Challenge Complete: Dread & Read

J.G. over at Hotchpot Cafe came up with a nifty idea for a challenge for 2018--it sweetens the deal for readers who have books that they keep planning to read (for challenges that demand, personal growth, a need to read all the things, it's a book that everyone has read, etc.) and for whatever reason we just keep putting them off. It's the DREAD AND READ CHALLENGE. This challenge encouraged us to move past the avoidance by adding a sweetener--a little prize for reading that bad book that keeps scaring us off.  

I signed up with books on my Dread list:

1. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin (7/22/18)
2. She by H. Rider Haggard (7/17/18)
3. Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler changing out for 
     Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett [same hard-boiled genre] (11/12/18)

The first two books were classics that I kept putting down for challenges that require various classics and then I would chicken out and replace them with something else. The third was a hard-boiled detective novel that I kept telling myself that I was going to try--because Chandler is supposed to be so good. And....I put it off again--trading it out (as J. G. allows us to do) for another hard-boiled novel by Hammett. She was pretty good. Melmoth was down-right awful. and Red Harvest was....well...pretty much what I expected: a hard-boiled, murder-fest. The body count was unbelievably high. But Hammett can write, so it wasn't too terribly awful and I will take it over Melmoth any day.

Thanks to J. G. for coming up with this idea! It really helped me clear off some books that I probably wouldn't have read this year (or possibly ever at the rate I was going).

Melmoth the Wanderer: Review

This is going to be awfully short--especially in comparison to the book I read. You would think that I would have more to say about about a book that is 659 pages long. But really, I don't have the words. Charles Robert Maturin used them all up in the early 19th Century. Good old Charles has a lot in common with Tristram Shandy--he loves to tell stories within stories with stories. Besides that, he's long-winded and repetitive. He really wanted his readers to know how corrupt and down-right bad the so-called "holy men" of the Catholic Church were and he was willing to tell them so in story after story and hit them over the head with the idea until they cried for mercy.

With so much anti-Catholic propaganda coming at me as well all the stories within stories, I had a really difficult time concentrating on what's supposed to be the main plot--that John Melmoth's ancestor made a pact with the devil and takes a couple of hundred years to try and snare some innocent soul to take his place. SPOILER--he fails. Just think if Maturin had put it that directly, I wouldn't have wasted all that time wading through a bunch of stories about life in a monastery, which quite frankly was repetitive and boring and didn't really add much to the basic plot line. I mean, seriously, I think I snoozed through the part where it's explained what the conniving of the Abbott to put the Spanish dude into a monastery against his will had to do with Melmoth's ancestor....All I got out of it was that apparently none of the "religious" fellows who took up the monastic life really believed anything and were miserable and only wanted to recruit new monks so someone else could be miserable too. Wheee!

So....this deadly dull classic story made it onto the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list somehow. I get to check that one off the list. And it counts for the Back to the Classics Challenge. And it counts for the Dread & Read Challenge. AND I've read it and don't ever need to read it again. Not a very coherent or comprehensive review....but then I didn't think Maturin was all that coherent himself. So, it's fitting really. ★ , I guess.

[Finished 7/22/18]

She: Review

She (1886) by H. Rider Haggard concerns the journey undertaken by Horace Holly, a Cambridge University professor, and his young ward Leo to find the mysterious woman who killed one of Leo's ancestors. When Holly agrees to take on the guardianship of Leo Vincey, Holly's friend gives the professor a locked iron box and instructions that the box may not be opened until Leo turns 25. In the meantime Leo is to be trained in various ancient languages and generally prepared for what awaits him when the box is opened.

As soon as Leo comes of age, he is presented with the box and he finds within materials that tell and support a story about his ancestors in a time long before Christ. It tells how two lovers, a man and his wife, were relentlessly pursued and the man killed rather than become the husband of a mysterious woman. The wife escaped and had a child. The wife left materials and her testimony as proof of the horrible treatment and tasked her descendants with returning to Africa and exacting revenge for her husband's death. Also included is the notes from a more recent ancestor who said he tried to follow the instructions, found the right place and people, but failed to carry out the directive for revenge.

Holly says the materials either reflect a myth or the deranged imaginings of the recent ancestor, but Leo insists that he is going to follow the instructions whether Holly goes with him or not. The professor agrees to join him and they--along with their servant Job--travel to east Africa by boat. Their boat is wrecked and the only other survivor is their Arab captain. They are soon captured by a violent race of people who are ruled by a powerful white queen who has demanded that these strangers be brought to her. This queen, referred to as Hiya or She-who-must-be obeyed (shortened to just "She" throughout the book), is rumored to be thousands of years old.

photo source

The men suffer through many deadly adventures on their way to She's home and it is only her protection that saves them from Amahagger people (who are revealed as cannibals). But living under her protection may not be as safe as it appears and Holly soon suspects that She will not let them go easily--especially Leo, who she believes to be the reincarnation of her great love. They must overcome one last trial if they are ever to see England again and there is reason to suspect that they might fail.

Haggard wrote his novels during the height of the British Empire. Victorian and Empirical viewpoints are heavily represented from the depiction of the native folk of Africa to representation of a powerful woman. Although, She (or Ayesha--her real name) appears to be quite intelligent and crafty, her primary power over the men is in the wiles of her sex. She uses her great beauty to ensnare both Holly and Leo--making it near impossible for them to resist her. It is interesting, however, that Holly retains his reasoning powers even though quite enthralled by She's beauty and, in fact, holds quite detailed debates with her on many subjects. She even concedes that She might need to think over many of his views--though She absolutely will not give up the idea that Leo must belong to her. 

An interesting Victorian adventure novel that runs just a tad long on the front end. While it was necessary to give the background for the adventure to come, Haggard had a tendency to over-explain and we definitely didn't need long passages in Latin (or Arabic or whichever version happened to be under examination amongst the materials in the box). A synopsis of the ancestor's story would have sufficed. ★★★

[Finished 7/17/18. I started this before my long vacation and then didn't read one word while traveling to and from Montana. Too many adventures of my own, I guess!]

*The cover shown above is not my edition. My edition is a boring, gray hardcover with nothing on the front.

Dread & Read Challenge

J.G. over at Hotchpot Cafe has come up with a nifty idea for a challenge--it sweetens the deal for readers who have books that they keep planning to read (for challenges that demand, personal growth, a need to read all the things, it's a book that everyone has read, etc.) and for whatever reason we just keep putting them off. It's the DREAD AND READ CHALLENGE. 

This challenge encourages us to move past the avoidance by adding a sweetener--a little prize for reading that bad book that keeps scaring us off.  Find out more and join in at the link above

Here are the books on my Dread list:

1. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin (7/22/18)
2. She by H. Rider Haggard (7/17/18)
3. Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler changing out for 
     Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett [same hard-boiled genre] (11/12/18)

The first two books are classics that I keep putting down for challenges that require various classics and then I chicken out and replace them with something else. The third is a hard-boiled detective novel that I keep telling myself that I'm going to try--because Chandler supposed to be so good. But I don't really like hard-boiled, so I keep putting it off. Maybe this challenge will help me get these done.

For a sweetener (and even though we can have up to three, I'll just ask for one)--I'll take anything book-related that J.G. wants to send my way. Why don't you come join us?