A Far Cry from Kensington (1988) by Muriel Spark #CCSpin

💜 #CCSpin brought me a novel by a-new-to-me author: Muriel Spark. A Far Cry from Kensington is a reminiscent of post war London in 1954-1955 by a young widow: Mrs. Hawkins. At first I thought Mrs. Hawkins was in her late thirties or even early forties. She seemed matured, motherly, and loved to dispose advises. But it turned out she was quite young, only twenty nine. I think it's because of her large body, as well as her personalities, that made her seemed older and unattractive.

💜 Mrs. Hawkins lived alone in a rooming house (boarding house) in South Kensington, and worked as editor in a struggled publishing company. Also residents in the house are William, a medical student; Kate, a nurse; and Wanda Podolak, a Polish dressmakers. The later is the first center of Mrs. Hawkins' story, the other is an aspiring writer called Hector Bartlett, whom she used to call a "pisseur de copie" due to his books which were of rubbish quality.

💜 Wanda Podolak is the kind of hysterical and nervous woman. She's a good dressmaker and had many clients, men and women. One day she received an anonymous letter, threatening her to pay her taxes, or else, prison. This is just the beginning of Wanda's declining. Mrs. Hawkins and the rest of the house thought it just a bully, but Wanda, being an immigrant and hysterical in nature, took it very seriously. It didn't help too when she began taking to radionics - a pseudoscientific form of alternative medicine in the shape of a black box, which was actually a historical event in the early 20th century. The writer of the letter became an exciting mysterious puzzle that was only be solved near the end.

💜 Hector Bartlett also proved to be thorn in Mrs. Hawkins's flesh due to her rude but honest appellation of him. Besides these complexities, Agnes (or Nancy) Hawkins, thirty years later, reminisces her days in the publication world, the eccentricities of her fellow residents and neighbors, as well as her efforts to be a better self - diet is one of them. And it is a thinner and much more contended Nancy Hawkins who told us this amazing story thirty years later from Italy - a far cry from that 1955 Kensington.

💜 I am so glad I had the chance to come upon this book. It seems a short and ordinary story, but it has many layers that intrigued me long after finishing it. Muriel Spark is a brilliant author to capture the depth of humanity in the post-war, but which also applies and is relevant in any era.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Classics Club Spin #38 #CCSpin

It’s time for another #CCSpin! I have been slacking a bit in my classics reading, and have just thought the other day that I’ve got to read one classic this or next month. So, #CCSpin comes nicely at the right time.

What is Classics Spin?
It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday 21st July 2024 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period. On 21st July, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 22nd September 2024.

UPDATE: I'm going to read #17: A FAR CRY FROM KENSINGTON (Muriel Spark)

My list

1. Excellent Women (Barbara Pym)
2. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths (Barbara Comyns)
3. Miss Buncle's Book (D.E. Stevenson)
4. Cranford (Elizabeth Gaskell)
5. Miss Plum and Miss Penny (Dorothy Evelyn Smith)
6. Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome)
7. A Far Cry from Kensington (Muriel Spark)
8. Cider with Rosie (Laurie Lee)
9. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg)
10. Something New: Blandings Castle #1 (P.G. Wodehouse)
11. Excellent Women (Barbara Pym)
12. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths (Barbara Comyns)
13. Miss Buncle's Book (D.E. Stevenson)
14. Cranford (Elizabeth Gaskell)
15. Miss Plum and Miss Penny (Dorothy Evelyn Smith)
16. Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome)
17. A Far Cry from Kensington (Muriel Spark)
18. Cider with Rosie (Laurie Lee)
19. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg)
20. Something New: Blandings Castle #1 (P.G. Wodehouse)

As you can see for yourself, there are only ten on the list, which I doubled up to make it twenty. I’m just being lazy, and don’t have time to think of ten more. And I’ve just realized that eight of the ten are by women writers, and six of ten are new writers for me - splendid! I have just found an audio version of Barbara Comyns’ Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, and would love that to be picked, but I’ll be delighted to read any one of them anyway.

Have you read any on my list? Any favorites? And if you’re a Classics-Clubber, would you join #CCSpin too?

