Irish Myths and Legends - Jeremiah Curtin, Lady Gregory, Joseph Jacobs, Patrick Kennedy, James Stephens, Lady Wilde

Another mythology book done and dusted, and I'm already starting to feel myth fatigued. But we plow on regardless. And what kind of folklore does the Emerald Isle offer up? Whereas the Japanese stories all launch with a beautiful daughter, the Irish ones commonly begin with a beautiful son, or comely male youth. It's certainly a strange one, for a culture to place male beauty over female, but let's go with it. The tales are fairytale-like in nature, with the classic mystical trio of happenings in every interaction and plot point. This makes for frustrating reading, especially when whole swathes of the text are the same for each repetition. For instance, a protagonist will meet three characters on the road, one after the other, each offering a different boon. Or a hero will be challenged to defeat a foe and his army, three times, or engage in combat with a hag's three sons, always with the same outcome. 

Thematically, the stories range from whimsical dealings with leprechauns, to big rollocking epics like the legend of Fin MacCumhail. Many of the stories feel rather rambling and unfocused in nature, with characters with no previously established powers randomly turning themselves into animals. There also seems to be a very strong Greek influence, with the episode of Odysseus's escape from the cyclops cave repeated here across multiple stories, with barely a detail changed. This is less cultural influence and more straight up plagiarism in my opinion. Do the giants really need to have a single eye in the middle of their heads, for instance? Do the heroes need to escape by hiding under a sheep fleece? The quality of the various writers contributing to this tone are not all equal. James Stephens is significantly superior in his use of language, with some beautifully written stories. However, they were too little, too late at the end of the volume to raise the rating.

Rating: 2/5

Japanese Myths and Legends - R. Gordon Smith

This text is adapted from the 1908 volume Ancient Tales and Folklore of Japan which quite frankly is a more accurate title than Myths and Legends. I felt like the title was quite misleading, as I was expecting actual, well... myths. There is almost nothing about the Japanese gods, despite the brief mention in a few of the stories. I was hoping to learn more about them here but this book is more a random collection of strange folkloric tales on ghosts, doomed love, samurai, and a bit of war for good measure. Due to its age, it abounds with what some readers may accuse of being 'white superiority' but I didn't notice it too much, he seemed respectful enough. R. Gordon Smith, was a British traveller, naturalist, and full time chauvinist who lived in Japan and documented the local folklore for European audiences. He was also responsible for discovering thirty five species of animals, all of which are named after him to this day. 

There are fifty stories in total, with no proper attempt to curate them into a particular order. Most are entertaining enough, the ghost stories especially. But as always, I have some criticisms. There are quite a few typographical and grammatical errors, a common complaint of this series it seems. Smith often uses an English equivalent of a word instead of introducing readers to a Japanese concept, i.e. 'knight' instead of 'samurai', although he is inconsistent in this. Nearly every single story begins in the same format - a man has a beautiful teenage daughter, and it's high time a husband was found for her. The obsession with beautiful young girls gets a little wearisome after a while, bordering on fetishisation, and characters are ever eager to commit suicide and disembowel themselves over mere trifles.. I was disappointed that, knowing the wealth of Japanese folklore concerning yokai, fox spirits and the like, the stories do not really explore these at all.

Rating: 3/5

Egyptian Myths and Legends - E. A. Wallis Budge & W. M. Flinders Petrie

Compared to Greek and Norse, Egyptian mythology was always a weak point of mine, and I was hoping to learn a thing or two from this book. Unfortunately, it was a big disappointment. A cursory glance at other reader reviews shows that I'm not alone in this opinion. The text itself is translated from the hieroglyphics of tombs, monuments, steles, tablets and papyrus scrolls from Ancient Egypt. The translations are over 100 years old, and no effort has been made by Arcturus to modernise or make them approachable. In the first half of the book, the 'stories' are more like hymns or chants, extolling the majesty of their animal headed gods. They're extremely tedious and repetitive to read. Later, the stories move away from the gods and cover mortal doings. Sometimes these are less 'myth' and more historical accounts of merchants arguing over trade goods. Some are quite entertaining, but not enough to salvage the whole.

