ed_moore's reviews
289 reviews

On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia (Modern Classics Translated) by Sigmund Freud

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dark informative slow-paced

2.5

“Mourning is regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one's country, liberty, an ideal, and so on.” 

Freud’s essay ‘On Mourning and Melancholia’ looks at the different states of mourning and melancholy, how mourning is a conscious and therapeutic psychological process and melancholy unconscious and pathological. Melancholic states heighten self-criticism and man discovers the true negatives of himself when denied the control of his ego. Self-reproaches also often reflect individual criticisms of others as a consequence of the ego and also incorporates a layer of narcissism. Freud argues is the self-reproach of such that leads to attitudes of sadism and result in suicide. 

It was an alright essay but I am quite un-opinonated on such, hence it’s middle-ground rating. I was much more impressed by his essays on dreams and the Oedipus Complex as those really clicked with me and I started to really understand where he was coming from after initially dismissing him slightly.'Mourning and Melancholia' was interesting reading in relation to Hamlet but I only really logged it because it is on one of my self made reading challenges (every book ever referenced in my university lectures) and want to mark such as complete!
Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling

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adventurous informative lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

“Have patience. Link by link is chainmail made. I will tell all in its place” 

Kipling’s ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ follows the children Dan and Una as they learn from a ‘hill-person’, a sort of fairy called Puck, about the early history of England looking at its Roman, Norman and Saxon years up to the signing of the Magna Carta. It was strange in format, as each of the ten ‘stories’ the children were told by a historical figure who just materialises to life from nowhere is opened and closed with a song, and a point is made at the end of each of using magical leaves to make the children forget, yet reminding them of the past interactions at the start of each new one. It was just a very pointless cycle that made very little sense. 

Usually I don’t adore children literature due to its more simple writing style, me no longer being the target audience, however I am knocking Kipling’s tales down for the opposite reason. I struggle to understand how this is aimed at children as it was really difficult to follow and required a lot of complex historical contexts. It was just written in a very confusing manner, assuming a lot and difficult to enjoy. I fail to understand how this was a beloved children’s tale. In addition, I can’t ignore the subtle embedded racist remarks and religious prejudices which would’ve been indoctrinated into young readers when interacting with this text. 
Hamlet by William Shakespeare

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“To be, or not to be: That is the question: wether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them. To die - to sleep no more” 

I would consider ‘Hamlet’ to be one of the largest holes in my reading of the canon to this point, alongside ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘Moby Dick’ as titans of literature I was yet to read. I am glad to say that this ‘Hamlet’ shaped hole has now been patched. ‘Hamlet’ voices Elizabethan concerns of succession as it focuses on the changing of monarchical power after the murder of Prince Hamlet’s father, the King of Denmark, and the subsequent quest for Revenge. It was an incredibly executed revenge story with so many iconic moments and images and a wonderful depiction of the feigning of madness. It is rooted with philosophical ideas about death, afterlife and succession and soliloquies packed with Hamlet viewing himself as a recurring Heracles figure which was much enjoyable. 

I will argue that I wanted much more from Ophelia. She was done so dirty by those around her and probably both the most interesting yet worse developed of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines, having now read all the major tragedies. 

The iconic nature of ‘To be or not to be’ did not quite have the impact I expected it to, it didn’t have as much a prominence in the plot as one would assume given how much it is quoted. The play as a whole though was brilliant and among the best of Shakespeare I have read, only ‘Macbeth’ tops it; the atmosphere of ‘Macbeth’ is where such gets the leg up over ‘Hamlet’. 

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

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dark reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.” 

This is now my second reread of Orwell’s ‘1984’ and it still holds strong as my indisputable favourite book. Orwell is so masterful in his political commentary, he criticises totalitarian power in the most direct and impactful ways, yet plays with its inevitability and the bleak reality of the world Orwell creates is so realistic and hence so terrifying. I still get goosebumps in certain parts and his manipulation of the mind is so strong and language so effective, at occasional points it is even convincing that the party makes sense and then you remember what you are reading.
 
