Category: Classics

John Le Carré’s Books

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

I have been having a sort out of both my physical and e-books and realised I have several books by John Le Carré, that I’d like to read sometime this year. I have three ‘real’ books by him and nine e-books. I’ve only read two (three now April 2022) of them!

Books shown in bold are the ones I’ve read and those in italics are the ones I own that I have yet to read. There are nine books in the Smiley series, in which the character George Smiley appears (in four out of the nine, Smiley is only a minor character). Within that series is the The Karla Trilogy (Books 5, 6 & 7).

Smiley
   1. Call for the Dead (1961) read
   2. A Murder of Quality (1962) – TBR (ebook)
   3. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) read
   4. The Looking Glass War (1965)
   5. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) read
   6. The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) read (paperback)
   7. Smiley’s People (1979) TBR (ebook)
   8. The Secret Pilgrim (1990)
   9. A Legacy of Spies (2017)

Standalone novels:

  1. A Small Town in Germany (1968)
  2. The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971)
  3. The Little Drummer Girl (1983) – TBR (ebook)
  4. A Perfect Spy (1986) – TBR (ebook)
  5. The Russia House (1989)
  6. The Night Manager (1993) – TBR (ebook)
  7. Our Game (1995)
  8. The Tailor of Panama (1996)
  9. Single and Single (1999)
  10. The Constant Gardener (2000)- TBR (paperback)
  11. Absolute Friends (2003)
  12. The Mission Song (2006)
  13. A Most Wanted Man (2008)
  14. Our Kind of Traitor (2010) – TBR (ebook)
  15. A Delicate Truth (2013)
  16. Agent Running in the Field (2019)
  17. Silverview (2021)

As I’ve read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, the next one I’ll read is The Honourable Schoolboy.

Summary

In this classic masterwork, le Carré expands upon his extraordinary vision of a secret world as George Smiley goes on the attack.

In the wake of a demoralizing infiltration by a Soviet double agent, Smiley has been made ringmaster of the Circus (aka the British Secret Service). Determined to restore the organization’s health and reputation, and bent on revenge, Smiley thrusts his own handpicked operative into action. Jerry Westerby, “The Honourable Schoolboy,” is dispatched to the Far East. A burial ground of French, British, and American colonial cultures, the region is a fabled testing ground of patriotic allegiances and a new showdown is about to begin.

And after that as I did enjoy watching the TV adaptation of The Night Manager a while back, I might read that later on.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

4*

All I knew about David Copperfield: The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account) by Charles Dickens is that it is said to be his most autobiographical novel. I think I must have watched a TV serialisation years ago but I remember very little about it. It was first published as a serial in 1849 and 1850, and then as a book in 1850.

It’s a long novel with a multitude of characters, including David’s cruel stepfather, Mr Murdstone, the family housekeeper Peggotty, his school friends Steerforth, who he mistakenly idolises and, my favourite character, Tommy Traddles, who has a heart of gold, and a remarkable upstanding head of hair. Then there’s another favourite character, David’s great aunt Betsey Trotwood, who wages war against marriage and donkeys and her companion, the simple-minded Mr Dick; Mr Micawber, always in debt and in and out of the debtor’s prison, and the odious and nauseating Uriah Heep are both memorable characters.

Uriah Heep at his desk, by Fred Barnard

I was totally immersed in their world, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of Victorian England, the living conditions of the poor contrasting with the decadent wealth of the rich, and the dramatic intensity of episodes such as the terrible storm at sea off Yarmouth. There’s drama, comedy and tragedy, melodrama and pathos as the story follows David’s life from his birth to his adulthood, covering his childhood, early schooldays, his time as a young boy working in a factory, then as a student in Canterbury where he lodged with the lawyer Mr Wickfield and his daughter, Agnes.

