The Sleeping Beauty by Berlie Doherty and Jane Ray

What is it?

The Sleeping Beauty In The Forest

Who wrote it?

Berlie Doherty

Illustrated by Jane Ray

Where can it be found?

 Walker Illustrated Classics: Classic Fairy Tales

Adaptation?

No, just a re-telling.

My thoughts in exactly 10 words:

ALWAYS remember to invite the most evil and powerful fairy.

A Study In Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

This semester just gone, I had the first chapter of the book I'm working on work-shopped in class at uni. One of the questions I asked for feedback on was "what type of society do you feel this story is set in from this introduction?" One classmate came back with "Hasidism meets Armish meets 'Victorian' Vienna meets Conan Doyle's London meets weird-science mechanisation". Now that was pretty close! the Hasidism/Armish side of it isn't so much what I was going for, but I could see how that was read into the first chapter. But what struck me was "Conan Doyle's London". It occurred to me that I had never read any Sherlock Holmes and how much doing so might help put me in the right mindset to understand what I was trying to achieve with my own writing.

I quickly procured a lovely old fashioned bind up of the four novels from a second hand shop and started by reading the first story.

It was fantastic! Even if you're not writing a novel set in a Victorian inspired fantasy world, they make fascinating reading. 

I must admit, I found Sherlock himself to be a bit more conceited than I expected him to be. And this didn't seem designed to be mysteries that the reader is expected to solve before the answer is revealed, as much of the small details that Sherlock uses to figure it all out aren't reviled to us until he is explaining how he came to his conclusion. 

But, all that said it's a great ride to go along with Watson on!

I can't wait to read the rest! Good thing I've got some time off coming up.

 

4 Gold Stars

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Rumpelstiltskin by Berlie Doherty and Jane Ray

What is it?

Rumpelstiltskin

Who wrote it?

Berlie Doherty

Illustrated by Jane Ray

Where can it be found?

Classic Fairy Tales (Walker Illustrated Classics)

Adaptation?

More a re-telling with a gentle ending.

My thoughts in exactly 10 words:

Greedy, patriarchal colonialists take what they will, but beautifully written.

I'm Taggarty Toad by Peter Pavey

I love this book. It is so bizarre that it just seems to work.

Pavey's illustrations are something else all together. There are an incredibly detailed mix of styles from cross-hatch to sparse cartoon-ish parts coloured gently with pencil. There are bright and arresting elements and then at times some very realistic looking animals. These are all combined on each page. There is just so much to look at it's fantastic!

The story itself is very funny too. Taggarty Toad turns up to an audience of animals as a guest speaker. The group consists of a cat, a chicken, a wallaby, a snake, an emu, a fox, and a dodo; just to name a few. Oh, and some odd looking lizzardy-dragon-thing (for a point of difference?).

Anyway, Taggarty Toad begins to describe how magnificent he is, how he's "indestructible" and then starts to list all the "unbelievable" things he has done. These include catching gigantic caterpillars, sailing the seven seas and tying a knot in the tail of a tiger. They become more and more far fetched until his speech is cut short when a tiger with a knot in its tail attacks him. The next (and final) page sees our big talking hero walking away covered in bandages.

Now, this will pose the question: 'Did he really do all those things?' Well splashing the sun and bending the moon don't really seem possible, so surely he hasn't done any of them and he's just a big show-man. BUT, why then, did the tiger attack him? Surely it wanted revenge for the wrong done to it? So, could all the other things also be true?

I'm sure you'll enjoy puzzling over these questions with your child/ren if you share this classic with them. I know I enjoy puzzling over them on my own.

4 Gold Stars

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Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

What is it?

Little Red Riding Hood

Who wrote it?

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Where can it be found?

in ‘The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales’
Edited by Maria Tatar

Adaptation?

According to the introduction, it was changed slightly by the Grimms from the traditional oral versions at the time to be more overtly a cautionary tale.

My thoughts in exactly 10 words:

The story as generally known with interesting turns of phrase.

A Dog Day by Walter Emanuel and Cecil Aldin

Gifted to me for Christmas: "A Classic you should have in your collection." I had never heard of it before. Now that I've read it, I'm very glad it is in my collection.

A Dog Day (with an alternate title of The Angel In The House) is the perfect book for anyone who is in any way partial to dogs. If there is one word that I could use to describe it, it would be charming.

This book is just simply charming.

It is a day in the life of a dog, with very short diary-style entries with time stamps. It starts with the dog inadvertently stopping a burglar from getting away with lots of silverware, and following through the many meals and mishaps and altercations with the cat.  All accompanied by some very endearing illustrations by Cecil Aldin.