I was wondering why there aren't many books featuring stories of the Egyptian gods and heroes, and why there isn't a unified mythic canon. The reason is due to the sprawling, messy, and fractured nature of Egyptian history, which causes gods to evolve, merge and contradict one another over a long period of time. There aren't many memorable tales in the collective conciousness, scholars argue about the identities of the gods and what they represent. There is also much that has been lost, and those texts that have survived appear to be mostly snippets. Often, the translator marks how a story is damaged or incomplete, thus ending it abruptly, or beginning halfway. In my opinion, this book was not fit for publication, and required an extensive overhaul. On the other hand, I was wary of rubbishing this volume because at the end of most tales is a warning not to criticise the holy writings, on pain of being smitten by a terrible curse...

Rating: 1/5

Norse Myths and Legends - Emilie Kip Baker

I have long felt that my knowledge of Norse mythology was not as great as it could be, so was eager to rectify that. Does Emilie Kip Baker deliver, where she fell short with the Greeks? Again, this book is aimed at a younger audience, with deliberately softened language and removal of all sex and rape. It is a selection of twenty eights stories, the first half being about the Norse gods and giants, and the latter the telling of the hero Siegfried, more famously known as 'The Ring of the Nibelung' or 'The Ring Cycle.' The early stories range from the creation of the Nine Realms, the Aesir's many forays into Jotunheim to battle the frost giants, and the internal squabbles among the gods. The final chapter is the Twilight of the Gods, a very hastily told and anti-climactic overview of Ragnarok. 

Unfortunately, I do not feel that my knowledge is sufficiently more enriched than before. Whilst this book is a good introduction to Norse mythology, it centres mostly on the more famous of the gods, namely the wise Odin, arrogant Thor, and troublesome Loki. I still don't know much about the rest. With the exception of Sif, Baldur, and Iduna, the others were not given any standout tales of their own and act more like bystanders. It was also annoying and confusing that Baker uses the words 'elf' and 'dwarf' interchangably. I recognise that this is a hangover from Victorian times, when the two were treated as synonyms. However, when these are distinct races living in their own realms, the correct delineation is important. I would recommend this book as an accessible entry point to pique one's interest, but for the real deal, you'll need the Icelandic Eddas and the Sagas.

Rating: 3/5

Greek Myths and Legends - Emilie Kip Baker

First published as Stories from Old Greece & Rome in 1913, this is actually a very old book masquerading as a new one. The Roman stories have been dropped, the names of Greek deities standardised, and the whole repackaged into an attractive, budget friendly ornate hardback edition with gold leaf embossing, full-colour end paper designs and stencilled page edges. It's always nice to have attractive books on the shelf, but what of the contents? Unfortunately with this edition, all that glitters is not gold, for some pretty egregious errors abound here. These mistakes, along with the gilt leaf very easily rubbing off when handled, leads me to believe the book was not intended to be read at all, but simply admired. Which is a shame, because Greeks myths are fantastic tales that should be known by everyone. 

This is by no means a definitive collection. It's more of a whistle stop tour of Greek myth, or a compedium of the greatest hits. Don't go in expecting the depth and thoroughness of Robert Graves, or you'll be disappointed. Notable absences are the Trojan War and the events of The Odyssey - the final story is 'The Apple of Discord', which launched the former events. The origins of Greek myth are also notably sparse. There is almost nothing of the Titans and the creation of the world, and the story of Zeus' birth and overthrowing of Kronos is absent. The erasure of the Titans means that Apollo has been given Helios's role, and it is he who rides the chariot of the sun. Baker plays fast and loose with both the original mythology and Ovid's later additions in Metamorphoses, which can get a bit messy and confusing. 

Being very dated in language, the stories seem to be written for ten year olds from over a century ago. Antiquated phrases such as 'pledged their troth' make frequent appearances, and all references to sex and rape are removed or softened. Which leads me onto the book's editing, which is absymal. AI was most certainly involved, for the word 'sorceror' is printed as 'SorsDemeter' each time, and the multiple errors in the foreward indicate it was certainly not checked by a human being. Dionysus is listed twice on the list of gods, and Heracles is incorrectly credited as slaying the Minotaur. Whilst the stories themselves are fun and easy to read, the dreadful formating brings this edition down to 2 stars. I hope the others in the series have better proofing.