The Foolish Gentlewoman (1948) by Margery Sharp #CCSpin #DeanStreetDecember2023

🎀 Post-war England found six unlikely group of people living in the same living quarter of Chipping Hill, home of a middle-age widowed Isabel Brocken, the titular 'foolish gentlewoman' of this book, a sweet person by nature, and innocently kindhearted. Her brother-in-law Simon, a pompous misogynist gentleman, is staying as guest, while his bombed house is in repair. To his chagrin, he's not the only guest. Also staying with Isabel is Humphrey Garrett, her recently-demobbed nephew, and Jacqueline Brown, her ex-ATS companion. Completing the assemble are the Pooles: Mrs. and Greta Poole, mother and daughter whom Simon hired as caretaker-slash-cook.

🎀 The post-war vibes are poignantly depicted in this book. Simon's disapproval of post-war changes and longing for the return of pre-war orderly world; Humphrey and Jacqueline's need of peace and rest after their hectic lives during war. They spiced up the whole story for me.

🎀 After a moment's struggle, the six of them reached a harmonious existence. But just as they have settled down conveniently, a complication came in the shape of Tilly Cuff. Tilly is Isabel's poor distant cousin, who had grew up with Isabel and Simon, but on opposite position of the classes.

🎀 Young Isabel was in love with a young man, but the man loved Tilly. Isabel found and read his proposal letter to Tilly, but she tore it up, and so, deprived Tilly of a life better than being governess and companion all her life. Of this youthful vice Isabel repented, and now determined to have a reconciliation by means of inviting Tilly to stay at Chipping Hill, and later on gifted her the house and most of her money.

🎀 Her generous idea was opposed by the three others, but most strongly Simon who couldn't bear to see the Brocken's estate being given to stranger like that. But Isabel, to anyone's surprise, didn't budge. Tilly arrived at last, and with that, the end of the peacefulness at Chipping Hill.

🎀 Saying that Tilly stirred the whole household is an understatement - putting it upside down would be more appropriate. Years of having to put up with difficult employers and colleagues made her bitter and malice. Even the Pooles, who had hitherto managed to be left alone by the family, couldn't avoid Tilly's evil snare. Isabel saw all these transformation in Tilly. What do you think she would decide concerning her idea, would she do it anyway? Or could Simon and the others make her realize of her foolish attempt?

🎀 This is a seemingly light read, but actually much deeper than I first thought. Isabel turns out to be not as foolish a gentlewoman as Simon had thought, she just think differently. But when she knows she's right, she sticks to her idea. When it comes to her conscience, she does what it tells her, no matter how others think or even oppose.

🎀 And Tilly - she's the most complicated of all. Seeing what she does to others is pretty annoying. How can a person be such malevolent and inconsiderate? But once we consider her past, well... every action of hers began to make sense. I never agree with her reactions, one shouldn't throw one's anger upon others who are innocent, but I understand that sometimes, under continuous pressure, one might snap.

🎀 My favorite character here is Isabel. She's not foolish to me, but a sweet person, who knows what she wants, and dares to be herself. It often happens, that someone calls another 'fool' because the other doesn't share the same views. There's rarely wrong with either views or opinions, because we each have our own priority in life, don't we? I also admire Mrs. Poole for her determination to make best of what life has to offer.

🎀 All things considered, this was a wonderful read. And after my disappointing start with Stone of Chastity, I can finally enjoy reading Sharp.

Rating: 4,5 / 5

I read this book for:

Dean Street December
hosted by Liz @ Adventures in reading, running and working from home

The Classics Club Spin (CC Spin) # 35

Yay… it’s time for the last Classics Club Spin of this year. I’ve been abandoning my Classics Club reading for a while, so it’s time to shake it off a bit!

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday 15th October, 2023 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period. On Sunday 15th, October we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 3rd December, 2023.

Since I am too lazy to choose twenty, here’s my list of ten titles, doubled, to make twenty:

UPDATE - no. 2 is chosen, and I'll be reading:

1. Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
2. The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp
3. Vittoria Cottage by D.E. Stevenson
4. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff
5. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
6. Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson
7. The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
8. Village School by Miss Read
9. Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
10. The Enchanted Barn by Grace Livingston Hill
11. Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
12. The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp
13. Vittoria Cottage by D.E. Stevenson
14. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff
15. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
16. Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson
17. The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
18. Village School by Miss Read
19. Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
20. The Enchanted Barn by Grace Livingston Hill

I don’t have any preference, though if numbers 2,3,12,13 were to be picked, I’d also be reading them for Dean Street December. Have you read them? Spotted any favorites?

