Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Read In 2015

"Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list  that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers."

I decided to join in the Top Ten Tuesday blog feature because 1) I need more blogging in my life again, 2) I love lists, and 3) my friend Hannah has been doing it for a while and it looked like a lot of fun! There's a new Top Ten topic at The Broke and the Bookish every week – except this week, the topic was free! As I was so dreadfully lazy reviewing all the great books I read last year, my topic this week will be...

Top Ten Books I Read in 2015

1. The Unknown Soldier (Finnish title Tuntematon sotilas) by Väinö Linna
Look look look, there's a Finnish novel in my blog post! See, I do read literature from my home country about once in a decade! Alright, the point is – I very rarely enjoy Finnish literary classics and non-classics even less, but reading a book such as The Unknown Soldier and writing about it on my blog makes me a very happy Finn. This is one of the few re-reads I included on this list. The Unknown Soldier is considered such a prime example of how the presentation of soldiers and war evolved in the Finnish literary landscape as well as a truthful description of the conditions in the Continuation War, that it is a compulsory read for every single Finnish secondary school student. Back in my school days, it completely surprised me by being the only "Finnish classic must-read" that I enjoyed. Now I'm glad I read it again, because the novel certainly is weighty and thought-provoking enough to endure a re-visit. The plot, essentially, is the Continuation War (1941-1944) between Finland and the Soviet Union from an ordinary soldier's point of view. Instead of one central character, the narrative follows a machine gun company that quite brilliantly works as a microcosm of the entire country, in terms of regional variety as well as political views. These men scorn their self-important superior officers, have absolutely no idea of the wider perspective or even the overall purpose of the war they are made to fight, grow bitter and fed up with the meagre food rations and generally present the Finnish soldier as the opposite of a shiny, national-minded hero. Critics disliked this approach when the book was published (1954), but nowadays the general opinion is that Väinö Linna achieved the most realistic, honest,  unpretentious depiction of the Finnish war front that there ever has been, and probably ever will be. I agree with this sentiment with all my heart – if anyone asks me what is the one Finnish novel that they should try, I say go find The Unknown Soldier. I heard that there was a new English translation out last year and that it's much better than the old one, though the title has been pluralized to The Unknown Soldiers.


2. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
This book is an absolute marvel, a masterpiece built out of genius, a unique tour de force of what tremendous delivery can be achieved in no other art form than the novel. The structure is just one of Mitchell's many triumphs in this book: there are six different narrators in different time periods ranging from the Gold Rush years to a post-apocalyptic future, each of them is interrupted at a crucial moment and then completed in the reverse order in which they were begun. The different narrative voices and styles come through so brilliantly that you have to wonder how they all came from one writer, not six. Thematically, Cloud Atlas delves deep into issues of colonialism, ownership, morality, and how a single individual finds their place in the world – all this in six different levels!


3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I read this one for last year's Banned Books Week. The story begins in Kabul, Afghanistan where the Talebans soon take over. The main character, Amir, manages to escape to the United States with his father, and they manage to build a new life in the newly formed community of other Afghan emigrants. However, something terrible happened to Amir's childhood friend just before the Taleban movement, and having witnessed it, Amir is haunted by the memory and the lie he has lived since then, and has to return to Afghanistan – now a strange and terrifying place for him – to make amends and set right what he feels he did wrong. The Kite Runner is often challenged for its violent content, and it's true that it describes man's cruelty in atrociously hideous ways – but it would be a great pity if this novel were discouraged based on that, because all of this works towards the theme of redemption which Amir seeks. With Amir, we readers have to sink deep down in despair in order to really feel the elation of rising up again. The Kite Runner will most definitely rip out your heart strings... But it's also one of the most beautiful books I have ever read, and will hold a place in my list of all-time favorites when I get round to writing it down.


4. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
The year is 1800, the British Navy is fighting Napoleon, and Captain Aubrey meets Doctor Maturin. Here begins a series of naval adventures set in the Napoleonic Wars, presented with meticulous detail concerning the navy and the politics of the age and seasoned with an epic Aubrey-Maturin friendship where one is a jolly, straightforward navy commander who is victorious at sea but a walking catastrophe on land; the other, an Irish-Catalonian doctor, naturalist and all-round intellectual who has many regrets about his secretive past and ends up working as Aubrey's ship surgeon with absolutely no knowledge of life (or jargon) on a fighting ship. The period setting alone would be a real treat as the Napoleonic Wars provide great opportunities for exciting navy action and political debates, but the very best thing about this series is the friendship between Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.


5. Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are off to fight the French again... until the Treaty of Amiens comes into effect a couple of paragraphs in. So now Captain Aubrey and his crew have to figure out what British Navy employees do when they're out of work. Fortunately, there is country life and bright young women's company to be enjoyed. With period-accurate dialogue and focus on social interaction, the first part of Post Captain is very much like a Jane Austen novel from the mens' point of view. It's quite a fun experiment really. All in all, I liked this one even better than Master and Commander. The first book, of course, laid the groundwork for Aubrey and Maturin's friendship; now, life on land sets up a series of conflicts between the two and it looks like we'll see Doctor Maturin's epic dueling skills in action. Even as the war recommences and the fellows have a ship again, the poor reader has to endure a roller-coster ride of tensions rising and falling between the two. Ladies, debts, a dodgy ship – times are hard. Still, there is humour aplenty as well, just like in the first book. Actually, I laughed my head off so badly on more than one occasion that people around me had to check if I was really reading about the Napoleonic Wars.


6. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
I asked this book for Christmas on a complete whim simply because someone mentioned it on Facebook and a gang of rich private school boys getting wrapped up in the supernatural while trying to find a Welsh king's grave sounded like an intriguing premise. It turned out, intriguing was a gross understatement – I finished the book in more or less 24 hours because I had to know what would happen to Gansey, Adam, Ronan and Noah. See, that's what happens to a reader when a writer decides, "Alright, my main characters are all going to be 17-year-olds, but instead of giving them the usual flat-and-angsty teenage treatment, I'm going to write them into such believably human, complex characters with actual flaws and problems that the readers are going to go insane trying to figure them out. Then I'll end the book while all the plot threads are still hanging in the air and say, Nope, this was just the first book in a four-part series, you have no life until you read the rest of it!" I love how the two settings of a privileged boys' school and a household full of psychic (in some cases psychedelic) women are presented side by side as Blue Sargent, a psychic's non-gifted daughter, becomes involved in the Raven Boys' quest. Blue Sargent is really the only slight complaint I have about this book. The boys she hangs out with are fleshed out to such an extent I want to cry my eyes out for all their individual hardships, while the main thing we get out of Blue is that she puts a lot of thought into appearing as non-mainstream as possible. Look, effortlessly individual and original people are great – people who work really hard to seem that way are just annoying. But I'm not condemning Blue just yet, I expect the rest of the series might add more dimensions to her. Besides, I need to get my life back soon.


7. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
I have kind of a divided opinion about my most recent Dickens read. It took me forever to finish because some parts of it were so slow and secondary to the actual plot that I left the book lying around for weeks at a time. Then, when I got to the good bits, I would always wonder How the heck was I ever able to stop reading this?! This is one of Dickens' "social problem" novels; in this case he delivers an astonishingly powerful commentary on the effects of institutionalization. It affects William Dorrit, a long-time resident at the Marshalsea debtors' prison; more tragically, it affects his daughter Amy, the eponymous "Little Dorrit", who can't escape her father's social stigma and his absolute dependence on her. Enter Arthur Clennam, quite an unusual literary hero for Dickens or in fact any writer: he's approaching middle-age, despairing over the unfulfilling life he has led so far, and constantly brooding on whether he will ever be any good to anyone. Dickens is criticized for writing characters who are either caricaturishly wicked or angelically innocent and this criticism is not at all unfounded (Little Dorrit herself is quite a frustrating little saint most of the time, though I'll have more to say about her once I get a proper review out) but stuff with Clennam is Deep. So even though I wanted to skip most of the indulgently satirical bits about Victorian British bureaucracy and the superficial life of the Merdles, overall Little Dorrit won me over with its earnest depiction of human despair and beautiful bits of dialogue. Charles Dickens continues to rock in my books.


8. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.
This was another re-read. There's one thing I've noticed about detective fiction: It can be brilliant, but only in small doses. As a genre, I think it is one of the most reliant in certain conventions and patterns, and it takes a very skilled writer to avoid falling into repetition. Well, Agatha Christie is obviously one of the best in her class and she manages to break quite a few rules with And Then There Were None. The biggest one: there's no detective. There's no-one to keep a cool head when the bodies start piling up, no-one to reassure everybody that they will find the murderer. Tension climbs sky-high as people get claustrophobic and paranoid, everyone's darkest secrets are spilling out... It's utterly amazing. Even if I do get round to reading more Christie novels in the future, I doubt that any of them will be able to top this.


9. Looking for Alaska by John Green
Everyone knows John Green since he wrote The Fault In Our Stars. I started reading him from his first published work, Looking for Alaska, not knowing what to expect. My first thought? I'm clearly too old to read about teenagers being stupid. The main character is Miles Halter, a teen outsider who decides to move into a boarding school in order to experience something new. Apparently, in order to have a life he has to do stupid teenager stuff and get hopelessly infatuated with a most annoying girl named Alaska. This is the first half of the book. Then, there's A Huge Event, after which... comes all the stuff that had me thinking all sorts of deep things about life, loss and young peoples' mental capacities for weeks on end. I can't really say any more about that without spoiling everything. Just... apparently, there are writers out there who think that books aimed at teen readers can and should provoke discussion about the most difficult things in life. Bravo to them all.


10. Contes du jour et de la nuit by Guy de Maupassant
I couldn't find an English title for this one online and I read it in French myself. It's one of the short story collections by Guy de Maupassant, a notable French practitioner in that genre. It goes a little bit against the title of this post to include this one here because I haven't quite finished it yet, but my love for Maupassant's writing already runs so deep that I'm certain Contes will keep its place in the list even after I'm finished with it. Tales of day and night sounds like a collection of fairy tale treasures – but Maupassant's "fairy tales" are about real people in a very real, mostly provincial France and, like most fairy tales in their original form, it's not all bliss and sunshine. The beauty of Maupassant's stories is how earnestly they depict the most basic emotions and impulses that direct human lives.

Ask Me Anything: The Answer Post, Part 1

The blog birthday is here! I'm so excited to share my answers to the Ask Me Anything questions that some of you readers sent me. In fact, there were so many more questions than last year and I ended up giving such lengthy answers to some of them that I thought it might be a good idea to do the Answer Post in two parts. Today's post will include the questions from Hannah and Siiri L. – thank you both, for coming up with such interesting questions and for being such great blog friends all this time!


Hannah asked...

If you could play any character in a musical and/or play, who would it be and why?

I'm going to pick one character from a musical and one from a straight play. My musical character choice would be Éponine, without a doubt. "On My Own" and "A Little Fall of Rain" are among my favourite songs from Les Misérables, and although the character in the musical is often criticized for lacking the complexities of her Victor Hugo counterpart, I think there would be plenty of chances for an actress to explore more of the derangement and instability that characterize Éponine in the novel. Everyone loves a good stage death, and Éponine departs singing a beautiful duet and fills the remaining rebels with new resolution to keep fighting. Plus, I really love that hat.

August: Osage County is my favourite modern play so far, and Ivy – the middle one of Violet Weston's three grown-up daughters – is one of the most interesting characters in it. She makes her sisters uncomfortable with her blunt and apparently cynical comments, but with Little Charles around she becomes a completely different person, which just adds up to the devastation that the romance ultimately brings her way. She shows deliberate indifference to what are often perceived as commonplace feminine values; her mother nags at her for not caring about her looks, and she appears completely fine with the fact that she can't ever have children. Like Éponine, Ivy has a wonderful last scene in the play, involving emotional breakdown and finally breaking away from the mother whose problems she was forced to deal with as her sisters moved away. All the different layers in Ivy's personality and that heart-wrenching character arc would be just wonderful to play.


