Ulysses by James Joyce

The Gabler edition of Ulysses.
This is the edition you should read.

Last semester I took a seminar class on James Joyce, and of course no class on Joyce would be complete without reading Ulysses. We spent the last half of the semester on Ulysses, and now that I've reviewed both Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist, I think it's finally time for me to talk about my experiences with Joyce's most famous/infamous novel.

Ulysses picks up approximately one year after Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ends, and begins with our old friend Stephen Dedalus, who is navigating the world of Dublin, working as a teacher, and still trying to be an artist in a place that continuously leaves him feeling isolated, alone, and without a home. While the first three chapters focus on Stephen, the rest of the book focuses on a new character, the famous Leopold Bloom, a Dublin Jew who, after eating a breakfast of mutton kidney, leaves the house to go about his daily business, all-the-while knowing that his wife, Molly, is planning an affair later that afternoon. That knowledge, the isolation he feels from his fellow Dubliners, the death of his young son ten years ago, and many other things weigh on his mind as we follow him about the affairs of his day. His path crosses and recrosses that of Stephen, and eventually the two outcasts finally meet and have a real conversation. Taking place in slightly less than 24 hours, Ulysses is an epic of the ordinary, a single day that contains every conceivable high and low.

Now, if you've ever heard anything about Ulysses, I'm sure you've heard that it's nearly impossible to read. It has gained a nearly mythic status in the bookish world as an impenetrable wall of stylistic experimentation and dense allusion. The only hope for the intrepid reader is to consult many guides and source-books that will lead them through the labyrinth. To be honest with you, this is partially true. There were plenty of times when I didn't know what was happening, and I assure you that I missed most of the allusions and references to historical events. And yes, I did use a guide when I read it, which was a big help. More importantly, I also had a class full of people to discuss each chapter with and to keep me on schedule. (I do recommend reading this book with a friend. It's more fun that way.) But I want to make one thing very clear:

The myth is only partially true.

The only guide I used.

Because while I did not catch many of the allusions and references, I mostly understood what was happening in terms of plot and location. While I may not have understood the meaning of every sentence, I did understand the meaning of most paragraphs. And while I didn't always see exactly how each stylistic invention connected thematically to Bloom's journey, I could certainly appreciate the beauty and craft of Joyce's writing. Reading Ulysses is like being at the ocean; you have to let the waves of text wash over you without trying to analyze every single piece of sand. Understanding every single allusion is not necessary to enjoy the novel as a whole. You might miss a few of the jokes, but I promise you will be ok. The guide I used and which I would highly recommend, James Joyce A to Z, had brief summaries of each chapter in terms of plot and any major thematic elements, and that is all I needed in order to thoroughly enjoy myself. I think that oftentimes we as readers get too caught-up in "getting" the book that we forget to really read it. Ulysses is, first and foremost, an experience. If you get too caught up in trying to "understand" it, you'll miss all the fun.

Ulysses is on my list

Fun? Yes, fun, because Ulysses is a deeply funny, witty, engaging, and beautiful book. First of all, Joyce is a phenomenal writer, and it would be a challenge to find a novel with more beautiful or more varied writing than this one. Some passages are just heart-stopping in their elegance. I literally stopped and reread some passages just so I could hear them again; they were that beautiful. Others were incredibly technically impressive, showing Joyce's amazing command of the English language (and others). Joyce's amazing skills as a writer mean that he is capable of making the wittiest puns and the funniest satires I have ever read. No, really. From the pub to the graveyard, from political arguments to  prostitution, from the romantic novel to the epic catalog, there is nothing that Joyce can't laugh at. I never thought I would say this, but Ulysses literally made me laugh out loud. But of course this novel isn't all fun and games. There are tender, honest moments here more touching than nearly anything else put into print. There is heartbreak here, not of the cheesy faux-tragic kind that you find in a Nicholas Sparks novel, but honest emotion felt by ordinary people in situations that are all too real. Though Ulysses very often made me laugh, on a number of occasions it also made me cry. It touched me, because it spoke to that part of me (and, I think, of many of us) that knows what it's like to feel alone, regretful, and lost. That realism, that honesty of emotion and situation, is what sets Ulysses apart. The strange style, the encyclopedic allusions, the weird diversions, all of these serve to represent reality in all of its complexity, beauty, and sadness. Ulysses is funny, crafty, beautiful, and heartbreaking, but it is all of those things because it is real.

If you've ever read my reviews before, you'll notice that this one is rather different. This time I haven't talked very much about technique or writing style, though really this would be the perfect novel to do that. And part of me does want to pull out my analytical brain and tell you all about Joyce's tricks and techniques and themes. I would feel accomplished for breaking down such a complex novel, and you would maybe feel like you learned something. But I don't think I'm going to do that this time. This time I think I'm going to focus on other things.

A first edition copy of Ulysses.

Because despite all the intellectual enjoyment I got from untangling and discussing the themes and techniques, and despite the aesthetic enjoyment I found in Joyce's language, what struck me the most about Ulysses was its emotional honesty, especially in the characterization. For the first three chapters I felt nothing but empathy and pity for Stephen. I wanted to be his big sister, to comfort him, to let him know that he wasn't alone and that he could make it. And then I met Leopold Bloom, and slowly, cautiously, not without reservation, I fell for him, completely and utterly. Not in a romantic way, but as a human being, an all-too-real human being who had emotions and quirks that I could see and understand like those of an old friend. I fell in love with the way that he always tries to figure things out, to calculate, explain, and reason, even if his explanations are often incorrect, more pseudoscience than real science. I fell in love with his desire to please everyone, to make everyone happy, to avoid conflict wherever possible. I love that he maintains his optimism despite everything that happens to him. I love the way he always walks on the sunny side of the street, is conscientious about his money, and loves to eat good food. I wanted nothing more in the world than for him to actually meet Stephen, because I needed to see what would happen when these two characters whom I cared so much about finally met. And yes, sometimes Bloom creeped me out a little with his thoughts about sex or bodily functions. Sometimes I got annoyed with him for being so passive, and I yelled at him to stop being such a pushover already. But when he had the chance to finally show some courage, I cheered him on with all of my heart, and when he stood up for Stephen my heart nearly burst I was so proud of him. Leopold Bloom was so lonely, so hopeful, and so real, and in the end it was the force of his character (and, to a lesser extent, Stephen's) that really made Ulysses shine.

