The Classics Club January Meme & Progress Report

This January prompt of Classics Club meme could as well serve as my first check-in of this year for Classics Club progress. The question is:

What is the best book you’ve read so far for The Classics Club — and why? (Or, if you prefer, what is your least favorite read so far for the club, and why?)

That’s very easy :) because I have just posted my Top 5 Most Favorite (Classics) Books of 2012 for my Book Kaleidoscope yearly meme. As Classics Club was started in 2012, the best book of 2012 serves automatically as the best book I’ve read so far for the club, and that is….

Germinal by Emile Zola

Need I to say (again) that I love Zola? And he had crafted his story very beautifully in Germinal. I can say that it was a perfect reading for me, with every emotion that you can get from a book. You can read my review of Germinal, as well as a quote (ending quote) that I loved so much! I have also picked Etienne Lantier, the hero from this book as my most favorite Book Boy Friend of 2012.

As for my least favorite read so far for the club, I must say…

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

I know, many people might disagree my choice, but I really struggled to read it that I have to skip quite many pages at the end. It’s just too tedious for me (no, not the length of the story, but the story itself). You can read my thoughts in Gone With the Wind’s review.

~~~~~

My Classics Club Progress Report for 2012:

**Books read = 28**

- Novel = 23 (in chronological order)

L’Assommoir - Emile Zola - READ 2/4/12

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald - READ 16/4/12

The Man in the Iron Mask - Alexandre Dumas - READ 7/5/12

Nobody's Boy - Hector Marlot - READ 15/5/12

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - READ 22/5/12

The Color Purple - Alice Walker - READ 31/5/12

Sketches by Boz - Charles Dickens - READ 18/6/12

Black Beauty - Anna Sewell - READ 25/6/12

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde - READ 29/6/12

The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens - READ 16/7/12

Twenty Years After - Alexandre Dumas - READ 31/7/12

The Palace of Dreams - Ismail Kadare - READ 10/8/12

Mahabharata (Mythology) - Anonymous - READ 20/8/12

Germinal - Emile Zola - READ 31/8/12

Lord of the Flies - William Golding - READ 03/9/12

Courrier du Sud (Southern Mail) - Antoinne de Saint-Exupery - READ 11/9/12

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe - READ 19/9/12

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson - READ 19/10/12

Beloved - Toni Morrison - READ 31/10/12

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne - READ 6/11/12

Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell - READ 8/11/12

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - READ 7/12/12

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - READ 21/12/12

- Play = 5 (in chronological order)

A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare - READ 23/4/12

The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde - READ 30/7/12

Julius Caesar – William Shakespeare - READ 13/11/12

Antony and Cleopatra – William Shakespeare - READ 3/12/12

The Merchant of Venice – William Shakespeare - READ 17/12/12

**Books unfinished = 1**

Notes From Underground – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

From the beginning of first chapter I instantly knew that this one would be difficult. I have tried to read slowly and patiently, but the farther I went, the farther I got lost. The logic is very good, Dostoyevsky played a lot with his words, and I was struggling to catch up with what the narrator was up to. I don’t mean to give up yet; I have made a lot of notes during that first reading, that I think one day I could go back to it and try for the second time. Hopefully I can do better next time…

**Events hosted = 1**

Sep – Oct: Gone With The Wind Read Along (with bzee)

- Signed up participants = 36

- Final review post entries = 12

(I don’t know what happened with the other 24, perhaps they just could not make it, or they cancelled the reading at all, but anyway….I think the event was quite successful—although my reading is not :)—we  have warm discussions about it also in twitter, and many of us could not have read the at all without this readalong). As this was my first experience ever in hosting events, it has been some kind of a milestone for me.

**Projects created = 1**

The Well-Educated Mind Self Project (begin on October)

- Books finished in 2012 = 2

**Reading Challenges/Events participated = 7

- Reading challenges = 3

