octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

This is a diary, not a novel, and written by an adolescent at that (Anne is 13-15 when she writes this). As such it can't be said to be perfect storytelling, or even perfect writing. It can be repetitive, occasionally tedious, and Anne, while undeniably precocious, can be painfully self-absorbed. Her contempt for her mother was something I found particularly grating.

All that being said, this is still a horribly, terribly compelling document. Especially as we know the end... and yet we keep reading regardless, in a sort of vicarious misery, rubber-necking at other people's suffering, feeling bad about these very human, individual victims because the alternative is trying to feel for a faceless mass so enormous that it almost defies comprehension. One develops a sort of mental flinch at the idea of millions being marched to the gas chambers, for instance, because the very idea of that level of anguish is too much to encompass. One bored, depressed, traumatised teenager is much easier to mourn.

It's funny how my opinion of this book has changed. When I was a kid, it was one of my least favourite of the series. I think I thought it rather dull, though I did appreciate it having the best line of all the Narnia books: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." I thought that was hilarious as a child and I still do.

I'm currently rereading Narnia, though, and I picked this up with "Ho hum, the Dawn Treader, well at least it will be over quickly". And what do you know? I found myself enjoying it so much more than I did as a kid. I still roll my eyes at the religious bits, but the imagery throughout caught my attention so much more now than it did then. The different islands, the golden pool, the lilies floating on the ocean... perhaps I just appreciate stories about sea journeys more now than I once did.

I so wanted to like this more. I love LOTR and The Hobbit, but this... it's beautifully written, and in many ways evocative, and with another protagonist I could see myself loving it. But Túrin is so deeply, continuously, viciously unpleasant; so self-centred, arrogant and undeserving, that frankly I'm rooting for Morgoth. Our hero could not reach his sticky end soon enough is what I'm saying. Though in fairness to Túrin, his mother and sister are also deeply selfish so this is clearly a family trait - I only complain about them less because their roles in the text are comparatively minor.

I can only advise the residents of Middle-Earth that, if in the dark corner of their lands, they find a bastard child descended from this family they smother it in the cradle. Because otherwise that monstrous self-centredness will slaughter them and everyone else at the earliest opportunity.

Wholly deserving of praise, however, are Alan Lee's illustrations. The one of Glaurung the dragon is I think my favourite Tolkien illustration ever.

I've never read this before today, but I was amazed at how many lines I knew. So much has entered common parlance! I thought it was mostly wonderful but it dropped off near the end for me. (Why do all these people insist on killing themselves? I don't know, and frankly the fighting bit went on so long that by the time suicide was in fashion I didn't much care.) Mark Antony's speech to the crowd was the last point at which this play really held my interest. But then, it was such a fantastic speech that anything following would suffer by comparison...

Shakespeare is Shakespeare, but even he cannot make this plot any less than idiotic.

About the best that can be said of that plot is that it's not quite as moronic as that of the source material, a short play called Menaechmi, which is included as an appendix. There the main character, not five minutes after he relays his many years of journeying looking for his lost twin, is consistently mistaken for that twin by everyone he meets. And because he is a complete halfwit crippled with paranoia to the point where he's barely mentally functional, he doesn't even consider that the subject of his obsessive search might be in town. No, clearly the only explanation is that everyone's in on a plot to defraud him, a complete stranger who they did not expect and of whom they know nothing, of his worldly goods, such as they are. As I said, it's moronic.

I can only hope that The Comedy of Errors is funnier on stage than it is in print, but if I'm ever roped into seeing it I'm going to make sure I'm well drunk beforehand. It could only improve things.

Bubble bubble toil and trouble, Birnam wood, cream-faced loon, Lady M, by the pricking of my thumbs, the three witches... there's so much to like here. I badly wanted to give it five stars - I'd hoped and hoped we'd get to study Macbeth in high school, but instead we got saddled with sodding King Lear. So, some 20 years later, when I finally got round to reading the Scottish play, I'd high hopes. And yet, and yet...

