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Elizabeth Bowen

This often qidely known but often misunderstood quote is in relation to one of the novel's chief characters, Nastassya Filippovna.

"So, you appreciate that kind of beauty?" she asks the...

Not dead - there are some fine contempory writers; Margaret Atwood, J.M. Coatzee, William Gibson, Natsuo Kirino...don't forget that there was a time when all 'novels' were viewed a trashy...

But certainly not as death-obsessed as Plath, Dickinson or Poe?

Thank you for your posts, Miyako. They are brimming with insights. Evidently, you have worked very hard on your English. You speak it better than some native speakers I know.

Here in Ireland, it's...

Not all of these are the most 'famous' names in literature, but they burrow into the memory and never leave;

Mary Poppins
Titus Groan
Raskolnikov
Frankenstein (despite the average person...

Does anyone else find the prose of Kazuo Ishiguro to be juvenile, weak in tone and dull in texture? I can't read his works. I will not read his works!

I live in Ireland myself. Sorry to say I've never heard of a poetry scholarship being awarded to anyone, and i doubt one exists. Ireland is pitiable when it comes to scholarships compared with...

'Villianiny' will never die in literature. It's not something that encourages cardboard characters...a well written villain goes a long way, often revealing the failings of the so called 'good'...

The Woman in The Dunes (Suna no Onna) by Kobo Abe.
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen.

Both are acclaimed works. The former is a japanese classic, the latter promises some kind of...

My biggest prejudices are the commonest. I'm very elitist, so if a work isn't a classic, or has failed to make a critical impression, I approach it with caution. This makes reading the Fantasy genre...

Like most of Murakami's narrators, Toru is wishy-washy, and lacks any real convictions. Still, a stellar work, but far from his best. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a better example of Murakami's...

Yes, question the narrator...question that ugly, unreliable narrator as if he were Raskolikov. He is NOT to be trusted.

My favourite character by far was Reverend Mother. She made this book.

The Magus by John Fowles. Having read The Collector in a single day, I devoured The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Ebony tower with equal zeal. So, yeah...my expectations were kind of great...
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There's a lot of 'subconscious' turmoil in Macbeth, particularly Lady Macbeth's mental collapse. Shakespeare isn't even subtle in that respect; her guilt emerges as she sleeps. You could argue that...

I'm going to throw this out there, so don't shoot me for it, but wasn't Lennon's murderer inspired by The Catcher In The Rye? All the more reason to dump on that loathsome, whiny, vastly overrated...

Push by Sapphire and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath ooze female suffering...