Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

Ms Oh WailyLeave a comment

Book #698

Reviewer: Arukiyomi (first published May 2012)

My sixth Woolf and I’m glad I read others before this one or it would have been wasted on me. Woolf is so complex that I’m sure many a reader has come and left confused and disheartened by the attempt. I found this quite similar in its style to the lesser-known Jacob’s Room, but less accomplished. I’m not sure why this novel is one of her best-known. Perhaps you can enlighten me in the comments.

Mrs Dalloway is planning a party which takes place the evening of the day which encompasses the timespan of the novel. In the morning she bustles about town, her mind both on the party and on images that surface from her past associations with various guests she expects. Woolf’s unconfined prose means that the novel, one continuous chapter of 150 pages or so, drifts from the thoughts of one character to another almost imperceptibly. While Mrs Dalloway thinks of a particular character, we often thus find ourselves in their mind having wandered there across the bridge of imagination and thought.

The great themes are class, the role of women and, what I found most interesting, an exploration of the lingering effects of WW1 combat on Septimus who eventually commits suicide in despair at anyone ever understanding why he feels the way he does.

The novel is, I found, quite claustrophobic. Despite the lack of structure to the prose, you never feel like you have a completely free point of view on which to gaze at the characters involved. And you are also left to work hard to make the connections between each phrase, sometimes each word, of a long and dangling sentence if you are to squeeze the full meaning from each. I’m surprised there were any commas left in the English language after she’d finished this!

So, it’s not an easy read, but, as with almost all Woolf, rewarding to those who make the effort. Her next novel was To The Lighthouse and I think this set her up to write something much, much more subtle and crafted with that.

Quote of the Week

Ms Oh WailyLeave a comment

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain

 

Change bookroom to public library and you’ve got me.

The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Ms Oh Waily1 Comment

Book #781

Reviewer: Ms Oh Waily (First published July 2012)


I purchased this in the Puffin Classic volume amongst a group of other classics for my children, and have just picked it up and re-read it.

We start the story with the trusty pairing of Holmes and Watson in their rooms discussing the walking cane of one Dr Mortimer who had paid a visit to them the previous night while they were out.  This gives us an introduction to Holmes’ deduction methods right from the start of the story and how he is able to out-think his companion.

Dr Mortimer duly arrives as they end their discussion of the stick and he starts us off on the chase for The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Bringing news of the death of Sir Charles Baskerville and the family legend of a devilish hound on the moors, Mortimer invites Holmes and Watson to meet and decide how to help the newly arrived heir from North America.

Thereafter we follow the adventures of Watson as he reports the goings-on from Baskerville Hall, involving the neighbours, an escaped convict and the dark and dangerous moor itself.  And naturally we reach a resolution and all is explained about the devilish howling, the evil dog and the sinister plot that brings danger to Sir Henry Baskerville at the very last.

I was very pleased to re-read this story some {ahem} decades after I first ventured into the world of Sherlock Holmes as a young reader.  I was happy to see that it had lost nothing in the intervening years, as can often happen with books one enjoyed as a child.  Interestingly I found this story rather debunking of the superior and condescending attitude of Holmes that comes out in any non-book adaptation.  While he is not shy to say how well he does there are plenty of times where he praises Watson, and it does not read to me as arrogance or condescension.

Here is an example of Conan Doyle’s writing style, describing the moor.

All day today the rain poured down, rustling on the ivy and dripping from the eaves.  I thought of the convict out upon the bleak, cold, shelterless moor.  Poor fellow! Whatever his crimes, he has suffered something to atone for them.  And then I thought of that other one – the face in the cab, the figure against the moon.  Was he also out in that deluge – the unseen watcher, the man of darkness?  In the evening I put on my waterproof and I walked far upon the sodden moor, full of dark imaginings, the rain beating upon my face and the wind whistling about my ears.  God help those who wander into the Great Mire now, for even the firm uplands are becoming a morass.  I found the Black Tor upon which I had seen the solitary watcher, and from its craggy summit I looked out myself across the melancholy downs.  Rain squalls drifted across their russet face, and the heavy, slate-coloured clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in grey wreaths down the sides of the fantastic hills.  In the distant hollow on the left, half hidden by the mist, the two thin towers of Baskerville Hall rose above the trees.

