Welcome to the website for my OLLI course on novels in Spring 2024. This term is going to be a little different, but just a little. For those of you who have taken one of my courses before (it's been 7 years now!), this one varies a bit; its more of an introduction to the study of literature because it will be recorded and packaged as an "on demand" course. That's why the course title includes the word "genres." We are going to read and discuss great books that are illustrious examples of the genres they represent. And so, we will begin with one of the great classics in the history of the novel, Charles Dickens's Bleak House.
Bleak House, Charles Dickens (798 pps on Kindle--page counts vary, but it's about twice as long as the usual novel, and it incorporates several genres)
According to Amazon blurbs, this novel is "widely regarded as Dickens's masterpiece," one of his "most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums. It is his 9th novel, "published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853," and considered "one of Dickens's finest novels, containing . . . the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. The story is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator."
NOTE: I've mentioned Dickens in class several times, and have long wanted to include some literary classics in courses that generally focus on more modern novels.I've loved this novel for decades, found it a "page turner" despite its length. And I'm going to begin the class with this book because it incorporates many of the genres we're going to talk about as the course progresses.It is first of all an historical novel, a representation and commentary on Victorian London, and because of its scope could be considered "epic."
It's also a novel of social commentary, and at its core, it's a mystery. Esther Summerson, our heroine, is a rescued orphan who wants to discover her parentage. Who is her mother? You'll find out by the end. And it's a suspense novel; throughout, the legal case of inheritance, Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, is pending with thousands of pounds in legal limbo. And it's a comic novel, thanks to Dickens's caricatures. And it's both a 1st person and 3rd person omniscient narrator.
Given the weight, and depth, and complexity of this novel, we'll spend two class periods on discussion rather than the usual one session.
FINAL NOTE: Because this is a classic, it's widely available, even free on Project Gutenberg, in various formats including audio. (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1023)
The London House, Katherine Reay (Epistolary, 368 pps. on Kindle)
Amazon blurb: Uncovering a dark family secret sends one woman through the history of Britain’s World War II spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris to save her family’s reputation. Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian, but Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover. Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London. She and Mat discover diaries and letters that reveal her grandmother and great-aunt were known as the “Waite sisters.” Popular and witty, they came of age during the interwar years, a time of peace and luxury filled with dances, jazz clubs, and romance. The buoyant tone of the correspondence soon yields to sadder revelations as the sisters grow apart, and one leaves home for the glittering fashion scene of Paris, despite rumblings of a coming world war.
Each letter brings more questions. Was Caroline’s great-aunt actually a traitor and Nazi collaborator, or is there a more complex truth buried in the past? Together, Caroline and Mat uncover stories of spies and secrets, love and heartbreak, and the events of one fateful evening in 1941 that changed everything. In this rich historical novel from award-winning author Katherine Reay, a young woman is tasked with writing the next chapter of her family’s story. But Caroline must choose whether to embrace a love of her own and proceed with caution if her family’s decades-old wounds are to heal without tearing them even further apart.
NOTE: This is both historical novel and epistolary, with some mystery elements. Okay, it's not great literature, but it's a really good read. My pick would have been, and actually was, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but then we've already read that one. That's a great novel, but I didn't want to repeat. If you haven't read it, do. We've also read some other epistolary novels, like Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, and Letters from Skye, by Jessica Brockmole. If you like epistolaries, I'll give you several more suggestions during class.
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen (Memoir, 306 pps on Kindle)
Amazon blurb: In 1914 Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya with her husband to run a coffee farm. Instantly drawn to the land, she spent her happiest years there until the plantation failed. Karen Blixen was forced to return to Denmark and it was there in 1937 that she wrote this classic account of her experiences. A poignant farewell to her beloved Kenya, Out of Africa describes her strong friendships with the people of her area, her affection for the landscape and animals, and great love for the adventurer Denys Finch-Hatton. Written with astonishing clarity and an unsentimental intelligence, Out of Africa portrays an idyllic way of life that has disappeared forever.
NOTE: Surprise, surprise. This novel is written in the memoir genre. After reading lots and lots and lots of memoirs, I found a book I like. You've probably seen the movie--absolutely wonderful--but please read as well. We will discuss this in class, but lots of memoirs are dark and anguished and angry, or they are self-celebratory. And I owe a research debt to my former colleague Ben Yagoda for writing a book on the history of the genre. Maybe I can entice him to come to class.
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George (431 pps.)
OR
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride (400 pps.).
It will be your choice
A Great Deliverance, Elizabeth George (431 pps. on Kindle)
Amazon blurb: To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders.
Now into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an axe in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry."
Yet as Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of secret scandals and appalling crimes, they uncover a shattering series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley—and in their own lives as well.
NOTE: This is the first of her Inspector Lynley novels, of which there are 21. And it's one of the shorter novels. We haven't done an Elizabeth George novel in this class, because of the books' length, but she is of course one of the great mystery novelists, and due a discussion in this course.
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, James McBride (400 pps. on Kindle)
Amazon blurb: NY Times bestseller, named Best Book of the Year, by NPR/FRESH AIR, Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Time Magazine
"A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” The New York Times Book Review
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
NOTE: This is a more recent novel that has merited critical acclaim, and it's worth a "read." But I'll give you your choice of the older, more classic novel or this newer one.
So Big, Edna Ferber (219 pps)
OR
Four Winds, Kristin Hannah (469 pps on Kindle).
Again, your choice.
So Big, Edna Ferber
Amazon blurb: The story follows the life of a young woman, Selina Peake De Jong, who decides to be a school teacher in farming country. During her stay on the Pool family farm, she encourages the young Roelf Pool to follow his interests, which include art. Upon his mother's death, Roelf runs away to France. Meanwhile, Selina marries a Dutch farmer named Pervus. They have a child together, Dirk, whom she nicknames "So Big."
Pervus dies and Selina is forced to take over working on the farm to give Dirk a future. As Dirk gets older, he works as an architect but is more interested in making money than creating buildings and becomes a stock broker, much to his mother's disappointment. His love interest, Dallas O'Mara, an acclaimed artist, tries to convince Dirk that there is more to life than money. Selina is visited by Roelf Pool, who has since become a famous sculptor. Dirk grows very distressed when, after visiting his mother's farm, he realizes that Dallas and Roelf love each other and he cannot compete with the artistically minded sculptor.
The book was inspired by the life of Antje Paarlberg in the Dutch community of South Holland, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. It won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1925.
NOTE: As the blurb tells you, this novel won the Pulitzer; it's an American classic. Interesting that the American classics about the settlement of the west are all written by women. P.S. Willa Cather, My Antonia, and O Pioneer, is one of them. Also won a Pulitzer. Because it's an American classic, this book is also available, free, on Project Gutenberg, in multiple formats. (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61686).
The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah
Amazon blurb: "The Bestselling Hardcover Novel of the Year."--Publishers Weekly.
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.
By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail, water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; in this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it—the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
NOTE: As you know, her The Nightingale (300K on AMZ) is an astonishing novel, epic certainly, with a focus on women's roles in historic events, but that novel is based in France, and we've read it. So I opted for this novel, set in the U.S. but equally epic and historic.
NOTE: Once again, I'm giving you the choice between an American classic and a more modern novel. Both are wonderful, but I'll leave the decision to the class.
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett (316 pps on Kindle)
Amazon blurb: #1 New York Times Bestseller
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers. “Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature.” —The Guardian
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.
NOTE: A couple of years ago, we read The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, who is among America's cadre of literary novelists. But recently I found some discussion among women authors, of a "certain age," who write novels about "women of a certain age." I think it's an idea worth discussing, and this novel falls into that category.