Ulysses is a novel that takes place in a single day, and yet somehow seems to encompass the whole world. It's strange and difficult and sometimes frustrating, and to be honest I wouldn't recommend it to those who don't like their books to be a puzzle or who get frustrated when they don't understand what is going on. But if you do like a challenge, then I think you'll find that every frustration in Ulysses is paid back a thousand times over in beauty and enjoyment. I promise that you won't catch everything on your first read-through; I know I didn't. But that did not take away from my enjoyment of the novel in the slightest. I know I'll come back to it some day, maybe a chapter at a time here or there, and that no matter when or how often I return it will always have something new to offer me.

Rating: 5+
Recommendations: Don't get too weighed down with guides. Just read it and enjoy it, and check chapter summaries or historical events if you get lost. Ulysses is an experience, so just dive in.

Most Surprising Classic: February Classics Club Meme

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Classics Club meme for February. This month's question (submitted by yours truly) is "What classic has most surprised you so far, and why?" I'm looking forward to seeing which books you found to be surprisingly good (or surprisingly bad.)

This year has been a very surprising reading year for me, so there are lots of books I could choose. I was expecting Dubliners to be just a boring book I had to read before I could get to Ulysses, but it turned out to be one of my favorite books of all time. I was surprised that Ulysses, which I expected to be completely impossible, was actually a really enjoyable reading experience, even if there were times that I wasn't sure what was going on. (Stay tuned for a review of Ulysses; I promise I will write it eventually.) I was surprised by the emotional honesty of The Plague, the density of Yeats's poems, and the pure enjoyability of Othello. It's been a year of surprises, but when it comes to the most surprising book I've read so far, there's really no competition. Hands down, the winner of that award is The Odyssey.

What's so surprising about The Odyssey? Basically everything. I was expecting The Odyssey to be one of my least favorite books on the list. It's old. It's a long poem. Everyone thinks it's super boring. Let's just say I wasn't exactly excited to start it. But once I finally decided to pick it up I fell in love with its quiet beauty and emotional resonance. I was expecting a tale of adventure and daring deeds, but what I got was a warm, tender story bathed in the loving glow of home and family. In each place that Odysseus stops, the beautiful descriptions of home life made me understand exactly why he wanted to get back to Ithaca. I yearned for home with Odysseus, and was elated when he and his wife were finally reunited. I never expected an epic classical poem to strike such a chord in my heart or to be so emotionally resonant, but it absolutely was. On top of that, the poetry was incredibly beautiful, no doubt partially due to Fitzgerald's translation, so I forgot my original fear of reading a long poem and sank into the beautiful language and the engrossing story. I never expected to like The Odyssey, so my sadness at putting it down was totally surprising.

What books have surprised you so far, either good or bad? I look forward to reading your posts and your comments.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

As I mentioned in my review of Dubliners, I recently took a seminar class on James Joyce. After we finished discussing Dubliners, our next book was Joyce's first novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Filled with lyrical prose and vivid imagery, this semi-autobiographical story of Stephen Dedalus’s "intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening" and "passage from university student to independent artist" is an excellent first glimpse into the experimental style of Joyce's mature works.

Portrait of the Artist is, first and foremost, a portrait of the Stephen Dedalus. It is, in many ways, a traditional coming-of-age story, following our hero from his youngest school days through college and his budding life as an artist. What separates Portrait from other coming-of-age stories is the style. To give the reader a proper portrait of Stephen, Joyce uses a free-indirect style in which the narrator is colored by Stephen's perception and knowledge. The descriptions, imagery, and style all reflect Stephen's mental and aesthetic development. This allows the reader to see the world as Stephen sees it. When Stephen is very young, the descriptions and ideas expressed by both Stephen and the narrator are the kind of thing that a young child would notice. The dramas of school life, the stories told to him by his parents, and family arguments over politics all loom large in Stephen's mind. As he gets older and his mind is occupied by religious uncertainties, the style becomes more like a sermon and religious imagery creeps into normal descriptions. As he looses his faith and becomes more interested in poetry and aesthetics, the style becomes more luminous and lyrical, images become symbols, and the words themselves are filled with poetic beauty. The limited narrator and the matching of style, word-choice, and imagery to Stephen's mental state make reading this book the closest thing to plunging into a character's consciousness that you can get short of Ulysses.

Portrait was one of my Classics Club books.

Portrait of the Artist isn't just an incredibly realistic coming-of-age story; it is also filled with social, political, and religious commentary. One of Stephen's early memories is of his family arguing about Parnell and Irish revolutionary politics. In this one scene the reader is shown the conflict between Ireland and the colonial power of England and the way that the Catholic church becomes tangled in the political struggles of the time. These themes, Irish nationalism, English oppression, and Catholicism, come back throughout Joyce's work, and make up a realistic (if not always flattering) portrait of Dublin. Stephen's time in a Catholic school, his brief desire to join a monastery, and  his eventual loss of faith show the many ways in which people could react to the Irish Catholicism of Dublin. His encounters with Irish revolutionaries and his reluctance to join them provides a commentary both on British colonialism and on the occasional dogmatism of the Gaelic movement in Ireland. These themes, along with other Joycian themes such as loneliness, paralysis, and alcoholism, recur throughout his works, and add yet another dimension to this already multifaceted book.

