Category Archives: 04. Classics Club: Round 2

2022: Book 8 – The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West

The EdwardiansThe Edwardians
by Vita Sackville-West
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1930
Genre: classic, fiction
Pages: 285
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of women, classics club round 2

At nineteen, Sebastian is a duke and heir to a vast country estate. A deep sense of tradition binds him to his inheritance, though he loathes the social circus he is a part of. Deception, infidelity and greed hide beneath the glittering surface of good manners. Among the guests at a lavish party are two people who will change Sebastian's life: Lady Roehampton, who will initiate him in the art of love; and Leonard Anquetil, a polar explorer who will lead Sebastian and his free-spirited sister Viola to question their destiny.

A portrait of fashionable society at the height of the era, THE EDWARDIANS revealed all that was glamorous about the period - and all that was to lead to its downfall. First published in 1930, it was Vita Sackville-West's most successful book.


One of my Goodreads Groups selected Vita Sackville-West as an author-in-residence for January through March, so I selected The Edwardians as my first book by/about her. It was published in 1930, but it was set 25 years earlier, beginning in 1905.

The main focus of the book, Sebastian, is the heir to a dukedom and to Chevron, one of those massive English country houses that so define the era in which the book takes place. He is 19 at the commencement of the book, which means that he was born in 1886, while Queen Victoria was firmly ensconced upon the English throne. Vita Sackville-West was born in 1882, so she was a mere 4 years older than her protagonist. The book is set during the very brief reign of Edward VII, who was king between 1901, when his mother died, and 1910, when he died at age 68.

Vita herself grew up at Knoles, a massive country estate which she could not inherit because she was a woman. This was, per wikipedia, rather a source of bitterness for her.

In any case, Knole is now owned and maintained by the National Trust. P.G. Wodehouse apparently referred to it as a “calendar house” because it has a sufficient number of rooms to use a different one every day for a year.

So, that’s the backdrop of The Edwardians. Reading this book is like dropping into that world, as explained by someone who is intimately familiar with it. It’s both really interesting and somewhat appalling. The women, especially, were mere frivolous appendages, with little more to do than get dressed, a process which is described in detail in reference to Sebastian’s mother, Lucy, who is a notorious beauty.

Sebastian is a more layered and interesting character than I would have expected, given the entitlement to which he was bred. His sister, Viola, was even more intriguing, and I really wish that Sackville-West had given us a bit of her interior (and exterior) life. I assume that she didn’t give Viola her own book, but I wish she had.

I liked this book a lot, especially as an piece of enthnography. I find the English upper class to be fascinating, especially during the time period of around 1890 and 1950, and this book definitely scratched that itch.

I still have All Passion Spent and a sort of a family biography to read, and I enjoyed this one enough that I’m excited at the prospect.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

In This House of BredeIn This House of Brede
by Rumer Godden
Rating: ★★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1969
Genre: fiction
Pages: 432
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of women, classics club round 2

For most of her adult life, Philippa Talbot has been a successful British professional. Now in her forties, the World War II–widow has made a startling decision: She’s giving up her civil service career and elite social standing to join a convent as a postulant Roman Catholic nun.

In Sussex in the south of England, Philippa begins her new life inside Brede Abbey, a venerable, 130-year-old Benedictine monastery. Taking her place among a diverse group of extraordinary women, young and old, she is welcomed into the surprisingly rich and complex world of the devout, whom faith, fate, and circumstance have led there. From their personal stories, both uplifting and heartbreaking, Philippa draws great strength in the weeks, months, and years that follow, as the confidence, conflicts, and poignant humanity of her fellow sisters serve to validate her love and sacred purpose.

But a time of great upheaval in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church approaches as the winds of change blow at gale force. And for the financially troubled Brede and the acolytes within, it will take no less than a miracle to weather the storm.


If someone had asked me, I would not have guessed that I would fall in love with a book that was written in 1969, about nuns, and set in a cloistered Benedictine monastery. I would, however, have been wrong about this, because I did fall in love with this book. It took me a week to read, but not because it dragged. I parceled it out in bits, so that I could savor and extend my experience at Brede Abbey.

I was raised in the Lutheran faith, but haven’t been a believer for many years. And I live in the U.S., a place where, today, reformed theology and the Bible-based mega-church reign supreme with an approach that, to me, strips all of the mystery from God, treating him like a slot machine/mildly abusive father who is supposed to dispense treats to the favored faithful on command, while rightfully mistreating all of the correct (in other words, different, unfavored, out-group) people. Like Donald Trump, but with fewer porn stars on the payroll.

