"Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and i"Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
The Wind in the Willows, while it may not reach the heights of the greatest literary triumphs from the early 20th century, provided me with a cozy and magical experience and it was a delightful reminder to me of some of my favorite reasons that I love to read....more
An intriguing novel of the Gothic genre with an unforgettable story about narcissism and the dangerous wish for immortality. It is also an interestingAn intriguing novel of the Gothic genre with an unforgettable story about narcissism and the dangerous wish for immortality. It is also an interesting commentary on the values of society in Britain during the late Victorian Era. It's full of wit and colorful language, which at times weigh down the story-telling and make this more a good piece of art than great literature. ...more
A multi-layered, fascinating plot carries most of this play from one scene to the other. The design is well embroiled in a good old tale of forbidden A multi-layered, fascinating plot carries most of this play from one scene to the other. The design is well embroiled in a good old tale of forbidden love, jealousies, and power-lusting machinations. With each twist and turn heightening the dramatic interplay I was compelled almost all the way to the end, awaiting with greater anticipation how it would all climax... And then... Splat. The whole denouement of the final act is one disappointing collapse that makes everything preceding it seem like a con. Rather than the dramatic ending which the whole chain of events seemed bound for, we end up bored in the lackluster and rather disenchanting tedium of a finale which stumbles under its contraptions and artifice rather than masterfully holding together all the interest that led up to it. Just an exceedingly long, convoluted dialogue of explanations and reconciliations which do poor justice to what could have ended as a truly good Shakespeare play. At least at the end of King Lear and Hamlet there is excruciating tragedy and bloodshed to settle the scores. That's the Shakespeare I was hoping for at the end of Cymbeline. And yet there is no satisfying payoff. And so Cymbeline succumbs to its fate of mediocrity among Shakespeare plays, tangled awkwardly on the borderline between tragedy and comedy, all on account of a final act that simply couldn't confect a proper conclusion for the four acts preceding. A shame....more
A provocative and philosophically riveting novel that is told by the story's narrator Alex with such a highly inventive, animated and unforgettable voA provocative and philosophically riveting novel that is told by the story's narrator Alex with such a highly inventive, animated and unforgettable voice. It is one of the most linguistically daring works of the 20th century and also one that illustrates with such striking perception the inner-workings of the criminal mind as it is warped and reconditioned by a political power-machine. The novel raises and explores some of the most vexing problems about society and the nurture within it....more
Henry James' master ghost tale kept me engaged well enough with its pleasantly ambiguous & elusive tone. The tempo maintains a good development of susHenry James' master ghost tale kept me engaged well enough with its pleasantly ambiguous & elusive tone. The tempo maintains a good development of suspense that drives the reader to the end with an engrossing wonder. The prose is not my favorite, though James can certainly elicit some delectable & impressive descriptions, the diction is often ponderous & strained by the all-too-proper formality and somewhat rigid sophistication that sort of suppress the haunting chords underneath the text. An enduring story, nevertheless, that is worth probing and it will keep you guessing and possibly gaping at its ultimate mystery that can never be fully resolved....more
One of the greatest examples of allegory ever written, The Pilgrim's Progress is a work of painstaking imagination and fervent devotion to its ChristiOne of the greatest examples of allegory ever written, The Pilgrim's Progress is a work of painstaking imagination and fervent devotion to its Christian theme. I admit it took me a long time to finally finish reading the entire book. I read the first part a few years ago and then laid it aside and finally came back to reading the second part just within the last month. It is a laborious, rather flat-line and perfectly predictable read which probably doesn't have too many fans in the modern world outside of academia and Christian apologetics. Yet it's an important work of literature that deserves to be recognized for its originality and purely allegorical style, written not to entertain but to instruct and exhort, like a literary sermon framed in a narrative style similar to a medieval morality play. Every character in it functions as a symbol and every word of dialogue plays a part in the didactic structure of Bunyan's spiritual odyssey tale about following the right path to salvation. What I enjoyed most about it were the highly innovative elements Bunyan introduced into the story in constructing a world that is entirely fictitious, designed as a land of Biblical inspiration, set up with all kinds of snares and artifices (my favorite and perhaps the most famous being Vanity Fair) around the treacherous route to the Celestial City. It has parallels to the more fun and recent works of literature such as Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz, and even the Phantom Tollbooth in that it is a work constructed completely on its own terms, conceiving an alternate type of reality in which even the most fantastical and fabulous events can occur to suit the objective of the author. Yet here in Bunyan's 17th century work, we have a story that is born out of the steadfast faith of a strict puritan who uses his allegory as a means to an end and every page and passage is informed by his Christianity. There is no element garnered from any source outside Bunyan's religious inspiration and nothing in it is complex enough to invite more than one interpretation. I recommend this book only to those who really cherish the experience of reading works of the classical canon simply for the sake of reading them, those who are truly interested in enriching their literary knowledge of different forms and styles, particularly during the Restoration period of British lit, and perhaps those with a Christian faith interested in looking at works of literature which expound Christian themes or ideas. In our modern age of disillusionment, skepticism, and moral ambiguities, perhaps there is something to admire even from a secular point of view about the heartfelt resolution with which Bunyan presents the tenets and values that are most central to the Christian life, seeking the way to union with God while wading through a fallen world beset with all kinds of temptations and dangers and tribulations. Bunyan's message is unequivocal, small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to eternal life, but the reward of following this difficult journey to its end is immeasurable and there is nothing else worth trying to achieve in this world-- only the kingdom of God which one finds at the end of their toiling and ardent searching through the trials of earthly life. ...more
