tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46841238027149090432024-03-16T12:05:41.091+00:00Dave's Book BlogThis blog has lots of book reviews. I read biography, history books and fiction; I sometimes read other non-fiction book genres too. dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.comBlogger1619125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-14704678949682154482024-03-13T17:28:00.173+00:002024-03-16T12:05:08.185+00:00"How Green Was My Valley" by Richard Llewellyn<span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeEvAXR37o30RSLypgIKDI7i2BBSwne7ClR4haCtU2yBFNTcXC7GACYyRMf_MBu1Kh7GbX1L6uQF2Zg6fEHWKr3ZKB9fdWnR6SYUk6txn_CiFjIpzdW5HyIhDKNLyGo49NCjfqz8EO5gfL8p95xeNbX-WBGSU7lS0Bri08cPqU3Y4Kkxdn6BBzs1VJV2o/s1599/IMG-20220426-WA0000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="1599" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeEvAXR37o30RSLypgIKDI7i2BBSwne7ClR4haCtU2yBFNTcXC7GACYyRMf_MBu1Kh7GbX1L6uQF2Zg6fEHWKr3ZKB9fdWnR6SYUk6txn_CiFjIpzdW5HyIhDKNLyGo49NCjfqz8EO5gfL8p95xeNbX-WBGSU7lS0Bri08cPqU3Y4Kkxdn6BBzs1VJV2o/w400-h225/IMG-20220426-WA0000.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />When I was younger, I watched the 1976 BBC TV adaptation of this novel, starring Stanley Baker, Sian Phillips, and Nerys Hughes and loved it; I went on to read this book and the three sequels. But this is the first time I have reread the book.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Ii's a coming-of-age novel, a bildungsroman, in which young Huw Morgan grows up into a large Welsh mining family during the later part of the reign of Queen Victoria. The pay of the miners is being steadily eroded by the pit owners and the beautiful green hillsides of the valley are being covered with slag heaps; the river is becoming increasingly polluted and the slag is threatening the houses of the men. There are problems with the unions and there are strikes and children start dying after one strike drags on and on. The tensions threaten to divide Huw's father from his more militant sons. At the same time there are the pressures of the 'chapel' morality that exists in the valley. Huw objects vociferously when a young girl is shamed in chapel for becoming pregnant out of wedlock but shame seems to be one of the principal ways in which good behaviour is enforced within the family and the closed society. The day after Huw is beaten by a schoolmaster, two family friends, prize-fighters, invade the school and beat up the teacher with impunity; </span><span>Huw's father employs the prize-fighter to teach Huw how to box; later, </span><span>when Huw attacks a fellow pupil, breaking his jaw, he escapes prosecution. It seems that sexual morality is rigorously enforced but brute violence is encouraged. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The principal characters (Dada, Mama, Bronwen, Mr Gruffydd, and Huw himself) are carefully drawn, in their complexity, although they are always seen from the point of view of Huw, whose understanding develops as he grows. Other characters are more tangentially glimpsed: inevitable, I suppose, when Huw's own family is so large and when you add to that all those who marry into the family and the other villagers. Thus, I found it difficult to distinguish between the characters of Huw's brothers Ivan (the choirmaster), and Ianto and Davy (the union leaders), and Owen (the mechanic), and Gwilym who married the girl that Owen should have married, and while Angharad his sister has a key place to play, I was less certain about the personalities of Ceridwen and Huw's last sister seems to be forgotten almost as soon as she has been born.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">But the principal joy of the reading lies in the prose and the descriptions which are lyrical and original. Sometimes, however, the exuberance that is Huw's love for life got in the way of the narrative. For example, I couldn't quite pin down the moment that Huw broke his leg. Nor was I certain whether Ceinwen actually does get pregnant; Bronwen hints at this but it isn't made explicit and later Huw hints that he has no children, again without saying so clearly. It's great to be impressionistic, but I felt that some of these points were important for me to know.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It is never easy working out exactly how old Huw is at any moment in the narrative but he seems sexually innocent and naive for far too long, not knowing how babies are made even after witnessing a woman giving birth. He has scarcely learned the facts of life before he is having sex on the mountainside. The morality is a little inconsistent although I feel that is an accurate depiction of the quandary that is adolescence. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The strength of this book, which I suspect is what made it a best-seller in 1939 when it was first published (and a feature film in 1941), is the wonderful joie de vivre depicted in the descriptions of the taste of food and the beauty of the countryside (and the pleasure of sex). Llewellyn writes like a mixture of Dylan Thomas and Laurie Lee: the prose is lyrical and musical. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Reading group questions:</b><br /><br /> 1. What do you think of the character of Huw, the narrator? In what was is this a coming-of-age story? What are Huw’s positive and negative qualities?<br />2. What lessons does Huw learn from his father Gwilym? How does his father’s attitudes differ from those of his sons?<br />3. Discuss the ways in which justice is done in this valley community? How is it different from English justice seen more in the second half of the novel?<br />4. What do we learn about the social history of the South Wales valleys at the end of the 19 th and start of the 20 th centuries? What role does the chapel play in people’s lives? Does the realism ever get in the way of the story telling?<br />5. What do we learn of the National School? Why is Mr Jonas, the schoolmaster so nasty to Huw?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span>6. What do you make of the two most important women in Huw’s upbringing (leaving aside the life lessons taught him by Ceinwen)? How is his mother Beth portrayed? How like her is Bronwen, his sister-in-law?<br />7. How does the looming eco disaster mirror Huw’s growing up and loss of innocence? How do industrialisation and the actions of the mine owners change the lives of the valley’s people?<br />8. Why did Angharad fall ill and her hair turn white? What is her tragedy?<br />9. What are the beliefs of Mr Gruffydd the pastor? Why does he leave the valley?<br />10. Pick out a favourite character or incident or quotation to share with the group.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Selected quotes:</span></b></span><br /></span></div><ul><span style="font-size: large;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>There was never any talk while we were eating. ... And that way, I think, you will get more from your food, for I never met anybody whose talk was better than good food.</i>” (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>If I had not started to think things for myself and find things for myself, I might have had a happier life judged by ordinary standards, and perhaps I might have been more respected.</i>” (Ch 3)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>There must be some way to live your life in a decent manner, thinking and acting decently, and yet manage to make a good living.</i>” (Ch 3)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>It is a pity that real, well-meant tears cannot come with out the sounds that go with them. The scrapings in the throat, the fullness of spittle, the heavy breaths and halting, gulping sighs, are not fitted to be the servants of heart-felt grief.</i>” (Ch 5)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>He always said that God sent the water to wash our bodies and air to wash our minds.</i>” (Ch 5)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>All along the river, banks were showing scum from the colliery sump, and the buildings, all black and flat, were ugly to make a hurt in your chest.</i>” (Ch 5)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>There is a good dripping toast is by the fire in the evening. Good jelly dripping and crusty, home-baked bread, with the mealy savour of ripe wheat roundly in your mouth and under your teeth, roasted sweet and crisp and deep brown, and covered with little pockets where the dripping will hide and melt and shine in the light, deep down inside, ready to run when your teeth bite in.</i>” (Ch 5)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>It was then that I had thoughts about Christ, and I have never changed my mind. He did appear to me then as a man, and as a man I still think of him. ... If he had been a God, or any more son of God than any of us, then it is unfair to ask us to do what he did</i>.” (Ch 7)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The clock rocked away, seeming to get louder at every stroke, as though it were rowing time towards us, until I was wondering why it was never heard at other, ordinary, times.</i>” (Ch 8)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>There is a fright you will have to stand up before lines of faces that have become wet and shaky through the nervous water in your eyes. Your mouth is dry, with sand on the tongue and in the throat, so that your breath comes hot and sore with you. Then it is time to sing and you have forgotten the words. Each one has grown a wheel and rolls away from you down into the pit of Forgot.</i>” (Ch 10)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Beautiful was the valley this afternoon, until you turned your head to the right. Then you saw the two slag heaps.</i>” (Ch 11)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Foolish is the mind of man to make bogeys for itself and to live in terrors of fear for things which lack the substance of truth.</i>” (Ch 11)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>So we breathed, both of us on top of the mountain, while the mists went to purple and rose, and the sun burnt through and covered us both with warmth and came out across the Valley in such strength that we could not bear to look. So it may be, I think, when we meet God. But worse</i>.” (Ch 11)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>In the clerking jobs we were supposed to dress like princes on the money of a maggot.</i>” (Ch 12)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Hard it is to suffer through stupid people. They make you feel sorry for them, and if your sorrow is as great as your hurt, you will allow them to go free of punishment, for their eyes at the eyes of dogs that have done wrong and know it, and are afraid.</i>” (Ch 16)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The everyday things, those little jewels that stud the action of living, we're making themselves known. A blister on the heel, sweat about the neckband, a wrinkle in the stocking, were coming to mean more than the feelings brought forth by that which filled the little white coffin.</i>” (Ch 17)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>O, Brandy Broth is the King of Broth and royal in the rooms of the mouth. ... Drink down the liquor and raise your eyes to give praise for a mouth and a belly.</i>” (Ch 18)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i>“It is strange how you should hate the man, and yet pity him from the depths.</i>” (Ch 19)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>One night I heard a choir of a thousand voices singing in the darkness, and I thought I heard the voice of God. Then children began to die.</i>” (Ch 20) What a juxtaposition!</span></li><li>“<i>Poverty is not a virtue, any more than poverty of the spirit. Life is good, and full of goodness. Let them be enjoyed by all men.</i>” (Ch21)</li><li>“<i>I found a risen newness pillared in my middle, yet, for all its newness, so much a part of me that no surprise I had, but only a quick, sharp, clear glorying that rose to a shouting might of song in every part of me and drew tight the muscles of my body, and as the blood within me thudded through my singing veins, a goldness opened wide before me, and I knew I had become of Men, a Man.</i>” (Ch 24) Huw’s first erection.</li><li>“<i>There is good to see happy faces round a table full of good food. Indeed, for good sounds, I will put the song of knives and folks next to the song of man.</i>” (Ch 24)</li><li>“<i>No pig fits his skin better.</i>” (Ch 24)</li><li>“<i>What is there, in the mention of the Time To Come, that is so quick to wrench at the heart, to inflict a pain in the senses that is like the run of a sword, I wonder. Perhaps we feel our youngness taken from us with the soothe of sliding years, and the pains of age that come to stand unseen beside us and grow more solid as the minutes pass, are with us solid on the instant, and we sense them, but when we try to assess them, they are back in their place in Time To Come, ready to meet us coming. ... Sad, sad is the thought that we are in for a hiding in every round, and no chance to hit back, fighting blind against a champion of champions, who plays with you on the end of a poking left, and in the last round puts you down with a right cross to kill.</i>” (Ch 28)</li><li>“<i>The mouth reaches for newer fruit that seems to be near, but never to be tasted. The fingers are intent on searching to soft places, but the senses are too far from their tips and impatient of their fumblings. And at the middle, where the arrow steel is forged, there is a ruination of heat that seems to know, within itself, that coolness will come only in the hotter blood of woman. There is itch to find the pool, twisting to be free to search, momental miracles of rich anointments, sweet splendours of immersion, and an urgency of writhings to be nearer, and deeper, and closer. In that kissing of the bloods there is a crowding of sense, when breathing is forgotten, muscle turns to stone, and the spinal branch bends in the bowman's hand as the singing string is pulled to speed the arrow. ... Then the tight-drawn branch is weak, for the string has sung its song, and breath comes back to empty lungs and a trembling to the limbs. Your eyes see plainly. The trees are green, just the same as they were. No change has come. No bolts of fire. No angels with a flaming sword. Yet this it was that left the Garden to weeds. I had eaten of the Tree. Eve was still warm under me.</i>” (Ch 30) Huw loses his virginity.</li><li>“<i>I knew from the way she said it, without feeling, an opening of the mouth with one word after another on a string, all the same size and weight, that it was no use to ask why. A wasting of time.</i>” (Ch 31)</li><li>“<i>The air was a stink of blueness, sharp with the heat of bodies, and with the weight of puddled beer drying into boards that never knew soap and water, and soured with tobacco spit.</i>” (Ch 37)</li><li>“<i>Born in the image of God, they were, every one of them, and some loving woman having pains of the damned to bring them forth, to sit there with their mouths open, like calves under the net in the market-place.</i>” (Ch 37)</li><li>“<i>Big jaws he had, that seemed to come out of his chest without help of a neck.</i>” (Ch 37)</li><li>“<i>For please to tell me what is better to look at than a lovely woman, and I will come from my dinner to see.</i>” (Ch 40)</li><li>“<i>There is a wholeness about a woman, of shape, and sound, and colour, and taste, and smell, that you will want to hold tightly to you, all, every little bit, without words, in peace, with jealousy for the things that escape the clumsiness of your arms. So you feel, when you love.</i>” (Ch 41)</li></span></ul><span style="font-size: large;"><div>March 2024; 447 pages</div></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-aa94d329-7fff-f386-a43f-ca74409f2786"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/ZY-JMpsBEl2hlsvNF5WImFFVJNZpp17vMtQ8gIpgghGvKw2c4oPa6jrTasV_VH8bxwJZetrHPZIUfWDBY-p0cK1ZrbfdfyweskHcIwOt3bpOpe5zmL0EbRPztb5ZBM4-0C9Pq7Ov5ZDJTLAusE-3NQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-9121270859066674762024-03-12T08:35:00.001+00:002024-03-12T08:35:03.219+00:00"Plain Murder" by C S Forester<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifNrZr14NzdG0xo9VuPFauKQcfPJqHeIzMRhOXwk_QxWFdCSkuxGNXkNNieOA_QLraqbqMPXPu2pZdGpt6CnoHyzH2fbV76xw5aG7wef3LWY3HZ43-9qV8BTZRlNB2Sa4vgNtMp2u2Gu8ZqMTayq4C_Mn3JXYCB-sBvvZz1eysuJSuL75GML4urxeSPYMh/s1600/Thames%20walk%202008024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifNrZr14NzdG0xo9VuPFauKQcfPJqHeIzMRhOXwk_QxWFdCSkuxGNXkNNieOA_QLraqbqMPXPu2pZdGpt6CnoHyzH2fbV76xw5aG7wef3LWY3HZ43-9qV8BTZRlNB2Sa4vgNtMp2u2Gu8ZqMTayq4C_Mn3JXYCB-sBvvZz1eysuJSuL75GML4urxeSPYMh/w400-h300/Thames%20walk%202008024.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> Forester is more famous for writing the 'Hornblower' novels, about an officer in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars, and for writing the novel that inspired the film The African Queen. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Less well-known is his exploits as a crime novelist.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This book isn't a whodunnit. There is no mystery about who committed the murder. Rather, it is a psychological portrait of the murderer. His victim is a work colleague. The murder itself is easy, the problems start in its aftermath as he struggles to keep himself safe from detection. It's a delightfully unusual take on the genre and is well-written and full of psychological insight. I also liked the way it was set in a very ordinary world and told of the mundane and sometimes joyless existences of those who worked in a small advertising agency and the domestic life of the murderer. It felt very real.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was easy to read and kept me turning the pages: I read it in three sittings during the same day.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Morris with his scowling brow, his woolly hair horrid with grease, his eyelid drooping and his mouth pulled to one side to keep the cigarette smoke out of his eyes.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Morris had that disproportionate sense of the importance of his own well-being as compared with other people's which is one-half of the equipment of the deliberate murderer.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Morris devising a murder was in the same lofty. superhuman state of mind as is a poet in the full current of composition. Thoughts poured through his brain in clear. rushing streams.</i>" (Ch 1) A very early description of the psychological state later known as '<i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2016/08/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html" target="_blank">Flow</a></i>'. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>We've got no more chance of getting it than - than we have of getting hell's advertising when hell sets up as a winter resort.</i>" (Ch 6)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The main characteristic of the crime of which Morris was guilty is its tendency to reproduce itself. A second murder will occur no additional penalty if the first is to be discovered, so that fear of punishment does not act as a deterrent. Fear of discovery is very largely overridden by the knowledge of previous success, and any natural repugnance the criminal may feel towards the taking of human life is largely blunted by the time he begins to consider the repetition of the crime.</i>" (Ch 13)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>She was too busy looking about her for all the actresses - and worse - who are notoriously accustomed to living in Maidenhead</i>." (Ch 20)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A well-structured, beautifully written and entertaining crime novel written from an unusual angle. Well worth reading</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">March 2024; 188 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-bb93b055-7fff-c337-7c99-8491b3953f35"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/Klui4CTpuhuCF6gjSsyJc71WBgr0O7bLxLvXFqulIMI4z1GdR3g-NtXBT1X5y77y42PfIGcwZnJ-zstthyubI52DDAKtDfhMwLc6I7dSK63FMnA9JMuJmWAh2JyyCxDGsmXevDKbjMlpgyZdNLJnww" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-46868824302895191132024-03-09T10:12:00.004+00:002024-03-09T10:12:36.761+00:00"Poor Things" by Alasdair Gray<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEAeyLZ_3KMMnDFb_KbgBNKIEQEv3PlB6LtM-sEG7pR_QdJziqB17asZzw2L-ZhU7Su-k8ll8WVz_vLjIu9AZmQ1aq12_m9BoNJ62BWCrljI4W4DcKuAv8l-EJdEBtBtBVcNCblK3S-y84qYyOrcdLZbFSgdNhuzqJDYaOohlMvQngRznUJxLOXehMGFwD/s4128/20231223_134608.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4128" data-original-width="3096" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEAeyLZ_3KMMnDFb_KbgBNKIEQEv3PlB6LtM-sEG7pR_QdJziqB17asZzw2L-ZhU7Su-k8ll8WVz_vLjIu9AZmQ1aq12_m9BoNJ62BWCrljI4W4DcKuAv8l-EJdEBtBtBVcNCblK3S-y84qYyOrcdLZbFSgdNhuzqJDYaOohlMvQngRznUJxLOXehMGFwD/w300-h400/20231223_134608.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">Winner of the <a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/p/costa-award.html" target="_blank">Whitbread Novel Award</a> and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1992.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">This is a charmingly bizarre feminist version of Frankenstein which begins in Victorian Glasgow.<br /></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><b>It’s Gothic metafiction</b><br />Gray delights to play with literary form. <br /><br />For example, in his earlier novel <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/03/lanark-by-alasdair-gray.html" target="_blank">Lanark</a></i>, Book 3 comes at the start, and in the Epilogue, placed within Book 4, there is a discussion about the plot between the author and the protagonist, there are footnotes, and there is an 'Index of Plagiarisms' directing the reader's attention to the literary sources of the novel. <br /><br /><i>Poor Things</i> starts with an Introduction by the author in which he defends the truth of the subsequent material with ‘Michael Donnelly’, who considers it fiction. The bulk of the book consists of a narrative by McCandless which incorporates source material such as Wedderburn’s confessions and Bella’s letters, followed by a testament by Victoria McCandless which contradicts the story by McCandless, followed by chapter notes and a critical evaluation by the author. As well as the main sections of the book, many of the details, such as Baxter’s physical appearance, are introduced to the reader in a piecemeal way. Thus any such story as the reader can find has been put together from sometimes contradictory parts, which seems to be a metaliterary version of the Frankenstein story.<br /><br /><b>It’s a modern, and feminist, version of <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2020/04/frankenstein-by-mary-shelley.html" target="_blank">Frankenstein</a></i></b><br />The bulk of the narrative, by McCandless, tells us that Bella has been created by super-surgeon Baxter from the body of a drowned woman and the brain of her unborn baby. <br /><br />Dr Godwin Bysshe Baxter is known to Bella, his creation, as God. The Bysshe was part of Shelley's name and Shelley was the husband of Mary Shelley nee Wolstonecraft who wrote Frankenstein. <br /><br />The twist is that Bella is beautiful (though Godwin is incredibly ugly) and that Bella has a strong lustful desire for a sexual partner (as Frankenstein's monster wanted a partner).