Let's Bust a Recap : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

Curiouser and curiouser. 

Despite the fact that I've had, not just one, but two copies of Lewis Carroll's most famous work sitting on my shelves for years (we got that Barnes & Noble edition in 2015 for our anniversary!), I just got around to actually reading these classics for the first time ever last week. And I have to tell you: it was not the best of times.

Both our copies contain both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—originally published in 1865—and Through the Looking-Glass—originally published in 1871. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was an immediate success upon publication and is now one of the best-known—and many scholars even say most important—works of Victorian literature. It has never been out of print and has been translated into 174 languages. Through the Looking-Glass did equally well, and both novels have been adapted for the screen, radio, ballet, opera, musical theater—even board games and theme parks! 

If you're unfamiliar with Carroll's greatest successes (which would be difficult to believe given their enduring popular appeal), in his first novel—a pillar in the genre of literary nonsense—Alice falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. She grows to dizzying heights and shrinks into almost nothingness by eating or drinking different things, she cries a literal ocean of tears, she contends with the disappearing Cheshire cat, she plays an insane game of croquet in which the balls are live hedgehogs that get up and run away and the mallets are also live flamingos whose necks flop around, and sasses the King and Queen of Hearts who are constantly putting everyone on trial because the Queen can't stop screaming "Off with their heads!" at everyone she comes across. 

It's a strange, fever-dream of a story—a baby turns into a pig, for crying out loud!—and Through the Looking-Glass is much the same only this time, Alice enters a fantasy world through a large mirror and finds herself in a place where everything is backwards and she's trying to become a queen in a game of chess. She talks to live flowers, meets the severe Red Queen and the flustered White Queen, quarrels with Tweeledum and Tweedledee, discovers how rude Humpty Dumpty is, and finally becomes a queen herself at which point she is named the host of a chaotic banquet. 

I didn't particularly enjoy any of it. 

As I've said many a time, children's literature may be my very favorite genre in all of literature. I was expecting to at least appreciate Alice for its place in the canon, but instead of coming off as charming, Alice only read as strange to me. It was dark and weird and, at times, even unsettling. Alice herself was sometimes precocious but mostly bewildered, and while it was certainly imaginative, it wasn't imaginative in a fun or even particularly playful way. I just couldn't get into it, and I didn't care for it. Frankly, I'll never forgive Lewis Carroll—or shall we call him by his proper name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson—for calling daisies the worst of the flowers, and for not making any of the flowers especially pleasant, for that matter! 

I guess none of this should come as a major shock to me since I always thought the classic animated Disney film was rather strange, and if Disney can't make something sparkle, then the source material must be pretty dark. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass have both been picked apart and analyzed to death by critics and scholars the world over for all its symbolism, linguistic puns, mathematics, fantastical rules and games, and all the nonsense. I cannot be the least bit bothered with any of that, and so I'm done with Alice. I doubt I'll ever revisit these novels though they will remain in my library for their classic status, and I will happily lend them to any of my friends or family who care to read them. 

But I wouldn't personally recommend them, and I'm truly puzzled as to exactly why they are so beloved. 

Do you like Alice and her strange adventures?

Let's Bust a Recap : Carry On, Jeeves

2023 was definitely the year that contributed the most books to my current book list. There were seven books from my list that year that I never got around to reading, and Carry On, Jeeves was one of them. After my first introduction to Wodehouse in 2022, he got an automatic spot on my 2023 book list. The Inimitable Jeeves provided no end of laughs and considering that I dropped a pretty significant amount of good American money to add the Bertie and Jeeves collection to my personal library in 2020—ah, the year of massive online book shopping for me, how were you coping with the madness?—I wanted to make it a habit to read some Wodehouse each year. 

Alas, here we are, four years later before I finally picked up the second installment in my Wodehouse collection. And if we're being realistic, it'll probably be another couple of years before I pick him up again seeing as next year I'll be tackling My Life In Books project—have you voted yet?—and Wodehouse lived and died well before I was born. But not because I didn't enjoy Carry On, Jeeves. It was just as much of a riot as The Inimitable Jeeves, and I found myself laughing aloud again during every outrageous story. 

This collection of ten short stories which were popping up in the Saturday Evening Post were published together in London in 1925, and in New York in 1927. In this anthology, we get the origin story of how Jeeves came to be in Bertie's employ. Jeeves is enlisted, again, numerous times, to help Bertie's friends out of all manner of scrapes, particularly those having to do with maintaining good standing with wealthy aunts and uncles who bankroll their nephews' lives, and, of course, the frequent romantic entanglements they find themselves in. To give you an idea of how disastrously things turn out when Bertie tries to manage these conundrums without Jeeves' help, in this collection he inadvertently kidnaps a child, among other things. And this collection ends with a story from Jeeves' perspective in which he arranges for Bertie to give a talk at a girls' school after Bertie gets a wild hair to invite his aunt and three nieces to come and live with him. Jeeves is having none of that, and Jeeves always knows best. 

Another rip-roaring, laugh-out-loud good time. Douglas Adams said that "Wodehouse is the greatest comic writer ever" and I think I might agree with him. I have one more collection of short stories to read before I get to an actual novel in my Bertie and Jeeves library, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how Wodehouse's novels compare to his short story collections. If you haven't read Wodehouse yet, move him up your TBR. 

What books or authors do you turn to for a good laugh?

Let's Bust a Recap : Merry Wives of Windsor

And we're back with some more Shakespeare, and look at me go, posting my recap within a month of reading the play! Merry Wives of Windsor has been my favorite play by the Bard in many a year. It was a true comedy, and even though a lot of critics say it's Shakespeare's worst play, I loved it. What can I say? I'm a simple girl, and I like what I like. The Merry Wives had me grinning from ear to ear. It's full of scheming, trickery, and women getting the best of a bunch of silly men, and I was here for every word of it.

We open on a bunch of men talking about a bunch of stuff and, boiling it all down to what's actually important, we learn that 1) Page has a daughter named Anne whom he's ready to marry off to a guy named Slender, and 2) that there's some guy named Falstaff running around who's a lowdown, good-for-nothing. 

Then we meet a Welsh parson who is determined to help Slender woo and win Anne. And let me just tell you, everyone else seems to care more about Slender marrying Anne than Slender himself cares. At one point, when he's supposed to be wooing her, Anne straight up asks him if he even likes her, and he's just like, "Yeah, you're as good as any other woman, I guess." And when she presses him on if he even wants to marry her, he continues with, "I actually don't really care, but your dad and my uncle think it's a good idea so why not?" He's hilariously unconcerned about his future marital bliss. 

But back to the Welsh parson. We find out that Anne has another suitor, a one Doctor Caius, and he is not happy that the parson is trying to help Slender court his ladylove and he's ready to fight him over it. So he challenges him to a duel. 

The parson! Not Slender, who is his actual rival for Anne's hand in marriage. This is basically just Shakespeare's device to get these two guys with funny accents on the stage together for more comedy. (The doctor is French.) We also learn that Doctor Caius is Anne's mother's choice for a husband for her daughter. 

