Another Classics Challenge

Since the old year is passing away so quickly I'll have to hurry up a bit to sign up for all the challenges I want to and I am making a huge step forward by joining November's Autumn's Classic Challenge.

The goal is to read seven classics in 2012, three of which can be re-reads and to answer a prompt at Katherine's lovely blog on the 4th of every month. I am very excited and very curious! The list of my seven books follows.

• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera 

and my three re-reads, all by J.R.R. Tolkien of course:

• The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Two Towers
• The Return of the King

So, what do you think? Quite a heavy list, isn't it? I hope to God that I will really be able to stick to it, I have wanted to read these books for a long time now, after all.

One little Christmas wish for you

Christmas dinner has been eaten, all the presents have been opened, the family has been visited and A Christmas Carol has been watched (the Disney version of course): Here in Austria the most important part of Christmas is over.
The climax has been reached and passed, all the anticipation, all the preparations don't count anymore, they have become nothing but a memory: another year, another Christmas.

If everything is already over, then why is it that I am writing this post now?
The reason is, while I have wished everyone a Merry Christmas, I have found that there is something far more important I am wishing you with all my heart.
I am fully aware that this will sound really kitschy now, but I mean it more seriously than you can imagine, and if Christmas is not the time to be sentimental, what is it?

My small but dear, so very dear, community of readers, I wish you happiness. Not just happiness over your Christmas presents or the holidays, not even just happiness over your beloved ones.
I wish you a blitheness only for yourself, a joy and delight inside your heart that no one can take away from you.

How often do we beam with joy, just so that someone spoils it the next moment? How often do we give someone a carefully selected and affectionately wrapped present, a sign of our love, and they toss it away, barely looking at it? How often are the ones we love more than anything stubborn and proud and hurt us without even noticing?

These are some of the things which ache so much more than bodily wounds and there is only one way to avoid all this senseless hurt: cultivating an inner elation, a private gratification which cannot be spoiled by anyone or anything.
This is what being at peace with oneself means I think. It doesn't mean that one is always happy, but that the way to happiness is not hidden behind impermeable clouds when one is upset.

Doubtlessly this revelation is my most valuable present this year and since I have shared it with you now, there is only one thing left to say, and for that I will stick with Frank Sinatra:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

Back to the Classics Challenge

I am signing up for another challenge! Amazement! Excitement! Rejoicing!
(In fact I want to sign up for so many, many more but I. Have. No. Time.)
Anyway, it's a challenge probably all of you have already joined: The Back To The Classics Challenge 2012 by Sarah at Sarah Reads Too Much.

Should you be one of the five people in this universe who have not heard about it yet, here are the rules:

To participate you have to read one book out of each of the following categories.

• Any 19th Century Classic
• Any 20th Century Classic
• Reread a classic of your choice
• A Classic Play
• Classic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction
• Classic Romance
• Read a Classic that has been translated from its original language to your language   - To clarify, if your native language is NOT English, you may read any classic originally written in English that has been translated into your native language.  
• Classic Award Winner  - To clarify, the book should be a classic which has won any established literary award.  
• Read a Classic set in a Country that you (realistically speaking) will not visit during your lifetime  - To Clarify, this does not have to be a country that you hope to visit either.  Countries that no longer exist or have never existed count.

So, here are the ones I choose, determined to read them all:

• A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
• The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
• Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
• Hamlet, Shakespeare (Although I am going to read a lot of plays, due to my Greek Tragedies Challenge and Allie's Shakespeare Reading Month)
• The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
• The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Marquez
• The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Most of the books on my list are ones which I have wanted to read for a long time and now voilà, here's my opportunity to finally do. I can hardly wait until 2012, my fingers are already itching with the desire to pick up these books!

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

Christmas Eve 1815: Little Marie Stahlbaum receives a special present, a Nutcracker whom she happens to love deeply from the first moment on. Later the celebration is over and everyone else already asleep, but the  girl still tends to her new toy. Suddenly there are hundreds of mouses gathering terrinfyingly around her, lead by their horrible seven-headed king, when all the dolls in the house come alive and the Nutcracker leads them into battle against the intruders. After a period of success, the toy army is overwhelmed and the Nutcracker is about to be captured, but Marie throws her shoe at the evil Mouse King, allowing the doll to flee, and then faints.



This is just the beginning of E.T.A Hoffmann's fantastic story, a lot of other enchanting things happen, after the Nutcracker has defeated the Mouse King Marie is taken to the doll kingdom where she sees things like  the Christmas Forest or the Candytown for example. The tale is quite long, almost ninety pages which is enormous considering that it is a fairy tale. Although it was written for children, the story is surprisingly demanding, a lot of things are only hinted and at times a fine touch of irony is noticeable. It was the first Hoffmann I've ever read, and I enjoyed his style of writing very much. It is clear that the story is supposed to appeal to older readers too.

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is actually the first fairy tale since my childhood days that didn't bore me to death.



My ugly yellow copy

Reality shades into dream all the time and Hoffmann creates a wonderful, charming (Christmas-) world.

What surprised me the most was perhaps his characters's depth: of course there are good and evil ones, but the villains aren't born evil, they have their own stories and reasons for the things they do.

