Bibliography
Jul. 14th, 2013 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyOfficers and Gentlemen - Evelyn Waugh
The second of the Sword of Honour series sees Guy Crouchback manage to get his way back into active service again, via a slightly suspect attachment to the Commandos, and end up in Italy and Crete. Alas, things do not go entirely the way of honour - there is a feeling here of a real opportunity to do something impressive that melts away into the squalid, unpleasant reality of life in wartime. The retreat from Crete is particularly beastly. This is Waugh's attempts to melt away all the school-boy-ish verve of the first book into the harsh realities of actual front line life, where despite their names, officers and gentlemen do not always turn out to be so.
Unconditional Surrender - Evelyn Waugh
The third and final of the Sword of Honour series. Guy has been returned to London and is frantically trying to get himself back into action, but to no avail; he slowly resigns himself to what he can get, which in the end is a parachuting course and being a liaison officer in Yugoslavia. But in the meantime, a series of figures and themes whirl in the background - his relationship to the Catholic faith; his ex-wife, soon to be wife again, Virginia; the figure of Ludovic, a man who did not behave as he should have done on Crete, and represents all the broken and harmed artistic men who came out of WWII. It's a much more meditative book than the first two, and spends more time unpicking the frailties and peculiarities of human nature - but in that, too, there is something of a surrender to the facts of real life rather than the romanticisation of them.
Time of Hope - C. P. Snow
The first of the Strangers and Brothers sequence, which I am going to have a go at following The Masters and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gurdonark's recommendation. This volume takes us through the childhood of Lewis Elliot, his training at the bar, his eventual marriage to a frankly entirely unsuitable woman for solely pathological reasons, and leaves us there. It is an oddly compelling book, despite one's temptation to shake Lewis for being bloodyminded about pursuing Sheila even though he knows that only bad can come of it; there's a sense of a man looking back on life and realising the scope of his own limitations bitterly and realistically. I'm rather looking forward to the rest of them.
Death at the Opera - Gladys Mitchell
I had promised myself that I must try to read an actual Mrs. Bradley mystery after seeing the Diana Rigg television series, and here we are. This is one of the novels that was adapted for the television, and I think it's safe to say that the plot was changed beyond all reason from what actually happens in the book - not a problem per se, but never mind. The Mrs. Bradley of the book is also entirely different from Diana Rigg's rendition - again, not a problem, but a shift in tone. It's just a jolly good thing that I like self-confident and difficult women, really. I particularly like the way that she is often described with the metaphor of a serpent or python waiting to snatch its unwary prey. The plot is somewhat convoluted (as all the best ones are), and I'm not entirely convinced of the exposition - plus I thought the revelation of the murderer on the very last page left it a bit later than is conventional in the genre (again not a bad thing, but something to be prepared for in future reading). The plot, if you're interested, seeks to solve who killed a maths mistress during a school opera production, and why. The answer is, of course, thoroughly hidden around red herrings - which is all part of the fun.
A Storm of Swords: Part 2 - Blood and Gold - George R. R. Martin
Oh, come on. With all the internet having got terribly excited about the Red Wedding, I had to know what all the fuss was about. It turns out that my brain had invented something that was far more dramatic and far less emotionally traumatic than what actually happens (no spoilers here), but now I know! This stuff really is book crack and I'm glad that I'm parcelling it out to myself in small doses. I'm also glad I have the sort of brain that means I can do that without losing track of who's who too badly. Generally impressions - yay Jon Snow and Arya, yay comeuppances for them as deserves them, *weeps* for those who get stabbed and shouldn't, OH MY HEAVENS THE LAST PAGE. So, yes. A bit of a break on other things, and then I'll move to the fourth volume.
The second of the Sword of Honour series sees Guy Crouchback manage to get his way back into active service again, via a slightly suspect attachment to the Commandos, and end up in Italy and Crete. Alas, things do not go entirely the way of honour - there is a feeling here of a real opportunity to do something impressive that melts away into the squalid, unpleasant reality of life in wartime. The retreat from Crete is particularly beastly. This is Waugh's attempts to melt away all the school-boy-ish verve of the first book into the harsh realities of actual front line life, where despite their names, officers and gentlemen do not always turn out to be so.
Unconditional Surrender - Evelyn Waugh
The third and final of the Sword of Honour series. Guy has been returned to London and is frantically trying to get himself back into action, but to no avail; he slowly resigns himself to what he can get, which in the end is a parachuting course and being a liaison officer in Yugoslavia. But in the meantime, a series of figures and themes whirl in the background - his relationship to the Catholic faith; his ex-wife, soon to be wife again, Virginia; the figure of Ludovic, a man who did not behave as he should have done on Crete, and represents all the broken and harmed artistic men who came out of WWII. It's a much more meditative book than the first two, and spends more time unpicking the frailties and peculiarities of human nature - but in that, too, there is something of a surrender to the facts of real life rather than the romanticisation of them.
Time of Hope - C. P. Snow
The first of the Strangers and Brothers sequence, which I am going to have a go at following The Masters and
gurdonark's recommendation. This volume takes us through the childhood of Lewis Elliot, his training at the bar, his eventual marriage to a frankly entirely unsuitable woman for solely pathological reasons, and leaves us there. It is an oddly compelling book, despite one's temptation to shake Lewis for being bloodyminded about pursuing Sheila even though he knows that only bad can come of it; there's a sense of a man looking back on life and realising the scope of his own limitations bitterly and realistically. I'm rather looking forward to the rest of them.Death at the Opera - Gladys Mitchell
I had promised myself that I must try to read an actual Mrs. Bradley mystery after seeing the Diana Rigg television series, and here we are. This is one of the novels that was adapted for the television, and I think it's safe to say that the plot was changed beyond all reason from what actually happens in the book - not a problem per se, but never mind. The Mrs. Bradley of the book is also entirely different from Diana Rigg's rendition - again, not a problem, but a shift in tone. It's just a jolly good thing that I like self-confident and difficult women, really. I particularly like the way that she is often described with the metaphor of a serpent or python waiting to snatch its unwary prey. The plot is somewhat convoluted (as all the best ones are), and I'm not entirely convinced of the exposition - plus I thought the revelation of the murderer on the very last page left it a bit later than is conventional in the genre (again not a bad thing, but something to be prepared for in future reading). The plot, if you're interested, seeks to solve who killed a maths mistress during a school opera production, and why. The answer is, of course, thoroughly hidden around red herrings - which is all part of the fun.
A Storm of Swords: Part 2 - Blood and Gold - George R. R. Martin
Oh, come on. With all the internet having got terribly excited about the Red Wedding, I had to know what all the fuss was about. It turns out that my brain had invented something that was far more dramatic and far less emotionally traumatic than what actually happens (no spoilers here), but now I know! This stuff really is book crack and I'm glad that I'm parcelling it out to myself in small doses. I'm also glad I have the sort of brain that means I can do that without losing track of who's who too badly. Generally impressions - yay Jon Snow and Arya, yay comeuppances for them as deserves them, *weeps* for those who get stabbed and shouldn't, OH MY HEAVENS THE LAST PAGE. So, yes. A bit of a break on other things, and then I'll move to the fourth volume.