<br /><br />Bella emerges as an intelligent woman with a strong character. She has an almost insatiable desire for cuddles and sometimes for wedding (her name for sex) and this is interpreted by the men around her as nymphomania to the extent that one of them wants her to have a clitoridectomy. Apart from Bella, a housekeeper and the madam of a French brothel, almost all the people around her are men and, apart from God(win) who wants to empower her with free will, they all want to control her, usually by marrying her. <br /><br />Bella is a young mind in a mature body, much like a typical adolescent, and her early adventures in the world involve enjoyment, often sexual. But an encounter with abject poverty makes her, like the Buddha, renounce her pleasure-seeking life and seek to serve people. Her later life, as Victoria, is as a socialist doctor and controversial pioneer of birth control.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">One of the delights of the book is the way it shows Bella maturing through her dialogue. Here is an example of her childish talk: “<i>Sit on that bench, God. I am taking Candle for a walk saunter stroll dawdle trot canter short gallop and circum-ambu-lation. Poor old God. Without Bella you will grow glum glummer glummest until just when you think I am forever lost crash bang wallop, out I pop from behind that holly bush.</i>” (Episodes 7)<br /><br /><b>The film</b><br />Poor Things has been turned into <a href="https://daja57.blogspot.com/2024/01/poor-things-movie-review.html" target="_blank">a film of the same name</a>. Although some things had to be changed (we see Baxter all at once, for example) and the film delights in adding steam-punk settings in discordant technicolour after the initial, mostly black and white, part set in Glasgow, the fundamentals of the story are maintained. It isn’t metacinematic, though.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Selected Quotes:</span></b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Morbid anatomy is essential to training and research, but leads many doctors into thinking that life is an agitation in something essentially dead. ... But a portrait painter does not learn his art by scraping layers of varnish from a Rembrandt, then slicing off the impasto, dissolving the ground and finally separating the fibres of the canvas.</i>” (Episodes 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The big dogs lay somnolent on a hearth-rug, their chin's cushioned on each other's flanks. Three cats sat as far apart as possible on the backs of the highest chairs, each pretending not to see the rest but all twitching if one of them moved.</i>” (Episodes 4)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Bed bugs too must have their unique visions of the world.</i>” (Making a Conscience 14)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Punch says only lazy people are out of work so the very poorest must enjoy being poor. They also have the consolation of being comic.</i>” (Episodes 15)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Natives ... are people who live on the soil where they were born, and do not want to leave it. Not many English can be regarded as natives because we have a romantic preference for other people's soils.</i>” (Episodes 15)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Prosperous parents tell their children that nobody should lie, steal or kill, and that idleness and gambling are vices. They then send them to schools where they suffer if they do not disguise their thoughts and feelings and are taught to admire killers and stealers like Achilles and Ulysses, William the Conqueror and Henry the Eighth. This prepares them for life in a land where rich people use acts of parliament to deprive the poor of homes and livelihoods.</i>” (Episodes 16)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>He told me that a clean, unexpected flesh wound, however painful, was a flea bite to one who had been educated at Eton.</i>” (Episodes 17)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">In Chapter 17 the madam of the Notre-Dame (a brothel) tells apprentice prostitute Bella: “<i>This Wedderburn is obviously an oversucked orange. You will be a far better wife to your husband if you now enjoy some variety.</i>” But in chapter eighteen, Bella contradicts this: “<i>I will not be a better wife because of the variety enjoyed in the Notre-Dame, unless it pleases him to see me lying flat murmuring ‘Formidable’ in a variety of astonished tones.</i>”</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>I hate military training, of course. The sight of young men marching in regular rows, each imitating the stiff movements of a clockwork doll while their movements are controlled by a single screaming sergeant - that sight sickens me even more than the sight of young women in a musical-hall chorus-row, kicking up their heels in unison.</i>” (A Letter to Posterity) Not sure here about the repetitions of both ‘movements’ and ‘row’.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">She also hates “<i>sham-gothic</i>” structures such as St Pancras Station: because “<i>Their useless over-ornamentation was paid for out of needlessly high profits: profits squeezed from the stunted lives of children, women and men working twelve hours a day, six days a week in needlessly filthy factories.</i>” (A Letter to Posterity)</span></li></ul>Delightfully off the wall. <br /><br />March 2024, 317 pages</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ce14ef2a-7fff-0c08-744a-e8726198ab74"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/LbZcLMFd_0Fj4kaUvDvl6Ss3p9yqhk2gepxmlyVJdKjbm2Mh61hH5028GZsNgg4hGjo9E1m1YcMdKarm5dZoUJa8LYeEHVk_f7aT3BOKv6zf-oNxAd4Krbo-5IILwiENF9E-TEJZ7q4-F5xaHV3R8Q" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></span></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-22151189151219372362024-03-05T09:03:00.003+00:002024-03-05T09:03:45.044+00:00"Sherlock Holmes & The Christmas Demon" by James Lovegrove<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3n0-4t92qpykyeD157xPwiSR1yDZqlRM4W5OrJH4kM9DG2xIwIqUJjZhxSizLb2Y6oReVCTV_IVIO1128FpGilGgzJodcbq4y5Tchy6VJUix_pjH3rlTF1W2hxpAkWgqoZORYqIsCpMjjExWTKkrWU7qD95oVfxFo2hL8VSE7uaQcADkCuMt5CyPYmdPs/s1600/Picture%20080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3n0-4t92qpykyeD157xPwiSR1yDZqlRM4W5OrJH4kM9DG2xIwIqUJjZhxSizLb2Y6oReVCTV_IVIO1128FpGilGgzJodcbq4y5Tchy6VJUix_pjH3rlTF1W2hxpAkWgqoZORYqIsCpMjjExWTKkrWU7qD95oVfxFo2hL8VSE7uaQcADkCuMt5CyPYmdPs/w400-h300/Picture%20080.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p></p><span style="font-size: large;">This novel is an entertaining mash-up of Radciffean Gothic complete with the usual tropes of a castle with uninhabited rooms and a cellar, a damsel in distress, on the edge of madness, a dastardly villain and a Byronically wayward son, a family legend and, of course, the (eventually explained) supernatural with a Sherlock Holmes murder mystery. </span><p><span style="font-size: large;">All the classic Sherlockian moments are there including some wonderfully Victorian phraseology, the delightful misunderstandings of the stalwart Dr Watson and Sherlock's eclectic learning and incredible powers of observation, although the reader is given a fair chance of cracking the puzzle (I did!) which is often frustratingly absent in the Conan Doyle originals. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was quick and easy to read: I completed it in two sittings. It's perfectly paced with a murder happening almost exactly at the half-way turning-point. Clues and red herrings are carefully scattered and there is opportunity for Watson to use his "<i>service revolver</i>"! An enjoyable and well-written tribute to the great detective, and the incomparable Mrs Radcliffe.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There is one moment of description which impressed me with its careful and precise accuracy: </span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>What can I say about the long, cold watch? Shall I mention how the frigid air seemed to seep through my muscles into my bones and made them ache? Shall I relate how the silence filled my ears as though it had actual substance? Shall I talk about the continual, stealthy shifting of feet and wriggling of fingers that was required in order not to lose all sensation in my extremities? What about the way that time, as though made torpid by the cold, crawled by?</i>" (Ch 26) </span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My other four favourite moments are all tongue-in-cheek examples of Watson as the genial, slightly pompous bumbler, at least in comparison to the superhuman if immensely arrogant Holmes:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>'You have a way with a proverb, old friend, as befits a wordsmith of your calibre.' Compliment? Or not? With Sherlock Holmes it was sometimes hard to tell."</i> (Ch 7)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Watson, you have done it again! In your chronicles of my exploits you often paint yourself as something of a dunderhead, but that does you a disservice.</i>" (Ch 10)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It behoved me, as an author, to look for my own work amongst the multitude, but a cursory inspection turned up nothing. I consoled myself with the thought that my literary career was still in its infancy.</i>" (Ch 18)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A touch louder, old fellow. I don't think the entire castle heard you.</i>" (Ch 19)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">March 2024; 372 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-999c4b87-7fff-1eff-d72f-82671e688066"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/ZQBbicx0OheZLu8Q6br-yJW_9YWrdkSvmTQwh4hQxPbMtDyZqrqVqXoWRtqsaqgqIpjaZZuWQUJVPAC5oA_JCd_DAqfJHD8vOZ8Fjyod7u9jhtWquh1W8H2BaJC7F0U66rbnTI17VnzWT4n7b-Isuw" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><br /></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-76660713727713753112024-03-03T12:05:00.001+00:002024-03-03T12:06:26.775+00:00"Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders" by Nathen Amin<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBdTF47Hy4DubeReYlYzwGnEO3z5FTlcHcJ2q47zOGHZapKuTjZPXsZ9f_pBp_pbavkp71LOOUDMPu6Lw-yvlPt_DpexFxkkr2ilSdwwl7nYnk9dPXFw84HFiFkznEICX-cpeaPJwRkeRIB1_ug28CQBnxo6wXjNBBza2n5oRuKO98GH65hc3aSvCPvxdA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="1215" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBdTF47Hy4DubeReYlYzwGnEO3z5FTlcHcJ2q47zOGHZapKuTjZPXsZ9f_pBp_pbavkp71LOOUDMPu6Lw-yvlPt_DpexFxkkr2ilSdwwl7nYnk9dPXFw84HFiFkznEICX-cpeaPJwRkeRIB1_ug28CQBnxo6wXjNBBza2n5oRuKO98GH65hc3aSvCPvxdA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> <span>Henry Tudor, whose claim to the throne of England was tenuous, spent most of his early life in exile in Brittany and France before landing in England and, within three weeks, overcoming the superior forces of King Richard III to become King Henry VII. Not surprisingly, he never felt perfectly secure on his throne. Conspiracies throughout his reign endeavoured to topple him. Three of the most famous are those of Lambert Simnel, Perkin Warbeck, and Edward, Earl of Essex.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Lambert Simnel was probably the son of a joiner, or organ-maker from Oxford who was taken to Ireland when he was ten years old where he was proclaimed to be Edward, Duke of Warwick, son of George, Duke of Clarence (the brother of Edward IV and Richard III whose rebellious activities during Ed IV's reign got him killed in the Tower) despite the fact that Edward was still alive and living in captivity in the Tower of London (and despite the fact that Clarence had been attaindered following his rebellion so that his son had no legitimate claim on the throne). Little Lambert was crowned in Dublin Cathedral and then brought back to England with an army of Irish and mercenaries which was slaughtered at Stoke Field near Newark. Lambert himself was captured, confessed, and given a job as a turnspit in the royal kitchens; he later became a falconer. The priest who allegedly groomed young Lambert is a rather mysterious character whose confession is recorded but who seems to have had no independent existence either before or afterwards.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Perkin Warbeck lasted longer. A native of Tournois he travelled, via Portugal, to Ireland. He was a good-looking lad and supposedly the spitting image of Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower, sons of Edward IV, who, it was said, had somehow escaped captivity although his older brother had been murdered. Claiming to be Richard IV, he gained support at the court of the French King Charles VIII and, after Charles had signed a peace treaty with Edward IV, the Burgundian court, before trying to land at Deal in Kent (the advance troops were massacred by locals) and then going, via Ireland, to James IV in Scotland where he got married and accompanied James IV on a border raid towards Berwick but getting cold feet and fleeing back to Edinburgh. He then attempted a landing in Cornwall and mustered rebels, getting as far as Taunton before again fleeing. He surrendered at Beaulieu Abbey and was kept under guard in Henry VII's court before again escaping and being recaptured and flung into the Tower before yet another conspiracy attempted to spring both him and Edward, Earl of Warwick (the real son of Clarence) which got them both executed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This history focuses on these (and other) plots against Henry VII. There are lots of other details about him and his reign but they are not necessarily in chronological order nor are they very detailed so if you want to learn about him, go elsewhere. But it is well written and a good read and as informative as it can be given the scarcity of reliable sources. It even-handedly considers the possibility that the claimants were genuine rather than imposters. For example, Amin points out the the huge amount of detail in Warbeck's account of his early life compared to the vagueness of his account of how he escaped from the Tower probably means that he was an imposter but could be seen as a well-written but fictional 'manufactured' confession and the fact that it contains discrepancies with other sources could be explained by the vagueness of the times (eg over names) but might suggest fabrication. On the whole, though, he comes down on the 'imposter' side: </span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>This is perhaps the clearest indication of Henry VII’s certainty that Warbeck was not Richard of York, for is there was any doubt in the king’s mind that a legitimate rival to his throne still lived, his death would have been arranged ... by overturning Titulus Regis, the act Richard III passed who de-legitimised Elizabeth of York ... Henry had also re-legitimised her brothers.</i>” (Ch 15)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>If there is any one indication that Henry VII believed Warbeck and Simnel to be the imposters he claimed they were, then it is in the stark difference between his treatment of them and his treatment of the unfortunate Warwick - confined deep in the Tower, out of sight.</i>” (Ch 16)</span></li></ul><p></p><div><span style="font-size: large;">But the whole of this history is delightfully murky. For those like me, who are sceptical that Richard III murdered the Princes in the Tower (there is evidence to suggest that it might have been Henry VII), the widespread acceptance of the claims of Simnel and Warbeck suggests that some people, aristocrats as well as commoners, did not believe that the Princes in the Tower were dead. And the idea that a ten year old or a handsome Fleming lad could be touted as possible kings is delightfully romantic.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Good fun. March 2024; 344 pages</span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-261b4f77-7fff-2a83-1206-b134fb812b64"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/PtOpOMr4iSO6HFqM3VnFsjv8SXHWQxCxLZBwEGPGs9sqVLIg78jDKlYblVU0bxqYnCvbBAKfaQqsnWinNVqs6ZF7ZmrDVTrVVuX1io-tnUud0BY9wBlb8SRJyyV3LVZPITiB4Gaf2Ss_1k4fC0qUaQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-14421021902872093632024-02-29T10:00:00.003+00:002024-02-29T10:01:20.479+00:00"Uncle Vanya" by Anton Chekhov<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbPidfw8LNYjvAvL3ugRxmXhQyBOykhjxp2Ww-hYYmNmp0hZXOVf3Ulgwh26HUALqAhfHBFatOTnDeRz3_2BrIAK9P2BqdVtUOELOgT83BA1rvQJgObGshKyDd8ZpWPTni9VLCQ7y5XdxIDHBhxHyxNlOoDcdtSezsYvXCdAtVKAeLzgZiDSmaOgElxmOL/s1600/40600044.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbPidfw8LNYjvAvL3ugRxmXhQyBOykhjxp2Ww-hYYmNmp0hZXOVf3Ulgwh26HUALqAhfHBFatOTnDeRz3_2BrIAK9P2BqdVtUOELOgT83BA1rvQJgObGshKyDd8ZpWPTni9VLCQ7y5XdxIDHBhxHyxNlOoDcdtSezsYvXCdAtVKAeLzgZiDSmaOgElxmOL/w400-h300/40600044.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"> I saw '<a href="https://daja57.blogspot.com/2024/02/uncle-vanya-theatre-review.html" target="_blank">Vanya</a>', the one-man (Andrew Scott) version of this classic play, produced by the National Theatre, when it was streamed to cinemas on 22nd February 2024. I felt at the time that it was a superb showcase for Andrew Scott but that I needed to read the script and to see a more conventional production to be able to understand why it is regarded as one of the plays that made Chekhov's reputation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is typical Chekhov in that it revolves around a group of upper-class people whose lives seem to have no meaning. The estate supports Alexandre Serebriakov, a professor, who has spent most of his life as an absentee landlord, using the income from the estate to pursue his academic career. He came into possession of the estate through his first marriage and technically it belongs to Sonia, his daughter by that first marriage. He has now retired to the estate with his new wife, Yeliena, who is much younger than him. Ivan 'Vanya' Voinitsky is Sonia's uncle; it was his father who originally owned the estate and he gave up his share of the inheritance in order to help Serebriakov; he now runs the estate with the help of Sonia and Ilyia 'Waffles' Teleyghin, an impoverished hanger-on whose family originally owned the estate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Other characters include Sonia's old nanny Marina and Mikhail Astrov, a local doctor.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Both Vanya and the doctor are in love with Yeliena, who loves her husband. Sonia is hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with the doctor.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's always difficult judging a play just from the script, especially when you are relying on a translation. But here goes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is constructed from four acts, each of a single scene. The first two acts set the scene. The play really comes alive in act three when Vanya discovers the doctor and Yeliena kissing, we discover Alexandre's plans, and a gun is fired. I felt that this came rather late in the play and would have been more appropriate in the middle, especially just before the interval. The final act deals with the aftermath which seems to be that everyone will return to the status quo before the start of the play. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There were several moments which seemed to be clumsy ways of giving the audience information. For example, in the first few lines the doctor says: "<i>By the way, Nanny, how many years is it we've known each other?</i>" Later in the same act Vanya has a long speech in which he tells the audience about Professor Serebriakov's career. Later the nurse tells Serebriakov about "<i>Vera Petrovna, Soniecheka's mother</i>" which seems ludicrous given that Serebriakov was Vera's husband and is Soniechka's father, facts of which he is well aware. Clearly there is a problem for a playwright in having to impart information to the audience which the characters already know but these moments stood out as maladroit.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was surprised by what seemed to be the 'green' message of the play. The doctor is a tree-planter and an ecofreak who gives a mini-lecture on the disappearing forests of the locality: "<i>The Russian forests are literally groaning under the axe, millions of trees are being destroyed, the homes of animals and birds are being laid waste, the rivers are getting shallow and drying up, wonderful scenery is disappearing.</i>" (Act One) But I suspect that Chekhov, rather than propagandising in favour of sustainability, is in fact using the decline of the forests as a metaphor for what he sees as the pointless worsening of life because the doctor later goes on to say: "<i>You may say that ... the old way of life naturally had to give place to the new ... and I would agree - if on the site of these ruined forests there were now roads and railways, if there were workshops, and factories, and schools. Then the people would have been healthier, better off, and better educated - but there's nothing of the sort here. There are still the same swamps and mosquitoes, the same absence of roads, and the dire poverty, and typhus, and diphtheria, and fires. Here we have a picture of decay due to an insupportable struggle for existence, it is decay caused by inertia, by ignorance, by utter irresponsibility. ... Already practically everything has been destroyed, but nothing has been created to take its place.</i>" (Act Three)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The overall message of the play is hopelessness. Not only is there the doctor's ecological despair. There are the lovers. Naturally, no-one is in love with someone who loves them back. The ending of the play brings us back to where we were before it started. Vanya says, in Act Two: "<i>Day and night I feel suffocated by the thought that my life has been irretrievably lost. I have no past - it has all been stupidly wasted on trifles - while the present is awful because it's so meaningless.</i>" And, in Act Four, in the final speech of the play, Sonia says: "<i>We shall go on living, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through a long succession of days and tedious evenings. We shall patiently suffer the trials which Fate imposes on us; we shall work for others, now and in our old age, and we shall have no rest. When our time comes we shall die submissively, and over there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we've suffered, that we've wept, that we've had a bitter life, and God will take pity on us.</i>" I think she thinks that will be a happy ending!</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes: </b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>You were young and handsome then, but you've aged now. And you're not as good-looking as you were.</i>" (Act One)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Ignorance is better ... At least there's some hope</i>." (Act Three)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 62 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-10a402fa-7fff-472f-0862-1b4a9e7731fb"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/fNHHYCTMd35Kay5xAKXElh5RyeIHUq7pwht8LtzoJQh-4a3Z54VmNePYKS3vxJkEeOq_Ps6LTCuDkAgBeOf9cTpqdD61ljL9GvJ01qHQxg7XsXBWZkANLtZP-LAxAfqTuz3ff7-kuv5-slBvo3Ui5g" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-54374976836746686302024-02-28T10:02:00.006+00:002024-03-04T12:25:21.256+00:00"Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsfaSD4BX8RwQdxdhCh3uY4wV8sF8_6XbbrZSjviSs8bQz9Sv1QMD9zjYu9rxMzyKdueaM60SSicJSns6hDgAzwEE7YQdpjnMHJrwPSmciuJ1EuMiNY0i4gFCIftKSfNjCydxxVsiv4lV044-dYNWYq4oKbFtG98DKB1JgUh1JpKvdLjBwvDPacYugvxIE/s1600/New%20York%202008034.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsfaSD4BX8RwQdxdhCh3uY4wV8sF8_6XbbrZSjviSs8bQz9Sv1QMD9zjYu9rxMzyKdueaM60SSicJSns6hDgAzwEE7YQdpjnMHJrwPSmciuJ1EuMiNY0i4gFCIftKSfNjCydxxVsiv4lV044-dYNWYq4oKbFtG98DKB1JgUh1JpKvdLjBwvDPacYugvxIE/w400-h300/New%20York%202008034.