 

Classics Club Spin #34

UPDATE: THE SPIN NUMBER IS 13!

CC Spin is back! 

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday 18th June, 2023 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period. On Sunday 18th, June we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 6th August, 2023.

As my reading schedule will be quite tight coming July, I choose only short classics (100-200ish pages) which I think I would enjoy. There are only ten of them, so I double the entry to make it twenty. Here's my Spin list:

1. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
2. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
3. The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
4. Mrs. Harris Goes to Moscow by Paul Gallico
5. Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
6. Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome
7. The Enchanted Barn by Grace Livingston Hill
8. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
9. Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
10. Letters from My Windmill by Alphonse Daudet
11. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
12. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
13. The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
14. Mrs. Harris Goes to Moscow by Paul Gallico
15. Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
16. Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome
17. The Enchanted Barn by Grace Livingston Hill
18. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
19. Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
20. Letters from My Windmill by Alphonse Daudet

Have you read these books? Which one do you wish me to get?

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: A Review (CC Spin #32)

🌳 Because I love nature, it's only natural that I tend to be attracted to books where nature poses as dominant aspect. The Woodlanders falls into this category, and that's why I loved it!

🌳 I was drawn, particularly, to the simple life of the woodlanders; their occupation, their view of life, and their intimate relation with mother nature. I was also interested in the spars making craft (I didn't know what a spar is until I googled it). And that was, actually, how we were first introduced to this book: a simple nineteen year old girl, Marty South, making spars in the dead of the night to get paid in the morning. That's how woodlanders had lived, and, but for some influences from "outsiders", they would all live contentedly. And that's what this book is about - greediness and ambition which wrecked the beautiful balance of natural life in a woodland village: Little Hintock.

🌳 As I have analyzed before, I see Marty South as the centre of this story. She is reserved, calm, hardworking, and possesses enough skill for improving her life. Then the outsiders' unnatural greediness or ambition starts to shake her world. First, Marty must sacrifice her luscious long hair to be sold for money, just because Mrs. Charmond, a rich widow with many lovers, wants to have it as a wig!

🌳 The hair symbolizes Marty's femininity. Without it, she loses hope of ever attracting Giles Winterborne, a woodsman whom she loves, though unrequitedly. Giles is in love with another: Grace Melbury, who has been "promised" to him by her father.

🌳 The ambitious Mr. Melbury had sent his only daughter Grace to be educated abroad to improve her future. He takes back his promise to Winterborne, as he thinks her daughter should marry higher than a mere woodsman. A young doctor called Fitzpiers, who is charmed by Grace, is the one Mr. Melbury believes as a more suitable husband for Grace.

🌳 What about Grace herself? It is interesting to see how she'd view the woodland after returning from abroad. Would she be contented with her old life (and lover), or would she view them as flat and boring, seeking more refined, more amusing life and husband? It was amusing to see her blundering through her choices, in Hardy's universe, which was always ruled by chances, bad timing, and errors. Could Grace escape it all unscathed? But more importantly, how would she re-shape the life of those who are truer woodlanders?

🌳 Hardy himself had classified this novel in the group of "Novels of Character and Environment" [source: wikipedia]. And I agree. The Woodlanders is about clashes between classes and different environments, poor marriage, adultery, wrong choices. It's not a cheerful story, but it's Hardy, you can't expect nothing more, right? But no worry, Hardy compensated the gloomy plot with his rustic settings of the woodland and his usual beautiful narration. And also, with one of the strongest 'heroines' I've ever read.

Rating: 4,5 / 5


Further reads on The Woodlanders:
- Character analysis of Marty South
- Book cover art analysis
- Hardy's poem on Marty South 

 

The Lucky Spin Number is 6, and The Book Is...

 

CC Spin # 32 has drawn its lucky number: 6. And the lucky book from my list is...

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy

Honestly, I was hoping to get no. 1 (Rural Hours) or no. 9 (Dandelion Wine). But The Woodlanders is nice too, at least it's not as bulky as Middlemarch! :)) Plus, I'm planning to read a Hardy next year, anyway.

