5 CLASSICS BOOK HAUL

hello my bookish friends out there in booktube  land and welcome to another episode of Tristan and the classics in this episode we're taking a  look at a book haul of mine just six books that I picked up from my favorite second-hand Bookseller  down the road from me so without further Ado let's dig in shall we so as is becoming my habit when  doing a book haul what we'll do is I'm going to show you the book tell you sort of the the  pre-see of the plot and then read the opening paragraph and I m

ay even add something this time  and give you my impressions of the writing of the first paragraph So starting up we have a book  from 1977 so a modern classic and it's by Paul Scott the book itself is called staying on and  won the book a prize back in back in 1977-78 um and it's gone down as one of the the best  well-written books you know you've often heard me talk about a month in the country which  Was Written In 1980 this is sort of up there with that kind of book and I'm looking forward 

to reading it myself because I have an actual read this I've known about it for ages but I lay  my hands on it as soon as I saw it in the crate in the second hand book shop so let me just tell  you what it's about in the story as far as I'm aware you have a character two characters  the main characters tuska and Lily Smalley they're British characters but they live in India  because tusker was a colonel for the British army and when he retired he had the option to go back  home to blagte to Engl

and um blighty is how a lot of the soldiers used to call England comes from  the Hindi bilhati I believe which means home and you could go back there and be retired to get  your pension have a place but they had fallen in love with the country and so they decided to stay  on after his retirement hence staying on now what this book then does is it sort of gives you within  the confines of a few months their love affair the reason they fell in love with their their place  in India that it was more

them than going back home to Britain and so they live in a sort of a  Mountainside mountainous Village called pancott and they have this landlady uh Mrs Bula boy I  think her name was and she's quite the Tyrant she's the only one that can really upset the peace  and quiet um it's a bit of a classic device in writing to have a landlord or land lady which can  disrupt the atmosphere you think of something like Oh gorio by Balzac and you've got um the pension  Vaca Madame VA care she can really up

set the pot at times so what this recounts is sort of the  ways of the villagers that surround them and some of the Oddities that hang over from the days  of the British Empire so the Raj um because the British Empire when did that go down 1948 was that  when Britain decided to hand over Independence to India somewhere around that time maybe 1950.  but they've stayed on and so there are certain practices that hang over from a bygone age and  some of the best bits of literature you ever read I th

ink of Thomas Hardy think of George Eliot  there's this transitional period but that that looks back on a bygone age and also looks towards  modernity and base it on the cusp of that as well and it's supposed to be quite a humorous book  some of the characters you know really make you smile with their eccentric ways but it's a love  affair it's a real love affair for a country for a whole culture for a whole way of living and for  a passing way of life so that's the first book on my book haul li

st what does that sound like to  you have you read it comment below staying on by Paul Scott winner of the book of prize written  in 1977. I'll just read the opening paragraph when tuska Smalley died of a massive coronary  at approximately 9 30 a.m on the last Monday in April 1972 his wife Lucy was out having her  white hair blue rinsed and set in the saraglia room on the ground floor of pancott's new  five-story glass and concrete Hotel the Shiraz so it's opening line its opening paragraph is j

ust  one sentence lung and I get something from this it's a reflective there's a love of detail in here  do you notice not only does tuska Smalley die but he dies at approximately 9 30 Monday April 1972  she's having a blue rinse and set the saraglia room in pancott which is a new five-story glass  and concrete Hotel what we've got is detail in here we've got the end of a person's life and  we've got the new modernity of a five-story glass and concrete hotel that's what I pick up  from the first

paragraph so it sort of backs up the idea I've been told about it that it balances  on this crossover period an end of a way of life a beginning of a new and I think that's captured  really well in that first sentence slash paragraph the next book up on our classic book Haul is  a really famous one from the late 50s and it's the tin drum by Gunter Grass now this book  is a bit of a legend amongst modern Classics and has a somewhat surreal vibe to it you know  it's it's pushing the boundaries of

literature and experimentalism we've got in here a first  person narrator by the name of Oscar who the story revolves around because Oscar decides to  stop growing at the age of three and he has this little Tin Drum that you know a kid's toy which  he marches around with and that's where you get the title from but in the book he relates all  of his many varied colorful and extravagant extraordinary goings-on in his life now how  reliable he is as a character is up for question um you have to so

rt of interpret what he's talking  about yourself because it's very bizarre some of the things he says but highly humorous um  it's sort of slapstick in its own way as well um but it's got deeper messages of just observing  human nature now his actual life takes him through Nazi Germany so that's an interesting background  to be having this sort of satirical Whimsical look at things going on further into the the  post-war era of Germany where of course there's a huge amount of rebuilding going o

