The final pair of books I chose to read for BookTubeAthon 2013 were Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and Shannon Hale’s Austenland. I should disclose upfront that in preparing this blog post I rewatched the Mr-Darcy-wet-shirt scene multiple times – only in the interests of research, you understand. Both novels are romantic comedies and both explore the theme of overcoming character flaws in order to be open to love. In Elizabeth Bennet’s case that of prejudice and in Jane Haye’s a tendency to ignore the real for fantasy. P&P is of course also a wonderful character study and exploration of Regency mores. Austenland doesn’t attempt to live up to Austen’s standard here, choosing instead to explore the blurred line between romantic fantasy and reality. Elizabeth Bennet is a stronger heroine than Jane Hayes but the latter wins the reader’s sympathies precisely because of her vulnerabilities. She knows she has a weakness and is taking action to work on it. Other than their love of Mr Darcy, the heroines of both P&P and Austenland share a witty sense of humour. I was pleasantly surprised how well Austenland stood up to P&P in this case. Of course Hale can’t match Austen’s subtle wit…
This pair of books is probably the most difficult to compare and contrast since they are so similar. They are written by the same author and set in the same world. When I first read The Quickening series some while ago I very much enjoyed it. I found the concept of Myrren’s Gift fresh and new and found the characters engaging and interesting. During my recent reread my enjoyment remained the same. I found myself reading “just one more chapter” to find out what was happening next for Wyl, Valentyna, Finch et all. (handy for a reading marathon!) It was fun to guess where Myrren’s Gift would take Wyl next and how he would achieve his goals. I found it surprising then that I struggled so much with The Scrivener’s Tale. I found that the plot device remained basically the same, and the characters were carbon copies of those from The Quickening. There was Fynch Mark II, Valentyna Mark II and Wyl was found in three other characters. This actually made it harder to care for them – having just finished The Quickening, I felt that these characters’ tales had come to a natural end and I wasn’t really…
For my first pair of books I chose to read two dystopian novels, the classic 1984 by George Orwell and the modern YA book by Lauren Oliver Delirium. 1984 was a reread for me to complete the “reread a book” challenge of BookTubeAThon. I have been hearing good things about Delirium so I thought now was a good time to add it to my TBR. Scene Setting I had forgotten just how effectively Orwell sets his scene in 1984. From the moment the clock strikes 13 in the first paragraph to the final sentence (this is the only time I ever reread a book’s final words multiple times in the hope that they would change – they didn’t) 1984 is full of danger, menace and despair. This is only broken up by a few interludes of happiness. Delirium, on the other hand, is the opposite. Much of the book feels like a light, easygoing teen romance with only a few episodes of real danger and tension. In 1984 the threat of being captured by the government feels very real and in the protagonist’s eyes inevitable. In Delirium, the protagonist forgets about her society for whole long stretches. The…
To start, good luck to everyone taking part in the BookTubeAThon 2012, and thanks to Raeleen and Ariel for organising this. I hope you’ll forgive my posting as normal text posts and not as YouTube video book reviews. Further to my last post, I’ve made a few changes to my book lineup. One of my favourite courses at university was my second year German literature course in which books of classic German literature were paired with more modern works. For example, we paired Kleist’s Penthesilea with Christa Wolf’s No Place on Earth which describes a meeting between Kleist and another author. I found this to be a particularly interesting way of generating thoughtful discussion. I would like to do the same for this year’s BookTubeAThon. For my first pairing I will be looking at Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (416 pages) and comparing it to Austenland (206 pages) by Shannon Hale. I will be listening to Pride and Prejudice in Audible format to complete the audiobook challenge as well a the classic challenge. Pride and Prejudice is a wonderfully witty take on the mores of Regency England and I look forward to seeing how Austenland compares. Can it match up…