Portrait of the Artist is a very different kind of book than Dubliners. Unlike Dubliners, which had a mostly traditional realistic style, Portrait of the Artist represents Joyce's first real move toward the experimentation with style for which he is famous. As such, it is the perfect choice for those who have read Dubliners and want to read more. While Portrait of the Artist was, admittedly, not my favorite of Joyce's works that I read this semester, this is possibly only because of how much I enjoyed both Dubliners and Ulysses. If you are interested in reading Ulysses (hint: do it) you should definitely read Portrait of the Artist first, because Stephen comes back to play an important role in Ulysses. But even without the connection to Ulysses, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an impressive book in its own right. With lyrical prose, psychological depth, and social commentary, it is truly an impressive first novel.

Rating: 4 Stars
Recommendations: don't try to catch everything at once, just enjoy it. Read it slowly when you have enough time to concentrate. Enjoy the prose and the plays on words.

If you're interested in Joyce, take a look at my review of Dubliners  and stay tuned for my upcoming review of Ulysses.

Dubliners by James Joyce

This semester I have been lucky enough to take a seminar class on James Joyce. We spent the semester reading and discussing as much Joyce as we could, and it was absolutely wonderful. Now that the semester is over, I want to tell you all about Joyce, starting with his early collection of short stories, Dubliners.

Dubliners is, at first glance, an unassuming book. It is written in a largely realistic style, with none of the experimental stylistic elements for which Joyce is famous. Despite that, Dubliners is a truly unique book with just as much depth, detail, and resonance as the best full-length novels. The returning themes of paralysis, alienation, and political oppression are so embedded in the characters, dialogue, and action that they never feel preachy or overdone. Since Joyce returns to many of these themes in his later novels, Dubliners is a perfect introduction for anyone interested in tackling Joyce for the first time. Its emotional honesty, thematic resonance, and beautiful writing make it a worthwhile book for any reader.

Though Dubliners is a collection of short stories, these stories are all connected by setting and theme, as well as a few recurring characters. The city of Dublin, with its many pubs, shops, dirty streets, and busy port, is practically a character, and the gravitational pull it has on the characters holds together the collection, making it a unified and coherent whole. The stories are also connected by theme, the most striking of which are isolation and paralysis. Many of the characters in these stories are lonely or disengaged from society, trying but unable to make meaningful connections with other people. In many stories, a character seems to have a chance at escape from their lonely or unfulfilling life, but at the crucial moment find they themselves unable to act and end up remaining exactly where they were. Some realize the chance that they miss, while some are unaware of having a chance of freedom, and still others are even unaware that they are trapped. Dublin, and the paralytic unhappiness that Joyce saw there, seem for most an unbeatable force.

Dubliners was one of my Classics Club books.

Despite all of that, Dubliners does have some brighter moments. Many of the stories end with epiphanies, in which the characters have realizations of either good or bad things about themselves, Dublin, or humanity. These epiphanies are written in the most beautiful and luminescent prose, and whatever their subject, were always rewarding to read. In fact, all of the writing in Dubliners is detailed and beautiful, meaning that despite the depressing subject matter, I never once got bored. Joyce is not only a talented writer, he is also a subtle one. Each word and phrase is carefully chosen to contribute the the mood, theme, or characterization, meaning that each story has nearly infinite reread value. Of course, Joyce uses his craft so well that I often didn't even notice it, making the stories that much more enjoyable to read.

While of course some stories are better than others, all of the stories in Dubliners are of at least good quality, and most of them are really great. Despite the overall high quality of the book as a whole, there is one story that stands out from the others as truly exceptional. "The Dead" is the last story in the collection, as well as the longest. It starts out quietly enough, with a middle-aged man named Gabriel going to a Christmas party held by his two elderly aunts. The rest of the story chronicles Gabriel's thoughts and actions at that party. It could be argued that not much happens in this story, and yet the ending, with Gabriel and his wife talking back at their home, is by far the most moving epiphany in Dubliners. This story shows Joyce's skill at writing better than any other. Somehow, Joyce manipulates the seemingly-mundane elements of the story to create a conclusion in which even simple phrases become charged with emotion and meaning. Though I don't usually comment on my own feelings in reviews, I feel the need to tell you all that this story moved me to tears and left me utterly speechless. Even now, as I think over the story, the phrase "Snow was general all over Ireland" gives me chills. If the only thing Joyce ever wrote had been "The Dead," he would still be a great writer. It's that good.

"The Dead," with its perfect structure, subtle descriptions, and moving ending, is a truly great short story on its own, but it gains so much more from being placed at the end of such a well-written and honest collection. The themes and images from the earlier stories only enhance and expand the ideas in the last story, while that story serves as a coda and a commentary on the others. The conversational nature of this relationship, and the relationship of any story to any other story or to the whole, makes reading Dubliners truly worthwhile. Whether you've already read it twenty times or you've never picked it up before, reading Dubliners will be a rewarding and fulfilling experience.

Rating: 5 Stars.
Recommendations: Read it, and if you can't do that, at least read "The Dead." I promise you won't regret it.

Stay on the lookout for my upcoming reviews of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses.

The Odyssey by Homer

If you looked over the kinds of books I tend to read and review, you might be surprised to learn that I had never read The Odyssey. To be honest with you, I've always been a little scared by classical literature, so I put off reading this for a long time. But finally I decided to put it on my Classics Club list and tackle the thing once and for all. Now that I'm done, I don't know why I waited for so long to read this wonderful book. The Odyssey is a truly lovely and beautiful poem, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I didn't know a lot about The Odyssey going in to it. I knew it was the story of Odysseus from the time he leaves the Trojan War to the time he arrives home in Ithaca, and I knew about some of the monsters and goddesses he ran into on his journey, but that was about it. Because of this, I was expecting a story filled with action, daring feats, horrible danger, and crafty escapes. While all those things were there, I was surprised at how much of the book takes place in a domestic setting, focusing on things like food, clothes, bedding, and talking. Homer seems to linger over the details of the places that Odysseus visits, giving beautiful detail to the feasting and sacrifices, the fruitfulness of the lords' gardens, the women's talent in weaving, the color of the wine, the comfort of the beds, the beauty of the gold dinnerware, and the hospitality of his hosts. This was probably my biggest surprise while reading The Odyssey, but it also turned out to be my favorite part of the book. The descriptions of these domestic pleasures are all so loving and so beautiful that the reader feels a true love for the comforts of home and understands exactly why Odysseus wants so badly to get back to Ithaca. I wanted nothing more than for Odysseus to get back to Ithaca and experience the joy of being at home again. The care and love that Homer put into those descriptions made even everyday things seem truly lovely, and that warm loving glow was by far my favorite part of the book.

