ed_moore's reviews
275 reviews

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

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mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

“There is no friend like a sister 
 In calm or stormy weather; 
To cheer one on the tedious way 
To fetch one if one goes astray” 

Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘Goblin Market’ tells of the virginal sisters Laura and Lizzie’s interaction with haggard goblin fruit sellers. It parallels the temptation of Eve and the book of Genesis in much of its symbolism and images of succulent fruits, yet always feels slightly off. I have encountered many works with strong imagery around rotting fruit and this was similar in a way, but the rotting never outward, instead a danger of being tempted by what looks too perfect. 

I read this poem in looking at presentation of goblins in mainstream literary culture before Tolkien took up writing them, and alike to Fairy Tales these goblins are temptresses with dark intentions for the sole reason that they wish to be cruel as that’s what goblins do. It was interesting however that there was no specific defining trait that makes them goblins, only being haggard and slightly other than human. It perhaps opens a dialogue of those maimed or disabled falling into the haggard depiction and classification of a goblin as at no point did Rossetti truly depict the goblins as something inhuman. 
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

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challenging inspiring reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

“When Elizabeth Zott finished cooking, the whole nation sat down to eat” 

Bonnie Garmus’ ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ is a historical fiction about a genius chemist and her prodigy daughter struggling to have her work legitimised in a sexist 60s American society, who finds fame on a cooking show that teaches housewives the chemistry of cooking and inspires them to seek something more. It is a portrayal of gender roles, losing and finding family, religious turmoil and sexuality and race in lesser cases, taking criticisms at so many of the flaws in society. 

Elizabeth Zott is a fiery and powerful protagonist heading Garmus’ feminist critique, but her stubbornness in some cases does cause many of her problems. As powerful as she is, she relies on the prodigy archetype and a lot of unrealistic convenience and luck for her chances in life that aren’t the most realistic though they are commendable and you really do find yourself rooting for her. The use of two prodigy character types with her daughter Madeline, (or even three if you consider the dog Six-Thirty that really randomly has some chapters told from his perspective), does add to a few too many uses of the very convenient trope.

The book was enjoyable and very readable, I absolutely soared through it in long sittings listening, though I did feel it all tied up a little too nicely in manners that once again seemed convenient and unrealistic. There were also a lot of sub-plots that should’ve held so much more weight in the final third (even a bomb plot which plays so minor a role that it isn’t even a spoiler), however for the most part a lot of them were glossed over. 
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Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Barry Milligan, Thomas De Quincey

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slow-paced

2.75

“Not the opium eater, but the opium, is the true hero of the tale” 

Thomas De Quincey’s ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’ is the first of three memoir writings in the series of ‘Opium Confessions’ followed by ‘Suspira De Profundis’ and ‘The English Mail Coach’. I read all three of the confessions in this edition and honestly they caused me to fall into a bit of a physical reading slump; this book took me over a month to read and I intended to read it in the couple of days I spent in the Lake District in early November as such was the setting of many of De Quincey’s opium trips.

‘Confessions’ was a strong start, I enjoyed it and it was a well written memoir. I also discovered the word ‘tintinnabulous’ when reading such which is simply fantastic - it’s such a fun word. It was in the second and third confessions the book became confusing and dull. I struggled to grasp what was happening and De Quincey seemed to be talking of nothing much really, the third one basically just praising the invention of the mail coach. ‘Suspira De Profundis’ was more autobiographical but nonetheless very all over the place, and yet I didn’t in any of the sections really see much of the drug trip experiences and surreal hallucinations I expected from this book.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

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dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

“Journeys end in lovers meeting”

Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ is the stereotypical haunted house story: cold spots, ghostly children’s picnics and mysterious knocks, though I don’t believe it was by any means a first in the genre so doesn’t score many points in originality (that being said I did penalise ‘Treasure Island’ for how stereotypical that was and it was a first for the pirate genre so it doesn’t seem that I would give it any grace even if it was.) I did prefer ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ to ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’, even if that book is growing on me as it marinades. Eleanor Vance was a much less insufferable protagonist than Merricat.

