East of Eden read-along: p240 - 320

Hey, everybody! I'm still chugging along. How's everybody else doing?

Last week was quiet here so I wonder if people are dropping behind (or giving up)--please feel free to leave comments from any point in the book up until now, though, and if you DID give up feel free to share why.

Hope everybody's keeping warm!

East of Eden readalong p 161-240

As you may have guessed from the fact that I'm posting this a day late (whoops), I fell a little behind on my pages this week. But I'm all caught up now!

How's everyone else doing? Thoughts/feelings/progress?

I find this book very easy and steady to read, and engrossing. I'm definitely enjoying it, although I'm not sure I love it. In many cases I find myself reading the characters as more symbolism than real people. What do you guys think? How allegorical is the book for you, and how much is it a story? Just curious.

East of Eden read-along: p 81-160

Hi everybody! Did you manage the second week's reading?

Thoughts/opinions/reflections/progress reports?

I admit I carried on reading to the end of the chapter, because I was pretty caught up in Samuel's conversation with Lee. Didn't want to interrupt Steinbeck while he was grinding an axe or anything.

East of Eden read-along: p 1-80

Hi everybody! How was your weekly reading? Please leave notes / comments / progress / questions / observations / thoughts / feelings.

I, for one, made it through the pages and finished the end of the chapter, which is awesome, because it means I'm ahead for next week. Woohoo!

Welcome to the EAST OF EDEN readalong!

(I'm posting a day late ... sorry about that. Yesterday was busy at work.)

This week we embark on the Gaps reading of EAST OF EDEN, a classic of our time, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, an Oprah pick (what could be more telling!), and a book I somehow have avoided all these years. Upon consideration of its physical presence, which I now hold in my non-typing hand, that might be because it's really heavy. However, together we shall storm against this prosaic deterrent and conquer! (Right?)

According to the ever-informative Wikipedia, EAST OF EDEN was first published in 1952, and the first edition contained one typo. (Gosh, I wish any book I've ever worked on somehow made it to press with only one typo. I think standards are a little different these days.) Steinbeck supposedly originally wrote the novel for his two sons, then 6 and 4. I have scrupulously avoided any descriptions of the plot, but I gather there are heavy themes about the relationship between Cain and Abel hearkening back to the Book of Genesis. Can't wait to see how that all unfolds.

Let's convene here again next Tuesday, February 8th, having read (if you're Abel, teehee) the first 80 pages. In the meantime, please leave your Steinbeck notes in the comments--what else have you read? What's your favorite? Why are you reading EoE? Any interesting stories about his life you might have heard?

Looking forward!

EAST OF EDEN read-along

Hi Everybody!

So recently many of us mentioned interest in an EAST OF EDEN read-along starting in February. Hope everyone who wants feels invited to join.

Here's a guideline schedule, which I've created operating under the previously agreed assumption that most people can manage to read about 80 pages a week (on a good week). Please feel free to read ahead or fall behind; these are just to help.

Tuesday, February 1: Kick-off! (Perhaps a meditation on Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck and our previous associations/experiences with him?)

Tuesday, February 8: pages 1-80

Tuesday, February 15: pages 81-160

Tuesday, February 22: pages 161-240

Tuesday, March 1: pages 241-320

Tuesday, March 8: pages 321-400

Tuesday, March 15: pages 401-480, and perhaps a pre-St Paddy's Day and/or pagan shindig (just thinking out loud here; don't you guys feel like we'll need a mid-book reward?)

Tuesday, March 22: pages 480-540

Tuesday, March 29: pages 540-end, fabulous catharsis of relief and accomplishment

I got my copy of the book last week, and am looking forward to a group read! I haven't done one since 2009, with a very helpful and fun (for me, at least) Gravity's Rainbow read-along. So thanks, everybody who has already spurred me along. I appreciate it! I hope you're excited too.

Middlemay 8: Sunset and Sunrise

Woohoo!! We've made it through 800 or something pages of Victorian prose!! I feel an enormous sense of accomplishment. I hope everyone else does, too!!

Thoughts and feelings on Book 8? Favorite passages?

Glass of champagne? I also have sparkling grape juice and, for the un-thirsty, virtual cupcakes in the back. If I haven't eaten them all already.

Middlemay 7: Two Temptations

Hi everybody!! Phew. Exciting book. Thoughts, feelings, opinions? Progress reports? Favorite quotations or passages?

Middlemay 6: The Widow and the Wife

Hi folks! Status reports, favorite passages, thoughts and feelings?

MIddlemay 5: The Dead Hand

Hi All! Progress reports, favorite passages?

Infinite Summer

I know that I'm not the only one with Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace on my list. I'm probably also not the only one intimidated by the modern-day behemoth. Well, some folks have started an internet collaboration to read the book over the summer, rather like we have banded together to do for Middlemay. They're calling it Infinite Summer. It starts on June 21 and breaks the book up into about 75 pages a week until around September 21 or so. Just thought some of you might be interested - their web page is http://infinitesummer.org/ and they have a group going on Facebook too. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to participate, but I'm thinking about it...

Middlemay 4: Three Love Problems

Hi Everybody! How's the reading going? Status reports, favorite passages?

Middlemay 3: Waiting for Death

Hi everyone! Welcome to the third week of our Middlemarch group read.

Please feel inspired to post status reports, favorite quotations, and thoughts and impressions.

If you feel like reading more, I thought I'd do a brief romantic profile of George Eliot this week. (Inspired by my mother, whom I told about Middlemay. She told me that she and my father had read a George Eliot poem at their wedding, and then she asked me if George Eliot was a lesbian. I thought it would be useful to clear up some misconceptions about Eliot's absolutely fascinating personal life.)

The Loves of George Eliot*
Mary Anne Evans was not considered a very beautiful woman, and although she had fallen in love with several men during her twenties, when she was already very active in the literary scene, she had never seen any of those feelings reciprocated. In 1851, when she was 32 years old, she was a spinster. That was the year she met George Lewes, a philosopher whose mind was the perfect complement to hers, and who nurtured and encouraged her work. He was, unfortunately, married, but he believed that marriage was an unfair and sexist institution, and as a result had allowed his wife, Agnes, to carry out an open affair with their neighbor. Even as this affair dragged on and his marriage became less and less viable, Lewes was unable (and possibly unwilling) to divorce Agnes because, by allowing his name to appear as father on the birth certificate of one of the children Agnes had with the neighbor, he was legally complicit in the adultery. George Lewes was raising several of his neighbor's children as well as his own in a house that Mary Anne Evans decided to move into in 1854.

Although they were never legally married, Evans and Lewes acted like husband and wife (and referred to each other as such) for the next 24 years. They were not discreet about their relationship, and as a result, Evans (but not Lewes; there's fair for you) was effectively shut out of Victorian society, and not allowed into "good" houses. They were, however, deeply committed to each other mentally and emotionally, and when Lewes died, Evans went into an intense period of mourning, during which her weight dropped to 80 pounds (or something; I can't remember the exact number).

Then, two years later, Evans did the unthinkable again. In her deep mourning, she had made a friend who was also in mourning, and the two of them became very close consoling each other. This friend, John Cross, was mourning his recently deceased and beloved mother. I should mention he was twenty years Evans's junior. When they got married in 1880, everyone was scandalized all over again.

Evans died only one year later at age 61 of kidney problems and a throat infection. Despite her many acknowledged contributions to English literature, she was denied burial at Westminster Abbey because of her apparently inappropriate quarter-century monogamous relationship with Lewes. But (as I'm slowly learning as I read Middlemarch!) Evans/Eliot left us plenty to think about in terms of romance, society, and women's roles, and I'm glad she had the fortitude to stick by her choices despite what everyone else had to say about it.


*I got all this from Parallel Lives, a great book by Phyllis Rose. If you're into Victorian romances, you'll love it.

Middlemay 2: Old and Young

Hi everybody, and welcome back for the second week of George Eliot's Middlemarch!

Please feel free to post status reports and/or famous lines as well as comments.

Please don't feel beholden to read any further than this line before commenting! But if you'd like further prompting, I put some random stuff up to perhaps inspire/incite. This week, I did a little fussing around reading biographical information about Ms. George Eliot as well as background on the book and its writing. So, in no particular order and without any guise at journalistic integrity, I'm going to post what struck me as interesting trivia (mostly stolen from my Oxford World's Classics edition):

-Middlemarch was published in 1870 and 1871, in single book installments (so 8 separate installments total), usually two months apart. Then, at the end of it all, they issued a "Cheap" (bumper edition). Not unlike several modern-day marketing schemes I've seen (eg "buy this compilation album! There's a secret song!").

-George Eliot didn't become a novelist until she was 37, which is pretty young in the scheme of things, but perhaps not as young when one considers she'd spent her entire adult life as a professional writer. Middlemarch was published when she was 51.

-George Eliot's birth name was Mary Ann Evans. She took the male pen name so she wouldn't be written off as a romance novelist, like most of her fellow female Victorian novelists.

-Eliot was almost entirely self-educated. She didn't have the means to go to the kind of fancy private school she makes fun of Rosamund Vincy for having attended, but she was a strong believer in self-education and self-improvement. By the end of her life, she had taught herself eight languages: aside from English: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Latin, Greek.

-Eliot's writing was (purposely) idea-driven. That's why we get so much about art, science, and religion in every moment of Middlemarch--Eliot cared a lot about her ideas and was very focused on making what she believed come through in her plots.

-Eliot lost faith in God when she was 20. She wasn't the only Victorian questioning faith--British Christianity had reached a strange point during her lifetime where it was assumed one believed in a Christian God as a default, but people were increasingly less confident in this religion. Religion, its place, and its politics are a major concern throught Middlemarch, as in the second book, where we witness (in close detail) the highly political election of a clergy position, and where the question of fitness to lead congregants is secondary to other concerns, like salary and personal relationships.

Ok, I've lost stamina for typing. Turning over the floor!!

-We get a lot of biting commentary on the role of women (often toward some of the things the female characters do and say themselves), but Eliot--although a feminist by practice and by default--did not want to be associated with the feminists of her era, because she didn't agree with some of their philosophies. (NOTE TO SMARTER PEOPLE--this is taken directly from my edition of the book, but there was no further commentary on what philosophies specifically she disagreed with. Anyone know anything about Victorian feminism and/or George Eliot's opinions? I'm fascinated and would love to know more!)

Middlemay 1: Miss Brooke

Hi everybody! How did people do finishing their pages for the first week? Congrats to those who've finished, and to those who haven't, as the Japanese would say, "Gambare!" (Keep fightin'!)

Some pre-reading discussion happened over here, wherein it was revealed that George Eliot was a woman, and also some other fun things.

If you have stuff you want to talk about, please post a comment! For those who like some prompting, activities I would like to suggest for posting inspiration:

1) Declare yourself proudly in the comments if you finished the first book! Or offer your lame understandable excuses if you didn't. (I'm just kidding; it's a pretty tough read, and I'm very sympathetic!

2) Offer up your favorite line (or two) if you have one.

I'm really grateful for this group; don't think I would have had as good a time reading it if I weren't anticipating checking in here today.

(ps I made a "group read" label for this post; hope people like it/agree with it.)