n on top of  that you've got the Soviet West sort of split going on as well and Oscar recounts a lot of  things there recounting it to well you'll have to you'll have to find out when I read the first  paragraph you'll know who he's talking to a lot so he's haunted by the death of his parents as  well all the way through the book that has a big impact on it but yeah it's a modern classic  it's different have you read a tin drum by Gunther grass if you have what did you think down below  I'm goin

g to read you the first paragraph because um actually I'm going to read you the  first two paragraphs because I think it will Intrigue you quite highly I  actually love how this book starts Oscar speaking granted I'm an inmate in a mental  institution my keeper watches me scarcely lets me out of sight for there's a peephole in the  door and my Keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can see through blue-eyed types like  me so my keeper can't possibly be my enemy I've grown fond of this man peepi

ng through  the door and the moment he enters my room I tell him incidents from my life so he can get  to know me in spite of the people between us the Goodfellow seems to appreciate my stories for  the moment I finished some tall tale he expresses his gratitude by showing me one of his latest  knotworks whether he's an artist remains to be seen but an exhibition of his Works would be  well received by the press and would entice a few buyers too he gathers ordinary pieces of string  from his pat

ients rooms after visiting hours disentangles them knots them into multi-layered  cartilaginous specters dips them in plaster lets them Harden and impels them on knitting  needles mounted on little wooden pedestals now that was the first two paragraphs I love the  writing style here granted it's a translation but I just love how he begins all of this  there's such Whimsy there he is in a mental institution and it's so offhand to him it doesn't  bother him granted I'm in a mental institution and

he talks about this detail of  the peephole which is a feature of his life which seems to Fascinate him I I  find it that there's something about the opposite colors of the blue eye that he  has and the brown eye that peeps through and he says it can read blue eye types like  me so he's got a way of categorizing his world but not only does he tell a tall tale but he  doesn't find it odd what his protector as it were who or his Jailer if he wants to want to go  that far what he does with disentan

gling knots of thread from patients rooms after visiting hours  and then making what does he say a cartilaginous Specter of a structure and dips them in place  there's something odd about this character but it doesn't strike Oscar as odd why not and what  kind of view is he going to have on the world and will it inform our own worldview will it make  us stand back and see the absurdities of those who call themselves mentally normal compared  to those who are termed mentally insane what are your

thoughts have you read the syndrum let  me know what you think next up in a classic book Haul is an author whom I have never read a single  work of and it's John Updike you probably have I mean very famous writer and this one is called in  the beauty of the lilies and I have no idea what it's about because I just saw it in the box and  thought I'll have that I've never read any Updike so uh in fact I don't even know when this one  was made written I should say so this was written 1996 but I've h

eard of John updike's works and  I've just never got around to him and he's known as being a very very great writer now this does  fall outside of my terminology of a classic work because it's 1996 I like to give about 40  years before a class something as a classic um arbitrary you could say but I have my reasons  anyway the reason I took this and put it on here is although it's 1996 it's John Updike I've  never read him so I can't judge yet but he has quite the reputation of being a good write

r so  I'll just read what this says in the beauty of the lilies an epic allegiac masterpiece takes him  on his most ambitious historical Venture yet what most keeps this often magnificent book alive with  appeal is its sturdily delicate portrayal of the small-scale human comedies and tragedies acted out  against its panoramic back projection of America's shifting visions and versions of paradise and that  was a quote by Peter Kemp from the Sunday Times um that sounds very interesting you see one

of  the things I love in literature is when you get the small scale human comedies and tragedies when  I hear that expression my immediate thought rushes to the great Brazilian writer Machado giasis  for a small win that was it last year or two years ago and it still stuck with me and there's  lots of that small scale goings-on in people's people's lives so that's what it says about this  book I find that quite intriguing and the shifting of America while considering America is held Sway  and s

till holds sway over coach today that should be an interesting read um I'll just read you the  opening paragraph if you want to stick around for it because this is quite a long paragraph it says  in those hot last days of the spring of 1910 on the spacious elevated grounds of balvis the castle  in Paterson New Jersey a motion picture was being made the company was biograph the director was  David W Griffith the title was the Call to Arms the plots took place in medieval times and  centered about

a lost jewel Beyond price for the setting of a medieval castle what  better than this belvista popularly called Lambert's Castle after its Builder the local silk  Baron Catalina Lambert the rolling lawn with its groomed medieval appearing Oaks and beaches  commanded a hazy view of New York City less than 15 miles Eastward of the crowded rooftops of  Paterson lying sullenly snared within the lowland Loop of the Passaic River from this height the  human eye could discern the strip of brick Mills

