Kim by Rudyard Kipling - publié le 17/05/2009
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The theme that interests us is the quest for identity in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim. The book was written in 1901 and the plot takes place in India during the time of the British colonization. Kim presents several quests: a quest implies that the protagonist has to seek something noble, like the...
Philip Roth, Portnoy's complaint - publié le 17/05/2009
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
The text under scrutiny presents us an extract of the confession of a man to his psychiatrist: he talks to him more precisely about his childhood, and the way his mother used to act with him during that period. What is interesting about this text is the manner the narrator presents his memory:...
How Shakespeare dramatized the changes in Lady Macbeth - publié le 17/05/2009
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
“Ambition is the step that can turn a noble-hearted man into a sinner” is the message Shakespeare wanted to convey to the audience when he wrote the play Macbeth in 1606. Lady Macbeth's is the wife of an important nobleman: Macbeth, they are both characterized by their great ambition of...
Harry Potter - Translation and analysis - published: 17/05/2009
Book review - 12 pages - Literature
Everybody has heard about Harry Potter, the famous book by J.K. Rowling and the famous wizard. It is, as everybody knows, a very popular novel everywhere in the world. It is particularly popular in the country where it was written. Not only children, but also many grown-ups actually love it. We...
Mejdoub by Paul Bowles
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
The short story, Mejdoub, written by Paul Bowles, an American writer who lived in Tanger for half a century, narrates the story of a poor man who decides to make money, playing the role of a mejdoub. A mejdoub is a religious mystic who utters prophecies. The protagonist who seems to have much...
"Nothing that is so, is so": The extent of role of this statement in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - publié le 08/05/2009
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
“Nothing that is so, is so”, says Feste. He says so ironically, talking to Sebastian, who he is convinced is actually Cesario. This is said for a specific situation, but it might actually be relevant for the whole play: Indeed, this apparently absurd quotation raises the question of...
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, Chapter 7 reviews - publié le 08/05/2009
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
At the beginning of this chapter, a letter from his father explains to Victor the circumstances of William's murder. He leaves for Geneva immediately to comfort and grieve with his family. But it is dark when he reaches Geneva and gets close to home, during a thunderstorm and Victor is started to...
"I.O.U. The debt threat and why we must defuse it", Noreena Hertz - publié le 07/05/2009
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
NOREENA HERTZ is a British economist who teaches political economy at the University Of Utrecht, Netherlands. Her last book is I.O.U. The debt threat. In this book, she talks about Bono, the lead singer of U2 (real name Paul Hewson), who will challenge the rich world to help eradicate Third World...
Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller - publié le 07/05/2009
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Since the very beginning of the play, we realize the essential role of dreams and reminiscences in Willy Loman's life because he seems to live in his own world. Indeed, as soon as he comes back home, we learn that this day, he wasn't able to drive all the way to the place he was supposed to go...
Richard Dawkins, "The selfish gene" - publié le 07/05/2009
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins elaborates on another perspective of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, basing his argument on the recent discovery of the DNA molecule's structure. The theory of evolution, which relevance had been largely suffering from a lack of physical validation, now...
Love and death in Shakespeare's sonnets
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
In 1609 Thomas Thorpe published, a collection of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare under the title SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Most of these poems were probably written in 1597 though the earliest ones could have been composed as early as 1593. Sonnets cycles were a traditional genre of...
The Breedlove family in The Bluest eye by Toni Morrison
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
In her novel ?The Bluest eye', Toni Morrison presents a portrayal of racism in the 1930's through the life of the Breedlove family, and specifically through the vision of the daughter, Pecola. In this story, the characters do not suffer from direct oppression, but the novel shows another...
The Importance of Soliloquies in Drama, and its Relevance in Sam Shepard's Fool For Love
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Theatre, and particularly drama, uses all kinds of rhetorical and situational tools to create a particular ambience that permeates everything from setting to the actor's performances. One of these rhetorical tools is soliloquy. Creating a sort of intimacy between a character and the audience,...
Wife-Wooing, by John Updike - publié le 04/05/2009
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
In his short story, 'Wife-Wooing', John Updike portrays the life of what seems to be an ordinary family through which he discusses matters related to matrimony. This story centers around two people who seem to have forgotten the meaning of their marriage. Through this essay, I will...
