Book Blog #201: The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

Title: The Mayor of Casterbridge
Author: Thomas Hardy
# of Pages: 231 (PDF)
Genre: Classics, Fiction, Literature
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character’, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
Review: This classic took me longer than usual to read, most likely because I didn't have the pressure of school deadlines to keep me reading. As far as Victorian classics go, The Mayor of Casterbridge is pretty standard - a mundane setting with the characters being interconnected and overdramatic plot-twists.

I became interested in reading this book because of an excerpt I read in an AP test; it decently easy to read and the conflict between father (Henchard) and daughter (Elizabeth-Jane) was strange; I wanted to know more about why this father rejected her daughter so cruelly. While the story was interesting, the ridiculousness of some of the characters' actions made the story less compelling than the excerpt seemed to portray. For its time period, it is a good read, and if it were to be written again with a more modern style, it would probably rival many well-written young adult novels.

For a classic, it is not as enlightening as others I have read; the themes of love, loyalty, and duty are all ones I've seen before. However, it is (or at least should be) a quick read and like all classics gives the reader a peek into the lifestyle of that time period. I would recommend reading this book if you're to-be-read shelf is a bit empty and you feel you have time to do some close reading.

Book Blog #91: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
# of Pages: 512 (paperback)
Genre: Classics, Historical Fictions, Literature
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: In an overgrown churchyard, a grizzled convict springs upon an orphan named Pip. The convict terrifies the young boy and threatens to kill him unless Pip helps further his escape. Later, Pip finds himself in the ruined garden where he meets the bitter and crazy Miss Havisham and her foster child Estella, with whom he immediately falls in love. After a secret benefactor gives him a fortune, Pip moves to London, where he cultivates great expectations for a life which would allow him to discard his impoverished beginnings and socialize with the idle upper class. As Pip struggles to become a gentleman and is tormented endlessly by the beautiful Estella, he slowly learns the truth about himself and his illusions.
Review: I regret that I will not be able to include all of my thoughts of this book in this review as it would take me a considerably long time to collect them all.

Despite the fact that it took me over a month to finish the book, I actually really enjoyed Great Expectations by the time I reached the ending.  However,  Dickens tends to write lengthy descriptions of situations that made parts of the book...boring.

What I found amazing is how all the characters have changed from the beginning of the story to the end.  Everyone grew in different ways and changed for better or for worse.  There are two endings for Great Expectations, and the one that Dickens had originally written for the story was not the one that most people read as the ending. I read both endings, and I liked the second ending  (that is more light-hearted than the original) considerably more.

I have to thank those who have forced me to complete this book; I would not have been able to finish without their encouragement. I would also like to thank Shmoop (it's beginning to sound like I won an Oscar or something) for supplying chapter by chapter summaries so I could better understand what the heck was going on in the detailed chapters that I read while I was half asleep.  I urge those who have not read it to do so sometime in the future, if only to enjoy the shock of the ending.

I do recommend this high-praised piece of literature, although not if you are not a fan of reading classics or anything Dickens.