 You're in beautiful and faint all the time. They would have been goners. Very few of my patients actually read Ivan Hill. No one but Robinson Crusoe could have so well prepared me for the situation. Welcome to another vlog style video project. This is gonna be part one of two. This two part is going to pertain to classics. So part one is going to be rereading some classics that I have said and regard as favorite classics, but a lot of them I have not read for a very, very long time. So I want to reread them to see if they still are my favorite classics. A couple of them I've read a little bit more recently, so I have greater confidence. The others have, some of them are, it's been a really, really long time since I read it. So here's hoping I still love them. Here's hoping that all of them are still my face, but the ones I'm going to be rereading for part one are Ivan Hill by Sir Walter Scott, The Mainstone by Wilkie Collins, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LaRue, Peter Pan by J.M. Barry, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I did read Frankenstein last year, so mainly this is on the list just because I want to reread it. Figure if I'm doing a classic reread, why not Frankenstein? So yeah, those are classics that I currently still say, those are some of my favorites. We'll see if it's still true. Here's hoping that they still are. Similar to the music that inspired books vlog, I'm just gonna be reading these and then checking in with you as I finish them. See you for the first book. Just finished Phantom of the Opera, or Phantom of the Opera. This is actually the copy that I read like three or four times when I was in middle school, high school. I think I read it the first time when I was in middle school, but it all blurs together now. Definitely reread it in high school. Any hoosies, yeah, Phantom of the Opera. I didn't like it as much as I did back then. Like, if I read it for the first time now, I wouldn't then proceed to reread it like three times. But I do still think it's quite good, and I think that people, it gets a bad rap, and it's still hilarious to me that Andrew Lloyd Webber hated Phantom of the Opera and then wrote a musical of it. Like what? But the thing that it most reminded me of, having recently read the first three books in the Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Leeu, it's kind of what it reminded me of because it goes into a lot of detail as to the technical aspects of the Phantom's contraptions. Like the musical pales lip service is the fact that he's a genius, not just like a musical genius, but like all the tricks he pulls to make everyone believe that he's an opera ghost. It actually explains a lot of the mechanisms of how he's doing that and his past, where he learned to do that, and et cetera, et cetera. And the story, it doesn't, it is like a dramatic Gothic romance, I suppose, but it's written as if it's like a story, this piece together by a third party guest on the room who found letters and spoke to witnesses, and it's told from a very impersonal, impartial perspective. More like a historical record, an article, something like that. So it's, as melodramatic as it kind of sometimes is, it really isn't that melodramatic for an older book. Apologies, my camera ran out of battery. But yeah, so the, oh, I was talking about melodrama, yes. Technical stuff from my Dandelion Dynasty, and then the melodrama is lessened by the third party assembling the information. But yeah, the part of it that I think I liked a lot more when I was younger was Raoul and Christine, and Christine in particular. I'm finding when rereading classics because the first one that I finished is Fan of the Opera, but I have started, I've actually gotten most of the way through to count them on a crystal already. So I'm feeling this a very similar way. Actually, they're both French books that were translated to English. Maybe it's the French. Both in Count them on a crystal, which I'll talk about when I finish it, and Fan of the Opera, the characterization of female characters like Christine or the many female characters that are in Count them on a crystal, because that's a little massive, like a long book. They're very passive and like pure and beautiful and faint all the time and like the virtuous dudes that you root for, you know, they love them because they're these like delicate creatures that, you know, when immoral things occur around them, they fainted the very idea of it and whatever. And yeah, it's more so in Count them on a crystal, but in Phantom too. And I remember thinking that it was like romantic and sweet and the way that Raoul hangs on Christine's every gesture and movement and the fact that she's like, I can't and I shall have to die. And he's like, no, I cannot live because without you then I'll die too. And I mean, now I'm like, okay, children, calm down because they are quite young too. Christine and Raoul are like, I think teenagers, they say they're ages. I think Raoul is like 19 and Christine is, I think they said that he's maybe a couple years older than her. So it's like, come on kids, come on. I do still find the Phantom, Eric. He has a name in the book, which he doesn't in the musical to be an interesting character. And I don't, the book doesn't really romanticize the Phantom the way that the musical does. People who love the musical, they love the Phantom and they romanticize the Phantom. And you kind of leave the, like no one's rooting for Raoul. I mean, like realistically, like you don't want her to end up with the Phantom because he's a murderer. And you know, there's a lot of consent issues with that whole relationship, but you know, he's been the romanticized character and it's for him that your heart is breaking. In the book, I feel like it's more even, like you are rooting for Raoul and Christine and the Phantom is really, because you don't have like a sweeping musical score because music can trick you a lot. I find like, while my books make me cry, films and TV and ads on TV are very much more likely to make me cry because the right piece of music with the right visual, even if like, if you wrote about the same thing, I would be emotionless. But hearing the music and seeing the thing makes me cry. So like the Phantom singing at Christine and blah, blah, blah, plus they make him a lot better looking than he is in the book. It like, it makes you, and it doesn't really go to, it alludes to all of the heinous things he's done. Like, you know for a fact he's a murderer. And like, Christine meant like, things about him being a murderer. But they're kind of like, but you know, but it's no big deal. He is heartbroken and he's singing for the love of Christine. So like, the book doesn't, it can't do that. It can't like, trick you with music. And it does more to explain the horrors of what the Phantom has done and is doing and actually like, shows the perspectives of people who have known him from before or currently know him more than just like this phantomish figure, like actually know him. And they're like, yeah, he doesn't care about people. He doesn't find like, he doesn't really have a moral compass. He has no problem killing people. Like, does not give a fuck. So the book doesn't really like, romanticize him. Plus like, this cover is real pretty, but this cover, my beat up old copy and the pages are all yellowed. I read this so many times, it's falling apart. Anyway, this is what the Phantom looks like. Not like Michael Crawford or Jared Butler where there's like a little bit discoloration on the little one quarter of the face. And she's like, oh, the horror of seeing you without your mask. Ah, no, he's got like, they call it a death's head. Like he's deeply unfortunate looking. That his skin is, I mean, again, the musical does it where it's supposed to be like the rumors about him. And they're like, yellow parchment is his skin. A great black hole serves as the nose that never grew. And like, they say that as like, these are the rumors about the opera ghost. But in the book, that's legitimately what he looks like. So the fact that Christine can feel empathy for him at all considering how much worse he is and how much worse looking he is. Not that it looks like everything, but I mean, that's pretty horrifying to be a death's head like that. Yeah, like I think the book does a good job of writing him in a way where you don't feel zero empathy for him. You do feel a little bit of that. Like, he is the monster that we made him that if he is othered by all of humanity, like why should he feel any compunctions about hurting people when he is not a member of the human race in so far as the way he feels and has been treated. It's a little like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley where the monster, Victor's creation is a monster, is willing to kill if we're just concerning, but he has been othered by humanity. He has been shown only cruelty. He is the monster that you made him. So I think the book instead of just swooping musical arias and like, oh, so sad that if only he had a pretty face, we could have been together. Like, does a better job of being like, no, he's done some horrific things, probably a sociopath. But also people haven't, like the world has not been kind to him. So it's not completely one sided. He's not just a ghoulish monster, but he's not like a romantic hero either. So I think it's more fair. I just wish Christine had a little more hoodspot than she does in the book, but it's the era and she's not like more like weak and woeful than other books of the era. And in the musical, she really doesn't have any agency or any, she doesn't really like do anything either. She's pretty much the same. She's, I guess, slightly more scared of him in the book and slightly more willing to go along with whatever he says in the book a little bit. In the book, it's more like martyrdom. And in the musical, it's more that she's just kind of like freaked out. I don't know which is better or worse, but point being, the musical didn't like make her a badass either. So it's not really a complaint that differs between the two. Yeah. Yeah, I don't love it as much as I think, I think my appreciation for it now is more academic, if that makes sense. Not to make myself sound like, you know, so academic. I just mean like, I find like the way it's handling Eric, the phantom interesting, the choices that it makes knowing more about the time period. And I've paid attention more