Are you confused yet? Anne's dad wants her to marry Slender (who couldn't care less what woman he ends up with), her mom wants her to marry the French doctor (who very passionately wants to marry Anne), and Anne herself wants to marry some guy named Fenton (who blew through a fortune so neither of the parents like him which, honestly, seems justified). 

While all this is going on, the lowdown, good-for-nothing Falstaff arrives in town, broke as a joke, and ready to seduce the titular merry wives, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, to get his filthy paws on their husbands' money. So he decides to send them pretty much identical love letters to try to get in their pants. He then tells a couple of his underlings to go deliver the letters but they're all, "We're not your do-boys, loser" even though, as far as I can tell, that's exactly what they've been up to this point. I guess they're sick of Falstaff though so they go and tell Page and Ford exactly what Falstaff is up to. 

Page laughs it off, but Ford gets insanely jealous and comes up with a whole big plan to disguise himself and befriend Falstaff so he can keep tabs on the whole situation. Oh and this plan involves him paying Falstaff to seduce his wife so that then Ford himself will be able to seduce her too?? It's Shakespeare, guys, what did you expect?

Little does Falstaff know, Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford are besties so, of course, they immediately show each other these outrageous letters and, after they get over the audacity of this clown to send them the same letter, they realize they are going to have a lot of fun messing with Falstaff. 

So Mrs. Ford sends Falstaff a letter telling him to come to her house while her husband is away and we're off to the races. 

Falstaff brags to Ford (who he thinks is some guy named "Brook") how easy it was to seduce Mrs. Ford and tells him he's about to go to her house right now. Ford, naturally, is in a total rage over this and gives Falstaff a short head start but then heads for home himself to catch his wife in the act. 

They're all playing right into the merry wives' hands. 

So Falstaff shows up at the Fords' home but before he can really get anywhere with Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Page runs in yelling, "Your husband is coming, your husband is coming!" The women stuff Falstaff into the dirty laundry and have the servants carry him out right under Ford's nose and dump him in the river where he nearly drowns. 

Chalk one up for the merry wives. 

The wives at this point realize that their husbands are obviously wise to Falstaff's intentions and decide to have even more fun with this. 

Falstaff, humiliated, swears off Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, but a quick letter with some sweet nothings that the wives' cooked up has him right back in the game and he's immediately bragging to Brook (aka Ford) that he was just about to get it on with Mrs. Ford when her husband showed up and he escaped in the laundry basket. To which Ford is fuming over his wife's deceitfulness and loudly castigating Page for being such a naive idiot for not suspecting his wife of questionable behavior since women plainly can't be trusted. 

The second time Falstaff trots off to the Fords' house, the merry wives dress him up as a fat old lady that Ford hates and has forbidden to come in his house so that when Ford shows up to once again catch his wife cheating, he beats Falstaff black and blue thinking he's the fat witch that was banned from the house.  

Brilliant. Chalk another one up for the merry wives. 

At this point, they let their husbands in on the joke. Page gets a good laugh, and Ford is properly cowed, apologizes to his wife, and proclaims his unflinching faith in her from then on. Then they all, along with various other characters that I haven't given much attention to in this recap, come up with one final plan to humiliate Falstaff. 

Mrs. Ford writes him one last letter asking him to dress up as Herne the hunter with big antlers growing out of his head and meet her by a tree at midnight. Then they dress up all the kids in town as fairies and instruct them to pinch Falstaff and burn him with torches when he shows up. 

Diabolical.

Meanwhile, Page has instructed Slender to steal away with Anne (who will be dressed in white) during all the confusion and marry her. But Mrs. Page has also instructed the French doctor to do the same thing (but she says Anne will be dressed in green). And Anne and Fenton have made their own plan to run away during the frenzy and elope. (I'm not sure what color Anne actually wore and that bothers me a little.)

So after the plan has been carried out and the mayhem dies down, Slender shows back up saying he ended up with some boy dressed in white and the doctor says the same thing about a boy dressed in green, and then Anne and Fenton arrive all glowing and triumphant. Everyone has a good laugh, the Pages' congratulate their daughter for marrying the man she actually loves, and even Falstaff takes the joke on the chin and they all go off to have a meal together. 

I mean, is that not funny? As far as I'm concerned, that's a good time at the theater, and I would go to a live production of Merry Wives of Windsor any day of the week. The critics can say whatever they want; I thought this play was hysterical. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Coriolanus

It's February which means it's time for some Shakespeare, but before I pick up Merry Wives of Windsor which is the comedy on the docket for 2026, I've got to get Coriolanus done and dusted. So today, let's talk about one of old Billy the Bard's last tragedies and then hopefully we'll be back in a few weeks to talk about his Merry Wives. 

Coriolanus is basically about this guy Caius Marcius who's just kindof this mid Roman. He has money and he thinks the plebeians are a total waste of space, but he's also not really in a position of power either. He's hotheaded and bloodthirsty and a complete snob. 

So the Volscians are trying to overthrow Rome led by Tullus Aufidius (whom Marcius deems a worthy adversary by the way, because why even fight if it's not going to be a good fight) and Marcius leads a troop of soldiers into the city of Corioles and completely wrecks it. The Romans basically hoist him on their shoulders and take him back to Rome singing Hail the Conquering Hero and Rome names him Coriolanus for his total devastation of this city. So from now on, I'll refer to him as "Coriolanus". 

Meanwhile, I should mention that his mom Volumnia, who has this very creepy reverse-Oedipal thing going on, has been sitting back at home with Coriolanus' wife and kid waxing on about how she hopes the battle is bloody and that her son is victorious but, you know, with some wounds to make it more dramatic and hot. It's weird. His wife Virgilia is like, "I mean, I hope he wins too, but we want him to be okay, right?" To which Volumnia is all, "The bloodier the better." Like I said, weird.

So Coriolanus is back and being honored by all the powerful people and his mom is all, "Here's your chance to move up politically." But Coriolanus hates this idea because it involves putting himself on display and basically begging for votes from the plebes. Who, as I mentioned, he considers to be a waste of space. But he's a momma's boy so he does what his mother tells him and we have a whole scene of him showing off his battle scars (literally) to the commoners and trying not to absolutely blow his top while his friend Menenius (the only person in the whole play who is actually a reasonable and likable human being) is trying to get him to keep it together and not to lose it on these citizens. 

He ends up getting the people's support—almost not—but before he can even take his place as a consul, these two other guys, Brutus and Sicinius who have hated him from the beginning, stir the people up into a riot against him. Honestly, I can't really blame the people because Coriolanus is such a stuck-up jerk—definitely not Prom King material—but why Brutus and Sicinius care so much is a little beyond me. Jealous losers.

At this point, Coriolanus finally loses his barely controlled temper and not only does he rip the Romans a new one, he goes off to such an extent that he gets himself banished. He comes back with the very mature, "NO, I BANISH ROME FROM MY PRESENCE." Good one, bro. 

