Books, Fiction

Passing by Nella Larsen

Worth A Read YES
Length 301
Quick Review Irene Redfield is a proud black woman living in the 1920s. She runs into a childhood friend, who no longer identifies as black. 

 

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Passing by Nella Larsen | Dress | Belt | Watch | Shoes 

Some books stay with you long after you read them; Passing by Nella Larsen is one of those books. There’s really nothing I dislike about this book. Small and powerful, this 1920s novel holds up ninety years later.

Irene Redfield and Clare Bellew grew up in the same neighborhood in Chicago before losing touch. They are both black women living in the 1920s with families when they meet again in a whites only establishment. The difference is: Irene is living her life as a black woman, but Clare is passing in the world as a white woman. The novel continues filled with familial, women’s, cultural, racial issues and more. There is never a dull moment in Irene’s life or mental state. 

Passing is told in three parts from Irene’s perspective. Irene is smart, independent, and empathetic but also a product of her time and culture. There is so much emotional variance and abundance throughout the work. Irene is a black woman living in a white world but far more happy in her oppressed circumstances than Clare, who is living as a white woman in a white world with the constant fear of being exposed and a hunger for a community with a shared background. Larsen has so much insight into the human psyche surpassing yet encompassing race.   

Nella Larsen is a beloved author of the Harlem Renaissance. Passing is one of her most well-known works published in 1929. A lot of things have changed in ninety years, but we definitely do not live in a post racial world. So many things ring true in this novel. The conversations held in white living rooms feel like something my racist/bigoted family members might say. Questions along the lines of “Oh! And your husband, is he – is he – er – dark, too?” are still uttered by people trying to be tactful but falling absolutely short. 

Larsen’s use of language and punctuation is incredible. It’s one of those books you want to sit with letting the words roll through your mind reveling in the meaning and feeling of it all. Authors often use punctuation without thinking about it or having fun with it, but Passing has fun with punctuation using it to make points “And the eyes were magnificent! dark, sometimes absolutely black lashes.” I love her usage of commas; they help bring the reader into the angry, confused psyche of Irene

I have so many things to say about Passing. The ending is incredible. The entire book is an incredible piece of literature. I can see why Modern Library included it in its inaugural Torchbearers series. 

Memorable Quotes
“Nevertheless, Irene felt, in turn, anger, scorn, and fear slide over her.”
“Why, simply because of Clare Kendry, who had exposed her to such torment, had she failed to take up the defence of the race to which she belonged?”
“”It’s easy for a Negro to ‘pass’ for white. But I don’t think it would be so simple for a white person to ‘pass’ for coloured.””

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Title: Passing
Author: Nella Larsen
Publisher: Modern Library (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780375758133

Books

The Water-Babies

Read Yes
Length 198
Overview A Victorian children’s classic addressing themes and issues reaching far beyond a basic children’s fairy tale.

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I read The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley in a Victorian Lit. class in college. I really loved it, but I was confused at how it could possibly be a children’s fairy tale. Yes, it’s engaging and interesting and full of wonder, but it has really deep meanings, which cannot be ignored partially because they’re constantly smacking you in the face.

Basics of the story: Tom is a poor chimney sweep, who has no knowledge of God or cleanliness or any type of kindness. Through a small bout of craziness and an old Irish lady, Tom runs away from his hyper abusive master. He ends up being turned into a water-baby, which is the water equivalent of a land-baby. There are other water-babies, fairies, and characters with names like Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. How can you not love it?

Like many Victorian novels, it is, at its core, a truly moral fable. There is a stark moral code set out within the novel – Charles Kingsley was an Anglican minister. One thing that I was absolutely taken with in college was the fact it is such a female centric novel. The women are good, strong, honest, and resilient and the men are fools, abusive, or a combination thereof.

There are so many layers and lenses in which The Water-Babies can be read. Kingsley’s opinions are pretty evident throughout for the good and the bad. He did not support child labor, and it can be read as a satire. Throughout the story science is evident. Darwin is mentioned kindly on several occasions. Other scientific topics are pollution, method, geology, education, and biological debates prevalent at the time. Kingsley heavily criticizes close-minded approaches to life and knowledge.   

One of my favorite things about the narration, is how the narrator speaks directly to the reader. This isn’t unusual, especially at the time, but the way he does it is not terribly common. There are full on discussions, where the reader is answering questions posed by you, the reader. It is highly amusing as it can go on for several pages.

Anyways, The Water-Babies is a fun little novel. You can read it for a fun, light read, or you can deeply read it. I’m not a science person, so I would love to hear your sciency takes on it!

Memorable Quotes
The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.”
“Do as you would be done by.”
“…children always wake after they have slept exactly as long as is good for them…”

Title: The Water-Babies; A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
Author: Charles Kingsley
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Copyright: 2008
ISBN: 9780143105091

Books

Dead Souls

Read Yes
Length 512
Quick Review When Tchitchikov comes up with a brilliant plan, he embarks on an adventure bringing him a name and fortune after encounters with interesting people.

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Nikolai Gogol published Dead Souls in 1842. I read it for the first time in Russian while I was in college. This is the first time I am reading the English translation by Constance Garnett. She translated a majority of classical Russian literature to much critical skepticism at this point in time. The work in its original form is more nuanced and beautiful than the translation, but that is always the case. It is impossible to relay the original in its entirety to another language and culture. Although, Dead Souls is an incredible read in English. So I highly recommend it.