to the Persian, which is completely cut from the musical. And he's a big POV for what's happened and who Eric was before the opera house. Like I have an appreciation for it that is more divorced from my emotions, where I just find it interesting and I find it compelling and I find it engaging and I would reread it. Whereas when I re-read it multiple times in middle school and high school, I was like swept up in the mystery and the romance and the rowl willing to sacrifice himself for Christine and Christine sacrificing herself for everybody and the phantom dying over the fact that he won't be loved. And I was just like, you know, more into all of that. And now I'm like, that's fine about that part. And there really isn't that much of it in the book. That's just the part of it that probably appealed to me most when I was a lot younger. Now I'm glad there's not that much of it. That's why I still like it. So it meant, I meant that sweet, sweet spot. It was enough for me for when I was wanting it, but it's not so much that now when I don't want it that it's too much, so. So I still like it. I don't know if I would be like this in my favorite classics of all time, but I mean, a favorite, yeah, I still like it. I still like it and I still would reread it again. This classic still slaps. Well, I did it. I finished the Count of Monte Cristo. It took a minute. I, yeah, this is super, super long. Okay, so first point of assessment, it is too long. Will complain about the length? It is too long. I can also, it's too heavy because it's so long. So I'm gonna put it down. I feel like this kind of like sprawling, ongoing, tangent-filled storytelling is kind of like, reading this book feels like watching five seasons of a TV show that didn't know that it would get five seasons, you know? So it just kept like spinning it out and out and out and like withholding resolution for the like ultimate conflict. So like, oh, we were green living for another season. Let's drag it out a little more and let's have some random like mid-season episodes that take us off on, you know, sidequests and tangents and character backstories and things like that. That said, that's pretty much, as far as my understanding is, I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure. I think if you can, can we not do that right now? Please stop it. I believe that it was published serially. Hey, cat. I believe it was published serially. So, and I also believe, which again, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Alexander Dumas was paid by the word. So he definitely had a, ow, fuck, ow, why? He definitely had good reason to want to stretch it out. If it was written today, well, if it was written today, a lot of things about it would be different. But if it was written today, the length part would certainly be different. It would be either published as a series and therefore have more built in kind of conclusive arcs for each book to end on, or it would be just condensed and a lot of it chopped out. Yeah, because a lot of it, it is not necessary. A lot of it, yeah, I still enjoy it. Even the parts that are not necessary, I find them enjoyable to read through, but they're like, part of me is also like, wow, this doesn't need to be here. So like, I'm not so mad about it. There's other books that have a bunch of unnecessary like guff in them where I'm like, why are you wasting my time with this? I hate everything about this. Whereas with Count on a Crystal, I'm like, this is enjoyable. Like the writing is enjoyable and the scene is enjoyable, but the part of me that wants to make progress on the story is like, but why am I being told this? Why am I being shown this? It's weirdly both the most like insane, it is both like taken like show don't tell to its furthest extreme, while also doing an insane amount of telling instead of showing. Cause I guess some of the extraneous parts, some of the tangential parts of the stuff that could be cut is actually just a lot of telling as well. It's not always showing you a scene that you don't need to be shown. Some of it is like lengthy exposition and that kind of thing, which I guess I'm grateful for because if all of those portions of lengthy exposition had been also converted to scenes to showing us all of that stuff. I mean, this book would be twice as long as it already is. So it's a lot of showing and a lot of telling. As I mentioned when I was talking about Phantom, cause I already started reading Count. The female characters are very like passive, wilting and kind of angelic martyr figures and or at least the ones that you root for supposed to like are that way. They're not allowed to be interesting or to have complicated feelings, which is of its time. It's not the worst example of that that I've seen in older books, but I recall specifically, kind of like I was talking about with Phantom where like I was kind of swept away by the Christine Rowell story. I remember being very much enamored with Valentine and Maximilian's story in Count on a Crystal. And reading it now, yeah. Like it's not bad, but yeah. Valentine is like an angelic China doll and not a person, or at least the way that Maximilian feels about her is that she's like an angelic China doll, which I don't love that. It's not horrible. Like it's not, it doesn't make me angry reading it. I'm just kind of like, why should I love this so much? Probably because I was nothing like that ever. So I kind of idealized or romanticized that type of female in love stories, much in the way that these authors did. Cause I remember at this time in my life, I definitely also prefer Jane and Bingley to Lizzie and Darcy. And Jane in A Pride and Prejudice is a lot more akin to Christine Diaye or Valentine Gilles Four. They're these sweet angelic, the men in their lives are like, but a touch from your hand, but the scent of your glove. You are, you know, you make it heaven on earth by just being there. And then they like fainted the idea of something awful. Yeah, I've heard much was into that. I don't know if I would say aspired to it, but more lamented that I was nothing like that. And I was like, yeah, I'm not worthy of a great love story because to be worthy of a great love story, you have to be this like fainting angelic martyr. And you better hope there's a dude around to catch you like he always is in these books because otherwise, you know, like, none of these girls are getting out of their own situations on their own steam. Like if it hadn't been for the heroic love interest in all of these, well, Jane doesn't really have that, but she is quite passive as well. We're not here to talk about Pride and Prejudice though. But like Christine and Valentine, they would have, their lives would have been ruined. Like they would have been goners if it wasn't for the heroic love interests in their lives. So, you know, not really a practical thing to aspire to. To be so angelic that you might attract the attention of a hero who's willing to risk life and limb to save you. Like in this one, she saves herself. There is also, I don't know. I don't think it's intended to be read as a criticism of the main character. There are other things that are intended, I think, as criticisms of the main character, like in the text that is meant to be like, that you're meant to think that's a flaw or that he's gone too far or that he's done something he shouldn't have. But specifically with Valentine, slight spoilers. I won't say specifics, but slight spoilers for Caroline and Christo. Valentine's value not just about, yeah, her basically she's considered worthy by the Count of Monte Cristo and by the extension, the reader, because Maximilian loves her. That is what like confers upon her worthiness. Which, you know, like she's written as an angelic, a sweet character who is entirely worthy unto herself absent his love. She, for her own merits, considering what an angelic, murder-like character she is, like she shouldn't require Maximilian's love to be considered worthy. My God, if she's not worthy, then who is? I guess you can interpret it as her worth is noticed because of Maximilian and wouldn't have been noticed otherwise, but I don't like that. But yeah. I mean, the book does kind of paint and Mondantes and the Count of Monte Cristo as a person who is flawed and has taken things too far and does, you know, his actions have consequences that he does not intend or he realizes in retrospect might have been too much or too far or et cetera. So he's not painted as like a perfect character or as a character who's like always in the right. But as concerns a lot of the women in the story, Mercedes also is kind of more of a murder-like angelic figure. And it's really, she would have good reason to not be that way anymore. And it's, she's redeemed in the narrative because she is still that way. And you're like, well, she shouldn't be and shouldn't have to be. Yeah. I've said before in another video, I think the video was like, the movie was better. Oh, just a bunch of books where I thought the movie was better even if I liked the book and Count of Monte Cristo was in that list. And now that I've reread the Count of Monte Cristo. Yeah. There are some things in the book that the movie would be very, very long if it had included a lot of stuff. So it does kind of condense a lot of stuff and combine some things and completely cut out some stuff for the sake of time. But if it was like, let's say nowadays, you know, you have just as high quality production value in a mini series on TV. So if like the Count of Monte Cristo movie had been that cast and that director and everything but had been a mini series on TV, say three episodes, four episodes, something like that, where you would have time to include everything that you want to include while still cutting out and condensing stuff because I even said the book too long, too many things, you actually don't need all of that. But so there's a couple things that I do still think that the movie where it did kind of drastically change the story in certain respects. And I like a lot of those changes. I really, really do. I really like also, there's a huge plot line that is entirely absent in the film. And I'm frankly glad that it's absent. Like that's not one of the things that I think that you should have a mini series to make time for. And again, I don't want to tell you any spoilers but the character of IED and everything to do with her. Yeah, I don't love that. It's not, again, it's