Beyond the Letters

The topic I have chosen might seem sulky or too depressive for some readers but sometimes it is highly essential to read something like that as such novels not only help to raise awareness and form a positive attitude towards people with mental issues, but also provide the reader with an emotional and memorable story definitely worth your time and patience. In this list I have made an attempt to collect the novels of different forms and genres which at the same time discuss different conditions so that each reader could pick something to his/her liking. 1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” gives the reader an insight into a life of a teen boy, Christopher, who has a condition of autistic spectrum , supposedly Asperger’s syndrome. Although the features of this disorder are described very accurately, the main aim of the author here is to describe the teen’s personality and make the character r...

However far away the life brings us from our native place, there is always a moment when we need to return to the roots. In this very moment we meet the narrator of “The Italian Girl” written by Iris Murdoch, a prominent representative of postmodern British literature. Having escaped from the oppressive influence of his mother, Lydia, in his youth, Edmund couldn’t find enough strength to get back to his family up to her sudden death. Now, many years later, Edmund comes to the funeral, where he will meet his relatives, about the life of which he has only a vague knowledge based on a few brief letters. He doesn’t notice any changes at first glance – the same old house, the same family of his brother and the unchangeable Italian servant. But one occasional confession of Edmund’s niece makes him see that the relations between his relatives are more confused than they seemed to be and Lydia’s house keeps m any more secrets… The Gothic atmosphere One of the most interesting features...

As we get hold of sharp and sliding border And listen to the buzzing sound of chime,- Don’t we go mad amidst the motley order And change of made-up reasons, space and time?.. Alexander Blok It took me eight years and a degree in literary studies to get to love this great postmodernist but it was definitely worth it. I must confess that the first books by Barnes I read as a student were beyond my understanding and therefore beyond my interest but since than I discovered a lot of his works that made me fall in love with his writing. “The Noise of Time” is definitely one of them. This book is  a perfect example of intermediality  (several types of art combined) and it throws its reader into the majestic world of classical music  telling about one of the most prominent composers of the previous century Dmitri Shostakovich  and his complicated relations with Soviet authorities. It’s widely known that Soviet Union was not the most creative environm...

Imagine a little town in American South. A town, which is carefully covered from the bright sunlight by the branches of ancient oaks, a town where every garden is decorated with azaleas, camellias and roses, where all people know each other and secrets are impossible to keep for more than two days. All the inhabitants here are very different, with unique fancies and skeletons in the cupboards, they have their own social ladder as well as social divisions but the life seems to go on quietly and peacefully. And it looks like nothing important can happen in this place… but precisely here, in Maycomb, Alabama, Harper Lee set her acclaimed novel. Adult world in the eyes of a child “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a little trip to the land of childhood. Of a childhood sunny and warm, with lemonade on a hot day, with secrets behind the high fence of the Radley’s place, with Miss Maudie’s colourful garden and Mrs. Dubose’s endless moralizing. The novel is narrated by Jean Louise Finch (o...

It’s very difficult to write some quality historical prose and even more difficult to set it in a foreign country, as it demands tons of research into the subject but Dinah Jefferies seems to be very hard-working in this aspect. I had some novels that I failed to finish, as throughout the text they felt awfully off-key with the period and the culture they described, but here I knew at once that the author knows what she is writing about. The setting is colonized Ceylon (presently Sri-Lanka) at the beginning of the 20 th century . From the very beginning the reader can feel that the author is in love with this country (the fact that she willingly admits in the postface telling about her childhood year spent in Malaya very similar in culture and wildlife and her trip to Sri-Lanka while writing the book). The novel vividly describes Sri-Lankan wildlife and people touching upon several cultural milestones. Anyway Sri-Lanka is not the main topic of the novel. This book is about pre...

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...