Happt to say goodbye to Ibsen

Book seven done. But it was a terrible ordeal.

The Master Builder and other Plays is a collection of four of Henrik Ibsen's lesser known plays: 'Rosmersholm', 'Little Eyolf', 'John Gabriel Borkman' and the titular 'The Master Builder'.

Now, I have never read Ibsen before I tackled 'Peer Gynt' as book six of this reading adventure and I can't say I loved that well known work so I guess it shouldn't surprise me that I didn't get into Ibsen's B-list collected here.

Trouble is, I liked the B-list plays better than 'Peer Gynt'. That, of course, isn't saying much.

Okay, so I have to learn to accept that Ibsen's characters will be broadly drawn, that their behaviour will be melodramatic to say the least, that the plots will be rooted in 19th Century politics and social mores. That they will revolve around a single, central male figure whose neuroses will wash over the female characters who surround them.

But I don't have to like it.

I found these plays to be stilted and over-wrought. And too long.

If Ibsen has one talent I can find to admire, it is the ability to imagine very interesting relationships (both familial and psychological) between and among his characters. But they all come down to serving the master. Who (spoiler alert) generally dies at the end.

Perhaps that's why, of the four, I found 'Little Eyolf', the least objectionable. The play's death scene takes place early and the characters manage to find an interest approach to addressing the impact of that death.

Next up, Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey, an 18th century comic travelogue that is, mercifully, quite short.

Rather be reading Rowling

Can you tell that I'm not enjoying Ibsen much? How long have I been reading The Master Builder and other Plays?

I can always tell how much I like a book by how long it takes me to read it. By how little inclination I have to pick it up whenever I have a moment.

Harry Potter? I'll pick a Harry Potter book up even if I have only a moment or two to read. Ibsen... oiy.

I have to keep working on it, I guess, but goodness knows I'd rather be reading Rowling.

Ibsen and Watts: a deadly combination

The good news is, I managed to read book six in this quest in just three days. The bad news is, I thought Peer Gynt was awful.

And I don't know what was worse, Henrik Ibsen's ridiculous play or Peter Watts' heavy-handed, patronising translation of it.

I was prepared to be charmed by this 1867 Norwegian play, to be delighted by it and to enjoy its loose versification after the density of the 18th-Century novels I've been reading. I even got quite excited when I realised that, like Lennox's The Female Quixote, Peer Gynt features a main character who over-indulged in romantic fiction/fairy tales as a youth and lost track of reality as a result.

But as my reading of this play progressed, I got more and more frustrated with it. I know, the scholars will tell you all kinds of wonderful things about Ibsen and this particular play but, as a lay reader who is reading for enjoyment, this thing is a bust.

It didn't help that Watts, translating it for the Penguin Classics edition, took great liberties with the original text and even bragged about it in his silly footnotes. All too often, he makes comments that amount to the following: "the literal translation of this passage would be X but I didn't think modern readers would understand that so I made it Y".

Awful. But, it's book six in the bag at least.

And now I'm on to book seven which is (the horror the horror), a collection of Ibsen's plays: the Penguin Classics book The Master Builder and other Plays. I am trying to glean some hope from the fact that Watts isn't responsible for the translations in this one.

Lamenting the rapid resolution of painstakingly established plots

Five books, seven weeks. Uh oh. I'm in trouble.

I have finally finished my reading of Charlotte Lennox's wonderful novel, The Female Quixote, which is book five in my reading adventure (to borrow Arabella's word). Wonderfully whimsical but with a strong moral core, this 18th-century novel was a real pleasure to read.

If it has one real weakness, and it's a weakness I have also found with Radcliffe's books from approximately the same period, it is that the author takes a very long time to set out and establish the main problem of the novel but a very short time to resolve it.

In this case, Arabella spends much of her life (and the first 360 pages of this novel) suffering under the misapprehension that the real world of 1750 operates by the same rules as the world of 17th-century French romance novels. This misapprehension leads to any number of hilarious experiences and to a rather delightful conundrum for the book's male hero, Mr. Glanville, who adores Arabella for her wit, her intelligence, her goodness and the loveliness of her appearance but who finds her intoxication with the world and customs of romances a source of great exasperation and public humiliation.