clustering about the falls and its three mil  races designed by Pierre longfant the dower oh Pierre long font the dower but Majestic Brownstone  Spire of Father William Dean McNulty's Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist the white wedding  cake Tower of City Hall the Fantastical very colored Flemish facade of the post office and the  ribbed Dome not 10 years old of the Passaic County Courthouse upon whose columned Coppola a giant  gesturing woman persistently kept her balance the distant spiers o

f New York City were a photogenic  Marvel they're apparently weightless suspension within the Mists of summer heat belowing the mass  of human suffering and striving their Enchanted profile rested upon but the moving picture camera  was allowed to exclude any such modern View the cameraman waited impatiently in the muggy  coal gas poison New Jersey Sunshine fearful that a random Cloud might suddenly throw his aperture  setting out of adjustment a faint sent of oil arose from the encased fine gea

rs and sprockets  now that is one lengthy paragraph and I'm looking at the book and the next two are just as big so  we have a highly detailed book going on right here um reminds me of some of the modernists this does  the extensive writing but interesting as I was reading that and I've not read it before certain  things seem to jump at me we've got medieval we've got Castle Lambert's Castle we've got those  hot last days and then we've got some of the the the buildings and then amidst all that

which  is all old you've got we're doing a motion picture um we've got the name of certain you know builders you've got the floating outline of New York in the  distance which is modernity the Coppola of Passaic County house struck me he it was distinctly picked  up that it was not 10 years old so it looked old because it's it's columned and a Coppola so we're  talking you know in the old Corinthian fashion but it's not that old and the giant the gesturing  Woman On Top is struggling to keep her

balance there is something off about this image it seems  to be serious but it's something wrong it's do you know it's dangling in the air like the skyline of  New York hovering in The Mists below it so there's a certain unreality about what's being built here  in America that's what I would immediately think from looking at that that's what would draw me in  I could be a million miles off but that's the joy of reading having these little guesses as you  go so that was the next book John updike

's in the beauty of the lilies have you read any Updike  if you have tell me what you think below foreign next up on our list of Classics in this book  Haul is an author I really like it's Anthony trollope but this is an unusual book for Anthony  trollope because he is normally a contemporary writer of his day you think of the Basset sheer  Chronicles you know he makes a lot of he draws a lot of his information from that from things  that were going on at the time but this one is lavondi and lav

onde is a historical novel set in  the reign of terror so we're going back 1792 to 1796 I think the the years were because lavondi  or as the French meaning the fondian war is what he's writing about and this is a lesser known  piece of History because the Von Diane war was an area of France just south of Lua Valley where  the Republican began growing chopping people's heads off and drowning people and all that  stuff but there was a kickback the royalists got a bit of support from Britain and t

here was  an uprising sort of partially moved by the fact that the Republic were enlisting conscripting all  the men from fighting there was a Uprising and it was it was going to try and restore some balance  in France it was to Kickback against the Republic um which was inevitably crushed which you know  that because we know the Republic won out and this is where Anthony trollope decides to place  some attention and I love this because trollope is a writer one of the most I can't say he's  unde

rrated because he's very very well known but he's not as rated as high as say Dickens or  Elliott for instance or Hardy but he should be now trollope is an honest writer in my opinion  he's very Frank in his prose it's just why he's so fresh when you read him and in this instead  of seeing the one-sided depiction of History he decides to take on the other side or to see  both sides to see the humanity the human lives of people engaged in a bitter struggle and  he sets it in the Von D I think it'

s around the town of shallow which I believe was the main  Town um and he uses some real historical figures so you've got sha um is one of the historical  figures and de la Ross shacklin who was like a main leader of the movement so he's got these two  and what he does is he brings about rather than just painting the royalists as these baddies all  the time this bygone age of chivalry of standing for something of standing up against some real  brutal gory oppression that the Republic did bring b

ut more importantly as is typical would  trollop he is able to capture people's lives so effortlessly the small insignificant details  love that's thwarted because of things bigger and Beyond it loyalty is tested and broken the lack of  trust within communities that have been together for centuries all because of this broiling trouble  called you know the Republic and the royalists and it's not like a case of taking sides I want  to read this because like I say trollop in my opinion manages to h

e manages to keep himself out  of a lot of his work um he can be quite witty and he makes very good asides but he tries to get  you to be Humane even to the characters who are dislikable so he tries you to at least get you  to at least see their side of things so la Bondi have you even heard of this one because this is  not amongst the um famous books with with trollop the famous ones are the bastardship Chronicles  and probably the palesta series as well so uh if you've read that tell me what y

