Next four books read earlier in the year...

Hamlet: "To be or not to be, that is the question..." - Denmark - castle - King of Denmark's ghost - Hamlet's father - Horatio, Hamlet's best friend - Hamlet & Horatio see the ghost - the king was poisoned by his own brother, Claudius, says Hamlet's ghost father...seek revenge - "Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice" - Claudius now king, married Hamlet's mother Gertrude - "Frailty, thy name is woman" - Polonius, right hand man of Claudius - Ophelia, daughter of Polonius - Laertes, son of Polonius - Hamlet loves Ophelia - "When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows." - Ophelia loves Hamlet -  "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Hamlet's friends who spy on him - "Get thee to a nunnery" - a play is staged, The Murder of Gonzagos - Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius - Hamlet doesn't kill praying Claudius when he has a chance - "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go." - Hamlet going mad? -  "Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier." - Ophelia goes mad after her father is killed - Ophelia drowns - poisoned sword - poisoned wine - Ophelia buried - skull unearthed - "Alas poor Yorick" - Hamlet and Laertes to fight with swords - Gertrude toasts the duel, accidentally drinks poisoned wine - Ophelia dies - Laertes stabs Hamlet with poisoned sword - "Good night, sweet Prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" - Hamlet uses poison sword on Laertes in turn - as they are dying, they reconcile - Laertes says Claudius is responsible for all - Hamlet manages to kill Claudius before he dies - Horatio lives to tell the tale.

The Metamorphosis: Gregor - traveling salesman - provides for his mother, father, sister - wakes up one morning turned into a roach - stuck on back - manbug - shunned by his family - locked in a room - voice unrecognizable - he can still understand family, they can't understand him - sister, Grete, feeds him every day - Gregor thinks more and more buglike - climbs on bedroom walls - family takes on boarders - Grete plays violin - Gregor inches his way out of room one night while Grete plays violin for boarders - boarders see Gregor and move out, horrified - Gregor's father wishes Gregor would die :-( - Gregor slinks to his room and dies - father, mother and Grete all relieved now the end - bizarre Kafka!

The Lady With the Dog: Dmitri - married with children - unhappy marriage - women are a "lower" being - many affairs, but he never loses his heart - Dmitri travels to Yalta - sees beautiful young woman walking dog along the seafront - Anna - Dmitri meets Anna - Anna also married, but not happily - vacationing without husband - Dmitri and Anna start an affair - Anna goes back home - Back home in Moscow, Dmitri actually misses Anna - Dmitri goes to St. Petersburg to pursue Anna - sees Anna with her husband at theater - Anna sees Dmitri and runs - Dmitri catches her - Anna admits she can't stop thinking of Dmitri - she will come to see him in Moscow soon - Anna and Dmitri are in love - Anna travels to Moscow where they discuss what to do, but never figure things out - the end.

The Sound and the Fury: One of my favorites - stream of consciousness - Mississippi - Compson family - Benjy - youngest Compson child - mentally handicapped - Benjy loves fire, golf, and sister Caddy - Luster, Benjy's adult companion - T.P., Benjy's teenage companion - Versh - Benjy's childhood companion - Benjy attacks girl as teenager - Benjy castrated - Dilsey, family matriarch servant - cares for Benjy always - Mr. and Mrs. Compson worthless parents - Mrs. Compson hypochondriac, always in bed "ill" - Caddy, only girl, Benjy's older sister - one of the few who adores Benjy - climbs a tree - Benjy, Jason and Quentin, her brothers, see her muddy underwear - Caddy becomes sexually promiscuous with boyfriend, Dalton - Caddy pregnant before getting married - baby is Dalton's - Quentin, oldest brother, very protective of Caddy and her virtue - Quentin fights Dalton and loses - Caddy marries Herbert, who she does not love - Herbert kicks her out when he finds baby is not his - family pasture sold to golf club to pay for Quentin's Harvard education - Quentin freshman at Harvard - struggles to live by Southern, chivalrous ideals - struggles with Caddy's lost virginity - no good advice from his own father - men created the idea of virginity, he says - Quentin walks around Cambridge all day - meets a little girl lost from home - calls her "sister" - helps to find her home - Quentin remembers what his father told him when he gave him his grandfather's pocket watch before Quentin went to college. "It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it." - Quentin deteriorates into depression - Quentin commits suicide - Caddy names her daughter Quentin, after her dear brother Quentin - Jason, second oldest brother, grows up bitter and cynical - not passionate or feeling like Quentin and Caddy - takes care of all the family and the home when he grows up - blackmails Caddy into letting him raise Quentin - steals support checks that Caddy sends for Quentin - Quentin finds her stolen money and runs away with carnival worker - Easter Sunday - Dilsey takes grown Benjy to the "colored" church for Easter - Dilsey's grandson, Luster, takes Benjy for a ride in the carriage to the cemetery - Benjy begs to go there - tragic deterioration of southern family - title from Shakespeare's Macbeth -

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.