This time round I was reading with an especial focus on song and nursery rhyme for my dissertation, and the way Orwell weaves it in, the meaning of the occasions holding so much weight and significance while being such an overlooked element of the text with the political commentary taking the forefront, it is utterly masterful. 

Admittedly on the third read I did start to see a lot more flaws with the book. Plot conveniences and poor writing was seeping through the cracks which were too thin in my first reads of it and the writing of Julia as a character is truly awful. I did not realise how blunt Orwell is in places with quite frankly tragic writings of female characters. 

Nonetheless, the love affair between Winston and Julia is not the primary focus of the book nor impacts the core messages and ideas that Orwell is trying to portray, and for that I am still confident to give it the past and once again reward it five stars. It is brilliant every single time for the same and so many new reasons. 
Sacred Hospitality by Olivie Blake

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fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.75

“The two turned with satisfaction to watch the rosy beams of sunrise brighten the still smouldering drapes” 

‘Sacred Hospitality’ is a short satirical story tacked onto the end of my edition of ‘The Atlas Six’ which follows the cast of the six Medeans each at some form of dinner that plays on ancient greek traditions of hospitality. Blake provides an insight into each of their lives before the events of the main book but honestly the story really offered nothing, it was not witty nor revealed anything noteworthy or really any major comments on hospitality from the author herself. It just felt like something that didn’t need to particularly be written which comes across much harsher than I mean it to but it really just feels a lot like the filler centre that makes up ‘The Atlas Six’.
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

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adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

“The problem with knowledge is its inexhaustible craving. The more of it you have, the less you feel you know” 

Olivia Blake’s ‘The Atlas Six’ is a dark academia following the first year of six Medeans (magicians) in seeking their induction to the Alexandrian Society, a modern library of Alexandrea that keeps the worlds greatest knowledge from public consumption. Each of the cohort were chosen for their extraordinary skill in a particular field of magic. 

The world building was really strong, though in some cases the explanation for why a certain person can specialise in a particular sort of magic (such as bending the physics of the universe or telepathy) was unclear, the rest of the it, if accepting this magic system just as it is and to be, was strong. It establishes a dynamic of elitism versus knowledge for the public good, however those in the society consider knowledge to be dangerous and therefore must be kept behind lock and key. 

‘The Atlas Six’ follows the six young inductees as they navigate the first year and aim to be one of the inducted five, the one deemed unworthy being eliminated. It establishes no definitive protagonist, however certain members of the six such as Libby and Parissa got far more character development than the likes of Reina and Callum, even though time in each of the six’s perspectives I don’t feel was that unbalanced. Also the large majority of the middle section of the book was extremely plotless. Somehow so many words were used by Blake and yet nothing happened but purposeless passages of studying (which I wasn’t as engaged in as past dark academia’s I have read as it was a study of the fictional rather than a knowledge I also pursue) and sexual desires, these romance subplots being tossed around with no plot purpose and only to incorporate a bit of ‘spice’ which I feel took away from the book. The opening and the conclusion were strong but just far too limited for the length of the book and how much of the middle was filler.
The Prevention of Literature: 3 (Orwell's Essays) by George Orwell

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dark informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

“Freedom of the press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticise and oppose” 

Orwell’s ‘The Prevention of Literature’ is a work of non-fiction that is so typically Orwellian. In this instance he argues that freedom of press does not exist as the individual writer applies self-censorship to their writing in ages of political uncertainty. The poet is more free than the prose writer as poetry has more window for re-interpretation and multiple contributors, but prose is a literary form doomed to lose all individuality. This extended to an argument that with the rise of radio and television all forms of literature will become obsolete, and in totalitarian states classical literature rewritten to lose any individual value or style. In this instance Orwell was incorrect as thankfully the form of the novel has continued to existed alongside growth of other media, if not lost its significance just a little. This fear becomes relevant again today, but hopefully Orwell’s incorrect bleak visions of the future for literature were proven incorrect once and hence are able to be incorrect again. He will be twisting in his grave if he were to ever hear of the development of AI. 
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

