Literary 1921-1940 Vote • May 2016

[sun surfer]

Help choose the May 2016 selection to read for the MR Literary Club!


Select from the following works:


Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, 1925
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 230 pages

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

Heralded as Virginia Woolf's greatest novel, this is a vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life. When we meet her, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with remembrances of faraway times. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.

"Mrs. Dalloway was the first novel to split the atom. If the novel before Mrs. Dalloway aspired to immensities of scope and scale, to heroic journeys across vast landscapes, with Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf insisted that it could also locate the enormous within the everyday; that a life of errands and party-giving was every bit as viable a subject as any life lived anywhere; and that should any human act in any novel seem unimportant, it has merely been inadequately observed. The novel as an art form has not been the same since.

"Mrs. Dalloway also contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, and that alone would be reason enough to read it. It is one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century."
--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen, 1938
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 366 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations.

In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London.There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal--and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

Limits and Renewals by Rudyard Kipling, 1932
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 271 pages

Spoiler:

The note from the cover of Bookpossum's copy reads as follows:

Limits and Renewals was Rudyard Kipling's last collection of stories. There are, as so often, fourteen of them, interspersed with apposite poems. The subjects are familiar, humorous, sometimes bizarre, incidents told in the ironic, allusive dialogue that only Kipling could write. There are stories of Early Christians, of "The Woman in his Life" (who is, of course, a dog) of various kinds of practical jokes, a charming anecdote of a village priest and village atheist. But these stories were written after the Great War and Kipling's loss of his only son, when he was old and often in pain. It is not surprising, though not immediately obvious, that he was obsessed with the problem of pain at this time and also with the "breaking strain" that a man can take. A more rewarding theme in this book is the value of love, the salvation of personality through loving - rather than being loved.

You can download a copy of it from the Adelaide University ebook site here:
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/

A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, 1939
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 286 pages

Spoiler:

Alison Uttley is well known for her children’s stories such as those featuring the Little Grey Rabbit and Sam the Pig. She also wrote books for older readers and one of the finest is the wonderful YA novel, "A Traveller In Time", published in 1939 and a classic of its genre. The book uses the device of “time slip”--which is the fantasy equivalent of the time travel devices used in science-fiction. Time slips involve some transferral of consciousness to a different time period. In this case the heroine goes back to the period of Mary Queen of Scots and the terrible Babington Plot.

What happens to the physical body during a time slip? In Uttley’s book Penelope has a physical existence in the 16th century and while she is there, time apparently stops in the 20th century. However, it seems in one important section, things that happen to her in one time zone apparently can have physical effects on her in the other. The time slips themselves are beautifully presented with excellent linkages between the two ages.

Uttley came from the area where all the historical events take place and she has a remarkable precision and selection of detail which makes the world of this novel stand out with wonderful clarity. the writing is beautiful and there is a dream-like quality which is quite haunting.

*

Guidelines-

Spoiler:

The poll will be open for three days and a discussion thread will begin shortly after a winner is chosen.

The vote is multiple choice. You may vote for as many or as few as you like. If you vote for the winner it is hoped that you will read the selection with the club and join in the discussion.

Bonus votes: When the poll ends, bonus votes will be manually added before determining final results. Basically, anyone who has commented in two out of the last six discussion threads is eligible for bonus votes, and everyone eligible will have any votes cast doubled.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to vote if interested in participating in the literary club whether eligible for bonus votes or not, and anyone interested in bonus votes is encouraged to become eligible as it doesn’t take much.

Currently eligible-
AnotherCat, bfisher, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl, caleb72, fantasyfan, HomeInMyShoes, issybird, sun surfer

This includes posts thus far in the September to February discussion threads.
*There are a few caveats to eligibility as outlined in this post.
**If anyone feels there is any mistake in eligibility, please let me know before the poll is over. Once the poll ends and the tally with bonus votes added is announced, the results will be final.

In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day single-choice run-off poll. If the run-off also ends in a tie, then the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.

[Bookpossum]

This is tough, as I would be happy with any of the four, but I have been meaning to read the Woolf for ages, so it got the tick, along with Kipling.

[Bookworm_Girl]

This is tough! I'm still trying to decide since there is no point to voting for all of them!

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

This is tough, as I would be happy with any of the four, but I have been meaning to read the Woolf for ages, so it got the tick, along with Kipling.

Exactly my thoughts. Have always been meaning to read Woolf. Additionally I plan to read The Hours next year so this will be a great prelude.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I read samples yesterday but they were all great so that didn't help! I decided to do my typical vote for 50%. I stuck with ones I had nominated since they are authors I haven't read before.

[sun surfer]

It looks like we aren't afraid of Virginia Woolf, at least. Mrs. Dalloway it is. I'll have the discussion thread up within a day.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

It looks like we aren't afraid of Virginia Woolf, at least. Mrs. Dalloway it is. I'll have the discussion thread up within a day.

Definitely not!

[fantasyfan]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

It looks like we aren't afraid of Virginia Woolf, at least. Mrs. Dalloway it is. I'll have the discussion thread up within a day.

Well, I'm still a bit afraid of her! She takes me well out of my comfort zone. But then, this is a literary club and it should do that from time-to-time.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

Well, I'm still a bit afraid of her! She takes me well out of my comfort zone. But then, this is a literary club and it should do that from time-to-time.

Be brave, fantasyfan, we are all in it together!

[AnotherCat]

Mmmmmm, this is going to be easy for me for 2 reasons

1. I read Dalloway just a couple of months ago. So the hard bit is done and dusted.

2. There is very little good that I can say about it from my point of view, and I am not going spend much time writing about the poor (in my opinion) (as a hint, a Hans Christian Anderson tale comes to mind)