Back to the Classics Challenge 2012 = completed – 9 books

A Classics Challenge 2012 = completed – 11 books | 12 prompts

Victorian Challenge 2012 = completed – 10 books

- Reading events = 4

May: The Color Purple Readalong (hosted by Bettina)

Jun-Jul: A Victorian Celebration (hosted by Allie) – 7 books | 3 short stories | 6 Victorian-themed posts

Dec: December Readathon (hosted by o) – Great Expectations – 278 pages in 2 days

Dec: Dickens in December (hosted by Caroline & Delia) – 1 book | 1 movie adaptation

And now I’m so excited with 2013, there are a lot of new things and challenges, and I can’t imagine where I would end up when this year ends…

The Classics Club Readathon – 5 Jan 2013 - Wrap Up

The Classics Club has created a fun event to open this year: a 24-hours Readathon! On last Saturday, 56 classics clubbers (if they all could make it) from different parts of the world have read together their classics as if we were gathering in a big room, bringing our books, sitting on a big table and delving into our own choices of classics while from time to time taking a break for some snacks and little chit-chats about our progresses. It had been impossible, let’s say, ten years ago, but now with the blog and social media, it’s not impossible anymore :) Last weekend is the proof, it was our first readathon ever, and it was fun!!

Because of the time difference—I am 12 hours ahead of the standard timezone, I started reading earlier on Saturday than the others (read about it here), but then I decided to stretch the readathon into Sunday evening—o (Delaisse) has been so kind to accompany me :)

And this is my wrap up for the readathon:

Day 1 - Saturday

Start: 06:45 am (p. 121)

End  : 09:45 pm (p. 210)

Total page = 90

Day 2 – Sunday

Start: 08:45 am (p. 211)

End  : 10:15 pm (p. 307)

Total page = 97

Total pages read during readathon = 187

What book(s) did you read during the event?

The Portrait of A Lady by Henry James

What book(s) did you finish?

I haven’t finished it. Actually I did not set any goal to finish anything when I joined the readathon; my goal was to read as much as possible without any distraction. For one reason, The Portrait of A Lady is a slow-reading book; besides that, I must stop after every chapter to write down notes—and often to think about the conflicts too—since I read this book for my The Well-Educated Mind Self-Project. That made my reading progress very slow. But at the end, I’m very satisfied of my achievement; normally I would have read 187 pages in perhaps 5-6 days…

What did you like about our event?

The togetherness :) I feel like I’m a part of a big family (with the same interest! :D)

Do you have suggestions for future Readathons through The Classics Club?

It would be more fun if we stretch the readathon to 48 hours, so we could read the whole weekend!

Would you participate in future Readathons?

Definitely!

Thanks for The Classics Club for ever hosting this!

What Are You After, Ralph? – The Portrait of A Lady

Reading one third of The Portrait of A Lady (p. 168 at the moment), I can’t but wondering about one of the main male characters: Ralph. Ralph Touchett is the only son of an American wealthy banker who had lived in England for a long time. Ralph suffered from pulmonary disease that prevented him from actively working, and just stayed home to take care of his father. His dull life was interrupted by the coming of his cousin: Isabel Archer—an independent girl from America who had interests to see other countries.

"Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler"
Smithsonian American Art Museum
(become the cover of
Penguin Classics edition
of The Portrait of A Lady)

Henry James didn’t put it clearly enough whether Ralph was in love with Isabel—I might come to a conclusion at the end—but the more intriguing questions in me right now are: **spoiler alert** You mightn’t want to keep reading if you haven’t read the book!

Why did Ralph make such generous act—giving Isabel half of his inheritance?

It could be because…

1. He loved her so much but he’s afraid Isabel won’t be happy if she became his wife, thus he just wanted to make sure she would be happy with what she want to do in her life.

2. He’d like to see what Isabel would do with her life, thus it’s some kind of human experiment to amuse Ralph’s boring life after his father died. In this case, Ralph was really taking advantage of Isabel, which meant that he didn’t really love her.

3. He wanted to keep her away from marrying other men—Isabel would not think about marriage as long as she’s wealthy enough. But if he knew that Isabel would outlive him, it’s not to marry her that he might have done that. Maybe he’s selfish enough to think that if he couldn’t marry Isabel, no other men could? Hmm….

Anyway…it's only my suggestions, there’s only one way to know the answer…keep reading to the end! :) That’s what I’m going to do now, I’m reading this book for The Classics Club Readathon today. I’ve been having a good time, and hopefully I can make it to 2/3 of it by the end of today. Will come back tomorrow or on Monday for the wrap up!

The (First Ever) Classics Club Readathon

I was very excited when The Classics Club announced our first ever 24-hour readathon that will be held on Saturday, January 5^th, 2013; what a great way to start a new promising year in our classics reading! It’s excited to think that there will be 46 of us (if everyone can make it) delving into classics books at the same time. Well….at least, I wish I can do so…

The readathon will start at 8:00 am EST, however as I live in Indonesia (that is GMT +7 or 12 hours ahead of people in America), the starting time would be for me at 8:00 pm my time. It would be quite late and impossible for me to read along the night. So, I’ll compromise it by starting on Saturday morning my time (as early as possible—hope my mom won’t need my help in the kitchen :P) and end it as late as possible on Saturday evening (I’m going to the church very early on Sunday morning, and won’t have time to continue the readathon the next day anyway). This way I can still manage to read with most of others for at least 1-2 hours before I must go to bed… :)

I’m just hoping that the next readathon could be stretched into 2 days (the whole weekend), so that I can feel I’m really reading with all the other participants at the same time. But, anyway, it’s still exciting, and the fact that we are reading together with friends from all over the world is really something, isn’t it?

So, here I am, very eager to read Henry James’ The Portrait of A Lady. Actually I have started it since January 1^st, and right now—when I’m posting this—I am already on page 100s. Let’s see how many pages I’ll be able to digest the whole day tomorrow! Yayyyy for readathon!!

Portia in The Merchant of Venice

Portia is a daughter of a wealthy man; she is an intelligent and independent young man, a rare kind of her sex—I believe—at the era when Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice. From her earliest appearance in the play, I could sense a strong will and wise thinking from Portia. Her late father had set up a game competition for her suitors, to decide who would be her husband.

Although Portia thought the game was nonsense—she had had found herself a man she loved—she never disobeyed her father, although he had been died at that time. One by one her suitors came to try their luck, and during those times it was obvious that Portia was much wiser and smarter than all those men. She could see and judge each of their personalities.

Source: Giclee Print by Walter Paget 

Her remarkable intelligence showed when Portia set up a plan to help relieving Antonio—her husband’s (Bassanio) friend—from the wicked Jewish’s (Shylock) debt trap. Alone Portia dressed like a male judge to interfere with the judgment of the case. Without Portia’s help, I believe Antonio would have been died. Here Portia showed her genius way of thinking—I wonder how she learned law, but in fact there were more logic than the law itself in her defense.

Portia & Shylock at the court

In short, Portia was a woman who did not think her being a female as a restriction to her life. She knew what she wanted, and she did everything she could to achieve that. However, with all her advantages, she still respect male’s authority—her father, her husband. She just wanted to do things her own way. That makes me liked Portia very much! The first female character I love from Shakespeare’s plays, maybe because she’s very similar to myself…

Let’s Read Plays 1st Check-In & GIVEAWAY!

This is the first check-in of Let’s Read Plays—the plays reading event that has been running for two months. Until now we have read one tragedy and one comedy, both from Shakespeare. There had been 25 review posts of various titles you can read at the Master Post. Some of us have been busy the two last month of 2012, but I’m sure they will return soon and catch up with us.

Just to remind you, we are having a few memes to make our plays reading more fun.

1. Character Thursday for LRP Meme – post about character(s) from plays you read on Thursdays. All your posts are eligible to enter my giveaway. I’ll pick one post randomly at the end of the event as a winner.

