I read this because I was in a mood for some good classic mystery novel. Unfortunately, it was neither of those things.
First of all, I should've pickI read this because I was in a mood for some good classic mystery novel. Unfortunately, it was neither of those things.
First of all, I should've picked something American, as I find all mid-sized English towns dreary, and can hardly ever muster any enthusiasm for books taking place in mid-sized English towns.
This wasn't a crime novel per se, more of a story of a pathetic, depressed man whose wife left him for some scoundrel and who becomes obsessed with decoding messages of what he think is a dangerous spy/drug ring but in reality is just a bunch of public school twats.
What follows is a chain of coincidences, resulting in a total tragedy of errors and some paedophilia, as well as countless loose ends that beg to be tied up somehow. It's a weird, and ultimately unsatisfying book, because the climax, while definitely climactic, does not involve any main characters, only a couple of despicable secondary ones we never cared for in the first place. ...more
The reason I (and maybe many other people but let me not make any bold claims) return to childhood and adolescence favourite reads is to access that cThe reason I (and maybe many other people but let me not make any bold claims) return to childhood and adolescence favourite reads is to access that carefree (careless?) fourteen-year-old who would lose herself in the book like the real world didn’t exist and the worlds her imagination created were so powerful and absorbing she could almost touch them. However, re-reading is a futile exercise, not only can I not connect with that inner child, I don’t even know who she was anymore. She is a stranger to me. Still I’m reading those books to see if through them I can at least catch a glimpse of that foreign girl who grew up to be me, so that I assure myself of the continuity of my own self.
The fourteen-year-old me LOVED Andre Norton. The fourteen-year-old me didn’t even realise Andre Norton was a woman but she didn’t much care. She was excited over the trashy covers with half naked women and buff guys, often accompanied by dangerous wild animals. What kind of titillation she was getting out of those books?
I am not and never have been a particularly introspective kind of person. My diaries just talk about what happened, often in a funny way but hardly ever about how I felt about any of that. And I am not any smarter after re-reading Witch World. This was a lot less sexy than I remember but it is entirely possible I had never read this particular instalment of the series. I read them out of order, based on whatever was available at the library at the time. I just remember when I borrowed my first one I was afraid the librarian wouldn’t let me take it home because there was a woman on the cover with very little clothing. (http://www.bookhunter.pl/okladki/9259... I think this might’ve been the one).
Have I ever read the very beginning of the series? Did I even know how it started? Did I know that it started in our world with Simon, a WWII veteran who got himself in a pickle and was looking for a way out and he got maybe a little more than he bargained for when he got teleported into an entire different world of magic and whatnot?
From then on the book takes place mostly in Etscarp – the feminine land ruled by benevolent, wise witches, facing threats from all sides, but mostly from Kolder – the land representing technology gone rogue and masculine ruthlessness. Our hero, Simon, finds himself helping defend Etscarp and discovering his feminine side.
Norton was trying to do some interesting gender things in her series (or at least interesting at the time), she was a proto-Le Guin if you excuse the comparison. It is sad to think that the concepts here were revolutionary mere 50 years ago. There is a lot of female power/magic, which unfortunately goes when they lose virginity (barf, how I hate anything that makes female virginity into a thing), but at least that means the main character couldn’t go round screwing every woman he meets which is what happens in other fantasy books. Of course that means the only way to disarm a witch, conquer her, was to rape her – which is spot-on the main thing about rape, it’s never about sex, but about power. And if a witch decides to marry and give herself to a man, she essentially relinquishes her power.
So that’s why things get interesting when Simon discovers he might have some magic powers of his own. Will they go away if gets laid? Unfortunately I will never find out because I won’t rush to re-read the remainder of the series. There is not enough world building and character development for my liking and the ending is a bit anticlimactic. Therefore I’m leaving those books where they belong – with my 14 year old self....more
I was reading the story called ‘Xmas Cruise’ while on the bus going to a party. It was about an Antarctic cruise and I thought it was quite a theme foI was reading the story called ‘Xmas Cruise’ while on the bus going to a party. It was about an Antarctic cruise and I thought it was quite a theme for this collection, as there already was a story about an Arctic cruise. But then I remembered Atwood mentioned she thought of many stories for this collection while on an Arctic cruise, so it made sense. And much later I realised I wasn’t reading Atwood’s ‘Stone Mattress’. In fact I had finished ‘Stone Mattress’ about a month before and then I marvelled at how I could have gotten so confused over which book I was reading. Maybe I wasn’t even going to the party. Maybe I was coming back from it.
