An elite and detached group of six classics students at a small Vermont college murder one of their number. How has this come about? The students are steeped in the cold, hard, and pure reality of the ancient Greek culture. Their characters undergo small steps and changes of mind that makes it possible for them to […]
The Secret History by Donna Tartt Read More »
A Passage to India (1924) concerns the ‘disconnects’ between Indian natives and British colonials played out around Chandrapore and the Marabar Caves in the days of the Raj. Forster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._Forster) delicately but resolutely sticks the knife into the whole idea of colonial presence in India. The narrative is engaging and the characters memorable, particularly perhaps Miss Adela
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster Read More »
This is an account of an American personal and family tragedy. The author does not disguise the character of this novel – it is a Garden of Eden tale set in the post-war United States with some rather nasty serpents. The Chapter headings are ‘Paradise Remembered‘, ‘The Fall‘, and ‘Paradise Lost‘. Playing by all the
American Pastoral by Philip Roth Read More »
Solzhenitsyn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solzhenitsyn) presents us with a group of cancer patients in a Soviet hospital in 1955. Together they are representative of Russian society of the time. Politics and ideology come under discussion on the ward. It’s the author’s understanding of how patients crumble under the pressure of their disease, though, that gives the novel its power. Vadim,
Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Read More »
The eponymous dying man is a former soldier of the Mexican Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Revolution) who has become wealthy and powerful through ‘violence, blackmail, bribery, and brutal exploitation of the workers’. The novel explores the corrupting effects of power and criticizes the distortion of the revolutionaries’ original aims through ‘class domination, Americanization, financial corruption, and failure of
The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes Read More »
Millions of people have watched the star studded 1965 David Lean film adaptation (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059113/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm#cast) with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie (Available on DVD at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Zhivago-DVD-Omar-Sharif/dp/B00005MHNO/ref=pd_sim_b_1.) Why not give this classic a read? A love story set amid the swirling chaos of the Russian Revolution. First published in Italy in 1957 Pasternak’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak) masterpiece was not allowed to
Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak Read More »
Sixteen year old Vladimir Petrovich has a new neighbour at his parents’ country estate – the beautiful and alluring Zinaida. With hormones racing what’s a boy to do but fall hopelessly in love? Love and passion is a tricky and complex business, though, and Vladimir must undergo some character development before he comes to grips with
First Love by Ivan Turgenev Read More »
Meet school headmaster Mr. Thomas Gradgrind in his grim Northern mill town, Coketown (based on Preston). His mantra is strictly Utilitarian -‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’ Gradgrind approves of nothing but what is ‘severely workful’. Predictably, this approach to life does not enrich or develop the lives of his daughter
Hard Times by Charles Dickens Read More »
Joseph Conrad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad) introduces us to Charles Marlow, an ambitious and adventurous sailor who is employed by an English trading company and sent to an African colony. There he travels up the Congo, visiting the trading stations which barter for ivory with the natives. On his journey he is told about a man named Kurtz whose station is the
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Read More »
