'The Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1' by John Bunyan (and Alan Vermilye)

MY THOUGHTS: 

I've been plowing through The Pilgrim's Progress for a class assignment I'm working on, and supplementing the original text from 1678 with 'A Readable Modern Day Version' by Alan Vermilye, who has taken pains to retain every detail from the original text while making it easier for 21st century readers. Having both side by side, I have to agree Vermilye does us all a big favour. 

 This classic was first written from prison, where Puritan author Bunyan was incarcerated for his supposedly radical preaching. He explains at the start how a flash of inspiration (or providence) led him to explore the Christian faith in the form of an extended metaphor. Since he had plenty of time on his hands, why not give it a crack? So this is the tale of a long and often arduous quest. Each character represents an aspect of human nature, making them very one-dimensional. If you want subtle character nuances, you'll have to find another book. With characters bearing names such as Ignorance, Flatterer and Talkative, what we see is basically all we get.

In a similar manner, all the geographical and topographical locations along the path represent life experiences and attitudes. So the Slough of Despond and the Hill of Difficulty aren't places we'd choose to add to our itineraries, yet unfortunately for the pilgrims, they lie along the route to the Celestial City and detours are impossible.

The main character, aptly named Christian, leaves his home in the City of Destruction to journey on foot to the Celestial City, where he'll be in God's presence and all his problems will be over. The burden he bears on his back is super heavy, but a kind mentor named Evangelist assures Christian that if he watches his step, it will fall off spontaneously enroute, when he reaches the place of the Cross. Christian is instructed to stick strictly to the narrow path, yet his experiences prove how easy it is to veer right or left with the best intentions. Naturally he meets plenty of fellow pilgrims along the way, whose revealing names give us readers broad clues of whether or not they'll be trustworthy.

Whew, I can't deny it's a moralistic read with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, yet strangely compelling. Christian's forced face-off with the fiend Apollyon must have wowed those 17th century readers. Not only does Apollyon's appearance sound super stunning (fish scales, dragon wings, bear feet, and lion mouth), but he breathes intimidating lines with smoke and fire. 'You've already been unfaithful to your king... prepare to die. I swear by my infernal den that you will go no further. It's here that I will spill your soul.'  Then we have our unassuming hero Christian's comeback, 'Don't celebrate just yet, Apollyon!' 

(Christian doesn't actually manage to kill Apollyon. Nope, this symbol of Satan merely flies off, to presumably hang out for a more opportune time.) 

We get toured through several abysmal places where we've probably all occasionally found ourselves. There's the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where Christian can't recognise his own voice and believes a demon's hateful whispers are coming from his own soul. And there's Vanity Fair, the perpetual party town where pleasure seekers hang out to gorge on the products of sensual stalls and sideshows. Further on again, Christian and his friend Hopeful are captured by the giant Despair and taken to his Doubting Castle. This oversized fellow leaves his prisoners with the option of committing suicide by whatever means they choose, whether knife, noose or poison. Ouch, that's how Despair operates. 

From my modern perspective, I was intrigued by the hapless young man, Ignorance, who struts along confident that his own sound heart, with its comforting whispers, will gain him entry to the Celestial City. Christian and Hopeful are inspired to ask him bluntly, 'How can you even believe in Christ when you don't see any need for him? You don't see original sin or your actual transgressions but rather have such a high opinion of yourself.' Ouch, is Ignorance a harbinger of our own era, in which we are encouraged to keep building up our self-esteem, focusing on our brilliance and excusing ourselves for our shortcomings? I actually found myself liking this lad, for his refusal to let Christian and Hopeful tarnish his rosy outlook, which I know may be a worrying sign of our times since we're clearly not supposed to. I suspect if Bunyan could time travel to the twenty twenties, he'd discover plenty of Ignorance's descendants walking around, even filling church pews. 

I'm glad to have read this classic. Sure, Christian sometimes comes across as a smug, inflexible know-it-all, but yet again, I can't help wondering whether it's our laissez faire 21st century outlook that paints him as such. I'm more than happy to continue with Part 2, in which Christian's wife, Christiana, and their four sons, having repented of brushing him off at his journey's outset, decide to follow in his footsteps. Yay, bring on more adventures in this apparent fantasy world which, in fact, represents an average human life. 

