Middlemarch ~ George Eliot

Cover Illustration shows the
birthplace of George Eliot

It’s rare to read a novel where the characters are so richly imagined, and the progression in their lives so well documented.  Even the minor characters are fully embodied.

Set during a period of three years and ending just prior to the first reform Bill in 1832 we meet and grow to love the inhabitants of Middlemarch.  From the well to do Brookes' and the manufacturing Vincy’s to the working class Garth's.

This provincial town isn’t without its gossip, scandals and dogmatic principals and moving forward with the times can be a little difficult as the new age Dr Lydegate finds out to his peril when he moves to Middlemarch in 1829 (the year the novel opens).

The story is told mainly through the lives of Dorothea Brookes and Tertius Lydegate, and they both have a common story in that both have marriages that do not fulfil the ideal and both want to do so much more than they are able to.

This novel is also a political statement of the times, and it would be recommended to research a little on the political environment leading up to the Reform Bill.  However, I found the biggest message in Middlemarch was how important it is for someone to have something to do and a goal to reach for especially when it relates to the betterment of people other than yourself; I don’t think that Eliot would have had much respect for the idle rich. 

Don’t pick up this book if you are after a light read, but if you enjoy immersing yourself into a novel and enjoy full characterisations that grow and develop as one does in real life then I can fully recommend Middlemarch.

Violent Exposure ~ Katherine Howell

What starts out as an apparent domestic abuse case turns into something much much more.

Howell has crafted a pretty good mystery revolving around the paramedics who attend the initial domestic abuse case to the detectives who attend the subsequent murder.  The prime suspect, the victim’s husband, is not who he seems to be and the detectives find the leads take some unexpected turns.

I liked the snappy dialogue, and the banter between the work colleagues  The paramedic scenes were very realistic and obviously drawn from experience, but the story involving the suspect I found a little hard to believe. 

Having been bogged down with some heavy Classics lately, I found this was a quick enjoyable read.

This novel is Howell’s fourth and although it is good as a stand alone read, you would benefit from reading Frantic first.

The Celtic Dagger ~ Jill Paterson

An eminent University Professor is murdered with an antique Celtic Dagger and with the Professor’s brother James Wearing being prime suspect, the race is on to clear his name. The premise is intriguing but Jill Paterson has presented us with a murder mystery which unfortunately does not deliver. 

The plot itself is workable, but each plot pointer is only briefly touched upon, leaving the reader with no sense of anticipation or drama. The third person narrator is used like a bad director and even worse ‘he’ tells the story and ‘his’ delivery would make Ed Wood proud. Any story is better told via character dialogue, which in turn develops the character; you then get into the characters head and you begin to care about them. The narrator should just gently steer you into each scene. The characters in The Celtic Dagger are one dimensional, and I also had trouble with their names which caused me to recap several times to confirm who I was reading about. 

The narration and dialogue is very stilted and I have now developed an aversion to the phrase “At that moment” along with its variation “At that same moment”. I was starting to shriek every time it was used, which was just about every other page.

There were two scenes that could have contained heightened drama: The Cliff Scene and The Stairwell Scene. But, again they are brushed over with a few lines and then the narrator switches us over to a new scene. I have read short stories that have got my heart pounding and Jill Paterson could have done so much more here to create some excitement level; the lack of it really affected my reading experience.

The love interest concerning the Inspector could have been expounded towards the end, I thought it was a nice touch, although Wearing’s imminent romance was a little corny (but I’m not much of a romantic) and as the novel is set in Australia I would have liked to have had more back story to the locations involved. The characters travel around a bit and if you are not familiar with the area it is very hard to visualise.

In summary, the ideas are there, but the author’s writing skills definitely need some work.

The Idiot ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot is a Prince Myshkin who suffers from epilepsy where he has had it treated in Switzerland.  Returning to St. Petersburg he contacts a distant relative of his - a Princess Myshkin – she was my favourite character, she's very eccentric and has some of the best lines in the novel.

