Classics Club Spin #45 is Coming

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin!.

What is the spin?

It’s easy.  Before next Sunday 16th August, 2026 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on my Classics Club list.

This is my Spin List.

I will have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.

I'm hoping I get a book I already own: The Sun Also Rises or The Good Earth, so I don't have to buy another.

On Sunday 16th August CC hosts will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 4th October, 2026.

The CC Club will check in on the 4th October to see who made it the whole way and finished their spin book! I hope I'm one of them.

My List 

(For three of the weeks of this time frame I will be on a trip, so I am limiting my choices to books I think I can finish before I leave or are small enough to carry along with me. That is why I have some duplicates.)

CC Spin # 45

1.      The Good Earth by Buck

2.      Scoop by Waugh

3.      Death Comes for the Archbishop by Cather

4.      To the Lighthouse by Woolfe

5.      The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov

6.      Heart of Darkness by Conrad

7.      The Importance of Being Ernest by Wilde

8.      Julius Caesar by Shakespeare

9.      Elmer Gantry by Sinclair

10. On the Road by Kerouac

11. Siddhartha by Hesse

12. The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

13. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne

14. The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

15. The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov

16. The Good Earth by Buck

17. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Cather

18. Siddhartha by Hesse

19. The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

20. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne

-Anne

Classic Review: THE STRANGER

In my fourth year of high school French our teacher felt that we were finally ready to read a book en français. She selected for us The Stranger (L'Étranger) by Albert Camus. I'm guessing she selected it because it is a relatively short book, 132 pages, and Camus' writing style is fairly straight forward and direct. What I don't think she took into consideration is how absurd the story, so absurd that I'm fairly sure that none of us American teenagers were prepared for it. Because of the oddness of the story, however, it really stuck with me all these years. But, because I read it in French, I've always wondered what I missed. Even at the time of the first reading I knew I was missing a lot. 

Therefore, in May when our local art house theater was showing "The Stranger", I lobbied my husband to take me to see it. It was also en français but this time there were English subtitles to aid understanding. When I left the theater I wondered what the movie left out and I started making a plan to reread the book. Now that I had reread The Stranger I know that the movie was very true to the original, leaving out almost nothing. And the absurd nature of the story was very much front and center.

I do remember our French teacher telling us the story was written by an existentialist, Albert Camus, and her attempt at explaining this philosphy.

Existentialism was developed significantly in the 20th century by thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, the movement rejects the idea of a predetermined nature or "essence," arguing instead that "existence precedes essence". Rather than relying on religion, tradition, or societal expectations, an individual creates their own identity and moral code (Existentialism Crash Course YouTube)

Camus actually didn't like being called an existentialist, he preferred the term absurdist. Indeed the two are clearly related. We might think of absurdity as something silly or inane but for existentialists, absurdity is related to trying to find answers in an answerless world. In other words, we live in a meaningless world but we want our life to have meaning. That is the ultimate example of absurdity.

This philosophy became most prominent around the time of World War II based on the senselessness of the Holocaust. Ironically, Camus wrote The Stranger during this period and the Nazis, who were occupying France at the time, saw nothing wrong with the book and allowed it to be published. That in itself is proof of the absurdity of life.

The Stranger centers on the story of a shipping clerk, Meursault, living in Algiers. It begins with a telegram that his mother has died. Meursault travels to attend her viewing and funeral. While there he doesn't demonstrate any sorrow for others to observe. In the next few weeks after returning from the funeral Meursault goes on with his life which includes going to the beach, starting a new relationship, and seeing a movie. He also gets entangled in a beef between his neighbor and some Arabs, siding with the neighbor. Later that same neighbor and Meursault go to the beach where they encounter the Arabs and Meursault ends up killing one of the men. Aside for the hot weather and the bright sun, there is no explanation for this killing.

At the murder trial the prosecutor is more interested in Meursault's lack of emotion at his mother's funeral and his ability to go on with normal life afterwards than in the details of the crime. The jury condemns to death not for the crime but for his character. Absurd!