ou thought  down below I'll just read the first paragraph the history of France in 1792 has been too  fully written and too generally read to leave the novelist any excuse for describing the state  of Paris at the close of the summer of that year it's known to everyone that the Palace of Louis  XVI sacked on the 10th of August that he himself with his family took refuge in the National  Assembly and that he was taken thence to the prison of the Temple the doings on the Fatal  10th of August and

the few following days had however various effects in Paris all of which we  do not clearly Trace in history we well know how the mountain became powerful from that day that  from that day Marat ceased to shun the light and Danton to curb the license of his tongue that then  patriotism in France began to totter and that from that time Paris ceased to be a fitting Abode for  ought that was virtuous innocent or high-minded but the steady March of History cannot stop  to let us see the various ligh

ts in which the inhabitants of Paris regarded the loss of the king  and the commencement of the first French Republic that is great that was actually two paragraphs  um what's he saying well he's sort of saying there's not much I can tell you about how  the revolution kicked off and all that jazz of killing the King Louis XVI and his family but  history Marches On and we forget a lot of things and it doesn't allow us to peer into rather  than it being this one brush stroke of History where's the

nuance you know Paris stopped  being something just for enlightenment and good what were the differentiating views how did  people really feel within because of course it was the reign of terror as well so that is a very  exciting approach to this topic he's he's saying let's take a deeper look at the individual  lives the private thoughts of the citizens of France so that's a fantastic opening in my  opinion it's not exciting it's not in media res um but a beautiful simple backdrop and you kno

w  to write a backdrop so easily to but it's so pithily it takes a remarkable amount of work and  it's one of the things I love about trollope so that was our next one we're going to our last  book now the last book on this book Haul is a classic of Adventure literature and it's by the  great adventure writer Neville shoot who this one is no Highway um I'm not very up on shoots  work but of course he's lasted quite a long time and was quite significant in the formulas of  growing adventure and e

xcitement and suspense and Intrigue so what's this book about well I'll just  read the back for you because I've not read it it says a novel that engages the heart and  grips the mind that's nice I do like the mind being involved Theodore honey is  a shy inconspicuous aircraft engineer whose eccentric interest in quantum mechanics and  spiritualism are frowned upon in aviation circles but when a passenger plane crashes in unexplained  circumstances honey must convince his superiors that his unor

thodox theories are correct  before more lives are lost how very exciting um all very Windswept so more people could die  it's a Race Against Time novel how how wonderful do love those because it's one that gets the heart  beating you know so that's no Highway by Neville shoot and like I say I'm not really familiar  with reading his stuff but I'll read you the first paragraph I say not familiar with reading  his stuff I've never read his stuff I've known the name but it's not one that would ever

come  to mind it was only because I saw it in a box and I thought you know I should read some shoot  so when I was put in charge of the structural Department of the royal aircraft establishment  at farnborough I was 34 years old that made a few small difficulties at first because most of  my research staff were a good deal older than I was and most of them considered it a very odd  appointment moreover I wasn't a farnborough man I started in a stress office in the aircraft  industry and came to

farnborough from boscom down where I had been technical assistant to the  director of experimental flying for three years I'd often been to Farmer of course and I knew  some of the staff of my new Department slightly I'd always regarded them as a rather queer  lot on closer acquaintance with them I did not change my views that is a stunning opening  I really really like that paragraph there seems to be very little in it but there's a ton for  instance I know straight away that this man is an ou

tsider because one of the difficulties  was I wasn't a fan fan Brewer man outsider he was younger than the others age Gap a break  they think it they thought the appointment rather odd so they see him as an oddity he comes from  an experimental flying school so not conventional compared to the old group who are from farnborough  and then he says he thought they were a queer lot and in his view didn't change so we have um  we don't know who the antagonist is in this we probably see that he's the

protagonist  because it's in first person but what we have is an antagonistic setup which tells us from  the off even when we're not conscious of it our subconscious picks up from those words there is  a disagreement an unease of balance in the story right from the first paragraph and what do you  want in a suspense adventurous novel you want unease you don't want things sitting still for  long so that was the opening paragraph of shoots no Highway and uh do you know what I might read  this one

rather quickly because um I do love a good Ripper a thriller what does PG Woodhouse call  it a Worcester calls him a goose flesher because it makes all your hair stand up so uh let's see  how that one goes if you red shoots tell me what you think down below which book of his do you  think is the best one to read in your opinion well that's the end of this book haul video I hope that  you've enjoyed it I hope some of the books have captured your attention which of the six captures  your attention

the most either by the opening paragraph or just by the plot itself or maybe it's  a particular author you like but you've not read their Works you've not read that individual work  until the next time I wish you Joy in your reading