If you have not dipped your toes in to the original written world of Holmes and Watson, then you can do no better than start with one of the most well known stories.  I did not find it a trial to read.  It is a straightforward tale of mystery and intrigue, told in an easy to read style.  I think it deserves its place on the 1001 Books and not only due to the mystique grown up around the unique character of Sherlock Holmes.

Less Than Zero – Brett Easton Ellis

inspirationalreadsLeave a comment

Book #240

Reviewer: Inspirationalreads

American Psycho has become arguably the book that Brett Easton Ellis is most known for; it became famous for being controversial in its graphically violent portrayal of serial killer Patrick Batemen and its comment on the materialistic excess 1980s America.  This theme of excess, corruption and an almost savage detachment of emotion in coping with the depravity that is an inevitable product, is central to Less Than Zero his first book, written when he was only 21 years old.

Clay has come to LA, on Christmas break from college.  In a wide circle of friends, he is one of a small number that has gone away for college, a decision that is more revealing than what a first glance would indicate.  For Clay and his friends are a generation of privileged children, with access to money, sex and drugs and no restrictions or boundaries. It is through Clay that we experience this lifestyle; he is part of this, this is where he grew up, these are his friends and he is used to the endless rounds of parties, drugs, sex.  But just because he is used to it , it doesn’t mean that he is comfortable with it.  The reader is fed these scenarios through a filter of a kind of forced emotional numbness that becomes harder to maintain the more time he spends back in LA.  The depravity becomes increased as his friends and acquaintances push to experience things that will dent their apathy.  More drugs, a snuff film, an under-age sex slave, the fascination with a dead body in an alley where the first instinct is to tell your friends so they can come and stare rather than call the police.

This novel is insidious by nature.  The minimalist, indifferent tone lulled me into reading in an disassociated manner.  There were no out loud gasps or truly horrified moments for me; it wasn’t until a few moments after reading a certain passage that I had to pull myself up and realise that yes, that was a snuff film that they were playing at a party and yes, it seemed to be being enjoyed by most there.  Clay’s voice and by extension Ellis’ writing conveys exactly what is intended, and it is horrible and magnificent all at the same time.  Clay reads as one note; detached.  But as you read on you realise there is more to our young narrator.  He cannot tell his younger sisters apart yet there is a twinge of something when at 13 and 15 they speak of sexual ideas and experiences.  At a family vacation with his grandparents, he appears to be the only one concerned about his grandmothers illness.  His unease at not being able to locate his best friend and when he does, a not-so-obvious sadness at what has become of him.  He is part of the story, but he also represents the audience for this story too.  It is a note of morality, albeit very small, in a place where the moral compass has well and truly been broken.

At the time of its release, this novel shocked and disturbed.  It is no less disturbing now, but the shock value has been watered down a little in a society that has access to anything and everything at their fingertips. What is interesting is that it still feels relevant over 30 years later, where a reality star can be made out of somebody who has nothing else to offer other than a glimpse into their glamorous and excessive lifestyles.

I always feel a bit funny saying that I enjoyed something that is obviously quite (for want of a better word) icky in nature.  But the skill in the setting of tone and the subtle ways in which Clay is both participant and observer is to be admired.  This is a strong warning to those who do not like their fiction to be served with a side of debauchery and graphic displays of such – avoid at all costs.  My above examples are there as warnings as well.  While not as descriptive as American Psycho, it is still disturbing in nature and content.

There is a follow up novel set 25 years after the events in the book called Imperial Bedrooms of which I am yet to read but am looking forward to.  As for Less Than Zero, a strong 3.5/5 rating.