Two Children's Classics: The Door In The Wall by Marguerite de Angeli and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

This year I have signed up for the 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader and Baker.  My goal is to read 15 Medieval historical novels this year and the Door In The Wall (1949) by Marguerite de Angeli is the first book I have completed.  It's a children's classic, winner of the 1950 Newbery Medal and the novel is set in 14th century England around the time of the black plague although the plague doesn't factor into the book that much.  

Instead The Door In The Wall tells the story of ten year old Robin who is the son of Sir John de Bureford.  Robin comes from a family of noblemen.  His father is a knight and is away fighting in a war that is going on between England and Wales.  His mother is leaving to take a position as one of the Queen's Ladies in Waiting.  Robin has good parents who love him and he will miss them but he is excited to begin his apprenticeship towards becoming a knight and making his father proud.

But then a few days before Robin is set to leave for his apprenticeship he is taken ill.  It's not the plague but whatever the illness is it leaves Robin unable to walk and his plans for being a knight are over.  Robin is depressed at this sudden change in his life and he is sent to a monastery where the monks will take care of him and it turns out to be the best thing that could have happened.  The monks are good men and they teach Robin to read, write, carpentry.  He learns about science and the stars and mostly Robin learns that despite his disability there is so much he can do.  As Brother Luke tells him: “Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it.”

 

It's a book with an important message and A Door In The Wall is well written and you also learn some of the customs, foods, clothing etc from the Middle Ages.  But there are children's books that can be enjoyed at all ages and then there are children's books that are specifically geared to children and for me The Door In The Wall fits into the latter  category.  

And while I was reading The Door In The Wall I started thinking of another children's classic, Johnny Tremain (1943) by Esther Forbes, winner of the 1944 Newbery Medal that I read a few years ago

Johnny Tremain is set in Boston during the American Revolutionary era and centers around a 14 year old orphan boy named Johnny Tremain.  Johnny works for and lives with a silversmith and his family.  Johnny is training to be a silversmith and even at 14 his ability to craft beautiful objects from silver is admired and requested by everyone.  Like Robin, Johnny sees his future all mapped out until an injury to his hand ends his career as a silversmith.

Johnny is a fully developed well drawn character in a way that Robin in my opinion was not.  Robin is a good kid all the way through The Door In The Wall whereas Johnny Tremain is more three-dimensional, good qualities but also flawed.  Johnny before the accident was arrogant, too sure of himself and he makes enemies.  But after the hand injury he loses everything including a place to live.  We see Johnny go from age 14 to 17 in the novel and watch him slowly build his way back and he learns that there are people out there willing to help if you let them.  I found Johnny Tremain to be a powerful novel for adults as well as kids and it has stayed with me.

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

‘Where does a story begin, Willie?’ I asked. For a while he did not say anything. Then he shifted in his chair. ‘Where does a wave on the ocean begin?’ he said. ‘Where does it form a welt on the skin of the sea, to swell and expand and rush towards shore?’  ... Yes, I thought to myself. Tell him your story. Let him write it. Let the whole world know" - Tan Twan Eng, House of Doors

If you are looking for your next great read I highly recommend The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng, longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023.  And thanks to Sam at Book Chase (link under blogs I follow) for recommending this novel.  Sam chose The House of Doors as one of his best books of 2023 and a book recommended by Sam is worth your time.

The House of Doors is a historical novel set primarily in Penpang, Malaysia in 1921.  One of the two main characters in this novel is Somerset Maugham.  In real life Maugham (WIllie to his friends) was a great writer, a world traveler and a complex man.  And in 1921 he spent several months living in Penpang, Malaysia.  He would later write The Casuarina Tree, a collection of short stories about his time in Penpang.  The most famous of these is The Letter, based on the infamous Ethel Proudlock murder trial which took place in Kuala Lumpur in 1911.  Maugham first heard about the case from an attorney while staying in Penpang in 1921.

But in The House of Doors, Tan Twan Eng imagines a different scenario regarding how Maugham learned about the case and how he came to write The Letter.  He creates a fictional couple Robert and Lesley Hamlyn who invite Maugham and his secretary Gerald Haxton (who is also Maugham's lover) to stay with them at Cassowary House.  Robert is a friend of Maugham from when the two men served in World War I.   

Somerset Maugham is not in the best of health at this point in his life.  His marriage to his wife Syrie who lives in England is not happy.  They live separate lives and due to a bad investment Maugham has lost a great deal of money and needs to think up ideas for new stories fast.  If he remains broke his wife Syrie and his young lover Gerald will not be pleased having grown accustomed to the finer things. Maugham has alot to deal with.

