Beyond the Letters

With Ray you never know what is real and what is imagined. This was supposed to be an autobiographical novel but Bradbury always leaves space for magic in his works, so the reader now is able to enjoy a good piece of fiction with autobiographical notes in it. “Green Shadows, White Whale” partially consists of stories reprinted from other collections, like “The Haunting of the New”, “The Beggar on O'Connell Bridge” or “Banshee” , and partially of new sketches describing the time Ray Bradbury spent in Ireland in 1953 when John Huston, a famous Hollywood director, invited him to work at the script for the screen version of Melville’s “Moby Dick” . For more than six months the White Whale has become a daily companion for the writer and a ticket to the country that he would favour for the rest of his life. “There is no figuring us,” said Finn. “We Irish are as deep as the sea and as broad. Quicksilver one moment. Clubfooted the next.” Ireland is a land of contrast an...

Our century is marked by increasing tolerance to diversity, which makes me feel very optimistic about the future, and although the problem of tolerance is still very topical and notable and I’m not sure it could ever be solved once and for all, the changes in this sphere are very visible. One thing we all need to learn is to accept and communicate with people who have certain mental conditions and here the books like “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” are highly helpful. If we compare the images of such people in modern novels and in the works of previous centuries, we can notice that the focus has obviously shifted. For instance, in Victorian age people with mental disorders were described mainly in a gloomy key and appeared to create gothic atmosphere or contrast the positive character (let’s remember the infamous wife of Mr. Rochester in “Jane Eyre” or “The Secret of Lady Audley”). This happened due to the lack of understanding of the problem and slow development...

Virginia Woolf is very difficult to write about.  She was an innovator of her time and like many modernists was very decisive in breaking all connections with the traditional form of a novel. Therefore unusual plot structure, stream of consciousness technique and excessive expressionism that are only several unconventional features of “Jacob’s room”. After an outrage of emotion, which any book of Virginia is, one longs for something more rational and systematic so I decided to present this review in several key points. The form “The march that the mind keeps beneath the windows of others is queer enough. Now distracted by brown panelling; now by a fern in a pot; here improvising a few phrases to dance with the barrel-organ; again snatching a detached gaiety from a drunken man; then altogether absorbed by words the poor shout across the street at each other (so outright, so lusty)—yet all the while having for centre, for magnet, a young man alone in his room.” Stream o...

In Bradbury’s galaxy no world  shines brighter than the fourth  planet from the sun. Composition It is rather difficult to define the genre of “The Martian Chronicles”, perhaps, the most appropriate term for it is novel in short stories. The text of the Chronicles consists of two different types of stories – the main short stories that make up the major plot line of the work and something similar to intermezzi intervening with them. The latter are short, mostly plotless, sketches, which help the author to create the necessary atmosphere and the sense of a measured time flow, sometimes to describe the culture of Mars, but more often to show the interaction of Earthlings and Martians, the changes on the planet caused by people. The stories are arranged in chronological order, describing the period from 1999 to 2026, besides, each of them contains a character, an artistic detail, an action which connects it to other stories of the collection. Nevertheless, each part c...

I must admit that Wharton’s novels and short stories are always difficult to read. Not because of the style that is in my opinion immaculate, but because of the tragedies, both small and massive, which fill her writings. Many researchers compare Edith Wharton to Henry James, calling her James’s apprentice, and their creations are indeed connected through deep psychologism , which was brought to American literature by his novels and later blossomed in hers. Wharton, as well as her teacher, is a master of such scenes which are very limited in actions but rich in concealed emotions, where every little gesture, smile or just silence covers up an abyss of inner despair. Wharton’s characters are usually opposed to society but often unable to fight against it openly. So is the character of the novella “Summer”, Charity Royall . The young girl was adopted by a rather wealthy local lawyer from a poor and not very respectable family and has spent all her life in the small town of North D...

One of the brightest representatives of British literature on the verge of 19th and 20th centuries, Forster depicted the life during fin de siecle, the transition from Victorian era to more modernised and technological 20th century. "Howards End" is an exquisitely successful description of the social issues of the time through the lives of three families - aristocratic Schlegels, bourgeois Wilcoxes and poor Basts.  "Howards End" as a novel "Howards End" crowns the first period of E.M. Foster's literary activity which means it was written by a young artist and consequently it is very idealistic in many ways. the idea this book reveals seems way too optimistic still it has the right to exist and the outer representation of this idea is perfect (I mean the style, the atmosphere and the plot of the book). Although it is not an epistolary novel, it does start with letters. Helen Schlegel writes to her sister Margaret describing her visit to How...