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! :-)

Finished: Compound Fractures (White) The very last book in a 20 book series about the same characters I've grown to know and love. I can't say that I'm thrilled with the ending for each of the characters, but oh well. I think my favorite character in the very last book was Dr. Alan Gregory's adopted son, Jonas. I'll definitely miss Jonas....and Sam. I'll miss Sam. OK, and Alan Gregory too! I'm not thrilled with the physical or moral ending for Lauren...not even there to defend herself. Can't have it all though, I guess! There are a few of the in between books I never read, so I can always go and catch those! Bye, bye Boulder. :-)

Finished: U.S.A Trilogy (Dos Passos). Wow, I finally finished one of the longest books I've read to date. Actually, it's what it says it is...a trilogy of the novels The 42nd Parallel, Nineteen Nineteen, and The Big Money, all written by American born John Dos Passos, but intended by him to be one book, so published that way. Anyway, my copy is all one big 1457 page book! And what a reading experience that was. I think I'm still trying to absorb it all, but it was a very, very good book. It centers around twelve main characters that are introduced throughout the book, who interact with each other quite a bit, but not always. Some characters are the main focus for awhile, and then fall to the background. We hear about their life stories from the time they are children to the time they get to be in their 20's or so. Then, this is when most of them hit the age of World War I, and that time period when America was deciding whether or not to get into the war. Then, it follows them through their experiences in or about the war. Most of the characters are working class, so there is a lot of poverty, yet a lot of gumption as many of them go on to make something of their lives, despite their poor upbringings. There are also several characters who fall into socialism, almost joining the communist party, who work tirelessly for the working man, the striking coal miners, etc. And, most of the characters can't make it through too much without becoming quite accustomed to drinking alcohol. The timing of the book carries on into the 1920's and follows the surviving characters as they are now in their 30's or so, and many of them having regrets.

In the meantime, while reading these fascinating stories about these everyday people, the author will cut off completely from the story and print two or three pages of headlines and snippets of newspaper articles that he calls "Newsreels" that were taken from real newspapers of the time. It's fascinating! Then, every few chapters he does about a four to ten page mini-biography of some famous American, like Thomas Edison or someone more obscure like Isadora Duncan. Whenever he breaks from the story to do one of these, it always goes along with what's happening in the story, yet it's another bit of realistic, true life thrown in. And, then, every so often the author breaks into another mode of storytelling by writing these things called "The Camera Eye", and those are complete stream of conscious, no punctuation, verbal vomitus of the author's thoughts and experiences as he goes from being a child to an adult, and experiences many of the same things his characters experience. It all ties together pretty well, and even though it was a long read, it made for a very compelling read. The writing allowed me to put myself in the shoes of nearly every character, and even feel sympathy, or at least empathy, for even the ones who weren't very likable. A great book!

I have to say that my favorite part was one of the mini-biographies. It was right after a chapter where the president of the United States was welcoming home an unknown soldier from World War I to commemorate him and have him represent the thousands of other soldiers who never made it home from the war. It was just, for me, a breathtaking piece of writing. I think I'm going to include it below, but it's alot to type. I'm so glad to have the book done, but at the same time, I think I'm going to miss it!

I'm going to type out that great passage just like it is in the book, with run-on words and everything:

                                             THE BODY OF THE AMERICAN

    Whereasthe Congressoftheunitedstates byaconcurrentresolutionadoptedon the4thdayofmarch lastauthorizedthe Secretaryofwar to cause to be brought to theunitedstatesthe body of an Americanwho wasamemberoftheamericanexpeditionaryforcesineurope  wholosthislifeduringtheworldwarand whoseidentityhasnotbeenestablished for burial inthememorialamphitheatreofthe nationalcemeteryatarlington-virginia

   In the tarpaper morgue at Chalons-sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was left of
   enie menie minie moe plenty other pine boxes stacked up there containing what they'd scraped up of Richard Roe
   and other person or persons unknown. Only one can go. How did they pick John Doe?
   Make sure he aint a dinge, boys,
   make sure he aint a guinea or a kike,
   how can you tell a guy's a hundredpercent when all you've got's a gunnysack full of bones, bronze buttons stamped with the screaming eagle and a pair of roll puttees?
   ...and the gagging chloride and the puky dirtstench of the yearold dead...

