Favorite Fiction--2016

Some favorite works of fiction I read during 2016,

FIRST READS

Sarah Orne Jewett:
                  The Country of Pointed Firs
                   --my first reading of her masterpiece.  Why did I take so long to get to it?
                   --this is on my must reread list.

                   A Country Doctor
                   --this one is a bit weaker than the first, but still an excellent read. and better     
                      than 90% of the other works I've read this year.


Joseph Conrad:  Suspense
 --an unfinished novel set in the Napoleonic era.
 --a traveler gets involved with a plot of Napoleon's escape from Elba.

Ray Bradbury:         Farewell Summer

--the sequel to Dandelion Wine.  The tone is different in this one.  The boy resists growing up.

Graham Greene:    The Human Factor
--a spy novel.  The unmasking of a mole in the British secret service, told from the mole's point of view.

Nathaniel Hawthorne:: The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories
--a collection of some of Hawthorne's most well-known short works.
--decided to leave this in the First Reads grouping as there were several short stories that I hadn't read before.


Kazuo Ishiguro:   The Remains of the Day

--a great novel of repression and fear of commitment, set against the backdrop of WWII.   

--his master is a Nazi sympathizer and the butler refuses to go against his master for he  is the master.

REREADS:


Jane Austen:
                   Lady Susan/The Watsons/Sanditon
                   Northanger Abbey
                   Mansfield Park
                   Emma
                   Sense and Sensibility
                   Persuasion
                   Pride and Prejudice

--as always, great reading.  This was my fifth? sixth? who knows how many readings I've had of her works over the years.  They are just as good, if not better, the fifth? time around as the first.

A. Solzhenitsyn:   One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
--the title says it all--one day in a Soviet Union era gulag in Siberia, based loosely on his time there.  I like to pair this one with Dostoyevsky's The House of the Dead, his experiences in a Siberian prison camp during the reign of the Tsars.  Forced to make a choice, I would choose life there under the Tsars.  The treatment was cruel but  much more humane than under the commissars. 


Dostoyevsky:   "The Gambler"
--Dostoyevsky's great novella depicting the downfall of an gambling addict.
--great character study of numerous Russians traveling abroad. sometimes just for travel and sometimes to avoid debt collectors back home.  Comic figures trapped within a tragic story.


Evelyn Waugh:   Brideshead Revisited
--Flashback:  an English army officer finds his unit stationed  on one of the grand   
   estates and recognizes it as the one that had a great influence on him, beginning with
   his stay at Oxford.

--there's a great BBC TV adaptation of the book.  After watching it, I went out and 

   got the book.


Herman Melville:  “Benito Cereno”

--Melville's great novella regarding the slave trade and a very naive American ship captain.


Nikos Kazantzakis:   Freedom or Death

--his powerful novel set in Greece during the time of the Greek war for independence.
--as usual his characters come off the page at you.


Oscar Wilde:   The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray
--This is the first and censored version of Gray's novel.  To be honest, I can not see anything that
   would be more offensive than anything in the published version.  A classic example of changing
    tastes, I will includ this among the rereads for I have read this several times.


There were a number of enjoyable works that I read during the past year, but these are the ones that stand out.  While there  appears to be a large number of first reads, equal to the rereads, one should note that Bradbury, Greene, Hawthorne, and Conrad are all favorites of mine from way back when.  These are works by them that I've never read before.

Only two of the authors in the First Reads Section are new to me:  Kazuo Ishiguro and Sarah Orne Jewett and are now on my reread list.  Coincidentally, I read two books by both.  The other book by by Ishiguro will appear on my Favorite SF novels of 2016 list.


P.S.
Forgot to mention, but if you have questions about any of the authors or books, please ask.  I may not know the answer, but it's worth trying anyway.

Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited is one of the BBC's dramatic productions which appeared in the US on Masterpiece Theatre. I watched about half of it when it first appeared, but conflicts prevented me from viewing the entire 11 episodes. It become one of the "one of these days" projects, and those days finally arrived a week or so ago.

The public library recently acquired the newly remastered set, and I grabbed it as soon as I heard it was available. I had read the book, but it was so long ago that I can't comment on how closely the film version followed the book.

The casting was excellent:

Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder, the POV character, a first year student at Oxford, who is introduced to the less than studious set by

Sebastian Flyte, played by Anthony Andrews, whose beauty and charm make him loved by almost all, except for those faculty and students who believe university life is serious and filled with studying.

Diana Quick, as Julia, Sebastian's sister, much like her brother, a very unconventional young lady.

Claire Bloom, in the role of Lady Marchmain, Sebastian and Diana's mother, whose strong Catholic faith isn't always appreciated by her children and never by her estranged husband

Lord Marchmain, played by Laurence Olivier, who fled England for Venice because of his hatred of his wife.

Sir John Gielgud as Edward Ryder, Charles Ryder's eccentric? father. Gielgud does an outstanding job here playing a role that has to be seen to be appreciated. There's no way I can describe the character of Edward Ryder.

Nickolas Grace plays the flamboyant Anthony Blanche, another student at Oxford whom Ryder meets through Sebastian.


The setting matched the casting: beautiful outdoor scenery while the indoor locations were lavish and striking. The only disappointment was that there were so few scenes set in Venice.

I would rank this as BBC's best production, at least it's the best one I've seen, and I've seen a number of them. It is well worth the 12-13 hours of viewing.