2025 Classics Reading Haul

Classics Books I want to read in 2025 :

British Classics :

1. 1984 (Reread) - George Orwell
2. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
3. Flush - Virginia Woolf
4. Jane Eyre (Reread) - Charlotte Bronte
5. Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H Lawarence
6. Enchanted April, The - Elizabeth Von Arnim
7. Last Man, The  - Mary Shelley
8. Mill on The Floss, The  - George Elliot
9. Night Is Darkening Around Me, The  - Emily Bronte
10. Return of Native, The - Thomas Hardy
11. Utopia - Thomas More
12. Woodlanders, The  - Thomas Hardy
13. Villette - Charlotte Bronte
14. Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell
15. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

French Classics :

1. Fortune of the Rougons, The - Emile Zola
2. Phantom of The Opera, The - Gaston Leroux

American Classics :

1. Ethan Form - Edith Wharton
2. Farewell to Arms, a - Ernest Hemmingway
3. Grapes of Wrath, The - John Steinbeck
4. Last of The Mohicans  - James Fenimore Copper
5. Little Princes, a - Frances Hudgson Burnett

Russian Classics :

1. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
2. Death of Ivan Ilyich, The  - Leo Tolstoy
3. Karamazov Brothers, The - Fyodor Doestoevsky
4. Master and Margarita, The - Mikhail Bulgakov

Reading Statistic :

January :

1. Grapes of Wrath, The - John Steinbeck (Born, 27 Feb 1902)
2. Death of Ivan Ilyich, The  - Leo Tolstoy  
3. Ethan Form - Edith Wharton (Born, 24 January 1862)

February :

     4. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (Born, 7 February 1812)

     5.  Utopia - Thomas More (Born, 7 February 1478)

March :

    6.  Sang Jenderal di Dalam Labirinnya - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Born, 6 Macrh 1927)

    7.  Jane Eyre (Reread) - Charlotte Bronte

Review Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

• Lady Audley's Secret, considered as a sensational novel, was highly popular in the 19th century. Published in 1862, it became a notable work by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. The novel reaps the sensation because it has themes of bigamy. Lady Audley's secret combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.
• Lady Audley had climbed up her social status from a governess named Lucy Graham till she ensnares even the wealthy widower, Michael Audley. She made it with her childlike beauty, her most valuable asset.Robert Audley, the nephew of Michael Audley, wanted to comfort his grieving friend, George Talboys after the death of his wife. He took him to Audley Court to have dinner with his new aunt, but the lady avoided them. After they sneak out of the forbidden room to see the lady's portrait, George Talboys is missing.
• Robert is represented as an amateurish detective to search for clues and to investigate the missing of his friend. The mystery leads to the secret of Lady Audley and her past lives. He pursued questions of identity along the paths and corridors of English country houses.
• Lady Audley is a self-centered woman, just driven by her own desire, her action as a reflection of her desperation for her poverty and her social status.
• The favorite character obviously falls into Robert Audley. The changes in the character of Robert from lazy and idle make him more focused, disciplined, and motivated. He is obsessed with the mystery of George's disappearance, he longs for closure about his friend’s disappearance and is willing to do anything to attain it. Some readers think that he is a homosexual because he has a strong feeling for George, but I think it's normal, he finds justice not only for his friend, but also for his uncle and the future of the Audley family.
• This novel became my comfort reading, with a third-person narrative, flowy and fast-paced. It feels like reading Agatha Christie's work, but it's not the same because of Braddon's rich narrative, but sometimes it's verbose. Writing a review of a mystery novel is quite difficult for me not to spoil the main story. Overall, I think this book is the best choice for anyone who loves the Victorian era. It is also compared with The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins.

REVIEW (ULASAN NOVEL) O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

"A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves."

O Pioneers! is a profoundly feminist novel that was published in 1913 by American author, Willa Cather. This is the first book from the Great Plains Trilogy series, one pack with The Song of The Lark and My Antonia. This book refers to many northern European immigrants who traveled to settle in Nebraska. Pioneers means the first generation who first owned the wild land, which means the land is free. Instead of succeeding in their new land by farming, many of them failed to conquer it. It's because they have no experience of farming, and basically many of them come from the working class and didn't know how to manage the prairie. But, many of them become successful landowners.

Alexandra Bergson, the protagonist of this novel, promised her father on his deathbed to manage the praire which her father failed. She lived along with her brother, Lou, Oscar and little Emil Bergson. She works and toils through the prime years of her life. When her brother lacked foresight and judgement, she could take on the role of a patriarch, making critical decisions about the land, labor and finance.

The feeling of being at one with nature makes Alexandra ignore her personal feelings. The land for her is much more than just physical space. She has a deep emotional and almost spiritual connection to the land. The land became her identity, and her responsibility to future generations.

"The land belongs to the future, Carl; that’s the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk’s plat will be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother’s children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it—for a little while.” (Alexandra)

I like it when the novel is like a super account of human life from the past. A book like this is more than just reading. We not only see the point of view of people who struggle through life and their way of living, but also the depiction of places, the landscape and the circumstances. Willa Cather is the brilliant author who wrote the very first account of The Great Plains of America.

https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1850-1874/who-were-the-settlers-who-was-daniel-freeman/the-immigrant-experience/

Ruang Buku Megga Rated : ✬✬✬✬(4/5)

Title : O Pioneers!

Author : Willa Cather
Publisher : Book-of-the-Month Club
Year : 1995 (First Published in 1913)
Format /Pages : Hardcover / 309 pages
ISBN : 9780739433249

Review dan Ulasan Novel Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell

Mary Barton, a poignant novel and the first Elizabeth Gaskell work that was published in 1848. This is the second novel that I have read from her. As always, her narrative is well constructed and easy to read. Elizabeth Gaskell is good at mixing romance with social critique and political commentary, so, she has never disappointed me so far.

The original title of this work is Mary Barton: A Tale Of Manchester Life. True to the title, the work portrays the lives of people in Machester as an industrial town. Gaskell underscores their working class, poor people, their starvation, their slumming area, their pride, their social gap, also the way of living between workers and masters. The author realistically depicts the conditions in the city of Manchester during The Great Depression in 1839.

The titular character, Mary Barton, is Gaskell's heroine. A young and beautiful woman from working class family, ambitious become a "lady", and want to marries whealty men who can escaped her and her family from poverty. When her mother died, Mary lives with her only father, John Barton as a workers at the mill and the representative for workers' rights and joining Chartism movement.

Mary had an affair with the mill owner's son, Harry Carson, assuming that he would marry her. Readers may think that Mary is shallow, but she doesn't have another choice. She thinks she can make it with her beauty. It's sad to think her mother and her older brother died because there was not enough money to buy medicine. Mary rejected Jem Willson, who loved her, for Henry. 

Henry Carson's privilege contrasted sharply with the dire poverty and hardship of workers. They envy the ease of life of the upper class while they are suffering. Food shortages and malnutrition. Why don't the masters increase their wages? Then, something terrible happened, something that turned Mary's life. Can she be the 'lady' she wants to be?

What had happened to the life of Mary Barton, had changed her personality. Her bold and her integrity win the hearts of the readers, and she deserves the title of heroine. Mary is surrounded by her neighbors and friends who are loyal and support her. There are many subplots which are told about Mary's blind friends, Margaret, who has a beautiful voice, Alice Willson who become the mother role model for Marry, and the mysterious disapperance her aunt, Esther.

All the thematic expositions, of birth, death, social class, and love, are centered on Mary Barton. The tale about master vs workers as if it never ends. From The Movement of Chartism through this day, workers are getting better rights from year to year. This book is an interesting read, made me a little bit smarter. Sadly, because too many characters died, nevertheless, it ended up beautiful.

Ruang Buku Megga Rated : ✬✬✬✬✬(5/5)

​Title : Mary Barton
Author : Elizabeth Gaskell
Publisher : Penguin Popular Classics
Year : 1994 (First Published in 1848)
Pages : 372 pages
ISBN : 9780140621020

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Review Jude The Obscure - Thomas Hardy

The story revolves around the protagonist, Jude Fawley. He dreamed become a scholar at university in another town, Christminster. It's says dream because Jude is from a working class family, and didn't afford to pay his tuition. Jude teaches himself Classical Greek and Latin in his spare time, while working in his great-aunt's bakery, with the hope of entering university.

His one reckless action in his youth, committed on the seduction of a butcher girl, had set his dream apart. Jude marries Arabella Donn, after she lies that she's pregnant, they have unhappy marriage, then Arabella leaves him. This sets in motion the events that form the main storyline until Jude meet his cousin, Sue Bridehead. This moment marks the beginning of Jude's deep emotional attachment to Sue, a relationship that becomes central to the novel. 

The first impression the reader forms on Jude is a person who is firm with his dreams but powerless because his circumstances and societal expectations have thwarted him. His sincere actions call for a lot of sympathy. Sue's independence shifts to defiance of traditional gender roles. She is an extremely intelligent woman who rejects Christianity and flirts with paganism. She is both admirable but deeply flawed. Hardy also associates Sue with many of his heroines, like Tess d'Urbervilles (Tess of d'Ubervilles) and Eustacia Vye (The Return of The Native). The rest of the characters: Richard Phillotson, Arabella and Little-Father-time are overshadowing their bleak life and their bright dream. All of them are flawed, but Richard Phillotson is an ambiguous character, making it difficult to label him as right or wrong. His choices are shaped by societal norms.

"I can’t bear that they, and everybody, should think people wicked because they may have chosen to live their own way! It is really these opinions that make the best intentioned people reckless, and actually become immoral!’   (Sue, Part Fifth chapter VI, pg. 293)

The entire content of this novel is still about Jude Fawley and his obscurity in philosophy and society. Jude's and Sue's unconventional love story encourages readers to question traditional norms. The pursuit of dreams and societal judgment resonate deeply with modern readers. Hardy seems to propose that we should battle against our tragic fate. At some time. He shows that the battle itself is futility.

I am very grateful that Thomas Hardy has published many books! His books always pushed my reading slump away, his flowy narrative and his beautiful depiction of rural Dorset in the 19th century are something I can't find in contemporary books. But, Jude The Obscure is too emotional, tragic had left me in tears.

"Their philosophy only recognizes relations based on animal desire."

Ruang Buku Megga Rated : ✬✬✬✬ (4/5)

​Title : Jude The Obscure

Author : Thomas Hardy

Publisher : Alma Classics

Year :  2019 (First Published in 1895)

Pages :  448 pages

ISBN : 9781847498076

Time Machine - H.G Wells

A Time Traveller travels through time with a Time Machine to the future, to the year 802,701 AD, finds Englad in a state of dystopian-post apocalyptic situation. Instead of increasingly advanced technology, it has returned to barbaric times. He finds several little human groups who called the 'Eloi', and evil post-human monsters called Morlocks, live underground and eating eloi. The adventure of Time Traveller is thrilling, he runaway with Weena, the little people he saved from Morlocks. He must finding his Time Machine which stolen by Morlocks.

Here, Wells makes it clear to readers that this future is a direct evolution of the era in which the Time Traveller lives. I know this is just a theory and writer's imagination, I wonder what make little this human size decreasing? is it part of evolution ? Thus, in the far far future, it would be possible the human race is downsizing just like eloi. Another evolution happens to Morlock too. We see 802,701 AD from scientist point of view, he explain the wheater, the atmosphere and the vegetation of nature. 

For me, The Time Machine is best suited for cinematic portrayal than reading and visualizing. The depiction of apocalyptic world was blown my mind, but sometimes I didn't get into. While I am reading, I watched snippet from The Time Machine 1960 movies, to get visualize what it's look like. But, I admited, this masterpiece is beyond its time.

Ruang Buku Megga Rated : ✬✬✬✬ (4/5)

​Title : The Time Machine

Author : H.G Wells

Publisher : Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Year :  15 April 2018 (First Published in 1895)

Pages :  160 pages

ISBN : 9786020382807

Pollyanna - Eleanor H. Porter

Pollyanna is a good children's classic. It says the story of Pollyanna Whittier, who was orphaned, and adopted by her aunt, Miss Polly Harrington. This, the first in the series, takes us through her life as a tweleve years old girl, leading her new life at Beldingsville, New England, Vermont. Her coming of age stories continue in second book, Pollyanna Grows Up.

Pollyanna's father, John Whittier is a poor priest in Western town. Her mother, Jenni Harrington died since Pollyanna was baby. Pollyanna and her father often playing 'The Glad Game'. The game teaches everyone that no matter how bad the life is, there is always something to be glad about. Soon she spreads the game to Beldingsville people. 

The story is quite interesting and enjoyable. I like the humor, Pollyanna is talkactive girl, and she has many friends but all of them are adult. Pollyanna's presence encouraging a positive outlook on life, fostering gratitude each day, and finding joy in everything, even during tough times. I think, Pollyanna has cheer up the reader too.

I love this kind of children classics, the stories will stay with us forever, when in difficult time, I remeber you, Pollyanna. Four stars for Pollyanna.

Ruang Buku Megga Rated : ✬✬✬✬ (4/5)

​Title : Pollyanna

Author : Eleanor H. Porter

Publisher : Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Year :  2018 (First Published in 1913)

Pages :  260 pages

ISBN : 9786020395135

Passing - Nella Larsen

In 1920, America still implemented a system of racial segregation between blacks and whites. However, there are some descendants of mixed races or mulattoes who are considered to have passed, they can obtain the same social recognition and facilities as white community. Irene, with her light skin and black hair, was considered as passing, but because she married a black man (nigger), lived at Harlem street with her black community.

Clare Kendry, who looks exactly like a white person with blonde hair, married a white man, John Bellew. Clare lives in a white community, her husband is very racist and doesn't know the fact that Clare has black ancestry. Clare is Irene's childhood friend, lived together in a black neighborhood, in the 1920s, they accidentally met in a hotel restaurant, since then, Clare continued to meet Irene until they became close, but Irene felt a little uncomfortable with Clare's beauty and charm. He also really didn't like John Bellew with his offensive remarks about race.

Without knowing her husband, Clare's frequent visits to Harlem Street, indicate that she is unhappy with her current condition, she pretend as white for her husband, but it's tortured her. She longs to return  to the black community. Clare is the type of woman who will do anything to get what she want. But, for Irene, she don't want to get another problem with whites, especially with John Bellew. Irene's jelous thiking about Clare's charm is tortured her mentally, but she still maintaining her household, even though previously it was not good because of the political situation.

The idea of passing is really iteresting, this book is so thin yet so thick with meaning. Passing deals with issues that we are still dealing with today, no matter how far we think we have come, and no matter how far we'll go, we always longing the place where we used to belong. Without ignoring the political aspect, this novel is very good to read. 

Ruang Buku Megga Rated : ✬✬✬✬ (4/5)

​Title : Passing

Author : Nella Larsen

Publisher : Penguin English Library

Year :  2020 (First Published in 1929)

Pages :  114 pages

ISBN : 9780241472712

Read-along Dorian Gray Chapter III - VIII ❤❤ Sybil Vane❤❤

Lord Henry asked his uncle about Dorian Gray family, He is the grandson of Lord Kelso, and his mother was the beautiful Lady Margaret Devereux. Margaret married a man Lord Kelso did not approve of, and her father arranged for the man to be killed in a duel. Dorian’s mother died within a year, and Dorian was raised by his grandfather. When Dorian comes of age at twenty-one, he will inherit enough money to enable him to live comfortably.

Dorian falls in love with an actress named Sybil Vane, She performs many of the great Shakespearean roles in a tawdry theatre in the back streets of London. He tells his lover, but Lord Henry suggest no to marry.

'...She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. You laugh, but I tell you she has genius. I love her, and I must make her love me. You, who know all the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. My God, Harry, how I worship her!’ (Dorian)

but, Lord Henry said this :

'My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.’

With those words, is like a .. meh ..☺☺ me as the woman in modern life feels like my feminist soul is crawling. At sometime, I like Lord Henry idealism and the way he talk about philoshopy which is not in common, but  for me Lord Henry is red flag.

Read-along The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapter I - II

The Picture of Dorian Gray  is a masterpiece by Oscar Wilde about a narcissistic young man named Dorian and his self-portrait. He wanted his physical appearance not to age so he exchanged his 'soul' so he would stay young forever, but his portrait aged and became ugly to reflect the destruction of his soul.

First Lines:

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

Chpter I - II  Introduced the character of Dorian Gray from two points of view, Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton. In his studio, painter Basil Hallward is painting a portrait of a very handsome young man who he really admires, Dorian Gray. Lord Henry, his friend was very curious about the young man in the portrait, so he asked Basil to meet him. 

'Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me.' ( Basil Hallward, chapter I, pg. 14)

‘He is all my art to me now,’ (Basil Hallward, chapter I, pg. 19)

Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth’s passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.  (Lord Henry's mind, Chapter II, pg. 27)

Basil says he will not exhibit the painting because he has put too much of himself in it :

‘An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in anage when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.' 

( Basil, Chapter 21, pg. 21)

Lord Henry Wotton is the person who like to influence Dorian, because he is still young and easily to be manipulated. He influences Dorian to be hedonistic and loving his youth life which is not last forever, offcourse, naive Dorian fell for Lord Henry's bait.

'......If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!’ (Dorian, Chapter II, Pg. 41)

My thoughts:

• I just read early chapter of this book, but It's so much philosophic words and I love it.  So many prose by  Wilde's flamboyant style to be highlighted as long as the sentences is inline with the story. It's like I talk to Oscar Wild, himself.
• The atsmosphere of  Basil's studio was like Victorian aesthetic, ooh  take me to there !! 
• About Basil Hallward feeling to Dorian is quite vague, whether just a feeling as an artist who love beautiful things or the forbidden same-sex feeling, but knowing  the author was a homo-sexual,  I think Wilde wanted to shock Victorian readers by openly writing about that feeling, So maybe this is the covert way to inform that the man like that is exist, because homo-secuality is a crime backthen in England.