educing Mr Maclean is full of lush descriptions about Lebanese culture, dancing, music, and in particular, food (you’ll be craving hummous, baclava, and halva for weeks after reading it). It is an enjoyable and funny read which touches on an important…
Category: Literary Fiction Reviews
A Review of Eclipse by John Banville
This book, though short, demands slow, close reading. It is a difficult book as much from the artfulness of the author as from the tragic subject. All critics have commented on the beauty of Banville’s writing and this beauty sustains…
A Review of A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
You are never told exactly where in India this novel unfolds, but the city has the feel of Calcutta. It is fascinating to see the main character, Dina, move through disgust at the men who are working for her, tailors,…
A Review of Julian Barnes’ Something to Declare
A Small Flaubertian Moment: A Review of Julian Barnes’ Something to Declare Barnes’ latest work, Something to Declare is non-fiction, a series of eighteen essays collected over twenty years, covering a range of (mainly gallic) subjects from Richard Cobb’s love and disappointment…
A review of Elizabeth Jolley’s An Innocent Gentleman
Is this Nothing: Elizabeth Jolley’s An Innocent Gentleman As a comedy of manners, An Innocent Gentleman makes for a mildly humorous, and easy to read novel; a brief play which is a kind of light farce. As a commentary on…
A Review of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon
When a novelist wins a prestigious literary prize like the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the Pen/Faulkner, it is interesting to glance back at his first novel–first novels, even those praised, so regularly ignored by the public at large–to discover…
A Review of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
If you are interested in the ‘golden age’ of comic books, are of Jewish, Eastern European origin, have some interest in WWII, or are a New Yorker, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay will have a particular resonance for you. Even…
A Review of Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
And there is much in Munro about temporary victories, a sensitive adjustment to the fact that facts, although facts, are not necessarily the last answer. Munro uses her own experiences as child and young woman. In this world her mother…
A Review of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a book of moderate length, Kundera provides a richness of content out of all proportion to its length. He achieves this by a use of narrative loops. These loops cover areas that are approximately the same…
Philomena Van Rijswijk’s The World as a Clockface
Following in the footsteps of the early Carey, Borges, Marquez, de Bernieres, and Fowles, Van Rijswijk uses her knowledge of the sea, and her antipodean base of Tasmania, to create a unique voice, taking the reader on a descriptive journey from the mythical antipodean island state of Esmania, past a small island to the east called Aotearoa, Antartica, Tierra del Feugo, Paraguay, the Cape of Africa, and back to the Antipodean mainland Incognita.