189. MIDDLEMARCH

George Eliot 1874

The Book Blurb:

     Middlemarch is a town on the rise. With its old country gentry, middle classes, and tradesmen, it is ever growing and changing with the times, circa 1830. Vast and crowded, rich in irony and suspense, the novel Middlemarch is richer still in psychological insight. One of the best loved works of the nineteenth century, it introduces two of the era's most enduring characters -- Dorothea Brooke, a passionately idealistic woman who traps herself in a loveless marriage, and Tertius Lydgate, an ambitious young doctor betrayed by his wife's egoism and his own weakness -- and explores the complex social relationships in a town that moves and breathes with a life of its own.

What Hooked Me:

     I was astounded as to how much this classic, which explores the many facets of marriages in the provincial town of Middlemarch amazingly parallels the different marriages that still exist today: the Rosamonds who seek the prestige of marrying a man like Lydgate to find wealth and inch up higher on their social standing; the Dorotheas who remain trapped in a loveless marriage, married to a man like Mr. Causabon; and the Harriet Bulstrodes who stand by their husbands amidst scandals and ruined reputations. Truly timeless and worth the time you need to invest on reading it's almost thousand pages! I also particularly love the unique foreshadowing of each chapter with fabulous quotes from both the author and other famous writers.

The Quotes:

'Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of St. Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand in hand with her still smaller brother to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors?' (Prelude, opening lines)

'We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinnertime, keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps us, and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts -- not to hurt others.'(64)

'After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think.'(86)

'She is grace itself; she is perfectly lovely and accomplished. That is what a woman ought to be; she ought to produce the effect of exquisite music.'(99)

'Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae in her hand.'(100)

'That basket held small savings from her more portable food, destined for the children of her poor friends among which she trotted on fine mornings, fostering and petting all needy creatures being so spontaneous a delight to her that she regarded it much as if it had been a pleasant vice that she was addicted to. Perhaps she was conscious of being tempted to steal from those who had that she might give to those who had nothing and carried in her conscience the guilt of that repressed desire. One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!'(179-180)

"Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humouring everybody's nonsense till they get despised by the very fools they humour?" said Lydgate ... "The shortest way is to make your value felt so that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not."(185)

'I suppose it was that in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary, and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal. But the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on the present. Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not within sight -- that; in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin.'(209)

'Art is an old language with a great many artificial, affected styles, and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing.'(220)

'Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.'(237)

'It is an uneasy lot at best to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy; to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small, hungry, shivering self -- never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dimsighted.'(299)

'Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.'(446)

'Was never true love loved in vain,
For truest love is the highest gain.
No art can make it: it must spring
Where elements are fostering.'(497)

"I still think that the greater part of the world is mistaken about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion.'(570)

"You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work and think it would be more honourable to you to be doing something else. You must have pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying there's this and there's that -- if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man is, I wouldn't give twopence for him... whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher if he didn't do well what he undertook to do.'(595-596)

'News is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and effectively as that pollen which the bees carry off (having no idea how powdery they are) when they are buzzing in search of their particular nectar.'(635-636)

'The terror of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over that long-unvisited past which has been habitually recalled only in general phrases. Even without memory, the life is bound into one by a zone of dependence in growth and decay; but intense memory forces a man to own his blameworthy past. With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man's past is not simply a dead history, an outward preparation of the present; it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life; it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavours and the tinglings of a merited shame.'(653-654)

'In marriage, the certainty, "She will never love me much," is easier to bear than the fear, "I shall love her no more."(693)

'Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until the fabric of opinion is threatened with ruin?'(733)

'Ou deeds still travel with us from afar,
And what we have been makes us what we are.'(748)

'... an old friend is not always the person whom it is easiest to make a confidant of: there was the barrier of remembered communication under other circumstances -- there was the dislike of being pitied and informed by one who had been long wont to allow her the superiority.'(795)

'Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague, uneasy longings sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love.'(801)

'Oh, all the troubles of all people on the face of the earth...'(825)

"Trouble is so hard to bear, is it not? How can we live and think that anyone has trouble -- piercing trouble -- and we could help them, and never try?"(844)

'Marriage, which has been bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic -- the gradual conquest of irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years a climax and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.'(883)

a Signet Classics Edition, December 2003
890 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 2011 Victorian Literature Challenge
                                 100+ Reading Challenge

186. CRIME and PUNISHMENT

Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866

Set in St. Petersburg Russia, this classic's protagonist is Rodion Raskolnikov, a young man in the prime of his life who premeditate the murder of money-lender Alyona Ivanovna just for the mere fact that he believes he can get rid of a vile person he considers not fit to live. He  commits the brutal crime and suffers the consequences of his guilty conscience, constantly vacillating between remorse and self-justification for the horrible act. His acquaintance with investigator Porfiry Petrovich who suspects him of the murder and love interest Sonia further complicates this conflict and compounds this highly thought-stimulating psychological thriller.

