By JK, on July 19th, 2009 I know I’ve been shamefully absent. I blame summer (and summer romance for that matter). But just because I haven’t been writing, doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. And since I’m becoming increasingly intimidated by my review backlog, I’m going to do a quick review blitz, since apparently no one wants to read a long review online anyway.
Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips
This one was an enthusiastic recommendation from a fellow KIRBCer, and it certainly was an amusing little romp – easy to read, but sharp and intelligent. Philips explores what would happen if everyone’s favourite Olympians were still alive, living in London in the modern day, forgotten, their powers waning. The plot is driven not only by their predicament, but, as in the old tales, the ambroisa-eaters meddling in the affiars of mortals – specifically, two almost-lovers: Neil, an architect, and Alice a cleaning lady. When Eros spears Apollo with one of his famous arrows, Apollo falls in love with Alice, and everything goes to . . . Hades. Philips knows the mythology well, and the novel is filled with intelligent barbs as sharp and true as Eros’ arrows (Aprodite to Hermes: “You’re the God of coincidences aren’t you?” [...]
By JK, on December 8th, 2008 Seeing as I’m quite backblogged at the moment, I’ll keep this review as short and sweet as the book itself. On Chesil Beach is a psychological foray into the minds of two virgins on their wedding night in 1962. They are kindred spirits, as Anne would say, and look forward to a long and happy life together. There’s just one small thing they need to get out of their way – sex. For Edward, this is the culmination of everything he’s desired. His lust is at a fever pitch, and he is filled with joyous anticipation. Florence, on the other hand, is not just apprehensive but terrified.
With a less adept writer at the helm, this novella could fall flat, but McEwan enters the thoughts of his characters effortlessly. For as McEwan slides back and forth between the eager bridegroom and his reluctant bride, the reader can empathize with both, and shares the couple’s foreboding that everything is about to go horribly wrong.
And so it does, with one humiliation that changes the whole course of the newlywed’s lives – for their great love and their easy companionship can overcome everything – except sex. Of course the novella is about more than [...]
By JK, on October 29th, 2008
My redmist book is Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, the acme of Bloomsburyish poppycock, a self-flattering appropriation of English literature and history, distilled from Woolf’s temporarily addled brain by the heat of her infatuation for the aristocratic Vita Sackville-West. Should be sold with a sick bag attached.
Tarquin Hall, writer
The preceding quotation comes from the article in my previous post about critics’ most loathed books. I read this article while reading Orlando, but despite this delightfully venomous criticism, I think dismissing Orlando as a convoluted trifle is a mistake (and just wait, I’m calling in the big guns to back me up). Of course I must admit I’m a lover of Virginia Woolf; To the Lighthouse and The Waves (which also gets slammed in the aforementioned article) are two of my favourite books. I am not, however, an indiscriminate lover of Woolf – I was never taken by Jacob’s Room, and to this day, I’ve been known to say things like, “That’s the Jacob’s Room of Craig’s albums.”
Woolf admits to writing Orlando for fun, for a change of pace from her usual work, but that’s not to say that it should be taken lightly, or that it has no valid points to make. [...]
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