Can you rank the Dickens novels that you've read so far?

I'll be more than happy to do that! I have only read three and a half of his novels so far, plus A Christmas Carol which I'll also include in the ranking even though it's a novella. I'm seriously working on my Dickens education, though – just look at my Classics Club list! I would like to point out that I have loved every Dickens novel I have read so far, they are all brilliant in different ways. Therefore, even the works that I have placed low on this ranking are not bad – just less amazing than the ones above them.

1. A Tale of Two Cities
This one bounced straight up to my list of "all-time favourite books of literary magic which will affect me for the rest of my life" – as soon as I was finished with despairing over the cruelty of the human race and crying about that bloody guillotine. Dickens does something very different than his usual thing here; the setting is in the late 1700s exploring the devastating effects of the Revolution and the Terror on the French society, there is none of Dickens' trademark satirical humour, and the page count is just over 400. The result is an absolutely heartbreaking account on how humanity's struggle for "justice" leads to tragedy both nation-wide and in the lives of ordinary men and women. I don't think any other book ever has sent my mind reeling so wildly, both during and after reading it.

2. Nicholas Nickleby
This was my first Dickens experience and it will most likely stay high in my esteem no matter how many Dickens novels I will read after it. It is a big book in terms of length and story, covering diverse layers of Victorian society in their various pursuits. However, the focus stays on young Nicholas Nickleby of idealistic values, as he develops one of literature's loveliest bromances with poor Smike, and learns to stand his ground against his miserly uncle Ralph. Nicholas Nickleby is many things, which makes it such an engaging read – it's viciously funny and unflinchingly tragic, a broad social commentary as well as an eventful coming-of-age adventure.

3. A Christmas Carol
I'm a complete junkie for fantasy, character development and the Christmas spirit, so if there exists a story about a sore old miser finding redemption through supernatural intervention at Christmastime, written in brilliant Dickensian prose, is there anything else for me to do but adore it? As always, Dickens' masterful pen creates literary images so awe-inspiring that it is best described as pure magic.

4. Little Dorrit
I'm exactly halfway through this one while I'm writing this blog post so I won't say much right now, but I'm fairly certain that Little Dorrit will rank somewhere hereabouts once I'm finished with it. The book is very slow-paced at times, but the good parts are very good. It explores themes such as the effects of institutionalisation (in this case, in a debtors' prison), the vapid constructions of high society, and the importance of a fulfilling life in great depth. Arthur Clennam is an interestingly atypical literary hero and the reader gets to really delve into how his past experiences have shaped his personality and current views of life.

5. Oliver Twist
As I discussed in my review about a year ago, this book has some structural flaws and Oliver Twist himself is not the most interesting or realistic of child heroes, but there is still more than a fair share of brilliant bits to be found here.


Would you rather J.K. Rowling wrote a series about the Hogwarts Founders, a series about the Marauders or a series about the next generation at Hogwarts?

Each of these ideas holds its own element of intrigue, but being such a history person, I would most like to hear about how Hogwarts came to be. I just happened to do some reading on the Anglo-Saxon period in British history, and how amazing would it be to know what that era was like for witches and wizards? And even compared to all the countless magical people that came from Rowling's imagination, the four who founded Hogwarts must be terrifically interesting characters!


If you could put various Doctor Who Doctors and companions together for a one-off episode, who would you pair up?

Oh, I was hoping Hannah might come up with a Doctor Who question, and this is a wonderfully interesting one! (Hannah, I want your answer on this in the comments.)

First of all, I would pair up the Twelfth Doctor with Donna simply because, as this article points out, it would be hilarious. Donna would first ask what the hell "Caecilius" was doing in the TARDIS and why he was even bothering to do such a lousy impersonation of the Doctor – the accent? being all grumpy? WHAT?!

Now, the Doctor that Donna knows – the Tenth – would have to go with one of the Eleventh's companions, and I would pick post-marriage Amy and Rory – I love them best when they're together, so that's a package deal. I don't really know what we might expect to happen with these three. The Doctor might notice that Amy has succeeded in being ginger, unlike him. He would also, for once, get to meet a pretty young woman who doesn't fall for him, and that young woman's husband whom he can't call an idiot, unlike the "companions' boyfriends" that he met. He would also witness two companions whose lives don't revolve entirely around TARDIS traveling.

Because Martha is my favourite companion right after Amy and Rory, I would definitely want to see her somewhere in this mix-up. She and Nine would make up a very interesting, business-like TARDIS team, wouldn't they? Nine might also appreciate her talents more than Ten did, and I think Martha would lecture the Doctor on how he's not allowed to label all humans as "stupid apes".

Martha and Donna being taken, the only regular companion left for the Eleventh Doctor would be Rose, and I can't really see anything interesting coming out of this. Maybe I'm just biased against Rose. Anyway, I had another idea... Captain Jack Harkness. He's not one of "the" companions, but think about it, seriously! The "Captain of the Innuendo Squad" paired up with the Doctor who doesn't understand why a married couple doesn't want bunk beds – endless hilarity! Also, my favourite Doctor + my favourite supporting character from series 1-4 would mean an extra birthday for me...


What are your top 5 Disney films?

A Disney question, yay! First of all, I did some thinking on what sorts of things make my personal favourite Disney films stand out from all the good Disney films. Here is a list of things that really matter to me regarding this question. All of my Top Five don't have all of these qualities, but mostly they do.

• Well-rounded main characters whose background, motivations and hopes are properly explored
• Great music
• Beautiful animation
• An interesting setting
• A well-paced, eventful story that has equal measures of touching and funny moments
• A good voice cast – I watched most Disney films with Finnish dubbing first, and I still think many of the Finnish voice actors are better than the original ones, no matter how objective I try to be.

So, getting to the point, my Top 5 Disney films are...

