Some novels are so steeped in fatalism that one half expects the pages to sigh when turned. The Mayor of Casterbridge is such a book - a work that feels as though it were written not with pen and ink, but with plough and sorrow. It’s a tragedy of the English soil, where destiny is … Continue reading The Mayor of Casterbridge
Tag: fiction
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
There are few mirrors in literature as merciless as Stevenson’s, and none quite so fogged by our own breath. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is less a Gothic tale than a confession disguised as one - a dimly lit sermon on the human condition, preached from the pulpit of a London … Continue reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Vatican Cellars: Or, How to Build a Cathedral on Quick Sand
André Gide, that sly archbishop of paradox, published The Vatican Cellars in 1914 - the very year Europe began dismantling its cathedrals with artillery fire. It’s a book that calls itself a ‘sotie’ - a medieval farce performed by jesters in cap and bells - which is Gide’s way of saying, ‘This is a joke, … Continue reading The Vatican Cellars: Or, How to Build a Cathedral on Quick Sand
The Man in the High Castle: History as Hallucination
Some novels ask ‘What if?’ and there are novels that ask ‘What is?’ Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle manages the perverse trick of doing both at once. Set in a United States divided between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan after an Axis victory in the Second World War, it ought to … Continue reading The Man in the High Castle: History as Hallucination
The Ghost That Wasn’t There: On Hughes Mearns’ Antigonish
“Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there.” Thus begins one of the most famous fragments of verse ever to slip through the cracks of English literature - part nursery rhyme, part ghost story, part psychological confession. Hughes Mearns’ Antigonish (1899) was written in the playful spirit of nonsense, yet like all … Continue reading The Ghost That Wasn’t There: On Hughes Mearns’ Antigonish
Wording 