Tag: classics around the world 2025

Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

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Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust (in search of lost time Volume 1)

French fiction

Original title – Du côté de chez Swann

Translation by C.K Scott Moncrieff and Terrance Kilmartin (revised by D .J Enright )

Source – Personal copy

I have joined in the read-along of the Proust that is going along this year. I have done well to get so far, I am not the most organised at readalong which is why I haven’t done one since my rarther Shambolic Don Quixote many years ago which was a bit of a shambles. I have taken a two-pronged act on this book. I have read the modern library book and then listened to the free edition on Audible. This is the third time I have read the book. I will discuss Proust more in the other books, and I have five other posts to cover the man himself. Of course, this book has the most famous moment on the book, the Madeline moment. Of course, their book is about some themes in 5the books such as class, love, memory, a world in change, and family, so many it is hard to convey.

As she was the only member of our family who could be described as a trifle “common,” she would always take care to remark to strangers, when Swann was mentioned, that he could easily, had he so wished, have lived in the Boulevard Haussmann or the Avenue de l’Opéra, and that he was the son of old M. Swann who must have left four or five million francs, but that it was a fad of his. A fad which, moreover, she thought was bound to amuse other people so much that in Paris, when M. Swann called on New Year’s Day bringing her a little packet of marrons glacés, she never failed, if there were strangers in the room, to say to him: “Well, M. Swann, and do you still live next door to the bonded warehouse, so as to be sure of not missing your train when you go to Lyons?” and she would peep out of the corner of her eye, over her glasses, at the other visitors.

Young Marcel remebers the Swann visiting his family

The book shows the young boy Marcel, and when he has the famous cake, he returns to his boyhood years and summers at Combray. The many summers spent there, and of course, this is where we get introduced to Swann, the leading figure late in the book. We see the house where he spent his summer, his Aunt, one of those figures who knows everything, all the gossip and the world around her, and her ever-faithful servant for me, these good characters in Downton Abbey. Parisian families in the country have excellent descriptions of parties and the class system. But who is Mrs Swann? As she never came, the path he used to walk had names. The book then focuses on Swann, a man who is in demand but falls for a woman called Odette. He meets a family he has a metal with and becomes obsessed with not just that but also who she is meeting and what his very gesture means towards Swann. Then, in the later part of the book, we return to our narrator and his love for Swann’s daughter and his hunt for the mysterious Mrs Swann ? is she who we think she is? Now, an older woman with grey hair just stops, but is this woman the same in the middle part of the book?

The reality that I had known no longer existed. It sufficed that Mme Swann did not appear, in the same attire and at the same moment, for the whole avenue to be altered. The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.

The last lines of the book I loved

I’m teasing a bit there, and this is just a quick view of the book it is a book you sink into the world of parties, artists, money, love and class. Where falling for one woman can cost a man so much. But this is also an age where their world is changing, but they don’t know it is also a world where you listen to music, look at pictures, read, and talk about all this. For anyone under thirty-five, this world may seem more distant than it did to me. I know there is a book of paintings in the book, which I hope to get at some point, but here is a question is the book about the music in the book that gathers it together. As I mentioned,e I am not a huge classical fan. But if there was a playlist of the music mentioned in the book, that would be great. I love the main narrator, a sickly book that loves his mother. Proust paints himself as this sickly boy in Cambrey awaiting a mother kiss so well. You feel for him when he doesn’t get one. Swann is a fascinating figure who makes everyone he seems to come into contact with talk about him. She also has this obsession with Odette, how she may have spent time with other men, and how she may view him. I no move on to within a budding grove. What did you like about Swann’s way ?