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Winner of the US National Book Award in 2009. My book group voted unanimously that this was a hit.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Based on a true story, as they say. On the morning of 7th August 1974 (the day before President Richard Nixon announced that he would resign because of the Watergate scandal), Philippe Petit performed an illegal tightrope walk on a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. This novel tells the linked stories of a number of New Yorkers: mother and daughter prostitutes Tilly and Jazzlyn, Corrigan, a monk-in-the-world, bereaved mother Claire, her husband Judge Solomon and her friend Gloria, and Lara, a drug-taking artist. And the walker himself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The chronology is non-linear and it took me a long time before I understood that all these individual narratives are linked not only by the tightrope walk but also intimately to one another. But this isn't a book in which the plot is centre-stage. This is much more about a slow exploration of the characters and their relationships with one another, and building this up into a portrait of New York in 1974 in all its beauty and its ugliness.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Corrigan is most important character who doesn't narrate; what we learn of him comes mostly from his brother, Cieran. Following the abandonment of the family by his father, Corrigan becomes a very religious boy who loves to hang out with the homeless, drinking with the down-and-outs. He </span><span>reminded me very much of Sally Trench, author of the memoir </span><i>Bury Me In My Boots. </i><span>Having travelled from Dublin to New York, he becomes a friend of prostitutes, allowing them to urinate in the bathroom in his flat. He is a fascinating portrait of a modern-day St Francis. His scarcely-understanding brother says: </span><span>"<i>I recalled the myth that I had once heard as a university student - thir</i></span><span><i>ty six hidden saints in the world, all of them doing the work of humble men, carpenters, cobblers, shepherds. They bore the sorrows of the earth and they had a line of communication with God, all except one, the hidden saint, who was forgotten.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(All Respects to Heaven, I Like It Here)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Another key character is Claire whose privileged world, living in an art-strewn penthouse apartment overlooking Center Park, is destroyed by the death of her only son in Vietnam. The depth of her sorrow hollowed me out. Colum McCann deserved awards just for this gut-wrenching portrayal of grief: </span><span>"<i>Death by drowning, death by snakebite, </i></span><i><span>death by mortar, </span><span>death by bullet wound, </span><span>death by </span><span>wooden stake, </span><span>death by </span><span>tunnel rat,</span><span> </span><span>death by bazooka, </span><span>death by poison arrow, </span><span>death by pipe bomb, </span><span>death by piranha, </span><span>death by food poisoning, </span><span>death by Kalashnikov, </span><span>death by RPG, </span><span>death by best friend, </span><span>death by syphilis, </span><span>death by sorrow, </span><span>death by hypothermia, </span><span>death by quicksand, </span><span>death by tracer, </span><span>death by thrombosis, </span><span>death by water torture, </span><span>death by trip wire, </span><span>death by pool cue, </span><span>death by Russian roulette, </span><span>death by punji trap, </span><span>death by opiate, </span><span>death by machete, </span><span>death by motorbike, </span><span>death by firing squad, </span><span>death by gangrene, </span><span>death by footsore, </span><span>death by palsy, </span><span>death by memory loss, </span><span>death by claymore, </span><span>death by scorpion, </span><span>death by crack-up, </span><span>death by Agent orange, </span><span>death by rent boy, </span><span>death by harpoon, </span><span>death by nightstick, </span><span>death by immolation, </span><span>death by crocodile, </span><span>death by electrocution, </span><span>death by mercury, </span><span>death by strangulation, </span><span>death by b</span><span>owie knife, </span><span>death by </span><span>mescaline </span><span>death by mushroom, </span><span>death by lysergic acid, </span><span>death by jeep smash, </span><span>death by grenade trap, </span><span>death by boredom, </span><span>death by heartache, </span><span>death by sniper, </span><span>death by paper cuts, </span><span>death by whoreknife, </span><span>death by poker game, </span><span>death by numbers, </span><span>death by bureaucracy, </span><span>death by carelessness, </span><span>death by delay, </span><span>death by avoidance, </span><span>death by mathematics, </span><span>death by carbon copy, </span><span>death by eraser, </span><span>death by filing error, </span><span>death by penstroke, </span><span>death by suppression, </span><span>death by authority, </span><span>death by isolation, </span><span>death by incarceration, </span><span>death by fratricide, </span><span>death by suicide, </span><span>death by genocide, </span><span>death by Kennedy, </span><span>death by LBJ, </span><span>death by Nixon, </span><span>death by Kissinger, </span><span>death by Uncle Sam, </span><span>death by Charlie, </span><span>death by signature, </span><span>death by silence, </span></i><span><i>death by natural causes.</i>"</span><span> </span><span>(1: Miro, Miro, on the Wall) I don't normally enjoy what seems to be a common practice in American writing of offering lists. The book begins: </span>"<i>Those who saw him hushed. On Church Street. Liberty. Cortlandt. West Street. Fulton. Vesey.</i>" I don't think this list of streets adds anything; if its objective is to anchor the narrative in verisimilitude, it doesn't. But the list of deaths ... Wow!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected Quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A flying chocolate wrapper touched against a fire hydrant. Taxi doors slammed. Bits of trash sparred in the darkest reaches of the alleyways. ... Revolving doors pushed quarters of conversation out into the street.</i>" (Those who saw him hushed)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>She turned at the door and smiled. 'There'll be lawyers in heaven before you see somethin' so good again'.</i>" (1: All Respects to Heaven, I Like It Here)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>When you're young, God sweeps you up. He holds you there, The real snag is to stay there and to know how to fall. All those days when you can't hold on any longer. When you tumble. The test is being able to climb up again.</i>" </span>(1: All Respects to Heaven, I Like It Here) </span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>I recalled the myth that I had once heard as a university student - thir</i></span><span><i>ty six hidden saints in the world, all of them doing the work of humble men, carpenters, cobblers, shepherds. They bore the sorrows of the earth and they had a line of communication with God, all except one, the hidden saint, who was forgotten.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(1: All Respects to Heaven, I Like It Here) Lots of tightrope-walking imagery although, of course, when you perform between the Twin Towers without a safety line you're never going to get up after you fall. The tightrope-walker is described elsewhere as an angel, or perhaps a demon, and Lucifer was the angel who fell to earth. There's also a mention of Dante and </span>Jigsaw, a pimp, is buried in Potter's Field, which is a burial ground for paupers and the unknown, so named because in the Bible a Potter's Field was purchased to be a burial ground with the money that Judas had accepted for betraying Christ.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>Nothing holy is free.</i>"</span><span> </span><span>(1: All Respects to Heaven, I Like It Here)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>Pain's nothing. Pain's what you give, not what you get." </i></span><span><i>"I recalled the myth that I had once heard as a university student - thir</i></span><span><i>ty six hidden saints in the world, all of them doing the work of humble men, carpenters, cobblers, shepherds. They bore the sorrows of the earth and they had a line of communication with God, all except one, the hidden saint, who was forgotten.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(1: All Respects to Heaven, I Like It Here)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The overexamined life, Claire, it's not worth living.</i>" (1: Miro, Miro, on the Wall) A clever version of the maxim attributed to Socrates: that the unexamined life is not worth living.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>He calls me his little honeybee sometimes. It started from an argument when he called me a WASP.</i>" </span><span>(1: Miro, Miro, on the Wall)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>If you stand in the same river for too long, even the banks will trickle past you.</i>" (A Fear of Love)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>A row of smokers stood out in front of Metropolitan Hospital ... Each looked like his last cigarette, ashen and ready to fall.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(1: A Fear of Love)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>It was the type of hospital that looked like it needed a hospital.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(1: A Fear of Love)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"BEAUTY IS IN THE WALLET OF THE BEHOLDER"<span> </span><span>(1: A Fear of Love)</span> </span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>Coming to the city was like entering a tunnel, he said, and finding to your surprise that the light at the end didn't matter; sometimes in fact the tunnel made the light tolerable.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(1: A Fear of Love)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>When I was seventeen, I had a body that Adam woulda dropped Eve for. ... and Jesus himself woulda been in the background saying, Adam, you're one lucky motherfucker.</i>" (2: This is the House that Horse Built)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>I don't know who God is but if I meet Him anytime soon I'm going to get Him in the corner until He tells me the truth. ... And if he says Jazz ain't in heaven, if He says she didn't make it through, He's gonna get Himself an ass-kicking.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(2: This is the House that Horse Built)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It was so much like having sex with the wind. It complicated things and blew away and softly separated and slid back around him.</i>" (The Ringing Grooves of Change)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Every now and then the city shook its soul out</i>." (3: Part of the Parts)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>New York kept going forward precisely because it didn't give a good goddam about what it had left behind.</i>" </span><span>(3: Part of the Parts)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>When he was young and headstrong, he'd been sure that one day he'd be the very axis of the world, that his life would be one of deep impact. But every young man thought that.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(3: Part of the Parts)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The thing about love is that we come alive in bodies not our own.</i>" (3: Centavos) </span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>She wasn't a godly woman, mind; she used to say that the heart's future was in a spadeful of dirt.</i>" (3: All Hail and Hallelujah)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>People are good or half good or a quarter good, and it changes all the time.</i>" </span>(3: All Hail and Hallelujah)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It was like they had spent their lives breathing each other's breath.</i>" (3: All Hail and Hallelujah)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear.</i>" (4: Roaring Seaward, and I Go)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>We stumble on, now, we drain the light from the dark, to make it last.</i>" (4: Roaring Seaward, and I Go)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A book to treasure for the writing and for the characterisation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Colum McCann also wrote <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/09/this-side-of-brightness-by-colum-mccann.html" target="_blank">This Side of Brightness</a></i>, also about New Yorkers</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 349 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-3690ef81-7fff-6a2f-2c41-75563b37b9f3"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/mxNV4l0NJAeain5KmWFiGViiS7Zq3Q_AKOr_8-H0QVPnInDJYVuWknDSvquoL-kSWVW7zor508UHlDlEppmR8Z_A0mthl0bX62t9YJaoxtdYrYZlC3jeiHARepnbXyVBmDR6ovCQeaRVa9enUZxCjw" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-29793405630836830212024-02-23T07:41:00.005+00:002024-02-23T07:43:45.381+00:00"The Council of Justice" by Edgar Wallace<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnHSyEEfOewa1iquLG70GtX43lMhCBpealzjcxvJoClN6MlpehvJxU12AuWW717exMd2It-6jn2j1OX1KhnKH51tTMacw6T6HpiF6ZsOrTVnGylNj544ISEzpKt0R-E3rBJ_7YseZDB0qz8L5-Ss55LzdRUR_hjuIoBYUJYgzOecIKd4eZSjR4AELZrm_T/s1600/IMG-20210630-WA0000.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnHSyEEfOewa1iquLG70GtX43lMhCBpealzjcxvJoClN6MlpehvJxU12AuWW717exMd2It-6jn2j1OX1KhnKH51tTMacw6T6HpiF6ZsOrTVnGylNj544ISEzpKt0R-E3rBJ_7YseZDB0qz8L5-Ss55LzdRUR_hjuIoBYUJYgzOecIKd4eZSjR4AELZrm_T/w225-h400/IMG-20210630-WA0000.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span>This is the sequel to Wallace's debut novel, <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-four-just-men-by-edgar-wallace.html" target="_blank">The Four Just Men</a></i>, starring three of the original quartet (</span><span>Manfred, Gonsalez and Poiccart) </span><span>who recruit a fourth whose alias is Courtlander. The FJM are vigilantes dedicated to murdering those who are getting away with criminal activities (a bit like the eponymous hero of the </span><i>Saint</i><span> books by Leslie Charteris). In this novel they are up against the Red Hundred, an anarchist group. Various adventures ensue while Scotland Yard looks on helplessly. Finally, justice having been meted out and a proposed assassination averted, Manfred is captured while meeting his arch-rival and potential love interest The Woman of Gratz. He is tried for murder and convicted. Can he escape the hangman's noose? </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is a naive thriller relying on expert chemists creating swift-acting poisons and wonderful explosives, me who are masters of disguise, fluent in many languages, rich and well-supplied with information from a huge range of naturally impeccable sources. Modern readers are usually too sophisticated to suspend their disbelief so easily. But it does give wonderful insights into London in the year before the First World Wars, a place well used to terrorist 'outrages' (through bombs being dropped from Zeppelins were a little premature), a country where anarchists held their conferences and everyone had access to a revolver. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Told in mostly simple language, in short chapters, with a very direct style in which 'tell' is often privileged over 'show', this is very easy to read. With the exception, perhaps, of the Woman of Gratz, the characters are one-dimensional and clearly divided into goodies and baddies, despite the moral ambiguity of making vigilante outlaws the heroes. (But on the other hand, what else is the classic English folk hero Robin Hood?) There is an even-handedness in making both heroes and villains exotic foreigners which was rarely emulated in contemporary and subsequent alternatives, such as Sexton Blake and James Bond where the English goody commonly battles baddies from abroad. The fundamental motivation for continuing to read is not to find out whether the heroes will eventually triumph but to solve the convoluted puzzle of how they will achieve their aims. The focus is therefore on why a huge hole has appeared in the building in which two bodies are found, why a strange house has been constructed in the Spanish countryside, and how Manfred will effect his escape?</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected Quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>There are no straight roads, and you cannot judge where lies your destination by the direction the first line of path takes.</i>" (Ch 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>His liabilities were of no account because the necessity for discharging them never occurred to him.</i>" (Ch 5)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Eden in sight - he pleaded for an Eve.</i>" (Ch 6)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He was as close ... as the inside washer of a vacuum pump.</i>" (Ch 7)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Possessed of the indifference to public opinion which is equally the equipment of your fool and your truly great man.</i>" (Ch 9)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The sons of fathers who were the sons of fathers who had some time ruled by might, and left the legacy of their dominion to their haphazard progeny.</i>" (Ch 10) Wallace is clearly in thrall to aristocrats and royals and great men, perhaps because of, perhaps in spite of, his own humble and confused beginnings ... but he could see the other side of the argument.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>If in England you race a horse and it wins your Derby, must the stock of that horse be acclaimed winners of the race from birth?</i>" (Ch 10) It's a good argument against a hereditary monarchy!</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Spoken like a cheap little magazine detective.</i>" (Ch 18)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">NB: An electrolier is a chandelier in which the lights are electrical (rather than candles).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One of the classic progenitors of thriller fiction. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 310 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-71a6d538-7fff-fa47-2166-b504b0c0f1cd"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/55_24o8W2KpBN1PMwN--z60thqNn9p3rYTOjXLylPzVnRIq-J5VE82HnUbpUP_tcKJHI1CQVMFLgtYXBZ9SjwkcLaClMNHFWiwzzfZay9mWAyjzL3XdUQJqdWiespTawb1EXKGNpXlOBiC3HcuDZig" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-49740082852381592422024-02-20T16:58:00.005+00:002024-02-20T17:01:40.697+00:00"The Satyricon" by Petronius (?)<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span>The Satyricon is composed of fragments from a much longer Latin work which most scholars think was written by Petronius. It is written in both prose and poetry and seems to be based on the Odyssey, being a comic picaresque following the adventures of a runaway slave called Encolpius (the narrator), his boyfriend young Giton, and his friend (and rival for Giton's affections) Asclytus</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Much of the work is lost. The first (incomplete) remaining section seems to be an account of the punishment of Encolpius and Asclytus for having (inadevertently?) seen the secret female rites of Priapus: they are tied up and buggered by a male prostitute. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The second, and most famous, section involves a dinner hosted by a freed ex-slave turned millionaire called Trimalchio (which includes a story about a man turning into a werewolf). Trimalchio has been seen as the model for Jay Gatsby in <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-great-gatsby-by-f-scott-fitzgerald.html" target="_blank">The Great Gatsby</a></i>. This section also influenced Oscar Wilde in <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-picture-of-dorian-gray-by-oscar.html" target="_blank">The Picture of Dorian Gray</a></i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They then fall in with a windbag of a poet called Eumolpus and board a boat which they then discover is owned by the slave-owners they are running from; shipwreck is the deus ex machina which gets them out of a very tight situation. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They then travel to a place called Croton.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is difficult to judge the literary merit of a work that only exists in fragments. I suspect that much of its fame rests on the fact that the narrator is joyfully gay.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>An adolescent taste is quite worthless.</i>" (Puteoli 4)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I personally went colder than a winter in Gaul.</i>" (Puteoli 19)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He pulled the cheeks of our bottoms apart and banged us</i>" (Puteoli 21)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>So the starry sky turns round like a millstone, always bringing some trouble, and men being born or dying.</i>" (Dinner with Trimalchio 39)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>It's night 'fore y'can turn around. So the best thing's get out of bed and go straight to dinner.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(Dinner with Trimalchio 41)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>A hot drink's as good as an overcoat.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(Dinner with Trimalchio 41)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>If you were somewhere else, you'd be talking about the pigs walking round ready-roasted back here.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(Dinner with Trimalchio 45) A version of 'the grass is always greener'</span></span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 123 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-4cc5263e-7fff-bdc3-f29b-c80151441caf"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/PCX1wx88m9qQBFywNhImP2DzLNxBaDNk7T5F4oeQ09eWB7L3CfqYZ18nRWdqZb1d_LUJSmrFQA8feaQ2RMb-QSKuQygHcU6r5Jc7kGej_X41dpPwLTKxpXQNnnYcfL2I3GsBlrgaQo67tfnNFmItPA" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-10038857307902036912024-02-16T13:16:00.002+00:002024-02-16T13:16:49.709+00:00"Tennis Lessons" by Susannah Dickey<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj432QQ_S2ynF64rGWJ_Xfvrvvh_DSncKJKsthx_HE0ytV24l1yNfVjVkbCgyz1uTXpHMUepJsk9Fx3tcTs1cPd2VOGolFBSqBfB8tNEROvVAxJhpuoDo8_YZW83MzNdzhhLdRD8AmrE28ypD8orM3Rwkro5nocobaaJlX1emDDqSrmDq84d0hwlOQRycqX/s2048/SAM_1265.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj432QQ_S2ynF64rGWJ_Xfvrvvh_DSncKJKsthx_HE0ytV24l1yNfVjVkbCgyz1uTXpHMUepJsk9Fx3tcTs1cPd2VOGolFBSqBfB8tNEROvVAxJhpuoDo8_YZW83MzNdzhhLdRD8AmrE28ypD8orM3Rwkro5nocobaaJlX1emDDqSrmDq84d0hwlOQRycqX/w400-h300/SAM_1265.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />A book narrated in the second person which is an incredibly unusual thing to do.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is, I suppose, a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age novel. 'Your' story starts at three years old and progresses to twenty-eight. 