Lord Manleigh

• Rated 3 stars

“It's hard to imagine today, reading Updike's elegant, writerly treatment of the sexual escapades of these Couples, that the novel was considered "a dirty book" when it was published in 1968. Needless to say, it is not a dirty book. It's a beautifully written -- and sometimes overwritten -- exploration of love and adultery in early 1960s suburbia. One almost wishes Updike had provided a list of dramatis personae, as things can get confusing -- it would be helpful to piece together your own list of who's who (and who's married to whom) as you go along -- but all soon falls into place. He's a superb writer, and one is never wasting one's time by spending it with John Updike.”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review 5 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“After 150 pages, I gave up the ghost. Unreadable, teejus stuff. ”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review 2 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“Quite a good collection of Dame Muriel's short stories (including several ghostly ones). Her characteristic wit, gimlet-eyed irony and talent for leaving the reader feeling vaguely unsettled are all on fine display.”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“A wonderful collection of essays - both literary criticism and "enthusiasms" -- that examines Austen's artistry, her relevance, and her achievement. The "33 Great Writers" include such luminaries as Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Harold Bloom, Lionel Trilling, W. Somerset Maugham, Eudora Welty, C. S. Lewis, Martin Amis, A. S. Byatt... the list goes on. And of course it all results in an irresistible hunger to read the novels again. ”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )

3 of 3 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“If you read no other Holmes (and that would be tragic), this collection of stories is the sine qua non. Here, you will encounter some of the great detective's most extra-ordinary cases - the scandalous affair of the King of Bohemia and The Woman; the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland and her mysterious suitor, the baffling problem connected with The Man With the Twisted Lip, the remarkable incident of the Noble Bachelor, the blood-chilling adventure of the Speckled Band, the whimsical mystery of the Blue Carbuncle and a lost Christmas goose, and the unforgettable caper of the Red Headed League. Such larks! The game is afoot. Don't waste another second. Read it!”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review 4 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

““I don’t think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times.”

The Violent Bear It Away is a very confusing novel if one doesn’t understand O’Connor. This story of Tarwater, a fledgling prophet battling desperately against his Calling, is not a satire – she means it. I’ve read the novel twice now, and the thing I didn't comprehend the first time around was that she absolutely takes the old uncle and Tarwater seriously. They are not figures of fun - the old man is a prophet, Tarwater is called. It's Rayber, the atheist school teacher fighting for Tarwater’s soul, who is the object of her satire, if that's the word:

“The modern reader will identify himself with the school teacher, but it is the old man who speaks for me…”

Part of the confusion stems from the fact that one simply can't imagine a writer writing anything like this with dead seriousness. It almost makes one more interested and curious about the writer than her characters. And she was a fascinating woman, as her letters attest (get your hands on the Library of America’s Collected Works, from which I've been quoting here). Flannery O’Connor is a writer unlike any other known to me. “Southern Gothic” doesn’t being to describe her. She can’t be categorized. Devoutly Catholic, grimly comic, with a faith stern and rigorous, attracted and repelled by the violent and grotesque, and a damned good writer. With O’Connor, there’s something surprising and original on every page. She’s completely unique, and the Real Thing.

”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review Wednesday, January 18, 2012. ( reply | permalink )

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“A madcap caper of young love, criminal intrigue, mistaken identities, odious children, terrifying aunts, hen-pecked husbands, pugilists, and a yapping Pomeranian. Read on and all will be revealed. It's sheer delight. Never was there a writer with such a talent for sending the Drearies hissing and shrieking into the night -- did he know he was an angel in human shape, I wonder?”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review Wednesday, December 28, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 2 stars

“A loose, baggy monster (to steal a phrase from Henry James) that seems to keep growing the more one turns the pages. I read the final third of this nearly 800 page novel in that awful state that befalls a reader saddled with a book he isn't enjoying but is determined to finish -- reading each page with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, loins girded, jaw set, deriving little to no pleasure at all from the experience. One gets to the end as if one has scaled Everest after a particularly hazardous climb; wearily, one plants one's little flag on the summit. In the case of reading an Everest, at least one doesn't have to climb back down again but can be airlifted to safety by a new book.

This historical tale of two 18th century colonial brothers at loose in the big bad Mother Country does have its charms, particularly in the second third of the book, but ultimately the whole thing deteriorates into tedium. Its charms are due primarily to Thackeray's wonderfully exuberant, tongue-clucking, cajoling, gossiping, ironic narrative voice, but this is a major joy of his Vanity Fair as well, and you would be well advised to eschew Virginia and hie thee to the Fair, which is a vastly superior novel, a masterpiece of comedy and satire. Such cannot be said, alas, for The Virginians.”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review Saturday, December 24, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 3 stars

“Maugham has never been a favourite author of mine, and the idea of a novel loosely based on Paul Gauguin, whose art I’ve never really responded to, didn’t seem to hold out much promise. Happily, I found The Moon and Sixpence a very compelling, enjoyable read -- even a bit of a page-turner. This one grabbed me. There is an animating force under the surface of this novel that distinguishes it from the other books of his I’ve read, and lends it fire. It's this that keeps us turning the pages and holds our fascination. It’s something I think most every imaginative, serious reader can relate to: the awe, fear and envy that the ordinary feels towards the extraordinary.”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review Friday, September 30, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

6 of 6 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“Forster's last and most ambitious novel; perhaps his greatest. His cri de coeur of Howards End -- "Only connect!" -- cannot withstand the enormity of India and the seething cauldron of bickering, back-biting, resentment, racism and yearning for "kindness, kindness and more kindness" that is India under the British Raj. The longing for connection between East and West is overwhelming, yet well nigh impossible -- to make the attempt leads to disaster. Brimming with Forster's characteristic blend of compassion and irony, this is a novel of vivid, humanely-drawn characters, an engrossing story, and stretches of prose so beautiful and, at times, so strange that the author seems to be straining to connect with matters so ineffable as to be almost beyond his capacity to express.”

Lord Manleigh wrote this review Thursday, September 1, 2011. ( reply | permalink )