So what does he do? He goes to Tullus Aufidius (his mortal enemy, remember?) and says he wants to wreck Rome now and will T.A. help him do it? Because that seems like a reasonable response and nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan, right?

T.A. says sure, let's go right now. 

So Coriolanus is now marching against Rome and the Romans are in a panic because for all his faults, we've already established that Coriolanus can kick some serious butt in a fight. So all his friends are going to him trying to talk him out of this madness. But obviously, he's not hearing any of it. So the Romans are like, "Get his mom." 

I mean, good move. 

So Volumnia goes to her son, taking Virgilia and Coriolanus' son with her, and they have this whole back and forth where Coriolanus is basically all, "There is nothing you can say that will keep me from burning Rome to the ground." And even his kid is like, "If you do this, my entire goal in life will be to grow up and fight you myself." Which Coriolanus doesn't really seem to care about, but his mom finally talks him out of it (momma's boy, remember?) and Coriolanus succeeds in making peace between the Romans and the Volscians. 

So now the Romans and the Volscians are loving him and old T.A. is not happy about it. Coriolanus returns to the Volscian capital and obviously there's a big to-do, but T.A.'s buddies aren't having any of it and publicly assassinate Coriolanus. 

I mean, he kindof had it coming. I know this is supposed to be a tragedy but are we sad about this?

Once Coriolanus is dead, T.A. all of a sudden gets a conscience and is all, "This is sad. I'm sorry. Let's give him a proper send-off." And they all pick up his body and carry him out. And that's the end. 

lol

Coriolanus was a very engaging play and I read it pretty quickly, but it was also a little confusing because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to like Coriolanus or not. As I said, no one in the play was remotely sufferable except for Menenius so whenever Menenius was giving a reasonable defense of Coriolanus, I was like, "okay, maybe he's not the worst guy ever" but then as soon as Coriolanus himself showed up I was like, "No I definitely hate that guy." So basically I'm a plebeian. Ha! What I'm coming to realize about Shakespeare (and maybe I've said this before) is that the only difference between his tragedies and his comedies are that everyone dies in the tragedies. Sometimes his comedies are very sad, and a lot of the time his tragedies are hilarious, but the difference is just whether or not people die. So when I pick up Shakespeare, I'm never sure what I'm going to get. And that's fun. 

Let's Bust a Recap : David Copperfield

Um, you guys? I snapped this photo on a sunny fall day in November...of 2023.  

David Copperfield first made an appearance on my annual book lists in 2019 when I was trying out my first reading challenge. I put him in the category of a book published before you were born. (1850 for those wondering. A solid 137 years before I was born.) He then took up residency on my book lists in 2020, 2022, and 2023 at which point I did finally pick him up to start reading. In February. I was so determined to finally read this doorstop that year. But, if memory serves, I only got about ten chapters under my belt, and then left him largely ignored in my book cart for 2024. 

As you now know if you read my end-of-year recap on New Years Day, my secret goal for 2025 was to finish David Copperfield. And despite picking up the book several times throughout the year to try to start a streak of reading a chapter a day until I finished, I barely scraped by, finishing on the very last day of 2025 reading the final four chapters. I can only attribute my difficulty with David Copperfield to psychological warfare because it wasn't a particularly challenging novel to read. I enjoyed it every time I picked it up. But the sheer length (64 chapters, 877 pages) meant that every time I finished a chapter, it seemed like I hadn't made a lick of progress. And for whatever reason, that made it feel like a slog. On top of that, I wouldn't call David Copperfield a plot-driven novel so there was no big impetus to keep picking him up. I could pop in and out of old Trot's life story whenever I wanted and didn't feel any big drive to stick with him. I think by the time I got to December last year, I still had about half the book left to finish. Crazy.

David Copperfield is famously known as Charles Dickens' "favourite child" which is how he described it himself in his second preface to the completed novel. It just goes to show you there's no accounting for personal taste because of the three Dickens I've read, David Copperfield has been my least favorite. I loved Great Expectations and I was fully blown away by the masterful storytelling in A Tale of Two Cities. David Copperfield is the life story of the titular character who is telling us the story himself. The first chapter is literally titled "I am born" and we just go on from there as David recounts the death of his little mother, the harsh treatment he endures from his stepfather and stepfather's sister, running away to find his aunt Betsey Trotwood, the girls he falls in and out of love with, his friendships—ill-fated or otherwise, his rise to fame as an author, and so on and so forth. It's not what I'd call compelling, but it is known to be Dickens' most autobiographical work so it makes sense that Copperfield is his favorite. 

Dickens' greatest strength in David Copperfield (in this reader's opinion, anyway) is his character sketches. I can't tell you how much I loved, loved, loved Betsey Trotwood. Definitely a new all-time favorite literary character. I loathed Uriah Heep. I rooted for Mr. Peggotty. I admired Tommy Traddles. My heart went out to Martha and Little Em'ly. I wanted to smack the smug "respectability" off of Littimer and wring Steerforth's worthless neck. I couldn't roll my eyes hard enough at ridiculous Mr. Micawber or his wife. And poor little Dora. As far as I'm concerned, she and Doady deserved each other and Agnes really could have done better. I could go on but suffice it to say, Dickens is a master at giving us fully fleshed out characters who feel real and timeless 175 years later. 

As for David Copperfield himself—Davy, Trot, Doady; whatever you prefer to call him—he was a bit insufferable, very much like Victor Frankenstein. I don't know if it's the device of having the character narrate their own story that takes away a measure of their likability for me, but at times I was groaning for old Trot to just get on with it already or to grow up for Heavens' sake. Which he ultimately did, but with all of Dickens' colorful cast of characters, Davy himself was the one I could have done without. I'm not sure what that says about me, but there you have it. 

Just this past February (probably during one of my hapless attempts to get back on the Copperfield wagon), I stumbled across this 2024 Forbes article which, among other things, posits Dickens' ten greatest books and ranks them in order. I found that I had unknowingly started my own Dickens journey in the correct order (according to the article) and so I plan to keep working my way down that list in future. It may be a few years before I pick up another Dickens, but when I do, it'll be Oliver Twist which is what comes next on the list. (Although I may have to sneak A Christmas Carol in somewhere because it doesn't make the top ten since it's not a full-length novel and I've never actually read it. I know. The horror.)

All said, it feels good to finally close the loop on David Copperfield. He has without question shown up on more book lists than any other book I own and finishing him feels like a small kind of accomplishment. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Animal Farm

On Monday, I shared my recap on Frankenstein, literature's definitive horror story. Today, I'm reaching back in the archives of my mind to finally recap Animal Farm, the other book I put on my 2025 book list specifically because of a new movie adaptation. Animal Farm turned 80 this year and I read it in June. As far as I'm concerned, it's far more horrific than Frankenstein, and after finally reading this slim classic, I have no desire to watch Andy Serkis' new adaptation, the release of which has been pushed to next May anyway.

