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A Book Blog"},"subtitle":{"type":"html","$t":""},"link":[{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/feeds\/posts\/default"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/-\/1950s?alt=json-in-script\u0026max-results=5"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/search\/label\/1950s"},{"rel":"hub","href":"http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/"},{"rel":"next","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/-\/1950s\/-\/1950s?alt=json-in-script\u0026start-index=6\u0026max-results=5"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Matthew Selwyn"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00723650905588749638"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"32","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjN7zmj1TFQ8goDTEJ37IJBABxrTWAZkcYGXrt1rh03Lc5OLdGKO7g5W_Sphqb8DATYTQ8if2Qadwc9WofqV5d4ts1bPYy8U7F4njzDZHql6Uw4ha0tZsPGkh-WXiVDXVw\/s220\/unnamed.png"}}],"generator":{"version":"7.00","uri":"http://www.blogger.com","$t":"Blogger"},"openSearch$totalResults":{"$t":"17"},"openSearch$startIndex":{"$t":"1"},"openSearch$itemsPerPage":{"$t":"5"},"entry":[{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600022529355932646.post-4892443973509306402"},"published":{"$t":"2017-01-09T12:29:00.005+00:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2021-09-20T12:57:50.213+01:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"\/ Review"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"1950s"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Casino Royale"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Fiction"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Fiction - Spies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Ian Fleming"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Review: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cstyle\u003E.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }\u003C\/style\u003E\u003Cdiv class='embed-container'\u003E\u003Ciframe src='https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K-j7Z8W8NPY' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003EThe scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nTo my knowledge, I have seen every James Bond film ever made in the English language. It might surprise you, then, to know that I have only read one of \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2iVeGBG\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EIan Fleming\u003C\/a\u003E’s Bond books previously, despite my father having a complete collection of both hardbacks and paperbacks. This being the case, I thought it might be a bit of a lark to have a go at experiencing Bond in my own preferred format. And what better place to start than with \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2i9UEm9\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003ECasino Royale\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E (1953), the novel in which 007 made his debut?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nWhile I have seen both film versions of \u003Ci\u003ECasino Royale\u003C\/i\u003E, my previous experience with a Bond book told me not to expect book and film plots to marry up too closely. Boy was I wrong on that. The Daniel Craig reboot of Bond sticks pretty closely to the shape of the book and I could picture most of the key scenes effortlessly as a consequence. Long-time viewers of the Bond films will know that \u003Ci\u003ECasino Royale\u003C\/i\u003E, while retaining some familiar features like Felix Leiter and the classic car chase, marked a paring back of the classic Bond tropes – no Moneypenny, silly gadgetry or Q, and a harder edge to the man and the story. The book is just the same.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2i8oRih\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\" target=\"blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Casino Royale by Ian Fleming book cover\" border=\"0\" height=\"490\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhitg9K4yeO1P0Xn72Y1SMS-cgB_AaSlzh9pOdUu9T_Y0a7pVt96d_58QXfbeSw-bU3Vq4HXIxL9ItUswMKQ7rH3JsIF6WqDGbskqxiar5jnUdbt6KY4AI2PTcmLIicG53-K3Sxodc3\/w340-h490\/Cover_original+-+Casino+Royale.png\" style=\"padding-left: 10px;\" width=\"340\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003EThe plot revolves around a high stakes game of Baccarat at a glamourous casino (Texas Hold ‘Em Poker in the film, I am reliably informed). Bond, being the best card player in the service, is sent by MI6 to defeat a known enemy at the baccarat table and thus bankrupt him. Le Chiffre is in bed with the USSR and the ominous SMERSH and, having lost monies not belonging to him, his only chance to save his own neck is to raise a profit of at least fifty million francs through high-end gambling. The scene is set, then, for a weekend of big-money betting, Bond backed by the Treasury, Le Chiffre by what remains of his ill-gotten funds.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nBeside the game runs the entanglement between Bond and Vesper Lynd, a beautiful but cold woman also in the employ of MI6. Unsurprisingly, an attachment between the two develops and this new connection is pushed to the limit when Lynd is captured by Le Chiffre late in the piece and Bond is forced to sacrifice himself in the pursuit of her release.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nThe plot may sound fairly simplistic but this is a slim book that doesn’t attempt to be anything other than a piece of escapism for a British audience who were living in the rather dour atmosphere of post-war austerity. By comparison, the excitement and colour of the world described must have been infinitely seductive for those who dreamed of adventure in faraway lands. And what better world to engage people than that of espionage, so relevant in Cold War Europe? In the past, boys had dreamed of shipping off to an adventure with pirates in Treasure Island or to one of the colonies to meet with other civilisations, but in the 1950s what could be more thrilling than saving Queen and country while strutting around exotic locations, killing bad guys \/ suspicious foreigners, and sleeping with beautiful women? It is not difficult to see how James Bond became the great success he is today.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nBut being an icon of masculinity comes with a few downsides. It will not shock anybody for me to suggest that Bond’s attitude to women is not entirely chivalrous by modern standards. I had therefore expected passages like the following - in fact would just consider this part of Bond’s character, not a problem from the writer’s point of view per se:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003EThese blithering women who thought they could do a man's work. Why the hell couldn't they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men's work to the men.\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nBut even with that foreknowledge I was a bit taken aback when I ran across the following sentence, describing Bond’s tryst with Lynd:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003EAnd now he knew that she was profoundly, excitingly sensual, but that the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape.\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nYou are all excused while you go and vomit into a handy receptacle. Yes, this was a different time but I very much suspect not everyone back then would have considered ‘the sweet tang of rape’ to be an acceptable way of talking about intimate relations with a loved one.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nBond is, undeniably, a dinosaur. I do not think you can read Fleming’s books without viewing him thus (unless, of course, you somewhat agree with his attitudes). As I read the book and started to catalogue Bond’s characteristics – a snobbish obsession with brands, a borderline criminal attitude to the “use” of women, a need to explain the finer points of his accoutrements, and a queasy enthusiasm for describing genitals being mutilated (okay, we can put this one on Fleming) – I was put in mind of a more modern character who is slightly less idolised: Patrick Bateman. Quite honestly, Bond felt like the sort of slick prick that could have become \u003Ci\u003EAmerican Psycho\u003C\/i\u003E’s monster had he been born thirty years later and transported to the heady atmosphere of 1980’s Wall Street. The annoying thing for all of that, is that I didn’t hate him. Even as I recognised his flaws as a supposedly likeable character, I went along with him on the absurd and intoxicating trip into the glamourous world of super spies who drop millions of Francs at the baccarat table of an evening. What a bastard I must be.