My only concern is that I'll have to read it from my physical book (instead of e-book), and reading a paperback in January isn't perfect for me due to the lack of afternoon light. You see, between daily chores and full time job, I don't have much time left for reading. I can squeeze about an hour each (working) day by reading while commuting, during lunch break (if possible), and before sleep. The problem with January is that here in Indonesia we are in the midst of monsoon season, when it rains often in the afternoon on my way home. And that makes it almost impossible to read a book. Usually I pick books which I can read from my Playbook reader, and that's how The Woodlanders is a tough choice. I can probably switch to the e-book version, but it seems such a waste when I own a paperback copy!

Anyway, I'm still quite excited to start 2023 with Hardy. Maybe I just need to pick a second read from my e-book TBR list to read only in the afternoon, so that I won't waste my reading time. :)

Which book do you get? Are you satisfied with what you get?

Classic Club Spin # 32 #CCSpin

UPDATED 

I haven’t done CC Spin for quite a long while, but now I’m more than ready to shake up the beginning-of-year-reading. Let’s do it!

1. Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper
2. The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
3. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
4. Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens
5. Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (The Dancer) by Ahmad Tohari
6. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
7. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
8. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
9. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
10. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
11. No Name by Wilkie Collins
12. Middlemarch by George Eliot
13. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
14. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Moskow by Paul Gallico
15. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
16. Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
17. The Scarlett Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
18. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
19. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
20. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

• The list consists of books that are on my TBR pile, either in physical or e-books.
• I have shuffled the chunky and lighter ones, so.. let's hope for the best!
• Some of them I have intended to read this year, either for reading challenges I’m participating, or for my own reading events/schedule.
• Some of them have appeared in my previous CC Spin (and didn’t get picked), and few were even entered for last challenges but then I changed my mind (sorry, Middlemarch!)
• A Room with a View, I have started reading few chapters a couple of months ago, but I guess my mind was too pre-occupied at that time. Anyway, I’m willing to make another trial.

So, whichever gets to be picked, bring it on! I’m crossing my fingers for Rural Hours, though, so hopefully no. 1 will be lucky 😄!

 

Classics Club Spin #26 Lucky Number Is....

 

The Classics Club has picked the lucky number of 11, and it means I get to read...

One of Ours by Willa Cather

I'm so excited because next month I'll be reading two Willa Cather's in a row... for the whole month! In case you have not read my earlier post, I have planned to read My Antonia for May, then one more book for the #CCSpin. And how lucky I am that it picked another Cather's which I have also listed for the Spin!

One of Ours is the novel which won Willa Cather a Pulitzer Prize in 1923, so it must be a wonderful one. And hey.... isn't the cover of my copy also wonderful?! <3

So, what do you get for the Spin? Are you excited too? Anyway... have fun!

The Classics Club's CC Spin #26

Classics Club Spin is back! And about time too! After the usual hectic of the first four months of the year (not mentioning the two reading events that I'm hosting this year), I really need a refreshing kick to calm my nerve and to be back to my usual reading vigour.

What is CC Spin?

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday 18th April, 2021, create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

This is your Spin List.

You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.

On Sunday 18th, April, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 31st May, 2021.


And here's my list:

1. My Antonia - Willa Cather

2. Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy

3. The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan

4. Watership Down - Richard Adams

5. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

6. Elizabeth and Her German Garden - Elizabeth von Arnim

7. The Custom of the Country - Edith Wharton

8. Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope

9. Eugenie Grandet - Honore de Balzac

10. I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

11. One of Ours - Willa Cather

12. My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier

13. The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane

14. Casino Royale - Ian Fleming

15. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

16. The Crucible - Arthur Miller

17. The Imitation of Christ - Thomas A Kempis

18. The Scarlett Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

19. Red Pony - John Steinbeck

20. Under the Net - Iris Murdoch

Some of the list are from my 2021 Reading Schedule. I will definitely read no. 1 in May anyway, so any number I'd get, I will read it alongside My Antonia. But if no. 1 gets picked, then I'm lucky! :)

Do you join CC Spin too? Is there any title you expect me to get, or is in your list too?

Classics Club Spin # 25

It's time for another #CCSpin, and I'm as excited as can be, because it will be based on my 3rd The Classics Club List, which I'll be starting on January 2021 (the complete list will be up on December)! Here they are...

