Black Beauty Visual Tour: A Classics Challenge June

The June prompt for A Classics Challenge is about Visual Tour. Here is the task:

Sometimes we come across a scene or description that creates such vivid imagery it moves us. Select a quote from the Classic you're currently reading and create a visual tour. 

And here are where my imagination has taken me to from the classic I just finished: Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. [click the image to enlarge]

"The first place that I can well remember, was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it..." ~p. 23

"...Some trees overshadowed the pond, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end..." ~p. 23

"At the top of the meadow was a plantation of fir trees; and at the bottom, a running brook overhung by a steep bank." ~ p. 23

"It was a great treat to us to be turned out into the Home Paddock or the old orchard; the grass was so cool and soft to our feet; the air was so sweet, and the freedom to do as we liked—to gallop, lie down, roll over on our backs, or nibble the sweet grass—was so pleasant. Then, as we stood together under the shade of the large chestnut tree, was a very good time of talking." ~p. 40

"I had been driven with a bearing rein by the dealer, and I hated it worse than anything else (...) You, who never had a bearing rein on, don't know what is is; but I can tell you it is dreadful. (...) I like to toss my head about, and hold it as high as any horse; but you can fancy how it would feel if you tossed your head up high and were obliged to hold it there for hours together, not able to move it at all, except with a jerk still higher; and all this time your neck was aging till you did not know how to bear it." ~p. 46

"Dinah's family lived in a small farmhouse up a green lane, close by a meadow with some fine shady trees; there were two cows feeding in it." ~p. 156

"The winter came in early with the great deal of cold and wet. (...) When it is a dry cold, a couple of good thick rugs will keep the warmth in us; but when it is a soaking rain, they soon get wet through and are no good." ~p. 157

horse cab in rain

The Victorian London from Sketches by Boz: The Streets & Shops

This is my third post about Victorian London, inspired by Dickens’ Sketches by Boz, for the Victorian Celebration. If this is your first visit, you can find our two previous excursions to Victorian London, where you can find The Amusements of 19^th century Londoners in one of them, and come to learn The Occupations of Londoners at that era, in the other. Today I will take you to see few famous Streets of 19^th century London, as well as Shops where mid-class Londoners used to spend their money at. Here they are… [click the picture to enlarge]

The slum district of Seven Dials

Henry Rushbury  Seven Dials, London in 1744 circa 1930 [source]

Seven Dials is a small but well-known road junction in the West End of London in Covent Garden where seven streets converge. At the centre of the roughly-circular space is a pillar bearing six (not seven) sundials, a result of the pillar being commissioned before a late stage alteration of the plans from an original six roads. [wiki]. However, in the early of 19^th century, Seven Dials became a slum district of London, which Dickens described as:

“The stranger who finds himself in the Dials for the first time...at the entrance of seven obscure passages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time...” ~p. 69.

Dudley St., Seven Dials, 1872 [source]

Second hand wearing apparel shops in Monmouth Street

In 19^th century, Monmouth Street is famously known as the emporium of second hand wearing apparel. In this chapter, Dickens specifically brought our imagination to what had happened in a second hand shoes store. But for now, let us entertain ourselves with this picture of a second hand clothes store:

source

Pawnbroker shop

Pawnbrokers, referred to as ‘uncle’, were the poor person’s bank. Clothing and jewellery were handed over in exchange for a loan. If the loan was not repaid within a year, ‘uncle’ could sell the goods. By 1900 there were 700 pawnbrokers in London. Forfeited articles for sale in this window include Sunday best clothing, wedding gifts and ornaments. [source]

the counter in a pawnbroker shop

If you look at the image, the counter at the customer side are divided into several small sub-counter, separated each other with partition. It is built like that to give privacy for people who don’t want others to know that they had a transaction in pawnbroker shop (who knows the guys next to them are their acquaintances?). Pawnbroker shops usually have two entrances. The front one was for shoppers who wanted to buy the sold goods in fair price, the back entrance was for customers who wanted to exchange their belongings for some loan.

