Tag Archives: Brit Lit

Uncategorized

Nietzsche and the ‘Burbs (review by Sophia G. ’21)

Leave a comment
Nietzsche and the BurbsNietzsche and the Burbs by Lars Iyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I just finished the book Nietzsche and the ‘Burbs by Lars Iyer. Overall I enjoyed it, however, sometimes the main characters were far too edgy for me. They often lament life rather than embrace it, rejecting the concept of amor fati that the real Nietzsche held so close to heart. The book is about a suburbian band of British misfits who try and make music to escape their boring lives as well as adventuring to entertain themselves. Most of the plot points, relationships, parties, whatever, are pretty normal for the YA genre, however I find they are handled with far more poetic prose. If you enjoy long flowing sentences and sardonic humor as I do, then you probably will like this book. If you aren’t a fan of some what emo main characters, I would avoid. Overall, it’s a well written and very original look at the coming of age genre, with some lovely turns and twists. -Sophia G. ’21

View all my reviews
Uncategorized

The Death of bees (review by anya W. ’20)

Leave a comment
The Death of BeesThe Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Death of Bees is in essence, a story of a few broken people trying to survive life, and look out for each other. Marnie know better than to trust anyone, especially now that she’s got her parents buried in the backyard. Nellie does not understand why these ruffians, her elder sibling included, are incapable of retaining their manners regardless of the trying times cast upon them. Lennie’s just worried about the poor girls who live next door, whose parents seem to have disappeared again.

O’Donnell’s writing is quite a bit better than I originally presumed. While the internal monologue of the main character seems a bit off in the beginning, her writing improves steadily throughout the book, and the oddness of the other characters’ monologues, while somewhat odd, do well to encapsulate themselves as characters and how they are viewed. The bittersweet tale is a masterful study of the effects of childhoods on young people, and on building oneself up after being torn down.

TW: this novel contains depictions of physical and sexual abuse of minors. -Anya W.

View all my reviews
Uncategorized

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior (review by Mr. Hurshman, Teacher)

Leave a comment

Booked: Literature in the Soul of MeBooked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you’ve ever thought that you could tell the story of your life through the books that you read, you will find a kindred spirit in Karen Swallow Prior. Her Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me is a memoir of her growth from a young child to a professor of literature.

Prior organizes each chapter around a book that proved especially formative to her experience or that shed light on it in hindsight. To give but a sampling: Milton’s “Aeropagitica” taught her the virtue of “promiscuous reading,” Charlotte’s Web reinforced her love of animals and revealed the power of words, Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles helped her better to understand the grace her grandparents extended to her mother, and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary warned her of the perils of losing herself in books and fantasy. In each case, Prior’s interpretation of these works reveals her sensitivity to and her abiding love of them, and she interweaves the biographical elements smoothly and sensibly.

Prior’s book hit all the right notes for me. There are a few typesetting errors that distracted my attention at times, and Prior’s emphasis on her formation as a Christian may be off-putting or disorienting to some, but her book still earns my warmest recommendation.

View all my reviews

Uncategorized

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (review by Mr. Hurshman, Teacher)

Leave a comment

Jonathan Strange & Mr NorrellJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The action of this lengthy bestseller takes place in the first twenty years of the 19th century, when the two titular characters attempt a revival of magic in the British Isles. After several hundred years of dormancy, “practical magic” is making a comeback—just in time to serve England’s interests in the Napoleonic Wars—but will the resurgence prove a blessing or a curse?

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is the only novel of its kind that I’ve ever encountered—a work at once of fantasy and of historical fiction that nevertheless seeks to replicate the realist style and comic sensibility of authors of the century in which it’s set (think Austen or Thackeray or Dickens). In combining these elements, Clarke carries out a daring experiment that doesn’t really seem as if it should work. But the result is an unexpected alchemical triumph.

I would recommend Clarke’s novel to lovers of fantasy and lovers of 19th-century literature alike, but its ideal audience consists of those who love both. Its greatest pleasures depend on an acquaintance with the historical context that forms its backdrop and with the literary tradition that Clarke mimics and gently parodies.

View all my reviews

Uncategorized

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (review by Lauren L. ’17)

Leave a comment

The Sense of an EndingThe Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Sense of an Ending is a remarkable story spanning forty years stemming from the protagonist’s acquaintance with a man he had known for less than a decade before the man unexpectedly commits suicide. It is blunt in its telling, the protagonist exposing his own ignorance throughout life as well as the many inadvisable decisions he had made and interspersing among them happier memories. It is refreshing to see his joys and regrets, all reluctantly accepted, and they reveal what he truly values in his life. The ending is unexpected and somewhat confusing; however, when the full implications of what had happened are understood, the shock value is enough for the book, and the questions it provokes, to linger in the reader’s mind for days afterward. Though it may not be enjoyable for all, I firmly believe that everyone should at least read the first few pages before deciding definitively whether or not The Sense of an Ending is to their taste. – Lauren L. ’17

View all my reviews

Uncategorized

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (review by Andrew R. ’17)

Leave a comment

David CopperfieldDavid Copperfield by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

According to the introduction to this mainstay of British literature, Tolstoy believed that “if you sift the world’s prose literature, Dickens will remain; sift Dickens, David Copperfield will remain.” What lends David Copperfield its renown and mastery, even among Dickens’s other novels and stories, is the almost unbelievable complexity of its small fifty-character cast, from the ominous, crafty villain Uriah Heep to the protagonist David Copperfield, gallant and righteous despite his crippling naivety. The first third of the novel — which is itself a three-hundred-page section — introduces the major players in Copperfield’s life as he struggles through his childhood, leaving the remainder of the novel to experiment with different mixtures of characters: What happens when the ostentatious pauper Mr. Micawber walks into Heep’s dining room? How will David’s iron stepmother respond when placed in a room with his equally iron great-aunt? The results are often spectacular and always play a role in the larger narrative of David Copperfield’s “personal history.” The humor, symbols, and messages in this novel, still as relevant as they were a century and a half ago, make it worthwhile to any modern reader. – Andrew R. ’17

View all my reviews

Uncategorized

Aunts Aren’t Gentleman b P.G. Wodehouse (review by Andrew R. ’17)

Leave a comment

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (Jeeves, #15)Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves, the heroes of fourteen preceding Jeeves and Wooster novels, find themselves embroiled (as usual) in several ridiculous conflicts, all thanks to the meddling of Bertie’s overbearing Aunt Dahlia (also as usual). Not only does Aunt Dahlia want Bertie to sabotage a horse-race so she can beat her rivals in a bet, she also wants him to kidnap a cad from under the nose of one of his many ex-fiancées, Vanessa Cook—who, incidentally, is currently engaged to a brawny Communist with a violent temper who is all too eager to turn Bertie inside out if he catches him in the same room as his lover. Anyone who’s enjoyed more than one or two Wodehouse novels will have noticed that they all follow the same formula; the author discovered early on that mixing one aunt, one fumbling narrator, two to three marriage proposals, and at least five aggressive, beefy rivals will always result in comedy. But even though Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen is nothing new, it showcases Wodehouse’s signature wit and cheekiness—and, in the end, isn’t that all that really matters in a Jeeves and Wooster novel? – Andrew R. ‘17

View all my reviews