An excellent book for a holiday. It’s a good story, and the characters maintain the interest, but it is disjointed as the narration moves from one character to another and back again, which is not confusing, but a bit annoying. Great book though.
Tag Archives: literature
The Man in the Iron Mask – Alexandre Dumas
The title is a complete misnomer, it’s not about him at all. After the first third of the book he doesn’t appear at all. The book is the last part of the last volume Dumas wrote about the D’Artagnan and the musketeers, but published as a stand-alone book. When you know that, the book becomes less frustrating. Dumas writes sympathetically and affectionately, his characters glow; even Aramis, the schemer, escapes criticism. Not only is the characters’ goodbye to their readers, but it’s Dumas’ goodbye to the characters, and is more fitting as a eulogy than a novel.
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
A tremendously vivid book, it’s good to read the original from which all the imitations sprang. Interesting characters, good plot, and written with Dumas’ usual blustering and rapid style.
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Wonderful book, I think this is the fourth time I’ve read it, and I’d forgotten what a well-rounded, well-written book it is. It’s a longish book, so it’s perfect for a holiday, or a time when you’re able to spend hours devouring it.
The characters are well drawn, Mr Rochester is tremendous and multi-dimensional, and what I noticed this time round was that Miss Brontë writes an accurate account of what it’s like to be ‘zapped’ by the Holy Spirit. Interesting, although it shouldn’t be surprising, that people were familiar with it then too.
An truly amazing work of literature.
The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
If you croak before reading this, you’ve misspent your time. Not only is it an unusual story, it’s well-written (and well-translated), the plot is comprehensive, although not too confusing, the characters are well-developed – and it’s big enough to keep you occupied for days! Despite its 1243 pages, it’s one I can see I’ll be going back to. I’m a little bit in love with the Count…
This book also gets the award for the characters that spend the longest time shuddering; read it and you’ll see what I mean.
The Double – Fyodor Dostoevsky
It’s a book as Russian as Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and in the same vein, it’s as dark, cold and a little bit creepy, just like their music. This Kafka-esque novel portrays a clerk who encounters his exact double who although no one seems to notice the extreme similarity between the two (including their names) manages to take over the man’s life and relegate him to an asylum. But was it real, or was it the raving of a man unhinged?
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Jane Austen is the queen of character development, probably because she’s so socially observant – no quirk or defect seems to escape her, and they appear in the characters of this book, particularly Mssrs Wickham, Collins, Lucas and even Darcy. This is a true classic because not only does it combine good characters with a good plot, it’s beautifully written, scarily insightful and has plenty of social comment. People don’t change, and although we don’t say to each other ‘My dear, would you care for a turn about the room? It’s so refreshing!’ or similar, we’re basically the same animals driven by the same things and subject to the same foibles. And that’s what makes Miss Austen such a genius.
The Kill – Émile Zola
It’s not a massively cheery book. The three main characters are caught up in the material world of Paris as it is redeveloped under Haussman. Saccard is on a mission to become rich as quickly as mpossible by diddling the government and others as much as he can without being caught, Maxime is on a lifelong quest for pleasure, no matter how corrupt, and Renée is on a quest for self-destruction.
Dangerous Liaisons – Choderlos de Laclos
This is a masterpiece, written in the format of a collection of letters written and sent between the main characters. Quite easily because of the style, the book could be stilted and difficult to read, but it flows. As with any seriously good work of this kind, there are different levels of messages that lie beneath the plot. The characters show that in life we are always a slave to something, it’s up to us to choose what. The two principal characters shun falling in love at all costs, and therefore fall prey to becoming a slave to vanity and selfishness, destroying the lives of others in order to prove to themselves and to each other that they are not in love, ending in their own destruction. It shows the negativity of such cynicism, and the self-destruction that occurs when that cycnism is taken to extreme. Another level served to show, at the time the book was first published, what the landed classes were deemed to be capable of. This type of writing fuelled the French Revolution. It also showed that society of the time (not so much now) was the great regulator of behaviour; anything might be got away with – until it entered the public sphere.
On many levels, this is a truly great, enjoyable, absorbing book.
Watership Down – Richard Adams
It’s probably a good idea to avoid the film; this book could never have justice done to it on the screen. Although it is ostensibly a book for older children, its sensitivity and subtlety mean that probably the huge majority of older children will enjoy the plot and the characters, but not understand the undertones and nuances. There are some biblical concepts within the plot, some of them reasonably overt, and some less so; and the plot is not the usual predictable pap that kids seem to get fed these days. It is a masterpiece of writing, its entire concept is unusual, its characters are well-drawn and well-rounded – and in short it is one of those rare books that you really can bury yourself in, only to emerge out the other side with perhaps a slightly different view of things. This is a lovable book that while being gentle is at the same time powerful, and well before its time. In fact, were it to be written today, it would still be ahead of its time. Beautiful.
Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne
This book is wasted on kids! Although this most certainly is an adventure story, there’s a lot more to it than that – and what’s more, it’s so brilliantly written, and has such excellent character sketches that it really needs an adult audience to do it justice. Could Phileas Fogg be the first literary character to show decidedly autistic tendencies? Who knows – but the depths of each character, the plot, and sheer novelty of the story, is testament to the genius of the brain that cooked it up. It would be wrong not to read this book.
The Phantom of the Opera – Gaston Leroux
A perfect book for a rainy day. Leroux is reminiscent of Wilkie Collins in his plot, characters and style, and yet here’s a tremendously, deliciously French book. And just like Victor Hugo’s ‘Hunchback’ he crafts a beautiful ending giving an all round eminently gratifying reading experience with a hefty daub of gothicness. The film/musical does violence to the subtleties of the plot and characters; yet here is a story that is in turns graphic, violent, romantic, tragic and at last, wistful – entirely deserving of a place on the ‘Bucket list’. Ignore the musical – just read the original!