 As I said before The Stranger is written in a very straight forward, unadorned style. One might even think of it as boring. But the author intended for the writing style to give an idea what it is like in Meursault's head. He sees the world as a series of monotonous, unexciting events. Through the text, we do, too. I couldn't help wondering if Meursault was an example of a person living with Asperger's syndrome. He certainly reminded me of past students who were identified as being somewhere on the autism scale. The most notable thing about them was their flat affect. That is how I would describe Meursault, a man with a flat affect. The world wanted him to be sad about his mother's death but he didn't live in a world of feelings, he lived in a world of sensations. For that difference he was condemned.

The book is very well done and easy to read. My rating 4 stars.

-Anne

Classic Review: MADAME BOVARY

Gustave Flaubert was born in 1821 in Rouen, France. His father was a doctor. When he was thirteen he wrote to a friend that he would be "quite disgusted with life were he not engaged upon a novel." Like many young men of his day he felt disgusted by the "bourgeois" society into which he was born. When he began writing Madame Bovary he wanted to write a story about ordinary people, yet he held these types of people in contempt. "The bourgeois -- that dull, graceless animal, petty, materialistic, cliche-ridden --could make him physically ill" (6) Yet, in Bovary, Flaubert attempts to paint an objective portrait of these folks. 

It was a friend of Flaubert, Louis Bouilhet, who gave him the idea for this novel based on a local occurrence he thought might make an excellent, realistic novel. And Madame Bovary was born. In Flaubert's version of the original, a young woman, Emma, is married to a dull country doctor. She quickly gets bored with her life and wants finery beyond their means and the community. Emma is always pining for something more than her life offers. She takes a lover and when that affair ends, she takes a second lover. Her taste for finery leads her to go hopelessly into debt which eventually leads to more and more desperate acts and ruination for the whole family.

Flaubert wanted Bovary to be a meticulously constructive piece of literature. He also wanted to show people talking, acting, thinking as real people do these things. He spent more time than the average French writer (any writer?) to the writing of his sentences. "It was his ambition to make them rhythmical, lyrical, and expressive in would life prose to the level of poetry" (7) Sometimes it would take Flaubert a week to write two pages of text. But all this work on his sentences paid off because it is remarkably easy to read, considering the time period in which it was written.

Alan Russell, the translator and the writer of the introduction for the version of Madame Bovary I read, said that Emma Bovary is one of the "great individuals of fiction." She is "self-centered, self-dramatizing, envious, improvident, impulsive, aspiring above her station or capabilities, egotistical, and desperate with raging of unsatisfied desire. Of such a character her name, 'Bovary', as become a symbol of those qualities" (9). Needless to say, she is not likable in the least.

Whenever I read a book known as a "classic" I wonder why this book, this story has stood the test of time and what universal message to it continues to portray. I wasn't sure how to answer those questions when I finished Madame Bovary. All I could think was it was too bad Emma didn't live in the 21st century. If so she could have divorced her boring husband, had sex with as many men as she wished without most people batting an eye, crowd-sourced funding to cover her debts, and gained fame and recognition as a social media influencer making daily instagram posts about her most recent complaints or showing off her new clothes.

I eventually turned to Shmoop to get the answers I craved as to the classic status of this book. Here are a few points they made about Madame Bovary:

• Bovary is one of the finest examples of "realistic" fiction written up to that point in time and had tremendous influence on literature for decades afterwards.
• Flaubert's writing creates a level of intimacy with the characters that up to that time was never done. We may not like them or their actions but we know what they are thinking and feeling.
• They agree with me. They think Emma is stuck in the wrong century.

So do teachers still assign Madame Bovary to their classes of 11th or 12th grade students to read? I doubt it. If they did, I suspect there would be a lot of kids who sneak off to watch the movie or read the crib notes, refusing to dive deeply into the story of an unlikable, self-centered woman stuck in a small community with nothing to do but shop and pine for romance.

