The last five novels that I read and my true opinions of them. From horror to romance, this diverse mix contains novels that I have begun to love and others that I don't hesitate to criticise. I apologise for this blog post being a little longer than usual, I was writing this into the night and couldn't stop... So grab a cup of tea and enjoy.
P.S. SPOILER ALERT!
Please be aware that at times I discuss the plot points and endings of some of these novels. Do not read any that you don't want spoiling.
1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
I feel like Great Expectations is one of those novels that, when you tell someone you’ve not read it, you get a funny look. Like you’re an alien who doesn’t need oxygen (AKA Charles Dicken’s novels) in order to breathe. However, I hate to disappoint all the Dickens fans out there, but I would go so far as to say I hated this book. I must admit the reason behind buying Great Expectations was very shallow…it had a pretty cover okay…and I thought it was time to read this famous novel.
So why did I hate this novel so much? Firstly, the 'amazing' characters aren't even that amazing. I must admit the idea surrounding the character of the famous Miss Havisham is fascinating- a woman trapped in a time capsule (i.e. a yellowing wedding dress) from the day that she was abandoned at the altar by her fiancée. However, I thought Dickens made her highly unlikeable. She appears maybe four times in the novel, and relatively briefly. First it is because she has requested a little boy to come and play at her house (erm…not weird AT ALL) which ends up being Pip. The majority of the time he assists her in ‘exercising’ which is just helping her to walk in endless circles around the dining room table. My view of Miss Havisham changed somewhat when Pip receives a mysterious fortune and becomes a rich gentleman (aww wasn’t that nice of her?) but oh no, towards the end of the novel its actually the homeless beggar Magwitch- who is actually, secretly loaded (erm what? So he just enjoys being starving and poor then?) that gave Pip his fortune. So Miss Havisham goes back to being the selfish and demanding old hag she was before.
And Estella- if you’ve heard of Great Expectations you’ve heard of the infatuation Pip has with Estella. Now, I can get behind love matches in classic novels if the characters have a genuine reason for being in love with someone that isn’t ‘she had the most beautiful countenance’ i.e. she’s fit, and that’s exactly what Pip’s infatuation with Estella is. She’s quiet, cold and frankly downright rude to Pip most of the time until she is miraculously kind in the ending scene- actually sorry, she’s got a ‘sad kindness’ about her. Pip, you can do better hun.
Dicken’s writing style in Great Expectations is so different to A Christmas Carol- which I loved. The descriptions in that novel made the scenes so lifelike, however I was struggling to understand what was going on in some Great Expectations' scenes. I think Dickens may have been going mad in old age or something. The lack of emotion in Pip’s narration is just downright weird. I remember the fight scene towards the end of the novel, where Pip’s friend Magwitch (yes, the one who gave him his entire fortune) is engaged in a fight and ultimately drowns his opponent. Magwitch, though, is still caught and arrested- he’s an escaped convict who was attempting to leave the country, with the help of Pip, on a boat- but there is no emotional commentary to this scene whatsoever. Pip, as the narrator, describes the fight scene, Magwitch being arrested, and then casually switches to his account of going home whilst the sun is setting… Is he not worried about his friend who has just been arrested? Is he not disgusted that he could be capable of murder? Apparently none of the above.
The ending…oh dear the ending…
So I was waiting- and waiting and waiting- for this book to pick up and get interesting and then just after a very confusing fight scene is the ending, which I hoped would redeem the novel. But oh no, it’s just a cliché ending where the dull and boring protagonist happens to bump into his love interest (yes, that bitch Estella) who is widowed i.e. single- oh and don’t forget, now she has a ‘sad kindness’ about her- and they end up happily ever after. Dickens, what were you thinking?
Unlike most novels with frustrating endings, the only interesting thing about this one is that I know exactly what Dickens was thinking. The original ending saw Pip and Estella bump into each other on a London street, she has been widowed but has since remarried, and Pip leaves feeling satisfied with the conversation, but knows that they can never be together i.e. an ending that is a lot more realistic. But then, apparently, Dickens friends (I don’t know if they can be classed as friends after this) persuaded him to change the ending so that Pip and Estella end up together…
Fuming.
Rating: 2/10. Because of this novel I have a ‘sad kindness’ about me…actually scrap the kindness part.
