Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

I read Peter Pan every few years. I don't know what chokehold this story has on me, but I love it so much even as problematic as it is. I had considered reading it aloud to my daughter as I read it, but we'll need to have a few conversations first before I do so thanks to some of the content. 

Pan himself is such a creepy, magical character. I'd be very much like Wendy had I met him as a kid. I always wanted to. 

Barrie captures childhood and development well considering this was written in the early 1900s. How the kids act, especially Peter. They're decidedly kids and act with the lack of judgment that kids so often have. 

The last chapter, in particular, hits different as an adult. I read it, and just burst into sobs. My spouse thought I was nuts. Something about the gay, innocent, and heartlessness of kids and the fact that Peter forgets is just so devastating even though you know that's how it has to be. 

A very pleasant reread and lovely break in the longer books on my classics club.

Martin Chuzzlewitt

There are some Dickens books that everyone knows. There are some that everyone at least knows the title of. And then there are some that seem clearly forgotten. This is one of those.

Roughly 12 years ago, I decided to read Dicken's novels in the order he wrote them. I started with Sketches by Boz and continued forward. It's been a long project. Chuzzlewitt came up when I made my Classics Club list. 

Before reading this one, I looked up the serialization schedule. I tried to read it by that, meaning I'd read the first couple chapters and then take a short break - either reading a lighter book or taking a day off of reading in general. In doing this, the structure of the book suddenly opened up and made a lot more sense. 

I liked this one. The amount of sass in the narration was really fun whenever Dickens was writing about one of the villains. His critique on the US was also quite apropos and honestly probably still applies to today. Funnily enough, apparently, his US readers hated this book and essentially "canceled" Dickens after reading this because it wasn't to their taste. 

The characters were entertaining enough though there's definitely a point where you just want to punch a few of them in the face because their comeuppance doesn't seem to be coming quickly enough. Of course, in the end, it all comes together like any good Dickens novel does. I definitely enjoyed this one.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Huh. Apparently, I never reviewed this book even though I finished it last year. I'm not going to summarize this.

I went into this book with a lot of trepidation knowing the general thought on Russian literature as being "difficult." In general, I didn't find this difficult to read. It was much like Dickens. Lots of words and description, but if you're paying attention, easy enough. I did find that I had to focus though. I couldn't just sit and read for hours. This was a spend maybe 20 minutes reading a day type of book. 

Having never seen any of the movies and knowing only that the story involves Anna Karenina going outside her marriage with a man name Vronsky, I wasn't sure what I was going to read. I was not expecting the giant treatises on farming from Levin. 

In general, I really enjoyed the early part of the book. While I didn't necessarily agree with the various characters, it was pretty fun. Around the halfway point, I found the book to be more of a slog. While I don't mind morally corrupt characters, there usually has to be some other quality in the book to keep me interested in the story. This one, I just found it to be frustrating a dull. 

I especially hated now Anna was a horrible person for going outside her marriage, but her brother was hardly knocked down every time he cheated. Clearly that was a main part of the novel, but I still hated it. I can see why many people don't enjoy reading classics as you see a lot of those double standards. (I'm thinking Tess of the D'Ubervilles...)

Glad I read this, but I likely won't read it ever again.