The Vulgar Eclectic

Tag: classics

  • Hunger by Knut Hamsun

    A book jot from January 2022: I just finished reading Hunger (1890) by Knut Hamsun, translated by Robert Bly. This novel is narrated by an unnamed protagonist living in the city of Christiania (modern-day Oslo) near the end of the 19th century. He is extremely destitute, often homeless, and his penurious existence combined with a…

  • Bajazet by Jean Racine

    I recently read Bajazet, a tragedy in five acts written by Jean Racine (translated by Robert Bruce Boswell) and first staged in 1672. The setting is the Ottoman Empire in the early 17th century. The characters and plot are inspired by what was, at the time, recent history, which is unusual for Racine’s historical plays.…

  • Tartuffe by Moliere

    Book jot from January 2022: I just finished reading Tartuffe (1664) by Moliere, translated by John Wood and David Coward. It is the first thing I’ve read by him. I’m used to reading theatrical tragedies and a comedy was refreshingly unexpected. The play revolves around a religious hypocrite and his manipulative influence over a man…

  • A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

    I recently finished reading A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) by Thomas Hardy. It was his third published book and one of many “Wessex” novels he wrote, Wessex being his imagined region of England. I have heard Hardy’s writing referred to as an acquired taste…I’m not sure if this is true, but I find his…

  • White Fang by Jack London

    I just finished reading White Fang (1906), a novel by Jack London. The story of White Fang’s life begins in the northern territories of Canada during the Gold Rush of the 1890s. Born to Old One Eye, a wolf, and Kiche, a wolf-dog, White Fang’s world slowly expands from the cave of his birth to…

  • Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends

    I finished reading Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends, translated and with a biographical sketch by Constance Garnett. This is just what it sounds like—a large collection of letters Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote to family and various friends. He wrote to his mother, brothers, and sister, his friend and editor (Suvorin), other writers…

  • Dreamers (Sværmere) by Knut Hamsun

    I just finished reading Dreamers (Sværmere; 1904) by Knut Hamsun, translated by W. W. Worster. In this short work, Hamsun tells the story of a handful of characters living in a small fishing village. With spare description he constructs a bright, crisp world that, despite the novel’s brevity, feels somehow real. I enjoyed the prose…

  • Mithridates by Jean Racine

    I just finished reading the play Mithridates (1673) by Jean Racine. This tragedy is set near the end of the Third Mithridatic War, a ten year conflict between the forces of Mithridates VI of Pontus and the Roman Republic. The story involves star-crossed lovers and a web of love and deceit, betrayal and loyalty. At…

  • Youth by Leo Tolstoy

    Book jot from January 2022: I just finished reading Youth by Leo Tolstoy (1857), translated by Judson Rosengrant. This is the third and final part of a series of autobiographical novels Tolstoy published early in his writing life. In Youth, the narrator enters university life and becomes “grown up”. As he enters this phase of…

  • Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe

    I recently came across a collection of stories by Edgar Allan Poe with illustrations by Harry Clarke, originally published in 1923. I found the illustrations particularly striking, and thought I’d share a few here.