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
I chose to read this novel as a warm-up, if you like, before attempting to tackle War and Peace, also by Tolstoy. I use the word ‘tackle’ because War and Peace is no less than 1,225 pages long… It makes Anna Karenina (864 pages) seem like a small hurdle. Because of this, I was prepared to have to magic up some fresh stamina at some point throughout the novel, however, I didn’t need any.
This novel didn’t seem to be 864 pages long because I enjoyed every chapter of it. I’d never read anything like it before, and the reasons why I think Anna Karenina was so cleverly done, was thanks to its length. The intricacies of the story, the slow and emotional build-up of character profiles and the unfolding of these character’s lives couldn’t have been done in a mere 300 pages.
If a normal novel is like watching a film for an hour-and-a-half, Anna Karenina is like watching a TV show with ten series. Think of the different type of emotional attachment you get to characters in a TV show, whom you’ve watched and learned about for hours of your time. Anna Karenina also has multiple storylines- I’d say you could split it into three- that all intertwine with one another.
I was expecting an 1870's Russian novel to be a bit of a marathon to get through in terms of language, but I think the time of translation makes all the difference. My copy was translated in the 1990s, meaning that the old Russian language was translated into present-day English, making it so much easier to follow. I think it took me about 4 weeks to finish this novel, which I would say is pretty good going considering its length, which shows just how easy it was to read.
The character of Anna Karenina, unlike Pip, is crafted so perfectly that Tolstoy makes you feel like you’ve met her. By the end of the novel I knew her vulnerabilities, the details of her relationships with her lover Vronksy, her son Seryozha and her husband Karenin. I came to understand both Karenin and Anna’s pain caused by their divorce, both as powerful as each other but manifesting in different ways. As well as this, the love story between Levin and Kitty- another storyline- was captivating. I felt genuinely upset when Kitty made the impulsive decision to reject Levin’s proposal, came to respect her father who handled the situation so considerately and was on edge whenever Levin would anxiously enter a room and see Kitty across it.
It is safe to say that I am looking forward to reading War and Peace, which is apparently even more incredible than Anna Karenina, but I may have to order a version that is in two volumes, so that I can actually hold it up without getting muscle aches.
Rating: 9/10. ‘I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be’… Gold.
3. When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman
This book was so beautiful in places and it is for that reason that it became so frustrating as it progressed. I wonder if Winman had six different plot lines on her mind when she began writing this book and later on decided to just include all of them.
The beginning of this book reminded me faintly of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: a young female narrator, who looks up to her older brother, and narrates ‘adult’ topics from her youthful and naïve POV. I really felt for the main character, Elly, as her tragic back story was revealed- the story of her grandparents dying in a bus crash and her experience with sexual abuse from 'her friend' old Mr Golan next door.
I then thought that Elly and those around her must have some serious bad luck when her brother’s friend is kidnapped, has his ear cut off, but is miraculously returned home in time for Christmas (maybe the kidnappers felt generous during the festive season); the fabulous Ginger dies of cancer, the beloved Arthur goes blind overnight and Elly finds out her childhood friend, Jenny Penny, is in prison for murdering her husband! However, I stopped taking this novel seriously when Elly's brother Joe and his lover/friend Charlie are caught in the 9/11 attack, Joe supposedly dead, to soon return to his family alive but with amnesia... And this was all within the first two-thirds of this book. Don’t get me wrong, I think novels with tragic storylines can be so powerful- all three of my favourite novels are full of tragedy- but When God Was A Rabbit was saturated with it, so much so that it just became completely ridiculous.
Within the last few pages of the book when the old man Arthur is hit on the head by a coconut (which he had previously predicted), stops breathing and is revived by CPR with his sight miraculously returned I physically threw the book across the room.
This book had so much potential but I think Sarah Winman mixed too many genres and it didn’t work. The first 20-30 pages or so appeared to set this novel as a tale of life’s difficulties from the perspective of a young girl, however it transgressed into a stupid slap-stick comedy, that included such emotional subjects such as cancer, death, the sexual abuse of children and a boy’s inability to accept his homosexuality. Winman said that she felt that she could write so vividly about 9/11 because she was a witness that day. Would you include such an emotional topic in the same novel as a coconut prophecy? I don’t think so. Ultimately, the bone structure of this novel was interesting, but it was poorly executed.
Rating: 4/10. Any novel that includes a coconut and blindness in the same sentence is just confused.
4. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Ever since reading an extract of The Help at A Level, I’ve been dying to read it. I have to say I was not disappointed. Writing from the perspectives of two black maids in Southern America raising children in white families, Aibileen and Minnie and that of a young white woman beginning her career as a writer, Miss Skeeter, Stockett creates a vivid representation of racial tensions in the 1960's deep-south.
From Minnie’s experience with domestic abuse, Aibileen’s grief over the loss of her son, Miss Celia’s multiple miscarriages and Miss Skeeter’s experience with the lack of life choices for women, Stockett really creates an emotional connection between these characters and the reader. You also come to loathe the staunchly racist, manipulative and pretentious Miss Hilly.
The realistic, but devastating, part of this novel was the ending. Miss Skeeter, a middle-class white woman gets her happy ending whereas the black maids, Aibileen and Minnie, are satisfied- because they haven’t been fired- but are still stuck in the same positions, battling with racism, segregation and abuse in many forms, whilst trying to make a small living.
Kathryn Stockett has since described her experience living in Jackson, Mississippi- where the novel is set- and herself having a black maid at home- who at times acted more like a grandmother to her. She puts her own personal twist on this story by including the strong emotional attachments that sometimes occurred between white children and their maids, and even sometimes between white employers and their maids. She conveys that these connections defied social and racial expectations and offered a small amount of solace in a corrupted world.
The characters of Miss Celia and her husband Johnny become great friends with their maid, Minnie, and vow never to fire her from her position- an issue that she has had with many previous employers. The couple give a glimpse into these types of strong emotional connections that defy social barriers, as well as Aibileen’s motherly relationship with white child Mae Mobley- who is emotionally neglected by her real mother. However, the novel also stresses the amount of social pressure on white people to ‘stay with the crowd’. This is evident when Miss Leefolt is pushed into firing Aibileen by Miss Hilly, even though she doesn’t want to.
This novel was so humble and wholesome at times but also raw and emotional. I also thought it was a powerful addition that Stockett wrote ‘Not The End’ on the last page.
Rating: 9/10. ‘Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought’- Kathryn Stockett.
5. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
I found Frankenstein in my local bookstore whilst browsing for Stephen King novels to read over the Halloween season, with little success. It seems that the universe keeps pulling me back to old classics, even when I try to steer clear of them. I wondered if I was ready for my first horror novel, knowing that they can be even more fear-inducing than horror movies, and Mary Shelley did say that she wanted to write a novel ‘to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the heart’.
I thought this novel was brilliant, but it wasn’t scary in the slightest. In fact, it was actually quite sad. Dr Frankenstein creates a monster that is so hideous, he is unable to make any social connections, as much as he wants to. He is forced to hide in a log cabin, away from the public, and learns to speak French by watching a French family nearby. After years of studying them, Frankenstein’s monster eventually decides to explain his situation to the family that he so admires and hopes to live with them, only to be brutally beaten by them and driven away to live in seclusion again. His murderous tendencies only spring from anger towards Frankenstein, who condemned him to live a life alone and later refuses to give him his only desire, a companion who is like him.
The ending is so tragic and made me want to cry. Frankenstein- eventually catching up to his creation after months of tracking him down to kill him (poor monster)- dies from the cold of the North Pole. The monster stands over the dead body of his creator and weeps, because he no longer has a purpose. Someone else may read this novel and come to hate Frankenstein’s monster for his murder of the doctor’s brother, his friend and his lover, but I believe that Mary Shelley intended for the novel to confuse the reader’s moral beliefs (as Emily Bronte did with Wuthering Heights, and Vladimir Nabokov with Lolita). We are meant to be confused to be emotionally attached to a character capable of- what we would usually consider- unforgiveable crimes.
I am so glad that Frankenstein wasn’t another dull set of boring events claiming to be a classic horror novel (*cough*cough*...Dracula). This novel contained some amazing quotes, shedding light on a sufferer’s experience with depression, crippling anxiety and grief. Of course contemporary critics couldn’t believe that such profound thoughts could be produced by a young female brain (who’d have thought?).
Rating: 8/10. ‘It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can now have departed forever- that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard’.
From novels that I have thoroughly enjoyed, to others that I had to struggle through, these are the last five novels that I read and my opinions on them. I can safely say The Help, Frankenstein and Anna Karenina have become some of my favourites and I look forward to reading others like them. Soon on the list will be War and Peace. Wish me luck!