The front entrance of pawnbroker shop with its glass window display

Maybe George Cruikshank illustration for Sketches by Boz can reflect the more real atmosphere inside a pawnbroker shop...

Oyster shops

In the 19th century, there were three oyster capitals in the world: London is one of them, with Paris and New York as the others.

I found this in a blog post about oyster shop in 19^th century in London: “Astonishing though it is now, at the beginning of the 19th century oysters were cheap and very much a working class food. I suppose the change must have been well underway when Sheeky's oyster bar opened at the end of the 19th century. Joseph Sheekey was the market stall-holder who in 1893 was graciously allowed by Lord Salisbury to sell fish and shellfish on his new manor of St Martin's Court, provided he served meals to Salisbury's theatre-going pals. These days its reputation seems a little variable.” [source]

The front of an oyster shop looked perhaps like this: 

The Whistling Oyster [source] 

And this was a stall selling oysters.

Gin shops

A gin palace is an English name originally for a lavish bar selling gin, later transferred by association to late Victorian pubs designed in a similar style. In the 18th century, gin shops or 'dram shops' were just small shops (often originally chemist's shops as gin originally had medicinal associations) that sold gin mostly to take away, or to drink standing up. In the late 1820s the first 'Gin Palaces' were built, Thompson and Fearon's in Holborn and Weller's in Old Street, London. They were based on the new fashionable shops being built at the time, fitted out at great expense and lit by gas lights. They were thought to be vulgar at the time, although hugely popular. [wiki]

From Sketches by Boz:  “The gin-shops in and near Drury-Lane, Holborn, St. Giles's, Covent-garden, and Clare-market, are the handsomest in London. There is more of filth and squalid misery near those great thorough-fares than in any part of this mighty city.” For his sketch, Dickens picked a large bar in Drury Lane as a setting of a gin shop.

“... All is light and brilliancy. The hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop which forms the commencement of the two streets opposite; and the gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left.”

The Dram-drinker by Kenny Meadows [source]

From both images, I see that children are allowed to be in gin shops with their parents! What a bad habit they had already been introduced in their young age!

Drury Lane

Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster. In the 17th century it was the London house of the Earl of Craven, then a public house under the sign of his reputed mistress, the Queen of Bohemia, but by the 18th century Drury Lane had become one of the worst slums in London, dominated by prostitution and gin palaces. [wiki]

I especially picked Drury Lane among other streets, because this street appeared quite often in Dickens’ sketches. The scenes of both gin shop and pawnbroker shop were located in Drury Lane, and the story in which Dickens described about oyster shop had also mentioned Drury Lane (but it’s not the oyster shop’s location).

Louis Rayner [source] 

Note: In the process of searching an image of Drury Lane, I came across this site which is exhibiting the paintings of Louise Rayner. The theme is about 19th century London, and they are all very beautiful!!! Louise can picture the scene as if we are there ourselves. So, before we end our today’s outing, let me take you to London on 19^th century through these lovely pictures….

Don’t forget, next week is our last outing to Victorian London. I will prepare some means of transportations so that you don’t have to tiring yourself during our excursion J. See you next week!

The Painter Who Was Obsessed To The Model: Dorian Gray Chapter 1

(p. 7-21)

After finishing chapter I of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, I realized that I have gained much more from the first 14 pages than I have done from any other book's first chapter. There are a lot of things l'd like to take note, that finally I decided to write a post for each or every few chapters of Dorian Gray—it would be more than ten posts, and I hope you won't get bored to read the titles over and over again J. This time I won't just read and flip through pages, but I want to savour every sentence and to digest every thought I meet with. Dorian Gray really deserves it, especially because it is a bildungsroman. These posts will also be the place I can keep my favourite quotes.

So, here is my post for the first chapter.

What I like...

Oscar Wilde opened the first chapter in a beautiful way, he combined two senses to describe the atmosphere at Basil Hallward's studio.

"Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window (...) The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the struggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive." 

This is what I imagine as the studio

  

The beauty of honey-coloured laburnum 
[source]

What it's all about...