not awful. It's not something where I'm like, yikes, this is terrible. But like, I mean, if it was written nowadays it'd be like, yikes, this is terrible. For its time, I'm like, for what it is, it's handled okay-ish. But yeah. There's just, yeah. I absolutely understand where the film chose to entirely cut that out. But then by cutting that out, you did have to, there's other stuff they changed that they wouldn't need to change in order to cut out IED. But there's a lot of stuff that you would have to change if you're cutting her out. So like some of the changes, I'm like, well, if we're starting with cutting her plot line out you have to like change everything around that to have new reasons for things to happen, et cetera. But then a step further, they also change a lot of stuff that I still also really like. So yeah, in particular, again, I'll be vague, but everything pretty much to do with Fernand, I like what they did in the film. And I think it makes it a stronger narrative. I think it makes it more compelling and a more, I don't know, just like a visceral feeling of injustice that you want to see righted, while still by the end of the film being like, but the Kalamana Cristo has gone too far, has done things to, there are still like, unforeseen consequences that he hasn't been able to plan for every possible thing. So it still does the thing of like showing that like the count, like showing the flaws in the count's plan, while still making it more of like a like enraging injustice that is done. I think it makes it more personal and more visceral in the film, the way that they change who has done what to Edmund and why. So I think that change is really, really good. And part of that change is to like, I don't know that that's exactly why they did it, but some of that is probably at least started because they decided to take out IED because anyway. Anyway, it's a very, very long book with a lot, a lot of like plot lines and a lot of information and a lot of stuff. And like, it's really fun, I think to read because it's fun watching, because it's interestingly, I mean nowadays too, I feel like it would be told from the perspective of the count, but this is a sort of impartial omniscient narrator that just like knows stuff. So a lot of stuff, like a lot of the count's plans, you're just experiencing them as the people who are being affected by them. And you aren't necessarily even told when and where the count is doing something, but you can like, there are hints and you can piece it together because you know that this book is about him being up to something. So you're like, presumably I'm being shown this scene because this is related to something the count wants to do or the count is here, even though he's not named. So it is kind of fun in the way that, you know, like the Sherlock Holmes film, the Guy Ritchie one with Robert Downey Jr. There are scenes that you see play out and then you see that scene like rewound and played back this time knowing that Sherlock Holmes was in disguise and he was actually one of the characters in the scene and you didn't know it. So you know, there's nothing quite as gimmicky as that in Count on a Cristo, but it's the same kind of thing where like you're shown scenes and you're like, I think that's the Count on a Cristo in disguise, it doesn't say that, it's not told from his perspective and it doesn't really, I mean it basically confirms it later, but yeah, it's kind of fun to read it as this kind of like unfolding mystery because like, you know he wants revenge, you know he's got money. But what exactly he's gonna do? How all these like this like 40 chess that he's playing where like he's having, like you know who it is he wants revenge against. And then there's these scenes where he's like talking to all these other people or disguising himself to talk to all these other people and you're like, who in the, what does this have to do with anything? Why are you disguising yourself to talk to this other random third party person? Who is this? What does this have to do with revenge? And then you know, one million pages later the everything converges and you're like, oh wow, that was a long game. Geez, like maximum effort, like you know, you really committed. So it is fun to read it for that reason because it's not obvious what he's doing at all. It's obvious that he's doing something but why he's doing it? Which, how many steps removed are we from the goal of revenge, you know? So yeah, it's fun to watch it unfold and I'd forgotten a lot of details of that because a lot of that is not in the movie. The movie condenses what he does for the revenge is a lot. It's you know, two step revenge instead of a hundred step revenge. So it's a worthy read. It's very long and it's dated especially in the women characters but it's still a good read. But I will definitely be watching the movie more. I've already seen the movie a bunch of times and I will definitely re-watch it many more times. The book I'll probably re-read again sometime in my life but I would still say this is a favorite classic but I definitely am blessed in love with Valentine and Max Pillion. They're fine. So yeah, on to the next one. Just finished Peter Pan for the third time in my life. This time I did it with the audio book that's done or that's read by Tim Curry which I didn't really know existed until I went to go see what was available and I was like Tim Curry, that must happen. And I can confirm that is a delightful way to experience Peter Pan. So if you have not read it or you're looking to re-read it, I would recommend the audio book done by Tim Curry. Any who sees Peter Pan, yes, it's so good. It's so good. It will always be a favorite. This will never change. I never say never I guess but I really don't see that changing. Peter Pan, it's just, it's a classic for a reason. It stands the test of time for a reason. It gets retold over and over again for a reason. It's just so good. And I was talking to my fellow Peter Pan lover and also fellow first law fan, Hillary from Book Born and she did not confirm that she agreed with me about this but I feel like if Joe Abercrombie and Neil Gaiman collaborated to write A Middle Grade Adventure, it would be Peter Pan or it would be very close to Peter Pan. So like, of course this is a favorite of mine because Gaiman and Abercrombie are my two favorites. But there's, I've often, I previously made the connection to Gaiman saying that like one of the things about Gaiman's writing especially his middle grade but all of his writing is that he just kind of like gets it when it comes to like what it means to be a child, what it felt like to be a child, what the difference is between a child and an adult. Like Ocean at the End of the Lane is one of my favorite books of all time and one of my favorite Gaiman books because the way that he captures what it is to be a child and the mindset of a child and childhood and what it's like living through that, he just like hits the nail on the head in this way that like you didn't, you wouldn't have been able to identify it and then he put it into words for you and you were like, that's it. I don't know how you remembered what it's like to be a kid because I didn't remember until you just said it and now you've like unlocked that memory for me. Like yes, that's what it was like being a kid. So Jay and Mary in a much more sort of like fantastical fairy tale way does that in Peter Pan where he just, he hits the nail on the head and starts to like what is the sort of like this sort of quintessence of youth? Like what is that? Because Peter Pan himself remains a vague and unidentified force in this book and there's never like an explanation for what Peter Pan is or where he came from or how Peter Pan is. He gets asked who and what art though by Captain Hook and the answer that Peter Pan unhelpfully gives is I am youth. I am joy, you're like, cool. It's about as useful as his address for Neverland second to the right and straight on till morning. But the way that Peter Pan and the Neverland are described and the way that Peter Pan is he's not innocent in a pure positive angelic sense. He is innocent in a selfish and hedonistic sense which is a lot more what kids are like, like the stories that paint children as sweet and innocent angels, that's wishful thinking. We will like to think of them that way but kids think of themselves first and foremost and in the book throughout, the story throughout we'll throw out things about like and maybe that's what made Peter of the way he is or maybe that's why Peter is the way he is or maybe that's the secret to Peter Pan. One of which is that the moment that a child first experiences unfairness is the moment that they release kind of cease to be a child. That they might trust you again but they'll never be the kid that they were before that moment. And there's a moment where Peter has this happen where something is unfair or he perceives it to be unfair and they're like normally this would be that moment for a kid but this has happened to Peter Pan many times and he always forgets about it. So he's able to remain this like this spirit of youth because all these things that would normally enter a child's life and alter them and push them further down the path of growing up he rejects them, he forgets them, he does not acknowledge them and some of that is positive and some of it's negative like forgetting that you realize that the world could be unfair is more of a sort of like a pristine and angelic innocence but what also preserves his innocence is the inability and lack of desire to care about anything or anyone other than himself. Everything has to be the way he wants it, things happen because that's how he likes it. It's his way or the highway. And while we think of being a child or being forever a child or this sort of thing as as a, I guess especially adults there's a sort of a nostalgia and a melancholy about oh, to be a child forever. But there's also many times when we're reminded in the book about the joys that Peter will never experience can never experience because he refuses to grow up. And those are joys that can only be known by an adult like the love that he could share with Wendy in a way that is beyond make believe that is beyond them being kids together beyond him calling her a mother. He will never know that kind of a relationship that kind of joy or the joy of having your own children and things like that. Because he says, you