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dark reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

“We leave something of ourselves behind. Nothing material, but a hair-pin on a dressing-table, not an empty bottle of aspirin tablets, not a handkerchief beneath a pillow, but something indefinable, a moment of our lives, a thought, a mood”

Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ follows the unnamed narrator in her marriage to the Lord of Manderly, Maxim De Winter. When she moves in with him however she feels constantly inferior to the deceased first wife of Maxim, Rebecca, for everyone in the house and village idolised her and all she does is compared to how Rebecca once did such. The lack of name adds so much here and  despite her being the narrator, the reader sees her as an empty spirit that is haunting the place, just as much as the deceased spirit of the eponymous character. It is a slow build up and for the first couple of chapters I did believe the narrator was Rebecca, however it is so well written and the atmosphere of always failing to live up to the unachievable is so powerful. The end absolutely picked up in pace though and the final third was so gripping! 

The morality of people is also so key in the book, Du Maurier plays with the readers sympathies and establishes villains who I don’t see as entirely antagonistic as the narrator makes out, and she and Maxim though the much loved protagonists of the story with motives of love so layered and so flawed too. The layers of relationships that Du Maurier builds go beyond love triangles, they are messy and complicated but alike to how well written her prose was, Du Maurier handles them very well. 

The Gothic atmosphere and some plot elements reminded me in many ways of ‘Wuthering Heights’, and though the very final twist I did see coming a little in advance there were a fair few earlier ones each very powerful. I am left reconsidering so much in the novels conclusion.
Inside the Whale by George Orwell

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.25

“There you are, in the dark, cushioned space that exactly fits you, with yards of blubber between yourself and reality, able to keep up an attitude of the completest indifference, no matter what happens. A storm that would sink all the battleships in the world would hardly reach you as an echo.” 

Orwell’s ‘Inside The Whale’ is a long-form essay that opens as a book review of Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Cancer’, praising it for its exploration of the everyman on the streets of a 1920s Paris full of failed artists, whereas evolves into a look at the geopolitical tensions in the opening of the Second World War, its influence on literature and the hold of communism on the young writer. As usual in Orwell’s non-fiction, though this essay was long and sprawling in its topic, looking at Orwell’s early love of A.E Housman to criticising the writer who is too scared to write beyond the politically accepted, Orwell is extremely articulate and his arguments are fascinating. The title of the essay comes from his belief that like Jonah, Miller publishing in a time of political breakdown with the prominence of extremist powers, he situates himself ‘inside the whale’, where he is ultimately failing his duty as a writer in accepting the world as it is and choosing to ignore the prevalent concerns of the nation that should be addressed in literature. 
The Complete Poetry by George Orwell, Dione Venables, Peter Hobley Davison

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dark reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.5

“The lord of all, the money-god,
 Who rules us blood and hand and brain,
 Who gives the roof that stops the wind,
 And, giving, takes away again;” 

Orwell’s poetry explores many of the themes you would expect from him given the topics of his novels: poverty, industrialism, war and politics, however surprisingly the man had a soft spot and has a significant amount of works focused on nature and a couple on love, whereas is generally very cynical and makes claims that when the end of mankind comes he cares not. All in all I found and read seventeen of Orwell’s poems, five of these I had to transcribe from handwritten manuscripts with no typeface being available for such online. This indicates a the sheer lack of critical interest in Orwell’s poetry and I suppose such is for a reason. Orwell isn’t known for his poetry whatsoever and there is a reason for that. He simply wasn’t a very good poet. A lot of his structures and pacing is clumsy and one of the only ones that stood out as good poetry; ‘St Andrew’s Day 1935’, is the poem used in ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ anyway and hence has an identity beyond the collection of Orwell’s poetic works.