ed_moore's Reviews (345)

Faulks’ ‘Birdsong’ is a book about WW1’s trench warfare surrounded by the heated love affair of the protagonist Stephen Wraysford with a married woman called Isabella. It takes on the perspective of both Stephen and later his granddaughter Elizabeth in 1978. Of all the war novels I have read this was one of the weakest, not many of the characters had enough substance for me to root for them whatsoever. The appeal of Isabelle to Stephen really didn’t make much sense as she offered very little for him to spend the novel pining over and her decisions make little sense and are largely for plot convenience, also noting the sex scenes between the couple were not the best written at all. 

Whilst the romance plot is never my cup of tea I didn’t find the war scenes that interesting either. Faulks’ characters are so stale minus maybe Stephen’s commanding officer Gray that the extent of death presented had little impact, and the majority of soldiers on both sides of the war are treated like cannon-fodder and completely dehumanised in places. The perspective of Elizabeth was handled even worse however, she was set up to have no knowledge of the war so she could go on a journey of discovery about her grandfather Stephen however her ignorance was completely unrealistic. How someone coming to the age of 40 in the 1980s could have never heard of the First World War or seen a war memorial whilst living in London is stupid and her revelations about how vast and tragic the conflict was felt so shallow and unbelievable. 

There were some nice quotes on morality and death and some descriptions were well written but that’s about all the flowers I can give this book. 

My opinion on Homer’s Iliad is largely unchanged from my initial reading of Hammond’s after my reread in Lombardo’s translation, therefore I shall focus on the merits and hinderances of the translation itself here. I initially read ’The Iliad’ in a prose translation as that just happened to be the edition I owned so I am very glad to have now read the epic in poetic form. It is an extremely readable translation which is a positive but lacks a lot of flower and imagery that I feel the epic needs, it is stripped to its barebones in focusing on the narrative and all imagery is italicised and in separate stanzas highlighting how absent lyrical passages are. In stripping it down the poem is very Americanised, which at times is funny, noting lines such as “don’t vex me, bitch” however also can be extremely out of pocket and jarring, Zeus’ regular description as “the awesome son of Cronus” sat awfully and I absolutely hated for example. There is also frequent use of direct repetition which while effective in repeating imagery and motifs when it is a whole passage copied by a messenger word for word I did find it can be ineffective. Achilles so often pains my soul and I really felt stung in some passages. Ultimately focusing on Homer’s narrative, my rating does remain unchanged. 

I also can’t not comment on the choice of this cover - why on earth is an image of D-Day slapped on the front of ‘The Iliad’?

(As the most recent review is prioritised on the page I have copied my original review of Hammond's translation written in November 2023 below):

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 Achilles, 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.

Shelley’s ‘The Wandering Jew’ is a narrative poem much unlike his works on popular protest and revolution and in my opinion much worse. It narrates the cursing of Paulo, a Jew who mocked Christ as he was crucified and hence was cursed to wander earth until the second coming, 600 years later he forces himself into a relationship with a girl called Rosa. The poem contained a few nice depictions of nature and a detailed account of torture in Hell which was an interesting depiction, but generally the narrative between the cantos felt disjointed and hard to follow. Not to mention the poem was extremely anti-semitic and the limited plot events seemed to just occur with little explanation. It’s far from Shelley’s best. 

Likely Coleridge’s most well known poem, rereading ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ for the first time since I studied it in year 8 of high school was an enlightening experience. It’s a pretty good poem about a mariner who tells a wedding guest about how he shot an albatross and thus brought a curse onto his whole crew which he repents for and rediscovers religion in order to survive. I remember my teacher had us act out this poem and I was cast as the albatross and ran around the classroom far too many times to ‘circle the boat’, how this even worked though and how we spent so many weeks on the poem I cannot fathom. 

Being less nostalgic now, some of Coleridge’s lyric here is really beautiful, it has an ominous and supernatural feel to it throughout which is fun. In dealing with themes of sin and repentance there is a lot of religious allegory which is interesting though I can’t help but feel got overly preachy at points. 

What…On….Earth. Agatha Christie is an absolute genius and that ending has absolutely floored me. It was so clever and unexpected and has hugely elevated my opinion on ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’. The book concerns the event of the title, though interestingly is narrated not by Poirot but Dr Sheppard who serves as a ‘Watson’ figure to Poirot. 

The characterisation of the protagonist did feel a little weak at times (though this did have a purpose) and also the cast of characters felt a little large and at places hard to follow, but the key to the murder mystery being the twist was perfection and really hinges the entirety of my review and the opinion on this book. Not to mention I finished it in a day which says a fair amount about the merit of this book!

Matthew Lewis’ ‘The Monk’ is the epitome of the gothic novel, set in crypts, graveyards and monasteries it has everything from ghosts of nuns, cross-dressing monks, seduction and temptation, religious corruption and a general vibey feel throughout. It was an aesthetic I very much enjoyed. It follows in one storyline the cavaliers Raymond and Lorenzo seeking to free their lovers from the convent, and on the other the temptation of the monk Ambrosio and his conflict between religious virtue and temptation, the two coming together nicely in a wild conclusion. Alike to ‘The Castle of Otranto’ in I could see elements of Shakespearian tragedy blending in also. 

I don’t believe it was written incredibly however. Walpole hated speech marks and now Lewis capitalises random words which really break up the flow when reading, as you assume that is the close of a sentence when a capital appears and then you realise what you just read makes no sense and have to reread it ignoring the capital. It was very frustrating. 

I feel there was a lot unexplained or that didn’t get closure but to an extent with the tone of the book and genre it has to be accepted, it was very amusing how wacky a book that on surface appears to take itself so seriously appears. Raymond and Lorenzo reminded me much of Albert and Edmund in ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ during the sequence of their adventures in Rome, which is always a pro for me, and I especially enjoyed the story of The Bleeding Nun and Lewis’ depiction of the supernatural. 

Objectively I don’t think the ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ trilogy was that well written, but to give Jackson credit the books are addictive, I got through the final instalment in just two days. ‘As Good as Dead’ inverts the regular structure where pip is forced to investigate into the person that she believes has begun stalking her, and therefore there is no initial murder to investigate, although I do think each book in the series has been a little better the last. 

It does callback to the previous two books and its been a little bit but seems to pull on evidence and events to create a ‘full circle’ structure that I could’ve sworn were already resolved and then therefore written over in the third book, but I can’t be sure on my memory of such. I also struggle with the fact that now after three books Pip has still gained absolutely no character development as a protagonist.
For all this I can't rank it too lowly though as the story did utterly enrapture me. 

This book opened as a five star prediction, unfortunately it didn’t persist as strongly as it began but was still a very well written and numbing tale of the early years of the Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany. Written in 1938 following the events of Kristillnacht Boschwitz presents likely one of the earliest literary depictions of the holocaust, though the tragic story of the author in his personal escape from Germany but death at sea at only 27 when shot by a German U-Boat led to the manuscript for ‘The Passenger’ being lost and only rediscovered, translated and published in 2018. 

‘The Passenger’ follows Otto Silberman, a partly autobiographical insert of Boschwitz,  as he becomes alienated within his own country, still believing he identifies as a German and trying to get by and escape persecution by taking trains across the country, primarily between Berlin, Dortmund and Hamburg. It is such a quotable book with many the poignant image, though in its structure buying time and freedom through train travel it does get a little repetitive as the repeated train journeys are redescribed and relived. As a consequence towards the conclusion the book very much petered off in engagement and quality but for the most part was gripping, so numbing in its depictions of shifts in humanity, and though a bit choppy because it is in the state of a manuscript draft still has such a captivating control of imagery and language.

I absolutely flew through R.F. Kuang’s ‘Yellowface’. It was so different to ‘Babel’ in both topic and written style, other than overlapping themes of critiquing racism within industries, which I guess is a testament to Kuang’s range and ability as a writer. ‘Yellowface’ follows Juniper Hayward, a failing author, who plagiarises a manuscript about the Chinese Labour Front in WW1 written by her recently deceased bestseller friend Athena. As the book went on Juniper crossed the line more and more and you began to wonder how much lower she could possibly get in this charade to cover up her theft as the threads of her deception start to unravel. 

‘Yellowface’ exposes the toxic and crushing environment of the publishing industry and is very modern in its handling of it, discussing cancelling, booktok toxicity and the sacrifices authors have to make in order to maintain relevancy and succeed in the publishing world. It is honestly terrifying to read about from the perspective of someone who wants to get their foot into the industry some day. It also made satirical comments about unconscious biases regarding author perception which were extremely illuminating; one mentioned perceptions of Evelyn Waugh as a woman and I can’t pretend that isn’t a pitfall I had once presumed and fallen into. 

Though ‘Yellowface’ was extremely digestible and difficult to put down, I can’t help but feel like the prose wasn’t my exact cup of tea. It was very basic and trying to be relatable in a way, a style that I don’t recall being the case with ‘Babel’. Though a completely different genre and theme I feel to an extent Kunag’s ability to craft words should’ve carried through. 

Mona Awad’s ‘All’s Well’ follows a drama teacher called Miranda who is dealing with chronic pains and unable to find an explanation for such, as she attempts to put on a performance of Shakespeare’s ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’. Miranda makes a Faustian deal with three businessmen to pass on her pain to others and spends the duration of the novel grappling with this. The chapters about the presentation of the play and rehearsals combined with Miranda’s intensity were really enjoyable and the middle third of the book was great, although Miranda in facing this pain was such an insufferable and whiney character. The ending however was so weird and confused and I am not sure if I particularly enjoyed it, not to mention any chapters set in the bar with the Faustian trio felt so out of place and confused. Many elements of the book were enjoyable, particularly the engagement with a more ‘niche’ Shakespeare, but it just came to a very unsatisfying and odd conclusion.