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May 08
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Pa
is currently reading:
Unaccustomed Earth (Hardcover)
by Jhumpa Lahiri
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May 07
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Pa
gave
to:
The Golden Bowl (Penguin Classics)
by Henry James, Patricia Crick
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Pa said:
"Very Jamesian -- charming characters, sophisticated dialogues, insightful observations about characters' psychology, manners and social relationships. It is considered one of Henry James' three masterpieces in the later stage of his creative career,...more
Very Jamesian -- charming characters, sophisticated dialogues, insightful observations about characters' psychology, manners and social relationships. It is considered one of Henry James' three masterpieces in the later stage of his creative career, along with "The Ambassadors" and "Wings of the Dove." Having finished reading this novel, I've come closer to my goal of reading all of Henry James' novels. Yay!!...less
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Pa
gave
to:
Disgrace (Penguin Essential Edition)
by J.M. Coetzee
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Pa said:
""Disgrace" is my first J.M. Coetzee novel and I loved it! Coetzee's writing is sparing and simple yet quite lyrical and beautiful which reminds me of Graham Greene's. The novel starts with the sudden fall from grace of a white twice marri...more
"Disgrace" is my first J.M. Coetzee novel and I loved it! Coetzee's writing is sparing and simple yet quite lyrical and beautiful which reminds me of Graham Greene's. The novel starts with the sudden fall from grace of a white twice married twice divorced college professor of English literature whose career was put to an abrupt end after he was accused of sleeping and sexually harassing his student. It then follows the protagonist to a remote village where he found his daughter and decided to stay on her farm. It is on this farm that the true disgrace of his life took place. Here, the disgraced professor witnessed with his own eyes the brutal rape of his daughter by 3 black men while failing to do anything at all. The novel vividly captures the protagonist's pains and I completely agree that it is exceedingly brave of J. M. Coeetzee to take on such a sensitive and politically in-correct topic, namely blacks' hatred towards whites in South Africa.
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Pa
gave
to:
Mansfield Park (Paperback)
by Jane Austen
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Pa said:
""Mansfield Park" is not nearly as brilliant as "Pride and Prejudice" but still it's a tremendous pleasure to be thrown into the world of Austen romance, esp. when that world is, again, brimmed with countless intriguing and exasper...more
"Mansfield Park" is not nearly as brilliant as "Pride and Prejudice" but still it's a tremendous pleasure to be thrown into the world of Austen romance, esp. when that world is, again, brimmed with countless intriguing and exasperating miunderstandings and misinterpretations. The main characters Fanny Price and Emund Bertram of "Mansfield Park" are not so sharply drawn and dazzling as Elizabeth and Darcy of "Pride and Prejudice"--in fact I found Fanny Price a little "boring and dull" and Edmund a bit too stiff, esp. with his complete lack or unaware of romantic feelings toward Fanny througout the novel. Edmund had a crush on Miss Crawford, a silly and shallow woman, until the very end when he finally saw her for who she is. Fortunately, our Fanny Price seemed to know her own heart and the novel ended happily with Edmund marrying Fanny. A nice, predictable ending but a little contrived to say the least.
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Pa
gave
to:
History of Love
by Nicole Krauss
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Pa said:
"Quite beautifully written and intricately plotted. My only problem with this novel is that Krauss seems to write exactly the same as her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and ...more
Quite beautifully written and intricately plotted. My only problem with this novel is that Krauss seems to write exactly the same as her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." They both try to re-invent the way contemporary novels are written but in doing so they seem to copy each other. ...less
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March 20
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Pa
gave
to:
The End of the Affair (Paperback)
by Graham Greene
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Pa said:
"In the wake of the Eliot Spitzer's sex scandal and the outpouring of public outrage over it, I found myself return to re-read Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, a half-autobiographical novel written in the first half of the 20th century about the...more
In the wake of the Eliot Spitzer's sex scandal and the outpouring of public outrage over it, I found myself return to re-read Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, a half-autobiographical novel written in the first half of the 20th century about the intersection of love, adultery, and faith. No doubt at the time the novel was published --1951--adultery was somewhat a scandalous topic for many novelists. Greene's The End of the Affair, set against the backdrop of wartime London, tells the story of Sarah Miles, the beautiful wife of a stiff, boring English civil servant, who fell in love with Mauric Bendrix, a sardonic and cynical writer and ironically, through her affair found faith and love for God. One afternoon when Sarah and Maurice were having their secret tryst, a bomb exploded in Maurice's building and for a second Sarah thought Maurice was killed. Desperate, she prayed to God to make Maurice alive and in return she'll stop seeing him. Maurice, as it turned out, was not dead and Sarah abruptly ended the affair to fulfill her end of the bargain with God. The novel began when Maurice ran into Henry, Sarah's cuckold husband, who was tormented by suspicions that Sarah is having an affair. Jealous and ravenously curious, Maurice offered to help Henry spy on Sarah, going so far as hiring a private detective. Maurice discovered Sarah's true reason for ending the affair from reading her diary which was stolen from her by Maurice's private detective.
The End of the Affairs proves again that Greene is a master of the first arresting sentences. It begins like this: "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead." Greene chose to begin the story in the middle and throughout the novel flips back and forth between the present and the past. Sarah's journal constitutes an entire chapter, containing some of the best passages Greene has ever written, with compressed but illuminating sentences like: "I just want ordinary corrupt human love" or "I caught belief like a disease. I've fallen into belief like I fell in love." I cannot think of any other novel that depicts so effectively the ravening power of love as The End of the Affairs--with the exception of Wuthering Heights of course.
Adultery in Greene's world does not stand as a challenge to the social order and definitely not a sexual sin. Rather, it is a question of private guilt and individual conscience. Faith is a form of suffering as without it Sarah would not need to believe at all. This rings profoundly refreshing to me, especially when we’re dealing with a topic as complex as love (or adultery) between a man and a woman. In fact, Greene lovingly dedicates the novel to C, a short abbreviation for Catherine Watson, a beautiful American woman who was married to a British landowner, with whom Greene had a 10-year passionate affair. Much of the book is drawn from Greene's relationship with Catherine.
The Spitzer prostitute scandal is in no way comparable to the adultery described in Greene's novel especially given the legal implications of Spitzer's conduct, but in light of the overwhelming public display of outrage and moral condemnation of sexual and marital infidelity, I found comfort in Greene's complex but compassionate views toward these challenging issues.
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Pa
gave
to:
A Burnt-Out Case (Paperback)
by Graham Greene
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Pa said:
"Like Greene's other famous novel "The Heart of the Matter", "A Burn-out Case," set against the backdrop of colonial Africa, probes and prods a familiar issue to all Greene readers: faith in its million shapes and colors. Brillian...more
Like Greene's other famous novel "The Heart of the Matter", "A Burn-out Case," set against the backdrop of colonial Africa, probes and prods a familiar issue to all Greene readers: faith in its million shapes and colors. Brilliantly plotted with a triumphant ending, the novel is a classic Graham Greene -- that is, the characters are sharply drawn and the writing is spare but elegant and pitch perfect. A delightful (and short)read...less
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Pa
gave
to:
England Made Me (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
by Graham Greene
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my rating:
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March 16
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New comment on Pa's review of
The American
(see all 2 comments)
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