Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

This book surprised me.  I have read a few books by Edith Wharton, and they were all set among New York high society.  This book is set in rural New England and deals with very poor people, which was a big change.  The narrative set-up of the story felt very awkward to me.  The narrator is a visitor to the town who meets the older Ethan Frome and tells the story that happened many years earlier as he learned it.  It doesn't feel like a realistic device as it is never clear how he could possibly have learned the story he tells.  The story is about Ethan Frome, who married a "sickly" woman who is tyrannical in her bad humor and her sickness.  She has a distant cousin who has come to help take care of her, who is a charming, happy young girl.  Ethan falls in love with her, and she with him.  (This reads strangely, since Frome wonders and worries about whether she feels the same about him in one chapter, and then in the next it seems their relationship is a foregone conclusion.)  The wife seems to suspect them, but regardless of what she knows, she makes it so the cousin has to leave.  Ethan wants to leave with her but doesn't feel he can.  On their way to the train station, they detour to take a ride on a sled.  The girl suggests they kill themselves by crashing into a tree on the sled, which they try.  Instead they are horribly crippled.  In the end of the story, they all three still live together in the same house, and the wife and young girl are both querulous invalids, although the wife improved after the accident.  

Obviously, it is a very depressing story!  Wharton loves to write about forbidden love, which she usually does in an interesting way, even if it isn't my favorite topic.  I felt like she wasn't as aware of her characters and their lives as she usually is in her society settings.  And I really didn't like the conclusion.  It's really short, though, and an easy read, so it is probably still worth the short amount of time it takes just for its classic aspects.

McTeague by Frank Norris

I didn't like this book.  I found it interesting at the beginning but then it got long and kind of boring.  And then it ended in a very unpleasant manner!  It tells the story a small-town dentist who is happy with his simple life.  He marries a miserly wife and they struggle financially.  Everything just goes downhill.  McTeague ends up beating his wife to death.  At the end of the book, McTeague is handcuffed to the dead body of the man who was a rival for his wife's affections.  He is in the middle of the desert without any water and no way to escape.

It took me a very long time to read, partly because for a large part of it, I didn't want to read it.  It is a sad story as McTeague degenerates from the dull-witted but simple man he was into a criminal.  This book isn't worth the large amount of time it takes to read it.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Dickens is always lengthy and wordy, so it takes a pretty big time commitment to get through one of his novels.  Great Expectations isn't my favorite but it is good.  I don't like the heroine in the story, which is probably why it isn't my favorite.  If you don't dislike Estella, this could easily be one of your favorite Dickens books.  The hero, Pip, has some really whiny moments when it's hard to like or even understand him.  I'm sure some of that is his reactions belong in a different time and society situation that we don't understand in this day and age.  As usual for Dickens, there are many fabulous side characters including the marvelously memorable Miss Haversham.

It is an enjoyable read and is very well written but be prepared to spend a lot of time because it takes a long time to get through it.

Lay Down My Sword and Shield by James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke is an excellent writer.  His prose is descriptive and poetic.  However, his characters tend to have tragic flaws, often stemming from alcoholism.  This early Burke story tells of the young adulthood of  Hackberry Holland, the sheriff in Rain Gods.  I found the first part of the book hard to handle as Mr. Holland drank constantly and engaged in stupid behavior.  And what I really struggled with was that he seemed to think his behavior was good and appropriate and continued to think so even at the end of the story when he is making better choices.  I still enjoyed the story because of Burke's writing, and he manages to make his very flawed characters sympathetic and even admirable as they try to be heroic and do the right thing in spite of their weaknesses. 

This book is shorter than many of Burke's works, so it reads pretty quickly.  I preferred Holland in Rain Gods and would recommend the Dave Robicheaux novels to new readers of Burke rather than either of the Holland books, but this one is still worth the time.

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

This book surprised me.  It was awfully realistic for a novel by a Bronte sister!  Like Jane Eyre, it is the story of a young woman, Agnes Grey, who becomes a governess in Victorian England.  She works for two different families during the story and struggles with the resulting experiences.  She ends up starting a school with her mother.

I enjoyed this book.  The prose is simple and straightforward.  Sometimes it is clever and witty.  It is a fairly long book but reads really easily, so it goes quickly.  It is worth the time.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

I have seen so many different film adaptations of this story that I felt pretty confident I already knew how the book was going to go.  It was still something of a revelation, though, as there are many details that I hadn't ever seen before.  And the original ending of the book isn't usually copied in the more modern versions.  Twain focuses a great deal on the nature of Hank, the main character who is an engineer from New England.  He is transported back in time where he uses his knowledge of modern technology to portray himself as a magician.  He is eventually prosecuted by the Catholic church because of his power.  Merlin casts a spell on him that makes him sleep for a millenia and return to his own time.

It certainly isn't Twain's best book, but it is interesting.  It has Twain's signature satirical humor in larger quanities than Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, but I didn't find the story nearly as entertaining as those other novels.  It is worth the time if you're a fast reader and can get through it quickly, but if you're a slower reader who will have to labor through it, it probably isn't worth it.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

I love Jane Austen, but this is one of my less favorite of her books.  It is a spoof on the Gothic romance novel genre that was popular while Austen was writing her books.  Catherine Moreland, a "heroine in training" visits Bath with family friends and receives an invitation to visit an abbey that belongs to Henry Tilney, her romantic interest.  Since she is a big fan of the gothic novel, she expects the abbey to be exciting and imagines many dark and dramatic scenarios involving the Tilney family, which as you'd imagine is not very popular with the Tilney family.  There is enough actual drama in the story without Catherine imagining more as she is pursued by two suitors, and her brother's fiance carries on a flirtation with Henry's dissolute older brother.  Things turn out all right in the end.

Catherine has likeable moments; i.e. calling herself a "heroine in training" and being charmingly naive about improper behavior, but a lot of the time her imagination and gothic obsession make her a bit annoying.  Northanger Abbey was Austen's first completed novel and in spite of many revisions before its publication, it shows that Austen was less experienced at the time and hadn't really developed her distinct humorous style.  It's a quick easy read that is still probably worth the time, but if you're new to Austen, read a different book first.