Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Part of my goal this year is to catch up on all of the classic audiobooks that I have picked up over the years. I picked up nearly 20 free classics last year when Audible and Amazon were promoting their kindle book/audiobook integration (whispersync).  And you can still pick up over 100 classic audiobooks for $0.99 each.

While I have seen a couple of movies based on Jane Austen books, prior to this reading of Pride and Prejudice, I have not read Austen before.

As I have been reading through a number of classics over the past year or so there has definitely been a mixed bag.  Some are clearly classics because they brought something new (but do not feel all that great because that new feature is now common, think Citizen Kane.)  Others really are great and their greatness is still visible.  I would put Pride and Prejudice  in the later category.

The story is fairly familiar.  It is a proto-romantic comedy.  There is misunderstanding and unrequited love.  There is the guy that looks good but is not.  There is the guy that seems annoying, but is really the right one.  There are all kinds of situations (and personal pride) that keep the lovers apart.  And there is a real sense of comedy, although not the slapstick or baudy that is common among a lot of modern romantic comedy.  What is clear is that family honor is one of the biggest reasons that keeps the two apart and that is certainly not what would keep a couple apart today.

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The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

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The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness OrczySummary: An early 20th century romantic thriller set during the French Revolution.

When I was an elementary student I had two ‘go to’ reading choices, a set of children’s biographies (more historical fiction than biography) and the Illustrated Classic series.

The children’s biographies gave me a pretty good sense of history and historical figures (although probably 80 percent of each book was fiction.)  And the Illustrated Classics gave me the rough outline of a number of classic books.

But as I read many of those classics again as an adult I have a hard time remembering if I actually have read the full version or the children’s abridged versions prior to re-reading.  (And there is often a pretty large difference.)  Stories that I loved, I sometimes love even more reading the full original version.  And sometimes my memory of the story is nothing like what the actual book is like.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was written originally as a play in 1905 and then novelized.  It is a swashbuckling novel of heroes and light romance.  But in many ways reading it again it feels more like a 1940s pulp fiction than a classic.

The hero (Sir Percy) is perceived as bumbling and slow (but very rich) by everyone, including his wife.  In reality he is cunning and a great fighter.  It feels like Zorro (but I looked it up and Zorro was written 14 years later.)  That same secret identity idea really took off with the comic book superheroes.

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Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Remains_of_the_dayThe Remains of the Day is a very well known British novel by Japanese-born British novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro.  The novel is a first person narrative coming from the voice of an accomplished butler, Stevens, in post-war England.  Stevens goes on a much deserved “œmotoring trip” and as he makes his way around the country side of Great Britain he takes the time to think back over his career as butler at Darlington Hall.  Stevens is very matter of fact as he describes his life as a butler, his duties, and his relationships with his staff and his employer.  As the reader hears more and more, we discover that Stevens has perhaps taken his duties and loyalties as butler so seriously that he has missed out on a more fulfilling life, a life of love and devotion to someone other than his employer.

In reading about Ishiguro’s background, I have learned that Ishiguro experienced an especially unique upbringing, as England was all that he knew as home since his family moved to Great Britain when he was 5, and yet he grew up in a Japanese speaking home in order to keep his Japanese culture in tact.  While I haven’t read his first two novels, Ishiguro states that his image of Japan that appears in the novels comes strictly from his imagination and how it had been described by his parents.  While I would perhaps state that no remnants of his Japanese culture appear in The Remains of the Day, it seems that his tendency to write from the flawed first-person perspective, which is apparently a repeated theme throughout many of his works, is seen as more typical of Japanese influence then British.

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A Spiritual Formation Primer by Richella Parham

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A Spiritual Formation PrimerSummary: A brief overview of the role of spiritual formation in the Christian life.

One of the areas that I think that many Evangelicals have missed is the concept of spiritual formation.  It is not that Evangelicals don’t do many of the things that make up spiritual formation.  They pray, they read their bibles, they share the gospel, they study theology, etc.  But there is a concern among at least some, that working on spiritual formation is a form of works righteousness.  (In other words, it is a way of earning our salvation.)

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael ChabonSummary: Two cousins in New York City get in on the ground floor of comic books.  The book follows them for 15 years through their highs and lows.

Michael Chabon is one of those writers that has been recommended to me and I have been meaning to read for a while.  I didn’t really know anything about it, but The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 so it seemed like a good choice when I saw it on sale a while back.

Joe Kavalier escapes out of Prague just before World War II breaks out and moves in with his Aunt and cousin Sam Clayman in New York City.  Sam finds out that Joe is an artist and together with Sam primarily writing and Joe primarily drawing, they become the great comic book writing duo of Kavalier and Clay.

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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by Ian Fleming

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On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian FlemingSummary: Ernst Bloefeld (of SPECTRE) is back and has come up with a new scheme.

When I was a kid I loved James Bond movies.  And I still mostly like new James Bond movies.  But as I re-watch old ones the cartoonish villains bug me. Lasers to shoot down rockets, stealing all the gold in Fort Knox, etc. are just a bit silly.

I stumbled on the movie of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service sometime last year and made it through 20 or 30 minutes.  The set up is a bit ridiculous.  The bad guy has a lair in the Alps where beautiful girls go to get rid of their allergies.  James Bond sneaks in find out what is going on.

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Paper Towns by John Green

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Paper Towns is the third novel by the increasingly popular young adult novelist, John Green.  The book is about a graduating senior in high school, Quentin Jacobson, and his strange and compelling relationship with his neighbor, Margot Roth Spiegelman.  As young children, the two came across a divorced man who had committed suicide.  While they never spent much time together after that, the event created an unspoken bond.

One night their senior year, Margot gets “œQ” to drive her around while she seeks revenge against those who had wronged her.  They have a wild and crazy night together and then the next day she disappears.  Margot leaves small clues for Q to find her.  For the remainder of the book, he searches for her by following her cryptic clues and doing some soul searching in the meantime.

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