I'd considered taking off a star for its dated style and heavy-handedness, but on second thoughts, it totally deserves five stars for its creative presentation of theology, its incredibly ambitious scope and John Bunyan's scriptural references peppered all through, so impressive because he had no computer file to store them in. What an amazing effort! 

Kudos to Alan Vermilye too, for his translation. I recommend reading both, as I've been doing. 

Update: Check out my review of A Pilgrim's Progress, Part 2

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'Pollyanna's Castle in Mexico' by Elizabeth Borton

MY THOUGHTS:

Oh dear, this 8th Glad Book is nothing to be glad about. It's even worse than Pollyanna in Hollywood, and I really struggled to get through it.

Jimmy lands an engineering job in the heart of Mexico, so as is now the pattern, Pollyanna and the kids trail along. Miss Aguamonte owns a gold mine with a sinister reputation, as her father died down there during his final expedition. Situated within a mountain nicknamed, 'The Mountain of Death,' she wants it drained and checked out by a professional. No locals will go near the place, but Pollyanna is happy for Jimmy to barge right in. Those two are very flippant regarding the supernatural. 

Junior, who is now about 15, is taking advantage of his passion for photography whenever he can, and accompanies his dad on a couple of exploratory trips to take photos. Judy, aged 12, is believed to be delicate, impressionable and poetic, so her mother treats her like fragile glass. Judy also develops her first crush on a boy. Ruth, who must be 9 or 10 by this stage, still comes across as a kindergarten kid. 

Borton seems clueless about the kids' development. She has the young man Junior still speaking in a high-pitched voice, and tweenie Judy needing her hand held to cross the street. Then Pollyanna talks to her pre-adolescent daughter as if she's five years old.

'I wonder if you know how many little girls are left in school while their mothers and fathers travel for pleasure of because of business. You should be glad that daddy and I always take you with us everywhere.' 

There is far too much description of Pollyanna being toured around Mexico, 'ooohing' and 'aaahing,' without anything happening plot wise. And the continuity aspect is a facepalm. After Smith preserved the integrity of Porter's original classics so beautifully, the series regresses to a game of Chinese Whisper with the introduction of Borton as the third author. She retains just a smidgin of what came before and even mixes up Aunt Polly and Aunt Ruth; a colossal blooper at this stage of the game. I blame the publisher too, for allowing an oversight of this magnitude to slide repeatedly through the editing filter. Seriously, didn't they have even one single proofreader who had read the first seven books? I won't even get started on what happens to poor Nancy, who seems to have aged by about 30 years compressed into one. 

When the action finally does heat up, it loses credibility fast. At this point an earthquake, light plane smash and the two Js being tied up at gunpoint just makes me groan. I now face the remainder of the series with trepidation rather than anticipation, especially when I see the name of Elizabeth Boring, sorry, Borton on the next two books. Her offerings remind me of some of the more forgettable fan fictions I've come across. 

Never thought I'd say it but even Jimmy's sexiness is insufficient to save this story. I guess next up will be Pollyanna's Door to Happiness, although I doubt it'll make me very happy. This series clearly should have stopped when Harriet Lummis Smith put down her pen. 

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(Update: It's fair to say that Door to Happiness was not half as bad as I expected. That's encouragement not to completely give up on a series you're enjoying.)

'From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' by E. L. Konigsburg

Since its first appearance over 50 years ago, The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler has gained a place in the hearts of generations of readers - and has rightly become one of the most celebrated and beloved children's books of all time.

MY THOUGHTS: 

Phew, I can finally tick off this super-long title. (Just to be clear, I'm referring to the title being super-long, not the story itself.) For years I've seen this Newbery Award winning middle-grade novel from 1968 recommended far and wide. I finally borrowed a library e-book and found it both thought-provoking and very cute.

