The book description states that this is an extensive and substantive work—and that is absolutely correct. Spanning nearly 800 pages, it explores life in the Soviet Union shortly after the Second World War. It is not, however, a book about everybody; it chronicles the lives of political prisoners and their families.
Once someone ended up in a so-called "sharashka"—a labor camp for scientists and engineers—or in the Lubyanka, the notorious Moscow prison for political prisoners, they could effectively consider their life over; most never regained their freedom. Although these prisoners may have enjoyed a few minor concessions compared to others, they remained captives, forced to work for the very regime they loathed.
The narrative details the lives of various inmates, both before and after their imprisonment. It also covers the women and families, who were effectively punished alongside them.
For everyone involved, this marked the end of life as they had known it—or, as the final chapter puts it, "the first circle of hell."
Along with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the poet Osip Mandelstam is another figure who wrote about his "life" under this regime. It is fortunate that such individuals existed—and continue to exist—to shed light on these conditions.
A deeply compelling book; alongside "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", it is surely one of the best works written about this subject.
And last but least a quote that should be of particular interest to all bookworms:
"There were so many immeasurably valuable, indispensable, first-rate books in the world, and the desire to read them all prevented Rubin from ever writing a book of his own. Now, he had prepared himself to read well past midnight, with no thought for the workday ahead. But in the evening, his mind—and his penchant for debate—would always awaken, and his wit would become especially sharp; it took very little, then, to draw him into entertaining the company at large. ..."
Book Description:
"In the First Circle depicts the lives of the occupants of a sharashka (a research and development bureau made of GULAG inmates) located in the Moscow suburbs. This novel is highly autobiographical. Many of the prisoners (zeks) are technicians or academics who have been arrested under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code in Joseph Stalin's purges following the Second World War.
Unlike inhabitants of other gulag labor camps, the sharashka zeks were adequately fed and enjoyed good working conditions; however, if they found disfavor with the authorities, they could be instantly shipped to Siberia. The title is an allusion to Dante's first circle, or limbo of Hell in The Divine Comedy, wherein the philosophers of Greece, and other virtuous pagans, live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, as they were born before Christ, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature".
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
Spoiler alert:
A buddy read like this cannot be as vague as many of my other reviews. On the other hand, I can't hide everything, so I will have to talk about this book as if I were in a book club and we all read the book.
Therefore, I will be quite open in the next couple of weeks but will, at the end, write a description of the whole book in the way you are all used to. So, if you haven't read the book but still would like to, be patient, I'll get there.
I am not a big fan of fantasy or fantastic, mythical figures. I probably wouldn't have even looked at the book were it not by one of my favourite authors and for a dear blogger friend who invited me to join her buddy read.
Week 3 (Oct 17–Oct 24)
• Hysteria spreads; moral decay of the Princeton elite
• Part Three: "The Brain, Within Its Groove . . .": Dives deeper into psychological torment, visions, and the bizarre intervention of historical figures like Woodrow Wilson and Upton Sinclair.
"This eerie tale of psychological horror sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power. New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel 'The Jungle', has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community - elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated - until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse. The Devil has come to this little town and not a soul will be spared. 'The Accursed' marks new territory for the masterful Joyce Carol Oates - narrated with her unmistakable psychological insight, it combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling fantastical elements to stunning effect."
This book is still a masterpiece.
Book Description:
"Set in Cairo during World War II, this novel is a masterpiece of human compassion reflecting with sympathy and well-balanced pathos the material, moral, and spiritual problems of an Egyptian family.
Suddenly confronted with poverty when the father, its sole support, dies unexpectedly, the family's middle-class respectability and conformity can only be supported on the backs of a brother and a sister who sacrifice their own reputations by immersing themselves in the seamy underworld of Cairo.
This is a powerful portrayal of a middle-class Egyptian family confronted by material, moral, and spiritual problems during World War II."
Naguib Mahfouz "who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
Spoiler alert:
A buddy read like this cannot be as vague as many of my other reviews. On the other hand, I can't hide everything, so I will have to talk about this book as if I were in a book club and we all read the book.
