Finished: Reconstructing Amelia (McCreight). Page-turner that makes a sad statement about current times for teenage kids....especially concerning peer pressure and cyber bullying. I'm on vacation right now, but will probably give a more detailed update later!

Finished: The House at Riverton (Morton). A good, page-turning book...my gift from our book club's Christmas book exchange! :-) The story of Grace, a ladies maid in a manor house in England before and after World War I. Of course, the book is full of secrets, but none that aren't pretty easy to figure out. When Grace first goes to work for the Hartford family, and their three children, David (17), Hannah (15) and Emmeline (11), she feels an instant connection with the children, who are very close siblings. She watches with envy as they interact and play their imaginary games that no on else can be a part of.... and mourns deeply with the girls after David is killed in WWI. It doesn't take long to figure out that Grace herself is the product of an affair between the children's father and her own mother, who was also a servant at the manor years ago. However, even though other servants, and even Frederick Hartford himself look at her intensely at times, it never comes out openly. Even Grace eventually figures it out, but by that time she is the personal ladies maid for Hannah, who is then married and unhappy. Grace would never jeopardize her relationship of trust with Hannah, and so never dares to mention what she knows. She just remains Hannah's maid for the rest of Hannah's life...which isn't too long in the grand scheme of things. All three Hartford children, plus Robbie, the young man who tears the sisters apart, are dead before they turn 22. Grace, however, lives into her nineties and tells the story as a flashback to her own grandson. Before she dies, she wants to admit to him who her father truly was, so she does so on tape. Along the way, we get to live her life with her vicariously through her telling of the story...and it's a really good one. :-)

Finished: The Idiot (Dostoevsky). A good but intense, typically long-winded story about a Russian "prince". The prince in this story is Mishkin, who is a 25ish year old Russian orphan who has spent many years at a private Swiss sanatorium for his "illness". Other than epilepsy, I'm not sure what his illness really is except that he's very innocent, naive, trusting, truthful and all around believes the best in people. Not even knowing that he's inherited money, he leaves Switzerland to go and rediscover Russia, where he meets up with all sorts of characters who have a huge impact on his young life. He falls in love with two different women who end up being his undoing emotionally, as well as physically. He thinks he's made friends in society, but most of the people think of him as a simpleton or idiot. In actuality, he's a very deep-thinking person who expresses his thoughts with no filter whatsoever...hence, he is really more of a social idiot, than an intellectual one. He is instantly smitten with the beautiful, yet tragic, "fallen woman" Nastasya Filoppovna, who in turn, is instantly smitten with Mishkin due to his outright honesty and kind regard for her with no ulterior motives. However, Nastasya Filoppovna is fiercely loved by Rogozhin, a rich young Russian heir who happens to be the first person Mishkin meets on the train back to Russia, and ironically ends up being the last person who Mishkin has any intelligible conversation with before he goes back to the sanatorium at the end of the story pretty much out of his wits. The relationship between Mishkin and Rogozhin is one of love/hate, respect/jealousy and absolute need for the other's approval, it seems. After Nastasya Filoppovna runs off with Rogozhin, thinking she's not good enough for Mishkin, Mishkin then falls in love with the youngest daughter of his next acquaintances, the Epanchin family. The beautiful Aglaia is also smitten with Mishkin, but is spoiled and willful, and wants to string him along in typical female games of which he knows nothing. The genuine Mishkin falls prey to her machinations, as well as those of Nastasya Filoppovna; Lebedev, a dishonest character who latches himself to the rich nobles; Ippolit, a consumptive, manipulative teenage boy who plays with people's emotions; Gavril, an angry "middle" class young man who will do almost anything to crack into the upper classes, including nearly marrying both Nastasya AND Aglaia; and several others. There are so many characters in this book, all with complicated names...and most of them concerned primarily with their own personal motives. I was sad to see poor Mishkin at the end regress even further than he apparently ever had been to begin with, not even recognizing people who came to visit him in the end. Sigh. I might be done with Russian literature for awhile, though. Both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy go off on tangents, creating looonnnnggg conversations between characters that allow them to spout their political and religious views, and I tend to glaze over during those parts. I'd much rather just keep reading the dialogue between the characters that moves the story along or that develops the relationships between the characters. However, I can't deny that Dostoevsky is one of the great writers and I was only frustrated with the tangents because his story kept me wanting more! :-)

Finished: For Whom The Bell Tolls (Hemingway) I'm ashamed to say I never really thought about that line from Donne's poem, and what it means, until I read this Hemingway classic! What a good book. Not exactly my cup of tea...reading about war and all that it entails, but such a good book in that you get to know, achingly well, each character of this story. That always makes me invest more when I grow to care about what happens to the characters! Many say that For Whom The Bell Tolls is Hemingway's greatest work, but I think I still give the slight edge to A Farewell to Arms. This story is about an American, Robert Jordan, who is fighting for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's. He's simply a university Spanish teacher who decides to go to Spain to immerse himself in the language and the culture, and his ideals lead him to become a bridge bomber for the fight against the Fascists. The entire story is built around Robert Jordan journeying behind enemy lines to the remote location of the bridge he is supposed to blow up with his wise, invaluable old guide, Anselmo. While up in the hills among the independent guerrillas who are fighting the war their own way, he becomes involved with Pablo's "band" of misfits....among them Pablo's wife, and the true backbone leader of the band, Pilar. Among the misfits are Agustin, Andres, Fernando, and the beautiful, but emotionally damaged Maria. Maria is a young woman who the band rescued from a town attacked by the Fascists. She had watched her family killed before her eyes, and then had her hair cut off, her head shaved, and then survived the repeated rapes by several men before she was rescued. When Robert first lays eyes on her, and she on him, there is an instant connection. Though they only have three days and nights together before the bridge is blown, those days and nights become a lifetime to Robert and he finally realizes what there is to live for with someone to love. The true tragedy of war is on full display as the mountain guerrillas who Robert leaves to be lookouts don't realize the magnitude of all the artillery coming into play. The bridge is to be blown as a surprise attack, but it becomes clear to Robert that the enemy knows about the "surprise" and is ready to turn its own ambush on the fighters for the Republic. Sticking to his orders to blow the bridge, though, Robert and the band perform their duty. Sadly, Anselmo is lost in the explosion, as well as a few others. Pablo, Pilar and Maria make it to safety, out of range of the retaliating tank after the bridge explosion, but Robert's horse is cut down with him on it. Robert's leg is severely broken and he realizes he must stay behind. He forces Maria to go with Pablo and Pilar, declaring that as long as she lives, wherever she goes, he will be with her...that she will be keeping him alive. Then, though going in and out of consciousness, he readies himself to get at least an enemy officer or two as they come up the hill after them, thus giving Maria and the others more time to get away. It is so sad to read the realizations of Robert, and his commanding officers (when the narrative goes over to them), that the entire surprise attack will most likely be for naught and most of the men will be killed. There is such brilliant description in Hemingway's words that you even get to know a minor character who is just as scared and fighting his battle, but on the other side. In all, a very good book. Gosh, I wish I could write like that! I wouldn't be writing about war, but to be able to convey such images and feelings...that would be so nice. :-) Needless to say, this one was yet another book with a sad ending...though we never do see the actual ending of Robert Jordan. The book ends just as Robert has his gun sites on an approaching officer. Sigh.

Finished: The Yearling (Rawlings). Loved this Pulitzer Prize winning book! Of course, it's pretty much a given that when a book is named after an animal, that animal will probably not be alive by the end of the book. :-( That's how it was with The Yearling, but oh my, the story that led up to it was told so well! It was fascinating to read the story of young Jody Baxter who was growing up right here off the St. John's River in central Florida, near where I live. Rawlings' descriptions of the vegetation, trees, swamps, animals...were all so real. In what I assume to be the late 1800's, Jody Baxter is growing up on a patch of scrubby farmland with his mother and father, Ora and Penny (an old nickname of his father's). He's a 12 year old only child, and he's very close to his father. He learns all the ways of making a living in the wild, hunting, farming, tracking, etc. His father is truly an upstanding person of high moral character and only hunts those things necessary for the family to eat, and doesn't hunt for sport. He tries to hunt only male deer and not females so he won't leave any young ones motherless. Jody, loves his strict mother, and his more forgiving father, who knows what it's like to be a twelve year old boy with wanderlust for the land. Jody also longs for a pet of his own, and one day when his father is bit by a rattlesnake, his dream comes true in a roundabout way. His father immediately shoots a doe and cuts out her liver, then cuts his own arm, and uses the deer liver to suck out as much poison as he can! Sadly, the doe had just given birth and a baby fawn is laying near. Jody's main concern is to get his father back to the farm and get a doctor there. Luckily, Penny survives, but he's down and out for quite awhile. One of the rough-and-tumble neighbors, Buck Forrester, comes to the farm for over a week and does all the manual labor that Penny usually does. Meanwhile, Jody remembers the fawn and goes back to find it in the forest. Of course, the fawn, named Flag by Jody's best friend, Fodder-wing Forrester, becomes Jody's constant, inseparable companion. He is even allowed in the house, much to his mother's dismay, and sleeps with Jody in his room. The story moves on with all the ups and downs of the two families trying to make their living off the land. There's the tracking, and finally the killing, of the mean old bear, Slewfoot, who has killed the Baxter and Forrester livestock for years. There's the hunting of the wolves, who also come to attack the animals. There's the surviving of what seems to me was probably a hurricane, which devastates the surroundings, ruins the crops, and kills all kinds of wild animals. And, there's the sad death of Fodder-wing. Fodder-wing had been born a bit deformed, and took ill in his youth, and died. Both families were, of course, shaken. Then, just as I think I'm going to get through the whole story with Flag still alive and kicking, the reality sets in. Nearly a year has passed since Jody rescued Flag, and Flag adores Jody, and vice versa. However, Flag is now a yearling and likes to run off into the woods for a bit, always coming home. He's too big to stay in the house now, because when he does, he gets into everything, knocking precious food all about, etc. After Jody and Penny spend long, grueling hours planting the peas and corn, when the first little heads of the corn plants start to pop up, one night, Flag gets into the corn field and eats most of the corn!! Ma is beside herself and wants to get rid of the fawn then and there. Penny instructs Jody to work day and night to build a fence around the corn field as high as he can reach. Unfortunately, Penny has just pulled what appears to be a hernia, and has taken to bed. Jody replants all the corn by himself and gets to work on the fence...but it is of no use. Flag jumps the fence and once again destroys a large portion of the corn. Jody is devastated when his father tells him that he'll have to kill Flag. He would never be able to run him off, because Flag knows where "home" is. They can't tie Flag up at night, because he struggles so much that he starts to hurt himself. And, mostly, they can't afford to lose their livelihood and the food for their bellies because of the deer. Jody is heartbroken and can't bring himself to obey his father. As Flag once again gets into the garden, Jody's mother comes out the door with a gun and shoots the yearling. She's not a good shot, though, and only wounds him. In such a sad scene, Penny tells Jody that he simply must be a man and go put Flag out of his misery. Jody does as he's told, his last look into Flag's eyes being one of trust, yet confusion. :-( After killing Flag, Jody attempts to run away and is gone for several days, where he ends up nearly starving to death. After at first hating his parents, and especially his father, who he feels like betrayed him, he comes to see what going hungry would be like and he resignedly heads for home. His mother has gone to trade some chickens for more corn seed with the Forresters, but his father is there and so happy to see him. He thought for sure something had happened to him. He tells Jody that he's no longer a yearling himself, but a man, and Jody hugs and forgives his father. It's such a sad, sad tale. I do love Penny Baxter though. Throughout the whole book he says and does such wise things, and diffuses many hot situations. I think I'll put a few of my favorite quotes below.

Here's one from Penny: "Ain't it a treat, to have a woman [who] reads your mind and then agrees with it."

Love that! :-)

Another from Grandma Hutto, a neighbor and friend: "A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one."

And, again from Grandma Hutto when her son Oliver is home from his seafaring life after many months, but is off visiting friends instead of at home: "I miss Oliver worse," she said, "when he's here, and away from me, than when he's at sea."

I kind of know that feeling she's talking about! When one of my kids was home from college, I wanted to be with them as much time as possible while they were home. :-)

Anyway, there were alot more, but those are the ones I wrote down. Loved the book!

Finished: A Daughter of Eve (de Balzac) Another good de Balzac story! This is yet another book from his La Comedie Humaine opus that has the character Eugene de Rastignac in it...though his role is very minor. Eugene is becoming less of a likable character as he gets more and more embroiled in high society, politics, etc. However, I will still probably read at least one more de Balzac story that centers more on de Rastignac. In A Daughter of Eve, though, the story starts off with naive, young upper-society sisters, Marie Angelique and Marie Eugenie who are raised by a strict, pious mother. At 18 and 20, the sisters marry the first respectable men to ask for their hands in marriage to escape their stifling upbringing. Marie Angelique, known as just Marie, marries a good man in high society, Felix de Vandenesse. Marie Eugenie, known as Eugenie, marries a scheming, harsher man, banker Ferdinand du Tillet. Though the sisters are as close as sisters can be, the two husbands, now inlaws, are competitors in society and on the opposite side of the "political issues". After a few years, both of the sisters have children, and both are miserable for different reasons. Eugenie is constantly monitored and bullied by her husband, yet for outward appearances, she's got all the riches she could ask for, to keep her in the manner that du Tillet would expect his wife to be kept. Marie, on the other hand, is married to a kind, understanding, yet somewhat boring young man. De Vandenesse has taken his young wife under his wing and continued her education, brought her out into society, and surrounded her with everything she could want. The problem is...he's too nice and predictable....Marie needs a challenge! Into her life comes the artist/journalist/"bad boy", Nathan Raoul. Though Nathan has had a long-term love affair with a beautiful local actress, Florine, he falls hard for Marie de Vandenesse, and she for him. Marie and Nathan never physically consummate their affair, but they meet quite often for about a year and declare their feelings for each other. Meanwhile, all the upper-crust men like du Tillet, de Rastignac and the Baron Nucingen, conspire to make Nathan fail at the new newspaper he has started up in hopes of making a success and being offered a position in the local parliament. Du Tillet himself wants that position, and the men all pretend to be supporters and friends of Nathan's, lending him money...all the while planning to call in the notes right when they're due and force Nathan into debtor's prison before he can make a success of things. When Nathan's 40,000 pound note comes due and payment is demanded, Nathan realizes he will go to prison, so he attempts suicide. Marie finds him in time and saves his life, and then proceeds to try and borrow the money from whoever she can to keep Nathan from prison. She goes to her beloved sister, and together they come up with a plan to get the money, but the plan would end up eventually compromising both of them. Eugenie begins to worry that her sister is headed for a huge mistake and actually goes and confides in Marie's husband....honestly, one of the most understanding men I've encountered in a novel. He ends up letting Marie know that he knows all about her affair, and he doesn't blame her for feeling like she fell in love with the artist, scoundrel, Nathan. He feels like she was seduced by the excitement of it all, and realizes he had not provided her with enough interest right in their own backyard. Rather than chastise her and throw her out, he understands her and forgives her. He tells her they must get back the letters she has written to Nathan so that nothing can get out and ruin her reputation. He concocts a scheme at a masquerade ball to let the actress Florine know that Nathan had been two-timing her with Marie, and Florine hands over all the letters. Marie now sees the duplicitous behavior of Nathan, since she had no idea that he had another lover. Poor Nathan, though, had really fallen in love with Marie and would have dumped Florine in a heartbeat, but it was all too little too late. Nathan spends the next few years in the poverty known to many artists back in France of those days, and still on the arm of Florine. Marie's husband whisks her off to Italy, etc., and they have a grand adventure, rekindling their marriage which is now stronger for all the missteps. And, Eugenie actually finally stands up to her bullying husband and says she will do as she pleases, which actually pleases her husband more than he'd like to admit. In all, I was happy with the ending of this story and hope that Marie and her husband stay happily ever after married. :-) Nathan Raoul appears in something like 19 of the books in La Comedie Humaine, so he must bounce back and have his ups and downs, lol.

Finished: And The Mountains Echoed (Hosseini) Book Club Book #2. A good, solid book by the author of The Kiterunner, a book on my favorites list. This one jumped around a little bit too much between characters, never really leaving me feeling complete about any one character's journey or story. The opening chapter really sucked me in as the poor Afghan villager, Saboor, tells his children, Abdullah and Pari the story of a monster, the div, who comes to the village each year to take one child away. The villagers must obey his decision or he will kill an entire family. Of course, the choice about which child to give up is at the center of the story, and a few years after the father of the child gives him up, the father goes in search of the div to kill him. No one has ever tried this before. The div says, before you kill me, let me show you something.....and the div shows him a virtual paradise amidst the heat and draught ravaged villages. All the children he has ever taken are running happily around in a green, paradise with plenty of water and being schooled and taught all kinds of manners, etc. So, in comes the key question of the novel. Should the father leave his son there where he is clearly better off physically or take him back to the village where he could die of poverty, starvation and/or cold, but be with his loving family. The father leaves his son there. So, as Saboor takes his children on their own journey into Kabul, we see how very close 10 year old Abdullah and 3 year old Pari are. We also soon see that Saboor is taking Pari to Kabul to be adopted by his brother-in-law's wealthy employers who cannot have biological children of their own. Abdullah is devastated, and Pari too young to remember. She's swept up in the whirlwind of the nice "lady" who takes care of her and grows up forgetting her village family. Abdullah is tormented the rest of his life, even after he moves to America and has a wife and daughter, also named Pari, of his own. Not until Abdullah is very old and clearly suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia does his sister discover that she was adopted and has a beloved brother. By the time Pari and Abdullah finally meet, Abdullah remembers nothing of his sister...so sad. However, his daughter, Pari, and his sister, Pari, have finally met and will live happily as family. So, in between all that, the book focuses on several other pairings of people and their ethical trials and tribulations. But, as quickly as someone is introduced, they are left at the end of their story...right when I wanted to know more. For instance, I would have loved to read more about how the injured girl, Roshi, was helped by the outgoing, but egotistical, Temur, after his seemingly well-intentioned cousin, Idris, dropped the ball on getting her help. Anyway, it was still a well written book that once again opened my eyes to the bigger world around me. I'm glad I read it. :-)

Finished: Inferno (Brown) Another page-turning Dan Brown book, and this one set mostly in Florence, my favorite city in Italy! :-) Of course, Brown's Inferno is all about a bunch of clues that a madman uses from Dante's Inferno, so that was kind of fun to read as well. And, again, Robert Langdon, the perpetual hero of the Dan Brown novels, is the hero of the book, helping the World Health Organization track down what they presume to be a world population-crushing virus before it is released on the innocent public. This time, Robert is helped and hindered by the mysterious, child-prodigy turned complicated grown doctor, Sienna Brooks. At times she appeared to be on Langdon's side, and at times a foe, but in the end, she did the right thing. I really liked her character and hope she'll turn up in another Robert Langdon adventure! So, though they don't manage to save the day in the end, the virus isn't really a killing virus, like they thought, but a virus to render 1/3 of the world's population infertile, thus slowing down the eventual demise of civilization due to overpopulation. It was an interesting read! My favorite parts, though, were all the descriptions that I could see so easily in my mind's eye of the different sites in Florence! :-)

