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I have no idea whether I'm supposed to be horrified by this book or having the time of my life, but apparently I'm doing both.

To sum it up, a woman makes increasingly disastrous decisions because she is horny, spiteful, and apparently allergic to consequences. She's unapologetically bad from the beginning, but she spirals into evil when she meets the beautiful, "exotic," super smart, hot AF, compelling, and completely devoted-to-her Zofloya. (Why do I feel like I'm describing a romantasy instead of a Gothic novel published in 1806?)

Zofloya, or The Moor by Charlotte Dacre has everything a Gothic novel was supposed to have in the early 19th century: the foreign historical setting, confinement, threatened women, sexual transgression, violence, murder, madness, religious anxiety, supernatural evil, exoticism...

Actually, it is almost a checklist of Gothic conventions, except Dacre takes several of them and pushes them to an outrageous extreme. The whole cast of characters consists of awful people (and the few "good" ones aren't really good). And then she does something unusual for the period, she makes the female protagonist herself the monster.

Of course, the book is supposed to be a cautionary tale against sin and excess, but I read it as a spectacular Gothic tragedy about appetite. Victoria wants more and more (love, possession, revenge, sex, power), and eventually there is nothing left that can satisfy her...

P.S. If you buy this Oxford Press edition, DON'T read the back cover. They wrote there what happens on the last page of the book...

I am a sucker for imaginative and flowery prose. My favorite author so far in this regard is TE Lawrence. For reference, here are a couple examples that I really dig from Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

“It was peaceful, chilly, and very far from the fretting world. The austerity of height shamed back the vulgar baggage of our cares. In place of consequence it set freedom, power to be alone, to slip the escort of our manufactured selves, a rest and forgetfulness of the chains of being.”

“Of Azrak and Ruum both were magically haunted, but whereas Ruum was vast and echoing, and God-like, Azarak’s unfathomable silence was steeped in knowledge of wandering poets, champions, lost kingdoms, all the crime and chivalry and dead magnificence of Hira and Gassan. Each stone or blade of it was radiant with a half memory of the luminous silky Eden, which had passed so long ago.”

I’ve since read LOTR, a couple of Orwell’s, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce. Loved them all, but none scratched my itch for prose.

I’m curious who are some of your favorite authors that enjoy waxing poetic through their descriptive but inventive and flowery prose?

Any suggestions on where to start? I'm just getting back into classics after a lot of years. I'd like to ease into it.

I just finished wuthering heights, and started la reigne Margot, but like to have 2 books on the go :)

Lucky lunch break visit...

I'm starting my junior year of college as an English major and I've already had three professors who have pushed their James agenda on me. lol.

Comp I: "The Aspern Papers" and "In the Cage" - HJ was clearly a hobbyhorse for this professor as "they" assigned two longish short stories of James. We spent four classes (!) on the latter.

19th century American Lit: "The Portrait of a Lady"- This was undoubtedly the centerpiece of a 16 week course, taking up FIVE weeks! I remember we read both the original and revised edition, side by side. While that was somewhat tedious, I still enjoyed the novel's complexity. Final exam included a passage from "The Turn of the Screw"

Literary Theory and Criticism: We read "The Art of Fiction" (1884) and my professor referenced this to EVERYTHING we read throughout the class. It was almost comical.

We didn't read James in HS so I'm mystified by this sudden onslaught of this author.

I'm formulating a list of challenging novels I would like to tackle. I'm working my way through Ulysses, so once I'm done with that, I will work on these, in no particular order:

In Search of Lost Time
Gravity's Rainbow
Ada, or Ardor
The Recognitions
2666
Finnegans Wake

Obviously, some of these are much easier than others on this list. But yes, I am insane, and I need to get cracking because life is short.

Hello!
I’m lesson planning for 8th grade lit and curriculum is loose surrounding book choices (small private school, i’m the only teacher for lit). I’m looking for classic literature that features female characters that are multi-faceted and deep. They can be feminine, I just would like them to have some type of depth. I ask because 1984 and Brave New World are on my list and their female characters lack personality beyond stereotype and exist purely to motivate the male lead, which I find gets a lot of my girls disinterested. (Not interested in debating that). The female characters can be side characters, and I’d also like something my boys might be interested in too. Sorry if it’s too much to ask.
Thanks!

PS I don't speak Russian.

Also, I felt the book was much bigger and has more pages than the English translated one. I guess it's the font size.

I'm starting Bleak House today.

Has any of you read it in its original 20-month cadence? Pros and cons of that?

The Penguin Classics edition has the table of contents organized this way, so you can see which chapters were published together in the original release. It seems to be about 50 pages per installment.

So I am thinking I'd read an installment (two or three day's reading), then wait til the first of the next month to read the next installment, and so on.

