What do you desire?

[nswef]

A lot of my enjoyment of a book depends on my mood. I loved Thomas Hardy in high school, don't know if I'd still enjoy it now. Some books just pull me in and I am transformed, others I slog through until I choose to quit and some are just mindless enjoyment. I revert to children's literature when the world is too much with me...Beverly Cleary and Frances Burnett's The Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables. All those lift me up and take me somewhere else.

[JaneV2.0]

My family was embarking on a vacation at a lake family camp in 1965. I was about 12-13, and for the ride I picked up Gone with the Wind at the local bookstore. Well, I read it on the way up, I read it on the porch all week while others were canoeing, hiking, playing ping-pong. The camp owner told me, jokingly, on Thursday, when I was on about page 650, "I want you to write me an essay on 'what I did on my summer vacation' when you get home."

I read it on the way back from the Berkshires, and I was two chapters from finishing by the time I got home, and I just ran upstairs to my room and read the rest.

That book was so alive to me.

Gone With the Wind was a favorite of mine, too. I read it the first time when I was seven, bed bound with a childhood illness, and several times after that. I enjoyed the (perfectly cast) movie, as well.

[iris lilies]

I loved Gone with The Wind, too.

Our April Flower Show is themed Gone with the Wind so we will have Rhet, Scarlet, Melanie, and cotton themed designs.

[oldhat]

In Dickens' novels it's sometimes awfully apparent he was being paid by the word. I can see his genius, but I often found his novels to be a bit of a slog.

You have to remember, though, that Dickens and his contemporaries were writing for a very different audience. Many of his books were published in installments, so readers would have to wait to see what happened next, which doubtless increased the books' suspense and thus readability. This was also before TV and the internet mounted their assault on peoples' attention spans.

One thing I've found is that Victorian novels translate very well to the audio book format. Over the last few years I've "reread" novels by Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Tolstoy and Trollope and enjoyed them very much.

While we're on the subject of Trollope, did you know that he wrote dozens of novels while working full-time for the British postal system? He would rise each morning at 4 and write for precisely 4 hours. If he finished a book before the time was up, he immediately started another one.

Don't you hate people like that?

[iris lilies]

There are excellent wordy Victorian novels, but Dickens didnt produce any of them. He just produced a lot of words.

I dont believe I have ever read a Dickens novel from beginning to end, and
I was a lit major. I am not sure he is actually taught at the college level (and certainly Gone With the Wind is not taight as literature) and I dont see why high schoolers have to slog through one of his books.

[Williamsmith]

There are excellent wordy Victorian novels, but Dickens didnt produce any of them. He just produced a lot of words.

I dont believe I have ever read a Dickens novel from beginning to end, and
I was a lit major. I am not sure he is actually taught at the college level (and certainly Gone With the Wind is not taight as literature) and I dont see why high schoolers have to slog through one of his books.

Thank You !!

[catherine]

There are excellent wordy Victorian novels, but Dickens didnt produce any of them. He just produced a lot of words.

I dont believe I have ever read a Dickens novel from beginning to end, and
I was a lit major. I am not sure he is actually taught at the college level (and certainly Gone With the Wind is not taight as literature) and I dont see why high schoolers have to slog through one of his books.

Now that you mention it, A Tale of Two Cities is the only Dickens book I ever read, because I had to, in French class.

But as for the Victorians--I love Thomas Hardy. I've read Far from the Madding Crowd twice, and read the Bronte's of course.

[nswef]

I couldn't get into the Brontes or Jane Austin.

[iris lily]

I couldn't get into the Brontes or Jane Austin.

The Brontes get overwrought, but
Jane is perfection.

[LDAHL]

A professor once told me that great writers are like a saucier. They boil it down to the most flavorful sauce with the most delightful texture and aroma.

One of my favorite lines comes from Ring Lardner: "'Shut up', he explained". You get the point without a lot of word salad.