1. The Lion King

This was an easy choice to make; there has never been and never will be a competitor to how much I adore just about everything in this film. The music is wonderful, the animation is gorgeous, I love every single character (including that classic, awesome Disney villain Scar) and no matter how many times I watch it, I'm always completely heart-broken about how Mufasa's death affects Simba way into adulthood. No other movie in the world makes me cry three times in one viewing. The story is truly inspiring and I wish I could have Timon and Pumbaa as my best friends – the Finnish voice actor for Timon, Pirkka-Pekka Petelius, really stands out. Let me give all of you non-Finns a piece of him:

2. The Princess and the Frog
This film carries none of the childhood nostalgia that I get from The Lion King and Pocahontas and the likes, because it came out as late as 2009 and in fact I only saw it a year ago – so I was quite surprised at how high it jumped (frog-like) into my favourites list, I simply loved it straight away! New Orleans makes a wonderfully imaginative setting and I love how the "Disney Princess" concept gets a modern update in Tiana, who is one of my favourite Disney heroines ever. She knows wishing and dreaming won't get her anywhere – she's gonna work for it! She's also got Anika Noni Rose's voice, which is such a perfect fit for a Disney princess. I'm very happy with how her relationship with Naveen develops throughout the film; they go through a lot together and actually make each other better people, so when they (spoilers, sort of) fall in love and start a life together, it feels like they have truly earned it. I really enjoy the music in this film and Charlotte, Louis and Ray (sniffles!) are some of my favourite Disney supporting characters! This is the only film on my list that I haven't heard the Finnish version of, but Tiana's voice actress (including the singing) is Laura Voutilainen, whom I liked very much as Megara in Hercules. 

3. Mulan
Mulan is another wonderful heroine! She is such a great role model for anyone out there who feels like they don't fit in. She's smart, selfless and butt-kicking! She might even have actually existed! Again, the film looks beautiful and I really like the Chinese setting. It's possibly one of the funniest Disney films ever and makes me literally roar with laughter, but among the things I love most about it is the lovely relationship Mulan has with her father. "The greatest gift and honour... is having you for a daughter." Almost all of the earlier Disney heroines' relationships with their fathers were built on the fact that their mothers just weren't there, but I don't think any of their Disney Dads can top that line by Mulan's father. The soundtrack is amazing. The singing voices for both the original and the Finnish Mulan (Lea Salonga and Heidi Kyrö respectively) are very good, the scene where Mulan leaves her parents gives me the chills every single time, and this one below is one of my favourite work-out songs! (Shang's Finnish voice actor, Santeri Kinnunen, also voiced John Smith.)

4. Aladdin
Just hearing the first beats of "Arabian Nights" gets me all excited. By the time I finish watching, I think "Wow, this was even more awesome than I remembered", every single time! The setting in Agraba is full of mystery and excitement and Jafar is damn impressive as the villain. Jasmine is definitely on the smarter side of the Disney Princess line-up as she sees right through "Prince Ali's" pretense and fools Jafar into thinking she's suddenly smitten by him (I never stop giggling at that scene). Like Tiana, she gets to have adventures with Aladdin and learn things about him before she decides he's the man. The Finnish voice cast actually received some sort of a Disney award for best dubbing, with special recognition to the Finnish Genie, Vesa-Matti Loiri. He's a long-time household name over here and a man of many talents, and the energy and character that he brings to the Genie is spectacular. I do appreciate Robin Williams' portrayal as well.

5. Pocahontas
I wonder what people might think about me placing Pocahontas in my top favourites, because it seems that nobody particularly likes it. However, for me it was one of the most important films of my childhood. In all honesty, I can say that the importance I place on anti-racist and environmental values originates from how profoundly affected Little Me was by Pocahontas. Years later, when I had to give a presentation of a hero for a school assignment, I chose the real-life Pocahontas. I love the look of the film, the character designs and the colours (of the wind). Watching Pocahontas is also one of those times when being a Finn is a vast advantage, because you get to hear Arja Koriseva and Santeri Kinnunen as the leads. I don't really like Judy Kuhn's singing, whereas Arja Koriseva's voice seems to vibrate with the forces of the wind, the earth and the river that she sings about. I also find John Smith much more believable when he doesn't speak with the voice (and the American accent) of Mel Gibson. Now listen to Arja Koriseva sing like a goddess.

Honourable mentions: Fantasia because of its amazingly imaginative re-interpretation of some of the greatest compositions of classical music, and The Great Mouse Detective because it's such a fun tribute to Sherlock Holmes.


Have you seen any Jane Austen adaptations? If so, which did you like best?

I haven't seen many Jane Austen adaptations and, to be honest, I'm not terribly enthusiastic about them. In my opinion, Jane Austen's strongest asset is her distinctive, sharp and witty narrative voice – when that gets inevitably eliminated in the process of adapting to screen, the result is mostly leisurely-paced relationship dramas with very predictable endings. Therefore, I often get a little bored when watching Austen on screen. I have seen the Pride and Prejudice film from 2005, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries web series, the 1995 film and part of the 2008 miniseries of Sense and Sensibility, and the 2009 miniseries of Emma. My favourite of these would be The Lizzie Bennet Diaries because the modern update is very cleverly done! Out of the actual period dramas, the film version of Sense and Sensibility is my top pick because it has a good cast, a couple of additional scenes that really advance the characters, and beautiful directing by Ang Lee.

You're a polyglot: what's your favourite word in Finnish, Swedish, English, French and Spanish?

What an interesting question – and what a challenge! It's impossible to give definite answers to this one, but I tried to come up with something.