Reader, Macbeth is a moron. "I'm going to kill the King in a manner so dodgy only characters even stupider than I am [surprisingly, there are some] couldn't figure it out! I'm warned that Banquo's heirs will have the throne but I'm not going to think about that until I've made myself King. WAIT! You mean I've done all this for someone else's kids? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? WHY DID NO-ONE TELL ME?"

On the blasted moor/heath/whatever, the witches are face-palming hard.

I first read this in school, when I was not much older than the title characters, and I thought the whole thing was boring and idiotic, two little twits drama-queening it up. I had no sympathy. (14 year old me was not a very tolerant individual.)

And the thing is, my 14 year old self wasn't actually wrong. Romeo and Juliet are two little twits drama-queening it up, but there's a reason Darwin Awards aren't given out to children. They're not mentally and emotionally developed enough to accurately assess risk and reward, or the effects of time and maturity. So reading it now, some 25 years later, I find myself much more compassionate towards them. In many ways this reread reminded me of my recent plough through Macbeth, which I absolutely could not give five stars to because Macbeth was a total moron and I really found it very difficult to suspend my disbelief that anyone could, in fact, be that stupid. But Macbeth was a grown man, and R&J are kids, so despite the similarities their culpability isn't the same - and isn't meant to be the same - and I find myself judging the plays accordingly.

I've gone back and forth as to whether to give this four or five stars. For sheer historical and literary weight it deserves five, but the simple fact is I still don't love it. My opinion of it has gone up dramatically - I found myself genuinely moved by the balcony scene this time round, for instance, and by their pitiful deaths - but there are other of Shakespeare's plays I enjoy reading more than this.

So I've thought about it, and about the reviews I've given in the past, and when in real doubt it's been my habit to privilege objective merit, as far as I can determine, over my own subjective option. Merit over bias, essentially. And, as in Hamlet, whatever I may think of the characters the writing is astonishing. It has to be, to elevate the bones of the story into the classic it has become. Five stars it is.

For many years this was my favourite Discworld book - even over all the ones with Granny Weatherwax. It still may be; I've yet to read The Shepherd's Crown. In fact, the whole reason I'm doing this Discworld reread at the moment is so I can put off reading the last book of Discworld for just a little longer... because it is the last, and because I suspect it may dethrone even Men at Arms as my favourite Discworld novel and I like to stretch out the potential a little longer.

But this book? I adore Carrot. I adore Detritus the troll. I adore Vimes' economic theory of poverty, of personal isn't important, of the meaning of politician - and of policeman. There's very little about it that I don't love, but I think what I love most is how Pratchett's humanism shines through, the belief that hard work and compassion can make a difference almost despite themselves. He was such an idealist writer, I think, though it reads like an idealism that was hard won against a lot of odds.

Fun, enjoyable read with a fine sense of the ridiculous. That's pretty much it, though - like candy floss, there's not a lot of substance beneath that frothy, delightful exterior.

It seems a little unfair to judge a book by who didn't write it, but whenever I read HGG (I think this is my third or fourth read? not sure) I always end up thinking of Terry Pratchett, and how when he's on top of his game his humour is the ridiculous veneer over a deeply compassionate, humanist approach to storytelling. And then I wonder what HGG would have been like if he had written it, and the actual HGG suffers in comparison. Yes, this isn't fair. (Yes, I've just finished rereading Men at Arms and, as always, its excellence has had a lingering effect.)

I don't say this to denigrate Adams in any way. He's a wonderful writer, and I've read nearly all of his stuff because of it. But that doesn't make HGG more substantial than it actually is.

Well-written retelling of Cinderella. I liked Aisling a lot, and I very much liked the way the book explored her relationship with the Wood, which worked as sort of a proxy for her mother. Talking of, I appreciated that this story used the hawthorn detail from the original fairy tale; Elinor's grave was evocative and even creepy (a high point for readers like me who like that sort of thing). I also became really quite invested in Ash's relationship with Kaisa; was very glad they got their happy ending.

What did not work for me was Sidhean. Did not care about him from start to finish, in fact as the book went on I became ever more irritated whenever the plot pulled me back to his boring self.