Rhine Journey (1980) by Ann Schlee #SpinsterSeptember

🚢 Rhine Journey is not only a journey on a steamer through the river Rhine in Germany. More than that, it is also an internal journey of an unmarried 19th century woman, from repressed spinsterhood, to independence. Charlotte is the spinster, and she is the reason Nora @ pear.jelly_ picked this book for a group read during #SpinsterSeptember.

🚢 Charlotte is an English woman, and she goes on the journey to Germany with her brother's family - Reverend Charles Morisson, his wife Marion, and their teenager daughter Ellie. On board the steamer Charlotte sees a man who resembles and reminds her of her youth lover, from whom she was separated by her brother and sister in law because they felt he didn't suit her. The man was Charlotte's only passport to happiness. Instead, she was forced to live as a retainer of the family - someone invisible and whom no one ever noticed.

🚢 It turns out the man isn't her ex lover, but a husband and a father. She begins to be infatuated with the man, even fantasizing and dreaming about making love with him, whom, in her dream, reciprocates her feeling, and treats her like how she had wanted to be treated. Then something happens that ends those fantasies, and it is at that point that Charlotte's change begins.

🚢 Charlotte had actually received a fortune, bequeathed by a Mr. Ransome, to whom she had been a caretaker. She could have had her independence then, but I think the repression of her brother and sister-in-law had been too much that she felt helpless to start an independent life. Charlotte's life had been regulated to the family's needs for too long for her to begin a new one which is her own. Loneliness is also an issue she's afraid to face.

🚢 On the whole, it's an intriguing novel, without much plot or action, as the biggest "turmoil" is happening inside Charlotte's mind. It's not an easy read for me as sometimes the line between reality and fantasy or dream is blurred. I think that's what the writer had intended it to be, and it worked. Ann Schlee captured the Victorian spinsterhood repression beautifully, though the story feels more like in the late 1910s or even 1920s.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971) by Judith Kerr: An Audiobook

🐰 Anna was a Jewish 9 year-old girl lived in Berlin. The titular pink rabbit is her favorite stuffed toy. Did Hitler really steal it? Of course not! But he stole what the pink rabbit represents of Anna - her innocent happy childhood. Told from Anna's POV, this is a semi autobiographical story, derived from Kerr's own experience of fleeing from her home at the start of the Second World War.

🐰 Anna is the younger child of a prominent Jewish journalist who often wrote against the Nazis. Approaching the election, her father fled from Germany, as his name had been publicly targeted by Hitler once he's elected. Anna and her older brother didn't realize the upscale political tension in their country, they just saw Hitler's face glared out at them from street posters.

🐰 I love how Anna's parents hid the real dangerous situation from the children in order to avoid any distress and fear. When the mother took Anna and her brother by train to Switzerland, she made the journey just like a exciting, albeit secretly, one to meet their father. Though Anna witnessed how her mother had tightly clutched her bag during ticket inspection, but seemed more relaxed after passing the border, Anna didn't have any inkling how scared her mother had been, and what was the cause.

🐰 When Anna and her brother heard that Hitler has likely confiscated their house, they imagined how Hitler's playing with their board game and Anna's pink rabbit. They knew that Hitler was an evil guy, but never realized how evil he was.

🐰 After a brief stay in Switzerland, the family moved to France and started a new life in a Paris small apartment. They became poorer because Anna's father was struggling to get a decent writing job. Amidst the struggles in adapting to the new school and learning new language, not mentioning the money restraint, Anna felt happy enough because they live there together as family. It reminds me of my own feeling. My life was always wholesome because we lived it together as family, where there's always love and care. No matter what came our way, we could face it as we had each other.

🐰 This book isn't a childish reminiscent of one of the darkest times in our history; it is a story about resilience, about the power of love and family. It is also about hope and courage in navigating changes. It's a sweet and poignant testimony of humanity during dark moments. I am so grateful of having read this at this time of my life, for I wouldn't have appreciated as much had I read it as a child. I loved also the narrator of the audiobook I listened to; Tacy Kneale did a great job of bringing this classic into life!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

✍🏼 Elizabeth von Arnim, neé Mary Annette Beauchamp was born in Australia. But then she married a German Count, and moved to Nassenheide, Pomerania, as Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin.

✍🏼 Von Arnim wrote Elizabeth and Her German Garden as a mockery to German aristocratic society. It's a semi autobiographical novel, written as a diary of the protagonist, Elizabeth, who was developing a beautiful garden on the estate, though she knew almost nothing about gardening.

✍🏼 I enjoyed the book so much for three reasons: a) At times it's so hilarious, I had often to stifle my laughter while reading in public. b) It talks much about gardening, and though I'm not keen on the subject, I love everything concerning nature. c) I loved most of Elizabeth's unorthodox views on life and tradition, which I can well relate. I quote here some of her entries, which is bluntly honest and hilarious.