Nonetheless (and in my defence), Margaret Atwood and Patricia A. McKillip have something in common and I would venture to say it’s a sense of wonder. That sense of wonder is what makes stories in ‘Wonders of the Invisible World’ so enchanting even if they often fail to bring things to a satisfying conclusion. McKillip shows us slivers of magical worlds and we need to just accept those slivers as enough and not expect tightly structured plots or wait for the punchline. At the end I was sometimes left slightly frustrated - there were unanswered questions and absent resolutions, but the dreams induced by this collection were always wonderful (in the most basic sense of the word – that is full of wonder).
We miss and crave a world full of magic – that’s why we read fantasy books. But authors often forget that their characters who live in those fantastical worlds should be like us, therefore still looking for more, for another form of magic. That relentless search for enchantment and the supernatural was captured by McKillip so beautifully here. Many fantasy books, paradoxically, are thin on amazement. They often feature elaborate worlds with complex magic systems and a plethora of marvellous creatures but eventually make it all so pedestrian. If you want to know what I’m talking about read “Out of the Woods”, a story about a wizard who toiled at his wizardry and had no time for magic, or the eponymous story of the collection in which someone gets just the sort of supernatural they have been praying for. In fact, every story in this collection tackles this theme in some way, so read them all. ...more
Katherine Mansfield would’ve matured to be an amazing writer if she hadn’t died at the age of 34 of tuberculosis – which quite possibly was another ofKatherine Mansfield would’ve matured to be an amazing writer if she hadn’t died at the age of 34 of tuberculosis – which quite possibly was another of the knock-on effects of the gonorrhoea she contracted from her Polish lover – Florian Sobieniowski. Was it worth it, Katherine - http://www.audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/... ? Ladies, beware of men who have more consonants in their names that seems reasonable.
I know all that from the introduction to my Penguin edition written by Anne Fernihough – an introduction that was rather dense and scholarly. Too late did I realise that Hesperus produced a very pretty edition of ‘In a German Pension’ with an introduction by Linda Grant. I bet that one didn’t have moronic footnotes that explained who Wagner or Mozart were (a famous Austrian composer, apparently). I’m trying to imagine a world in which someone who has never heard of Mozart reads Katherine Mansfield's obscure short stories.
Stories collected in this volume are semi-autobiographical because Mansfield herself was sent away to a ‘German pension’ for a ‘cure’ - her affliction being getting pregnant outside of wedlock. Her semi-autobiographical narrator is stuck in the pension where she is surrounded by crass idiots. She vents her anger by writing sharply satirical portraits of them. This all is something I could very much relate to because I am, also, often angry and surrounded by idiots. The stories, of course, touch on bigger problems than being annoyed by a dinner companion who picks his teeth and cleans his ears at the table, while talking absolute bollocks. It’s all about gender roles and sexism, and class system, and exploitation of children and sexual violence. The stories start off light and satirical but get progressively darker. Apparently they are obviously inspired by Chekhov and mock Virginia Woolf gently, which I wouldn’t know because I haven’t read either. I know, how embarrassing! What the hell! Why would I even admit to that in public?
Anyway. Mansfield was slightly embarrassed by those stories she wrote when she was 22. She called them immature and rolled her eyes at how obsessed she was with bodily functions (there is a lot of detailed bodily functions here). Quite honestly though, who isn’t embarrassed by what they produced when they were 22? And if you aren’t, then it’s probably because you haven’t developed any further and that’s nothing to be proud of. I checked my blog to see what I wrote when I was 22 and it’s bloody cringe-worthy. I can’t believe I was allowed to vote and drink alcohol – I was a complete bimbo. And I guess that’s the difference – there is no-one in the world that could read my blog from those days and not cringe, while Mansfield’s stories, even if occasionally immature, smart-ass and swaggering, are still very much readable, a hundred years later.
I changed my Tinder profile to say that I like men who read Katherine Mansfield and Dorothy Parker. I haven’t been very lucky so far. ...more
I chose this book because I heard somewhere that it was about ice apocalypse. In snowless England I wanted to read something to make me grateful for aI chose this book because I heard somewhere that it was about ice apocalypse. In snowless England I wanted to read something to make me grateful for a mild climate (which I’m otherwise not that happy with). So yes, this book did make me appreciate a mild climate and also the fact I don’t do drugs (generally).