Another thing that surprised me about The Odyssey was how much of the story is given to us after the fact, told by Odysseus to his hosts. I thought this was an interesting device, because it puts the reader in the same place as Odysseus's host. We know who he is, but we're waiting for him to tell us what happened to him. Once we get caught up on the action and Odysseus makes the last leg of his journey and arrives in Ithaca, we see even more of his storytelling skills. He goes into disguise, and makes up stories about who he is and where he's from to many people before he kills the suitors and reveals his identity. These stories seem to be a way of fleshing out Odysseus's character. The fact that he can make up these stories on the spot shows that he is smart and cunning. The way he varies the length of his stories and the details he includes depending on who he's talking to shows how he feels about these people. The degrees to which people believe him and the way they react to his stories serves as a means for character development for them as well. I think the different kinds of stories and storytelling that happen in The Odyssey are incredibly interesting, and I intend to pay closer attention to them next time I read it. 

One of my favorite little things about The Odyssey was the emphasis on hospitality and generosity to strangers and travelers. I knew that hospitality was an important part of early Greek culture, but I was constantly struck by the difference between the reception that Odysseus gets and the way we treat strangers in our society. When Odysseus came to a place, he was bathed, given a cloak to wear if he didn't have one, brought to the table, and fed like a member of the family. All this happened before they ever asked him his name or where he was from. When they knew his name and heard his story, they gave him gifts and treasures and helped him to get home. He was always given a warm bed to sleep in and more than enough food to eat, and was treated with respect. I know that this is just a story, but I still found it to be incredibly refreshing. I wish that our society would focus a little more on hospitality and generosity like they do in The Odyssey.

I've heard many people complain that they found The Odyssey boring, with dry descriptions and long stretches where nothing happens. It may just be that I read a better translation than other people (my boyfriend, who has often picked The Odyssey as his favorite book, recommends the Fitzgerald, and I agree) but I didn't have any of these problems. I found the pacing to be very good, with most sections moving on to other sections in a timely and satisfying manner. The ending, when Odysseus and Penelope are finally reunited, is absolute perfection, and I would not have changed a single word of it. The descriptions are vivid, colorful, and utterly lovely in every way. Though I was intimidated by classical literature and afraid of being bored, within the first few chapters The Odyssey had completely won me over. I am glad that I finally read this thoroughly lovely and enjoyable book.

Rating: 5 stars

Recommendations: Beautiful descriptions, interesting plot, iconic characters. Highly recommended. Contains some violence. 

Favorite Classic: August Classic Club Meme

Hello dear readers, and welcome to the first of the new monthly Classics Club memes. The Classics Club now has a dedicated blog, and they are hosting monthly questions so that all of us members can discuss the classics with each other. If you're a Classics Club member, welcome to the blog! My list is here. I look forward to reading all of your lists and learning about your favorite classics. If you're not a member, go check out the blog and make your own list!

This month's question is:

What is your favorite classic book? Why?

As I'm sure everyone else will say, this is a nearly impossible question to answer. How can you really pick one favorite? Since I don't think it's possible to compare works across genres, I've decided to pick my favorite classics in a few different categories. I'm picking based only on my personal favorites, not necessarily the books I think are the most well-written or most important. These are the books I want to hug and keep with me forever. Each of them has a story behind it, and each of them has done something to make me the reader I am today. So, without any further ado, here they are.

Favorite Classic: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I know that everyone picks this book as their favorite, but bear with me. This book is one of the first books to get me back into the classics. I read this for the first time during my Junior year of high school, and I must have read it three or four times that year. I started off just loving the story, connecting with the characters, and swooning at the romance. But after a while I started focusing more on the beauty of Austen's writing and her subtle but ever-present social commentary. All on my own, I was slowly learning to really read a book from multiple angles. Now, having read two other Jane Austen novels and many other classics, I can honestly say that reading Pride and Prejudice all those years ago got me off to the right start.
Honorable Mentions: Frankenstein, Persuasion, The Odyssey

Favorite Modern Classic: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

So, remember how in my introduction I said that these are all books I want to hug? Well, lied a little bit. I do not want to cuddle with Heart of Darkness. This book is utterly strange and terrifying, and I want to study it much more than I want to hold it. It is, in short, a hell of a book. So why is this my favorite modern classic? Because it is endlessly fascinating and infinitely re-readable. I read Heart of Darkness in two of my classes in the past year. Analyzing and discussing this book in two of my favorite classes helped me realize that I need to go to graduate school and got me interested in various forms of literary criticism. Because of those memories I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Heart of Darkness.
Honorable Mentions: Mrs. Dalloway, Paradise, The Great Gatsby.

Favorite Classic Poem: The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

If I had to pick one poem to read for the rest of my life, this would probably be it. There is something about this poem that just knocks me off my feet. First of all, the language is just beautiful. Eliot is a virtuosic poet, and it shows here like nowhere else. There are parts of The Four Quartets that absolutely grab me by the heart and play with my emotions, others that appeal to my analytical brain, and still others that engage my love of words and language. I read this poem the summer after my first semester as an English major, and it absolutely changed my life. I started studying poetry on my own, took more poetry classes, and met with my professor to ask for extra help. If it weren't for T.S. Eliot and the professor who introduced me to him, I might not have ever considered going to graduate school, and I certainly wouldn't be reading poetry the way I do now. For me, The Four Quartets will always remind me of that exciting time.
Honorable Mentions: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock, Sunday Morning, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

Favorite Children's Classic: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

When pressed to pick an all-time favorite novel, there have been many times when I've picked The Hobbit. The Hobbit and I go way back. My mom used to read it to me when I was little, and when I got old enough I eventually started reading it myself. I read this book so many times that I used to have the first page memorized. This book lead me to read The Lord of the Rings, which in turn lead me to eventually collect and read all of Tolkien's works, learn Elvish, and generally become a complete dork. I have The Hobbit to thank for over a decade of fond reading memories, and for that it will always be one of my all-time favorite books.
Honorable Mentions: To Kill a Mockingbird, Watership Down, A Wrinkle in Time.