Finished: The Golden Bowl (James). Ugh, that was a very difficult read! Henry James is just so darn wordy! A book that was almost 800 pages should really have been about 200 pages for all the plot it had. I have read that in his later years Henry James wrote much more vaguely and intricately and round-aboutly and over-metaphorically, and I think I just witnessed that. I really enjoyed two of his books, The Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square...but one of his other books, The Wings of the Dove, was so atrociously ambiguous that I read only the first 20 or so pages and then returned it to the book store...the only book I have given up on in this entire reading endeavor of mine. So, anyway, I went into The Golden Bowl wondering which of the two types of writing I would get...and it was the latter. However, I stuck this one out because I was intrigued by the story. It's the story of American millionaire art dealer, Adam Verver, and his beloved daughter, Maggie, who marries an Italian penniless prince, Amerigo. Maggie falls head over heals in love with the prince, but we know right off the bat that the prince is marrying Maggie for her money, though he treats both Maggie and her father with the utmost respect and consideration. Until, that is, the former love of his life, and coincidentally Maggie's dear childhood friend, Charlotte, comes to London for their wedding. Here we find out that Amerigo and Charlotte still love each other. They couldn't marry when they were in love before because both were very poor, and how could they then have existed in life without having to :::gasp::: work for a living? Maggie and the prince go off for a year or so on their whirlwind wedding trip, and we join them two years later where already their baby son, Principino (that's all he's ever called) has joined the family. Maggie's father falls in love with his grandson and Maggie soon begins to feel that her father also needs a companion, so she convinces him to marry Charlotte! Of course, this throws Amerigo and Charlotte back into each other's orbits, so an affair ensues. When Maggie finally gets wind of the affair, she acts with grace and lets her husband know that she knows without letting her father know. By the end of the book, Maggie has convinced her father to move to America with Charlotte, where her father and Charlotte will basically start over, which will also allow the prince and Maggie to start all over again as well. Not hard doings for Amerigo or Charlotte, since they both somewhat loved their spouses and really loved the money that came with them, apparently more than they really loved each other.Throughout the book it is always clear that Maggie and her father adore each other, and would do anything for each other, including making sacrifices to keep the other from being hurt. It's just too bad that it was so hard to figure all this out most of the time due to the bizarre, rambling writing! I've only got one more James book on my list to read, and then I think I'm over and out with Henry James. :-)

Finished: A Separate Peace (Knowles) Sigh, what a good book, and what a great character Phineas, aka Finny, is! This is definitely one of those books I've had to ponder a bit all day after finishing it this morning. It is just so heart-tugging in many aspects. I'm not sure I'll ever understand WHY Gene purposely rocked the branch so Phineas would fall, but then I'm not a sixteen year old, competitive, enlistment-anticipating, male jumble of emotions. Set in a boy's college prep school, A Separate Peace is beautifully written, bringing quite vivid pictures to the school, the boys, and the unsure time in America during World War II. I loved the relationship between best friends, Gene and Finny, and I could follow Gene's logic when he figured out that Finny might be encouraging him to skip classes, etc., so that he'd not do so well in classes, so as not to be better than Finny. However, then it was so clear how that wasn't the case when Gene suggested it to Phineas and his honest, vibrant nature rang through and he couldn't believe Gene would think something like that. Phineas was so naturally good at sports and at people. He could talk his way into and out of anything, and all the other boys and faculty adored him. Gene found himself jealous of those abilities, even though Gene was the far superior academic student. When Gene and Phineas created their secret society where every member had to jump from a huge tree into the river every night that they met, I had the foreboding feeling of trouble to come. When Finny convinced Gene to go up with him and do a double jump, after convincing Gene to leave his studying for the night, I never dreamed that Gene would be so mad inside that he'd deliberately make Finny fall. :-( I literally read that passage four times to see if Gene really did it on purpose! Finny's leg is shattered and he can never play sports again. The guilt eats Gene up alive to where he finally confesses to Phineas that he jiggled the branch on purpose, but Phineas doesn't want to hear it...or admit it...or know it, because that would mean his best friend wasn't to him what he thought he was, and more importantly, what he still needed him to be. When another student finally forces Phineas to face the truth, he leaves the room in a whirl of emotions and accidentally falls down the marble stairs, rebreaking his leg. He doesn't want to see Gene, but when Gene sneaks in to see him, Finny finally gets Gene to admit that he didn't shake the tree branch out of maliciousness...it was just a momentary anger that made him do it, right?...that he still loved his best friend. Gene agreed wholeheartedly, since it was true, and Finny and Gene were at once all right with each other again. Then, tragically, Finny dies in the surgery to reset his broken leg, and Gene is sucker-punch, heartbroken. It's so very sad. :-( I want to say that maybe all of Gene's complicated feelings about Phineas die with him, but that's not the case since the book opens fifteen years later and Gene is still revisiting the old sites (tree and stairs) that caused him so much pain and loss in his youth. And, what can I say about the character of Phineas? I loved him, and his honesty, and his gumption, and his zest for life, and his ability to forgive, and his mischievousness, and for his unique view on life. I would love to have made Phineas room mates with Quentin Compton from The Sound and the Fury and perhaps some of Finny's joy for life would have rubbed off on Quentin, keeping him from taking his own life at college. Now, how do I go about adjusting my Top 100 Books list to include Rebecca and now A Separate Peace??

Finished: Rebecca (Du Maurier) Such a good book, and hard to put down! "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." A book I've had on my "to read" list since I started this project, and now I wish there was more to read. The story is about the young, naive woman who is training to be a companion to a rich dowager when she meets the wealthy, older, Maxim de Winter in Monte Carlo. After a whirlwind courtship, she marries Maxim and he takes her back to live at his estate, Manderley. Mrs. de Winter, as she is heretofore known, is very unsure of herself and just knows that the staff will not like her.....because....less than a year earlier, the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful, confident, beloved Rebecca, had drowned in a boating accident on the estate. The new Mrs. de Winter feels like she pales in comparison in every way. What she doesn't realize is that her refreshing, non-spoiled, non-socialite ways are exactly what had drawn Maxim to her. Mrs. de Winter isn't very formidable against the evil housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, though. Mrs. Danvers detests the new mistress of the house because Mrs. Danvers adored Rebecca, who she had been a servant to since Rebecca was a girl. Mrs. de Winter's self-esteem and confidence in her abilities plummet when everyone in the household, and even her husband's sister, Bea, and his best friend, Frank Crawley, compare her to the dead Rebecca. It never occurs to her that maybe they are comparing her and finding her MORE worthy for Maxim than Rebecca was. Maxim doesn't help matters by being a little standoffish now that he's back home. He leaves his new bride to her own devices far too much, and this leaves her imagination, which is incredibly vivid, the room it needs to imagine all sorts of things, including the fact that her husband must certainly still be in love with his first wife. Finally, at the urging of some family friends, Maxim agrees to give a huge costume ball like he and Rebecca did in the good old days. He decides the ball will be in honor of his new bride and he will introduce her to everyone. Rebecca decides she will surprise Maxim with her costume and be more grown-up looking for once...but what to wear? Mrs. Danvers, in an unusual display of almost kindness, suggests that Mrs. de Winters go dressed as one of the many de Winter ancestors whose portraits are hanging in the halls. She even goes so far as to suggest the beautiful relative in the flowing white dress and mass of curly hair. Rebecca decides to do just that, and still tells no one. Of course, alarm bells are going off for me as the reader. I just know that Mrs. Danvers has set her up to fall miserably. And, I'm right. Before all the multitudes of guests arrive, but after Maxim, Bea, her husband, Frank Crawley, and all the staff are gathered at the foot of the staircase waiting for her, Mrs. de Winters descends the stairs in her white gown. Maxim, and everyone else, turns white as a sheet. Maxim yells at her, asks what in the world she thinks she's doing, and forces her to go upstairs and change. The poor new wife has no idea what she's done, but Bea comes up to explain that the white flowing dress and wig are the exact same outfit that Rebecca had worn to her last ball at Manderley before she died. omg, so Mrs. Danvers really pulled an evil one! Mrs. de Winters is mortified and distraught because she thinks Maxim thinks she did it on purpose. Honestly, he is rather a jerk about it....not speaking to her the rest of the night at the entire ball, after she comes down in a different frock. The next morning, Mrs. de Winter assumes that her three month marriage is over and that she has failed. She confronts Mrs. Danvers who goes off on an eerie tirade about Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers is so manipulative that she almost convinces Mrs. de Winter that she should jump from the window since there is no way Maxim will ever love her the way he loved Rebecca. As Mrs. de Winter stands near the window, three town-wide alarms sound which indicate that a ship has run aground in the harbor at Manderley. Mrs. de Winter snaps out of her near trance and runs downstairs in time to hear Maxim shouting to the servants to open their doors, fix lots of food, and prepare to help anyone who is brought in from the ship. After a trying day, both Mrs. de Winter (it really drives me crazy that we never know her first name) and Maxim, are given the shock of their lives when the harbor master comes to tell them that while the divers were inspecting the grounded ship, they actually came across Rebecca's capsized boat on the floor of the harbor.....and what's more...there's a body in the cabin. Two months after the accident, a body had washed ashore and Maxim had identified it as Rebecca's, so whose could this new body be? After the harbor master leaves, Maxim breaks down to his bride. He tells her that he's made a mess of things, and been so distant, that she surely probably doesn't love him anymore. Mrs. de Winter cries out and embraces him and tells him, on the contrary, she's so thrilled to hear he really does love her because she was convinced that he was still in love with his first wife. Maxim scoffs at that idea and tells her that his marriage to Rebecca was a sham that they never even consummated. He married her because she promised to make Manderley a grand place for everyone to gather at. They pretended to have the perfect marriage, and everyone fell in love with Rebecca. In reality, she was selfish, willful, spiteful and had numerous affairs! As her affairs grew more brazen, Maxim confronted her about not keeping up her end of the bargain by painting the picture of a happy marriage. He followed her down to the little boathouse she had turned into a love nest...taking a gun with him in case he had to confront one of her lovers. She was alone, and she laughed in his face asking him what he could do about it? No one would ever believe they weren't happily married if he tried to divorce her. And what's more....if she ever had a child by one of her lovers, Maxim would have to recognize the child as his own and make the child his heir to inherit Manderley and everything else. In a fury, Maxim shot Rebecca, put her body in her boat, took it out to the harbor and sank the boat. The next day, everyone just assumes that the headstrong Rebecca had gone out in bad weather and been unfortunately drowned. Maxim insists to Mrs. de Winter that she's now the only other person who knows the truth. They both panic, though, at what will happen when the authorities realize that the body on the boat is Rebecca, and not the body identified months before. At the inquest, everyone believes Maxim when he says he must have been distraught and identified the body thinking it was Rebecca's, but clearly he was mistaken. He's about to get off when the boat builder testifies and insists that there is no way the boat would have sunk on it's own, so he had inspected the boat that morning and found man-made holes and other signs of foul tampering. Still, the jury comes back with the verdict that Rebecca must have committed suicide. Maxim and his wife again breath easy. However, soon the slovenly cousin of Rebecca's, Jack Favell, who was also her lover, comes to Manderley to try and bribe Maxim! He has a note written to him by Rebecca the very day of her death saying she needed him to meet her at the cabin as soon as possible. She had something very important to tell him. Maxim does not give into Jack's blackmailing attempt to be kept in a fine way with a yearly salary from Manderley for the rest of his life. Instead, Maxim calls his bluff and calls the county magistrate to come directly there and hear Jack's story. Jack is such a bully, that the magistrate doesn't for one minute believe him, but the note does nag at him. The magistrate decides to trace Rebecca's entire last day through her booking calendar. They all see that she had an appointment with a Dr. Baker that very afternoon which she marked off as completed. Maxim and Mrs. de Winter instantly look at each other and feel like they are doomed.....perhaps Rebecca really was pregnant and this is what she was going to tell Jack. In that case, she wouldn't have killed herself. Jack has now convinced himself and the evil, glaring Mrs. Danvers that Maxim, in fact, killed Rebecca. However, the magistrate won't believe him. To solve the last piece of the puzzle, they all agree to go to London and see Dr. Baker the next day and see why Rebecca was seeing him. Maxim and his bride spend their last evening together before who knows what lies ahead of them. The next day, as they all wait for Dr. Baker to thumb through his file, Jack is feeling confident, and Maxim and Mrs. de Winter very nervous. Finally, Dr. Baker says, ahhhh yes. Poor Mrs. de Winter, the first. She came to me with pains and xrays showed she was inoperably, terminally ill and wouldn't live but a few months more. Needless to say, the entire room is shocked. I think even the magistrate had started to wonder if there was some truth to Jack's accusations. As they all separate to head back their own ways, instead of taking the magistrate's advice that Maxim take his new wife and go on a holiday, Maxim has a foreboding feeling and decides he needs to drive through the night back to Manderley. As they approach Manderley in the middle of the night, Mrs. de Winter can't understand why it looks like the sun is rising at 3 in the morning. Maxim just says, "that's Manderley", and we are at the end of the book! I suppose that Mrs. Danvers, and/or Jack burned Manderley to the ground! Anyway....such an abrupt ending. I wanted a little more closure, but oh what a good book. :-)