know, you're not gonna take me and make me a man and this obstinate refusal to grow up is a rejection of also that maturing up that caring about others more than yourself about taking responsibility for things and so on and so forth. Anyway, basically Peter Pan is brilliant and that's why it's one of my favorites and that's why it will always be a relevant classic because to be a child, this is it. It's not like, yes, childhoods change, you know, from generation to generation, you know, one generation grows up on cartoons, the next one video games, the one after that on VR and like so on and so forth. But what Peter Pan is about is about the relationship to life, the relationship to those around you and what as a child, what that looks like and what it would have to reject in order to stay that way forever. So this is why it will always be relevant. And then I did, it is kind of Abercrombie-esque because there's a lot of like snark and like political social commentary and Peter himself is a wicked kind of boy. He's not, I already said he's not very angelic but there's truly some wickedness about him. He can be quite malicious and the boys and Wendy as well. I think most films kind of shy away from this but in Peter Pan they actually kill the pirates. Like they're not just like defeating them. We won the day. They kill them, which, you know, that's pretty dark. A bunch of kids killing pirates. So like just the very idea of a Neverland. Like I feel like that's, what would be more Abercrombie to that? Like he already showed us his version of Lord of the Rings in the first law trilogy saying, you know, this hero's quest and chosen ones and this sort of thing. Like with your Gandalf type and your fellowship kind of situation. Let me show you the F'd up upside down version of that. And that's what the first law trilogy is. I feel like if you didn't know about Peter Pan but you just sort of like suggested the idea of like a middle grade adventure about the spirit of youth. You would imagine something quite saccharine. And Peter Pan is like, if Joe Abercrombie was like, I'll do you a fairy tale about the spirit of youth and the malevolent little flying cackling monster that is Peter going around killing pirates with his band of cohorts. That feels like something Abercrombie would do. So anyway, yes, love Peter Pan. Will forever love Peter Pan. If you've never read Peter Pan, you should read Peter Pan because it's quite mature in its themes. I remember liking Peter Pan as a kid and it being like, I want to go to the Neverland and I want Peter Pan to take me away there. And I, you know, that sounds fun. And as an adult, it's themes about growing up and what it means to grow up and about how the parents feel about all this and all the little like social commentary from the narrator of this story, which is also, that's where it's kind of Abercrombie-esque. Like the nods to Hook having possibly gone to like Eaton and there's nods to him possibly being related to pirates from Treasure Island. There's like topical social commentary in it that definitely would not, like kids would not clock that. So anyway, yes, so, so, so, so good. Definitely, definitely a favorite. Moving on to the next one. Hopefully that will go just as well. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. To be perfectly honest, I was a little nervous to pick this up because I read it quite some time ago and in the interim, I had seen a couple of adaptations of it and those adaptations did not wow me or thrill me. Not because I was like, this is a bad adaptation because I was like, the story is not that compelling, is it? Why did I love the book so much? So picking this up now, I was like, this is gonna be one of those where I'm like, yeah, let's not just go as I remember. But it was, I loved it. I still love the Moonstone, so yay for that. And it's, this is the same problem that I've previously expressed is an issue for a lot of Jane Austen adaptations where the charm of the book is often in the narrator being quippy and being witty and in how the narrator is telling you the story. And when you adapt it, that's what you lose. You lose the narrator, now it's just the people doing the things that they're doing. And that's the case with the Moonstone. The story is decently compelling and it's a pretty good mystery. The answer to the mystery, the final wrap up of the mystery is a little not great. It's not terrible, but it's kind of a little bit like, it does beggar belief a little bit, but it's still, it's a good mystery and the adaptations of it weren't again awful, but I was like, you know, it's, why did I love this so much, basically? I was like, this is a pretty good story, but like, why was I like, I love this when I read it? And it's the narrator in multiple narrators. So this is told from multiple narrators that all are consciously narrating to you. So that's a ton of fun because they kind of break the fourth wall and they kind of talk about what they're choosing to tell you and not tell you or should they tell you or shouldn't they tell you or what will you think of them if they tell you X, Y, Z? So that's a lot of fun. And they also, Wilkie Collins does a really good job making them feel distinctly like different people. So when each of them picks up their part of the story and is like, okay, I'll take it from here, it feels like a different person is telling you the story now. So it's just very well done on the part of Wilkie Collins to be able to write, to change the voice so well to believably feeling different characters. And like, one of my favorite voices that tells the story and is like, probably the majority voice, at least a very, very large chunk of it and is your intro to the story is the butler from the house that this is taking place in. And I remember to this about it because it's something that they do usually mention in the adaptations because it's such a huge part of his deal. But there's just like no real easy way to incorporate it into an adaptation because it's mostly something that he just thinks about and tells you about when he's narrating the story to you. So it doesn't make sense to stick it into an adaptation. So it's just like largely missing, but he's obsessed. And I say obsessed capital O with Robinson Crusoe, which is very strange and is very funny because at every opportunity, when life presents him with a conundrum, he's like, Robinson Crusoe, let me find a random page and like people will do with a Bible where they're like, random Bible quote, tell me something wise. He does that with Robinson Crusoe. He really judges anybody that has not heard the good word of Robinson Crusoe. And he talks about how many copies of Robinson Crusoe he's gone through because he just wears them to tatters. And he does have some pretty good quotes for Robinson Crusoe where he's like, and you know, if that's not portentous or wise or if this didn't prepare me for no one but Robinson Crusoe could have so well prepared me for the situation. So yeah, I think this is a really enjoyable read. I'm gonna need to cut this clip short because they're doing repairs on my upstairs neighbor's apartment. There's a garbage truck outside. There's people in the pool outside. You can probably hear some of it right now. I'm very sorry for that. But anyway, Moonstone, great. Oh my God, fucking so loud. Moonstone, great. Love it. I think it's a ton of fun to read. I don't think it works well as an adaptation because of the aforementioned reasons. I think it's very enjoyable to read. The mystery is decently compelling but that's not what makes it an enjoyable read. It's the narrator telling it. So I do still recommend this. Love it. I will probably read it again. Frankenstein, fucking love it. Love it. Sorry. I swear on my channel. Why am I apologizing? Whatever. Frankenstein. I haven't filmed a vlog clip for this particular vlog project. A vlog project in a while. I don't even know what I was doing or what I was saying. Right, so these are all rereads. I got this vlog project just to brief aside. I'm kind of looking forward to editing it because the clips from like in this vlog are spanned so many months. So like, you'll be able to see my hair grow over the course of the vlog. Anyway, Frankenstein. I love it, but up until this go round, I had only ever read the latest version of it. So the 1831 version. So this time around, I read the 1816, or 1818 version? 1818, yeah. And then I also, I listened to the 1831 one while looking at the 1816 one with the 1818 changes in italics as I went, which was like kind of, like I don't recommend doing that if you haven't read Frankenstein before. Like I could really only do that because I have read Frankenstein a few times. And so like I know what's happening in this shush. I'm filming a vlog clip. I know what's happening in Frankenstein. And also because I had just read the 1818 one. So then having the 1818 one in front of me while hearing the 1831 one, and like, because I mean you could physically read them side by side, but like I feel like that would be really annoying and would be harder to do to look sentence to sentence because it doesn't really match up that way. But like, because I listened to it fast, but I can also like scan the page and look for like is what he's saying right now, is that anywhere on this page? Or is this a completely new addition? Or is there like stuff that was taken out? So like he's saying, I think it's actually three paragraphs down because we cut out the two paragraphs that did come after what you said. Anyway, so like, if you're familiar with Frankenstein, I recommend doing that if you're interested in seeing the differences because it's very obvious the differences when you do it that way. It's much harder, I think. Like I generally like, because I was more familiar with the 1831 one. So reading the 1818 one this time, just by itself, I was like, yeah, this, like it's Frankenstein and it feels mostly like Frankenstein. So it's not like, this is completely different. This is a different book. Like it's the same book. So it had been, you know, at least a year or two since I had read the 1831 one. So I was like, this Frankenstein, I don't quite remember being quite like this. Like the vibe is a bit different, but yeah, it's Frankenstein. So unless you know it like my heart, I don't think like it's that apparent which specific things are changed unless there's a particular passage or a particular section that you remember really vividly and being like, you know, this is different. But like overall, you know, like the gist is the same and a lot of the passages are the same or a lot of the passages are very similar and it's only a bit of wording here and there that's changed. So reading that one was a fun experience because I just like generally had like a vibe check. I was like, you know, this is different in tone than I, when I think of Frankenstein, this isn't quite what I think of even though the story is basically the exact same. And then reading it in front of me, while I'm listening to the 1831 one, that really is what like makes you see, oh, okay, I see what's changed here and I see what types of things are getting changed. All that to say, I talked about this with my patrons when we did our live chat work as we did read Frankenstein together, which hadn't like when I created this vlog project it was not known to me that Frankenstein would be a read on my Patreon. So it just kind of happened that way. But anyway, when I was talking to my patrons about it and then in my wrap up in the months that I read Frankenstein, I talked about how when I was on Goodreads to market as reading or as read or whatever, I was on Goodreads on the Frankenstein page and was glancing at the reviews. I wasn't really there to look at reviews, but like one of the top ones was a one star review. And I was like, okay, like you don't have to love Frankenstein but like one star, why? So I went and looked at the review and like it's fair if you don't love Frankenstein, like I don't get it. I think it's great. Kaz, is now the time for this? No, you're afraid? No, you're afraid? Was this, yeah. So if you don't like it, that's fine. But the author of this review was saying a lot of stuff about how Mary Shelley clearly didn't know men. She was a young like sheltered girl who like had been talked to only by a few poets. And like she thinks this is how men think but the way that she writes male perspectives like she clearly has no idea what goes on in the minds of men. And that's just so obvious when you read Frankenstein. And that's like upsetting and hilarious to me because if you read the original Frankenstein, the original original before Percy Shelley touched it at all. Because even the 1818 one has Percy Shelley's additions to it. What Mary Shelley wrote is a lot less emotional and a lot less melodramatic than what ended up being the like finished product. Like even the 1818 one, the parts that are the most emotion or maybe not the most emotional but a lot of the more melodramatic emotional things or even just like sentences where like the sentence is almost unchanged except that like he's stuck in an adjective to make it to emphasize the emotion of it or whatever. It's all like Percy's additions. So I mean, according to this review's author, it's a bunch of poets blowing up, blowing smoke up Mary Shelley's ass. I made her think that men think like this. So I mean, I guess maybe that's continues to be the case that Percy Shelley is then blowing smoke up the ass of every reader because he is a poet. But it's like his additions to the story that are the most, I don't know. Like I don't want to put a gender on it. Like to say that they are feminine additions. I would not have put it in those terms before but having read that review, I was like, well, if we're saying that that's like the womanly part of this, the like the feminine part of this, it's like clearly no man would think this way or right this way. It's like, no, those are the parts that a man contributed to this book. So like fuck off. Hey, stop that. Again, it's fair if you think that's too emotive and you don't like it. But like also like older books, you know, like I'm not saying, I mean, patriarchy was definitely in full swing in older time periods. But like the idea of masculinity, and that was like not what this block project is about or what I really wanted to talk about with Frankenstein but ideas of what constitutes masculinity were quite different, you know, like men wore wigs and high heels and this was in lace and velvet and, you know, powdered their faces and, you know, like the sonnets were written by William Shakespeare. No one was like, oh, what a pussy, you know, what a, you're like so gay, Shakespeare, everybody. Like, you know, like it's, this like macho version of masculinity is, you know, quite elite, it wasn't the standard idea for what is masculine. So like, I don't know, I feel like this reviewer, not to like be calling out this reviewer. So don't like go attack them or anything. But I'm just like, I think you're telling on yourself. If you think no man would think this way, maybe, maybe nowadays, I guess, but also like consider how much that is like conditioning of our society, how much like dudes are told not to think emotionally and not to react emotionally. And that's, you know, are there, there hopefully is better nowadays with like, I mean, I don't know what the kids are doing these days on the playground. But, you know, I remember growing up and, you know, it being an insult to say like, you know, you throw like a girl or like, oh, you're gonna cry like a girl. Like, you know, that kind of thing. Whereas, you know, the great poets, you know, the people Mary Shelley was hanging out with, like they were men that they were writing this stuff and it's considered great literature. And I mean, just thinking about like the way that Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and the like bonds of fellowship and friendship and the very like, very like loving language that's used between like Frodo and Sam, others as well. But it's not this like, you know, like, you know, love you man, but like no homo, you know, it's not that, you know? Like that's a very modern idea of what's masculine. So yeah, just the idea that like the way that Victor thinks or the way that the monster thinks in Frankenstein or the way that that's depicted by Mary Shelley is like, no dude thinks this way. It's like, well, first of all, how do you generalize about like half of the population all at once like that? Have you met every man that you can speak with such authority? And but again, like this idea that like, oh men don't think poetically, men don't think emotionally, men don't think what, I mean, I would say that even nowadays that isn't true. And if it is true nowadays, it's socio-cultural conditioning that makes that so. If that makes sense. Anyway, that just like really, I don't know about upset because it didn't upset me. I wasn't mad when I read that review. I was just like, wow, okay, like that's a take. Here's why you're wrong. And again, you don't have to like Frankenstein. Like you can read it and be like, this is melodramatic and I don't like it. I don't think it's very good. But just like the take that Mary Shelley doesn't know how men think and that this reviewer does know how men think, all men. It's just like, um, so anyway, if you are a fan of Frankenstein, I do recommend picking up like the older editions of it. Comparing to contrasting, it's a fun exercise if you already like Frankenstein. If you're like just kind of casually vaguely or like Frankenstein was like one of my less hated assigned readings in school, then you probably don't. I love Frankenstein so I really enjoyed doing that. I had a good time with it. And yeah, I mean, I see myself reading Frankenstein again and again for the rest of my life. It's so good. And I feel like it has stood the test of time. And I think it is a shame that it kind of got rewritten so much. I do think the original, I don't know if it's the best. I mean, it is fun to see all the different versions of it. I kind of liked it with Frankenstein, unlike with most books. You know, films, we get a lot of like, you know, we get the director's cut, the extended cut, the theatrical cut. That's kind of what this feels like. We have like the director's cut, the extended cut, the theatrical cut. So I like, as a fan of Frankenstein, like that's fun for me and I like that we get that. So I guess if it did get all these rewrites, I'm glad that we have been able, that we preserved the other versions of it as well. So we can look at them all and you can like see which one works the best for you and just like that be your favorite Frankenstein that you read. They're all, you know, valid or canon as much as the others because they're all written by Mary Shelley more or less. Yeah, so I love Frankenstein. It remains one of my favorite classics. I will continue to reread it. I haven't really talked at all in this vlog clip about Frankenstein, like the actual story that it's about. Talked about it for like two hours with my patrons, just about like the symbolism and meaning and who's the real villain in one of my patrons is adamant. Some of my old spoilers for Frankenstein is adamant that because the monster has committed murder and Victor has not, that it is clear that one is the good guy and one is the bad guy. So that's valid. If that's your take, that's not exactly my take. I think it's very, very gray and messy. I don't really have that hard a dividing line between one has killed and one has not. Therefore, one is good and one is bad. I mean, I get that take. I'm not, it's, that's a fair take to have. For me, I think neither is the hero, neither is the villain, and that's what makes Frankenstein brilliant, is that when you read, and it's also so modern for the time that it's written, that I compared it to Othello, which is one of my all-time favorite Shakespeare plays. It is my favorite tragedy for sure. And I realized that, you know, I have a type. So in Othello, spoilers for Othello, in Othello, Othello by the end of it has committed murder. But by the end of the play, I, you know, you don't get the feeling that Shakespeare wants you to hate Othello. That the play has not framed Othello as the villain. You are not intended to come away from it hating him and villainizing him. And yeah, you come away from it, not condoning that he has committed murder, Othello himself does not condone that he has committed murder, but you feel for him, you feel that that's why it's a tragedy. Like, you feel the tragedy of that situation. He has a tragic figure. And I think that the monster in Frankenstein is similar in that sense, where like the monster does pretty heinous things, even more heinous than Othello. But you don't come away from Frankenstein going, well, that's clearly just like an evil beastie that must be