Favorite Classic Play: Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Ok, it's confession time. I totally watched the movie of this before I read it. In fact, I read this play mostly because I loved the movie so much. But, no matter its form, Much Ado About Nothing is a great play. It is incredibly witty and unbearably funny, but it certainly isn't light. There is an interesting commentary on relationships and trust in this play that makes it compelling again and again. It also features one of my favorite literary couples, Beatrice and Benedick, who make me incredibly happy. I watched this movie for the first time during my Junior year of high school, and it got me interested in Shakespeare all over again. Even now, if I'm having a bad day or need a pick-me-up, I still turn to Much Ado About Nothing.

Honorable Mentions: The Flies, Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible.

So there you have it: my totally cheating list of all my favorite classics. Do you have a favorite classic? Do you have a book that shaped your reading life? Let me know about it in the comments. And make sure to go to the linky list over at the Classics Club blog and check out everyone else's favorite classic. I look forward to reading all of your posts.

Top Ten Tips for Reading Poetry

Hey everyone. It's been a long time since I've done Top Ten Tuesday, but since this week is a choose-your-own-topic sort of week, I thought this would be the perfect time for a post I've been wanting to write recently. As someone who loves poetry, it sometimes makes me sad to see that most people, even bookish people, almost never read poetry. One of the complaints I hear a lot is that people "don't understand" poetry, so I decided to give my Top Ten Tips for reading, analyzing, and enjoying poetry, in hopes that more people would decide to pick up a poem every now and then. So, without further ado, here is my list.

Emily's Top Ten Tips for Reading Poetry

1. Just enjoy it. Really. I hear a lot of people saying that they hate analyzing novels, that they prefer to just read them and enjoy them. But for some reason when it comes to poetry, those same people get so caught up in analyzing that they forget to just read the poem and enjoy it. Poems may be in an unfamiliar format, but they are just as lovely and enjoyable as novels. So get lost in the language, the story, and the images, and leave the analyzing for poems you already enjoy.

2. Paraphrase it. This might seem like the simplest thing, but for me this is always the first step when I look at a poem. Think up a simple paraphrase that describes the action of the poem. Try to leave out all metaphors or interpretations; just tell yourself what literally happens. Depending on the poem, this can be harder than you think. You'd be surprised how much this can help you get a clear picture so you can move on to later steps.

3. Look at the road map. The first thing I look at after I paraphrase a poem is where it starts and where it ends. This can give you a sense of the poem's trajectory and help you see what some of the themes may be. The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats, for instance, both starts and ends with the speaker in a city dreaming of Innisfree, with the middle being the specifics of his dreams. This makes the poem rather circular, starting and ending in the same place, and shows us that the speaker never really gets to that cabin. Innisfree is a daydream, a goal that the speaker never fulfills. This poems is a poem about yearning and longing more than it is about Innisfree itself. We get all that just from looking at the road map. (Did you listen to the recording at that link? That's Yeats reading the poem, and it's fabulous. Go ahead, I'll wait.)

4. Look at the map of each stanza. Once you've looked at the overall road map, look at the map for each stanza or section. In Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, the first three stanzas start with something belonging to society (the owner of the woods, the horse, the bells) and end with the woods. The last stanza reverses that pattern, starting with the woods that the speaker desires and ending with the speaker's obligations in society. This structure shows us the constant pull and tug between our love for beauty, solitude, idealism, or even death, and the obligations of society, practicality, and real life. Each stanza, by nature of its structure, gives us that conflict in miniature.

5. Look for the oddities. Is there are part of the poem that stands out as different from the rest? An image that doesn't seem to fit? A part where the meter or rhyme-scheme breaks? A part that rhymes in a non-rhyming poem? Does the poet repeat lines? These are all oddities, and they are all good places to ask yourself "Why is this here?" Why, in Emily Dickenson's I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died, does the last line repeat the word "see?" Why, in Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening does Frost repeat the last line? These are great questions to ask yourself as you are reading, and they can often yield the best insights.

6. Look at the extras. When reading a poem, don't forget to look at the extra things, like the title, epigraph, or dedication. My favorite example for this is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. The epigraph is a quote from Dante in which a damned person in hell tells Dante that he will only confess his story to him because he knows that no-one will hear it, since no-one can ever leave hell. What does this mean for our poem? Is Prufock in hell? Does he think that no-one will ever hear his monologue? And how does this fit the title, which calls the poem a love song? Clearly, the title and the epigraph give us a lot to think about. Similarly, the epigraph in The Waste Land references the Sybil, a prophetess, who is an old shriveled husk of a person who only wants to die. If that doesn't give us a way to interpret the poem, I don't know what does.

7. Look at the images. This may seem obvious, but it's surprising how many people forget to really look at the images and take them seriously. Even the simplest things can be helpful. Is the poem set in a city, or in nature? Are the images realistic, or idealized? Are there stereotypical images, like a rose or the speaker's beloved? If so, are they described in a traditional way, or does the poet play with our expectations? Let's go back to The Lake Isle of Innisfree for a minute, and look at the second stanza. In the description of Innisfree, the speaker says "There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow." Look at that imagery for a second. Is there anything weird about that? Why is midnight glimmering and noon purple? Don't those images seem a little backwards to you? I take that description to be the first truly dreamlike description in the whole poem, a hazy and imprecise image that reminds us that the speaker is not in Innisfree, but is only imagining it.

