The final instalment in the Regeneration Trilogy struck me as a bit unfocused and heavy-handed in its use of symbolism and parallel storylines. HoweveThe final instalment in the Regeneration Trilogy struck me as a bit unfocused and heavy-handed in its use of symbolism and parallel storylines. However, certain scenes were very powerful, and the ending packed a punch.
I'm not sure why The Ghost Road rather than Regeneration or The Eye in the Door won the Booker Prize. I can only assume the Booker judges wanted to honour the trilogy somehow and so picked the last book to show their appreciation, much like the Academy showered The Return of the King with Oscars even though The Fellowship of the Ring was a vastly superior film. Personally, I thought The Ghost Road was the weakest of the three books (rated a mere 3.5 stars, as opposed to the 4 and 4.5 stars I gave the other two books), but it didn't mar my overall impression of the trilogy, which is good.
The second book of Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy is every bit as good as the first one, and probably better. While I'm not sure how I feel about tThe second book of Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy is every bit as good as the first one, and probably better. While I'm not sure how I feel about the split personality thing, I loved the psychological drama and the period detail. Some fascinating stuff there. I'll post a proper review once I've finished the trilogy....more
Regeneration, the first part of Pat Barker's acclaimed Regeneration Trilogy, centres on Dr W.H.R. Rivers, a real-life army psychiatrist at CraiglockhaRegeneration, the first part of Pat Barker's acclaimed Regeneration Trilogy, centres on Dr W.H.R. Rivers, a real-life army psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital who treated the likes of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen for shell-shock. Well-researched, well-imagined and well-written, it's an interesting mix of fact and fiction that provides a good insight into Great War-era Britain and early-twentieth-century psychiatry. A proper review will follow once I've read the whole trilogy....more
The Daughter of Time is an unlikely detective story. It's the story of a police inspector who, whilst laid up in bed because of a leg injury, is preseThe Daughter of Time is an unlikely detective story. It's the story of a police inspector who, whilst laid up in bed because of a leg injury, is presented with a portrait of England's King Richard III (reigned 1483-1485) and comes to the conclusion that a man so genteel-looking couldn't possibly be the ruthless murderer Shakespeare made him out to be, because 'villains don't suffer, and that face is full of the most dreadful pain' (judge for yourself here). So with a little help from the nurses and the friends and colleagues who come and visit him in the hospital, he starts digging in fifteenth-century history, only to come up with a few interesting theories of his own, all of which seem to point to history's having given Richard a rotten deal. For in reality, Tey has her bed-ridden hero discover, Richard III had no motive to have half of his family (including his two under-age nephews) murdered, as sixteenth-century historians alleged. He may not have been a hunchback, either. Rather he was the victim of revisionist history as written by the Tudor kings who succeeded him and who had their own reasons for vilifying him. History, lest we forget, is written by the victors, and boy, can they do damage to a guy's reputation if they have a talented playwright on their side. Just ask Macbeth of Scotland, who was by all accounts a fairly good and popular king.
I'm not sure how historically accurate the details of Tey's argument are, nor whether her evidence would stand up in a modern court of justice, but the case for Richard is presented in a convincing manner and makes a gripping read, mainly because the protagonist, Inspector Alan Grant, is absolutely convinced of Richard's innocence and hell-bent on finding evidence to support his subjective impression of the man, taking a violent dislike to Richard's most famous biographer, Sir Thomas More, in the process. I love books in which the characters get passionate and even a little obsessive about things, and Tey's Inspector Grant is nothing if not obsessive. His ferocious zeal for his quest (often expressed in violent outbursts to startled nurses) is quite infectious, to the point where you find yourself wishing for a big pile of history books and access to the British Museum to verify Grabt's discoveries for yourself. At least that's what the book did for me. After finishing The Daughter of Time, I spent several hours on line Googling the authors and historians Tey mentions in her book, some historical, others seemingly fictitious. In the course of my research, I came across several Ricardian societies, all working towards a rehabilitation of the last Plantagenet king. Many of their members seem to have joined after reading The Daughter of Time. In short, Tey's book has been influential, and for good reason -- it's a fascinating journey through English history, and a grand tale of high-minded obsession to boot. It had me add several history books to my to-read list. I love books which make me enthusiastic for previously unexplored subjects, so as far as that's concerned, Tey did a great job.
Is that to say The Daughter of Time is a faultless book? By no means. While I was impressed with the way in which Tey shared her research and sustained her reader's interest in her detective's quest for the truth, I often found the dialogue in The Daughter of Time lacklustre. Not only do Tey's researchers regularly have unlikely conversations about clues which I suspect would be very hard to dig up five hundred years after the fact (even if one had access to the venerable records held by the British Museum), but to make matters worse they all sound identical, all speaking in the same benignly polite but slightly ironic voice. As portrayed by Tey, middle-aged British police inspector Alan Grant and his much younger American assistant Brent Carradine sound much the same, and there is little to distinguish between the female characters, either. I think the book could have done with slightly more individualised and characteristic dialogue, but really, that's a minor complaint. For the most part, The Daughter of Time succeeds admirably in what it does, which is making and keeping its readers interested in a five hundred-year-old mystery, while making a few interesting observations about the way history is written along the way. I liked the examples of what Inspector Grant refers to as 'Tonypandy' -- legendary historical events which live on in popular consciousness despite the fact that they have been proven to be untrue. If Tey's research is anything to go by, the legend of Richard III falls squarely into the Tonypandy category. Needless to say, that doesn't make Shakespeare's play of the same name any less interesting, but it does add an interesting dimension to the story, doesn't it?
For those who wish to read more about the evidence supporting Richard's innocence, here's Horace Walpole's excellent and well-researched defence of the last Plantagenet king, first published in 1786, which seems to have been one of the bases for The Daughter of Time (the other being Clements Markham's later Richard III: His Life and Character Reviewed in the Light of Recent Research). ...more
Fie, fie, what tediosity and disinsanity is here among ye!
Give me your hand. I can tell your fortune. You are a fool.
