Student Reviews
Kevin Childs, studied English at University of Leicester
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus has not only stood the test of time, but has become a modern day myth that is forever evolving in the world of popular culture. Aside from the Hollywood spin-offs it has been used to describe capitalism, food and human cloning. The recent theatre adaption of the novel by Danny Boyle once more resurrects the myth of Frankenstein and returns the story to its original source and power. Even now nearly two hundred years since initial publication, the novel Mary Shelley penned as a teenager, still captivates and enthrals its readers, and with each generation cements its reputation as a classic.
Read the rest of the Frankenstein review.
Recent Reviews
Emily Ennis, Third Year English Student, The University of Leeds
Having always been a fan of Henry James after picking up The Turn of the Screw a few years ago, when I was afforded the chance to read his novella Daisy Miller I was very excited. Within a very short sixty pages Mr. James manages to take you into the world of the American abroad and explore the sexual morals of the burgeoning nouveau riche.
Read the rest of the Daisy Miller review.
Maybelle Law, studying at University of Nottingham
Despite first reading Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby many years ago, it still remains a literary masterpiece that never fails to illuminate my childhood fantasies. The novel instantly transports you into the opulent and dazzling maze that is 1920's New York. Fitzgerald's lavish soirees of high society vicariously leave you with cigarette smoke entangled in the hair and the taste of champagne in your mouth.
Read the rest of The Great Gatsby review.
Ruth Mattock, 3rd year English student at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
James Fenimore Cooper’s American classic gathers about a small group of great and honest men in their efforts to protect the daughters of Lieutenant Colonel Munro during the Seven Years War (1756-63). Based around the historical events of 1757, the novel tracks Cora and Alice Munro with their companions Major Heyward and David the psalmodist...
Read the rest of The Last of the Mohicans review..
The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved and The Well-Beloved
Kimberley Chen, studied at Queen Mary University of London
Thomas Hardy has created two excellent versions of the story in which Jocelyn Pierston consistently fails in his attempts to seek his absolute ideal woman in The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved and The Well-Beloved. This review however will specifically focus on Hardy’s The Well-Beloved
Read the rest of The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved and The Well-Beloved review.
Aaron Camm, University of Essex
'I long to reach my home and see the day of my return. It is my never-failing wish'
The Odyssey is one of those magical texts that changes every time you read it. I pour myself into the timeless epic on a fairly regular basis and each reading is never quite the same. At first I put this down to multiple translators, which can impact any story severely, but after reading E. V. Rieu's celebrated translation in its entirety for the second time, I realised that this was not the case.
Read the rest of The Odyssey review.
The Death of King Arthur
James Hobson, Cardiff University
This book is one of those rare treats that are seldom released twice in a decade. Every now and again there is released a volume that manages to exist as a very special example of storytelling and as a kind of linguistic milestone, that stands to celebrate everything that is good about our language.
Read the rest of The Death of King Arthur review.
The Turn of the Screw
Rebecca MacNaughton studying at the UEA
Never has a novel seemed so aptly named as Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw, a ghost story so delicately and skilfully spun it cannot fail to leave you breathless. Although rich in layered narratives, at the forefront lies a story about a young governess delegated the care of two infant children.
Read the rest of The Turn of the Screw review
Jude the Obscure
Kimberley Chen, studied at Queen Mary University of London
‘This weakness of character, as it maybe called, suggested that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life’
Thomas Hardy’s novel, Jude the Obscure, caused an immense deal of outrage upon its publication in 1895. One such passionate reaction to the novel was from a bishop who resorted to igniting the book in flames.Read the rest of the Jude the Obscure review.
The War of the Worlds
James Hobson, Cardiff University
…a review on why we shouldn’t let this work sink into the digital mire…
Few books ever written in human existence quite sum up the human presence on this planet, free of bias and religion, quite like H.G. Wells’ seminal classic ‘War of the Worlds’ does. This book is one of the pillars that hold up the temple of literature written over the last few centuries. It, needless to say, is a classic.
Read the rest of The War of the Worlds review.
The Gambler
Liam Hoare, Royal Holloway, University of London
“Dostoyevsky is immortal!”
- Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
At the height of European Romanticism, the novels of Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky held domain over the nineteenth century literary scene, in a manner similar to the emergence of Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald during the United States’ economic boom and bust. Their classics including Dead Souls and Anna Karenina very much evoked the essence of folkloric Mother Russia. In this era, she was evidently experiencing her cultural zenith.
Read the rest of The Gambler review.
Flappers and Philosophers
Madeleine Stottor, Nonsuch High School for Girls
Love, money, youth and success: these are the themes which dominate Fitzgerald’s prose. ‘Flappers and Philosophers’ comprises forty-five of his short stories and spans the entirety of his dramatic twenty year career. Although it is novels like ‘The Great Gatsby’ which have ensured his fame, Fitzgerald’s short stories are no less readable, entertaining, tragic or beautiful.