Magical and interesting to read for any lover of the Arthurian myths, but I was a little disappointed by the end. I was hoping for a climactic battle Magical and interesting to read for any lover of the Arthurian myths, but I was a little disappointed by the end. I was hoping for a climactic battle between Gawain and the green knight, but instead it all fell apart into medieval didacticism and lackluster moralizing....more
"They became part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen through the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them; the bi"They became part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen through the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them; the birds sang through them. And, what as even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach." Amazing, revolutionary stream-of-consciousness style that so meticulously and subtly unravels the workings of the human mind over the course of small events and expresses the ever fleeting and mercurial emotions that flow from relationships. What I take away most from reading Virginia Woolf's critically acclaimed and milestone masterpiece 'To the Lighthouse' is the impressionistic brilliance and acute precision with which she penetrates the human psychology and the myriad of emotions and perceptions that blossom within our internal secrecy, in all their depth, complexity, ambiguity and various shades of color. This work is unforgettably striking in how carefully, feverishly, and articulately Woolf studies and tracks the human thought process in the dailiness of life, bringing to the surface that stunning accumulation of little things that comprises the intensity and vastness of human experience within short compressions of time. This novel is not about a story narrative or a dialogue or about a highly dramatic experience or dire conflict that must be reckoned with and overcome. Rather it is a story painted upon the canvas or seen through the window (both important motifs in the story) of people's inner worlds and the perplexing range of impressions that wax and wane in an ever mutating cycle that succumbs inescapably to the passage of time. Woolf captures moments and probes the emotional essence underlying them. She traces the trajectory of all the elusive feelings and unspoken words that exist within our moments, spawned out of solitary meditation or human interactions, and through which are revealed in some private way the deeper implications of the world at large. The story concerns only a small cast of characters and pivots around the seemingly ordinary events of a couple of days separated by ten years with an interval that is only briefly illustrated by several vignettes of intermittent streams-of-consciousness. As a prominent writer of the Modernist movement, Woolf provides us with her own unique voice that expresses itself with a remarkable transparence and creative raptures of language very distinct from other Modernists such as Joyce or Faulker (the former being the most esoteric, albeit the most genius, and the latter being the most inscrutable of the three in my opinion). Woolf does not seek to befuddle or disorient with an impregnable puzzle of prose, but rather, she invites us quite candidly and smoothly into the wavering and shifting channels of perspective that she examines through one character to the next. Her main concern seems to be evoking reality as a complexity of subjective experiences that unfold in a multitude of disparate shapes and designs, depending on the particular person that is perceiving. There were a number of parts in the book that really moved me or connected strongly with me as they resonated so powerfully with many of my own unexpressed thoughts and feelings that have occurred throughout the regularity of existence. "To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others." The following quote I think poignantly highlights a key point that is explored throughout the story about how truly inaccessible and insulated our real inner identities are from others and the resulting distance that separates individuals from one another. "She would never know him. He would never know her. Human relations were all like that, she thought, and the worst were between men and women." And this quote goes to the heart of Woolf's premise that in the absence of a singular universal truth in which to take comfort, we are left at the mercy of an indifferent cosmos in which there is a flux of changeable "truths" and where we are ultimately solitary to impose our own subjective interpretations of reality and create our own individual meaning. "It was in this sort of state that one asked oneself, What does one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these pains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? Are we attractive as a species? Not so very, thought, looking at those rather untidy boys... Foolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied." Beneath the ambiguity and protean whirlwinds of our inner life, one is compelled to seize only a bit of sanctuary or stability in a single moment in which our own intrinsic meaning seems to shine. In these brief epiphanies in which the chaos of life seems to reach a symphonic climax one can experience an ecstasy where joy can be apprehended. For what is life but a collectivity of moments inhabited by our inner worlds corresponding with the outer world? Everything in life, as depicted in this story's evocative portraits of consciousness, is subject to the ephemeral and capricious torrents of change that accompany time's unrelenting procession. "Nothing need be said; nothing could be said. There it was, all round them. It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity; as she had already felt about something different once before that afternoon; there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures." "What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one." These passages express the vision of Woolf in writing 'To the Lighthouse': to strike those matches and illuminate the special moments occupied amidst the vagaries of human experience. This last quote I'm including shows one of my favorite descriptions of human perception in a certain moment that I felt of exquisite richness in manifesting the detail and quality unique to a single inner experience. "It looked like the top of a rock which some wave bigger than the rest would cover. Yet in its frailty were all those paths, those terraces, those bedrooms- all those innumerable things. But as, just before sleep, things simplify themselves so that only one of all the myriad details has power to assert itself, so, she felt, looking drowsily at the island, all those paths and terraces and bedrooms were fading and disappearing, and nothing was left but a pale blue censer swinging rhythmically this way and that across her mind. It was a hanging garden; it was a valley, full of birds, and flowers, and antelopes... She was falling asleep." There are just too many superb impressions conveyed by Woolf throughout this work to list in this review. But I think, at this point, there is a sufficient supply to demonstrate the astounding power of Woolf's style. 'To the Lighthouse' was a great intoduction to me to this distinguished voice of the Modernist school and indeed the 20th century of literature. With this masterful work, Woolf truly carved a unique gem of prose that is simply a must-read....more
"Man's love is of his life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence. Man may range the court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart; sword, gown, "Man's love is of his life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence. Man may range the court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart; sword, gown, gain, glory offer in exchange pride, fame, ambition to fill up his heart, and few there are whom these cannot estrange. Man has all these resources, we but one, to mourn alone the love which has undone." (Canto I, Stanza 194)
"There still are many rainbows in your sky, but mine have vanished. All, when life is new, commence with feelings warm and prospects high; but time strips our illusions of their hue, and one by one in turn, some grand mistake casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake." (Canto V, Stanza 21)
"But these are foolish things to all the wise, And I love wisdom more than she loves me; My tendency is to philosophise On most things, from a tyrant to a tree; But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies. What are we? and whence came we? what shall be Our ultimate existence? what's our present? Are questions answerless, and yet incessant." (Canto VI, Stanza 63)
"O Love! O Glory! what are ye who fly Around us ever, rarely to alight? There's not a meteor in the polar sky Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight. Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high Our eyes in search of either lovely light; A thousand and a thousand colours they Assume, then leave us on our freezing way. And such as they are, such my present tale is,A non-descript and ever-varying rhyme, A versified Aurora Borealis, Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime. When we know what all are, we must bewail us, But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime To laugh at all things -- for I wish to know What, after all, are all things -- but a show?" (Canto VII, Stanzas 1-2)
Above are written some of the most striking lines inscribed in Lord Byron's magnum opus Don Juan, the greatest epic in the English language composed since Milton's Paradise Lost. In grand contrast, however, to Milton's Biblically-inspired work set out to "justify the ways of God to man", Lord George Gordon Byron, in his characteristically hedonistic and sensual style, gives us the unfinished tales in verse of Don Juan to achieve a different feat, perhaps more like a reverse of Milton's ambition, in justifying the ways of man to God. Byron, who was one of the finest poets of the British Romantic period, certainly possessed more than the other Romantics the sensational personality and temperament that typifies the Romantic soul. He attained notoriety in his lifetime for what was perceived as a scandalous and decadent lifestyle, marred by a multitude of love affairs and self-exile from England, drenched in the lavish nectar pools of revelry and consumed by a restless spirit of adventure. His poetry, which is definitely the most crisp and accessible of the Romantics I think, is always seething with an impassioned energy and insatiable vitality, and no where are these qualities invested with more zeal and zest than in the verses of Don Juan. In his epic Byron fleshes out for us the figure of Don Juan, who is a perfect alter-ego for Byron and the consummate incarnate of the so-called Byronic hero: lifted from the legend of the unfettered libertine who seduced, inflamed and then broke the hearts of many a damsel until finally cast into Hell to face eternal retribution for his indecorous life of crime. In this tale however, Don Juan is spiced up and modified in Byron's own flavor. Rather than a heartless rake who ravishes one woman after the other without remorse, Byron's Don Juan is a sympathetic figure who is thrown into a series of larger-than-life misfortunes that pave the adventurous path from one tribulation to the next. The plot itself that propels this tale is fascinating on its own: Don Juan's endless escapades and perils that stem from a single love affair in Spain that ends up being exposed in delicto flagrante to an angry husband, sending him into a sea-borne escape that ends in shipwrecks, delivering him to a remote Mediterranean island where he's a rescued by a voluptuous Greek maiden whose father is a pirate who makes Don Juan a prisoner to in turn be sold to the Turkish sultan, followed by more love affairs, a grandiose battle scene of Homeric scale, moving on to Russia and the Tsarina Catherine the Great and then to Byron's homeland England where sadly the story ends abruptly without closure. I can avow that in the 17 stunning cantos of Don Juan, this lack of finality