ed_moore's reviews
276 reviews

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

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

5.0

“In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort”

This was far from my first reading of the Hobbit, just my first in a while after many a reread of this cosy little book. It did take me far longer than such a simple wholesome story typically would and it has taken me in the past however because it was the first time I have ever braved annotating and tabbing a bookI spent a lot of time with each line and it was such a nostalgic and enjoyable process.

‘The Hobbit’ is a childhood favourite of mine, and a book brimming with nostalgia, and though now the prominence of the narrators voice as one as separate from the story, as if Tolkien himself was sat by the fireside telling his children the story, and therefore read much more like a children’s fable than I remember, it also had so many more themes and messages that I hadn’t previously drawn much attention to. Tolkien’s depictions of nature and the beauty of the environment are among the best, and the natural world is at the heart of all his writing. Though there is also a huge prevalence of the theme of greed and how it controls and motivates each of the characters, especially the dwarves, and is the cause of most of the novels conflicts (a microcosm of the world today within Middle Earth).

Coming at ‘The Hobbit’ with a much more analytical perspective in preparation to study it next term it still holds as much charm and beauty, and continue to absolutely adore the magic of this little tale. 
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

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

3.0

“I am pleased with Arthur. He has not publicly disgraced himself for upwards of a fortnight” 

Anne Brontë’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ is at heart the story of Helen Huntington and her turbulent marriage to Arthur. I have now read one work by each of the Brontë’s, and unfortunately ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ was by far my least favourite, though that is pitting it against ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’. For the most part Helen was a really defined and strong character, the narrator Gilbert less so, and that reflects in the arcs of the novel I much preferred. The diary of Helena is sandwiched in the middle and her perspective describing her abusive relationship with Arthur was the most engaging by far. Arthur is an absolutely foul husband and Brontë’s writing does him no favours, aside from the subsequent redemption arc he undergoes which I didn’t feel he deserved at all and was quote disappointed by. 

The crowd of men around Arthur are also a very engaging bunch, none of whom that great people but certainly an interesting collection to read about, and with focus on Helen the appearances of this cast was unfortunately more limited too. 

Of the Brontë’s I have read Anne has been the most Austen-esque hence I struggled in many places with the narrative, however it was still an improvement on my experiences with ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’. The upper class victorian marriage market novels really aren’t for me at the end of the day but I keep feeling obliged to read them. 
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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

4.25

“What are the dead anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star?”
 
‘The Secret History’ is the story of six classics students studying under their omniscient professor Julian Morrow, the events that lead to the murder of their classmate Bunny and the aftermath of such. It is a book full of characters who you aren’t supposed to like, as a reader you root for their success and their failure at the same time. Richard is an extremely unreliable narrator which is a positive in my opinion as I really enjoy such perspectives, and though he is dislikable I did find myself relating to the last dislikable narrator I was in the head of, Merricat from ‘We have always lived in the Castle’, and that was an irritating reading experience; such was absolutely not the case with Richard. 

An element of writing style that did frustrate me however was Tartt’s chapter lengths, the majority of them exceeded 100 pages making breaks in the narrative frustrating to reach. I also found myself, alike to my experience with M.L. Rio’s ‘If We Were Villains’ I really enjoyed the focus on academia and then enjoyed it less as the plot strayed away from the focus on the wholesome university experience and late nights studying. In the case of ‘The Secret History’ this was at about the halfway point. The book was still very much engaging just not as strong as it was in the first half in my personal preferences. 

The rooting in academia throughout however was really fun and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to just see a bit of intertextuality and know I had read such book in many cases. I also enjoyed the descriptions of insomnia suffered by a couple of the characters as I don’t think I have seen it before in a book (not that I ever considered it as underrepresented just didn’t think about it until it appeared here) so I enjoyed reading an alternate perspective of something I struggle with. 

I am very much skipping around the main elements of ‘The Secret History’ here I feel, but that is because I enjoyed a lot of the little things. The main characters are extremely problematic but they are all shamed for this, Tartt criticising the culture of white academic elitism behind many layers, and the ending left me both satisfied and underwhelmed at the same time in a way. So much happened and yet the epilogue concludes with little happening, but I believe that was just fine for the tone of the novel. 
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

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

2.75

“A real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman” 

Owens’ ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ wasn’t what I thought it was be nor what it was made out to be at all. It has focus on two timelines, Kya as she grows up abandoned on the North Carolina marshes, and this timeline slowly catches up to 1970 and the suspected murder of Chase Andrews out on the marsh. It begins as a story of abandonment and a young girl adapting to survive, arguably with far too much ease; Owens does not include many problems within her plot related to the abandonment that Kya genuinely struggles to overcome nor does it particularly deeply look into the complex emotions that must come with such a character. The mystery is introduced quickly but takes a back seat for the large majority of the novel, not much is added to it in terms of clues or red herrings and it is generally quite poorly written and predictable. I was disappointed by the mystery aspect, especially as the book evolved and begun to focus more on this new identity of becoming a romance. 
 
I am often an advocate of separating art from the artist but for a book written in 2018 to frequently use the ’N’ word to no real plot effect or meaningful, especially given the controversial status of Owens as a person, I feel I have to address this as a huge negative. Yes ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is a historical fiction and trying to reflect American race prejudices of the time in its setting, however this is extremely poorly done and the use of certain phrases was unacceptable for the 21st century in the manner that Owens remorselessly used them. 
 
I enjoyed Owens’ descriptions of setting and intimate relationship with the wildlife of the marshes. It was a completely absorbing atmosphere with a focus on love of nature, however that is about all that wasn’t disappointing or problematic with ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’. 
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The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

“These seeming men and women about me are indeed men and women, men and women forever, perfectly reasonable creatures full of human desires and tender solicitude emancipated from instinct and are slaves of no fantastic law, being altogether distinct from the beast folk. Yet I shrink from them.” 

Once again I wasn’t a huge lover of a book by HG Wells. His writing just doesn’t quite work for me. ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’ follows Edward Prendick who is shipwrecked on a remote tropical island used by a Victor Frankenstein-esque doctor who transforms animals into imitations of humans. It was quite similar to Mikhail Bulgakov’s ‘The heart of a dog’ in this sense yet Bulgakov did a much better job in exploring this. Wells’ sci-fi has undertones of racism and explicit themes of animal cruelty throughout, which Prendick is somewhat a figure exposing this but also his sympathy is very limited and often leads to violence. There are also traits of Wells’ writing which feature here as I have observed in others of his work, principally the fallback of saying “these creatures were indescribable to my human mind” to paraphrase and then proceeds to not convey to the reader what he is talking about, almost just because its a science fiction Wells uses that as a fallback for lazy writing. I can commend unlike others in this case that the characters were actually named, there were few of them so I had a good understanding of them and development was okay, good for Wells’ standard at least. 

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Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

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emotional inspiring fast-paced

5.0

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses, only eating for the day when they will see us handsome and brave? Perhaps we’ve burn terrifying is deep down a helpless thing that needs our help” 

‘Letters to a Young Poet’ was so unbelievably cute. Franz Kappus wrote to Rilke asking about his poems, and Rilke takes him under his wing and begins by offering poetic advice which soon evolves to his wholesome advice on young love, fears and his perspective of the world. It was so impactful, so quotable, and honestly what I needed today. Words are so beautiful and can hold so much power, and Rilke really demonstrated that. I do wish Kappus’ letters were included rather than just Rilke’s replies to fully contextualise the dialogue between them, though I am sure they would feature in other editions and nonetheless Rilke’s words stood strong on their own and were beyond beautiful. Did sob, it was so cosy and wholesome yet powerful, and such a short and uplifting beautiful little book. 
 
With all devotion and sympathy, 
Rainer Maria Rilke 
 

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes

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

2.75

“Thus life each moment makes me die, And death itself new life can give; I hopeless and tormented lie, And neither truly die nor live.”

Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’ is often claimed to be the first modern novel, and all in all it was a start but proved the form of the novel certainly had some places to go. It just felt unnecessarily long, and yet the plot feels fractured and hard to follow and the only characters who have meaningful roles and are remotely developed are Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panca. It tells of a man called Don Quixote, who believes himself a knight and recruits Sancho as his squire for the quest to save a damsel called Dulciena who he believes he is in love with. In seeing inns as castles and windmills as giants his knightly errants are entirely fictional and surprisingly ‘Don Quixote’ could be seen as an extremely early depiction of dissociative identity disorder (not that this would’ve been the intention and therefore be presented well).

Though regarded by all around him as insane you can appreciate the view Don Quixote has towards the world, he has imagination and sees magic in the mundane, which is commendable and a fun outlook on life. Quixote has the ability to view the world as something greater than it appears to be. His various follies, which often lack any form of aim or conclusion, do result in a meta-narrative being written as various writers within the story record Quixote’s adventures, Cervantes even naming himself and praising his own poetry. The book is littered with excerpts of poetry throughout which is a nice inclusion and honestly reads much better than the primary novel, yet I find it funny but also hubristic the praise Cervantes gives himself in his own magnum opus. 

The narrators tone also draws away from immersion in the primary narrative, announcing the likes of  "here ends the second book" which stage the book to be more of a history than a narrative. Hence it also seems to wrap up narrative arcs far too quickly and conclude, there is no build up to the ending and it just seems to happen. This was certainly a bucket list book but not a hugely rewarding read, it did coin the word ‘Quixotic’ though.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

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

4.0

“Whether it is better, I ask, to be a slave in a fools paradise at Marseilles, fevered with delusive bliss one hour - suffocating with the bitterness of remorse and shame the next- or to be a village school mistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England” 

I enjoyed Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’ however for some reason found it difficult to pick up, it wasn’t necessarily page turning. ‘Jane Eyre’ follows the younger years of Jane as she goes through charity school and then works as a governess and falls in love, each making up three major arcs in her life. I very much enjoyed her earlier years, heightened by the love of literature presented in these  and then felt the book really slowed down in the middle, this may be down to the fact that I didn’t really like the character of Rochester to some degrees and wasn’t rooting for he and Jane. He is a really interesting character but preferred the story in sections where he was out of the picture.

Jane on the other hand was a narrative voice from an autobiographical perspective. This allowed you to really intimately connect with her as a protagonist and she felt quite real. Though many of her later decisions I don't really agree with it is easy to forget that for the majority of the novel she is only 19 and such perhaps brings context to a lot, despite this she feels very matured. Another character I will bring brief attention to is Jane’s student Adele. The ward of Rochester is a young French girl and all her dialogue was in French. My ignorant brain can’t understand French therefore with it being untranslated in my copy much ended up being missed surrounding Adele. 

Brontë places a lot of emphasis on character and most of whom are really well written and developed, the plot would be extremely lacking if not for this. However, Bertha is crucial to both the plot and literary theory (coining the concept of the ‘madwoman in the attic’) yet is hugely ignored by Brontë and her characters. There is certainly a justification for Jean Rhys’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’. 

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

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

3.0

“My error was thinking that alone was somewhere you could go rather than somewhere you were left” 

Armfield’s ‘Our wives under the sea’ is a book about the complications of grief at its heart, with a large emphasis being placed on its alternating perspectives and timelines, switching between Leah stuck in a submarine that has lost power in the darkness of the ocean and Miri both living through the uncertainty of when Leah was missing, and trying to mend a relationship with a partner who is far from the person she was before she went missing, both emotionally and physically. 

The characters were each compelling and in many cases with dual perspectives I often find myself desiring to be in the mind of one when I am with the other, however in this case I really didn’t prefer one perspective more than I did the other. That being said the numerous perspectives and timelines did feel a little clumsy in places especially when switches were made to make some mundane remarks or list some facts which weren’t extremely necessary, it often took away from plot. The plot itself was also very simple, it is ambiguous in places and meant to be a bit unsettling and weird whilst rooted in the domestic. None of this I minded too much other than there was no major change as the plot progressed and I could guess, and accurately did, how it would end after about the first quarter of the book. 

I have also heard a lot of acclaim for Armfield’s prose however I didn’t find it anything remarkable in particular, overall the characters were really strong but the other elements were acceptable yet nothing mind-blowing. 
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

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challenging dark mysterious slow-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

2.5

“Our house was a castle, turreted and open to the sky” 

Jackson’s ‘We have always Lived in the Castle’ was a strange book, it has a lot of focus on the little things: unreturned library books, papers with an undisclosed purpose, six blue marbles, and it seemingly ignores the more pressing present issues and forces mental illnesses and darker truths into the shadows of the narrative. Conceptually that is really interesting but on face value regarding the story the reader interacts with the book was quote bland and unenjoyable. Nothing particularly happened for the large majority of the plot and though the characters were extremely interesting I just couldn’t get on side with them. 
The protagonist Merricat is an insufferable narrator with a hatred to visiting the grocery store, psychologically she is really interesting and would be brilliant to analyse but as a POV character I really struggled with her. I am finding this difficult to articulate as reflecting on the entirety of ‘We have always Lived in the Castle’ her character is fascinating but in regards to my experience when reading I just didn’t enjoy it or her at all. I reckon this could possibly be an opinion that grows and develops with time though. Aside from Merricat however most of the other characters, Constance especially despite her being a central character, don’t have very developed personalities and are too content with the mundane. 
Alike to Merricat, the plot was generally quote dull and the conclusion extremely unsatisfying, but once again alike to the books protagonist I feel it has potential to grow on me with time to marinade in my mind.