Books that the world adores but I don't

You finally get your hands on that great, classic book, that masterpiece that has left its mark on the world of literature, and you've decided to read it because a) everyone around you has been urging you to read because it's so amazing, or b) you feel you must acquaint yourself with it in order to respect yourself as a civilized human being. When you turn the first page, you feel so happy, embarking on this great adventure that will surely affect your views of the world...

... but sometimes, it ends with you reaching the last page and then slamming shut the back cover with nothing but... emptiness... on your mind. Then you start to wonder why you feel so empty, and then you get a little (or a little more) annoyed at the book in your hands for not fulfilling its promise of being fantastic. Finally, you try to decide whether the world around you is off its rocker for revering this book so highly, or if it's your brain that's been set wrong. Either way, you simply find yourself feeling completely indifferent, or even downright negative, towards a work of literature that you were "supposed to like".

As you might have guessed already, I'm now going to share my most prominent experiences of being unsatisfied with world-renowned classics. Warning: there will be, obviously, opinions very much against these great works of literature, expressed with shameless honesty (but with only moderate brutality, I hope), and even (Le Gasp!) a suggestion that the film version might be better than the book. And remember, if you happen to like or even love one of these books, it's completely fine with me. That's the point of opinions, it's okay if they are different.

So, let's get on with it – ladies and gentlemen, my list of books that I was supposed to like... but didn't!


Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre

Alright, I'm starting with a really tricky one – by which I mean that this book is bound to have kazillions of defenders who are dreadfully appalled that I'm questioning its position as a much-loved classic. Well, let me explain some things. Firstly, I'm actually not saying that any of the books in this list don't deserve to be named as great classics. I can honestly see how Jane Eyre has affected perceptions of literature, and I understand why it is appealing to so many readers. Which brings me to my second point: I really like some things about this book myself. I like to read how Jane and Rochester's relationship develops, and I like to see Jane overcoming her obstacles and finding her happiness. But I'm the wrong kind of person to enjoy this gothic, melodramatic style. I find myself holding back laughter when Mr Rochester makes his dramatic first appearance and rolling my eyes at his mad wife floating around the house at night. Still, I'm a little tempted to maybe give Jane Eyre another try someday.


Louisa May Alcott: Little Women (including the second volume)

Something curious happened with this book. I can't remember how old I was when I read it for the first time, but anyway, I liked it alright. Then I read it again at high school age – and that seemingly innocent little novel almost suffocated me. So, Jo March is supposed to be running the frontier of independent, free-spirited female characters – so why, each time I read her story, is there always this little, smug know-it-all voice in my ear tutting at how very silly and far-fetched Jo's dream of becoming a great author is? It always seems to me that Meg and Beth, the eventual homebody sisters who spend their days sewing and waving dish towels, are what the book actually wants to push forward as the ideal model of a "little woman"! This is the dreaded part where I say the film version of 1994 is more enjoyable to me than the book, because it focuses more on the relationships between the sisters and their mother, and less on preaching what good little women should and shouldn't do.


Paulo Coelho: The Alchemist

This is not a novel, it's a novel-length string of aphorisms. It's the result of a billion-dollar bet on "how many lofty ideas of the meaning of life can you fit into 175 pages?" (Alright, I made that up because I'm in a particularly witty mood today.) There's an Andalusian shepherd boy who has a dream, and after taking advice from some mysterious characters he ends up crossing North Africa. And three-quarters into the book, it becomes painfully obvious how his journey is going to end... Or maybe that was just me. I am aware that The Alchemist was not written to be a thrilling adventure story, but honestly, all those characters sprouting out metaphysical musings just gets on my nerves.



Mika Waltari: The Egyptian (originally Sinuhe egyptiläinen)

This is a work of literature that I should particularly appreciate as a Finn – and I do, in some ways. The writer, Mika Waltari, lived in the early 1900s and belonged to a society of authors who strove to bring more European influence into the Finnish arts, and while he was an incredibly productive writer, The Egyptian is definitely one of his best-known works – it was even made into a Hollywood film in 1954, how often has that happened to a Finnish novel?! The novel is widely praised for its accurate depiction of Ancient Egypt, and that I can agree to – the reader also gets to see more of the Ancient world as the main character, Sinuhe, goes on a road trip of sorts. That part I actually liked. What I didn't like at all was Sinuhe himself. God, how could he be so dumb and annoying? Also, the ending of this book leaves a kind of horrible, empty feeling in my mind which I hate.


Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary

So I thought Sinuhe the Egyptian was the most exhausting main character ever... until I met Emma Bovary. I read this one in high school, when we had to pick one out of a list of books that had been considered scandalous at the time they were published. I can definitely see why Madame Bovary was shocking back in 1856 – you see, Emma Bovary marries a dull doctor, realizes that her married life isn't looking like she imagined in her glittering dreams, and finds excitement by making frequent escapes to the attractions of the city and (Le Gasp!) having two different lovers. I have never, never, never wished so badly that the main character could somehow be... got rid of. If this hadn't been a compulsory read for school, I probably wouldn't have bothered to finish it.


Am I a horrible person for not liking these great classics? Have you ever had similar experiences? Tell me about all the well-known books that disappointed you!

Shakespearean Lovers Quiz Answers

Time to reveal how the matchmaking goes for these romantic heroes and heroines! Hannah was the only one brave enough to submit her answers, and scored 18 points out of 30 – which is a great score as I deliberately included some of Shakespeare's least-known couples.

Also, what a perfect post this is to remind everyone who might have missed it that William Shakespeare's 450th birthday celebrations took place this week, on the 23rd of April. What a legacy that is, to be so avidly commemorated worldwide after so many centuries. The Bard is certainly going nowhere from our theatre stages.

1. Lysander and Hermia, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Puck's shenanigans with love potion get poor Lysander a little sidetracked from his love for Hermia, but in the end they do manage to get out of the fairy-infested woods and even Hermia's father can't stop them from getting married when they get the sympathies of the Duke of Athens on their side.

2. Orlando and Rosalind, As You Like It
Rosalind gets smitten with Orlando when he wins a wrestling match. Once again the lovers must run around in the woods, but this time, the lady has cross-dressed as a man in order to travel more safely. Orlando becomes the forerunner of blogging when he writes love poems to Rosalind and brings them to the public eye by pinning them on trees.

3. Posthumus and Imogen, Cymbeline
These unfortunate souls get separated quite early on in the play, when Posthumus gets banished from King Cymbeline's court and goes to Rome. While there, his "buddy" Iachimo devises a seriously evil plan to make Posthumus believe that Imogen is being unfaithful to him, when all she's been doing is cross-dressing and accidentally finding her long-lost brothers in the wilderness.

4. Benedick and Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing
Everyone in the play knows that Beatrice and Benedick's eternal war of words is just a sign of their obvious romantic chemistry – except for the couple themselves.

5. Lysimachus and Marina, Pericles, Prince of Tyre
By a series of unfortunate events all across the seas, Marina ends up working in a brothel. Luckily, she manages to win the love of Lysimachus, who takes her away before she has to actually serve any customers.

6. Bassanio and Portia, The Merchant of Venice
Bassanio is not quite the typical romantic hero, as his attraction to Portia is initially motivated purely by the fact that she's a rich heiress, and he's broke. Because there just can't be enough of Shakespearean heroines cross-dressing, Portia has to do it too. But she takes the act a step further – she pretends to be a lawyer and just sorts out everyone's problems like a boss.

7. Ferdinand and Miranda, The Tempest
Miranda's dad Prospero is changeable, to say the least. First he makes Ferdinand do all the hard work around the house that he can think of, then he decides that he actually likes him a lot and throws an engagement party to the young couple, complete with magical spirits.

8. Valentine and Silvia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Life certainly isn't sunshine and roses for this young couple. Valentine's supposed best friend Proteus decides he wants Silvia for himself, and maneuvers Valentine's banishment from the Duke's (Silvia's father's) court in order to achieve this.

9. Florizel and Perdita, The Winter's Tale
Florizel is the Prince of Bohemia, but neither he nor his shepherdess girlfriend Perdita know that the latter is actually the daughter of the king of Sicilia, who had a really bad falling-out with Florizel's dad a long time ago.

10. Orsino and Viola, Twelfth Night
Viola really likes Orsino, but it's somewhat difficult for her to make this known for him, not only because Orsino is at first fixated with another woman, Olivia, but because Viola is... you guessed it, cross-dressing!

One year of blogging

On April 15th, 2013, I did something that quite surprised me. I started a blog; this blog. Why was I so surprised at myself? Because for many years, I was under the impression that "blogging" meant "writing down all the boring, everyday stuff you do and whining about all your problems, as if you were keeping a diary, but instead putting it in the Internet under the impression that someone would be interested." I had absolutely no interest in doing that.

However, I now have a blog that just celebrated its first anniversary, and I'm very happy about it. So far I've produced 61 blog posts and gained ten followers. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of these ten wonderful bloggers (most of whom I follow myself and others should take a look at too) for keeping such high-quality blogs and bringing up such interesting things that I always want to learn more about. The best example of this is my to-read list, which will never end thanks to all the wonderful reviews from other bloggers that catch my interest.