Read the rest of the Flappers and Philosophers review.
We The Living
Andrea Baltrus, studied English Literature at NUI Galway in Ireland
Ayn Rand's "We The Living" resonates with the sound of the human spirit fighting not only a political movement but a moral one as well. Rand's writing of the former Soviet Republic during the Russian Revolution creates a sense of the environment of the times. Her passages reveal more about the events that happened but also create a sense of her characters in the most stressful of situations.
Read the rest of the We The Living review.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Christopher Turner, University of Bath Spa
Apart from knowing that 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' had originally been penned by Fitzgerald before being made into a multi million dollar movie, I had heard little about the existence of these short stories. Indeed the short story was something that I had rarely come across since the fairytales I was read as a child.
Read the rest of the Tess of the D'Urbervilles review
Flappers and Philosophers
Lucy Bowes, Durham University
Apart from knowing that 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' had originally been penned by Fitzgerald before being made into a multi million dollar movie, I had heard little about the existence of these short stories. Indeed the short story was something that I had rarely come across since the fairytales I was read as a child.
Read the rest of the Flappers and Philosophers review.
The Bronte Sisters-Three novels
Khadija Paruk, University of Birmingham
Meet the Bells, the name used by the Bronte sisters to enable them to publish in the Victorian era, a world we can enter through these enlightening novels: Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) and Agnes Grey (Anne Bronte). Every novel represents the precociousness of class at varying levels, a direct experience of the Brontes who were neither servants nor part of the gentry as represented by the characters Jane, Agnes and Heathcliff. However each book differs and has originality that combines with this precociousness leading to different outcomes and compelling narratives.
Read the rest of The Bronte Sisters-Three novels review
Jane Eyre
Kimberley Chen, studied at Queen Mary University of London
A little orphan girl, Jane Eyre, is thrust into the ghastly red-room by her malicious aunt; it is a room where a horrifying unearthly visitor flits across its tired opulence. This is one of the many and various trials Jane is constantly confronted with throughout her early childhood years and her early adulthood. Her trials ranges from those who attempt to pulverise her spirit to the difficult decisions she is forced to make.
Read the rest of the Jane Eyre review.
Heart of Darkness
Lucy Bowes, Durham University
Conrad's Heart of Darkness speaks of Marlow's journeys deep into the heart of the Congo in search of the mysterious Kurtz. Not only does his novel speak of the horrors of the colonial rule in the Belgian Congo and its futile intent, but in a more symbolic way of the human condition.
Read the rest of the Heart of Darkness review.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Liam Hoare, Royal Holloway, University of London
The twentieth century can best be characterised as a one-hundred year-long debate – punctuated frequently by fissures and eruptions of violent conflict – over the relationship between the state, society and the individual. To that extent, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four must be the core of the anti-totalitarian argument. Christopher Hitchens triumphantly asserts in Why Orwell Matters that on the three great questions of the era – imperialism, fascism, communism – Orwell was right, and certainly his masterful critique of the unchecked power of the state remains unsurpassed
Read the rest of the Nineteen Eighty-Four review.
Crime and Punishment
Christopher Turner, University of Bath Spa
What happens when a person lives in a world void of morality? Thus embarks the exploration of one of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's greatest novels, Crime and Punishment. Amidst the impoverished and grim streets of St Petersburg an ex-student, Raskolnikov, strolls contemplating the murderous deed he intends to commit. Imagining himself a man in the league of Napoleon, a man with enough psychological stamina to overcome such a deed, he brutally murders his moneylender. However, when the authorities begin their investigation and assumptions collapse Raskolnikov's conscience begins shrouds him in a darkness almost inescapable. Crime and Punishment is not a conventional detective or murder mystery novel. Rather it is an acute and subtle psychological study which encompasses elements of unbearable tension, page-turning addictiveness and intrigue.
Read the rest of the Crime and Punishment review.
Nausea
James Hobson, writes a short story having been inspired by Nausea.
It sits there, in the smoking area on a wooden bench, smoking and reading. It knows that others can see it is reading, it bows its head and reads, closing itself off from all possible conversation. It knows that it sits that way for privacy, to carry on reading undisturbed. The words, and the images the words create, dance through its mind, an effect books are supposed to cause, but it thinks that the one thing it would hate is for someone unfamiliar to walk over and ask about the book it is reading. It doesn't want people to know that it is reading a book on the perils and arbitrariness of existence, because it doesn't want to seem snobby. It would rather educate itself in complete privacy. But then again, part of it knows that things, (humans) most of the time do things in order to be seen doing things. It hates this fact, but a fact it is. It is true...
Read the rest of James Hobson's short story.
Proud to be Mammal
Andrea Baltrus, studied English Literature at NUI Galway in Ireland
Proud to be a Mammal is a collection of essays by Czeslaw Milosz, a writer who was Lithuanian born and of Polish descent. Milosz's writing is very powerful and quite disturbing at times as he recollects the beginnings of the Soviet Union and the eventual consequences of these actions on the Baltic States and Poland.
Read the rest of the Proud to be Mammal review.
Madame Bovary
Madeleine Stottor, Nonsuch High School for Girls
In Flaubert's crushing study of nineteenth century provincial life, the young Emma Rouault is seduced by the novels she reads into a stultifying marriage with Charles Bovary, seeking her very own fairytale ending. As this eludes her time and time again, she rejects the unconditional devotion of her husband and her daughter for adulterous love affairs. Relishing in her deceit, Emma is an emotional, unpredictable and sometimes violent character, whose flaws make her simultaneously realistic and fantastic. The reader's sympathy for the amoral and selfish heroine waxes and wanes as frequently as her attention and affection.
Read the rest of the Madame Bovary review.
If I Die Before I Wake
Samantha Green, Edinburgh University
If I Die Before I Wake, by Sherwood King, is a book full of twists and turns, punctuated by gunshots and betrayals. It is a book in which the reader cannot know who to trust. The narrator, an ex-sailor turned chauffeur, becomes wrapped up in a murder plot between his boss and his boss' partner. Laurence Planter is a dreamer, and all it takes is a small monetary offer for him to become irrevocably entrenched in the dealings of his employers. Simultaneously, he cannot get his mind off of his boss' wife, Elsa, who is years too young for her husband and too beautiful by far. Enchanted by her, Laurence makes decisions that will affect the rest of his life.
Read the rest of the If I Die Before I Wake review.
Dracula
Andrea Baltrus, studied English Literature at NUI Galway in Ireland
Dracula is a gothic mix of superstition, eerie occurrences and underlying fear of the unknown. Bram Stoker has created a masterpiece of horror with his exemplary tale of the nefarious character of Dracula. Stoker’s descriptive writing gives not only a sense of place and time but allows the reader to feel the fear and loathing that Dracula encompasses. There is a deep veneration of things that cannot be explained as well as respect for a higher power to attempt to protect from evil.
Read the rest of the Dracula review
The Feminine Mystique
Niamh Brown, Exeter University
Betty Friedan’s seminal feminist text is an eloquently argued criticism of the role which American women in the fifties and sixties were expected to take – the ‘feminine mystique’, as well as a condemnation of the scholars, magazine editors and advertising executives who created the stereotype of the ‘ideal’ woman. The book investigates ‘the problem that has no name’ – the repression and frustration of American housewives, surrounded by material status symbols and living vicariously through their husband and children, who were told they had everything they could ever want but are inexplicably depressed.
Read the rest of The Feminine Mystique review.
Inspirations
Samantha Greene, Edinburgh University
Paulo Coelho begins Inspirations by defining an anthology as coming from the Greek for flower-gathering, or bouquet of flowers. One picks flowers for a bouquet based upon a variety of things, but no one flower can outshine the rest because the beauty of a bouquet is in the whole; thus for anthologies, the pieces should be picked for their value as a whole rather than for their sheer impact. Coelho succeeds in creating a flow of pieces that become more and more powerful as one reads them together. Splitting the book into four sections based upon the elements, Coelho gives the reader glimpses into various worlds.
Read the rest of the Inspirations review.
Alone in Berlin
Imogen Ashfield, Edinburgh University
Alone in Berlin does not place its attention on the dates, figures and events of political history during the Second World War but on the lives of ordinary citizens and their tribulations and hardships living under the Nazi regime in Berlin. Particular focus is on the interplay of characters surrounding one small but defiant campaign. Following their son's death at the front, Otto and Anna Quangel wrote hundreds of postcards declaring their disgust and protest against the horror going on around them and against a state operating through surveillance, interrogation and, often, false confession. Their postcards led to an agitated response from the Gestapo that involved ruthless investigation, in which everyone was a suspect and innocents were tragically pursued.
Read the rest of the Alone in Berlin review.
The Woman in White
Niamh Brown, Exeter University
One of Wilkie Collins' best-known novels, The Woman in White is a riveting combination of mystery, thriller and social commentary. A chance encounter with a mysterious, gentle escapee from a mental asylum has massive consequences for art tutor Walter Hartright and two of his pupils. The secret of the woman in white casts aspersions upon Sir Percival Glyde, the fiancée of Hartright's beloved student Laura Fairlie, which leads to a chain of events both shocking and sinister and threatens the well-being of Laura and her sister.
Read the rest of The Woman in White review.