Betsey later established him in London where he worked in the Doctor’s Commons, under the tutelage of Mr Spenlow, whose daughter, the beautiful, frivolous and to my eyes, the utterly pathetic Dora totally captivated him. The sections of the book involving Dora are rather too sentimental for my liking. Then there’s Pegotty’s family – her brother Daniel, a fisherman, their nephew Ham and niece, Little Em’ly who is David’s childhood friend and sweetheart. They live in a converted boat on the beach at Yarmouth. And not forgetting Barkis, who marries Pegotty, after telling David to tell her, ‘Barkis is willing‘. Their sections of the book are the ones I enjoyed the most. I could go on and on, not forgetting David himself as describes the misfortunes and obstacles he met and the friends he makes.

I enjoyed reading David Copperfield, which was Dickens’ own personal favourite of all his novels, but it is not mine – it’s a bit too long for me. I think my favourite is Bleak House, which I read after seeing the TV adaptation in 2005 with Anna Maxwell Martin, Gillian Anderson, Denis Lawson, and Charles Dance. Maybe I’ll read it again to see what I think of it now. These days I prefer shorter books and Bleak House, like David Copperfield is long with many characters and sub-plots.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

3*

I bought a paperback copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four (its original title) in 2008, but have only just read it. It is George Orwell’s last novel, written in 1948 and presents his vision of a dystopian society, a totalitarian state complete with mass surveillance, where individuality is brutally suppressed.

Synopsis from the back cover:

In Orwell’s frightening vision of the future, society is under the control of Big Brother. Every aspect of life is closely monitored, whilst any hint of unorthodoxy is ruthlessly suppressed by the Thought Police. The Ministry of Truth, where Winston Smith works, is the Party’s Propaganda Machine. A secret rebel, Winston yearns for liberty and finds new hope when he falls in love with the earthy, uncomplicated Julia. Instead he discovers a nightmare world of terror where the price of freedom is betrayal.

Winston Smith’s attempt to find liberty and individuality plunges him into a truly horrific version of hell. The world is ravaged by war with three superstates, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia battling for total control. Winston lives in Airstrip One (Britain) in Oceania. His job is to rewrite history and destroy the old records, in accordance with the current circumstances. He secretly opposes the Party’s rule, led by the mysterious Big Brother, and dreams of rebellion. But faced with the Thought Police, the Hate Week sessions the surveillance through the television screens, cameras and hidden microphones monitoring his every move and thought, he realises it is a futile hope and that he is likely to be caught.

This really is the most depressing book and in places it is boring, especially in the middle section of the book devoted to Goldstein’s book. Goldstein, the leader of the Opposition Party to Big Brother, is always the subject of hatred at the Hate Week sessions. There are also passages that I could hardly bear to read – torture scenes that I did not want to visualise – it is a harrowing book. But it was interesting to see where the terms, Big Brother is Watching You, Room 101 (you do not want to be sent there!) Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time, and Thoughtcrime originated.

Nineteen Eighty -Four has received very many accolades and 94% of the people who have rated it on Goodreads ‘liked’ it – 79% giving it 5 or 4 stars .This is possibly the least enjoyable book I’ve read, horrific in content, lacking in convincing characterisation, and has a poor plot. It is depressing and dreary in the extreme, but I can see why it can be considered a brilliant book in its depiction of a dystopian society. It is seriously thought provoking!

‘George Orwell’ was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950). He ‘was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.’ (Goodreads)

Classics Club II

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

The Classics Club

The Classics Club is a club created to inspire people to read and blog about classic books. There’s no time limit to join. You simply sign up to read and write on your blog about at least 50 classic books in at most five years

This is my second list of books to read for the Classics Club. I’ve been hesitating about making a second list as it has taken me almost 10 years to read through my first list! So I hope this second list won’t take me that long. It doesn’t have to be a fixed list as you can alter it at any time. I’ll be using this list once I’ve finished reading the last book on my first list.

I’ve listed the books in a-z author order. 

