An Arduous Path
So… here I am. Looking for a job. I’ve been at it for less than a week, and already I can confidently state – it sucks. So much. It does not in any way make one feel good about one’s self. It is a series of moments in which one is reminded that an English … Read more
A Struggle Against Inhumanity
FINALLY I have finished reading Alone in Berlin (1947, Hans Fallada) – I don’t know why it took me so long. It may partly be because the book itself is so intense that one needs to have a little break between each stretch. This somewhat overwhelming nature of the book is quite astonishing, given that … Read more
From Then to Now
I recently finished ‘The Best of Everything’ by Rona Jaffe; and I am currently reading ‘Alone in Berlin’ by Hans Fallada. Jaffe completed her novel in the late 50s and it is set in the early 60s; Fallada’s novel was published in 1947 and is set in 1940. No prizes for guessing where it’s set! … Read more
A New Start
It’s been a while, I know, and the reason for this is that a) I just graduated and have been job hunting, b) I am working from home as an intern for Untitled Books and c) I have been rethinking how I intend to structure this blog from now on. There is a new page … Read more
Book vs. Film: Guess Who Wins….
Sincere apologies for it having been about six million years since I posted but – those essays I mentioned… sort of took over my life there at the end. Thankfully though they have all been completed, double and triple checked, printed, stapled and submitted. Now I am just sitting here awaiting my fate. Whilst suppressing … Read more
Humbert Humbert Humberg Homberg Hamberg
Yes, it has been a while since I posted. That’s what being in your final year does to you. Makes you forget everything that won’t help you get one of two things: a 1st, or completely and utterly wasted. I’ve read a stupid amount of books this academic year, many of which I would never … Read more
“My epitaph shall be, my name alone:/…/That, only that, shall single out the spot,/By that remember’d, or with that forgot.”
Greetings! I have just returned to university for my third year and have thus completed my LAST EVER summer holidays (in the conventional sense) – this makes me sad. And so I sit and pine and reflect on these holidays and I am compelled to relate to you the last Big Event that occurred during them – … Read more
“I can read/A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:/Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.”
Haven’t updated in a while (silly me) and just HAD to say how amazing our Romanticism course has been this term. I already loved Byron (a GCSE English teacher lit that fire many a year ago) but I didn’t really appreciate him as I do now. I also knew very little about Shelley and barely … Read more
Apparently It’s Not Really Worth It. Great.
This week I have to do a presentation (at NINE IN THE MORNING – well, I am a student) on 1984 by George Orwell. Lovely, miserable old George. Or Eric, as he was known in his previous life in Burma riding around on a moped (in my imagination at least) being a police officer. Brilliant. … Read more
