ed_moore's Reviews (345)

Described as “perhaps the most bodiless novel ever written” in its blurb, Sterne’s ‘A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy’ was never going to be to my taste. With no grass of plot and generally dull prose it follows Yorick (a namesake for Sterne himself) as he travels across France. He at no point even makes it to Italy, and though this is because Sterne died while writing this book and hence didn’t conclude it the title could’ve been altered in editing to not just entirely mislead. That being said, though set in Calais and Pairs I feel the setting is completely unimportant for I didn’t notice it coming into play at all and Yorick really could’ve been anywhere. I read this in a day as I themed it to a trip to and from seeing Sterne’s grave in a small Yorkshire village, and it was interesting that ‘Yorick’ is included within his epitaph. 

In addition to its plotlessness, the story also fell short in its dabbling in the genre of sentimentality. Yorick reminded me much of Henry MacKenzie’s ‘The Man Of Feeling’ for on a few occasions he just broke out in tears for no conceivable reason. It was a little less dramatic than MacKenzie however. I was quite amused by the blatant lies about meeting Tobias Smollet and David Hume, and then Sterne’s mockery of them in referring to them as Mundungus and Smelfungus. Why this came about however is nowhere to be found yet again? 

All in all not my genre or style and pretty poorly written, but I did read ‘A Sentimental Journey’ to accompany my journey to see Sterne’s place of burial so at least that fits together nicely. 

The set-up for the dystopian world of ‘The Giver’, a society that exists in a Utopia having obliterated pain and suffering because it has forgotten memory, emotion and colour, is simple but effective. The book focuses on twelve year old Jonas who is not granted a usual job best fit for him when he comes of age like his classmates, but rather the burden of becoming the receiver of memory, advisor to his utopian society as he is the sole holder of the burden of the ills of the world. Gradually as Jonas moulds into his new responsibility he comes to realise his world isn’t as Utopian as it seems. 

The world of ‘The Giver’ comes to criticise a unity and sameness in society that has been upheld by some regimes, doing it in a simplistic way which hold back me really appreciating this book as with its length I feel the world building is not as solid as other dystopian works, in addition to the limited perspective of a child protagonist possibly hindering it, but conceptually it is brilliant. I realise this is the first of a series that has often been read as standalone therefore the fundamentals of the society Lowry creates will only develop and enhance, however that does not necessarily make up for weaker groundworks. Further, the sequels don’t look like they pick up directly Jonas’ story, therefore the ambiguity of the conclusion might be all the reader remains left with, though I am speaking in hypotheticals here.

After over a month I have finally concluded ‘Brideshead Revisited’. I think I read it at the wrong time and thats why it took me so long, it was slow-paced with a lot to digest (not ideal for assessment season) but once out of that period I finished the book quite swiftly. ‘Brideshead Revisited’ is a very nostalgic tale. I found it similar to the beautiful first half of McEwan’s ‘Atonement’ in style, with relationships I see similarities to in ‘The Secret History’ but also somewhat Austenian in its prose and feel, hence it came to be a very family read. 

‘Brideshead Revisited’ focusses on how Charles Ryder becomes infatuated and intertwined in the lives of the Marchaim family, first with their alcoholic son Sebastian and later his sister Julia. He places himself in the centre of the lives of a decaying aristocratic class during the interwar years. I did very much enjoy the scenes taking place abroad in Venice, and the general setting and feel was gorgeous. Waugh’s prose is also commendable, though will note for far too long the heir of Brideshead Castle being named Brideshead or ‘Bridey’ was quite confusing. 

‘The Color Purple’ is the tale of two sisters, abused and separated at birth, overcoming the patriarchal systems that they have been forced into. It’s a story of female liberation, self-discovery and free love told in a unique epistolary fashion of a series of letters written from Cellie to God, and then later to her estranged sister Nettie. I enjoyed the format as something I hadn’t really engaged with before but regarding the plot in some places it was hard to follow; especially in the early two thirds. Once we were provided Nettie’s story I got the hang of it but this newfound ability to follow what was happening occurred extremely late. I did also feel self-improvement and all being well in the world was in a little too neat a bow in the end, but it was wholesome.

I had a little bit of trouble figuring out where to start with ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ but opted for publication order as oppose to chronological. I picked it up as I couldn’t listen to ‘American Psycho’ to fall asleep to so went with the most lighthearted thing that came to mind. My take on this book is probably controversial, but I really didn’t care for it; most likely as I am engaging with this world for the first time (excluding the VHS tape of the film I watched when I was very young in my grandads attic and turned off because it freaked me out) at the big age of twenty. It’s basic as its children’s fantasy, but I would argue it is too basic, half of the main cast of Pevensie children have literally no character development. The book is a religious allegory for the Easter story but even that I felt had no weight, for the process of crucifixion and resurrection happened faster than it even did in the bible meaning there was no space for this significant plot element to have any impact. The children’s capacity for leadership also bothered me a little, Peter is a child who was given a sword a day ago (by Santa? Why was he a character in this it was so unexpected for an overtly religious commentary?)  and suddenly can hold his own against wolves and a powerful witch with years of experience casting terror and overcoming much stronger foes. The messages about the roles of women pushed onto Lucy and Susan also weren’t great. I understand that I just laid into a children’s book as if it wasn’t just that, but other works of children’s fiction that I have read when older than the target audience have just done a lot of elements better and therefore still appealed. 

