Sarah Rees

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“This is a whimsical novel of alien foreign relations with some surprising twists that made it a delightful read. The story hangs on the relations between the Nidu alien empire and Earth. The protagonist, Harris (Harry) Creek, is an official with the State Department who specializes in dealing...”

“This is a whimsical novel of alien foreign relations with some surprising twists that made it a delightful read. The story hangs on the relations between the Nidu alien empire and Earth. The protagonist, Harris (Harry) Creek, is an official with the State Department who specializes in dealing with aliens, particularly when the news was bad. In this case the death of a Nidu trade negotiator. The death starts the story and it quickly becomes a quest for Harry Creek to acquire a sheep of the Android's Dream breed for the coronation ceremony of the Nidu. The Nidu assert that unless a sheep can be provided, that the political and diplomatic fallout will cause the Nidu to declare war on Earth, a war Earth will lose badly. The genetically designed breed is very rare and believed extinct after a sect of Nidu intent on deposing the government exterminate all known samples, leading Harry on a chase to find one along with assistance from Brian, an AI based on Harry's childhood friend. That may sound a bit complicated but the story has more twists and turns and should please readers looking for traditional science fiction leavened with a large dose of humor. I know I enjoyed the book for that reason and enjoyed the suspenseful action until the last page.”

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“This is a beautiful love story and it is a musical tale. The importance of music cannot be emphasized too strongly for, from the title page to the last paragraph music permeates each character. The protagonist, Michael Holme has a spiritual connection with music and with the instrument, a Tononi...”

“This is a beautiful love story and it is a musical tale. The importance of music cannot be emphasized too strongly for, from the title page to the last paragraph music permeates each character. The protagonist, Michael Holme has a spiritual connection with music and with the instrument, a Tononi violin, that he uses to express his music. This goes beyond playing a piece of music, whether Schubert or Bach or Beethoven, and enters his soul and through the prose of Vikram Seth enters the soul of the reader. The description of the music and its effect on various characters was superb. As a musician myself I appreciated the depiction of the canon of classical music (at least the Viennese portion).
The theme of love also transfixes the reader from the opening of the story when Michael is pining for his lost love through the fugue-like complications of his relationship with Julia throughout the novel. The melodrama of the story is overcome by the irresistible tension of their love. The result is a deeply moving narrative that this reader found difficult to set aside.”

jwhenderson finished reading a book. (see 4 more books added to shelf)

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, on several end-of-century Top 100 lists,was published on September 3, 1934. Waugh took the title for his novel from a line in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land — “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” In Brideshead Revisited, Waugh returned to the same poem,...”

“Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, on several end-of-century Top 100 lists,was published on September 3, 1934. Waugh took the title for his novel from a line in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land — “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” In Brideshead Revisited, Waugh returned to the same poem, sending Anthony Blanche out on an Oxford balcony to stutter a few lines from it. Waugh’s biographers have noted a particular connection to Eliot. Early in life, Waugh liked to associate himself with Eliot’s avant-garde style; in his late twenties, Waugh became a Catholic, as Eliot in his late twenties became Anglican; and later in life, both authors grew more conservative and wrote in support of preserving and improving the crumbling class system in Great Britain.
IN this novel we have a comedy that contains tragic events, but still manages to entertain the reader with Waugh's brilliant satire and wit. The protagonist, Tony Last, is an ossified country squire. As one of that system’s most doomed representatives when we first meet him, Last is living in blinkered bliss at Hetton Abbey, a rambling Victorian mansion renovated in tasteless neo-Gothic style. He is blithely unaware of his wife's peccadilloes. When the battle over divorce heats up Tony goes on an expedition to South America with a con man. Whether the trip is made because he is merely fooled by the con man or as a reaction to the divorce proceedings it does not work out quite as he expects. Eventually he falls under the spell of a madman named Todd who has a beloved set of Dickens novels; it is his passion to hear them read aloud, and it is Tony's personal hell to be the one required to do this.
This is Waugh at his satirical best and I can forgive his use of Dickens as torture (which reading him may be to some people anyway). While I had trouble understanding the foibles of most of the characters I understood enough of the story to become mesmerized by his brilliant satire and witty prose.”

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“I still remember when the film version directed by John Schlesinger came out. I was in my Senior year at the University of Wisconsin and I purchased and read the screenplay immediately. The unique approach of Gilliatt made this story more than just an atypical menage a trois. Each of the main...”