As well as my fellow bloggers, I want to thank everyone who has ever spared so much as a glance to my blog, and everyone who has given me an idea for a post. Comments from readers are always such a delight as well, no matter how long or short they are.

As this anniversary came by, I started wondering if the past year of being a blogger had brought any substantial changes to my life. It wasn't very hard to make these observations about myself:

• I've become much more active a follower of all the happenings in the arts. I feel like I have to be on the lookout for new things to blog about, so I'm constantly adding new things to follow on Facebook, new websites to look up, and so on.
• I feel like whenever I'm having a conversation with anyone, no matter what subject we end up talking about, I say "I'm planning a blog post about [subject]" sooner or later.
• Whenever I feel annoyed, frustrated or something of that kind, I think "Let's go to the blog, it will help."
• I find myself endlessly baffled by the question of how exactly someone from Brazil or South Korea found their way into my blog. 
• I have to admit it – I feel ridiculously intellectual when I get to tell someone "I'm a blogger, I do reviews on books and theatre and other sorts of arts." I know, it's completely hilarious.
• I've become more and more convinced about where I want my future career to be. I'm no longer content to be simply a spectator for the works of theatre; I want to be a part of that world, a part of the system that brings theatre productions to audiences. I've noticed that I talk about theatre very differently than most of the people around me, often resulting in the other one asking "How on Earth did you pay attention to that?"
• This isn't really a consequence of my blogging habit, but worth mentioning because it is a change that happened in the past year and has altered somewhat the way that I perceive the things I blog about. I recall saying in one or two of my blog posts that I'm not easily moved by things that happen in books and movies and such, that if something makes me cry it must be noteworthy. Well, that isn't true anymore. I've seen the most definite change in the way I experience characters' deaths on page, stage or screen – it holds a whole new level of intensity for me now. But even things less tragic than deaths do make me emotional nowadays. 

Now, after musing about the effects of my blogging, I would like to try something with you readers. In celebration of the first anniversary of Music & My Mind, I'll host an "Ask Me Anything" event! It means, quite simply, that you can ask me any questions you can think of, they don't have to be related to the subjects I usually blog about, and if there are enough questions asked, I'll do a separate blog post where I post my answers! You can get as imaginative as you like with your questions and ask as many as you want, but I do reserve the right not to answer questions that I think are too personal. 

So come on, join the blog celebration and surprise me! :)

Voice of the Week: Billy Joel

How I found out

My mother has always loved Billy Joel, so I must have been quite young when I heard his music for the first time. Now I've been a fan too for many years, and the love just keeps growing.

Commentary

I admire just about everything in Billy Joel. His voice is incredibly attractive and versatile, practically all of his tunes are so memorable they stick in your head after one listen, and thematically his oeuvre is very diverse, ranging from friendship to love to independence to the Vietnam War! Of course you shouldn't assume that songwriters always write about their own life, but Joel sings with such effortless sincerity that it would be easy to believe he does.

Favourite songs

Alright, this is going to be a long list...

Piano Man

My Life

She's Got A Way

Goodnight Saigon

An Innocent Man

Tell Her About It

I would listen to this music when...

Billy Joel is good for almost any situation. Whether you want a good beat to match your uptempo mood or something that touches your heart, he's got it.

Random lyric sample

Well we all have a face that we hide away forever
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone
Some are satin, some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger but we love to try them on
(The Stranger, album The Stranger)

Stars ★★★★★

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Alright, I am determined to write this blog post today, but it's so hard to concentrate. Two absolutely mind-blowing things happened to me yesterday and I have to share those first before I get to the point.

First thing: I was listening to Billy Joel again – which is not an unusual event because I like him a lot – and for the first time I actually paid proper attention to what his song Goodnight Saigon is about. This song, like many others, has previously had me so carried away simply by its melody and atmosphere that my brain didn't manage to absorb until yesterday that it's actually an incredibly powerful story about the Vietnam War. It nearly knocked me off my chair.

Second thing: I learned through Facebook that BBC is continuing their series of Shakespeare's history plays (having already made four of them into the well-known Hollow Crown tv-movies), and Benedict Cumberbatch is going to play King Richard III. That casting decision, in my mind, is an entirely valid reason for hyperventilation and tears of joy.

There. Now I can get to the actual point. Spooky dogs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Dartmoor. I've made this review spoiler-free, except for that one paragraph at the end, which will be clearly marked.

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The legendary canon of Sherlock Holmes had been on my endless list of "things I should get to know better in the name of common knowledge" for a very long time, but it wasn't until I got my heart stolen by the modern-set BBC Sherlock (which will get its own blog post in the near future) that I took action to read one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works. I decided to start with The Hound of the Baskervilles despite that it's not the first in chronological order because it has made by far the biggest and most mysterious reputation out of all the Holmes adventures.