'Yours' is a very ordinary life in a normal house in a normal town, you go to a normal school. You're a bit of an ugly duckling but you are clever and quick-witted. Unfortunately, perhaps because you are bullied for being 'weird', this doesn't translate to academic success at school. The first part of the novel takes you to the threshold of your school-leaving exams in a series of snapshots taken through the years. The second part of the book recounts some traumatic events at the time of the exams and their consequences. The third part returns to the snapshot format and considers the fall-out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was well-written and viscerally rooted in ugly everyday reality. No murders, no superheroes, no death-defying struggles, no grand adventures. Just ordinary life. But there was drama, there was tension, there were challenges to be overcome, there were little triumphs, there were larger disasters, there was even, of a sort, love. This makes it as weird but as honest and as truthful as its protagonist, who says: "<i>You wish your class could read books about something other than war and the children of war; you want to read about normal people trying to do normal things.</i>" (Part One: 13 years old - May) The wish has here been granted.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Your stomach yodels with hunger.</i>" (Part One: 11 years old - February 11th)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>You wonder if she likes her life, or if she, like you, is dependent on the idea that things will improve.</i>" (Part One: 17 years old - December)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The thought of going makes you anxious. The thought of not going makes you anxious.</i>" (Part Two: 17 years old - May 16th today)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>You imagine it's much easier to endure unhappiness if you have a child who is beautiful and clever and loved. What have you been worth?</i>" (Part Two: 17 years old - May 16th today)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>When you get closer you realize it's a dead kitten. Its legs are curled up into its torso and its head is pressed to its chest. It looks like an asterisk and a closed parenthesis; a bass clef; the curved end of a hockey stick.</i>" (Part Two: 17 years old - May 16th today)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It's a bit like talking to someone who's wearing a space helmet, like everything you say to her is muffled and there's a time delay in her response.</i>" (Part Three: 22 years old - March)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A Sunday carvery approach to religion</i>" (Part Three: 24 years old - December) It means an approach to religion that just selects which bits the believer wants to follow eg abortion bad, adultery yes please.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Sprinkle the salt of your dreams on the slugs of your enemies.</i>" (Part Three: 27 years old - November)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Perhaps living contentedly is just finding pursuits that distract you from thoughts of oblivion. It occurs to you that everyone else probably figured this out long ago.</i>" (Part Three: 28 years old - August)</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-size: large;">A book full of the troubles of growing up. Well worth a read.</span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 240 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-ba0ecf07-7fff-fcb0-e8f6-1cd6c1cf0df4"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/p5l7HmyoYKtjOaJN6M7qZ43EXEa1cSE9WrWrkiqVOmOE-_N8UXZiFCKINI8fwyZFwsfGgU92BUn1rHRNLgZDx0Jo9QgHmv-XpFpaI1NlQ2h99ZmYZaIzJB-705dXjYfmNEJfGpW_HEXHJIkXkkmZYQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-20088502395048287762024-02-14T10:42:00.003+00:002024-02-14T10:42:32.405+00:00"No Dumping Allowed" by L M Ford<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIHhltCencpLKU9LWfv-cUgedPVsd_-UxSg0wHnFg1y7vuvy_1ZaJBs_vOyMvFLXDpUVFCQlsh8voJl0FeWSJQwnpYgr0kHmCDme8qgoiUKVi5uV7F6tEXqnEp6khSWvI9PNv-2oAHveGoDrvf2uqJmcyCrrhm9o1im4n-l5JpgsqhVJydB7cee7oirr2P/s1600/CIMG3978.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1555" data-original-width="1600" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIHhltCencpLKU9LWfv-cUgedPVsd_-UxSg0wHnFg1y7vuvy_1ZaJBs_vOyMvFLXDpUVFCQlsh8voJl0FeWSJQwnpYgr0kHmCDme8qgoiUKVi5uV7F6tEXqnEp6khSWvI9PNv-2oAHveGoDrvf2uqJmcyCrrhm9o1im4n-l5JpgsqhVJydB7cee7oirr2P/w400-h389/CIMG3978.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />"<i>Amanda Danvers stared at the arm sticking out from behind the dumpster</i>" is a great first line which hooked my attention straight away. We are instantly launched into a murder mystery set in a small town in the USA. Amanda, the new owner of a car-wash business where the body has been dumped, investigates whodunnit. Needless to say, she succeeds where the cops fail, unravelling the mystery despite a number of red herrings. </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It is targeted at 12 - 18 years and there are many aspects of this novel which make it suitable, particularly for readers at the younger end of the age range:</span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">It is very easy to read. The author has a direct style which focuses on the plot, stripping away unnecessary sentences. I would have liked a little more description to help me better visualise what was going on and I suspect some of the older teenagers would have enjoyed more gore but the author is probably wise to avoid too much detail.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">It is almost inevitable for a murder mystery to have a large cast of characters: suspects, witnesses and the detective and her friends and helpers. Given that the book was deliberately designed to be short, some of these characters were necessarily underused. I would have loved to have more of the golf-playing coroner, for instance. But each of the main characters was distinctive and I never confused them. I suspect that this book is the first of a series; I hope we meet some of the characters again.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">The heroine is clearly an adult and I wondered how easy it would be for some of the younger readers to identify with her. There is a romantic element to the plot but it doesn't progress beyond kissing. Again, older readers might see this as too tame but it seemed appropriate to me.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">There are a couple of scary situations. I would have liked more of a sense of threat but there is a delicate balance to be struck between increasing the tension and scaring the younger readers.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">There were dead ends and in a longer novel there might have been the scope for progressing further down these. Similarly, the size of the book seems to have precluded the classic 'extra twist'.</span></li></ul></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I found the simplicity of the narration refreshing.</span></div><div><p><span style="font-size: large;">I think my favourite moment came in chapter one when Amanda is pondering how to write a commiserative social media post about the death; among other great lines she rejects are: </span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i>You can’t wash away bad karma, even at a carwash</i>. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Real estate developer ends up with only ten inches of land behind a dumpster.</i> </span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Carwash owner issues reminder: dumping is illegal and so is murder.</i></span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My next favourite quote was:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Maybe she was just spinning her wheels, but they were her wheels and [she] had a right to spin them if she wanted.</i>" (Ch 8)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An unpretentious and straightforward murder mystery.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-8b7c0623-7fff-b315-3835-defbc39d30d1"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/-E-iFV4fPveuSSqgSHYwEYCAgF2iPk0jZsIv6rYhL6HxdRt1MSq2hwyjoGoHMLruhHeawgzRgvRnlGnfdCWThXKVL5HovkL9MQnSyavAVvIMVVCByfmga9MYxT_Or8qstTZLeRDDaLSGg0qiFLIpDQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-1728472289682783872024-02-13T12:12:00.001+00:002024-02-13T12:12:06.044+00:00"Boulder" by Eva Baltasar<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfVa5afMukgzUJODodm9ELrYXvZtGExb_k1ZwHhg_1AsAQqC3nRFNyQuUUaOyN8e67zKyWurpkkaNhxDp1q9rn_87yzuStE8oa4McXwauasntCcKy-WnDuKB6YiQhfyagTWleoD-cvKIG9isn-LfFoj8LPY2-lUJRj6VEdHTKaX379_MfUegg19-5C_sr/s2048/SAM_1193.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1454" data-original-width="2048" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfVa5afMukgzUJODodm9ELrYXvZtGExb_k1ZwHhg_1AsAQqC3nRFNyQuUUaOyN8e67zKyWurpkkaNhxDp1q9rn_87yzuStE8oa4McXwauasntCcKy-WnDuKB6YiQhfyagTWleoD-cvKIG9isn-LfFoj8LPY2-lUJRj6VEdHTKaX379_MfUegg19-5C_sr/w400-h284/SAM_1193.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> <span>Astonishing prose.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A cook on a cargo ship in South America falls in love with a Scandinavian; they begin a lesbian relationship, move to Iceland, settle down in a house and have a daughter. But can a free spirit be tied down in domesticity?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Astonishing prose. Or is it poetry? This author (and translator, Julia Sanches) makes magic out of words. Don't read this for the plot though it is strong but simple. Do not read this for the characters though both the major characters, the unnamed narrator-protagonist and her partner-antagonist are true to life, springing from the page in all their complicated three-dimensionality. Don't read it for the insights that it offers into life, though these are well-observed and original. Read it for the wonder of the words.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Selected quotes</span></b> (to show you what I mean): </span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A night years ago. Sometime after ten. No sky, no vegetation, no ocean. Only the wind, the hand that grabs at everything</i>." (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The cold feels peculiar. It's possible I've drunk some of it myself, since I can feel it thrashing and bucking under my skin, and also deeper inside, in the arches between each organ.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Stained teeth bared in greeting.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Water, earth, lungs. The perfect conditions for silence</i>." (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Food comes to us wrapped in skin, and to prepare it you need a knife.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The islanders rise. They look like enormous turtles hatched from a large egg. They plod through the rain, and as the pass me I feel like an insignificant foreigner, disease-white and sopping wet under my dark blue rain jacket. You'd need two of me to make one body as tough as theirs.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I don't fuck her, I whet myself on her. I drink her like I'd been raised wandering the desert. I swallow her as if she were a sword, little by little and with enormous care. The hours layer over one another, blanketing us.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>These new, single-family homes have ravenous souls that feed off your own little human soul - sucking dry your freedom, your independence, and all trace of your passion.</i>" (Ch 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The house gathers itself up and looms over you. It unhinges its jaw like those terrifying snakes that bleed the milk from sleeping mothers then curl up like necklaces against their skin.</i>" (Ch 2) A foreshadowing of motherhood?</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I'm not into kids. I find them annoying. They're unpredictable variables that come crashing into my coastal shelf with the gale force of their natural madness. They're craggy, out of control, scattered.</i>" (Ch 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The truth is we'd never made any plans, we'd just taken huge bites out of life.</i>" (Ch 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The sofa is a place for sitting and talking, a sensible piece of furniture designed to promote verticality and position the head as the sovereign supreme of all the subordinate organs, including the heart.</i>" (Ch 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The hormones are doing their job, they season and marinate her body, manipulating it to cater to the baby's taste and satisfaction.</i>" (Ch 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Time has set its sights on us and slowly worn us down, sharpening its teeth on our bodies.</i>" (Ch 2)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>If you could only set fire to every word that evokes an illness.</i>" (Ch 3)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I'm sick of the extrasensory powers that biology confers upon its devotees.</i>" (Ch 4)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Personality is a dress made of scraps that I never stop washing or mending; it clothes me, might even suit me, but it will never, ever define me. The nakedness I conceal is what makes me a person</i>." (Ch 5)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Boulder won an English Pen Translates award in 2021. It was shortlisted for the <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/p/international-booker-prize-winners.html" target="_blank">International Booker Prize</a></i> in 2023. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 105 pages</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-03d24ed6-7fff-3354-7a33-c9cc5d6e1d32"></span></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/lhAZQinw5PXzbNwLNIKc7S1TJLYdW84Vr02l3gAz7dB23RpGg911pDJyD3wDxp8-ovL0yX7T4ZUcGffo7fcwC1J4cCmXVF2yiN1GjGOD-oQD1CkDvGBK2OtBtWfypxGxuwZMZVD4wbvcX3qQoIIiXg" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-9416441601188797832024-02-11T14:47:00.000+00:002024-02-11T14:47:00.365+00:00"Offshore" by Penelope Fitzgerald<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCv16Z0WG_ZIQzFyHYlClSaf31W28-6duSgp1jYU4VBAqlLQNzCQ-A5hfY8cLTpCGDijsDhkdoiFTQ0dO2AJXCVrWj_R0uOjEVPuXTipry6oOaqHMXAEkS379KvqV8G-iN27NgZA4W-iaUJPk3D4mMkDJ7jd6XydB-wijYnZ-BX_6x0U9C29eGE8LFiiKx/s1600/Thames%20walk%20waves%20splashing%20the%20path.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCv16Z0WG_ZIQzFyHYlClSaf31W28-6duSgp1jYU4VBAqlLQNzCQ-A5hfY8cLTpCGDijsDhkdoiFTQ0dO2AJXCVrWj_R0uOjEVPuXTipry6oOaqHMXAEkS379KvqV8G-iN27NgZA4W-iaUJPk3D4mMkDJ7jd6XydB-wijYnZ-BX_6x0U9C29eGE8LFiiKx/w400-h300/Thames%20walk%20waves%20splashing%20the%20path.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Winner of the <a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/p/booker-prize-shortlist.html" target="_blank">Booker Prize</a> in 1979.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An exploration of the liminal lives of a group of houseboat owners on Battersea Reach in the tidal Thames in the early 1960s, as Swinging London gets underway. Richard, retired from the Royal Navy, lives with his wife (who longs for a normal house) on a converted minesweeper. Maurice lives on his own on a dutch barge and most nights he brings home a customers from the local pub; his boat is also used by Harry to store stolen goods. Willis, a 65 year-old artist, is trying to sell his leaky boat before it sinks. Nenna's boat is home to herself and her two daughters, 12 and 6; her hopeless husband can't bear living abroad and has left her to cope alone. Woodie and Mrs Woodie are an elderly couple who support the others through the various crises.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The constant reference to leaks, to the need for continual maintenance, and the rats, certainly put paid to any romantic notions I might have had about living on a boat.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The book refers several times to "<i>the short uneasy period between land and water</i>" (Ch 7) and the characters do seem to be living in a kind of limbo. The epigraph is taken from Dante and there is a reference to the river that souls must cross to enter the classical underworld: "<i>Rat-ridden and neglected, it was a wharf still. The river's edge, where Virgil's ghosts held out their arms in longing for the farther shore, and Dante, as a living man, was refused passage by the ferryman ... there, surely, is a place to stop and reflect.</i>" (Ch 1) There are a lot of endings, from the three drowned sailors seen by little Tilda, to a sinking ship, to the death of a marriage, to an attempted murder. All the characters seem to be betwixt and between, living lives of transience, and those who live on land in proper houses, such as the priest, disapprove. I suspect that the author is saying that life itself is impermanent and that places that remind us of this are indeed places to "<i>stop and reflect</i>". </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This feeling of liminality is reflected in the chronology. The book seems to be set in late 1961 (the spring of 1962 is said to be in 6 months time and Nenna married in 1949 and her eldest child in 12) but Heinrich wants to see "<i>Swinging London</i>" which is generally agreed to have started in 1964. This anachronism seems appropriate when you live on the threshold. And Nenna is asked (in an imaginary court trial), "<i>'Look here, is it Wednesday or Thursday?' 'I don't know, Ed, whichever you like'.</i>" (Ch 3). Time is unimportant in a liminal space. Again, in chapter 5, the author describes the old mother of Willis as "<i>perdurable</i>" which means imperishable but later in the sentence we discover that the woman has died of cancer; this seems to be a deliberate oxymoron.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is, however, paced just like a classic novel: the key turning point comes almost exactly in the centre of the book.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Have I ever mentioned how much I hate it when authors write in a foreign language? This novel's epigraph (that's the quotation at the start to you and me) is "<i>che mena il vento, e che batte la pioggia/ e che s'incontran con si aspre lingue</i>" which are two lines of mediaeval Tuscan taken from Dante's Inferno (canto 11) which mean "<i>those whom the wind drives, and those whom the rain batters, and those who encounter one another with such bitter words.</i>" </span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected Quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Duty is what no-one else will do at the moment.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It's not the kind who inherit the earth, it's the poor, the humble, and the meek. ... the kind ... get kicked in the teeth.</i>" (Ch 6)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It was like one of those terrible sights of the racecourse or the battle field where wallowing living beings persevere dumbly in their duty although mutilated beyond repair.</i>" (Ch 7)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It's my last chance. While I've still got it I can take it out and look at it and know I still have it. If that goes, I've nothing left to try.</i>" (Ch 7)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I can't for the life of me see why, if you really feel something, it's got to be talked about.</i>" (Ch 8)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He disliked comparisons, because they made you think about more than one thing at a time.</i>" (Ch 8)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>All distances are the same to those who don't meet.</i>" (Ch 10)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The James family seemed to have few possessions. Mrs Woodie felt half inclined to lend her some, so as to have more to sort out and put away.</i>" (Ch 10)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The plot might be minimal but this is a book of beautifully drawn characters in a very special world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 181 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-c3f26ed0-7fff-2ffb-2491-f9c5bed370e8"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/zU1d3kIxHcpF_4Zel_BnBUJ1OFVj6MCuXcdY800xT8DLTAgYaeTnL2MMKafx40GPKR1N6ozchKg7Vl6l8-Ejgz8sbKl-h3ZnaSnriouCVID71RmEQisRtpOwrBfRyVViMKWq5y_4oePjemkpzn0LXA" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-69501690289163834072024-02-09T09:40:00.006+00:002024-02-09T09:50:22.088+00:00"The Wren, The Wren" by Anne Enright<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlBuRolobAsHBqE7CuQswcWHzug2foADiKBiaux3Ryi7Fz5u7ewVRZSORsLZKbrrfSF_ncj7XdjL6DnVew3mXOjJn48uxsPa6jJNywAAMGKynP4h-kZVOwkZhi53gQ53gSwPdkW-SwKbr6ibI-sVd3cRe0IrFVKhxQ8h636tkJV5zEXRPctspx57VXQN5/s4128/20191230_104015.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3096" data-original-width="4128" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlBuRolobAsHBqE7CuQswcWHzug2foADiKBiaux3Ryi7Fz5u7ewVRZSORsLZKbrrfSF_ncj7XdjL6DnVew3mXOjJn48uxsPa6jJNywAAMGKynP4h-kZVOwkZhi53gQ53gSwPdkW-SwKbr6ibI-sVd3cRe0IrFVKhxQ8h636tkJV5zEXRPctspx57VXQN5/w400-h300/20191230_104015.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Shelbourne hotel Dublin is mentioned in the novel</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> The story consists of periods, shuffled chronologically, in the lives of three members of an Irish family. Each has their chance to narrate. Phil, the grandfather was a poet; he remembers his boyhood in the country. Carmel, one of his daughters, ran, or perhaps runs, a language school and brought up her daughter, Nell, as a single parent. Nell is a freelance writer, working for influencers and producing work to market, for example, travel destinations. No-one seems to need to work very hard in order to earn a decent living and, in Nell's case, travel the world but we're not focusing on their economic activity. Rather, the book targets their sex lives.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Phil believes that all poetry is about unrequited love, and that all love is unrequited. He deserts his wife and daughters to travel and marry an American; he probably had multiple affairs as well. Carmel has divorced sex and relationships; the only real loves in her life are her Dadda and her daughter and she abandons a potential partner when it becomes clear that he might expect her to look after him. Nell is trapped in a physically abusive relationship with a man who is clearly seeing other women but whom she is in love with. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Men certainly don't come out of this well. Most of them are portrayed as violent. The nice ones are needy but they all (except the gay one) expect to be looked after and serviced. And yet Phil the poet seems irresistible to women, Nell can't leave the man who hits her because she loves him. So why can't the women treat the men as potential sperm donors and live without them? Perhaps because, as Mal, the gay friend in Utrecht, tells Nell: "<i>The thing women don't understand is that love and sex are opposite things ... Love requires ... two acts of submission, and sex ... really doesn't.</i>" (p 201)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But the joy in this book doesn't lie in its characters, strong though they are, nor in its fragmented and meandering plot, nor in its exploration of the issue of domestic violence, but in its words. The narratives are separated by Phil's poetry, and I don't really understand poetry, but scattered throughout are phrases and sentences of pure gold. Some are descriptive, some are nuggets of wisdom, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Selected quotes</span></b>: page references are from the 2023 Jonathan Cape hardback edition</span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Funny moments:</span></b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I was making my way out in the big bad world, and for some reason this involved a lot of staying in</i>." (p 10)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The Hoover sat gathering its own dust at the top of the stairs.</i>" (p 60) </span></li></ul><p></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Perfectly captured descriptions:</span></b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I stayed over, waking in the morning to the sight of him asleep, his lips easy and full, the air slipping into his body and slipping out again.</i>" (p 17)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I feel the room carve in two in front of my jostled eyes and space remake itself. That is what the gristle of his soul-splitting prick can do to me. And when he has pulled me apart, I remain whole.</i>" (p 53) Oh my goodness. Jostled eyes! Gristle!</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It was starting to rain again, but there was a brightness in the air. The river ran full and fast, and all the colours were stronger for being wet.</i>" (p 157) Wow! So true. Colours are 'stronger' when they are wet.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I stared until the air in front of me became particulate.</i>" (p 181) Yes! It is as if the world pixellating in front of your eyes.</span></li></ul><p></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Words of wisdom:</span></b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us.</i>" (p 4) Which is why we need novels.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I never tell my mother anything. I am not that stupid.</i>" (p 23)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Most of the time, I think, people aren't listening to each other, they are just waiting their turn to speak."</i> (p 18)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Without beauty there can be no fear.</i>" (p 206)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">More magical moments:</span></b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A year out of college, I was poking my snout and whiskers into the fresh adult air and I knew how to be ... My body was not on mute. I knew how to enjoy sex, eat, get drunk and recover, touch myself, touch someone else. I knew how to dance, get a little out of it and have big deep stupid discussions</i>" (p 6) Even at my age, I can remember student days and weren't they just like this!</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A nightjar, by the way, can ventriloquise. Its song sounds as though it is coming from the other tree. This must be confusing when mating with a nightjar - you'd have to land on a lot of other trees first.</i>" (p 9) An original way of saying that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, so relevant to Nell in this part of her life.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>My mother is strongly of the opinion that, if you don't think about yourself then you won't have any problems. For Carmel, having a pain means you are self-obsessed.</i>" (p 11)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>In those days, men were not expected to be around: the difference between married and deserted could be the seven hours your husband spent asleep in bed.</i>" (p 68)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The same mixture of cooing and shrieking around the cot that happened around the wedding ... It was the sound women make, she thought, when they are offering their lives up for slow destruction.</i>" (p 102)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Birth was not the end of pregnancy, she thought, it was just pregnancy externalised.</i>" (p 110)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>There were scones on the bottom tier, tiny sandwiches in the middle, fancy pastries at the top - all of which remained untouched. It was a little competition. A cake off.</i>" (p 160)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I can't stop the giggles. They well up, burst out of my face in a slow-motion, peristaltic wave. I am a broken-hearted woman, trapped in a body that finds everything hilarious. It feels a bit like vomiting.</i>" (p 201)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The fear I have is the fear of angels. It is not terror, but awe.</i>" (p 206)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The first words out of every angels mouth are, Do not be afraid.</i>" (p 207)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Nell's thumbs flying on her screen - as though late capitalism ... could be defeated by hashtags and eating kimchi.</i>" (p 216)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>For Imelda, information was like money. She didn't want you to have it, in case you spent it in the wrong shop.</i>" (p 227)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>This guy's sense of humour is so bone dry, his jokes are identical to not funny at all.</i>" (p 246)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's not so much a novel as a beautiful piece of jewellery, its scintillations catching your eye as you look at if under different slants of light.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 273 pages</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The author won the <a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/p/booker-prize-shortlist.html" target="_blank">Booker Prize</a> in 2007. </span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-22872519-7fff-1b1a-c8d3-8b243fd6a3b3"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/BXWtACUaUubEBB2t_r8hmSmR5NwSqizMu2359vhmbQpLrqIvj8IXyhuubOGyFsTMKxOeqc45yBgo_olf3uvqnzGMIO0hZiQRRWVHZX2PUy3Kfai7cnndh_4MKQ_gVdlwA_crYYEdJvWHiWEpkZXLVQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-85917633311038422082024-02-08T09:20:00.001+00:002024-02-08T09:20:24.733+00:00"Who Killed Miss Finch?" by Peter Boon<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB1qRKrotvYYxxkkb9hah3i9Lq18wY5d6jJ74YuSrXKbpcQeRPygkenZDjzfAQJYpEzOesq8jYNrEsUBmVKKYFn9fItpkrdrhRnA8dNOxDBzkWhl2D-64rQMx2I-8WK5anTgE91e94VAk5FkcXuhlUCkO3ZD-s5hMPuWe4g4PC3i-JB20y9KsL-ltPYR6/s1599/IMG-20221226-WA0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1599" data-original-width="899" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB1qRKrotvYYxxkkb9hah3i9Lq18wY5d6jJ74YuSrXKbpcQeRPygkenZDjzfAQJYpEzOesq8jYNrEsUBmVKKYFn9fItpkrdrhRnA8dNOxDBzkWhl2D-64rQMx2I-8WK5anTgE91e94VAk5FkcXuhlUCkO3ZD-s5hMPuWe4g4PC3i-JB20y9KsL-ltPYR6/w225-h400/IMG-20221226-WA0003.jpg" width="225" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />School librarian Edward Crisp loves classic whodunnits so when the unpopular new headteacher is murdered he seizes the opportunity to do some amateur sleuthing. This is an old-style whodunnit set in a small seaside village where everyone knows everyone else, where there is a limited cast of suspects where almost every suspect has a secret to be uncovered, where more or less everyone has a motive for murder, and where forensic evidence is very much in the background (this is not a police procedural). The clues are well hidden but not unfairly so and there is a final twist just before the denouement. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I prefer my whodunnits to be a little more realistic and my characters to have more depth. There should be at least some sense that murder is horrid and can create enormous emotional trauma. But this novel is a worthy example of the 'puzzle' subgenre. It's a quick, light, entertaining read and well-written. The pacing follows the classic four-part structure, the body being discovered at 25% and major turning-points occurring at 50% and 75%.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I enjoyed the meta-fiction aspect to it: the amateur sleuth's side-kick keeps identifying fictional tropes, such as:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Sir, do you think this is a closed-circle mystery?</i>" (Ch 19)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Major suspect going missing is such a cliche, sir! So it can't be him.</i>" (Ch 20)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I am definitely tempted to read the next in the series.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is set in a fictional village near Eastbourne, where I live, and it contains a policeman (never the hero!) who shares my surname. </span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A spotlight shone on her in the dim hall, as if she was the only glimpse of light in the darkness - when in fact the opposite was true.</i>" (Ch 1)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>For all my dad's jovial loudness, he hated confrontation. Unluckily for him he married my mum.</i>" (Ch 25)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 282 pages</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-83842054-7fff-9643-1e56-0948edf8542c"></span></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/jblaoViLupuUJPyOhJM9qNJO98AF9VzbEaAFexOR6novGFKBY2yHqpsISizbPTlrMNPHcBwCNLMZHNOjc2VUiWJG9s5aYI3ZnwfatB0PQZ49Zwym6-kY-kkszQhWJEnwf8uQsGH0sR7RK6ZnRnmo7Q" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This review was written by</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Kids of God</span></a></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-45010448428288090872024-02-06T12:14:00.007+00:002024-02-06T12:26:40.678+00:00"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrlKc893xX_nUJW3-PiWwxrUjdo_-cQM0TvmbPKJM_XXQxWJy2Dm2ZLtWjODHgadWA-5PH20s4-kNlsuDlYwF2jpauap4RyjcUHYIQTZEEpqBf9JAWPCNRMH1nhY4IiyUrTYiOS5gm3kH68IBDSXCzK82t8iJlrl0976Zmn4aa3vE2RGbOm5N4FEQIr1-u/s1600/Picture%20095.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrlKc893xX_nUJW3-PiWwxrUjdo_-cQM0TvmbPKJM_XXQxWJy2Dm2ZLtWjODHgadWA-5PH20s4-kNlsuDlYwF2jpauap4RyjcUHYIQTZEEpqBf9JAWPCNRMH1nhY4IiyUrTYiOS5gm3kH68IBDSXCzK82t8iJlrl0976Zmn4aa3vE2RGbOm5N4FEQIr1-u/w400-h300/Picture%20095.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An orthodox monastery (though in Romania, not Russia)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><br />This is a huge and complex book and it seems impossible to summarise it in a review. These are my preliminary impressions.<br /><br /><b>The size of the book</b><br />On first impressions, it is dauntingly big. Dostoevsky liked words and never used one when a dozen were available. It could have been shorter. And we must bear in mind what E M Forster, in Appendix A of <a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2018/10/aspects-of-novel-by-e-m-forster.html">Aspects of the Novel</a>, says: “Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.” But, on the other hand, The Brothers Karamazov is often thought to be Dostoevsky’s masterpiece and is generally regarded as a classic of Russian literature. I suspect that is because it endeavours to do so many things. <br /><br /><b>A murder mystery?</b><br />The plot revolves around the murder of a rich old man, Fyodor Karamazov and the subsequent arrest and trial of one of his sons, Dmitry. It was said to have been inspired by a real case involving a man Dostoevsky knew when he was in exile in Siberia; this man was wrongfully convicted and subsequently exonerated of parricide. <br /><br />It’s not a murder mystery in the conventional sense in that there are only two suspects, Dmitry and the villainous Smerdyakov, and the reader is pretty certain whodunnit. But it follows other tropes almost perfectly. Before the crime, Smerdyakov explains to Ivan, the middle brother, how it can be committed. When Dmitry is in the garden of his father’s house at night, clutching a weapon, there is a pause in the action ... and then he is fleeing the scene and being accused of parricide by an old servant whom he strikes. After the crime, there is a police investigation and the evidence is thoroughly dissected. The novel ends in a courtroom drama. This is classic stuff.<br /><br /><b>A retelling of the myth of Oedipus?</b><br />In some ways Dostoevsky’s story is a retelling of the Oedipus myth. Dmitry was abandoned by his father when he was very young and brought up initially by a servant and then a rich relative far away, as Oedipus was abandoned by Laertes, and taken in by poor folk and subsequently a foreign king. (At Dimitry’s trial the Defence Counsel makes much of this, suggesting that fatherhood is a two-way thing and therefore that this murder can’t be called parricide.) Oedipus accidentally marries his mother; Dmitry is in love with Grushenska, a woman also wooed by his father. So there are links. And Ivan the middle brother also harbours murderous thoughts towards his father, exclaiming (at Dmitry’s trial): “<i>Who does not desire the death of his father?</i>” (12.5) And the alternative suspect for the murder is allegedly the illegitimate son of Fyodor (a bit of a nineteenth-century cliche: always blame the bastard). So TBK has plenty for Freud to get his teeth into. <br /><br /><b>A romantic farce?</b><br />Not only are Dmitry and his father wooing the same woman, Grushenska, but Dmitry is already engaged to Katerina who, in turn, loves and is loved by Dmitry’s brother Ivan (sibling rivalry?). Grushenka is a notorious woman, having an old merchant ‘protector’ and having been ‘dishonoured’ when she was young by a Polish officer after whom she still secretly hankers. Ratikin is courting (for her money) Mrs Khakhlakov but she fancies Perkhotin. <br /><br /><b>A theological debate</b><br />If there is a hero, it is Alyosha, the third and youngest legitimate brother. At the start of the book, he is a monk in the local monastery but he spends an awful lot of his time visiting various different people around the town and therefore acting as a sort of thread binding the story together (although the principal narrator is an anonymous monk living in the monastery).<br /><br />One of the major subplots involves Alyosha’s mentor at the monastery, the Elder Zosima, a sort of wise guru whose sayings and prophecies are suitable gnomic but whose reputation as a holy man takes a severe knock after he dies and his body goes putrid and smells (the body of a saint is supposedly incorruptible). Another subplot involves Alyosha effecting a reconciliation between warring schoolboys.<br /><br />His elder brother, Ivan, is an academic and an atheist who has recently published an infamous article which suggests that if there is no God, then everything is lawful. His atheism isn’t absolute. He entertains the possibility of there being a God, but he finds it difficult to believe that this world is that created by God. The root of his disbelief stems from the fact that children suffer and this cannot be reconciled with the idea that compassion is at the heart of Christianity. Ivan is the focus of the theological debates in the book. He is the one who makes up the tale of the Grand Inquisitor which is perhaps the most famous part of the book: Jesus appears in fifteenth century Spain and is arrested and interrogated by the Grand Inquisitor who explains why giving mankind free will was a mistake. Ivan also hallucinates a conversation with the devil.<br /><br /><b>A book about redemption?</b><br />Dmitry realises that the only way he will reform is by spending twenty years in the Siberian mines and therefore he seems to believe that he possesses a nugget of redeemable character. Is this Dostoevsky suggesting that purgatory is the place where souls are redeemed on their way to paradise?<br /><br /><b>A prematurely postmodern psychological novel</b><br />Dostoevsky seems to me to be way ahead of his time in his understanding that people are inconsistent. To take a trivial example: a young girl called Lise (later called Liza) writes a love letter to Alyosha which she then repudiates, telling him it was a silly joke and then repudiates the repudiation, saying she loves him after all. <br /><br />Dmitry is a more important example. He is a libertine and by his own (frequent) admission a scoundrel but he has a fine sense of honour and he insists he is not a thief. When he has money he splurges it and yet he keeps 1,500 roubles sewn into a bag around his neck. He gets drunk and enjoys women and yet at the same time he is desperately in love with Grushenska. The straight and narrow road is not for him: “<i>I always liked side‐paths, little dark back‐alleys behind the main road—there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I am speaking figuratively, brother. In the town I was in, there were no such back‐alleys in the literal sense, but morally there were. If you were like me, you’d know what that means. I loved vice, I loved the ignominy of vice.</i>” (3.4) <br /><br />Perhaps the most fascinatingly complex character is Kolya. He’s a clever schoolboy and he knows it. He’s vain but sufficiently self-aware to know when he is being boastful. He has rudimentary ideas of socialism and likes talking to the people but he is very patronising when he does. His school fellows admire him as a daredevil because of some of his pranks but he finds it a strain keeping this reputation up. He has a tender heart and is very fond of some young children whom he occasionally babysits. He hates his own name (Nikolay). He talks to Alyosha on equal terms (he calls him ‘Karamazov’) but he knows that Alyosha somehow sees Kolya’s naked soul. <br /><br />Not all the characters are multi-dimensional. Fyodor Karamzov, the father, enjoys being a sensualist, he boasts about it. He explains to Alyosha why he needs his money: “<i>As I get older, you know, I shan’t be a pretty object. The wenches won’t come to me of their own accord, so I shall want my money. So I am saving up more and more, simply for myself .... For I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for being so open. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my taste, let me tell you that; and it’s not the proper place for a gentleman.</i>” (4.2) At the start of the book Dostoevsky suggests that Fyodor accumulated his wealth by sponging, so that everyone always underestimated how rich he was, he also indulges in sharp practices (marrying for money and effectively cheating Dmitry out of his mother’s inheritance); by the time of the action of the novel, however, Fyodor has a reputation for being a rich voluptuary. Is this an inconsistency in the story or is Dostoevsky showing that even when a character is consistent, their reputation can be multi-faceted.<br /><br />At the end of the book, at the trial, both Prosecutor and Defence Counsel interpret the actions of Dmitry in different ways: as the Defence says “<i>psychology, gentlemen, though it is a deep thing, none the less resembles a stick with two ends</i>” (12.10). It is pointed out that the lawyers are constructing competing stories. It is as if Dostoevsky is saying that there is no absolute truth but that all versions of reality are unreliable narrations, a very postmodern idea.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The unreliable narrator is also a trope of modernist fiction, so perhaps TBK is an early example of that. The ending of the book, which is only partially resolved, is another characteristic of modernism. <br /><br /><b>Characters</b><br />In the end, the joy of TBK lies in some of the characters. Although I found Alyosha rather empty and bland and Smerdyakov is a purely pantomime villain, other characters are fascinating. My favourites were Mrs Khokhlakov, a wonderfully empty-headed widow, and the brilliant but vain but compassionate Kolya. At the other end of the age spectrum, who doesn't love an unredeeemed rake who takes joy in his wickedness, such as Fyodor Karamzov?</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">But perhaps the most interesting character is Ratikin. At the start he is almost unnoticeable, the seminarian in the background. But little by little he worms his way into the plot until he is a cross between a secret policeman and an agent provocateur. He is a spy for Mrs K. He takes money from Grushenska to bring Alyosha to her. He pops up everywhere! “<i>It turned out that Ratikin knew everything, knew an extraordinary amount, had been to visit everyone, seen everything, spoken to everyone, and possessed a most detailed knowledge.</i>” (12.2) Is he Dostoevsky's cynical self-portrait, like Velasquez in his Las Meninas? He writes slanderous articles (betraying Mrs K) for the Moscow press when the scandal of the murder breaks. Dmitry even says “<i>He wants to write about me ... and thus inaugurate his role in literature.</i>” (11.4) </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>What I didn’t like</b><br />As with so many Russian novels, each character has three names: the first name, the patronymic and the surname. They are referred to either by first name and patronymic (eg Fyodor Pavolich) or by surname (eg Karamazov) or, most frequently, by a version of their first name (eg Alyosha, Mitya, Katya, etc). Some characters have more than one such nickname (often different people call them different things and this is a highlight of the book). In some cases we don’t learn the full name of a character until very late on in the book. This caused me considerable confusion at the start, not realising, for example, that Grushenska was also called Agrafena Alexandrovna. I really needed a cast list at the start of the book which listed all possible versions of their name.<br /><br />The edition I had came with notes which often explained things that I wasn’t very interested in, such as the fact that a certain line was derived from a parody of Pushkin. What I absolutely needed was a translation of the many times that French or Latin was used. In the worst example, the devil tells a joke in French. There is an end-note ... which gives the full joke, still in French, and fails to translate it! Why do editors do this? I’m reading a translation ... but they can’t be bothered to translate anything that’s not Russian. Is it because they don’t know? Or is it because they do know and they expect me to know? Or is it because they do know and they know I don’t know and it is a way of asserting their superiority?</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The implication that Smerdyakov was a rotter principally because he illegitimate. All of Fyodor Karamazov's sons get a rough start in life but poor old Smerdy is bullied and looked down on by everyone. The whole Russian economy depends on the peasants but, despite Dostoevsky's reputation as a revolutionary social reformer, his books are basically about the upper-classes, who are presumed, even when they are ill-educated and poverty-stricken, to be intrinsically nobler and worthier and better than the muzhiks. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">All those exclamation marks! There's only so much intensity that one can take. Dmitry lives his life in the fast lane, always seemingly on the edge of catastrophe, and Ivan seems perpetually on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Alyosha spends his time running from one crisis to another. It's like watching Macbeth when everyone shouts every line, or a ballet when the dancers never pause. Exhausting! The occasional funny bits, such as when Mrs K tries to interest Dmitri in gold mines, are a welcome relief. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The narrative was somewhat lumpy. Two whole books (6 and 10) were almost extraneous additions. Book 6 tells of the life and works of the Elder Zosima and is almost completely irrelevant to the plot. Book 10 introduces a new character and acts as an interlude between Dmitry's arrest and his trial.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">And, while I appreciate that every character needs a back story, does every character need that back-story told? I suppose these sometimes provided welcome breaks from the intensity of the action but I really didn't need to know, for example, why Zosima became a monk.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Evaluation</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Yes it is much too long. There were passages of intricate theological and legal argument when I was numb with weariness. But even an inadequate review like the one above must give some idea of the wealth that is in this book. A classic? Undoubtedly.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Selected quotes:</span></b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The more I love mankind in general, the less I love human beings in particular. ... In the space of a day and a night I am capable of coming to hate even the best of human beings: one because he takes too long over dinner, another because he has a cold and is perpetually blowing his nose.</i>” (2.4)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>All these deportations to forced labour, ... reform no one, and more importantly have no deterrent effect, either.</i>” (2.5)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>It had rats, but Fyodor Pavlovitch did not altogether dislike them. ‘They help to relieve the monotony when one’s alone in the evening,’ he used to say.</i>” (3.1)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>But I always liked side‐paths, little dark back‐alleys behind the main road—there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. I am speaking figuratively, brother. In the town I was in, there were no such back‐alleys in the literal sense, but morally there were. If you were like me, you’d know what that means. I loved vice, I loved the ignominy of vice.</i>” (3.4) </span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The ladder’s the same. I’m at the bottom step, and you’re above, somewhere about the thirteenth. That’s how I see it. But it’s all the same. Absolutely the same in kind. Anyone on the bottom step is bound to go up to the top one.</i>” (3.4)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>As I get older, you know, I shan’t be a pretty object. The wenches won’t come to me of their own accord, so I shall want my money. So I am saving up more and more, simply for myself,.... For I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for being so open. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my taste, let me tell you that; and it’s not the proper place for a gentleman.</i>” (4.2)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Even in these days the law does not allow you to drag your old father about by the hair, to kick him in the face in his own house, and brag of murdering him.</i>” (4.2)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>In schools, children are a tribe without mercy: on their own they are heaven’s own angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.</i>” (4.7)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The very kindest and best of men are those who are most drunk</i>.” (4.7)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>If I didn’t believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil‐ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man’s disillusionment—still I should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty, though, I shall be sure to leave the cup, even if I’ve not emptied it, and turn away—where I don’t know. But till I am thirty, I know that my youth will triumph over everything—every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I’ve asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that would overcome this frantic and perhaps unseemly thirst for life in me, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t, that is till I am thirty, and then I shall lose it of myself, I fancy. Some drivelling consumptive moralists—and poets especially—often call that thirst for life base. It’s a feature of the Karamazovs, it’s true, that thirst for life regardless of everything; you have it no doubt too, but why is it base? The centripetal force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic.</i>” (5.3)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before the throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hell—for all she has seen there, indiscriminately.</i>” (5.5)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>We had four servants, all serfs. I remember my mother selling one of the four, the cook Afimya, who was lame and elderly, for sixty paper roubles, and hiring a free servant to take her place.</i>” (6.1)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Much knowledge soon makes one old.</i>” (7.3)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>He felt unbearably awkward. All were clothed, while he was naked, and strange to say, when he was undressed he felt somehow guilty in their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself that he was inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right to despise him.</i>” (9.6)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>I have, as it were, torn my soul in half before you, and you have taken advantage of it and are rummaging with your fingers in both halves along the torn place.</i>” (9.7)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>I’ve sworn to amend, and every day I’ve done the same filthy things. I understand now that such men as I need a blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose, and bind them by a force from without. Never, never should I have risen of myself! But the thunderbolt has fallen. I accept the torture of accusation, and my public shame, I want to suffer and by suffering I shall be purified. Perhaps I shall be purified, gentlemen?</i>” (9.9)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The study of the classics, if you ask my opinion, is a police measure, that’s why it has been introduced into our schools. Latin and Greek were introduced because they are a bore and because they stupefy the intellect. It was dull before, so what could they do to make things duller? It was senseless enough before, so what could they do to make it more senseless? So they thought of Greek and Lati</i>n.” (10.5)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Everything will change , and finally, nothing, they will all be old men staring into their coffins.</i>” (11.2) </span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Everyone says they hate immorality, yet secretly they all like it</i>.” (11.3)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>De thoughtibus non est disputandum.</i>” (11.4) It’s a rewrite of the philosophical maxim: de gustibus non est disputandum which means ‘you can’t argue over matters of taste’ (that is, if I like something and you don’t, you can’t dispute it) Dostoevsky’s maxim, put into the mouth of Dmitri, is ‘you can’t argue over thoughts ie philosophies’</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>How is man to fare after that? Without God and without a life to come? After all, that would mean that now all things are lawful, that one may do anything one likes.</i>” (11.4)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Just try admitting to a woman your guilt ... On no account will she forgive you in a simple, straightforward manner, no, she will degrade you to the level of the floor-cloth, she will find things that never even happened, will take everything, forget nothing, add things of her own, and only then forgive.</i>” (11.4)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>What would become of an axe in space? Quelle idée! If it were to fall to any distance, it would begin, I think, flying round the earth without knowing why, like a satellite.</i>” (11.9)</span></span></li><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-22aa536d-7fff-e978-de02-b5369b885510"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Who does not desire the death of his father?</i>” (12.5)</span></span></li></ul></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-size: large;">February 2024; 985 pages</span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-size: large;">Other books by Dostoevsky include:</span></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span><span style="font-size: large;">Crime and Punishment</span></span></li><li><span><span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-double-by-fyodor-dostoevsky.html" target="_blank">The Double</a></i></span></span></li><li><span><span style="font-size: large;">The Idiot</span></span></li><li><span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2012/03/notes-from-underground-by-fyodor.html" target="_blank"><i>Notes From Underground</i></a></span></span></li></ul></div><div><span><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-28d7de41-7fff-9073-fe0f-f7f414bdc763"></span></div><p></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/7eDYAY5Ae_5uG6r6_AfgkQwdBQsodpopYGMOy9yRcX_nnk_WIQ0fm7E7wD43Tp6cgpoS-ktfmKMcW3xo-6UVU6zWxSTWhUC9x9UeA5mgGINzr1FN9JoXuJxorrllWLHm_qsf1vOEAdxcwUaOaCOVXQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span></div></div></div></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-16150940659721026512024-01-25T16:12:00.003+00:002024-01-26T09:18:42.717+00:00"The Guide" by R K Narayan<span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXQXsqeovdv6BuaH5ZDwMaupTs6BFHp3rUDZYhDd7d3NVftQF_WeyNeT5uWFVqY48Ar29QEr-Xkcv2dpgN0i0FjE_VsdhccsEekDJy6Vuq2gccBV06p_CH6iottOOn0P8lbbGYq4-i4K1FRS7vhfqIC2oBf6fcvx6k2Ed7IppiVvEcxVNdB3PPiTj7AEBx/s1600/CIMG2118.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXQXsqeovdv6BuaH5ZDwMaupTs6BFHp3rUDZYhDd7d3NVftQF_WeyNeT5uWFVqY48Ar29QEr-Xkcv2dpgN0i0FjE_VsdhccsEekDJy6Vuq2gccBV06p_CH6iottOOn0P8lbbGYq4-i4K1FRS7vhfqIC2oBf6fcvx6k2Ed7IppiVvEcxVNdB3PPiTj7AEBx/w400-h300/CIMG2118.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />The Guide follows Raju. We first meet him after he comes out of prison; sitting on the river bank near a village called Mangal, he encouters a villager, Velan, who believes he is a holy man. He maintains this illusion in return for gifts of food and being allowed to sleep in the temple. But when there is a drought, the swami is expected to be a saint and fast. He tries to persuade Velan he is an ordinary man by telling him how he came to be in jail. he used to run a shop in Malgudi's railway station and then became a tourist guide. He fell in love the the wife of one of his clients and then became her manager as she became a dancer. <br /><br />Raju is clearly a men who lives on his wits. He has the skills of a con artist: he is able to discern what people want and convince them that he can satisfy their needs. At the same time, he is (usually) convinced that he is a good man doing the right thing. Perhaps it is only afterwards that, reflecting on his life, he achieves self-awareness. As an accidental swami, he starts to realise that he is taking advantage of the innocence of the villagers (although that doesn't stop him cheating them when he needs to).<br /><br />The strength of the book lies in its depiction of life in the town of Malgudi and the village of Mangal. It is a society where religion is important but life is more important. Good manners and decent behaviour are expected, status are reputation are highly prized. There is a deep respect for rules and for the law, which contrasts strongly with an economy seemingly based on more or less unfettered free enterprise (a bit like the USA where rampant capitalism is paired with a furiously, litigious society). <br /><br />Narayan's prose is very matter-of-fact, as is the story he is telling. This is a story of an ordinary man, told in ordinary words; the degree of verisimilitude is such that I, as reader, wouldn't have been surprised to encounter Raju in the street, and for that street to have all the sights and sounds and smells of an Indian town. And yet Narayan includes very little description in his book. We know very little about what any character looks like (we know that Raju came out of prison with short hair and later grew it) or what either Malgudi or Mangal look like and nothing about the sounds and smells. In this sense, Narayan is a minimalist and, like a radio player can create pictures in a listeners head, he is able to conjure up a sense of solid reality despite offering few details. This light touch helps to make Raju feel both individual and an everyman.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The chronology of the book jumps between the present (Raju as a fake swami) told in the third person and the past (Raju as a tourist guide and then an impresario, told in the first person). Raju has an interesting relationship with the past. Raju is besotted by Rosie, a dancer from a family of temple dancers whose husband has forbidden her to dance but who wants to popularise the cultural tradition of dance. Rosie's husband is fascinated by ancient artefacts and writes an important book on them. Raju himself, whose story starts with that symbol of contemporary India, the railway station, ends up as a swami combatting drought, perhaps the most ancient and yet timeless symbol of India. It is almost as Narayan is telling us that everything changes but everything remains the same, that time clothes us but that our naked selves are eternal.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The title 'The Guide' seems at first glance to refer purely to Raju's time as a tourist guide. But, of course, he ends up as a spiritual guide. He started off as an imposter, propelled into guiding by tourists who asked for him to help them and winging it all the way but in the end providing a service so valuable that he receives a begrudging acknowledgement in Rosie's husband's book. In the same way he only becomes a swami because Velan mistakes him for one, and he is a thoroughgoing fraud at the start but in the end we feel he has become a genuine saint. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Raju's career matches the life-course of Hermann Hesse's eponymous hero in <i>Siddhartha</i> - a story based on the life of the Buddha - whose search for enlightenment includes becoming a merchant and a lover before ending as a ferryman, living by a river.<br /></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-size: large;">A Penguin Classic. Narayan was an Indian writer who write a series of novels set in the fictional Indian town of Malgudi. In Britain, where he first achieved success, he was championed by a young Graham Greene and one can feel the kinship between Greene's novels and Narayan's. <br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Selected quotes:</span></b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"<i>The essence of sainthood seemed to lie in one's ability to utter mystifying statements. ... He was dragging these innocent men deeper and deeper into the bog of unclear thoughts.</i>" (Ch 4)</li><li>"<i>It seemed to me silly to go a hundred miles to see the source of </i>[the river]<i> Sarayu when it had taken the trouble to tumble down the mountain and come to our door.</i>" (Ch 5)</li><li>"<i>If he was the academic type I was careful to avoid all mention of facts and figures and to confine myself to general descriptions, letting the man himself do the talking. You may be sure he enjoyed the opportunity.</i>" (Ch 5)</li><li>"<i>True to the tradition of the landed gentry, he found litigation an engrossing subject.</i>" (Ch 8)</li></ul></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024; 196 pages</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Narayan also wrote <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-painter-of-signs-by-r-k-narayan.html" target="_blank">The Painter of Signs</a></i>, reviewed in this blog</span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-f9c9ac7c-7fff-0d1a-132a-79a8516e9564"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/hWoImla0hnuTNty_BiJ03YkGfbw0PNrSnuBMuu4Tq8freew2d6yBFMTWqofzA_j7YUneA5t8GiOvB8b-WYGhKIlyxcOiSAPWJC_bfHKJibrxye3B2NqCS67lmckRJlPNnvZR3BjToVutNIole54zcA" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span><p><br /></p></div></div></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-20470645304941349752024-01-24T06:39:00.009+00:002024-02-06T07:21:11.132+00:00"Love's Labour's Lost" by William Shakespeare<p><span style="font-size: large;"> One of Shakespeare's comedies. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The King of Navarre persuades three of his Lords to abjure women and study philosophy together for a period of three years; they all swear to do this although Berowne is reluctant. They then realise they must immediately break their oaths because the Princess of France and three ladies have arrived on a diplomatic mission. They meet the ladies and fall in love but, before they can all go off happily into the sunset, or to bed, a messenger tells the Princess that her dad is dead so they must all endure a period of mourning for a year and a day. These courtly romances, enlivened by the usual mistaken identities and misdirecting of love letters, are repeatedly interrupted by the lower class.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Much of the humour relies on wordplay, making this play a challenge for the reader (I often needed to check the notes) and the audience. On the whole, it was heavy going and it is generally regarded as one of Shakespeare's lesser works. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There's a lot of poetry in it (including a sonnet in Alexandrine hexameters). Well over one third of all the lines are rhymed , more than any other Shakespeare play (the next contenders are <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2019/01/richard-ii-by-william-shakespeare.html" target="_blank">Richard II</a></i> and <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-midsummer-nights-dream-by-william.html" target="_blank">The Midsummer Night's Dream</a></i>). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It also contains 189 proverbs, beaten only by <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2018/11/romeo-and-juliet-by-william-shakespeare.html" target="_blank">Romeo & Juliet</a></i> (223) and <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2016/10/king-lear-by-william-shakespeare.html" target="_blank">King Lear</a></i> (197). </span></p><span style="font-size: large;">Most of Shakespeare's plays are clearly sourced but LLL isn't and it shares the same number of scenes (9) as the other unsourced plays: <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-midsummer-nights-dream-by-william.html" target="_blank">The Midsummer Night's Dream</a></i> and <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-tempest-by-william-shakespeare.html" target="_blank">The Tempest</a></i>.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Some of the lower class characters seem to share characteristics with the <i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-commedia-dellarte-by-giacomo-oreglia.html" target="_blank">Commedia dell'Arte</a></i>. For example, Armado is a Braggart and Holofernes a Pedant.<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>O, I am stabbed with laughter.</i>" (5.2.80)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Light seeking light doth light of light beguile.</i>" (1.1.77) It was thought that eyes saw by shining a light out of themselves.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Small have continual plodders ever won,/ Save base authority from others' books.</i>" (1.1.86 - 87)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.</i>" (1.2.175 - 177)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>To jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose as if you snuffed up love by smelling love, with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with your arms crossed on your thin-belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit, or your hands in your pocket like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.</i>" (3.1.10 - 20)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind</i>." (4.3.308)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Love's feeling is more soft and sensible/ Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.</i>" (4.3.311 - 312)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A time methinks too short/ To make a world-without-end bargain in.</i>" (5.2.782 - 783)</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-size: large;">One of my mum's favourite poems comes from a song at the end of LLL:</span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>When icicles hang by the wall</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And Dick the shepherd blows his nail</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And Tom bears logs into the hall</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And milk comes frozen home in pail,</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>When blood is nipped and ways be foul, </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Then nightly sings the staring owl:</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>'Tu-whit, Tu-whoo!' A merry note,</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>When all aloud the wind doth blow</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And coughing drowns the parson's saw</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And birds sit brooding in the snow</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And Marian's nose looks red and raw,</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, </i></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Then nightly sings the staring owl:</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>'Tu-whit, Tu-whoo!' A merry note,</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.</i></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I saw a production of LLL by the Eastbourne Operatic & Dramatic Society at the Eastbourne Royal Hippodrome on Friday 26th January 2024. My review is <a href="https://daja57.blogspot.com/2024/01/loves-labours-lost-by-william.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I also saw a more or less straight-from-the-text LLL streamed on Digital Theatre from a 2015 Stratford Festival production. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Other Shakespeare plays that I have reviewed can be found <a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/p/shakespeare-plays.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-3b6eedde-7fff-2b93-4ced-56a3fe0e918c"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/gAvBTtXf_a8PhyRq-aZjX8g-piWKPBUJX6vlNDmSN-2uYcM1YiPS2h_QWzMdx1T2xPIwnh_bl27stFvfjiyyqRAWGoXtNf_kamVReuJmOG3WLAHkOfqQM9jHdCqyKgE-T_4UFRtktXYkCJi4M0yHCQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-20157235012875804392024-01-23T07:31:00.004+00:002024-01-23T07:33:09.707+00:00"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span>An epistolary novel of a sort in that the story is told as if the protagonist Celie is writing letters to God. This has the advantage that the novelist can use the conceit that they don't know what is about to happen next. But, despite the careful use of mis-spelt words to give an authentic feel, these snippets have too much controlled narrative to sound like letters. Later, there are letters written to Celie. These are even more obviously contrived.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Nevertheless, the voices of the two main characters, Celie and Shug, come through very strongly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One of my problems with this book is that it is issue driven. We start off with child sexual abuse; it almost feels that the author has contrived to select a hook with the biggest shock value. Then the protagonist is married off to a man who wants a wife to work for him and to have sex with; he beats her. Before too long we have lesbianism, racism, colonialism, slavery, the true origin of the Uncle Remus stories, lynching, female circumcision ... It is almost as if the author can't think of an issue without being compelled to add it to the story. This means that some of the characters (eg Nettie) simply become channels to report on these things. This reduces them from potentially three-dimensional characters into mouthpieces.