Old Classics and New Classics

Since my last post, I got bogged down for some time reading Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. I had wanted to read it for some time, particularly after I read Reading Lolita in Tehran, which I think I enjoyed more. Of course, Nabokov's writing is gorgeous. I was mesmerized by the way he chooses words and puts them together to convey so much of a character's personality. The problem is with the characters themselves. Humbert Humbert is despicable, and not worthy of Nabokov's gifts. Of course, that's the point. But all I can say is that I was glad when I got to the end, and I don't intend to read it again.

Not so with the next book waiting on my stack: March by Geraldine Brooks. I'm a sucker for historical fiction anyway, and this book is one of the best I've read in a long time. March is the story of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. It is the story about the atrocities of slavery and war, bravery, betrayal, and love. The characters of Mr. March, Marmee, and to a lesser extent, Grace, are fully realized and the situations they confront complex and conflicted, as they are in real life and during real wars. Told mostly in Mr. March's voice, the book shifts near the end to Marmee's voice, providing a heart-wrenching look at the conflicts women face when they send their men off to war.