I know why the caged bird sings - Maya Angelou

 

 

 

I read "I know why the caged bird sings" for the Women's Classic Literature Event hosted by The Classics Club.
Maya Angelou is an African-American poet and writer. According to Angelou, her friend and writer James Baldwin had a "covert hand" in getting her to write her autobiography. Baldwin advised Loomis at Random House to use "a little reverse psychology" and Loomis tricked her into writing autobiography by daring her: "It's just as well", he said, "Because to write an autobiography as literature is just impossible." Angelou was unable to resist a challenge, and she began writing, "I know why the caged bird sings." She subsequently wrote six additional autobiographies, covering a variety of her adult experiences. The book's title comes from a poem by African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. The caged bird, a symbol for the chained slave, is an image Angelou uses throughout all her writings.
It tells the story of Marguerite (young Maya Angelou) from three years of age to sixteen years of age. The story is in first person narration by Marguerite. We see young Maya grow from being an insecure girl with inferiority complex to a confident girl. Angelou explores subjects such as racism, rape and literacy through her autobiography. Her writing is simple, lucid and beautiful. Though it is a heart wrenching tale, I am happy to have read Angelou's autobiography.

 

Reading England 2016

This challenge is hosted by o@beholdthestars. I am participating for the first time. As I said earlier I am going  to take the level 1 challenge. Here are the books I wish to read for this challenge.

1. Three men in a boat  - Jerome K Jerome
2. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
3. The turn of the screw - Henry James

Books added on the go

• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte

The First Men in the Moon - H.G. Wells

The First Men in  the Moon is the first science fiction novel of the 20th century, published in 1901.
Bedford, a businessman lose his wealth and goes to Lympne at Ken, to write a play to clear his debts. He meets Dr. Cavor, a scientist who is working on an antigravity material. Dr. Cavor succeeds and his curiosity wants him to go on a journey to moon. Our two protagonist are at odds. Cavor is inspired by science for man's benefit. Bedford the practical man wants the scientific advances for financial gains. Bedford joins Cavor in the mission. Cavor builds a spherical spaceship with shutters made of antigravity material, which he calls as cavorite. When the shutters are closed gravity does not act and the spaceship flies. When a shutter is opened the spaceship lands in that direction as the gravity begins acting on it.  Having got the spaceship ready both men embark on their journey to moon. They land in the moon and are amazed to find that they can jump longer distances easily. In their amazement they lose their way to spaceship. Feeling hungry they eat some vegetations found on the moon's surface and soon becomes drowsy. They wake up to realize that they are caught by the selenites, the ant like moon people. Will they make their way back to the earth?

"What is this spirit in man that urges him forever to depart from happiness and security, to toil, to place himself in danger, even to risk a reasonable certainty of death? It dawned upon me up there in the moon as a thing I ought always to have known, that man is not made simply to go about being safe and comfortable and well fed and amused. Against his interest, against his happiness he is constantly being driven to do unreasonable things. Some force not himself impels him and go he must."

Wells imagination is astounding. I enjoyed exploring the moon with Bedford and Cavor.

Women's Classic Literature Event

Women's literature event is hosted by Classics Club. It began in October 2015 and will go through December 2016. I take this opportunity to read some of the books in my classics club list. I set myself a goal of five books for this event.

The books which I have picked for this event:

1. I know why the caged bird sings - Maya Angelou
2. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
3. Ariel - Sylvia Plath
4. Ruth - Elizabeth Gaskell
5. Beloved - Toni Morrison

Books added

• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
• Little Women

Howards End

Author        : E.M. Forster

Genre         : Novel

Published   : 1910

Country      : United Kingdom

Challenge   : LMRC - Novemeber (Beat Generation or Bloomsbury Group)

 

The Beat Generation was a group of authors whose literature explored and influenced American culture in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. Central elements of Beat culture are rejection of standard narrative values, the spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration. (Source - Wikepedia)

 

The Bloomsbury Group was an influential group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists. Much of the literature produced by Bloomsbury Group was revolutionary. They formed a bridge between the Victorians and the Moderns.

 

Howards End

 

The story revolves around three families from different socioeconomic strata. Schlegels are cultured, intellectual upper class who lives on an inherited income. The wilcoxes are practical, business minded who made wealth in colonies. Basts are the lower level working class.

The Wilcoxes invite Schlegels to Howards End, their country house at Hilton  after their acquaintance in one of their European trip. Helen visits Howards End but Margaret could not accompany her as their brother is sick. Helen describes Howards End to Margaret in her letters. The novel in fact begins with a series of letter from Helen to Margaret.  Helen falls in love with the younger son of Wilcox, but it ends in a span of twenty-four hours. The Schlegels and Wilcox part wishing not to meet in the future. Few years later the Wilcoxes move to Schlegels neighborhood.  Friendship blooms between Mrs. Wilcox and Margaret. Mrs. Wilcox dies, leaving a note wishing that Howards End be given to Margaret. Wilcoxes  burns the note in fire. Soon Mr. Wilcox takes a liking to Margaret. One day, he proposes to her, awkwardly though.  Margaret to her surprise was happy and accepts his proposal. When Helen is against her marrying Mr. Wilcox, Margaret tells her, 

"If Wilcoxes hadn’t worked and died in England for thousands of years, you and I couldn’t sit here without having our throats cut. There would be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even. Just savagery. No- perhaps not even that. Without their spirit life might never moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it."

Margaret knew all the faults of Mr. Wilcox. She knows that he is a practical man with no emotions. But she understands and hopes that she could change him.

"Only connect! that was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."

 After twists and turns, the novel ends with Mr. Wilcox, Margaret, Helen and her illegitimate child living at Howards End. Helen is finally able to see the goodness in Mr. Wilcox as her sister.  Mr. Wilcox also leaves his rigid attitude and become an understanding man.

By weaving the lives of three families, Forster portrays the social divisions, gender divisions and materialism in the Burgeoning England at the turn of the 20th century. Howards End symbolically represents England. The burgeoning England should not lose its culture to materialism. Like his protagonist Margaret, Forster wants to only connect the both. He envisions an England where people can connect and live harmoniously.

The novel is filled with philosophical ideas; nevertheless it is an engaging read. Forsters writing is rich and eloquent. I would definitely like to read it again in future.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Author                  : Washington Irving
Country                : United States
Genre                   : Short story, Speculative fiction
Published in         : The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent
Publication Date  : 1820

Challenge             : LMRC - April - Romanticism

Romanticism:

A movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries. The German poet Friedrich Schlegel, who is given credit for first using the term romantic to describe literature, defined it as "literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form." This is as accurate a general definition as can be accomplished, although Victor Hugo's phrase "liberalism in literature" is also apt. Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of romanticism. Any list of particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of and worship of nature; and fascination with the past, especially the myths and mysticism of the middle ages.

"Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquility".

The legend of sleepy hollow tells the story of Ichabod Crane. He comes to the town named Sleepy Hollow from Connecticut as a school teacher. He is lean, lanky and superstitious. Katrina Van Tassel, a beautiful young woman is his student. His heart beats for her, but he actually wants to win her heart the moment he see the rich farm of her father. He has a competitor though, the village hero Brom Bones. Brones had already scared many of Katrina's suitors. But, Ichabod avoids physical confrontation with Brom Bones, so he plays many pranks on Crane and humiliates him. One fine day, Ichabod is invited to a party at Van Tassels. He stays after the party, but then he leaves heart broken. It was dark and quiet. Ichabod tries to be brave. When he sees a dark figure without a head on a horse, the ghost stories about headless horseman comes to his mind. He quickens to cross the bridge. After crossing the bridge he turns to see the headless horseman vanish according to the rules. But the headless horseman hurls the head at him. The next day he has disappeared. Some believes that it is one of the pranks of Brom Bones. Others believe that Ichabod was taken by the headless horseman.
Rich imagery makes the book a pleasant read.

 

 

The hiatus coming to an end !!!

I have been away from online activity for quite a long time. Reasons are many and I am not going to bother anyone with that. I read the "Legend of Sleeping Hollow" for LMRC's April Romanticism. I also read 'A room with a view' by E.M. Forster and 'The fault in our stars by John Green during my hiatus. I really missed the LMRC. I look forward to complete the November and December LMRC.