ed_moore's Reviews (345)

Wilde is such an incredible writer. The Importance of Being Earnest is a lighthearted playexploring the concept of a false identity where both protagonists, Jack and Algernon face implications of having crafted themselves the identity of ‘Earnest’, an ironic play on words for to be earnest is to be truthful. Though only a play, Wilde still managed to weave in stand out moments of poetic language that shone in The Picture of Dorian Gray, a pleasant surprise given The Importance of Being Earnest is but a comedic play. Given the magnitude of the tomes I am currently reading (War and Peace and The Faerie Queene), such brief lighthearted escape to a play such as this is much valued. 

The Black Tulip is a lesser spoken of work of Dumas than the likes of The Count of Monte Cristo (that is rightfully spoken of a lot) and The Three Musketeers (that I haven’t read yet) but absolutely deserves the same recognition and praise. It is an  all encompassing story alike to the Count of Monte Cristo, though a lot shorter (a good or bad thing depending on who you are), it exploring revenge, crime, politics, relationships and love but all withheld by the justice and prison system. The Black Tulip is a historical fiction set during the Dutch Tulip Mania under the reign of William of Orange. It’s a love story constrained by prison between the tulip fancier Cornelius Van Baerle and the jailer’s daughter Rosa, as they fight the odds to pursue their love and grow the illusive black tulip within the confines of prison walls. The role of William of Orange is however largely unrealistic as he involves himself in the lovers individual affairs, highly unlikely for a monarch, in addition to at times the characters appearing slightly one dimensional, however the allusions and language of Dumas, in addition to all the strings of his plot and themes explored settle the flaws of the characters for the most part. It’s a book more of us should really have heard of and bring into intertextual literary debates. 

This book was crushing, but not in the way you might’ve expected it to be. Reading a book entitled “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” you know it’ll address the atrocities of the Holocaust, but what you aren’t prepared for is the little things. The books Lale’s mother packed for him for ‘comfort’ being immediately taken away, the solitary flower wilting the day after it is found, the brief exploration of the surgeries of Mengelet. And then, after all of that, you remember that Heather Morris is telling a true story, a true story of love where love is bleakest, and perseverance when finding the will to live is impossible. It’s heart-wrenching. 

Muriel Spark’s “The Driver’s Seat” was such an unusual short read. The story tells of Lise’s single day on holiday, as she has her mind completely set on finding “her type” in the next 24 hours, in a desperate pursuit of ‘love’. The character of Lise is utterly insufferable. She is selfish, loud, hypocritical and rude, dismissing everybody else around her. Though we later find out why she acts this way, as Spark introduced her as such even with hindsight I still absolutely despise her character and was actively disgusted when reading about her. The other characters weren’t any better, Bill being just as unlikable, manipulative and controlling, though Spark did write him in such way to support her feminist messages within the story. “The Driver’s Seat” is ultimately about a female character trying to regain her agency from an oppressive patriarchal system, though she goes about this in an extremely unorthodox and harrowing way. However the irony is that Lise never reclaims such agency, her story being recounted by the people she meets throughout the book. Also I can’t help but highlight the excessive emphasis on Lise’s lips, just in case the book wasn’t weird enough already! Though the concept of “The Driver’s Seat” was extremely interesting, the sheer dislikability of almost all the characters meant it was impossible for me to “enjoy” it. (I quotation enjoy as the themes of this book are not enjoyable to read, even if the characters were more likeable. I do however fail to find the word that explains the low star rating.) 

The Picture of Dorian Gray was perhaps my biggest surprise of the year in regards to my expectations for a book. I picked it up expecting it to be a typical classic exploring the lives of British aristocracy, and Wilde shut down that expectation immediately. Wilde’s prose is among the best I’ve ever read, his words each holding so much meaning, and so many passages exploring philosophy, art, beauty and morality each so quotable. I don’t like annotating books, but this one almost persuaded me to do so, and if I ever were to sit down and fully annotate something, Wilde has just comfortably secured the first place podium spot. 

Dorian as a protagonist was so interesting to, he having made a deal with the devil to trade his soul for the eternal beauty as depicted in his portrait, therefore his character is constantly fighting his morality, guilt and trying to hide from his friends both his supernatural secret and his sins as a consequence of it. He’s not a great person, though you can’t help at some points sympathising and at some points loathing. I sat and stared at the wall too many times to count when reading this, for each plot event had so much wider impact and opened up so many more lessons on morality. Wilde is such an incredible wordsmith, everything he’s ever written is now going on my TBR and I think The Picture of Dorian Gray has to break into my top five favourite books. 

In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee explores the institution of racism when at its peak in the Deep South of the USA, set in Alabama during the late 1930’s. Lee explores this world through the eyes of a child, the young ‘Scout’ who goes about her day with her older brother ‘Jem’. Though this perspective doesn’t portray the direct effect of racial discrimination, with the limited perspective of a white child, the Finch family are on the borderline between races for Atticus, their father, is loving of all individuals and defending in court a black man accused of rape, a case he believes Tom Robinson was innocent in. As a consequence of this, the Finch family receive a fraction of such racial discrimination. There are those common skits involving To Kill A Mockingbird that are set in classrooms, and the teacher is mocked by the impersonator for outlining the use of racial slurs and that they shouldn’t be said but will be said when reading in class for “educational purposes”, so I expected such going into the book, though was shocked at the plastering of such slurs throughout the book, my impression being it only featured once or twice. Whilst this is an accurate representation of the time, and even to some extent reveals the unconscious racial bias of the protagonists whom believe they are wholly innocent in the institution of racism and good people, reading it was still uncomfortable. To Kill A Mockingbird is a book that really makes you think, such chapters such as those set in the courtroom stand out as scathing social commentaries yet also extremely engaging passages of writing, and two paragraphs individually really stood out to me because they  beautifully explored the flaws of humanity. One such was a discussion on the inhumanity of the Nazi persecution of the Jews, the early stages of the Holocaust happening across the pond when To Kill a Mockingbird was set, and the characters who believe they are morally good are in disbelief at such persecution of people whilst it happens to African Americans right under their noses. The second was a paragraph I highlighted - “I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do - seems that only children weep,” such words illustrating humanity and it’s faults perfectly…