What was your experience with the book? Though I found the text very readable I just didn't want to read it. Sorry, Emma Bovary, I didn't like you and wanted to spend as little time as possible with you. I kept going because this is my Classics Club SPIN selection for the Spring. My rating 3 stars.

Citations:

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: A Story of Provincial Life. Translated by Alan Russell, Penguin Books, 1988.

Shmoop Editorial Team. "Madame Bovary Introduction | Shmoop." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc.,  11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Jun. 2026.

-Anne

Classic Review: ANIMAL FARM and a walk down memory lane

I've long wanted to reread Animal Farm by George Orwell since the first time I read it I was in junior high. When I selected Animal Farm as a book to satisfy one my seasonal Goodreads challenges I had no idea what a blast from the past it would bring with it.

I was twelve and in 7th grade in the year 1970. My family had just moved to Corvallis from Africa, where my parents were missionaries. We'd just moved to town and were living in temporary housing until a permanent abode could be found. I didn't have many friends and pretty much just hung out with my older sister, who was in 9th grade that year. My class was a combined English/Social Studies class and we had the same teacher for those two periods, Mrs. Block. I remember really liking her.

I have funny memories of time spent in that classroom. For example, we were expected to journal every day for 5 or 10 minutes. I decided to spend my time writing a novel about a kid who gets trapped in a house in Kansas City, Kansas (not Missouri) due to a tornado. Odd choice, since I've never lived in a place where tornadoes are a problem. That was my first and last novel writing experience. I also recall working on a class project to act out Shakespeare's Hamlet. My scene had something to do with Ophelia drowning. Cheery memory. I remember not liking my handwriting and spending some open moments in class working on improving my signature. 

And I remember reading Animal Farm. Unfortunately I do not recall any of the discussion. Did we talk about the authoritarianism? The similarities between the story and the Russian revolution? How one source of power will overthrow a government and then become like or worse than the government it overthrew? Did we talk about the implications of the slogan "All animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others" in light of the civil rights movement? I hope we did. 

It is hard to read Animal Farm in 2026 and not think about what is happening today in politics. Do none of the republicans in power look at what kinds of things they are creating or developing and wonder if maybe what they are doing isn't just as bad or worse than what they are undoing? (Like the Constitution?) There are rules set up in the beginning on Animal Farm, then overtime those rules are tweaked to favor the pigs. Hmm. Sound like what is being done for billionaires today? And then the animals are accused of having bad memories when they protest about the rules being broken. They start to question their own memories. It is so hard to know what the truth is today when one has to contend with a lying President and AI generated memes. It is frightening how prescient Animal Farm still is today.

When Animal Farm was published, right after WWII ended, the book's title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. There are great debates online if it would have been better to call it a fable instead of a fairy story. Either way, Animal Farm uses a simplistic, mythical, and allegorical framework similar to all fables/fairy stories to address complex political themes. Unfortunately in Animal Farm, and in life, happily-ever-after endings are not to be.

The version of the book I listened to renamed the title, Animal Farm: A Cautionary Tale which leaves little room for guessing what the book is about. 

But thinking about this title, it made me wish that all students in grade seven would once again read this book in class but this time I'd hope the class discussion would be meaningful, pointed, and memorable. Starting with this question -- Why do we need to be cautious? And follow up with -- Let's really examine what the book is saying and apply it to our lives today.

Time for a reread? Let me recommend this audiobook format. This short novella only took about three hours of listening time.

5 stars.

-Anne

Classic Review: MOBY-DICK

Good Moby Dick book covers. My favorite is the third one over with the big whale coming up under the small-looking ship.

If asked before I started reading Moby-Dick a month ago, what the story was about I'd have a fairly short summary ready -- Ishmael, a member of the crew on a whaling ship named the Pequot (I would drag from the back of my brain) is a witness to a maniacal quest by Captain Ahab to exact vengeance on a huge, white whale that bit off his leg on a previous voyage.