Other than that infamous opening line, and the description of Manderley that follows it, here's another snippet of the writing that I liked. It is the narrator, Mrs. de Winter, looking back and talking about first love:

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. Today, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then--how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. 

Love that, and her way with words. :-)

Finished: Shiver (Stiefvater) I got this book for my 14 year old niece and decided I better read it first before giving it to her for Christmas. I wasn't sure what the content might be. Actually, not a bad little book. A little girl, Grace, is attacked by wolves when she's 11. She is saved by the yellow-eyed alpha wolf, Sam. She spends six years hanging out in her remote Minnesota backyard making eye contact with "her wolf". Unbeknownst to her, Sam turns human during the warm summer months. Sam worships Grace from afar, both as a wolf and a boy. When Grace is 17 and Sam 18, he finally lets her pet him as a wolf, and she buries her face in his fur. She feels extremely close to him. Then one day, the bad boy of the town, Jack, is killed by wolves. The town goes crazy and goes on a wolf shooting hunt. Grace freaks out knowing that "her wolf" might be killed. When she arrives home, she finds a naked, human teenage boy on her back deck, wounded in the neck. (Somehow the adrenalin that surged through his body when he was shot turned him human...hmmmm.) She knows immediately it's her wolf, turned into a human. She rushes him to the hospital where he survives and heals abnormally fast...in hours. He explains to her who he is, but she already knows. He tells her that he was bitten by wolves as a young child, and began turning into a wolf during the cold months. He explains that when he saved her when she was bitten, he kept waiting for her to turn into a wolf like he did, but she never did. She said she always felt close to the wolves after that. She also tells him how a couple of weeks after she was attacked by wolves, her dad accidentally left her sleeping in the car when she was sick one day and she barely survived the soaring temperatures. (dun...dun...dunnnnnn. I'm sure this will be the key to turning Sam human permanently, but the kids don't realize it yet.) Anyway, as predicted the human Sam and Grace become inseparable and fall in love. Sam longs to never turn into a wolf again, but he feels like the next time her turns he may never turn human again. Other characters come into play, like Jack's sister, Isabel, Sam's wolf-mentor and protector, Beck, and Grace's best friends, Olivia and Rachel. Jack's mean-girl sister, Isabel, is just as interested in finding a "cure" to the wolfness as Sam and Grace are. The kids finally figure out that surviving a raging fever, i.e., heating from the inside out may be the key. Jack and Isabel's mother works at a clinic where, conveniently, an outbreak of meningitis has occurred. Isabel manages to get her hands on some tainted meningitis blood to give to Jack, Sam, and Olivia, who has also now been bitten. Jack is injected, but before they can inject Sam, the cold night gets to him and he turns into a wolf. Grace manages to evoke some memories in him that turn him human for just a few minutes, and they inject him right before he turns back into a wolf again. Olivia gets cold feet and tells Grace she'd rather take her chances as a wolf for one season and then readdress the possible cure in the warm spring. And, it's a good thing she does....because Jack dies from his meningitis. (No great loss, because he was an abusive jerk.) Grace spends the next couple of weeks certain that Sam died from the injection because she hasn't seen him with the other wolves. At the very end of the story, as she goes out to her backyard in the snow, a shadow and footprints appear, and low and behold, it's the very human Sam...in the snow...not affected by the cold, and no longer a wolf. The End. I know this book is the first one of a trilogy, so I'm sure their story, and Isabel's, Olivia's, Beck's, etc. continues. I'm not sure I'm interested enough to read the next two books though. Now....to figure out whether or not it's an appropriate book for my niece. :-)

Finished: Henry the Sixth, Part III (Shakespeare) I seem to be making my way through the Shakespeare histories backwards at this point. :-) "Tell me if you love Warwick more than me? If it be so, then both depart to him; I rather wish you foes than hollow friends." Well, ain't that the truth in current times as well as back in the day. Edward says this in questioning two of his loyal followers when he realizes that Warwick has betrayed him and gone over to fight on King Henry's side. Of course, Warwick only went over to King Henry's side because he felt horrendously betrayed and embarrassed by Edward when Edward married Elizabeth Woodville without his knowledge AND while Warwick was on an ambassador's trip to the King of France to unite their countries by arranging a marriage between Edward and the sister of the King of France. When notice came during this meeting, which had been approved of by Edward, then Warwick became furious and changed his allegiance. So, this was yet another book of many battles and trading allegiances. First, Edward's father, Richard and his brother, Edmund, were slain in the battle to usurp King Henry from his throne. Then, Edward and his brothers, Richard and George (of Clarence) prevailed and defeated Henry, exiling him to Scotland and placing the crown on Edward's head. Then, Edward ups and marries Elizabeth, which really ticks both of his brothers off as well, since he seems to start favoring her brothers and other family members. Then, Warwick wages war on Edward, with the help of Henry's wife, Margaret, AND with the help of Edward's brother, George, who has defected to his side. This temporarily restores Henry to the crown, until brother Richard and some loyal men free Edward from his guard and restore him yet again back to the crown. In that ensuing battle, Warwick is finally killed because at the last minute, George decides that he can't go against his brother, so he helps Edward defeat Warwick. Young Edward, the son and heir of Henry and Margaret is also killed in that battle, so the wind rather goes out of Margaret's sails at that time. And then, Richard rushes off to finally kill the usurped Henry, instead of just imprisoning him. Then, at the end, Elizabeth presents King Edward with a son and heir, and Edward seems to think they'll all live happily ever after in a peaceful kingdom. The plotting Richard, though, is already showing signs of having other ideas...which we soon find out about in the book I finished before this...Richard the Third. In all, another great Shakespeare reading! I'm not sure if I'll go further back in history right now, but I will eventually. I left off coming the other way in history with the honorable Harry Hotspur, one of my favorite Shakespeare characters, being killed in his uprising against Henry IV, so I've got some middle ground to cover. :-)