   The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for applause. Silence, tears, songs and prayer, muffled drums and soft music were the instrumentalities today of national approbation. 

   John Doe was born (thudding din of blood in love into the shuddering soar of a man and a woman alone indeed together lurching into
   and ninemonths sick drowse waking into scared agony and the pain and blood and mess of birth). John Doe was born
   and raised in Brooklyn, in Memphis, near the lakefront in Cleveland, Ohio, in the stench of the stockyards in Chi, on Beacon Hill, in an old brick house in Alexandria, Virginia, on Telegraph Hill, in a halftimbered Tudor cottage in Portland the city of roses,
   in the Lying-In Hospital old Morgan endowed on Stuyvesant Square,
    across the railroad tracks, out near the country club, in a shack cabin tenement apartmenthouse exclusive residential suburb;
   scion of one of the best families in the social register, won first prize in the baby parade at Coronado Beach, was marbles champion of the Little Rock grammarschools, crack basketballplayer at the Booneville High, quarterback at the State Reformatory, having saved the sheriff's kid from drowning in the Little Missouri River was invited to Washington to be photographed shaking hands with the President on the White House steps;---

   though this was a time of mourning, such an assemblage necessarily has about it a touch of color. In the boxes are seen the court uniforms of foreign diplomats, the gold braid of our own and foreign fleets and armies, the black of the conventional morning dress of American statesmen, the varicolored furs and outdoor wrapping garments of mothers and sisters come to mourn, the drab and blue of soldiers and sailors, the glitter of musical instruments and the white and black of a vested choir

   ---busboy harveststiff hogcaller boyscout champeen cornshucker of Western Kansas bellhop at the United States Hotel at Saratoga Springs office boy callboy fruiter telephone lineman longshoreman lumberjack plumber's helper,
   worked for an exterminating company in Union City, filled pipes in an opium joint in Trenton, N.J.
   Y.M.C.A. secretary, express agent, truckdriver, fordmechanic, sold books in Denver Colorado: Madam would you be willing to help a young man work his way through college?
 
  President Harding, with a reverence seemingly more significant because of his high temporal station, concluded his speech:

    We are met today to pay the impersonal tributes; 
    the name of him whose body lies before us took flight with his imperishable soul...
    as a typical soldier of this representative democracy he fought and died believing in the indisputable justice of his country's cause...

    by raising his right hand and asking the thousands within the sound of his voice to join in the prayer:

    Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be they name...

    Naked he went into the army;
    they weighed you, measured you, looked for flat feet, squeezed your penis to see if you had clap, looked up your anus to see if you had piles, counted your teeth, made you cough, listened to your heart and lungs, made you read the letters on the card, charted your urine and your intelligence,
    gave you a service record for a future (imperishable soul)
    and an identification tag stamped with your serial number to hang around your neck, issued O D regulation equipment, a condiment can and a copy of the articles of war.
    Atten'SHUN suck in your gut you c_____r wipe that smile off your face eyes right wattja tink dis is a choirch-social?   For-war-D'ARCH.

    John Doe
    and Richard Roe and other person or persons unknown
    drilled hiked, manual of arms, ate slum, learned to salute, to soldier, to loaf in the latrines, forbidden to smoke on deck, overseas guard duty, forty men and eight horses, shortarm inspection and the ping of shrapnel and the shrill bullets combing the air and the sorehead woodpeckers the machineguns mud cooties gasmasks and the itch.
   Say feller tell me how I can get back to my outfit.

    John Doe had a head.
    for twentyodd years intensely the nerves of the eyes the ears the palate the tongue the fingers the toes the armpits, the nerves warmfeeling under the skin charged the coiled brain with hurt sweet warm cold mine must dont sayings print  headlines:
    Thou shalt not the multiplication table long division, Now is the time for all good men knocks but once at a young man's door, It's a great life if Ish gebibbel, The first five years'll be the Saftey First, Suppose a hun tried to rape your my country right or wrong, Catch 'em young, What he dont know wont treat 'em rough, Tell 'em nothin, He got what was coming to him he got his, This is a white man's country, Kick the bucket, Gone west, If you dont like it  you can croaked him
    Say buddy can't you tell me how I can get back to my outfit?

    Cant help jumpin when them things go off, give me the trots them things do. I lost my identification tag swimmin in the Marne, roughhousin with a guy while we was waitin to be deloused, in bed with a girl named Jeanne (Love moving picture wet French postcard dream began with saltpeter in the coffee and ended at the propho station);---
    Say soldier for chrissake cant you tell me how I can bet back to my outfit?

    John Doe's
    heart pumped blood:
    alive thudding silence of blood in your ears
    down in the clearing in the Oregon forest where the punkins were punkincolor pouring into the blood through the eyes and the fallcolored trees and the bronze hoopers were hopping through the dry grass, where tiny striped snails hung on the underside of the blades and the flies hummed, wasps droned, bumblebees buzzed, and the woods smelt of wine and mushrooms and apples, homey smell of fall pouring into the blood,
    and I dropped the tin hat and the sweaty pack and lay flat with the dogday sun licking my throat and adamsapple and the tight skin over the breastbone.

   The shell had his number on it.

    The blood ran into the ground.

   The service record dropped out of the filing cabinet when the quartermaster sergeant got blotto that time they had to pack up and leave the billets in a hurry.
    The identification tag was in the bottom of the Marne.

    The blood ran into the ground, the brains oozed out of the cracked skull and were licked up by the trenchrats, the belly swelled and raised a generation of bluebottle flies,
    and the incorruptible skeleton,
    and the scraps of dried viscera and skin bundled in khaki

    they took to Chalons-sur-Marne
    and laid it out neat in a pine coffin
    and took it home to God's Country on a battleship
    and buried it in a sarcophagus in the Memorial Amphitheatre in the Arlington National Cemetery
    and draped the Old Glory over it
    and the bugler played taps
    and Mr. Harding prayed to God and the diplomats and the generals and the admirals and the brasshats and the politicians and the handsomely dressed ladies out of the society column of the Washington Post stood up solemn
    and thought how beautiful sad Old Glory God's Country it was to have the bugler play taps and the three volleys made their ears ring.

    Where his chest ought to have been they pinned
    the Congressional Medal, the D.S.C., the Medaille Militaire, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, the Vitutea Militara sent by Queen Marie of Rumania, the Czechoslovak war cross, the Virtuti Militari of the Poles, a wreath sent by Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, and a little wampum presented by a deputation of Arizona redskins in warpaint and feathers. All the Washingtonians brought flowers.

    Woodrow Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies.

Finished: A Pair of Blue Eyes (Hard). Well, pooh...why did I get my hopes up that Thomas Hardy might write a happy ending for once?? So, the young and not very experienced Elfride and Stephen fall in love...but her father won't let them marry because he's beneath her socially. They decide to run off to get married, but she is too panicked at the last minute, so they take the train back home. Unfortunately, this means they've been out all night together without being married...gasp! No one knows this, however, but the two of them and an old crony who happens to hate Elfride because she turned down her son's advances once. Stephen departs for India to go make his fortune and come back and have Elfride's hand honestly. They pledge to wait for each other and consider themselves betrothed to each other. Stephen confides in his mentor, Harry, that he is in love with a girl and that she will wait for him. Harry, after several months of Stephen being gone, meets Elfride without knowing it's the same girl and falls in love with her!! Elfride's resolve starts to slip as she gets to know Harry more slowly than she did Stephen and she realizes she's in love with him. What to do, what to do? Elfride is all about doing the right thing and staying true to Stephen, even though her feelings have changed...when one day Harry and Elfride get trapped on a dangerous cliff overlooking the ocean and Harry nearly dies. The close call pushes them into each other's arms, figuratively speaking. Still without kissing Harry, Elfride decides to break it off with Stephen and become betrothed to Harry. She still has terrible guilt about the night she innocently spent out with Stephen when she ran off...especially when Harry finally kisses her, admits it's his first kiss, and assumes that it is her first kiss as well. She's terrified to tell him that she kissed Stephen and was betrothed to him before Harry. She thinks it will make Harry leave her. When Stephen comes home for a visit unexpectedly, he's heartbroken and stunned to be introduced to his friend's betrothed, Elfride! Harry still has no idea that this is the girl that was supposed to be waiting for Stephen. Stephen doesn't let on, and goes back to India heartbroken. He IS making loads of money, by the way. Finally, as we knew would happen, the mean lady tells Harry that Elfride has had a "lover" before him, and that she spent the night out with him. Harry is enraged and won't let Elfride properly explain...mostly because she still feels guilty and her explanation even makes things sound worse than they were. Harry tells her he can't possibly marry her and leaves her. Elfride is heartbroken. Fifteen months later, Harry and Stephen meet up and Stephen sees that Harry is not married to Elfride. Stephen finally confesses to Harry that Elfride was the girl he was betrothed to. Harry is shocked, and then hears the whole story of how they ran away but didn't get married. He sees now that Elfride was innocent and truly did nothing to besmirch her character. They both head immediately on a train to see Elfride, each thinking they'll have a second chance with her. In the meantime, Elfride, who you could see early in the story was admired by Lord Luxellian, who her father was the rector for, has married Lord Lexellian. He is a handsome, nice young father of two young girls. His own wife had died a year before. The girls have always loved Elfride, and she them. So, in the several months after Harry's departure, Lord Lexellian had wooed Elfride, and she accepted his proposal. Of course, Harry and Stephen don't know that. As they get off the train, they see a huge crowd and realize that a funeral hearse has come to carry a coffin. As they inquire who has died, they see Elfride's father and are told that it is "that man's daughter". They are both devastated. Sure enough...Elfride had been happy in her marriage to Lord Lexellian, but had died after having a miscarriage only a few days before. The End. ok, so honestly....could Thomas Hardy not have ended the story with just letting the two guys be bummed (especially Harry since he left her so coldly) that Elfride was happily married to someone else?? Did he have to kill her off? Sigh, oh well! It was still a pretty good book and I do like his writing. I don't know that I'll read any more of his books though...too sad.

Finished: Touch and Go (Gardner). Just a fun summer read from one of my favorite thriller/who-done-it authors! :-) I've been reading her books for years, and this one didn't disappoint! I figured out the culprit before the intuitive Tessa Leoni did. I liked where Tess and Wyatt were headed at the end of the book, though...and seeing as how she will probably become another "regular" character for Lisa Gardner, I'm looking forward to seeing if that relationship continues. Yay for another page-turner! :-)

Finished: The Charterhouse of Parma (Stendhal)...finally! This was a hard book to "get into" and it certainly doesn't belong on MY top 100 list, even though it is on the top 100 list I'm trying to read through. There were a few entertaining moments, but not enough to keep me from leaving my reading to go do other things for the past 10 days. It's the story of young Italian boy, Fabrizio del Dongo, who as he grows up, goes on many spontaneous adventures and is adored more by his aunt, the Duchessa, than his own parents. Set during the Waterloo years of Napolean's war, I think we are supposed to find Fabrizio to be the hero and his antics to be endearing, however I just found him to be utterly self-centered and rather dense. His aunt is another main character who moves heaven and earth to get him out of his various scrapes, while she also falls for the most decent character in the book. Count Mosca. However, she always loves Fabrizio more than the Count who adores her. Meanwhile, Fabrizio gets in fights, leads with his little head, brandishes bravado at all the wrong times, goes to prison, is nearly poisoned, falls in love with the prison keeper's beautiful daughter, Clelia, pursues her relentlessly, and on and on. Finally, through the machinations of the Duchessa, Count Mosca and Clelia, Fabrizio is able to escape from prison, and then have a real trial where he is pardoned, but his actions continue to be completely narcissistic. I truly find nothing endearing about the character, or his aunt's character for that matter, though she's a little more understandable. I just don't get why everyone in the book falls so hard for the two del Dongos! In the end, the Duchessa and Count Mosca end up happy together, but Clelia marries another man, who she doesn't love but must marry for her father. Fabrizio becomes "the youngest Archbishop" who can't marry anyway, but he laments away in his self-involvement. He and Clelia have a secret affair which produces a young son. Out of his selfishness of wanting to raise his own son, he convinces Clelia to pretend that the boy is ill and dies so he can spirit him away from the man who THINKS he is his father to a secret house, which Clelia can visit every day. Clelia doesn't want to do this, but Fabrizio talks her into it. And, of course, the worst happens....the little 2 year old boy really does get sick and die, followed by his mother who dies of a broken heart. All because Fabrizio wanted it. Ugh!! So, just not my favorite of books and really hard to get into the writing of this one! Whew! Glad to be done.

And so the soldiers buried Hector breaker of horses....Finished: The Iliad (Homer)...and that was the last line of a classic book. I'm so, so glad I finally read this! I had put if off because it is so long and I wondered if it would keep my interest. It did keep my interest, and showed me at the same time why Homer was considered to be one of the greats. Of course, I was reading a translation (translated by Robert Fagles) of the original language, but it was beautifully written. :-) He kind of "had me at hello" with passages like this one that describes the hordes of the Achaean army (the Greeks) as they marched ahead to attack the Trojans:

   As a heavy surf assaults some roaring coast,
piling breaker on breaker whipped by the West Wind, 
and out on the open sea a crest first rears its head
then pounds down on the shore with hoarse, rumbling thunder
and in come more shouldering crests, arching up and breaking
against some rocky spit, exploding salt foam to the skies--
so wave on wave they came, Achaean battalions ceaseless,
surging on to war. Each captain ordered his men
and the ranks moved on in silence...
You'd never think so many troops could march 
holding their voices in their chests, all silence, 
fearing their chiefs who called out clear commands,
and the burnished blazoned armor round their bodies flared,
the formations trampling on.

That's just a taste of the descriptiveness. I could SO see the waves and breakers hitting the coast just like they do when we vacation in Oregon....perfect imagery....and then they totally translated over in my mind to become the soldiers marching on. Anyway, I really liked the book! I basically knew the story of Helen, Troy, Paris, Hector, Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Priam, etc., but  I never realized that the gods played such a roll in the war, at least in Homer's version. :-) There were Zeus, Hera, Athena, Poseidon, and Apollo, always in the mix...making spears miss, making their wounded favorites disappear in a mist before death, etc. It was truly almost more a war of the gods than one of men. Also, I'd never read the story in such lengthy detail. Some of the passages in the book did get a little gruesome in their descriptions of death, and tiresome in the endless naming of so-and-so son of so-and-so and so forth, lol. Oh, and I was really surprised that the book ended with Hector's burial and NOT the death of Achilles, especially given how much Achilles' foretold death was mentioned in the book. And, of course, that means no Trojan horse in this story either. Oh well...I'm still happy to be finished, but even more so, happy that I read and enjoyed such a classic!

Finished: Line of Fire (White) Another page turner! Hard to believe this series is almost at an end. :-( I will definitely miss Dr. Alan Gregory, his wife Lauren, and best friend Sam Purdy, the cop. Of course, I also missed Adrienne and Peter when they were killed off in the middle of the series! I truly hope that Lauren did NOT die at the end of this book as the implication seems to be. I guess I have to wait until August to read the last in the Dr. Alan Gregory series. To think that my son just randomly gave me a book for my birthday one year that he thought I'd enjoy, Privileged Information...the first book in the series....and I've read most of the books in the series since! I still have one to read that plops Sam Purdy right down at Yale University. Anyway, another page-turning, shock-ending book. Honestly, though, were Alan and Sam REALLY stupid enough to talk about a huge secret in the ICU room of someone they thought was unconscious?? Looking forward to August. :-)

Finished: The House of Mirth (Wharton). Awww, another sad ending. :-( Darn, I really thought this one might actually end happily. It was obvious through the whole book that Lily Bart and Lawrence Seldon loved each other, but the evils of high society gossips and superior judgments were the downfall of poor Lily. Why couldn't Seldon have just not believed the worst in her when he saw her coming out of Trenor's house?? Through every obstacle in trying to keep herself afloat in the circles of the upper crust, and from spiraling into the despair of poverty, Lily's gut conscience always won out and she didn't follow through with plans to marry rich men she didn't love or blackmail the hideous Bertha Dorsett, etc. When she thought Gus Trenor had legitimately turned her meager $100 into $9000 with stock investments, she was shocked to learn that he'd really just given her the money and then expected favors in return. Sadly, everyone else believed she'd given the favors....including the level-headed, obviously in love, Seldon. When Bertha Dorsett paid Lily to come on a Mediterranean cruise with her and her husband, George, to be a distraction to George so Bertha could carry on an affair under his nose, the ending results were again disastrous...with Bertha dumping her young lover, and publicly ousting Lily from her employ with the suggestion that she'd been having an affair with George! Nothing could have been further from the truth, but money and gossip prevailed, and Lily was pretty much ruined. Just when she finally figured things out at the end, and kept her pride, and learned that maybe love was more important than being rich...and just when I think she was going to go and confess her love to Seldon....and just when Seldon was actually on his way over to Lily's to sweep her off her feet and tell her he loved her, she took an accidental overdose of sleeping drops to help her get through the fretful night and died. :-( Dang it! I want one of these old classics to have a happy ending!!!!!!! A good book, but sad, sad, sad.

On an interesting side note...apparently Edith Wharton's family is where the term "keeping up with the Joneses" came from! Edith's maiden name being Jones, and the family being ultra wealthy, they traveled back and forth from Europe to New York to Newport during Edith's childhood. I just thought that was interesting. :-)

Finished: Vanity Fair (Thackeray). A really good, and very looonnnngg book! I can see why it is on the Top 100 list, but I just need to decide if it's on MY Top 100 list. At 950 pages, it was super wordy...and I mean in the descriptive way. Of course, that's one of the big reasons it's considered one of the great novels. The detail and depth which Thackeray goes into when expounding on the lives and doings of the British upper classes in the early 1800's is mind-boggling. And, he does much of it with names of people and places that were supposed to be a humorous satire of the times. I don't always get those jokes, because, well...I didn't live back then when it was first published. Anyway....he's brilliant in his writing, but as always, I prefer much more dialogue and action than I do so much intense description and tangent-taking to describe different social people who had nothing to do with the story. However, I would venture to say that Vanity Fair will make it onto my Top 100 books list. Thackeray titles the book Vanity Fair, or The Novel Without a Hero...but I beg to differ. I consider Major William Dobbin to be the epitome of a hero. Does a hero have to be good-looking and the lady-charmer? The story begins with the teen aged young ladies, Amelia Smedley and Rebecca Sharp graduating from Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies and arriving at Amelia Smedley's manor. Amelia has grown up well off and in the upper class. Becky has grown up poor, the daughter of an artist and a stage dancer, who are both deceased. She had been at Pinkerton's on scholarship. She is the focus of much of the story...her personality, her ability to take advantage of anyone and everyone to propel herself up the social ladder. She hoodwinks nearly everyone in the story at one time or another with her charm, wit and personality. She appears to genuinely care for people, but in reality, she cares only for herself. Amelia is the opposite, almost to a sad degree. She's the sweetest, truest, sappiest of people. She's been "engaged" to fellow socialite, George Osbourne, since childhood and they are well on their way to marriage. However, the good-looking, charming, self-centered George has become quite full of himself and turned into a dandy. George's best friend, confident, and protector, the not-so-good looking William Dobbin, is always there to guide him in the right direction....and he's also helplessly in love with Amelia. Amelia, though, only has eyes and a heart for George. Even when George has a wandering eye and questions getting married, Dobbin is there to strongly encourage him to tow the line. When the Smedley's loose all their money and become destitute, George's horrible father, who owes much of his own success to Amelia's father, forbids George to marry Amelia. When George breaks it off, Amelia becomes so despondent that Dobbin feels like she is at death's door. He convinces George that he should do the right thing and marry the girl who he's been promised to his whole life...the girl who has totally given him her heart. So, George defies his father and marries Amelia. George's father is furious and disinherits him. George and Amelia spend a few weeks of happy bliss on their honeymoon trip until the reality of having no money sets in on George. They truly do love each other...but then George's eye is caught by the wicked Becky! Becky, who had become a governess for crotchety, uncouth Sir Pitt Crawley's young daughters from his second marriage, had then fallen for Sir Pitt's careless, cavalier, charming, free-spirited, much in debt from his shenanigans, younger son from his first marriage, Rawdon Crowley. Rawdon is someone who actually COULD have been a hero in the story, but the author clearly wanted to show him in a very weak light so Becky could be pushed to the forefront. Anyway, Rawdon is in line and favor to inherit his rich aunt's money when she dies, as she adores his unruly ways. She even falls in love with Becky, like everyone who meets her does. But...when Becky and Rawdon elope, the aunt has a hissy fit because she believes that Becky is too beneath Rawdon's station. So....the aunt disinherits Rawdon. Rawdon and Becky continue to spend what they don't have, living on credit, and charming people out of money, or in Rawdon's case, winning money from people at billiards. When Becky and Rawdon run into Amelia and George on their honeymoon trip, Becky is already thrusting herself higher into society by flirting with all the officers. They are all in Brussels in the days before Napoleon's big march to regain his former power. George, Rawdon and William Dobbin are all in the military and expect to be called to battle any day. Becky sets her sights on turning George's eye, and she succeeds. He actually asks her to run away with him, but then when they all find out the men will be called out the next morning to fight, George has a crisis of conscience and falls into Amelia's arms and declares his love. The battle that follows is the famous Battle of Waterloo. Only two of the young men come home alive. Meanwhile, Amelia shows anger for the first time in her life and estranges  herself from Becky, who she used to see as a close friend. Amelia knows that Becky had set her charms on George. George is the one who is killed in battle, and Amelia is devastated.  However, Amelia is pregnant! And, for that matter...so is Becky! Baby George brings Amelia back to life, and she loves him more than anything in her life. Poor Dobbin who is always there for her and the baby, is still on the back burner and she never even glances his way romantically. He knows she'll never love him the way he does her. Becky, who goes hot and cold with Rawdon, seems to love him at times, but grows tired of him and just wants to climb higher and higher in society. Her baby son, Rawdon, is just something to get in her way. She instantly puts him out to a nurse and doesn't give him a second thought. :-(  Becky meets up with the Marquis Steyne, who she charms, and who takes her under his wing to propel her to new social heights...of course, at the expense of her relationship with Rawdon and her own son. It's so sad to see Becky ignore her little son as he grows older, though, Rawdon become a really good father! He loves spending time with his son, but he's so whipped by Becky that he does what she says most of the time, including sending the boy off here and there. Dobbin, knowing he hasn't a chance with Amelia, leaves town for over ten years. He makes sure, however, that Amelia and little George have a small income. However, Amelia's father puts them in dire straights once again and the family falls into dire poverty. ok, it's impossible to recap this 950 page book, lol. In any event, Dobbin does swoop back into town and declare his love for Amelia, but she still rebuffs him because of her love and duty to her dead husband. Dobbin, however, grows really close to the young Georgy. After a couple more years, Dobbin has finally had enough of being Amelia's lapdog...especially when she forgives the lying, scheming, opportunist Becky, who is back in the picture after being left by Rawdon, who finally grew some pride and dumped her when he walked in on her in a compromising position with Steyne. Becky has cried on Amelia's shoulder that the evil Rawdon ripped her own little Rawdon out of her arms and kept him from her, when in reality, Becky dumped her son long ago. When Dobbin can't convince Amelia of Becky's lies, and when Amelia is angry with Dobbin for his opinion, Dobbin finally tells her he's done! Finally, he shows some self-respect! He hops a ship back to England (they've all been in Germany), and soon, it's Becky of all people who convinces Amelia that George was never half the man that William Dobbin was, and that she should jump at the chance for true love. Amelia realizes that she does love Dobbin, and with Georgy's happy approval, writes and begs him to come back. Dobbin comes back and marries Amelia, making the three of them a family...and adding to the family with a baby daughter of his own. :-) I stand by my original statement...to love Amelia unconditionally all those years, and stand by not only her husband and friend, but then his widow and son, makes him a hero in my book! There is so much more to the book besides just the story of these young folks, but I can't possibly detail it all. Though Amelia, Dobbin and little George get their happy ending, I can't say that all the characters do. Still, in all....it was a very good book. :-)