The Master and Margarita wasn’t what I expected at all, but then again I don’t think anybody could be prepared to expect any of the unhinged tale of Satan, his followers and Behemoth the chaotic black cat as they cause chaos in the streets of Moscow. Only in the second part of the book does Bulgakov introduce who could be seen as the novels protagonist, the reason for the inclusion of ‘Margarita’ in the title being a mystery until the halfway point, and instead bouncing between the present of Satan terrorising the people of Moscow, be it morally corrupt bankers and owners of capital, and a second story recounting the events of Pontius Pilate condemning Yashea Ha-Noziri to crucifixion. The way these stories are brought together in the second act is so unexpected and nonsensical, though as you continue to read you just come to accept anything is possible and Satan warps reality as he pleases. Interestingly, though presented as antagonists, I found myself coming to like Satan and his troop, especially enjoying the antics of the cat Behemoth. The story is unbelievably confusing but in a charming way, and challenges Soviet Russia’s attitudes to foreigners, an especial emphasis being placed on the laws against foreign currency. Bulgakov ultimately highlights his blurred the boundaries between good and evil are in his writing and presents a baffling story of magical realism and religious and political debate, that I could only sum up as utterly chaotic.

Down and Out in Paris and London was Orwell’s first published work. It’s a memoir of his experience finding his feet as a writer and struggle to generate a stable income, forcing him out onto the streets and constantly looking for work in 1920’s Paris and in the latter half of the memoir London. Despite being a non-fiction memoir, Orwell’s writing read surprisingly like a narrative, and though in such narrative the fate of Orwell and the various individuals in poverty he meets don’t have any such narrative arc, often describing the endless and unstable search for work and struggles of starvation, it provides a harrowing first-hand insight into the lives of those in poverty. Orwell’s remarks for social change in his later works and political values so frequently portrayed are easily explained and empathised with as a consequence of his experiences in Down and Out, and there are also numerous interesting passages on the conditions of ‘spikes’, more commonly known as workhouses and how they could’ve improved or one on the intricacies of London working class slang which was a curious discovery on how language adapts, or even returns with the hindsight of reading in the 21st century. Orwell did however at one point use the phrase “wash my teeth” rather than brush and I’m not sure I can forgive him for that.

Les Miserables was beautiful. I knew I’d love it as the musical is my favourite one and the French Revolution (though Les Mis is set slightly afterward) is my favourite period of history. The revolutionary spirit and political turmoil conveyed within the book is what I search for in my reading. Hugo has received criticism for Les Mis being drawn out and wordy, though I didn’t notice any such problem, for the most part every word felt like it had its place. Even the infamous sewers scene, though a little drawn out, didn’t have me itching for it to be over. Another highlight was the amount of intertextual references crammed into Hugo’s prose, many of which I understood and therefore could appreciate. A handful of his scenes were very Shakespearian in setting and style, and nor is Hugo afraid to admit so, often highlighting such events with a metaphor association to one of Shakespeare’s plays. The secret meetings of Marius and Cosette completely echoed that of Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene. I don’t know if associate to the musical enhanced or hindered my experience with Les Mis, for I often found myself associating scenes to particular songs which I very much enjoyed, but the entity of the book existed before it did on the stage, so I didn’t get the authentic experience with the plot heartbreakingly unravelling before me. Though I already knew the story and what was coming, and it’s even prefaced in the title “the Miserables”, the book didn’t break me any less. I had a beautiful, emotionally raw, and poetic time with the book, and it’s length was no negative, but only allowed me to grow more immersed in the revolutionary world of Jean Valjean. 

My reading of Dracula was a peculiar case in my reading history, for three years ago I read about half of it on an online PDF and then unintentionally DNF’d it, not for any negative reason other than the fact I didn’t enjoy reading on my laptop. I finally got around to reading it again (this time in the form of a physical copy) and alike to my experience re-reading Frankenstein, though in the case of Dracula I had no negative feelings toward it, it was much better than I recalled. It is written in an epistolary format, which isn’t something I have engaged with often, though the telling of the story was not hindered, nor do I believe it to be enhanced by this. It faltered in that each of the 5 characters diaries that were taken from didn’t have any sort of unique narrative voice, but were more undifferentiated from one another.

 Stoker’s attitude to the only principle female character, Mina, was also frustrating, as she is often left out of the band of mens discussions or pursuits of Dracula for they fear it may scare her “womanly self”, in addition to the belittling of her contributions by often remarking “she has the brilliance of a man’s brain.” However, such attitude is to be expected with a text from 1897. She was involved in the final climax of the novel which I suppose is worth something. 

Aside from such, the overall plot was compelling, Van Helsing a character I very much enjoyed my experience with, and my whole enjoyment of Dracula I believe to be very much enhanced by the immersion I experienced reading the first half whilst on a trip to Whitby, therefore surrounded by the Gothic setting Stoker took so much elements of and inspiration for his tale from.