01. Watership Down - Richard Adam's

02. I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

03. Eugenie Grandet - Honore de Balzac

04. Lady Audley's Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon

05. The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan

06. My Antonia - Willa Cather

07. The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane

08. Casino Royale - Ian Flemming

09. Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy

10. Their Eyes Were Watchijg God - Zora Neale Hurston

11. The Immitation of the Christ- Thomas A. Kemp is

12. Under the Net - Iris Murdoch

13. The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

14. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin

15. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

16. The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu

17. The Crucible - Arthur Miller

18. Barchester Tower - Anthony Trollope

19. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonegut

20. The Customs of the Country - Edith Wharton

14 out of 20 are new authors for me. I'm a bit nervous, but also pretty exciting here. Have you read any of them? Spotted a favorite or two? :)

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

After East of Eden last year, I didn't think I'd get to another masterpiece from Steinbeck so soon. Yet Cannery Row has got me stunned! It was really a diamond; short but full of hidden meaning, straightforward yet poetic, quiet and warm.

What is Cannery Row anyway? Steinbeck wrapped it up beautifully in his opening line:

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, s quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, and chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardines canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouse. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing. “

So Cannery Row is about a few blocks of fish canneries in the harbour city of Monterey, California, drawn from Steinbeck's memories when he stayed there. This is a tale about its remarkable inhabitants. Who are they? Mostly, a bunch of good-for-nothings. There's Mack and the boys, a gang of unemployed losers, whose only ambition was contentment without working. They occupy an empty building owned by a Chinese grocery store owner - whose 'wealth' mainly consists in the piles of tit bits in his shop, and in the debts of his customers - called Lee Chong. Mack and the boys named their 'house' the Palace Flophouse. Then there were Dora Flood who runs a bar and whorehouse called The Bear Flag. All these people were expelled from their families, works, and even society.

The Cannery Row nowadays

Then we meet our main protagonist: Doc, a marine biologist, whose character was borrowed from Steinbeck's real friend Ed Ricketts. Doc is a loner, collecting sea creatures from the coast to be sold to universities, museums, or laboratories. He preserves them in his laboratory. Doc is the smartest and the most kindhearted man in Cannery Row. People love him because, in contrast with the world's cold acceptance towards these people, Doc willingly bears with them, listens to them, treats them with dignity, never criticizes, but instead, imparts small wisdom to them. In short Doc accepts them as they are, for which, these people indebted to him, and always feel that they 'must do something for Doc'.

Mac and the boys got an idea, they’d throw a surprise party for Doc. But as Doc was coming home very late that day, they got drunk and eventually crashed his property while waiting for him. So instead of making him happy, they broke all his belongings, and made him miserable. I was literally crying when they were breaking Doc's treasured phonographs! I imagined Doc, after a day of serious working, the classical music is all he has to cheer him up, something to warm his lonely life, the way family does a man. And this only luxury he can afford was crashed by the guests! That punches Doc gave Mack are well deserved.

Ed Rickett's laboratory which is depicted as Doc's

Actually Cannery Row does not have much of a plot. It evolves around the Flophouse boys' efforts to give a nice present to Doc. After the first failure, they intended to do a better one. And along with it, Steinbeck unrolled the lives and struggles of each character, and some seemingly unrelated ones.

The most interesting of the later is Frankie, the 'unseen' boy - nobody seems to realize his quiet existence, and he is literally 'useless' - in Doc's phrase: "There wasn't a thing in the world he could do". When he single mindedly 'decided' to get a beautiful antique clock for Doc's birthday - by stealing it - and got caught, and when Doc asked him why he did it, Frankie looked a long time at him, and his earnest answer was: "I love you" which really broke my heart! Oh that boy... what would become of him when he's grown up? He might be good for nothing, but he is capable of loving... and abundantly too! And the only thing he needs in return is to be loved! Oh, if only we are not too much into ourselves, we will be able to realize of this gem of humanity!