Rating: 2/5

Thunderstorm - Tsao Yu

My wife bought me this famous play to introduce me to more Chinese literature, telling me it was a standard school text and widely performed. It has been described as the Shakespeare of Chinese theatre, specifically Hamlet, due to its emotionally charged themes of social rebellion and incest. The comparison is undeserved in my opinion, and even Tsao Yu in his forward is pretty disparaging towards his own work. With a dramatic ending featuring multiple deaths, it felt more like a Greek tragedy, but the influences of Chekhov and Ibsen are also present. (There are no less than three instances of Chekhov's gun appearing as foreshadowing.) The play is spread over four acts, set in both the household of a wealthy coal mining tycoon and his family, and the house of their staff, who are tightly connected with those they serve. The play is supposed to represent the collapse of the old social order as the energetic and rebellious youths try to assert themselves against it. But there is a sickness at the heart of the family. Revelations flow thick and fast in the final act as the storm outside reaches its crescendo in classic Sturm und Drang fashion. The closest Western comparison I can think of is Vinterberg's film Festen, in which another bourgeois family implodes beneath a barrage of shocking disclosures.

In my opinion, and I'm fully aware that this might be a translation issue, the play is crude and unpolished. It amused me to see the editors of my book describe the translation as merely 'adequate' - something we would never see in a western publication, where even bad translators like Emily Wilson are overly lauded. Tsao Yu has written an excessively self-deprecating preface complaining that the publishers forced him to write it. 'Is Thunderstorm worth reading? I imagine one of the jobs of a preface-writer is to pin-point the highlights in an effort to induce the reader to keep on turning the pages, but I can't for the life of me put my finger on a single point that satisfies me.' He also writes, 'I was told, "Your own assessment of your works is not half so penetrating as other people's."' A reminder that once a creative work is launched, the public and academia will become the main judges in deciding what it's about. I would also draw attention to this choice bit of 'men writing women' stage direction describing Ssu-Feng's appearance: 'When she walks, the movement of her over-developed breasts is plainly visible under her clothes ... Her mouth is large, with full lips that are naturally and deliciously red.' Make of that what you will! Despite my mockery, I did enjoy the play, just don't expect Shakespeare!

Rating: 3/5

The Trial - Franz Kafka

I was looking forward to The Trial because I'd never read anything by Kafka before. It seeemed like everything I would enjoy from a book - an M. C. Escher stairway design on the cover, a plot that inspired Pink Floyd's music video of the same name, and a dreamlike critique of overwhelming bureacracy. However, I was left disappointed, as most of the book is incredibly tedious to get through. I understand that this tedium is intentional to frustrate the reader, but Kafka does rather too frequently labour the point. The unfinished story begins with Joseph K awoken by some strange men in his room who tell him he is under arrest for a crime. We, along with Joseph (referred to hereafter as K), never discover what he is on trial for. In the following scenes, one immediately gets the sense of having walked into a surrealist painting, most notably one of Magritte's, for there are officious looking businessmen standing in corners of rooms, people watching from the windows of opposite houses, furniture re-arranged in improbable ways, and an overall collapse of reality. As K tries to uncover the mystery of his trial, he is drawn increasingly further into a nonsensical and convoluted web of dystopian surveillance and absurdity.

It's difficult to fairly rate a book that's unfinished, although this edition does come with some chapter fragments to give a loose idea of how it may have progressed. Unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon, another unfinished novel I review here, this one at least has an ending chapter for some closure, so we're only missing middle chapters. Due to the loosely plotted and meandering narrative, their absence does not have too detrimental an effect on the overall story. What ruined the book for me were the extremely long esoteric and fake legal jargon explanations of how the law works in the world of The Trial. I did enjoy the bizarre erotic encounters that felt like they were straight out of a dream. I also appreciated the 'backrooms' style architecture, such as doors positioned behind beds, uncanny attics haunted by eccentric painters, and oppressive court office corridors populated by endlessly waiting defendants. In summary, the book is a philosophical examination and parody of the law's impenetrable system, mocking its labyrinthine pathways and seemingly arbitrary rules. Somehow, it feels simultaneously a shame and a relief that the book was never completed.

Rating: 2/5

North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell

This is the second time reading North and South, and like many of my literary opinions, they have mellowed over time. Before I found it a slog and a bore, I was unimpressed by such quibbling drama as 'a crisis of conscience', social unrest in the factories, and whether Margaret's unmaidenly falsehood would be explained in context to Mr Thornton. Now, I live for all that stuff. But I run on ahead! The novel is about the clash of two cultures - the rural, idyllic South vs the rugged, industrial North. When young Margaret Hale is uprooted from beloved Helstone (Hampshire) and moved to Milton (Manchester), she is predisposed to a bad impression. The reason for the move seems ludicrous to modern eyes. Her father, a pastor at Helstone, reads too much subversive literature and allows doubts about his faith concerning the Church of England to set in. He therefore brands himself a dissenter, giving up his position and comfortable living to move to the manufacturing hellhole. He could have just kept quiet and towed the line like the rest of us, but then, I could write an entire essay on how Mr Hale is one of the most pathetic men in English literature!