“I still remember when the film version directed by John Schlesinger came out. I was in my Senior year at the University of Wisconsin and I purchased and read the screenplay immediately. The unique approach of Gilliatt made this story more than just an atypical menage a trois. Each of the main characters were developed with details that made their stories interesting and relevant to the reader ( and the viewer of the film). A Jewish doctor, Daniel Hirsh and a young woman, Alex Greville are both involved in a love triangle with contemporary sculptor Bob Elkin. Not only are Hirsh and Greville aware that Elkin is seeing the other but they know one another through mutual friends. Despite this, they are willing to put up with the situation through fear of losing Elkin, who switches freely between them.
The result is an example of great drama, directing and acting all coming together to make a classic film. The screenplay is worth reading and rereading.”

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“This is a modern (circa 1999) translation of one of the greatest of the Greek Tragedies that has survived. It is even rarer in that it is a complete trilogy which was common in the age of the great Greek tragedians but few have survived in tact.
n the last year of his life, Ted Hughes...”

“This is a modern (circa 1999) translation of one of the greatest of the Greek Tragedies that has survived. It is even rarer in that it is a complete trilogy which was common in the age of the great Greek tragedians but few have survived in tact.
n the last year of his life, Ted Hughes completed translations of three major dramatic works: Racine's Phedre, Euripedes' Alcestis, and the trilogy of plays known as at The Oresteia, a family story of astonishing power and the background or inspiration for much subsequent drama, fiction, and poetry.
The Oresteia--Agamemnon, Choephori, and the Eumenides--tell the story of the house of Atreus: After King Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, their son, Orestes, is commanded by Apollo to avenge the crime by killing his mother, and he returns from exile to do so, bringing on himself the wrath of the Furies and the judgment of the court of Athens. The culmination of the tragedy addressed the question of the nature and origin of justice and the civil state.
Hughes's "acting version" of the trilogy is faithful to its nature as a dramatic work, and his translation is itself a great performance; while artfully inflected with the contemporary, it has a classical beauty and authority. It is a good choice among modern translations.”

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“Before the First World War, Hofmiller, a young Austrian officer from a modest background, finds himself stationed in a town where he knows few people. He scores an invitation to the home of the richest local family and, at the end of the evening, realises he has not spent time with their...”

“Before the First World War, Hofmiller, a young Austrian officer from a modest background, finds himself stationed in a town where he knows few people. He scores an invitation to the home of the richest local family and, at the end of the evening, realises he has not spent time with their attractive daughter, Edith. He invites her to dance, but realises – to everyone’s horror – that she is sitting in a wheelchair and can’t even stand. The worst faux pas imaginable, and he flees. But he is given another chance, which he eagerly accepts. To be nice he starts spending more and more time with the family, focusing on Edith, keeping her company – keeping himself company too. Relationships seem almost balanced at first. She’s sweet, if a bit over-eager for his attention. It is the father, though, who compels Hofmiller to involve himself more, to help find treatment for her condition, to lie to her about its effectiveness, to let her believe she has a chance of recovery. It’s all, of course, in the name of keeping her happy. Hofmiller’s eagerness to please, Edith’s father’s eagerness to please – beyond what is practical or real – subtly becomes a ticking bomb of anxiety. Where it naturally leads is to Hofmiller’s proposal of marriage. A good soldier, he will do everything he can. Devastation everywhere.”

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“A poet, novelist, dramatist and biographer, Stephan Zweig (1881-1942) was a brilliant writer, documenting both historical lives and his own. His non-fiction includes literary biographies that are seldom read today, but The World of Yesterday remains in print and is his personal memoir of...”

“A poet, novelist, dramatist and biographer, Stephan Zweig (1881-1942) was a brilliant writer, documenting both historical lives and his own. His non-fiction includes literary biographies that are seldom read today, but The World of Yesterday remains in print and is his personal memoir of growing up in fin de siecle Austria and the early years of the twentieth century. Written the year before he died, the book is a testament to his life - one that was formed in a world before the devastation of the twentieth century with its wars and other cultural shocks (on that topic see Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age by Modris Eksteins). Zweig lived a life of the mind and a life of letters - one that was at odds with the new world. Unfortunately, the last years of his life were spent as an exile from his homeland and in the year after finishing this memoir he and his wife committed suicide together.”

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jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“Shakespeare's history of Richard III reads like a tragedy. Of course the tragic thing is that the hero is so despicable, yet it is hard to dislike him too much, he has such good lines. "Now is the winter of our discontent . . ." the play opens and the reader is swept up by the perfidy and...”

