3:30am, Dave finally closed the book and yawned, "Finished."
'I Capture The Castle', by Dodie Smith. Probably not quite as famous as her later novel, 101 Dalmatians, but famous enough to have been made into a movie 3 years ago.
4:00am, Dave lay in bed, still trying to decide what he thought of it. The overall plot was a very done to death poor family with no hope meet rich kind family and everything works out. The book is written as if the journal of the main heroine, Cassandra, a 17 year old, although with the nice twist that she is a wannabe writer so it can still present much more detail than the average person would usually put in their journals.
On beginning the book, Cassandra seems like an innocent enough, "consiously naive" girl and it makes for a good read. Unfortuantely, as the characters develop, Dave found himself liking the majority of them less and less, Cassandra included. The only characters who still had Dave's favour by the end where Thomas and Stepthen, the outcome for both of whom is left as unimportant.
He found himself wondering how the majority of readers felt. Would they be more understanding? Would they forgive Cassandra more easily?
Who knew?
Maybe he should go and watch the film.
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Friday, August 4, 2006
Pride and Prejudice
A Classic.
Dave had always been put off by the word "classic" when it came to reading. He had no fond memories of any of the books forced upon him whilst at school. Shakespeare in particular still had him waking up screaming some nights in a cold sweat. He had therefore approached "Pride and Prejudice" with caution.
He came away pleasantly surprised. He found it much more easy to read and enjoyable than any of the books of his school years. Either Dave's English literature skills had improved considerably over the past six years or school was diliberately designed to convince children that reading was the enemy. Since it had taken him 10 minutes to figure out how to spell "literature" he was leaning towards the latter.
The book is about the Bennet family. Five children, a father who spends the majority of his time silent and reading his book, usually only offerng his opinion to playfully tease and a mother whose main goal in life was to see all her children married.
There was something oddly familar with that. Maybe if he asked his other four siblings or his parents they may be able to explain what that familarity was.
It was also pleasant to read about a time when the most serious evil possibly imagined was sex before marriage. Nowadays, you can see a film with a man brutally butchering the group of children he was expected to protect and no one batters an eyelash. In fact many saw it as Darth going soft.
What's the world coming to?
Dave had always been put off by the word "classic" when it came to reading. He had no fond memories of any of the books forced upon him whilst at school. Shakespeare in particular still had him waking up screaming some nights in a cold sweat. He had therefore approached "Pride and Prejudice" with caution.
He came away pleasantly surprised. He found it much more easy to read and enjoyable than any of the books of his school years. Either Dave's English literature skills had improved considerably over the past six years or school was diliberately designed to convince children that reading was the enemy. Since it had taken him 10 minutes to figure out how to spell "literature" he was leaning towards the latter.
The book is about the Bennet family. Five children, a father who spends the majority of his time silent and reading his book, usually only offerng his opinion to playfully tease and a mother whose main goal in life was to see all her children married.
There was something oddly familar with that. Maybe if he asked his other four siblings or his parents they may be able to explain what that familarity was.
It was also pleasant to read about a time when the most serious evil possibly imagined was sex before marriage. Nowadays, you can see a film with a man brutally butchering the group of children he was expected to protect and no one batters an eyelash. In fact many saw it as Darth going soft.
What's the world coming to?
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