Claudia Kincaid decides to run away and live for a short time in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, because it's such an elegant and important place in which to hide. She coerces her younger brother Jamie to join her, since he's a fiscal wizard who has saved loads of pocket money. Their simple mission to avoid detection soon becomes a compulsive quest to discover the origins of a stunning angel statue. Claudia isn't sure what appeals so strongly to her, but trusts that finding out will be an epiphany. All she and Jamie know is that it came from the collection of a wealthy lady named Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler who sold it to the museum for $225.  

It is the elderly and wise Mrs Frankweiler who deduces what drives Claudia so hard to find the answer, and what manner of mindshift will really make a difference in her restless heart. 

It wouldn't be such a fun read without the witty and evolving rapport between Claudia and Jamie, who forever banter but are truly in sync. They are now up among my favourite storybook sibling duos, and Konigsburg's illustrations reinforce what a lovable team they make. Claudia is a straight A student full of head knowledge, and as the eldest, a bit of a know-it-all. But Jamie is a very pragmatic 9-year-old, and I love how Claudia defers to him in all their economic decisions. 

The museum is an atmospheric setting. It housed over 365 000 works of art way back when this book was published, which means the Kincaids would have to look at 1000 exhibits per day to see it all within a year. When Claudia and Jamie settle down in an antique bed on their first night in hiding, we are told, 'The silence seeped from their heads to their soles and then into their souls.' Sounds a bit spooky to me, but I like it. 

When I read a couple of other reviews on Goodreads, one lady ranked it low and remarked that the modern kids she knows wouldn't grasp or appreciate the introspective and motivational messages that kids of the late 1960s apparently did. But as far as I'm concerned, the book is as great as it ever was, and using her own reasoning, if anything deserves to have stars lopped off, it should be our 21st century culture, if it discourages contemplation in juvenile fiction.

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'Charlotte Sometimes' by Penelope Farmer

A time-travel story that is both a poignant exploration of human identity and an absorbing tale of suspense.

It's natural to feel a little out of place when you're the new girl, but when Charlotte Makepeace wakes up after her first night at boarding school, she's everyone thinks she's a girl called Clare Mobley, and even more shockingly, it seems she has traveled forty years back in time to 1918.

MY THOUGHTS: 

This is a re-read from my childhood. Silent reading sessions were the best, and the details of this story were sketchy. The fact that it's a time slip story stood out most, for I love those. 

Feeling lonely and awkward, Charlotte drifts off to sleep on her first night at boarding school in a shared dorm room. She wakes up next morning and finds herself in the same room with oddly different furniture. In the opposite bed is a little girl who is adamant that Charlotte is, in fact, her own sister, Clare. It is not the next morning after all. Charlotte has been swept back 40 years into the past. 

This is a doppelganger yarn and time travel tale rolled into one. At first it chops and changes. Charlotte is sometimes her own self in 1958, and other times assumes Clare's identity in 1918 while World War 1 rages in the background. The same thing happens to poor Clare, although we never read that side of the switch. Eventually, circumstances transpire to keep them both permanently where (or rather when) they shouldn't be, unless they come up with a solution. 

All sorts of school politics happen in both time periods. Charlotte is thoughtful and intuitive, which people don't always notice through her sedate front, although I find her astonishingly slow on the uptake at times. (Hooray Charlotte, at last it dawns on you that women tend to change their surnames when they get married.) Emily Moby, her 'sister' in 1918, is defensive and non-conformist, possibly one of the story's most memorable characters. This little girl won't be pushed around by anyone. 

The details of the war era makes the earlier of the two settings the focal point. All sorts of desperate cost-cuttings and rationings become part of everyday life, including the sacrifice of flower gardens for vegetables. When Charlotte and Emily are billeted out with the Chisel Brown family of Flintlock Lodge, the grievous loss of their son Arthur in the trenches of France spreads to impact even the girls, who have never met him. (Whoa, he's a haunting character, in more ways than one!) 

The story is not perfect. The premise itself is strained, since the bed portal only works with Charlotte and Clare, regardless of whoever else sleeps in it throughout the years. Even the characters remark on the crazy unlikelihood of this, so Farmer herself must have realised what a stretch of credulity she was creating. It may seem an unfair thing to mention, considering the same implausibility applies to all time slip stories to some extent, but this one seems particularly clunky. 

Penelope Farmer's writing style sometimes makes me pause mid sentence to wonder, 'Whatever next?' She matches emotive qualities to simple objects in a way that's a bit jarring. For example, how can a cake of soap have a 'glum and parsimonious' smell? That's super specific. In another instance, chubby Mrs Chisel Brown speaks in a 'fat' voice. Come on, how can a person's voice match their physical shape? It's obviously stylistic, but jolts me out of the story's flow to roll my eyes at Farmer's weird technique.

I think the story is strongest if we read it as an analogy that shows the strain of maintaining masks in our own lives. The Charlotte/Clare swap reveals the exhausting juggling act of trying to be different things to different people, rather than just our own straightforward selves. We can take that on board in this story without the fascinating benefit of time travel.    

Overall, this is quite a fun time slip story, though I think Penelope Farmer could have tied up a few loose ends and revealed where 40 years had taken several different characters. I'll give it the extra half star for Emily and for Arthur, who lived and breathed on the pages, even though he's a dead character.

Oh, and check out the song by The Cure. 

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'Death Comes as the End' by Agatha Christie

In this novel of anger, jealousy, betrayal and murder, the Queen of Mystery transports us back to ancient Egypt 2000 B.C. where a priest’s daughter, investigating a suspicious death, uncovers a wasp’s nest of jealousy, betrayal, and serial murder.

MY THOUGHTS:

I'd just hopped into a bubble bath with an Agatha Christie mystery expecting 1930s Britain as usual, but got Ancient Egypt instead! Whoa, that took me totally off guard but I decided to flow with it. It seems that spurred on by her Middle East field observations with her archaeologist husband, the Queen of Crime challenged herself to create a detective story with a radically different setting, while retaining her hallmark for murders on family estates with assorted motives between an extensive cast. The foreword of my library book shows she was encouraged by her friend, Professor Stephen Glanville, who sent her heaps of literature.  

I've often thought about the potential pitfalls of historical research for authors who are used to writing contemporary fiction. My husband always insists that any plot can be tailored to fit any time period and setting. I believe Agatha Christie aimed to prove the same thing in her own way, and did a pretty good job.

It's some time around 4000 BC and Renisenb, a young widow, has returned to her family home after eight years away. She's relieved to find that her brothers, sisters-in-law, granny and father haven't changed at all. Time tends to stand still at her family home, which comforts her. Yet Hori, the young estate manager, challenges Renisenb that this is not the case. He's certain that turmoil brews beneath the appearance of family unity which needs just one spark from outside to make it all combust. 

This spark comes in the form of Nofret, their elderly father's hot new concubine, who turns out to be an artful troublemaker and makes no friends for herself. When Nofret is discovered dead on a walking trail, it appears she accidentally fell from another path high above, yet everyone tacitly agrees that convenient conclusion is a copout. The big question is, who resented Nofret enough to push her? Could it be any of Renisenb's brothers; gentle, compliant Yahmose, Sobek, the inept grumbler, or Ipy, the mutinous and spoiled 16-year-old? Perhaps Henet, the two-faced and calculating poor relative, knows more than she's letting on. 

When it appears that Nofret's vengeful spirit is at large, trying to get even with every single member of her hapless husband's family, it's clear something must be done. 

The story delves into the masks people wear, yet in this context, the wise Hori likens them to false doors in pyramids and tombs. Sadly, I wasn't convinced by the revelation of the murderer. Usually Agatha Christie's unexpected twists work fine, but this one feels forced. Even though she left a characteristic hint to justify the great reveal, I didn't buy it. The chasm between what we see of the murderer and what we get is simply too huge to swallow, and I can't believe for a moment this person would snap to the extent of embarking on the reckless rampage that ensues.

That's sad really, because other than that, I enjoyed the visit to Ancient Egypt. 

