ed_moore's Reviews (345)

Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great is described as a tragedy, and initially I drew many parallels to Othello in the way that Tamburlaine opens with great wealth and power, immense hubris which I assumed would result in his downfall and occasional racial objectification as he is from Uzbekistan, or Timur the Lame, the Persian tyrant and warlord that inspired Marlowe’s play was. Though Tamburlaine is initially presented as a war-waging protagonist, it quickly becomes clear his true identity of only a remorseless tyrant. After not long, every scene some form of death, murder, execution or suicide occurred, to the point that they meant nothing to the plot other than to further push the idea that Tamburlaine wasn’t a great leader. No war scenes are staged but only the king taking slaves in the aftermath and abusing them. The play is almost solely made up of abuse and murder, especially in the second part. Lastly, the tragic ending of the play wasn’t entirely ‘tragic’ but more underwhelming and extremely sudden. Staged, it may be a lot more exciting, but as I read on I just became bored of and repulsed by the constant death. 

Ayub Khan Din’s ‘East is East’ is a look into a the cross-cultural relationship between English and Pakistani culture within a family who migrated to Salford. It explores strict Muslim religion and how it is enforced or resisted by the 7 children within the family. My experience with the play is not particularly allowing for a neutral review as I read the entire thing before my lecture on it in the form of a two man show, each covering 4-5 characters, and the entertainment that provided has defiantly elevated my experience with and opinion on the play. It is however highly problematic, there is frequent swearing, domestic abuse, arranged marriage being enforced and racially offensive terminology, all used in a means to convey a comedy in some manners. Overall it was enjoyable though extremely flawed. 

‘Shooting an Elephant’ is a collection of Orwell’s essays, each with different topics and tones so I have summarised and reviewed each individually, yet my star rating is overall.

The opening essay ‘Shooting an Elephant’ describes him having to kill a rampaging elephant during his time as a police officer in Burma, a criticism of British Imperialism and how he loathed it despite working for the system of of it and also a look at the racism he faced when working there, despite he and the British being the colonisers. It is an unexpected angle to explore a criticism of colonialism.

‘The Spike’ was a recount of a night in the spike, less interesting to me as I have read ‘Down and out in London and Paris’ and it seemed to just be a passage from that, though I don’t believe it was. Orwell described the wasted time, the wasted food for principe and the grim conditions, and then when his night came to a close, headed to find the next spike and start it all over again. 

Why I Write is an essay on what Orwell sees as the reason for writing. He first explores his early poetry and short stories of childhood, and how Burmese Days was written with desire for an unhappy ending and purple prose. The 4 reasons for writing were then outlined: selfish motives, to perceive the worlds beauty, historical impulse or political motive. Pre-Spanish civil war Orwell noted his writing embodied the first three, but after 1936 all his writings existed to speak against totalitarianism, to expose a lie and that writing would be better what the author was conscious of the political bias and weave the creative with the political, as he noted with Animal Farm. He references that he wants to write another book, and it will be a failure though he will still write it as he has desire and purpose. This future book wasn’t a failure, it was 1984, the greatest piece of literature ever written in my opinion and of what I have read before.

Politics and the English Language was a fascinating essay on the decay of language, how it is watered down with big meaningless words and metaphors and that bad language creates bad thought and creates worse language. It discusses the principles for good and bad writing and crucially how bad writing allows political writing to make lies appear truthful. This idea of the decay and propaganda of language shines through in 1984.

'In Defence of English Cooking' is a short essay claiming that the foreigners who claim English cooking to be the worse cuisine don't experience English cuisine because they eat in the pubs and restaurants, and the true beauty of our food is that cooked in the home, in the lower class households, the deserts and Yorkshire puddings and breads. 

The longest part of the collection is 'Such such were the joys' which recounts Orwell's school days at St Cypriens, the abuse he faced at the hands of his teachers Sambo and Flip for simply being of a lower class because his scholarships meant they were investing into him. Orwell did not idolise those days and critiques the private education system. Thought as a whole, despite its longer length and deeper exploration of the topic I didn't care much for this essay.

The best essay in my opinion was by far the short ‘Some thoughts on the common toad' which describes how the toad is the first sign of spring, that nature is inevitable despite the efforts of the world to destroy it in context of 1940, and the closing line is so beautiful. “The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.” It was so bleak yet hopeful and all symbolised through the toad, such an ugly and unconventional sign of spring, yet even there beauty is found. 

In the tide of Dunbar past there is the story of five brothers, with a dynamic much alike to the boys in Golding's 'Lord of the Flies'. Their mother dead and father abandoned them in grief they are left to fend for themselves. It was a story of many elements and many timelines, recounting the history of their parents Penelope and Michael, the history of the brothers fending alone and the numerous pets they acquire named after the heroes of Homer's epics, and the present timeline where Clay leaves to find his father and build a bridge as way of proving himself to all those he loved who had died. It's a story of grief, love, family, horse racing and running, rooftops and identity. Zusak packed so much into the story and crafts his characters so well, whereas comparing it to The Book Thief, his language is much less poetic and it did not come close to equalling the emotional hold that that book had on me. If his other work wasn't one of the best books I had ever read, then maybe Bridge of Clay would've impacted me a bit more, but safe to say I had very high expectations. 

