Classics > B Classics

Advantages: A specatularly imaginative narrative setting Dickensian England magnificently!
Disadvantages: One sometimes travels a long way to find out not very much.

...my mission the ability of Bleak House to have me gripped from page one to the end surprised even myself. As with all Dickens' novels there is what may be described as an overly desricptive way of writing, but it really is something to behold as one imagines oneself trundling through the bowels of London all that time ago. The story is intriguigly built around two points, firstly the narrative of Esther Summerson and her journey through life as a ...
...civil law suit regarding a will into which is cousins Ada and Richard are entwined. In addition there is a narrator who follows the plot around through other characters as the journey progresses: what job will Richard decide upon or will he become involved in the law suit, will the truth behind Esther's birth ever be known and will the Jarndyce law suit ever reach a conclusion? On a personal note the naming of a room as a growlery for when one is ... Read review

Advantages: Gorgeously evocative, extremely vibrant characters.
Disadvantages: Waughian tendency towards Catholic moralising - beware depressing ending!

When I put down Brideshead Revisited after having finished it for the first time, I had acquired a whole new ambition in life. I had decided that, quite simply, I had to go to Oxford University, or I would die. If there is one great skill made evident in Waugh's writing, it is that he is able to remember and to recreate people and places so vibrantly that you feel, when you read his prose, as if you had known them yourself. As Charles Ryder, the ...
...of longing for it. Brideshead Revisited is almost unique among Waugh's books in that, instead of satirising, it applauds the 1920s as an idyllic period to which the world should look back with nostalgia, an idea Waugh himself slates in many of his other novels (Vile Bodies and Decline and Fall being the most obvious). Evelyn Waugh was not a nice man. I remember feeling particularly antagonistic towards him after learning that he spent much of his ... Read review

Advantages: Solid Writing
Disadvantages: None

...make compelling reading nonetheless. Black Snow is probably the most intriguing of Bulgakov's other texts. Often referred to as A Theatrical Novel, it is a satire, based on his experiences of the Moscow Theatre, where he worked for a while, and the Theatre's director, Stanislavsky, who he found to be a difficult fellow to work with. Stanislavsky had created a 'method' of acting, which many actors embraced wholeheartedly, yet the great writer did ...
...almost at his best in Black Snow. As the extract on the front cover states: "On the 29th April Moscow was washed clean by a thunderstorm. The air was delightful: it mellowed the heart and made one want to start living again…" In my opinion there is no better description of inner release as one breathes in the fresh air after a storm. Further, his writing is at times unexpected: "During the winter I had lost my few acquaintances and had shut myself ... Read review

Advantages: a joy to hear and educational
Disadvantages: none

...again. An audio copy of Barnaby Rudge is a revelation. Gordon riots, an historical event, come to life. The social conditions off the time are described so well, the listener seems to be transported back in time. I say listener as reading Dickens is often hard work, but having the wonderful stories read to you is a different matter. I'm handicapped and always listen rather than read books, I am the lucky one. The Listening Library for the handicapped ... Read review

Advantages: short
Disadvantages: none

...of a castle by a beggar woman who is taken in by the count and countess of the castle. The is put in a room and asked to get up and move to the other side. She slips and dies. She then haunts the house. To verify this the couple sleep in said room and discover the ghost. This sends the count mad and her burns down the house with him remaining inside. This is a fine example of Kleist’s seemingly seemless and irreverent horror. There are so many questions ... Read review