Beyond the simple tale of Lauren Hartke and her grief, DeLillo’s short novel provides the reader with a mirror, showing us how flimsy our self-assurances of solidity, how delicate our mind and bodies, how easily undone and yet how beautiful…
Tag: literary fiction
A review of Julian Barnes’ Love, Etc
The book is an easy read, and appears to be a simple, light story of love and betrayal, but on closer reading and reflection, it is much more sinister, where the truth shifts, meaning distorts and ultimately the reader’s own sense of meaning is challenged in a very Pinteresque, post-modern way. The main characters are unreliable, with Stuart and Oliver showing their insecurities and failings and Gillian changing her story quite dramatically at times. Are the characters grappling with love, or is it hatred; desire for closeness, warmth and meaning, or just power?
A review of Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh
Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh is a heady, sensual, wordy, moving, funny, wonderful book. It does for the English language what Joyce’s Ulysses did over a century ago, expanding our vocabulary and consequently our ability to perceive and describe the world and ourselves.
Hero of the Word: Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang
Hero of the Word: Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang Carey’s Kelly is hero of the word. Like his other famous characters, Illywacker Badgery, Jack Maggs, Tristan Smith, Oscar, and Harry Joy, their need get the story out…
Plucking at our World: David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon
Remembering Babylon is a wonderful book. Malouf’s rich prose, which at times approaches poetry, creates a believable and fascinating lead character in Gemmy, a white man who was raised from boyhood by aborigines who found him nearly drowned after being…