Books in the Queue

Two weeks ago, I began reading Uncle Silas by the Victorian Gothic mystery writer Sheridan Le Fanu. I'm nearly finished. I hate to say that it has taken me so long to plow through this novel. I'll admit, parts are interesting, but overall, the novel drags on in that 19th Century sort of way.

I don't fault Fanu. He was a good writer, but he was writing for 19th Century readers who were not blessed with radio, movies, television and the Internet. Novels were the main source of entertainment for thinking folk, and needed to be complicated and filled with details which can be tedious and boring to modern, 21st Century readers.

I already have a few books in the queue, waiting to be read, when I've finished Fanu's novel - the Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska - Burmese Days by George Orwell - a 1912 translation of Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere (translated as The Social Cancer ) and Three Short Works by Gustave Flaubert.

I have a paper copy of a newer translation of Noli Me Tangere which I read several years ago and is currently awaiting an as yet, unmade bookcase.