To read? To finish?

I finally finished up the Complete Sherlock Holmes volume II. I enjoyed it only slightly less than the first collection but those last ten stories seemed to take forever to complete. Holmes stories never drag but after reading over 50 of them (between the two volumes) I did find myself getting easily distracted by other books. The main culprit this last week being Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast which has completely ensnared my mind.

Now that Holmes is done I am deciding what to read next. Last night I picked back up my Lord Byron biography which I had gotten 100 pages into when I decided I should read it simultaneously with a fiction book. Yeah, that didn’t work. Byron gathered dust while I read The Seven Gables, Holmes, and Hemingway. I am just no good at reading more than one book at a time, I don’t know how you other bloggers do it.

I really would like to finish the Byron biography. It is interesting but I have a few problems with it that make me hesitant to plough through the remaining 500 pages. First issue is, I fear the more I read the less I will like Byron! Of course his reputation proceeds him but reading about his multiple relationships with young boys and housemaids is really starting to bother me. It’s not a homophobic thing nor a too much information thing. The author actually only barely touches on these relationships and maybe that’s part of the problem. I am irritated and a bit unnerved by it because the boys are so young and because Byron is so clearly taking advantage of his position, as a famous poet and as an aristocrat. These boys and young ladies are under his care or employment, they are poor and probably naive, and Byron using them as his playthings makes me want to punch him in the face.

As I said though, the author of the biography only gives a paragraph or two about each of these relationships. So they feel very superficial and one sided. The most she ever shares about Byron’s connection with them is a few flippant words he wrote to a friend. There is no depth or detail shared, and this a problem with all of the people who surround Byron in the biography, which brings me to issue two. Maybe this is all the information there is about Byron’s friends and lovers, but I doubt that because in a couple cases I know there is more info to be had. Example, John Hobhouse appears to have been Lord Byron’s best friend, and yet there is almost no details about him in the book. I am fairly certain there are details about Hobhouse and his personality that could have been shared. I cannot get a well rounded view of a person without details about their closest friends. It’s of supreme importance in my opinion to flesh out those closest to a person if you want to understand them and the author does not do this. In fact the whole book needs footnotes! It’s not difficult to understand by any means. But, it would be so much better and fuller if not only the people in the book but the places and the…..I don’t know how to say it… but some books capture a mood and a feeling almost tactile of the environment, the historical significance, the political and social issues of the time. All this gives texture to a book and there is just none of that in this Byron biography.

As I said earlier, I knew of Byron’s infamous love life before I read the book but I was hoping the biography would put them in context. That I would read not just about who Byron slept with but why. I wanted to understand the man and his motivations and I am just not getting that yet. The author does not put the pieces together to show a complete personality. There is no speculation about why or what it all meant. It just a pouring out of events. Maybe the author didn’t want to speculate, maybe she didn’t think it right to push her own opinion. But here’s the thing, in non-fiction and imo, either the author must form a strong opinion and present evidence to back it to the reader OR the author must give enough information for the reader to form their own. I’m not getting either from this biography so far.

Perhaps my expectations are too high. I read too much classic lit that offers so much more than what is on the surface. I have been spoiled and can no longer bear matter of fact info lol. But….I just don’t think so. I think it could be better and one reason I wanted to read this book was because I had the idea, of one day (probably never but hey, these are my pipe dreams) of writing a book about the Byron and Shelley Romantics circle. I thought it would be so interest for one, single, book to capture all these amazing people and how they played off each other. And in the book to even try and capture the Romantic writing style and love of nature, without taking it over the top. I’m afraid that if I continue to read this Byron biography I’ll end up hating him and not only ruin my desire to write about him but ruin his own work for myself. On the other hand, maybe if I keep reading the book and Byron will start to fill out and it will not be so one dimensional. The book does have excellent reviews and I’m only 100 pages in. Could be a case of stfu and keep reading lol.

Well, what to do… what to do..

Now for my next fiction read, I am playing with the idea of reading something written after 1920.. gasp! I am intrigued by both Ahab’s Wife and The Paris Wife. A bit about Aha’s Wife:

“Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.” This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature–along with “Call me Ishmael.” Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. Ahab’s Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville’s spirit informs every page of her tour de force.”

Sounds kind of amazing, no? I don’t read modern fiction though, so I am worried that it just won’t have the depth. Especially compared to Moby Dick, which is pretty impossible to compete with.

The Paris Wife is, I’m thinking, A Moveable Feast from Hemingway’s wife’s persceptive..

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

With this one, I am not only worried about it being a little flat but also, don’t want my idea of Hemingway twisted up too much by fiction.

If you have read either of these books, I would love to know your thoughts!