Read With Me -- in my classic literature book club

 

One year ago this month I started an in-person classic lit book club for a few reasons. 1. I prefer in-person discussions about books, so even though there are many online book clubs devoted to classic literature, I wanted to have face-to-face in-the-moment discussions. 2. I was already in a ladies' book club at my public library, but the other ladies generally were never in favor of reading classic literature, so my recommendations for books to read in that group were usually shot down. 3. I've long preferred older, quality literature but seldom have anyone with whom I can read it simply for fun; too often these works are relegated to the literature classroom, but I just wanted to read them for enjoyment and then talk about them. 4. I've written a newspaper column for 15 years devoted to making classic literature accessible to the average reader, much for the same reasons as in number three, and instead of continuing to read all the books alone and then write my columns about them, I thought it would be a nice change to get other readers' insights as well before writing my column pieces about some of the books. 5. I love to read good books, and I was hoping to make a few friends who share my passion for classic lit.

Here is the column piece I wrote about forming the club last year.

After announcing my intentions, I only had one other woman from the library's ladies' book club who offered to join. She and I sat down and chose the books for the remainder of last year, hoping to draw a couple more people into our fold. We managed to get one, and to-date, we are still only a trio -- but we're becoming a tightknit one (I'd still love to get others to join us, though).

In December, we selected the books for 2025, and you can see them above. We attempt to choose authors representing various countries, time periods, and writing styles/genres. We also select literature written by women. Going back into the recesses of classic literature, it is difficult to find many female writers to choose from, but a classic doesn't have to be extremely old, so there are many wonderful women writers with masterpieces of literature for us to choose from. We also purposely select one or two stories that are rereads for us because we know how much more you can get from a piece of literature when you read it again at a later point in your life when you're perspective has changed due to your age, your circumstances, your life experiences, etc. 

I don't write my column pieces about every one of our selections, but I did write ones about "The Moonstone" and "The Mill on the Floss," and I also wrote one in 2012 about "One Hundred Years of Solitude." That novel was a reread for me, but I remembered so little of it from the first read 13 years ago that it was like a totally new read for me. "Anna Karenina" will be a reread for all three of us.

Here is what I wrote about "The Moonstone."

The Moonstone

“Novel Thoughts” column for January 18, 2025

Tammy Marshall

 

            Do you love a good mystery? Read “The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins. Do you enjoy reading the classics? Read “The Moonstone.” Are epistolary novels your thing? Read “The Moonstone.” Do you appreciate quality writing and a master storyteller at the top of his game? Read “The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins.

            I could go on and on with reasons for you to read this novel – the characters are phenomenal, the voice of each resonates differently and realistically, the setting is drawn so vividly that you’ll feel like you’re there, etcetera. Perhaps the reason that might beguile you the most, though, is that this novel launched a beloved literary genre.

            Imagine a world without Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, and so many other beloved sleuths and detectives, whether amateur or private. That would be a sad world, in my opinion. The suspense genre involving a detective who unravels a mystery exists because Wilkie Collins wrote “The Moonstone.”

            The Moonstone itself is a large, yellow diamond that was stolen during a military siege in India. A curse follows it to England, and three Hindu Brahmins are determined to recover it. The man who took the diamond later bequeaths it to his niece, Rachel Verinder, upon her 18^th birthday where its “curse” continues to create havoc upon the family.

For starters, the Moonstone disappears during the night from Rachel’s locked bedroom, and an inquiry into its disappearance leads to wrong conclusions and problems for everyone. We, the readers, are as perplexed as the police superintendent who first tries to discover the truth yet who bungles things so much that a private detective is brought in. His name is Sergeant Cuff, and he sees things that others have missed.

The story is told in an interesting fashion – through written accounts of people who were there when the diamond was stolen and others who were around Rachel after she left the area. The longest account comes from Gabriel Betteredge, the longtime head servant of the Verinder household. During his account, I couldn’t help but picture Mr. Carson, the butler on the Downton Abbey series, because of how prim and proper he is in his duties and how proud he is of the family members he serves.