Another sweet and sad story is of Mary Talbot, a loony - or I prefer to call her a 'dreamer'. She likes to throw parties, but instead, as her husband doesn't earn much, she encourages others to give parties, of which she can manage. Sometimes she even gives parties to cats, yes, cats! And she takes the business seriously. Let me show you one of the scenes:

“Kitty Randolph was sunning herself by the front fence. Mary said, “Miss Randolph – I’m having a few friends in to tea if you would care to come.” Kitty Randolph rolled over languorously on her back and stretched in the warm sun. “Don’t be later than four o’clock,” said Mary. “My husband and I are going to the Bloomer League Centennial Reception at the Hotel.”

I really thought at first that Mary was talking to another woman, but then at “Kitty Randolph rolled over languorously on her back and stretched in the warm sun” I realized it was cats she has talked to - LOL!  Some of the many funny bits you'd find in Cannery Row. Isn’t it sweet? And her husband is so sweet to go into her scenes.

On the whole, there's a quality of vagueness, dreamy, unreal in the existence of Cannery Row, but in fact it might be the truest of humanity. The most curious bit of it is the old Chinese man who is often seen flip-flapping on the street in the evening “just at dusk between sunset and the lighting of the street light” - Steinbeck called it the ‘small grey period’. I feel that it represents something which is floating over human existence, something which never changes, always there, a continuity. It’s on the other side of the society – it seems desolate, lonely, poor. But in fact, it is the truest, the fullest, the richest of humanity – it is where love and affection rules, instead of money and fame. It is where everyone is treated equally as a dignified human being. It is Cannery Row.

What a treasure! What a beautiful book! The most beautiful of the three I’ve read so far: this, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden. Now I can’t wait to delve into the sequel: Sweet Thursday – is it going to be as sweet as Cannery Row? We’ll see!

Score: 5 / 5

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

A friend once told me a story (a true story, said he, though I never verified it myself) about an experiment held in prison, which would prove that you could only see one's original character when you put him/her into absolute power. Put someone nice and kind to be a prison warden, with absolute power, for a period of time, and see if his personality wouldn't change after that. This story came back to me while reading this book.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is about a psychiatric hospital ward ruled by a dictatorial Head Nurse. It was told from the point of view of 'Chief' Bromden, a half Native-American who pretended to be deaf and dumb. Nurse Ratched ruled the ward iron-handedly. Despite of having no credibility in mental health, she decided what's best for the patient's health, just to make them docile. Everyone (the patients) knew that they were treated unjustly, but nobody dared to oppose her. The punishment of disobediences was electroshock therapy, which was a common practice in 1960s as a cure to mental disorders. 

Then one day came a new Admission into the ward, an ex-con man named Randle McMurphy. He's rebellious; and from the beginning he resisted Nurse Ratched's authority. He began by annoying her; then gradually resisted her rules or instructions. Soon he became a hero and inspiration for the other patients. The fight is now up between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched; but can the patients really fight against the authority?

One Flew is all about abusive power. It's not just about corrupt leaders, but, as Chief Bromden calls it, the Combine – meaning the wider part of the society. Ken Kesey has interestingly picked insanity for his story. What is insanity? Who decides what is sane and what’s not? Aren't we all created by God, and are, thus, equal, though different and unique? We often label others who do not act, think, or react as our standard, as insane. We don't want to deal with them, or to be burdened by them, so we put them into asylums "for their own sake". 

What struck me most of this book, is the fact that most of the patients are as normal as we are. Some were committed, but some came there involuntarily. Involuntarily! They were rejected by the society because they were out of the standard, and therefore must be thrown out of our presence – or, in Chief Bromden's case, because he is off a different race. We talk a lot about xenophobia now, but I think it has always been human race's weakness from the beginning.

In short, this is a very disturbing book. It forced you to realise the real problem of our society – is it not we, our family, who have created it in the first place? Then the solution must have been by changing our point of views, instead of changing others' to fit ours. 

The patients in McMurphy's ward were lucky they had someone as brave as him. One man might not have succeeded in overthrowing a powerful authority, but his actions would not be in vain; it might encourage and inspire others to not let anyone else controlling our lives. I also loved the way Kesey put a tiny spark of hope by Chief Bromden's ending. He really deserves it, because his case is, I think, the greatest injustice of all the others.

This book is not really a perfect reading for opening a new year, but The Classics Club Spin #CCSpin has chosen it for me, so I must relent. However, far from regretting it, I'm grateful to have read and been inspired by it. 

4,5 to 5