Currently reading
Roman Blood
Progress:
171/401 pages
Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child
Progress:
208/557 pages
Avant-gardes du XXe siècle: arts & littérature, 1905-1930
Caesar's Commentaries: On the Gallic War and On the Civil War
Les bûchers de Bocanegra
The Songs of the Kings
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories: Volumes I and II
The Hobbit
Mrs Craddock (Penguin Classics)
I had never read Maugham. I had heard of him. Razor Edge and more recently The Painted Veil because of Edward Norton's film adapted from it. I came upon a rec for Mrs Craddock in Jessica Crispin's Blog of a Bookslut in January. This blog usually gives out there, sometimes underground recs. So I put in a request to have the book transferred from one of my library branch. It's a very ironic, somewhat darkish look at a dying class of people. We are at the end of the Victorian period and on the edge of WW1. A very cold analysis of married life and how someone's expectations can blind, despair and ultimately completely destroy people. It's not a rosy view of married life, of relationships but I find it's as relevant now at it probably was then. That even if you love someone it doesn't guaranty happiness and you may love someone passionately and still not know that person.Written in 1902, it doesn't paint any characters in a good light. These are real people, living a somewhat very structured life and they can't see any wrong with it or when they do they can't break free from it. Except for Miss Ley, the spinster that lives her life on her terms and doesn't care one iota what other thinks. I liked the novel, I'll read Merry-Go-Round next since it features Miss Ley as the narrator.