“I believe all needlework and dressmaking is of the devil, designed to keep women from study.”

"If you have to have neighbours at all, it is at least a mercy that there should be only one; for with people dropping in at all hours and wanting to talk to you, how are you to get on with your life, I should like to know, and read your books, and dream your dreams to your satisfaction?"

"I never could see that delicacy of constitution is pretty, either in plants or women."

"What nonsense it is to talk about the equality of the sexes when the women have the babies."

"To most German Hausfraus the dinners and the puddings are of paramount importance [...] but, I would humbly inquire, are there not other things even more important? And is not plain living and high thinking better than the other way about? [...] It cannot be right to be the slave of one's household gods, and I protest that if my furniture ever annoyed me by wanting to be dusted when I want to be doing something else, and there was no one to do the dusting for me, I should cast it all into the nearest bonfire and sit and warm my toes at the flames with great contentment, triumphantly selling my dusters to the very next pedlar who was weak enough to buy them. [...] is it not pathetic to find a young woman bravely struggling to learn languages and keep up with her husband?"

✍🏼 It's a short but entertaining novel, and I can't wait to read more of von Arnim. The Enchanted April is next. Maybe next year?

Rating: 4,5 / 5

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann

🎄 The Nutcracker is famously known as a Christmas classic, both as children tale, and ballet. I have been ignorant of it, though, till several years before, since Christmas here isn't celebrated as festive as in the western part of the world. Christmas for our family is more about going to church on Christmas Eve and having more cakes to eat, while listening to Christmas music; with a little gift exchanges among friends or Christmas decorations in the background. Christmas tales are definitely not our tradition. With that deficiency, I plunged into this tale for the first time in my life.

🎄 It follows a seven year old girl, Marie Stahlbaum and her brother Fritz, who get as their Christmas presents, a clockwork castle with mechanical people - handmade by their godfather Drosselmeier, a clock maker.

🎄 They soon get bored by it, though, so Marie shifts her attention to another present: an ugly nutcracker, and she is fond of it.

🎄 When the clock strikes midnight, a bunch of mice came to the house, led by a huge seven-headed mouse - the Mouse King, and suddenly all the toys/dolls inside the glass cabinet became alive. Led by the nutcracker, they all involved in a battle against the mice.

🎄 The next morning Drosselmeier told the children a story about Princess Pirlipat and Mouse Queen. Long story short, the princess was cursed by Mouse Queen, and the only cure is Krakatuk - the hardest nut on earth - cracked and handed on a certain ritual by a man who would become her husband. A young man called Drosselmeier was good at cracking nuts, but unfortunately he mis-executed the ritual, so the curse moved on him instead. That's how he became the ugly nutcracker toy which is now inhabited the Stahlbaums' glass cabinet.

🎄 Thanks to little Marie's selfless and unconditional love towards the nutcracker, the curse is finally lifted, and the ugly toy turns into a handsome real person of Herr Drosselmeier, the godfather's nephew.

🎄 It's not really a bad tale, really, as it inspires children to accept people, despite of their appearance. Yet, I found part of the tale rather disturbing. How can Marie - the 7 year old little girl - becomes a fiancée of a young man, to be married in one year, to become the queen of the doll kingdom? I mean, seven y.o...!

🎄 In the end, despite of the above unsettling part and (maybe) the mediocre translation of the edition I read, I think I can see why this tale becomes classic. I will perhaps love it more if I've had read it as a child. Still, I doubt how I would have reacted on the marrying part; my parents would have never read it for me, for sure!

The Sorrows of Young Werther

Once in your lifetime, there would be a moment when everything seems smooth and feels right, that you know you are producing something bigger than anything you have done so far; The Sorrows of Young Werther might have been that of Goethe! In Chinese philosophy, there is a concept called Wu Wei, which literally means non-action or non-doing. The Chinese believes that there will be times when we don’t have to fight so hard to achieve something. All you have to do is to wait for that perfect moment to come, when you don’t have to work so hard, yet everything complies with your wish, then voila….your masterpiece! Goethe wrote Werther after being acquainted with a young man named Jerusalem, whose faith had similarity with his own. He finished the book in four weeks without making any preliminary plans or putting it down on notes before. And from the result (especially the ending) I could see how much Goethe has poured out his emotion into it. So intense and powerful was it, that I have lost my mood to read the rest of his writings for several days.

Werther is a young man with passionate temperament who was staying on a village. He wrote letters to his friend William, telling him all about what he has done and how his feeling was from day to day. These letters were woven into this epistolary novel. Most of the letters were about Werther’s infatuation with a peasant girl named Charlotte (he called her Lotte). They had a lot in common, and although Lotte didn’t return his feeling but engaged and married to another man, they became intimate friends. But Werther could not get rid of Lotte from his life; his love for her was too strong. The last letters he wrote to William showed how much his mental was disturbed. It affected his artistic mind too, that he was unable to paint, or even do, anything.