In theory my summary was correct but Moby-Dick, my version weighing in at over 850 pages, would be the world's most boring story if that is all it was. The book didn't exactly delight me, but it sure surprised me. Those surprises are what I would like to focus my review on.

First, a little history (thank you Wikipedia) -- Herman Melville published the book in 1851 to mixed reviews and it was not popular, going out of print before the author's death in 1891. In 1919, after the centennial of Melville's birth, William Faulkner said he wished he'd written the book himself and D.H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". That did it. Praise from two guys, famous writers both, and Moby-Dick went back into publication and has never been out of print since. It is now considered one of the great American novels and a fine example of American Renaissance literature (1830-60s). 

Melville drew on his own experiences as a sailor from 1841-44 which included spending some time on whaling ships. He also clearly spent A LOT of time reading whaling literature and researching everything the world knew about whales and whaling. This research must have acquainted the author not only with facts but with myths about the behemoths of the sea and also gave him an opportunity to examine renderings of whales by artists, who may or may not have ever seen live whales. The descriptions of these bad paintings/illustrations of whales was one of the highlights of my reading experiences. For example, Ishmael describes a painting of a whale in a New Bedford tavern that is "most appalling" and so "repugnant to all right-thinking artists" that the whale looks like a "blob" or a "dumb-bell" and he makes fun of European engravings that make whales look like distorted pigs or fantastical creatures (Ch. 57). I'm guessing he was referring to something like this:

 

Medieval whale art

Speaking of whale art, I sure had my pick of whale art on the covers of 1800+ editions of Moby-Dick on Goodreads. Here are some examples of really bad covers, in my opinion:

None of these covers advance the story or even inspire me. The book I purchased has no pictures at all, just the words: MOBY-DICK. That was especially bad.

Whoops, I'm digressing, back to the many surprises and more history about Moby-Dick. 

The whale in the book was patterned after a notoriously hard whale to catch, Mocha Dick. I was shocked to learn that whalers actually named some of the whales they sought and could identify others based on their markings. But now that I think about it for a few minutes I realize that whale experts today can do the same thing. Okay, not so shocking. Melville used the story from survivors of the sinking of the whaleship Essex in 1820 by a sperm whale as his inspiration. The men who survived their ordeal in that sinking had to resort to cannibalism to survive, which explains the references to cannibals in Moby-Dick as the character Queequeg, a tattooed South Sea Islander, is referred to as one.

Melville also spent chapter upon chapter describing the taxonomy of whales, all whales, while exulting the virtues of the sperm whale in particular. Ishmael built a whole catalog of whales and their characteristics and urged future researchers to add to his list as they discovered new details. Parts of the book had that charming, believable aspect to it. If I was the lone survivor of a shipwreck I think I, too, would write a journal of everything I could remember from the voyage, including all the whales I saw (or hoped to see).

In addition to describing various types of whales, Ishmael went into detail on every single part of the superior sperm whale, as he saw it. There was a chapter on the head, a chapter on the body, another on the blowhole. You get the idea. Then there were the chapters on how they killed the whales, which I could not picture in my head, and another how they attached the whale to the boat so they could go to work on rendering it into oil. I have to confess I was morbidly interested in these details. How, on earth, does one do these things with limited technology and tools...no electric winches to help them in that day? 

Speaking of "that" day, I could never figure out the years in which Melville set the book. Was it supposed to be a contemporary novel, set in 1850 or set in earlier years? Let's see, A.I. to the rescue, Melville, it says, made references to historical events happening between 1840 and 1842 in the story. There, I answered that question for you and for me. So if the Pequot set out in December 1840, why does Ishmael keep referring to whales as fish? Whales were officially reclassified from "fish" to mammals in 1758. This little detail became a sticking point for me. Clearly Melville, who did all this research on whales for the book, would have known that whales are not fish. Then I wondered if it was a technique he used to show the ignorance, or lack of schooling of some of the crew. I'll never know, but it bothered me.