Lord Henry encouraged his friend Basil to exhibit his 'best work' of painting, but Basil refused the idea because he has 'put too much of himself' in the picture. "I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."

It's a picture of Basil's new young friend, Dorian Gray, in whose personality Basil admitted that he saw a new manner of art. Dorian had influenced Basil such greatly that Basil was attached to him since their first meeting. Now Lord Henry was very curious, what kind of personality that has 'bewitched' his friend Basil who has always been an independent, self-natured man.

My random thoughts...

The reflection on our own art works

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself."

I know it is true, just like how a book being a reflection of the author personality, mind and mental state when he wrote it. That's how we came to know an author, by his/her writings. I think we can also feel close and very familiar to our blogger (or twitter) friends whom we never meet, because and from of our writings. 'You are what you write'.

Beauty vs Intellectuality

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."

Lord Henry thinks that a person with a pure beauty can't be a thinker, thus one can't own both beauty and intellectuality. That's why Lord Henry sees Dorian Gray as Narcissus and brainless.

"There is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty." and that's why we filled our minds with as much knowledge as possible (rubbish and facts, said Lord Henry), but in the end it will just make us 'dreadful things' and took away our beauty. Here Lord Henry was quite sure that Basil will someday get tired of Dorian Gray, which Basil disagreed.

What I need to digest more...

• How a singular man's personality can make us sees things (visually AND abstract idea) in a different and new perspective?
• How a beautiful man like Dorian Gray can dominate an independent man like Basil?
• Why Basil was afraid that the world will see his secret in his picture? What is the secret?

The characters…

Basil Hallward -- the painter, independent, self-natured man. After meeting with his model (Dorian), he became obsessed to him, and let himself being dominated by Dorian.

Lord Henry Wotton -- Basil's friend, easy going, cynical, have an expressive manner and different way of seeing life.

Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens

[Conclusion in English is in the bottom of this post]

Andai pada musim gugur 1832 itu seorang penulis muda—dengan gemetar ketakutan—tidak jadi memasukkan naskah tulisannya ke kotak surat gelap di sebuah kantor, dan andai sang Editor yang kemudian membacanya tidak kemudian menerbitkannya di The Monthly Magazine dengan judul ‘A Dinner At Poplar Walk’, maka dunia mungkin takkan pernah menikmati karya-karya menawan seorang Charles Dickens. Ya, penulis muda yang kuceritakan tadi adalah Charles Dickens. Dan dari naskah awal yang diterbitkan itu, mengalirlah pesanan tulisan berupa sketsa jurnalistik yang mengisi The Monthly Magazine secara berkala. Saat itu sang penulis menggunakan nama pena “Boz”. Di kemudian hari, sketsa-sketsa Boz akhirnya diterbitkan sebagai buku yang aku review ini: Sketches by Boz.

Sketches byBoz adalah cerita-cerita pendek yang merupakan ilustrasi dari hasil observasi Charles Dickens terhadap denyut kehidupan kota London saat itu (jaman Victoria), mulai tahun 1833 hingga 1836. Dickens menulis tentang banyak hal, dari suasana jalanan kota London dari pagi hingga malam hari, tempat-tempat hiburan yang diminati penduduk London, toko-toko, kebiasaan-kebiasaan orang-orangnya, sampai ke masalah-masalah yang sepele maupun serius yang sering mereka hadapi. Semuanya ia tuliskan dengan gayanya yang khas, kadang lucu yang sinis, kadang juga lucu yang membuatku sungguh-sungguh terbahak.

Membaca Skecthes by Boz kita jadi seolah hidup juga di London abad 19. Kita jadi mengenal tipe dan cara pandang orang-orang saat itu, gaya berbicara mereka, singkatnya budaya mereka. Inilah yang paling menarik dari buku ini, karena tidak gampang dengan sabar melahap 60 cerita pendek dengan gaya bertutur Dickens yang penuh kalimat-kalimat panjang. Dan salah satu kelemahanku adalah selalu tidak sabar membaca cerita pendek, sehingga kenikmatan membaca buku ini menjadi sedikit berkurang. Yang jelas, Sketches by Boz menawarkan perkenalan pertama pada karya Charles Dickens, karena dari variasi cerpen-cerpen di buku ini, kita akan menemukan humor sinis yang menyindir keabsurdan sosial jaman itu, dan melankoli dalam ketidakadilan yang kelak menjadi tema utama karya-karya besar Dickens berikutnya.