Even though it was first published in 1902 (110 years ago!!) it is just as true of dogs today as it was then.

4 Silver Stars

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3/40

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

The latest selection for Bookclub was Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives. The way our bookclub works is we talk about the book, until discussion is exhausted, then, if one is available, we watch a film adaptation of the book we've just finished talking about. This usually opens up further discussion in what has been kept or changed from book to film.

In the case of The Stepford Wives, there were two film versions made nearly 30 years apart, so we watched them both. I thought for this post, I'd talk about the book and then the movies.

I quite liked the book, it was plain, straightforward and built a nice sense of mystery. Levin seems to very much like to leave a lot out, to keep you guess, so that things are never confirmed. It can be refreshing, with all the writing these days that feels like they have to spell everything out, because heaven forbid there be any un-answered questions! With out giving the ending away, I'll warn those who don't like that sort of thing, that the book ends abruptly on a fairly dramatic cliffhanger and the coda of sorts explains nothing. This way, the reader can apply their own interpretation.

I do think that part of the 'horror'/'thriller' aspect of the book would have been magnified back in the 70's when the book was written. At the height of the second wave feminist movement, the very idea that men could be doing something to their wives to make them hotter and enthusiastically subservient would have been more abhorrent back when women were struggling so hard just to be seen as equals. That said, while the initial shock might not be what it was, the more I find myself thinking about it the more I find the idea appalling.

Anyway, it's a good read for a bit of vintage thriller.

On to the movies!

The original film was made in 1975 only a few years after the book was first published. All in all, it's a fairly good adaptation of the book, being pretty spot on as long as you don't count the whole climax where they've taken liberties to fill in some of the blanks left by Levin or just make it simply more dramatic. It's not too bad, but not entirely the most enthralling movie ever.

The second movie came out in 2004 and is a (much) less accurate translation from book to film, BUT, it is by far more enjoyable! This movie had me laughing all the way through it's so well done! I don't even like Nicole Kidman, but this movie is good despite her. Bette Midler plays a fantastic Bobbie and her book titles are great fun. This movie is just plain fun. and has a much more satisfying resolution for those that need that sort of thing. Glen Close does a great job too, the Model Stepford Wife!

3.5 Silver Stars

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The Cat And The Fiddle by Jackie Morris

Now, I like nursery rhymes. Something about the tradition and the timelessness and the possibilities they suggest; it’s a very similar to my feelings towards fairy tales. But never before have a come across a collection of nursery rhymes that has so completely captured my imagination as Jackie Morris’ has. Her illustrations are nothing short of stunning. But more than that, she has avoided the typical, literal interpretations that are so common in other collections. Each page explores all of the fantasy, the whimsy, the possibility that is overflowing from these very short rhymes.

Rhymes of two or four lines are given life and story and place with her amazing watercolours. Tiny background details allude to other poems in the book, or simply suggest endless alternative stories. Talking about the title poem and the cover jacket you will see what I mean. 

Hey diddle diddle… we’ve heard it before, we’ve see cute, cartoon illustrations of a cat playing a fiddle and the cow in the evening sky jumping a smiling crescent moon. Would you have thought to put a beautiful woman with long flowing hair playing a fiddle on a cat larger than a horse? No, probably not. But it’s beautiful in its concept and its execution. Then, to have that cat pulling a carriage which is decorated with an oversized clock which looks like it keeps some sort of celestial time and on which the ‘cow hand’ is about to overtake the ‘moon hand’ and the ‘dish’ and ‘spoon hands’ are ticking away ahead. Ooo, it gives me goosebumps. And that’s the cover image alone! Think of where the 62 pages of imagination and flights of fancy could lead you?

As for the collection of nursery rhymes goes, there is the perfect balance between well known ones, and those that are less familiar (or not at all), which, if you ask me, is perfect. It’s great to be introduced to something new while at the same time allowing for the pleasure of revisiting recognised favourites.

The Cat and The Fiddle, illustrated by Jackie Morris, is one of this year’s must haves for any shelf. Rhymes to share with the very young, pictures and possibilities to pore over with the not so young (I’m including myself here).

The BFG by Roald Dahl

I’m ashamed to admit, that if you look on my shelf, you will find a copy of Roald Dahl’s The BFG with a bookmark (a leather one, hand-decorated by my 8 year-old self) still marking the page where, for some reason lost to time, I stopped reading it. This bookmark has long remained untouched, but has not been forgotten. The shame of not finishing that book has haunted my reading life the way a faded stain on the carpet might haunt a tenant who is hoping for their entire bond back.

So, yesterday, I had a day where I would be in the car for a number of hours and thought to myself that I would finally lay the ghost of my youth to rest, and listen to the audio book right through.

If you haven’t read it, you must! I now find myself scolding my 8 year-old self for being such a fool in not finishing it, but at the same time, revelling in the fact that I could appreciate this book as an adult reader.

However, if you get the chance, you should definitely listen to the version read by Geoffrey Palmer. His voice for the Big Friendly Giant had me laughing out loud as I drove up the freeway. Then, when I thought it couldn’t get better, in come the Queen of England… Between those two characters, I thought it was just hilarious! Anyone who has read it will know that the BGF has a very particular way of talking. So, imagine hearing him talk, without having to make your brain process what the word in front of you looks like, and then how it would sound. Geoffrey Palmer reads it all like he’s been speaking that way for his entire life.

The whole thing was so enjoyable! So, if you’ve got a shame-faced child somewhere inside you, that is blushing because they either didn’t finish The BFG like I did, or perhaps they didn’t read it at all: Do away with the guilt! Do away with the shame! Get your hands on this marvellous book and laugh! … and live!

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

This week, I listened to Northanger Abbey on audio book while driving around for work. I was able to knock the whole thing over in a day. It’s days like that that I’m a) thankful for audio books and b) glad to put all that driving time to use.

This is only the second Jane Austen I’ve ‘read’ (I actually did read Pride and Prejudice). And I just love them! I should say, that I was listening to a version put out by Penguin Audio and it doesn’t say anywhere on the case if it is an abridged version or not, all I know is it runs for just over 3 hours. So perhaps someone might be able to tell me if I heard the whole thing or not. I will be reading it again in the future however, because I am a collector of quotes from books and this one is ripe to bursting with them! And being on audio, and me needing to keep my hands on the wheel, I was unable to record any of them.

The narrator (who I’m not certain of their name because I have returned the CDs to my friend without taking note and can’t find the information online, is either Joanna David or Jill Balcon) read it with the perfect affected accent you would expect of a Jane Austen novel which only added to my enjoyment.

The storyline of this one was a bit more straight forward: Girl goes on holiday, sees a man she takes a fancy to, pines over him while he’s not there, spends time with him, falls in love, there are numerous misunderstandings she’s turned out of their home, then everything gets resolved. But it was great fun!

It seemed that Jane Austen was also using this book to critique the contemporary opinion of novels as there was much discussion about the types of people who read novels, and their supposed embarrassment in being caught reading ‘just a novel’. Then, to the author’s defence come the Hero of the story, claiming that men read ‘nearly as many as women’ and that he has read ‘hundreds and hundreds of novels’.

Then, I had to hunt down this quote because I loved it so much, I laughed out loud when I heard it:

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

I feel like framing that and hanging it on my wall!

All I can say now is: I’m very excited to get around to the rest of Jane Austen’s books!

If you’ve never read any of them, you’re missing out!

Jane Slayre - Charlotte Bronte and Sherri Browning Erwin

Well, this was the latest read selected for the 'Non-pretentious Bookclub'. And Non-pretentious is a good way to describe this new genre. Purists should steer clear but those after a chuckle and like a bit of slaying, staking and beheading, this type of thing is perfect.

This particular one, however, is probably not the best one to start with. While I found parts of it quite amusing, there were long stretches where not a lot happened.

Admittedly, I have not read Jane Ayre so, I can't really compare it to the original classic. However, I think that part of the fun for me was trying to work out what might have actually been happening in the normal version.

There were moments that I was laughing out loud at this book, but there were others in the bookclub that didn't find it amusing at all.

This genre might be viewed in light of "making the classics accessible", and while I would agree with that for the most part, personally I'm not against reading classics and have quite enjoyed the ones that I have. But then I can also see the humour in these. I am very much looking forward to when I have the time to read 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' and even more so, looking forward to the movie adaptation staring Natalie Portman: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1374989/

Sorry that this review is a bit jumpy, it's been a few weeks since I finished the book. I'll try and review closer to finishing so I am more eloquent.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I won't go on about this book other to say that this was the first time I've read it, and that I absolutely LOVED it! I don't think I could write a review about it which would give it justice.

I will say, however, and Austen certainly knows how to paint characters. There are such a variety of characters in this book, and you seem to feel so strongly (in various ways) about each of them. This book is funny, insightful and brilliant!

The other day a woman I work with saw what I was reading and said 'Oh yes! That's one you need to re-read every five years or so." and I agree with her. And if you haven't read it, then you should.