Book Review: Burmese Days by George Orwell

2016 review of a book written

by an author whose family name starts with the letter

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

All my life, I felt bewildered at how disinterested and narrow-minded most people are with regard to other cultures. It always seemed to me as if they put on blinkers out of fear to see that their own way of life, of thinking, of believing wasn’t the most desirable, the most worthwhile, the best after all. I can’t relate to this. I always longed to know what was beyond my own cultural horizon and therefore I like reading books from all corners of the world, be it the original version or a translation. Burmese Days by George Orwell is an English novel through and through, but its protagonist is different from his compatriots who look down on the natives and their ways almost with disgust. Not sharing their views makes him an outsider and terribly lonely until Elizabeth arrives and he feels that she could be the soul mate for whom he has been aching for so long.

Back Reviews Reel: June 2013

In 2013 the month of June had four Fridays to fill with reviews. The four books of my choice were three classics first published between 1929 and 1944 plus one contemporary novel from Germany. The first of the classics was the literary debut of an Austrian writer born under the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph I and temporarily a Czech citizen, i.e. the coming-of-age novel Young Gerber by Friedrich Torberg portraying a student in his final year whom a cruel teacher has sought out to break. As for the other two classics, they are the novellas Passing by Nella Larsen and Red Rose, White Rose by Eileen Chang. While the former deals with Afro-American identity in the USA of the 1920s and the opposite strategies of two relatively light-skinned women to succeed in life, the latter revolves around the love and marriage of a Chinese man between tradition and modernity who expects to be the absolute master of his “little pocket-size world”. I concluded the month with a contemporary novel that reverberates with philosophy as well as Portuguese history and that ranges among my all-time favourites, namely Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier. 

Poetry Revisited: The Sufi in the City by Sir Henry Newbolt

The Sufi in the City

(from The Sailing of the Long-Ships: 1902)

I.
When late I watched the arrows of the sleet
Against the windows of the Tavern beat,
I heard a Rose that murmured from her Pot:
‘Why trudge thy fellows yonder in the Street?

II.
‘Before the phantom of False Morning dies,
Choked in the bitter Net that binds the skies,
Their feet, bemired with Yesterday, set out
For the dark alleys where To-morrow lies.

III.
‘Think you, when all their petals they have bruised,
And all the fragrances of Life confused,
That Night with sweeter rest will comfort these
Than us, who still within the Garden mused?

IV.
‘Think you the Gold they fight for all day long
Is worth the frugal Peace their clamours wrong?
Their Titles, and the Name they toil to build –
Will they outlast the echoes of our Song?’

V.
O Sons of Omar, what shall be the close
Seek not to know, for no man living knows:
But while within your hands the Wine is set
Drink ye – to Omar and the Dreaming Rose!

Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938)
English poet, novelist and historian

Book Review: Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon

2016 review of a book written

by an author whose family name starts with the letter

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Without doubt books shape our idea of the world, notably when this world is separated from us in time or/and space. Unfortunately, everything that a writer evokes is necessarily biased – be it as a result of personal background and convictions or be it simply because of a different point of view. There is much that can make somebody tell a story in one way rather than another without consciously lying! Being the fictionalised biography of the real governess at the Royal Court in Bangkok in the 1860s, Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon is a good example for it. Before writing her best-seller, the author was a Christian missionary in Siam and thus couldn’t but portray Anna Harriette Leonowens as a noble, virtually heaven-sent Englishwoman who brings the blessings of Western civilisation to the savage children of Siam including their King. The episodes from Anna’s life in Bangkok must be seen against this backdrop.

New on Lagraziana's Kalliopeion: Constantinople by Roger Crowley

With thousands of refugees streaming to Europe along with (mostly illegal) immigrants and with terrorism being a futile though popular kind of “battle” preferably used by those who know nothing but violence to make their point, there is much talk about the clash of cultures. The most obvious tensions certainly are between the Christian and the Islamic world, but they didn’t just arise out of the blue. In fact, they date back a very long time and to understand them properly it is essential to know their historical as well as socio-political background. Undoubtedly, one of the key events in Muslim-Christian relations is the end of Christian Byzantium. In his book Constantinople. The Last Great Siege 1453 English writer Roger Crowley paints a vivid picture of the last weeks of the glorious capital of what remained of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.

Read more » (external link)

Poetry Revisited: Faith by Frances Anne Kemble

Faith

(from Poems: 1859)

Better trust all, and be deceived,
And weep that trust, and that deceiving;
Than doubt one heart, that, if believed,
Had blessed one’s life with true believing.

Oh, in this mocking world, too fast
The doubting fiend o’ertakes our youth!
Better be cheated to the last,
Than lose the blessèd hope of truth.

Frances Anne Kemble (1809-1893)
British actress and writer

Book Review: The Monkey Grammarian by Octavio Paz

2016 review of a book written

by an author whose family name starts with the letter

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

When I decided to read and review The Monkey Grammarian by Octavio Paz for Guiltless Reader’s Read the Nobels 2016 challenge, I didn’t quite know what to expect. After all, my main reason to choose the book was that I liked its title and that at first sight it wasn’t poetry like most other works from the pen of this Mexican author that I saw in the bookshop. Having read that the Swedish Academy had honoured him in 1990 with the Nobel Prize in Literature “for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity”, I divined – correctly – that it would be a difficult read that required much attention as well as patience. However, for me this was rather an incentive to read it than a deterrent! As it turns out, the slim book is a highly philosophical exploration of language and grammar inspired by the memories of a visit to the Hindu temples of Galta in Rajastan.