Werther should be a perfect reading for those who have interest in psychology; a bit similar with the troubled Philip in Of Human Bondage, though Philip’s sorrows were more complex, as the root of his problems did not come from passionate love, but from the lack of universal love. From Werther I learned to always have control and balance over our own life. Sometimes we need to follow our feelings, but at other time, when you do not feel happy, there must be something wrong in what you are doing. Your rational side must take over to make yourself balanced. The art of life is in the balancing our two poles to drive our lives to happiness.

Looking at the style, Goethe might be more suitable to Romanticism than Enlightenment. The melancholy atmosphere and his flowery sentences in Werther were very romantic. However, his regard over life (and particularly in suicides) gave him a little credit to be in the Enlightenment too, in his reasoning against traditional values praised in the Renaissance. In fact, Goethe was one of the proponents of the new movement called Sturm und Drang (=Storm and Drive) in German, which succeeded The Enlightenment, and prepared for the coming of Romanticism. Its uniqueness was in the extreme emotional expression, which you can undoubtedly find in Werther.

Five stars for Goethe and his almost autobiographical story of the young Werther!

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I read Signet Classics paperback

This book is counted as:

4^th book for Literary Movement Reading Challenge:Enlightenment

89^th book for The Classics Club Project

Candide by Voltaire

Candide is a philosophical story set around the world in 18^th century. It depicted a young man who lived in a paradise-like country of Westphalia. He was brought up by a Baron, and fell in love with the Baron’s daughter, the fair Cunégonde. Candide was educated by a philosopher called Pangloss. Pangloss believed that all in the world is created for the best, so even if there are evil and catatstrophe, they are meant to lead mankind to something better at the end. With this philosophy stick on his brain, Candide took his journey around the world after being kicked out by the Baron for seducing Cunégonde.

Having been experiencing real life, the innocent Candide was confronted with so many unfortunate events, evil, corrupt men, greed, and deception. All those times he was bewildered at the evils and injustices, and started questioning whether Pangloss had taught him wrong. Candide even held to his believe in “pure nature is good” principle, although he had just escaped of being eaten by the Oreillons, thanks to Pangloss’ principle.

As a novella, Candide is very uniquely written by Voltaire. If you have ever read Baudolino by Umberto Eco, you will see a style similarity with Candide. Both Candide and Baudolino involved in not only one historical event, but hopping to many of them through some comical and absurd incidents. Like Baudolino, Candide also sailed to many countries, met historical important persons, and presented with many cultures and religions during his journey to unite with Cunégonde. But only at El Dorado that Candide found only happiness and beauty. He was even be made richer than any Kings on earth because all soil and pebbles in El Dorado were made from gold and other precious stones (for outsider) but were treated as just soil and pebbles.

I think it is clear that Voltaire wanted to criticize Leibniz’ theory of “all is for the best”. This German philosopher believed that all is for the best because God is perfect, so everything He created must be perfect. I thought about this long after I finished this novella—and am still thinking about it when I am writing this post. My thought is split in two reasoning. In one way I agree with Voltaire that men should not take his life for granted by expecting that at the end everything should turn to good; we must work hard for it. But on the other hand, I agree at some points—at some points only—with Leibniz’ theory too, that God always provides the best for us, He wants to give us only the best, but only if we truly believe in Him and want it.

So what is best is, I think, if we do our best, and let God do the rest. In a way Candide (or Voltaire) was right, we must work to gain happiness. But we must also realize that we do not know what is best for ourselves, and in that case, we must trust God that He will give us what is best.

And before I end this review, here is one passage that has intrigued me, it’s a discussion between Martin (one of Candide’s philosopher and friend) and Candide, of course at the same topic of the optimistic. Candide was asking Martin whether he believed that men have always done evils.

M: “Do you believe that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”

C: “Yes, without doubt.”

M: “Well, then, if hawks have always had the same character, why should you imagine that men may have changed theirs?”

C: “Oh! There is a vast deal of difference, for free will—“

There Voltaire ended the discussion abruptly, but I disagree with Martin. He believed that evil was men’s character, and that was—just like in hawks—their nature; and that the world has been created to ‘plague us to death’. I believe that since God is good and perfect, He created us good, and meant us for the best. However, God grants us the free will—as Candide was about to mention in that discussion—to make the choice ourselves, to be good or evil. Men do have both good and evil in them, but we also have the free will to make choices.

I granted three stars for Candide as a story with all the funny comical adventures, and a half star for making me drown to a deep reflection about life. Thank you Voltaire!

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*I read ebook from Gutenberg Project*

*This book is counted for*

 34^th book for The Classics Club Project

2^nd book for New Authors Reading Challenge 2013

5^th book for What's In a Name Reading Challenge2013