“Shakespeare's history of Richard III reads like a tragedy. Of course the tragic thing is that the hero is so despicable, yet it is hard to dislike him too much, he has such good lines. "Now is the winter of our discontent . . ." the play opens and the reader is swept up by the perfidy and creative conniving of Richard. As his plans thicken he seems to be succeeding, only to fail in the end as his apparent allies fail him and turn. There are many ways to look at this play, consider the language and the symbolism for example, but I am fascinated by two aspects that relate to other of Shakespeare's plays.
First, Richard III explores a theme Shakespeare later revisited in Hamlet and Macbeth—the idea that the moral righteousness of a political ruler has a direct bearing on the health of the state. A state with a good ruler will tend to flourish (as Denmark does under King Hamlet), while a state with a bad ruler will tend to suffer (as Scotland does under Macbeth). And second, the nature of evil itself in Richard may be compared to that of Iago in Othello, and undoubtedly others. Richard is more eloquent, but Iago is by far one of the most intelligent of all the evil schemers created by Shakespeare. That he gave these characters a certain charisma is cause for wonder.
Overall, Richard II is filled with some of the best poetry of the early Shakespeare plays. It certainly deserves the popularity it has developed over the centuries.”

jwhenderson reviewed a book.

“Why does one go on a voyage? Sometimes you voyage to return to a place where you had previously visited, but you may choose to voyage to a completely new place, adventure in the unknown and perhaps into the future. This play is about the latter type of voyage. It is about young idealists centered...”

“Why does one go on a voyage? Sometimes you voyage to return to a place where you had previously visited, but you may choose to voyage to a completely new place, adventure in the unknown and perhaps into the future. This play is about the latter type of voyage. It is about young idealists centered around the polarizing and exciting figure of Michael Bakunin. It is about his family, their domestic relationships, and his friends. Stoppard presents these characters and develops situations that demonstrate Russia in the wake of the Decembrists.

The opening scene is a dinner scene with the Bakunin family, four daughters, mother, and at the head of the table father Alexander. He boasts of his daughters' learning and nostalgically remembers his own youthful Rousseau-based liberalism with the ghosts of the Bastille. The return from Moscow of son Michael is the first clash demonstrating the impact of change and new ideas on tradition presented in scenes of the young idealists, including Bakunin, Belinsky, Stankevich, and Herzen, with their elders, teachers, acting in the shadow of the minions of Tsar Nicholas I.
The young idealists discuss new ideas like "transcendental idealism" and question the nature of "objective reality". The world of ideas, represented by German philosophers like Kant, Hegel and Schelling, is changing rapidly leaving Russia "Stuck between dried up old French reasoning and the new German idealism which explains everything." The philosophical response of Michael Bakunin is that "Hegel shows that objective reality cannot be ignored," while Belinsky's approach is artistic invoking Pushkin. For Belinsky "The divine spark in man is not reason after all, but something else, some kind of intuition or vision, perhaps like the moment of inspiration experienced by the artist . . ."
Belinsky's approach seems closer to that of Stoppard himself. His play, for all of its intense intellectual dialogue, is multifaceted with domestic relations among the Bakunin women mirroring the changes being discussed by the young idealistic philosophers. We gradually see the budding of the intelligentsia whose ideas would be the tinder for the coming fires of revolution, first in the rest of Europe and only later in Russia. The drama of Voyage leads the reader on a journey that raises questions on almost every page. One answer to the central questions of the play is presented by Belinsky as the play nears its end:
"Don't you bother with reading, Katya, words just lead you on. They arrange themselves every which way with no can to carry for the promises they can't keep, and off you go! "The objective world is the still unconscious poetry of the soul." What do these words mean? "The spiritual communion of beautiful souls attaining harmony with the Absolute." What do they mean? . . . Nothing, and I understood them perfectly!"


The final scene is set again at the family estate, a final farewell for old Alexander Bakunin. The stage directions even point out the old man's age again ("aged seventy six"), one more reminder to emphasize the end is nigh. Immediately his wife warns "You'll catch your death !". Oh yes, and he's watching the sunset. An age is over, and new times are coming, the voyage begun. "The words just lead you on" and in the end you remain in a state of wonder, still seeking The Coast of Utopia.”

Sarah S rated a book.

• Rated 4 stars

Sarah S rated a book.

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Sarah S added a book. (see 2 more books added to shelf)

Sarah S rated a book.

• Rated 4 stars