Latest Blog Improvements

Ms Oh WailyLeave a comment

Today’s short update post is brought to you by two changes here at the 1001 Books blog.

First is a button link in our sidebar.  This addition is specifically for those of you who love to keep track of your reading. The link will take you to Arukiyomi’s 1001 Books spreadsheet.  All of the hard work organising the three 1001 lists is done for you.  There are three options for the spreadsheet; a free one, a choice of donation, and a full purchase.  And yes, Arukiyomi does have an affiliate club so if you decide to choose either of the paid versions once you have clicked through we will be credited with a small referral fee for you doing so.  However, like all of the affiliate things here at 1001 Books* it’s never about the money it is always about the books.

The second change is an update to The 1001 Books Lists page.  We have finally managed to merge all three editions into one giant list.  So instead of 1001 books for you to read, you are now looking at a staggering 1293.  The most changes occurred between the 2006 and 2008 editions, and there is a bit of difficulty with the numbering and the century the book appears in, but I’m sure we will all cope.  However, if you find any mistakes you are welcome to email us giving us the details and we will check (for the umpteenth time again) our list and make any amendments needed.

In the meantime, if you would like to review any of the newly added books, you are most welcome to submit them for publication.

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* all two of them.

Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

inspirationalreads4 Comments

Book #799

Reviewer: Tall, Short & Tiny


Speaking with a friend just before Christmas, our conversation turned to what we were each reading.

“Jude the Obscure,” I told her. “But I’m finding it pretty tough going at the moment…”

“It’s depressing, isn’t it??” she cried.

I was relieved; I’d thought that my morning sickness had been the only reason I’d been struggling to find anything endearing about this novel.

Jude the Obscure is a depressing story. Any moments of joy Hardy has thrown in are quickly tempered by tragedy, which makes for a compelling but gloomy read.

From what I’ve gathered, Hardy was one for making his feelings about aspects of Victorian society well-known through his writing. This is certainly evident in the themes running through Jude the Obscure; he is rather blatant in his commentaries of class boundaries, religion and the institution of marriage. At the time of publication (1895), the novel was heavily criticised and even publicly burned by one English bishop.

Jude Fawley, a young orphan, aspires to be a university scholar. He spends his spare time studying Latin and the classics, and firmly believes that his lack of money will be off-set by his intelligence and enthusiasm. He is tricked into marrying a local girl, Arabella. Arabella is vain, and mocks Jude for his studies; Jude in turn scorns Arabella for her trickery, and after two years, she leaves him.

Jude then sets out to follow his university dreams in a nearby city, but is disheartened to learn that his passion for learning is not enough to see him admitted into the university. He is poor, and of the wrong class of society, and no amount of knowledge is going to change this.

While earning his living as a stonemason (and still hopeful that one day he will fulfill his dreams), he meets and falls in love with his cousin, Sue Bridehead. Sue resists Jude’s pledges of love and marries an older gentleman, but is desperately unhappy and finds her husband physically (and therefore sexually) repulsive. This combined with her love for Jude sees her convincing her husband that he should free her from their union, and he agrees – his love for her is so great that he would rather let her go than see her stay and suffer.

Sue and Jude begin to live together in a non-sexual relationship; both are resistant to the idea of marriage in part due to each previous failure, but also because their family has a history of tragic unions. However, Jude eventually convinces Sue that they can have a sexual relationship and live together as a “married” couple without making it official, and they have two children together. They also become instant parents to a son from Jude’s marriage with Arabella; a son he did not know existed, as Arabella had not been pregnant long when she left him.

The family are socially ostracised when it is discovered that Sue and Jude are not legally married. A tragedy that befalls the family sees Sue turn to Christianity; she has previously been indifferent to religion, but is now convinced that the tragedy is divine punishment for her and Jude’s actions, and throws herself completely into the church which has previously ostracised her.

Hardy himself was unable to attend university for financial reasons, and his own wife turned to the church as she got older, causing increasing issues in their own marriage as Hardy was always highly critical of organised religion. I don’t think the novel was intended to be a biographical piece, but it is interesting to see Hardy using it as a very obvious sounding-board for his own thoughts and feelings.

I found this novel to be too depressing to be enjoyable, but there was something compelling about it that had me persevering until the end. I won’t lie – I breathed a sigh of relief when I read the last page – but I think the sporadic moments of happiness and lightness are enough to make this a novel I’m glad I read….I would just recommend you tackle it on bright sunny days, when you have enough moments of sunshine and happiness in your own life to ensure this novel doesn’t bring you down!

The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis

Ms Oh Waily1 Comment

Book #228

Reviewer: Ms Oh Waily (first published 2010)


This is the 1986 Booker Prize winner and my second Booker book this month.
I guess I’m finally on a bit of a roll.
This is also my first reading of anything by Kingsley Amis and I have to confess that it may well be my last.
According to his Wikipedia entry:

In 2008, The Times ranked Kingsley Amis ninth on their list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.[2]

Frankly, if this is what gets you into the top ten, I’m not sure what it would take to get you in the bottom ten.  Can you tell it didn’t resonate with me?