What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot, presenting me a schedule!
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life.
[Your:] face is not worth sun-burning.
Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse.
Thou disease of a friend!
His brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage.
Methinks thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.
Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face.
I had rather be married to a death's head with a bone in his mouth.
[You are:] an index and prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts.
More of your conversation would infect my brain.
Blasts and fogs upon thee!
I'll carbonado your shanks.
O thou side-piercing sight!
Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
..........
Shakespeare's Insults: Educating Your Wit is, as you may have guessed, an index of Shakespeare's best insults. The book is divided into three parts: (1) Lists of brief insults ('valiant flee', 'soused gurnet', 'foolish compounded clay-man', 'misbegotten divel', etc. -- excellent for name-calling purposes) (2) Insults listed by play (in many cases, the best insults come from the lesser known plays) (3) Longer insults for particular occasions, such as Foul Emanations (Shakespeare liked farting jokes!), Caterwauling, Windbaggery, etc.
Needless to say, there is some overlap between the various parts. Not all the insults listed are funny, and they do get a bit tedious after a while, but all the same I did have a good time skimming through the book on occasion, allowing myself to be entertained by and impressed with the tremendously varied profanities and curses the Bard came up with, and raising my eyebrows at some of the more baffling ones among them, such as 'Perge, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility' (?!?). My favourite of the lot was probably, 'You Banbury cheese!', which I can't see myself using in conversation any time soon but did give me a good chuckle.
My task for the next year is to leaf through the book every now and then and learn some of the more original insults and expletives by heart, to use when the occasion arises, so that I, too, can, as the editors of the book say, 'choose a richly coloured stone to throw, and in genuine generosity, make [my:] nemesis feel like somebody.' Because let's face it -- if someone were to use the insults listed above to your face, you'd feel special, right?
Either that, or you'd just laugh at them. Hard....more
I wanted to like this book. I really did. After all, how can one fail to be drawn in by a story about a German boy, the son of a high-ranking Nazi offI wanted to like this book. I really did. After all, how can one fail to be drawn in by a story about a German boy, the son of a high-ranking Nazi officer, who makes friends with a Jewish boy at Auschwitz, only to fail to understand his new friend's situation and meet a gruesome end with him? It's a great premise with plenty of scope for drama. A writer looking to fictionalise ignorance of the Holocaust would be hard-pressed to come up with a better idea.
Sadly, I found myself rather underwhelmed by The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, for several reasons. Firstly, I didn't care for the main character, who is meant to pass for young and naive but really is rather selfish and obnoxious. Secondly, I found the faux-child-like tone of the book cloying and unconvincing, and thirdly, I was annoyed by the plot holes which kept popping up with alarming regularity. So while I admit the book is a page-turner and that I was keen to finish it to find out how it ended, I can't in good conscience give it more than two stars. To give it more than two stars would be an insult to better written books.
I'll start with the plot holes. There are so many of those in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas that I hardly know where to begin. For starters, it beggars belief that a nine-year-old German boy from a prominent Nazi family should never have heard the word 'Jews', nor be aware of what the Nazis think of Jews. Even if his parents tried to shield him from the nastier aspects of war, which Bruno's parents certainly seem to do, he would have been indoctrinated with Nazi propaganda from a young age onwards and would have been quite familiar with the main tenets of National Socialism and its leader, Adolf Hitler. Thus Bruno's complete ignorance of the Führer and the fact that Germany is at war is hard to buy. Similarly, it beggars belief that our young 'hero' could have near-daily conversations with a Jewish friend at Auschwitz for a year without having the faintest idea of what is going on in the camp. After over three hundred conversations with an obviously hungry and filthy friend, you'd think that even a self-centred boy like Bruno would realise that the camp is an unpleasant place where people starve, disappear and die, right? After all that time, it would also have to be blatantly obvious to him that the camp guards aren't very nice people. I know children aren't the most astute observers, but I refuse to believe that a nine-year-old boy who sees prisoners cower before guards, obviously scared, and then hears gunshots, would be surprised at the people on the ground not getting up, having to be carried away instead. Even in the 1940s, when children weren't exposed to action flicks to the extent they are now, boys surrounded by soldiers on a daily basis would have known what a gun was and what it did to the person it was pointed at. So the part of the book where Bruno watches Jewish prisoners being killed and thinks they are 'rehearsing a play' rang completely untrue to me. Quite frankly, I found it a little insulting to be expected to buy that kind of abject ignorance.
Other plot holes? Well, I refuse to believe that a Jewish boy at Auschwitz could meet up with his friend outside the fence nearly every day for a year without ever being detected, or that there could be a hole in the fence big enough for a boy to slip through without any or indeed many of the other Jewish prisoners trying to escape through it. There is simply no way that could have happened in real life, and I scratch my head at Boyne's asking us to believe it. I also scratch my head at some of the less prominent historical plot holes in the book, such as the fact that Hitler and Eva Braun apparently visited people's homes without bodyguards (really?), or that the Germans apparently didn't check their officers' family backgrounds before putting them in charge of their largest concentration camps. Yeah, right. Like that would have happened.
The book doesn't just contain historical inaccuracies, though. Another thing that put me off was the linguistic inaccuracies. For example, Bruno keeps calling Auschwitz 'Out-With' and the Führer 'the Fury', ad nauseam, despite being corrected several times. These are mistakes no German child in his right mind (least of all the child of a high-ranking Nazi officer) would make, and they seriously got in the way of my appreciation of the story, as linguistic inaccuracies tend to do. To make matters worse, Boyne seems to expect us to believe that Shmuel, a nine-year-old boy from the Jewish ghetto in Cracow, Poland, is fluent in German, which is unlikely, even if his mother is a language teacher. In my opinion, such mistakes are inexcusable, even in works of fiction. I can't believe Boyne's editors didn't pick up on these things and make the necessary corrections.
I didn't overly care for Boyne's style of writing, either. While I will (again) admit that I couldn't put The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas down (the premise is good and the tension is ramped up quite adequately), I disliked the pseudo-childish tone of the writing, which felt contrived and unnecessarily cutesy to me, and occasionally made me groan. Furthermore, I found the occasional excursions into Gretel and Shmuel's minds jarring; a more unified point of view (to wit, Bruno's) would have been preferable, in my opinion. Finally, I thought the final chapter felt rather tacked on, and several plot lines weren't tied up well enough for my liking. What was the point of Maria, for instance? What was her background, and what was her role in the story? I'm not sure I understand. I also think much more could have been made of several of the male characters -- Pavel and Bruno's father come to mind, or the eponymous boy in the striped pyjamas. As they are, they are cardboard cut-outs with no personality of their own. To be sure, this is partly because they are described from the point of view of a sensationally unimaginative nine-year-old, but still, I think Boyne could have done a better job infusing his characters with some personality. It would have made a flawed reading experience a bit more memorable.
Finally, like other reviewers I'm having a hard time figuring out the point of the book. What are we supposed to take away from this story? That people can be staggeringly blind to evil, even when it is perpetrated right in front of them? Er, OK. Point taken. It could have been made in a less cloying and mistake-riddled manner, though.
Way to ruin a promising premise, Mr Boyne. ...more
The title of this book is a bit facetious. Far from always being in the wrong places, James Fenton (a South East Asia correspondent for several major The title of this book is a bit facetious. Far from always being in the wrong places, James Fenton (a South East Asia correspondent for several major British and American publications) seems always to be in the right places for some good reportage literature. He was in Saigon when it fell (one of the last journalists to remain in the city when the North Vietnamese army pulled closer) and in the Philippines when an angry mob forced the Marcoses out of power. In between, he got a taste of the Khmer Rouge (only just avoiding a potentially lethal run-in), make trips into enemy-occupied territory in Vietnam, see Imelda Marcos play-act faith in her soon-to-be-deposed husband, and hang out with monks and die-hard Marxist guerrillas in the middle of a revolution. In other words, Fenton saw history being made, and he describes it in a way that makes you feel like you are witnessing it for yourself. His reports of rebellion and looting are powerful and evocative; so are his descriptions of 'quieter' episodes, such as the time he spends at a Cambodian monastery, or the eerie peace that ensues after the apparently ferociously well-behaved North Vietnamese soldiers take Saigon. He has quite a gift for setting a scene and adding humorous touches, capturing the atmosphere of the events he witnessed like a well-shot film. So as a first-hand account of some major episodes in twentieth-century South East Asian history, All the Wrong Places is very successful.
Sadly, the book has its flaws. The one that bothered me most was the near-total failure to place the major events in a historic context or background. In the Vietnam part of the book, Fenton drops a lot of names without any attempt at explaining who these people were or what role they played in the conflict. Written nearly two decades after the end of the Vietnam War, this part of the book really could have done with some background information for the benefit of those of us who were too young to follow the war when it was being fought -- or even those who did pay attention at the time. I doubt many people now recall the minor players in the conflict.
It could also be pointed out here that Fenton is a little too self-indulgent for his own good. Thankfully, his self-indulgence is of the wry British variety which I don't mind too much. There's a fair bit of humour in his writing, but slightly greater objectivity would not have gone amiss.
Finally, I felt the various parts of the book ended too abruptly. I would have liked to hear more about what happened after the events described, both to Fenton himself and to the people he meets on his travels. A greater attempt at proper introductions and endings and smoother transitions would have been much appreciated.
All in all, I give the book three and a half stars, rounded down to three.
(And for those of you who are wondering why I'm not referring to the South Korean part of the book: I can't comment on it because it wasn't included in the (very bad) Dutch translation I read. Note to any prospective Dutch readers of this book: steer clear of the translation, which is so literal it will make your eyes bleed. Stick to the original instead and I daresay you'll find it an enjoyable read.)...more
The fantasy stories of George MacDonald (1824-1905) served as a source of inspiration to Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Madeleine l'EnThe fantasy stories of George MacDonald (1824-1905) served as a source of inspiration to Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Madeleine l'Engle. Lewis said that MacDonald did allegorical/mythopoeic fantasy 'better than any man', and that quote alone was enough to arouse my interest. I'm glad it did, because I would have missed out on something good if I had not discovered MacDonald. While I'm not sure I'd call him the greatest fantasy author ever, he definitely was a master of allegory. He had a wonderfully vivid imagination, a beautifully fluid writing style, a gentle sense of humour, and a keen eye for protagonists with whom readers will sympathise (in this volume, mostly lonely children). He also came up with some wonderful quests and journeys into dreamscapes, so it's easy to see why other fantasy authors would be impressed and inspired by his work.
The four stories collected in this volume are all very different. The title story, 'The Golden Key', is a tremendously symbolic fairy tale about a boy who finds a golden key at the end of the rainbow and, together with a neglected girl, sets out on a journey to the country whence the shadows fall, meeting a fairy, the Old Man of the Sea, the Old Man of the Earth and the Old Man of the Fire on the way there. Like The Hobbit, it feels rather episodic at times, and I'm sure half of the imagery went over my head, but I loved the tone and otherworldliness of the story, as well as the archaic writing style. I only wish MacDonald had taken slightly more time to flesh out his tale; at times it felt like a jumble of ideas not properly worked out or joined together. On the other hand, the author's refusal to explain or go into detail definitely adds to the otherworldly feeling, so I suppose there's something to be said for it. Anyhow, 'The Golden Key' is a beautiful piece of work with a lovely old-fashioned and mythical quality.
The second story, 'The History of Photogen and Nycteris', focuses on an evil science experiment whereby a wicked witch deprives a young girl of light and keeps a young boy from ever experiencing darkness. Needless to say, the boy and the girl meet up eventually and learn to love and complement each other in all the right ways. The story is rather baffling in that you never find out why the witch embarks on her cruel experiment (the only explanation MacDonald provides is that she 'had a wolf in her mind', which is intriguing but ultimately a little unsatisfying), but that's pretty much the only complaint I have about 'Photogen and Nycteris'. In all other regards, it's a beautifully crafted, lyrical and romantic story which will teach you to look at light and dark differently and raise a glass to complementary love. I wish I had read it as a child; I would have loved it.
The third story, 'The Shadows', is an intriguing little tale about a man who meets the enigmatic Shadows and finds out how they affect our lives. A large part of the story consists of Shadows telling other Shadows what they have done to change people's lives. Part of me wanted these stories to be told another way (i.e. to be shown rather than described in dialogue), but I'm not sure how MacDonald should have gone about that; I can't come up with a better way myself. In any case, it's an imaginative tale which will have you look at shadows in a different way and curse the unromantic, Shadow-unfriendly electric light we have these days. After reading the story, I felt like lighting candles all over the house and waiting for the Shadows to show up. I can't think of a better tribute than that.
The final story, 'The Gifts of the Child Christ', is a beautiful, extremely Victorian family drama about yet another neglected child who finds love. It's a bit too mawkish and Christian for my taste (MacDonald was a minister, and it shows here), but it's well told and must have been popular with Victorian readers.
In summary, I really liked the book, and definitely look forward to checking out MacDonald's longer works now!...more
I love Bill Bryson. The man can take any subject and make it interesting, simply because he has this unfailing flair for adding details which make youI love Bill Bryson. The man can take any subject and make it interesting, simply because he has this unfailing flair for adding details which make you grin. He does so to great effect in Shakespeare, his two-hundred-page biography of the man affectionately known as the Bard, which will delight Shakespeare aficionados as well as people who know virtually nothing about Stratford's most famous export product, such as myself.
Two hundred pages is not much for a biography of the world's greatest playwright, but it's enough, because, as Bryson keeps reminding us, preciously little is known about Shakespeare. Bryson himself doesn't really add to the knowledge available on Shakespeare; he has no great discoveries up his sleeve. Basically, what he does is tell us what others have written about Shakespeare, only to tear their theories a new arsehole in a few short, memorable observations that will probably stay with you better than the theories themselves. It's an entertaining approach, which is particularly successful in the final chapter, where Bryson tackles several authors' attempts to prove that the works associated with Shakespeare were not actually written by Shakespeare. On top of pointing out fatal flaws in the various authors' reasoning (often in a single sentence), Bryson observes with great relish that three of the many, many people who have come up with outlandish theories on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays were called Silliman, Battey and Looney. I love details like that, which more serious scholars would be too polite to point out. Bryson takes them and runs with them, making this not just an informative, well-researched book, but a very entertaining one.
Shakespeare could have done with some more depth -- a little more information on the plays and their possible inspirations and interpretations. It could also have done with some thorough proof-reading. There are times, especially in the first half of the book, when Bryson loses himself in tangents on Queen Elizabeth and life in sixteenth-century England, some of which are just a tad too random and general for the subject. However, just when you find yourself wondering what all this information has to do with Shakespeare, Bryson gets back on track and comes up with some more interesting observations on the Bard and his times, plus some witty asides to make you forgive his rambling. As a result, the book is a bit uneven, but there is no denying it's a pleasant read on a rainy day, which will likely whet your appetite for some more serious Shakespeare scholarship. It definitely did that for me. Anyone got any recommendations?...more
This is what Leonard, a stuffy English engineer who has been sent to post-war, pre-wall Berlin to ass'To innocence. And to Anglo-German co-operation.'
This is what Leonard, a stuffy English engineer who has been sent to post-war, pre-wall Berlin to assist in an attempt to tap Soviet landlines, and Maria, a mysterious German divorcee who initiates him in the art of love, say to each other at their engagement party. Just a few pages later, they lose their innocence in the most gruesome fashion imaginable, after which Anglo-German co-operation takes a back seat and confusion and paranoia take over. What ensues is one of the most filmic and vivid descriptions of a descent into nightmare in all of English literature -- eighty pages of wall-to-wall gore, horror and fatigue-induced bad decisions and betrayals, all the way to the surprise ending. It is these eighty pages which elevate what could have been a dullish spy novel into an Ian McEwan masterpiece.
For make no mistake about it, The Innocent (first published in 1990) is a McEwan masterpiece. It may stand out in his oeuvre for being a spy novel (or at least an attempt at one), but it bears all the hallmarks of the McEwan classic: a dark and twisted love story, a sexual encounter with far-reaching consequences, tremendous psychological insight, great descriptive power and a powerful sense of impending doom. Right from the get-go, one has the sense that something is going to go horribly wrong, and when it finally does around page 130 or so, the effect is startling and spell-binding. Such is the hypnotic quality of the writing in the second half of the book that I stayed up late at night to be able to finish it despite some pretty hefty jet lag. I just had to know how the story ended, and I can't think of a greater compliment to an author than that.
As a spy novel, The Innocent may disappoint fans of the genre. While there is definitely some second-guessing of the characters' identities (Maria, for instance, remains a shady character right until the last few pages), the book doesn't feature any gadgets, spectacular chases or double crosses, or other things we have come to associate with the spy novel. And while the Berlin setting and the Cold War atmosphere are well drawn (at times the mood is reminiscent of The Third Man, which is a good thing in my book), the book is less about political games and intrigue than it is about first love, the joys and hardships of making love in a cold house, sexual awakening, obsession, possessiveness and jealousy. It's a tale of love found and lost, and of innocence lost and found again (to some extent), and as such it's quite brilliant -- up there with McEwan's more famous works. If it hadn't been for the somewhat slow start and the rather pat ending, I would have given it five stars....more
Did you know they had lotteries back in the late eighteenth century? And did you know that lottery tickets cost so much back then that not-so-wealthy Did you know they had lotteries back in the late eighteenth century? And did you know that lottery tickets cost so much back then that not-so-wealthy people had to sell a cow in order to be able to afford a ticket? Neither did I, until I read Maria Edgeworth's 'The Lottery', a short story published as a booklet in the Phoenix 60p series.