Tiga setengah bintang untuk Boz!

Conclusion:

Being his earliest work, Sketches by Boz has already shown Dickens’ witticisms and satires that we would find later in most of his works. Consisting of 60 short stories, Boz is a combination of literary journalisms and fictional stories, as the result of Dickens’ thorough observation of his surroundings. Sketches by Boz was first published as installments in The Monthly Magazine from 1833 to 1836. Later on, the sketches were sorted and categorized under four big parts: Our Parish, Scenes, Characters, and Tales, to be made into a book. Outside the four parts, there are three more collections of sketches, and the book is finally closed with Familiar Epistle From A Parent To A Child, which is—no doubt—something Dickens wrote for one of his children. So far, the epistle is one of my favorites from all sketches.

The tale of The Black Veil—which is the most touching of all stories—is also one of my favorites. It depicted the faith of a widow after her son hanged for a crime he committed. The touching part is when the young surgeon who attained the case, being a generous and kind hearted fellow, was willingly to take care of the widow now and then, despite of his unfruitful business. The widow on the other hand, always prayed heartily for her young supporter, that at the end her prayers was heard by the Heaven and resulting a good business for the young surgeon in return. A tale of love always touches my heart!

The most intriguing tale is perhaps The Drunkard’s Death. It’s about a drunkard who neglected everything in his life for drinking. Dickens wanted to speak about the risk of alcohol which can lead men and women into poverty and death. This tale is very similar to Emile Zola’s L’Assommoir, although Dickens wrote it more on the melancholy aspect, rather than its brutality as depicted by Zola. It’s interesting to see two different ways of writing, from two great authors, for the same topic at the same era. But of course, in this case, my winner is Zola.

I think the main strong point of this book is Dickens’ thorough observation, especially on human’s character. I am only imagining, if I was being in a dinner party where Dickens was also invited; would I become his observation object too? And if I happened to subscribe The Monthly Magazine, would I find myself illustrated on one of his sketches few days after the party? What would he write of me? That’d be interested! But of course I wouldn’t know whether Dickens was going to write good things or bad things about me. Anyhow, I think, people cannot get angry with him for writing about them. In worst cases, I think they would only put sour smiles on their lips. Or it is most likely that they would laugh heartily on their own sketches. Like Dickens said in ‘The Pantomime of Life’: “A pantomime is to us a mirror of life; nay more, we maintain that it is so to audiences generally, although they are not aware of it, and that this very circumstance is the secret cause of their amusement and delight.” For people who lived at that certain time, Sketches by Boz is also a mirror of their own everyday life, either they were aware of it or—most likely—not. Boz was like a pantomime, where people can see and laugh at themselves. And that’s why they love Boz. Boz was something new and different than any other Victorian readings when it is first published. And the success of Boz then brought further success for Charles Dickens, until today!

Three and a half stars for Boz, as although it’s a unique work, Sketches by Boz is sometimes boring. Anthologies have not been my favorite, so maybe this is why I cannot put a high appreciation on Boz. It is good but unfortunately flat…

Title: Sketches by Boz

Author: Charles Dickens

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1987

Pages: 688

*This is my 2nd review for The Classic Bribe 2012*

Weekend Quote (3): Black Beauty

I have just finished Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty today, and would like to share some quotes that touched me quite deeply. All of these quotes are from Jerry Barker, a kind hearted man who became one of Black Beauty’s favorite masters.

“Do your best,

And leave the rest,

Twill all come right

Some day or night”

“’Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?’

‘No,’ said the other.

‘Then I’ll tell you. It is because people think only about their own business, and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doer to light.”

“My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and yet do nothing, we make ourselves shares in the guilty.”

Do you have favorite quotes from books you read? Let's share in Listra's weekly meme!

