And you want to root for them, but there are enough foreshadows early on to alert the reader that no happy ending is going to be possible. The end was a bit of an unexpected surprise, which I very much appreciated (again, it felt like you knew exactly how things were going to end based on the portrait given of Ethan in the beginning, but Ms. Wharton had just one last surprise up her sleeve). 

There really isn't anything I can fault about this book. It's so carefully well-crafted, it makes me appreciate Edith Wharton even more than I already did (cos I sure did love me some Age of Innocence). She is certainly an author I would want to read more of after I finish her one remaining title on my list. 

Next up is Regeneration by Pat Barker. A British officer refusing to continue in World War I being treated as psychologically insane? Sounds like something I'm going to enjoy. 

201 to go! (Almost going to break under that 200 barrier!!).    

"The White Man Is Very Clever. He Came Quietly And Peaceably With His Religion. We Were Amused With His Foolishness And Allowed Him To Stay. Now He Has Won Our Brothers, And Our Clan Can No Longer Act Like One. He Has Put a Knife On The Things That Held Us Together And We Have Fallen Apart."

The title quote for this post, to me, was the most important and impactful couple sentences in the entire book of Things Fall Apart. And was exactly what I was thinking about when I came to it in the novel. And I'm sure it is representative of the entire experience of white colonization of Africa. That on the surface there seemed to be this need on the part of white Christian Europeans to convert the "godless" natives of Africa, and that was how they initially made their inroads to the continent, but forced government was not far behind, and by then it was too late for the African tribes. 

The story is about Okonkwo, a strong and powerful leader of the Umuofia tribe in Nigeria, who is known as a fearless warrior. Okonkwo respects all of the traditions of his tribe and honors the spirits and gods that his tribe believes in. Suffice it to say that Okonkwo is a hyper-masculine individual and views any deviation from this as a sign of weakness, which, in his eyes, is not acceptable. He beats his wives and children, he works tirelessly to accumulate more wealth, and to rise to the highest possible rank within his tribe. After an unfortunate incident where Okonkwo's gun, fired during an animated tribal ritual, accidentally kills the son of one of his fellow tribal leaders, Okonkwo and his entire family are banished from the tribe for a duration of 7 years. They go to reside with his mother's tribe, the Mbanta. During this time, white missionaries arrive and set up a church on the outskirts of Mbanta. Little by little, they recruit more members from the tribe to believe in the one Christian god (a lot of those converting do so because they see things about their own gods that they don't like and don't agree with, and so prefer this new option). By the time Okonkwo returns to Umuofia, his oldest son has converted and his former tribe has also become significantly transformed by the presence of the white missionaries and government officials - the progress in Umuofia is even more advanced than it was in Mbanta. Things don't go well for Okonkwo, as he still has the heart of a warrior and is not willing to follow the new laws imposed on him by the white colonists. 

I found it interesting that the white colonists didn't show up until about pg 140 of 209 pages of the book. So the first two-thirds of the book detailed the life of Okonkwo, his tribe, and their customs and beliefs. It felt like once the white missionaries arrived, the rest of the book moved along very quickly, with less time devoted to presenting the dynamics of the white men with the tribesmen. But I guess it didn't bother me that much, because in the overall context of the story, it worked. 

Okonkwo was not a very sympathetic character. I felt like you could see how he was the embodiment of where things went wrong and he was, in some ways, a contrast to the white missionaries. For example, he had a ward in his care for 3 years as a punishment to another tribe after a wife is killed and came to care and respect the kid. But once the clan determined that the retribution should be the death of the ward, Okonkwo sets his feelings aside and kills the kid himself. He beats his wives and children, and then is surprised when his son turns his back on him and converts to Christianity. His tribe isn't all that different either. For example, whenever a woman in the tribe gives birth to twins, they throw the children away into the forest to die. And instead of wondering if it could be something that he/they did to have wrought such bad fortune upon him/them, he/they keeps his/their hyper-masculine warrior attitude. And I'm not criticizing this. This was the way of African tribes and who am I to criticize their way of life and how they believed the gods guided their good or bad fortune?