The narrator, even Gogol himself, views and refers to the novel as an epic poem, though, in prose form. It is intended to encapsulate the mindset and attitudes of the middle class in Russia during the mid-1800’s. Gogol is able to capture a range of emotions, attitudes, psychology, and culture within this epic novel, which garnered him the role as grandfather of Russian realism.

In order to understand the plot of the novel, it is important to understand the culture in which it was written. Serfs were referred to as souls in legal jargon. Before 1861, serfs belonged to the land and landowners, who could sell them, trade them, or mortgage them at will. The word poshlost is incredibly important to the novel, but it does not translate to English well; it deals with the character of a human always negative. Poshlost is always in bad taste, self-serving, petty, and even to the point of evil. It’s hard to encapsulate this word in English.

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Tchitchikov comes up with a brilliant plan to basically get rich quick. The novel revolves around the idea that Tchitchikov collects the dead souls, or dead serfs, from the landowners who have to pay taxes on them until the next census. Tchitchikov’s plan eventually reveals itself, but he amasses a large holding of souls, who are not dead in the eyes of the law.

Tchitchikov has his own sordid past, but he arrives in an area of Russia and turns all of his charms on the landowners in the region. Tchitchikov is his own caricature. Each landowner he meets is a ridiculous caricature of personality failings Gogol bears witness to in society around him. The landowners, though absurd in their own way, is not a flat character. They have their own evolutions and complexities. None of the characters are overly likeable; they do come across as understandably diluted.

The title Dead Souls refers to two different concepts. The souls of the deceased serfs, obviously. The second is more thematic and requires reading to understand and revolves around the word poshlost. The other dead souls in the novel are the living characters suffering from an unrivaled amount of poshlost. Their souls are dead in Gogol’s eyes. Arguably, there is no “hero” in the traditional sense. Tchitchikov is more of an antihero.

Gogol is an amazing writer even in translation. He is one of my favorite Russian authors. He is not as well known outside of Russia like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky is, but he is just as important if not more so. Gogol set the tone and bar for all Russian writers after him.

Memorable Quotes
“”What… a sale of dead souls?””

Title: Dead Souls
Translator: Constance Garnett
Author: Nikolai Gogol
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
Copyright: 2005
ISBN: 9781593080921

 

Books

The Little Prince

Read Yes
Length 84
Quick Review This has become an iconic children’s story. It’s been translated into so many languages, you don’t have a reason not to read it.

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Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a fantasy children’s novella for adults. Though, he penned many, this is by far his most renowned work.

The narrator, no other than Saint-Exupéry himself, begins the story by talking about his childhood dream of being an artist. The narrator happens to be an airplane pilot, who crashes in the desert with no rescue in sight. A little boy, hailing from Asteroid B-612, shows up demanding a picture of a sheep be drawn for him. After this, the little prince tells the narrator about his journeys and how he is trying to return to his home planet and his rose. I won’t ruin the beauty of it for you.

For me, this is such a nostalgic story. The first time I read it was also the first time I read a book in French. It was a struggle because this was before I had WiFi or easy access to a computer, so every word I did not know – which was a lot back then – I had to look up in a dictionary. It took me hours longer than my classmates because I was technologically far behind. Now, I can breeze through it easily in the amount of time it took me to read five pages. Though, it is by far the syntactically simplest book I have read in French at this point, every time I read it I still feel a small pang of triumph.

I would talk more about style and syntax and what a masterpiece it is, but if you don’t have time to read 84 pages, then you’re just going to have to miss out.

Memorable Quote
“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”

Title: Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Publisher: Harcourt, Inc.
ISBN: 9780156012195

 

Books

The Bell Jar

Read Yes
Length 244
Quick Review A young woman’s coming of age story as she grapples with working, the big city, friendship, sexuality, mental illness, and growing up female.

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Literally anyone who has any knowledge of remarkable literary works knows about Sylvia Plath’s oven incident, as well as her writing. The Bell Jar is such a widely referenced book, it’s surprising how few people have actually read it. I, myself, thought it would an incredibly dense and arduous book to work through. It always seems the shorter the book the more wearisome the syntax. I am ashamed to say I made it to 25 without having ever attempted to read it. It has sat on my must read list for a decade without once glancing at a copy in a bookstore. With pen in hand, a quiet room, a cup of tea, I sat down with the most serious of intentions to delve into this onerous work.

Never have I been so wrong.

I read it in a day, an afternoon actually.

Esther Greenwood is a young and talented girl exploring the world around her as well as herself. The Bell Jar is known as a book about depression, but it is more than that. It is a book about self discovery and coming of age. It is intrinsically feminist without meaning to be. Though many decades ago, the trials Esther experiences are so in tune with the trials girls go through today: self confidence, body image, boys, sex, dating, career, education, and mental health.

The female version of The Catcher in the Rye, I’m beyond disappointed this novel has not made it onto the required reading lists for high schoolers. Though complexly nuanced, it is no more taboo than a swearing, hormonal teenage boy.

Plath is an incredible talent (Ariel at a later date; I must read it first), who has been turned into a compounded punch line of the crazy writer. She is best remembered for her clinical depression and infamous suicide than her startling talent as a poet and novelist.

Memorable Quotes
“If you expect nothing from somebody, you are never disappointed.”
“The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”
“The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn’t thought about it.”
“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.”

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Title: The Bell Jar
Author: Sylvia Plath
Copyright: 2006
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ISBN: 9780061148514