• Finnish: possibly valo, which means light (the noun). I'm not even remotely sure about this, though – it's really hard to evaluate my first language in this way! Eino Leino, one of the greatest Finnish poets (1878-1926), liked to use words with the back vowels a, o and u, and I really like the Finnish sound of them as well. 
• Swedish: Swedish words are almost always cluttered with sounds like d, j, ä, g, and r (seriously, there are so many r's!) which don't make the pleasantest combinations if you ask my ears. There is also an abundance of weird phonemes which involve s in the front and a variety of other consonants right after it. Himmel is a nice, soft exception, and it means sky.
• English: Damn, this isn't any easier than the two previous ones! English is my favourite language and I'm constantly impressed by the scope and variety of its vocabulary. If I had to pick one, I might go with dramatic. It sounds exactly like what it means – dramatic!
• French: Oh, everything sounds beautiful in French, even vulgarities and words like trash ("Oh là là, this pubelle is rotting!"). Avenir is a particularly nice one, I think – future. It's rather clever too, as it's constructed from à venir, which means upcoming. 
• Spanish: On my last visit to Spain, I stayed near to a village that has the word arroyo (brook) in its name, and I realized that even though the rhotic r is one of my least favourite sounds in Finnish and Swedish, in Spanish it sounds passionate and vivacious. 

What's your favourite pizza topping?

Pineapple! It's one of the best fruits ever, not just in pizza – when it's fresh, actual pineapple, that is. The sickly-whiteish bits that swim around in tin cans do not deserve to be called pineapple.


Siiri L. wanted to know my Hogwarts house, wand and Patronus.

I am a Ravenclaw according to every single Hogwarts test I've ever found on the Internet, including Pottermore's, and I completely agree with the results. I have always identified with the bookish, knowledge-valuing Ravenclaw crowd, and when Pottermore revealed that the house also values creativity and originality (to the point where others call it being just plain weird), it sounded exactly like my old high school which specializes in performance arts and is locally famous as the "artsy weirdoes' school". (Note that I use the phrase as a term of endearment.)

According to Pottermore, my wand is of maple and unicorn hair, 10 inches and surprisingly swishy. Unicorns are my favourite mythological creatures and maple wands are supposed to fit for travelers and explorers who don't like to stay in one place, so I think it fits pretty well! The Patronus question is a tricky one because I don't think it's something you can choose, but I would love a wolf Patronus. Fear and hate of wolves is a deeply-rooted mindset in the Finnish population, but I've always thought they're beautiful and mysterious (though I do understand how people who live in the heavily wolf-populated areas where children are sometimes afraid to walk to school might find it hard to agree with me). The Starks' direwolves are one of my absolute favourite things in A Song of Ice and Fire!

The Ask Me Anything event finishes tomorrow with my answers to Hamlette's and Olivia's questions! :) Please feel free to share your own thoughts on the questions above!

Library treasures

Hi everyone! The local library was holding an outlet book sale, meaning they were selling out their old library books for just TWO EUROS each, so of course I went. Good thing too, because I found some pretty amazing books. 

First, something you never see on the shelves of Finnish bookstores: ALL of Charles Dickens' Christmas stories! 

Christmas Books contains all of the novellas, of which I've only read A Christmas Carol so far.

Christmas Stories compiles all the short stories, and I don't remember reading any of these. What a happy Christmas I'm going to have, getting through all of this!

Then there's this one little book that I picked up just because it was pretty and French. 

And finally, indulging my habit of collecting sheet music from musicals. 

Bucket List Tag

Hannah at Miss Daydreamer's Place tagged me for the Bucket List challenge – thanks for this really fun tag! The idea is to list ten things you want to do before you die, and then pass the tag to five people. So here I go, my Bucket List!

At some point in my life, I would like to...

See at least one of these insanely talented gentlemen live on stage: 

Benedict Cumberbatch

Tom Hiddleston

David Tennant

Go on a riding holiday in at least one of these places: 

Scottish Highlands 

Iceland 

South Africa

(Mind you, I could fill an entire book-length bucket list of countries that I'd like to visit, on horseback or otherwise!)

Sing at a karaoke bar

But only if there's a song selection up to my taste, so probably not in Finland.

See a play on Broadway

See these musicals on stage (I can't put an "at least one of these" on this one, these are all a must):

I saw a Finnish production of this once, but it was mostly dreadful so I demand another opportunity!

Own a beautiful Leonberger dog (or two)

Move to London

Learn at least one new language (because three isn't enough!)

Read all of Charles Dickens' works

So far, I've read Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol.

Become a professional playwright!

Thinking up this list was really fun, so let's pass on the tag. Elwingda, Frankie Savage and Siiri L., are you up for the challenge...? I can't think of anyone else to tag, but everyone who happens upon this post is completely free to pick it up!

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens usually wrote about his own time period, around the mid-1800s. He diverted from his contemporary setting in just two of his novels: Barnaby Rudge and A Tale of Two Cities. Being such an admirer of the Victorian era, I realized I had barely read any novels that depicted the 1700s. More specifically, A Tale of Two Cities is set during the years preceding and during the French Revolution.

The French Revolution, of course, was a drastic event in world history and affected whole nations, not just France. Dickens writes astonishing descriptions of its effects in Paris as well as the French countryside, but the most profound message of what the Terror really did is told through a small, close-knit group of characters. Lucie Manette is the daughter of a Frenchman who is "recalled to life" after 18 dark years in the Bastille during the Ancien Régime. (I just realized the preceding sentence is rather ambiguous so I'll clarify that it was the father who was in Bastille, not Lucie Manette!) Soon after Dr Manette and his daughter are united (with the aid of Mr Lorry, a bank officer who remains an important character for the rest of the story), two men enter the picture. They are alike in looks and in their love for Lucie, but otherwise they differ greatly. Charles Darnay is a Frenchman of aristocratic birth who leaves his property and his country because he would rather go to exile in England and earn his own living than tax the peasants who are starving under the yoke. Sydney Carton, on the other hand, is an English barrister and habitual drinker who appears to have little respect for other people and absolutely none for himself.

A Tale of Two Cities is the third Dickens novel I've read and in terms of style it is very different than Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. It contains much, much less humour and practically none of the sharp-witted sarcasm that I came to associate with Charles Dickens. The writer himself called it "the best story I have written", and I can wholeheartedly say it is one of the best stories I have ever read. For those who connect the word "epic" with boulder-sized books such as The Lord of the Rings and Les Misérables, this outwardly little novel of under 500 pages will be a bewildering surprise. Dickens uses absolutely mind-blowing descriptive language to create an almost disturbingly vivid image of a time period which he did not live. The violent mobs in both England and France become an unstoppable sea; the blood spilled at the guillotine becomes the wine that the "sharp female" drinks.