is the only real disappointment. The stanzas running through the pages simply effervesce with feverish rapture, eloquent paeans of passion, piercing wit, and a subtle humor that could only spring from the inimitable voice of Lord Byron. Besides the unbounded riots of adventure in the story of Don Juan, what is sometimes even more notable are Byron's social commentaries that saturate his verse, often with vitriol, measured contempt, and even smug certitude in his free-thinking ways, but always with wonderful craftsmanship and extremely witty acuity. Byron's frequent digressions often take aim at his contemporaries such as Southey and Wordsworth, whose styles he rejected, as well as many other observations that express Byron's rather cynical worldview and opinions, that in his own day, would be deemed unorthodox or heretical to the mores of the British society. Every subject is fair game for Byron, whether it's the differing sensibilities between men and women, love, religion, philosophy, history, war, politics, social etiquette, etc. One notable line that so well articulates Byron's viewpoint is in Canto IV, Stanza 101: "And so great names are nothing more than nominal, and love of glory's but an airy lust, too often in its fury overcoming all who would 'twere identify their dust from out the wide destruction, which entombing all, leaves nothing 'till the coming of the just', save change. I've stood upon Achilles' tomb and heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome." And there's so many more... In truth, Byron's masterpiece is a veritable treasure-trove of knowledge and enriching lyricism that gushes with emotional electricity traversing the whole spectrum. On a final note, I'd like to quote my own personal favorite description from the epic poem, from the last completed canto, Canto XVI, in which Byron conjures up a ghostly specter, the haunting Blackfriar, with deliciously Gothic gloom that I savor so much.
(Canto XVII, Stanza XIV-21) XIV But lover, poet, or astronomer, Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold, Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her: Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err); Deep secrets to her rolling light are told; The ocean's tides and mortals' brains she sways, And also hearts, if there be truth in lays.
XV Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed For contemplation rather than his pillow: The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed, Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow, With all the mystery by midnight caused; Below his window waved (of course) a willow; And he stood gazing out on the cascade That flash'd and after darken'd in the shade.
XVI Upon his table or his toilet, -- which Of these is not exactly ascertain'd (I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch Of nicety, where a fact is to be gain'd), -- A lamp burn'd high, while he leant from a niche, Where many a Gothic ornament remain'd, In chisell'd stone and painted glass, and all That time has left our fathers of their hall.
XVII Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw His chamber door wide open -- and went forth Into a gallery, of a sombre hue, Long, furnish'd with old pictures of great worth, Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too, As doubtless should be people of high birth. But by dim lights the portraits of the dead Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.
XVIII The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint Look living in the moon; and as you turn Backward and forward to the echoes faint Of your own footsteps -- voices from the urn Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern, As if to ask how you can dare to keep A vigil there, where all but death should sleep.
XIX And the pale smile of beauties in the grave, The charms of other days, in starlight gleams, Glimmer on high; their buried locks still wave Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams On ours, or spars within some dusky cave, But death is imaged in their shadowy beams. A picture is the past; even ere its frame Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.
XX As Juan mused on mutability, Or on his mistress -- terms synonymous -- No sound except the echo of his sigh Or step ran sadly through that antique house; When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh, A supernatural agent -- or a mouse, Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass Most people as it plays along the arras.
XXI It was no mouse, but lo! a monk, array'd In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd, Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade, With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard; His garments only a slight murmur made; He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird, But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by, Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.
I prefer the tragic inclination of the Bard over the comedic, however this play is simply magical and timeless. It evokes such a splendid fairy-tale rI prefer the tragic inclination of the Bard over the comedic, however this play is simply magical and timeless. It evokes such a splendid fairy-tale realm of visions that is charming and soothing to visit from time to time when one simply desires a fermented release from the realistic and the mundane....more
A fun and great short read with an intriguing exploration into humankind's longstanding interest in time travel along with a manifesto of H.G. Well's A fun and great short read with an intriguing exploration into humankind's longstanding interest in time travel along with a manifesto of H.G. Well's socialist ideas about society, divided between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and transformed in the future (800,000 years or so) into the unforgettable split of homo-sapiens with the indolent and placid Eloi and the underground, cannibalistic Morlocks....more
Definitely not the Bard's best. An excess of carnage, vengeance, and battles strewn across the backdrop of ancient Rome. It is entertaining and full oDefinitely not the Bard's best. An excess of carnage, vengeance, and battles strewn across the backdrop of ancient Rome. It is entertaining and full of intrigue, but somewhat convoluted. Almost juvenile by the standards of the world's greatest writer, compared to the gems of Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth....more
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