![]() ![]() Most people know a thing or two about Pride and Prejudice - if only because of Colin Firth's dip into that pond. Satire makes up just one layer of the novel however - it's also a story of forbidden love, family secrets and intrigues.Īnd, being Dickens, the book is jam-packed with unforgettable characters, not least of all London itself- the sprawl of the city and the curling tentacles of fog have never been depicted so powerfully. ![]() On the surface it's a satirical (and still relevant) assault on the British legal system - how corrupt lawyers, aristocrats and businessmen use the courts for their own ends. He crammed in everything he knew about Victorian London, and reading the result is the next best thing to time travel. It may not be as famous as Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, but Bleak House has got to be Charles Dickens' greatest novel. He purchases them from landowners, hoping that it will create the illusion that he owns many workers himself, and so allow him to extract huge loans from the government.Ī broad and brilliant satire on society - Gogol caricatures and parodies nearly everyone, from gossiping housewives to cruel landowners to pompous officials - Dead Souls is also considered the first-ever Russian novel. It was written by Nikolai Gogol - not particularly famous outside Russia, but actually a major influence on both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.ĭead Souls is his only novel, and tells the story of an enterprising young man who travels around Russia buying up "dead souls" - that is, peasant workers who have died, but who are still registered as living in the census records. 19 DEAD SOULSĭon't be fooled by the morbid-sounding title: Dead Souls is actually one of the wittiest books of the 19th Century. It was only after his death that the book became accepted as the masterpiece it is - a compelling story that that also tackles big ideas like man's place in nature, the need for meaning in life, and the nature of America itself. Melville had previously been a successful writer of maritime adventure stories, but then he penned this ambitious tale of a maddened sea captain, obsessed with hunting down a white whale, and it proved a little too much for readers at the time.Įven critics were puzzled by Melville's poetic, almost Biblical style of writing. The downturn in his career was actually due to Moby Dick. Yet this great writer was almost forgotten by the time he died, and was even listed as Henry Melville in the New York Times obituary. Melville's masterpiece was based in-part on the true story of the Essex, which was adapted into the film The Whale. "Call me Ishmael." With these three words, Herman Melville began Moby Dick - perhaps the most important American novel of the 19th Century. Moby Dick sign at Walker Bay, Hermanus 1. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |