One of the characters in Virginia Woolf's novel, "Jacob's Room", comments: "I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older." I'm pleased to report that, as much as I enjoy spring, I still prefer the fall season, mainly because of its higher 'Coziness Factor'.
I, too, studied "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations" in high school, but haven't been inclined to reread either of them since, though I have enjoyed other Dickens novels in recent years. Your mention of "A Tale of Two Cities" reminded me that I haven't watched the 1935 film version for quite some time, so I dug out my DVD copy and watched it the other day. I had forgotten how good the film was. The crowd scenes such as the storming of the Bastille, the trials before the Revolutionary tribunal, and the execution site in the Place de la Revolution are impressive even by today's standards, and Ronald Colman gives one of his best performances as Sydney Carton, the lonely, alcoholic, world-weary lawyer who finds meaning in life through his devotion to Lucie Manette and her family. The theatrical nature of screen acting during the Golden Age of Hollywood is exactly suited to Dickens' characters.
The 1999 film version of “The Last September” is available for viewing on YouTube. The picture is only in 360p resolution, but you tend not to notice after a while. The Irish novelist, John Banville, wrote the screenplay and seems to have felt obliged to include a number of violent incidents which are not in Elizabeth Bowden’s novel. He also emphasizes the conflict between the Irish rebels and the occupying British army, with the long-established Anglo-Irish families caught in the crossfire. Towards the end of the film, the central figure, Lois Farquar (played by a very young Keeley Hawes, last seen as Cassandra Austen in the BBC series, “Miss Austen”), behaves in a manner out-of-keeping with her character, or so it seemed to me, that takes the storyline in a quite unexpected direction. The film’s conclusion, however, shows us Lois in a much more settled and happy situation than she is in the novel. I particularly enjoyed the outdoor scenes of garden parties, flower beds, conservatories, dining al fresco, and so on.
I read “Bleak House”—all 1,064 pages of it—a few years ago, and found it a satisfying read. Of course, you have to accept a Charles Dickens novel on its own terms and be prepared for characters who are often touched with caricature, and melodramatic plot developments that are full of pathos. The more pathetically lovable a Dickens character is, the greater the odds are that he or she will not survive to the end of the story.
At the same time, you can be reasonably certain that Dickens is reporting the truth when he describes the tedious, time-consuming, and maddeningly tortuous workings of the British legal system in “Bleak House”; or even worse, the brutality of the British school system in “Nicholas Nickleby”, which I read a few years ago as well. From that point of view, there is value in reading Dickens for his historical reporting on the social conditions of his time.
The character I remember best from “Bleak House” is the house itself, which, contrary to its name, is actually described as the epitome of the large, rambling, comfortably furnished home set in the English countryside. “It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places, with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them.”
I’m a little over two-thirds of the way through “The Last September” and I’m enjoying it very much. I wouldn’t say it’s a densely written book, but the vivid descriptions of the Irish countryside force the reader to slow down and savour end-of-day scenes such as this: “Like splintered darkness, branches pierced the faltering dusk of leaves. Evening drenched the trees; the beeches were soundless cataracts. Behind the trees, pressing in from the open and empty country like an invasion, the orange bright sky crept and smouldered. Firs, bearing up to pierce, melted against the brightness. Somewhere, there was a sunset in which the mountains lay like glass.”
I also enjoy the manner in which Elizabeth Bowen describes the inhabitants of the three-story country home called Danielstown somewhere in County Cork in the year 1920, in the midst of the Anglo-Irish War sparked by the Easter Rising of 1916. As one young British officer observes sardonically, it is the duty of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy families such as the Naylors and Montmorencys to carry on with their normal lives and pretend not to notice the war going on in the countryside around them. Thus, we have scenes of high tea, garden parties, and amateur tennis matches taking place at Danielstown, while rowdy units of trigger-happy Black and Tans patrol the roads by day, and Irish rebels set up ambushes and conduct deadly raids on the Royal Irish Constabulary by night. Ironically, the Naylors and Montmorencys think of themselves as being Irish in their own way, and they look askance at the attitudes and behaviour of their occasional English visitors.
I have the sense that I’m giving “The Last September” my first-draught reading, and that I may want to return to it for another perusal some time in the future. I say this because I’m not sure I’m capturing all of the nuances of character in the people residing at Danielstown, nor the relations between them. I have a sense that the central character, Lois Farquar, may be uncertain about her sexual orientation, but perhaps I’m just reading too much into the text. In any case, there is a sense of impending doom as the story nears its conclusion.
One of the characters in Virginia Woolf's novel, "Jacob's Room", comments: "I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older." I'm pleased to report that, as much as I enjoy spring, I still prefer the fall season, mainly because of its higher 'Coziness Factor'.
Same! Also my allergies aren’t as bad in fall.
I, too, studied "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations" in high school, but haven't been inclined to reread either of them since, though I have enjoyed other Dickens novels in recent years. Your mention of "A Tale of Two Cities" reminded me that I haven't watched the 1935 film version for quite some time, so I dug out my DVD copy and watched it the other day. I had forgotten how good the film was. The crowd scenes such as the storming of the Bastille, the trials before the Revolutionary tribunal, and the execution site in the Place de la Revolution are impressive even by today's standards, and Ronald Colman gives one of his best performances as Sydney Carton, the lonely, alcoholic, world-weary lawyer who finds meaning in life through his devotion to Lucie Manette and her family. The theatrical nature of screen acting during the Golden Age of Hollywood is exactly suited to Dickens' characters.
The 1999 film version of “The Last September” is available for viewing on YouTube. The picture is only in 360p resolution, but you tend not to notice after a while. The Irish novelist, John Banville, wrote the screenplay and seems to have felt obliged to include a number of violent incidents which are not in Elizabeth Bowden’s novel. He also emphasizes the conflict between the Irish rebels and the occupying British army, with the long-established Anglo-Irish families caught in the crossfire. Towards the end of the film, the central figure, Lois Farquar (played by a very young Keeley Hawes, last seen as Cassandra Austen in the BBC series, “Miss Austen”), behaves in a manner out-of-keeping with her character, or so it seemed to me, that takes the storyline in a quite unexpected direction. The film’s conclusion, however, shows us Lois in a much more settled and happy situation than she is in the novel. I particularly enjoyed the outdoor scenes of garden parties, flower beds, conservatories, dining al fresco, and so on.
I read “Bleak House”—all 1,064 pages of it—a few years ago, and found it a satisfying read. Of course, you have to accept a Charles Dickens novel on its own terms and be prepared for characters who are often touched with caricature, and melodramatic plot developments that are full of pathos. The more pathetically lovable a Dickens character is, the greater the odds are that he or she will not survive to the end of the story.
At the same time, you can be reasonably certain that Dickens is reporting the truth when he describes the tedious, time-consuming, and maddeningly tortuous workings of the British legal system in “Bleak House”; or even worse, the brutality of the British school system in “Nicholas Nickleby”, which I read a few years ago as well. From that point of view, there is value in reading Dickens for his historical reporting on the social conditions of his time.
The character I remember best from “Bleak House” is the house itself, which, contrary to its name, is actually described as the epitome of the large, rambling, comfortably furnished home set in the English countryside. “It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places, with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them.”
I’m a little over two-thirds of the way through “The Last September” and I’m enjoying it very much. I wouldn’t say it’s a densely written book, but the vivid descriptions of the Irish countryside force the reader to slow down and savour end-of-day scenes such as this: “Like splintered darkness, branches pierced the faltering dusk of leaves. Evening drenched the trees; the beeches were soundless cataracts. Behind the trees, pressing in from the open and empty country like an invasion, the orange bright sky crept and smouldered. Firs, bearing up to pierce, melted against the brightness. Somewhere, there was a sunset in which the mountains lay like glass.”
I also enjoy the manner in which Elizabeth Bowen describes the inhabitants of the three-story country home called Danielstown somewhere in County Cork in the year 1920, in the midst of the Anglo-Irish War sparked by the Easter Rising of 1916. As one young British officer observes sardonically, it is the duty of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy families such as the Naylors and Montmorencys to carry on with their normal lives and pretend not to notice the war going on in the countryside around them. Thus, we have scenes of high tea, garden parties, and amateur tennis matches taking place at Danielstown, while rowdy units of trigger-happy Black and Tans patrol the roads by day, and Irish rebels set up ambushes and conduct deadly raids on the Royal Irish Constabulary by night. Ironically, the Naylors and Montmorencys think of themselves as being Irish in their own way, and they look askance at the attitudes and behaviour of their occasional English visitors.
I have the sense that I’m giving “The Last September” my first-draught reading, and that I may want to return to it for another perusal some time in the future. I say this because I’m not sure I’m capturing all of the nuances of character in the people residing at Danielstown, nor the relations between them. I have a sense that the central character, Lois Farquar, may be uncertain about her sexual orientation, but perhaps I’m just reading too much into the text. In any case, there is a sense of impending doom as the story nears its conclusion.