Finished: Richard III (Shakespeare) Another great one by Shakespeare! O momentary grace of mortal men, which we more hunt for than the grace of God! Love that line from the character Hastings as he is about to be put to death by the evil King Richard. I really enjoyed this entire story because my hubby and I have recently been watching a different viewpoint story of the famous War of the Roses (Lancaster versus York) by watching The White Queen on television. In The White Queen, Richard is more of a pretty boy, sniveling younger brother to King Edward who never really seems as if he cares to have any power at all until he starts listening to the treacherous women around him, in particular, his wife Anne Neville. In Shakespeare's version, Richard is born disfigured, and remains ugly inside and out his entire life. He craves power and will do anything to be king from quite an early age...including killing anyone who stands in his way in line to the thrown, i.e., his own brother, George of Clarence, and his nephews, the sons of his recently deceased brother, King Edward. When King Edward dies, he leaves his brother Richard as their "protector" until his oldest son, also Edward, who is only about 12, can take over the throne. In Shakespeare's story, Richard mercilessly orders the deaths of both of his young nephews, after killing his brother George. In The White Queen, it is never clear exactly WHO orders the deaths of the boys, but it is implied to be either Anne Neville or Margaret Beaufort. Richard is specifically NOT implicated in the killing of the boys. So, what is the actual truth? In actuality, no one knows what became of the "princes in the tower". Richard did have them locked in the Tower of London after having King Edward's children by Elizabeth Woodville declared illegitimate. He then had himself crowned king. However, there came a day when no one ever saw the boys again and the mystery remains. Was Richard really so ruthless from an early age? I'm not sure that is clear either. It is very clear, however, that Richard was not a good king and was soundly defeated in battle by Margaret Beaufort's son Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian...who would go on to become King Henry VII. And, King Henry VII also ended up marrying Elizabeth, the daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and the deceased King Edward, to finally unite their families and do away with the War of the Roses once and for all. Anyway, as far as Shakespeare's version, as usual for me, no one compares to his turn of the word. :-) I liked this passage where Queen Elizabeth comes out to tell everyone that King Edward has died:

To make an act of tragic violence:
Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead!
Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
If you will live, lament: if die, be brief,
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night.

I love that! And, there are, as usual, some famous quotes to be had from Richard III. One I had never known the context of until I just read it last night:

King Richard: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

Basically, Richard had been fighting the battle against Henry atop his horse, but once his horse is slain, he is forced to fight on foot, with no opportunity to retreat. Being forced to fight man to man, he is killed in battle. In the midst of the fighting, he yells the above now famous line. In every day language, I think the quote symbolizes a person needing something they usually take for granted, and being willing to give up anything for it.

And, of course, the famous opening lines spoken by Richard when he is still Duke of Gloucester and his brother, King Edward, is still alive. In history, they have been successful in overthrowing the Lancastrian King Henry VI, and King Edward has grown more apt to indulge in wine, women, and food than in going out and doing more battle. Richard's true character and intent comes out in this soliloquy as he shows how he is envious of his brother's power, looks and abilities with women, compared to his deformed figure. He declares himself a villain and in the same breath plots the murder of his brother, George of Clarence:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings;
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, --- instead of mounting barbed steeds, 
to fright the souls of fearful adversaries,---
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
but I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, 
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days,
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
by drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
About a prophecy, which says that G
Of Edward's heirs the murtherer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes. 

I could go on and on, but I'll stop there. I'm anxious to go now and read King Henry VI Part III. This one deals with the actual defeat of Henry VI by the Yorks and Edward becoming king and meeting and marrying Elizabeth Woodville. :-)

Finished: Mansfield Park (Austen) Sigh, I've now finished all the Jane Austen novels! What ever shall I do? :-) I suppose I could go and read the one she was working on when she died, which has been completed by several other authors. I just love Jane Austen. Mansfield Park is the story of poor and socially lower class Fanny Price, who goes to live with her wealthy, and upper social class aunt, uncle and cousins, the Bertrams, when she's just 10. Her aunt and uncle treat her more as if they are doing her the favor of her life, and don't really treat her as equal to her beautiful, educated cousins. Her female cousins treat her pretty much like a second class citizen. Her oldest male cousin is too self-centered to really treat her any way in particular. Her second oldest male cousin, 16 year old Edmund, however, treats her like the smart, wonderful little human being that she is. He brings her books to read and teaches her what he can. Naturally, Fanny falls for Edmund, but never lets him know. By the time she is 18 and all her cousins are in their 20's, the two girls have had various coming out balls and the two boys are coming into the expectations of their father, i.e., the oldest is expected to inherit most of the lands, title, etc., and Edmund will go into the clergy, albeit with a nice income and property himself. Fanny has remained a dedicated, unselfish, innocent family member who appreciates any kindness shown her way. When friends of friends of the family, the twenty-somethings Miss Mary Crawford and her brother Mr. Henry Crawford come to town, all manner of social and love circumstances occur. Henry Crawford is a ladies man whose main goal is usually to make women fall in love with him and then soon after dump her to move on. Mary Crawford is all about social status, wealth, and being entertained. Deep down, they both have good hearts...very, very deep down, but they only let them shine through a small bit of the time. Naturally, the two female cousins, Maria and Julia Bertram, both fall hard for Henry Crawford. Despite Maria being engaged to another man, she flirts shamelessly with Henry Crawford, which is, of course, in those days, a huge social taboo. Julia and Maria basically fight for Henry's attentions, and he leads them both on, then dumps them both to leave town for awhile. They are both heartbroken, but Maria goes on and marries, and Julia goes to town with her sister to be in the social scene there. Meanwhile, Edmund falls head over heals in love with Mary Crawford. Mary, herself counting on falling for the oldest, more titled Bertram son, Tom, instead actually falls for Edmund too. However, she is always putting down the fact that he'll be "just a clergyman" and tries to convince him at every turn to do something more "worthwhile" and socially acceptable with his life. This always hurts his feelings, mostly because he is also a very selfless person and sees his future occupation as a good and noble one where he can actually do good for people. He looks past Mary's comments, though, and convinces himself she's got a good and true heart. Edmund falling for Mary Crawford completely crushes Fanny, but less out of selfishness than out of caring for Edmund not getting his own heart crushed. One of the few things that can make Fanny happy during all this is her uncle inviting her oldest brother, William, who has joined the navy, to come and visit. Fanny is beside herself with happiness since she hasn't seen her brother in years. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite passages of writing from Jane Austen in this book is about the relationship between a brother and sister:

Fanny had never known so much felicity in her life as in this unchecked, equal, fearless intercourse with the brother and friend, who was opening all his heart to her, telling her all his hopes and fears, plans and solicitudes....and with whom all the evil and good of their earliest years could be gone over again, and every former united pain and pleasure retraced with fondest recollection. An advantage this, a strengthener of love, in which even the conjugal tie is beneath the fraternal. Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived. Too often, alas, it is so. Fraternal love, sometimes almost everything, is at others worse than nothing. But with William and Fanny Price it was still a sentiment in all its prime and freshness, wounded by no opposition of interest, cooled by no separate attachment, and feeling the influence of time and absence only in its increase. 

I love that, and completely relate in how my relationship with my own brother was. So, anyway, after William leaves, Fanny is thrown back into worrying about Edmund, who she loves dearly but can't tell him, being hurt by Mary. In the meantime, Henry Crawford has come back and has decided to set his sites on the shy, innocent Fanny!! At first, he hopes to just make her fall in love with him and then dump her. However, he soon actually falls in love with her and declares that love, much to Fanny's horror. Everyone tries to convince Fanny to accept Henry's proposal of marriage, especially her aunt and uncle who feel that she may never make another "connection" so glorious. Fanny, however, had been witness to what she considered the charming Henry's "bad character" when he flirted shamelessly with Maria the betrothed woman. Henry insists that he has changed and even though rebuffed by Fanny at every turn, he swears to keep trying...and that he does. So much so that I even began to think that Fanny might warm up to him and we might get a happy ending out of them. That was not to be though. In a shocking ending, Henry shows his true colors and hooks back up with the very married Maria, convincing her to run away with him for a weekend!! Scandal ensues! Fanny is actually relieved not to have Henry pursuing her anymore, but her aunt, uncle and cousins are all devastated. Edmund is particularly so when Mary Crawford's reaction to her brother doing something so socially unacceptable is to worry more about covering it up than to have a deeper, more shocked reaction of the wrong he has done. Edmund finally sees how this speaks to the shallowness of Mary's character, and though heartbroken, he calls it off with her. As the story ends, Maria has divorced her wealthy husband, but Henry has refused to marry her, so she is left alone wafting in the wind with no family support. Mary Crawford lives with her sister for many years to come, without meeting a wealthy man to marry who can live up to the other ideals presented by Edmund. And....taaaa daaaa....Edmund realizes he has loved Fanny all along, and the cousins marry! (I guess it was ok for cousins to marry back then.) This makes the whole family happy, so in essence, we have basically a happy ending for most of the characters...the characters that we care about anyway. And, with another sigh, I finally leave off Jane Austen after reading all her books. I'm sure I'll revisit her again in Pride and Prejudice and perhaps Emma or Northanger Abbey, a few of my favorites. :-)