First things first; this book is disgusting and was a horrible reading experience. I hated every last page of it (other than a clever Dante reference or two). When it wasn’t a graphic scene of a violent murder that frequently made me feel physically sick it was passages of racism, homophobia or misogyny and womanising, and when it wasn’t that it was repetitive scenes of Bateman at restaurants with his jerky Wall Street friends or many women he had seduced, listing off what he was wearing and eating, or they were wearing and eating, and referencing the brand of everything which is infuriating in itself. 

I have to admit I didn’t know for a good while whether Easton Ellis is a genius for his ability to write such a hatable perspective from the first instance you hear his voice, or just an author with a disgusting perspective of people and the world around him. Thankfully I have learnt it is the former and the book is entirely satire which is the only basis for it gaining .25 on ‘Naked Lunch’. 

‘American Psycho’ is clever, it casts a light on the shallowness of the capitalist Wall Street world where everyone is so self-consumed they fail to notice serial killings occurring around them, while these killings by Bateman are a plead for attention in a world where he keeps being mistaken for jerks of equal caliber around him. It depicts 90’s New York as an individualist hells cape and as much as I can appreciate this perspective and outlook the awful nature of this reading experience means in this case the message comes nowhere near salvaging the novel for me. On top of all this it was frustrating, the incompetence of the police here is frankly laughable as Bateman is not a subtle serial killer by any means, does a terrible job clearing up his crimes and often outwardly confesses. Also the mentions of Donald Trump as his idol not only are so sour in todays politics, but jarring when you come to terms with the truth that this is the society he comes from and hearing the orange man-toddler being discussed in such a light in a book published 30 years ago really catches you out. 

After sitting through this, how some young men idolise Bateman and his lifestyle is beyond me. They are the exact people that Easton Ellis is making a satire out of in writing this and they are too thick to even see through it when it is served on a plate with a side of fucking cannibalism for them. 

I read Baillie’s ‘Orra’ as a companion piece to ‘The Dream’, both plays exploring the passion of fear. It wasn’t super explicit in religious jurisdiction unlike its partner play so don’t know how much it will come into my argument, but enthused with tension nonetheless. It follows Orra, who denies the arranged marriage to her ward’s son and is consequently punished with an exile to a gloomy castle until she agrees to the marriage. This is also to a man called Glottenbal which is the most unfortunate of names I see why she wouldn’t want to marry the guy. It’s the classic 18th century circumstance where multitudes of men all want to marry the same woman but then ghosts may or may not come in and it gets a little confusing in the end, I was reading it quickly which may explain how I so easily got lost but I don’t think its the clearest of plots anyway. It’s an interesting play, may or may not be helpful for my essay, but a nice example of a work from the 18th century defying patriarchal structures.

In ‘Fear and Trembling’, Søren Kierkegaard discusses the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham in the bible and tries to explain Abraham’s motives and the effect of this action which he believed was performing his duty to God. It was really useful for my Gothic essay which will focus on how religious bodies enact justice on their own accord and beyond judicial systems as they believe their individual moral standards can serve as a proprietor of justice. Ultimately Abraham steps beyond faith, which should ground him, and duty runs over ethical morality. Kierkegaard tries to lay out scenarios that would explain Abraham’s actions but ultimately falls short as the biblical source logically conforms to none of these, and therefore discusses three larger questions about the ethical stances of faith. It was a really interesting though dense work of philosophy, though is tricky in that it assumes the readers knowledge of other philosophical theories beforehand, such as those of Kant, Hegel and Descartes. I will however give it a lot of credit as it was surprisingly enjoyable and hopefully really useful for my essay! (It also has a very humorous title when observed out of context)

As hoped for and expected after concluding ‘A Conference of Birds’, the final book of the series was a huge improvement and had the same intensity and charm of ‘Library of Souls’. Everything culminated to an epic final battle and none of the core characters were written out for sub-quests (even if part of me wishes Claire just stayed written out). I am also so glad part of this book was set in a WW1 loop, it was a brilliant setting to add to the mix of historical locations we have seen and the time spent in no-man’s land was a highlight of the series. Though the concluding ‘epic battle’ was expecting I will mention the cruise ship full of monsters element seemed to be pulled straight form ‘Percy Jackson’ and yes this series was a YA but I felt the core cast of children had a little too much plot armour. They experienced near death far too many times than is realistic and

some part of me just wanted one of them not to make it for the dramatic effect. (No preference on who because realistically Riggs was never going to kill off Claire).

That being said these conveniences need to be accepted in a fun and quirky YA and that it was, issue is I have very quickly used up the binge book series and still have over a week of assessment period to go!

“When the prisons are blown to dust And chaos reigns And the betrayers summon their king The old ones from their sleep are torn An age of strife will soon be born” 

‘A Conference of Birds’ opened in a way that completely reset all the changes in the conclusion of ‘A Map of Days’ as most relationships seem normal again, making the last clifffhanger feel a little useless. Also considering my comments about Claire the previous book I am glad she had been written out, she is unbelievably annoying when present. Staying with the characters, I am not sure about the decision to

bring Fiona back, it almost nullifies the only key death that has happened in the series and

there was now so little weight to it. As for the plot I found it wasn’t as engaging as previous books, it was much shorter than the other books in the series and yet I think it took me the longest to get through, this second trilogies plot line isn’t quite amazing yet still but the last book seems to have a lot of places to go. However continually a fun story and really fast paced plots!