I am yet to read a book which was published in the 60s and wasn’t completely bonkers. Our generation seems so tame and conservative in comparison. I can’t imagine contemporary big publishers taking a chance on something that makes so little obvious sense.
The great thing about Ice is that you can have fun with it. I mean you can interpret it in a million ways – not sure if it is your idea of fun but for me it is. On the surface it’s a story of an unnamed narrator searching for unnamed girl while fighting another unnamed man for her affection (why name your characters? That’s sooo 1950s.) And all of this while the planet is facing the apocalypse and ice is threatening to swallow everything. The reader follows this frustrating chase which makes less and less sense and it feels like one of those unnerving dreams.
One of the first interpretations that came to my mind was that of the Cold War. The brutal reality of that world, military governments, ice plus the fact the book was written in the 60s all seem to fit nicely with this theory. But why stop there? Anna Kavan was a heroin addict and you will have no trouble with seeing the whole book as an allegory of addiction.
Let’s remove the book from its author and its time. Then really – the sky is the limit. I think my favourite interpretation is that of a power struggle in a relationship. This whole ‘I can’t love you without possessing you’ conundrum. The whole you are the OBJECT (of my affection). Both men in the book are actually one man trying to disown the part of his personality he is not comfortable with.
All in all, it’s a typical 60s book. You finish the last page, close it and ask yourself: what the hell did I just read? And yet, you keep thinking about it. Every now and then something reminds you of this book. Some time later you are reorganizing your bookshelves, or maybe just looking for that book you were sure you had but instead you come across Ice. You open it at random and start reading it again.
“My window overlooked an empty landscape where nothing ever moved. No houses were visible, only the debris of the collapsed wall, a bleak stretch of snow, the fjord, the fir forest, the mountains. No colour, only monotonous shades of grey to the ultimate dead white of the snow. The water lifeless in its dead calm, the ranks of black trees marching everywhere in uniform gloom.” ...more
I went into this book knowing nothing about it, not having seen the movie, certainly not having seen the musical and not being familiar with the IrishI went into this book knowing nothing about it, not having seen the movie, certainly not having seen the musical and not being familiar with the Irish institution that is Roddy Doyle.
Initially I thought there was a mistake and I somehow obtained the screenplay for the film rather than the novel. Doyle shows a true bravado in his disregard for what we assume to constitute a novel. His narrative is composed almost entirely of dialogues and some diminished descriptions which are no more than stage directions.
Yet, somehow, despite those self-imposed constraints and in just 140 pages he manages to capture the essence of teenage dreams, how they burn and then burn out, how they get lost in arguments and get flooded by hormonal rivers. It’s all there in a story of a few Dublin teenagers who form a band and try to bring some soul into the Irish capital. Make no mistake, though, this is not a novel about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. It’s a lot more innocent than that. It’s neither glamorous, nor bohemian. It’s just working class. It’s like that Lorde’s song Royals.
Even though the format of ‘The Commitments’ didn’t quite work for me, because I’m attached to the more Dickensian kind of narration, it did manage to extract some emotional response from me. However, I think this is one of the few instances where I think ‘the movie is better.’ And that is without actually having seen the movie.
*Knowledge of 60’s r’n’b and soul music desirable but not essential for the enjoyment of this book. ...more
I spent at least three months reading this fat volume and about the same time answering questions from my friends as to why I was doing this. Why in hI spent at least three months reading this fat volume and about the same time answering questions from my friends as to why I was doing this. Why in hell am I reading the History of Modern China? Of course, the simple answer is that I compulsively read anything l lay my hands on but then I’m also on the mission to become the most knowledgeable person in the world, so that my arrogance is backed up with some erudition. Sadly, I’m no Mike Ross and I have retained at best 10% of the facts in this book.
How does one review a book like ‘The Penguin History of Modern China’? It’s not like I have read other histories of China to compare it to, or knew anything about the subject beforehand. I had to trust Jonathan Fenby when he bombarded me with facts, dates and names. I appreciate he was trying to spice things up with funny or curious anecdotes, which sometimes produced almost a comical effect, like when he writes things like:
“Mao went back to his house in the country , received a few faithful followers, taught his bodyguard to read, and fell badly ill with malaria, his temperature shooting up to 105 degrees.”