Therefore, I will be quite open in the next couple of weeks but will, at the end, write a description of the whole book in the way you are all used to. So, if you haven't read the book but still would like to, be patient, I'll get there.
I am not a big fan of fantasy or fantastic, mythical figures. I probably wouldn't have even looked at the book were it not by one of my favourite authors and for a dear blogger friend who invited me to join her buddy read.
Week 2 (Oct 9–Oct 16)
• Historical cameos; the eerie Bog Kingdom; social satire
• Part Two: The Curse Incarnate: Explores the spreading supernatural afflictions and social paranoia across elite families and historical figures.
Book Description:
"This eerie tale of psychological horror sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power. New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel 'The Jungle', has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community - elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated - until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse. The Devil has come to this little town and not a soul will be spared. 'The Accursed' marks new territory for the masterful Joyce Carol Oates - narrated with her unmistakable psychological insight, it combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling fantastical elements to stunning effect."
A Christmas present from my son. What a gift!
The subtitle says it all: The Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend. The Legend being Jane Austen.
Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and talks to us about her hunt for rare editions. And of the lives of the other female authors from two centuries ago.
Yes, we always read about Jane Austen and what kind of books she is reading. But do we give those authors a second thought? I know I didn't before reading this book.
There are so many different authors from that time. And more women than we might think.
After beginning with Jane Austen, the author takes us to the other ladies who wrote at a time where no women were supposed to write: Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Hannah More, Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, Maria Edgeworth.
While we might not have heard all their names, a lot of the titles they wrote are known to us:
And since I love lists and know that many of you do, as well. Here is a list of the authors and some of their books:
Jane Austen (1775-1817, 41 years)
Frances Burney (1752-1840, 87 years)
Cecilia, 1782
Evelina, 1794
Camilla, 1796
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823, 58 years)
Fountainville Forest, 1794
The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794
Charlotte Lennox (c. 1829-1804, 74-75 years)
The Female Quixote, 1852
Shakespear Illustrated, 1854
Hannah More (1745-1833, 88 years)
Sir Eldred of the Bower, 1776
Percy, 1778
Coelebs in Search of a Wife, 1808
The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, 1810
Charlotte Smith (1749-1806, 57 years)
Emmeline, 1788
Desmond, 1792
The Old Manor House, 1793
Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821, 67 years)
Appearance is Against them, 1785
Mrs. Inchbald, 1786
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (1741-1821, 80 years)
Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, 1788
Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849, 81 years)
Tales of Fashionable Live, 1809/1812
Patronage, 1814
Harrington, and Ormond, 1814
Helen, 1834
As you see, most of them got a lot older than our Jane. Oh, would she have lived eighty years, the novels we could have had!!!
I doubt that I willl ever be able to read all those novels but I hope to catch a few.
So, do I recommend this book? If you are a Jane Austen fan and want to know about the women who influenced her, definitely. If you love classics and would like to find some more authors that you haven't read, yet, for sure. If you like to read about books in general, go ahead. What do you think, would you like to read this?
It is definitely a pleasure to accompany the author on her quest to find out more about Jane Austen and her literature.
There are some quotes I just have to mention:
"On the one hand, we come back to certain books because we want to experience, again, the feelings they first sparked. But books inevitable change with us. We notice new aspects of old favourites because our lives are different. Books are not static things. …"
Very true. We think of a book that containes letters and words in a certain order that won't change. But we change. And with it the content of the book. Re-reading does not mean we have forgotten the book and try to remember it, it means we remember the book and want to experience it in a different lifetime.
And this one on not DNF a book:
"But I'm stubborn. I'm one of those readers who struggles to stop reading abook even when I dislike it. Logically, I know this is absurd. But emotionally, it makes me feel like a quitter. This comminemtn to follow through is how I finished James Joyce'S Ulysses, even thouhg I think I understood only about 35 percent of what I was reading. Joyce hadn't defeated me."
I had to smile. I never give JJ a thought when it comes to finishing a tough book. Because a tough book it is. But I was so happy when I finished it. Sometimes that's also great.
She also quotes Italo Calvino from his book "Why Read the Classics?" (IT: Perché leggere i classici?) which I have read and mentioned before. "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say." Totally.
