Five Classics on My List

"Classics" brings up the idea of dust, yellowed pages and hidden treasures — to bibliophiles, at least.  I think of people greeting the ships at the docks, asking if Little Dorritt was still alive.  I think of long skirts, scullery maids, post-World War II smoke curling up into a haze.  I think of manners, fear, control and society.  I think of those who came before and what reading meant to them.

So I picked up Rebecca as my ode to classics.  Who hasn't heard the opening line of the book, wondered what it meant, felt sorry for the young bride trying to find her way in a truly unknown landscape, haunted by the image of a woman who came before her?

I am taking my time with this one, knowing that once I'm done I can't say I've never read it.  It's like pulling a ribbon off slowly, wondering what may be hidden under the wrapping.  I am enjoying it, and the leisure with which I am consuming it is rather decadent and delicious.

I have a few others on my list, and I hope to consume them with the same leisure and joy (in no particular order):

• Madame Bovary — anything considered obscene in 19th century France has to be worth a gander!
• A Christmas Carol — Despite the enjoyable film adaptations of the past and present, nothing rings as true as Dickens' own words.
• The Woman in White — I'm still partially mesmerized by Wilkie after reading Drood.
• Dracula — it will give me a reason to go to the Rosenbach Museum to see, perhaps to touch, Bram Stoker's outline and notes for his novel.  (It was closed for renovation when I last tried to visit.) (The museum, that is.)

What classics have you enjoyed that aren't on this list? Which would you recommend?

The Silent Gift — Review by Chris

Carole can tell a story. In fact, her entire family has the gift: a trip to the grocery store that afternoon or remembering how television channels were changed "back in the day" can make me laugh so hard my face hurts and want to talk until all hours just to hear how it turns out.

Even when regaling the story of a movie or television show, the clan can rock. However, there is a difference: when they do not own the story, there's a distance between the storyteller and the tale.

For them, it's not bad. For Michael Landon, Jr. and Cindy Kelly, it's a deal-breaker.

Landon and Kelly have that problem with The Silent Gift. They don't own the story, so they tell it from a distance. The writers try too hard to create nonchalance in their story, but they can't hide the stress of too many wrong words too carefully chosen to create clumsy clues that blurt out the storyline, rather than provide a foreshadowing or creating a path that carries the story forward.

The novel begins with a rush: a terrible, exciting scene involving fast driving, death and birth, beginning and the end. Then the reader goes from 60 to zero when we meet the characters in their everyday life.

Mary is wooden and stilted, but there's no clue as to why, so she remains simply clunky rather than reserved and complicated. Every plot complication is due to her unexplained, unexpected action. All we see, all we know is what's on the page, and that's scant at best. Jack is almost invisible — which should be impossible, considering the third-person narrative focuses on Mary and she's focused on Jack. Jerry is a caricature who doesn't really even deserve a name, let alone any space in the narrative. He sweeps in with everything and nothing. The reader doesn't know, and with Mary's leaden characterization, the reader doesn't really care.

The story evolves around the action of a deaf-mute boy who cannot communicate. Out of nowhere he has skills he was neither taught nor would he understood what they meant. His mother, who after spending one night on a Salvation Army cot, suddenly becomes an expert in scripture, making connections between her son's actions and a complex book she admits to never having read herself, and not having even listened to since she was a child. It's not a miracle, just an unlikely plot complication. I just don't believe it.

Full disclosure: I didn't finish the book. I didn't want to. I have been reading long enough to know how many pages to give a book to make its case. I gave this book 93 pages, which is only a quarter of the novel but far more than it deserved, and it never captured my attention and imagination. I didn't find myself wondering what comes next. I didn't delight in the characters, despite their hardships. I didn't try to guess how the story would unfold. I have no idea what Mary looks like, what Jack looks like. I can't picture their surroundings, the cities in which they find themselves. I can't see it, and that only happens when my imagination is not engaged. When I see only the words on the page, I put down the book.

I wanted to like this book, but I didn't.

Electronic Books: Would I Go There?

