Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Classics Club Project: Progress #1


It’s been two months since I started The Classics Club Project, hosted by Jillian, of which I’m proudly announce that I have read six of 100 books from the list, and right now am in the middle of the seventh. Yayyy!!

On March, 8th I posted my original list of 100 classics for five years reading. However on the progress, I can’t help to—somehow—add more and more books to the original list. The expanded list has now reached thirteen. At this moment I won’t change the original list yet, and will just add any books I find interesting to the expanded list time to time. When the expanded list should reach 50, then I will update the original list. So far, this is my progress report:

March
The first book I read after joining the project was L’Assommoir (The Drunkard) by Emile Zola. I spent two whole weeks to finish it, and that’s why I only read one book that month. L’Assommoir has been shockingly affected me, that I could not turn into any other classics for sometime. I only grabbed some light readings until April came…

April
The second book for the project was The Great Gatsby. Although it’s only 200 something pages, I really enjoyed it that it took me a week or so to finish it. I often re-read a paragraph that I didn’t quite get the meaning or I just loved the scene. Overall, The Great Gatsby has been the most enjoyable reading for the project so far.

After that I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream of Shakespeare, which—I must confess—I didn’t quite enjoy. It’s been the first Shakespeare I read, and I have mistakenly picked the comedy one while I know I never quite fond of comedy or satire.

End of April I went into Alexandre Dumas’ The Man In The Iron Mask. Despite so many obstacles to read it, I found the book quite enjoyable.

May
This month I managed to finish two more books: Nobody’s Boy by Hector Malot and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Actually I have expected quite much from Nobody’s Boy, I thought it would be quite emotionally, however I’m quite disappointed that Malot seemed to write it for children or pre-teen. The story is good, but I cannot deeply moved by it.

I have a personal habit of posting my classics book review on the birthday of the author. It’s like my personal gift for those great authors. For May, I read TheAdventures of Sherlock Holmes for an event I have hosted together with Melisa for Indonesian classics reading community (Baca Klasik). And as Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday is on 22 May, I will post my review only on that date, although I have finished the book last week.

Right now I am in the middle of The Color Purple, participating in the readalong hosted by Bettina. As the readalong will end on May 31st, I will surely finish this book by this month. So far I like it, not as shockingly as L’Assommoir perhaps, but very touching.

Well, that’s it. Six books for two months, and if I can keep up the pace, I’ll finish my 100 books list by three years! That’s why an expanded list seems reasonable, no?

10 comments:

  1. Yes, I'm having trouble keeping my list to 50, and an expanded, or auxiliary list seems like a good idea!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm just wondering, how many our expanded list would be after 5 years?...

      Delete
  2. Goodluck on the "The Classics Club Project"-nya.

    Aku tunggu ulasan lengkap The Color Purple :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Oky, The Color Purple akan terbit 31 Mei 2012!

      Delete
  3. 100 buku dalam 5 tahun dan harus baca versi Bahasa Inggris-nya ya? enaknya ikut gak ya??? :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tidak harus baca versi Inggrisnya kok, aku juga ada terjemahan di list-ku. Dan jumlahnya tidak harus 100, coba cek di blognya Jillian (hostnya) deh untuk lebih jelasnya.. Moga2 kamu juga bisa ikutan, dari Indonesia udah ada 5 orang peserta lho!

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Thanks Jill! And thanks also (a lot) for creating such awesome project!

      Delete
  5. Nicely done! I've read one full book and two halves. I've got to get down to some serious reading!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We must thank Jillian for this project! At least for me, it gives me motivation to get more serious to read classics

      Delete

What do you think?