Breakfast at Tiffany's

This review shall comprise of the penguin classics edition of Breakfast at Tiffany's, so you'll get a bonus review of the three short stories contained alongside Truman Capote's famous novella. Breakfast at Tiffany's is the story of Holly Golightly (who I should point out is not Audrey Hepburn, fact fans may be interested to know Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the lead role in the film adaptation…although I can't honestly imagine Monroe as Golightly either) Holly Golightly is 19 and lives alone in an apartment in New York with a cat. She's kind of like a socialite who makes 100 dollars a week visiting Sally Tomato (a mobster) in prison and relaying his "weather reports" to his lawyer (these are obviously not weather reports but somewhat more underhand information) she's not quite what she seems and there's a little bit of fleeing the country towards the end. Similar to the great gatsby her story is narrated by a character we don't learn a great deal about. I quite like that way of doing things, actually there is a touch of the Fitzgeralds about Capote I think, and there are shades of similarity between the characters Gatsby and Golightly. I loved Holly Golightly, she's exactly my kind of character, a bit complex, her own person and with a good turn of phrase. There where a couple of major themes to this story, or that's what I got from it anyway, to do with freedom and that wild things, or free spirits (in the case of people) can't be tamed or changed or stifled or they'll fly away. And also "not knowing whats yours until you've thrown it away". Both these things are things I think about occasionally so that's perhaps why this book has struck a bit of a chord with me. As for the other stories in the edition I read, the first was called House of Flowers which I liked the least out of the three and I have nothing terribly interesting to say about it, not that it was bad by any stretch of the imagination just it didn't really grab me like the other two. The second was called A Diamond Guitar, this was set in a prison with an old respected inmate more or less falling for Tico Fey a new and younger prisoner both in an intimate and platonic way. It's really quite a sad story about love and in some sense betrayal, however it's the last of the short stories that'll actually incite tears. This one called A Christmas Memory is about the friendship between a 7 year old boy and his much older relative. Despite being very poor every christmas make fruitcakes for their friends (which are essentially strangers, brief acquaintances they've met once or twice), they also exchange homemade gifts, which the year our narrator, the boy, is reminiscing about was kites. This was the last christmas they spent together as the next year the boy was sent to military school, they remain in contact via letter and it is through this Capote conveys dementia and loneliness in as poignant a way as i've read. It's maybe ten pages long but it knocked me over all the same.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

I had been looking for this novel, by Zora Neale Hurston, for quite some time in my favourite bookshop in Belfast (Keats and Chapman, on North street if the opportunity should ever arise you should absolutely go to there). Anyway I finally found it, it was actually in the feminist section, although i'm not entirely sure why…i'll talk about that in a little minute. The novel, written in the 1930s is centred around a black woman (and I only mention that she's black as race plays a significant role in this novel, but not in a heavy handed way) called Janie. And before I get into giving a synopsis I want to write the opening sentence of this novel, now there are many famous opening lines; Tolstoys "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way", Walkers "You better not tell nobody but god", Austens "It is a truth universally acknowledged…" Dickens "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…" but for some reason this one is my favourite, and is as follows "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men." It had me hooked from the off and this bit is important, if you do decide to read this novel, read the start of it once you finish it and I dare you to not cry, it really is quite something. Now I have that out of the way, onto the story of the novel, well it is basically Janie's story and it has a lot to say, so much so i'm not entirely sure how to begin. Janie is thrown into marriage at a young age on the behest of her grandmother (who raised her) who see's the world through old eyes and nearing death want's Janie to have someone to provide for her. Although this first husband is not abusive, Janie wants essentially to be in love and this man is not that. Then along comes Joe Starks who is full of plans and excitement and all the things he could achieve and he's a bit of a charmer too. They run off together and Joe basically talks his way to becoming mayor of a town that wasn't really a town before he arrived. Janie is then cast as 'de mayors wife' and is to all intents and purposes Joe's property, his charm is not used for her anymore but to get the things he wants in terms of wealth and position in society. This doesn't much suit Janie who as the novel progresses is finding her own voice as a woman, and knows she has opinions and thoughts of her own. She is however pretty much stuck with Joe and a life of wearing her long hair up so other men don't notice her as well she's Joe's…until he dies of kidney failure, leaving Janie with something of a financial cushion and henceforth freedom. And then in strolls tea cake a young man, about half janie's age who completely sweeps her off her feet, he's a gambler and lives hand to mouth and everyone warns her off him, saying he's only after her money but Janie is at the point in her life where she's confident and sure of herself and follows her own heart regardless of the opinion of others. And it works out, it is in fact one of the loveliest written and touching love stories I have read, and more to the point they don't have the usual fictional cinderella-esque love it's a love very much on both their terms. So the end of the novel is a tiny bit devastating but in the same sense Janie has become this stand on your own two feet kind of a woman and I'm guessing that is why this book is in the feminist section, the development of her character is one of the best things about this story and as everything else centres around that it bodes pretty well for the novel as a whole. Now as for the race bit, well this novel is interesting in that Janie is the daughter of a black woman and a white school teacher (who didn't exactly give Janie's mother an option in that regard) so Janie with her fairer skin and long smooth hair has to deal with racism from both sides, and it's how this is dealt with that is particularly effective. So then, this novel has a lot going for it, I like a book if it's more than just a story, if it carries something meaningful with it too and this has that in spades. But moreover it's written almost poetically, which is quite lovely in itself to read. In direct contrast to this Hurston writes the dialogue as you would pronounce it in your head, and the dialect used, although it takes a little getting used to, gives the novel I think a strong identity and only adds to it. If you enjoy the novels of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, then this novel and Zora Neale Hurston are certainly worth a read, she often being cited as a major influence in all their work, and really paved the way for them to write. It is however an excellent read in itself and I would have no qualms in recommending it.

Mary and The Wrongs of Woman

Okay it's possible i've found my way into the world of feminist literature. These books (Mary is one, The Wrongs of Woman (also known as Maria) is the other) are by a woman called Mary Wollstonecraft (and yes I LOVE her surname), who fact fans is the mother of Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame). Safe to say these books where written a very long time ago, in the late 1700s, a little before Jane Austen but are no more difficult to read in terms of language than say Pride and Prejudice. So what are they about…well Mary is about a woman called, and this may come as something of a shock, Mary. Who was married to a man she didn't much care for called Charles, who happily (for Mary) leaves for the continent leaving Mary to become buddies with a woman called Ann (who was maybe a little more than a buddy…in an emotional sense) tragedy ensues when Ann gets sick, because well Mary basically loved her, and then she meets Henry (who is also sick) and she likes him in a weird way too more tragedy ensues then Charles comes back and that's more or less that. Except it's the 1700s and Mary isn't like your typical women from the 1700s, she thinks for herself, and doesn't follow social convention, she is as much her own woman as she could be in that period of time. It's a sad story and I can't quite make my mind up about our protagonist… The Wrongs of Woman however I can, this story is for the most part about Maria who made Mary's life seem like a walk in the park. Maria was married to essentially a gold digger who got a maid to drug her, stole her child and imprisoned her in I think a mental hospital. Here she befriends (and I use that term lightly, as someone much smarter than me could explain to much greater effect) Jemima, who hasn't exactly had it easy (abusive master, kicked out by wife of the master when she found out about Jemima and her husband (not that Jemima had any choice in that situation), abortion, essentially lots of bad things) Jemima brings her books from another inmate Henry Darnford who scribbles notes in the margins, they start up a correspondence via letters, and then visits which Jemima organises, fall in love, Jemima goes to look for Maria's child and helps Maria escape (Jemima isn't all good though…she did something quite terrible herself) and then i'm not entirely sure what happens as the novel is unfinished. I quite liked Maria, the rest of the characters where all fairly awful, some bits where unrelentingly miserable, but Maria was alright, she was tough and fought against the situation she was in. Neither novel is going to fill you with joy and you do need to concentrate, it's quite wordy, but they are interesting to read, and they will make you feel something which is no mean feat. VERY IMPORTANT AMMENDEMENT: Earlier in this review I alluded to someone much smarter than me, said person also told me this very important (that is to say, funny) piece of trivia about a certain Mrs Wollstonecraft, (disclaimer: if you are American and reading this I apologise sincerely), (disclaimer part 2: said person isn't immature, said person just knew I would find this hilarious…because I occasionally teeter on the edge of immaturity and it's so much fun to fall off that cliff once in a while) anyway, to the trivia! Mary Wollstonecraft was kind of like Mary in the story Mary, in that she had a buddy much like Ann however and this is the bit that is important her buddy much like Ann, wasn't called Ann, she had quite easily the greatest name in the history of the world, and I am not making this up…she was called Fanny Blood. Both kind of gross and hysterical all at once. And no I'm not sure if Mary saw her once a month...