8. Read for connotation. This is, to me, the most interesting and fruitful thing that you can do after you've looked at the big picture. Pick an important word in the poem, and ask yourself, why did the poet choose that word rather than a synonym? As a hint, in good poetry the answer is almost never "because it rhymed." Instead, the poet is using the word's connotative value, the value that it has outside its literal dictionary definition. So, in In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound, why does he use "apparition" instead of "appearance" or any other synonym? Apparition connotes a ghost or some other spiritual phenomena, and gives the image an otherworldly nature that "appearance" wouldn't have captured. It also gives it a sense of time, as an apparition is something that appears and fades relatively quickly. In such a short poem especially, the connotative value of each word is very important.

9. Look at the form. As you're looking at each stanza, you should notice if the poem follows some regular form or if it is in free verse. If it is in a regular form, the poet probably chose it for a reason. If the poem is a sonnet and it wasn't written around the time of Shakespeare, maybe the poet is trying to connect with tradition or prove their skill as a poet. If it is in a ballad meter, maybe they are trying to reference typical ballad subjects or themes, or have been influenced by hymns. If the poet is using an envelope stanza (quatrain with abba rhyme scheme) they could be referencing In Memoriam by Tennyson, and the poem could be a kind of elegy or memorial. Looking at these traditional forms can give the reader a hint as to what the poet might have been thinking.

10. Do minor research. Now, I know this sounds scary, but stick with me here. If a poem references something or someone who you don't know, look it up. You'd be surprised how helpful that can be. While you don't need to know the source of every single allusion in The Waste Land, it is good to know who Philomel is. If you're reading Leda and the Swan by W.B. Yeats, you should make sure you know who Leda is. But beyond that, it's sometimes interesting to look up the authors of poems and learn a little bit about them. I looked at The Waste Land completely differently after learning about T.S. Eliot's awful marriage and mental breakdown. W.B. Yeats was involved in the Irish revolt against England, and that shows up a lot in his poems, as do his unusual spiritual beliefs. Sometimes it's helpful to look up what school or movements a poet is associated with, and see how their poems fit with and diverge from those ideas. Sometimes it's interesting to read a poet's poetics and see how they apply to their actual poetry. Research doesn't have to be scary. Sometimes it is incredibly helpful and surprisingly fun.

As you can probably tell, I could talk to you about reading poetry forever, but I think these ten tips are a great place to start with a poem that confuses you, delights you, or makes you want to look at it more deeply. And remember, the most important thing about reading poetry is to enjoy it. Enjoy the beautiful language, vivid imagery, and interesting ideas, and use these tips only to further your love and appreciation for good poetry.

Happy Reading!

If You Want Me to Stay by Michael Parker

I am not a big fan of the summer novel. I tend to read exactly the same kind of novels during the summer as I would any other time of year. That said, I honestly think that If You Want Me To Stay is the perfect book for summer. It's one of the rare books that manages to be exciting and readable without compromising on quality. Full disclosure: Michael Parker is one of my professors at UNCG, and his class on the contemporary novel was one of my favorites. It was partially because I loved his teaching that I decided to pick up his collection of short stories (review here) and then one of his novels. I can tell you now that I have not been disappointed. Set in North Carolina during a hot summer (much like the one we're having now), If You Want Me to Stay is a luminous example of the power of voice in creating a truly enjoyable reading experience.

In Michael Parker's new novel, Joel Dunn Jr. tells the story of how he did everything he could to save his family after his mother left and his father's tenuous hold on sanity unraveled. On a journey from the town of Trent, North Carolina, to the coast, Joel and his little brother Tank thread their way back to their mother, fueled by potato chips, Coke, and the soundtrack of the powerful soul music that their daddy taught them to love. Always keeping the faith that their mother is waiting for them, they move from one kindly stranger to another on their odyssey, Joel ever certain they are being guided to her door: "I was being passed from person to person," he says, "on my way back into her wide open window." Caught between the endless idealism of childhood and the sobering tests of adulthood, Joel and Tank bravely negotiate their way through a landscape of love and beauty, abandonment and betrayal, to learn that the one sure thing is often right by your side. (GoodReads)

Narrated by a 14-year old boy, If You Want Me to Stay is above all an incredible example of the effective use of narrative voice. Joel Jr. is an incredibly interesting narrator with a voice that is both unique and believable. Having lived in North Carolina for a good portion of my life, I can tell you that I have met boys who talk exactly like Joel. He is sometimes funny, sometimes cynical, almost always honest, and completely real. But Parker's use of voice goes far beyond the simple mastery of dialect. Where Parker really shines is in how he gets into Joel's head. If You Want Me to Stay starts with a sort of free narrative style, with Joel as the narrator. He tells the story, but with little asides, thoughts, and observations thrown in that make it feel like a real person talking or thinking. What I really loved about the style was that as the novel progressed Joel's narration became more stream-of-consciousness than not. The last few sections are in a nearly impressionistic style, painting the images Joel sees and mixing them with his thoughts, feelings, memories, and the music that courses throughout the novel. It's a great device, because the narrative gets more stream of consciousness as the boys get more tired and confused, making the style match the content and theme of the novel. Parker's use of voice and narrative style was by far my favorite part of If You Want Me to Stay, and I would recommend it for that alone.

Michael Parker

As I mentioned in my review of The Geographical Cure, Parker is also incredibly talented at building setting, able to put readers right into a place without a lot of exposition or superfluous description. If You Want Me to Stay is no different. In this novel, Parker creates the perfect atmosphere of central and coastal North Carolina; the muggy summers, the boggy forests, and the beach towns all come to life in a way that is both delightful and unobtrusive. Having lived in North Carolina for a majority of my life, I can tell you that he absolutely nailed the setting. But what's great about Parker is that while he makes the place a real and integral part of the story and of the characters, he doesn't hit you over the head with it. Instead, the setting is woven into the story in much the same way as it is woven into our lives. It is important in that it is always there, but not so important as to steal the scene from the characters or themes. Instead, it creates a kind of atmosphere that I found very effective and enjoyable to read.