And the slow-takeover by the white colonists was presented in the most honest and seemingly accurate way I've ever read. That it wasn't necessarily tanks and guns and forced indoctrination straight out of the gate, but coming in peace and offering a new option and there were enough clansmen who were doubting their own way of life and their own gods to embrace this new approach. And by the time they realized that they didn't want white men controlling their lives in every facet, it was far to late to make a stand. 

I would highly recommend this book. It has been an interesting contrast to have read Things Fall Apart and Out of Africa so close together - one written from the perspective of a white woman living in Africa and one from the perspective of a black African. There were some perspectives about native Africans that were very similar, but Out of Africa feels very glamorized now, compared to the life the people led in Things Fall Apart. And of course no space was given to the wrongful colonization and enslavement in Out of Africa. 

Up next is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I expect this to be a quick read, clocking in a 157 pages. I loved The Age of Innocence so I'm sure I'll get sucked into this one too. 

202 to go!   

       

"When You Dig Just The Tiniest Bit Beneath The Surface, Everyone's Love Life Is Original And Interesting And Nuanced And Defies Any Easy Explanation"

Boy do I love a good, quick summer read. And fortunately, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo fit that bill perfectly, cos I motored through her in 4 days while lounging in northern Michigan (ok, so I was technically still working too, but as soon as I could, I picked it up and enjoyed a nice summer breeze outside and read to my heart's content).

The book tells of Monique Grant, an underling writer at a magazine in New York who is suddenly given the opportunity to interview Evelyn Hugo, a legendary screen siren, now in her late 70s. Evelyn has been largely reclusive and out of the public eye, but from the 1960s through the 1980s, she was a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood, even winning an Oscar. But she seems to be most notorious for her 7 marriages (I know the immediate thought is to assume the character is based on Elizabeth Taylor, but it is definitely not). Evelyn ends up providing Monique with the full account of her life to be published as a posthumous biography, but Monique questions, why her? When it could have been any writer on earth to be the lucky recipient of one of Hollywood's most fascinating and sought after subjects, why did Evelyn select her? 

This does become an important element to the story late in the novel but the story really belongs to Evelyn. The book is divided into chapters/sections based on the story of each husband and while each husband is important to her life and each brings something different to her and her career, more importantly is the person who was the true love of Evelyn's life. And the reader discovers what Evelyn was willing to sacrifice to further her career. Evelyn was a complicated character for me...I both liked and disliked her. She was ruthless and prioritized her social climbing above all else, particularly when she was younger, but she was also so full of love and didn't take the people who she truly loved for granted. She was smug but devoted. Stubborn but persevered over adversity. Self-centered but loyal. 

The ending I did see coming (I may not have 100% put the exact piece together, but I sussed out the key "surprises"), but it was still satisfying nonetheless. I would say I would have liked the character of Monique to have been developed a bit more...she was given some basic characteristics (mother was white, father was black, was going through a separation/divorce) that I felt were intended to carry a lot about who she was as a person without developing those parts of her more. But as I mentioned, this was really Evelyn's story, so I can live with Monique not being as full of a portrait as Evelyn was. I'd definitely recommend this book for a quick, enjoyable read! 

And now I'm up to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I think this is actually the first of a 3 part series, but it's the only one that appears on my book lists. I suspect by the time I get to the end (I'm already more than halfway through), I will probably feel like there is a lot more that needs to happen and/or be explained. Because right now, the novel feels a little like Out of Africa did...with many of the chapters providing short vignettes of one man's/family's tribal life in Africa. So I'm curious how it will eventually proceed...if there will be one distinct event that will occur that the rest of the book will center around or if it will continue in the same trend. We shall see! 

Happy reading! 