Edgeworth, of course, was a contemporary and favourite author of Jane Austen's, who commended Edgeworth's Belinda in Northanger Abbey and sent the Irish-born author a (presumably autographed) copy of Emma upon its publication. Being an Austen fan, I naturally had to check out Edgeworth, whose Castle Rackrent, The Absentee and Belinda are considered minor classics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
'The Lottery' is about a likeable couple, Maurice and Ellen Robinson, who are talked into buying a lottery ticket by Mrs Dolly, Maurice's live-in aunt, and really do have to sell a cow to do so. Much to their surprise, they win five thousand pounds. Ellen wishes to save the money and go on living as they always have, but Maurice and Dolly spend lavishly. Needless to say, it doesn't end well. This is, after all, a morality tale, and a fairly unsubtle one at that.
I have to say I was surprised at the tone of the story, which seems incredibly modern for something that was written in 1799. Sure, five thousand pounds isn't the fortune it once was, and rich people are more likely to have fancy cars than horse-drawn carriages these days, but other than that, the story doesn't seem to have dated at all. Both the language and the subject matter are entirely recognisable to us, denizens of the twenty-first century, give or take a few 'prays' and 'forsooths'. And of course the moral (don't gamble!) is as pertinent today as it was two centuries ago.
'The Lottery' is a straightforward story, well told but not a great masterpiece. There is some fine comedy at the expense of Mrs Dolly, who likes her brandy, but like many eighteenth-century stories, 'The Lottery' is slightly too moralistic and self-righteous for its own good. Still, it's a perfectly agreeable introduction to Maria Edgeworth's work, and having read it, I look forward to reading her more famous books....more
A few years ago, Mark Haddon had a global hit on his hands with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book written from the perspectiveA few years ago, Mark Haddon had a global hit on his hands with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book written from the perspective of an autistic teenage boy. While I enjoyed The Curious Incident, I found it somewhat overrated, mostly because I didn't buy the teenage protagonist. Now Matthew Kneale (who wrote one of my favourite books of the last few years, English Passengers) has a shot at writing a book from a child's point of view, and as far as I'm concerned, he does a better job of it than Haddon.
When We Were Romans tells the story of Lawrence, a nine-year-old English boy whose father may or may not have committed heinous crimes against his family. When the story opens, Lawrence's mother, convinced that her ex-husband is stalking her, packs her two children into her little car and drives all the way to Rome, where she was happy before she got married. In Rome, Lawrence, his Mum, his little sister Jemima and his hamster stay with a succession of his mother's friends, and gradually a story emerges that is rather different from what it seems at first. It's a well-observed and well-told tale that seems mildly underwhelming at first but steadily works its way to a dramatic climax. The ending feels a little rushed, but it's still a reasonably powerful story that gets under your skin and stays with you for a bit.
When We Were Romans once again showcases Kneale's tremendous talent for inhabiting different characters. In English Passengers, he told his story from about twenty vastly different perspectives and largely got away with it. In When We Were Romans he sticks to one point of view, but it's a tricky one -- a child's. Kneale does a great job describing the journey through Lawrence's mind. His Lawrence is a creative and precocious child who is just a little too young to understand the world around him but nevertheless feels tremendously responsible and tries to look after his increasingly confused mother as best he can. Lawrence has many endearing traits, such as comparing everyone he meets to an animal and lapsing into little asides on outer space and Roman emperors. He's not too good to be true, though. Like all children, he has whims and tantrums. He nags, whines, envies his little sister and often feels unfairly treated, all in ways which ring very true to me. At times, Kneale goes a tad too far in his attempts to make Lawrence a credible child narrator (his erratic spelling and syntax are a bit much for my taste; I'm convinced a child as intelligent as Lawrence wouldn't spell one word in three different ways within one paragraph), but still, he comes up with a convincing child's point of view. More so than Haddon, whose Christopher was, in my opinion, far too self-conscious for his own good.
When We Were Romans isn't as ambitious and impressive as English Passengers, but it's more proof that Kneale really knows how to get into his characters' heads. Those who like good characterisation, the child's perspective and original family drama will love it....more
'Hypocrisy, duplicity are my only chance. I'm sorry for it, but there's no baseness I wouldn't commit for Jeffrey Aspern's sake.'
So says the unnamed 'Hypocrisy, duplicity are my only chance. I'm sorry for it, but there's no baseness I wouldn't commit for Jeffrey Aspern's sake.'
So says the unnamed narrator of Henry James' The Aspern Papers, a literary scholar who is writing a book about the fictional poet Jeffrey Aspern (loosely based on either Keats or Browning, depending on whose theories you choose to believe). At the beginning of the novella, the narrator discovers that Juliana Bordereau, to whom the poet addressed some of his most beautiful love poems, is still alive, a very old lady who lives with a niece in a dilapidated house in Venice. Not unreasonably, he suspects Miss Bordereau of having mementoes (possibly even love letters from the poet), and since a colleague of his has already established that she won't part with them the regular way, he inveigles his way into her house as a lodger. And then he waits -- waits for an opportunity to get his hands on the papers, or to get hold of them some other way.
In many respects, The Aspern Papers is an ideal book for people who dislike James, or think they do. A product of his middle period, it doesn't feature the late-period characteristics with which so many people associate him: the stupendous subtlety, the ponderous tone and the endless sentences whose meaning is obscure even after rereading them. The Aspern Papers is neither ponderous nor obscure. It's a perfectly straightforward and easy-to-read story about hope and obsession and where they will lead us. As is often the case with James, it's also about people using each other, but exactly who is using whom here is unclear. Indeed, a case could be made for all three leads using each other, which adds a bitter dimension to the tale. And it's a pretty bitter story to begin with -- dark and cynical with a bit of well-handled tragedy thrown in for good measure.