'On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. Bridge.'(opening lines)

'This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely aware of his fears.
"I want to attempt at thing like that and am frightened by these trifles," he thought, with an odd smile. "Hm ... yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most ...'(2)

'Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it's just such trifles that always ruin everything...'(3)

'There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.'(9)

'In order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards.'(31)

'In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are so truthlike and filled with details so delicate, so unexpected, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, where he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.'(48)

'He was in full possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his hands were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had been particularly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get smeared with blood...'(69)

'Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the plaace as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the difficulties of his position, his hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of that place to make his way home, it is very possible that he would have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had done. ... But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather forgot what was of importance and caught at trifles.'(71-72)

'Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the oceans, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!'(139)

'Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in it's way ... To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second you're no better that a bird. Truth won't escape you, but life can be cramped.'(176)

'Again that awful sensation he had known of late passed with deadly chill over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and perceptible to him that he had just told a fearful lie -- that he would never now be able to speak of anything to anyone.'(200)

'If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment...'(230)

'Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth...'(230)

'You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid, that if others are stupid -- and I know they are -- yet I won't be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one waits for everyone to get wiser it will take too long ... Afterwards I understood that that would never come to pass, that men won't change and that nobody can alter it and that it's not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that's so. That's the law of nature, Sonia ... that's so ... And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be a law-giver among them and he who dares most in the right! So it has been till now and so it will always be.'(359)

'... do you know to what a point of insanity a woman can sometimes love?'(407)

a Bantam Classic Edition
472 pages
Book owned.  Read in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Book qualifies for: 2011 Victorian Challenge
                               100+ Reading Challenge

184. ROMEO and JULIET

William Shakespeare 1597

Romeo. Juliet. From the feuding Montague and Capulet family. Is there anything else more tragic and dramatic than the story of this young love?  The prologue explains it all. The audiobook is a sure winner, the best form to enjoy Shakespeare for a novice like me.








PROLOGUE
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona (where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventures piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
That fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parent's rage,
Which but their children's end nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. (opening lines)

ROMEO  Alas that Love, whose view is muffled still,
                Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
               Where shall we dine? O me! what fray was here?
                Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all:
                Here's much to do with hate, but more with love:
               Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
                O any thing of nothing first create! (Act I Scene 1)

NURSE  His name is Romeo, and a Montague,
               The only son of your great enemy.
JULIET  My only love sprung from my only hate!
              Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
              Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
              That I must love a loathed enemy. (Act I Scene 5)

ROMEO  He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
               But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
               It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
               Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
               Who is already sick and pale with grief
               That thou, her maid, since she in envious;
               Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
               And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. (Act II Scene 2)

JULIET  O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
              Deny they father and refuse thy name;
              Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
              And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO  Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
JULIET  'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
              Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
              What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
              Nor arm nor face, nor any other part
              Belonging to a man. O be some other name!
              What's in a name? That which we call a rose
              By any other word would smell as sweet;
              So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
              Retain thar dear perfection which he owes
              Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
              And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
              Take all myself. (Act II Scene 2)

JULIET  Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
              That I shall say good night till it be morrow. (Act II Scene 2)

MERCUTIO Without his roe, like a dried herring:
                     O flesh, flesh, how art thou finished!
                     Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in.
                     Laura to his lady was a kitchen wench
                     (marry, she had a better love than to berhyme her),
                     Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gipsy,
                     Helen and Hero hildings and harlots,
                     This be a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose.
                     Signior Romeo, 'bon jour'! there's a French salutation to your French slop.
                     You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night. (Act II Scene 4)

FRIAR LAWRENCE  These violent delights have violent ends,
                                   And in their triumph die like fire and powder,
                                   Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
                                   Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
                                   And in the taste confounds the appetite.
                                   Therefore love moderately, long love doth so;
                                   Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. (Act II Scene 6)

JULIET  'Romeo is banished' : to speak that word,
              Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
              All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'
              There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
              In that word's death, no words can that woe sound. (Act III Scene 2)

JULIET  O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle;
              If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
              That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, Fortune:
              But send him back. (Act III Scene 5)

FRIAR LAWRENCE  Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
                                   That letter was not nice but full of charge
                                   Of dear import, and the neglecting it
                                   May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,
                                   Give me an iron crow and bring it straight
                                   Unto my cell. (Act V Scene 2)

PRINCE  Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague?
                See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
                That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
                And I for winking at your discords too
                Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished. (Act V Scene 3)

PRINCE  For never was a story of more woe
               Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. (Closing lines)

BBC Audiobooks America audiobook edition
Fully Dramatized Recording
Audiobook borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

181. ALL the KING'S MEN

Robert Penn Warren 1946

It has been 4 months since I've rated a book 5/5. This book deserves it for so many reasons. The plot is multi-layered and very absorbing. The prose is deceptively simple but so profound and enthralling. Supposedly based on the real life story of politician Huey Long of Louisiana, the novel traces the life of Willie Stark as he rose from an unknown to a powerful governor as chronicled by his political aide Jack Burden, the novel's narrator. But as much as this classic is about Willie Stark's politics and the power (and corruption) it brings, it is more about the story of Jack Burden and his complicated relationships with his mother, and his childhood friends Adam and Anne. Great literature at its best!

'MASON CITY.
To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new. Or was new, that day we went up.'(opening lines)

'We would go down the Row -- the line of houses facing the bay -- and that was the place where all my pals had been. Anne who was an old maid, or damned near it. Adam, who was a famous surgeon... And Judge Irwin, who lived in that last house, and who had been a friend of my family and who used to take me hunting with him and taught me to shoot and taught me to ride and read history to me from the leather-bound books in the big study in his house.'(40)

"Dirt's a funny thing," the Boss said. "come to think of it, there ain't a thing but dirt on this green God's globe except under water, and that's dirt too. It's dirt makes the grass grow. A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot. And God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you do with the dirt. That right?"(45)

'Or is it possible that fellows like Willie Stark are born outside of luck, good or bad, and luck, which is what about makes you and me what we are, doesn't have anything to do with them, for they are what they are from the time they first kick in the womb until the end. And if that is the case, then their life history is a process of discovering what they really are, and not, as for you and me, sons of luck, a process of becoming what luck makes us. And if that is the case, then Lucy wasn't Willie's luck. Or his unluck either. She was part of the climate in which the process of discovering the real Willie was taking place.'(63)

