Apart from reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier when I was ill in hospital for a week, my reading past is only just getting established, so hence I have used the word tardy in the name of my blog.
Due to my youngest daughter intending to study English Literature at university, I have found myself recently daring to read a few classics, as I am interested in what she is doing! My eldest studied music, so for a few years I was educated in choir music and composers and often now listen to composers such as Herbert Howells and Thomas Tallis who have found their way into my i-tunes library.
During this past summer I read Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte novels, and I have discovered a real love of Virginia Woolf's writing. Who would have thought that I would have been reading these this time last year!
I feel that I read the Hardy novels in the wrong order, starting with one which I found a bit of a challenge. 'Two on a Tower' took me ages to finish, but I did enjoy the love story between Lady Constantine and Swithin St Cleeve. I had to look up a lot of the astronomical terms and various other words that I had not come across before. The second one that I read was' The Return of the Native' which I enjoyed more than the first. I found the story line more interesting and loved the characters. Eustacia is my new favourite girls name! Here is a link to my Goodreads review. The third one was 'The Mayor of Casterbridge', which I enjoyed equally as much as the second and my review for that one is here.
The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens took me quite a while to finish. I learnt about the barbaric use of the guillotine and until recently thought how lucky I was to live in such a civilised society, the recent terror attacks in Paris however has reminded me how very precious a peaceful society is.
I was only able to finish Wuthering Heights, with the help of Patricia Routledge's audio recording. Her Yorkshire accent made the conversational text understandable. I did get in a bit of a muddle with the characters as Emily Bronte's clever story spans a few generations. I was given some very good advice recently about making notes of the characters and I would advise anyone who has not read this to draw out a family tree so as to not get in a muddle with who is who. I would read this again, it is brilliant!
I am giving classic literature a rest for a while but now that I have got a taste for it, I have so much that I want to read. I am currently reading Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood, so I will write about that one in my next blog post.
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