Book review on gender and higher education: A collection of essays edited by Becy Ropers-Huilman analyzed
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
This paper will provide a review of a collection of essays edited by Becky Ropers-Huilman entitled Gendered Futures in Higher Education. Critical Perspectives for Change. The book was published by the State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y., in 2003. The paper will consider how this...
A review of the book An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Reading An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jamison, was much like driving by the scene of a horrible car wreck. We snuck a peek, turned a page, faced disturbing images and soon became entwined with gut wrenching emotions that made us want to run away. As if transfixed by a cavalcade of emergency...
"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," book series; and why it has a deep connection with American teen girls
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The "Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants," consists of four books. These books have solidified the series as a literary masterpiece that has been heralded as a great work for young people. It has been celebrated as a wonderful literary effort. The books evoke thoughts of serene and picturesque...
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
One of the most pressing issues of the United States as a whole is that of illegal immigration stemming primarily from Mexico and other South American countries. America is a country built on immigration, then why would Mexican immigration be such a volatile issue of the day? This is due to...
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep depicts Los Angeles at a time of great unrest. The atmosphere is that of mistrust, deception, selfishness and a slight hint of hedonism amongst some of those who dwell in the city. In stories, or situations taking place in such an environment, we usually find...
Commentary Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck - publié le 20/04/2009
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is known as one of the author's most powerful novels. Even though the story is completely imaginary, the plot takes place in a very precise historical and geographical context: 1930s California. Moreover, one of the main themes of the novel is humanity and...
De Lacey Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
In a disconcertingly candid manner, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein offers its readers a sensible critique on the callous superficiality of human social interaction. Shelley imaginatively introduces a repugnant, yet kindhearted monster into the world of man, who is only to be received, and...
Science in action: Review
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Latour suggests that the construction of facts and machines is a collective process. He argues that there is nothing inherent in a statement that makes it a fact; rather it is the future processes of others who accept it, support it, ignore it, challenge it, etc wherein the destiny of a statement...
Masquerade in seductive fictions
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
In her Masquerade and Civilization, Terry Castle hypothesizes that the concept of “masquerade” is central to 18th century consciousness, and provides an intriguing insight into how the self was conceived of in “the age of disguise”(Castle, 5). Implicit in the idea of...
Machiavellian strategies in Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
What would it be acceptable for a society to sacrifice in order to achieve a utopia? Does this utopia exist, and if so, is it even possible to achieve it? Is it possible to build paradise from concrete? Arthur Koestler, in his novel Darkness at Noon , demonstrates the impracticality of using...
Is Thomas More's "splendid few book?"
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Some critics view Utopia as a program or manifesto where as some urge that the mistake lies with those readers who consider the book as "au grand sérieux". Indeed, how seriously should we take Utopia? In Lewis' point of view, the reader of Utopia is the victim of a joke: "Erasmus speaks of it...
The theme of the declining Big House in Bowen's The Last September - publié le 04/04/2009
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
'The Last September', Elizabeth Bowen's second novel, describes the Anglo-Irish life of the provincial aristocracy during the turbulent times of 1920, and deals directly with the crisis of being Anglo-Irish. In this particular context, Bowen makes a combination between social comedy and...
"Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali ": A review
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
Megan Jennaway's theoretical framework in the first half of Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali, fuses feminist anthropology, Marxist power asymmetry discourse, and postmodernist concerns of representation and reflexivity. She posits that sexuality and desire have not been explored in...
A Boy Called H, by Kappa Senoh
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
?A Boy' has written an autobiographical novel. In this novel, A Boy called ?H' ?A Childhood in Wartime Japan.' Kappa Senoh describes his life as a young boy who grew up in the port city of Kobe, Japan. This coming-of-age story takes place between 1937 and the post-war of the U.S....
The duality of Holocaust literature
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
Other than the odd revisionist, the vast majority of sentient humans will attest to the horror that was the Holocaust. Unfortunately, those who can give first hand testimonies are few in number and quickly disappearing. The story gets even more muddled when psychologists protest that memory is...
The impact of poetry and literature on the father-son relationship in John Stuart Mill's 'Autobiography' and Edmund Gosse's 'Father and Son'
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
When comparing John Stuart Mill's Autobiography and Edmund Gosse's Father and Son, one cannot ignore the fact that the two are very similar with respect to the strong father-son relationship that both James Mill and Phillip Gosse had with their sons. Mill's and Gosse's primary influence in their...