The premise of the book is the return to their homeland of Wales by Alun and Rhiannon Weaver and the ructions this causes in their old circle of friends.
Alun is a writer in the tradition of Brydan, who must be Dylan Thomas fictionalized, and a professional Welshman, being called upon to speak on television and radio whenever a Welsh view is called for.
All the characters are 60-somethings and have had many relationships amongst themselves.  In fact, at one point you begin to ask yourself who might not have slept with whom.

I found the whole thing fairly unpalatable and unsympathetic.  There is humour to be found, poignancy too.  It could be seen as a haunting view of what retirement can bring to people – lots of daytime-to-nighttime drinking in order to fill in the time, a giving up of the idea of living the life you hoped for in your youth, and generally becoming so lethargic that you willingly put up with a spouse you are happy to cheat on.

Adultery and alcoholism permeate the book, as does a feeling of hopelessness.
It is only slightly relieved by cutting humour, and occasional light humour.

I have to also confess that it began to read better once I had indulged in a couple of glasses of sauvignon blanc myself.  Perhaps it was written for those who have the edge taken off their faculties?
Eventually I began to sympathise with a couple of the old codgers, and I do have to say that some of the actual writing was very well done.  There are a few one liners that bring a smile to the face and a few descriptions that are very evocative if unsavory.

Here’s one of my favourites, a description of part of the character Peter’s morning routine.  By way of explanation, Peter is very obese, and Muriel is his domineering wife.

Those toenails had in themselves become a disproportion in his life.  They tore the pants because they were sharp and jagged, and they had got like that because they had grown too long and broken off, and he had let them grow because these days cutting them was no joke at all.  He could not do it in the house because there was no means of trapping the fragments and Muriel would be bound to come across a couple, especially with her bare feet, and that was obviously to be avoided.  After experimenting with a camp-stool in the garage and falling off it a good deal he had settled on a garden seat under the rather fine flowering cherry.  This restricted him to the warmer months, the wearing of an overcoat being of course ruled out by the degree of bending involved.  But at least he could let the parings fly free, and fly they bloody well did, especially the ones that came crunching off his big toes, which were massive enough and moved fast enough to have brought down a sparrow on the wing, though so far this had not occurred.

So, as you can see, the highlights are not really that high.  I do have to wonder if it is just me, but I can’t see enough in this book – either theme or writing style – that really warranted it being a prizewinner.

Not highly recommended at all.

Marya – Joyce Carol Oates

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Book #226

Reviewer: Inspirationalreads

Much as the title advises, this novel is about Marya Knauer and her life.  Told in her own voice, the novel opens with Marya as a child, her father recently dead and her mother abandoning and her two brothers.  They move in with her Aunt and Uncle and cousins, one of which abuses her.  She is poor and from the wrong side of town but all this gives her is an incentive to be better than everyone else, to be smarter, more ambitious and to get out of her small home town.

We move through Marya’s life in leaps to significant times each marked by a significant relationship; her dying priest while in high school, a frenemy at college, her professor/mentor/lover.  And each chapter shows us how she is moving away from her humble beginnings and maturing into an acknowledged intellectual and published author.

This is my second Oates, my first being a short story compilation of hers.  I enjoyed the short stories, they were a bit off-kilter and bizarre.  But Oates had a way of breaking off a story at crucial times and leaving the rest to the readers imagination. OK for the first few stories but became increasingly annoying when every story ended the same way.  I have come to realise that this seems to be her MO, as Marya’s story ends the same way.  However, in this circumstance it seemed to fit perfectly.  This novel reads more like Marya’s diary; it is not just an account of her every day actions but an insight to her inner-most thoughts, her emotions, her motives.  There is also a progression of the writing style as it moves from child-Marya to adult-Marya.  The first chapter jumps from topic to topic, seeming to be a bit more stream-of-consciousness, less structured then the later chapters.  And so, in respect to the ending, it stops at the end of a certain chapter of her life, but not at the end of her life.  The end of one diary but we don’t have access to the next one.

Because the writing is so deeply personal, all through the book I kept thinking that this must be Oates’s autobiography.  Although there are a few similarities (they are both writers and teachers) I was disappointed that her real life was not more like Marya’s as it felt like I had gotten to know her so well.  That so much of the thoughts and feelings laid bare had to come from her own personal experience.  For instance, the following passage;

Lately her ‘serious’ writing frightened her  not just the content itself – though the content was often wild, disturbing, unanticipated – but the emotional and psychological strain it involved.

In my opinion, this is why this book is on the list and why Oates is such a widely-heralded author.  Of her skill as a writer there is no doubt; that clear progression from child to adult Marya, the emotion she can evoke with just one sentence.  Oh, and the fact that she has been teaching creative writing at Princeton University since the late 1970’s (Interesting sidenote:  She taught Jonathan Safran Foer and was an advisor for his early development of Everything is Illuminated, number 26 on this very list).

I am a confirmed fan of Ms. Oates and with three more books on the list and over 50 novels to her name, I have a lot more to enjoy.  I can appreciate that this book may not be to everyone’s tastes, but based on my personal enjoyment and admiration of the author herself, I do recommend this and give it a 3.5/5.