Book Description:
"Who were the women that inspired Jane Austen?
Why have they all but disappeared from our shelves?
When Rebecca Romney discovered a clothbound edition of Evelina by Frances Burney she was delighted to find a novel cherished by Jane Austen. Inspired by the connection between the two writers, she revisited Austen’s books with a new lens, picking out clues sprinkled throughout her works that pointed to the writers she had admired.
Romney noticed that while male writers like Shakespeare and Milton still dominate our shelves, the works of Austen’s favourite authors such as Frances Burney and Ann Radcliffe have all but vanished. This ignited a new mission for Romney, she needed to collect Jane Austen’s bookshelf.
Delve into the lives and works of these female writers, and explore their disappearance from history in this page-turning literary adventure."
As already announced in my Hello September post, and my Buddy Read post, Lisa @Capitvated Reader and myself are hosting a buddy read this month. And here is Lisa's post. Have a look at her review, there is a lot more to this part than what I have said.
Spoiler alert:
A buddy read like this cannot be as vague as many of my other reviews. On the other hand, I can't hide everything, so I will have to talk about this book as if I were in a book club and we all read the book.
Therefore, I will be quite open in the next couple of weeks but will, at the end, write a description of the whole book in the way you are all used to. So, if you haven't read the book but still would like to, be patient, I'll get there.
I am not a big fan of fantasy or fantastic, mythical figures. I probably wouldn't have even looked at the book were it not by one of my favourite authors and for a dear blogger friend who invited me to join her buddy read.
Week 1 (Oct 1–Oct 8)
• Author's Note & Prologue: Sets up the faux-historical framing in Princeton, New Jersey, during 1905–1906.
• Part One: Demon Bridegroom: Focuses on the bizarre seduction and abduction of a young bride at her wedding.
The beginning of the novel is quite interesting. There are well-known historical figures but what about the others? Do they exist? E.g. the Slade family?
I don't believe in ghosts, so this doesn't frighten me in any way. So, I can't really believe in a "curse". I do hope this leads people who believe in it to change their habits. Why do they think there is a curse on the town. They must be convinced that they did something wrong.
To dig deeper into the story, I used some discussion questions from LitLovers.
I believe, JCO uses a lot of her fantastic psychology to describe this and the conflict members of the town encounter.
The fictional narrator, M.W. van Dyck, always has his own opinions that he likes to add, even though he calls himself a historian and should therefore be more neutral. However, he also guides us to many questions of this "history". And we might learn from them, if we don't agree with him already.
A great quote from this part of the book:
"But we don't suffer nearly as much as most people", Meta said, hesitantly, "like Negroes, and the poorest immigrants. And We can read ... there is always the prospect of escape."
"Books are not a means of 'escape', Meta. Books are a means of knowledge, and of learning how to cope with the future."
This is a discussion between Upton Sinclair and his wife Meta. Do we agree with Upton or with Meta? I totally like the way of learning how to cope with the future. However, I also like books as a way of escape. Sometimes, this world is too hard on us and we need some distractions. Of course, we can get both from a lot of books.
In the prologue, the questions gets asked whether the curse really exists or whether the narrator is inadvertently describing an outbreak of collective hysteria and moral decay. I believe in the latter.
One more question from the LitLovers list:
The Accursed asks us to ponder the nature of evil? What is "evil" in the scope of the novel?
That is an important question. And one that we should consider very heavily. Some people consider socialism an "evil", others the opposite of it. What is really evil, in my eyes, is selfishness, not caring about your neighbour (as the bible teaches us and those who claim they are "good Christians" like to preach but not live by).
Lisa said, it feels quite different than other books we've read by JCO.
I must agree but she is such a great author that I am sure we get the most of it.
There are plenty of real life people /and their relatives) in this book:
presidents: Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt
authors: Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Mark Twain
others: Andrew Fleming West
Book Description:
"This eerie tale of psychological horror sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power. New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel 'The Jungle', has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community - elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated - until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse. The Devil has come to this little town and not a soul will be spared. 'The Accursed' marks new territory for the masterful Joyce Carol Oates - narrated with her unmistakable psychological insight, it combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling fantastical elements to stunning effect."