The princess has three daughters the youngest of whom falls in love with Myshkin, but she treats him quite strangley – leaving his feelings dangling much of the time.  Myshkin on the other hand, does love Aglaya but he wants to save Nastassya (a fallen women) and marry her instead to do her a kindness by bringing her to respectability.  But, Nastassya feels that she doesn't deserve his kindness, and wants to be with the dark and moody Rogozhin who truly loves her.  Rogozhin and Myshkin had first met on the train going to St. Petersberg at the beginning of the novel and they commence a dangerous and jealous friendship, with Nastassya being between the two of them.  No-one will win.

The theme is mainly light and dark (Myshkin and Rogozhin) – Christ & the Devil.  Myshkin is benevolent, makes friends easily and takes everything in his stride, but Rogozhin is jealous and will resort to murder. 

There are some very profound moments in the narrative.  One being the description of a man’s feelings whilst waiting to be executed – these are clearly autobiographical and chilling.  The other was a suicide note written by the consumptive Hyppolite and read by Myshkin. 

The tale was unusual, the characters strange, but you are drawn into their world by Doestoevsky’s brilliant writing.  I re-read the last few chapters several times as I did not want to say goodbye to them.

Carry Me Down ~ M J Hyland

This was a novel that I had picked up off the library shelf many times then put it back because I’d not heard of MJ Hyland.

Then I played a website game by Penguin Books and saw that one of the listed books was How the Light Gets In by MJ Hyland.  This sparked my interest.  Finally, I downloaded it on Media Overdrive and found I couldn’t put it down.

Carry me Down is an extremely compelling story.  It is narrated by a boy called John Egan who is Irish, 11 years old (going on 12) but with the body and voice of a man.  John has many issues and these are cleverly exposed throughout the storyline by showing us his lack of emotion and dis-associative behaviours.

John is very sensitive to reading the emotions of those close to him however, which leads him to recognise when they are lying to him.  He gets very angry when he spots a lie, yet through the story he himself tells many.

Convinced that he is a human lie detector he keeps a book he calls the ‘Gol of Seil’ (Log of Lies) and writes to the Guinness Book of Records requesting a chance to prove his talents.

As family life begins to disintegrate around him, John finds himself more alone than ever.  His father is unreliable and his mother has begun to distance herself from her son.  He has no-one to rely on or trust.

There are some very sinister overtones with human understones here, and you wonder ‘how will it end?’. Especially when John tries to smother his mother with a pillow in order to help her sleep!  We find out that John is to enter six months of therapy with a Psychiatrist but that’s it.  The ending was a great disappointment to an extremely vivid characterisation of a boy you won’t forget in a hurry.

The Trial ~ Franz Kafka

This is a nightmare world, where a 30 year old man, Josef K. is arrested and put on trial for a crime of which he is oblivious, his is not told what the charges are, and he has no idea who brought the charges against him.

Free to carry on with his life, but with the threat of the imminent trial, K. seeks help from a gravely ill lawyer and is given advice on the legal system by a painter known as Titorelli. 

K. is a senior bank clerk, but he finds that as he spends more time trying to get helpfor his case, his co-workers are beginning to undermine him.

Towards the end of the story he is duped into going to a cathedral where a priest who is part of the prison system has been waiting for him.  There they discuss the faceless/nameless system and the Priest tells a parable about the law, which was published on it’s own as ‘Before the Law’.

K. comes to a sad end, but as Kafka died before completing the novel who knows what the true ending would have been?

Bizarre and haunting.  I really liked it.

Thank You, Jeeves! ~ P G Wodehouse

Another delightful story where Bertie Wilberforce Wooster finds himself in a precarious situation and is in need of being bailed out by his valet Jeeves.

In this story Jeeves has actually left Bertie for employment elsewhere as he sick of Berties incessant playing of the banjolele.  This however does not prevent his expertise from being utilised – Jeeves is hired by the landlord of the cottage that Bertie has moved into after complaints about his playing from his city neighbours.    

Unfortunately if you add a drunken new Valet, a lovesick American heiress and some roaming minstrels into the mix - Berties bound to get into trouble!

This is laugh out loud stuff and I loved it.