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'Pollyanna in Hollywood' by Elizabeth Borton

MY THOUGHTS: 

 This is the seventh Glad Book. Jimmy has been commissioned to build another big dam in Inyo County, California. They've rented a house in nearby Hollywood, where Pollyanna and the kids can enjoy the good life while he comes and goes. The Pendleton family strike up a friendship on the beach with Happy Bangs, a melancholic silent comedy star who introduces them to the glittery world behind the scenes where movies get made. Meanwhile the kids make some interesting friends. Junior develops a passion for cameras and filming, and Judy for dancing and choreography. 

Elizabeth Borton takes the baton from Harriet Lummis Smith. She was born in 1904, lived until 2001 and one of her other books won the Newbery Medal in 1966. Judging by this Glad Book alone, Borton's excessively detailed style of writing is no longer what we're used to in the twenty-first century. Some readers may claim that it doesn't move the story forward but rather drags it down. For example, Pollyanna and Jimmy treat Jamie and Sadie to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and descriptions of the decor and staff linger for pages.

 Her prose could be likened to painstaking brushstrokes which allow no room for us to fill in details with our own imaginations. These slabs of excessive description bothered me a bit, but I think the key to enjoying this book is just to chill out with the slow moments and be content going nowhere for a while. Perhaps it's even the sort of meditative style that does us good, which is mostly found in older books now. 

Yet having said her writing style tends to be slow, Borton's plots themselves can move insanely fast. Meetings, marriages and movies happen in a snap. Another new friend of theirs, Maude Cravath, turns from down-and-out saleswoman to movie star within a few short weeks, I kid you not. Were motion pictures ever really made so quickly in the 1930s? Even if they were that slapdash, how did she build her fan base so fast, considering the red carpet event at which she shone was the debut night? It's pretty unbelievable. 

One thing I did appreciate is how yet another character, Myra Britton, decides she's content to have played lead role in one feature film to prove to herself that she can, and now she's done. She rejects further offers from producers. 'No, I have done one piece of almost perfect work. I could never do better. So I stop. I do not care for anti-climaxes. I have done well. It is enough.' Later, Pollyanna agrees with Myra's courage and conviction to retire before her ball really starts rolling. 'It would be a pity to follow that inspired piece with one less noble and less finished.' You rarely find such a refreshing attitude in our era, where celebrities struggle to maintain their platforms for as long as possible. 

 But we have to take positive dated attitudes with the negative. 'Junior was learning the lesson that boys must learn - to be strong in the face of grief. Girls may cry but boys must hold back the scalding tears as unmanly.' What a load of harmful nonsense.    

In other family news, Uncle John is researching and writing a book about American folklore, which means plenty of travel for him and Aunt Ruth. Jamie has signed a contract with a motion picture studio to write scenarios for them, with a stupendous salary he couldn't possibly refuse, so he, Sadie and their little boy (who they nickname Jamsie) head to Hollywood too, to live close to Pollyanna's family. But alas, Jamie hits a slab of writer's block and becomes even more touchy and harder to live with than normal. As his loved-ones know full well, it's tough on a chap whose only source of self-worth comes from his ability to write. Perhaps he's secretly irritated that his stepfather is treading on his turf.  

Borton's Nancy is a bit of a grumblebum, but in all fairness, Smith started it. Pollyanna is still an energetic sticky-beak who changes lives while others simply ponder good ideas they never implement. Jimmy is still dependable, humorous and dare I say sexy. The kids are growing up and developing distinct characters. My bottom line is that this book is fun for bringing us more stories about the Pendletons and Carews, but in all honesty, it's not as engrossing as the first six, by Porter and Smith. Any book that manages to be both speedy and snail-paced in the worst ways strikes a bad note, and I'd nod along with any reader who calls it a chore.   

Anyway, next up will be Pollyanna's Castle in Mexico. 

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'Adam Bede' by George Eliot

A bestseller from the moment of publication, Adam Bede, although on one level a rich and loving re-creation of a small community shaken to its core, is more than a charming, faultlessly evoked pastoral. However much the reader may sympathize with Hetty Sorrel and identify with Arthur Donnithorne, her seducer, and with Adam Bede, the man Hetty betrays,it is George Eliots's creation of the distant aesthetic whole - the complex, multifarious life of Hayslope - which so grips the reader's imagination. As Stephen Gill comments: 'Reading the novel is a process of learning simultaneously about the world of Adam Bede and the world of Adam Bede.'

