Beyond the Letters

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...

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...

“You see, I have never felt the need to invent a world beyond this world, for this world has always seemed large and beautiful enough for me.” This book combines a biography, a historical novel, a Bildungsroman and a scientific essay – all under one cover.  It is the story of a woman, and a scientist, a daughter, a lover, a friend, an explorer and a philosopher, a lady and a heathen…  One can go on and on speaking about Alma Whittaker as throughout this very massive (but worthwhile!) novel she tries on so many different roles that by the end the answer to the question: “Who was she?” would be very much confused. Still, one thing that is truly important that this character has a mind great enough to be compared to the greatest scientists of the period, including   Charles Darwin &nbsp. But before Alma gets to the point where her and Darwin’s name can appear in one sentence, she lives a life, a long and interesting time journey which Gilbert proudly presents to the...