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/p\/advertising.html\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Advertise with Bibliofreak.net\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"300\" data-original-width=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjY5_9Ucn-_zxUhyphenhyphenwf2FwqkqRLQeW39qppPcFElPeXZ1O92ln_7nXjSRkGkzfbGi3PMvAlKhQ4GrkQNIyDdsGETz-eT9zFUPKJSObtra47-uGwf6Tvxrgtte4wEGVtibdOUTeii71tl\/s1600\/Sponsor+this+post.png\" style=\"padding-right: 10px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\n\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003EYet I suspect (and hope) that I would not be alone in this. Fleming’s writing is exhilarating, brash, and entirely draws you along with it. There is something powerfully seductive about a narrative that shamelessly carries itself to reckless extravagances and extremes of ignorant chauvinism (just look at the modern political landscape). Fleming doesn’t write with huge flourishes – his prose is bald and plain – but what he does do is place the reader right at the centre of the action. The tiny details that Bond relays about the luxury which surrounds him – how he takes his drink, how he reads a game of cards – draw the reader into his thrall, comfortable to be guided through their escapist fantasy by this confident, bold protagonist. The only time the mask slips is late in the novel when Bond is recovering from his injuries suffered at the hands of Le Chiffre and he begins to question the purpose of intelligence services and chest-thumping patriotism in a fairly basic passage of pseudo-philosophy. Were we not to know that he would still be going strong sixty years later, it would be easy to see Bond wandering off into the sunset, the scales fallen from his eyes, and into a life that would be far from the spy game.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nIn all, Bond seems fairly indifferent to his lot and to the idea of good and bad. Discussing his double-o status, he appears blasé about its significance: “It’s not difficult to get a double-o number if you’re prepared to kill people. That’s all the meaning it has. It’s nothing to be particularly proud of.” This strange apathy extends to Bond’s own agency as he finds himself acted upon more often than forcing his will on the situation. Indeed, baccarat, a game of luck more than skill, seems appropriate for this Bond who feels no divine right to come out the hero.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nSo, \u003Ci\u003ECasino Royale\u003C\/i\u003E’s Bond smokes seventy cigarettes a day, has a scar running down the right side of his face, experiences an existential crisis of sorts, and enjoys the “sweet tang of rape.” Not quite the super spy from the big screen but not entirely removed from him either. I prefer Bond when he slows down – on screen or on the page – and we get set pieces like the baccarat game, just as we do here. Arguably Fleming’s bolt is shot too early when the card game concludes and the plot begins to meander but there is enough to pull the reader through. And, despite noticing Bond’s shortcomings, I cannot pretend I was outraged enough to cast \u003Ci\u003ECasino Royale\u003C\/i\u003E off and leave it unfinished (appalled though I was), rather I found a murmuring of the exhilaration fans of Bond have experienced for years somewhere in me which got me through the book not unwillingly but rapidly, pulled on by Fleming’s crisp prose and Bond’s story.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003ELike the sound of this book? Find it at the following places:\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2SBsWhZ\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"111\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjRd_5ylAM0LmovUcRGxhlEO9xAaUAQ3XmP72If7lkSP8M9rXnUZiN8zIJ4TQYIQw0xLP8hs-3i3k29pe1j4H_MC1wJj3rLdhBJGw_OEeihbEWv_pF8fb31LOfNvayKZEe95RrMMDrY\/s1600\/Amazon+UK+button.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.audible.co.uk\/pd\/Casino-Royale-Audiobook\/B00THFZL5S\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Find book at Audible\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"103\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhru8qopW3ePPqWITseddhdql5glsrwmu7_8BfjFUUGQsDjK4BvqeTGjd1pIbv68AbC9Uejl1OC2mMewyYO8le19sakzuRgIuW39K0sGvSvnQZTlAjejiIGUpvlWcsghpsrbukosEsl\/s1600\/Audible+button.png\" style=\"padding-left: 5px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/link?id=4nzTRC2dTbg\u0026amp;offerid=329812.14463797726\u0026amp;type=2\u0026amp;murl=https:\/\/www.alibris.co.uk\/Casino-Royale-Ian-Fleming\/book\/951003\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Find book at Alibris UK\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhnZ8CmJ4qKISXN4vozeYvWLi-nceKzgVrFL2cPtygkSn3AosDnLvmflYeri4rBgqphbpXvRQEWcJwcIB1gdo_jZZe_rc0jVCupmWelcyFpqRVt6jNApscO4f6K2EsPhDyyTl9w8mWm\/s1600\/Alibris+UK+button.png\" style=\"padding-left: 5px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/link?id=4nzTRC2dTbg\u0026amp;offerid=189673.14463796832\u0026amp;type=2\u0026amp;murl=https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/Casino-Royale-Ian-Fleming\/book\/951003\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Find book at Alibris US\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEgcYbC6XE-8XKMncvD5yil8wHmNfev6lLvz4IfWPVnRzqYKtFfDmwR2ZYOw5iAvOPKoyoUcNmVEGZdY4g1MIAoZleJ_230WoZfprqoKHRLhG3PQigHim2kgaUCsGPZKqDtcCl5ozDm5\/s1600\/Alibris+US+button.png\" style=\"padding-left: 5px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/feeds\/4892443973509306402\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2017\/01\/review-casino-royale-by-ian-fleming.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/4892443973509306402"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/4892443973509306402"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2017\/01\/review-casino-royale-by-ian-fleming.html","title":"Review: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Matthew Selwyn"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00723650905588749638"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"32","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjN7zmj1TFQ8goDTEJ37IJBABxrTWAZkcYGXrt1rh03Lc5OLdGKO7g5W_Sphqb8DATYTQ8if2Qadwc9WofqV5d4ts1bPYy8U7F4njzDZHql6Uw4ha0tZsPGkh-WXiVDXVw\/s220\/unnamed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/K-j7Z8W8NPY\/default.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600022529355932646.post-3234448104970539521"},"published":{"$t":"2016-10-29T17:22:00.002+01:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2021-09-28T14:11:02.058+01:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"\/ Review"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"1950s"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Fiction"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"L. P. Hartley"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"The Go-Between"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Review: The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhvcnbr7JLWt4QSfMNQ0uWZ7qazPWVsyCEItiglvJYbcR6hmRSEcfw-n_c27nJ7YYQ7TjKVEVgaK3g_bMnpyITdHMXsNrEzm29Sla1dUUNp-STYsEQLKXYZDtQ6Dq7Yviu7-NuabVsg\/s1600\/Banner+-+Go-Between.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\n“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” So runs the epigraph, probably more famous than the book itself, of \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2f0fUri\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EL. P. Hartley\u003C\/a\u003E’s wonderful novel of 1953, \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2dY4t1k\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Go-Between\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. I was fortunate enough to study the book at school but others may have come across the story via the film adaptation, written by \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2eYqLCA\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EHarold Pinter\u003C\/a\u003E. For those who haven’t encountered this delicate story yet, let me lay out its happenings.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nIn the 1950s, Leo Colston, a dried up man in his sixties, comes across an old diary which has been hidden away in his loft for countless years. The discovery leads Leo to retrace the extremely eventful summer of 1900, which he spent at Brandham Hall in Norfolk, home of his school friend Marcus Maudsley. Arriving at the Hall just days from his thirteenth birthday, young Leo is a naïve and superstitious child who fixates on the Zodiac and has, in the past school year, warded off bullies with invented spells of his own creation.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2XSoX8b\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEg0T07VRq8p7FtoSm3Abvmex0OWywMG4A-irmI7bEUDonQCcY8Mop22PvBdQVXskKJAVacbBzgupiEnyhkoraqO4uMmcTc8ELQgZk268nMGO6w0v-lh3GKOIKOWNfiHeccqFNNL33iD\/s400\/Cover_original+-+Go-Between.png\" width=\"246\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nHe may feel able to bend events to his own favour following the success of his spells but Leo is plunged into an adult world he barely comprehends at Brandham as he holidays among the well-to-do people that pass through. He is quickly dubbed Mercury, the messenger, as he carries notes between the adults, and becomes captivated by Marcus’s older sister Marian, who pays her brother’s school friend special attention. Marian is promised to Lord Trimingham – Hugh – a veteran of the Boer war who carries the scars of warfare and who owns the Brandham estate. It is an opportune marriage for the Maudsleys but Marian has, it appears, taken up with a local farmer named Ted Burgess with whom she has secret liaisons whenever she can steal away. Leo, of course, fails to see the relationships for what they are and, through the shroud that separates him from his own burgeoning adulthood, feels an attachment to Marian that teeters between sexual and platonic. In his naivety, young Leo facilitates Marian’s liaison through carrying notes; he bonds with Ted, too, who begins to represent a father figure for him. But as the heat rises, marked by the mercury in a small thermometer that Leo consults daily, catastrophe lurks, biding its time and ready to shatter the lives of those who dwell at sleepy Brandham in the summer of 1900.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nAs Leo the elder looks back over the “the most changeful half a century in history,” it becomes very apparent that his own fate is tied, significantly, to that of the new twentieth century. In 1900, Leo, like many of his compatriots, hopes for the dawning of a century so magnificent that it might be the most glorious to have existed. Hindsight tells us that hopes for a peaceful century, full of progress, were to be dashed by The Great War and later by the competing ideologies that would tear the world apart as ideas were defended from behind bullets and bombs. Thus we have the clash of experience\/cynicism and innocence, the new century and the old.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nAt Brandham Hall, the Maudsleys and Trimingham represent a class that would be largely swept away in the first part of the twentieth century and Hartley is also alluding to a change in the structure of British society that would be accelerated by the wars of the twentieth century. As Leo observes of his younger self, his summer with the Maudsleys was “the first time [he] was acutely aware of sical inferiority.” He elevates those around him to the status of gods, separate and untouchable from his own self, and in tone, \u003Ci\u003EThe Go-Between\u003C\/i\u003E reminds me a great deal of \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2011\/05\/review-remains-of-day-by-kazuo-ishiguro.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Remains of the Day\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, in which Stevens – butler to Lord Darlington – places his life in the hands of his employer who turns out to be a Nazi-sympathiser, an upper-class amateur who ought not to meddle in the complexities of global politics. Here Leo is in the position of Stevens, his fate, to a significant extent, in the hands of the ruling class in whom he places his faith.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/p\/advertising.html\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Advertise with Bibliofreak.net\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"300\" data-original-width=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjY5_9Ucn-_zxUhyphenhyphenwf2FwqkqRLQeW39qppPcFElPeXZ1O92ln_7nXjSRkGkzfbGi3PMvAlKhQ4GrkQNIyDdsGETz-eT9zFUPKJSObtra47-uGwf6Tvxrgtte4wEGVtibdOUTeii71tl\/s1600\/Sponsor+this+post.png\" style=\"padding-right: 10px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nLeo does not understand either the complexities of adult communication or the social strictures under which his hosts exist. As such his abrupt realisation of this proves a particularly haunting loss of innocence that will affect him for the remainder of his life. Even as Leo, in his ignorance, contributes to his own, and the household’s, downfall by carrying messages, one cannot help but pity and warm to this boy who is so out of his depth. As he struggles to pronounce the name ‘Hugh’, frequently causing confusion by pronouncing it closer to ‘you’ or ‘who’ than ‘Hugh’, or guesses blindly at the contents of the notes he carries, Leo is so overwhelmingly green (a colour that is consistently associated with him throughout) that the reader’s urge is to protect this naïve and lonely boy from all that is to eventually come his way.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nHartley draws his leading man and his world beautifully, his understated style so wonderfully languid and yet sharply perceptive. It is easy, as the warm summer days to slip by, to be lulled into a false sense of comfort by the rolling, calming prose and remove oneself from the violence of the catastrophe that threatens always to come upon the players of this tale. This plain, comfortable style put me in mind of \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/search\/label\/Julian%20Barnes\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EJulian Barnes\u003C\/a\u003E’s \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2012\/05\/review-sense-of-ending-by-julian-barnes.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Sense of an Ending\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E and \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/search\/label\/Kazuo%20Ishiguro\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EIshiguro\u003C\/a\u003E’s \u003Ci\u003EThe Remains of the Day\u003C\/i\u003E – both examples of very ‘English’ writing. That is to say, unadorned and quietly ticking along – not showy but steeped in the Grand Tradition all the same. Hartley’s use of metaphors – the Zodiac, Leo’s green suit, the Atropa Belladonna, etc. – is obvious and frequent, which is no doubt one of the reasons why the book has found its way onto the English Literature syllabus. It is a near-textbook example of how to construct a novel without confusing the matter with indulgent flourishes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\nIn \u003Ci\u003EThe Go-Between\u003C\/i\u003E we have a story of knowing and unknowing, the tragedy of innocence when it rubs up against knowledge reserved for the adult world, and of social strictures that once governed our land so tightly. All this is told in a deceptively simple form that disguises the more sophisticated pressures going on beneath the surface. For, like the doublespeak of the occupants of Brandham Hall, the novel itself conceals meanings deep within it. Hartley explores the novel as a form and the pressures placed upon (English) novelists to create their work very much to this template (and not forgetting, of course, that books themselves are the love notes passed between author and reader). There is also an argument to be made that Leo is as much enamoured with Ted’s virility as with Marian’s delicate charm. It takes no great leap, then, to suggest that the story has undercurrents of homosexual desire, particularly given Hartley’s own biography. What appears a perfectly poised if rather simple English story takes a more interesting turn considered in these terms and the fact that it works on several levels almost ensures that \u003Ci\u003EThe Go-Between\u003C\/i\u003E is a novel that will be studied for years to come. For my part, I think it is the kind of quietly masterful novel that pulses with Englishness in all of the best ways.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003ELike the sound of this book? Find it at the following places:\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3ienhxa\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Find book at Amazon UK\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"111\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjRd_5ylAM0LmovUcRGxhlEO9xAaUAQ3XmP72If7lkSP8M9rXnUZiN8zIJ4TQYIQw0xLP8hs-3i3k29pe1j4H_MC1wJj3rLdhBJGw_OEeihbEWv_pF8fb31LOfNvayKZEe95RrMMDrY\/s1600\/Amazon+UK+button.