Placing focus on the book I am supposed to be reviewing now, ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ focuses on Eleanor and Theodora, two women who have had past supernatural interactions, who are invited to Hill House for the summer to assist in Dr Montague’s research of the venue. It had all the elements you’d expect of a haunted house and posed the classical psychological questions related with the phenomenon. It was by no means bad, just nothing unexpected or remarkable. 
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

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adventurous lighthearted relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

“It didn’t seem much to ask in a world so crowded with people just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions to oneself. Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to come to one”

Elizabeth Von Armin’s ‘The Enchanted April’ follows four women who opt to leave their husbands and life in London for a month and rent a medieval castle in Italy. It is a book of female empowerment and agency as they split from patriarchal structures to pave their own way, and is set in such a vivid location full of beautiful descriptions of such. Each of the four women have so much life and character and are each distinct and recognisable, which I find is more often not the case in books of this period and genre, hence identifiable and lovable characters is certainly a pro. The characters do however falter a little when it comes to Lottie Wilkins, the one of the four who is the closest to the definitive protagonist, though all of she, Rose, Lady Caroline and Mrs Fisher have pretty equal weight, as despite her liberating actions that first defined her character she is quite whiny and ultimately
very quickly falls back into obliging to patriarchal systems, quickly dragging the other women to this conclusion and even determining it a correct conclusion and better the way it was
, which subverts the message of the opening of the novel which I believed would be the dominant one throughout. 

I do also give bonus points because this was narrated by Wanda Mccaddon (who I fell in love with the narration of when I read Emma), and her narration is simply brilliant! 
On Fairy-Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien

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informative inspiring slow-paced

3.0

“Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make.” 

‘On Fairy Stories’ is a lecture by Tolkien transcribed into essay-prose that seeks to define and defend the fairytale and fantasy as a genre. It provides an insight into Tolkien’s view of the genre and hence how it is used within his own writing, and the importance he places behind its uplifting, arguing it to exist in a literary plain beyond children’s fiction and hold a great importance. Even in an essay format Tolkien is poetic with his words and it was on the more enjoyable end of critical reads. 
Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby by Samuel Beckett

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dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.5

“dead one day
no
night
dead one night”

Footfalls is a short play about a woman called May, caring for her elderly mother as she obsessively paces the stage. Beckett is unbelievably precise with the staging and stage directions (this is the case for each of these plays) but still it was very confusing. In some way May haunts herself, but very little happens and I was so lost it wasn’t the most enjoyable. (2 stars)

Rockaby focuses on an elderly lady on a rocking chair in the dark, the light focused on her face as she rocks back and forth listening to an extremely bleak tape of sorts. This was an absolutely harrowing depiction of the futility of life and lack of human willpower to exist and really look forward to studying this one! I feel it’s the sort of thing that will become so memorable and prominent when it has a bit of time to marinate and for me to think about it. (3 stars)

(I did not read ’Not I’ but this was the only edition I could find of ‘Footfalls’ to log it)
Krapp's Last Tape & Embers by Samuel Beckett

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challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.5

“Past Midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.”

I have read ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ before, about a year ago for one university module and now I have reread it for another. It is a short piece of drama about a man in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world who plays old tapes he recorded on his thirty ninth birthday, thirty years ago, and looks back on reminiscing on the old state of the world, or rather hating himself for what he has become.

When I first read it I really disliked this play, honestly maybe in the realm of one star, and I also had to watch a screening of it that extended the 13 pages to be slowly dragged out over an hour. This really didn’t help my enjoyment I don’t think however rereading and looking at the bleak vision of the world Beckett presented, and his interpretation on the human psyche and the futility of what man can become, it is really interesting. It was much better on reread and I saw a lot more in the play, but due to how limited it is in length and what it offers I still feel like it doesn’t deserve a particularly high rating, just a significant improvement on what it was a year ago. 

Studying Beckett is brilliant, the works themselves not quite so much, and I think that given Beckett’s attitudes towards reinterpretation of his works he would absolutely hate that sadly. 
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

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adventurous challenging informative slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“The great shroud of the sea rolled on as it had rolled on five thousand years ago” 

In his tome of a novel, or myth of morality, Melville claims that “The whale have no famous author and whaling have no famous chronicler.” In writing ‘Moby Dick’ he certainly succeeded in fulfilling such absence. ‘Moby Dick’ is the story of Ishmael, who boards the ship of Captain Ahab, a one legged sailor in search of vengeance against the creature that tore off his leg, the white whale Moby Dick. Though sprawling in length, it is an incredibly written book. Melville’s levels of detail and descriptions are sublime and the conclusion was breathtaking. The small details scattered through and built up throughout the novel all cumulated and it honestly had the emotional impact of the final pages of a murder mystery. 

The protagonist, Ishmael, was the most lacklustre part of the novel. Despite being in his head for over 700 pages he really doesn’t get much development and is quite flat, if the opening line “Call me Ishmael” wasn’t so iconic you would honestly start to forget he existed. However, the flamboyant cast of characters around him on the ship, the mysterious and menacing Ahab, loveable Queequeg and even the phantom-like presence of the cabin-boy Pip make up for this absence in Ishmael. 

Most authors do extensive research for their novels, whereas very few decide to include all this research within its pages. If Melville didn’t constantly break the plot up with information on the jurisdiction of whaling laws or the average inches of a male sperm whales jaw bone this book would’ve had so much rhythm to it, and as much as I enjoyed the plot the sheer amount of this filler information (Melville being paid by the word likely being the cause of this) means I can’t let myself give it five stars despite how well Melville’s prose was written. The book does however focus on the hunting and murder of whales which is pretty uncomfortable and the image of the Pequod with a severed whale head hanging from each side was harrowing and will forever haunt me.  Though the man did truly have a talent to spin words and never did I think I would learn so much about the whaling industry of the 1800s or whale species in my life, but that is just the consequence of reading ‘Moby Dick’. 

For the most part ‘Moby Dick’ was absolutely brilliant and certainly worth the read, though the two overarching flaws of Ishmael and information overload cap it at 4.5 unfortunately. 
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An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

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challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“Clyde was left to cogitate on and make best of a world that at its best was a kind of inferno of mental ills - above which - as above Dante might have been written - “abandon hope-ye who enter here” 

Dreiser’s ‘An American Tragedy’ is the tale of Clyde Griffiths, a boy in his pursuit of the promise of the American Dream working his way up in the capitalist society of 1920s America. With tones of the high life of ‘The Great Gatsby’, the book more so reminded me of the struggle under capitalism presented in Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ as Clyde devotes himself to the industrial world in search of riches and love. The book is split into three sections, and with its length it builds up slowly and as soon as I reached the tension of the first part it ended and the scene changes, immediately killing momentum again. That was one of the main struggles of this tome, it was brilliantly paced in the final 100 pages and really engaging, partly because of a better structuring and partly because of my determination to finish with the end in sight, though the chapters were quite short hence it was very easy to put down during reading sessions resulting in me ploughing through it very slowly. 

For a long while, I was waiting for the tragedy. I was tracking Clyde on his rise as a tragic hero and anticipating the fall, and that did come although at this point Clyde as a protagonist was extremely dislikable. He is self-entitled, spoilt and completely unfaithful across his multiple flings with women that make up the motivations of his character and the plot. It was when the tragic fall did come however, myself now rooting for Clyde’s downfall, that I realise the ‘American Tragedy’ is not Clyde’s tragedy, and that realisation was powerful. 

Dreiser wrote a certainly memorable novel, with a protagonist that’ll really split opinions and has so many layers to him, but his pacing was off for the most part of the book. In all my past ‘big books’ I have undertaken I have either loved them or really hated them, and for the first time there’s one that slots quite comfortably into the middle of the pack.