![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Such familiarity with Fleming’s wartime exploits would perhaps justify his inscription: ‘these pages from my memoirs’. It is believed the most likely candidate is Admiral John Godfrey, Fleming’s superior at the Naval Intelligence Department during WWII and the person with whom Fleming visited the Estoril Casino in Portugal which inspired the plot of Casino Royale. Memorably played on screen by Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, Judi Dench, and most recently Ralph Fiennes, the inspiration for M may have been one of several figures closely associated with the author. The iconic codename M in the James Bond novels refers to the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). London: Jonathan Cape, 1953.įirst edition, first impression: a remarkable presentation copy inscribed by the author “ To M, these pages from my memoirs! Ian ”. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Of course, human beings had recently been treated like assembly-line objects in the first mass industrial war: the First World War, in which Septimus Smith had fought, was the war of the Ford motorcar generation: assembly-line slaughter.Īnd this points to another theme of Mrs Dalloway which is worthy of analysis: the tension or contrast between clock-like regularity and the free-flowing nature of subjective experience. Modernity, the novel seems to say, has rendered us like those production-line cars: we have lost our individuality and it has become more difficult to stand out. ![]() This is the world not only of the aeroplane but of the motorcar, which calls up Henry Ford, that pioneer of the production line and the man who (apocryphally) said that you can have his Model-T Ford car in any colour so long as it’s black. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land, a text that sets out to depict the modern world: a world of the metropolis (London, as with Eliot’s poem), motorcars, aeroplanes, and other recent phenomena. ![]() And if we were to attempt a comprehensive answer to the question, ‘What is Mrs Dalloway about?’, one could do worse than to answer, ‘The struggle to stand out as a meaningful individual in a world of fast-moving, faceless, and crowded modernity.’ Mrs Dalloway is, like another work of modernism, T. ![]() ![]() It is into this overheated and toxic world that Booth plunges her protagonist, heavily pregnant Alice, along with her partner Pete, allowing the reader to experience firsthand Alice’s worst fears come true.Īlways a worrier, Alice’s work on the emergency applications within the Department of Housing ensures that her fear of the skin sealing disease – ‘cutis’ – only increases. ![]() – are being sealed over, causing a horrific death to those unfortunate enough to not receive instant medical attention. The disease is an overgrowth of skin whereby orifices – mouths, ears, eyes, anuses etc. Yes, it is literary fiction, but it is also imaginatively speculative – the main premise being that a new global disease is spreading through an already environmentally stressed Earth, attacking humans and other animal species. Put firmly in the literary fiction camp it most likely evaded the eyes of readers who would’ve been keen to savour this speculative – and dystopian – book, which is a shame really, as it deserves a wide audience. ![]() For some reason, Dead Ink, Sealed’s publisher, billed Naomi Booth’s debut novel an ‘eco horror’ on social media. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Epiphanies and/or deep-set fears are flushed out – often after some bout of shameless behaviour or attempted one-upmanship. The men in question come from different cultures, classes, lifestyles and age groups, and the author shows how, detached from their usual sphere of influence and responsibilities, they become introspective and more thoughtful about their station in life. Consequently, the stories have extra significance when weighed and understood as a whole. His book, it’s clear, is a comment on – or perhaps a satire of – 21st century manhood. ![]() One of the book’s few virtuous men, Tony “thinks about death quite a lot now”, and finds it unspeakably painful to imagine the day he will see his daughter Cordelia for the last time.Įach of Szalay’s protagonists is away from home when he zooms in on their lives. What happens to them all?”, wonders Tony, a retired civil servant who is having an isolated crisis of confidence at his second home near Bologna, Italy after a heart operation. “All those people you know in a lifetime. David Szalay’s latest work comprises nine short stories about nine different men, each of them scrutinising his existence. ![]() ![]() ![]() It means that the forces of democracy are found in all times, ready to rally behind a cause of worldwide significance" (241). ![]() But it means that there are men of good will all over the world, in every race, in all classes. He says, "Maybe dying under a fascist bomb doesn't necessarily mean that Filipinos would have the right to become naturalized American citizens. Carlos would face another significant turning point in his life when his brother, Macario, who had accompanied him during the organized labor movement, told him he was leaving for Spain because he wanted to fight for democracy and equality, just like he had tried to do in California. ![]() After Dora's departure, Carlos's condition had worsened and he spent his days in the hospital, with only books and his own words to keep him busy hence he read a book a day. ![]() ![]() ![]() There is nothing I enjoy more in books than characters which truly interest me. Chichikov offers to buy the dead souls, though no one can figure out exactly why… Review Many of the owners are still paying taxes on serfs who have died, until the next censous is taken. Synopsis: The mysterious man Chichikov arrives in the countryside of Russia with a strange proposal to the local serf owners. And it may just be a new favorite for me. I would categorize it more as a satirical version of Dostoyevsky’s novels. ![]() A man who seeks to buy dead souls…it certainly draws your attention when you hear the premise of this book, especially considering it was written in 1842, and is considered one of the first great Russian novels.īeing a massive fan of Dostoyevsky, I picked up this novel partially because I heard it compared to his writing. ![]() ![]() ![]() President Woodrow Wilson and with two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. ![]() The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. ![]() The first in Ken Follett's bestselling Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants is a huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. ![]() ![]() The lacrosse guys jostled one another outside the classroom. Lila leaped from her seat and raced for the door, getting caught up in the swell of excited kids streaming down the hallway. For example, the biggest party of the year. Winter break was about to start and she had far more pressing things to attend to. She took the handout with a heavy sigh and scanned the first page, picking out the words global warming and polar ice caps before stuffing the article into her bag. ![]() “He must be insane,” Lila Beckwith muttered to her lab partner, Denny. It was literally moments before the last bell was supposed to ring on the last half-day of classes-three seconds to Christmas break and the holidays and freedom-and the earth science teacher was handing out homework with every indication that he expected people to be paying attention. ![]() ![]() ![]() When circumstances force them to band together against a common enemy their very survival depends on their ability to learn to trust each other. Chained like a dog and forced to spend her every waking moment with a creep, albeit a good looking one, Ros is determined to escape. And so begins his awkward courtship of the woman, with her chained to the bed for security reasons. The first chance she gets she attacks the ex-army man and attempts to escape, forcing Nick to contain her. It's the deal of the century given the state of the world. In exchange, of course, for sexual favors. He'll treat Roslyn like a Queen, devoting the rest of his life to protecting and providing for her. ![]() The stranger at the gate has supplies that will ensure the group's ongoing survival, but at a cost. But now the shelves in the school canteen are bare. ![]() Six months since the zombie plague struck, former librarian Roslyn Stewart has been holed up in a school with eight other survivors. ![]() ![]() ![]() Throughout, certain themes recur, elucidated sympathetically but with "ironic reserve," including the death of God, the divided self, the will to power, eternal recurrence, philosophy as art and truth as power play. ![]() ![]() To close, there is a chapter on the different ways Nietzsche influenced 20th-century artists, the Nazis, Heidegger, Foucault, Rorty and others. Most of the book is a reading of Nietzsche's developing ideas, beginning with his autobiographical sketches in high school and continuing chronologically from his early attachment to Schopenhauer through his hopes for and disappointment in Wagner's music drama, such great achievements as DaybreakĪnd his last works before his descent into madness. Biographical details are sparing: neither Nietzsche's birth nor death is described, and there are few juicy bits about his passion for Lou Salomé. ![]() This book is not a traditional philosopher's biography offering an even balance of life and thought, but rather a rich interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy as it evolved during his life, with a coda tracing his influence after his death. ![]() |