Brighton Rock

Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, is a definite thriller, a classical struggle between good and evil. When looking for a picture, I discovered that it was actually made into a film. I'm not surprised, it has everything a good movie needs. Violence, sex, suspense, a struggle between good and evil, and to some extent romance.

Greene's characters all seem to be different: Pinkie is the troubled gangster, Ida is the justice seeking prostitute, and Rose is the naive girl full of dreams. But one thing that all of the characters seem to share is their inability to change. Each character is exactly the same when the novel ends as when it begins. Did they learn anything? Do we, as the reader, really want these characters to be any different? We seem to be satisfied with the outcome. Sometimes in a chaotic world where nothing is black and white, it is nice to slip into a fictional novel where everything is. But maybe that is some of what Greene is trying to say to his audience. Here are these characters who are so cut and dry and unchanging that we love to love them and love to hate them. We are comforted by the thought good will always prevail and evil will always lose. We don't like to see our bad guys with a glimmer of niceness in them. And as far as the good guys go - as long as they are doing good we are willing to overlook some of the shadier things they have done in their life. Is that sick or what? In same ways it makes us, as the audience/reader, just as bad as the bad guy - we live for the demise of another human being and we are unwilling to give that person a chance. Sad.

Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh's, A Handful of Dust, is one of my favorite novels read for this class. It has everything a reader might want: comedy, tragedy, irony, and reality. the circumstances are predictable and yet completely off the wall, that you are looking at the cover making sure you're still reading the same book.

Waugh makes a definite statement about holding on to the past. How many of us go through life always looking behind us and comparing what once was to what is? I know I do, sometimes. And it can be the most trivial and vain thing that I'm comparing.

What is it in human nature that makes us so desperate to hold on? Why are we afraid of change? Change is inevitable. We really have no choice in the matter. If we continue to go through life holding on the past, one day we will look down and find that our empire is nothing more than "a handful of dust" with no value and even less importance. It's sad, but true. Sometimes to survive you must change.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

It's that time of the semester again. I feel like I've been pulled in a million different directions this past week, and so far this week isn't going any better.

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawerence was what the title said it would be about - Lady Chatterley and her lover. I don't know what I thought about the novel, because I'm still trying to decide if I like it.

One thing I have noticed about the majority of the books we have read in this class (with the exception of maybe one or two) is that English women are often portrayed as unfaithful. I'm beginning to wonder if this is the way all English women are? (Oh wait, Florence from The Good Soldier was American, so I guess she doesn't apply). The unfaithful wife does seem to be a recurring theme. I guess when you get right to it, sex in general seems to be a recurring subject. Oh well, it definitly makes the book more interesting.

A Passage to India

A Passage To India says a lot about human perceptions. How often do we encounter someone on the street, in a store, anywhere really, and assume we are better than them just because they look a certain way? No one can say they haven't done it, because it is part of human nature. We judge others because somehow it makes us feel better about ourselves.

The British judged the Indians just because they felt they were superior. And in return some of the Indians judged the British. It is impossible to believe that one is better than the other for the reader. The reader gets to see both sides. There are some British who take the time to appreciate and respect the Indian culture and then there are some Indians who go to great lengths to shed the image created by their forefathers. Is it possible for these two cultures to exist without prejudice?

Mrs. Dalloway

What is Virginia Woolf saying? There is a definite statement being made about English society and the changing times. The society of Clarissa Dalloway married for comfort. They dress in fine gowns. Throw extravagant parties for the rich. And find it important to suck up to royalty. The era of Septimus and Elizabeth find these things silly and unimportant. To them these little things in life mean nothing. Elizabeth would rather not worry about what kind of clothes she is wearing. She would rather be in the country. Septimus finds that society has disappointed him. He is left hanging with no one to help him. Being at a lost, he gives his wife a happy memory and then ends his life. For him death was the solution.

Mrs. Dalloway is one of those novels that makes you think. (Truly the best kind.) I find myself thinking about life, love, death, and the things I find important. What is it that I can learn from the characters?...I don't know yet, but I know that the decisions I make now will impact my future. Do I want to be like Mrs. Dalloway, marry a man who will give me the everyday, go through life never experiencing excitement? Do I want to be like Rezia, who married a man who she thought would give her the fairy tale life, only to be disappointed and have it all end in death? Or there is young Elizabeth, who doesn't know what she wants, but does know she wishes to be left alone and not be compared to any sort of blossoming flower. Life is a gamble - you never know how it will turn out until the end.

The Good Soldier

Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier is a novel which shows the complexities in personality. The novel has a character to fulfill every personality type: the sentimental, the dominating, the gullible, the dramatic, and the oblivious. The characters work together to create a novel that entices the reader. Ford uses an oblivious narrator to tell us a story about love. But the amazing thing is, is that the novel is so much more than a love story. The reader finds that while all the characters seem to have the same motivation, to find love, that none of them ever really do. Well, I guess some do but they don’t get to experience any of the pleasures of being in love with someone.

Edward, the sentimental character, goes through his short life feeling guilty for his infidelities. When he does find love at the end of the story, he chooses to ignore his emotions and drowns himself in liquor and then suicide. He has so cleverly created a fake façade that the world surrounding him believes that he can do no wrong.

Lenora, the dominating character, spends her life ruling over her husband. She takes it upon herself to ensure Edward doesn’t screw up. But by doing so she takes away her chances of ever getting what she wants, for him to love her. As long as she goes through life fixing his mistakes she never gives him the opportunity to help her and that is all he wants to do.

Nancy, the gullible character, takes what her aunt tells her as the truth. By allowing herself to be bullied, she gives up on happiness. I don’t object to someone having faith and standing by that faith, but I do think that sometimes in life you must hold on tight to the things that are important to you. Nancy allows Lenora to use her faith against to persuade her to do what she wants.

Florence, the dramatic character, wants the world to focus on her. Like Lenora, she bends every situation to get what she wants. She fakes a heart condition to ensure she never has to consummate her marriage. The condition also works well, to ensure that she has a constant servant willing to do anything to keep her poor frail heart beating. And her death is a production fitting of any soap opera.

Finally, we get to the oblivious character, John Dowell. Our unreliable narrator tells a story about betrayal, love, and loss. But the reader can’t help but see the faults not only in his story but in him as a character. Is it possible that a man can be married to a woman for nearly ten years and not recognize the fact that she’s sleeping with other men?

I know I’ve made Ford’s story out to be a modern type of soap opera, but the novel is so intriguing. I couldn’t help but turn the pages. It was one of the better novels I’ve had to read for a school course.

A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Why did James Joyce write A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man? While reading this novel I kept on asking myself this question. Is there a point to this novel? Was Joyce really just using this novel as a way to write about himself and his struggles as a child? Or was it something more deep?

By the end of the story, I’ve come to the conclusion that while, there might be some similarities between Stephen and Joyce himself, the novel makes a lot of comments on the Catholic Church and Ireland. I think one of the main reasons I think this is because he chose to include Charles Parnell and in the first chapter he makes references to the English War of the Roses. These few historical events give evidence that a much deeper statement is being made.

As I mentioned in one of my post for the class, the character of Stephen never seems to be able to find a center. He goes against the church during some periods in his life and during others he feels he has to be a devout Catholic. During some periods of his life he feels he has to follow his father’s rule and be one of the boys at school and during others he seems to not really care what they think. Like Joyce and Parnell, who was an Irish radical but a devout Catholic, who abhorred everything English but had a love affair with an English woman, Stephen seems to just be drifting through life, always content to never commit to one thing.