  1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen – I’m not sure that I’ve read this before, so it may turn out to be a re-read.
  2. Another Part of the Wood by Beryl Bainbridge
  3. Death in the Tunnel by Miles Burton
  4. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  5. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
  6. The Mousetrap and Selected Plays by Agatha Christie
  7. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  8. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
  9. The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
  10.  Buried for Pleasure by Edmund Crispin
  11. The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin
  12. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
  13. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  14. Dickens at Christmas by Charles Dickens
  15. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
  16. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  17. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  18. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
  19. Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
  20. A Room with a View by E M Forster
  21. The Man of Property by John Galsworthy Forsyte Saga (1)
  22. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  23. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
  24. Daisy Miller by Henry James
  25. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
  26. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
  27. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  28. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  29. The Night Manager by John le Carre
  30. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  31. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay – read
  32. How Green was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
  33. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence
  34. Friends and Heroes by Olivia Manning
  35. Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
  36. The Birds and other short stories by Daphne du Maurier
  37. I’ll Never Be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier
  38. The Time of Angels by Iris Murdoch
  39. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
  40. Waverley by Walter Scott
  41. A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute
  42. On the Beach by Nevil Shute
  43. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
  44. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
  45. The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope
  46. The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
  47. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
  48. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
  49. The Invisible Man by H G Wells
  50. Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

Book Beginnings & The Friday 56: 1984 by George Orwell

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

1984 is one of the books I’m currently reading. It’s one of those books I’ve had for years and never read.

The Book Begins:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice. *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your  ereader . If you have to improvise, that is okay. *Find a snippet, short and sweet, but no spoilers!

These are the rules:

  1. Grab a book, any book.
  2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
  3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
  4. Post it.
  5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

‘By 2050 – earlier, probably – all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron – they’ll exist only in Newspwak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be.

Summary:

The year 1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell’s prophetic, nightmarish vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is timelier than ever. 1984 is still the great modern classic of “negative utopia”—a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time. (Goodreads)

~~~

What have you been reading lately?

Back to the Classics Challenge 2022

Published on by Margaret16 Comments

It’s back! This is the 9th year that Karen at Books and Chocolate has hosted the Back to the Classics Challenge and this is the second time I’ll be joining in. Last year I completed 6 of the categories and this year I’m hoping to do more,

See Karen’s sign-up post on Books and Chocolate for more details about the challenge.

There are twelve categories and these are the books I’ve initially chosen for some of the categories – but there are others I could choose, so this list may/probably will change.

  1. A 19th century classic. Any book first published from 1800 to 1899 – David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  2. A 20th century classic. Any book first published from 1900 to 1972. All books must have been published at least 50 years ago; the only exceptions are books which were written by 1972 and posthumously published. Another Part of the Wood by Beryl Bainbridge
  3. A classic by a woman author. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
  4. A classic in translation.  Any book first published in a language that is not your primary language. You may read it in translation or in its original language, if you prefer. 
  5. A classic by BIPOC author. Any book published by a non-white author. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
  6. Mystery/Detective/Crime Classic. It can be fiction or non-fiction (true crime). The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie
  7. A Classic Short Story Collection. Any single volume that contains at least six short stories. The book can have a single author or can be an anthology of multiple authors. The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
  8. A Pre-1800 Classic. Anything written before 1800. Plays and epic poems, such as the Odyssey, are acceptable in this category. 
  9. A Nonfiction Classic. Travel, memoirs, and biographies are great choices for this category. In Cold Blood. by Truman Capote
  10. A Classic That’s Been on Your TBR List the Longest. Find the classic book that’s been hanging around unread the longest, and finally cross it off your list!  
  11. A Classic Set in a Place You’d Like to Visit. Can be real or imaginary — Paris, Tokyo, the moon, Middle Earth, etc. It can be someplace you’ve never been, or someplace you’d like to visit again.
  12. A Wild Card Classic. Any classic you like, any category, as long as it’s at least 50 years old!