Once established in Milton, the family make the acquaintance of Henry Thornton, a local cotton mill owner. Magaret is prejudiced towards him for being a common and arrogant tradesman. Mr Thornton finds her to be stuck up and naive, yet he is drawn to her beauty. Does this plot sound somewhat familiar? It's clear to me that Gaskell must have been heavily inspired by Pride and Prejudice, the similarities of the antagonistic romance are too vivid. I must add, the constant references to Magaret's 'taper-like fingers' are quite creepy! The story is engaging and full of turns, but Gaskell often falls into 'misery porn', with an almost comical series of character deaths falling thick and fast on one another in order to humble the protagonist out of her conceit. One of the main tensions of the novel is between masters and men, the factory owners and hired hands who work the machines, but I still find the politics of strikes and unions rather wearisome to read about. That, and the working class characters like Higgins and his ailing daughter, can come across as irritating and stereotypical. Overall though, I enjoyed my reread of this classic book and found much to admire.

Rating: 3/5

Sanshirō - Natsume Sōseki

I didn't know anything about this book before I started reading it, but Sanshiro was more or less what I expected it to be. The story tells of Sanshiro, a young man leaving behind his sleepy country life to attend university in Tokyo. It's a slow paced coming-of-age novel that takes place over a short period of a year or so. A classic country mouse comes to the big city and is overwhelmed by the fast moving life, the traffic, the bold women, and strange new customs. After an initial near erotic encounter with a woman on the train, Sanshiro is condemned as a 'coward' for not making a move on her, setting him up as a passive protagonist who mostly observes the world but doesn't partake in all it has to offer. University is something of a disappointment at first as he tries to find his feet, but gradually his social circle broadens as he meets other students, professors, and their relatives.

Sanshiro is also a love story, but one characterised by continual failures and disappointments. There is a sense of futility, but also realism, to all the characters' undertakings. Sanshiro does not end up marrying Mineko, the girl he is in love with. His friend Yojiro's campaign to get their professor friend, Hirota, a teaching placement at the university backfires and fails. Sanshiro's studies are not conducive to greater knowledge or scholarly ambition, and there is also the sense that he does not manage to escape his provincial past or fully integrate with Tokyo culture. There is also a grisly suicide early on the novel which acts as a bad omen. The narrative is a loose account of Sanshiro's first year, with each chapter acting as a slice-of-life, philosophical insight into his world. Some of the haiku-like descriptions of sky, light, shadow and trees come across as clumsy and borderline absurd, but I'm sure they're beautiful to read in Japanese.

Rating: 3/5

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carré

I was not looking forward to this book after the mess I made with Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, but soon after starting it, I realised my blunder. It was Penguin's fault for releasing Tinker first, as that book actually comes after The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. I didn't understand Tinker because much of the complex world building and characters were laid out in an earlier book I hadn't read! What a difference a few explanatory lines made. This time round, I knew who the supposed antagonists were, what the mission was, and what much of the terminology meant. That's not to say The Spy isn't a demanding and complicated book, it certainly gives the reader a lot of credit in not being an idiot, but I felt it was a much tighter and more comprehensive read, also a real page turner!

Alec Leamas is a washed up British agent spiralling into alcoholism, depression, and irrelevancy after returning from Berlin following a failed extraction of another spy. His boss, Control, gives him one last job and a chance to redeem himself, which he willingly takes on. What follows is a tense and twisty narrative of subterfuge, betrayal, double dealings, and intrigue. Nobody can be trusted, plans within plans within plans are made, and the characters move through a gritty, grey underworld where human emotions are suppressed in favour of cold and mechanical decision making. Despite the monstrous ruthlessness of the spy world, at its heart is a very human story, as Leamas gradually submits to his better nature. A depressing, though rivetting read, hampered only by sometimes painstakingly tedious technical explanations of banking processes.

Rating: 3/5

 

The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I flew through Dostoyevsky's The Idiot in just over two weeks, a record for a book of this length, especially when compared to the three and a half months it took me to finish The Brothers Karamazov. This probably has more to do with me being on a three week holiday with unlimited downtime than it does the book's readibility. Even so, the novel is eminently readable, of that there can be no doubt. Unlike the other of Dostoyevsky's novels I've read, this one seemed much less bogged down with long philosophical digressions and homilies on religion, although they are still there. At the risk of running ahead of myself, this is probably the part of Dostoyevsky's writing that I dislike the most - when the narrative is pushed aside so that one character can deliver his lecture, whilst everyone else just sits there in silence as it runs on for multiple chapters. This happens no less than three times in The Idiot. If anyone tried to pull this self-absorbed stunt in real life, they'd soon lose their audience or be escorted out of the room.

Now though, some words on the actual story. Prince Myshkin is an epileptic on his way back to Russia after a long convalescence of many years in Switzerland. Upon arriving, he immediately becomes one of many suitors to a beautiful but fallen woman called Nastasya Filippova. The prince is a ridiculous, naive, and child-like figure who is supposed to resemble Christ - Dostoyevsky set out to write a novel about a perfect person, completely free of sin and ego. This 'holy fool' type is seen again in the character of Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, whilst Nastasya is resurrected as Grushenka, and the consumptive teenager Ippolit as dying Ilyusha. It was interesting to see proto versions of these characters in an earlier book. Instead of managing to create a flawless and selfless being, the Prince becomes an infuriatingly passive and bloodless character guaranteed to infuriate modern readers. Always guaranteed to do the wrong thing, he will have you tearing your hair out in despair. The tale is marked by Dostoyevsky's characteristically grim and nihilistic tone, so don't expect a happy outcome.

Rating; 3/5

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

This book was an absolute delight to read, and a real blast from the past reminding me of the animal adventure stories I devoured as a child, particularly the Willard Price books. Before David Attenborough entered the natural history scene, Gerald Durrell was my favourite naturalist, and the man who inspired me most as a child. My Family and Other Animals is his semi autobiographical account of a five year sojourn on Corfu with his family, vividly painting the beautiful Greek island environs and the many animals he tries to tame and keep as pets during this period. The genre is part wild writing, part comedy, as he treads the line between affection and gentle mockery of his family members. It's pretty obvious which parts are exaggerated or made up for comedic effect, but it never detracts from the fun. After all, who doesn't embellish childhood memories or imperfectly remember the exploits of their youth?

The book shines most when Durrell goes into lengthy accounts of his eccentric extended family - the animals themselves. He has a real knack for making commonplace creatures extremely interesting, unique, and well drawn. He can write pages and pages on familiar creatures yet never be boring, displaying them in ways you've never imagined, and leaving you wanting more. Of particular note is the battle between a gecko and a praying mantis in his bedroom. The human characters are no less interesting, as he meets a myriad of eccentric personages who end up becoming close family friends. His environments are also superbly realised, so much so that he became responsible for a surge in Corfu tourism, which quite sadly, probably contributed to ruining many of his Edenic locations. A very human, spirited, and often hilarious book, I'd recommend this read to anyone with even a passing interest in nature.

Rating: 5/5

The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings - Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is a master of the Gothic form, and this edition brings together some of his more memorable poems and short stories. Hailed as the grandfather of horror and the founder of the mystery genre, I really enjoyed what he had to offer. But this review must necessarily deal with the book in thirds, divided as it is, into three parts. To begin with, we'll glance over his poetry. The Penguin Clothbound book brings us seventeen of them, ranging from the instantly recognisable (and excellent) The Raven to some of his lesser known sonnets. I have to say, The Raven stands head and shoulders above the rest on account of its sheer lyricality and quotability. 

Then we come to his short stories, the meat and bones of the book, and here lies the main interest. Many of the titles are well known, but with the exception of The Oval Portrait, which I remembered from sixth form college English class, I had never read them. I was pleasantly surprised by many, and underwhelmed by a few. The Murders in the Rue Morgue stood out as being notable for its excessive graphic violence, and also for being the first ever detective story. We even have a proto, gothic Sherlock Holmes in the character of Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin. The Fall of the House of Usher and The Telltale Heart, however, were not as exciting as I'd hoped, and were over before they really began. It's a shame Poe never properly turned his hand to novels, as I repeatedly felt myself wanting more from his short stories. I'm aware he did publish one.

