The Slap

Can I just say, I loved this book. Right through from beginning to end, it made you question your own beliefs and puts you in a truly difficult confrontation with social acceptabilities about whether or not you should hit a child, no matter about the situation. However, I also got thoroughly grossed out; the majority of it is sex sex sex, and not the good kind.

It all starts off at a suburban barbecue in rural Australia, where several children are playing cricket. One of the younger ones refuses to come out of the game, even though everyone knows that he was out. So when another child tells him to stop ruining the game and just get out, he raises the cricket bat in an attempt to whack the other boy. And so, naturally, the other boy's father wants to protect his child. So what does he do? He slaps the unruly child around the face. The child's parents call the police. There is a massive court trial. They lose. We see it through the eyes of eight people who not only witnessed the event, but were emotionally connected to it.

The TV programme

Perhaps one is inclined to hate the other boy's father because he did something socially unacceptable. But when we consider the actual circumstances, and what the child was doing before the event, we come to be completely unsure about what we know any more. The end of the book left me wanting so much more than I got! When I saw the slap through other people's perspectives, I realized that there is so much more to a situation than meets the eye at first glance. It made me appreciate all the more what happens in a court trial and just how far they need to go to reach the "truth". Next I'll be reading The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, so I'll keep you posted!

The Bell Jar

This book wasn't depressing at all! Sure, I mean, there were a couple of suicide attempts, several rounds in many many many hospitals, talk about slitting her wrists but depressing?? Nah........

However depressing it may have been, boring it most certainly was not! Sylvia Plath perfectly explored and portrayed the feelings of a perfectly normal person who happened to want to end her life, and it's no wonder: the story's mainly autobiographical. Esther Greenwood has apparently, to the outside world looking in, got the perfect life. She's at a good college, doing all the things she wants to do, she's got a lover, and, most importantly, she's come from somewhere in the middle of nowhere to New York. Whilst in New York for a month, she is supposed to be working for a high profile ladies magazine. Instead, she mostly spends the time with her friend Doreen meeting lads, getting thoroughly drunk and going back to their houses (hint hint). It is at this point, the first time this happens, when we start to realize that something is not quite right with Esther Greenwood, that she isn't quite "normal".

When she relates what has been going on with her and her sweetheart, we see the extent of her village's isolation from society, as the boys she meets are one and the same: cocky, annoying and convinced that they know best. Buddy Willard is training to be a doctor, and he frequently invites Esther over to Yale to watch him practice and she keeps asking him to show her something exciting. And so one day, he shows her a birth. Just watching this traumatic yet wonderful event freezes something between the two and makes her see Buddy  as a hypocrite instead of this beautiful god she saw him as before. There is one hilarious part of the book where Buddy Willard writes to her to ask for her hand, and she writes back furiously, saying she could never marry him as she didn't want her children to have a hypocrite for a father, and that she was engaged to a simultaneous interpreter.

The book also reveals certain taboos in society surrounding suicides, or mentally ill people. We see this in detail in the hospitals Esther visits after her attempted suicide; the nurses are rude and belittling. She is treated like a child who is not responsible enough to look after a piece of string on her own, as though she needs constant supervision. This doesn't change until she gets into a better hospital for less serious cases, and meets a doctor who really seems to understand her situation and treats her like a proper adult. This is a fantastic book and deserves more recognition than it is given normally! Next I'll be reading The Slap by Christos Tsolkas, so watch out for more updates!

The Picture of Dorian Grey

Firstly, can I just say that you should never underestimate Gothic novels; they can be incredibly scary! Secondly, that was the first time I have ever been properly scared by a book. I was so creeped out that I actually had to sleep in the same room as my sister last night!