If you're unfamiliar with George Orwell's Fairy Story about the anthropomorphised animals on Manor Farm, it's basically just Orwell crapping all over Stalin and the Soviet Union. 

"It's important political satire!" "It's an allegory!" "It's dystopian literature at its finest!"

It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer, is what it is, and I felt sick the entire time I was reading it. By the time the glue truck turned up to take Boxer away, I wanted to chuck the whole thing in a fire and watch it burn. 

I'm not one to go looking for the symbolism or deeper meaning in books that just isn't there. But Animal Farm is unapologetically political and if you have two brain cells to rub together, you can't escape what Orwell is writing about. Old Major is basically an amalgamation of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Napoleon (the most despicable character in the whole of the novella) is Joseph Stalin. Snowball is Leon Trotsky. And Squealer represents the Soviet nomenklatura and journalists, justifying every little thing Stalin says and does. Then you have the other animals who are worked to death under Napoleon's regime and the poor puppies who are stolen at birth and trained to be his terrifying security force. Orwell drives his point home hard at the end of the novella when the animals look in the window at the pigs' dinner party with the neighboring human farmers and they can no longer distinguish between the pigs and the men. 

Animal Farm is a searing portrait of how a revolution for equality is corrupted by power, leading to an even worse tyranny. The silencing of dissent, the manipulation, the utter betrayal of ideals all vividly portrayed by Orwell in his Fairy Story are important topics and things we absolutely must be attuned to recognize. The whole those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But reading Animal Farm is not a fun time, and I'd caution you against picking it up unless you're prepared to grapple with the boundless depths of human depravity—depicted by a bunch of literal pigs. It's rough sailing but I do think it's worth reading if you can stomach it. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Frankenstein

Well, here we are, ten days till Christmas and what am I recapping on the blog today? Some cozy holiday story á la The Best Christmas Pageant Ever? No. Today we're talking about what is possibly the most classic horror story of all time. The story of Doctor Victor Frankenstein and his creature.  

"It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils..."

When I heard last year that Guillermo del Toro was making a new adaptation of Frankenstein to be released in 2025, I knew it was time to finally read my copy of this classic and so I added it to my book list and planned to read it in October or November around the time the movie was slated to be released. Despite the enduring fame of this 200 year old ghost story, I knew relatively little beyond the fact that "Frankenstein" is the name of the doctor, not the monster. *insert massive eye-rolling about here* My lit teacher friends have all told me that this is one of those accessible classics that even high schoolers love and that I'd breeze through it, easy peasy. 

Well, yes and no. First of all, Frankenstein is a bit convoluted in that it's a story, inside of a story, inside yet another story. The preface begins as a series of letters from a certain Captain Walton who is on an expedition to the North Pole. As it happens, the captain met with some strange circumstances in which he picked up a lone man called Victor Frankenstein who determines to tell Walton his history. As a young man, Frankenstein was fascinated with alchemy and, through a series of events, discovered he could create life. After piecing together a bodily form from cadavers, he actually does succeed in animating his creation and then immediately regrets it and runs away from it. I'm not going to get too into details here but after a lot of time passes, his creation finds Frankenstein and determines to tell him his own story and make a request of him. 

See what I mean? Convoluted. Which makes sense because Mary Shelley was a teenager herself when she wrote it. The teen angst is palpable in this novel. It's a brilliant story though and I get why the appeal of it has endured. The feelings that Frankenstein's creature (I will not call him a monster, I loved him too much) has to grapple with concerning his loneliness and where he belongs are all too relatable, and the consequences Frankenstein has to face as the result of playing God raise so many questions we're still asking ourselves today. 

But my expectations for this book were out of line with my experience when I finally picked it up to read it. The mind-numbing descriptions of the natural world were too much even for me and took me out of the story. Victor Frankenstein is one of the most insufferable characters I've encountered in a very long time. And the creature's story was by far my very favorite part of the book, but unfortunately it was also the most brief. (Or if it wasn't, it definitely felt that way.) After reading it and having a little time to think about it, I think it's a novel that bears re-reading with my expectations adjusted accordingly. 

As for the brand new film adaptation that came out November 7th on Netflix, I took a break from my annual slate of favorite Christmas movies yesterday to watch it. And I have a lot of feelings about it. The movie itself is absolutely beautiful. A sweeping epic if I've ever seen one. The love Guillermo del Toro has for the novel is apparent, even though he drastically changed the story in his screenplay. At first, I did not appreciate the liberties taken with the source material but as the film unfolded, del Toro's choices started to make a lot of sense to me. I'm still not sure how I feel about the twist ending, but on the whole, del Toro's Frankenstein is a film I'd watch again. Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi managed to bring the essence of Mary Shelley's original characters to vivid life on the screen and I felt the same way about the portrayal of their Frankenstein and his creature on film as I did when I was reading the novel. I don't say this about a lot of movies, but del Toro's Frankenstein is art. 

All things considered, I think Frankenstein is a fantastic story and definitely worth reading, but it's a slow burn so proceed accordingly. 

And if you've read it and you sympathize with Frankenstein and think his creature is a monster, let's talk about that because I'd love to hear your perspective. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Julie Andrews

Okay, every time I recap a memoir, I feel like I'm always saying how I'm not really a "memoir girl". And I stand by that, I do. But they have been sneaking into the reading rotation more and more in recent years and I feel the need to say, right at the outset: Julie Andrews' memoirs are the first I've picked up and read for the pure fandom. Mary Poppins was my first ever favorite movie. My mom can attest to the fact that I wore out a VHS watching it on repeat. And as you know, I paid good American money a couple weeks ago to go and see The Sound of Music in the cinema, even though I own it on DVD and just watched it earlier this year. Ever since I was a teeny-bopping middle schooler, Julie Andrews has been my number one choice of the person I'd love to sing a duet with if I could choose anyone in the whole world. When Princess Diaries 2 came out and Raven-Symoné got to sing with Queen Clarisse Renaldi at Mia's bachelorette party, I died a little inside. That could have been me, y'all. And listen, if these references are lost on you, don't sweat it, but maybe go to your local library and check out these movies. You're in for a great time. 

When these memoirs first came on my radar a few years ago, they immediately went on my wishlist because Julie Andrews, duh. And by the time I came across two pristine copies at my local Friends of the Library bookstore a few months ago (for a mere $2 apiece, I might add), I already had my ticket to the 60th anniversary screening of The Sound of Music in theaters. And even though these books were obviously not on my list for 2025, I can't turn up my nose at these serendipitous events of circumstance that life sometimes throws us. So shortly after finishing The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Trapp, I picked up Home, the first of Julie Andrews' two memoirs, published in 2008. 

This book is a memoir of Andrews' early years, starting with a bit of her own family history. Throughout the course of her narrative, Andrews takes us along as she remembers what it was like living in and around London during World War II, her parents' sad divorce that consequently split her and her brother Johnny up between her mother and father, and then beginning voice lessons and touring with her mother and stepfather's vaudeville act. Then getting her big break to star as Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, a role she originated there (oh, to have seen that!). She details more of her stage career leading up to Walt Disney himself contacting her and asking her to be his Mary Poppins. 