However, I will say that I can definitely see the appeal of the liturgical church and the traditions of a contemplative life, even if I absolutely don’t get the appeal of modern mega churches with charismatic internet preachers and weird Christian rock bands with fog machines in the narthex. If I were going to be religious, I would definitely want to be surrounded by medieval beauty and religious services that can trace their roots back centuries. Preferably in Latin.

This book has no sex. No violence. No blood. No gore. It should have been boring, and yet, for me, it was absolutely gripping.

The book begins with Philippa Talbot, successful British professional woman, deciding that she will join the Benedictine order of nuns at Brede Abbey. It follows her journey as she completes her novitiate and takes her vows, although she is by no means the only character. Each woman depicted is an individual, deeply characterized. There is conflict among the nuns – they don’t all like each other, and they struggle with their vocations.

There is conflict within the Abbey itself, as poor, or even selfish, decisions made by other nuns come to fruition and create tensions and crises. Some of the nuns – Dame Veronica, I’m looking at you – are petty and annoying. Some of the nuns – Dame Cecily – overtly struggle with the decision to leave behind the possibility of husband and children. All of them have rich interior lives, strong faith, and are committed to their work. All of them struggle: with their faith, with their commitment, with their selfishness. I feel like they were real; and that I know each of them personally.

I bought this for my kindle when it went on sale in November, 2020 and I’m so glad I did. I also have China Court, The Greengage Summer and Black Narcissus, which I acquired over the years. I think it’s likely that I will reread this one from time to time, so I’m glad I own it. It was a hugely satisfying read, and I’m curious to dive further into Godden’s backlist.

Classics Club Vol. 2: 2022 plans

 

So far, my Classics Club vol. 2 plans haven’t really gotten much momentum behind them. I started back on December 18. 2018. I had all of 2019, all of 2020 and all of 2021 and in that time, I finished a meagre 9 books from my list of 50. I miscalculated when I initially posted and calculated that I would have until December, 2024 to finish reading, but five years is actually December 17, 2023. 41 classics in just under 2 years sounds overwhelming at this point, so I may end up needing additional time.

This year, my goal is to read at least 10 books from the list. Some of them coincide with other plans that I have for the year, so that’s a nice bit of doubling up. In addition, there is a possibility that I may end up with substitutions for some of the books:

  1. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden (I am almost done with this book – woot)
  2. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (on the TBR cart)
  3. The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden (on the TBR cart)
  4. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamund Lehmann
  5. Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macauley (I have this planned as a buddy read)
  6. The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
  7. The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West (next up)
  8. Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp (I may sub in a different Margery Sharp book for Cluny Brown)
  9. At Mrs. Lippincotes by Elizabeth Taylor (I may sub in a different Elizabeth Taylor for At Mrs. Lippincotes)
  10. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (this is one of my last major Whartons, and it’s a small book)

 

Author: Vita Sackville-West

I moderate a Goodreads group where we do a quarterly “author-in-residence,” which entails choosing two authors and then the participating members can read any book (or any number of books) by that author. One of the members chose Vita Sackville-West for the first quarter of 2022. Our other author is James Baldwin. My plan is to hold off on my Baldwin books until February, to coincide with Black History Month. So, I went ahead & requested and have now received the books I plan to read for the Vita Sackville-West portion.

I haven’t read anything by Vita Sackville-West previously, and my knowledge of her basically comes from her extremely unconventional life, and her membership in the Bloomsbury Group. I’m planning to read The Edwardians, since it is also on my Classics Club 2.0 list, and if I have the energy, the very slender All Passion Spent. I also checked out what I’m hoping will be an interesting non-fiction book, A House Full of Daughters, written by her granddaughter, Juliet Nicholson, who writes non-fiction. In 2018, I read her The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, which was published in 2006, and I enjoyed it.

Mt. TBR – 2022

I really haven’t been at all enthusiastic about reading planning for 2022, which is a bit of a departure for me. In light of that reality, I’ve decided to forgo all new challenges, with the exception of the Mt. TBR Challenge.

