Saturday, July 2, 2011

Here It Is, Here It Is At Last, the Encounter With Reality. . . All Is Lost Now!

As I mentioned in my review of The Bell Jar, I greatly appreciate an author that can write an interesting and convincing first-person narrative. To date, I have scarcely read one more engaging that Dostoevsky's Notes From the Underground. What impressed me most about this short novel was Dostoevsky's ability to completely change my opinion of his main character half-way through. For those who know me well, this may come as a surprise.

I began the story highly irritated by the Underground Man. His constant contradictions make him a remarkably unreliable narrator. While this is part of the point of his character, it annoyed me nonetheless. In the second half of the story, when the mask of his insincerity begins to fall apart, I suddenly found myself completely sympathetic to him. His narrative truly is tragic and his character's evolution highlights Dostoevsky's mastery as a writer. Coming in at less than 200 pages, there's really no excuse for you not to read it! I give it an A.

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"Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man." (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

In Short, Whatever Does Become of the Gentleman, They Are Not at Cranford

If any of you readers out there have taken the time to look through my earlier posts, you'll know my profound love of Jane Austen. Along a similar vein is Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, Cranford. Differences abound, however, but not without its advantages. As such, it was very interesting to read about an entirely different aspect of the same culture. Rather than the high class attitudes and aspirations of the majority of Austen's characters, Cranford centers around a small, close-knit, and poor town. Even more striking is that the town is entirely comprised of women, all of whom are entirely opposed to the very idea of men. Quite a difference from Austen's husband-seeking protagonists!

If you're a fan of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, these differences alone make it worth the read. I give it an A-.

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"Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly better than wise people for their wisdom." (Elizabeth Gaskell)

It Seemed To Me a Situation Fraught With Embarrassing Potentialities Had Arisen

I find it difficult to describe what profound love and respect I have for the countries and culture of Great Britain. My semester abroad in London only magnified this admiration, and it is now my future goal to live there (much to the dismay of both my parents and my closest friends). My favorite "products" of British culture are too many to count, but among them is the television series "Jeeves and Wooster" (with excellent performances by both Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry in the title roles). The episodes are based off of various novels by P.G. Wodehouse and, needless to say, I was more than thrilled when one such novel, Thank you, Jeeves, appeared on this list.

Long story short, the "Jeeves" novels chronicle the innumerable mishaps of Bertie Wooster, a privileged and eccentric British gentleman and the unorthodox yet brilliant schemes devised by his overly-qualified manservant, Jeeves, that always seem to prevent complete disaster. As you can imagine, these stories are hilarious and, being written by a comedic British writer, incredibly witty and hilarious. These are just plain fun to read, and I cannot recommend them highly enough. A+.

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"Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung on the ladder and writes novels." (P.G. Wodehouse)

Show Us How Happy It Makes You To Write a Poem

If you asked my friends to describe me, somewhere along the way, the word morbid would pop up. Now, I’m certainly not serial killer material, but it's true that I am certainly fascinated by them. Generally speaking, I tend to gravitate to stories that examine some sort of emotional or mental anguish or darkness. Perhaps this is the reason that I enjoyed Sylvia Plath’s well known novel The Bell Jar so greatly.


What is most impressive about this specific tale of manic depression, however, is the first person narrative. As events progress, the reader does not just stand by and watch as the main character crumbles; rather, the reader experiences the same confusion, disillusion, and, eventually, resignation. It takes a masterful author to communicate such a singular state of mind, and Plath does so remarkably well. A solid B+.


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"And by the way, everything in life is writable if you have the outgoing guts to do it and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." (Sylvia Plath)