Storming of the Bastille by Jean-Pierre Houël. 

Dickens is often criticized for his one-sided characters and I sometimes agree with this. Even A Tale of Two Cities has its share of rather flat, uninteresting personalities. Charles Darnay is one, Lucie Manette is another. Dickens' main female characters in general tend to infuriate me. Usually they're either old, ugly hags like Mrs Corney in Oliver Twist, or they're like Lucie Manette, who makes me want to scream "Damn you Dickens, not another sweet, kind, innocent, beautiful lady who faints!"

But there is something here to more than make up for Lucie Manette. We get to meet two other women who are among the best female characters in existence, for very different reasons: Miss Pross, Lucie's absolutely devoted companion who at first seems like a comical filler character but turns out to be something much more, and Madame Defarge, the wife of a wine-shop owner who is so ingenious that she manages to register details about a spy right under his nose but, little by little, turns into the personification of the mindless, violent rage behind the Revolution. Not only are these two women absolute treats by themselves, they even get an earth-shaking confrontation scene near the end of the book. This piece of dialogue is absolutely up there in the same rank as Valjean vs. Javert, Macbeth vs. Macduff, and other legendary confrontations. What makes it really intriguing and epic is that Miss Pross and Madame Defarge speak different languages and and neither can understand what the other is saying!

It would be a crime to write this blog post without mentioning Sydney Carton, the man who looks almost exactly like Charles Darnay, but who has at least fifty times more depth. Like Nancy in Oliver Twist, he changes dramatically as a character, which I did think at times happened rather quickly and without much explanation. I really enjoyed reading the careless, cynical Sydney Carton in the beginning of the novel, but also looked forward to getting some explanation how he ended up like that – which I never got. Still, his dialogue with Mr Lorry is one of my favourite parts of the book, and the sacrifice he has to make at the end of the story troubled me even more than Nancy's fate. I have to agree with Indigo Montoya and say that Sydney Carton's thoughts at the end of A Tale of Two Cities are a near-guaranteed tear-jerker – even I cried over that.

Many passages in this book were deeply moving in different ways, and I will share some of my favourite quotes. The first one is the opening lines of the novel.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

---

 Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.

---

Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; - the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!

---

Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me! (by Madame Defarge)

Dear production team of the possible Oliver! film remake

I blogged about the Oliver! musical film of 1968 and made it quite clear that in my opinion, that film leaves much to hope for and I would welcome the remake that Sir Cameron Mackintosh has tentatively promised. Even though I'm just a little Finn with my little opinions, I have put together an open letter to all the people who might someday be involved in the new Oliver! project – in all understanding that none of the "right people" will probably ever read it. Whatever, I'm still going to have fun with this.

Dear production team of the possible Oliver! remake, here are some of my suggestions how you could make it a better film than the 1968 one.

First and foremost, please make the movie in the spirit of a rather dark Dickens classic and not a children's movie. Do not hesitate to show us the dark side of Victorian London and its people. Be as honest with the setting as Dickens was, and managed to raise real awareness of the poor peoples' plight.

Sir Cameron, you have expressed interest in having Stephen Daldry direct the film. I think this is a fantastic idea, because as director of the absolutely brilliant Billy Elliot film, he has shown ability to work with children and handle a story that has a grim setting but where humour is essential too. Both of these abilities, I think, are very good to have in an Oliver! director. It also doesn't hurt Mr Daldry's reputation that he has worked in the world of stage musicals as well.

Please find an Oliver who can sing and is a charismatic enough actor to carry the story. Enough said.

Please give us the real Nancy, who is not a perfect girl, who develops, and who sings her soul out in those songs. I wouldn't mind casting Samantha Barks at all, having heard her great interpretations of Nancy's songs, but if you give the chance to some new, interesting talent I wouldn't mind either. Samantha's career has already taken off the way she deserves.

Please don't turn every scene into a huge, organized, choreographed dance party.

Please let Bill Sikes sing My Name because it's a wonderful song and it's the perfect way to explain what a dark character Bill is. If possible, bring back all the other songs too that were cut in the 1968 film.

Please make sure that the actors who speak in Cockney sound authentic.

Please have the actors sing live like they did in the Les Misérables film. It sounds fantastic and it really gives the actors the chance to pour emotions into the songs in a way that simply isn't possible in a studio. Oliver! too contains songs where the feelings must sound real – As Long As He Needs Me is just one example.

But let the Artful Dodger keep his top hat, because that is adorable.

That's all I ask of you.

Sincerely,

Mizzie-Me

MoMoMu: Oliver!

Here it is, finally. Consider this as August's MoMoMu because I started writing this ages ago and there's been a bit of a break with MoMoMus during the summer months. So I'll give you another film musical review later in September!

When Cameron Mackintosh – megaproducer of huge hit musicals such as The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables and Cats – announced that not only was he bringing Oliver! to Broadway but was also planning a remake of the film version of that same musical, the musical theater fandom, true to its habits, immediately united behind the opinion that this was the most unthinkable idea ever. The 1968 film is a masterpiece, it raked the Oscars! went all the fan forums. Nobody can top Shani Wallis' Nancy! Cammack's just after the money! The Oliver! musical film of 1968 seems so dearly loved by everybody and it is true that it collected an impressive number of awards (including Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, and a Golden Globe for Best Film – Musical or Comedy), which made me wonder what indeed might be Mr Mackintosh's motivations behind a remake. Well, I watched the film and my extremely unpopular opinion is: Mr Mackintosh, please get that remake going!

As you will know if you've read the Dickens novel, seen any version of the musical or read my Oliver Twist post, the story follows young orphan Oliver Twist from the misery of a parish workhouse to the dangers of London's East End, eventually leaving him to the care of kind, long-lost relatives. For understandable reasons, the musical simplifies the plot somewhat and cuts some of the characters that show up near the end of the book. However, Oliver does encounter e.g. London's quickest pickpocket the Artful Dodger, his employer Fagin, soulless criminal Bill Sikes and his devoted girlfriend Nancy who comes to a tragic end.

