billybookblog

*contains spoilers* More can be understood about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein when one considers the full title of the novel: Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus. Victor Frankenstein travels to the university of Ingolstadt in pursuit of knowledge, and he somehow stumbles upon the power to give life through his pioneering science – a power reserved only for the gods – and he shall be punished for it. Indeed, Shelley is attempting more than just the ghost story that she, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron resolved each to write as a sort of competition on a June night in Switzerland. Mary Shelley had, by the time of writing, lost three of the four children to which she gave birth, and this in no small way contributes to the sense of loss, melancholy and the ponderings on the nature of giving life within the novel. Frankenstein’s monster is at first a creation of curiosity and innovation, though its creation soon becomes a deep regret for Frankenstein – not least because of its size an...

*contains spoilers* There is a profound sense of irony running through Thomas Hardy’s most celebrated work, Jude the Obscure. As our protagonist, Jude Fawley, seeks a higher existence through a determined and self-productive study in Latin and Greek, having witnessed and been inspired by the angelic haze of the lights of Christminster in the distance, he naïvely believes that; “a rule, prescription, or clue of the nature of a secret cipher” would be sufficient to provide him with the tools that would allow him to rapidly master these foreign tongues. He learns otherwise, however, as the acquisition of knowledge requires tireless study and “plodding” – though Jude, with his consistently impressive sense of dedication, pursues. This pursuit, as it happens, is constantly interrupted…by…well, the struggle – and the struggle is long. To begin with, Jude is duped into marriage by the busty and frivolous Arabella, whose pretentious sucking in of the cheeks in order to feign natural and cherub...

*contains spoilers* Spanning the concerns of an array of the good, the bad and the positively evil, Little Dorrit is a novel that addresses the relevance of money, disinterested love, family, sacrifice, politics and industry. We are first presented with the character of Blandois, the assassin who manages to infect the lives of each of the characters who comprise this sprawling narrative, and who speaks in a theatrical and charming manner that both deceives and entrances the recipient. In the beginning (this work of Dickens’s, more than any others of his I have read, is a cornucopia of biblical references), we are presented with the fiendish Blandois, as he explains his qualities to the benign Cavaletto in the prison cell they share in Marseille; “A gentleman I am! And a gentleman live, and a gentleman I’ll die!” (P24) Even as he extols his position and his state, Cavaletto sits in fear and waits out his sentence – and as a chance encounter in an inn in England occurs, Cavaletto flees i...

*contains spoilers* Stephen Wheatley, the narrator of Frayn’s bildungsroman, Spies, embarks on a journey of reminiscence and lamentation of his early years following a nostalgic whiff of “liguster”, later identified as “privet”, on his daughter’s driveway one evening. Now a man of eighty-something, Stephen leaves his homeland of Germany for the Close of his childhood town in England, as he yearns to search for the answers to the questions painfully reawakened by his olfactory senses. Frayn uses Stephen as an unreliable narrator, fluctuating sporadically between Stephen’s past and present self as he reminisces on the events that shaped his transition from naïve innocence to realised maturity. This method of Frayn’s not only effectively accentuates the differences between the two Stephens, it also creates gaps in the plot providing the reader with further unanswered questions, creating a sense of tension and growing interest as Stephen’s memories are broken, realised, questioned, reconsi...

*contains spoilers* Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a novel of fate, chance and expectations that lead to tragedy rather than prosperity. When the family horse is fatally wounded in an accident, Tess is forced to take charge of the family duties in lieu of her ill father, and so she reaches out to the more notable Stoke-d’Urbervilles for help; “the wrong man the wrong woman, the wrong woman the wrong man,” (P65) There, at The Slopes, Tess meets and ends up working for Alec Stoke-d'Urberville, the man who would later come to seduce, manipulate and abuse her, leaving her with a child, Sorrow, who passes not long after birth. Later, as Tess wishes to discreetly reveal her forced but shameful indiscretion to Angel Clare, the man who she loves and the man to whom she truly devotes herself, her note slips not only under the door of his apartment but also under the carpet, so that Angel is made aware of her secret much too late; “’O Tess! If you had only told me sooner, I woul...