Finished: You Don't Want to Know (Jackson) A good, whodunit, mystery read from an author I've enjoyed before. Nothing too deep or complicated, but definitely a book that kept me turning the pages, i.e., a great book to read on the airplane, etc., while traveling, as I am doing right now. :-) Though, it does involve the possible death of a child, which I never like reading about. However, you can almost always count on the child being found alive at the end in books like this...and little Noah was found...but not before his mother, Ava, was gas lighted into thinking she was going crazy, by no less than her husband and best friend. All very predictable, but still good. :-)

Finished: Nostromo (Conrad) Well, it was a pretty good book, but not deserving, in my mind, to be ranked in the top 50 on nearly every book list I found. Maybe I'm missing something? I liked this book much more than Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and some of the writing was very nice, but it just isn't top 50 worthy to me...not really even top 100 worthy. The story of a small coastal town in South America that is rife with revolutions, there are several rich characters, and lots of action, but the story as a whole was a little disappointing. Nostromo is one of the main characters...an Italian transplant to the small town. He goes from being the right hand man of the town's ship's captain, to being the go-to guy about town for everything. Everyone counts on him to save the day, time after time....and he does. More than once he is the hero during the various revolutions. His character and morals are stellar, and most of the women fall in love with him. Two other main characters are the Goulds, Charles and Emily. They are English, but Charles being born in South America, has inherited the immense silver mine in the town from his father. Though the silver mine ruined his father, Charles has turned it into the economic mainstay for the town, for the whole area really. He procures a rich American backer and becomes immensely rich himself. He's fair to the local workers, but the silver mine becomes his life....even ranking over his lovely wife. The politics come and go, and different dictators come dangerously close to taking over the mine and even killing Charles at times. When a truly evil dictator is about to take over the town, the Goulds and other town bigwigs trust Nostromo with the job of transporting the current huge store of silver out of the town, out into the bay, and secretly onto a transport ship soon to come. This gives one of the other main characters, Martin Decaud, an idealist who hopes to go and rustle up some military strength to come back and liberate their town from the hold of the dictator, the opportunity to go with Nostromo and hopefully catch a ship for help. However, as Nostromo and Decaud row the silver out into the bay into the black of night, the transport ship approaches, but has been overtaken by yet another dictator whose sole purpose is to get to the town and steal the silver!! Nearly run over by the transport ship, whose captain doesn't realize he just passed the boat with the silver, Nostromo and Decaud have no choice but to make it to a small island, where Nostromo buries the silver and leaves Decaud with it. Telling Decaud he will be back for him in a few days, he swims back to shore. Why? Because he is Nostromo and he can do anything. Meanwhile, Decaud becomes distraught being alone, and also missing the beautiful Antonia, who he left behind and hopes to get back to with his idealistic "save the day". Nostromo arrives back so exhausted that he sleeps for 12 hours straight. When he awakens, he realizes that everyone thinks that he and Decaud have drowned and the silver is lost at the bottom of the bay. Nostromo becomes infuriated that he was used for such a task and that now everyone is going back about their business, and especially when Gould says, oh well, it's just silver. Nostromo had thought he'd been hired for the most important feat of their lives, yet it didn't seem so important anymore. The dictator who arrived in town for the silver starts torturing people to find out where the silver is. When Dr. Monygham, another main character, finds that Nostromo is alive, he convinces him to stay hidden until he can arrange for him to take a freight train out, go and get the General who Decaud was going after, and bring him back to fight the dictators and save the day. And, so he does. Nostromo is once again successful and a hero. Meanwhile, no one ever questions him that the silver may not actually be at the bottom of the bay. And, back on the island, Decaud becomes so unable to cope with his solitude when Nostromo hasn't returned in so long that he takes a few bars of silver to weigh down his clothing, goes out into the bay and shoots himself and sinks. :-(  As for our hero, jaded by how he feels used by all the bigwigs of the town, Nostromo, who was previously completely devoid of deception, decides to keep the silver for himself, digging it up a little bit at a time, until he slowly and patiently becomes rich. Unfortunately, Nostromo falls for the beautiful Gisele, who now lives on the little island with her father, Viola, an immense father-figure to Nostromo, and her sister Linda. He tells her of the silver, but says they cannot be together yet because he needs to get more of it into their hands before they can run off together. Viola doesn't realize that Nostromo sneaks back to the island every night to take a little bit of silver at a time. One night, thinking another town man has sneaked onto the island to kidnap his beautiful daughter, Viola accidentally shoots Nostromo and he dies. So, both Gould and Nostromo are lost due to their obsession with the silver....Gould just lost to the mine as his "mistress" and Nostromo, lost to this physical world. There is much more detail, and there are many tangents of story that I have missed, of course, but that is the gist of the book. That, and the fact that the "big bad European foreigners" came to town and basically used the locals for their own gain in wealth, even backing the right revolutionists at the right time, whether right or wrong, to keep the mine and the profits going. Anyway...as I said, it was a pretty good book, but not among my favorite that I have read in this journey. I like the name Nostromo though. :-)

Woo hoo! I'm in my 22nd month of reading, and I'm on book 250! Currently reading Nostromo. I've been keeping a list of MY Top 100 books, and it is no easy task. Each time I read a book, I read down the ongoing list and see if I like it, or regard it, more than each other book in the list. If so, I insert it in, and everything else moves down one. For me, my top list is a combination of books I have liked, and even books I haven't been crazy about, but that are so well written...so sometimes my list doesn't coincide with how I might have blogged about a book after I read it. Some books that people consider to be in the top 100 I just felt were over-rated, so are not near the top of my list, or aren't on it at all :::cough::: Ulysses, :::cough::: Wuthering Heights, etc. Anyway, the list is up on the blog (to the right, beneath the Pooh reading picture) and subject to daily change as I keep on reading. :-)

Finished: Clarissa (Richardson) So sad, so tragic, so horribly unnecessary how kind, virtuous Clarissa was treated by her family, and then defiled by the despicable Robert Lovelace. Good Lord, why was it so rare for writers to create loving relationships back in the early days? Touted as one of the longest books in the English language at 2000 pages, I read the 786 page version, which the author long ago encouraged editors to create. I don't think I could have handled the 2000 page version. The entire book is written in letters from one character to another, and these letters give accounts of all the action and conversations. I'm not going to go into a long explanation of the book. I actually had to step away from it for a couple of days before completing it, and I just don't feel like recounting the entire book in great detail. Clarissa Harlowe is 18 and the beloved youngest daughter of the wealthy Harlowe family. She has an older brother, James, and an older sister, Arabella. The Harlowes are always looking at future potential husbands for their daughters that will make good matches, i.e., gentlemen with impeccable reputations who will increase their status in society, as well as their "family" wealth. Enter the libertine, Robert Lovelace. By all accounts, he has come to make an offer for the hand of Arabella, but he doesn't spend any time talking to her. He, instead, spends all his time talking to her father. Arabella is offended, and declares she wouldn't have him anyway. Lovelace leaves the estate without making any offers. Meanwhile, brother James has discovered what an unsavory reputation the wealthy gentleman has in terms of being a seducer of young women, loving them and leaving them. The two end up in a duel, where Lovelace injures James, who recovers. These two events create a hatred and animosity towards Lovelace from the entire family...even though Robert Lovelace's own family is of high regard and would have made a wonderful match. The only one in the family with no hatred in her, because she doesn't have a hateful bone in her body, is the kind, beautiful, smart, virtuous Clarissa. When Clarissa receives a letter from Lovelace, asking if she can intercede on his behalf with her family to forgive him...especially since he was very remorseful of hurting James, and attentive to him after doing so, the family goes completely ape-bleep. I have never seen such a quick reversal in the personalities of characters who had just been laid out before me in a book. They become convinced that Lovelace's one true mission is to have Clarissa, and what is worse, they convince themselves that Clarissa loves him back. Nothing could be further from the truth, but they will not believe the honest words of Clarissa when she says she wants nothing to do with him, so they set off to marry her off to someone else right away. Her brother and sister become cruel and judgemental throughout this process, and her father unbending and dismissive. Her mother bows to her father, and so will not even speak to Clarissa and keeps her locked in her room when she refuses to marry or even give an "interview" to the boring, unintelligent, foppish gentleman they have selected for her to marry. The more Clarissa digs her heels in not to marry, the more the entire extended family is certain it is because she really loves Lovelace. Lovelace, meanwhile, sneaks a letter to Clarissa in the secret tree where she corresponds with her best friend and tells her he's heard "about town" that her parents have already got the wedding license and will be moving to have her married within days. He tells her he would be happy to be her protector and take her to his wealthy uncle's or aunt's house where she can ask for protection while her parents come to their senses. He also declares his love for her and tells her that HE wants to marry her. Her goodness is known so far throughout England, that Lovelace's family revels in this idea. They know their nephew is a handful, and caddish, and think Clarissa would turn him around into a loving man. Anyway....Clarissa writes to Lovelace, thanks but no thanks, she couldn't possibly go against her family in that way...and while she can't accept his marriage proposal, she will also never marry that other man. With the day coming closer, Clarissa gets more and more frantic. She agrees to meet Lovelace in the garden to talk. She is going to tell him that no matter what, she will stay and face the consequences. However, Lovelace is a rotten scoundrel. He has already arranged a coach, and he has arranged for a servant on the inside to make a ruckus and act like the family is coming out to catch her in the act and to begin a duel with him all over. He grabs her by the arm and forces her to run away. He convinces her that is better than staying there and someone being hurt. Clarissa truly is always thinking of others before herself, and so she'd rather run away and ruin her reputation than risk someone in her family dueling. All of Lovelace's words to her at this point have seemed honorable and above board. He tells her he's taking her directly to his aunt's for protection. She weeps the entire way, knowing her family will never forgive her. Meanwhile, Lovelace's entire side of the story is always told in letters to his good friend, John Belford, while Clarissa's is always told to dearest friend (and the only person who never abandons her) Anna Howe. From here, I don't have the heart to go into much more detail. Needless to say, Lovelace's letters to Belford show what a complete narcissistic, manipulative, horrible man he is. Rather than take Clarissa to his aunt's, where she would have been happily accepted and a marriage made to justify all the actions, and most likely repair her reputation....Lovelace, who has never had ANY intention of marrying, takes Clarissa to a whorehouse. Oh, he doesn't let her know what the place is, lying to her over and over again that his relatives are ill and they'll be going soon. He ends up holding her prisoner, and when she rebuffs his every advance and declaration of love, and turns down his every pleading marriage proposal, Lovelace determines that he simply must win. He holds her against her will at the house, drugs her one night into a haziness, and rapes her. Clarissa awakens in despair that her virtue has been stolen. Her life is over, as she knows it. Her family will never forgiver her, and what's more...will God even accept her into heaven when she has been sullied this way? She totally blames herself. And, of course, though Lovelace acts like he's remorseful, he never truly accepts blame or responsibility for his actions. If she'd only loved him or given into him, then he wouldn't have had to resort to his deceitful, libertine ways. It's just horrible, horrible. Lovelace continues to hold Clarissa captive, but doesn't rape her again. When he is called to his uncle's estate on emergency, he leaves Clarissa under lock and key with the madame of the house. Clarissa, however, weak in mind and spirit, manages to escape to London. She finds a kindly couple who take her in and she immediately collapses in precarious health. Meanwhile, Lovelace's friend Belford, who is actually a true gentleman, arrives in town, and finds Clarissa, at Lovelace's bequest. He is appalled at what Lovelace has done to Clarissa and becomes her true friend and admirer. He makes sure she gets the best medical care, but it soon becomes clear that Clarissa is dying. :-( Sadly, all Clarissa wants now is the blessings of her beloved Papa and Mama to take with her before she dies. She writes them letters, and is still denied and shunned by the family who thinks she's lying and just trying to get back into their good graces. Clarissa's family comes to understand that Clarissa truly is about to die when it's all too late. She has last letters for each of them, and they all, of course, react in despair when she dies without them ever making amends and make it all about themselves, as usual. Lovelace makes the entire death of "his beloved Clarissa" all about himself as well. Honestly, there were times I just wanted to get up and wash my mouth out with mouthwash he was so self-centered and horrible. At least Clarissa has the love and friendship of both Belford and Anna Howe as she dies...and at the very end, her cousin, Colonel Mordin, who she had hoped would come to town early on in the book to convince her parents not to make her marry. Arriving in town too late for that, he was the only one in the family who denounced all the others, rode out to see Clarissa, and was able to be there with her as she died. Before she dies, Clarissa names John Belford to be her the executor of her will, and pleads with her cousin not to take revenge on Lovelace after she dies. She doesn't want any more bloodshed, and wants her family to be able to pick up the pieces. She asks Belford to tell Lovelace that she forgives him and hopes he will change his ways. She dies peacefully knowing that she is going to God. After her death, her cousin Mordin sticks to his word about Lovelace, until Lovelace writes him one day saying "he heard" Mordin was out to avenge his cousin's death. Mordin decides to take that as divine intervention and in a very gentlemanly way, calls Lovelace out for a duel, setting up time, place, and weapon. Thankfully, Mordin is far more skilled with the rapier than the very adept Lovelace is, and Lovelace is killed. Yay!! He dies a slow, painful death. It sure made me feel better in the end, but didn't make up AT ALL for the tragic loss of such a beautiful, pure young soul. Gosh, I really need to read a happy book next! No idea where I'll fine one though. Sigh.

Finished: The Secret Keeper (Morton). Book Club Book #1. Great book with a huge surprise twist ending that I didn't actually see coming. :-) I read this book for a book club that I may join, and I really enjoyed it! I've been reading so many classics the last year and a half, that it's nice to also read some books that are current best sellers or current popular books. In 1961, sixteen year old Laurel secretly witnesses as her mother horrifically stabs a man who wanders up their driveway to speak to her. In 2011, as Laurel's mother deteriorates in ill health, Laurel finally decides to figure out why her mother stabbed the man all those years ago. The story takes us back to the World War II bombings and air raids in England, and the 17 to 20 year old Dorothy, Laurel's mother. We become very acquainted with Dorothy's personality and her thoughts and hopes. We also meet the love of her life, Jimmy...and we meet Dorothy's good friend (or so she thinks) Vivienne. We get to know Vivienne and Jimmy as well as we do Dorothy as the story flashes between the 1940's and 2011. The twists and turns just kept coming as I actually grew to like Jimmy and Vivienne more than I did Dorothy. I was really happy with the twist at the end and I can't wait to go to my first book club meeting and discuss. :-)

Finished: David Copperfield (Dickens) Oh my, what a good book! Of course, with an opening line like..."Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show", I couldn't have expected any less! In this journey of reading books, I can always count on Dickens to give me beautiful writing that draws me into the joy mixed with heartbreak, terrible reality mixed with hopeful dreams, and such vivid characters, descriptions and conversations, that it is like I'm always there viewing the action from a little corner of the horse cart. As I approach having read 250 books in the past 19 months, I am pretty sure I can count on ONE hand the number of books that have had a happy ending, and David Copperfield turns out to be one of them. Oh, poor David goes through so many horrific, abusive experiences to get there, but he does in fact get a happy ending. :-) It was so difficult to read about the early years of his life, though. I just wanted to snatch him right out of the pages! David's father having died before he was born, David's mother and nurse, and David become a tight, inseparable, loving trio until David is about 8 years old. Then, David's mother is courted by a horrific man named Mr. Murdstone. Just the name brings shudders! Of course, Murdstone pulls the wool over the eyes of Mrs. Copperfield, and pretends to be a pal to David, but the minute she marries him, he becomes the domineering, evil man that he is and bullies her into submission to the point where she's not even allowed to hug or kiss her own son, or show any emotion towards him whatsoever. Then, he arranges for David to be sent to an awful school for boys where the headmaster, a former prison warden, is mercilessly, physically abusive to the boys. When David goes home for the Christmas break, he is made to feel like an unloved stranger in his own house. And...he's just a little boy. :-( We are privy to all his thoughts and emotions, and it's just heartbreaking. Mr. Murdstone's evil sister, Miss Murdstone, has also moved in with the family at this point and between the two of them, they keep David's mother browbeaten into submission. The loyal nurse and friend, Pegotty, can't defy them or they'll fire her and she wants to stay close to David's mother to help her as much as she can. When David arrives home, he sees that he has a new baby brother, who he instantly loves! His mother is thrilled to let him hold him. David's mother, Pegotty, David and the new baby have a wonderful evening like old times, because the Murdstones are out on a social call. When they arrive back home, though, the horror continues. David's not allowed to go anywhere near the baby, and his mother must refrain from showing any emotion towards him. His mother is also a bit sickly and weak after the birth. There is one moving page of dialogue where David sums up his feelings of not being wanted around the house, and of him actually looking forward to going back to the abusive school for boys, since he has made a couple of good friends there. One snippet of the lament stayed with me...."What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too many, and that I! - what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's way". David hasn't been back at school long when his 9th birthday arrives. He's called to the headmaster's office, hopefully wondering if maybe they do something nice for a boy on his birthday, only to be told of a letter from home that his mother and baby brother have both died. His mother had been sicker than anyone knew after the birth, and the baby brother didn't live much longer after she died. Poor David is devastated. He goes home for the funeral, not realizing that it is also the last time he'll see his good friends he has made. With his mother dead, Mr. Murdstone doesn't send David back to school. He sends him to work with the lowest of the low in his run down, rat infested wine factory. David's one hope for the future before that was that he was at least being somewhat educated and surrounded by other boys being somewhat educated. Now, he is thrust into the life of the lowest socioeconomic status, made to live by himself in a rundown "let", made to fare for himself in terms of food, comfort, etc. Again, he's only 9 years old. :-( David finally makes up his mind to run away and find the long lost aunt he had always heard about, Miss Betsey Trotwood. He does this, and shows up on her doorstep as a dusty, starving urchin. Having only heard stories of how rigid and unloving she had been to his own father for years and years, David is desperate to beg her for her help. Moved beyond words, and not nearly the old bitty that he had come to expect, Aunt Betsey Trotwood takes David into her home and her heart. His turnaround is immediate! :-) David is sent to a wonderful school, he is fed, and clothed, and most of all nurtured by his aunt and her friends. I can't possibly recap the entire book here, or I'd be typing forever. I'll just smile in the knowledge that even though there are many more hardships to come, David does end up happy in the end, and with the one true love he didn't realize was his one true love until he grew wise enough from his experiences to realize it! Yes, there were some of the most evil characters that David has to face: Mr. Murdstone & Miss Murdstone, making appearances throughout his life; the slimy, duplicitous Uriah Heep; Mr. Creakle, the evil headmaster with the zealous whip. And, there are some of the kindest characters who help develop every good and strong aspect of David: Pegotty, the faithful and beloved nurse from the time he is born; Aunt Betsey, his benefactor in heart, strength, advice, and means; Mr. Dick, the "simple" friend of Aunt Betsey's who teaches David that there is always honesty and honor to be found in that simplicity; Mr. Pegotty, Pegotty's brother, who teaches David about compassion, fierce love, determination; Tommy Traddles, who teaches David the true meaning of friendship; Dr. Strong, David's second, schoolmaster, the antithesis of Creakle, and a lifelong mentor and friend; even David's mother, Clara, who at least starts him off in life with kindness and love, even though she is tortured into not demonstrating those feelings; and last, but not least, Agnes...the true love of David's life, and his guide, his angel, his conscience, who teaches him, without him even knowing it, about true unconditional love. Of course, there are also the "characters" of the book, and I mean true "characters", who David meets along the way who have great influences on his life: James Steerforth, his charismatic, charming, too-good-to-be-true friend who David adores and worships, who ends up selfishly performing an act that devastates many characters, including David; Mr. Micawber, with his verbose letters of woe and conundrum and his wife, Mrs. Micawber, who float in and out of David's life in their poverty, and unconventional means of surviving in London, but who also become the saviors of the day against the evil Uriah Heep; and Dora...sweet, beautiful, silly, "childbride", Dora. Though David's age, they are only about 18 when they meet and fall in love. Married when they are about 20, David has continued to grow, mature and have deep feelings about the world and issues and their future, while Dora, who grew up rather wealthy, is thrown off by the merest of household duties. She is content to just be happy with David and her dog, Jip, but doesn't really provide David an equal partner that he truly needs. After about a year of marriage, David comes to realize this, and decides to just be happy with his sweet young bride and not try to mold her into something she isn't. She is his first true love, and he doesn't really realize that he rushed into that marriage unwisely until he hears Dr. Strong's wife reassuring Dr. Strong that she loves him and not her first love of her youth. The following words stick with David for long after: "There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. If I were thankful to my husband for no more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart." David repeats the first line over and over to himself and realizes that there will always be unsuitability of mind and purpose between himself and Dora, because she will never "grow up" with him. He adores her, though, and is determined to make the best of their marriage. Sadly, Dora has a miscarriage and grows weaker and weaker afterwards until it is clear she is on her deathbed. :-(  David is devastated by Dora's death, and comforted by Agnes, who has loved him all these years, but also been a true friend to Dora, comforting her in her time of death. Aunt Betsey and Agnes both encourage David to travel abroad for awhile to overcome his grief. David, who is by this time working his way to being a pretty successful writer, travels to Switzerland, where he stays for three years, writing. He realizes in this time, what he never allowed himself to realize during his life with Dora....that he has also truly loved Agnes all his life! At the old and ripe age of about 25, lol, David travels back home, and it takes him awhile to admit his feelings for Agnes, since he's the only person in all their circle of family and friends who has never realized that Agnes has loved him forever. When they do both finally make their admissions, they are married, surrounded by loved ones, and are shown ten years later, happily, in their little home, surrounded by a passel of children. :-) Oh, and Uriah Heep has been locked in prison for the rest of his life! Getting into the why's of that, is a whole other story. I only wished that the book had wrapped up with Murdstone in prison somewhere as well...but that would be my only disappointment in the book! A wonderful, deep, story full of all the highs and lows of life, and full of all manner of characters, and most importantly, full of David Copperfield, who indeed, did become the hero of his own life, with a little help from others along the way. :-)