This would give me more of the original readers' experience, and would leave me a lot of time for reading other things at the same time.

Is there any downside to this approach?

Hi all ! I am looking especially for rhyming and/or metered poetry; I enjoy anything in this domain, longer narrative poems, sonnets, lyric poetry. Please recommend me some of the greatest woman poets you have read ! I have just gotten into poetry more, and enjoy Dickinson and Plath, but am not super familiar with where to go next. I'm a woman myself and excited to find new things to read. Thank you !!

(Sorry. I accidentally posted one picture twice!)
First time poster here.
About a year and a half ago, I became unemployed and stayed that way for 8 months. During that time, I decided to take a deep dive into classic literature. There are so many great books that show up as Jeopardy clues and I realized that I should familiarize myself with them.
Instead of watching hours of television, I decided to listen to audiobooks. I made a list and have checked off a lot of them. My monthly credit just came through and I’m stuck on what to read next. I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo.
I’ve attached my list. The multiple checkmarks represent multiple listens. Please recommend anything, whether it’s on my list or not. TIA!

I have been on a journey which started just over a year and a half ago when I decided to delve into George Eliots ‘Middlemarch’. Since then I have read Felix Holt, Daniel Deronda, Romola, and Silas Marner and have felt a sense of accomplishment and enlightenment after every closing chapter.

Of course I want to finish her 2 remaining major works but, her books are a huge commitment and require a lot of dedication to really feel what she’s trying to convey.

As a result, I’m curious as to which you’d recommend I reach for next and why? How do they compare to her other novels? And what stands out to you?

Really excited to hear what you all think!

Made a set of chapter tabs for a friend’s Les Misérables. I learned that this book is filled with fascinating historical details, which made me want to explore it myself.

I just finished reading The Trial, and this might be the most complicated book I've read so far. I really liked it, every chapter left me wondering for a long time, and I took a lot of notes.

My first major reaction, before K. went to meet the lawyer introduced by his uncle, was this:

'Some very weird things are happening within the normalcy.

First of all, this court of law and institution is very weird. It doesn’t even seem to have a proper building. It has a very “backrooms” kind of feel.

Secondly, weird things keep happening. Why was an “executioner” beating the two guards from K.’s office? Why in K.’s office? That is such a weird place for something like that to happen.

Thirdly, every single girl this man meets seems to throw herself at him, and he keeps cucking all of their lovers.

The whole thing is starting to feel like a fever dream, especially because K. is being extremely passive and just going with the flow.

I also kind of felt this way about the secretary part in the attic, with the two workers. The female and male workers who helped him leave felt like they were some kind of keepers of a purgatory, with K. being on the verge of death. That would explain why he felt bad inside, and why they seemed to feel bad when he opened the door and outside air came in.

But of course, that was just a theory.'

My 'eureka' moment, that is probably totally wrong

'I believe even more strongly now that I might be right about K. being at the gates of death.

The story about the gatekeeper and the man that wasted his life. I think the man who encountered the gate was, in a way, flirting with the unknown, with life after death, but it simply wasn’t his time to leave this plane yet.

It is also interesting how the merchant from the previous chapter, who was proud of how long his process had lasted, behaved somewhat like the man from the priest’s story.

The lawyer also seems like some kind of gatekeeper.

I think the trials only open themselves to people who live impersonally, people who are alone, alienated from this plane. And that is why they receive the trial: the first calling towards the afterlife.

So should they ignore it and just live normally?

Should they follow the fears of others and, as a consequence, live in fear themselves?

Another interesting part is that an effective acquittal can never actually happen, even though it is one of the three possible solutions. And escaping death is also never going to happen.

So I really do think it is death.'

The ending

K. is taken away by two men during the night. After initially trying to resist, he eventually accepts his fate.

He accepts it almost until the very end, but in the final moment he seems to have a desire to live.

Too late.

They end up killing him.

Fragments - my version had these loose chapters at the end

I found this part particularly curious. It touches on several of K.’s relationships and on his attitude towards people.

He seems to have an attitude of superiority and disdain towards others. His relationship with the snobbish club also seems to be one of superiority towards the supposedly inferior members of the club.

It made me wonder:

Did the court ask each of these people for their opinion about K., and, because he was arrogant, did they condemn him?

We know that the court talked to people.

Kullych worked for the court.

What was in the letter?

Overall

Overall, I liked the book.

It was very abstract, and I was left with a lot of curiosity about what everything actually means.

I definitely feel like there is much more to unpack in it, and I haven't touched the surface

Hey share the best lines you have read in a book and why is it best for you and which book?

I’ve been eyeing these for a while and finally gave myself permission to buy them. I could’ve borrowed from the library but wanted my own copies because I’ve been getting more into annotating

What's the reason behind our fascination with literature? Why do we read classics even though when they are works of antiquity?