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.awin1.com\/cread.php?awinmid=8095\u0026amp;awinaffid=311269\u0026amp;clickref=\u0026amp;p=%5B%5Bhttps:\/\/www.audible.co.uk\/pd\/The-Go-Between-Audiobook\/B01EA6EOQK\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Find book at Audible\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"103\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhru8qopW3ePPqWITseddhdql5glsrwmu7_8BfjFUUGQsDjK4BvqeTGjd1pIbv68AbC9Uejl1OC2mMewyYO8le19sakzuRgIuW39K0sGvSvnQZTlAjejiIGUpvlWcsghpsrbukosEsl\/s1600\/Audible+button.png\" style=\"padding-left: 5px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/link?id=4nzTRC2dTbg\u0026amp;offerid=329812.14463797726\u0026amp;type=2\u0026amp;murl=https:\/\/www.alibris.co.uk\/The-Go-Between-L-P-Hartley\/book\/2635015\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Find book at Alibris UK\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhnZ8CmJ4qKISXN4vozeYvWLi-nceKzgVrFL2cPtygkSn3AosDnLvmflYeri4rBgqphbpXvRQEWcJwcIB1gdo_jZZe_rc0jVCupmWelcyFpqRVt6jNApscO4f6K2EsPhDyyTl9w8mWm\/s1600\/Alibris+UK+button.png\" style=\"padding-left: 5px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/link?id=4nzTRC2dTbg\u0026amp;offerid=189673.14463796832\u0026amp;type=2\u0026amp;murl=https:\/\/www.alibris.com\/The-Go-Between-L-P-Hartley\/book\/2635015\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Find book at Alibris US\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"46\" data-original-width=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEgcYbC6XE-8XKMncvD5yil8wHmNfev6lLvz4IfWPVnRzqYKtFfDmwR2ZYOw5iAvOPKoyoUcNmVEGZdY4g1MIAoZleJ_230WoZfprqoKHRLhG3PQigHim2kgaUCsGPZKqDtcCl5ozDm5\/s1600\/Alibris+US+button.png\" style=\"padding-left: 5px;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/feeds\/3234448104970539521\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/10\/review-go-between-by-l-p-hartley.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/3234448104970539521"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/3234448104970539521"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/10\/review-go-between-by-l-p-hartley.html","title":"Review: The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Matthew Selwyn"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00723650905588749638"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"32","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjN7zmj1TFQ8goDTEJ37IJBABxrTWAZkcYGXrt1rh03Lc5OLdGKO7g5W_Sphqb8DATYTQ8if2Qadwc9WofqV5d4ts1bPYy8U7F4njzDZHql6Uw4ha0tZsPGkh-WXiVDXVw\/s220\/unnamed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhvcnbr7JLWt4QSfMNQ0uWZ7qazPWVsyCEItiglvJYbcR6hmRSEcfw-n_c27nJ7YYQ7TjKVEVgaK3g_bMnpyITdHMXsNrEzm29Sla1dUUNp-STYsEQLKXYZDtQ6Dq7Yviu7-NuabVsg\/s72-c\/Banner+-+Go-Between.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600022529355932646.post-3164051073733160762"},"published":{"$t":"2016-09-11T15:08:00.000+01:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2019-01-02T20:14:10.969+00:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"\/ Review"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"1950s"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Chinua Achebe"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Fiction - Postcolonial"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Things Fall Apart"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Review: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cimg alt=\"African man silhouette - Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiJ33b4hJ9sdIBT3f7rvBfP79V9-C4_TVpc5INCuYNfELmor6MevuuziEcsq19Ce7G4p8LlZ6ghfwu6uHp61dASauKwBHEQLSo2v5vjEry4HlQx6AUni06g16N5wRZm7nNpCQCIDEIP\/s1600\/Banner+-+Things+Fall+Apart.png\" \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EWherever something stands, something else will stand beside it\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: \u0026quot;courier new\u0026quot; , \u0026quot;courier\u0026quot; , monospace;\"\u003E \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E- Igbo proverb\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2cbjQIC\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EChinua Achebe\u003C\/a\u003E’s \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2chDmPY\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThings Fall Apart\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E (1958) is a seminal text of twentieth century postcolonial writing and is often deemed the forefather of African literature as a force on the world stage. The novel opens by acquainting the reader with tribal life in Umuofia – a set of villages in pre-colonial Nigeria – and the values and culture upon which the indigenous Igbo tribe is built. In this patriarchal society, superstition abounds, conversations are held together by proverbs, custom and tradition is everything, human sacrifice is thought to appease capricious gods, and men settle their differences through violent feuds. It is not always an appealing insight into Igbo life but the structures, the respected order of things that govern day-to-day life for the tribespeople become clear. Young Okonkwo grows up in this society, ashamed of his father who is weak and far from the ideal Igbo man. Okonkwo determines to become leader of his clan and sets about achieving his goal through violence, bullying, and sheer determination. He holds many of the qualities valued by the tribe – physical prowess, virility, and sense of community – but he is fighting always against his chi (his personal god), which carries the weaknesses of his father’s line and which undermines his aspirations of greatness. Nevertheless, he manages to amass great success and becomes a highly respected member of his tribe. However, when an accidental death forces Okonkwo into exile for seven years, he must live apart from his tribe as the presence of colonial foreigners looms over their way of life. When he returns, Okonkwo finds his tribe changed. White missionaries have made deep inroads into the Igbo way of life and the process of ‘civilising’ the natives has led to splits in the community as some members align themselves with the new Christian arrivals and their religion while others cling to their old way of life. It is an irreparable rift that represents the changing of African life and the dawning of a new colonial age. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2cvDmhr\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\" target=\"blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe book cover\" border=\"0\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiXZW1MTNrpHWs5JFKSYAM9h4TvUAR5UZlITnoRluINfSGuHDlNr1EbBuXBRepza3gJ37F-JLicB6TtzEkYhJUyXo2Lw4DVWoxs7GmWN2sB9n3l60y-fjfGvJOQtRAE8-Ct5ynhbazn\/s400\/Cover_original+-+Things+Fall+Apart.png\" width=\"260\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nHailed as one of the first novels with an authentic African voice to break into the consciousness of the Western literary world, \u003Ci\u003EThings Fall Apart\u003C\/i\u003E – its title, incidentally, is taken from the \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2cvmU1C\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EW. B. Yeats\u003C\/a\u003E poem “\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.potw.org\/archive\/potw351.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EThe Second Coming\u003C\/a\u003E\" – undoubtedly demands an important place in literary history. \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2c3hIl3\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EBernth Lindfors\u003C\/a\u003E describes the way in which the novel departs from received Colonial writing on ‘natives’ in \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2cjnAoC\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Anchor Book of Modern African Short Stories\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E: “Instead of representing Africa as a barbarous wilderness where savages lived in a permanent state of anarchy until the white man came bringing peace, law, order, religion, and a 'higher' form of civilization, Achebe showed how Africans led decent, moral lives in well-regulated societies that placed strict legal and religious constraints on human behavior. Indeed, according to Achebe, things did not fall apart in Africa until Europe intruded and set everything off balance by introducing alien codes which Africans were then told to live by. Europe did not bring light and peace ... it brought chaos and confusion.” Its educative value is clear, although should be met with reservations, but its value as a piece of art is a quite different question and one that is difficult for a reader such as myself who has been raised on Western standards of storytelling to appraise. Yet I will give it a fair shot and hope to if not throw off my conditioning then to at least acknowledging it as I delve into Achebe’s classic novel.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe novel’s first achievement is in Achebe managing to give some small sense of a tribal community living quite apart from the rest of the world and existing on its own social structures, tied up in its own heritage and fixed in a deterministic view of life where one’s fate is governed by blood lines and the will of the gods. Once one has a handle on this the dynamic between characters becomes easier to understand and more poignant, and there is an element of documenting parts of history that have rarely been written about by authors who understand it from within. Once the rules of the Igbo society become clearer, the trajectory of the story is fairly apparent and it is a matter of waiting for the imperial invaders to take over, pushing the Igbo tribe aside. Ultimately, one macho culture is replaced with another macho culture that has its own set of bad practices and this, while interesting to read, is somewhat limited in its explication here. One does, however, get a sense of the brutality of the tribe before interference from the outside world, and also of the ways in which the Christian missionaries brought about change. With their practices becoming outdated, Achebe appears to suggest that change was coming for the archaic structures of the Igbo tribe, one way or another. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv style=\"float: left; padding-right: 50px;\"\u003E\n\u003Cscript async=\"\" src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"\u003E\u003C\/script\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003C!-- Bibliofreak_PostBody_Block --\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2230389427103838\" data-ad-slot=\"8674922765\" style=\"display: inline-block; height: 250px; width: 300px;\"\u003E\u003C\/ins\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cscript\u003E\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\u003C\/script\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOkonkwo is the absolute driving force of the novel and, as with the rest of the novel, Achebe writes his leading man with compassion in that he presents both sides of his personality, not just the good, which would wrongly paint the Igbo people as inhumanly good. So instead we get a protagonist who is as deeply flawed as anyone in the book. It may seem an odd comparison to make but when reading this domineering, macho leader failing to adapt to the new world I was put in mind of Tony Soprano (from the television show \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2cvopwT\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Sopranos\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E). Both are leaders of men who are trying to maintain order and uphold traditional laws specific to their own group (their extended family) and both are doing so at a time when their way of life is under severe threat. For Tony Soprano, the days of extreme mafia affluence and adherence to the rules of Omertà are slipping into the past; for Okonkwo, the spread of Christianity from colonial missionaries threatens the established religion and laws of the Igbo tribe. Both men respond to these challenges through violence and strict adherence to the rules they protect in a show of macho leadership. Are both dinosaurs who fail to adapt or is it the world around them, which no longer requires patriarchal leadership and traditional masculinity as it once did, or are they victims to a world that is changing for the worse? \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhatever the case, the world that Okonkwo once knew changes irrevocably following the arrival of the colonial visitors. As Obierika – friend of Okonkwo explains: \"The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one.\" Divide and conquer tactics are all too easily carried through as members of the Igbo who are disenfranchised by the old ways affiliate with the new Christian missionaries, leaving those too rigid, or too proud to adapt, fighting a losing battle: “Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women.'”\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNow, to talk about Achebe’s style – the tricky part of this review. To a Western ear like mine the characterisation and story often felt painfully thin with just too little of substance to keep me engaged. I write this with some hesitance as it is difficult to say if it is a result of Achebe drawing on literary traditions I am unfamiliar with, whether I am simply missing something that others enjoy – after all, \u003Ci\u003EThings Fall Apart\u003C\/i\u003E has been championed by many Western critics – or whether, in essence, it is badly written. It may be all or none of these but I can’t escape the sense that the book’s reception would have been somewhat different if it had been written by a Western writer. Which brings up the interesting question of how far one ought to take into account the author’s biography when judging a book’s merit. In this case, I would certainly caution any reader accustomed to storytelling that is traditionally associated with the Western canon when picking \u003Ci\u003EThings Fall Apart\u003C\/i\u003E up. For myself, I found it overly simplistic in style and with very little psychological insight into any aspect of the story, which alienated me from the characters, ironically Othering their experience and making them seem quite apart from myself. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThat might sound a fairly damning assessment of the book’s style but it is more a reflection of the narrowness of my own reading experience. Achebe does not pander to a Western audience – at least not in my assessment – and delivers a compassionate and balanced portrait of tribal life in a part of Africa as the continent was changed irrevocably by those from overseas. However, there will be many Western readers who, like me, put the book down and wonder if they’ve learned anything or enjoyed the experience. Achebe writes the heritage of his Igbo tribe that the newly independent people of Africa who might have picked up his book in the 1950s\/60s would be inspired to feel pride and self-confidence in their nations, not as foundlings but as places that have a rich history far pre-dating the white man’s paternal malevolence. It is rare for art to carry a political message and maintain its appeal as a purely aesthetic endeavour, however, and I will leave you to be the judge of how successfully Achebe blends the two here."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/feeds\/3164051073733160762\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/09\/review-things-fall-apart-by-chinua.html#comment-form","title":"2 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/3164051073733160762"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/3164051073733160762"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/09\/review-things-fall-apart-by-chinua.html","title":"Review: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Matthew Selwyn"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00723650905588749638"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"32","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjN7zmj1TFQ8goDTEJ37IJBABxrTWAZkcYGXrt1rh03Lc5OLdGKO7g5W_Sphqb8DATYTQ8if2Qadwc9WofqV5d4ts1bPYy8U7F4njzDZHql6Uw4ha0tZsPGkh-WXiVDXVw\/s220\/unnamed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiJ33b4hJ9sdIBT3f7rvBfP79V9-C4_TVpc5INCuYNfELmor6MevuuziEcsq19Ce7G4p8LlZ6ghfwu6uHp61dASauKwBHEQLSo2v5vjEry4HlQx6AUni06g16N5wRZm7nNpCQCIDEIP\/s72-c\/Banner+-+Things+Fall+Apart.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"2"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600022529355932646.post-5613341010789855807"},"published":{"$t":"2016-09-02T12:25:00.000+01:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2020-03-27T13:00:04.445+00:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"\/ Review"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"1950s"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Breakfast at Tiffany's"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Fiction"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Truman Capote"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Cimg alt=\"Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEieGqVlrN3aM4UgU2-94CqJitifyqP1lJzk6wqiHKxf_uVDjLA8eBpk3kugrXQsj1_2C4ifw35ioqgfSunTzdQkE70f28keMPWAzeAw6KMBfaLiIUg-9vr-DknRhBOWI0y9aCnxhcJa\/s1600\/Banner+image+-+Breakfast+at+Tiffany%2527s.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAudrey Hepburn in \u003Ci\u003Ethat\u003C\/i\u003E dress as the gorgeously elegant Holly Golightly, is one of the most iconic images of twentieth century Hollywood. But \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2bWHoA5\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ETruman Capote\u003C\/a\u003E’s novella is some way removed from the sweet romance of the 1961 film adaptation of \u003Ci\u003EBreakfast at Tiffany’s\u003C\/i\u003E. Lacking none of the glamour, Capote weaves the painful lightness of Holly Golightly’s life in Manhattan with far darker and more interesting themes in his slim novella and disposes of the happy ending that a big screen picture demands.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCapote’s 1958 novella is narrated by an unnamed author who recounts the small amount of time he spent living in the same block as nineteen-year-old Holly Golightly, a young actress turned society girl who hosts parties in her small apartment as well as receiving a string of wealthy if rather unappealing men, mostly tipping middle-age. Miss Golightly’s past is a mystery to the narrator, who she names Fred in reference to her brother who she left in her old life, wherever and whatever that might be. Fred, as I might as well call the narrator for the sake of convenience, is one in a long line of men, and probably women, to be infatuated with Holly (not necessarily sexually, but attracted to her energy, the essence of her existence). Whether or not she is a “phony”, as one of her male visitors claims, is immaterial, she, existing as cotton upon the wind, is captivating to readers and fellow characters alike and as the meagre plot runs out, it is the experience of being in Miss Golightly’s company that keeps the pages turning more than the story that she inhabits.