Melville was greatly influenced by the writings of Sir Thomas Browne and Thomas Carlyle, who I'm not familiar with, and also by both Shakespeare and the Bible, which I am. Whoever/whatever were his influences I'd call the language used in Moby-Dick as stilted. A.I. corrected me and told me that was my opinion, that the language in the book was "archaic, formal, and dense". Okay, whatever. That pretty much says the same thing. Captain Ahab's dialogue and soliloquies were especially elevated, sounding like something straight out of Shakespeare. There were so many "thees" and "thous"I felt like I was reading the King James version of the Bible. I'd guess that the language, alone would make Moby-Dick almost impenetrable for 21st-century teenagers. In fact, it made reading the book almost impossible for me, too, so I switched from the print version to the audiobook, and let the language flow over me, being read by the excellent narrators chosen for the task by the publisher. It was like watching a Shakespearean play with actors who know what their lines mean and can convey their meaning to the audience through their voice and their actions. It is so much easier to understand Shakespeare that way than trying to read it.

Here is an example from Chapter 31 of one of Ahab's soliloquies. In it he is regaling the wonders of what the whale sees and knows. He clearly loves or reveres that beast which is in direct opposition to how he feels about Moby Dick, another beast but his enemy.

“Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”

Have I scared you off yet? One reviewer exclaimed after reading this passage "Oh boy. What a page, what a book!" I have to confess there is poetry and music in the rhythm of the prose and, if read slowly enough, could be thought of as beautiful. 

Lest you think the whole book is full of such soliloquies, let me assure you that is not the case. Melville uses songs, poetry, catalogs (which I already mentioned), even stage directions, and asides. The crew speaks in their dialects using colloquialisms and slang. It really is written in a varied and unique style throughout.

Now as to themes -- Clearly the big one, "revenge", is the dominant theme of the book. But there were many other themes, some I expected and need no explanation like "man vs nature" while others surprised me. I'll begin with "race". The crew of the Pequot was made up of 30+ sailors from all over the world. It seemed like just about all races were presented and the men on board were all cool with it. Surprisingly, for the time period in which the book was written, the black man was never called a slave. Bravo, Melville! There was a scene near the beginning of the book where "sexuality/sexual identification" is seemingly in play when Ishmael and Queequeg, bedmates, wake up hugging each other. The scene comes across as very non judgemental and tender. Again, bravo! There is another scene where the sailors joyfully squeeze the congealed spermaceti from the whale's brain. The scene is so highly sexualized (it's almost funny) and Ishmael feels a loving, almost manic connection to his crewmates. "Religion" in many forms, not just the protestantism practiced by most New Englanders of the day, were presented, often involving chanting and meditations. God was evoked by Ahab during his further descent into madness, making it clear at least he thought all of this vengeance was sanctioned by God. And then, of course, there was the "madness" which became more and more evident as the story progressed. Ahab rants, "They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!" (Ch.37)

Notice something in that last quote? The first mate is named "Starbuck" and yes, my husband looked it up, the coffee company Starbucks, took their name from this character in Moby-Dick. That is a fun little factoid.

And what of the revenge scene? Compared to the whole book, the last battle between the madman Ahab and Moby Dick, his nemesis, is relatively short -- just a few pages and it is over. Everyone dies except Ishmael and, this was news to me, Moby Dick! Yay. The whale lives to fight another day.

One more thing. Is it "Moby Dick" or "Moby-Dick"? Which is correct? I just looked it up. Moby-Dick, with the hyphen, is the correct title of the book. The original title of the book was Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. Moby Dick, without the hyphen, is the name of the whale. (Oh dang, now I have to go back and correct myself. I should have looked this up earlier.😏) Common usage goes either way, as you see on the exampled book covers! (See above.) If you want to read more about peculiarities of the use of the hyphen here, see this article in Smithsonian.