Now, there were a few things that I thought could have been better about this novel. While I loved the way that Parker weaved music into the story, I thought that it was occasionally too much, especially towards the end. I understand why he chose to use the music, and it worked very well thematically, but sometimes it was so much as to make Joel's character seem unrealistic. No-one thinks about music that much, no mater what they've been through. Since Joel was otherwise an incredibly lifelike and well-drawn character, this stuck out a bit and bothered me. Also, while I found the story be be generally well-paced and well-structured, there was a part just before the end that went on for too long, and that threw the structure off and made it drag a bit. Other than those two things, the book was very well put together and flowed perfectly from one scene to the next. Those two problems were more slight annoyances than real issues.

Overall, If You Want Me to Stay was a thoroughly enjoyable novel. It was fast-paced and interesting without sacrificing good writing or round characters. While it isn't something I'd call a modern classic, it is definitely something I would recommend to anyone who wants their summer reading to be both enjoyable and intelligent. I can assure you that I will be picking up another of Michael Parker's books again in the near future.

Rating: 3.5 stars
Recommendations: Realistic characters, great setting, a great summer read. Some profanity and violence.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dalloway is the first book that I've finished from my Classics Club list, and I cannot imagine a better start to my project than this book. I've been meaning to read this book for a long time now, so I had built up a lot of expectations for it. I am happy to say that Mrs. Dalloway both defied and exceeded all of my expectations, and was a more finely crafted, emotionally resonant, honest, and enjoyable book than I could have hoped.

The book takes place over the course of one day, starting with Clarissa Dalloway going to buy flowers for her party, and finishing at the end of the party late that night. Through this one day the reader is given a window into the life of Clarissa Dalloway, the central character, and to other characters that are connected to her in some way or another. We see Clarissa's marriage to her husband Robert, old suitors whom she rejected, friends from her childhood, and people she passes on the street. It does not have much of a plot, but is instead driven by vivid characterization and a dreamlike style. Mrs. Dalloway is the portrait of a woman, a flawed and human woman, and of the many people who orbit around her in one day,

The first thing that really struck me about Mrs. Dalloway was the style, for which it is rightly famous. Like many of her modernist contemporaries, Woolf experimented with style, in this case using a stream-of-consciousness narrative that focuses on portraying the consciousness and thought patterns of her characters. Since people almost never think in logical or linear paths, the narrative wanders from subject to subject. The style matches these wandering thoughts perfectly, with the sentence lengths and amount of description changing to match the mood of the narrator. This style makes the characters thoughts feel incredibly real and honest, like you're looking through a window into each character's mind. The narrative moves seamlessly between characters, transitioning from one narrative perspective to another both smoothly and without warning, making it sometimes difficult to realize that it's happened until the end of a sentence or paragraph. While this can sometimes be confusing, it is a perfect way to transition from one person's experience to the next; it makes the book as a whole just as wandering and fluid as the individual narratives. It's things like that, the way that the larger and smaller structures reinforce each other and work together thematically, that make Woolf such a good writer, and make her books so effective.

The stream-of-consciousness style and the free-indirect narrative mean that the characters in Mrs. Dalloway are incredibly rich and lifelike. Each time there is a change of narrator, the reader is given an entirely different perspective on the characters. When Clarissa is narrating, she seems like a reasonable and good person, and her decisions, actions, and estimations of the other characters make as much sense to the reader as they do to her. When the narrator changes to Peter Walsh, we see Clarissa in a different light, more silly and flawed. When Clarissa described her marriage early in the book, I was inclined to dislike her husband Richard, and Peter's opinion of him only supported those feelings. But during the brief section where Richard narrates, I saw him for what he was, not evil or cruel, but a well-meaning, flawed, and all-together too human man. Woolf's characterization, her ability to portray the feelings and motivations of characters so well that the reader understands and believes them, her insistence on making even her antagonists real people, is something that I found completely surprising and utterly pleasing.

The style and characterization in Mrs. Dalloway are not just aesthetically pleasing and inherently interesting; like in any good novel, they also serve thematic purposes. Many of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway are detached or separated from the people around them. Clarissa is described as "cold" by a number of characters, and her marriage to Richard is a distant one. Peter Walsh just returned to England from a long stay in India, and is constantly reminded of how different the two places are, and how much people have changed, or not changed, since he left. Septimus Smith has shell shock from his time in the war, and is kept mentally distant from both his wife and from reality in general. The narrative voice compliments and draws attention to these many kinds of distance through the use of free indirect style. Rather than using "I" or "we" like in a first person narration, the novel is in the free indirect style, which is a special kind of limited third person narration. Rather than being an impartial narrator, in this style the third person narrator sees and describes things only how the character would see or describe them. This makes the narrator and the characters nearly indistinguishable, but still separates them through the use of third person pronouns. This narrative style allows Woolf to provide a rich and detailed portrait of the characters using stream-of-consciousness writing while still keeping the narrator detached from both the characters and the author. This separation between narrator, character, author, and reader matches the separation between the characters themselves, and puts the reader in the same situation as the characters.

As much as this novel is a portrait of the distance between people, it is also a story of people trying to make connections. Clarissa's party is, above all else, her attempt to bring people together. Woolf's use of smooth transitions between characters, the repetition of ideas and places in the thoughts of different characters, and the lack of chapters and rarity of section breaks all endeavor to make connections between the wandering strands of narrative in the same way that the characters try to make connections with each other. The themes of this novel pull in two separate directions, pointing toward the loneliness of the modern world and the many ways in which people find connection. Woolf manages to incorporate both of those elements and, through her mastery of style, fuse them into a coherent and aesthetically pleasing whole.

I feel like I should mention some of the problems that people have with Virginia Woolf. Many people find the fact that she only writes about upper-middle-class white people and completely ignores the existence of the working class and minorities to be problematic. I think that this is a valid critique not of any single novel, as no novel can have everything in it, but of her output as a whole, especially her nonfiction. In Mrs. Dalloway there is only one working-class character, Ms. Kilman, who is not portrayed in a good light even in her own narration. This erasure of the working class and minorities is a problem not just with Virginia Woolf, but with both literary Modernism and early feminism as a whole. I think it's important to interrogate the limitations of these works even as we enjoy the beauty and virtuosity of the writing. Another problematic element is the depiction of empire in Mrs. Dalloway, specifically the British colonization of India. I personally don't know what to make of this theme, which returns multiple times throughout the novel. Partially because of the free indirect style, I don't know where the characters' opinions on the matter stop and where Woolf's ideas and possible biases begin. I will have to read the novel a few more times before I can say anything conclusive about empire in Mrs. Dalloway, but I wanted to throw it out there as something to pay attention to if you are reading this yourself.

Mrs. Dalloway is often hailed as one of the modern classics, and after reading it I can absolutely understand why. Woof's use of style and structure serve to paint a picture of a woman, a truly human woman, complete with flaws and strengths, full of new hopes and failed dreams, and to show the people who come into contact with her throughout the course of a day. Despite the high literary style, it feels honest and uncontrived. The characters feel familiar, like the people you meet every day, and the feelings and thoughts they have could very well be your own. It is a beautiful, luminous, haunting book that will only improve upon rereading. I had a lot of expectations going in to this reading, and I am happy to say that Mrs. Dalloway exceeded them all.

Rating: 5 stars.

Home by Toni Morrison

When I heard that Toni Morrison was coming out with a new novel, I was absolutely excited. I loved Paradise and Beloved (so much so that I've never written a review of either of them) so I pre-ordered a copy of Home as soon as I could. I got my copy yesterday (the release day) and I finished it this morning. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but this novella was different altogether from any of my expectations.

An angry and self-loathing veteran of the Korean War, Frank Money finds himself back in racist America after enduring trauma on the front lines that left him with more than just physical scars. His home--and himself in it--may no longer be as he remembers it, but Frank is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from, which he's hated all his life. As Frank revisits the memories from childhood and the war that leave him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood--and his home. (GoodReads)

This novella was very different from other Morrison books that I've read. (I'm calling it a novella because it is only 147 pages long. I know some of you don't like the term, but I do, so I'm using it.) It was, first and foremost, easy to read. Beloved took me over a month to get through because it was so dense and so difficult; Home took me only a few hours. I was, I have to admit, a little surprised and even disappointed at how easy the prose was. Though the chapters switch between narrators, with a majority of the chapters being from Frank's perspective, the narrators of each chapter are always characters that have been previously introduce and are always identified in the first few sentences of their chapter. The reader never has to figure out who is talking or what is going on, so long as they can remember names. The chapters alternate between the story itself, told by the various narrators, and chapters in which Frank addresses the author directly, telling them what really happened, how he really felt, and occasionally correcting things that the author previously wrote. I really enjoyed those chapters, because they called attention to the act of storytelling itself, to the fact that someone who is not the characters is writing these things, to the idea that sometimes the author messes things up. I thought that technique was very cool, and it isn't something I've seen Morrison do before.

Possibly because the book was so short, I had a hard time connecting to the characters the way I have with her other novels. While they are good round characters, they aren't nearly as fleshed out as Sethe or the women from Paradise. I feel like this was more a novel of setting and theme than of characters, which is usually ok by me, but since this book was about Frank finding his sense of home, I wanted to connect with him a bit more. While it let me down in character development, it was great in setting. You get a good sense from the writing of what life was like for poor black people in the South, the way that injustice and violence from whites and the police was normal, an everyday hazard to be avoided rather than something surprising or unusual. Home includes a lot of the things that were happening at the time, segregation, eugenics, bebop, and obviously the Korean war. Mostly these elements are woven into the story seamlessly and organically. To balance out the injustice and sadness there were always communities, churches, and helpful strangers who supported each other where law and prejudice let them down. I loved that this book showed the ways that black people rallied and helped each other. So often we think of blacks before the civil rights movement as being poor downtrodden helpless people, but the reality is that they were often very strong, supporting each other and getting through with hard work, community, and a refusal to let poverty and hate grind them down. I think this book did a great job showing that without watering down the real pain of injustice and violence that comes with war and segregation. It's a delicate balance, but for the most part I think it's a balance that Home strikes very well.

As I mentioned earlier, the writing in Home is much easier and simpler than in the other Morrison novels I've read. The themes were generally just as subtle and nuanced as I expect from her, with the situations, problems, and solutions feeling real and honest rather than contrived or pedantic. That said, some parts of the last few chapters felt a little too obvious for me. Unlike in Beloved, in Home Morrison basically hands the reader the solution or moral that Cee and Frank have to find, explaining it to us in clear language. While this isn't always a bad thing, and in some novels those revelations are often the most beautiful parts, in Home it felt a little too easy. Maybe it's because I was expecting something more like her other novels, but the simplicity of those last few chapters left me a bit disappointed. They were beautiful, thematic, and they structurally balanced out the novel, but they just felt too easy.

So, after all this, what did I think of Home? It was good, definitely, but it certainly wasn't her best novel. I think it would be a perfect introduction to Toni Morrison for people who haven't read her books and don't want to start with anything too difficult. It has all of her usual themes, her lovely use of setting, and her realistic characters, but it's shorter in length and has much easier prose. For people who don't usually read difficult literary fiction, this is the perfect introduction to Toni Morrison. For those of us who love her partially because of her difficulty, this probably won't stand out as one of her best novels. The writing was much more mature than in The Bluest Eye, but it wasn't as complex or as moving as Paradise or Beloved. I would definitely recommend it, but it isn't going to join her other works on the list of my favorite novels of all time.

Rating: 4 stars
Recommendations: Readable prose, realistic setting, ok character development. A quick, enjoyable, and contemplative read from a wonderful author. Not as substantial as some of her other works.