Anyway, on to the book itself. There is something so entrancing about the way that Oscar Wilde writes that it was impossible not to be amazed by the simplicity and yet wondrous effectiveness of the writing itself. All the way through he uses his intuitiveness and makes important and unexpected psychological and social observations  that I found stunningly beautiful to read. There is one character, although not the antagonist of the story, named Sir Henry Wotton, who is the main one to make all of these insightful discoveries. He is a self-proclaimed sociologist and makes it his goal to observe every aspect of Man's obsessions and nature. It is easy to tell that this character is not purely fabricated; he is what I would imagine Oscar Wilde himself was like-funny, intelligent and utterly charming. However, Sir Henry is by no means an angel. He makes it his project to fascinate Dorian Grey and influence him in such a way that he is no longer himself, merely a copy of all that Sir Henry Wotton feels, thinks or says. It is essentially this which leads Dorian Grey himself astray and makes him the monster he is at the end of the book.

Dorian Grey is an interesting character, and through him Oscar Wilde analyses why a man will commit a heinous crime, or why he will love a girl for an instant and loathe her the next, or why, in a typical Victorian society, Beauty and the appearance of Youth is everything needed to maintain one's position in society. At the beginning of the book we see Dorian Grey as an innocent young boy who is unaware, or unwilling to acknowledge, the beauty he is in possession of. We first hear of him through Basil Hallward, an artist, and first meet him in his painter's studio. This is the point at which the obsession with beauty begins. Hallward is in the process of painting Dorian Grey as he is. When it is finished, Grey makes a proclamation that he wishes that he would remain as young and pretty as he was painted, and that the picture would age for him. Impossible though it may sound, the night that Dorian Grey's "girlfriend" commits suicide, the picture begins to change. A cruel twist appeared in its smile, making the picture one of a damaged soul. Throughout the book, as he continues to commit horrendous crimes, the picture of Dorian Grey becomes slowly more and more hideous and disfigured. It is the picture of his soul, as his outward appearance won't change.

The beautiful Ben Barnes as Dorian

It is a fascinating book, one which I thoroughly hope you all read! Next, keeping with the theme of depressing books, I shall be reading The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. Watch out for more updates!

Childhood

Alrighty, so that's the heavy Russian book completed! What you really notice about Russian authors (I've only read two so far, but I'm planning on reading more!) is that they may not be writing about the most pleasant of subjects, but they describe it in such a way that you can't help but be entranced by the eloquence of the words themselves. One particular description that stood out for me was Gorky's description of his grandmother describing her (in a paraphrase) as perfect in every way except her nose. Later on in the book he goes on to describe it as "squishy". The amount of times I laughed out loud at this book is astonishing. There was one point in the book where the lodger, or "That's Fine" as they call him, is sitting listening to the grandmother reciting a poem about a man who kills another one for the simple reason that his master told him to. When she has finished, there are tears in his eyes, and when everyone asks him what the matter is, he says "You should write that down. It is so very-" stops and thinks "Russian!" Gorky manages to capture perfectly the attitude of the Russians themselves towards their very own nature.

However, you must notice with a hint of apprehension the darker side to the book. Living in his grandparent's house, Gorky was surrounded by aggression and violence; his uncle Yakov killed his wife through repeated beating. He would cover her in a duvet every night and kick, punch and wound her in any way possible, and she inevitably died. His own grandmother, the heroine and strong woman of the book, allows herself to be beaten by Gorky's ignorant grandfather, and afterwards turns to him and says "Could you tell me what's hurting my head?". Gorky searches her scalp through her long thick mane of hair, and finds a hairpin driven straight into her scalp. The violence we see here is a perfect illustration of life in Russia before the industrial revolution. Many women were married and beaten by their ignorant, stupid husbands. They had children who were beaten by their uneducated fathers. It was a never ending cycle of poverty, ignorance and violence that was simple a part of society. The sheer poverty of every family must be recognised; towards the end of the book, Gorky is revealed to be a street urchin, foraging for bits of scrap metal and pieces of wood which he can sell for money.

And yet we must marvel at how a poor boy turned into a successful and revered author. Alexei Maximich Gorky grew up with no proper education until the age of around eleven; his grandfather and aunt Natalya taught him his letters and numbers at home. When he did receive an education, he would muck around and not pay attention, until a visit from the Archbishop. Even after he calmed down, it didn't leave him enough time to learn, and so he despaired and gave up. For me, this tale is truly inspirational and it is one of my all-time favourites! Next I'll be reading The Picture Of Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde. More updates when all is done!