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are characters. The core of the book involves the narrator, Celie and her relationship with Shug, a jazz singer who is Celie's husband's former lover and occasional boyfriend. It is by observing how Shug confronts the world that Celie learns how to stop being exploited, downtrodden and abused. There are also two other characters: Harpo, Celie's stepson and his wife Sofia, who have an on-off relationship. Harpo tries hard to treat Sofia better than his father treats his stepmother; Sofia version of standing up to the world gets her into trouble that even she can't handle. These four characters could have made an excellent novel on their own, but every time Nettie shows her face she preaches.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The other interesting character is that of Mr ------, Celie's husband. He's very much the villain at the start. Then we discover that when he was in love with Shug, he was a different person. By the end of the book he is tamed. He is not the only baddie to be redeemed. It is almost as if the author is saying that if you are true to yourself, if you stand up for yourself, then in the end goodness and righteousness will prevail. It makes a book that started with a shock into a feel-good novel by the end. But I found such redemptive character arcs unconvincing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A potentially great novel spoiled by too many issues, too much plot and too little concentration on the characters. </span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes: </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">(page references refer to the Wiedenfeld & Nicolson paperpack published in 2017)</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I don't know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.</i>" (p 18)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Next time us see Harpo his face a mess of bruises. His lip cut. One of his eyes shut like a fist. He walk stiff and say his teef ache.</i>" (p 36) I love the eye that is 'shut like a fist'; both descriptive and hinting at the reason for his injury.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>She weak as a kitten. But her mouth just pack with claws.</i>" (p 47)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Harpo sits on the steps acting like he don't care. He ... whistle a little tune. But it nothing compared to the way he usually whistle. His little whistle sound like it lost way down in a jar, and the jar in the bottom of the creek.</i>" (p 64)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>She wearing a skintight red dress look like the straps made out of two pieces of thread.</i>" (p 69)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>'Tea' to the English is really a picnic indoors.</i>" (p 123)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Nobody feel better for killing nothing. They feel something is all."</i> (p 129)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>There is a way that the men speak to women that reminds me too much of Pa. They listen just long enough to issue instructions.</i>" (p 146)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown.</i>" (p 173)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>You better hush. God might hear you. Let 'im hear, I say. If he ever listened to poor coloured women the world would be a different place, I can tell you.</i>" (p 173)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.</i>" (p 174)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.</i>" (p 177)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.</i>" (p 177)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?</i>" (p 177)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.</i>" (p 178)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I don't know who tried to teach him what to do in the bedroom, but it must have been a furniture salesman.</i>" (p 225)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024; 261 pages</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Color Purple won the <a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/p/pulitzer-prize-for-fiction.html" target="_blank">Pulitzer Prize</a> in 1983.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-22682309-7fff-f3b6-2dd4-4a6bad863684"></span></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/CtFvhcehBxbyE1cwe2INkxYzRaROI1629Dmzj909nwEUKfqYjEiaus4CUMDSn2SlDCB9KnwuR1xP1gRpoqCy3JURTkEWAAhGxsFj_CqpOnSfMiemWrdvCFUaithicfNg_UjMMG0hVTl1Fqtb-Mphfg" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-41941027549551764652024-01-20T10:49:00.003+00:002024-01-20T10:50:10.747+00:00"Still Life" by Sarah Winman<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiuja4vnva6tFnkQKLfwYZ9w33C_2oXk0HxtHLhb-1KIX3ggC34pmKPQVf_uyzo5vc3HQ824C-Uc0FGk4-hRG0FLVb2HjkjEX1p8rwms4kiHC8y_MgDCLQP_ku1tTjJS02omN_5-d0ErwJ4gU_juO8jjx55bJr-KIdiRo1P5XRnrIhhR81vwMrPNlQfaJXf" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="758" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiuja4vnva6tFnkQKLfwYZ9w33C_2oXk0HxtHLhb-1KIX3ggC34pmKPQVf_uyzo5vc3HQ824C-Uc0FGk4-hRG0FLVb2HjkjEX1p8rwms4kiHC8y_MgDCLQP_ku1tTjJS02omN_5-d0ErwJ4gU_juO8jjx55bJr-KIdiRo1P5XRnrIhhR81vwMrPNlQfaJXf=w400-h317" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit (public domain)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><br />The Waterstone's Book of the Month for March 2022.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A brilliant book. A group of oddball characters travel from a grey 1950s London pub setting to a technicolor Florence. There's a lot of banter, a lot of humour (I laughed aloud at several points, which I rarely do), some moments of sadness (I cried when one of the leading characters died) and a message that life is to be enjoyed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I read it shortly before watching the film, Poor Things and this book and that film share (with Caravaggio) </span><span>an artificiality of style coupled to extreme naturalism.</span><span> </span><span>This is signposted right from the start. </span><span>In the first part (Man is the Measure of All Things 1944),</span><span> </span><span>a critical meeting between Evelyn and Ulysses which includes dialogue which sounds like sort of thing you wish you'd said at a posh dinner party if you hadn't drunk too much of that wonderful wine, is sandwiched between two sections where the dialogue has perfect verisimilitude, each speaker making short contributions which are often beside the point and fail to respond to the other speaker. During the middle section, the art movement Mannerism is mentioned </span><span>("</span><i>the style is what we would call early Mannerist. ... a deliberate denial of realistic style, calculated and artificial.</i><span>") </span><span>and I think this is a clue to what the author is trying to do. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Which is a fascinating start.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The deliberate artificiality continues. There is a cast of eccentric characters, swiftly but indelibly drawn, including:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">Ulysses Temper, an incurably optimistic soldier from London whose superpower is making friends</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Evelyn Skinner, a lesbian art critic</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Peg, a brassy barmaid with attitude </span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Cressy, an old man who has dialogues with trees and an interest in philosophy; he has visions which lead to extraordinarily successful betting coups</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Pete the pub piano player and composer and occasional star of musical theatre, who has girlfriends across Europe</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Claude, a parrot who quotes Shakespeare</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Alys, the result of a one night stand between Peg and a GI, a kid with attitude growing up in Florence</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>A cherry tree with a long perspective on time a farewells: </span><span>a cherry tree "Think about it. Leaves." </span><span>(Somewhere Between an Atom and a Star 1946 - 53)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Col, the pub landlord, violently protective of his daughter who drives a second-hand ambulance which has a misfiring siren (in the UK ambulances had bells before 1963 which I presume is not an error but a deliberate introduction of artificiality). </span><span> </span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Des, a businessman who can't help making money: "<i>Two words ... disposable syringes</i>"</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-size: large;">This is a book about the joy that is in life. It is a joyous read.</span></div><p></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected Quotes:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He was a recent scholar ... Covered in the afterbirth of graduation - shy, awkward, you know the type. Entering the world with no experience at all.</i>" (Man is the Measure of All Things" 1944)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>A meagre stain in the corridors of history, that's all we are.</i>"</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span><span>(Man is the Measure of All Things" 1944)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>Hair of the dog, she thought; she'd need the whole bleedin' pelt to get moving this morning.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(Man is the Measure of All Things" 1944)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>Cherry blossom and a glass of stout. Hard to beat.</i>" </span><span>(Somewhere Between an Atom and a Star 1946 - 53)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>The world never turned out the way that you wanted it to. It simply turned. And you hung on.</i>" </span><span>(Somewhere Between an Atom and a Star 1946 - 53)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>I've never seen him in a hat before ... Me neither. .... It'd look even better on his head.</i>" (The Stuff of Dreams 1953 - 54)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>The salty porky chickeny-ness of it, said Col in a moment of rare epicurean elegance.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(The Stuff of Dreams 1953 - 54)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>The music led Cress to his mum. Six kids, no money and only a view from the sink. Christmas just another day. The time he learnt that she too had dreams. Hard to reconcile that pain. Had taken a lifetime and still not there yet.</i>"</span><span> </span><span>(The Stuff of Dreams 1953 - 54)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>They left the next day, Peg and Ted as early as decency would allow, and the margins on that were close.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(The Stuff of Dreams 1953 - 54)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>She looked at her watch. Curtailed, once again, by the scythe of time.</i>" (The Most Unlikely-Looking Pair 1954-59)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>The was an herbaceous hook to the spring air, the slow roll of a lawnmower moving methodically across the quad. It was the season of bloom and leaf growth, and the bare branches appeared bewildered by the vibrancy of emerging livery.</i>"</span><span> </span><span>(The Most Unlikely-Looking Pair 1954-59)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"<i>Time: mid-morning. Weather: sun blazing, no respite, no cloud. Gasping.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(The Most Unlikely-Looking Pair 1954-59)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>She was a Michelangelo enthusiast and spent hours gazing at David's allure.</i>" (La Dolce Vita 1960)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Sunglasses hid the ten years older and the sun highlighted the ten years blonder.</i>" (It's Just the Way of Things 1962 - 66)<span> </span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He was still worried about the age difference, but the elderly contessa reassured him, saying, As long as there's still grass on the pitch ...</i>" (I'd Love Nothing in the World So Well As You 1968 - 79)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span> "<i>She taught Pete the stuck-in-a-glass-box mime routine and Pete spent the following week trying to escape from something he couldn't see.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(I'd Love Nothing in the World So Well As You 1968 - 79) Metaphorical?</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>His nudes look absent-minded, as if they've carelessly lost their clothes and need to go and search for them.</i>" (All About Evelyn)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"</span><span><i>So, time heals. Mostly. Sometimes carelessly. And in unsuspecting moments the pain catches and reminds one of all that's been missing. The fulcrum of what might have been. But then it passes. Winter moves into spring and swallows return. The proximity of new skin returns to the sheets. Beauty does what is required. Jobs fulfil and conversations inspire. Loneliness becomes a mere Sunday. Scattered clothes. Empty bowls. Rotting fruit. Passing time. But still life in all its beauty and complexity.</i>" </span><span> </span><span>(All About Evelyn) I wonder whether the reference to rotting fruit hints at the Caravaggio Still Life which shocked viewers when it showed fruit past its eat-by date? Caravaggio's hyper-realistic style was in many ways a reaction against Mannerism while still maintaining a dramatic artificiality of composition, particularly in regard to his heightened 'tenebrist' lighting effects. </span></span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Wonderful. I must read more by this brilliant author.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024; 436 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-ee146ad7-7fff-d6fa-7098-cfa73962740a"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/VuIwVeAVhcoDekiE_Kogxxsos67zi7_nlR8hqY6qo-LVGh4029t50EB5AU3f4lGzJGASGCwSzllrZLHZR2Z9McTptWbNlDidd2StDpc42Pdbh3Ph4JhktwwOk4RcTWjZOQq7tIHYX2cDtYDMq8xYqw" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-53785196150375609432024-01-16T09:49:00.001+00:002024-01-16T09:50:23.930+00:00"Silver on the Tree" by Susan Cooper<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggg1fZPSLSQtO9RTUJ3_aCY1oNplma6WUnb8ukAxaFmQwG_zAiUmF2wrswOYdPn4p7WtbLtBo3fkvQ8wlM1Y-As9q7y_03ObIYIp3iZoVOavrtDJO45Y6aX6ZuKiakXEsOR2B5nFBFxfRAdrrpBckQFGZ_Blcg-Nd6NrDH6YEY8wcfc_nlKrkgdeOjvwzh/s4128/20200430_095146.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4128" data-original-width="3096" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggg1fZPSLSQtO9RTUJ3_aCY1oNplma6WUnb8ukAxaFmQwG_zAiUmF2wrswOYdPn4p7WtbLtBo3fkvQ8wlM1Y-As9q7y_03ObIYIp3iZoVOavrtDJO45Y6aX6ZuKiakXEsOR2B5nFBFxfRAdrrpBckQFGZ_Blcg-Nd6NrDH6YEY8wcfc_nlKrkgdeOjvwzh/w300-h400/20200430_095146.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> In the final instalment of 'The Dark is Rising', all the characters from the previous books come together to defeat the powers of darkness. Will and Bran (whose true nature is divulged) have to travel through time to the Lost Land where they will undergo a series of tests in order to win a sword. Simon, Barnaby and Jane have rather more minor roles. Great Uncle Merriman acts as guide and controller. The most important scene is given to a bit player, the ordinary human sheep farmer John Rowlands.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The book is the opportunity for the author to display her descriptive powers:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Grasshoppers skirled unseen from the grass, chirruping their solos over the deep summer insect hum</i>" (1: Midsummer’s Eve)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Oak and sycamore and Lombardy poplar reached high on either side; houses slept behind hedges fragrant with honeysuckle and starred with invading bindweed.</i>" (1: Black Mink)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>the face was fine-boned, kindly yet arrogant, with clear blue eyes that shone strangely young in the old, old cobweb-lined face.</i>" (2: The Bearded Lake)</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-size: large;">She also delightfully captures the rhythm and structure of spoken Welsh.</span></div><p></p><span style="font-size: large;">Many weird and wonderful things take place; it is clear that the author possesses .considerable powers of imagination. This, I suspect, is this book is loved by so many.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">But the fact that Will is able to do magic, and immortal, and the promise repeatedly made by Merriman that there is no mortal peril, undermines the tension of the book. We know things are going to be all right so that the monsters and the horrors fail to terrify. And, as with the other books, no test is ever failed. Everything is too straightforward.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">At the end there are two decisions made that could go either way and these stand out for me as the moments when the book escaped from being no more than a decorative fairy tale and nudged its way towards being a myth.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The initial relationship between Bran and a newly pubescent Jane also produced some moments of edginess, although the rift between Will and Simon which was a feature of book 3 had healed. The character of the King of the Lost Land was also one of the strengths of the book.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, this is a children's book and I am judging it by adult standards. But for my money this book, though prettily written, was too tame.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Selected quotes:</span></b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>it cures the toothach being snift up into the nosethrils, especially into the contrary nosethril.</i>" (1: Midsummer’s Eve)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>For all times coexist, you said, and the future can sometimes affect the past, even though the past is a road that leads to the future."</i> (1: Black Mink)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The mindless ferocity of this man, and all those like him, their real loathing born of nothing more solid than insecurity and fear . . . it was a channel. Will knew that he had been gazing into the channel down which the powers of the Dark, if they gained their freedom, could ride in an instant to complete control of the earth.</i>" (1: Midsummer Day)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>If you have seen the raising of fear, and the killing of love, and the Dark creeping in over all things, you do not ask stupid questions. You do what you are intended to do, and no nonsense.</i>" (2: The Bearded Lake)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>there was more than a mood invading her mind; this was a strangeness she could not define, had never known before. A restlessness, a half-fearful anticipation of something part of her seemed to understand and part not . . .</i>" (2: The Bearded Lake)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Maybe because the Dark can only reach people at extremes – blinded by their own shining ideas, or locked up in the darkness of their own heads.</i>" (3: The Rose-Garden)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it, Old One, do we not? For ever and ever . . . so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.</i>" (3: Caer Wydyr)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>my useless life is the empty cawing of a crow, and any talent I once may have had is dead. Let the toys that it made die with it</i>." (3: The King of the Lost Land)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Boy, callow boy, do not speak to me of life that you have not lived. What do you know of the weight that drags down a king who has failed his people, an artist who has failed his gift? This life is a long cheat, full of promises that can never be kept, errors that can never be righted, omissions that can never be filled. I have forgotten as much of my life as I can manage to forget.</i>" (3: The King of the Lost Land)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>despair, which is the tomb of all your hope</i>" (3: The King of the Lost Land)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>‘Cowardly it is,’ he said in a cold adult voice, ‘to shelter behind those who love you, without giving love in return.</i>'" (4: The Train)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Every human being who loves another loves imperfection, for there is no perfect being on this earth.</i>" (4: One Goes Alone)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past.</i>" </span>(4: One Goes Alone)</li></ul></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The previous books in the series are:</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/11/over-sea-under-stone-by-susan-cooper.html"><i>Over Sea, Under Stone</i></a></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-dark-is-rising-by-susan-cooper.html"><i>The Dark Is Rising</i></a></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/12/greenwitch-by-susan-cooper.html"><i>Greenwitch</i></a></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-grey-king-by-susan-cooper.html" target="_blank">The Grey King</a></i></span></li></ul><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-dc5ba12d-7fff-912a-9c5a-ecb7372738af"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/7_XVR6astSyMS04dyp06bE3wei6NyWOhLLySIroWmVnNc7YmJaagZin7uMgMdXebbEacS5LuLQr22FYZvozCiNVC6GZpwOaKAS2-tVJGnMStSq2CZBop2pibElUTDHkB6W9XTozRGQpgnXmqtUmJrw" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></div><br /><br /></span><br />dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-32173426706566848582024-01-14T10:16:00.002+00:002024-01-14T10:16:29.616+00:00"Edward the Elder" by Michael John Kay<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg366-86Qc_GYZR8b5VuNi1l_tziVtoEEI8RPYLybT_2_DGS5oSfAKoJunCP5NOLGSbtOa5UnD5hRwKWw5wbUp-YxZD9ch6TuJ8o4DU8hQ3gErNPI36Ui2zHcK8ysbOHA4Ct-amMPgMF1UubKJKbyctEJsXGgYs2OaqIqucRKFOI7WFnZL6UpexnTWMo2Ub/s4128/20190621_065928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3096" data-original-width="4128" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg366-86Qc_GYZR8b5VuNi1l_tziVtoEEI8RPYLybT_2_DGS5oSfAKoJunCP5NOLGSbtOa5UnD5hRwKWw5wbUp-YxZD9ch6TuJ8o4DU8hQ3gErNPI36Ui2zHcK8ysbOHA4Ct-amMPgMF1UubKJKbyctEJsXGgYs2OaqIqucRKFOI7WFnZL6UpexnTWMo2Ub/w400-h300/20190621_065928.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The River Great Ouse at Bedford was once the frontier between the Saxons and the Vikings. Edward crossed the river to capture Bedford during his reign.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Edward the Elder was the son of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex. Alfred is justly celebrated for resisting Viking incursions into the territory of Wessex, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom that covered most of southern England, and reaching a long-lasting peace treaty with the Vikings, albeit one that recognised a split between the Anglo-Saxon part of England (Wessex and half of Mercia, the kingdom in the Midlands, against the Welsh border) and the Viking part (called the Danelaw). But Edward was the King who, with his sister Aethelflaed who was Queen of Mercia) took the fight to the Vikings, retrieving the Midlands and East Anglia. Edward's son Aethlestan was to continue the fight, liberating almost all of what is now England, and creating the unified country that we now have.