“The horror! The horror!”That is Hall of Fame in the category of famous last words in literature. (Famous last words should not be confused with famous last sentences.) Indeed, in the entire history of literature, it is hard to come up with any other candidates for the most famous. (Yes, I hear you, Dear Reader, exclaim, “What about Sydney Carton?” “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Quite … [Read more...] about The Horror
Great Books
Evil Jeeves
A plot summary:A young gentleman of dubious intellectual capacity with no discernable means of income has a valet who is extraordinarily brilliant. Said valet is capable of designing ingenious scheme to enable his master to attain seemingly impossible aims. The story is told with great wit. It is incredibly amusing despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact) that it is ridiculously repetitive. Over and over the valet’s clever plans are thwarted because the young master is convinced he knows … [Read more...] about Evil Jeeves
An Unseen Hook and Invisible Line
“I sometimes think when people wanted to hate God they hated Mummy.”“What do you mean by that, Cordelia?”“Well, you see, she was saintly but she wasn’t a saint. No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can’t really hate God either. When they want to hate Him and his saints they have to find something like themselves and pretend it’s God and hate that.” Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited is not just a brilliant novel, it is a brilliant Christian novel written in the mid-20th … [Read more...] about An Unseen Hook and Invisible Line
Leaves of Grass (imaginary edited edition)
"I celebrate myself"Walt Whitman published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855. In a rather confusing publication history, the original volume Leaves of Grass had no titles for any of the poems within it. But Whitman kept putting out new editions of the book Leaves of Grass, eventually giving titles to the individual poems. The first and longest poem in the original collection was eventually entitled “Song of Myself.” All of which creates a real headache for those who want to … [Read more...] about Leaves of Grass (imaginary edited edition)
Travels with Don Quixote
“And if this is done in a pleasing style and with ingenious invention, and is drawn as close as possible to the truth, it no doubt will weave a cloth composed of many different and beautiful threads, and when it is finished, it will display such perfection and beauty that it will achieve the greatest goal of any writing, which, as I have said, is to teach and delight at the same time. Because the free writing style of these books allows the author to show his skills as an epic, lyric, tragic, … [Read more...] about Travels with Don Quixote
Villette (and Jane Eyre)
“Bronte’s finest novel.”Virginia Woolfe “It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power.”George Eliot The book? Villette by Charlotte Bronte. As longtime readers of this here space know, I have long had a deep loathing of Jane Eyre. (More about that anon.) And so saying that Villette is a superior novel is potentially damning with faint praise. So, let us start with a declarative: Villette is good, really good, well worth … [Read more...] about Villette (and Jane Eyre)