ed_moore's Reviews (345)

Wilde’s ‘Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime’ was a wonderful little read. It’s a short story about a man who has his hand read by a chirologist and his course of action in responding to a dark fate, therefore pitching him in a battle with destiny. Wilde therefore explores why one shouldn’t meddle with fate and includes dashes of aristocratic pomp, revolutionary attitudes and in Wilde’s usual fashion incredibly crafted prose. There were no individual lines alike to ones in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ that blew me away but as a work it was much shorter so wasn’t allowed the time to blossom quite so much, though despite this Wilde’s ability as a wordsmith has not failed to disappoint. It was an engaging story with interesting themes and I can’t pick many faults whatsoever, from what I have read of his works Wilde is yet to disappoint. 

‘The Sisterhood’ was made out to be the feminist retelling of 1984, and whilst the element of the rebel group ‘The Sisterhood’ was a nice introduction, a real resistance as oppose to the manufactured brotherhood in Orwell’s source material, that was the only part that lived up. I never expected ‘The Sisterhood’ to match ‘1984’ as Orwell’s masterpiece is my unparalleled favourite book and I can’t foresee much ever matching it, but I didn’t expect it to disappoint quite so much. Bradley set out to recognise some of the flaws in 1984, such as the controversiality of Winston and lack of Julia’ s depth of the character, but in doing so made Julia arguably more dislikable than Winston, made every effort to limit Winston’s role in the story and appear solely in a negative light, and in creating Julia’s identity tore apart the message of the original dystopian, that inevitable threat of totalitarianism and the sufferings of the proletariat, Winston and Julia being among the everyman beneath the oppression of the totalitarian force. Bradley had her own vision of Julia which was the point of her retelling, but I felt this vision undermined Orwell and his purpose, as to bring it to light she had to tell her own story, the aspects of the original plot of ‘1984’ only appearing in as small a section as possible just so the story made sense in the original dystopian context, and as a justification for Bradley to use Orwell’s world building and characters. Not to mention some elements to the original text make no sense as the scenes are so limited that included references such as the rhyme ’The bells of saint Clements’ that is such a powerful collection of lyric in ‘1984’ are inserted in in their moment most powerful with no background or prior explanation in ‘The Sisterhood’, making their impact worthless. Moving away from my criticisms relating to the plot and source material, Bradley’s writing was also juvenile, it didn’t tear you apart in the areas where Orwell set the plot up to be most impactful, and her writing, descriptions and most characters were flat. I pity anyone who read this before reading ‘1984’ for some reason, as it has massacred such an important story and torn all meaning out of it. I recognise my review of this was scathing and Bradley was trying something different, though I really don’t think it worked and maybe someone who regards ‘1984’ so highly is not the person to trust to give an unbiased opinion on this book. I would however be interested to read the other 1984 retelling that came out recently ‘Julia’, for the sake of comparison.

This collection of stories took me so long because I had initially planned to read it around halloween, though didn’t manage to and then reached ‘A Christmas Carol’ which I opted to read on Christmas Eve. Come 2024 I have finally finished Dickens’ ghost stories and individually made notes of my ratings for each story. Excluding ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain’ as they were novellas which I marked as separate books, the stories were mostly lacking. My highlights were ‘The Signalman’, an eerie tale about a haunted train station signalman, and ‘The Lawyer and the Ghost’ which was such an unexpectedly wholesome story versus the tone of many of the others. There were however a couple of extremely stereotypical stories, some that weren’t even really ghost stories, and many that made little sense and not confusing due to supernatural elements but rushed and poor writing. Dickens had some moments of brilliant prose but also badly written ramblings. I expected a lot more from this collection to say the least. 

The first book I finished in 2024, though started in early December is the second book in Hillary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy’ ‘Bring up the bodies’ is principally a telling of Thomas Cromwell’s procedure to organise the trial, annulment and execution of Anne Boleyn following her marriage to Henry VIII at the end of the first book. This led most of the book to be lacking in major plot events, just full of court life and legal troubles. I don’t recall ‘Wolf Hall’ reading overly differently, though do seem to believe I preferred the first of the series. The only section of the book with any real engaging plot was the final sequence of trials and executions of those accused of adultery with the Queen, and then my audiobook for some reason spent 30 minutes with an alternate ending which contained most of the same elements of the first so I really didn’t see the point of such. If one has read ‘Wolf Hall’ and are deliberating wether to continue the trilogy, after my experience with the second book I would suggest not to bother, whereas given I have read two now and hopefully events that lead to the fall of Cromwell in the final part will be more engaging, I think I will still listen to ‘The Mirror and the Light’ when the ungodly length of hold wait ends.

Dickens’ ghost novella ‘The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain’ is a Christmas tale of morality alike to ‘A Christmas Carol’ whereas is written far more poorly. It had some positive elements such as a reasonable moral message that past sorrows are important to remember as it allows us to forgive, the final line serving alike to the final moral of the story in fairy tales: “Keep my memory green”. It also had a small paragraph describing the Street Urchin in the expected Dickensian tone of pity, that such children were unaffected by the curse to forget sorrows for all they knew was the lowest life of the low, and therefore as it was the norm they knew no sorrow because they had always suffered, of which though a frequent message of his was still powerful. Lastly, the gothic and gloomy setting of the city was fitting and commendable, whereas that is as far as my praise goes as the novella in its entirety was extremely confusing. I am likely to doubt myself and assume that I have misread it but I have read some other reviews and many address the same issue. I felt that many passages and events were left unexplained, and though the tale had some leniency for this as it was supernatural, non-supernatural elements were also confusing. The scenes also felt extremely patched together, the narratives of the two families and the ‘Haunted Man’ Redlaw not being particulate associated at all. I struggled to follow the plot and was unengaged by the characters, the spirit figure was also very unexplained and therefore uninteresting as the antagonist of a supernatural tale. I feel it was a work trying to mimic the success of ‘A Christmas Carol’ whereas failing miserably in its attempt to do so.

