The Possessed – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian)
When I was reading this as a comic novel, for more than half its 700 pages, I thought it was wonderful. Dostoyevsky assembles a cast of people who are twisted in some way – mad, delusional, malignantly manipulative, etcetera – and sets them to work on one another. The book is in the Victorian tradition, complete with set scenes on a grand scale; there’s a Gala held to raise funds for the Aid of Needy Governesses which turns into a fiasco, complete with pratfalls. The melodramatic pot-boiler of a plot (about an undercover attempt to overthrow the whole of society) is run by a ragtag handful of bunglers. Possibly Dostoyevsky was commenting, in a cynical fashion, on the errant tendencies in the Russian character. At any rate, it was vivid, vigorous and entertaining. My first stirring of unease came in a long dialogue Stavrogin has with a priest; it involves a confession and a discussion of faith and the soul and God’s forgiveness. Suddenly we’re in Crime and Punishment territory. This change in tone slowly takes precedence. Dostoyevsky tries to force elements that are comic into a serious mold. The result is still comic, but foolishly so; the book becomes a nonsensical jumble, and two hundred pages from the end I had enough. I truly believe that for much of the book Dostoyevsky was having fun; if I was, how could he not be? Maybe he couldn’t separate himself from his reputation as one who probes into profound matters. Who knows?

Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Cranford is an English village which, Gaskell writes in the first sentence, “is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.” Yet these Amazons are not warriors; they’re spinsters or widows concerned solely with local matters, and the rare conflicts that take place are conducted with slights and snubs. Cranford began as stories that appeared in the mid-1800s in Household Works, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens. Their quiet charm made them very popular and they were collected to make up this slim volume. Gaskell’s benevolent attitude toward her elderly ladies can become a bit saccharine, but that’s countered by the sly humor she directs at their preoccupation over matters of status and propriety. My enjoyment of the book was probably due in part to what readers long ago found pleasing: it offers escapism. Cranford is a safe retreat from worldly turmoil.

The Breaking Wave – Nevil Shute
This unusual war novel involves a Wren in the British navy who works behind the lines maintaining guns on ships that will take part in the D-Day invasion. Except for one flyover by a German plane, there are no battle scenes. For Janet Prentice war will have a lasting appeal. She’s young, involved in an event with a vital purpose; added to that, she falls in love for the first and only time in her life. But war’s dark side hits her hard. Though she’s unscathed physically, she deals with guilt (involving that flyover by the German plane); she comes to believe that she killed seven innocent men. Shortly afterwards she loses Bill, the man she loves, then her father. She sees their deaths as retribution for her actions, and she conceives the idea that she’s fated to lose five more things she loves. She’s not deranged; in the months before the invasion exhaustion and stress have eroded her emotional resources. When the dog Bill had entrusted to her is crushed by a tank she breaks down. It’s a case of PTSD before that term was in use. The war is over for Janet. She goes through years of caring for others as they die: first her mother, then a distant relative. She repeatedly tries to rejoin the Wrens, but is rejected. Though the bulk of the plot is devoted to her, the first person narrator is Alan, Bill’s brother. The book opens twenty years after the war, with Alan returning home to a sheep ranch in Australia; on the morning of his arrival he learns that his parent’s live-in maid had committed suicide. Her name – or the one she gave them – is Jessie Proctor. What follows, in flashbacks, is Janet Prentice’s story. To make Alan the narrator of this story (he only spent one day with her and Bill) seemed like a dubious contrivance, but it didn’t interfere with my reading because the Janet that emerges is strong and authentic. More so than Alan, who is the other central character. I was disappointed in how Shute wraps things up; I couldn’t accept the final entries in Janet’s diary. In this book you have to take the good with the not-so-good. And the good is not just engrossing, but it goes deep.

Kept in the Dark – Anthony Trollope
In an ideal marriage, by Victorian standards, a wife should be pure as the driven snow, a husband should be a stalwart and benevolent Master. Though these roles are antiquated, what gives this book relevancy today is the fact that jealousy and possessiveness are constants in human nature. Trollope creates a situation which is analogous to a tightening noose. A year before her marriage to George Cecilia was engaged to a charming reprobate; when she began to discern Sir Francis Geraldine’s true nature she broke things off. Then she meets and marries George and they live in conjugal bliss. But Cecilia never tells him of her previous engagement. Though she’s innocent of any wrongdoing, she never summons up the courage to divulge something that she finds distasteful. To further complicate matters, George knows and despises his wife’s former suitor. Sir Francis, with malicious intent, sends George a letter in which he reveals his relationship with Cecilia; he tells no lies, but he implies that he and Cecilia still have a sort of understanding. At first George believes the letter is a complete falsehood; when Cecilia admits that the facts in the letter are true, suspicions arise in George’s mind. How could she have been close to such a despicable man? Why has Cecilia kept him in the dark about Sir Francis? What secret has she been hiding? Distrust and a feeling of being duped consume George, and his response is to institute a complete separation. Though Trollope tries to give George a basis for his emotions, his harshness toward someone he purports to love puts him in a bad light. The two strongest characters are the villains; the book is most alive when Sir Francis and Francesca Altifiorla are in action. Interesting, isn’t it, how evil is more compelling than virtue? This slim volume may have been Trollope’s last work; it was serialized in Good Words magazine in 1882, the same year he died. I read it in a republication as it first appeared (in cliffhanger installments, and complete with typos). As always with Trollope, those readers long ago were rewarded. Not a masterpiece, but a good read in which one forms opinions about the situation and the protagonists.