"I Have Heard Of People, Who, Upon Coming Suddenly Into Happiness, Have Died From Anxiety Lest They Should Not Live To Enjoy It"

For some reason I was expecting Return of the Native to be a complicated read as far as language. It had previously seemed to me that literature that I read from the 1800s was more difficult to make my way through, but I'm beginning to wonder if I just had a hard time getting engaged in the stories, because I've certainly quickly motored through some and not others. I think Return of the Native fell somewhere in the middle. The story was enough to keep me sufficiently roped into the narrative and I didn't particularly notice any complex, antiquated language. 

The story takes place in Egdon Heath, in the south of England and tells the story of a handful of characters whose lives and fates intertwine. Side note: the setting of the heath itself is as important to the story as the actual characters and events and actually impacts the story in many important ways. As a result, I had to Google what a heath was and pour over images to really get a full understanding of what the environment looked like - a very sparse, harsh, rural land. And hey, I learned what "furze" is, so there's that. 

Eustacia, a lovely young girl who is perceived by others on the heath as a dark and tempestuous, is in the midst of a love affair with Wildeve, who she discovers will be marrying another, Thomasin. Thomasin by contrast is a kind, fair and more angelic being, almost above reproach. And then returning from living in Paris is Thomasin's cousin, Clym, who instead of wanting to make a living in the exciting city is more interested in living simply on the heath and starting a school to provide insight and critical thinking to the simple folks and farmer's children. Eustacia falls madly in love with Clym, partly because he represents something new and exotic, partly to spite Wildeve, partly because she is certain she can use her feminine wiles to convince him to take her away to Paris to live, and partly because she truly does love him. And also thrown into the mix is Clym's mother, Mrs Yeobright, who has strong opinions about everything and feels that as a mother, she should be able to call the shots for her son and niece. 

Of course Eustacia and Mrs Yeobright don't get along. This quite annoyed the hell out of me, mostly on the side of Mrs Yeobright because she had never actually met Eustacia and formulated all of her very negative opinions of her just based on hearsay of the other heath residents. In fact, Mrs Yeobright bugged the crap out of me all the way around. She was very smug, selfish, and insistent about her way being how everyone else (her son in particular) should behave, and went about it in passive-aggressive way, always the victim. When Clym and Eustacia marry and Eustacia discovers his steadfast desire to remain at Edgon Heath, her feelings for Wildeve are rekindled and reciprocated. From here, things go south for just about everyone involved. 

I think what I enjoyed the most about the book was how well different, unfortunate situations were set up. There were so many ways in which all of the tragic events could have been avoided. Interventions from other side characters impacted the main characters in significant ways; interventions that were unintentional, happenstance, accidental, and just bad timing. The slightest modification in one person's behavior here and there could have changed the entire course of many lives. It felt quite Shakespearian, but I suppose those are elements of a good tragedy (is there such thing as a good tragedy?). And tragedy it is indeed. Good fortune does not smile down on anyone. 

The one thing I did struggle with, was the fact that none of the characters were very likeable. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that all of the characters were very complex and had redeeming and dislikable characteristics, and I while I liked them being multi-faceted and more human, I still had a hard time rooting for anyone. Even characters like Clym and Thomasin who seemed designed to be contrasts to Wildeve and Eustacia (more good-hearted than wicked) just annoyed me. Is it strange that I disliked the "nice" characters? Maybe that says more about me than them. 

Next up, I'm taking a brief break from the lists to pick up The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It seems to be a popular read and I've gotten a few recommendations for it. 

Other random notes:

• There is a feature on Goodreads that allows you to set a goal for the number of books you want to read for the year. I have set mine at 25, even though I'm only at 10. But I've significantly picked up my reading since years past, so I'm hoping to get pretty close to that number if not reach it. 
• I discovered in my tracker of the number of books I have left to read that I was missing Return of the Native (grrr...). So as a result, I am still stuck on 203 books left to go. Boooo. 

Happy Saturday of reading!