Please allow me to apologise for my absence from my website. I made the decision to read a couple of books and do a joint review for them when I had finished. What I did NOT anticipate was the length of time it would take to read said books! As such, this is now a double book review AND a blog post.
It all started one lovely, sunny day when Mr Mogs and I decided to visit the beautiful little village of Howarth in West Yorkshire, the home of the Brontë sisters. It’s a delightful place, with fabulously quirky little shops and plenty of cafe’s selling delicious cream teas. As I walked around the museum dedicated to these ladies and their literary work, I felt myself growing a little ashamed at the lack of ‘Classics’ I have read in my lifetime. Despite being an avid reader since the age of three, and having read more books than I could possibly try to count, the number of Classic reads is incredibly low. I can assure you, however, this is not through the want of trying! I began reading ‘Wuthering Heights’ many years ago but couldn’t get beyond the first six chapters. I did manage to read Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ but struggled with the arrogance of the narrative and the abysmal attitude towards the main character. Yes, I do understand this was written back in the dark ages when women weren’t permitted any rights but that doesn’t mean I should still enjoy the book -I didn’t and it put me off reading anything else of that ilk for quite some time.
Anyway… On the above mentioned day out, while at the museum, I read a snippet or two about Anne Brontë’s offering to the world – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – and something about it intrigued me. I downloaded a copy onto my trusty old Kindle that evening and began reading it a few days later. It served a dual purpose as I also had to do some research into that time period. What I did not anticipate, when I started reading, was how LONG it would take to finish! I was still reading a week later… and two weeks later… and three weeks later! In the end, it took over a month to get through the darn thing! 
The gist of the story is thus… (Yes, there are a couple of spoilers but it’s not exactly a new release is it?!) A young girl decides she’s in love with a slightly roguish young man. She doesn’t heed her aunt’s wise words and proceeds to marry him. Well, more fool her because the slightly roguish young man is a complete swine! He ‘plays away from home’ and eventually flaunts his paramour right under her nose. In time the woman – as the girl has now become – flees from the marital home, carrying her young son with her. She takes up residence in a not-far-from-derelict manor, the Wildfell Hall in the title, where a handful of rooms have been made habitable and she resides there under a false name. A local farmer, who quite frankly – in my opinion – needs to get over himself, falls in love with her but this causes great heartache all around because of the woman’s marital state.
The story is related in a sandwich format – The farmer relates the beginning and the end of the story with the woman’s point-of-view being the jam in the middle. Overall, it is a good story but I found it overly-long and excessively wordy. Out of curiosity, I looked up the word count and nearly fell off my chair when it came in at almost 167,500 words! No blooming wonder I took so long to get through it! Now, I’m no slouch when it comes to brick-sized spines on a book but this one was something else! If I’m being honest, I do believe it was the language of the day which hindered my progress and I often had to re-read sentences to ensure I was interpreting them correctly. The ‘language of the day’ is also another reason which puts me off reading classic novels but, fortunately, the story line on this occasion was gripping enough to make me persevere. And I’m glad I did for it helped to give a better insight into the way women thought back in the 1800s although I believe the Brontë’s may just have been a little bit more ‘godly’ due to their upbringing and their father’s occupation. With this in mind, I was, therefore, surprised by the fact there was quite a bit of feminine contradiction. It felt, to me, as though Anne was daring to give her female protagonist a voice that went against the grain of how women were expected / permitted to think and feel in the 19th century but then suddenly she pulls back and her thoughts and behaviour revert back to the submissive female role. Sometimes this was confusing but mostly it was exasperating. Naturally, I took the time period into consideration when this occurred but it didn’t prevent the feelings of frustration from knowing how women have been suppressed over the centuries.
After that, I decided to treat myself to some Charles Dickens – a nice bit of Oliver Twist if you please. Straight away, the difference in writing styles was noticeable with Mr Dickens being lighter and easier to read. Well, in the beginning that is! Oliver Twist was originally presented in a serialised format over the the course of two years and I felt the writing style grew more serious as the novel went on. The later chapters still had their moments of fun but they were not as frequent and the same old problem of having to reread sentences reared its ugly head again.
Now, I will confess right here and now that my only knowledge of Oliver Twist came from a certain, rather colourful, music-and-dance filled movie. Therefore, when I reached the part of the book where Oliver is lured away from the kindly Mr Brownlow by Nancy the Strumpet, I thought I was not too far off reaching the end of the tale! Well, more fool me! A story that took two years to tell was never going to be read in a week! Or even in two! Yup, it was another month long read – although this time the word count was only a mere 155,960! Yes, I know, why did it take me so long?
What surprised me about Oliver Twist was how much extra there was to the story. I suppose by the time they’d got through all that singing and dancing in the movie, there was no time left to tell the whole of the tale which had a great deal more meat on the bones than I realised. A couple of reviews for my last book, ‘An Incidental Lovestyle’, made comment about coincidences. Well, all I can say is this – those ladies don’t wanna read this book because there are a stack of ‘coincidences’ like you wouldn’t believe and, if that many are good enough for Charlie Dickens, then I reckon I can get away with the odd one or two. Coincidences aside, the story comes to a good, satisfactory end where just desserts are meted out fairly to all involved. I have no wish to upset anyone here but the ending of the musical is very ‘Hollywood’ and I don’t think Charles D would have approved.
I do, however, need to address that there were some elements of this book which left me feeling decidedly uncomfortable. Fagin is often referred to as ‘The Jew’ and the term is always used in a derogatory manner. From the moment his character enters the story, this reference is made and I did not like it. Not one single bit! I’ve never liked any kind of religious discrimination and I felt myself mentally recoiling whenever I read those two words. Yet again, I had to remind myself that this story is a product of its time and, being nearly two hundred years old, much has changed. There was also the portrayal of women as being light-headed, feint-hearted, airy-fairy beings incapable of thinking for themselves most of the time. It seems that, while Mr Dickens was quite forward-thinking in some ways, he was also a ‘man of his time’ in many others. As you may have worked out by now, this stereotyping caused much clenching of teeth and muttering of expletives – the latter being something I’m sure the author would have been much put out about! Putting those issues aside, however, Mr Dickens wrote often with great wit and a smile would regularly creep over my face. ‘Jappaning his trotter cases’ – which basically means ‘cleaning his boots’ – still makes me laugh and I’m quite sure that frequently referring to the character Charley Bates as ‘Master Bates’ was intentional innuendo although there is much debate about this. Despite his 19th century flaws, I got the impression that Charles Dickens had quite a cheeky – and sometime naughty – sense of humour. My own personal interpretation is that I would have enjoyed his company, had we met down the pub, and we would have shared some lively debates as I sought to amend his attitude where the mental strength and intelligence of women are concerned.
In summary – I enjoyed reading both of these classic novels and it was an experience to have read them side by side as this made it easier to note the different styles of the authors and their perceptions. What was most surprising to me, when I did a little research, was finding out ‘Oliver Twist’ had been written before ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’. I honestly thought, from the writing styles, they were the other way around.
The upside is, despite the time taken to get through these two books, I have not been put off 
reading more Classics in the future. I will, however, be doing a check on word counts before I begin and I can tell you right now that ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, also by Charles Dickens, will not be on the agenda anytime soon for, at over 375,000 words, it would take me the best part of three months to read and life is too short for that!
As an aside, and to put all of the above into perspective, I should mention I’m a reasonably quick reader and the proof of this is that, since finishing Oliver Twist, I’ve read one book of approx 100,000 words and I’m on Chapter 14 of the second… and it’s only been three days!
Until the next time, happy reading.