Finished: The Girls From Ames (Zaslow) A great book and true story about the fortitude of the lifelong friendship of women! Thank you to my friend, Nancy Shearer, for lending it to me to read! The women, from Ames, Iowa, all grew up together in Ames. They remained friends...continuing to find time for regular reunions, even after reaching their 40's, moving to different cities and states, having children, jobs, etc. Through several heartbreaking events, they were there for each other...and through happy times too. They were typical teenagers in the late 70's, though, and also had their share of spats with each other, talking about each other, liking each other's boyfriends, etc. Through it all, though, nothing could weaken their friendship. I verbally lamented "noooooooo", when they lost Sheila, one of the group, at 22. So tragic, and so young. :-(  And, I was especially moved by the story of the death of one of their 13 year old daughters from leukemia. It was so difficult to read about, especially since one of the dear friends that Nancy and I are a "group" with lost her own daughter almost two years ago to "pre-leukemia". You want to always think that miracle bone marrow transplant will work...but they just don't always work. Bless the hearts of mothers and daughters everywhere! Anyway...reading this book made me doubly thankful for all my girlfriends, in and out of the "group". :-) The author says that women stay friends for far longer than guys, and I kinda tend to agree! Thanks for passing the book along, Nancy, and for your friendship these past....hmm....22ish years!

Finished: Resurrection (Tolstoy) An interesting story of the personal redemption of a man. Apparently Tolstoy's last "major" novel, it definitely is more about getting the message across than really having a story element, if that makes sense. It covers the horrors and atrocities of how Tolstoy viewed the Russian peasants being treated in the 1800's, especially as it followed some characters through prison, and on a great march to exile in Siberia. The main character, Dmitry Nekhlyudov, is a prince who has all the wealth and advantages in the world. As a 19 year old, he falls in love with the servant girl, Maslova, at his aunt's estate. He is a good person, pure and true with good ideals. She falls in love with him as well. At the end of his visit, he leaves knowing he's in love. When he comes back, he's not so pure any more, because he has joined the army and has been "jaded". He has now experienced physical love and selfishness, and more importantly, being praised for making the most selfish choices and being ridiculed for making magnanimous choices. So, in two years, he has changed. When he sees Maslova again, though, all the old feelings come back and he loves her still. She loves him too, but this time, things aren't so pure. He doesn't force her into physical intimacy, but he is very insistent, so they sleep together. Neither are really pleased with the outcome, and he leaves early the next day for his post in the army. Maslova is embarrassed and doesn't know what to feel. Of course, she becomes pregnant, so is made the outcast, especially when Dmitry never bothers to come back by his aunt's. He doesn't know about the baby, but he also doesn't come back just to see her. Maslova has the baby, who is taken away and dies. She is kicked out of the house by the aunt, and has to make her way on her own. She is beautiful and beguiling to men, so she becomes a prostitute. She has been doing this for nine years when she is arrested for poisoning a customer in order to rob him. She is innocent of the crime. Her landlady actually did it...but Maslova is charged and has a trial. Low and behold, the very spoiled, rich, and not-sure-what-to-do-with-himself-these-days Dmitry is assigned to her jury! He recognizes her instantly, but she does not recognize him. The trial goes along and the jury actually decides that she had no reason to rob the man, so she is not guilty of that. Then, they say, (as she admitted) that she is guilty of giving the customer the drink, but she didn't know it had poison in it. What the distracted jury fails to write down in the ruling is that she is guilty of the poisoning, but that it was unintentional, so she should go free. Reading only the "guilty", the judge sentences Maslova to four years of hard labor in Siberia! Dmitry is devastated, especially since he had a hand in the erroneous verdict. However, it's more than that. He becomes a changed man over night! He realizes that she never would have been forced to live the life she lived if he had stuck to his original good morals and not abandoned her. He finds out about the baby, and is even more distraught for her. From that night on, he makes it his mission to submit an appeal to get her free, and to go so far as to marry her to bring her back from the dreadful circumstances. But that's not all....Dmitry's epiphany is all-encompassing. He also realizes that the peasants on his own estates are starving and dying and barely able to make a living. He goes to each of his estates and decides he'll give up most of his wealth and let the peasants rent and run the lands, AND take in all the profit from the lands themselves. But that's still not all...Dmitry witnesses the horrible conditions of the prison and even finds out that there are other innocent people there. He becomes an advocate for these people. He's actually able to get several people freed. His friends and family and most of the government officials he talks to can't understand why he'd bother with the subhuman of the species, but nothing deters him. He has....a complete resurrection of his soul and morals. Maslova, isn't really all that keen on seeing Dmitry once she recognizes him. He tells her his plan, and she wants nothing to do with it. However, she does start warming up to him. Dmitry goes to St. Petersburg to process his appeals, and they are turned down. His last hope is to appeal directly to the Emperor, so he does. That appeal will take some time though. Meanwhile, the prisoners are rounded up to be marched and cattle-car trained to Siberia. Dmitry takes care of all his personal business and declares that he will follow them to Siberia and still marry Maslova. He meets many interesting prisoners along the way and hears their plights and their complaints about the government. Tolstoy takes these moments to go off on his tangents about Christianity, and the hypocrisy of the government, and the church, and the rich in Russia, making their money off the misfortune of the poor. He describes the horrible conditions of the prisons, and really preaches about the unfairness of it all. Alot of this is done through stories that prisoners tell Dmitry, or through Dmitry's own thought processes as he talks to himself and realizes how the world has played out for the rich and the poor. Anyway, Maslova actually ends up falling for another prisoner, Simonson, and he for her. Simonson, knowing Dmitry's purpose of traveling with them, asks Dmitry's permission to marry Maslova. Dmitry, though taken aback, says that's up to Maslova. Maslova decides she wants to be with Simonson....but we're left with the thought that she did it more to keep Dmitry from "throwing his life away on her" and "marrying beneath him" than for the love of the new guy. Though...at the very end, the Emperor comes through and Maslova's sentence is revoked! She tells Dmitry she will follow, Simonson wherever he goes, though...so maybe she does really love Simonson? Dmitry is a little bit unsure what to do with himself after his hopes are rewarded and dashed all in the same night. However, he does go forward with the thought that his actions won't stop there...he will continue to be an advocate for the poor and innocent in the prisons, and the poor in general. The book ends with a huge biblical section which Dmitry reads and comes to realize that if only man could be as "good" as God intended and truly care for each other as human beings, even when they have done wrong, then the world would be a better place. Probably not my favorite of the Tolstoy's, but the parts that dragged are typical of his preaching that he does in the other books I've read too. The story itself was just not as developed as his others. Still, a book I'd been wanting to read and I'm glad I did! :-)