But now onto the final section, the 'Other Writings' part of the book's title, and here lies the problem. Poe may be adept at crafting spine-tingling tales of horror, but by all accounts he was a terrible little man in his personal life and who, if he were alive today, would be rightly branded a paedophile. I'm therefore not hugely enthusiastic about reading his miscellaneous scribblings, and quite honestly, I'd rather the volume didn't have them. Not only do they take up precious shelf space, but they also make for incredibly dry reading. Reviews of books I've never heard of, behind the scenes on how he created The Raven - it's all mathematics! - and even essays on furniture, magazine composition, and lots of slandering of his literary peers which really betrays his poisonous personality. Avoid the last section if you aren't cursed with completionist tendencies.

Rating: 4/5

Dubliners - James Joyce

After struggling to complete Ulysses last year, I was not looking forward to another of Joyce's offerings. I was assured by an Irish friend that this one was more readable, and fortunately it was. Dubliners, not to be mistaken with the popular Irish folk band, is a collection of fifteen short stories set in the titular city of Dublin. The book is an anthology of realist 'slice of life' experiences of the middle classes. There is no particular plot to speak of, being little other than moments frozen in time, which I actually rather enjoy. There is a framework of ageing, with the early stories dealing with childhood, then through to middle age, and finally old age and death. There is also a consistent theme of drinking culture, which affects the characters' lives in various ways. I preferred the earlier stories to the later one, and those centering on personal, rather than civic life. 

As with any short story collection, there will nearly always be favourites, but a special shoutout to early entries 'An Encounter' and 'Araby.' The former is about two schoolboys who encounter a perverted old man whilst playing truant, and masterfully captures the familiar experience of being in a dangerous situation as a child. 'Araby' is about a boy taken with his friend's sister, and his first precocious stirrings of infatuation as he fails to secure a gift for her. The more depressing, cynical stories of middle age include the worst of the bunch 'Ivy Day in the Committee Room', which is just boring old men discussing politics. Big yawn to that one. The last story is the longest, of novella length, and is a melancholy reflection on mortality which I found quite moving. Overall, not a bad book, and one of Joyce's earliest.

Rating: 3/5

Four Tragedies - William Shakespeare

It occurred to me that, as well-read as I'm becoming in English literature, my knowledge of Shakespeare has always been woefully deficient. Having only covered The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in education, there were far too many I'd missed out on. It always felt that Shakespeare was a school text, to be studied but not read for personal entertainment. Coming to Shakespeare on my own terms, without a teacher breathing down my neck and telling me how to interpret it, has been an uplifting experience. 

I started the journey with one of his most famous plays, Hamlet. Whilst being informed of the plot through popular culture, I'd never actually watched it performed. The play was thoroughly entertaining, full of instantly recognisable plot points and immortal quotations. I was amazed by how many of them resided in this play alone. I capped off the read by watching what I consider the quintessential adaptation - the Kenneth Brannagh film. 

Next up was Othello, one of my sister's favourites. My raw reaction to the play was that I hated Othello and loved Iago. With all the academic noise about racism, I was not expecting Othello to be quite so gullible, unlikeable, and villianous. Desdemona's father was right all along. I also finished this read with a Kenneth Brannagh film version from the 90s. So far, so good, now onto King Lear. 

I expected to love King Lear, I ended up only liking it. All the elements of a good tragedy are present - scheming characters, Sturm und Drang, violence and wanton wickedness. But it's also one of his more chaotic plays. Characters scream and bellow into the wind, are stripped naked, have their eyes gouged out. However, it seemed messy, confusing, and dare I say - contrived? I wanted more 'Game of Thrones' and less Jeremy Kyle. "I've got these dor-tuhz yeah?" I must say, the film adaptations for Lear were horrendous. The only one I stuck with was the 2018 Hopkins version, and I despised the modern setting.

I ended with a re-read of the Scottish play, and it remains my favourite by far, only appreciating it more with each exposure. It's as heavy and unsettling as ever. Last night I woke up covered in sweat from night terrors, muttering "Thane of Cawdor" over and over before I came to. The play is also far shorter than I remember, it being a highly compact performance with all the subplots stripped out. Granted, this probably wasn't the only version knocking around. The haunting tale of bloody ambition and doomed prophecy has some of the most exquistively constructed lines in the history of literature, and remains emminently quotable. I ended with a rewatch of the best film adaptation - Roman Polanski's.

It's difficult to give an overall rating for a volume that contains books of differing quality, but when it comes to Shakespeare, his tragedies are all great in their own right. I have only one negative point to make, and it pertains to the academic footnotes, introductions, and format of this volume. Although a nice looking Penguin clothbound edition, the clowns who wrote the academic fluff have ruined it. Many of their footnotes are hairbrained observations, pointing out the extremely obvious and compressing Shakespeare's actual verse into only half the page. This made the book much thicker and heavier to carry than it had to be. Their introductions were an absolute bore to read.