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2bN6nTl\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\" target=\"blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote book cover\" border=\"0\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEj_ac8CEruVC4BzLC5y-O2vln4r0xj-lRMF1ca3DjV7h10rDSymv2B2v5ZVbH676qWow_IR4M0cAMTfMUNkYxwA6KRNUUn80nTLpM4p5ulyCxwOkaxlkkt4il-2L4GQtG90AUhmJT-e\/s400\/Cover_original+-+Breakfast+at+Tiffany%2527s.png\" width=\"260\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nFraming Holly’s story within Fred’s narrative is a clever trick. Like Nick Carraway’s recounting of his time with Jay Gatsby, the narrator looks on with jaw slightly agape at a character who possess a life force far exceeding their own. Fred’s relating of the brief time that his life rubbed up against the vivacity of his glamourous neighbour cannot be the first or last time a man has sat in a bar telling stories of the enigmatic Miss Golightly, a spectre who had passed through their life and then disappeared into the unknown world. As with Carraway’s ambiguous idolisation of Gatsby, it is far easier to be swept up in the romance of a character when their story is told by another who observes only that which sparkles about their adored protagonist. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut like Gatsby, there is much to Holly that is hidden beneath the surface of her lifestyle. Indeed, the more Fred learns of Holly and her past, the more he sees not a sophisticated young woman who is in control of her own destiny but rather a girl who is hiding in plain sight, hoping that eventually the glare from all that shines around her will be blinding enough to completely obscure her past. This is one of the elements the film gets right. The iconic image of Audrey Hepburn peering into the window of Tiffany’s in the film adaptation is a perfect portrait of a soul gazing in at the world of decadence and wishing desperately that all the fine things she might one day accrue will be the ultimate palliative for real life. In this way, Holly is a perfect analogy for the dangers of consumerism – she sells her body to rich men (commodifying herself) in order to acquire (consume) material things that she hopes will heal her troubled soul. In other words, she is a capitalist’s wet dream.  \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOn that note, it is perhaps the opportune moment to raise the issue of Marilyn Monroe, blonde icon from the era, friend of Truman Capote, and with whom Holly has a fair amount in common. In fact, if Capote is to be believed (as with most of his stories there is every reason to be cautious here), he would have had Marilyn play the role in the film adaptation ahead of Audrey Hepburn. It would certainly have given the film a different feel and when one considers Monroe’s early biography – an orphan who was shunted around and would experience sexual assaults before eventually marrying an older man (he was 21 when she was 16) in a bid to escape her life but whom she would later divorce – it is not difficult to see parallels between the two women. Indeed, the air that Monroe had, of her vivacity covering a deeper pathos would have been far closer to the book’s Holly than Audrey Hepburn’s assured and naturally elegant poise. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs with this duality in Holly’s personality – the darkness hidden beneath all that shimmers – much of the novella is concerned with the masks which we use to disguise reality and which help us to form in our own minds a world that we find acceptable. When her agent describes Holly as a “real phony” the phrase seems less a contradiction in terms and more a compliment to the openness of Holly’s approach to life: for though she hides her past, she makes no attempt to disguise the reckless frivolity of her life or the transient nature of all her whims and pleasures. She may be a “phony” but she’s not hiding it from anyone.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nInterestingly, Holly sees something of herself in Fred. When she describes him thus she could be talking about herself: \"He wants awfully to be on the inside staring out: anybody with their nose pressed against the glass is liable to look stupid.\" The irony, of course, is that Holly herself is a perpetual outsider, never allowing anyone to get close enough to form an in-group with her. As the nameplate on her mailbox alludes (“Miss Holly Golightly, travelling”), for the young socialite, connections are fleeting. For indeed, Holly does go lightly, her ephemeral presence brushing softly against the world like a feather across satin. This only goes to highlight the importance of connection to people and place, both of which Holly lacks and which leave her adrift in a world where many seek her but few want her long-term. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv style=\"float: left; padding-right: 50px;\"\u003E\n\u003Cscript async=\"\" src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"\u003E\u003C\/script\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003C!-- Bibliofreak_PostBody_Block --\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2230389427103838\" data-ad-slot=\"8674922765\" style=\"display: inline-block; height: 250px; width: 300px;\"\u003E\u003C\/ins\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cscript\u003E\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\u003C\/script\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is where Holly’s character becomes interesting and impenetrable in equal measure. Tiffany’s represents the elegance and permanence that Holly aspires to in her own life but while she is enraptured by the capitalist dream of luxury and a well-to-do family she also carries a great desire for freedom, for living outside of social convention. She hates cages of all kinds and has wrought for herself a life that does not constrain but that leaves her free to roam as the “wild thing” she is. This paradox is a tragic mix and one that no doubt contributes to her depressive episodes (her “deep reds” as she refers to them).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nUndoubtedly, Capote’s excellent drawing of Holly Golightly is what sells the story; the plot is slim at best. But how beautifully Capote details his characters and their story. He writes exquisite prose, less ornate than \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/search\/label\/F.%20Scott%20Fitzgerald?\u0026amp;max-results=8\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EFitzgerald\u003C\/a\u003E but as carefully crafted and full of small observations:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n“We giggled, ran, sang along the paths toward the old wooden boathouse, now gone. Leaves floated on the lake; on the shore, a park-man was fanning a bonfire of them, and the smoke, rising like Indian signals, was the only smudge on the quivering air. I thought of the future, and spoke of the past.”\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn a novella where words are limited it is all the more obvious when an author has honed his thoughts into their perfect form. Like finely cut diamonds, Capote’s sentences shimmer with carefully worked beauty that has been buffed to perfection. References to Fitzgerald, however, are more relevant than simply as a comparison for sharp prose – structurally \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2bYk3fe\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EBreakfast at Tiffany’s\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E is remarkably similar to \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2015\/07\/review-great-gatsby-by-f-scott.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Great Gatsby\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E and it seems almost impossible that Capote did not have Fitzgerald’s exquisite gem to hand when he was crafting his own. Compare the closing line from \u003Ci\u003EThe Great Gatsby\u003C\/i\u003E below with the opening line from \u003Ci\u003EBreakfast at Tiffany’s\u003C\/i\u003E below:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EGatsby\u003C\/i\u003E: \"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.\" \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EBreakfast at Tiffany’s\u003C\/i\u003E: \"I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighbourhoods.\" \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt is as though one story picks up where the other left off, looking back, always back, as the future “recedes before us.” \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EBreakfast at Tiffany’s\u003C\/i\u003E aches with the sure knowledge that we belong to one another and that, through stories and experiences, every life is made unique through those who gaze upon it. Holly may not quite appreciate this fact as she lives her life of nomadic transience but she will, undoubtedly, one day come to appreciate the full spectrum of what she has left behind and long for missed opportunities and connections cut short too early. \u003Ci\u003EBreakfast at Tiffany’s\u003C\/i\u003E is a novella that evokes all those beautifully painful emotions associated with nostalgia and the thought of people who, having crossed one’s path, disappear into the world never to be seen again. It is a novella that more than matches its big screen adaptation and can be read in little more than the film’s run time. A small mid-twentieth century gem."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/feeds\/5613341010789855807\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/09\/review-breakfast-at-tiffanys-by-truman.html#comment-form","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/5613341010789855807"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/5613341010789855807"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/09\/review-breakfast-at-tiffanys-by-truman.html","title":"Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Matthew Selwyn"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00723650905588749638"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"32","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjN7zmj1TFQ8goDTEJ37IJBABxrTWAZkcYGXrt1rh03Lc5OLdGKO7g5W_Sphqb8DATYTQ8if2Qadwc9WofqV5d4ts1bPYy8U7F4njzDZHql6Uw4ha0tZsPGkh-WXiVDXVw\/s220\/unnamed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEieGqVlrN3aM4UgU2-94CqJitifyqP1lJzk6wqiHKxf_uVDjLA8eBpk3kugrXQsj1_2C4ifw35ioqgfSunTzdQkE70f28keMPWAzeAw6KMBfaLiIUg-9vr-DknRhBOWI0y9aCnxhcJa\/s72-c\/Banner+image+-+Breakfast+at+Tiffany%2527s.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600022529355932646.post-559539416085606692"},"published":{"$t":"2016-05-29T17:19:00.000+01:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2019-01-02T20:19:56.345+00:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"\/ Review"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"1950s"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Fiction"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Goodbye Columbus"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Philip Roth"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Review: Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiXGHh7h_zPNAyk4RfmjdPypo4uSUFH601wZA2CZTQzBZLzHziXzNcCWTBZ9BC10QPcYCmdy48HWZf3dHd2DR0xGxrKxEiiJi4uISns-pnfTNNyPvLrKleOlR8GfAh2DZSeELalZIzi\/s1600\/Banner+Image+-+Goodbye%252C+Columbus.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFirst published in \u003Ci\u003EThe Paris Review\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/0099498154\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1634\u0026amp;creative=19450\u0026amp;creativeASIN=0099498154\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=bibliofreak_postbody-21\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EGoodbye, Columbus\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E (1959) is the novella that shot \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/mn\/landing\/B000APP4EM\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1634\u0026amp;creative=19450\u0026amp;linkCode=ur2\u0026amp;tag=bibliofreak_postbody-21\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EPhilip Roth\u003C\/a\u003E into the limelight of the literary world. It is the story of a summer romance between a young Jewish boy of lower-middle-class background and the daughter of a wealthy family who have recently arrived at the upper end of the middle-class spectrum. Neil Klugman works in Newark Public Library and lives with his Aunt Gladys. One day at the swimming baths he meets – in as much as he willingly holds her glasses for a few moments while she dives from the high board – Brenda Patimkin and his “blood jumps”. With a directness that is a little startling, Neil arranges to take the object of his affection out having discovered her telephone number indirectly. These were the days before love was free but it was certainly not at a premium and the young couple strike up a relationship that suits them both for a summer. As with all seasonal romances, it must end, and between them the pair manage to extricate themselves from anything longer term using, if there was any doubt about the sexual politics of the story, a diaphragm as the object of their rift.   \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAlfred Hitchcock famously claimed to have once woken in the middle of the night with an idea for the perfect plot. Scribbling the premise down in his semi-conscious state he fell almost immediately back to sleep. In the morning he looked at the note he had left himself. It contained only three words: Boy meets Girl. It is the eternal plot and although the sexual politics of relationships might have shifted since Roth’s Newark of the 1950s, there is no denying that Neil Klugman’s story of young love is interesting still at this core level and it is testament to Roth’s skill that, as William Peden wrote in the New York Times Review of Books in 1959 “out of such hackneyed materials [referring to the summer romance plot] Mr. Roth has written a perceptive, often witty and frequently moving piece of fiction.” \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/0099498154\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1634\u0026amp;creative=19450\u0026amp;creativeASIN=0099498154\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=bibliofreak_bookcover-21\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\" target=\"blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth book cover\" border=\"0\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjotMJhXZpqc1sTeTLq-NHsYciuD-Iu_06-UOD19PakX6CgEMvLrsizuHqFzn5qROrLipW-0u4CIEvq79M2i7iS-WYlcwOIQI32zzRgdovWEED3Ff13KTewah-H92K0utliPzsjeulM\/s400\/Cover_Original+-+Goodbye%252C+Columbus.png\" width=\"257\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nAs with all young people, Neil is in a struggle with the rest of the world to develop his own identity and carve out a unique place for himself. As a young liberal Jew making his way in the repressed and conservative America of the 1950s, it is obvious that Neil is at opposition with much of the society around him. Encouraged consistently to assimilate into the culture in which he finds himself, he struggles to understand Brenda and her family who wilfully shed – even undergo plastic surgery to hide – their Jewishness. Yet at the same time he is from a family built on the foundations of their faith and their Otherness as immigrants to America; as a librarian who has spent his whole life in America and holds a degree in philosophy, the traditional values of his Jewish community, then, feel equally alien to Neil. His Aunt Gladys reacts against his seeming wish to better himself and escape the life he has been brought into and which his family have lived with contentment for years.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAunt Gladys is the epitome of a character who lives life in a world that barely extends beyond her front door and struggles to see why anyone should wish to escape to something bigger. Her rule over the kitchen of the home is both hilarious and symbolic of her life views – she prepares a different meal for each of her family each evening, one after another. As she says, \"Sure, I should serve four different meals at once?\" And she won’t season her offerings with pepper as \"she'd heard on Galen Drake that it was not absorbed by the body, and it was disturbing to Aunt Gladys to think that anything she served might pass through a gullet, stomach, and bowel just for the pleasure of the trip.\" But Neil is of a new generation, one who sets more store in the pleasure derived from life’s trip and this sets him at odds with Aunt Gladys and the inward-looking family tradition that she represents.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBrenda may initially appear to offer Neil a way to break out of the narrowness of the view of life he has been raised on, but she proves to offer no real solution. She is the American Dream incarnate: her affluent family are the perfect consumers with all the modern conveniences foisted upon middle-class Americans in the 1950s rammed into their idyllic house on the Hills and she is a vivacious, educated young woman. It is a dream that isn’t for Neil, however, as he opts not to complete his assimilation into the middle-class idyll that once looked so tempting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAssimilation is important in the novella in a variety of ways. As it is Roth, Jewishness is unsurprisingly at the centre of the story and he uses irony to satirise an anxiety about assimilating that appears rife in his middle-class Jewish characters. Through his ironic look at elements of Jewishness, Roth was accused of anti-Jewishness on the publication of \u003Ci\u003EGoodbye, Columbus\u003C\/i\u003E. It is a charge that has been often repeated throughout his career and which seems to miss the nuance of what he is doing for the most part. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nRoth also draws parallels between the Jewish and other minority groups as he would continue to do in future novels. During his shifts in the library, Neil encounters a young African-American boy who comes almost daily to stare at paintings of Tahiti in a book of Gauguin’s work. Among the other members of staff in the library, Neil is aware of an unease at this boy’s presence, as though he is somehow incongruous in the house of learning. It is a very earlier example of Roth’s coupling of the Jewish and African-American experience of Otherness in America which would feature in his later work, most notably \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/0099282194\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1634\u0026amp;creative=19450\u0026amp;creativeASIN=0099282194\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=bibliofreak_postbody-21\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Human Stain\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. But further than this, Neil identifies with the boy who stares on the rich paintings of Tahiti and dreams of a foreign world. Like him, Neil dreams of the foreign world of the Patimkins; of middle-class luxury. Yet his dream is equally as unrealistic as that of the boy who visits the library daily. When the Gauguin book is borrowed by another user, the symbolism of the boy left bereft by the loss of a dream that was never really within his possession is not lost on Neil. Sometimes dreams simply cannot be assimilated into reality.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nLove is a kind of total assimilation in itself. To love in a relationship is to form a union with another, assimilating into a new hybrid. Through Neil, Roth is questioning how one person comes to know another in a relationship and how crucial it is to know and love without doubt in a relationship that is to last. That Neil questions his own reasons for loving Brenda while sitting in a church waiting for her to have a diaphragm fitted indicates that the love will not last and also couples the idea of love with a selfless religious communion of man and his god. Neil and Brenda’s love – if it is that – is a tentative love, exciting and foreign:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\"Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them—at least, I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them. We whipped our strangeness and newness into a froth that resembled love, and we dared not play too long with it, talk too much of it, or it would flatten and fizzle away.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBrenda’s home of Short Hills is geographically and class-wise elevated above Newark, Neil’s home. He is stuck between these two worlds, with the world of knowledge represented by the library a distant third consideration. When Neil ascends the hill that leads him away from his home in Newark and towards his ephemeral goal, the symbolism is clear to him:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\"It was, in fact, as though the hundred and eighty feet that the suburbs rose in altitude above Newark brought one closer to heaven, for the sun itself became bigger, lower, and rounder, and soon I was driving past long lawns which seemed to be twirling water on themselves, and past houses where no one sat on stoops, where lights were on but no windows open, for those inside, refusing to share the very texture of life with those of us outside, regulated with a dial the amounts of moisture that were allowed access to their skin.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv style=\"float: left; padding-right: 50px;\"\u003E\n\u003Cscript async=\"\" src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"\u003E\u003C\/script\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003C!-- Bibliofreak_PostBody_Block --\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2230389427103838\" data-ad-slot=\"8674922765\" style=\"display: inline-block; height: 250px; width: 300px;\"\u003E\u003C\/ins\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cscript\u003E\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\u003C\/script\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEverything in the story really flows from the disparate classes of its two main characters. The diaphragm is the decisive bone of contention in Neil and Brenda’s relationship, which allows them both to extricate themselves from a pairing that is doomed. Exploring fresh sexual territory, Neil soon asks Brenda to get fitted for the contraceptive device. When she is hesitant, he feels the powerlessness of his position with the girl who is from a socioeconomic class above him and who appears to have ultimate control of their relationship. Thus he pushes all the more until his demand is met. The diaphragm leads to the end of their relationship, however, when Brenda accidentally leaves it at her house where her parents discover it. Distraught that their daughter treats her chastity so lightly, Brenda is left with a choice and ultimately turns away from Neil and back into her family’s arms. Whether Brenda intentionally leaves the diaphragm to be found or whether Neil insists on its use to – subconsciously or not – sabotage the relationship is an interesting question, and who is trying to extricate themselves from the tryst is even more so. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe story is laced with nostalgia, many of the characters looking back to memories past, never to be recaptured. The title of the novella is a reference to just this, ‘Goodbye, Columbus’ being the closing line of a song on an Ohio State yearbook record of Ron’s (Brenda’s brother) who, on the verge of marriage, looks back longingly to his College days. Leo Patimkin (Brenda’s uncle) also looks back to a night he spent with a woman while he was a soldier and both these minor characters emphasise the significance of time in the novel. It is not just the men who quietly ache for the past. Brenda claims her mother hates her and in the story there is little evidence to contradict this. In fact, it seems that Mrs Patimkin is jealous of her daughter’s youth and the privileged upbringing she is afforded. Even familial love, it seems, does not soften the jealousy towards those who have time and youth on their side. Neil views the world around him in this light himself, as a world that shifts constantly and irretrievably as time flows soundlessly by.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EGoodbye, Columbus\u003C\/i\u003E is a surprisingly polished piece of fiction for a first published work. It is remarkable not only how Roth was able to write about significant issues within his sphere of interest with such clarity from an early age but how enduring these themes have been within his fiction, marking a particularly keen eye on his part for knowing himself and what was important to him from the society that surrounded him. Even his setting of Newark (a literary space that would later become synonymous with Roth) and his nuanced understanding of the geography of the place and how it signifies much about society is already in place. The story may not appear remarkable in outline but it leaves a fair amount to ponder and plenty to enjoy."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/feeds\/559539416085606692\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/05\/review-goodbye-columbus-by-philip-roth.html#comment-form","title":"5 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/559539416085606692"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/6600022529355932646\/posts\/default\/559539416085606692"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"https:\/\/www.bibliofreak.net\/2016\/05\/review-goodbye-columbus-by-philip-roth.html","title":"Review: Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Matthew Selwyn"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00723650905588749638"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"32","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjN7zmj1TFQ8goDTEJ37IJBABxrTWAZkcYGXrt1rh03Lc5OLdGKO7g5W_Sphqb8DATYTQ8if2Qadwc9WofqV5d4ts1bPYy8U7F4njzDZHql6Uw4ha0tZsPGkh-WXiVDXVw\/s220\/unnamed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEiXGHh7h_zPNAyk4RfmjdPypo4uSUFH601wZA2CZTQzBZLzHziXzNcCWTBZ9BC10QPcYCmdy48HWZf3dHd2DR0xGxrKxEiiJi4uISns-pnfTNNyPvLrKleOlR8GfAh2DZSeELalZIzi\/s72-c\/Banner+Image+-+Goodbye%252C+Columbus.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"5"}}]}});