So why did I decide to finally tackle this great American novel? I'm not a spring chicken. Shouldn't I have read it by now if was going to read it? Well, two reasons. The first, I decided to do a roundup of all the "Must Read Classics" lists I could find. When I compiled all the lists, Moby-Dick made it on the list at spot #13. Currently I am attempting to read all of the top thirty classics on that list, with only five left to go. Secondly, every January I pick one big book and challenge myself to read it some time in the upcoming year. Moby-Dick is my One Big Book of 2026. Woot. Woot. I finished it. Everytime I finish a big book I give myself a pat on the back. Now I have joined with all those humans past and present who have also tackled this book and completed it. A whale of an accomplishment! Ha!

-Anne

Upcoming: Classics Club Spin #44 -- with update

What is the spin?

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday 17th May, 2026 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

This is your Spin List.

You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.

Try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you have been putting off, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favourite author, re-reads, ancients, non-fiction, books in translation — whatever you choose.)

On Sunday 17th May we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 5th July, 2026.

Join in!

My CC #44 List:

1.      The Good Earth by Buck

2.      All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

3.      Death Comes for the Archbishop by Cather

4.      Don Quioxides by de Cervantes*

5.      The Stranger by Camus*

6.      Heart of Darkness by Conrad*

7.      The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle

8.      Invisible Man by Ellison*

9.      Madame Bovary by Flaubert*

10. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne

11. The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

12. Siddhartha by Hesse

13. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Highsmith

14. On the Road by Kerouac

15. Elmer Gantry by Sinclair

16. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy*

17. Midnight’s Children by Rushdie*

18. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Sparks

19. Dracula by Stoker*

20. The Copenhagen Trilogy by Ditlevsen

*Books on the top 50 classic books list found on the Roundup of the 50 Classics Books Everyone Should Read Before They Die. See list here. Many of the others would made the list if extended to the top 100 books. So many books, so little time!

Update:

The SPIN number is.....

9

I will be reading Madame Bovary and I'm delighted. I own a copy of the novel and by stretching the due date to July 5th, I will get to count it for Paris is July Challenge. What fun.

Watch for my review in two months!

-Anne

Classic review: THE MASTER AND MARGARITA

Often found on lists of one of the best books of the 20th century, The Master and Margarita has occupied a space on my TBR for many years even though I knew very little about it. What I did know sounded interesting and promising -- set in Russia in the 1930s it is a piece of satire poking fun at Russia (USSR) under Stalin. What I came to understand was it would have been a much more enjoyable reading experience if I actually knew more about life in the Soviet Union under Stalin or generally more about Russian history. I confess, therefore, to spending a great deal of time while I listened to this audiobook scratching my head. What did this or that represent? Most of the humor and satire were completely lost on me, sadly.

The author, Mikhail Bulgakov, was trained as a medical doctor and served in that capacity during the First World War. Sometime in the 1920s he turned all of his attentions to writing and actually had a few of his plays performed. Unfortunately his work was labeled by the Stalinist regime as subversive and after 1928 nothing he wrote was published or performed. At one point Bulgakov wrote to Stalin himself asking for assistance, explaining that he wasn't being subversive, he was just writing satire. Stalin intervened and Bulgakov was a least able to get a job afterwards, though he didn't like the job and kept writing on the side. He started writing The Master and Margarita sometime in the early 1930s, after burning his first attempt of the novel which he started in 1928. He worked on four variations of the story for ten years before his death. When Bulgakov died in 1940 from renal failure due to high blood pressure, the story was complete but had not been edited, so was not ready for publication. The censors weren't willing to publish it after it was ready. It took another 27 years until a censored version of the book was published in Moscow in 1966/67 and until 1973 that Bulgakov's complete, uncensored novel was published. I was still a bit unclear which of the four drafts ended up at the top of the heap.

If Bugakov had lived to witness the publication of his masterpiece, I'm sure the irony wouldn't have been lost on him. One of the main themes of the book centers around this quote, "Manuscripts don't burn," signifying the immortality of art and literature, despite repression, persecution, and destruction by authoritarians. His work may not have been published in a timely manner, but it was published and is now a highly regarded work emerging from that time period.