The Baskervilles are an old and high family who have their ancestral home on the bleak moors of Devonshire. According to family legend, they are haunted by a monstrous black hound who has been the downfall of most of the Baskervilles. The old stories start getting around again when Sir Charles, the current resident of Baskerville Hall, is found dead on the moor with a look of terror on his face. His nephew and heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, is summoned from Canada to claim his new property, but he only gets as far as London when strange things start to happen to him; an anonymous message that warns him against going to Dartmoor, boots going missing, a bearded stalker... Also, it is not quite clear what exactly killed his uncle Charles. So what else is there to do than pay a visit to Baker Street and get Holmes and Watson on the case?

Whatever expectations I had when I opened the book – and I was bound to have some, not only because I've read a fair number of detective stories and Victorian novels, but because everyone has some sort of an image of Sherlock Holmes in their minds – I couldn't have been more surprised. And I mean that in all ways positive.

The 1939 film is so very cheerful about its setting. Described from a Hollywood perspective obviously.

Of course I was not expecting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a boring writer (why would so many people read him if his books were dull?) but I definitely wasn't expecting The Hound of the Baskervilles to be so entertaining in a modern way – I really can't think of a more descriptive expression than that. It's compact, fast-paced, fun and constantly throwing in new characters and plot threads on the reader's plate! The mystery builds up brilliantly until the very last chapters, and the atmosphere on the misty, swampy moors is nerve-wracking. For goodness' sake, we even have to witness a poor pony drowning in the bog! I really do want to visit Dartmoor now, though, because of its depiction in this and War Horse. The Victorian period wasn't exactly favorable towards scandalous and dark elements in literature, but The Hound of the Baskervilles definitely doesn't shy away from things like sadistic husbands, marriage troubles and supernatural beasts. (Maybe things were starting to loosen up on the late Victorian years, which is when this novel was published?) I can completely understand why Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss were so inspired to re-invent Sherlock Holmes in modern day.

Another delightful element in this novel is its characters. Let's start with the obvious – Sherlock Holmes proves to be one of the most charismatic literary characters in existence right on the first couple of pages. There are few others in the world with such an entertaining combination of smarts and attitude. And Dr Watson is NOT the stereotypical "dumb sidekick" that, curiously, some Holmes adaptations tend to lean towards. For one thing, Sherlock actually sends him on his own to Baskerville Hall to help Sir Henry and make sense of the case. That's a tremendous act of trust, people! Dr Watson does most of the on-page detective work here, and he's not screwing it up. He very efficiently takes up the task that Sherlock sets him, to find out as much as he can about Sir Henry's neighbours. This enables us readers to meet a collection of (mostly) upper-class Dartmoor residents, all of whom we curiously find out are quite messed up one way or another. Dark secrets are unravelled, but some of these people are generous enough to provide us a much-needed laugh in the middle of the forbidding, supposedly haunted moorlands. My favourite character has got to be Dr Mortimer, who introduces the case of the Baskervilles to Sherlock Holmes and then spends much of his on-page time being all nerdy about different shapes of skulls. Mr Frankland is also worth mentioning – his hobby of choice is flinging away most of his fortune to put up court cases that concern his own life very little or not at all, because of course the actual legal forces in the area are getting none of the important things done.

Skip this paragraph if you don't want spoilers. There was just one element in this otherwise incredibly exciting and brain-stimulating book that didn't quite live up to my expectations. Quite ironically, this element was... the actual hound. I don't quite know what I was anticipating to be the deal with the supernatural, glowing killer dog, but the way it was handled was just conflicting, in my opinion. First we get chapter after chapter of gossipy hints about a "spectral hound" that has been after the Baskervilles for ages. Then the escaped convict Selden dies and it starts to look like some beast is actually out there. In the second to last chapter, the titular hound appears and... somehow it turns out to be just an ordinary, mortal canine which just happens to be gigantically huge and seems to give the impression of spitting flames out of its mouth. Come on, even the fact that the dog was dabbed with phosphorus can't explain that bit. And if the beast was mad enough to attack and kill whoever Stapleton pointed to it, how did it never cross its mind to attack Stapleton himself? It doesn't make sense!

End of spoilers. So, this is definitely a book that I can recommend, and it works quite well as an initiation to Sherlock Holmes in my opinion. It's a quick read – the Penguin English Library edition that I read is 175 pages – and builds up very nicely all the way. There are dozens of film and television adaptations of this particular Holmes story, and I'm definitely interested to see at least a couple of them. Have you seen any adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles that you could recommend?

PS The Shakespearean Lovers Quiz is in dire need of participants – don't be daunted just because it has the word "Shakespeare" in it!