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So Edward (called the Elder by later generations to distinguish him from Edward the Confessor) is a very important figure in English history and one who has been unjustly overlooked, overshadowed, perhaps, by his father. This biography puts Edward back in the limelight.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It also tells his story remarkably well. My only quibble is that the writer frequently tells you the same thing twice, for example, when he describes the boundary between Wessex-Mercia and the Danelaw, the second time in slightly more detail. But if this is the price to pay for a complicated tale to be told with clarity, so be it, although it does make the book longer (and the print is quite small so my ageing eyes found it sometimes wearisome).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is a complicated tale. A patchwork of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms battled against a miscellany of Scandinavian marauders. The situation was rarely coherent. Given that all this happened over a thousand years ago, the sources are often either missing, possibly inaccurate or incomplete. The author does a great job or pinpointing dates and places without being overly nit-picking (for example, he tends to summarise scholarly opinion without going into the details). The result is a readable history for the general reader.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I loved it. So many of the places that appear are places I have known, such as Kingston-on-Thames were Edward (probably) and Aethelstan (definitely) had their coronations, sitting on a block of sarsen stone. And Bedford, a frontier town, whose Viking stronghold on the northern bank of the River Great Ouse surrendered to Edward, at which point he built a neighbouring fortified burh on the southern bank. And London where, the Roman city having been abandoned, the Vikings ruled Lundenwic before the Saxons retook the city moving the centre (around 883) back to the Roman ruins as Lundenburh. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But it's not all warfare. There are lots of other interesting tales and mysteries, such as: Why did Edward ditch his first wife Ecgwyn and send his son by that relationship to be brought up by his sister in Mercia? Was she a concubine as was hinted? And why did Edward's first heir die only fourteen days after Edward; was he assassinated by his half-brother? And who was the nun abducted from Wimborne Minster by Edward's cousin Aethelwold during his first rebellion; was she Edward's sister Aethelgifu and did Aethelwold marry her and if so was it consensual?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This is the story of a critical period in the founding of the country we now know as England and this great book rescues Edward from the neglect of history.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-1f9d7a37-7fff-f23e-663f-9cae20787d8b"></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>The slave trade was part of accepted practice, with slaves bought and sold across markets throughout the known world.</i>” (Ch 16)</span></li></ul></span><div><p><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024; 263 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-909f2991-7fff-73ab-6334-1e1d92c0dc01"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/R1EevYmR8wA3ChX-Z6N3XM-8HcYfj37nODOVivDoT-qVwm1POFLpfoEUVuUN51Kt4V2VzYzzyG6etyQRWcX5488Ux35wMOxQGFAS6bVJVv07cYNEaTEAbXGdiX-msisGFHYa4BxkDt3jmPLbfvX5jQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-57878167308585046812024-01-13T10:18:00.004+00:002024-01-13T10:18:51.438+00:00"The Birds" by Tarjei Vesaas<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiREhRAHwYwqgHIT7bp1aftrXlNLKHsXMwrnv8J_l8jXnrqYHJwwm5jcaWv_859VJoRofTSUXXeE9EzFmNURbxf5Or5SsEGHNdC9WLrUBW9cE0derq7Zpi1uR4eDc9BObOz8M7fy6OybOWew75IoS8fUSGCcfgWm2mW6xKzRwpHaYuEZUu2K_I2X5Zs7FIJ/s4128/20231228_072342.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3096" data-original-width="4128" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiREhRAHwYwqgHIT7bp1aftrXlNLKHsXMwrnv8J_l8jXnrqYHJwwm5jcaWv_859VJoRofTSUXXeE9EzFmNURbxf5Or5SsEGHNdC9WLrUBW9cE0derq7Zpi1uR4eDc9BObOz8M7fy6OybOWew75IoS8fUSGCcfgWm2mW6xKzRwpHaYuEZUu2K_I2X5Zs7FIJ/w400-h300/20231228_072342.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> This book is the interior monologue of Matti, a 37 year old man living with his forty year old sister, Hege, in a small town in Norway. He is regarded by the others in his community as a 'Simple Simon' because he says strange things and he finds it difficult to concentrate (his inner life is by no means simple, being full of imaginative and spiritual thoughts) for long enough to hold down even the simplest of jobs. They tolerate him, even sometimes paying him for work that he cannot do and giving him free sweets, but he knows what they say about him and he is ashamed. Like anyone else he wants to be respected and admired. What he doesn't appreciate is how his sister has sacrificed her life to look after him, and he doesn't understand why sometimes she can be tetchy with him. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In some ways the story is a picaresque, a series of loosely connected events, although Matti is scarcely a picaro; he's loveable but not a rogue. He is a bit like Don Quixote, having an unusually imaginative inner life, although this is not a comic novel. His adventures include a woodcock that flies over his house, sheltering in a privy during a thunderstorm, a disastrous day of working at turnip weeding, sinking in his rowing boat and having to be rescued by two girls, plying his trade as a ferryman, and the dreadful consequences of his encounter with a lumberjack.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are moments when we fear for the consequences; my heart was in my mouth more than once. Matti is an innocent in the sense that he does not understand the rules and restrictions of society, but he still has the normal needs of a young man and danger is always lurking underneath the surface, though this is rarely the danger that Matti fears (eg being struck by lightning). His fundamental problem is that needs Hege to look after him for the whole of his life but she has needs too and he only vaguely understands that nothing lasts forever. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The whole thing is written with a naive simplicity, in short sentences and short paragraphs, treating Matti's highly imaginative inner monologue with the same level of objectivity as actual events. This gives an indelible impression of someone who is simple in one sense and highly complex in another. The dialogue is full of ambiguous statements, achieving a high degree of verisimilitude, while at the same time brilliantly conveying to the reader, if not always to Matti, how others think of him, particularly the long-suffering Hege, torn between caring for Matti and finding personal fulfilment for herself. Matti, in particular, is prone to making gnomic statements which perfectly embody the gulf between his inner life and his ability to explain it using everyday words. Perhaps he ought to stick to the language of the birds.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is a beautifully written book.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Perspectives:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">It's a book showing how all creative people are supported so generously by those who go out and do the work.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">It's about how women support men.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Mattis is neurodiverse and this explores that.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Mattis has superstitions and lives in an almost magical world; don't we all?</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">It's about the loss of innocence.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">The village with its lake are the Garden of Eden ("<i>If this isn't a paradise you're living in, then I don't know what is</i>."; 2.21); Mattis is Adam and Hege is Eve and Jorgen is the serpent.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>We are presented the world strictly from Mattis’s perspective, and typically from his often inaccurate perceptions. He struggles to understand what others are thinking, and by extension their identities. ... It’s a terribly lonely world in which he lives, if one filled with a beauty that only he sees, from the lake he lingers on, to the birds flying over his house, which only he bothers to look at and appreciate, despite his very best efforts to tell others about them</i>." Daniel Kushner 2016 in <a href="https://www.thenationalbookreview.com/features/2016/8/9/essay-a-novel-of-norwegian-loneliness-the-birds-by-tarjei-vesaas" target="_blank">The National Book Review</a></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"a masterful, haunting novel ... Mattis ... becomes frustrated very easily, he struggles to express himself, he has strange obsessions (about birds) and finds it very difficult to understand why other people do not share his interests. On a personal level, he is lonely, and both scared of approaching people and over-confident when he does." Scottmanleyhadley 2015 in <a href="https://triumphofthenow.com/2015/02/01/review-the-birds-by-tarjei-vesaas/" target="_blank">Triumph of the Now</a></span></li></ul><p></p><p><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Selected quotes:</span></b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He was certainly lost in contemplation and let the twilight grow deeper and deeper, in so far as you could call it twilight and not just something unspeakably gentle.</i>" (1.5)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He sat surrounded by baffling problems, waiting with an important question.</i>" (1.11)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Some shining cars rushing past restored his courage. It was so easy meeting cars you didn't know. No one sitting inside them knew he was Simple Simon.</i>" (1.13)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Over the years Mattis had collected a large number of stories about lightning and what it did - but it had never struck a privy. Strange, but true.</i>" (2.24)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He wriggled his fingers furiously round his ears. Flash and thunderclap were coming together now. One, two, three. It wasn't the interval between lightning and thunder he was counting, it was the time he had left to live.</i>" (2.24)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>It's a question of life and death. If it isn't Hege, it's me. Which would you rather? said a voice inside him.</i>" (2.25)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He was being given sweets like a child - although he knew great things like shattered trees and lightning and omens of death. ... He had been made to feel small. The worst of it was that the storekeeper had only been trying to be kind.</i>" (2.25)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>His thoughts flapped helplessly around while he remained sitting still. The world was full of forces you couldn't fight against which suddenly loomed up and aimed a crushing blow at you.</i>" (3.37)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Isn't it odd that you only become clever when it's too late? he thought.</i>" (3.44)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He glided away from the shore. He was rowing and the things he was leaving behind remained in view the whole time.</i>" (3.46)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Across the desolate water his cry sounded like the call of a strange bird. How big or small the bird was, you couldn't really tell.</i>" (3.47; last lines)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024; 186 pages</span></p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-af47eea2-7fff-5e38-0361-632fd65be2be"></span></p><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.999999999999998pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/o7VzDqkyaUrwCggIv1icAycrbzrigtiEzqYjIt3IDQRAZ-C7kCmAdH7xmDOk--CBF42Ftnuofb14e4cnpXI_MZuW3uprlkBxytu-EPsSbuiDt3-84mn9BNnIz5-gO6V_xJMbVMP7bUQH-HLIMpJkYw" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster,cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-69099427292726607702024-01-09T10:21:00.003+00:002024-01-09T10:21:32.801+00:00"The Puppet Show" by M W Craven<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6iMM9Kti-mqSeAu530quLMoQRGRwQ9HuuA7A0PuKGCX6Wswqomq1JkZ-_TYRQuR67e9vdt5Jo4XlxZu3ImmwBNxMFPaZnk2mRvx3WgNhGzLn2EhWTdPUuVdLif9FYiBs5kCjUtAhyphenhyphen9TYemRXS2pc2KAOL7355NB8cTzahTn9Zz1BNZJ60SJb5RE-Rme0R/s4128/20240105_103634.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4128" data-original-width="3096" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6iMM9Kti-mqSeAu530quLMoQRGRwQ9HuuA7A0PuKGCX6Wswqomq1JkZ-_TYRQuR67e9vdt5Jo4XlxZu3ImmwBNxMFPaZnk2mRvx3WgNhGzLn2EhWTdPUuVdLif9FYiBs5kCjUtAhyphenhyphen9TYemRXS2pc2KAOL7355NB8cTzahTn9Zz1BNZJ60SJb5RE-Rme0R/w300-h400/20240105_103634.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div><span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">A murder victim, burned to death, the third in a series of killings, has the name of a police officer and the number '5' burned into his chest. The officer, Washington Poe, joins the investigation. </span></span><p></p><div><span style="font-size: large;">This murder mystery ticks all the tropes. The hero is a loner who has been suspended from the force, is repeatedly insubordinate, repeatedly breaks the rules (I've labelled it as a police procedural but there's very little procedure) and, indeed, the law, and is, of course, always right. The crimes being investigated are horrific (many new entrants to this genre seem to substitute the shock value of extreme violence for any sort of cleverness in the plotting). The only originality lies in the hero's relationship with the data analyst, a geek who is stereotypically 'on the spectrum'. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Even the first lines are cliched: "<i>The stone circle is an ancient, tranquil place. Its stones are silent sentinels. Unmoving watchers.</i>" Ho hum. Time to unleash the horror.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It's not really a whodunnit because there are no red herrings. I guessed the villain well before the half-way mark. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The pacing conforms to the four part plan. At 25% we get the key lead which is going to be crucial for discovering the identity of the killer. At 50% we discover the motivation for the crimes (surprise, surprise, it is another horrible crime committed years ago whose victim is now seeking revenge). The 'reveal' comes at the 75% mark, at which point the book becomes a straightforward thriller (more extreme violence).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Selected quotes:</b></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>If he were forced to spend time there, he knew that within the hour he'd be using the word 'fuck' like a comma.</i>"(Ch 8)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Maths had ended for him as soon as they'd replaced numbers with letters.</i>" (Ch 11)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>He cursed himself for not having had the foresight to bring a working torch. He had one in his car but it was little more than a tube for making dead batteries.</i>" (Ch 20)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The walls ... were adorned with expensive-looking tat. Her philosophy seemed to be, if it shone, she should own it.</i>" (Ch 41)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>His mind went into screensaver mode.</i>" (Ch 49)</span></li></ul></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Standard fare.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024; 374 pages</span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-56011a39-7fff-1888-38aa-5dedf2ef43b7"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/MiSNkaoFs-gUQ6IZvLOOBu0pF34K27X9WrgpD7hv9VZjtaU-9NrkEf0kQZVZLUPgSxybQEkIpX1AKimmX-OmiTQOzHX237j8FZveezzr_qmW4ezSbF7Z1UKqt0wiPLIAHPHHAMZzdFeG07Y6TQj-Fg" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4684123802714909043.post-81176992751949729272024-01-06T14:45:00.007+00:002024-01-06T14:45:56.951+00:00"The Grey King" by Susan Cooper<div><span style="font-size: large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPjQ9MWvrdVfyntKIuPMf-1i1DKqj7VGrGqKZzeyctw1xIa0PXSQuUi0z4fu5inJJHsfDG_Bma081MKqfpnEyGAW8fXduMUC-EsUzyBxyA9LNg1FRjZ1gIaBdSFPAKt_YOpoIsXFABxYPhN0gm3zcfw8VQqCuTO_dItYZTFJTwKXNMXe7GNnHLcE89YY79" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1905" data-original-width="2804" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPjQ9MWvrdVfyntKIuPMf-1i1DKqj7VGrGqKZzeyctw1xIa0PXSQuUi0z4fu5inJJHsfDG_Bma081MKqfpnEyGAW8fXduMUC-EsUzyBxyA9LNg1FRjZ1gIaBdSFPAKt_YOpoIsXFABxYPhN0gm3zcfw8VQqCuTO_dItYZTFJTwKXNMXe7GNnHLcE89YY79=w400-h271" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NotFromUtrecht, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The fourth and penultimate book in the sequence 'The Dark is Rising'. Will, the young boy who is an Old One of the Light, goes to Wales to recuperate from a serious illness and to fulfil a quest which involves finding a harp and playing it so that a sleeper will be awoken. Of course he encounters dangers and obstacles, but he also meets another schoolboy, the albino Welsh boy Bran, the raven boy, who is a mysterious figure who seems to belong outside the battle between the Light and the Dark.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">And there is Cafall, Bran's sheepdog, who is threatened with being shot for sheep worrying. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It's a swiftly written story, with little fat on it, and all the usual tropes. I always feel, with books like this, that the possession of magical powers gives the protagonist an unfair advantage. Will is never really in any peril, there is no sense that he might just fail with devastating consequences. Of course, this is a children's book, so nothing terrible can happen. But the presence of a safety net inevitably dilutes the tension. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">One of the pleasures of this book is that author has crafted the rhythms of the sentences that the Welsh men and women speak, when they are speaking English, so that I could really hear the lilt of Welsh, and the care and precision of the way that they pronounced their word. </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Selected quotes:</span></b><br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Will felt that he was in a part of Britain like none he had ever known before: a secret, enclosed place, with powers hidden in its shrouded centuries at which he could not begin to guess.</i>" (1: The Golden Harp; The Oldest Hills)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>The body of Cyngen is on the side between where the marks will be. In the retreat beneath the mound is extended Cadfan, said that it should enclose the praise of the earth. May he rest without blemish.</i>" (1: The Golden Harp; Cadfan’s Way) A classic riddle. What a shame that it doesn't seem to be used later in the book.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Like life it is, Will – sometimes you must seem to hurt something in order to do good for it.</i>" (1: The Golden Harp; Cadfan’s Way)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>All that could be seen in him was the urge to hurt, and it was, as it always will be, the most dreadful sight in the world.</i>" (1: The Golden Harp; Fire on the Mountain)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Wish on a star – the cry of a pleasure and faith as ancient as the eyes of man.</i>" (1: The Golden Harp; Bird Rock)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>that is the price we have to pay for the freedom of men on the earth. That they can do the bad things as well as the good. There are shadows in the pattern, as well as sunlight</i>." (2: The Sleepers)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>With a man like that, it is dangerous – when at last he loves, he gives all his heart without care or thinking, and it may never go back to him for the rest of his life.</i>" (2: The Sleepers)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>At the centre of the Light there is a cold white flame, just as at the centre of the Dark there is a great black pit bottomless as the Universe.</i>" (2: The Sleepers; The Pleasant Lake)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>In a great rush his mind filled with pictures of Cafall as a wobble-legged puppy, Cafall following him to school, Cafall learning the signals and commands of the working sheepdog, Cafall wet with rain, the long hair pressed flat in a straight parting along his spine, Cafall running, Cafall drinking from a stream, Cafall asleep with his chin warm on Bran’s foot. Cafall dead.</i>" (2: The Sleepers; The Cottage on the Moor)</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Bran could think of no words to say. His head was crowded with jarring images and questions: a crossroads with a dozen turnings and no sign of which to follow.</i>" (2: The Sleepers; The Cottage on the Moor)</span></li></ul></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">January 2024</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The other books in the series are:</span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/11/over-sea-under-stone-by-susan-cooper.html" target="_blank">Over Sea, Under Stone</a></i></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-dark-is-rising-by-susan-cooper.html" target="_blank"><i>The Dark Is Rising</i></a></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.com/2023/12/greenwitch-by-susan-cooper.html" target="_blank">Greenwitch</a></i></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">Silver on the Tree</span></li></ul></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-0ce70f50-7fff-8c6d-fc06-b2e75dfb617f"><div align="left" dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 0pt;"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="302"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 10pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 211px; overflow: hidden; width: 281px;"><img height="211" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/u0VItWXMQ4o10npHgvRuGKngkEVexcpCv10M6r17wie8w1dCSbAy8Z-6S_xWuORDFQVQdGU_aeJSi5L5k6J7DbuVzl35-Yv0vL0vxrHjrs8hC042S2KtEVnv_e5vGdURHZfwy5ZhY9AscqzJi6JcYQ" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="281" /></span></span></p><br /></td></tr><tr style="height: 73pt;"><td style="overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow: hidden; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This review was written by</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the author of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHSPQJ3K" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bally and Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motherdarling</span></a><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4684123802714909043/9019247690679777195#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Lobster, cursive; font-size: 15pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Kids of God</span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span></div></div>dajahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11692913901619410684noreply@blogger.com0