Mike Poulton's 2005 adaptation of Schiller's play may not be a faithful literal translation but it's taught and it's pacey and gripping all the way to it's horrifying conclusion. It demands a visit to the theatre.
Friedrich Schiller's only novel is a slender, mysterious, unfinished work. It follows the company of a prince and his companions in 18th century Venice, dabbling with the paranormal and dissolution, it is both an intriguing and frustrating read.
'Future! Eternal order! - If we take away that which man has drawn from his own human breast and wrongly imagined to be the purpose of a deity and the law of Naturre, what is left us? - What came before me and what will follow me I see as two black, impenetrable veils hanging down at either extremity of human existence and which no living man has yet drawn aside. Several hundred generations already stand before these veils with their torches, trying to guess what may lie behind. Many see their own shadows, the shapes of their passion, magnified and moving across the veil of futurity, and start in fear and trembling at the sight of their own image. Poets, philosophers and founders of states have painted their own dreams on them, cheerful or gloomy as the sky over their heads was darker or brighter; and distance always deceived them with its prospects. Many imposters too exploit this general curiosity and amaze people's excited imaginations with their strange mummeries. Deep silence reigns behind this veil; nobody who has once gone behind it sends back any answer; all that can be heard is the hollow echo of the question, as if it had merely resounded in a tomb. All must go behind this veil, and with fear and trembling they approach it, uncertain who might be standing behind it waiting to receive them; quid sit id, quod tantum perituri vident. Of course there were also unbelievers among them who asserted that this veil was merely deluding mankind, and that the reason nothing had been observed was that there was nothing behind it; but in order to convince them, they themselves were rapidly dispatched behind the veil.'
In his introduction, Fisk makes a point of emphasising this is a journalistic rather than a political or historical account of the conflicts in Lebanon during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. As such it is an outstanding, absorbing, empassioned work - a truly compelling read. Fascinating too in these times because it challenges the accepted classification of what a 'terrorist' is and at what point an act of killing is also an act of 'terrorism'. It also sets out to assess Israel's role purely on the basis of its actions rather than from the pre-determined point of view that all Israeli military action is anti-terrorist self-defence, which has become an all-too-common presumed truth in western media reporting. Fisk himself acknowledges that he has been accused of anti-semitism and publicly vilified for his approach; the grim inevitability of this lazy criticism may lend an extra measure of bitterness as the book progresses. Nonetheless, journalists like Robert Fisk, risking their lives on the ground in the danger zones, are vitally important both to aid understanding and stimulate debate. This is a brilliant example of the very best in journalism. Everybody should read it.
Weird tale of a male dancer's abduction, abuse, release and subsequent unresolved struggle in life. It's cold; sex without erotica. The central character's alienation extends to the reader who can only follow with curiosity; without empathy. Not a patch on Thomson's 'The Insult'.
This is the true story of FC Start, a makeshift team of ex-Dynamo (and Lokomotive) Kiev players who were brought together to work at Bakery 3 in Nazi-occupied Kiev during the second world war. It documents their collective triumphs and the inevitable tragic falls. With limited historical references to draw from, however, it is bigger on broad context than detailed specifics. Worth reading though to comprehend a dreadful moment in time when football really did matter.
For a so-called classic, this is rather an unpleasant book. So frequently described as a "tragic love story" of "passion" and "romance", its true nature is one of hatefulness, spite, bitterness, misery, callousness and pain. It's certainly a complex narrative but one that never let's up in the dispensation of suffering. Maybe it's a work of literary genius but it's a hard one to enjoy.
Both horribly grim and highly original, this is the story of Isserley, a young female driver who spends her days picking up hitchhikers in Scotland. Her motives are slowly, cleverly revealed and it all gets rather compelling and appalling and fantastical. Worth reading before it's corrupted at the hands of Hollywood.
Reading all Dostoevsky's novels in chronological order, part 4. Uncle's Dream is probably the most entertaining of his novels today, certainly in a comic sense. In this volume the modest work is padded either side with short stories in the more familiar melancholy style. 'The Meek Girl' is the pick of these.
The second in the Thursday Next series expands the bizarre parallel universe created in the first and gives it its own extra dimension in the form of 'the library'. It's all too bizarre for summary in any review, so let it just be said that it's breezily light, ideal for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans, especially those keen on great literature and all-action speculation about its inner workings.
Dostoevsky's third book is a mere fragment of what was intended to be a much larger debut novel. It tells of a the first three phases in the life of its heroine, Annetta - 'Netochka Nezvanova' - up to the age of seventeen. For such a short tale and short passage of life, there is a staggering amount of weeping and bathing in tears. This inevitably becomes rather tedious as the narrative wends its way towards the overblown conclusion of a trifling matter. The last seven sentences, however, redeem everything, coming out of the blue and casting doubt upon much of what had been assumed before. The reader is then at liberty to complete Dostoevsky's unfinished piece in any number of ways to their own satisfaction.
Adams's fifth and final instalment of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy is arguably the most complex, thought-provoking and darkest of all. The humour is still there but everyone is troubled. The plot is so complicated for such a small book that even close to the end it's hard to see how the numerous plot lines could be resolved. Ultimately, however, all the threads are somehow drawn together, wound down to single vanishing point and ..... vanish. Brilliantly imaginative.
A man seemingly of impeccable character, successful in business, widely admired, a loyal and beloved husband and father to three children, suddenly disappears. Unbeknown to his family and colleagues he had become an accessory to illegal activities that, when exposed, would compel him to 'vanish'. This book is a gentle tale of the consequences for a comfortable middle-class family when their lives unravel overnight.
The first four books of the complete trilogy in five parts that is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. They are: 'The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy'; 'The restaurant at the end of the universe'; 'Life, the universe and everything'; and 'So long, and thanks for all the fish'. Part one is a complete legend; part two is part legend, part not; part three extends the legend to the fascinating worlds of cricket and Krikket; part four is a sweet love story that concludes with a few words from God. An entirely splendid and well overdue read.
A first foray into the world of Dickens. In places this is as droll as anything ever written but the main narrative is perhaps not as completely satisfying as it might have been. Orlick, for example, only appears when needed for a jolt in the plot and then as quickly disappears. Compeyson is entirely underused, whereas the tedious vanities of Pumblechook and Wopsle are explored in full. After the final exchange between Pip and Magwitch the last few chapters appear to be a rush-though to various upbeat conclusions with a rapidity out of keeping with the rest of the book, which to that point had been measured and melancholy. So ..... a flawed classic.
"It is always the case on a long journey that till the first two of three stages have been passed imagination continues to dwell on the place left behind, but with the first morning on the road it leaps to the end of the journey and there begins building castles in the air. So it happened to Olénin.
A short novel - subtitled 'a tale of 1852' - about a wealthy young man from Moscow who signs up as an army cadet and is stationed among the Cossacks of village in the Caucasus. There is discovers unrequited love and generous tolerance without acceptance. Not a cheerful or satisfying read but interesting in the picture it paints of a remote, bygone life; one that Tolstoy himself experienced at first-hand.
The premise of the novel is daft: the United Kingdom has been divided into four quarters based on the four temperaments associated with the four humors of Hippocratic medicine - choleric, melancholic, plegmatic and sanguine - and the entire population of the country has been rearranged with each person relocated to the quarter that matches their own basic temperament, thereby created a more harmonious society. Once that set-up has been accepted a reality, however, the story of one man's journey around this new England can be appreciated as truly brilliant. The writing is superb.
Bleak, bizarre and often impenetrable - all to be expected - but Kafka's slender masterpiece is also hard to put down. Not through the anticipation of what's going to happen next but because each beautifully sculpted scene draws the question "what's happening now?", and even though it's evident that an answer will never be revealed conclusively, there's a compulsion to keep asking.
Today, as in Kafka's time, everything that is broken in society can be traced back to flaws and corruption in the law and the legal system. It is the failed product of an attempt to create a philosophically perfect system, wielded by imperfect hands in an imperfect world. Kafka knew this.
A difficult, not very enjoyable short novel about the downward spiral of a Russian Titular Councillor whose bizarre behaviour and social anxiety is amplified by the sudden appearance of his exact double - a double in looks, name and even employment. The difficulty comes with Dostoevsky's use of broken, stumbling, heavy-mannered speech that obscures meaning and makes conversations impenetrable. Locating the border between eccentric normality and delusional nightmare is like searching for high ground on Escher's staircase. There is undoubtedly method in this madness but working through it is maddening.
'What the hell are we doing here? I mean...'
'What, why are we standing on the edge of Epping Forest with a Scooby Doo van, a Lottery winner, a guy with cancer and someone dressed in a space-suit - that we made - having just waved a tearful goodbye to a domineering retail-assistant who's just gone into the woods to "fulfil her destiny" and learn how to channel her humungous witch powers?'
'Yeah,' says Julie.
'Weird' is the word that recurs throughout this novel. Having a central character allergic to sunlight - whose entire physical world is the interior of his childhood home - is indeed weird. But really this is a feel-good book with a rich cast of well imagined players. Their very different personal journeys intertwine, then pull apart again. No individual's story is brought to a definite conclusion yet the whole feels warmly satisfying. Lovely.