Reading The Aspern Papers is an interesting experience. It's quite fascinating to follow the narrator's progress, seeing him plot, attempt to justify his actions, pity himself and check himself whenever he's aware that he is about to do something which may ruin his chances. He's a calculating monster, but in a way you want him to succeed, both because you feel he deserves something for his efforts and because he has to put up with two very difficult women to get at the papers. For Juliana and her niece are difficult. The former poet's mistress has turned into a cynical, sarcastic and avaricious old lady, and as for her niece, Miss Tina, well, she's a bit of a simpleton, albeit an interesting one (the narrator nastily describes her as 'a piece of middle-aged female helplessness'). So how should the narrator go about dealing with them? How should he manipulate them into giving him what he wants? Jeffrey Aspern never offered any advice on that, so the narrator is left to find out for himself. But of course the women have an agenda of their own, and it doesn't necessarily match his.
As a story about academic obsession, The Aspern Papers is a bit too detached to leave a lasting impression. However, as a story about cold ambition and ruthlessness -- about the corrupting influence of want and need -- it's very successful. It's an intense and suspenseful novella with a few short bursts of melodrama, some near-gothic moments and an impressive, well-written ending. If it's a tad light-weight by James' later standards, I daresay there will be readers who will consider that a good thing. I know I do. In my weaker moments. :-)...more
'Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely. And leave something of the happiness you bring!'
These are pretty much the first words spoken to Jonathan'Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely. And leave something of the happiness you bring!'
These are pretty much the first words spoken to Jonathan Harker, one of the heroes of Bram Stoker's Dracula, upon his arrival at Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, just minutes after a nightmare journey through the landscape of gothic horror: darkness, howling wolves, flames erupting out of the blue, frightened horses. Within a few days of his arrival, Harker will find himself talking of the Count's 'wickedly blazing eyes' and 'new schemes of villainy' and have some hair-raising encounters with the man who is now the world's most famous vampire: 'The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.' Several adventures involving sharp teeth, mirrors, garlic, crucifixes, bloody-mouthed corpses and big stakes will ensue.
The above quotations should make it abundantly clear what kind of book Dracula is. It's sensation fiction, written nearly half a century after the heyday of that genre. It's a cross between an epistolary novel, a detective novel and a save-my-wife story, and it's full of scares, horror and disgust, all described in a lurid tone that befits the subject: the living dead. Or the Un-Dead, as the book's other hero, my countryman Van Helsing, calls them.
Sadly, Van Helsing is one of my main problems with the book. While I love his heroism, his 'Let's-do-it' attitude and his unceasing struggle for Mina's soul, I find him entirely unconvincing as a Dutchman. I wish to God (with a crucifix and everything!) that I could switch off my inner linguist and appreciate the story for its narrative qualities rather than its linguistic aspects, but Stoker has Van Helsing indulge in so many linguistic improbabilities ('Are you of belief now, friend John?') that it quite took me out of the story, again and again and again. I'm aware this is not a problem that will bother many readers, but I for one dearly wish Stoker had listened to some actual Dutchmen before making the hero of his story one. Then perhaps he also would have refrained from making the poor man mutter German whenever he is supposed to speak his mother tongue. ('Mein Gott' is German, Mr Stoker. I mean, really.)
Linguistic inaccuracies aside (there are many in the book), Dracula has a few more problems. For one thing, the bad guy doesn't make enough appearances. Whenever Stoker focuses on Dracula, the story comes alive -- menace drips off the pages, and the reader finds himself alternately shivering with excitement and recoiling in horror. However, when Dracula is not around (which is most of the second half of the book), the story loses power, to the point where the second half of the book is actually quite dull. In addition, the story seems a little random and unfocused. Remember the 1992 film, in which Dracula obsesses about Mina Harker (Jonathan's wife) because she is his long-lost wife reincarnated? That conceit had grandeur, romance, passion, tragedy. And what was more, it made sense. It explained why Dracula comes all the way from Transylvania to England to find Mina, and why he wants to make her his bride despite the fact that she is being protected by people who clearly want him dead. In the book, however, Mina is merely Jonathan's wife (no reincarnation involved), a random lady Dracula has sunk his teeth into, and while this entitles her to some sympathy, it lacks the grand romantic quality the film had. I guess it's unfair to blame an author for not thinking of an improvement film-makers later made to his story, but I think Stoker rather missed an opportunity there.
And then there's the fact that Stoker seems to be an early proponent of the Robert Jordan School of Writing, meaning he takes an awful lot of time setting the scene, only to end the book on a whimper. The ending to Dracula is so anticlimactic it's rather baffling. Did Stoker run out of paper and ink? Did he want to finish the story before Dracula's brides came and got him? I guess we'll never know.
Still, despite its many flaws Dracula is an exciting read (well, the first half is, anyway), and Stoker undeniably left a legacy that will last for centuries to come. In that respect, Dracula deserves all the praise that has been heaped on it. I still think it could have been better, though. Much better....more
Carol Reed's The Third Man ranks among my favourite noir films. To a large extent, this is because of its stunningly atmospheric black-and-white cinemCarol Reed's The Third Man ranks among my favourite noir films. To a large extent, this is because of its stunningly atmospheric black-and-white cinematography (I just love those ruins and shadows...), but it's also because there's something quite compelling about the story about a Brit who is invited to post-war Vienna by a friend, only to discover that said friend is dead and may have been involved in a rather nasty racket. That story was written by Graham Greene, and was published by Penguin along with another Greene story adapted for the screen by Reed, 'The Fallen Idol'.
The Third Man is unlike other Greene books. As Greene himself points out in the preface, 'it was never written to be read but only to be seen'. In other words, while it's not exactly a film script, The Third Man was written to be turned into one, and it shows. By Greene's standards, the story is light on characterisation and heavy on descriptions of actions and situations. This is bad news for those of us who like Greene precisely for his characterisation, but it's not necessarily a bad thing per se, as for one thing, what little characterisation there is is solid and original (I love Rollo Martins' semi-split personality) and for another, both the plot and the atmosphere are great. Post-war Vienna (carved up into four spheres of influence by the Americans, British, French and Russians) makes for a wonderfully tense setting, and involuntary detective Rollo Martins' journey from indignation to disbelief to disillusionment to acceptance makes for compulsive reading, featuring as it does dramatic plot twists, some dark humour and a healthy dose of cynicism. In short, it's a fairly strong novella, even if it doesn't match up with Greene's longer works. Even so, I'm going to defer to the author's own assessment, which is that the film is better than the story (and not just because the story lacks the famous cuckoo clock line, which was written by Orson Welles). It's simply because the film (on which Greene closely collaborated with Reed) is, as Greene points out in his preface, 'in this case the finished state of the story', whereas the book version is merely an earlier draft -- a solid draft, but an unfinished one nonetheless.
As for the second, much shorter story in the book, 'The Fallen Idol', this is a tragedy about an innocent child who gets caught up in the nasty games adults play and ends up accidentally handing his best friend over to the police. As an exploration of the innocence-versus-guilt theme, it's rather interesting, especially since it is (unusually for Greene) told from the child's point of view. Due to the childish perspective, Greene doesn't get to indulge in his trademark cynicism (which is what I love best about him), but still, it's a well-told, well-observed story with great characters, some menace, several 'Oh, no!' moments and an abrupt but effective ending. It's not brilliant, but it's decent story-telling -- more proof (if any were needed) that Greene didn't need many words to tell a powerful story.
All in all, I'd say this is a solid 3.5-star book. Since it's closer to four stars than to three, I'll be generous and give it four....more
Great Expectations is one of my favourite Dickens novels. It's big but not overly drawn out; it's dark but full of brilliantly funny touches; and the Great Expectations is one of my favourite Dickens novels. It's big but not overly drawn out; it's dark but full of brilliantly funny touches; and the characters are tremendously memorable without ever slipping into the grotesque. In short, it's one of the best things Dickens ever wrote. His contemporaries might not have agreed, but hey, what did they know?
The central question in Great Expectations is what it means to be a gentleman -- whether the word refers to a man of money and manners or rather, more literally, to a man who is gentle and caring (I think we can all guess the answer to that). The protagonist, the poor orphan Pip (son of 'Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana, wife of the above'), initially believes the former, so when an unknown benefactor gives him a fortune with which to turn himself into a gentleman, he focuses on the outer trappings of the lifestyle and begins to despise the life he used to lead -- including his relatives, who are still leading it. For a while, he turns into an unbearable snob, but ultimately his better self prevails, and he ends up being a moral hero after Dickens' own heart. And the reader's, presumably.
As a story about status anxiety, Great Expectations is nearly unsurpassed. Dickens draws with great skill and psychological depth Pip's embarrassment at his lowly background, his shame of home and the lack of confidence it inspires in him. His snobbery, while unpleasant, is made understandable, and his sense of guilt at it makes up for much of it. Yet there's more to Great Expectations than a (still very relevant) wish for a cultural make-over. It's also a detective story, in that Pip has to find out where his unexpected fortune actually came from, and who the girl he loves, the stunningly beautiful but haughty Estella, actually is. Dickens ably weaves the psychological drama and the detective story together into an intense and compelling tale. For most of the book, the tone is rather dark, but there are brilliant flashes of humour in unnecessary (but highly entertaining) details and, of course, the characterisation. Melodramatic but impressive Miss Havisham is justifiably the most famous character of the book, but there are other inspired creations, such as the tough-as-nails attorney, Mr Jaggers, and his clerk, Mr Wemmick, who is two entirely different persons when he is at work and when he is at home with his Aged Parent. Furthermore, the novel boasts Joe Gargery, Pip's first father figure, whose speech patterns are just brilliant; the menacing convict whom Pip helps; and Estella, who is a living argument for why mentally unstable persons who have been greatly disappointed in life should not be allowed to raise children. They are all exquisitely drawn, and every bit as memorable as Pip's journey through Victorian society. Together they make Great Expectations an absolute classic -- one of the best novels to have come out of the Victorian era, I think. I'd give it 4.5 stars if I could, but since I can't, four will have to do. ...more
If it weren't for the fact that it's somewhat whiny and depressing (and that's putting it mildly), Jude the Obscure would be an ideal book for secondaIf it weren't for the fact that it's somewhat whiny and depressing (and that's putting it mildly), Jude the Obscure would be an ideal book for secondary school pupils struggling with their book reports. See, the way Hardy wrote the novel, the reader is not required to think for himself about what the characters are like and why they suffer the misfortunes they do. Hardy spells it all out for him, mostly by having the characters analysing themselves and each other ad nauseam. Thus the reader is told that the ambitious stone mason Jude is a 'purblind, simple creature' whose scandalous relationship with his free-spirited cousin Sure is doomed to fail because Sue is an 'ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation ... possibly with scarce any man' (subtle foreshadowing, that) and who, for all her modern ideas, doesn't 'have the courage of [her] views', as she helpfully informs Jude (and the reader) in one of the many dialogues in which her character is discussed at length. Hardy spends so much time spelling out his protagonists' psychological quirks (usually in the form of dialogue) that it borders on the absurd. As a lazy twenty-something reader, I loved this tendency of his (it even struck me as very good characterisation), but when I reread the book last weekend, I wanted to find myself a time machine, head for 1893 and hand Hardy the OED page on which the concept of subtlety is explained, as well as a plaque reminding him to 'Show, Don't Tell', to be put over his writing desk and memorised afresh before each new chapter. Seriously. The characterisation is that overblown.
Hardy's tendency to beat his reader over the head with psychological insights is not the only thing about Jude the Obscure which would make a modern creative writing teacher reach for his red pen. The author also makes the mistake of adding a child to the story who talks and behaves as no other child has ever been known to. His unlikely inclusion and the even more unlikely resolution to his storyline are so preposterously overdramatic and sentimental that they ruin what could have been a very good story despite all its flaws. For make no mistake, there's a good story hidden in there somewhere. There's some genuine tragedy in this tale about a man who keeps making the same mistakes, a woman who is emotionally incapable of love, and a cruel society which will neither allow them to make their dreams come true nor condone any impropriety. As an indictment of Victorian marriage laws and social intolerance, Jude the Obscure is quite effective (it caused an outrage on its initial publication, and understandably so; one can only wonder what the irate Victorian audience would have made of the uncensored draft of the book, which contained even more offensive scenes). As a requiem to dreams, an exploration of happiness versus duty and a lesson not to get side-tracked from one's dreams by false sentiments, it's a powerful read -- or so it would be if it weren't for Hardy's penchant for histrionics and unsubtle characterisation. Pity he didn't have a modern creative writing teacher to teach him the ropes. For all his talent, he really could have done with one here....more
This is going to be the shortest review I've written on this site in a while. The reason I'm going to keep it short is because no description could poThis is going to be the shortest review I've written on this site in a while. The reason I'm going to keep it short is because no description could possibly do justice to this quintessentially English coming-of-age story which ranks among the most pleasant surprises I've had, book-wise. A summary would make it sound slight, trite and predictable, all of which it is, and would not reflect the fact that it's also funny as hell, charismatic, deliciously eccentric, Austenesque and so utterly charming that I quite literally had sore cheeks after reading it because I couldn't stop smiling at the delightful nonsense the incomparable Cassandra Mortmain spilled out on the pages. I'm not exaggerating here -- this book will charm the pants off you, especially if you happen to have two X chromosomes and a bad case of Anglophilia. It's what would happen if an early-twentieth-century Jane Austen were to grow up in a dilapidated castle and get into financial trouble, and that's all I'm going say about it, except that I want to be Cassandra Mortmain when I grow down. Only I think I'll write my book on a computer rather than sitting in the kitchen sink, because it would be so much more comfortable, thank you very much.
Widely regarded as the quintessential Victorian novel, Middlemarch is a superb study of life among the upper and upper middle classes of a fictional rWidely regarded as the quintessential Victorian novel, Middlemarch is a superb study of life among the upper and upper middle classes of a fictional rural community in 1830s England. It takes 900 pages to draw its conclusions, but they're 900 pages of some of the richest realist writing nineteenth-century literature has to offer, full of insights into society, human nature, what to do in life when one can't quite make one's dreams come true, and how to make a marriage work. I've seen it described as a book everyone should read before getting married, and I agree -- all the lessons you need to learn about human relationships are in here, and much more besides.
To a large extent, the success of Middlemarch is due to its characterisation. A character-driven novel if ever I saw one, Middlemarch features some of the most memorable characters Eliot ever came up with: an earnest young lady who wishes to make a difference; her husband, a petty and jealous scholar; a hot-tempered doctor who is a little ahead of his time; his wife, a living embodiment of the fact that pretty girls don't always make the best spouses; a pious banker who is not the good Christian he has always professed to be; his nephew, who desperately wishes to win the heart of the girl he loves despite his mounting gambling debts; a talented outsider who doesn't quite know how to make the most of his gifts -- they're all here, and they're described in admirable detail. Like a scientist, Eliot puts her characters under a microscope, describing their every flaw and weakness, but always in a sympathetic way; even her worst characters have redeeming features, which makes it very easy to take an interest in their vicissitudes. Like an anthropologist, she then puts her characters into a socio-cultural context, showing the whole through the parts and the parts through the whole. The historical background (political changes, the industrial revolution, new medical theories) is magnificently drawn, and the stories (there are many here) are as fine as they come, featuring love triangles, thwarted prospects, intrigue, political aspirations, blackmail, gossip, characters meddling in other people's lives from beyond the grave, and a clash between old values and modern science and technology. Granted, the book takes a while to hit its stride, but once it does, it's unputdownable.
As for shortcomings, one could say that Eliot is occasionally a tad too intellectual for her own good. Frightfully well-read herself, she sometimes has her characters refer to things which seem a bit outside their scope. Likewise, she occasionally loses herself in technical and political details which slightly detract from the main stories, and takes so much time setting the scene for the great developments which are to follow later that the first half of the book is a tad dull. The second half is brilliant, though -- up there with the great French and Russian realist classics of the period, and then some. It's not the easiest read, but a patient reader will be amply rewarded for his/her trouble, especially if he/she takes the trouble the read the book more than once. Middlemarch is one of those books which yield new gems every time one reads them, and I cherish it for that....more
Is there a 'natural' state to which children revert when there are no parents around to keep an eye on them, and if so, are we allowed to judge and inIs there a 'natural' state to which children revert when there are no parents around to keep an eye on them, and if so, are we allowed to judge and intervene if that 'natural state' goes against society's ideas of what is natural and acceptable? That is the question raised (but not answered) in The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan's 1978 debut as a novelist. The 138-page novella is about four children who, following the deaths of their parents, decide to go on living together as if nothing had ever happened, so as not to be separated or put into an orphanage. Needless to say, this gives them rather more freedom than they're used to, and so they embark on some unusual paths...
Like many early McEwan stories, The Cement Garden is fascinating but not for the faint of heart. Those willing to immerse themselves in a bath of teenage lust, ennui, contrariness and cruelty will find it a gripping read; those who are easily put off by anything remotely twisted are likely to find it quite repulsive. Personally, I'm in the former camp. I can see why people would be disgusted by this book, but I found it quite mesmerising myself. In a weird way, it is both hyperrealistic and completely unrealistic, like a dark fairytale set in our own world but not completely part of it. Like the children it so vividly describes, it veers from rude and aloof to shockingly tender and intimate. The rude scenes are brilliantly honest and well-observed, while the intimate scenes (which are of an incestuous nature) are so hauntingly tender that they're actually quite beautiful and, well, understandable. So who are we to say that this particular kind of intimacy is wrong? It is, obviously, but in the strange universe McEwan creates here, it somehow feels right. That's a mark of genius, I think, even if it will leave conservative readers with a vile taste in their mouths. I doubt McEwan will ever write anything like this again, but as a jaw-dropping debut, it is quite unsurpassed, I think....more