The second half of the book is filled almost entirely with accounts of purges and paranoia, so typical for any dictatorship. This is the history that has already repeated itself thousands of times and you would think that people would finally wise up to those methods. But no, they fall for it each and every time. I must say that Fenby wrote a lot about the early Mao, the bullied loser. And it made him into an almost sympathetic character – this is not the effect I wanted the book to achieve. Sometimes I am just not interested in a three-dimensional portrait of the history biggest assholes.
So what’s to happen with China now? Is it a colossus with feet of clay? Yes, probably. It is possibly true that China is not ready for a multi-party democracy. It wouldn’t fare any better than the so called ‘biggest democracy in the world’, India. But then how will it ever make itself ready if not true trial and error? (Luckily, at least China doesn’t have to worry about the US ‘bringing democracy’ to them). ...more
What you need to know about humans is that they are dicks. And if you give them any power their dickness prevails over everything else.
John Pilger wrWhat you need to know about humans is that they are dicks. And if you give them any power their dickness prevails over everything else.
John Pilger wrote this book in 2006. It’s about different governments (US, UK, South African, Israeli) being total, complete assholes. If you look up each and every story from this volume to see what new happened between 2006 and now you will only learn about further miseries and acts of oppression. Except for Afghanistan - you won’t find much about Afghanistan because everybody just got really tired of Afghanistan and their shit so they moved on and they are now busy thinking up new, ingenious ways they can fuck up a country even more and even quicker.
I wanted Pilger to stop. Or at least give me some one, tiny positive story, some heart-warming, uplifting, chicken soup for the soul. But no, not Pilger. He is not going to dig up some one sappy story to make you feel better about the world you live in, about your government and what it does in your name.
Do you know what happens when US government needs a British Island for a military base? The UK government goes and takes all the people who have lived there for 200 years, picks them up and dumps them in the slums of Mauritius. Just like that. And they kill all their dogs first because the Americans would like their island ‘sanitized’. Then UK government refuses to let these people go back to their island. It’s now a military base. The UK government says, we would love you to go back there, sadly the island is inhabitable, so we can’t let you do that. Because we care. The Americans in their military base manage on the island just fine, despite its ‘uninhabitability’. Actually the very reason they wanted it was because it’s so amazing. Even tsunamis don’t touch it. The Chagossians took UK to court, and won. But what’s that to the UK government, it can always get the Queen to strike any sentence, so that’s what they did. Ha ha, take that Chagossians. And here is a better idea, let’s create a National Park on the island to preserve all those important species of birds or something. And let’s have all the lefties sign petitions to create that natural reserve, ha ha, that will be funny. Stupid lefties. See, where your love for the planet got you? Now , with your signature we made sure Chagossians will never return. Of course, the Americans and their bombers can stay, they don’t disturb the birds, or was it fish?
And this was just the first chapter. The first mellow chapter. That was a warm-up. Get yourself ready for Israel, India, Afghanistan and South Africa. You will want to throw up by the end of it. I have notes, highlights, quotes and comments. I could take you through the whole book. But I won’t. Because maybe then you won’t read it. And you absolutely must read it.
I don’t how John Pilger does it. How can he just go on, research a book after book like that, go and talk to all these people, hear their stories, then try to confront those at the top about it, listen to their smug come-backs, their arrogance. How does he not lose the will to live? I know this review is not the eloquent and measured report you have learnt to expect from me (ha, ha), but seriously, this book, seriously… years of anger management therapy down the drain. ...more
Ivan Turgenev is probably the least known of the Russian trio of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev but nonetheless you should read him if you want to Ivan Turgenev is probably the least known of the Russian trio of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev but nonetheless you should read him if you want to boast that you’ve read ‘the Russians’.
Sketches from a Hunter’s Album is a lesser known work of this lesser known Russian, written before his big novel Fathers and Sons.
“Oh, you think everyone's interesting. That's because you're a Red. I don't. I believe that quite a lot of people were just manufactured when God was thinking of something else," says a character in Mortimer's 'Paradise Postponed' and Turgenev must obviously be "a Red" because he finds all his subjects in those little sketches immensely interesting. In just a few pages he extracts what is important about a character and make him as vivid as if we met the chap ourselves and drank vodka with him. (He does also write about women).
Upon a first glance these are just beautiful pastoral stories filled with love for the Russian landscape and its people, but obviously they are not as innocent as they appear or Turgenev wouldn't get arrested on their account.
Nowadays we might wonder what was so outrageous about them but in Tsarist Russia you simply couldn’t say anything that would question the institution of serfdom (which was thriving in Russia until mid-19th century, long after it was abandoned in Western Europe, and was almost indistinguishable from slavery).