This is unusual in fairy tales.

Nussknacker und Mausekönig, as the German title is, is a light and fun read and a very inventive story. Trust me, it is enjoyable even if you aren't a child anymore, and that means a lot if it comes from me, a hater of children's books!



So this is Christmas...



 The whole house is smelling like gingerbread, my last test has been written and (almost) all Christmas presents are already bought and wrapped. I've spent the past few weeks dawdling through the city, searching perfect gifts (I love buying presents) and diving in the busy vibrancy of streets full of people.
And now?
The day after tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the holidays are all but here and I- I am just watching everything unbelievingly.
I have been looking forward to Christmas for such along time that I can hardly believe it, now that it's here.
Although realistically all preparations are finished I feel as if time was running out, I still want to do so much before it's Christmas! I want to watch so many Christmas movies and bake hundreds of cookies, I want to meet old friends and drink tea with them and I want to listen to songs like Deck the Halls or Let it snow all day long.

I am not ready for Christmas because I do not only want a merry Christmas, I want a perfect Christmas. Celebrating a perfect Christmas means to feel Christmas, to breathe it and to dance with joy every minute of  it. And all of that has to be done before Christmas Eve because I have got the stupid idea that it is too late afterwards. Yesterday a strange feeling came over me all of a sudden: I felt as if it was already January and I were looking back at Christmas 2011, full of regret that I didn't celebrate it properly.

In other words, I want Christmas to never come because I want it to never be over again.

Does this make any sense to you? Probably not, and I am not blaming you.

Anyway, since I am worrying so much about the right way to spend the yuletide another problem had to occur: I don't want to spoil Christmas by reading (and yes, I do realise that this sounds absolutely ridiculous).
The explanation follows.

Whenever I read a book a part of my mind is totally dedicated to it, I am always pondering it more or less subconsciously, no matter what I'm doing, and that distracts me. It is almost as if a part of my soul was stuck between the pages and could not get out until I finish the book, and in some cases not even then.

So the big question is: does this mean that I won't read anything these holidays?
Of course not. I can't stay away from books.
And what about the whole being distracted stuff?
I am just going to try and read only read good books so that when I am distracted, I am at least distracted by something beautiful.

(Image on the left from http://christmasstockimages.com/free/christmas-trees/slides/rainbow_christmas.htm)

A strange weekend and a quick reading update

As you might have guessed from the title I am feeling very peculiar this weekend, and what bothers me the most is that there actually is no reason for it. Nothing has happened and yet I am not in the right mood to do anything, least of all study Latin (which is bad because I have an important test tomorrow... My emergency plan is to just quote Horaz at every question, Pulvis et umbra sumus, you know). I have finally finished Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Prince which I won't review because it is the second book of a trilogy and I would have to explain too much in order to make you understand how awesome it is.

Anyway, let me just say that I feel the burning need to defend the whole genre of paranormal/fantasy YA because of Cassandra Clare, she's a master of her art and proves to me again and again that although a lot of novels which fall into this category are simply crap (there's no way to say it differently)it doesn't have to be that way.
So anyone who possesses only the slightest interest in either YA literature in general or in steampunk or in urban fantasy should definitely try either her The Mortal Instruments or The Infernal Devices series, I can't recommend one of them since they are equally good, the only difference is the setting (Manhattan vs. Victorian London).

Okay, that was my December fun read, now back to more serious business.
I am currently reading E.T.A Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King which is rather enjoyable because it is obviously a Christmas story and fits the season very well.
Also, it is one of those stories everyone knows thanks to Tchaikovsky's famous ballet although only very few have actually read it. In my opinion such books are always fun to read because one already has an ideé fixe of what they are about before even beginning and is in most cases surprised that they are not quite like in one's imagination after all.

By the way I still haven't decided if I should read A Christmas Carol this year, it is not very long but it is Dickens, so it would probably take me some time...
What do you think? Should I invest in it or move on to some Greek plays?
Argh, I hate being so indecisive!

The Quietest Time

I don't know if this saying is common in English too, but in German Christmas is often called the quietest, most peaceful time of the year. It's a time when you forget all your troubles and spend all your time with family and friends.

I have no idea who came up with that downright nonsense.

Even as a passionate Christmas lover I'm so stressed at the moment that I hardly have time to read, let alone blog about books anymore. Lately the hours seem to pass like minutes and almost every evening I find at least one or two things left on my undone on my to-do-list.
I have still barely read half of Clockwork Prince which I had expected to finish before Monday, and the Christmas concerts my choir is organising  take up more time than expected.

However, I did have time to sign up for a new reading event:
Fig and Thistle's Charles Dickens Month in January.
February 7 would be Dickens's twohundredth birthday and so all who have joined this fantastic event will focus on him a little in January.
Basically it is just about posting something concerning the great writer every Tuesday, there are no strict rules (one of the reasons I could not resist taking part).

The first month of 2012 is probably going to be a little bit busy now, considering that I have already signed up for A Literary Odyssey's Shakespeare Reading month, but I have 11 other months to recover from that afterwards.
By the way, be prepared for the Challenges's list to grow further, I still have several projects in mind!