'There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad of it. Between one point on the map and another point on the map, there was the being alone in the car in the rain. They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people. That is a very comforting thought when you are in the car in the rain at night alone, for then you aren't you, and not being you or anything, you can really lie back and get some rest. It is a vacation from being you. There is only the flow of the motor under your foot spinning that frail thread of sound out of its metal gut like a spider, that filament, that nexus, which isn't really there, between the you which you have just left in one place and the you which you will be when you get to the other place.'(128-129)

"No," the Boss corrected, "I'm not a lawyer. I know some law. ... But I'm not a lawyer. That's why I can see what the law is like. It's like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks in the bed and a cold night. There ain't ever enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling and hauling, and somebody is always going to nigh catch pneumonia. Hell, the law is like the pants you bought last year for a growing boy, but it is always this year and the seams are popped and the shankbone's to the breeze. The law is always too short and too tight for growing humankind. The best you can do is do something and then make up some law to fit and by the time that law gets on the books you would have done something different.'(136)

'But is any relationship a relationship in time and only in time? I eat a persimmon and the teeth of a tinker in Tibet are put on edge. The flower-in-the-crannied-wall theory. We have to accept it because so often our teeth are on edge from persimmons we didn't eat.'(221)

'The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you. He sees in his mind a face which does not exist any more, speaks a name -- Spike, Bud, Snip, Red, Rusty, Jack, Dave -- which belongs to that now nonexistent face but which by some inane and doddering confusion of the universe is for the moment attached to a not too happily met and boring stranger. But he humors the drooling doddering confusion of the universe and continues to address politely that dull stranger by the name which properly belongs to the boy face and to the time when the boy voice called thinly across the late afternoon water or murmured by a campfire at night or in the middle of a crowded street said, "Gee, listen to this -- 'On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves --'" the Friend of Your Youth is your friend because he does not see you anymore.'(234-235)

'... for when you get in love you are made all over again. The person who loves you has picked you out of the great mass of uncreated clay which is humanity to make something out of, and the poor lumpish clay which is you wants to find out what it had been made into. But at the same time, you, in the act of loving somebody, become real, cease to be part of the continuum of the uncreated clay and get the breath of life in you and rise up. So you create yourself by creating another person, who, however, has also created you, picked up the you-chunk of clay out of the mass. So there are two you's, the one you yourself create by loving and the one the beloved creates by loving you. The farther those two you's are apart the more the world grinds and grudges on its axis. But if you loved and were loved perfectly then there wouldn't be any difference between the two you's or any distance between them. They would coincide perfectly, there would be a perfect focus...'(282)

'If you believe the dream you dream when you go there.'(311)

"Jack", he said, "politics is always a matter of choices, and a man doesn't set up the choices himself. And there is always a price to make a choice. You know that. You've made a choice, and you know how much it cost you. There is always a price."(343)

'... by the time we understand the pattern we are in, the definition we are making for ourselves, it is too late to break out of the box. We can only live in terms of the definition, like the prisoner in the cage in which we cannot lie or stand or sit, hung up in justice to be viewed by the populace. Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selfness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?'(351)

'A time comes when you think you cannot bear another thing, but it happens to you, and you can bear it.'(424)

Second Harvest Book edition 1996
438 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
Book idea from Shelley @ Book Clutter. Thank you so much. Her awesome review is HERE.
BTW, I have found my favorite passage to date: passage in red from p.282.

176. the COUNT of MONTE CRISTO

Alexandre Dumas 1844-1846

An intricate web of melodrama awaits the reader as Edmond Dantes finally puts his cunning plan of revenge into action against Danglars, Fernand and Villefort, the three people responsible for sending him to prison for fourteen years. The year was 1815, in Marseilles, when he was falsely accused of treason and arrested on the day he was to be wed to his beloved Mercedes. Saved from eternal doom by fellow prisoner Abee Faria, who paves the way for his escape and bestows him with massive fortune, he returns around 1838 to take vengeance as the Count of Monte Cristo. Revenge is not the only thing that rules his good heart, however, as he uses his wealth to protect M. Morell (the one person who believed in his innocence and fought for his freedom) and his family.


'On the 24th of February, 1815, the watch-tower of Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the arrival of the three-master Pharaon, from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples. The usual crown of curious spectators immediately filled the quay of Fort Saint-Jean, for at Marseilles the arrival of a ship is always a great event, especially when that ship, as was the case with the Pharaon, has been built, rigged, and laden in the dockyard of old Phocacea and belongs to a shipowner of their own town.'(opening lines)

"That is just what alarms me," said Dantes. "I cannot help thinking it is not man's lot to attain happiness so easily. Good fortune is like the palaces of the enchanted isles, the gates of which were guarded by dragons. Happiness could only be obtained by overcoming these dragons, and I, I know not how I have deserved the honour of becoming Mercedes' husband."(21)

'Perhaps you have no enemies, but you may have aroused feelings of jealousy. At the early age of nineteen you are about to receive a captaincy, you are going to marry a beautiful girl who loves you; these two pieces of good fortune may have been the cause of envy.'(33)

'Danglars alone felt no pang of remorse or restlessness: he was even happy, for had he not avenged himself on an enemy and assured for himself the position on board the Pharaon he was in danger of losing? He was one of those calculating men who was born with a pen behind their ears and an ink pot in place of a heart. He went to bed at the usual hour and slept peacefully.'(47)

'In spite of his prayers, however, Dantes still remained a prisoner.
His gloom gave way to wrath. He began to roar out blasphemies which made even his gaoler recoil with horror, and dashed himself in a paroxysm of fury against the walls of the prison. Then there recurred to his mind the informer's letter which Villefort had shown him. Each line of it was reflected on the walls in fiery letters. He told himself it was the hatred of men and not the vengeance of God that had thrust him into this dark abyss. He doomed these unknown men to the most cruel torments his fiery imagination was capable of conjuring up, but, even so, the most awful of these torments seemed to him too mild and too short for them, for after the torment would come death, and in death they would find, if not repose, at all events that insensibility which so nearly resembles repose.'(58-59)

'... that I have buried in a spot he knows and has visited with me -- that is, in the caves of the small isle of Monte Cristo -- all I possess in ingots, gold, money, jewels, diamonds, gems; that alone I know the existence of this treasure, which may amount to about two million Roman crowns and which he will find on raising the twentieth rock from the small creek to the East in a straight line.'(89)

'Now farewell to kindness, humanity, gratitude," said he. "Farewell to all the sentiments which rejoice the heart. I have played the part of Providence in recompensing the good, may the god of vengeance now permit me to punish the wicked!'(154)

"It is fortunate that we still have some conscience left, otherwise we should be very unhappy." said Monte Cristo. "After any vigorous action it is conscience that saves us, for it furnishes is with a thousand and one excuses of which we alone are judges, and however excellent these reasons may be to lull as to sleep, before a tribunal they would most likely avail us little in preserving our lives."(242)

'At first sight the exterior of Monte Cristo's houae at Auteuil presented nothing magnificent, nothing of what one would have expected of a house chosen for such a grand personage as the Count of Monte Cristo. But no sooner was the door opened that the scene changed.... The library was divided into two parts and contained about two thousand books; one complete section was devoted to modern novels, and even one that had only been published the day before was to be seen in its place, proudly displaying its red and gold binding.'(274-275)

"My friends, you will no doubt admit," said he, "that, arrived at a certain degree of fortune, the superfluous takes the place of the necessary, and, as you ladies will admit, arrived at a certain degree of exaltation, the ideal takes the place of the real. Now to continue this argument, what is marvelous? That which we do not comprehend. What is truly desirable? That which we cannot have. Now to see things I cannot understand, to procure things impossible of possession, such is the plan of my life. I can realize it by two means: money and will."(279)

'It was an imposing sight to behold this old man, to all appearances a useless mass, now become the sole protector and support of two young handsome lovers just entering life. Imprinted on his face was a noble and remarkably austere expression which filled Morrel with awe. He related how he had learned to love her, and how in her unhappiness and solitude Valentine had welcomed his offer of devotion; he gave full information regarding his birth and position, and more than once when he questioned the paralytic's eye, it said to him: "that is well! Continue!"'(325)

"Behold my dear friend, how God punishes the most boastful and unfeeling for their indifference in the face of terrible disasters," he said. "I looked on unmoved and curious. I watched this grim tragedy developing, and, like one of those fallen angels, laughed at the evil committed by men under the screen of secrecy. And now my turn has come, and I am bitten by the serpent whose tortuous course I have been watching -- bitten to the core.'(425)

'Women have infallible instincts, and by means of an algebra unknown to man, they can explain the most marvelous things.'(467)

'He is a noble-hearted soul who realizes that every man owes a tribute to his country; some their talents, others their industry, others their blood.'(495)

'Live and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day comes when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and hope!'(508)

a Penguin book 2001 Edition
509 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 2011 Victorian Challenge
                               100+ Reading Challenge

173. WASHINGTON SQUARE

Henry James 1880

Set during the Victorian period in Washington Square, New York, this short classic depicts an era gone by (thank goodness) of women subservience. Catherine is the devoted only child of a wealthy and successful widower, Dr. Sloper. They live with Dr. Sloper's sister Mrs. Penniman. When she meets and falls in love with Morris Townsend, a carefree and handsome fellow, she finds herself manipulated by two conflicting views toward Morris: her father who dislikes him and suspects that he is only after her inheritance, and her Aunt who simply adores him. The battle of wills between all of these four main characters renders the read a bit of a gentle suspense.

'During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession.'(opening lines)

'It is well known that in New York it is possible for a young girl to occupy a primary one. Catherine, who was extremely modest, had no desire to shine, and on most social occasions, as they are called, you would have found her lurking in the background. She was extremely fond of her father, and very much afraid of him; she thought him the cleverest and handsomest and most celebrated of men. The poor girl found her account so completely in the exercise of her affections that the little tremor of fear that mixed itself with her filial passion gave the thing an extra relish rather than blunted its edge.'(9)

'In front of them was the Square, containing a considerable quantity of inexpensive vegetation, enclosed by a wooden paling, which increased its rural and accessible appearance; and round the corner was the more august precinct of Fifth Avenue, taking its origin at this point with a spacious and confident air which already marked it for high destinies. I know not whether it is owing to the tenderness of early associations, but this portion of New York appears to many persons the most delectable. It has a kind of established repose which is not of frequent occurrence in other quarters of the long, shrill city; it has a riper, richer, more honourable look than any of the upper ramifications of the great longitudinal thoroughfare -- the look of having had something of a social history.'(13)

'He learned what he had asked some three or four days later, after Morris Townsend, with his cousin, had called in Washington Square. Mrs. Penniman did not tell her brother, on the drive home, that she had intimated to this agreeable young man, whose name she did not know, that, with her niece, she should be very glad to see him; but she was greatly pleased, and even a little flattered, when, late on a Sunday afternoon, the two gentleman made their appearance.'(21)

'The reason Catherine has received so little attention is that she seemed to all the young men to be older then themselves. She is so large, and she dresses -- so richly. They are rather afraid of her, I think; she looks as if she had been married already, and you know they don't like married women. 'And if our young men appear disinterested,' the Doctor's wiser sister went on, 'it is because they marry, as a general thing, so young, before twenty-five, at the age of innocence and sincerity, before the age of calculation. If they only waited a little, Catherine would fare better.'(30-31)

'You women are all the same! But the type to which your brother belongs was made to be the ruin of you, and you were made to be its handmaids and victims. The sign of the type in question is the determination -- sometimes terrible in its quiet intensity -- to accept nothing of life but its pleasures, and to secure these pleasures chiefly by the aid of your complaisant sex. Young men of this class never do anything for themselves that they can get other people to do for them, and it is the infatuation, the devotion, the superstition of others that keeps them going. These other in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are women. What our young friends chiefly insist upon is that someone else shall suffer for them; and women to that sort of thing, as you  must know, wonderfully well.'(65)

'She will cling," said Mrs. Almond, 'she will certainly cling.'
'Yes; as I say, she will stick.'
'Cling is prettier. That's what those very simple natures always do, and nothing could be simpler than Catherine. She doesn't take many impressions; but when she takes one she keeps it. She is like a copper kettle that received a dent, you may polish up the kettle, but you can't efface the mark.'(95)

'"She would touch me if she didn't irritate me. That's the effect she has upon me now. I have tried everything upon her; I really have been quite merciless. But it is of no use whatever; she is absolutely glued. I have passed, in consequence, into the exasperated stage. At first I had a good deal of a certain genial curiosity about it; I wanted to see if she really would stick. But, good Lord, one's curiosity is satisfied! I see she is capable of it, and now she can let go."
"She will never let go," said Mrs. Almond.'(122)

a Wordsworth Edition Limited 1995
162 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for : 100+ Reading Challenge
                              The Victorian Challenge 2011

Happy July 4th to everyone!!!

171. CRY, the BELOVED COUNTRY

Alan Paton 1948

In this sublime and poetic novel, we meet Stephen Kumalo, a black Anglican priest who travels from his small village of Ixtapo (Ndotsheni) to Johannesburg, to look for his daughter Gertrude and son Absalom. Tragically, he soon learns that Absalom has been accused of killing Arthur Jarvis, the son of their white neighbor James Jarvis. Arthur is in Johannesburg to fulfill his dream of fighting racial inequality. It is his through his writings, as read by his father Jarvis after his death, that the author's passionate love for his country of South Africa shines through. A very moving and thought-provoking book.

'There is a lovely road that runs from Ixtapo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa.'(opening lines)

'All roads lead to Johannesburg. Through the long nights the trains pass to Johannesburg. The lights of the swaying coach fall on the cutting-sides, on the grass and the stones of a country that sleeps. Happy the eyes that can close.'(11)

'They must go on, said Msimangu gravely. You cannot stop the world from going on. My friend, I am a Christian. It is not in my heart to hate a white man. It was a white man who brought my father out of darkness. But you will pardon me if I talk frankly to you. The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again.'(25)

'Yes, there are a hundred, and a thousand voices crying. But what does one do, when one cries this thing, and one cries another? Who knows how we shall fashion a land of peace where black outnumbers white so greatly? Some say that the earth has bounty enough for all, and that more for one does not mean less for another, that the advance of one does not mean the decline of another.'(78)

'Who knows how we shall fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority and the loss of our whiteness. Some say it is true that crime is bad, but would this not be worse? Is it not better to hold what we have, and to pay the price of it with fear? And others say, can such fear be endured? For is it not this fear that drives men to ponder these things at all?'(79)

'Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.'(80)

'And while there is life, there is hope for amendment of life.'(106)

'It was permissible to allow the destruction of a tribal system that impeded the growth of the country. It was permissible that its destruction was inevitable. But it is not permissible to watch its destruction, and to replace it by nothing, or by so little, that a whole people deteriorates, physically and morally.'(146)

'The truth is that our Christian civilization is riddled through and through with dilemma. We believe in the brotherhood of man, but we do not want it in South Africa. We believe that God endows men with diverse gifts and that human life depends for its fullness on their employment and enjoyment, but we are afraid to explore this belief too deeply. We believe in help for the underdog, but we want him to stay under.'(154)

'One can hear, as I heard when I was a boy, that there are more Afrikaners than English-speaking people in South Africa, and yet knowing nothing, see nothing, of them at all. One can read, as I read when I was a boy, the brochures about lovely South Africa, that land of sun and beauty sheltered from the storms of the world, and feel pride in it and love it, and yet know nothing about it at all. It is only as one grows up that one learns that there are other things here than sun and gold and oranges. It is only then that one learns of the hates and fears of our country. It is only then that one's love grows deep and passionate, as a man may love a woman who is true, false, cold, loving, cruel and afraid.'(174)

'Therefore I shall devote myself, my time, my energy, my talents, to the service of South Africa. I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie. I shall do this, not because I am a negrophile and a hater of my own, but because I cannot find it in me to do anything else. I am lost when I balance this against that, I am lost when I ask if this is safe, I am lost when I ask if men, white men or black men, Englishmen or Afrikaners, Gentiles or Jews, will approve. Therefore I shall try to do what is right, and to speak what is true.'(175)

'At those dread words the boy fell on the floor, he was crouched in the way that some of the Indians pray, and he began to sob, with great tearing sounds that convulsed him. For a boy is afraid of death. The old man, moved to it by that deep compassion which was there within him, knelt by his son, and ran his hand over his head.
-- Be of courage, my son.'(207)

'Yes, it is the dawn that has come. The titihoya wakes from sleep, and goes about its work of forlorn crying. The sun tips with light the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand. The great valley of the Umzimkul is still in darkness, but the light will come there. Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.'(closing lines)

First Scribner Classic/Collier Edition 1986
277 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for:100+ Reading Challenge

167. CATCH-22

Joseph Heller 1961

Set during WWII in the fictional island of Pianosa, Italy, this hilarious satirical novel follows the lives of Yossarian (the protagonist) and other enlisted men and officers (notable characters for me: Milo, Doctor Daneeka, Major Major, Colonel Cathcart, Snowden and Chaplain Tappman) of  the U.S. Army Air Forces 256th Bombardment Squadron. Under the guise of laugh-out-loud scenes with superb contradicting and absurd dialogues are the many themes that the book deals with - heroism, faith, justice, greed, power, personal integrity, morality and American bureaucracy.

'It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell in love with him.'(opening lines)

'The colonel dwelt in a vortex of specialists who were still specializing in trying to determine what was troubling him. They hurled needles into nerves to hear if he could feel. There was a urologist for his urine, a lymphologist for his lymph, an endocrinologist for his endocrines, a psychologist for his psyche, a dermatologist for his derma; there was a pathologist for his pathos, a cytologist for his cysts, and a bald and pedantic cetologist from the zoology department at Harvard who had been shanghaied ruthlessly into the Medical Corps by a faulty mode in an I.B.M. machine and spent his sessions with the dying colonel trying to discuss Moby Dick with him.'(15)

'Clevinger conceded unwillingly in s subdued tone. "Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?"
"I do," Dunbar told him.
"Why?" Clevinger asked.
"What else is there?"(39)

'There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more mission and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them., If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.'(46)

'Everyone agreed that Clevinger was certain to go far in the academic world. In short, Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out. In short, he was a dope.'(68)

'Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacing all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.
Major Major had three strikes on him from the beginning -- his mother, his father and Henry Fonda, to whom he bore a sickly resemblance almost form the moment of his birth.'(83)

 'What can you possibly say to him? Major Major wondered forlornly. One thing he could not say was that there was nothing he could do. To say there was nothing  he could do would suggest he would do something if he could and imply the existence of an error or injustice in Colonel Korn's policy. Colonel Korn had been most explicit about that. He must never say there was nothing he could do.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But there's nothing I can do."'(103)

'The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live."(124)

'The soldier in white was constructed entirely of gauze, plaster and a thermometer, and the thermometer was merely an adornment left balanced in the empty dark hole in the bandages over his mouth early each morning and late afternoon by Nurse Cramer and Nurse Duckett right up to the afternoon Nurse Cramer read the thermometer and discovered he was dead.'(167)

'"I see everything twice!"... Pandemonium broke loose in the ward again. The specialists came running up from all directions...
The leader of this team of doctors was a dignified, solicitous gentleman who held one finger up directly in front of Yossarian and demanded, "How many fingers do you see?"
"Two," said Yossarian.
"How many fingers do you see now?" asked the doctor, holding up two.
"Two," said Yossarian.
"And how many now?" asked the doctor, holding up none.
"Two," said Yossarian.
The doctor's face wreathed with a smile. "By jove, he's right," he declared jubilantly. "He does see everything twice."'(180-181)

'The colonel sat back when he had finished and was extremely pleased with himself for the prompt action he had just taken to meet this sinister crisis. Yossarian -- the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, a name that just did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest, American names as Cathcart, Peckem and Dreedle.'(210)

'There's an international Polish sausage exchange in Geneva. I'll just fly the peanuts into Switzerland and exchange them for Polish sausage at the open market rate. They'll fly the peanuts back to Cracow and I'll fly the Polish sausage back to you. You buy only as much Polish sausage as you want through the syndicate. There'll be tangerines too, with only a little artificial coloring added. And eggs from Malta and Scotch from Sicily. You'll be paying the money to yourself when you buy from the syndicate, since you'll own a share, so you'll really be getting everything you buy for nothing. Doesn't that make sense?'(252)

'Just pass the work I assign you along to somebody else and trust to luck. We call that delegation of responsibility. Somewhere down near the lowest level of this coordinated organization I run are people who do get the work done when it reaches them, and everything manages to run along smoothly without too much effort on my part. I suppose that's because I am a good executive. Nothing we do in this large department of ours is really very important, and there's never any rush. On the other hand, it is important that we let people know we do a great deal of it. Let me know if you find yourself shorthanded. I've already put in a requisition for two majors, four captains and sixteen lieutenants to give you a hand. While none of the work we do is very important, it is important that we do a great deal of it.'(320)

'The chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil and no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine institution, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.'(363)

'When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.'(445)

Simon and Schuster Paperbacks
452 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

166. AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

Agatha Christie 1939

I honestly am not sure why I didn't reread this book sooner because it is my absolute favorite of Agatha Christie's work!  It is exquisitely Brilliant and Awesome!!! Ten strangers (Emily Brent, Vera Claythourne, Dr. Armstrong, Anthony Marston, old Justice Wargrave, Philip Lombard, General Macarthur, C.M.G., D.S.O. Manservant and wife: Mr. and Mrs. Rogers),  united by the common thread of  a guilty conscience, are summoned to Indian Island by an Unknown host. One by one, they die, until there were none!

'In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in the Times.'(opening lines)

'She had pictured it differently, close to shore, crowned with a beautiful white house. But there was no house visible, only the boldly silhouetted rock with its faint resemblance to a giant Indian's head. There was something sinister about it.'(22)

'She stood in front of the fireplace and read it. It was the old nursery rhyme that she remembered from her childhood days.

Ten little Indian boys went out to die;

One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;

One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon; 

One said he'd stay there and then there were seven. 

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;

One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;

A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Indian boys going in for law;

One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Indian boys going out to sea;

A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo;

A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;

One got frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Indian boy let all alone;

He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

Vera smiled. Of course! This was Indian Island.'(32)

'He said: Just now we had a somewhat disturbing experience. An apparently disembodied voice spoke to us all by name, uttering certain precise accusations against us.'(54)

'If this had been an old house, with creaking wood, and dark shadows, and heavily panelled walls, there might have been an eerie feeling. But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners -- no possible sliding panels -- it was flooded  with electric light -- everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it.... Somehow, that was the most frightening of all .....'(72)

'It's those little figures, sir. In the middle of the table. The little china figures. Ten of them, there were. I'll swear to that, ten of them.'(95)

'In the sense you mean, no. I came to that conclusion early this morning. I could have told you that your search would be fruitless. Nevertheless, I am strongly of the opinion that 'Mr. Owen' ( to give him the name he himself has adopted) is on the island. Very much so. ... It is perfectly clear. Mr. Owen is one of us...'(135)

'Five people -- five frightened people. Five people who watched each other, who now hardly troubled to hide their state of nervous tension.... There were little pretence now -- no formal veneer of conversation. They were five enemies linked together by a mutual instinct of self-preservation.'(191)

'I have wanted -- let me admit it frankly -- to commit a murder myself. I recognized this as the desire of the artist to express himself! If I was, or could be, an artist in crime!'(263)

St. Martin's Paperback edition/May 2001

275 pages

Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

160. SILAS MARNER

George Eliot 1861

After Silas Marner is betrayed by a friend and later loses his fiance, he moves to Raveloe and leads the life of a lonely weaver, seemingly content to enjoy the gold he has accumulated from his craft. But when this treasure gets stolen from its hiding place by his hearth, and days later, he finds a golden-haired child in its place, his life begins to change. With the help of Dolly, a friendly neighbor, he raises the child as his own, while continuing to wonder about the identity of the child's parents and the person who stole his gold. Set in 19th century England, this is another classic that gives as a timeless story of the redemptive powers of love.

'In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses -- and even great ladies, clothes in silk and threadlace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak -- there might be seen, in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom on the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race.'(opening lines)

'He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. Silas's hand satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle, and his eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth complete themselves under his effort.'(14)

'The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent.'(38)

'I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbors with our words is, that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. There was a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe, but it was often of a beery and bungling sort, and took the shape least allied to the complimentary and hypocritical.'(77)

"Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy -- never think well of me, let what would happen -- would you never think that the present made amends for the past? Not if I turned a good fellow, and gave up everything you didn't like?"(106)

'It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.'(108)

'He turned immediately towards the hearth where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty of beauty in the earth or sky -- before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.'(119)

'The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no one eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.'(120)

"Ah," said Dolly, with soothing gravity, "it's like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest -- one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how or where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do arter all -- the big things come and go wi' no striving o' our'n -- they do, that they do;..."(123)

'Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings; and this breath of poetry had surrounded Eppie from the time when she had followed the bright gleam that beckoned her to Silas's hearth; so that it is not surprising if, in other things besides her delicate prettiness, she was not quite a common village maiden, but had a touch of refinement and fervour which came from no other teaching than that of tenderly-nurtured unvitiated feeling.'(145-146)

a Bantan Book Reissue, June 1992

183 pages

Book owned
Book quotes from the edition on the left (and not title post)

Book qualifies for: Victorian Reading Challenge

                                 100+ Reading Challenge

157. the STRANGER

Albert Camus 1942
Translated from the French by Matthew Ward

How ironic that Mersault, the main character of this book only wants to live a simple life but ends up in a complex and senseless path. He lives for the moment, always calm, honest, unemotional and passive, even as he buries his mother and begins a relationship with girlfriend Marie. He refrains from overthinking, rationalizing nor overreacting, even as he gets entangled in a tragic crime, goes to jail, and is put on trial. Like Mersault, the book is straight-forward, the telling unpretentious and stark, devoid of detours and incessant meanderings. Sometimes, I need that.

'Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours." That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.'(opening lines)

'Then he asked me if I wasn't interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn't dissatisfied with mine here at all. He looked upset and told me that I never gave him a straight answer, that I had no ambition, and that that was disastrous business. So I went back to work. I would rather not upset him, but I couldn't see any reason to change my life. Looking back on it, I wasn't unhappy. When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered.'(41)

'All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed my stinging eyes. That's when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire.'(59)

'He asked if I had felt any sadness that day. The question caught me by surprise and it seemed to me that I would have been very embarrassed if  I'd had to ask it. Nevertheless I answered that I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn't mean anything. At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead. Here the lawyer interrupted me and he seemed very upset. He made me promise I wouldn't say that at my hearing or in front of the examining magistrate. I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that physical needs often get in the way of my feelings. '(65)

'Then the judge stood up, as if to give me the signal that the examination was over. He simply asked, in the same weary tone, if I was sorry for what I had done. I thought about it for a minute and said that more than sorry I felt kind of annoyed. I got the impression he didn't understand. But that was as far as things went that day.'(70)

'Afterwards my only thoughts were those of a prisoner. I waited for the daily walk, which I took in the courtyard, or for a visit from my lawyer. The rest of the time I managed pretty well. At the time, I often thought that if I had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowering overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it.'(77)

'Apart from these annoyances, I wasn't too unhappy. Once again the main problem was killing time. Eventually, once I learned how to remember things, I wasn't bored at all... I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored. In a way, it was an advantage.'(79)

'I noticed then that everyone was waving and exchanging greetings and talking, as if they were in a club where people are glad to find themselves among others from the same world. That is how I explained to myself the strange impression I had of being odd man out, a kind of intruder.'(84)

"Here we have a perfect reflection of this entire trial: everything is true and nothing is true!"(91)

'I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of the town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed. The utter pointlessness of whatever I was doing there seized me by the throat, and all I wanted was to get it over with and get back to my cell and sleep.'(104-105)

'Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about. In my prison, when the sky turned red and a new day slipped into my cell, I found out that she was right. Because I might just as easily have heard footsteps and my heart could have burst.'(113)

'I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done another. And so?'(121)

First Vintage International Edition March 1989
123 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

Updated: June 6, 2011 - A wonderful review by Pepca @ Beyond strange new words is HERE.

150. the HOUND of the BASKERVILLES

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 1902

This book superseded all my expectations. I enjoyed everything about it: the dark, foggy and ghostly setting in Devonshire, England,  the simple yet twisty plot, the lucid prose that describes the eerie scenes so perfectly, and the very amiable and brilliant Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Watson. After the horrifying death of Sir Charles Baskerville from what seems to be a diabolical beast, the masterful duo sets to solve a possible curse on the Baskerville family, the task rendered particularly urgent because there is but one last heir, Sir Henry, that remains. 

'Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.'(opening lines)

"Really Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. "I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very  much in your debt."(3)

"You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolicocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull."(9)

'But it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon the heads of these three daredevil rosyterers, but it was that, standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing; a great black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon. '(16-17)

'I knew that seclusion and solitude were very necessary for my friend in those hours of intense mental concentration during which he weighed every particle of evidence, constructed alternative theories, balanced one against the other, and made up his mind as to which points were essential and which immaterial.'(35)

'As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.'(43)

'Setting aside the whole grim story of Sir Charles's death, we had a line of inexplicable incidents all within the limits of two days, which included the receipt of the printed letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown boot, the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new brown boot. Holmes sat in silence in the cab as we drove back to Baker Street, and I knew from his drawn brows and keen face that his mind, like my own, was busy in endeavouring to frame some scheme into which all these strange and apparently disconnected episodes could be fitter. All afternoon and late into the evening he sat lost in tobacco and thought.'(68)

'The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip.
"Baskerville Hall," said he.'(81-82)

"As if in answer to his words there rose suddenly out of the vast gloom of the moor that strange cry which I had already heard upon the borders of the great Grimpen Mire. It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild, and menacing.'(137-138)

'And it was at this moment that there occurred a most strange and unexpected thing. We had risen from our rocks and were turning to go home, having abandoned the hopeless chase. The moon was low upon the right, and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up against the lower curve of its silver disc. There, outlined as black as an ebony statue on that shining background, I saw the figure of a man upon the tor.'(142)

'Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.'(200)

'One of Sherlock Holmes's defects -- if, indeed, one may call it a defect -- was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfillment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his professional caution, which urged him to never take any chances.'(214)

The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.'(239)

'There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my own experience depended upon their prompt recognition.'(241)

First Aladdin Paperback edition 2000
246 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

149. ANIMAL FARM

George Orwell 1956

Not to be cynical, but why can't I stop feeling that this book that was written in 1956, is somehow portraying what is now the state of politicking and governing in our world today?  This highly provocative satire about animals rebelling against, and ultimately overthrowing humans, clearly spotlights what greed and power can do to anyone. Highly unsettling.

'Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.(opening lines)

'Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work in the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: this is the plain truth.'(28)

'Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.'(29)

"I have little more to say. I merely repeat, remember always your duty of enmity towards Man and all his ways. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All  the habits of Man are evil. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.'(31-32)

'Boxer was the admiration of everybody. He had been a hard worker even in Jones's time, but now he seemed more like three horses than one; there were days when the entire work of the farm seemed to rest on his mighty shoulders.'(46)

'The animals listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and could not make up their minds which was right; indeed, they always found themselves in agreement with the one who was speaking at the moment.'(66)

'Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the holding of the debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: "If Comrade Napoleon says it., it must be right." and from then on he adopted the maxim, "Napoleon is always right," in addition to his private motto of "I will work harder."'(70)

'The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon's own creation. Why, then, asked somebody, had he spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon's cunning. He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence. Now that Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go forward without his interference. This, said Squealer, was something called tactics. He repeated a number of times. "Tactics, comrades, tactics!" skipping round and whisking his tail with a merry laugh. The animals were not certain what the word meant, but Squealer spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who happened to be with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted his explanation without further questions.'(71-72)

'It was vitally necessary to conceal this fact from the outside world. Emboldened by the collapse of the windmill, the human beings were inventing fresh lies about the Animal Farm.... Napoleon was well aware of the bad results that might follow if the real facts of the food situation were known, and he decided to make use of Mr. Whymper to spread a contrary impression.'(85)

'It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the sun. Never had the farm -- and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their own property -- appeared to the animals so desirable a place. As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she would have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race.'(95)

'Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was better and better.'(129-130)

a Signet classic edition
139 pages
Book borrowed from JRMD
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge