Literary Time Period Nominations • May 2016

[sun surfer]

Help us select what the MR Literary Club will read in May 2016!


The category for this month is:

Time Period
1921-1940, as chosen in the poll


This month is a two-part process:

The first part begins with a one-day poll to determine the time period we will use. It is multiple choice; you may choose as many options as you like when voting. This voting is separate from your nominations. There are no nominations during the poll, only voting. If there is a tie, first listed wins by default (i.e. the oldest).

As soon as the poll is over and the time period is determined, then the second part (nominations) begins as normal. This will run for four days until 6 May.

Nominations can be set in any time period and published in any time period, but they should be written during that time period.


Notes:

-Previously chosen time periods currently ineligible:
1981-2000
1801-1900
1901-1920
1961-1980

-The period of 2001-Present has been given its own category (Contemporary) and therefore isn't eligible anymore for the Time Period poll.


Once the poll is over and nominations begin:

In order for a work to be included in the poll it needs four nominations - the original nomination plus three supporting.

Each participant has four nominations to use. You can nominate a new work for consideration or you can support (second, third or fourth) a work that has already been nominated by another person.

To nominate a work just post a message with your nomination. If you are the first to nominate a work, it's always nice to provide an abstract to the work so others may consider their level of interest.


What is literature for the purposes of this club? A superior work of lasting merit that enriches the mind. Often it is important, challenging, critically acclaimed. It may be from ancient times to today; it may be from anywhere in the world; it may be obscure or famous, short or long; it may be a story, a novel, a play, a poem, an essay or another written form. If you are unsure if a work would be considered literature, just ask!


The floor is now open!

*

Nominations closed. Final nominations-


Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, 1925 - Fully nominated
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 230 pages

Spoiler:

In favour- Bookworm_Girl, fantasyfan, bfisher, Bookpossum


From Amazon:

Heralded as Virginia Woolf's greatest novel, this is a vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life. When we meet her, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with remembrances of faraway times. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.

"Mrs. Dalloway was the first novel to split the atom. If the novel before Mrs. Dalloway aspired to immensities of scope and scale, to heroic journeys across vast landscapes, with Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf insisted that it could also locate the enormous within the everyday; that a life of errands and party-giving was every bit as viable a subject as any life lived anywhere; and that should any human act in any novel seem unimportant, it has merely been inadequately observed. The novel as an art form has not been the same since.

"Mrs. Dalloway also contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, and that alone would be reason enough to read it. It is one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century."
--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen, 1938 - Fully nominated
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 366 pages

Spoiler:

In favour- sun surfer, Bookworm_Girl, bfisher, Bookpossum


From Goodreads:

The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations.

In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London.There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal--and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

Limits and Renewals by Rudyard Kipling, 1932 - Fully nominated
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 271 pages

Spoiler:

In favour- Bookpossum, fantasyfan, bfisher, sun surfer


The note from the cover of Bookpossum's copy reads as follows:

Limits and Renewals was Rudyard Kipling's last collection of stories. There are, as so often, fourteen of them, interspersed with apposite poems. The subjects are familiar, humorous, sometimes bizarre, incidents told in the ironic, allusive dialogue that only Kipling could write. There are stories of Early Christians, of "The Woman in his Life" (who is, of course, a dog) of various kinds of practical jokes, a charming anecdote of a village priest and village atheist. But these stories were written after the Great War and Kipling's loss of his only son, when he was old and often in pain. It is not surprising, though not immediately obvious, that he was obsessed with the problem of pain at this time and also with the "breaking strain" that a man can take. A more rewarding theme in this book is the value of love, the salvation of personality through loving - rather than being loved.

You can download a copy of it from the Adelaide University ebook site here:
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/

A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, 1939 - Fully nominated
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 286 pages

Spoiler:

In favour- fantasyfan, Bookpossum, sun surfer, Bookworm_Girl

Alison Uttley is well known for her children’s stories such as those featuring the Little Grey Rabbit and Sam the Pig. She also wrote books for older readers and one of the finest is the wonderful YA novel, "A Traveller In Time", published in 1939 and a classic of its genre. The book uses the device of “time slip”--which is the fantasy equivalent of the time travel devices used in science-fiction. Time slips involve some transferral of consciousness to a different time period. In this case the heroine goes back to the period of Mary Queen of Scots and the terrible Babington Plot.

What happens to the physical body during a time slip? In Uttley’s book Penelope has a physical existence in the 16th century and while she is there, time apparently stops in the 20th century. However, it seems in one important section, things that happen to her in one time zone apparently can have physical effects on her in the other. The time slips themselves are beautifully presented with excellent linkages between the two ages.

Uttley came from the area where all the historical events take place and she has a remarkable precision and selection of detail which makes the world of this novel stand out with wonderful clarity. the writing is beautiful and there is a dream-like quality which is quite haunting.

The Greater Trumps by Charles S.W. Williams, 1932 - 3
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 218 pages

Spoiler:

In favour- fantasyfan, Bookworm_Girl, caleb72


From fantasyfan:

Charles S. W. Williams, a neglected genius who was a close friend of and influence on C.S. Lewis. Happily, a brilliant and even-handed biography of Williams is resurrecting the reputation and re-evaluation of this remarkable writer.

He wrote seven novels, six of which fall within our time period. The first five were written in a sustained rush of inspiration and I've decided to choose The Greater Trumps the last and best of this first sequence. Written in 1932 and drawing on Williams's interest in mysticism, the book centers around the ancient Tarot set. The images of this deck were a perfect focus for the imagination of Charles Williams who was able to transfigure their already powerful iconic meanings into transcendental images of profound spirituality. To the deck itself he adds a strange board with the images represented by moving figures based on those in the deck. Throughout, Williams links the desires, actions, decisions, and personalities of various characters to their equivalents in the 22 cards that form “The Greater Trumps”.

It is available as an ebook download here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Greater-Trum...al-text&sr=8-5
and here:
http://www.amazon.com/Greater-Trumps...arles+williams

In Australia or Canada it could well be available in the public domain but the kindle editions above are quite reasonably priced. PB copies are quite inexpensive.

The Plumed Serpent by D.H. Lawrence, 1926 - 2
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 492 pages

Spoiler:

In favour- Spinnenmonat, sun surfer


From Goodreads:

The story of a European woman's self-annihilating plunge into the intrigues, passions, and pagan rituals of Mexico. Lawrence's mesmerizing and unsettling 1926 novel is his great work of the political imagination.

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1934 - 2
Goodreads / Estimated Length: 350 pages

Spoiler:

In favour- Spinnenmonat, fantasyfan

From Goodreads:
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character, Tender Is the Night is lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.

[Bookpossum]

I would like to nominate Limits and Renewals by Rudyard Kipling, first edition 1932.

The note from the cover of my copy reads as follows:

Limits and Renewals was Rudyard Kipling's last collection of stories. There are, as so often, fourteen of them, interspersed with apposite poems. The subjects are familiar, humorous, sometimes bizarre, incidents told in the ironic, allusive dialogue that only Kipling could write. There are stories of Early Christians, of "The Woman in his Life" (who is, of course, a dog) of various kinds of practical jokes, a charming anecdote of a village priest and village atheist. But these stories were written after the Great War and Kipling's loss of his only son, when he was old and often in pain. It is not surprising, though not immediately obvious, that he was obsessed with the problem of pain at this time and also with the "breaking strain" that a man can take. A more rewarding theme in this book is the value of love, the salvation of personality through loving - rather than being loved.

You can download a copy of it from the Adelaide University ebook site here:
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/

[fantasyfan]

I second Limits and Renewals.

[fantasyfan]

I am going to nominate The Greater Trumps by Charles S. W. Williams, a neglected genius who was a close friend of and influence on C.S. Lewis. Happily, a brilliant and even-handed biography of Williams is resurrecting the reputation and re-evaluation of this remarkable writer.

He wrote seven novels, six of which fall within our time period. The first five were written in a sustained rush of inspiration and I've decided to choose The Greater Trumps the last and best of this first sequence. Written in 1932 and drawing on Williams's interest in mysticism, the book centers around the ancient Tarot set. The images of this deck were a perfect focus for the imagination of Charles Williams who was able to transfigure their already powerful iconic meanings into transcendental images of profound spirituality. To the deck itself he adds a strange board with the images represented by moving figures based on those in the deck. Throughout, Williams links the desires, actions, decisions, and personalities of various characters to their equivalents in the 22 cards that form “The Greater Trumps”.

It is available as an ebook download here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Greater-Trum...al-text&sr=8-5
and here:
http://www.amazon.com/Greater-Trumps...arles+williams

In Australia or Canada it could well be available in the public domain but the kindle editions above are quite reasonably priced. PB copies are quite inexpensive.

[Spinnenmonat]

I would like to nominate The Plumed Serpent by D.H.Lawrence, a 1926 novel.

From Goodreads:

The story of a European woman's self-annihilating plunge into the intrigues, passions, and pagan rituals of Mexico. Lawrence's mesmerizing and unsettling 1926 novel is his great work of the political imagination.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I will second The Greater Trumps.

[Bookworm_Girl]

This time period is fantastic. There are so many great works. So much was happening in history such as the inter-war period in Europe and the Great Depression and social change in the US.

I nominate Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf published in 1925. It's been on my TBR for quite awhile now.

From Amazon:

Heralded as Virginia Woolf's greatest novel, this is a vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life. When we meet her, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with remembrances of faraway times. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.

"Mrs. Dalloway was the first novel to split the atom. If the novel before Mrs. Dalloway aspired to immensities of scope and scale, to heroic journeys across vast landscapes, with Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf insisted that it could also locate the enormous within the everyday; that a life of errands and party-giving was every bit as viable a subject as any life lived anywhere; and that should any human act in any novel seem unimportant, it has merely been inadequately observed. The novel as an art form has not been the same since.

"Mrs. Dalloway also contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, and that alone would be reason enough to read it. It is one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century."
--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

[fantasyfan]

I'll second Mrs Dalloway.

[sun surfer]

I nominate The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen, published in 1938. It's on my challenge list for the year (even though the time frame already lapsed) and I've been wanting to read it for awhile.

From Goodreads:

The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations.

In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London.There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal--and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I will second The Death of the Heart.

[bfisher]

I will third Limits and Renewals.

[bfisher]

I'll third Mrs Dalloway.

[bfisher]

I will third The Death of the Heart.

[Bookpossum]

I'll fourth Mrs Dalloway and The Death of the Heart.

[sun surfer]

I fourth the Kipling and second the Lawrence.