The Waterfalls of Slunj by Heimito Von Doderer

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The Waterfalls of Slunj by Heimito Von Doderer

Austrian Fiction

Original title – Die Wasserfälle Von Slunj

Translators – Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser

Source – Personal copy

I’m back on with a classic, I will still be trying to read mainly classic this year. Oddly, today is the first day I have felt my usual bookish self this year. This year, I have struggled to read, blog, and use social media. So I was so happy I managed to sit earlier and read under pages in a coffee shop. Thought about the upcoming weeks. One of the books I struggled to get through this year was by Austrian writer Heimito Von Doderer. He was born into a privileged family at the time, one of the wealthiest families in Austria. I have two other books, the one that came out from NYRB a while ago and the genuinely epic two-volume The Demons, which was republished by an American publisher and has over 1000 pages. This book was meant to be a multi-volume series, but he only wrote this, and the second volume was published after he died. So we are thrown into The Tale, the end of the Austor Hungarian Empire. The book was meant to be seven books from 1880 – 1960, but only the first two were released.

However, all these rather grand houses, each standing alone at the edge of the grassy park, suffered from the same fundamental trouble. They were damp. Their basements were dank as dungeons. But just at this time, when the Claytons settled down here, a Vienna firm put on the market a drying-stove of a new design. The poster by means of which this new product was brought to the public notice was terrifying. It showed the new stove standing in the gloom of a cellar, its maw fiery; from the left and the right side of the stove there grew arms with fists uplifted; and from this monster panic-stricken toadstools and mildewy hobgoblins were fleeing, their faces contorted with mortal fear, while the wildly flickering rays of ferocious heat from the stove’s mouth pursued them in their headlong flight, decimating them. One could scarcely help feeling sorry for these doomed creatures, these little galloping fungus legs, wailing toadstools, and hurrying vapors. That poster of the stove with the threatening, whirling fists was to be seen in Vienna for many years. It was still there in the time of little Donald Clayton.

Grand House was a world the writer grew up in !

The book follows the Claytons and the English industrialist family trying to set up and move into the Austro-Hungarian with their new Office in Vienna. Along with this, the title of the book comes from the fact. Early in the book, Robert and Harriet, the parents of the two main characters, their sons Robert and Donald, spend the Honeymoon at the Hotel at the Falls, located in Croatia. This book sees the sons setting up the factory and the people working in the factory [particularly Chwostik, the deputy director of the Factory, who used to live with p[prostitutes. The factory makes agricultural machinery and, in some shadow,s actual companies working there at the time. It captures the later end of the 19th century as the world suddenly sped up. As we see how, all, this world is a lot of characters and, in a way, memories of the time. It all stems from the Claytons, the father and his sons.An epic book that also has a bit of humour at times and sees a world long gone and, as it was happening, was doomed, which I love to read.

At this point in developments a gingerly key was inserted into the lock (Münsterer always went about very quietly here, without himself knowing why; perhaps it was a sort of echo of his reverence for Chwostik that made him behave in this way).

He did of course also hear the voices that came from the room now his, for the door was open. At the same instant he realized, in retrospect, that the front door had opened when he had turned the key once; so it had only been shut, not locked. He could hear his stepmother talking. She had simply walked into his room with someone (new tenant?), and there she was talking; and he came slinking in like a dog. Now he could make out what she was saying: “… yes, that’s how it is, sir, it’s for my stepson, who lives with us, and us having no room for ourselves as it is. He wants to get married. In the post office, he is.”

But our poor Münsterer did not merely slink, he also kept his mouth shut. He was an underling of caretakerdom, the advance guard of caretakerdom, a pawn in Frau Wewerka’s sphere of influence (homo conciergificatus Wewercae

Chwostik the depty from the factory is anothher main character part from the Claytons

I think this is one of those books you drift in. It has a style that drifts like memories can drift. There is a feeling of Freud in the background of the book. It is one of those books in a notebook that is handy with the characters to keep track of them. But also, it is a world that is now gone. It uses both the personal world of the Claytons and the dying Empire like the river that follows over the fall clashing and mixing this is a book that was the start of what would have been a truly epic book I feel it captures the world before world war one. This book captures the historical and societal changes around the Claytons. Have you read any of his books?

The frolics of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima

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The Frolics of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima

Japanese fiction

Original title – Kemono no Tawamure

Translator Andrew Clare

Source – Personal copy

I’ve struggled with the books by Yukio Mishima over the time I have blogged. In that time I have read two books by him, the first is The Sailor Fell into the Sea, I really didn’t get on with the other, The Sound of the Waves I enjoyed slightly more, I have several books by him and could read another, but this is a shorter book by him, and also I do like the new penguin cover of the book it is pretty eye-catching. But I struggled with the structure of this book, which seemed very disjointed. I want to love it, and I like the cover of this book. But found it just a book I never felt fully connected to I see it was initially a part work when it came out I can see this as each chapter tens to be a little world in itself but also jumps from time to time. both of which in other books I have read I haven;t mind but just for me as a reader didn;t work in this book.

That summer’s day, which had begun with the assignation at the hospital – Yüko carrying her sky-blue parasol – and which had culminated in the incident at nine o’clock in the evening, took place some six months after Koji had first met Yüko. That is to say, it occurred after he had taken a shop delivery around to Ippei’s residence in Shibashirogane, where he first made her acquaintance.

The more frequent their meetings, the more Koji felt driven to despair, right from the start of the days they were scheduled to meet. It was as if a cold torrent was beginning to flow clamor-ously in his innermost heart, and he hated himself more than he had done on any other morning. The request for a date would always come from him, and he would importune her before approval was eventually obtained. Moreover, Yuko would take him along only on shopping excursions, trips out for lunch, or else to a dance if he was lucky, and then she would promptly leave whenever it suited her.

Yuko time with Koji

 

The book takes. Noh play as the books origin. The book follows a trio of characters Yauko a woman that has captured the heart of two men and this is ahwat the book rdeals with is the outfalling of this the two men Koji he had attacked Yuko older husband Ippei  and this lead to him going to prison, So when Koji goes to live with the couple after his release too me just didn’t make sense and how Ippei a violent man that mistreats his wife is as a character. I get the fact the characters in a way have to be this as part of the Noh tradition the extreme nature of the characters. But for me it is a book with lots of violence that jumps around a bit and I just wasn’t grabbed by this book at all

Yüko was wearing a Java calico blouse and yellow slacks and, because of the rocky mountain paths ahead, had on a pair of flat-heeled Moroccan leather walking shoes. Ippei was in a state of disarray. He was attired in a white open-collared shirt and knickerbockers, checkered socks and slip-ons and a large straw hat. At his side he carried a stout stick. Naturally Köji, who wore jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, carried the camera and the basket containing their lunch boxes and tea flasks. At normal walking speed, it ought to have taken them about thirty minutes to the waterfall, but going at Ippei’s pace, Koji estimated it would take at least an hour. In the end, it took some two hours.

Some of the decriptions I d like but that was about it

 

I think it rare I really don’t get on with a book some of this may be my view of the writer himself he was a character that had a very colourful life but was also very right wing and a number of his views are very against my own personal ideas. He wrote on his admiration of Hitler so I do wonder how many of his other books I may be bothered to read. I feel I had to read him as given the current state of the world with Nationaalist politics and right wing values and views seemingly taking over the world. Makes me a Leftist with my views of how we should all help one another and try make our world a little better. I will always struggle like other writers Celine etc , I will try from time to time but II do wonder without some telling me what is so great about his toerh books this will be my last Mishima for a good while. Have you a writer you struggle with due to them as a person and there views in there life ?

The Doctor’s Wife by Sawe=ako Ariyoshi

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The Doctor’s Wife by Sawako Ariyoshi

Japanese Fiction

Original Title: *Hanaoka Seishū no tsuma*

Translators: Wakako Hirinaka and Ann Silver Kostant

Source: Personal copy

 

I move on to the first of two Japanese classics I have read for this year, January in Japan. The first book is based on the true story of a Japanese doctor who was among the pioneers in using anesthetics in 18th century Japan. Sawako Ariyoshi was highly regarded in her time as a writer, and it’s refreshing to read a book by a female author known for addressing social issues that many other writers have avoided.

 

This book offers insight into a complex triangle of relationships: husband to wife, mother to son, and mother to daughter-in-law. We see these dynamics unfold through the life of Rae, the daughter-in-law and wife at the centre of the story. The life of Rae she is the daughter-in-law and wife at the centre of this book. Her view of the Mother in Law who she idolized before she married her son.

Naomichi was saying: “I assure you, Western medicine will be coming to our country very soon. It was predicted by my teacher, Iwanaga Bangen, when I was his student in Osaka. I think he was right. Because I learned Western methods with him, I can talk with confidence about Japan’s medical future, as if I were taking its pulse. In Edo, Dr. Yamawaki Toyo initiated the idea of dissecting the bodies of dead prisoners; the present teacher, Sugita Genpaku, has been pursuing certain Dutch methods which depend on a complete examination of a person’s body before a diagnosis is pronounced; this is different from the Chinese approach which relies heavily on the pulse. Ah! The human body is a creative masterpiece. Just look at our fingertips. What a composition of delicate nerve tissue and fluids! …

His use of herbs is a mix of tradtion and want to use a western technique in a way

As I said, the story follows Kae growing up and how Otsugithe, mother of Seishu, is considered a rare beauty, one of the most beautiful women in the provinces. We see Kae admiring this Ambitious woman. So when her family is approached by Otsugi to let Kae marry her son Seishu, it seems perfect until she then sees the other side of her now mother-in-law, her overbearing nature. She shows how they both help Seishu as he starts to try different herbs, such as a herbal Anthisesis. Some of this is hard to read when he uses Animals. On the other hand, it is interesting to see how far back it was that it was starting to be used or tried as a way to perform simple operations. One Seishu is trying is surgery to remove breast cancer. The two women in his life seem struck being rivals and get jealous of one another when he pays attention to the other one. As we see the young Kae try and take over from her mother-in-law in her husband’s life. But both have given up a lot to be at Seishu’s side as he tries to make a breakthrough.

The normal routine resumed the day atter the wedding.

Okatsu and Koriku did the cooking and laundry under their mother’s supervision while the maid cleaned and cared for the younger children. Shimomura Ryoan performed various duties for the doctor since the women and children were not allowed to so much as touch the drawers containing medical supplies.

Little time, however, was required to prepare the simple meals and straighten up the small house, so that most of the daily tasks were quickly completed. Now, the Hanaokas kept some looms on the veranda and a spinning wheel in a nearby storage area.

When their chores were done, the older girls, skilled at weav-ing, went off and worked at the looms without a break until dinner. Their special weave used dyed threads that Kae surmised must have come from the Matsumotos.

The normal world for a female in these times caught some what here

This book had been on my shelves for too long. I loved the interplay between the three main characters as the two women struggle to find their place and meaning in a male world. Add to that the cutting-edge nature of Seishu research and trying to get a herbal anthesis. The Progress he find will bring to help women with Breast Cancer. But this is at the cost of Animals and, in the end, family members as he tries to make a breakthrough. The moral nature of what he has to do to discover how he can save lives using his discovery.  It also tackles the role of females in Japanese society at the time it is set. Through the two women’s eyes and how they are treated in a male world. Have you read this or any other book based on a partly true story? Or another book by this writer ?

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov

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Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov

Russian fiction

Original title – Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uyezda

Translator – Robert Chandler

Source – Personal copy

One of the aims of this year was to get more familiar with Russian Classics. I read War and Peace early on in the blog, and she and there have read a number of other books that have come from the likes of Pushkin Press when they have brought out a new collection of stories by a writer or a new Translation. However, this writer may not be as well-known as other writers on the same page. He was well-regarded among his fellow Russian writers but was never taken in the English-speaking world. This book is better known for being the basis of Shostakovich’s Opera, which is based around the book, and a few years ago, there was a film made of the novella as well. Leskov had a Harder upbringing than some of his fellow Russian writers. He worked as a clerk in the criminal court. He climbed and eventually was able to get a transfer to Kyiv. He ultimately went to work for a private company and got drawn into journalism and then to literary writing. He is known for his wordplay. There is an excellent LRB podcast about this book with Robert Chandler, the book’s translator.

Katerina Lvovna was not exactly a beauty, but there was something pleasing about her nevertheless. She was only in her twenty-fourth year; she was short but shapely, with a neck that could have been sculpted from marble; she had graceful shoulders and a firm bosom; her nose was straight and fine, her eyes black and lively, and she had a high white forehead and black, almost blue-black hair. Herself from Tuskar in the province of Kursk, she had been given in marriage to a local merchant by the name of Izmailov; she did not, however, love him or feel any attraction towards him – it was simply that he had asked for her hand and she, being poor, could not afford to be choosy. The Izmailov family was of no small importance in our town: they traded in white flour, rented a large mill in the district, and owned profitable orchards on the outskirts of town as well as a fine town house. In short, they were well-to-do. Moreover, they were not a large family: there was only the father-in-law, Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov, a man of nearly eighty who had long been a widower; Katerina Lvovna’s husband, Zinovy Borisovich, who was a little over fifty; and Katerina Lvovna herself. That was all. Although Katerina Lvovna and Zinovy Borisovich had been married for five years, they still had no children.

The children or lack of is mentioned by her father in Law

This book is one of those books that, when you finish it, you go through all that happened in so few Pages. The book follows Katerina Lvovna, a wife of a much older man. By marriage, he is away working after the book’s opening, and we see how her husband’s father, Boris, wants children. He tells her how Zinovy has already been through a wife and is pushing his young wife for a child. But when a dam breaks on one of his properties, Katerina is left home alone. She has the house to herself, and as she is alone, she eventually starts a relationship with the Steward who has Left Sergei. She flirts with him, But she is told he is a womaniser. But when she is caught with Sergei in the bed with him by her father-in-law Boris. This one event sets her on a path of killing people and a series of events that change the whole course of her life and her connection over the years that follow. Sergei it shows a one-sided affair with a man who is more interested in Women than romance. But the knock-on effect on the woman that loves him. A Lady Macbeth indeed.

‘I know very well, master, where I’ve just been, and I advise you, Boris Timofeyevich, to listen to me and mark my words: what’s done can’t be undone, and it’s best not to bring shame on one’s own house. What do you want of me? What satistaction do you require?”

‘I want, you viper, to give you five hundred strokes of the lash, said Boris Timofeyevich.

I’m the culprit, you’re the judge. Tell me where I’m to go – and do as you wish. Drink the blood from my veins.’ Boris Timofeyevich led Sergei down to his stone storeroom and lashed him with a whip until the strength gave out in his arm. Sergei didn’t even let out a groan, though he chewed through half of his shirtsleeve.

When they get caught by Boris

I haven’t seen the opera or film of this book. I will be watching the film at some point. I have found it online. The title shows how rare it is for a woman to kill like Lady Macbeth, and here we see Katerina do it. We see a woman driven by the desire for both desire and freedom. But then the unravelling after what happens when they are caught by Boris, both her decision to kill him and also the long-term relationship between Katerina and Sergei. It shows how females struggle to break free of marriage when trapped in one. How by her father in law she is viewed as a baby-making machine. Then there is her relationship with Sergei, a womaniser, but she never quite sees it. She is blind to him until the end of the book!! I would be interested to see if Robert Chandler has done any more books by him. I like the other translations he has read over the years. Have you read Leskov?

Mozart’s Journey to Prague by Eduard Mörike

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Mozart’s Journey to Prague by Eduard Mörike

German Literature

Original title – Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag

Translator –Leopold von Loewenstein-Wertheim

Source – Personal copy

I moved away from France in my year of Classics and went to Germany for a short, quirky novel written by Eduard Mörike, a Lutherananutherinan priest who studied in Tübinghen when he passed his Theology degree, he became a Vicart in a rural parish, but over time his writing took over he was considered one of the best lyrical poets of his time,. This book ends with one of his poems and Imagines a Day in the Life of the composer Mozart as he heads to Prague for the premiere of his Opera Don Giovanni. Happens to steal a bitter orange off a tree. This book has been made into film and A radio play in Germany over the years.

Most Gracious Lady,

Here I sit, a wretch in your paradise, like Adam after he had eaten the apple. The damage has been done and I cannot even blame Eve, who at this very moment is innocently sleeping in a four-poster at the inn, with Cupids and Graces hovering around. Command me, your Ladyship, I am at your disposal to answer for my extraordinary misdeed.

In sincere confusion, your Ladyship’s humble servant,

W.A. Mozart,

on his way to Prague.

He handed the note rather clumsily folded to the uneasily waiting servant and told him to deliver it to the Countess.

The letter he wrote after getting caught having the orange

We see Mozart heading with his wife, Constance, from Vienna to Prague. When they stop at a country estate mid-route, and Mozart sees an Orange on a bitter orange tree, he takes it but is seen by the estate Gardener. He then writes them a letter of apology (I love that there is still a time when the written word is needed to make peace with the local gentry, sow ehn the countess invites them for the night to stop with them Mozart and his wife to spend the evening with them. The count is celebrating his Niece Eugenie’s engagement. So, as the couple fit in, Mastero is asked to play them a piece from his forthcoming opera, which he is happy to do. But as this happens, Eugenie sees something troubling in Mastero’s future. Will his Art finally eat him up? This leaves Mozart questioning his life and how entwined his life and music are!

“I feel,” whispered Eugenie with shining eyes, while everyone expressed their approval of what they had just heard, “that we have seen a whole symphony in colour, a perfect example of the spirit of Mozart in its gayest guise. Don’t we see the whole charm and gracefulness of Figaro in this?”

Her fiancé was about to convey this remark to Mozart when the latter continued:

“Seventeen years have now gone by since I last saw Italy,” he said, “but who, having once seen it, especially Naples, would not think of it for the rest of his life – even if he had been no more than a child as I was. But never before has the memory of that beautiful evening in the Gulf of Naples returned to me so vividly as today in your garden. When I shut my eyes – brilliant, distinct and clear, without the thinnest veil to obscure it – the divine landscape lay before me: the sea, the coast, the mountains, the city, the colourful crowds lining the shore and then that strange fantastic ball game over the water.

His music sparks the family he is playing for

I will hold my hand up I am not a substantial Classical fan I have tried over the years and am aware of Mozart and his career in parts. So, for me, this was one of those books that I had to turn to and have a deep dive into his music and the opera and how it all fitted in on his timeline, especially with Eugenie’s talk of Mozart dying and his life. Mörike actually mixes the facts of the events up in his novella. But at the book’s heart is the connection between the  Mastero’s life and music. A life we were all reading was short, but he didn’t know this until the small glimpse from Eugenie into his future. This book can be read in the evening. It is what Peirene calls a film book and can be read in a couple of hours. If you like classical music, you will get more out of it than I would. I do have DSenis Forman’s Night at the Opera, a book that I picked up, so when I need context around a work of Opera, I can see what he said. This was at the time after his last opera wasn’t well received in Vienna; he was now Prague’s golden boy. Have you read this fun little novella?

Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide

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Strait at the Gate by Andre Gide

French Fiction

Original title -La Porte Étroite

Translator Dorothy Bussy

Source – Personal Copy

I pondered where to start this year, and I looked. Among those writers, I have the most books from is Andre Gide, but it had been too long since I picked him up and read a book by him . Then I thought I hadn’t seen his books around as much as you would twenty years ago. He seemed the perfect first choice for this year of reading classics and modern classics.  Gide won the Nobel in 1947 and was a hugely influential writer. When he wrote openly gay, he challenged the religious view of the timehe was brought up in. a strict religious background and a lot of his writing is him kicking against this view this book is an example of that.

My whole life was decided by that moment: even to this day I cannot recall it without a pang of anguish. Doubtless I understood very imperfectly the cause of Alissa’s wretchedness, but I felt intensely that that wretchedness was far too strong for her little quivering soul, for her fragile body, shaken with sobs.

I remained standing beside her, while she remained on her knees. I could express nothing of the unfamiliar transport of my breast, but I pressed her head against my heart, and I pressed my lips to her forehead, while my whole soul came flooding through them. Drunken with love, with pity, with an indistinguishable mixture of enthusiasm, of self-sacrifice, of virtue, Iappealed to God with all my strength – I offered myself up to Him, unable to conceive that existence could have any other object than to shelter this child from fear, from evil, from life.

I knelt down at last, my whole being full of prayer. I gathered her to me; vaguely I heard her say:

“Jerome! They didn’t see you, did they? Oh! go away quickly. They mustn’t see you.’

Not long after he arricves this connection happens

What happens when cousins live under the same roof when they are just at that age when we notice the other sex? This is what happens in the book we see Aiissa and Jerome. When Jerome comes to live with Alissa and her family on the northern coast of France. These events mirrored some events in Gides’s life when he was this age and drawn to a family member. They are drawn to each other, but at the same time, Alissa’s mother is having an affair. Add to this, ALissa is being brought up in a strict religious education. It all becomes too much for other young girls, and she seeks to escape from human connection and the world through religion and turns towards being without love. The book follows the years after this and the fact that Alissa’s sister is actually in love with Jerome, but he never notices it until much later. She carries his torch for him. Life takes twists and turns, most told through letters and meetings over time.

Was I alone to feel the spur of emulation? I do not think that Alissa was touched by it, or that she did anything for my sake or for me, though all my efforts were only for her. Everything in her unaffected and artless soul was of the most natural beauty. Her virtue seemed like relaxation, so much there was in it of ease and grace. The gravity of her look was made charming by her childlike smile; I recall that gently and tenderly inquiring look, as she raised her eyes, and can understand how my uncle, in his distress, sought support and counsel and comfort from his elder daughter. In the summer that followed I often saw him talking to her. His grief had greatly aged him; he spoke little at meals, or sometimes displayed a kind of forced gaiety which was more painful than his silence.

He remained smoking in his study until the hour of the evening when Alissa would go to fetch him.

the aftermath of her mothers affair have a knock on effect

What I found odd about this when I read it was that it mirrored Evelyn Waugh’s religious guilt of unrequited love traits in his books. I also thought of those triangles of connections in Brideshead, with love drifting between family members over the years or unseen. I wonder if Waugh had read this book?  It captures those years when you can see a connection with distant family members or classmates just before you hit high school. Those first sowings of love can often run deep or, like here, cause a knock-on effect. He is showing the effect religion can have on people, the leprosy of it all. I can also see how Waugh and Gide are at different ends of the spectrum. Unrequited love and religion can give writers at opposite sides of the divide a lot to write about. I did look to see if they were connected and found Waugh hated Giude. Still, for me, the parallels within a family can be seen, especially the other sister’s love for Jerome echos the scenes in Brideshead where Charles and Julia are drawn close, but then the other sister turns to religion but also seems to have a flame for Charles. This shows how my mind can connect two books together in a way. What do you think? I think I will return to Gide and may have a call with Waugh before the year is out !!