The book opens in Moscow in the 1930s when Satan comes to town in the form of a man, Woland, seeking to put on a magic show. He appears to two writers, one of which is a bad poet, and foretells their future deaths. The death of one of the writers, just minutes after the prediction, set off a cascade of events which involves most most of the literary elite of Moscow. Really odd things happen to everyone who comes in contact with Woland -- heads are detached and then reattached, money is handed out and then it disappears, a black cat walks, talks, and shoots a gun -- no one can explain what is going on. And it it here that I am straining my brain trying to figure out what Bulgakov is making fun of. How does a talking black cat stand for something in Soviet society?

To add to my confusion, the story occasionally shifts to a different location and time period where readers are treated to a conversation between Pontius Pilate and someone (the devil?) about his treatment of Jesus and his crucifiction. We later learn that this conversation is actually the book written by a man called only the Master. When the Master can't get the book published, he attempts to burn the manuscript, but his love, Margarita, saves it from the flames.Their story provides the bridge between the two other plots, but stands on its own and is very bizarre, too. Was there a happy ending? I think so, or at least the Master and Margarita are reunited, after a long separation and they had a joyous reunion, and all of Moscow has come to accept that something weird happened to them but it was probably a case of mass hypnotism. (Ha!)

I just read the blurb on the back of the print edition I own. Two things stuck out to me which I missed until now. First it says the book is a revision of the stories of Faust and of Pontius Pilate. So Faust, we know, exchanged his soul for some worldly power or gain. Margarita had to go to hell to save the Master. Ah, I figured out one thing! She was the Faust character. The Pontius Pilate story is from the Bible, I assume, and that is the story being retold. The retelling is quite different than the original. The blurb also says that the book has philosophical depth. This is where I am completely lost and wished I'd done more research before I started reading it. I am positive I would have liked the book much better if I had read it as part of a college class where the professor could guide my thinking and point out all the aspects of the book I missed.

But, whew, I finished the dang thing and can forevermore say I've read it.

-Anne

Classic Review: A PASSAGE TO INDIA

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster was written in 1924 just as cracks in the British Empire were starting to occur. The story is set in a fictional city on the Ganges River, Chandrapore, and the nearby Marabar Caves, which are also fictional but based on the Barabar Caves in another part of India. The author may have visited these mysterious caves while visiting the country in the early 1920s. In the book, the characters can see from the colonial club the Marabar Hills, "a group of fists and fingers...thrust up through the soil." It is here, in the Marabar Caves, the climax of the story occurs. But I get a head of myself.

The story begins in the courtyard of a mosque when Mrs. Moore, newly arrived in India from Great Britain, meets Dr. Aziz, an Indian doctor who works at a local clinic. His warning that women are not allowed in the mosque offends the lady but causes the two to sit down together and have a conversation. This is the first conversation Mrs. Moore has had with an actual Indian and it sparks an interest for her to discover the real India, not just the colonial idea of India. 

Mrs. Moore journeyed to India as an chaperone for Adela Quested, a possible fiance for her son, Ronny, the city magistrate in Chandrapore. She was appalled by the way the British treated Indians, like they were second class citizens of lower intelligence. In their quests to see and know India a tea party, with actual Indians was arranged for the women. But even in this event the separation between the two cultures was very clear. So a trip to the Marabar Caves was arranged and who better to go with them than Dr. Aziz, now a friend of Mrs. Moore.

"[…] We're out here to do justice and keep the peace. Them's my sentiments. India isn't a drawing-room."

"Your sentiments are those of a god," [Mrs. Moore] said quietly, but it was his manner rather than his sentiments that annoyed her.

Trying to recover his temper, [Ronny] said, "India likes gods."

"And Englishmen like posing as gods." 

The journey to the caves is not easy and it requires a train trip to a nearby station and then a ride upon a elephant caravan to reach the caves. (See book cover, upper right.) Once there they find a series of caves which all look the same from the outside. Once inside the caves there is no light but the echo of any noise is deafening and terrifying. Later Mrs. Moore describes the echo as "boum." After exiting she insists she cannot/will not go into another cave, so Adela, Dr. Aziz, and the guide go on together. The three get separated for a few moments, lost in the maze of caves. When they emerge, Adela accuses Dr. Aziz of rape.