Euripides’ ‘The Bacchae’ is a classical play telling the arrival of Dionysus to the city of Thebes, angered by the lack of worship he was receiving in the city. It is recognised as a Greek tragedy, as it relates to the fall of the house of Cadmus, though honestly I read it as an endorsement to alcoholism which was amusing and not something I frequently see, though also not entirely agreeable! The women of Thebes proving as an antagonistic force, worshipping Dionysus in a drunken frenzy, though it having a positive portrayal as Dionysus serves as the protagonist figure. It was translated to read easily and was engaging, though a general criticism of most greek tragedies, also applicable in the case of ‘The Bacchae’ is that the primary action sequence and tragic climax of the play is told through a messenger rather than occurring on stage. 

It has somehow taken me this long to read ‘A Christmas Carol’, but I suppose it is just one of those stories that it is impossible to not know anyway. I did however finally get around to the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his visit from the three spirits of Christmas to teach him charity and festive joy. Reading it on the night of Christmas Eve was so cosy and it was also the first time I have both annotated a book as I read and done a buddy read, the former to uphold the spirt of the latter, and it completely enhanced the experience it was so cute. I loved the echoes of Scrooge’s early comments by the spirits, the intertextuality of the novella and the festive imagery. (Special highlight to “buried with a stake of holly through his heart”, for some reason that really struck a chord with me.) The passing of time is so confusing however, whereas I suppose I just need to accept it being down to spirit magic and embrace it for the whole tale is ghostly and fantastical. Dickens’ anti-capitalist message was so powerful and so resonant even 200 years on, the ghost of Christmas present highlighting how some will have Christmases not as joyous and fortunate as many of us. The gothic elements were sublime and I really got along with Dickens’ subversion in tone from what I am use to in his work, this being much more charismatic and challenging of his own story. I shall end on once again how cosy my experience with ‘A Christmas Carol’ was because that was really what made todays reading experience for me! Merry Christmas :)) 

Dante’s ‘La Vita Nuova’, meaning ‘the new life’ is a collection of love poems and sonnets by Dante written to his unrequited and unobtainable love Beatrice. He recounts his story with her, or more observing her, through prose with his poems inserted in and analysed. With each poem Dante would break it down and fully explain its meaning, which I can’t say I massively enjoyed as it left no room for reader interpretation within his poetry. Also I can’t ignore that Dante’s love was obsessive and he absolutely stalked Beatrice. He became infatuated by this girl and never even spoke to her aside from an occasion where she and her friends mocked him, yet he follows her around, becomes overwhelmed by emotion in just looking at her, and deeply mourns her friend and father when they pass despite not knowing them just because she is mourning, and then come her death, still having no idea of Dante’s love to her, he endlessly laments her. This woman died having little idea of his obsession, and no clue how pivotal a role she would play in the works of one of literatures greatest poets, and the crucial part she plays in ‘The Divine Comedy’. Dante also mentions in ‘La Vita Nuova’ his lack of confidence in his own writing, which did sadden me slightly as its the natural human doubt of oneself and their works shining through in the case of a monumental writer, and when I hear of authors who died not knowing their influence and believing their lives works a failure I am utterly heartbroken. Despite this, the complete obsession in ‘La Vita Nuova’ was freaky and I have lost a lot of respect for Dante’s character. 

The third part of ‘Henry VI’ was much better than the first two, Shakespeare is nearing closer in writing ability to the soliloquies of his great tragedies. Those of Part 3 are almost there, but not entirely yet. It is absolutely an improvement however. The play is very much non stop with numerous battles, which was much more engaging than the prior parts, and also quite confusing in reading it as characters change titles, Richard of York for example becoming the Duke of Gloucester midway and later becoming Richard III in the subsequent play, of which ‘Henry VI Part III’ sets up for. It was however full of bouncing between monarchs, Edward IV and Henry VI constantly capturing one another and usurping the throne. Henry is however so pathetic in constantly being captured that it is in the hands of his wife Queen Margaret to lead the plot and save her husband repeatedly. He is really not deserving of the being the titular character and she’s the girl boss until she submits to patriarchal conditions in the final act, which is a disappointing fate but I suppose has to oblige to historical events. 

‘The Aeneid’ is Virgil’s attempt to imitate the epics of Homer, bringing in elements of ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ into the story of Aeneas’ escape from Troy following the defeat of the Trojan war and the founding of the City of Rome. I preferred it to ‘The Odyssey’ though not as much as I liked ‘The Iliad’, whereas oddly the part I found most interesting was where Virgil tied in the journey of Odysseus to that of Aeneas, the trojans finding a stranded Greek solider near Mount Etna where Odysseus previously blinded the cyclops. It also contains the story of the Trojan horse and final fall of Troy, which is emitted from ‘The Iliad’. The latter half including the battles over Latinus was extremely stop-start however, with many beginning and ending in retreat or Turnus, the Latin presented as an antagonist, being two-faced and either retreating or abandoning a duel in favour of a resumed battle. Though more incomplete in scenes of battle than ‘The Iliad’, it did uphold the honour Homer places on every casualty non-dependent on their side of the feud. I recognise Virgil was writing the founding of Rome, as a Roman, and therefore Roman names of Gods and mythological figures would be used however I personally lean toward the Greek names so having to mentally correct the names in my head for ones understanding was a minor inconvenience, I used all the Greek names in my notes on the text. On a side note, does Hera ever favour anyone?