classic novels actually novels now often seem to be boring,
because at the time they were published they were fashionable because they
were different, but a lot better material has been published since then.
| At Swim-Two-Birds | By: Flan O'Brien | Type: novel |
| 5% : Unreadable |
| Review : This is supposed to be a classic, but the style doesn't exactly flow ..I gave up |
| comments : |
| The Chinese Love Pavilion | By: Paul Scott 1960 | Type: novel |
| 40% : OK, but ultimately confusing to me |
| Review : The story of a British soldier in Malaysia at the end of the war. Two themes..He falls in love with a prostitute and he has to track down his old friend who has gone mad ? in the jungle. |
| meaning : love makes people jealous |
| comments : |
| Something to Fall Back On | By: Maureen Lipman | Type: Biography |
| 40% : Better than reading the cornflakes packet |
| Review : Throughout this book she drops in comments about desperately seeking material to finish this book; so you can see how limp it is. But her smoothness of writing, comic insight and the stories people tell her make it OK |
| meaning : you have a boring life..she doesn't |
| comments : |
| Heart of Darkness | By: Joseph Conrad | Type: novel |
| 30% :A style so unflowing ..I gave up |
| Review : His story porttrays the fascinating world of white traders in Africa 100 years ago... yet the book is so tedious. |
| meaning : going abroad makes people weird. |
| comments : |
| Hotel Du Lac | By: Anita Brookner | Type: novel |
| 30% : Yawn...why did this win the Booker prize ? |
| Review : The sad story of a writer of women's love stories; trapped in a world of tedium. Only just readable and hardly inspiring. |
| meaning : lifes boring; unless you have the guts to get up and be different |
| comments : |
| The Great Gatsby 1925 | By: F Scott Fitzgerald | Type: novel |
| 30% : slow then the last third has an altogether different quality |
| Review : A deep tragical story of infidelity and faking . |
| meaning : Life is unfair, you get pushed into things like marrying the wrong people by society. If people think you are rich they will be your friends. New York was full of fake people. Because you can't be honest then loves brings tragedy. |
| comments : Gatsby is an enigmatic party holding millionaire. His life
story was self created he actually came from a poor family , all his friends
were false. He is actually was a front for organised crime. The narrator
realises that New York was so false and moves back West.
Quote "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" |
| The Man Without Qualities | By: Robert Musil | Type: novel |
| % :highly acclaimed ,but too heavy to read |
| Review : Maybe because it is german it is difficult to relate to .."He who can fulfil all his own wisheswill not know what to wish for" |
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| The Horse Latitudes | By: Robert Ferringo | Type: novel |
| 20% : |
| Review : The reviews at the back are very flattering. It would seem to me that these reviewers can't have read many good books before. It's a readable , but uninspiring crime yarn, which like most Hollywood movies doesn't really fit together. |
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| Brighton Rock 1938 | By: Graham Greene | Type: novel |
| 10% : |
| Review : A bit boring It's always a big disappointment when a book by a gifted author turns out to be uninspiring |
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| English Through Drama | By: Chris Parry | Type: doc |
| 0% : |
| Review : Not very good |
| meaning : |
| comments : 792 |
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