The author then introduces a brief, serious illness for Arabella at approximately page 360, followed by an intense (and very interesting) conversation between Arabella and her physician which manages to convince her of her long-held folly and to give up her misapprehensions in favour of the real world.

What she develops so lovingly in 360 pages, Lennox resolves, not so convincingly, in the final 20.

My reading of this novel was affected (quite happily, to be honest) by the many margin notes my partner Patti added when she first read it 20 years ago. I believe she read the book as part of a feminist literary course so many of her comments relate to the portrayal of women or the place of women in society (both the society of the book and the society of its author). Other comments reveal Patti's interest in the philosophy of John Locke, who would become the subject of her Masters and PhD theses.

All in all, a very interesting, very fun reading experience. But slow...

What was I thinking when I planned to read each book in this journey in just five days? My average, after finishing The Female Quixote, is almost 10 days per book.

Perhaps the next book on the shelf, Henrik Ibsen's classic play Peer Gynt, will help speed things up.

A woman so ridiculous

Yes, I'm still on book four. But at least it's making me laugh out loud.

Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote is turning into a really fun read, one that is getting me strange looks on the city bus when I suddenly break out laughing.

I'm quite enchanted by the fact that Mr. Glanville is completely mortified that he's fallen in love with a woman who is so completely out of touch with reality and yet remains completely incapable of escaping her charms.

Best line so far: "Mr. Glanville was still in terrible Confusion, and silently cursed his ill Fate, to make him in Love with a Woman so ridiculous."

And, even better, Lennox has now introduced a rival to Mr. Glanville for Arabella's affections, Sir George, who not only understands Arabella's odd obsession with romance literature but also knows such literature well enough to present himself as one of its heroes.

It's hilarious.

Lennox's writing makes me wish for more

The Female Quixote is turning out to be a much easier read than expected. I've ripped through the first 50 pages in a very short time and, once again, am really enjoying it.

I was worried for the first couple of chapters that Lennox would allow her central character to roll through 400 pages without being challenged on her quixotic tendencies. I don't think I could have taken that. You want to shout at the other characters: "Come on, folks, take her on. Call her on that stuff."

Well, sooner than expected, she's done so. Cousin Glanville challenges Arabella at page 45 of the World Classic's Edition of the novel and it's really well presented.

I am already thinking I need to find more of Lennox's novels to read since I don't think we have any more in the house. Trouble, of course, since I really don't need to add more to the reading list. And that's one of the real challenges of my commitment here: there are so many books already here that I really can't pursue any interests that crop up along the way. I can't go out and find more of Ann Radcliffe's novels, even though I thought the two I read were just fantastic, and now I have to content myself with just this one by Charlotte Lennox.

Yes, I'm mourning the loss of Lennox even before I've finished the first 100 pages of the first of her books I've ever seen.

One thing that I'm really liking about The Female Quixote is that Lennox never allows her character to become ridiculous. Arabella is presented with kindness and compassion; she is quixotic but never silly. And that's important to keeping this novel interesting: Lennox's sympathetic portrayal of her main character makes the book worth reading.

Three down... on to The Female Quixote

Book three completed. On to book four: Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote.

Okay, so things aren't gong exactly as I planned. Instead of spending five days on each book, I'm at about two weeks. Slow progress, to be sure. And I don't think Lennox's 1752 satire is going to speed things up any. Not that I expect it will be bad -- it's just 400 pages long, small print and densely written.

I loved book three: The Romance of the Forest. Radcliffe was a wonderful writer, even if she seems to have overdosed on travellogues somewhere along the way. And that's one of the other problems with a reading challenge like this: if I find a writer I very much enjoy, I don't feel I can take the time to track down and read all of her other books.

Oh well... rules are made to be broken, I guess.

I may have to use the fire place to thin the ranks of the unread books. What do you think?

Radcliffe is slow but spectacular reading

I'm loving The Romance of the Forest but I'm taking soooo long to read it. I'm so far behind in reading these 1123 books that I don't think I'll ever be able to catch up. Not even in the 30 years I already expected this to take.

I had planned for five days per book. I'm now something like five weeks into the exercise and I'm only on book three. Yikes.

But, on the other hand, this Ann Radcliffe has been a revelation. These books are fun. And exciting.

And they are an interesting look, melodramatic as they are, into the 18th century. The plight of Adeline in this book is just crazy by modern standards. She's smart, beautiful, virtuous, apparently hard-working. And yet, because of society's rigid approach to gender roles and gender opportunities, she is completely incapable of addressing the challenges that face her without help from others.

From men.

As Radcliffe so powerfully presents, Adeline must obtain protection from either her abusive father, the spineless LaMott or any young man to whom she might agree to become wed. And her virtue won't allow her to marry in haste, or for improper motives.

Other than that, no hope at all. She can't just go out a find a job. She can't move in with a group of women for mutual support. She can't set up her own business.

Oh yes, she can always return to the convent and live out her life there.

But it's a pretty dismal set of options, don't you think? Her entire future is entirely dependent on the whims of the men she encounters.

I'm halfway through and, though I know how it will eventually end (with Adeline happily married to her chosen young man), I'm fascinated to experience all the barriers she will have to overcome to get there.

Just what I need... more books

I'm really loving book three in my quest. Ann Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest is fabulous. I'm only part-way through and the plot is just starting to get revved up but still... it's really great.

A suitcase full of books

That being said, I'm starting to wonder about how much my wife actually loves me. She is well aware of my recent decision to commit myself to reading every book in our house. She's well aware that it will take me well into my 70s to finish the books we already own.

So what does she do? She brings home a suitcase of books. More books. Difficult books that she found at a sale at the local university library. And she tell me she has more to bring home...

Just look at that picture. That's a lot of books. Why would she do that to me? As one friend said, she obviously doesn't want to have to spend too much time with me for the rest of our lives.

Ugh.

In the Forest with Radcliffe...

On to better things. My third book in my quest is my second book by 18th Century gothic romance novelist Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest.

So far, I'm on page 24 and, once again, I'm loving Radcliffe's writing. And what a great premise. Right now, our characters are making camp at a deserted abbey in the middle of nowhere (well, France but its remotest parts).

It's nice to be reading something that makes me want to pick up the book again every time I"m forced to put it down.

Wonderful stuff./

Roddenberry seems to have "drunk the Koolaid"...

Book 2: Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation. By Yvonne Fern. In the bag.

Only took me four days. Four of the longest days of my life. I had thought this would be a bit a light reading after The Italian. Boy was I wrong. It wasn't a tough slog because it was particularly challenging intellectually. It was a tough slog because it might just be the worst book I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

If I approached this book as a fan of Star Trek who was still not quite sure whether I completely admired its creator Gene Roddenberry or not, it only took me a couple of pages to realise that I completely despise the man. At least the version of the man portrayed in this pseudo-Socratic dialogue.

Fern's interpretation of her own conversations with the Star Trek creator has convinced me that, by the early 1990s, Roddenberry had drunk the Koolaid and had actually started to buy all the hero worship that was heaped on him by adoring but not particularly critical Trek fans. He seems, in the last years of his life, to have come to a place where he believed himself to be a superior being, outside of the human race, above it, looking down on it like some sympathetic, forgiving deity to whom humanity must eventually prove itself.

In Star Trek parlance, he seems to have convinced himself that he is an Organian or, worse, a member of the Q continuum.

In The Last Conversation, Roddenberry emerges as an egotistical, pseudo-intellectual in love with himself and his own ideas, completely incapable of giving credit to the multitude of people who made significant contributions to the franchise over the years and intensely jealous of anyone, the lead actors in particular, who have been regarded by the fans and the media as being important to the appeal of the various shows.

None of this would have particularly bothered me, of course, if there was even the specter of a possibility that Fern, the interviewer and writer, had intentionally designed and written the book to create this impression.

Not a chance.

If Roddenberry had "drunk the Koolaid", Fern seems delighted to have been able to lap up the urine that came of it from the great man himself.

The book is more about Fern than it is about Roddenberry and, if the Great Bird of the Galaxy comes across an insufferable ego-maniac, Fern appears to be a shameless sycophant intent on proving to the army of Star Trek fans who, like me, were guaranteed to buy the book that she is not only brilliant, well read and eloquent but also that she had become a personal favourite of the great man himself.

If she is not filling the pages of this book with her own take on every topic under the sun, Fern is throwing in yet another anecdote where Roddenberry tells her how brilliant she is or how much the same they are or how much he treasures the chance to get to know her.

