My Book Reviews/ up to July 2014

8/12/2019 My Book Reviews/ up to July 2014

1/109

1

Book Reviews

Contents:1. 2

2. : 12

3. 21

4. 37

5. 48

6. : 54

7. . 64

8. ... 68

9. : 72

10. 2007 79

11. On reading Disgrace 102

12. 108


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1898 ( ; ). ,

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March 27, 2010*


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(January 20, 2010)

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1921 . . , 1926 . .

. 1928 . 1942 . 1924 . . 1926 . . , , ... .

1961 . , , . :

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. , . . ()

. . . . intelligible obscurity . . . . . .

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stray detail . . , , . . . , , , ,

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. .

May 7, 2011 *


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[ ] , . . . , . . , ,

. . - . Hermyopic vision is guarded thickly by her own passions. Byronic blindness!


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:

I think so often of those games we used to invent,she declares.

So do I,I say, so do I.And then with a sudden boldness: Once I

broke a stick of yours, a rotten stick you thought a sound one. Do you

remember?

Then we laugh together and seem to approach across a painful,

unnecessary distance that has separated us. It vanishes for ever.

I couldn't now,she says, smack your face like that, Stephen.

That seems to me a brilliantly daring and delightful thing for her to say,

and jolly of her to use my Christian name too! I believe I scratched,she adds.

You never scratched,I assert with warm conviction. Never.

I did,she insists; and I deny, You couldn't.

We're growing up, she cries. That's what has happened to us. We

shall never fight again with our hands and feet, neveruntil death do us part.

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It seemed to me there was nothing for it now but that Mary should

stand by my side and face Justin with the world behind him. I remember my

confused sense that presently she and I would have to go straight out of

Martens. And she was wearing a tea-gown, easy and open, and the flimsiest of

slippers. Any packing, any change of clothing, struck me as an incredible anti-

climax. I had visions of our going forth, hand in hand. Outside was thesoughing of a coming storm, a chill wind drove a tumult of leaves along the

terrace, the door slammed and yawned open again, and then came the rain.

Justin, I remember, still talking, closed the door. I tried to think how I could get

to the station five miles away, and then what we could do in London. We

should seem rather odd visitors to an hotelwithout luggage. All this was

behind my valiant demand that she should come with me, and come now.

, .. . ( ) , :

Stratton,he said, we twoWe killed her. We tore her to pieces

between us....

I made no answer to this outbreak.We tore her to pieces, he repeated. It's so damned silly. One gets

angrylike an animal.

I became grotesquely anxious to assure him that, indeed, she and I had

been, as they say, innocent throughout our last day together. You were wrong

in all that,I said. She kept her faith with you. We never planned to meet and


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when we met. If we had been brother and sister. Indeed there was

nothing.

I suppose, he said, I ought to be glad of that. But now it doesn't

seem to matter very much. We killed her.... What does that matter to me now?

, , . . .

, . .. . ,

. . , , . !

( : ..

.

.)

May 3, 2011 *


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... - ,

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. , . ; , effortlessprecision .

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; , what matters is, : .

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, Henry Green (19051973). Loving . , (Charlie Raunce, Edith)

, :Oh Edie, he gasped moving forward. The room had grown

immeasurably dark from the storm massed outside. Their two bodies

flowed into one as he put his arms about her. The shape they made

was crowned with his head, on top of a white sharp curved neck,

dominating and cruel over the blur that was her mass of hair through

which her lips sucked at him warm and heady.

Edie,he muttered breaking away only to drive his face down

into hers once more. But he was pressing her back into a bow shape.Edie,he called again.

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. .( .)

, . ( ) ; , ; , , . (Idiom) ; . . ,

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, his entire preoccupationwith one particular subject (almost verging on to mono-mania) :

///...

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. (: .) [] .

: . Ellipsis (...) Em dash () ; Ellipsis ; ;

Quotes () , .

: . . (


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, .) , , ; . (

, .)(Novermber 13, 2007)

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infiltrate

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. (man in relationto man) ; (man in relation to universe) . , , , ...

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. ( ) .

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. just around the corner , . . . In that sense, she is a neurotic geniusamong healthy mediocraties (

.) . , . , ? . . , ,

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epiphanic moment ( ) .

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, . hopeless, doomed. ( Flannery OConnor .) ,

addendum .

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slightly neurotic ,

earnestness ; . , , , .

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. . . , ,

, . This almost Kafkaesquepredicament is dealt with a completely Vasundharadevian way.

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.Show, dont tell! ,

, , , . . , narrative exposition .

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, , .

May 22, 2013 *


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1890 . :

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. , , . .

. ., .

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April 27, 2013 *


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. , ... .

. saturation point ( ) .

, , . . , . , its likean elliptical soliloquy ( ). , . , , , . .

,

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, , , , maudlin


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sentimentality , .... .

. : , . ? . . , . , verisimilitude ()

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morbid interest . . ( )

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68 . . ( ).

() . , . , ? ? fictional , ?

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( : , .

, platitudinous ). .

, . , .

December 6, 2013 *


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2007 .

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are we worshipping the false gods ; conspiracytheory . ( ; .

, , , .)

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( ), : ,

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, de-construct . :

. ; . . . : The flowingstreams even are as though asleep. The universal ecstacy of

created things does not express itself in any sound. . .


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, . .

, . ; . , , . ; . Graham Hough : There is no reality for a man until he has created it in

symbolic form. Art is one of the systems of symbolic forms.

. , ? ? ...

,

,

. ,

. , . didactic prose, , , . .

.[ : 1974]


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, : .

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, . , , .[ : 2004]


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, : .

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, :

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chaos pointing out to no where. ; , , ......... . , , ; , ,


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words (le mot juste), those scrupulously built images... () .

.

, ; . , . un-reliable narrator . ; . ( )

, . ( ) ; .

:

-

: ! : , .

( ) : , . (

.) . ; . [ :1955]


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, :

( ) .

, ; : . , , ! , immortal . . , (!) . .

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Fermina,he said, I have waited for this opportunity for more

than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal

fidelity and everlasting love.

,

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, , .

. , -

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: ; 350 . , .[ : 1985]

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, :

. (2006)

. ,

.

(conventional) .

. . :

[T]o get a more accurate picture of his character, or rather one

which conforms more closely to his authors intentions, you must ask

yourself in what way Meursault doesnt play the game. The answer is

simple: he refuses to lie. Lying is not only saying what isnt true. It is

also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of

human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to

make life simpler. But, contrary to appearances, Meursault doesnt

want to make life simpler. He says what he is, he refuses to hide his

feelings and society immediately feels threatened.

Saying more than one feels . , ? (Whats wrong with the world?) .

.. :

Dear Sirs,

I am

Sincerely yours,

GK Chesterton.


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; ; , ; .

. He refuses to play the game. .

, [ ]. , , :

As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope, for

the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself

to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so like myself so

like a brother, really I felt that I had been happy and was happy

again.

gentle indifference .

. subtle : ... ; , .

. stripped to bare

essentials ; . Mother diedtoday. Or may be yesterday, I dont know


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. . , ; informal

tone . [ : 1942]

, .. : - . ,

, . plotting ; .

, : . ,

. problems of perception. ( , ) , / ,

.: . : , .

, , : , , .

.

Third Person Limited : , .


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, , . (Atonement) .

( ) , . ( !) ( [believe me; I have seen a lotof them]) . clinical precision! , .[ : 2001]

, : ,

, . . problems of perception , Erotomania

.

, , ( ); . .

.

, ( ) .

.


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, , . . , , :

, . . , , . , , ; , ,

. . . . , , .[ : 1998]

, :

. . : .[ : 1945]

, .. : .. , . ,

. The Angry Street :


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, , , . ,

, ! , , . , . ... , . ; . ; !

?! :

It is going to heaven for justice,he replied. You must have

treated it badly. [...] You have worked this street to death, and yet you

have never remembered its existence. If you had owned a healthy

democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this street with

garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have gone

quietly. But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless insolence;and it is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you never sat

on a bucking horse?

, . . , .

?

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: ... ! , , !


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: ? ... ? ? ? ,

, ?* * *

, . ( .) .. The Man Who Was a Thursday( ) .

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, , , : , , , ,

. , ? ? . ( ) , , . .

. . ,

. ; , . .[ : 1908]

, .. : .

. paradox& parallelism . ,

,

,

. ; , :

Mr. William Sharp, in his Life of Browning, quotes the remarks

of another critic to the following effect: The poets processes of


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. ( ), - , .

* ** indescribable itch .

. . . ; ; . ! . , , .

(December 23, 2007)

*


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On reading Disgrace .. ( J.M. Coetzee) .

. , . . . ,

, . , . . , , . low-brow . , . , , . 1999 . .

.

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For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind,

solved the problem of sex rather well.

. ,

,

., . . . . . , . ,

. . .

His needs turn out be quite light, after all, light and fleeting,

like those of a butterfly.

. , ,

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. . . .

, , . . . . . ( 1994 . , . .)

. , . . ( ). .

;

:

David, I can't run my life according to whether or not you like

what I do. Not anymore. You behave as if everything I do is part of

the story of your life. You are the main character, I am a minor

character who doesn't make an appearance until halfway through.

Well, contrary to what you think, people are not divided into major

and minor. I am not minor. I have a life of my own, just as important

to me as yours is to you, and in my life I am the one who makes the

decisions.

, , .


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. . . :

It would have been nice to be returned triumphant to society as

the author of an eccentric little chamber opera. [...] it would have been

nice for Lucy to hear proof in her lifetime, and think a little better of

him.

. . . . , ,

.

. , , , . . . .

. . . . :

( . . .

. . .)

So: once she was only a little tadpole in her mother's body, and

now here she is, solid in her existence, more solid than he has ever

been. With luck she will last a long time, long beyond him. When he


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is dead she will, with luck, still be here doing her ordinary tasks

among flowerbeds. And from within her will have issued another

existence, that with luck will be just as solid, just as long-lasting. So it

will go on, a line of existences in which his share, his gift, will grow

inexorably less and less, till it may as well be forgotten.

; . , , .

May 13, 2009 *


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April 30, 2012 *

My Book Reviews/ up to July 2014

Documents

Transcript of My Book Reviews/ up to July 2014