The Great Gatsby

I have not written a review in quite some time, and for that I apologise, I have no excuse and shall not proffer a fake one. So then, I read this book a few weeks ago, it was my second attempt at Gatsby and was an entirely enjoyable experience. It was written by F Scott Fitzgerald and i'm sure many of you have read the book, and a fair few will have seen the recent film adaptation. For that reason i'll not give a synopsis, instead i'm going to go about this review in a slightly different manner. It should come as no surprise that I love reading, and the majority of the time i'll read at home with a massive mug of tea. In this instance I read this novel (and it's pretty short) sitting in a car passing time. And honestly it was my favourite ever reading experience, there are I suppose several reasons for this, firstly, Fitzgerald has a lovely way with words and there where a lot of lines from this novel that have stuck with me since reading it, normally you'll come across one or two quotes you love in a good book, in this one however there was many more than a couple. However, and this is what I feel like talking about here in this post, but this novel I can't seem to separate from the situation I read it in. You know how a certain smell will remind you of a particular memory? It's kind of like that. And this is why I can't seem to give a fair opinion on the novel as I can't tell if I loved the novel or that the situation I was in at the time of reading it influenced my feelings on it. It's hard to think of the great gatsby without thinking of the person I was waiting on. And that is by no means a bad thing. So i'll reserve my judgement on the novel, except to say this, I can't think of anything I did not like about it, and that is rare, there's always something I don't like…so read Gatsby is my advice, a little bit of the green light is does no harm at all.

Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture

As some of you may know I love mathematics, in all honesty I love it more that even Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington and cake. Over the years i've read a fair few math related books (Fermat's last theorem by Simon Singh is definitely worth a read, as is The man who loved numbers (alas the author of that one escapes me)). I get that my reaction to math is not a common one, generally people tend to run away from said subject but i'll let you in on a wee secret. Math isn't like math at school, where you're given equations to learn and plug numbers into them over and over, that's why we have computers. Math, the math I like (i.e love) is different, it's kind of like magic, it's little statements of truth with elegant proofs (that in hindsight seem the most obvious solutions but are never that simple to find) without math, technology as we know it would not exist, there would be no shuffle on your iPod, there would be no computer/phone that you're reading this on, searching for things on the internet would not be nearly so easy and in a world where everything can be a bit vague math is reliably black or white, right or wrong (well 99.9% of the time) So to the book then! It is fiction, although a lot of the subject matter is based on truth. You don't need to know anything of math or number theory to understand any of the novel, there are no sums or dense mathematical material to trudge through the math in it is the characters problems, we just read the story of uncle Petros via his favourite nephew. Uncle Petros as we start the novel is almost an outcast of his family, a self made recluse whose brothers and their families visit once a year. It is in these visits his nephew begins to wonder why Uncle Petros is disliked by his brothers, what did he do to earn their ridicule when he just seems like a sweet old gardening, chess playing man. From there on this really is quite the page turner, I genuinely could not put it down, which I know in part is due to my fondness for math and reading little (true) anecdotes about mathematicians i've heard of or studied before (Petros is a fictional creation, Hardy, Littlewood, Ramaujan, Goldbach, Euler and Gauss are not). Goldbach's Conjecture is also a real statement, notoriously difficult to prove but sounds pretty simple; every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes (e.g 4=2+2, 6=3+3, 8=5+3) Incidentally if you can't cope with the math in the previous statement then you'll still be fine with the book I promise, it's really more about Uncle Petros, his relationship with his nephew and should life be deemed as a failure if you set yourself unattainable goals or admired for the journey in trying. I as you may have figured out loved this book, and if you took out the math and gave the uncle a different challenge I absolutely would have still enjoyed it (although probably not quite so much). It's quite touching in parts, sad in others and constantly riveting, don't let Math put you off, plus you never know you might end up with a certain fondness for my favourite subject (plus mathematicians are generally really interesting, odd, eccentric people, who all seem more or less to end up going mad)

The Woman In Black

Written by Susan Hill this is a book a lot of people will recognise the title of as it was adapted into a film starring he of Harry Potter fame, Daniel Radcliffe in the not so distant past. I have not watched the film version due to my slight aversion to the aforementioned actor. So then on to what I thought of the book. This novel isn't terribly long but I couldn't seem to get into it, although in defence of the book I have had a lot on my mind this week which is never exactly conducive to an enjoyable reading experience. It is essentially a ghost story, told by our narrator Arthur Kipps a young lawyer sent to sort through the papers of recently deceased Alice Drablow, a woman, something of a recluse who lived in eel marsh house which is cut off at high tide from the surrounding village. The villagers seem unwilling to talk much about this house or Mrs Drablow and immediately there is the feeling that something is afoot. At the funeral of Mrs Drablow he sees a mysterious figure, the woman in black. This figure continues to haunt him throughout the novel till it's gripping conclusion. The reveal of who and why this woman is haunting Eel Marsh House was one of my favourite parts of the novel, I also particularly enjoyed the ending which was excellent. I think however I would have enjoyed this more if I could have concentrated a little better on what I was reading. By all accounts it's somewhat different to the film but it does maintain a sinister undercurrent throughout and although there are certainly spine chilling moments I wouldn't regard this book as overwhelming scary.

The perks of being a wallflower.

Rather the perks of being ill meant I was able to trundle through this novel by Stephen Chbosky this morning in my bed ridden state. I was mid way through another book called the collected Dorothy Parker and as much as like Dorothy Parker I needed a little break. So this book is written as a series of letters from a 15 year old called charlie to some unknown person. Essentially then Charlie is the narrator of the story and is a very bright, likeable character who see's the world in his own way. He isn't normal in the traditional sense of normal. The charlie that narrates is inconsistent with the charlie you'd imagine if you only knew the situations and events that happen in the course of the book. He seems younger (and by younger I mean about 8 years old as opposed to 15) in his letters, his level of naivety doesn't match that of an adolescent by even the greatest stretch of the imagination. The quantity of issues dealt with in the book is also rather vast, almost disproportionate to it's length and henceforth none are dealt with any great depth. Saying all of that I really enjoyed this book, if you just go along with it and don't pay any great attention to the nagging feeling that things don't all fit it's actually very good. Some of it is massively sad too and there are quite a few tear jerker moments. Essentially then it's kind of like watching Stepmom or The Notebook or a generic Jennifer Aniston film, a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours but it's probably not going to win any awards. It's compared to the catcher in the rye and other 'coming of age stories' and I genuinely liked it more than J.D Salingers novel (controversial I know but i'm not Holden Caulfields biggest fan) but I doubt it'll leave the same impression on me.