Beyond the Letters

People who are ignorant are the easiest aim when you want to manipulate the others. Like the famous “451 Fahrenheit” by Ray Bradbury suggests, when you are afraid of being deprived of you power – start burning the books. The people who know nothing about anything will gladly believe all your lies. This novel is about reading which helps you to get more mature. About living in the time and place that makes you choose between your consciousness and safety. About children who can be much stronger and true to themselves than adults. About one man that wanted to rule the world and many others who believed his stories. About death that is kind and life that is cruel. About the healing and destructive power of words. The outside Let’s look at the outer form of this novel first. The peculiarities start with the narrator itself, for the story is told from the point of view of… Death. Strangely enough this severe judge, as we are used to think of him, turns out to be not deprived of human f

Biographies are generally a non-fiction genre, for even though they have some place for imagination and emotionality within them, they are mostly a collection of facts presented in an attractive way. But many writers, especially modern ones, try to reconsider this quite old genre and give a new life to it. Here I will tell you about some novels that depict images of famous people, and whose main aim is not to tell the story of someone’s life but to let the reader see these personalities through the author’s eyes. 1. Miss Charity by Marie-Aude Muriel Loosely based on the life of Beatrix Potter this little comedy however managed to create a very credible image of the acclaimed children author. Beatrix Potter was a talented writer with her own unique vision of the world and her own ideas about woman’s position in society. Living in highly conventional Victorian society, she dared to state that any woman could be more than just a wife or a housekeeper. The book is written in th

Postmodern literature is generally interested in the process of creation and the essence of art. That’s why many writers since the beginning of the 20th century have been trying to analyse their creative process and present the inside of it to the reader. Such type of literary work is defined as metaprose. This concept includes novels and short stories, which tell us about the process of writing, depict the image of an Author (real or imagined) or, sometimes, a Reader, or discuss another literary works. If fiction is your strongest passion, and you want to know how it is created, these novels are definitely a must-read for you. 1. " Green Shadows, white whale " by Ray Bradbury What is it about? This is a novel made of short stories 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

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