The beginning of the film is actually quite promising. Like the stage musical, it opens with the hungry workhouse boys singing Food Glorious Food, and the way the grey-clad, depressed children shuffle in unison with their food bowls held out makes quite an impact. The next musical number, where Mr Bumble the workhouse beadle walks Oliver down the snowy streets announcing there's a Boy For Sale, is the best moment in the film if you think in terms of capturing the spirit that Dickens was going for in his book. However, Mr Bumble's actor Harry Secombe gets all the glory in this little scene because by now it has become very clear that Mark Lester, our Oliver, can't act for dear life. From here, the film just goes downhill.

Mark Lester's Oliver asks for more

I've come to the conclusion, in my years of watching films, that child actors fall into two categories. They're either totally adorable and really talented, like Jack Wild who plays the Artful Dodger and makes my favourite performance in this film, or they have absolutely no idea what acting even means, like Mark Lester. Oliver Twist is a very passive character anyway, so if his portrayal is so painfully awkward that the viewer can't even feel sympathy for him in his plight, the whole point of the character – and the entire story as well, as he's supposed to be the center of it – goes up in smoke. I honestly can't figure out how Mark Lester stood out in the audition process, because he couldn't even sing. Yes, dubbing has happened many times in film musicals (please remember to give Marni Nixon all the credit she deserves from My Fair Lady, West Side Story and The King and I films just to name a few) but usually the actor and the singer are of the same age group and gender. Not so in Oliver! – Mark Lester's singing was dubbed by Kathe Green, daughter of the film's music director, who was 24 at the time when Oliver! was made. Apparently the filmmakers thought that a grown-up woman can sound like a little boy if she wheezes out the songs in a soft, whispery voice, but I certainly don't agree. How come is it possible to find dozens of singing and acting boys through auditions whenever there is a stage production of Oliver! going on, but they couldn't find one for this film?

Alright, so Mark Lester isn't quite up for the job of being the main character. Can we find any others in the cast who could save this film? I already mentioned Jack Wild, and he certainly lights up the screen every time he appears with his adorable top hat. He's got the voice, he's got the look, and he's got the moves. So does Ron Moody, who reprised his role of Fagin which he had originated in the stage version. Moody handles the transition from stage to screen expertly, and he has great chemistry with Jack Wild's Dodger.

Two great talents at work: Ron Moody as Fagin and Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger

What about our lead female? The lady in the iconic red dress who experiences the most terrifying of death scenes – Nancy. Shani Wallis gets mountains of praise for her portrayal of the character, but unfortunately not from my direction. I will not say she's downright bad. She has a beautiful voice and she can act to some extent, but she isn't Nancy – she's some sort of a Barbied version of Nancy with perfectly coiffed golden hair and a voice that delivers the songs like they would sound in a recording studio, not in the actual situations where Nancy is in. Dickens' Nancy is a prostitute and a heavy drinker who doesn't get sanctified till the end of the novel, but Wallis' Nancy (or the Nancy that the film production team wanted) is so pretty and angelic to begin with that it is impossible to believe her when she sings "I rough it, I love it" during It's A Fine Life when she appears for the first time. Her performance of Nancy's power ballad As Long As He Needs Me is downright boring, no matter how much I adore that song otherwise. But this isn't entirely Shani Wallis' fault – there is another issue connected here, which I will start talking about now.

In my opinion, a really good film adaptation of a musical balances on the fine line between respecting the original stage version and bringing in something new. While us musical fans are anxious to see that a film musical stays true to our favourite songs and characters, it is equally important that the filmmakers take into account how different the stage and the film are as story-telling media, and try to make the most of the cinematic tools. Many things look great on stage but don't serve any purpose on screen – such as the numerous, never-ending, over-choreographed dance numbers in the Oliver! film. Of course, dance numbers are an integral part of most musicals and I probably don't respect then enough because I understand very little about that art form myself, but the way every single group scene in this movie turns into an elaborate dance sequence where every movement is choreographed, it just annoys me. They could have easily shortened some of those massive dance routines and kept in My Name instead, because it builds up Bill Sikes' character so well that I get chills each time I listen to it, and if Bill doesn't get his song we really don't get to understand what lies in the depths of his pitch black soul.

All the things that I've complained about so far – the casting and acting choices and the treatment of the musical numbers – are really connected to one major issue: the overall style of the film. It seems to me that the production team was going for a nice, family-friendly version of Oliver Twist's story. Why else would they make Nancy into every little girl's role model and refuse to show us what a gritty place the poor side of London really was, instead giving us a humongous, over-long dance party where we see members of every possible profession smiling and skipping around, apparently just to show the newly-arrived Oliver what a charming, welcoming place Victorian London is?

I refuse to give Oliver! the excuse of "it was made in the sixties so it's just a little outdated from a modern point of view". Sound of Music and My Fair Lady are both film musicals made in the sixties, and they are still great to watch. Many people seem to appreciate Oliver! out of nostalgia, and I can understand them. I grew up with the Sound of Music film like many people probably grew up with this film, and I can't honestly say whether I find it hard to criticize my childhood favourite simply because of the golden gleam of nostalgia or because it really is that good. So fans of the 1968 Oliver! film, I'll gladly let you continue loving that film, if you let me anticipate eagerly the remake that Mr Mackintosh promised.

Oliver Twist

Prepare yourself for a series of posts related to the story of Oliver Twist! I will start off with the original novel of course and then continue the Oliver theme with the 1968 movie musical (which was supposed to be July's MoMoMu but things got in the way). Let's begin!

WARNING – this blog post contains details about the plot because I found it extremely difficult to discuss noteworthy things without including those details.