And that brings us to the other major character in The House of Doors, Lesley Hamlyn, Robert's wife.   Lesley is cool to Maugham at first.  Her sympathies are with Syrie back in England partly because her own marriage to Robert is also not going well.  But Somerset Maugham is fascinated by Lesley.  He knows that she grew up in Malaysia and that as a young woman she met and became associated with the Chinese Revolutionary Sun Yat Sen.  Might there be a story there? And as the two begin to talk and share confidences they become close.  Lesley confides to Somerset that yes she does have quite a few stories to share which will also include the Proudlock case.

The House of Doors is a kadilescope of a novel touching on many themes: the expat community during the early twentieth century, the revolutionary history of China, marriage, affairs, secrets and the life of Somerset Maugham and how living at that time he could not be open about who he loved.  And House of Doors is also about the creative process and how a writer becomes inspired to write a story like The Letter.

So thanks again to Sam and this year I am going to pay more attention to the novels that get short and longlisted for the major book awards.  There are gems among the nominees and The House of Doors is one of them.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome (1911) by Edith Wharton is a reread.  I first read it in high school and hated it and I think that was the concensus of pretty much everyone in my class at the time.  But then years later I read Wharton's Tne House of Mirth which I loved.  And so I have had it in my mind all these years to reread Ethan Frome.  Maybe I missed something.  Maybe this is a novel that needs to be read later in life.  And so I have now read Ethan Frome for the second time and this review will contain spoilers. 

Ethan Frome is set in a small New England town, Starkfield, MA, during the late 19th and early 20th century.  The winters are fierce and when the novel begins we meet a young man visiting Starkfield on business.  While in town the young man, who serves as the narrator, spots an elderly disabled gentleman heading into the local store.  Something about this man intrigues the narrator.  He seems depressed, solemn and very much alone. 

The narrator learns that the man is Ethan Frome, he is 52 and a poor farmer who rarely comes into town anymore.  The narrator asks more questions and the rest of the novel takes us back twenty five years to when Ethan was young and living in Starkfield with his whole life before him.

Ethan had wanted to go to college but his father died and then Ethan's mother got sick and he had to run the farm and take care of her.  When Ethan's mother passed on he married Zeena, the nurse who helped care for his mother.  It seemed like a good match.  Zeena was a take-charge, talkative young woman with an energy that Ethan lacked.  But not too long after they married Zeena began to change: 

"She chose to look down on Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place which looked down on her. Even Bettsbridge or Shadd’s Falls would not have been sufficiently aware of her, and in the greater cities which attracted Ethan she would have suffered a complete loss of identity. And within a year of their marriage she developed the “sickliness” which had since made her notable even in a community rich in pathological instances ... he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had been acquired by the absorbed observation of her own symptoms"

To help with her various illnesses Zeena hires her cousin Mattie Silver to cook and clean .  Mattie is young, pretty, cheerful and to Ethan a breath of fresh air.  Ethan falls hard for Mattie and she falls for him as well.  But Mattie is vulnerable.  Her parents are dead and her relatives have had no desire to help her out, only her cousin Zeena who is looking for a live-in caretaker was willing to take Mattie in.  

And then Zeena begins to suspect something is going on between Ethan and Mattie and Zeena decides to hire a new girl and Mattie is asked to leave.  Ethan is devastated.  He contemplates running away with Mattie but what would the neighbors say and how could Zeena run the farm all by herself? 

Ethan decides he has to stay but he offers to take Mattie to the train station.  They travel by sled, it is snowing, and in a reckless act Mattie and Ethan decide not to part but to ride their sled fast down a hill right into an elm tree.  It is Mattie and Ethan's desparate attempt at a way out, suicide.  But it doesn't work and the end of the book twenty five years later has left Ethan, Zeena and Mattie in a much worse place than before the "accident".

And so it's not surprising our high school class had problems with this novel and I can't say now upon a second reading that I have warmed up all that much to Ethan Frome either but there are many who love this book.  The writing is excellent which is not surprising since Edith Wharton is brilliant.  And in trying to analyze the meaning of Ethan Frome I checked Cliff Notes and came upon the following: 

"The message that Wharton conveys through Ethan is that when people fear they are violating the rules of society, they risk becoming enslaved by those rules"

That rings true.  Ethan Frome is a man who wants to leave Zeena, a bitter angry woman who spends her time nursing her imaginary ailments.  He wants to leave with Mattie and have a new start but back in the late 1800's what would society say?  And one of the takeaways from this novel, according to critics, is that sometimes you have to change things regardless of what society will say because if you don't you can end up taking desparate risks that can end in tragedy.

And so my rereading of Ethan Frome has made me realize that its an important classic but maybe it's better as a college read.  I'm not sure kids are ready for it's powerful message in high school.

Merry Christmas and a Christmas Poem From Anne Bronte

Music On Christmas Morning by Anne Bronte

Music I love – but never strain

Could kindle raptures so divine,

So grief assuage, so conquer pain,

And rouse this pensive heart of mine –

As that we hear on Christmas morn,

Upon the wintry breezes borne.