Excellent stuff, port, and surely none better than Taylor's. This pocket guide to the drink is full of insights. For example, the older a vintage or tawny port gets, the more pale it becomes. Of '30 and 40 year old tawny' it is said: "Again these wines can show anomalies in that old tawnies only become pale to a certain point before they start to darken again. Indeed it is not so widely known that tawnies of 50 or 60 years have olive green tones that can easily be detected at the rim of the wine." Yet another insight is: "Yeasts normally die once the alcoholic strength of the wines rises above 14% of alcohol by volume - thus with port the addition of the grape brandy when only half the sugar has been converted kills the yeasts, allowing the natural sugars to remain. for this reason port is sweet." Cheers!
Not an academic economics books, or even a popular economics book, but a cobbled together set of fascinating and not-so-fascinating statistics about the unseen causes, effects and motivations of modern society. It starts strongly with surprising insights into crime trends, continues well with the motivations for rigging sumo wrestling matches, but then weakens towards the end with a series of rather dull lists of children's names. Enough variety and thought-provoking material to make it worth a read, though.
A statement at the beginning of this small, slim volume reads: "The Happy Smiley Writers Group got together after National Novel Writing Month 2008 and created this book because... We want some happy endings, darn it!" The collection published by the group is an anthology of eight science fiction stories set in post-apocalyptic times, on or around Earth. It's light-weight, frivilous and fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. The most enjoyable effort is probably 'Dirty' by Maisarah Binte Abu Samah, which centres on the last two people left in Singapore - where the Happy Smiley Writers Group is based, and where this book was bought (at Kinokuniya Orchard) in January 2010.
An exceptionally detailed and absorbing history of evolving diplomatic relations between successive Israeli governments and the leaders of the Arab nations on Israel's borders. Cynicism, duplicity, prejudice and paranoia are perhaps unsurpisingly the common traits to be found in all eras, where flashes of optimism inevitably drown in troughs of despair. It's not an uplifting read, neither does it offer any hope for future, but it provides important historical insights into an area of regional dispute, which - directly or indirectly - affects every living person today.
An enjoyable, imaginative escapade through an alternative London and Swindon of 1985, which trespasses the pages of Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre' while the Crimean War continues to rage, and time travel and dodos and vampires and Neanderthals are all real and present, and Winston Churchill fell out of a tree and died as a child. This is the first of the Thursday Next books. The others will have to be read too. Top tip: don't read this without having read Jane Eyre first.
Dostoevsky's first novel, published in 1846, is written in the form of an exchange of letters between Makar Devushkin, a middle-aged copy clerk who lives in appalling poverty, and Varvara Dobroselova, his young second cousin twice-removed living in any equally terrible apartment directly across the street in St Petersburg. Both are desperately put upon and seek platonic comfort and consolation from the oppression of their daily lives. Neither the characters nor the reader finds cheer in this slim volume but it's a carefully crafted, finely-layered work, and about as readible as this format of novel can be.
He began angrily. 'How could you, sir! What's that look for? A vital document, needed in a hurry, and you ruin it. And how could you,' - at this point His Excellency turned to Yevstafy Ivanovich. I only hear the counds of the words reaching me: 'Negligence! Carelessness! Troublemaking!' I tried to open my mouth to say something. I'd have liked to ask forgiveness, but I couldn't, to run away - but I didn't dare try, and at this point... at this point, my dear, such a thing happened, that even now I can scarcely hold my pen from shame. My button - the devil take it - the button I had hanging by a thread - suddenly came off, fell, bounced (I'd accidentally knocked it, evidently), tinkled, and rolled away, the damned thing, straight, absolutely straight up to His Excellency's feet, and this in the midst of universal silence! And that was all my justification, all my apology, all my reply, all I'd been intending to say to His Excellency! The consequences were dreadful! His Excellency immediately turned his attention to my figure and my clothes. I remembered what I'd seen in the mirror: I rushed to catch the button! I was that foolish! I bend down and try to pick up the button - it rolls, spins, I can't catch it, in short, I excelled myself as regards agility. It's at this point I feel that my last ounce of strength is leaving me, that now everything, everything is lost! The whole reputation is lost, the whole man is ruined!
A book read solely for self-education, but which turned out to be a highly enjoyable with a heart-warmingly strong figure at its centre.
Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.
"What more have you to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.
That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued -
"I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."
"How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?"
"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back - roughly and violently thrust me back - into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, 'Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me - knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful!"