These first-person accounts were a precursor to a story technique that has risen in popularity with authors over the past few years – the unreliable narrator. Since each person is only privy to what he or she saw and heard, each account, taken alone, paints an incomplete picture that leaves the reader with more questions than answers, but taken together, the accounts tell a complete, and intriguing, story.  

Collins and Charles Dickens were contemporaries and friends, and Dickens first published “The Moonstone” in serialized fashion in his magazine called All the Year Round. This began in January of 1868, and the story ran through that August. Here we are, 156 years later, just as enthralled by the story as readers were back then.

As a mystery reader and a mystery/suspense writer myself, I owe Collins an additional debt of gratitude for creating a literary genre that has brought me many years of reading pleasure and countless hours of writing joy. As I said in the opening paragraph, read “The Moonstone.”

Here's what I wrote for my column about "The Mill on the Floss."

The Mill on the Floss

“Novel Thoughts” column for March 15, 2025

Tammy Marshall

 

            On March 21, 1860, Mary Ann Evans, better known as George Eliot, completed her second novel and dedicated it: “To by beloved husband, George Henry Lewes.” Lewes wasn’t her husband in the eyes of the law – he was married to another woman – but Lewes and Evans lived together for 25 years and considered themselves married. To be taken seriously as a writer, she took a male pen name and chose George in honor of Lewes. She would go on to write five more novels and become, by the estimation of many, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, English novelist of all time.

            That second novel is “The Mill on the Floss.” The title represents the setting for much of the story – a mill on a river called the Floss. This is a setting quite familiar to many communities in Northeast Nebraska that grew out of such a beginning – a mill on a river called the Elkhorn.

The mill and the river are instrumental to the story, but the heart of the novel is Maggie Tulliver, the miller’s daughter. She grows from an impetuous little girl who wants nothing more than the love and respect of her older brother, Tom, to a young woman who still craves her brother’s love even as she tries to find true love and her place in the world while being bound by the social conventions of the time and place in which she was born.

            Women in Victorian England had few prospects. For most, their lives were dictated by whatever their fathers could provide for them as children and by whatever their husbands, if they managed to find one, could give them as adults, and if they didn’t marry, they were reliant on male relatives or went into some sort of service, religious or otherwise, to support themselves – that was their lot in life. Eliot well understood society’s treatment and expectations of women and illustrated that impact upon kind-hearted Maggie in what is considered her most autobiographical novel.

            Maggie is smarter than her older brother, yet she isn’t allowed the same type of education he is given. Their father goes bankrupt and loses everything, including his senses and later his life; and Tom’s and Maggie’s futures are irrevocably changed along with that of their mother. Due to the bankruptcy and their father’s downfall, Tom harbors ill will toward a man who loves Maggie, so he forbids her from seeing him; out of her sisterly devotion to him, as well as the societal expectations of her, she obeys his wishes and changes the course of her life by doing so.

            The river, though, has the final say in the course of both Maggie’s and Tom’s lives. It is the life force that draws the siblings together at the end to their ultimate ruin.

            Rivers are the perfect metaphor for life, starting small from a spring or a creek and growing with time, flowing ever onward until they end. Eliot uses this analogy in the novel to hint at Maggie’s fate: “Maggie’s destiny, then, is at present hidden, and we must wait for it to reveal itself like the course of an unmapped river: we only know that the river is full and rapid, and that for all rivers there is the same final home.”

            George Lewes’ final home is in Highgate Cemetery in North London in a tomb immediately behind the tomb of his self-professed wife, Mary Ann Evans, a.k.a. George Eliot.

Here's the column from August of 2012 about "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

Look how young I am in that headshot of me! Ha ha. 

I welcome anyone else who can come join us for our monthly meetings. I also welcome any great suggestions of books that we should read in 2026.