1

Book Reviews
Contents:

1.

2. :

12

3.

21

4.

37

5.

48

6. :

54

7. .

64

8. ...

68

9. :

72

10. 2007

79

11. On reading Disgrace

102

12.

108

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6
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March 27, 2010 *

12

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19
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(January 20, 2010)

*

21

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23
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24
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25

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27
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28
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29
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30
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31

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32
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34

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35
.
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prose is not quick as poetry but rather a gathering
web of insinuations gathering web of
insinuations . ,
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36
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May 7, 2011 *

37

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38
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myopic vision is guarded thickly by her own passions. Byronic blindness!

39
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44
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45
:
I think so often of those games we used to invent, she declares.
So do I, I say, so do I. And then with a sudden boldness: Once I
broke a stick of yours, a rotten stick you thought a sound one. Do you
remember?
Then we laugh together and seem to approach across a painful,
unnecessary distance that has separated us. It vanishes for ever.
I couldn't now, she says, smack your face like that, Stephen.
That seems to me a brilliantly daring and delightful thing for her to say,
and jolly of her to use my Christian name too! I believe I scratched, she adds.
You never scratched, I assert with warm conviction. Never.
I did, she insists; and I deny, You couldn't.
We're growing up, she cries. That's what has happened to us. We
shall never fight again with our hands and feet, neveruntil death do us part.

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46

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It seemed to me there was nothing for it now but that Mary should
stand by my side and face Justin with the world behind him. I remember my
confused sense that presently she and I would have to go straight out of
Martens. And she was wearing a tea-gown, easy and open, and the flimsiest of
slippers. Any packing, any change of clothing, struck me as an incredible anticlimax. I had visions of our going forth, hand in hand. Outside was the
soughing of a coming storm, a chill wind drove a tumult of leaves along the
terrace, the door slammed and yawned open again, and then came the rain.
Justin, I remember, still talking, closed the door. I tried to think how I could get
to the station five miles away, and then what we could do in London. We
should seem rather odd visitors to an hotelwithout luggage. All this was
behind my valiant demand that she should come with me, and come now.

,


.. .
( ) ,
:
Stratton, he said, we two We killed her. We tore her to pieces
between us....
I made no answer to this outbreak.
We tore her to pieces, he repeated. It's so damned silly. One gets
angrylike an animal.
I became grotesquely anxious to assure him that, indeed, she and I had
been, as they say, innocent throughout our last day together. You were wrong
in all that, I said. She kept her faith with you. We never planned to meet and

47
when we met. If we had been brother and sister. Indeed there was
nothing.
I suppose, he said, I ought to be glad of that. But now it doesn't
seem to matter very much. We killed her.... What does that matter to me now?

, ,
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May 3, 2011 *

48

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49
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50
, Henry Green (19051973).
Loving
. , (Charlie Raunce, Edith)
, :
Oh Edie, he gasped moving forward. The room had grown
immeasurably dark from the storm massed outside. Their two bodies
flowed into one as he put his arms about her. The shape they made
was crowned with his head, on top of a white sharp curved neck,
dominating and cruel over the blur that was her mass of hair through
which her lips sucked at him warm and heady.
Edie, he muttered breaking away only to drive his face down
into hers once more. But he was pressing her back into a bow shape.
Edie, he called again.
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51
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52
, his entire preoccupation
with one particular subject (almost verging on to mono-mania) :
///...

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53
, .)
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(Novermber 13, 2007)

*

54

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55
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56
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58
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59
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60
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61

. (man in relation
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62

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63
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64
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65
, . hopeless, doomed
. ( Flannery OConnor
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addendum .

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earnestness ;

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66
.
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predicament is dealt with a completely Vasundharadevian way.
.
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.

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Show, dont tell! ,
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, narrative exposition .
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67
,
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May 22, 2013 *

68

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69
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70
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71
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April 27, 2013 *

72

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73
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74
sentimentality ,
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morbid interest .

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75

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76
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77
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78
(
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.

December 6, 2013 *

79

2007

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80
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81

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Now you know what I mean! , ,
,

82
are we worshipping the false gods
; conspiracy
theory . ( ; .
,

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.)
, , , ,
.
. .

( ), :
,
. ,
.
.
, de-construct . :
.
; .
. .
: The flowing
streams even are as though asleep. The universal ecstacy of
created things does not express itself in any sound.
.
.

83
,
.
.
, .
;
. , ,
.
; . Graham Hough
: There is no reality for a man until he has created it in
symbolic form. Art is one of the systems of symbolic forms.
. ,
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. ,
. didactic prose,
,
,
. .
. [ : 1974]

84

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85

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86
. , , , , , , , 16
, plotting
. [ : 1969]

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[ : 1908]

, :
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lolee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate
to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in
one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was
Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
... .
-
, . !
! ;
! The cadentical succession of those most precise

87
words (le mot juste), those scrupulously built images... (
) .
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; . ,

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un-reliable narrator .
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1955]

88

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, immortal .
.
, (!) .
.
: ,
. ,
.
. ,
. ,
. . ,
. ;
, .
( 600 ,
, , .) ,
- ,
: .
. :

89
Fermina, he said, I have waited for this opportunity for more
than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal
fidelity and everlasting love.
,
. , ,
,
.
, ,
.
. , -
. ( ,
, .)
,
: . .
;
.
.
: ; 350
. ,
. [ : 1985]

, :
. ,
, .
. , ,

90
. ,
, ,
. ,
- ,
; .
.
, , ,
.
;
.
. ,
. ,
; .
, ; .
,
. ( , !)
:
, deliberate .
;
. ,
, . -
;
. But in its own right, it is one splendidly written
book. [ : 1958]

91

, :

. (2006)
.
,
.
(conventional)
.
. .
:
[T]o get a more accurate picture of his character, or rather one
which conforms more closely to his authors intentions, you must ask
yourself in what way Meursault doesnt play the game. The answer is
simple: he refuses to lie. Lying is not only saying what isnt true. It is
also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of
human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to
make life simpler. But, contrary to appearances, Meursault doesnt
want to make life simpler. He says what he is, he refuses to hide his
feelings and society immediately feels threatened.
Saying more than one feels . ,
? (Whats wrong with the world?)
.
.. :
Dear Sirs,
I am
Sincerely yours,
GK Chesterton.

92

; ;
, ; .
. He refuses to play the game.
.
,
[ ].
,
, :
As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope, for
the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself
to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so like myself so
like a brother, really I felt that I had been happy and was happy
again.

gentle indifference .

. subtle : ...

; ,

.
stripped to bare
essentials ; . Mother died
today. Or may be yesterday, I dont know

93
. .
,
; informal
tone . [ : 1942]

, .. :
- . ,
, .
plotting ; .

, :
. ,
. problems of perception.
( , ) ,
/ ,
.
: . : , .
, ,
:
,
, .

.
Third Person Limited :
, .

94
, ,
.
(Atonement) .
( ) ,
. ( !)
( [believe me; I have seen a lot
of them]) . clinical precision!

. [ : 2001]

, :
,
, .
. problems of perception
, Erotomania
.

, ,
( );
. .
. ,
( ) .
.

95
, ,
. .
, , :
, .
.
, ,
. , ,

; , ,
.
.
.
. ,
, . [ : 1998]

, :

. .

. [ : 1945]

, .. :
.. , . ,
.
The Angry Street :

96

, , ,
. ,
, ! ,
,
. ,
. ... ,
. ;
. ; !
?!
:
It is going to heaven for justice, he replied. You must have
treated it badly. [...] You have worked this street to death, and yet you
have never remembered its existence. If you had owned a healthy
democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this street with
garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have gone
quietly. But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless insolence;
and it is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you never sat
on a bucking horse?
, .
. ,
.
? .
:
... ! ,
, !

97
: ? ...

? ? ,
, ?
***
,
. ( .) ..
The Man Who Was a Thursday
( ) .
:

,
() : .
. ,
,
,
. .
,
.
,
. ,
, .
, () ,
,

98
,
, . ,
,
. ,
, .
,
.
,
. ,
,

.
.
, ,
.
, ,
; .

( !), ,
, ,
. , .
,
. .
, .

99
,
, , :
, , , ,
. ,
?
? .
( )
, , .
.
.
. ,
.
; , .
. [ : 1908]

, .. :
.
. paradox
& parallelism .
,
, ,
. ; ,
:
Mr. William Sharp, in his Life of Browning, quotes the remarks
of another critic to the following effect: The poets processes of

100
thought are scientific in their precision and analysis; the sudden
conclusion that he imposes upon them is transcendental and inept.
This is a very fair but a very curious example of the way in
which Browning is treated. For what is the state of affairs? A man
publishes a series of poems, vigorous, perplexing, and unique. The
critics read them, and they decide that he has failed as a poet, but that
he is a remarkable philosopher and logician. They then proceed to
examine his philosophy, and show with great triumph that it is
unphilosophical, and to examine his logic and show with great
triumph that it is not logical, but transcendental and inept. In other
words, Browning is first denounced for being a logician and not a
poet, and then denounced for insisting on being a poet when they have
decided that he is to be a logician. It is just as if a man were to say
first that a garden was so neglected that it was only fit for a boys
playground, and then complain of the unsuitability in a boys
playground of rockeries and flower-beds.

.
. .
,
, .
, ,
, .
, , ,
.
.
;
. , ,
.

101
.
( ), - ,
.
***
indescribable itch .
.
.
.
; ;
. ! . , ,
.

(December 23, 2007)

*

102

On reading Disgrace

.. (J.M. Coetzee) .
.
,
.
.
.
,
, .
,
. .
,
, .
low-brow .
,
. , ,
.
1999 . .
.
. .
.
. , ,
, , ,

103
,
...
.
.
. ,
, . ( .
,
. .
,
.

. , , .) ,
. .
. ,
. .
,
.
, .
. .
, ,
.
,
. , , ,
, ;
.

104
For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind,
solved the problem of sex rather well.
. ,
, .
, .
.
. .
. ,
. ,
. .
.
His needs turn out be quite light, after all, light and fleeting,
like those of a butterfly.
.
, ,
. ;
. .
. . .
. .
,
.
. ,
.
.
.

105
.
.
. .
, ,
.
. .
. . (
1994 . ,
. .)

. ,
. .
( ).
.
; :
David, I can't run my life according to whether or not you like
what I do. Not anymore. You behave as if everything I do is part of
the story of your life. You are the main character, I am a minor
character who doesn't make an appearance until halfway through.
Well, contrary to what you think, people are not divided into major
and minor. I am not minor. I have a life of my own, just as important
to me as yours is to you, and in my life I am the one who makes the
decisions.
,
, .

106
. .
. :
It would have been nice to be returned triumphant to society as
the author of an eccentric little chamber opera. [...] it would have been
nice for Lucy to hear proof in her lifetime, and think a little better of
him.
. .
.
. , ,

.
.
, , , .
. .
.
. .
.
.
:
( .
. .

.)
So: once she was only a little tadpole in her mother's body, and
now here she is, solid in her existence, more solid than he has ever
been. With luck she will last a long time, long beyond him. When he

107
is dead she will, with luck, still be here doing her ordinary tasks
among flowerbeds. And from within her will have issued another
existence, that with luck will be just as solid, just as long-lasting. So it
will go on, a line of existences in which his share, his gift, will grow
inexorably less and less, till it may as well be forgotten.

. , ,
.
May 13, 2009 *

108

. .
.
. .

.
. (
).
.
.
.
,
. , .
.
.
.
,
,
. .
.
. .
.
.

109
,
.
. .

.
. , ,
.
:
, .

April 30, 2012 *