The difference in The Illiad and The Odyssey completely surprised me, for whilst I didn’t enjoy the Odyssey I found the tale of the Trojan War to be so much more engaging and different in style to Homer’s other epic. I read the translation by Martin Hammond, which was unusually in prose whereas still written in poetic rhythm, which may have contributed to the different experience however. Whilst I was initially worried this would hinder my experience with The Iliad, I don’t believe it read too differently and I had an experience not too far from a poetic translation in my reading of Homer’s Epic. The Illiad recounts the days of the ten year long Trojan War, highlighting Achilleus as the protagonist figure for much focus is on his involvement, and ends just before his death at the hands of Paris and therefore before the Sack of Troy and Trojan Horse. This meant much emphasis was placed on the heroics of Achilleus, though Homer impressed me in his empathy for human life on both sides of the conflict amid the slaughter. Alike in Ancient Greek tradition where armies would fight over the bodies of fallen soldiers, Homer pays respect to each side in his descriptions of their strengths and lineage. There are frequent recurring descriptions, noting characters as ‘son of…’, ‘godlike’ and ‘master of the war cry’ to give the most frequent examples. Where there is an absence is in the female voices that shaped the Trojan War, the catalyst of it all Helen of Troy hardly gets a mention, and Briseis and Cassandra are rendered completely voiceless. Such absence leaves much of the motives for war untold, whereas in much of the poem focus is solely on battle and the honouring of heroics and fallen life. I cannot pretend that it wasn’t engaging throughout as a consequence of this, and whilst the Odyssey bored me a little, The Iliad did far from such and despite knowing the entire story beforehand it had me gripped.

Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is about a group of girls called the ‘Brodie Bunch’ who are enthralled by their teacher of many years Jean Brodie. The book is largely eventless, but somehow still so baffling and just providing sheer shock factor in the ending, as Spark is known for but I was really questioning how she would do it in this one. It reminded me a lot of The Dead Poet’s Society, a similar dynamic between the characters and circumstance and setting, in addition to being full of intertextual references. It was just a Dead Poet’s Society at a girls school instead, with frequent references to fascism too?? Not to mention, the titular isn’t left alone across the book. Like the lip descriptions in ‘The Driver’s Seat’, Miss Brodie repeatedly claims she is in her prime, and everyone believes her and re-asserts it to other characters, though there is never any backing toward wether this claim is true. I am honestly once again just left confused by Spark. 

Endgame was weird. Not Cavendish or Kafka weird, but still weird. It is a play about a blind man called Hamm, his parents of whom each live in bins, and their attendant Clov. It wasn’t awful and has some deep messages behind it like the subaltern feeling that one is unable to break from their oppressor, or the metamorphosis-esque idea of leaving those unable to contribute to society now to be abandoned in the bin (literally in the case of Nagg and Nell), however despite these interesting dynamics, for all the plays weirdness, absolutely nothing happened. Time seems to stand still, a wider world ceases to exist and emotion is null and void. Beckett’s concept is extremely intersting, however in practice didn’t float for me.

Stephen Fry’s Troy was the best of the Mythos series I’ve read, and I’m now in a position where I need to find a new kind of audiobook to pick up as I’ve exhausted Fry’s mythological retelling. Troy retold the Trojan war, discussing the events before the Iliad and how the war begun in addition to all the politics of it (which immediately earns a book more prestige in my eyes), retold the events of Homer’s Illiad, and then the shocking scenes of the Trojan horse and the sack of Troy post Illiad. It shone above Heroes and Mythos as Troy wasn’t many stories woven together in a narrative form, but one concise story of the Trojan war, which vividly depicts the experience of both sides and though as history has asserted to us I naturally sided with the Greeks, there was an emphasis on both sides of the city walls and the humanity of each soldier. The classical emphasis on honour of one’s soldiers really shone through in Fry’s writing, naming and exploring the lineage of each documented fallen man. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my fast-paced journey through mythology presented in Fry’s trilogy and it’s added dozens of books to my TBR, sparking an interest in mythology that I never thought I had. I will be impatiently waiting for ‘Odysessy’ in 2024. 

I don’t think Woolf and I really get along. To the Lighthouse is a slowly paced novel that offers a window for the reader to look into the lives of the Ramsay family, their 8 children and the friends that the family surround themselves with. There is a continuous focus throughout the book of the children asking when they will go to the lighthouse, and Mrs Ramsay putting it off, reading to me as one long metaphor across the novel of growing up. Whilst, as often the case with Woolf, there were moments of beautiful prose and bounties of clever imagery, especially in the second part ‘time passes’, the book was exceptionally slow paced. So little happens, and the few key plot events were brushed over in just a sentence, almost dismissed within a set of square brackets. I really struggled with this absence of plot, and therefore didn’t really enjoy the book despite its moments of beauty. Woolf just hasn’t hit the mark with me yet.

Heroes shone just as brightly as Fry’s Mythos did. It had all the same wit and charm, intellectual stimulation and talent to put the tales of the heroes into a chronological narrative. Heroes explored the trials of Hercule, Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, Theseus’ battle with the Minotaur, Perseus’ quest to kill Medusa and the stories of Oepidus, Atalanta, Orpheus and Bellerophon. Alike to Mythos, it is a recounting of Greek mythology as retold by hundreds of writers and poets across history, but Fry makes it so accessible and engaging. I cannot fault him. I do however knock it a quarter of a star lower than Mythos simply for comparison, in that I enjoyed the tales of the Gods more than that of the Heroes. I will be listening to the final instalment, Troy, at first opportunity when my library hold becomes available.