Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
The interwar period spanned from 1918 (the end of World War I) to 1939 (the beginning of World War II, starting with the invasion of Poland). Works of this period deal with a variety of new themes — including the political and social aftermath of WWI, the economic boom of the Roaring Twenties, the economic crash of the Great Depression, the rise of Hollywood, the rise of Communism and Fascism on a world-wide scale, and the changing place of women in the world (suffrage).
You are viewing Interwar reviews.
You can view all other eras/movements, or you can search by language/region, genre, editor/translator, book authors, or year of edition.
As skilled and articulate as this novel is, it’s a difficult read. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the novel is the examination of performance both historically and in terms of the performances characters go through for the sake of saving face, or defending against impending decisions.
Each novel is a different exploration and comment on Irish culture, but each is written in a style that is uniquely O’Brien’s. He has a talent for bitter, scathing satire that sits in the midst of light, often comic prose.
The Middle Parts of Fortune was published anonymously in 1929, only to be censored and re-issued as Her Privates We in 1930. I’m always on the lookout for good fiction around WWI, so I was excited to find this book on one of our trips to a small used bookstore for my birthday a few months ago.
Orwell and the Dispossessed takes the reader beyond 1984 and Animal Farm and emphasizes that Orwell was a diverse and talented writer that had a lot to say and cut the reader to core at the same time as making them think.
The pace is nearly perfect, and the author is a master at giving just enough information and placing clues and events in the right places to keep the reader turning pages.
Claire Boltwood is on such a trip across the country — driving herself and her father from Minneapolis to Seattle in a very nice car on some not very nice roads. Lewis describes not just the scenery but also the reality of flat tires, car repairs, getting stuck in mud, and unpleasant hotels.
What follows is a light-hearted escapade through the tropes and clichés of rural melodramas complete with a happy ending and a lot of jokes at the expense of 1930s high society and their ideas about farming and the poorer classes. This is a review of Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm.
Reading correspondence is not quite the same as reading a novel, obviously, but it can be just as valuable when it comes to understanding a writer, their work, literature of the period, or the general customs of the time period. Writers writing about writing can be a very enlightening read. This is a review of Letters to a Young Poet.
This week I’ve decided to write a double review since both books are by the same authors and both are at least semi-autobiographical. This is a review of two books about the Fitzgeralds: This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned.
There’s been a lot of analysis on the character of Madame Olenska, but in my opinion it’s in the writing of a character like May Welland that truly shows how masterful writing. This is a review of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.