Electronic book machines are coming out of the woodwork these days, surprisingly enough, in time for Christmas. As a lifelong reader, the question arises: would I go there?

Well, I already have, in my own way: I read my news on the computer.

I read the Washington Post, New York Times, AP News and BBC News on my computer daily. Those sources are in my browser toolbars, and I click on them before I open any other pages. I peruse the headlines and scan the pages to see what the media think I need to know. I regret to admit that I do not subscribe to any print news sources or newspapers (though I would be glad to support the Web sites I use with a subscription).

I do receive sales papers on my doorstep — and, when my neighbor Kathy is home on a Sunday, her copy of the Sunday WaPo. (That's Washington Post, for those of you outside of the metro D.C. area.)

As a former newspaper reporter, I should be ashamed. I should have ink flowing through my veins. I don't. I hate newsprint ink on my fingers, hands, arms and clothing after reading the paper. (No, I don't roll around in the paper to get that dirty. Try carrying newspapers in your arms and see how much ink winds up on your clothes. Smarty.) However, I love the news. Good heavens, I just realized: I'm a news junkie!

But back to the topic. I like the neatness of e-newspapers. I can read news stories on the computer all day. Well, let me clarify: I can read news articles for short bursts on and off all day. I do not stare at the screen for hours absorbing the news, not even on the weekends.

News articles have shortened to the point that Jeff Goldblum's character noted in The Big Chill: you can read the articles while on the toilet. (You're welcome for the paraphrasing.) I still read, and love, longer articles — but I rarely find them, and often wind up having to read them in installments, especially those from The New Yorker magazine. (The cartoons, thankfully, I still can read in one shot.)

But books — would I go "e"? No, books for me are not meant for the monitor or LCD, even when it's small and pocket-sized.

Some multi-feature cellular telephones have book-reading applications, but I don't want to use my cellular telephone to read a book. I'd go blind. The 3-inch screen is not meant to do more than show me what the phone is doing at that very moment.

I don't want a machine I carry in my purse, briefcase or backpack. I've tried viewing my digital camera's LCD screen in the sunlight, and I don't want to have to fight the sun, which is supposed to make reading easier because of its helpful light. I don't want to worry about dropping it and having to shell out a few hundred dollars more to replace it. I don't want to have to worry about it falling in a pool or getting splashed at the beach. My family kills electronics in water or finds their phones wiped clean of all information, and I don't want to follow suit with something I can't afford to replace regularly.

Would a machine make it easier to carry around my library? Would it reduce my pathological hoarding of books? (I have regaled my friends time and again with stories of the 25¢ copy of The Phantom Tollbooth for the home library, so I can lend out multiple copies at a time, or a dime for Franklin's autobiography.) Could I get some classics for free online and carry them with me to read at any time? Absolutely.

And yet....

I enjoy the heft of a book in my hand. I take pleasure in reading in direct sunlight (or by flashlight, even). I feel at home surrounded by stack of books on my nightstand and thousands of books piled on every flat surface in my home. I like perusing the spines to see what looks good, both at home and in commercial settings. I am gleeful to find Treasure Island illustrated by N.C. Wyeth in the thrift store bookshelves.

If I drop it in the tub, a book will dry, ultimately (though it never will be the smooth volume it once was). I can (and have) dropped my books down the stairs, lost a grip on an entire box of them and watched them crash to the ground or come to a stop on the landing. The cats have knocked over stacks, curled up on whatever I set down on the bed or table and chewed the corner or two of whatever distracted me from them.

My favorite place on the planet was Acres of Books, the now-defunct used bookstore in Long Beach, Calif., whose name was a literal description of the store and its inventory, with row upon row of towering bookshelves only shoulder-width apart. (Vicky would spend short bursts of time with me in there, bless her claustrophobic heart.)

In short: I love books. I do not plan to surrender them for anything "e."

Someday, I may change my mind. I suspect my love affair with the printed word will strain next year when David and I pack what most likely will be about a hundred boxes of books when we move. Someday my eyes may need assistance that only a future device can provide.

But it is not this day. I appreciate reading in any form, but I intend to continue my love affair with the printed page.