Though Darkness still her empire keep,

And hours must pass, ere morning break;

From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,

That music kindly bids us wake:

It calls us, with an angel’s voice,

To wake, and worship, and rejoice;

To greet with joy the glorious morn,

Which angels welcomed long ago,

When our redeeming Lord was born,

To bring the light of Heaven below;

The Powers of Darkness to dispel,

And rescue Earth from Death and Hell.

While listening to that sacred strain,

My raptured spirit soars on high;

I seem to hear those songs again

Resounding through the open sky,

That kindled such divine delight,

In those who watched their flocks by night.

With them, I celebrate His birth –

Glory to God, in highest Heaven,

Good-will to men, and peace on Earth,

To us a Saviour-king is given;

Our God is come to claim His own,

And Satan’s power is overthrown!

A sinless God, for sinful men,

Descends to suffer and to bleed;

Hell must renounce its empire then;

The price is paid, the world is freed,

And Satan’s self must now confess,

That Christ has earned a Right to bless:

Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,

And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:

The captive’s galling bonds are riven,

For our Redeemer is our king;

And He that gave his blood for men

Will lead us home to God again.

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all my blogging friends!

The 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

For 2024 I have decided to participate in The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader and Baker (http://www.theintrepidreader.com)

As Marg tells us: "Any sub-genre of historical fiction is accepted (Historical Romance, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, History/Non-Fiction, etc" and you can choose from the following categories: 

20th Century Reader - 2 books  

Victorian Reader - 5 books

Renaissance Reader - 10 books

Medieval - 15 books

Ancient History - 25 books 

 Prehistoric books - 50+ books                                         

I have decided to go with 15 historical novels from the Medieval period (500 AD to 1500 AD).  It sounds like a fun challenge.

My Top 5 Books for 2023

Next year I am hoping to increase the number of books I read so that my top 5 books will have more depth.  Still, this year I did read 32 books some of which I have reviewed.  And in no particular order here are my top 5:  

I have been hearing about Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe for years and this is a classic that definitely lived up to the praise.  As with two other classics (Frankenstein and The Call of the Wild), Things Fall Apart is not a very long book but it is so worth your time.

I am not a birder but H is For Hawk is a beautifully written memoir.  I would advise you read this book in the audio version by the author Helen MacDonald.  She reads her memoir with emotion and it adds to her story.

I loved The Outcasts by Sarah Stegall.  The setting 1816 Lake Geneva Switzerland and how one stormy night in response to a challenge from Lord Byron, Mary Shelley conceives the idea for her classic novel Frankenstein.  The story itself is interesting but in addition Sarah Stegall does a very good job of letting us know what Lord Byron, Dr. John Polodori, Claire Claremont and Percy and Mary Shelley may have been like and it rings true.  

I love Louise Penny's Three Pines Mystery series and A Trick of the Light is my favorite book so far in this series.  I enjoyed it so much because A Trick of The Light takes place entirely in the village of Three Pines and the focus is on Clara and Peter's relationship which has interested me from the start of this series.  

Many years ago I read Thomas Cook's Red Leaves and the book made a lasting impression on me.  I was pleased to discover this year that Thomas Cook's The Last Talk With Lola Faye is equally memorable and I did not see the ending coming!

Hope everyone has a great Holiday Season and a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

When Lori Gottlieb was in her forties her life was going great.  She had a successful and fulfilling career as a psychotherapist, an eight year old son Zach who was everything to her; she was writing a new book and was in a relationship with a great guy.

But then one night two years into their relationship the great guy tells Lori it's over.  It's not that he doesn't want to marry Lori but he doesn't want to help raise her eight year old son. He likes Zach well enough but he has already raised his own kids and his parenting days are behind him. 

Lori is devastated.  The break-up brings on a midlife crisis and a friend suggests that maybe she needs to see a therapist.  Lori agrees and the result would end up being her bestselling memoir Maybe You Should Talk To Someone which was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. 

Now, some may ask themselves, do I want to spend an entire book with an author in her therapist's office as she discusses the break-up.   I worried about that too.  But Lori Gottlieb's sessions with her therapist represents only a small portion of the book. And as we get deeper into Maybe You Should Talk To Someone the boyfriend issues fade.  The book becomes about alot more.  It's part memoir but it's also about what therapy entails, how and why people change and the meaning of life.  And for me Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is most memorably about Lori's own patients and their struggles. 

Lori Gottlieb let's us in on the therapy sessions she has with four of her patients.  She has changed their names and the stories these patients tell are interesting and often heartbreaking.  I will not forget Julie's story in particular.  And these patients are a reminder of how we can never know what people have been through just by looking at them.  

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is very well written, humorous and I think the book will help many readers navigate their own journeys.  Over 42,000 reviews on Amazon.com for Maybe I Should Talk To Someone and 92% of them 4 and 5 stars.  That's very impressive and put me in the 4 and 5 star category as well.