Turgenev doesn’t come across as very engaged because his narrator is almost entirely removed, his only role being that of an observer, but with such an obvious injustice facts alone suffice and there is hardly any need for a commentary. Also, his perceptive portraits of all the characters speak volumes about his compassion, more than any politically engaged diatribe would.
While the political angle of this book is important, it, of course, is no longer as relevant as it was. What is important, though, are the descriptions of nature and landscape. I read and re-read those wanting to teleport myself to Ukraine in summer or spring. Sadly, here I am, in dreary London, where there was no summer for the last three years. When was the last time I spent a warm summer night by a campfire? When was the last time I smelled the forest early in the morning? When was the last time I ran through the fields escaping a sudden spring shower? When did I actually wade in a river?
Turgenev is right - non-hunters can envy hunters. I envy them the whole thing, bar the animal killing, as I don’t have any need for that. If you can go to some untamed countryside in a temperate climate, go. If you can’t, read Turgenev, it’s the next best thing. I don’t think there is any writer who can evoke a sense of place more gracefully than him. He also addresses the reader directly (although he does, of course, assume him to be a man), which is rather quaint and I wish more contemporary writers did that, other than in post-modernist experiments a la Calvino. I liked this book so much I also bought a Polish translation. I think Turgenev would read wonderfully in Polish.
All of the stories were beautifully written but as far as content goes, my favourite ones were Bezhin Lea and the Clatter of Wheels. Interestingly, they both take place during a summer night. Give me a summer night!
Or at least real spring. I’ll take spring.
"It's time, however, to finish. Appropriately I have mentioned the spring' in springtime it is easy to say goodbye, in the spring even the happy are enticed to far-off places... Farewell, my reader; I wish you lasting happiness and well-being."...more
The first confusion is the cover and the title. Almost monochromatic, some children and ‘Foster’ written across in big letters. I was ready to dismissThe first confusion is the cover and the title. Almost monochromatic, some children and ‘Foster’ written across in big letters. I was ready to dismiss it as another product of misery lit but before I turned away I noticed something about the ‘New Yorker’. As it turns out, Claire Keegan is an accomplished writer and ‘Foster’ appeared as a short story in the New Yorker before it appeared in a slightly expanded version as a stand-alone book. For a publisher to do something as reckless as to publish one short story in a separate book must mean it’s a true gem.
The second confusion are the Irishisms - ‘What way are you?’ – how that confused me at first before I figured out it’s just Irish for ‘how are you?’.
From then on I could just sit back, relax and enjoy this little thing. I remember I was reading it late at night, home alone, sprawled on the sofa, wondering if the rain would lull me to sleep before I finish reading.
Keegan’s writing is very delicate and unassuming. This book would step back and let me sleep if I needed to. It would then gently penetrate the periphery of my dreams. In one of the interviews Keegan said: "It's essentially about trusting in the reader's intelligence rather than labouring a point. To work on the level of suggestion is what I aim for in all my writing."
What we know of the story is what we fill the gaps with. A little girl is brought by her father to spend the summer with the Kinsellas on a farm. Only through her reactions we learn how different her life at home is to what she experiences with her temporary foster parents. It’s a different sort of farm and a different sort of parents. For those summer months she is the only child suddenly, valued, appreciated and cherished. Yet, there is no gut-wrenching drama (that the cover would imply). The most emotional moment for me was a scene at the beach where the girl was taken by her foster father. On the way back he is trying to retrace his steps but he can’t find his own footprints, only the girl’s. So he says
Poignant! I have been waiting a long time to use this word in a review. I really liked this collection and it comes as no surprise considering I am AtPoignant! I have been waiting a long time to use this word in a review. I really liked this collection and it comes as no surprise considering I am Atwood’s fangirl and have been for a long time. I feel everyone will something else to speak to them in these stories. Some people might like the descriptions of the changes in Toronto over decades. Some might find this mood of melancholy particularly moving.
To me it was the summer camps which play an important in two of the stories: True Trash and Death by Landscape. As a child who spent all her summers at various camps by forests and lakes this was something I could somehow relate to. In True Trash all the boys from the camp are fascinated by the waitresses who serve them food, they spy on them when they’re sunbathing and fantasise about the sort of things teenage boys are prone to fantasising about. It reminded me of one camp I went to many years ago. It was a camp ran by army people and our ‘waiters’ were 19 year old boys in uniforms who were doing their military service (obligatory in Poland back then). Essentially the camp was full of 14 year old city girls and 19 year old tanned farm boys with crew cuts and uniforms. I will leave you with that picture.
The most powerful story in the collection is undoubtedly the rather grisly ‘Hairball’, best emphasising the loss of trust which seems to be the theme of the collection. Although I did enjoy the whole book I felt that in some of the other stories Atwood was pulling her punches. I also liked her observations on class in the UK:
“She had an advantage over the English women, though: she was of no class. She had no class. She was in a class of her own. She could roll around among the English men, all different kinds of them, secure in the knowledge that she was not being measured against the class yardsticks and accent-detectors they carried around in their back pockets, was not subject to the petty snobberies and resentments that lent such richness to their inner lives.”
This woman amazes me. A psychopath is trying to kill her at least four times a day and all she can think of is sex?
If the world around you is about toThis woman amazes me. A psychopath is trying to kill her at least four times a day and all she can think of is sex?
If the world around you is about to explode, so that you have to hide yourself and your partner in a fireproof cabinet to survive, you think: ‘God, I don’t want to die’ and not ‘Damn, he’s got great abs.’ No wonder she is a bad policewoman, not only couldn’t she catch the killer, but she also needed constant saving.
Luckily Detective Tucker McDermott developed some bizarre obsession over her, so he always kept tabs on her, constantly checking whether she needed saving. It wasn’t love, of course. He was not interested in love. No commitment is better than commitment. Oh, silly, silly man. Doesn’t he know you can run away from a serial killer but you can never ever run away from true love?
Although I'd be wary, because as Sandra Bullock says in Speed 2 to explain the absence of Keanu Reeves: "Relationships based on extreme circumstances never work out."
This book was written in Galician but I read its Spanish translation. Now, Spanish is my third language, so God knows how much was lost in this game oThis book was written in Galician but I read its Spanish translation. Now, Spanish is my third language, so God knows how much was lost in this game of Chinese whispers but I will try to tell you what I gathered from it in English, my second language. Sometimes I couldn’t make any sense of it – it might be because of the aforementioned Chinese whispers or it might because it’s one of those intentionally confusing books with a very convoluted narrative.
The tagline for this book is: Can a pencil change the course of history?Which you will have to admit is one of the stupidest taglines you’ve ever read.
It of course focuses on the Spanish Civil War because the Spanish will not soon tire of writing about it now that they started. It’s all a patchwork of memories as recalled by different characters (often antagonists). It’s up to the reader to piece it all together but the pay-off isn’t all that. I think. I don’t remember. I read this book ages ago. Now it’s just a patchwork of impressions of a novel that wasn’t linear to begin with. Understand me here. I can tell you there was a love story, as there is always love story in books about war.
It’s apparently one of the best books in Galician and I don’t want to sound like an asshole but I can’t imagine there was much of a competition. But then, hey, other people think it was : “hugely moving, seductively readable, absolute triumph”, so you know, see for yourself.
You know what’s really interesting, though? This novel is extremely popular in Arab countries. Almost all GR reviews seem to be in Arabic. It seems like one of those ‘Big in Japan’ kind of phenomena.
Has there ever been a more perversely English book?
From the paragraphs meandering around and telling the reader what in the narrator’s humble opinion Has there ever been a more perversely English book?
From the paragraphs meandering around and telling the reader what in the narrator’s humble opinion makes a great butler to the descriptions of the unobtrusive beauty of the English countryside it somehow manages to be the saddest love story ever told. Also as my friend Lewis says: “it’s the best example of dramatic irony in contemporary literature.”
The narrator, Mr Stevens, is the ultimate tragic hero. He is so repressed that he doesn’t even know how to be honest with himself. His only identity is that of a butler and he had been wearing for so long that whatever personality he might have had is long gone. And morphing into his profession is what he twistedly defines as ‘dignity’ - the quality he admires most of all. And all we get are his monologues, monologues that frustrate us and depress us. This book should be unreadable, and yet it is a page turner. Not much happens, which is symptomatic to Mr Stevens’ life and yet this meticulous character study is so emotionally involving that even though I’m reviewing it a long time after finishing it, it is still very fresh in my mind and proves to me that those five stars I gave it were fully deserved.
All in all, it’s a cautionary tale – what if you wake up one day towards the end of your life and realise that you have wasted it, that all you believed to be good and true turned out to be a sham? Would you just plain deny it or would you just try to make the best of the remains of the day? ...more
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