slain. You know, like he's, it's complicated, it's messy, and you come away from it feeling a lot of sympathy and empathy for the monster, even if you don't condone nor spend it. I do not condone the murder that he does. And with Victor, I feel like that's, I think the whole people say like, Victor's the real monster. Like, I mean, he's not the real monster. It's very reductive to say something like that, but I get why people say it, because when you read it, you're, I feel like you get the overwhelming sense that like, what the monster does is not forgivable, is pretty bad, is pretty freaking bad. But you feel like it's a little bit like, you know, I compare it to like parents and children, you know, like when a kid acts out up to a certain age, people are like, well, this is the parents' fault. Call in the parents. The parents need to teach them better, take care of them better, punish them better, give them more boundaries, blah, blah, blah. So like Victor is the parent of the creature, of the monster, and he has not parented very well. So you're kind of like the buck stops with you, Victor. You created him and then you abandoned him. So like, you didn't commit murder, but like by extension, a lot of what the monster does is, it's your fault that you, because you created him, but it's also your fault because after you created him, you did not guide him. So like, you know, like it's like, not that you should have expected that he would go and commit murder, but like what did you expect would happen, buddy? You know, like you're the educated, knowledgeable, responsible party here. You're the one that like has the money, has experience of life, has a family, had to know how to create this life, wanted to do it. No one made you do it. And then you, like you didn't, you failed to take responsibility for what you had done. And so that's why I feel like when you come away from it, you're like, Victor's the real monster, even though he's not, because you're like the monster is the sort of helpless party that is a victim of circumstance and has acted out in ways that cross a line into unforgivable territory, but you're like, I know how we got there. Which is like, you know, what's off-hello is too, like you by the end of it, you're like, you know, oh fair enough, you know, killed your wife, you know, I get you, man. Like, no, that was, that was very, very bad. But you see how that happened. You see how he got there. And he also was a victim of circumstance. So yeah, I like stories like that. I think that's my big problem though with people who are managed as that, who like, it's one thing to say, I get the gray area here and I find it fascinating to dwell in the gray versus someone who reads these stories and then like, full on romanticizes it and it's like, it's fine. We stand that's our, especially if it's like a romance, because like, I like Wuthering Heights a lot. I love Wuthering Heights. I like Jane Eyre, I like Othello, I like the character of the Darkling in the Grisha trilogy, but the people who think that the Darkling is end game and should be like the romantic interest of the main character, you're like, no, he's a well written character and he's interesting to read about, but no, you know, like I don't, or like Phantom of the Opera, I love Phantom of the Opera, but the Phantom is a murderer. So like, at the end you're kind of like, you kind of wish Christine was with the Phantom because you know, he's a tragic figure. Like you get how we got here. He is a murderer, but like, he's also a victim of circumstance. Like I love it, I love it to read about it. But I don't think that you should walk away condoning that. That's what I have a huge problem with with a lot of people who read these things and feel that way or then go on to write retellings that like paint things in that way where they are now. Having similar things happen except the narrative is framed in a way where you're meant to think it's fine or they write in an excuse for it and you're like, oh no, half of what makes this interesting is that it is unforgivable. Like how, you know, to wrestle with those feelings of like, I get where you're coming from and yet I cannot excuse what you did. So anyway, Frankenstein is great. I had a good time comparing and contrasting the different versions. It's really good. You should read it if you have, even though I've now kind of spoiled it, but I feel like most people picking at Frankenstein have some idea what Frankenstein is about and it's going to have in it. So, sorry if I spoiled it for you. Sorry if I spoiled off that one for you. But uh, yeah. Onward to the rest of the books I have to read for this vlog. That's up to you. Jane Eyre. When I started this vlog project, I did not have this amazing edition of it. I went and patrons gifted this to me and um, I mean, all the children classics are very beautiful, well, most. There's a couple that I like, I genuinely think are ugly. They're not just like less favorite, but I'm like, why? But I think of all the children books. This was one of the first ones I did if it wasn't the first and I think it's the most beautiful. Just the colors. I think it's stunning. I really do. Anyway, that's not what I'm here to talk about, per se. I'm here to talk about the contents, but yeah, Jane Eyre is stunning. It's also very heavy. The children editions, it's a good thing they're tiny. As I think they're on thicker paper. I don't really know what makes them so heavy, but anyway, I'm putting this down. Uh, Jane Eyre is so good. It's so good. Okay, so I um, I read Jane Eyre the first time. This is only my second time reading it. I read it the first time in middle school, I think. Pretty sure I was in middle school. Yes, I'm a hundred percent sure I was in middle school. Oh, it doesn't matter why I realized that. I was in middle school. I can't remember what grade is it. Probably seventh grade, I think. So for anyone that's not American, the age that I would be when I read it was 13, maybe 14. Somewhere around there. Yeah, so yeah. When I liked it, because all these years I was like, yeah, I like Jane Eyre. It was my, that was my impression of my reading experience back from when I had that reading experience, but it had been a very long time. And also when I read it, I remembered when I first picked it up because like I had never seen an adaptation of it. I'm not sure that I had ever heard of it. I had not, yeah, I didn't know anything about it, but I mostly read classics for fun when I was that age. I hadn't really gotten into fantasy. So if I wanted to read something, I just like went to the classics section and just like picked out something that the cover intrigued me. And then like maybe read the death jacket and was like, sure, that sounds good. So like a lot of my classics reading was from that age because that's what I was reading for fun. So I picked up Jane Eyre because I liked the cover. Oh, it wasn't, it wasn't this. It was a paperback with like, Cass, stop it. You want his brain? I don't have that edition anymore. If I can find a picture of it, then I will put it here somewhere. So that was my impression of the book, the vibe and who Jane was. And she's quite pretty on the cover of that book. So one of my first surprises when I started reading it was the description of Jane Eyre as being like uncommonly plain and like borderline ugly and how like, yeah, they bring that up a lot. Like I am when I say they, I need Charlotte Bronte. So like, I don't know that it's necessary to like drive home the point so much that she's so unfortunate looking. Like we get it. Like, I mean, I appreciate that we have a heroine that's not like gorgeous. That's like, you know, an average looking person that you don't have to be stunning like Helen of Troy to be the heroine of a novel. Like I like that about Jane Eyre more so even now than I did then. But it is a little much the way that like, you're still like, the reason it's good to have a heroine that's not a stunning beauty is that like, because beauty is not that important. But because you keep bringing it up, like you're kind of like reinforcing the idea that beauty is really important by like constantly saying she's not beautiful. It's like, yeah, we get it. So like, move on. But anyway, that's not the point of the book. So yeah, when I read it, I mean, even though I recall enjoying it and I did all these years to be like, yes, I like Jane Eyre. When I read it, I was like, you know, 12, 13 years old, something like that. And I did want to read about beautiful heroines and beautiful heroes and like, it was escapism. Like that's what I wanted. That's the only thing that I really thought of getting out of reading is wanting, is a story that I would want to live vicariously through. So when I started reading it, and like first, you know, Jane has a terrible childhood, like really terrible childhood. So in my brain, I'm like, yes, she has to suffer that, like Cinderella to like get to her happy ending. And then like, when we get into it, and it's like, we meet Mr. Rochester. And I didn't know anything about Jane Eyre. So I wasn't like, ah, here's the famous Mr. Rochester. I was like, ew, okay. So like, here's her employer, whatever, he sounds awful. And then like, it wouldn't, I don't know if I was in denial about it or just like, wasn't picking up on those signals at that age. But when it took me a while to realize, I was like, okay, so he is like, actually the love interest. And I was like, okay, I, this is okay. Describing him as even uglier than Jane. And he's old, which like, I mean, I think he's supposed to be in his 30s. So floor back then for when it was written, and for me at the age that I was reading it, at both of those, you know, we were in agreement that 30s is old. So, yeah, I was just like, so she's ugly and poor and plain. And he's ugly. And I mean, he's rich. So like, yay for that. But like, why am I reading this? And never, even so, I did actually enjoy the book because like the ambiance of being at Thornfield and the mystery of it all and like the emotions that Jane is experiencing and being around Mr. Rochester. I was like, okay, girl, I do not understand why you feel that way about him. Because he's old and ugly. But I was like, I feel you girl. Like I feel your feelings, even if I don't get why that's the object of her feelings. And then like in the latter part of the book, when she's, you know, mild spoilers for Jane here, but like when she's away from