2. Play Monthly Meme – hosted by Listra, each month she picked certain theme related to the plays we are reading.

Let us know how’re your progress, do you find any new or interesting title to read from the review posts? Or what will you read for January (it’s a freebie!), or what’s the most exciting about #LRP so far?

Meanwhile….here is to excite you more….

GIVEAWAY...

Joon Ann has been generously hosting a Giveaway for #LRP! Check out what you can win here. The giveaway is open for all #LRP participants who signed up before Nov 15th, 2012. Good luck!

Book Kaleidoscope: My Top Five Most Favorite Books & Farewell 2012!

And here we are…on the last day of this year. 2012 has been my most important year in term of reading. This year (on March) I joined The Classics Club and it really helps me to delve deeper into classics works. In fact, most of my readings of this year were dominated by classics, most of my blog posts were in this blog (Fanda Classiclit). For 2013 I’m planning to start reading books from 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list; the works will be slightly mixed between classics and non classics.

After discussing my Top Five Book Boy Friends and Top Five Best Book Covers of books I've read on 2012, now the Book Kaleidoscope will rewind the most important aspect in reading: the book itself. 

Speaking of my readings of 2012 (I have read around 37 books), I have found a lot of great books and/or authors that for years I have only seen the title/the name, but now I am proud to say that I have read several of them. It’s been difficult to rank only five of my favorites, but I finally came to this composition…

5. Beloved

This was one of the strongest books I’ve ever read in my life, depicted a black woman’s struggle to protect her children. Beloved was quite difficult to read, as the story flowed forward and backward without clear signs, and only after reading few chapters I could be more familiar with it. And this book is not a nice reading too, although it makes us deeply touched. Therefore, fifth place is fair enough for Beloved.

4. Twenty Years After

Not known as much as The Three Musketeers, this second sequel is much better than the first. As its title, Twenty Years After was a reunion of the four friends when they were older and wiser. This is one of the books which I fully enjoyed the reading, every page of it, even every word.

3. L’Assommoir

I remember that I was shocked after finishing this book. Unlike any other books I have read, this one is very honest—extremely honest. Then I just knew what ‘naturalism’ in literature meant, that I instantly fell in love with Zola! I think my first strong impression of this book that makes L’Assommoir becomes one of my favorite books of all time, at least until now.

2. Great Expectations

Great Expectations is almost perfect as a reading companion. Dickens has been famous for writing entertaining tales, that although his wordings are often tedious, we can’t help to keep reading to know what will happen next to our favorite characters. I enjoyed every word of this book, and rewarded also with the moral value of this bildungsroman.

1. Germinal

Have I mentioned that I’m a big fan of Emile Zola? Well, it’s not surprising then, that I granted the most exclusive place in this Book Kaleidoscope to Germinal. Sharp as it always is, Germinal also offers variety of amusements in the story—romances, fights of the poor against the have, and a bigger hope that the oppressed could get a better future. I always like stories about hope! And that makes Germinal to be…

FANDA'S MOST FAVORITE
BOOK OF 2012!

And this post would also be my last post to close this remarkable year of 2012. Thank you for all of you who has been joining me in this 2012 Book Kaleidoscope yearly meme. I had actually created it to amuse myself, and I'm so surprised that there were a lot of you who'd joined in. It had been wonderful because I could find new blogs and new books (although I'd never read them, but at least I know about them), and I'll positively host another Book Kaleidoscope for next year.

I would like also to thank all my followers, most of you followed me around this year. I hope you'd been enjoying my posts. I'm sorry if I could not return all your visits and comments, as I must keep the balance between reading, posts writing, events hosting, and blog walking. I wish I could be interacting with you more often next year. Meanwhile.....I wish you a Happy New Year of 2013! ...and I just can't wait for starting  reading my 2013 piles of books!