The only thing positive that I can think of to write about my experience of this book is that I paid only twenty-five cents for it at a garage sale so I don't feel completely ripped off. Oh, and that I think the photo of Fern on the inside back cover is absolutely hilarious. Almost worth the price of admission by itself.

Oh well. Two down, 1121 to go. Thankfully, I'm moving on to The Romance of the Forest, another of Ann Radcliffe's 18th Century classics. I'll keep you posted on how it progresses.

Oh happy day! A farewell to the Italian

To quote Paulo, "O! giorno felice!"

I have finished reading Ann Radcliffe's gothic romance, The Italian.

One down, 1122 to go. And it only took me two weeks to read. Ouch.

Great book, however. I very much enjoyed it. Once I got the hang of the genre and the strategies it entails, I really got caught up in the story, the characters and especially Radcliffe's vivid descriptions of the settings. Wonderfully written, with plenty of Shakespearean tropes thrown in.

After despairing that I was only reading about four pages per day of this extremely dense, 400-page book (it is, in fact, a collection of the three books in the original trilogy), I decided I had to batten down the hatches and get reading.

And I have to say, Racliffe reads much better when you take a couple of hours per sitting to sink deeply into her world. I would highly recommend this book to anyone out there. It's a neat introduction to 18th Century writing, to gothic romances and to reading in general.

Next up for me, book number 2: Yvonne Fern's Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation. This one should be a breeze after Radcliffe.

I'm enjoying the reading but life's getting in the way

I'm averaging about four pages per day on Ann Radcliffe's The Italian, book one in my 1123 book journey. That means this 410-page volume will take me approximately 102 days to finish.

At this rate, I'll be reading three to four books per year. Which means I'll finish my reading list when I'm well over 400 years old.

Hmmm... That doesn't seem like a good bet, does it?

I can't blame the book. It's great. I love the melodrama and the writing is superb. The Shakespearean references are a lot of fun and this Schedoni guy is fantastic.

It's just that my life right now doesn't leave a lot of time for reading. It's summer so I walk to and from work every day rather than spending 15 to 30 minutes each way sitting, reading, on a bus. I've also got stuff to do on my lunch hours so there goes some more prime reading time.

Evenings are spent outside in the garden, walking the dog or working on my own writing rather than curled up in front of the fire with a book under my nose.

So I'm at about four pages per day.

I'll get through, no doubt, but it will take time. My only hope is that, at other points in my life, I'll have a great deal more time and I'll start making up days. I mean, in winter time, with two bus trips and lunch hours spent indoors, I should just blow through books, shouldn't I?

Still reading Radcliffe and already behind...

This isn't going so well. If I want to finish all 1123 books before I die, I have to average no more than five days per book. So far, book number one has taken me 10 days. And I'm not even half-way through.

If I take 10 days per book, that means I won't finish for at least 35 years. I'm not sure I have that long left to live.

Worse, this first book, Ann Radcliffe's The Italian, is great. I'm loving it. It's dense, difficult reading with small print, tiny margins and more than four hundred pages. Very little dialogue and a lot of long descriptions.

But fantastic reading. You have to accept that Radcliffe's goal is to wring every ounce of tension from every situation but, once you have, it's just great.

And it's interesting to read something that is written about the 18th Century. I don't think the descriptions of Italy, its geography or the Catholic Church are very accurate but I'm not sure that matters either. It's a vivid, exciting novel.

I think, however, that I'll have to find something lighter for my second book before moving on to the second Radcliffe novel in our collection. Maybe a book about Gene Roddenberry?

Not at this rate...

It doesn't look like I'm going to get all my reading done before I die. Not at this rate, anyway.

I am just over one-quarter of the way through Ann Radcliffe's The Italian, an 18th Century gothic romance that has really got me hooked. I'm enjoying it too much to want to tear through it just to get it done.

But I've been reading it now for five days and that means it will take me almost three weeks to complete. That scares me a little... especially since I'm planning to go to a yard sale on Saturday that promises to have lots and lots of great novels to purchase.

So I guess I have to make my choice now: read as fast as I can in order to put up big numbers or accept that I'm not going to finish reading all 1123 books in my life time and take the time to enjoy each one that I do read.

With Vivaldi trapped in a chamber in the ruins of an old castle and his beloved Elenna spirited away to an isolated, mountain convent by a group of rogues in monks' habits, I think I'll choose to take my time and enjoy the adventure!

With friends like these...

I haven't had a chance to count the novels, plays and books of poetry yet but I'm continuing to enjoy Ann Radcliffe's The Italian. Clearly, the rule that a writer should show rather than tell hadn't been established yet but the descriptions are so vivid and inventive that I'm not really minding. It makes for slow reading, though. No way I'm finishing this book in the five days I had hoped.

Meanwhile, my friends in the various social media spheres have jumped all over this project as a means to make fun. Yesterday, I posted that I was enjoying the evening on a local patio, watching the sunset, and a friend commented, "Shouldn't you be reading?"

And, when I expressed an interest in a local yard sale that promises to include a lot of novels from the fifties and sixties, another friend commented that I wouldn't be particularly wise to introduce more books into my household at this time.

Yep. I'm a target.

As long as the books continue to be good, I don't mind.

Rethinking and recounting

I'm about into The Italian and I'm very much enjoying it. I can't say the characters are particularly deep or well-rounded but the writing is interesting and the images engrossing.

That being said, I've been doing some math. If I read a book every fives days (which is reasonable for most books), that means I'll take a total of 5615 days to read all of the 1123 books currently in our house that I have not yet read.

With 365 days in a year, that means it will take me, what, 16 years or so to read them all?

Yikes. I think it's time to modify the rules of my little project. Here we go. I will read all novels, plays and individual books of poetry in the house that I have not already read. I will skip the non-fiction, including philosophy and critical theory, as well as self-help and history books. Well... maybe I'll read the history ones.

So here goes: I will read the novels, plays and poetry as well as the history books. Nothing else.

Now I need to go back and count again, don't I?

Radcliffe's Intro brings smiles

Book 1 of 1123. Ann Radcliffe's The Italian. Published in 1797 and, apparently, quite popular then.

The edition I'm reading is the Oxford University Press "World's Classics" paperback version, first published in 1981. It was edited by Frederick Garber, then an English professor at SUNY Binghampton. Garber also provides a (thankfully) brief introduction.

I will say little about the professor's intro other than this: it represents the classic academic writing of the period. Dense, verbose and filled with long, overly complicated sentences, it lacks focus and, to be honest, interest.

Radcliffe's own introductory frame chapter, on the other hand, is fabulous. It's got me hooked already. Any time I put a book down with a smile on my face, I know I've got a good one.

My humble reading beginnings

Have you ever counted the books in your home?

I have. Between my partner and me, we have 1399 books (not including cookbooks, academic journals and how-to books). And that's after we went through a big purge a while ago.

I find that amazing. We've got them all over the house, crammed in book cases in the dining room, the guest bedroom, the offices and even in a storage room. We've got every book Dick Francis ever wrote (though not the ones his son, Felix, has been writing using his name); we've got everything John Locke ever wrote as well.

We've got books on feminist critical theory and moral philosophy, books on sports and entertainment. We've got mysteries and histories, sci fi and serious lit. We've got graphic novels and fantasy novels and really bad novels too.

I once dated a woman who owned two books. That was it. Just two books. And she gave one away while we were going out. That's even crazier.

And there are people out there who have more than we have. Some people have more books on their e-reader than we have in our house (which, by the way, is Kobo-free).

After I counted all these books, I sat back and rather smugly assumed that I had read most of them. At least half of them.

But then I wondered. So I went back and counted all the books I had actually read from cover to cover. What a surprise that was: of the 1399 books we have in our house, I've read exactly 276 of them.

Shameful.

So I made myself the following promise: before I die (an event which is still not likely to occur for at least two decades or so), I will read every book in this house that I have not already read.

I will read them in the order in which the find themselves on our bookshelves, starting with the office we call "The Green Room" and working my way out from there. That means there may even be a rough structure to the subject matter since we're pretty organised when it comes to our book collection.

Further, I committed myself to write a blog about the experience. And about the the books. And my own insanity in deciding to do this.

I start with Ann Radcliffe's The Italian, apparently a gothic romance from the 18th Century. Sounds exciting. Stay tuned!