MY THOUGHTS:

For so long I allowed the bleak sounding blurb to influence my decision not to pick up this book, but the fact that it took its earliest readers by storm, selling over 5000 copies within a fortnight, convinced me I was being too hasty. If these Victorians were onto something good, I didn't want to miss out.

This was George Eliot's debut novel, making her a pioneer and master of psychological fiction that delves into the nitty gritty of people's motivations. It also establishes her as a novelist who focuses on 'low life' and humble folk. Eliot's fondness for normal, working class people shines through the pages. I believe she does for them with words what artists such as Rembrandt and Vermeer did with painted images of noble-hearted commoners just getting on with their day. 

The setting is the fertile pastoral village of Hayslope and the year is 1799, so we get to witness the turn into the nineteenth century. The split between the established, complacent Anglicans and the enthusiastic, full-on Methodists is wide and controversial. A type of feudalism exists in English villages, and of course, the political backdrop is war with France. 

Decisive, hard-working and extremely principled young carpenter, Adam Bede, is devastated to discover two people he loves and trusts most in the world having an illicit affair. One is Hetty Sorrel, the pretty girl Adam intends to propose to, and the other is Arthur Donnithorne, the boyish young squire whose family owns the land on which the Bedes and several others live. 20-year-old Arthur is a favourite with the whole community, who all eagerly anticipate the demise of his crusty old grandfather so he can become landlord. 

We readers, who are granted access into Hetty's and Arthur's headspaces as well as Adam's, sense the bombshell coming and grit our teeth waiting for the fall out. Hetty is the early nineteenth century version of a material girl, self-focused and shallow. And Arthur has so internalized the notion that he's a good guy who always falls on his feet, he can't help vacillating between guilt and desire when it comes to forbidden fruit. 

But back around 1800, mistakes of immaturity were not merely awkward but catastrophic. Inevitably, their forbidden romance brings down a ton of trouble on many people. Since social structure is rigid, these two kids are playing with fire. 

I really like the potential 4th corner of this lovers triangle, preacher girl Dinah Morris, whose eyes were 'shedding love rather than observations.' She acts out of a servant heart, quietly making the world a better place. This girl genuinely seems to consider the world's dirty work a refreshing privilege. I love how Dinah's aunt remarks that their comfortable family is probably not 'needy' enough to receive a longed-for visit from her niece. 

Don't even get me started on the potential 5th corner, Adam's gentle and dreamy brother Seth, always in his brother's shadow and seemingly quite content to be there. Sometimes it seems everybody in this story is deeply in love with somebody who happens to be looking elsewhere. Forget the love triangle, this is a love pentagon. 

I've got to say, I willingly immersed myself in all the drama. Eliot's friend, Mrs Carlyle, reputedly said, 'Its as good as going to the country for one's health. I found myself in charity with the whole human race when I laid it down.' I tend to agree with her. Secondary characters such as the outrageously misogynistic Bartle Massey and blunt Mrs Poyser help make it a fun and lovable read. 

Eliot's prose is beautiful to read. And the contrast between inflexible Adam and indecisive Arthur makes a fascinating study. Both young men need to make course corrections to come to some sort of middle ground, although neither realise it from the start. I consider it a sort of bromance that went rocky for a while.  

 It's the sort of hefty English classic that immerses us deep into the psyches of these characters by shining light into the minutiae of their days, whereas modern authors are often told to scrap anything that doesn't directly drive the plot forward. The evening of Arthur's 21st birthday party alone takes up a full five chapters! Books are faster moving these days. We can't always add to our stories all the cool, psychological nuances Eliot was famous for, because we aren't allowed to! 

But hey, at least we still have access to Eliot's books. I heartily recommend this one. Within these pages both Adam and Dinah are committed to making the world a better place, in their own small way, for having passed through. And their author, Eliot, did the same thing in her special way by writing this novel. I'll finish off with this coloured picture in a book of mine which I believe evokes perfectly the background and time period of the novel, and also Eliot's conception of Dinah Morris. 

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