Oliver Twist, subtitled The Parish Boy's Progress, was Charles Dickens' second novel. The author was aged just 26 when Oliver Twist was published in 1838. It was quite a remarkable book even before it reached its greatest fame: it was the first English novel ever to feature a child protagonist and drew wide attention to the appalling conditions of the poor in the society. The most desperate people led a starving, hopeless life in parish workhouses, which is where Oliver Twist is born and almost immediately orphaned. After somehow surviving several years in the "care" of the parish and Mr Bumble the mad beadle, he makes his way to London. There, he falls in with the "Artful Dodger" and friends, too naive and ignorant of the world to realize that the boys are actually pickpockets who deliver their stolen goods to Fagin, who sells them on. Being a penniless, lonely child in London, Oliver's destiny continues to be thrown about – for better and for worse – by everyone else but himself. However, through all his difficulties and encounters with the most terrible sort of people, he manages to cling on to some innate sense of morality that he has in him, which pays off in the end.

As I mentioned before, Oliver Twist was only Dickens' second novel, and although the young Dickens holds up well against many more mature writers, I think that it shows somewhat in the narrative structure that he's not at the height of his genius yet. After Oliver comes to London, the plot gets curiously repetitive: Oliver joins Fagin's pickpockets; he goes out to "work" with the other boys; he gets into trouble but in the end he is rescued by Mr Brownlow, the same man whose possessions he was accused of stealing; then he spends the happiest time of his life in Mr Brownlow's house. This goes on for some time, and then the wheel turns round again: Bill Sikes and Nancy, Fagin's used-to-be "pupils", capture Oliver and bring him back to Fagin; then he's ordered on a burglary mission with Bill Sikes; he gets shot but the residents of the house take pity on him and take him to live with them, and then he's happy again. And although the story's events center mainly around Oliver, the narrator also occasionally leaves Oliver to show what the other characters are up to. While these subplots all do have a vital point to the story, the length of the Oliver-less gaps is on the verge of building up impatience ("Hey, it's been five chapters now, I want to know what's happened to Oliver since we last saw him! You just left him in the night with a gunshot wound!") rather than suspense. So these are slight structural problems in my view – I haven't really heard anybody else's opinions on Oliver Twist so I don't know if it is entirely my personal opinion.

However, as it is Dickens we're talking about, there are some incredible pieces of masterwork in this book. While Oliver himself isn't the most interesting character in the world because he really doesn't do much to steer his own life, there are many, many characters of the  Dickensian top quality. Mr Bumble the workhouse tyrant gets the award of "most chuckle-worthy Dickens name" in this book, and in all his sadistic horror he manages to become the most pathetic character of all when his new wife places him safely under her thumb. The darkest character is not Mr Bumble, but rather Bill Sikes the heartless burglar, who is written with such powerful black magic from Dickens' pen that he should come with a warning "may cause nightmares to the most sensitive people". There's the Artful Dodger, Fagin's top-of-the-class pickpocket who makes a serious match against Les Misérables' Gavroche in attitude. He takes the talent of "dodging" and sniggering at the society's rules to such a level that I wasn't even able to feel sad for him when he was transported to Australia to serve prison time – I'm entirely convinced that he either ended up running the whole prison colony or snuck into a ship back to England the moment he touched the Australian ground.

Robert Madge played the Artful Dodger, and Gavroche too!

And then there's Nancy, Bill Sikes' girlfriend who remains loyal to him despite the horrible way he treats her. For me, Nancy was definitely the character that I felt the most for. I couldn't help hoping desperately that she'd leave Bill even though I knew it would never happen, and when Oliver makes her long-forgotten conscience kick in, her character development is absolutely heart-breaking. Dickens seems to have had a very clear purpose in writing Nancy's character: through her, he argues that everyone has the chance for redemption, even a long-time prostitute and pickpocket. This was a fairly controversial point to make in the Victorian society, where the general consensus was that firstly, God decided which social class you belonged to and there was little or no chance you could do anything to change it, and secondly, that people in the lower classes were bound to become criminals and they had no knowledge of moral values. Dickens questions this view by giving us not only Nancy, but another young female character of humble birth: Rose Maylie, who was born an illegitimate child in a miserable home, but who grew up to be the sweetest young lady thanks to the care of Mrs Maylie who adopted her.

In addition to writing characters, Dickens is fantastic at creating an atmosphere. Even the possible structural flaws that I mentioned barely matter at all when you get to experience such emotionally powerful pieces of writing. I'll give just a couple of examples of the passages that gripped me the most: Whenever you're at the parish workhouse, you can feel the inmates' hopelessness and misery weighing you down; when Oliver, an 8-year-old child for goodness' sake, wonders if it would be better to die than to live in the cruel world, it really freezes your heart; the conversation between Rose Maylie and Nancy creates a stark contrast between the two young women, Rose being a well-cared-for and adored child with a happy future waiting for her, and Nancy having given up all hope of ever leading a decent life; and near the end of the book, when Fagin waits for his hanging in his cell, you can almost hear the clock ticking away his last hours.

Bill Sikes

I simply can't understand how Oliver Twist is sometimes described as "the famous children's tale". Not that this happens very often, but I really wonder why it happens at all. Having a child protagonist doesn't automatically make a book intended for children! Yes, Oliver is a child character you can easily sympathize for and yes, he does get his happily ever after in the end, but while Dickens is telling his story he really doesn't soften the image of East End London, or the lives of the destitute people living there. Oliver Twist features starving children, implications of prostitution, a girl beaten to death, lots of other gruesome deaths, and shameful secrets about illegitimate children. Does that sound like something a child would like to read? Any attempt of trying to make the story more "kid-friendly" would immediately lessen the point that Dickens was obviously trying to get across when writing this story. The effects can be clearly seen in the 1968 film musical version which I will also be reviewing soon.

Oliver Twist is a dark story, not just for its main character but for many others too, and not all readers will like it for that reason. However, there is a glimmer of hope in it too, and Dickens has the ability to make his readers really think about life and possibly question the way some things are handled in our society – yes, in our modern-day society, not just Victorian England. Which means Charles Dickens was a truly powerful writer already at the age of 26.