Challenge Levels:

Pike’s Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile
Mount Blanc: Read 24 books from your TBR pile
Mt. Vancouver: Read 36 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Ararat: Read 48 books from your TBR pile
Mt. Kilimanjaro: Read 60 books from your TBR pile
Cerro El Toro*: Read 75 books from your TBR pile
Mt. Everest: Read 100 books from your TBR pile
Mount Olympus (Mars): Read 150+ books from your TBR pile

I have decided to shoot for the Mt. Vancouver level, with 36 books, which is three books per month. I’m going to fill this challenge only with print books that are in my personal library today. I’m going to go back through my TBR cart and swap some things out so I can post a list of my planned choices, although I am going to allow myself to swap out books one-for-one so long as the book I’m swapping in was on my shelves prior to 1/1/2022.

I have selected a number of books for my TBR project – more than 36 so that I have a few alternates thrown in for good measure. A few are re-reads from long ago, and some do double duty on my Classics Club list or as part of a Goodreads group reading project.

Here is the cart:

Now for the details:

Top Tier

From left to right:

  1. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (I am determined to finish this book this year – I’ve started it at least 3 times)
  2. The Matchmaker by Stella Gibbons
  3. Mariana by Monica Dickens
  4. Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
  5. Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson
  6. A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman (buddy read!)
  7. My American by Stella Gibbons
  8. The Last Hours by Minette Walters
  9. The Spoilt Kill by Mary Kelly
  10. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
  11. My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather (this is my last unread Willa Cather, except for her short stories)
  12. Waiting for Willa by Dorothy Eden
  13. Death in Rough Water by Francine Matthews
  14. The Bowstring Murders by Carr Dickson
  15. The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Middle Tier:

  1. The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman
  2. The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman
  3. The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman
  4. The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith
  5. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  6. The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden
  7. An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym
  8. Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin (First quarter DWS Author-in-Residence). My Library of America edition also includes Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, and a collection of short stories called “Going to Meet the Man”)
  9. Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
  10. Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
  11. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
  12. Greenwitch by Susan Cooper
  13. The Grey King by Susan Cooper
  14. Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper
  15. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
  16. Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones
  17. Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Bottom Tier:

  1. The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies (this is a 3 book omnibus; Davies was selected as one of the second quarter DWS authors-in-residence)
  2. The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies (also a 3 book omnibus; I have read this one, but not in the last 20 years at least)
  3. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisa Pessl
  4. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
  5. Howard’s End by E.M. Forster
  6. The Maine Massacre by Janwillem van de Wetering (I can’t resist these Soho Crime PBs at my favorite used book store – each tier has one)
  7. Shadows Waiting by Anne Eliot
  8. The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton
  9. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
  10. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (also a DWS author-in-residence for the third quarter)
  11. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
  12. Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay (just selected by BT as a third quarter DWS author-in-residence)
  13. The Shadow of the Lynx by Victoria Holt
  14. The Road to Paradise Island by Victoria Holt

So, that’s a total of 46 books pulled. Most of them have been on my shelves for several years, and the vast majority of them are new-to-me reads. Even the ones that are rereads weren’t read in this century.

In addition, I also still have my Classics Club 2.0 list to work on next year*, and I’m sure I will read a lot of vintage mystery. I’ve been collecting the Furrowed Middlebrow releases from Dean Street Press for my kindle, & I’d like to read more of them, and I want to read more fantasy/science fiction. I feel like I need to read less crime and more other genres, since I’ve been in a bit of rut for the last couple of years.

I am not going to try for any grand gestures, like a “no book buying year,” because that’s just unrealistic. Buying books is one of my (very few) commercial indulgences (the other one is crafting supplies/fabric). But, I’m going to continue to heavily use my libraries, especially for contemporary fiction and non-fiction.

*I’m 2 years into the 5 year cycle and I’ve only read 9 books, so I have some catching up to do!

Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather

Sapphira and the Slave GirlSapphira and the Slave Girl
by Willa Cather
Publication Date: December 1, 1940
Genre: classic
Pages: 295
Project: a century of women, classics club round 2

In her final novel, Willa Cather departed from her usual Great Plains settings to plumb the turbulent relationships between slaves and their owners in the antebellum South.

Sapphira and the Slave Girl is set in Virginia just before the Civil War. Sapphira is a slave owner who feels she has come down in the world and channels her resentments into jealousy of her beautiful mulatto slave, Nancy. Sapphira’s daughter Rachel, an abolitionist, opposes her mother’s increasingly shocking attempts to persecute Nancy. The struggles of these three strong-willed women provide rich material for Cather’s narrative art and psychological insight.


I think that this only leaves me with 2 more novels, and the collected short stories, to read in Cather’s oevre. It’s going to be a bittersweet ending – she is one of my favorite authors of all time.

Happily, though, she’s one of those authors that I can read again and again and get something out of the experience each time.

Plot summary notwithstanding, Sapphira and the Slave Girl isn’t considered as one of her best books. I have to admit that it is really uncomfortable to read a book that includes slavery as an element. She doesn’t glorify it, and Cather’s sentiments are very obviously abolitionist in nature, but there are many times that the “n” word is used by the characters, and this is extremely uncomfortable to read, so, even though I liked the book, “enjoyed” doesn’t seem to be the right word to use to describe the experience of reading it.

It had a really intriguing ending, though, that included a final chapter self-insert by the author as a small child. The novel itself is apparently based on an incident in which a young woman is assisted in escaping from slavery by the daughter of the slaveholder (who is a woman, by the way, which is pretty interesting). The young woman – her name in the book is Nancy – escapes to Canada, where she becomes the maid of a very wealthy family and gains a measure of affluence and independence that, at the end of the day, almost outstrips that of the slaveholder she left behind. This is apparently based on a real event in Cather’s history, when she was a child, and the freed slave returns to the county she ran from after the Civil War so she can visit her very elderly mother.

It’s a very uncomfortable read, and I would have a hard time recommending it because the subject matter is so difficult. The fact that it was written by a white woman in 1940 makes it even more uncomfortable to read. It’s not apologia for slavery – there are several characters who are openly abolitionist and, as I said above, Cather is not defending slavery, but it is told primarily from the perspective of the white characters, some of whom believed that slaveholding wasn’t wrong.

And, when Cather uses the voices of the slaves as narrators, I was left to wonder how accurate she could possibly be – how can a free white woman, almost 100 years later, create realistic slave characters given that she has no experience from which to draw in understanding the life and thoughts of an enslaved person pre-Civil War? And isn’t it presumptuous of her to even try? And, of course, isn’t it presumptuous for me to even ask the question of myself? I also have no real understanding of this part of history from the perspective of the enslaved. Just writing this has made me uncomfortable.

Anyway, I think that I need to read 12 Years a Slave: A Slave Narrative and some additional slave narratives in order to put history into a more accurate perspective.

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey

Miss Pym DisposesMiss Pym Disposes
by Josephine Tey
Publication Date: January 1, 1946
Genre: mystery
Pages: 238
Project: a century of women

Even Miss Pym—lecturer at an English women’s college—agreed that final exam week was a rather grisly time at school, with ordinarily pretty girls poring red-eyed over heavy tomes, and rising at 5:00 A.M. … but murder?

Miss Pym was a warm-hearted, blithe little lady who had read thirty-seven books on psychology, disagreed with them all, and written pages and pages of rebuttal. To her amazement, she became a “best-seller”.

Then Leys College, where she was a guest lecturer, became the scene of a peculiar and fatal “accident”, which Miss Pym suspected was a planned crime. Putting her psychological theories into practice, Miss Pym turned up some surprising conclusions…


When I started Miss Pym Disposes, I was thinking about The Cat Among the Pigeons. By the end, though, I was reminded of two entirely different Christie mysteries.

I’ve been really busy, so this slender book took me a much longer time to read than I expected. And not because it wasn’t good, because it was good. Quite good.

This is my fourth Tey – I’ve already read Brat Farrar, The Franchise Affair & The Singing Sands. What a sadness it is that she died so young. I’m directly in the middle of her oevre – I’ve read four and have four left to read.

Miss Pym is not my favorite of the bunch – that honor goes to Brat Farrar. But there hasn’t been a Tey that I disliked, although I was least impressed by The Singing Sands. I’m going to have to give that one another chance, though, now that I’ve warmed to Tey so much more.

I really liked this one. The setting at the school was delightful, and the characters of the Seniors were drawn with perspicacity laced with generosity. Like another bookish friend, I loved Nut Tart. Tey captured that moment in life when school is ending and youth is moving onto, and into, its future. The anticipation, the desperation, the uncertainty, the sense of standing on a precipice.

Did Miss Pym do the right thing? That’s a question that remains. I tend to think not, because her decision absolved a character who is dangerously unbalanced. Perhaps if Tey had lived longer, a sequel would have required Miss Pym to reckon with the consequences of her decision.

I’m reminded of Hickory Dickory Dock, or even Crooked House, a little bit here. Who takes responsibility for the next victim. And the victim after that? Because if there’s one thing that Agatha Christie teaches us, it’s that a murderer who has gotten away with it doesn’t stop at one – especially when the murder is cold-bloodedly motivated by gain. And both of those books addressed, in their own fashion, the arrogance of the individual who decides, on behalf of the community, how to handle a murder, and a murderer.

Anyway, great read!

Possession by A.S. Byatt

PossessionPossession
by A.S. Byatt
Publication Date: October 17, 1990
Genre: classic
Pages: 555
Project: a century of women, classics club round 2

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets. As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany—what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.

Man Booker Prize Winner (1990)


I don’t even know where to begin with this book. I bought a used copy from Abebooks because it’s on my Round 2 Classics Club list, and I’ve been meaning to reread it. I read it for the first time decades ago, around the time that it won the Booker Prize. I remember really loving it when I first read it, and I loved it even more this time around.

This book is everything I want in a piece of literary fiction. I love Victorian novels anyway – you’ll often find me reading Trollope or Gaskell or one of the Brontes or something by Wilkie Collins (less so Dickens because my relationship with Dickens is complicated) – so reading a book about a pair Victorian poets was already going to be something that would work really well for me.

I also love a well-done dual timeline, although that particular device has gotten to the point where it is sadly overused by people whose writing chops are inadequate to manage it. This one moves back and forth between the Christabel/Randolph Ash timeline and the present with Roland & Maud. I almost always like the historical timeline better, but Byatt’s character development is so good that I enjoyed the present timeline as much as the historical stuff.

Which brings me to the academic literary detective work. That is like some sort of catnip to me. I love it desperately and find it incredibly intriguing. Finding connections between authors, their works, other authors, mining for clues, that’s just so much fun. This book had that in spades.

I also have to just note how incredibly well-done this book is. It is replete with an entire, collateral, body of work of these two poets in what I would call the “evidentiary” portions of the book. The letters, the poems, wow. She spends very little time narrating the lives of Christabel LaMotte and Randolph Ash and yet, through their letters and poems, they spring off the page in certain ways and yet remain ciphers in others. I absolutely loved this – it felt so real.

The book does start out a bit slow, but the second half is phenomenal. By the end, I couldn’t put it down. The final reveal wasn’t really a surprise – I’d been suspecting something along the lines of the ending for a good chunk of the book (and, of course, I have read it before, although my recollection was dimmed by the passage of time).

Anyway, I absolutely loved this book. I’m half inclined to just open it up at the beginning and read it again, so that I can savor the structure and the clues once more, now that I know where it is all headed. I probably won’t, but I am mentally penciling this book in for a reread in six months or so just for that reason.

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

Girls of Slender MeansGirls of Slender Means
by Muriel Spark
Publication Date: April 17, 1963
Genre: fiction
Pages: 140
Project: a century of women

Like the May of Teck Club itself—”three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit”—its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal: practicing elocution, and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown. The novel’s harrowing ending reveals that the girls’ giddy literary and amorous peregrinations are hiding some tragically painful war wounds.

Chosen by Anthony Burgess as one of the Best Modern Novels in the Sunday Times of London, The Girls of Slender Means is a taut and eerily perfect novel by an author The New York Times has called “one of this century’s finest creators of comic-metaphysical entertainment.”


I’m pretty sure that I just don’t get Muriel Spark. This was my second book by her – the first being Loitering With Intent. I think that her acerbic wit is just a little too witty and a little too acerbic for me. I don’t even know what “comic-metaphysical entertainment” is, so I can’t comment on that characterization. This was my Classics Spin book.

The Girls of Slender Means is, itself, a slender book, but it operates on multiple levels. It’s told, in part, in flashbacks, but it wasn’t always clear when we were in flash back and when we were in present day. The ending was harrowing, but it also felt like it came out of nowhere. It’s an interesting slice of life of London during the war, and can be read for that alone. The deeper meanings eluded me, but I enjoyed it for what was on the surface.

Classics Spin #22

This will be my first spin from my second Classics Club list. The Rules for Classics Spin:

The rules for Spin #22:

* List any twenty books I have left to read from my Classics Club list.
* Number them from 1 to 20.
* On Sunday 22nd December the Classics Club will announce a number.
* This is the book I need to read by 31st January 2020.

So, my list:

1. Possession by A.S. Byatt
2. Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
3. The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden
4. Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
5. Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer
6. The Rising Tide by Molly Keane
7. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamund Lehmann
8. The Towers of Trezibond by Rose Macauley
9. Beloved by Toni Morrison
10. The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
11. Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
12. The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
13. The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
14. Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp
15. Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
16. At Mrs. Lippincotes by Elizabeth Taylor
17. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
18. Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
19. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
20. The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns