Archive for the ‘Thoughts On’ Category
Thoughts On: ‘The Reader’
March 14th, 2010
Picking up The Reader I didn’t have a massive idea of what it was about, I knew it was set around a romance but I didn’t really know much more than that. I certainly didn’t expect what it to be what it was either, what a wonderful surprise. As a lover of history and trying to understand things that don’t always make sense this book touched on feelings I have often found myself pondering. I don’t know much about the history of German or WWII particularly well (I stopped studying it at 16), but to my surprise that really didn’t seem to matter. The Reader is poignant and heart wrenching, I adored it, I read it in one sitting, I couldn’t let myself put it down.
“The Reader is a brief tale about sex, love, reading and shame in post-war Germany. Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany’s Nazi past and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: what should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust? “We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable… Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?”"
- Amazon.co.uk
Thoughts On: ‘Labyrinth’
February 14th, 2010
I purchased Labyrinth by Kate Mosse a few years ago due to the protagonist’s name being Alice, and promptly forgot I owned it. Pulling it off the shelf a few weeks back I thought I would give it a go as I do enjoy novels that involve a period in the past and the present. I would love to say that this novel gripped me throughout, but I must admit by about 30 pages in my main reason for trudging through it was the thought of the next book I could read. Labyrinth is an interesting and well-researched story but it just did not pull me in, it lacked that grip-factor that stops you sleeping you so desire to know the conclusion. Any historical fiction loving reader should give it a go, but at 600+ pages long anyone who is not may not wish to bother.
Filmisch: Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
February 11th, 2010
Before Twilight, I Am Legend, Vampire Chronicles, True Blood, Buffy, Angel, The Vampire Diaries, The Historian, etc. there was Dracula. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the pinnacle of vampire fiction, this epic ‘other’ is influential for all following vampire literature. But how does Bram Stoker relate to this blog on Nosferatu? Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) [Nosferatu; A Symphony of Horror] is a German silent film by F.W. Murnau based almost wholly on Bram Stokers Dracula. Murnau followed Stoker’s literature so closely that Stokers wife sued him for plagiarism and all but a few copies were burnt. Nosferatu is the first surviving vampire film, and considering the fate of the majority of the copies it is incredibly lucky that it can hold this title.
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Thoughts On: ‘Invictus’
February 8th, 2010
Poetry isn’t my forte, I am not a poetry master or lover however, occasionally I do find a poem I can appreciate. I discovered Invictus by William Ernest Henley while I was watching the film of the same name. Though poorly executed I enjoyed the film but it was this poem that really got to me. It is a poem about fighting adversity, that no matter what happens, no matter how badly you are treated, you can not be beaten. A beautiful message.
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