Rating: 4/5

 

The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux

When I was younger, I was utterly obsessed with all things Phantom. Like many before me, my gateway was Andrew Lloyd Webber's most popular musical of all time, but it wasn't long before I was hunting down the book and the 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney. I cannot remember when I read the novel, but I must have been a teenager. Revisiting it a second time, and having forgotten most of the finer details, I was struck by how utterly weird it is. Gaston frames the tale as a detective novel, which soon morphs into a gothic horror/romance about a deformed and demented musical genius haunting the bowels of the Opera Garnier. The plot of the musical adapatation must be familiar enough to most people, though perhaps not the book itself. 

In my edition's introduction by Jann Matlock, it is stated that the Opera Garnier does not encourage Phantom questions on its guided tours, nor does it sell related merch in the gift shop. This was in 2008. A current internet search reveals the opera house to have subsequently walked back on their reticence and undermined their former integrity by fully embracing the tacky pop culture tie-in. Something to be said for the inevitability of selling out for profit.

But why do I call an association with a book I've rated 4 stars as tacky? Because it surely is! The plot itself is some badly written, melodramatic French pulp designed to sensationalise impressionable readers. The love triangle between singer Christine Daae, viscount Raoul de Chagny, and the titular Angel of Music, Erik, is perhaps the weakest part of the novel, despite being its core. In fact, I'd argue this story is but a flimsy pretext in which to clothe the far more interesting character of the opera house itself.

Before Reddit and 4chan, and before the increasingly popular 'Backrooms' phenomenon, a logical evolution of urbexing, there was Gaston Leroux and his surreal depictions of the opera house's hidden world. He enthusiastically describes the building's subterranean passages leading to liminal spaces and impossible deathtraps. Is there really a lake beneath the opera house? Yes there is, but more of a flooded cistern where firemen are taught to swim in the dark. Are there corpses? Yes, the bodies of political prisoners have been found buried there. Are there hidden passages perhaps linking to the Paris catacombs where a murderous incel might conceivably make his home? Where does fact end and fiction begin? These are the questions that Leroux plays with in his novel and invites the reader to explore.

The descent into the underbelly of the opera house takes up a whole third of the book, and is clearly Gaston's main interest. To modern readers, it even reads like a classic dungeon crawl, as Raoul and his guide, the enigmatic Persian, encounter terrifying creatures straight out of a Dungeons and Dragons monster manual. There are the devil-like boilermen keeping the furnaces alive, a floating, blood red moon face followed by a swarm of sewer rats, a felt-hatted stalker with a highly classified identity (Gaston is often ridiculous), not to mention the eerie 'siren of the lake.' Raoul and the Persian traverse a seemingly endless obstacle course behind the artificial facade of the stage props, passing through trapdoors, squeezing through narrow cravasses, and eventually ending up in a highly imaginative torture chamber. The sheer absurdity of it all is a delight, and an aspect of the tale sadly muted in Webber's musical. Erik (the Phantom) is a master of illusion, and his nightmare realm, strongly evoking Dante and Virgil's descent into Hell, showcases but a fraction of his twisted ingenuity. 

Highly recommended to lovers of all things liminal and phantasmagoric. If you can see beyond the silliness, there is much to discover and appreciate.

Rating: 4/5

My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin

If I were to sum up this book in one callous sentence, I'd write 'ugly Australian girl has a shit life as a skivvy in the outback.' Hailed as an early example of feminist literature, My Brilliant Career is a sardonically titled account of a young woman's attempt to live life on her own terms within the harsh, soul destroying conditions of rural New South Wales in the 1890s. Although set a long time ago, the language seems relatively modern, so I originally imagined it to be set much later.  Sybylla Melvyn is the eldest daughter of a wealthy cattle rancher who falls on hard times after a disastrous career decision. Sunk from an esteemed and elevated circle into impoverished conditions, she dreams of a better life more in line with her artistic aspirations. Sent to live with her grandmother, she once again experiences gentility, and in her improved surroundings meets the affluent Harold Beecham, who offers his hand in marriage.

Sybylla is not like other 19th century heroines though! She is a wild tomboy who no man can control. She is also constantly reprimanding herself for being ugly, which while not exactly a novel concept (The Woman in White also features an ugly heroine in Marian), it was unconventional for a romantic lead. Sybylla strings along her love interest, plays with his emotions and ultimately rejects him because she thinks she can do better. Unfortunately, her life takes a turn for the worse when she is forced to become governess to a squalid peasant household. Considering Miles was only a teenager when she wrote the book, it is excellently written, with a very visceral sense of place. I've never read such vivid descriptions of the oppressive Australian landscape, and it really felt like I was there in the heat, dust and monotonous grind of farmlife. The tale is horrifying in its claustrophic and stultifying descriptions of poverty and servitude, and I couldn't look away.

Rating: 4/5

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson

I came to Hill House armed with the foreknowledge of the terrible 1999 film 'The Haunting' and the not-so terrible Netflix series by the title's name. Both were loose adaptations, but more so the Netflix series, which only seems to use character names and little else. As such, I was not so worried about being spoiled, and spoiled I was not. The premise of the book is an inherently evil house with an eighty year history of tragic accidents and ruined lives. Professor Montague, a paranormal enthusiast, decides to study the haunting and assembles a team of unrelated people to stay in the house with him. There is Luke Sanderson, heir to the estate, Theodora, an artist with psychic ability, and Eleonara Vance, a timid woman who has wasted most of her youth being carer to an ill mother. None of the characters are particularly likeable.

Eleonor is the central protagonist, and whilst the reader is initially made to warm to her, we later discover she is perhaps not quite all there upstairs. As the hauntings in the house progress, the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred, with more than enough evidence to suggest that it is either Eleonor's disturbed state of mind manifesting the supernatural occurences, or she is wholly imagining them. Later in the novel, two comic characters arrive, the doctor's wife, Mrs Montague and her companion, Arthur Parker. The intrusion of these even more unlikable people shifts the tone of the novel quite abruptly, but also serves as a foil to the original frightened team. The book ends in tragedy, leaving things inconclusive about what was causing the haunting. I enjoyed the story a lot, but might have liked it more if the characters weren't so gratingly annoying.

Rating: 3/5

Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin

This was a short book, but a good one. I read it all in one day as, similar to Lolita, it reads like a car crash you can't look away from. David is a repressed homosexual white American man with daddy issues who moves to Paris whilst his non-committal fiancee is 'finding herself' on an extended excursion in Spain. Once in Paris, David wastes little time in finding out the queer quarters and falling in with their bohemian coterie, which mostly involves getting trashed every night and looking for attractive young men to have sex with. After falling for an Italian barman called Giovanni, David embarks on a months long love affair whilst living in the man's tiny squalid apartment. The room comes to symbolise the claustrophobic lifestyle that gay men of the 1950s are forced to adopt, but also David's compartmentalism of his homosexuality.

Once his fiancee, Hella, joins him in Paris, David promptly ditches Giovanni to pursue a conventional and respectable life. The rejection sends Giovanni off the rails, eventually leading him to murder and ruin. The novel is interesting in that it features an all white cast written by a black author, a rarity of its time. Controversial opinion follows the book, is it a tragic lament about repressed sexuality and identity, or a squalid and unflattering portrayal of the queer scene? Crossdressing predatory gay men are referred to as 'disgusting old fairies', and the older men on the scene are exploitative pimps using money and power to extort sex from younger men. There is much that is squalid about subcultures forced to operate on the fringes, but Baldwin's portrayal of women is also problematic. You could argue the unpleasant depiction comes from the turbulent mind of the protagonist. Overall, a very engaging read.

Rating: 4/5

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John le Carré

After reading the first chapter of this book, I thought I was going to love it. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. Set in the early 70s, the book is an espionage drama about a Russian Cold War double agent infiltrating the London spy network. It sounds like it should be exciting, but due to being heavily modelled on real life sleuthing, it was incredibly dull. Not merely dull in that not an awful lot happens, and that it's mostly unlikable, grey-faced Englishmen sitting around for long periods of time monologuing to themselves in lonely hotel rooms, but worse, I didn't even understand the plot. 

There aren't many books that leave me so clueless as to what's going on, and this may be the very first where I was utterly in the dark. Characters often go by several monikers and are difficult to keep track of, there is never anything concrete stated as to what the spies are actually doing or looking for, and the abundant industry lingo is never adequately explained. By the time the big reveal of the mole happens at the end of the book, I was unable to enjoy the payoff on account of never knowing who was who and what the spies were doing. Apparently the novel is well regarded, so now I feel incredibly stupid for not getting it.

Rating: 1/5