Shmoop summarizes it this way, "so, a girl walks into a cave...and an empire trembles." Indeed the rape trial and its after effects are felt throughout the country. Forster seemed to realize that India was a sitting on a powder keg and was getting ready to blow. By the 1920s the idea of independence was gaining momentum. In 1918 the Rowlatt Act was put in place which took away some key liberties from Indians, and in 1919 peaceful demonstrators were fired upon by the British and 500 people were killed. Forster taps into this tension, by upping the profile. He has a powerful attorney from Calcutta brought in to represent Dr. Aziz, a man unable to pay for such high powered representation. (The country is watching!) When Adela crumpled on the witness stand and recanted her accusation, the whole country erupted.

I have to admit I was pretty shocked by A Passage to India. I had expected a novel about colonization but I didn't expect a novel about the dark side of it. Whenever I read a classic novel which I know is/was often read in high school English classes, I always ask myself "why?" With A Passage to India I have a clear answer. It is an excellent novel to dissect all the horrors of colonization and the right of people to govern themselves as they see fit. There are so many themes which can be explored: justice, racial tension, religion, colonializations, power, individual autonomy, friendships, even weather.

I made the collage of book covers because each one of the covers tell a story worth exploring. I couldn't pick a favorite. The cover to the left, is the cover of the book I read, published in 1952, a reprinting from the original by Harcourt, Brace, and World. I found this antique copy in an old, dusty, used bookshop in Eastern Oregon, where my husband grew up. Inside the front cover was a name plate and Don, being Don, did a little exploration and thinks the original owner of the book was chiropractor from Portland. Inside was a newspaper clipping from The Wall Street Journal dated 2/3/88, about the Barabar Caves that served as the inspiration for the Marabar Caves in A Passage from India. The article was very interesting and led me to watch a documentary about a guy who visited the Barabar caves in India. I'd say based on both the article and documentary, don't make a trip to India to visit these caves. In addition, the book's first owner was a prolific underliner, adding some little notes written in the margins, all in pencil. I always find it fascinating to contemplate what others think is important in a book. And this actual volume was a treasure trove for me.

I rated the book with 4 stars, citing some confusing aspects of the plot as my reasons for not giving it highest marks. But it has aged well in my mind and I certainly understand why this book is considered a classic and why it is still recommended for all of us to read sometime before we die!

-Anne

Classics Club Spin #43

It is time for another Classics Club Spin. 

The spin happens on Sunday, February 8th. At that time a number will be announced and I will have until March 29th to finish that book. All you have to do, if you want to join in, is create a numbered list of 20 classics you still want to read and wait for the announcement, then commence reading.

My One-Big-Book of 2026 is Moby-Dick, so I honestly hope to have that book win the spin. I also have my own copies of Madame Bovary, The Good Earth, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes so those books would be a cinch for me to start. We'll see where the spinner stops.

CC Spin # 43

1. The Good Earth by Buck

2.   The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov

3.      Death Comes for the Archbishop by Cather

4.      Don Quioxides by de Cervantes*

5.      The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov

6.      Heart of Darkness by Conrad*

7.      The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle

8.      Invisible Man by Ellison*

9.      Madame Bovary by Flaubert*

10. The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne

11. The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

12. Siddhartha by Hesse

13. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Highsmith

14. On the Road by Kerouac

15. Elmer Gantry by Sinclair

16. Moby Dick by Melville*

17. Midnight’s Children by Rushdie*

18. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Sparks

19. Dracula by Stoker*

20. Scoop by Waugh

*Books in the top 30 classic books list.

And the number is…. 

2!

So I will be reading The Master and Margarita.   Here is a summary of what I can expect: A humorous look at life in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. It wasn’t published until after the author’s death. 

-Anne