Classics > U Classics

James Joyce - Ulysses - Not The Audio Book!

Advantages: Among the greatest novels ever written.
Disadvantages: You'd be best to take a few maps,

Ulysses is both a start and an end. It is the start of something spectacular, exciting, innovative and revolutionary in the medium of the novel, and yet it is also the end of the novel, for post-Ulysses, there is very little left to be said by way of a series of words arranged in chapters and bound under a common name. Of all the modern classics, it is perhaps the most daunting. More so even than Proust's In Search Of Lost Time which seems as broad ...
...fragmented, challenging, anti-narratives that followed. Ulysses MEANS something more than can be contained in its pages, and most everyone, certainly at this point in western culture, has some sort of grasp on what that meaning might be, or, at the very least, houses some awareness of the fact that there are a great many people who spend a great deal of their time fretting over every comma, every arcane reference to this or the other Irish King or ...

DavidJay 22.10.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Ulysses - James Joyce

Under Milk Wood - It's a play for voices boyo

Advantages: Fantastic words that are wonderful read or listened to.
Disadvantages: None for me

...this little Welsh village situated under Milk Wood. There is no plot to the play just a whole host of wonderful characters who tell their stories as they dream . From Captain Cat - the old blind sea captain who dreams of his long dead sailor friends, to Mr. Willy Nilly - the postman, who even in his sleep thinks that he is delivering the post, and every night knocks on his poor wife Mrs. Willy Nilly, as if she were the door; - because of this she ...
...own personaliies and foibles. Under Milk Wood is such a joy to read; you can feel the joy, attention and love that Thomas put into the incredible words. Every description leaps out of the pages, Thomas's use of words draws us a picture of those wonderful people, their houses and the landscape.We are with them before they wake, we travel with them through their days activities and we watch as they go to sleep again - at the end of the play we know ...

oldchem 30.05.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Under Milk Wood - Dylan Thomas

Give Uncle Tom A Chance!

Advantages: A truly phenomenal novel
Disadvantages: It must be regarded in its historical context

...to modern fiction, don't bother. Uncle Tom's Cabin is essentially a product of a very specific time in American history (it was published in 1852) and it is very important to consider attitudes at the time when reading it. Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln only half-jokingly referrred to her as 'the little lady' who started the American civil war because of the phenomenal success of this novel. And make no mistake: it was phenomenal. ...
...at the time, Uncle Tom's Cabin sold enough copies for there to be one for every four or five readers by the time of the civil war. The introduction to my Wordsworth Classics edition (well worth getting for the extensive notes and introduction) hails it as "arguably the most popular and certainly the most influential novel ever written by an American" - a great achievement when you consider the giants Beecher Stowe is up against (Hemingway, Faulkner, ...

DoubleFantasy11 08.07.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly - Harriet Stowe

Yo, Ho, Ho and a bottle of rum!

Advantages: Exciting, Chilling and great for both boys and girls.
Disadvantages: Murder Scenes (bear in mind for young or sensitive children)

...comes across a map of Treasure Island in a pirate's chest. He embarks on an adventure of a lifetime in pursuit of treasure with the well respected but foolish and greedy Dr Livesey and Squire Trelawney who mistakenly hire a crew of violent, drunken pirates. Expect adventure, excitement, murder, mutiny and betrayal in this timeless book written for boys ( but as I'm proof, loved by girls too!) OTHER FACTS- The story of Treasure Island has greatly ...
...who in Treasure Island created the idea of 'X' marks the spot on treasure maps. He created the image of a peg-legged pirate with a parrot on his shoulder (Long John Silver) and the term 'dead mans chest' among other things. The story has inspired many films and books, including the Muppets adaptation aswell as Disney's 'Treasure Planet' and Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. ...

fragglerock2006 11.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Don't Scoot On By

Advantages: Very desriptive and emotional writing
Disadvantages: Some of his character names

...is his second novel. Scooter Reilly is a young child in 1960s New York, inheriting his unfortunate name from the former Yankees player Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto. It's a time of historical change for the country and a major change in the Bronx where Scooter and his family live. It's a time of great change for Scooter himself, as when he is four his grandfather has a nasty accident that costs him an eye. Soon after, his father and grandfather become estranged ...
...steals from Scooter first his baseball playing dreams and then, after another nasty accident, his ability to walk properly. As if his name wasn't enough to cope with, Scooter's life never seems to take the easy path. He finally finds someone who can love him, but first his mother and then her brother comes between them. He is frequently in fights, some of which he wins, but mostly not. His only solace is the grandfather he is forbidden to visit, ...

Soho_Black 03.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Scooter - Mick Foley