While I found this first of her memoirs to have a lot of interesting information, it was a bit slow-going at times. The memories of her early childhood are a bit disjointed (as I imagine most everyone's are), and the details of the different performers and managers she worked with in vaudeville and the stage throughout England were largely unfamiliar to me, making the reading a bit of a slog. 

Her second memoir, Home Work published in 2019, picks up where Home left off, with Julie and her first husband and baby daughter traveling to Hollywood to work on Mary Poppins. This is the book about her Hollywood years—from Mary Poppins to Victor/Victoria—and the flow of this memoir was a lot better, in my opinion. The names cropping up in Home Work were also a lot more familiar to me so naturally it made the reading a bit more interesting. The introduction in Home Work serves as a very serviceable review of Home so unless you are also a diehard fan, I would recommend skipping Home and just reading Home Work. The disappointing thing about her second memoir is that it ends before the infamous throat surgery that ruined her singing voice. While I imagine it wouldn't be pleasant to relive that time in her life for any reason, I was sort of hoping for Andrews' own perspective on the aftermath of that surgery and the impact it had on her life. 

Julie Andrews has always been class personified, and that shines through in her books. Everything in her life, even the difficult things, she writes about with a sort of rose-colored tint to it all—with a spoonful of sugar, if you will. It didn't feel very personal at all, more like she was just relating all the events of her life from almost an outsider's perspective. It was interesting. As much as I enjoyed reading her memoirs, I don't feel as if I really know her any better for it. 

Ultimately, I walked away from these books with a profound gratitude for my own mother. Julie Andrews' mum seemed like a real piece of work, and Julie herself seemed so swept up in her career, her second marriage to a substance-abusing husband, her ideal of living in Switzerland, that she never seemed to prioritize being a stabilizing force in her own children's lives. Her daughter and stepchildren were shuffled back and forth between parents, and the two little girls she adopted from Vietnam were raised by nannies. My own mother is an incredibly talented woman with a remarkable work ethic, and I'm not being glib when I say she could have done or been anything she wanted to be. But she chose to be fully present in the lives of her four children. She gave us the foundation to be anything we wanted to be. And I've watched her be my dad's rock my whole life. We would all fall apart without her, and I'm thankful she didn't leave my upbringing to chance or someone else. 

While I still wouldn't classify myself as a big memoir reader, I appreciate the compassion for others and the gratitude for my own life that reading these books brings up in me. And I guess that's a compelling enough reason to pick one up every once in a while. 

What memoir would you read based solely on your personal fandom of the writer? What person do you wish would write one?

Let's Bust a Recap : Two Gentlemen of Verona

Two Gentlemen of Verona?? More like One Gentleman and One Scumbag of Verona. This is one of the Bard's earliest plays, and oh boy, what a doozy. 

We open on young Valentine gearing up to leave Verona to expand his horizons in Milan and trying to talk his best buddy Proteus into joining him. But Proteus doesn't want to leave his ladylove behind, not to mention he's a lame lazybones who can't be bothered to expand any horizons. 

So Valentine is all, "Hope your life is awesome. Peace out."

But then Proteus' dad is all, "You better get your good-for-nothing behind up and go see the world and quit embarrassing me, you massive disappointment." So then we have to listen to Proteus and his main squeeze Julia go on and on with much sighings and tears and swearing their love eternal to one another. Including exchanging rings and vows. 

Have you already guessed who the scumbag is and who the gentleman is? Hint: Proteus is the scumbag and I hate him. 

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. 

So Proteus follows Valentine literally the very next day accompanied by his servant Launce and Shakespeare's most famous dog Crab. 

(Let me just tell you that Launce and Crab provide a lot of comic relief throughout the play but since Crab's role is entirely non-speaking—what with him being a dog and all—and their bits not having much to do with the main plot: it's hard to translate here. Suffice it to say, we love Crab.)

Apparently within this twenty-four hour window, Valentine has gotten to Milan and fallen hopelessly in love with Silvia who is a total smokeshow but unfortunately promised by her father to sad sack Thurio. She obviously has zero interest in actually marrying Thurio, and she and Valentine have started making plans to run away together. 

In one day. Oh to be young and to feel love's keen sting. 

But then Proteus shows up and immediately falls for Silvia too. You know, the Proteus that just yesterday swore eternal love to Julia? Yeah. Same guy. He has like, a moment's pause over the fact that he's basically stabbing both Valentine, his best friend, and Julia, his eternal love, in the back, but no worries: he doesn't lose any sleep over it or anything.

Instead, he goes to Silvia's dad and spills the beans on Silvia's and Valentine's entire plan for elopement and gets his best friend banished from Milan. Classy. 

So Valentine is out wandering around in a forest (classic Shakespeare), and runs into a band of outlaws who decide to make him their leader because they're actually a bunch of standup guys and Valentine is the most upstanding of all standup guys there ever was. 

Back in Verona, Julia is wasting away missing Proteus and decides to dress up like a boy and go to Milan to be with him. Because can we have Shakespeare without any crossdressing? No we cannot. She gets there just in time to discover her eternal love serenading his love to fair Silvia who, by the way, has not given him the time of day. 

Silvia may be my favorite Shakespearean heroine of all time. Definitely in recent years. 

But does Julia give Proteus the what-for and leave that little git forever? Obviously not. The only course of action is to become his pageboy and torture herself. Naturally. 

Proteus gives Sebastian—the boy name Julia has chosen for herself—her own ring to take to Silvia, but Silvia does give him the what-for and tells him exactly what he can do with himself. 

Did I mention we love Silvia?

Silvia finally runs away into the forest to get away from her awful dad and sad sack Thurio but is immediately taken prisoner by the outlaws. As they're taking her back to Valentine, Proteus "rescues" her, and continues laying it on thick. Unbeknownst to Proteus though, Valentine is watching the whole thing. When Silvia still won't give it up to him, Proteus makes to rape her at which point Valentine steps in and is all, "You treacherous bastard, how dare you?!" But Proteus immediately pedals it back and is all, "I'm the most disgusting person to have ever lived." And Valentine is all, "Oh good, you get it too."

But then...forgives him and wishes him a good life? 

Like, Valentine, come on. 

And then Julia swoons and everyone realizes she's Julia and not some boy named Sebastian, and Proteus suddenly remembers that she's his one true love and they get back together. 

Oh Julia. Grow a spine, sis. 

Then Silvia's dad and Thurio show up. Thurio claims Silvia for his wife, but Valentine is all, "Try me. I will end you where you stand." 

I'm sorry, where was this attitude when Proteus was literally about to rape her?? But I digress.

Thurio immediately backs off because hellooo: sad sack.

Silvia's dad finally realizes what a loser Thurio is and how great Valentine is and consents to Silvia's marriage to Valentine. He also un-banishes all the outlaws. And they all live happily ever after. Except I guess for Thurio. 

Like, what? I was really with Valentine until he didn't immediately castrate Proteus when Proteus tried to force himself on Silvia. And Julia, really?

But that's Shakespeare for ya. At least we got Crab. And one heroine who actually ends up with a good guy if we overlook his easy forgiveness of the most reprehensible human ever. I mean, no one's perfect. 

Next up on my mission to read Shakespeare's complete works: Coriolanus in August. Maybe I'll get a recap up before four whole months go by. No promises. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Far From the Madding Crowd

Halfway through October already? Say it ain't so. I can't believe we only have two and a half months left in 2024. It's high time we moved to a Tuesday/Thursday posting schedule because I am so behind on recaps. The chances of me ending this year caught up around here are slim to none, but we'll give it the old college try like always. This week, I want to talk about book to film adaptations because 2024 has unintentionally become my personal Read the Book Before I Watch the Movie Year, and you know what? I don't hate it and I also don't see this trend ending any time soon. I already have at least two books slated for next year that fall into this category and it's just fun. It envelops two of my favorite hobbies. If y'all think my home library is out of control, don't even get me started on our DVD collection. My siblings call me the family archivist because I like my physical media, okay? I won't apologize for it. 

But where were we? About to start a recap? Let's get back to that.

Today's subject is the 1874 Thomas Hardy classic Far From the Madding Crowd. And why do I have three copies pictured? Because I definitely suckered my sister-in-law into reading this with me and when she brought her copy home from the library, my mother totally stole it and joined in which resulted in me checking out another copy for Caroline to read. And in case you, like me, need to know every single detail about every single thing: my copy is the red one in the middle, my mom read the Macmillan Collector's edition on the top, and my sister read the shabby green copy on the bottom.

Far From the Madding Crowd is the third Thomas Hardy novel I've read. My first introduction to his work was back in 2017 when I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Which I loved. I followed that up by reading The Return of the Native in 2018. Which was a total slog. So I took a break from Hardy even though I had three more of his novels sitting on my shelf. But at the beginning of the summer, I picked up the 2015 film adaptation from my Friends of the Library for a measly fifty cents and immediately convinced my sister to buddy-read it with me so we could watch the movie together. And it fell somewhere in between. I definitely enjoyed it more than The Return of the Native but it can't touch Hardy's masterpiece, Tess of the D'Urbervilles. 

In Far From the Madding Crowd, we meet Bathsheba Everdeen who is a stone-cold fox. She ends up inheriting a large farm from her uncle and determines to become a successful, independent lady-farmer—obviously a rarity in 19th century rural England—but the crux of the plot centers around the three very different men who fall in love with her and attempt to woo her. Gabriel Oak, a hard on his luck shepherd who after a devastating reversal of fortune finds himself in Bathsheba's employ; William Boldwood, a prosperous, middle-aged farmer whose estate borders Bathsheba's; and Frank Troy, a dashing sergeant stationed in nearby Weatherbury. Will Bathsheba relinquish her cherished independence and get married? And if so, who wins her heart? You'll have to read it to find that out. Hardy fills out his novel with a host of colorful characters including all the salt-of-the-earth men who work Bathsheba's farm. These guys were my mom's favorite part of the book. They were hilarious and she was very disappointed that the malt house scene was not included in the film. 

And speaking of the film, we watched it this past weekend and we all agreed that it was very well done. I think it goes without saying that the book is always better, but you could tell that a lot of care was taken when adapting it for the screen, and the actors chosen acted the crap out of it. We were all on the edge of our seats the whole movie, including my mother-in-law who did not read the book. While it felt a little rushed and Carey Mulligan did not fit my mental picture of Bathsheba Everdeen, overall the movie was excellent. Mulligan, Schoenaerts, Sheen, and Sturridge did a phenomenal job of bringing the four principal characters to life. Even despite Mulligan not looking like the Bathsheba I pictured, the casting for this film was perfection.  

If you're only going to read one Thomas Hardy in your life, I'd direct you to Tess of the D'Urbervilles. But Far From the Madding Crowd was a good time and slightly lighter than the absolute tragedy that is Tess's life. If you like a good classic, I'd recommend it, and for a wonderful period piece, definitely check out the 2015 adaptation starring Carey Mulligan. 

Do you read the classics? Who's your favorite 19th century author? 

Let's Bust a Recap : Romeo and Juliet

"For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

Shakespeare two weeks in a row?! Yes indeedy, we are getting caught up around here. As I mentioned back in February when I finally recapped The Tempest, I totally skipped blogging the Bard last year and do I really even need to recap Romeo and Juliet anyway? 

This won't be a full-on recap like most of my Shakespeare posts. Romeo and Juliet is undoubtedly old Shakie's most famous play of all time and if you don't know the most basic plot, then I cry for the education system. 

Montagues and Capulets, feuding families, star-cross'd lovers, suicide, reconciliation. 

I first read this play in Ms. Sterling's freshman English honors course in high school which means I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed fourteen year old. Older than Juliet, I might point out. 

She assigned parts and as a class we read the entire play out loud and discussed it ad nauseam. I loved that class. I think every high schooler should read Romeo and Juliet. 

When I set out to read everything Shakespeare ever wrote, I decided I would definitely re-read Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar in the course of my endeavor and 2023 ended up being the year I revisited R&J. 

Like I said, I won't rewrite the entire play, but if you're one of the ones I'm crying for: Romeo Montague falls in love Juliet Capulet...but their families hate each other. They secretly get married, but through a series of unfortunate events, end up killing themselves, at which point their families realize the devastation of their petty feud and reconcile. 

A few things I want to harp on after re-reading the play last year: Romeo is hardcore in l-o-v-e with fair Rosaline and is bemoaning his unrequited condition literally two seconds before he sees Juliet and falls head over heels for her instead.

What a catch.

Juliet, as previously mentioned, is THIRTEEN. Like, I get that this is some 16th century nonsense, but bruh. Sis has barely hit puberty. I can't with this. Like, is this even a tragic "love story" or is this just a tragic case of total parental neglect?? I'm just saying is all.

What I really want to talk about is the fever dream of a film adaptation I watched a few weeks ago starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes that hit our theaters hot back in 1996. I thought for sure I had seen this movie in high school shortly after reading the play, but upon revisiting it I'm not so sure. I think I would have remembered it, but maybe I completely blocked it because wow. 

Wow, wow, wow.

It seems to me that this is the definitive film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, at least of my generation, and I kid you not that the vibe was exactly the stuff of my real-life nightmares. This is an award-winning film, y'all. It's like some 90s, south Miami, gang crap—but all in the original Shakespearean English—and the only thing going for it was the incredibly believable chemistry between the absolutely adorable Claire and Leo. I guess I should have expected nothing less from something that was directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann but it's going to take me a while to get over it. 

This is really all I have to say about Romeo and Juliet. In point of fact, you need to read it for yourself, or better yet, see it on stage. Despite my poking fun at it, it's a true masterpiece. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Timon of Athens

After pretty much skipping July and August here on ye olde blog, am I jumping back into it with a Shakespearean recap?! You bet your sweet petunias I am, and this will be an easy one because Timon of Athens was a short, straightforward play so let's just knock this one out and hopefully get back in a rhythm around here. 

