Classics > T Classics

Tess - heroine or whore??

Advantages: A tragic but wonderful read
Disadvantages: None

...old favourite of mine - Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. When the book ( first called 'A Pure Woman') was published in 1891, it ruffled quite a few Victorian feathers!! Hardy fearlessly tackled issues such as murder, rape and violence which were, at the time unmentionable. What readers today have to understand is that the topics Hardy covered - while commonplace in contemporary literature, were considered obscene in the nineteenth century. ...
...truth be concealed." Tess of the D'Urbervilles deals with the oppression of an innocent girl. Most of the consequences she faced were not due to her own actions which makes this story somewhat of a tragedy in that sense giving the book a mood that you can try to make for yourself a good life, but you do not determine your own outcome. The book starts with a somewhat insignificant incident - or so we think : John Durbeyfield, a middle-aged peddler, ...

oldchem 04.07.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

The Adventures Of a Boy

Advantages: entertaining, deep, eventful
Disadvantages: can get repetitive, annoying

This book is one of the most memorable books I have read as a child. Keep in mind that I read it translated into Russian so I might have missed out on some language details, but esssentially the plot and everything else stays the same. Mark Twain is an extraordinary author. This novel deals with so many themes; chiildhood, relationships (not necessarily romantic ones), growing up and racial segregation (keeping in mind that it is set when black ...
...is the archetypal boy all males once were. He is the black sheep of the family; always getting into mischief, hating his "perfect" brother and friends with the boy your parents tell you not to go near. During the course of the story we hear about his school misdemanours, falling in love and getting lost in a network of caves. Throughout the novel the beliefs of the time run rampant - supersticion and religion are everywhere. These themes are one ...

leciel 22.01.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

  A PLATEFUL OF PARADISE!

Advantages: Fictional therapy
Disadvantages: Not to be read on an empty stomach

...do you go to escape the ugly side of life? Where is your ideal retreat when life becomes uncertain and unkind? Reading fiction is about escape. So slip your lead and come with me to a place in England, set in the late 1950s, where people were kinder, families close, the sun shone every day in summer and even the rain was whisper soft. ♥ ‘The Darling Buds of May’ is a ‘lusty, irrepressible romp’ through Eden. A story as luscious as roast beef, ...
...Marie Antoinette), Montgomery (after the General), twins Zinnia and Petunia (named after Ma’s favourite flowers), Victoria (the plumb) and Primrose (Spring). ♥ It is Springtime when young Cedric Charlton, Tax Inspector, visits Pa Larkin about a little matter of unfiled tax returns. Pa Larkin is something of a wheeler-dealer in scrap and old cars. The piles of junk and rampant nettles that is Pa’s scrap-yard, is ‘screened by thickets of hornbeam ...

Louizalass 10.04.2005 · Read full review
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Review of The Darling Buds of May - H.E. Bates

At the very beginning with 'The Old Buccaneer'

Advantages: Adventure on the high seas, Pirates, Long John Silver, Coming of age
Disadvantages: Understanding Pirate Talk, Realisation you're parents deprived you of a good book

The story and adventure constantly come at you as though waves stretch across the golden sands of 'Treasure Island'. Coaxing you out into the blue horizon and reaching out towards the edge of the earth on the 'Hispaniola' to find out where the next chapter will take you. And you will not be disappointed, each chapter has a new turn of events which constantly keep you wanting more. The great ability of the book is keeping the characters alive in ...
...even hate them or love them. I particularly found the ability in conveying Long John Silver as the chaotically suave 'gentleman' that he is, very effective in generating my illicit need to be a pirate and go on many of his previous adventures of which my imagination takes me. The method of writing, and including the smallest and insignificant of details, is able to spin the image of the grand docks or of the island itself in the centre of your minds ...

Eagle88 18.10.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

THE JUNGLE BOOK

Advantages: GREAT BOOK FOR KIDS
Disadvantages: WRITTEN SOME TIME AGO

INSPERATION FOR THE SCOUT MOVEMENT AND MANY FILMS THIS IS A CLASSIC CHILDRENS STORY BASED IN THE WILDS OF THE AFFICAN JUNGLE IT TELLS THE STORY OF A LITTLE LOTS BOY GROWING UP WITH A PACK OF WOLVES I HAVE READ THE BOOK, LISENED TO THE AUDIO BOOK AND SEEN THE FILM AND THEY ARE ALL MAGICAL EXPERIENCES, WOULD RECOMMEND TO ANY CHILD OVER 8 AND ADULTS WHO ENJOY A GOOD READ IN AN EVER INCREASING GLOBLE WORLD WERE THERE DOES NOT SEEM TO BE MUCH WILD ...

TIMPRICE123 22.04.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling