What I'm Reading: 'Hausfrau' by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Hausfrau is one of the few very contemporary books that has managed to crack my reading list so far this year, and that is thanks in large part to my husband buying me a copy after hearing an interview with the author on NPR's Weekend Edition. Normally my inclination is to wait until the end of the year to pick and choose from the best reviewed and most talked-about literary fiction from the year prior, but there is a unique kind of satisfaction that comes from reading something while it's shiny and new and being buzzed about.

I would describe Hausfrau as one part Madame Bovary and one part Anna Karenina, but although I still haven't finished it, I am not assuming it will end in any similar fashion. It doesn't function as the same kind of morality tale, but it is a story about a housewife and mother who becomes increasingly alienated from her husband and seeks solace in affairs. That is a total oversimplification of what is a very complex and psychological novel, but those comparisons immediately came to mind when I started it, and they place Hausfrau in excellent company.

Book Trailers: 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy

Joe Wright's 'Anna Karenina' is the movie trailer we all have to thank for the idea of Book Trailers in the first place; I saw the trailer, as did my fellow book club members. We swooned, appropriately, and agreed on a two-month commitment to the novel, which luckily none of us had yet successfully finished. Now I'm very glad we did it because I really, really love the novel.

This feels like the appropriate moment to digress on the nature of film adaptations of literary source material, because as you can probably tell from the trailer, this is not a traditional movie adaptation. The screenplay for this particular version of Anna Karenina was written by the playwright Tom Stoppard, and there is a very self-aware, theatrical vibe to the entire thing, which I found to be utterly charming and visually stunning. And most importantly, it was something that could only be achieved on camera, making this Anna Karenina distinctly a film that knows it's a film. Some people hated it; those are probably the same folks who hate Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, which is not a word-for-word translation of the novel; he tweaks and cuts and rewrites here and there, and in some instances, he uses music, or camera movement, or lighting, or costumes to communicate with the audience. Jane Austen or Leo Tolstoy fans balk at this kind of faithlessness, but Joe Wright is not a novelist, he's a film director, and he is using the tools of the cinema to tell the story. I don't have a problem with a good Masterpiece Theater production that is extremely faithful and literal, but I admire and enjoy much more literary adaptations that take some risks do things that can only be done in a movie.

This version of Anna Karenina is a perfect example of that, as it communicates so much of the story without dialogue. And it is an absolute masterpiece of film aesthetics -- regardless of whether or not you "like" or approved of the adaptation, you remember certain scenes and moments because they were so beautifully executed. I'm feeling woozy just thinking about it. And I don't think I need to remind you that it's cold outside and you need to watch a movie in which an entire train is magically frozen solid.

Book Trailers is a recurring post that tricks you into reading the books that inspired great movies (or just great trailers).

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 3

I managed to make it through another 100 pages (more like 85, but who's counting?) and propelled myself well into Part 2 of Volume I, which felt like some kind of minor accomplishment. Only another 100 pages until Volume II! I will say about Tolstoy that the very tidy division of his novels into distinct volumes, parts, and chapters, makes the whole endeavor so much more manageable and far less intimidating. Often when I fail to finish a long, difficult book, it has much to do with the structure (or lack thereof) and my inability to find good stopping points, which can make it impossible to return to the book.

I will also say that I'm happy to have made it through this section because it was not exactly the type of action I turn to Tolstoy for; it was largely composed of military stuff with an unfortunate amount of time spent with minor characters, and at this point I have a hard time evaluating which of them will be important in future and which will never be heard from again. If you've read Anna Karenina, you probably remember long stretches about Russian political theory or about agriculture, and the military elements in War and Peace serve a similar function. I'm hopeful that next week's sections will include a bit more of the other characters back at home.

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 2

I've made a very respectable dent in my first week with War and Peace, reaching the 100-page milestone last night. My initial thought is that this will not fit into my normal reading routine the way I had hoped; in a normal week, I read when I feel like it, and somehow I manage to transform it all into a blog. But there is no way I'm going to get through War and Peace without being much more deliberate. I made it all the way to Sunday night without even cracking the thing open, although I did find that it makes the perfect prop for my Kindle when I'm watching 'Gilmore Girls' in bed. In the end, the only way I managed to conquer those 100 pages was to set aside specific, uninterrupted time to read, and I had to neglect my usual TV habits, which is tough in January when there is so much great TV. The saddest thing of all is that those 100 pages were not easy, and as a result I haven't picked up any other book all week, which is not sustainable. I think it's going to take a few weeks to find a War and Peace routine that works for me.

On a more positive note, I absolutely love the novel thus far. It's not super surprising because I loved Anna Karenina and I've enjoyed more Napoleonic history than the average person.  The narrative thrusts the reader into several existing, high-stakes conflicts (inheritances, engagements, husbands going to war, etc.) from the very beginning so it's not hard to get "into" the book. As much as I loved Anna Karenina, I definitely struggled with those very long passages on Russian agrarian politics, and at close to 1200 pages, I suspect War and Peace will have some of the same, but thus far it's been very compelling, engaging narrative and charming characters.

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week 1

As I alluded in my Reading Resolutions post last week, you can expect more posts on extremely long, heavy, doorstop quality book in the coming year. Even as recently as last night, while I blazed through a short, excellent novel, I questioned my motivation for this undertaking. I read constantly and I generally feel that I read "enough," so that's not the reason. I'm also someone who gets an immense amount of satisfaction from finishing a book and crossing it off a list, so a 1,000-page novel is not the most efficient way to satisfy this need. 

Part of it is certainly an ego thing; I consider myself to be well-read and I even take the time to maintain a blog about my reading habits, so I'm going to read the books that I know I, of all people, should be reading. I've also had the good fortune of generally being really pleased with any long novel I've taken the time to finish, so I don't feel like I'm undertaking something completely unpleasant. And finally, I have always read many different books at once, so by committing to a long novel, I'm not necessarily giving up all other, shorter books in the meantime; I'll just be spending less time with those.

I kicked around a few different ideas before finally settling on War and Peace. I've never read Atlas Shrugged and I sort of want to, but I don't want anyone to mistake me for an actual, literal Ayn Rand fan. I also thought about Infinite Jest, but in some ways it feels wrong to undertake such a modern behemoth when there are many older, canonical books still going unread by me. I read Anna Karenina with my book club two years ago and really loved it (more on that in a future post), and as far as extremely long classics go, War and Peace is definitely genre-defining. Plus it's cold and snowy outside, so a Russian novel seems more appropriate than, say, In Search of Lost Time, which feels very springy to me. Maybe I'll take on that challenge if me and War and Peace make it through winter together. If nothing else, I'm motivated by the fact that the enormous novel is essential to the structural integrity of a half-full bookshelf designated for Russian literature (half-full because I hate Russian literature but feel a sense of obligation to keep trying).

I hope some of you will be equally motivated and try reading along with me. Expect a post on War and Peace every Wednesday until I finish it (even if that means I have to write a post in which I admit I read none of it because I had too many episodes of 'The Fosters' to get caught up on).