We open on a lavish banquet and some artists talking about gifts they will be giving to our titular Timon. Timon is like, the most generous guy in all of Athens and we quickly learn that he will spare no expense to show all his friends how much they mean to him. He's doling out jewelry and horses and gold left and right and everyone is singing his praises. 

Except for his steward, Flavius, who is stressing out major, and a cynical philosopher named Apemantus who acts like it is his full time job to be a professional party pooper. 

Well, naturally, all Timon's creditors decide it's time to collect and his bills all come due at once. Which is bad news because he is beyond broke and there is no way out of the hole he has dug himself. He quickly turns on Flavius, berating him for not handling things better and letting him know what a mess he was in.

To which Flavius is all, "My guy, you have got to be kidding me, there is no talking to you."

And then Timon is like, "Okay, no worries, I'll just ask my dear friends to help me out, they'll do anything for me."

(We can all see right where this is going, right?)

Timon's servants approach his friends, asking them to loan Timon some money. First up: Lucullus.

Lucullus is all excited to see one of Timon's servants rolling up because he's expecting a gift which would typically be par for the course. But when he realizes Timon is hitting him up for something, he tries to bribe the servant to say he never actually talked to Lucullus. The servant, who actually loves Timon, tells Lucullus what he can do with his money and leaves. 

Next up: Lucius (which, yes, is a very similar name to Lucullus, whyyyy?)

Lucius is talking to some random guys about how great Timon is and they're all, "Oh yeah, I heard he's pretty hard up for money right now." Lucius: "Surely not Timon." Random guys: "Oh for sure, and his other friends have straight up refused to help him out." Lucius: "They are wrong for that, I would never turn my back on Timon." At which exact moment, one of Timon's servants ask Lucius for help and Lucius—in front of the guys he was just telling he would lend Timon money in a heartbeat—looks straight in the servant's face and says, "Oh I wish I could but I was actually just about to ask Timon for a loan myself and please tell him I would if I could but I can't so I won't." 

The nerve.

Now we're gonna go try Sempronius. This one's my favorite. 

When Timon's servant approaches Sempronius, Sempronius is all, "Why's he asking me? He should have tried his other friends who are richer than me. They definitely owe him big time and they've got the means to help him out." To which the servant is like, "We asked and they all rejected us." To which Sempronius looks right back at them and says, "What? Timon came to me last? If he had come to me first I definitely would have helped him but since he doesn't think better of me than to come to me first, I won't be bothered with him at all." 

Are you kidding me?

So the servants come back to Timon and inform him that his so-called "friends" are all low-down, good-for-nothings. Timon rages at this and then tells Flavius to go invite all these guys back to his house for another banquet. To which Flavius is like, "Uhhh, do you not understand what's going on? You're B-R-O-K-E." But Timon's like, "Don't worry about the expense, just get those losers over here."

And these guys, after all flippantly dismissing Timon's pleas for help, have the audacity to roll back up to his crib for another party thinking everything's all fine and probably they're going to come in to some more gifts because what? This was all a joke? 

In the meantime, one of Timon's friends, a general named Alcibiades, is meeting with the Senate who is banishing him from Athens. He's obviously a bit upset about this and after some back and forth, vows to take his revenge on Athens.

But back to Timon's party.

His "friends" all show up, ready for a good time. Timon brings out covered dishes for everyone and when they are all ready to dig in, has them uncovered to show bowls of lukewarm water and nothing else. To which his "friends" are all, "What the heck, man?" And Timon is like, "I hope you all rot in hell!" throws the water in their faces, and storms out.

Flavius and the other servants, who are the only level-headed, decent people in this entire play, then have a meeting and agree to split everything they have between them equally and go in peace while Flavius vows to find Timon whatever it takes and loyally care for him no matter what.

Timon, meanwhile, has set up camp in a cave outside Athens and is living on roots which, in digging up, he has discovered a literal gold mine. 

Like, he's sitting on a pile of actual gold.

But he hates all of humanity now and he's just out here, digging in the dirt, railing against the world. 

Alcibiades shows up with a couple of loose women and we get a colorful exchange wherein Timon tells Alcibiades to drop dead and tells the whores they're full of STDs. 

I kid you not.

When Alcibiades tells Timon of his plan to get revenge on all of Athens, Timon gives him a bunch of gold and tells him to level the city, and tells the women to go infect everyone with their venereal diseases. 

Good stuff.

So Alcibiades and his ladies leave with their gold and then Apemantus shows up and wants to know why Timon is trying to copy him and be the world's worst party pooper. So they just go back and forth for a while about how much they hate everything. 

Okay...?

Then a bunch of other randos come out looking for Timon and all this gold he's rumored to have and we get some more scathing commentary from Timon each time someone shows up.

But then Flavius finally finds him, and even though Timon at first continues his whole mad-at-the-world routine, he realizes Flavius is an honest-to-goodness good guy and gives him a bunch of the gold. 

Then the Senators who banished Alcibiades show up asking Timon to pretty please go talk Alcibiades out of wrecking Athens. To which Timon is like, "Go hang yourselves."

And then Timon just....dies in the wilderness. 

Alcibiades shows up ready to burn down Athens and the Senators literally beg him to only kill the people who deserve it. Then a soldier shows up saying he found Timon's grave and they read Timon's pathetic epitaph and Alcibiades agrees to only dole out justice to the people who deserve it: the end. 

So...there's that. Once you get into it, Timon of Athens is an easy play to read, but the ending is pretty lackluster. There's a lot of debate surrounding the authorship of this one. Some think Timon was Shakespeare's last play and that he never completed it. A lot of people think the Bard coauthored the play with Thomas Middleton. We'll probably never know for sure, but overall, Timon of Athens, despite the dull ending, ranks higher for me than some of Shakespeare's other work. It was a fun one, and I'd recommend it. 

I think we're down to just four comedies and four tragedies left! On deck for 2025: Two Gentlemen of Verona and Coriolanus. 

Let's Bust a Recap : The Man Who Was Thursday

So here's the thing: in my mind I've been a fan of G.K. Chesterton for a long time. I put him up there with Lewis and Tolkien and think that I love him. But the truth is: I've never actually read any G.K. Chesterton. I know, I know. It's one of those cases of I just didn't know where to start. Well, a few years ago, my sister Caroline was all excited about this new book she had just gotten by Sarah Clarkson called Book Girl. I haven't read it, but I was flipping through Caroline's copy shortly after she got it, mainly wanting to peruse all the different book lists. I found one contributor who listed several of my favorite books in her (his?) list of recommended reads and The Man Who Was Thursday was one of her favorites so I thought, "Aha! Here's the G.K. Chesterton book I should read!" and then immediately ordered a copy off amazon. (I also started collecting the Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy Sayers because of this same book list, but I haven't started reading any of those yet.) Naturally The Man Who Was Thursday sat on my shelf the last several years unread, but the magic of the TBR Jar put it into my hands and I finally ended up reading it in May. 