Thornfield Hall and she's around other characters now, I was like, oh, so maybe Mr. Rochester's not the love interest. I got pretty excited about that. Because especially because that character that she was around is described as being quite attractive. And I was like, oh, this makes so much more sense. He's getting in and he definitely is not. And reading it now, when I was re-reading it, I was like, I can't believe that I was rooting for Stingen. Why would I? 13 year old me rooting for Jane and Stingen, like, no. But nevertheless, even though that was my take of what was going on when I was reading it then, I still liked it. And even though it didn't, you know, no one turned pretty by the end spoilers. I still enjoyed it. Because I was like, when I finished it, I was like, you know, I don't quite get the appeal of this thing that I've read. And yet I cannot deny that I have enjoyed my experience with this. And now when I'm, you know, now that I'm old, like Mr. Rochester, I still don't love the emphasis on how plain she is and how ugly he is. And he's, you know, quite a problematic hero, hero. But much like with Wethery Heights, I don't really read this book as like arguing that these characters are behaving in good ways. I did also, I mean, I remember all these years too and watching the adaptations of it, which I've, you know, done a lot more recently than reading the book. Well, now I've read the book most recently. But the Jane refusing spoilers for Jane here, I guess, Miles Boilers. I won't say why this is the situation. But for reasons that are in the book, Jane is, you know, choosing to leave the place where Mr. Rochester is. And he's like, no, like stay with me. And she's like, I can't, I cannot. It is an issue of like morality and integrity. I cannot do that. And like, you know, you're great, Jane. I respect you, girl. But like, even at 13 years of age, I was like, girl, why not? Like, who cares? Just stay with him. It's fine. He's, I don't get why you weren't to him, but like, it's fine. Why you, why you gotta be such a goody-goody. And reading it now, I can still feel a little bit that way. And like the narrative ultimately rewards her for being that way, which I guess is the point of the story. But like, realistically, life ain't like that. And there was very little, like the circumstances that they're in when she makes this choice, there's like a pretty like, you know, borderline zero chance that things would actually work out and that she would end up happy. So it feels very much like you're working against your own happiness. And it's only because like Deus Ex Machina, narrative gods of author wanting happy ending intervene to give you the happy ending. But Jane herself like, for all intents and purposes, has sabotaged her own happiness in her own life. And I get the moral of the story. I'm like, why that's necessary? Or why that that, why that's the choice it's made. But it does feel very much like, you know, you know, Cinderella, like just let herself become a slave because like that's how you get a prince. And it's like, no, that's not how you get a prince because like people just let themselves get walked over and just, you know, if people allow themselves to be treated like Cinderella is treated, they don't get a happy ending. Like you, you got to help yourself. You got to fight for you because ain't no very god, but they're going to do it for you. So that does annoy me a little bit about Jane Eyre and about Jane Eyre's character where I'm like, she gets a happy ending, but like through no fault of her own, through no like, like she, she didn't, I guess she earned it through being good, but she didn't earn it through like working for it, if that makes sense. It's like, despite her best efforts that she gets a happy ending, weirdly. But I still find it very, very compelling. Like I think the writing is so good and the way that the feelings of Jane Eyre at every turn in her life are described and what she's going through and how her thought process behind how she's feeling and how she justifies it to herself or how she tries to make sense of it. A lot of the conversations between her Mr. Rochester, like, you know, he's not a great hero. Like he's definitely not, people who idealize that romance, romanticize it, but it's still compelling to read about and I think that that's, that's the thing that I just, it's like I love all these books, but then I hate most people that love those books if that makes sense, because I'm like, no, you're allowed to like this, you're not allowed to think it's fine though. I don't like that you like this because you think it's fine because I like reading this, but I don't, it's like, if I found somebody that read first law and they read first law because they just think all the characters are so heroic and great and everything they do is wonderful, I'd be like, I love first law, but you're not supposed to think that. No. So I really enjoy reading Jane Eyre and I even enjoy the character Mr. Rochester. I think he's a fascinating character and I feel I have more appreciation for a character like Mr. Rochester now because like when I first read first law, when I first read the blade itself, I didn't like it for the same reasons that I was like, ew, Rochester is ugly and mean and old. So like reading first law, I was like, these characters are like ugly, mean and old and terrible. Why would I want to read about that? Because they're very interesting characters. I do think Mr. Rochester is an interesting character and I think the dynamic between him and Jane is interesting. Yeah. So anyway, I still really love Jane Eyre. I think I like it more now than I did then. So rereading it was a good experience. It wasn't like, like it's not as good as I remember, like it's very good. It's very good and I would read it again. I have more love for it now than I even did before. So I am pleased that when I have considered a favorite classic all these years remains a favorite classic. I am extremely pleased to have this addition of it. And yeah, I do really, really like it. And I recommend it, but like you're not supposed to condone this behavior. You can enjoy reading about it. Those are two different things. So that's my take. Moving on then to the next book I'm rereading and hoping to spill love. Ivan Howe. I was the most nervous to read this one, to reread this one. I also have this beautiful edition that my roommate in college got for me. So I'm just showing this off. That's what's happening right now. But this is the copy I was reading because I bought it specifically for this. So I wouldn't feel stressed reading this edition of it. Any who's you? Ivan Howe. Ivan Howe. Ivan Howe. My old, quite old now video that's like my top 10 favorite books of all time. I, uh, Ivan Howe is on, on that list. And my patrons read Ivan Howe. Some of, not all of them, but a good number of my patrons. I should say actually very few of my patrons actually read Ivan Howe. A good number of them started it. Most of them DNF'd it. And the couple, like the handful that actually finished it. And most of them didn't like it. So, um, it had been, hey, do I need to read? It had, um, it had been a minute since I read this. I read this, um, in high school. Not for school. It wasn't like, like I just said in one of my previous clips, I think it was about Jane Eyre. When I was in middle school and high school, my for fun reading was classics. Like that's pretty much the only thing that I gravitated towards or considered. So yeah, I read Ivan Howe for funsies in high school and, and loved it. And yeah, so since then I've always been like, whoa, it's so overlooked. It's so underrated. And then like, it continues to be underrated and overlooked. And then my patrons tried it and mostly hated it. And I was like, maybe there's a reason it's, it's not really liked or talked about. Um, like, I remember really liking it. So, um, but at the same time, which is one of the things that I say whenever I bring up Ivan Howe. And I'm like, how are people ignoring Ivan Howe? Is that like this book is the one that kind of like restarted the, the like popular romanticization and interest in, you know, King Richard, the Lionhearted, Robin Hood, the Crusades, that whole era. And Robin Hood is the one everyone knows now. Robin Hood is the one that most benefited from this because Robin Hood is in Ivan Howe. And in fact, a lot of what we know about, or the way that we think of Robin Hood nowadays, a lot of that is it's kind of like mixing together what Ivan Howe is, like who Ivan Howe is in this story, mixing it with Robin Hood. And that's how you get like the modern version of Robin Hood. So people are like, yeah, we like that, but like get rid of Ivan Howe, we're just going to do Robin Hood. We'll just take some stuff that we like from the character of Ivan Howe and just attach it to Robin. So yeah, if you read this, a lot of it will feel familiar. Prince John is in it, King Richard is in it, Alana Dale, Friar Tuck, Robin Hood, Robin of Loxley himself. Yeah, there's a lot of familiar faces if those are stories you're familiar with. But it's Sir Walter Scott and Ivan Howe that got people interested in that again. And yet Ivan Howe is forgotten and not read and is disparaged. So I'm happy to report that I still love Ivan Howe. This is, it would never have occurred to me, or I guess maybe at the time, I don't know, I think I had read some Jane Austen when I read Ivan Howe. I'm not completely sure the order of events. I may not have. I definitely seen Jane Austen, like adaptations, but Jane Austen adaptation believes a lot of the like the narration as you would expect. But Ivan Howe, it's kind of reminds me of Jane Austen. And that's a weird thing to say. So let me explain. The way that the thing that is lost in Jane Austen when it's adapted is the kind of like acerbic, sarcastic, kind of, not condemnation, but like judgment about the characters, the principal players of the story. Like the narrator of Jane Austen, I guess Jane Austen then. Like the narrator in a lot of her books is speaking quite disparagingly of about the people that the story is about. And also about like, is constantly throwing in kind of like sarcastic commentary on society and social norms and on customs, beliefs, practices, etc. Like there's a lot of that in Jane Austen, which you don't really get in the adaptations unless they take that stuff and like give it to a character to say, or have a narrator. Ivan Howe is obviously like nothing like Jane Austen in terms of the type of story that it is. This is a Robin Hood type story, except that it's about Ivan Howe. Robin Hood's just also there. So you know, there's, you know, it's medieval times. There is jousting. There is people coming back from the Crusades. It's Saxons v Normans. It's written with a lot of these and these and thou's and thou shouts and thou wields and hast thou, blah, blah, blah, like that kind of stuff. But it's also written. So this is historical fiction for the time in which it was written. So unlike Jane Austen who was writing about her contemporaries, Sir Walter Scott is writing about ye olde times in that. So like it's a snapshot of like how this period of history, the one that Sir Walter Scott is living in, now viewing a previous time. So it's like nested in his anyway. So as the narrator of the story is telling it from the point of view of somebody from the present day, meaning Sir Walter Scott's present day, where he's like, he'll say things like nowadays we would understand this to be blah, blah, blah. Or history told us that blah, blah, blah happened, but this is so like it's like talking to the reader as a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott to place that reader in, to contextualize for the reader the time in which the story is taking place. Anyway, all that to say, the reason it reminds me of Jane Austen is because this, I keep, that's one of the things I keep saying about Ivanhoe when I'm like, why is it overlooked? It's like it has everything. It has like adventure and romance and action and suspense and humor. It has so much humor. There are like a couple of characters that are like fools that are like gesture type characters. So they say amusing things. But the narrator is constantly saying things that are like pretty obviously like judging the conventions of the time, the thinking of the time, and making, I don't know, I feel like I thought of a word while I was reading it and I was like, that's what I want to say in the clip but now I've forgotten what word I was going to use. But it's kind of like, it's kind of mocking the characters for holding the views that they do and for their hypocrisy, because there's a lot of hypocrisy. You know, all these people walking around with like my honor will not allow and I have sworn and you know as a Christian knight I have to blah blah blah and the narrator is pretty like pointing out all the times that they're being like massive hypocrites and is like, yeah, it's funny and it's kind of mean. It's commentary while I'm telling the story. Yeah, and the romance of it is also kind of kind of funny and kind of modern. The principal romance I guess you'd say is between Sir Wilford of Ivanhoe and his father's ward Rowena. And like, yes, that's the principal romance but Ivanhoe's kind of into this other woman who is Rebecca, the son of Isaac the Jew. And there's a lot in the story to kind of like both by showing and by telling to kind of like, I don't know how best to say this, but like there was a lot of anti-Semitism obviously. I mean there is nowadays and there certainly was in the period in which the story is taking place, i.e. the Crusades period. So all these knights Templar, you know, if you have a Jewish character or Jewish characters who are force money lenders, there's like constantly anti-Semitism. But the story that Sir Walter Scott wrote is like casting anyone who's like anti-Semitic as the villain and has Wilford be kind of more into Rebecca than he is into Rowena. And in general, Rebecca is painted as a much more noble, virtuous and interesting character. And there's just like a lot more going on with her character. Rowena is just kind of like also there. So yeah, like it goes there too. Like I'm not going to say that this book like stands the test of time and handles issues of anti-Semitism perfectly. I'm certain that it doesn't. I would not be the person to comment on that. I'm sure there's stuff about it that has not aged well and is not ideal. But overall it's kind of like with Shakespeare and the Merchant of Venice. Like he's writing in a time period where people are not thinking very progressively about these things and again painting a character like Shylock. I guess he's the villain of the piece, but like not really. Like the audience doesn't come away from Merchant of Venice being like hating Shylock. You know what I mean? And he gave Shylock the very famous, you know? If you cut us, do we not bleed speech? And Sir Walter Scott does open a lot of chapters with Shakespeare passages. It's because like every chapter opens with a quote from some bit of literature. Can we not, my child? It's not the time for this? So he does quote Shakespeare a bit and of course I'm 99% sure there was a Merchant of Venice quote at least one. Yeah, I love it. And I feel like if it was just like, I don't know, regarded at a level with like every other classic, you know, that's like, it's not exactly like, you know, flying off bookshelf. People aren't clamoring for it, but you know, like with Dickens and Bronte and Austin that it was just like among those and everyone was like, yes, and Ivan Hell. But no, like most people haven't read it. So a lot of people haven't even heard of it. And that's what I don't get. Like I don't, it's just not your favorite classic fine. And if like classics, because it's more verbose, it's more like wordy and old fashioned and formal and stilted. And like, sure, like that's not how modern novels are written. Like if that's not your jam, I get it. But I don't get why people who read classics, who like reading classics, are not reading slash liking Ivan Hell. And I don't get why no one is adapting Ivan Hell, which is what I like ranted about for a long time when I, in my like 10 best of, whatever my favorite books video, because like it would be such a good movie. There's a lot of the book is like action stuff. I mean, like the tournament scene where, where you have the arrow being split by another arrow is from Ivan Hell. Yeah, there's it. There's jousting, there's an archery contest, there's battle, there's like, you know, running through the forests and altercations in the woods, you know, as Prairie Robin Hood's story. There's like secret identities and rivalries and betrayals and a romance and lots of humor, which you could, I mean, you could do it verbatim, but you could also adopt it and then modernize that kind of things. Yeah, I mean, there is a movie of Ivan Hell from like way back in the day. And I think Elizabeth Taylor plays the Rebecca, I think. And I think Joan Fontaine plays Rowena. Like that's how old it is. And I think there was a made for TV one in like the 80s or something. That's no low budget, a TV adaptation. And like this is something that demands like a high budget. This demands like a Ridley Scott type movie where we can have like the huge high budget scenes with all the horses and armor and the jousting and the, all of that. So Ivan Hell's great. We should read Ivan Hell. Yeah, it's old fashioned. And a lot of the humor, I mean, I don't really like Shakespeare. So a lot of the humor, it's kind of like when you read Shakespeare and or see a Shakespeare play and the humor is like nested wordplay that like you have to be paying attention to what they're saying. And you realize like if you're paying attention to what they're saying, you'll be like, oh, let's see what you did there. You're that now that you were being snarky there. I don't know if I can like randomly flip to an example of that. Okay, so I've been sitting here trying to find a passage to read to you and I've been struggling to myself because a lot of it's funny, but I would have to read like two whole pages to you to get the punchline because it's like, that's what I mean that you have to pay attention and it's not like quick, quick, zippy obvious jokes. Like the build up for it is quite long and it's just kind of ongoing. It's just like ongoing context for what they're saying. And so they, like there might be more payoff for a joke much later based on something that they were talking about before. Like the very beginning of the book opens with like the two Jester type characters and their banter is not like quippy and zingy. Like they seem to be talking just kind of about the general situation and the rivalry between Normans and Saxons in Yield England. And that is important context for the story that like that's how England used to be. But this was a big point of contention and it is it's very important to the story to know that, to have that context. But like there's a lot of like wittesisms and a lot of sardonic observations about the way of the world as pertains to that which is in that conversation. But I'd have to be like reading you the entire conversation. There's no like one liner that could go on a bookmark or on a month. Maybe that's why Ivan has overlooked because you can't really quote it in like one line. There's no like quotable quotes. I mean I guess there are but they almost all of them require context because if you have the context while you're reading it you're like why how like how clever and how witty or how wise or how interesting. But yeah anyway I still love Ivan Howe. I still think it's great and I think if you're if you aren't just in picking it up because I'm praising it be warned my patrons pictured I haven't hated it for the most part. And I think if you're the kind of person that enjoys Shakespeare and enjoys verbose classics and enjoys involved, lengthy, I don't know, just I know that more verbose old-fashioned style of writing then you could you could definitely enjoy it. I think more people should read it. Anyway that's that does it. Mostly this was a success. I don't think yeah I think every classic that I reread I loved still. I had different opinions about some of it particularly I think kind of on a crystal and family opera or though too that I came away feeling most differently about but yep they're all still favorites. So whoo crisis averted. Let me know in the comments down below if you enjoyed this video. If you did not enjoy this video. If you've read these classics. If you have not read these classics. If I've inspired you to read them. If I've convinced you never to read them. Whatever you want to let me know. I post videos on Saturdays. Other random times will be on Saturdays. So like and subscribe. Join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.