CharlesBoyd and jennieg's Challenge

Charles and I have swapped challenges. I am reading The Rapture of Canaan and he is reading Barchester Towers. I am encouraged by karenmarie's review.

I've read almost 100 pages of Barchester Towers now. Nothing much happens for 39 pages, then some strong conflict between Slope and Dr. Grantly. Some new characters coming into the story. So it's becoming more interesting. I'm slowly adapting to the slow pacing. I can see why, when all books were written this way and people were used to it, Trollope was popular.

jennieg, how's The Rapture of Canaan going for you?

I finished it last night. I really enjoyed it.

This is a novel I probably wouldn't have picked up ordinarily, mostly because the world is full and my TBR list is long. I thought the author did an excellent job with the setting and the main characters. It's nice to have a coming of age novel about a girl marketed as an adult novel.

I will add the author's earlier novel to my (ever-lengthening) TBR list and keep an eye out for her new stuff.

Glad you enjoyed it. I'm at about 120 pages with Barchester Towers It won't be a quick read, but I'll definately finish it. Liking it better as I get farther into it.

Sometimes it's nice to have a novel with nothing more worrisome than which suitor will win the lovely Eleanor's hand.

jennieg>5 jennieg:

I just hit midway in Barchester Towers. 250 pages to go. That will take awhile because I'm back in my novel writing class so I'm writing my own novel and reading and critiquing other students work. So my reading time is limited. But I will finish it.

For those who haven't read Barchester, a minor spoiler ahead:

It surprises me that Trollope tells the reader fairly early on that Eleanor will not be married to the two men currently courting her. That really kills some of the tension. Why not let the reader keep wondering? That's not too big a problem for me because who Eleanor will end up with isn't the issue I'm most interested in, though I do have some curiousity there. Rather, I'm more interested in the power struggles between the various clergy.

As in previously posts, I'm finding the novel more readable as I aclimate to the leisurely pace.

Glad you're enjoying it, Charles. I enjoy a book that wants to be read, not skimmed for plot points.

I just finished Barchester. I'll read the commentary in the front of the book and give some final thoughts here in a day or so.

I'm glad I read the commentary in front of Barchester, it explains a lot. Turns out I stumbled over what Trollope was doing when I wrote in message 6: "...who Eleanor will end up with isn't the issue I'm most interested in, though I do have some curiousity there. Rather, I'm more interested in the power struggles between the various clergy."

During this time the church was going through a great deal of conflict between high churchers and reformers, low-churchers. Trollope was showing this conflict in a somewhat satirical way. Ironically he wrote more sympathetically about the eventually losers, the high churchers, than the low churchers.

According to that same commentary, much of the money that supported various clergy was actually donated to support charitable causes. So around this time the matter of where the money was going to was a subject of controversy. "The Warden" is all about this. From the commentary: "Suppose the Warden of Hiram's Hospital to be a good man who has never considered the justice or injustice of his preferment {the money he gets for doing pretty much nothing--my comment} and suppose him to be confronted by the activities of a local reformer and the accusations of the powerful Jupiter newspaper, how would he behave? The answer is the story of Mr Harding and his struggle to do right in a situation which he has just learned to see may possibly be wrong."

Though I enjoyed much of Barchester I was not inspired to read any more of Trollope's novels. Just too much work to get the good stuff. But the commentary changed my mind. I do now have some desire to read "The Warden." The question is will I ever get around to doing it?

As often happens, the "bad guys" in Barchester are much more interesting than the good guys.

I'M NOW READY FOR A NEW CHALLENGE. I'm very happy both KarenMarie and jennieg enjoyed The Rapture of Canaan. Another novel I'd love to have other readers try is Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. For my money it has to be in any list of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. So, if you've never read Dandelion Wine or anything by Bradbury and think you'll hate it, I'll read yours if you'll read mine. To give you some idea of what I'd expect to not like: Vampire stuff, novels for women that seen to be only for women rather than for either gender (obviously, since I'm a big fan of The Rapture of Canann, I do enjoy books about women by women), I'm also not a big fan of books that are too "cutesy" or where animals are raised to the stature of being more important than humans. Also, just off the top of my head, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," just by the title sounds like garbage to me. So maybe someone might love that one and want to convert me.

By the way, Dandelion Wine is NOT fantasy or sci-fi. It is a musical, poetic, look at a 12 year old boy's summer growing up in a small town in the 1920's? I've come to believe that LibraryThingers are by and large pretty smart, perceptive people. So I'd be amazed if anyone could read this novel and not love it.

I'm glad you liked Barchester Towers, Charles. The Warden is much shorter.

I remember Dandelion Wine very fondly, so I'm out for this challenge.

Actually, though I would have been glad to do another challenge with you, I meant my challenge to be to anyone that reads our thread, anyone in Library Thing.

No, I knew you were opening that challenge to the world. I'd love to do another one with you, but I need to get my feet clear first. I've got The Picture of Dorian Gray from the library to read as soon as I finish The Elegance of the Hedgehog and a biography of Einstein is staring me in the face.

Cool. Another time. See you among the threads.