The Classics Challenge - Not Quite Achieved!

I was really excited and eager to join in the 2008 Classics Challenge hosted by Trish but unfortunately I did not complete the challenge by the end of December 2008.
I did manage to read Wuthering Heights and A Room With A View as well as a future or "should be" classic - Small Island.
I think the time of the year didn't help me - I found I really struggled to read classic novels during the second half of the year when life was a little crazy and hectic - I found myself reaching for "easier", less taxing reads to get me through! So, I would really like to join in this challenge again if it is going to be held again in 2009 - there are many books in this classification I am still very keen to read - just when the time is right!

A Room With A View - E. M. Forster

I have started A Room With A View several times and have never finished it before but for some reason on this reading of it I didn't even want it to end I was enjoying it so much! I think that says a lot for reading the right book at the right time and in the right circumstances.

A Room With A View was my third book read for the Classics Challenge, I had recently watched a 2007 TV production of the novel and I absolutely loved it - much more than the Merchant Ivory film that came out a while ago - and I think this prompted me to pick up the book again.

The book tells the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young English woman on her first trip to Italy with her obsessive and suffocating cousin, Charlotte. Whilst staying at a Pensione in Florence Lucy and Charlotte become acquainted with several other tourists, among them a Mr Emerson and his son, George.

The scenes of the book that are set in Italy are just beautiful;

From her feet the ground sloped sharply into the view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blude, eddying round the tree stems, colecting into pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam

And the room with the view itself;

It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into the sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and, close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.

After the trip to Italy Lucy returns home to England and becomes engaged to a man whom everyone approves of but who nobody likes, even though her affections are clearly still with another.

A Room With A View is a beautiful, funny and engaging story - I'm so glad I took the time to get through it this time as it has now become one of my favourite books.

Challenge Progress

I have two challenges due to be completed by the end of December and I must admit I am starting to wonder if I am going to make it! I only have myself to blame - I keep getting side tracked by other books!
The first challenge due to finish is the Orbis Terrarum Challenge. This is the first challenge I signed up for after I started writing in the blogging world and I have really enjoyed it. I still have 3 books to finish before the challenge ends on December 20th. I am half way through The Mandarins by Simone De Beauvoir (France) and Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan (Scotland). I will probably finish Be Near Me in the next day or so but I have been reading The Mandarins for a while now and although it's really interesting I'm finding it hard going at the same time. The last book on my list for this challenge is A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. This is a book I have had on my shelf and have been meaning to read for a while now but as it is over 1000 pages of quite small print I don't think I have any chance of completing it and doing it justice for this challenge!
I would like to read something from India for my last book for this challenge though - I was thinking maybe The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - what do people think? Any other suggestions for me?
The other challenge I am participating in that is due to finish this month is The Classics Challenge. I really wanted to participate in this challenge to, ironically, challenge and expand on my reading in this genre. I have read two books so far, Small Island by Andrea Levy and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, which means I still have 4 books to read for this one!
Does anyone have some "quick" classic reads they can recommend? I really want to finish these challenges - I hate the idea of not completing a challenge!

Small Island - Andrea Levy

Small Island by Andrea Levy is a book I was reading for both the Classics and Orbis Terrarum Challenges. In regards to the Classics Challenge the book had been put forward as a future or "should be" classic and I completely agree.

The book is set in the time period just before, during and after WW2 predominately in England and Jamaica and there are 4 main interwoven and connected characters that tell the story from their perspectives.

Queenie Bligh is an English women living in London at the time of WW2, taking care of her fragile father-in-law while her husband, Bernard is in India for the war.

Gilbert Joseph is a Jamaican man who has fought as a member of the British RAF during the war and is now trying to establish a life for himself in London.

Hortense Roberts is Gilbert's new wife, a Jamaican woman with a teachers education behind her, joining Gilbert in London and Bernard Bligh, Queenie's husband.

The book is structured in a way that allows each character to tell their story of certain events in their own voice - each chapter is headed by the name of one of the 4 main characters. The book moves back and forth between the present and the past which allows for a beautiful building of the story.

This story is, on the surface, clearly about the extensive and overt racism that was perpetrated against black people by the English during this time period. Some of the scenes in the book are brutal and (I am sure) very realistic -depicting the harsh, senseless and ignorant beliefs of a whole community against another simply because of the colour of their skin.

As well as race relations the book also tells the story of relations between genders at this particular time in history and it is interesting to see some of the choices made, particularly by the women characters, in relation to marriage, relationships and work.

There are many other levels to this story however, the connections and relationships that are built between people in a time of trauma and pain and the ways in which relationships can be broken down, or simply revealed for what they really are.

I was completely absorbed in this book - I think it is a must read for every person and most definitely a classic.