And it was just okay. I don't know, you guys, it wasn't all that and a bag of chips for me. *shrugs* Maybe my timing was off or my expectations were out of line, but it didn't really do it for me. I mean, I enjoyed it for what it was. I thought it was funny. I thought the writing was good. But, I don't know, the ending was weird. I didn't really "get" it. The book has been called a metaphysical thriller, but I figured out the twists, and then the sharp allegorical left turn at the end left me scratching my head.

The Man Who Was Thursday subtitled "A Nightmare" by Gilbert Keith Chesterton was published in 1908. It's basically about a man called Gabriel Syme who has been recruited at Scotland Yard to be part of a mysterious anti-anarchist police corps. Through a series of events, he gets himself elected to the anarchist central council which is made up of seven men, each one a different day of the week. So, as is obvious by the book's title, Gabriel is elected to the Thursday position. The novel goes on to detail his efforts to stop the next anarchist plot of the council and his discoveries about the other six members. 

The novelist Kingsley Amis said of The Man Who Was Thursday: "Definition remains impossible: [it] is not quite a political bad dream, nor a metaphysical thriller, nor a cosmic joke in the form of a spy novel, but it has something of all three. What it has most of is a boy's adventure story." And maybe that's my issue with it. I can't pinpoint what it is. It's all very madcap and zany, and it was a good time. I just don't see myself ever re-reading it, and I'm not sure that I'll ever go out of my way to read anything else by Chesterton. 

What am I missing?

Let's Bust a Recap : Roald Dahl

Well, I've gotten a couple more Dahls under my belt so it's time for a recap, but unfortunately, these are the first two of Roald's books that have fallen slightly flat for me. I read both of these aloud with my nephew, and they were funny but they're just not on the same level with the rest of his work. (At least his work that I've read so far.)

In Dahl's 1970 Fantastic Mr Fox, our titular character—Mr Fox—spends his days cleverly stealing from three loathsome farmers—Boggis, Bunce, and Bean—to feed his wife and four children. Eventually, the farmers get fed up with this and determine to kill Mr Fox, but he still manages to outsmart them by burrowing his way to their goods and continuing to steal from them to help his own family and all the other underground creatures to survive. The book ends with the three farmers sitting outside Mr Fox's hole still, waiting for him to surface so they can blow him to smithereens. 

In Dahl's 1990 Esio Trot—the last book to be published in his lifetime—our lonely protagonist Mr Hoppy comes up with a devious plot to win the heart and hand of his downstairs neighbor Mrs Silver, a widow he's been smitten with for years but has been too shy to ever do more than speak to her from his upstairs balcony. Mrs Silver's entire life centers around her small pet tortoise Alfie but she's concerned that he's not growing so Mr Hoppy convinces her to speak to Alfie in tortoise language three times a day to help him grow faster. (Tortoise language is just regular English backwards; hence "Esio Trot" is an anadrome of "tortoise".) She, of course, gives this a try but what Mr Hoppy actually does is steal Alfie and replace him with a slightly larger tortoise...which he continues to do until "Alfie" can no longer fit through the door of his little tortoise house and Mrs Silver realizes the "magic words" worked and is so delighted with Mr Hoppy that they get married. 

I mean, I think we can all agree that we're not out here reading Roald Dahl to learn any great moral lessons but can you see how these two might be a bit problematic? They're both silly and clever and certainly not meant to be taken seriously, but is it okay to steal from people if they're fat and ugly and stupid? Sure, it's in a fox's nature to hunt, but in Fantastic Mr Fox we've anthropomorphised him so it begs the question. And is it ever okay to trick a woman into marrying you by means of stealing her beloved pet? A living animal, I might add? Granted, Dahl assures us that the real Alfie ends up living happily ever after with a little girl called Roberta Squibb, but does Mr Hoppy ever come clean with Mrs Silver? And can a relationship based on deception possibly turn out all right? These books can provide a great jumping off point for some important conversations but for sheer entertainment value's sake? They miss the mark. 

So no, these wouldn't be the first Roald Dahl books I'd recommend, but if you're ready to have a low-pressure philosophical conversation with your child after a few laughs, these might be just the ticket. 

As for my journey through Dahl's work, I'm now over halfway through my lovely box set of his books and have six left to go. What should come next?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Beekeeper of Aleppo

And so begins my personal campaign to get everyone to forget about The Kite Runner and read Christy Lefteri's The Beekeeper of Aleppo instead. 

(But first, can you spot the actual bees in my little picture over there? We have two of these lovely trees in our yard and they have been positively buzzing this past week.)

Now, back to The Beekeeper of Aleppo. Christy Lefteri's 2019 novel was born of her experience volunteering in Athens at a refugee center over two summers in 2016 and 2017. Born to parents who fled Cyprus after the Turkish invasion in 1974, Lefteri grew up in England knowing something of the devastation wrought by war and death and displacement which was what prompted her to help in Athens and, eventually, to bring The Beekeeper of Aleppo to life. 

In The Beekeeper of Aleppo, we meet Nuri Ibrahim and his wife Afra who have just made it to the UK after fleeing from Syria and are going through the process of applying for asylum. The Syrian civil war has wreaked its havoc in their lives, taking their young son from them, and they have traveled for months trying to make it to the UK to be reunited with Nuri's cousin and business partner Mustafa who has started to rebuild his family's life in England and has even started beekeeping again with the native black bees. In each chapter of the book, Lefteri uses one word to connect their present situation in the UK to the recent past in which we follow them on their journey to get out of Syria and make it all the way to England. With a deft hand, Lefteri paints a haunting picture of the ravages constantly going on throughout the Middle East but with a sensitivity and ultimate hopefulness that kept me turning the pages. The refugee crisis in Europe has been such a huge issue for so much of my adult life that it's overwhelming to even think about it, especially being somewhat removed from it over here in the US. But as TIME magazine insightfully points out in its praise for The Beekeeper of Aleppo, "Lefteri shows that in order to stretch compassion to millions of people, it helps to begin with one." 

To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive when I drew this title out of my TBR jar. I wasn't sure I was ready to be confronted with the reality of the still ongoing Syrian civil war. I wasn't sure how graphic The Beekeeper of Aleppo would be, and I was concerned this novel might throw me into some rough waters emotionally. But Lefteri handled her subject matter with such a gentle and compassionate voice, I found myself drawn into the lives of Nuri and Afra Ibrahim and rooting for their healing. I appreciated how Lefteri hinted at the horrific things they lived through rather than exhaustively detailing them, giving me as a reader the space to process the trauma without inflicting it on me. I also loved the notes and photos from the author included in my edition of this novel showing the time she spent volunteering in the refugee camps in Athens. Really, just a beautifully and exceptionally well written work. I would highly recommend The Beekeeper of Aleppo to anyone. 

Is there a book on your shelf you're hesitant to open because you know you'll be confronted with something difficult?