The idea is to pick a quote from a book or author you read, like, or hate, and write your comment about it. You can post the “Weekend Quote” article every weekend (Saturday or Sunday), or at any weekend suits you best.

Here are the rules:

• You have to pick one quote and comment about it. It may be the reason why you agree or don't agree with it, or why it is interesting for you. I can also be your experience that reminds you of that quote. Feel free to use your imagination. :D
• Please put the picture of “Weekend Quote” on either your blog sidebar or everytime you post the quote. (It helps people to know what we are doing).
• Please give a link back to Listra’s blog at your post.

Literary Classics Challenge - Friday Progress (2)

Finally…I have finished my Sketches by Boz! I don’t know why it took me this long (two weeks..or more?) to read it. Perhaps it’s because I don’t quite like anthologies, they made me quickly distracted every time I finished a story. With novels, there is the plot that makes me more engaged with the story. Or maybe, it’s just Dickens’ style with many long sentences that often forced me to re-read certain paragraph (sometimes one paragraph could contain only one sentence, one long sentence…phew!). The second reason is that there are a lot of things happened this week that I felt quite overwhelmed.

Anyway…I am done with Boz (I am preparing the review now), so that I can start the second book for The Literary Classics Challenge. I picked something very light and fun after Boz: it’s Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. It is sooo.. relaxing to get to Black Beauty after Dickens’ and I am enjoying it very well. J This is also the third book I’m reading for A Victorian Celebration, and the 9^th book for The Classics Club. I think I will digest it very quickly, so that Monday I can grab for the next one on my waiting list: The Picture of Dorian Gray.

By the way...I think, reading Black Beauty will create a sense like this... Don't you agree? 

What about you, how is your classics reading this week?

Miss Martin on Sketches by Boz

Miss Amelia Martin

Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens

I’m still engaged with Sketches by Boz when I wrote this meme, and this time I bring up an interesting character in which Dickens would like to illustrate the danger of pursuing an instant ambition.

The young Miss Amelia Martin is a respectable milliner and dressmaker in London, to whom great many young ladies had given their trust for their fashionable dresses and hats. And not only skilful, Miss Martin had also been a professional who knew what her customers need, both in fashion term and in social daily conversation. If Miss Martin kept focusing in her business, I believe she would achieve success in the future. However something unexpected happened…

illustration of a milliner

Miss Martin had been invited to her friend’s wedding party. And that night our Miss Martin got to know—among the guests—the Jennings Rodolph couple, the owner of a music institution called White Conduit. With much encouragement from Mr. Jennings Rodolph, Miss Martin showed her voice that night, and received appreciation from everyone. The Jennings Rodolph couple soon encouraged Miss Martin to “come out” without delay, meaning to join the entertainment industry and become a singer. So, Miss Martin prepared herself and studied hard for her opening act on the White Conduit’s orchestra, with the consequence, of course, that Miss Martin must neglect her millinery and dressmaking business. Maybe she thought that millinery and dressmaking is only an ordinary job, while being a singer should give her a more glamorous life, fame and fortune.

Then at the night of the orchestra, the excited Miss Martin was gracefully led on to the stage for her performance. The symphony began, but…where was the singer’s voice?... Seemed that Miss Martin had started to sing, however “a faint kind of ventriloquial chirping” was all she could produce despite of her great effort. You can imagine what happened next. The performance was a great failure and brought quite a humiliation for Miss Martin, which I think should end her instant ambition of glamorous life.

Don’t you think this happens quite often in our real world too? Leaving behind something fruitful and promising that was already in our hand, to pursue something that was still vague. Miss Martin didn’t even look for second opinion or at least found a teacher to take singing lesson more thoroughly. She just trusted her future in the hand of Jennings Rodolph couple. I mean, who were they actually? They were just the owner of a music club, maybe they often searched for new talents, but that didn’t mean they knew everything about singing career. Oh Miss Martin…maybe you were just so naïve.. there isn’t such an instant success. What you have been doing with your millinery and dressmaking business was already great, you just have to keep developing it!