Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
Books written by British, Irish, and Scottish authors from the United Kingdom. Usually written in English.
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Janet is constantly berated about her awkwardness, her lack of interest in what are considered ‘female’ pursuits, and her love of the natural world. She seeks to define herself according to the person she wants to be, instead of the version of herself that others are trying to mold her into.
I hadn’t heard about Rosemary Tonks until lately when I skimmed part of an article about her in The New Yorker. It wasn’t so much her style or subject matter that drew me to her work. It was the fact that she seemed so dead set on destroying it.
She not only describes depression in a way that goes beyond the hallmark of profound sadness — she also discusses the feelings of being overwhelmed and the incapability of focussing on even simple tasks. She discusses the desire to see life in small objects like birds and flowers when one feels so utterly lifeless themselves.
Taylor’s stories usually take place around the home and centre on domestic issues, but I think that classifying her work as ‘domestic drama’ confers a feeling of banality that is quite unfair.
Diana Athill’s After a Funeral details her experience of being friends with a man who is profoundly destructive both to himself and to everyone around him.
A Pale View of Hills is a short novel — arguably a novella — that centres around a woman named Etsuko who was born in Japan but has ended up in the UK after leaving a marriage behind. Set partially in the present and partially in the past, Etsuko reflects on a friendship she had with a woman named Sachiko.
Gavin Lambert’s
There’s a moment in Sunset Boulevard where William Holden’s character Joe Gillis takes Norma Desmond’s (played by Gloria Swanson) script in his hand. That’s what I was reminded of reading these two novellas.
When I saw Robert Graves’ They Hanged My Saintly Billy and realized that it was a novel about William Palmer case, I leapt at the chance to read it.
Rumpole of the Bailey contains a critique not just of the British legal system, but also of society in the late 1970s, and the collision of the legal and political systems. Sometimes this commentary is insightful, yet sometimes it is cringe-worthy.
