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awn into protecting abra psychic and real life confrontations between danny abra as well as their allies and the true knot ensue eventually a final battle is fought at the site of the now destroyed overlook hotel the book is full of observations about human nature life death and all sorts of other things there are themes floating around that involve responsibility guilt mortality etc all this is fairly typical of king this is not there deep psychological dive that the shining was but there are some interesting things going on with the characters abra in particular is somewhat complex she is mostly an intelligent and likable teenager however she has a temper at times she enjoys using her powers against the true knot a little too much while this group engages in monstrous behavior and is out to kidnap and harm her she begins to revel when using her powers to hurt its members she also occasionally lets her temper drive her power in other situations at one point danny comments to her no lecture and no moral just blood calling to blood the stupid urges of wakeful people and you ve made it to a time of life when you re completely awake it s hard for you i know that it s hard for everyone but most teenagers don t have your abilities your weapons despite some issues the reader is left with the impression that abra will take a virtuous path and not allow the dark aspects of her personality to dominate the true knot and rose are also interesting when dealing with humans the group are a bunch of monsters they torture and murder children their actions are sociopathic however among themselves they behave morally and ethically they also exhibit genuine warm emotions between themselves rose is actually a good leader she does not lead by using fear instead she leads mostly by persuasion and charisma she feels compassion and love for the other members of the group this connection between members is not cultish but resembles the emotional bonds between old spouses and friends after a gunfight between men danny and his allies and members of the true knot one of the group named snake lays dying he comments we didn t choose to be what we are any more then you did in our shoes you d do the same your people slaughter pigs and cows and sheep is what we do any different perhaps king is saying it relates that otherwise good seemingly balanced people can tolerate and participate in bad actions this was a factor when it came to slavery and the holocaust is king suggesting that current day people might be engaging in a little of this there are multiple references and call backs to the shining for instance at one point danny is on a job interview and wonders if his father ever did the same thing it turns out that the earlier novel began with a job interview for jack torrance over the course of the interview there are parallels with that earlier interview there are lots of such references to the earlier book it all cumulates in the end when the ghost of jack torrance plays a decisive roll in the final battle against the true knot this novel is expertly written within the bounds of popular literature king is very good at writing horror intelligent action and portraying characters with enough complexity to retain interest i thought that this book had a few flaws in several points of this novel danny abra and their allies fight the true knot both physically and psychically the evil group seems to lose in most of these encounters and ultimately does not seem to be all that formable a more effective group of antagonists would have strengthened the story we also see the ghost of dick hallorann at one point delving out some simplistic but satisfying philosophy the novel would have benefitted with more of him there is a film version of this that was made a couple of years ago though king did approve of the movie the film was a sequel to the film version of the shining this novel is a sequel to the novel the shining thus there are some fairly major differences between this book and the film especially towards the end while not quite up to the shining this was an exceptional horror book king is a skilled writer and knows how to craft a story that works in many ways there was some depth here as king freely shares his observations on all sorts of issues and plays with some interesting ideas the characters were also mostly interesting and engaging i would recommend this one to anyone who enjoyed the shining posted by brian joseph at 12 11 pm 62 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday october 15 2020 madam bovary by gustave flaubert madam bovary by gustave flaubert is a very famous french novel i thought that this book was an excellent literary work that dug in to all sorts interesting themes in complex ways as far as i could tell while reading a translation the prose seemed distinctive and brilliantly crafted the plot was also interesting the novel was first published in 1856 the is the story of the title character emma bovary the reader is initially introduced to emma s future husband charles bovary before he even knows her charles is a reliable but uninteresting doctor in a french village charles s domineering first wife dies simultaneously charles begins to provide medical treatment to emma s father and starts to develop a romantic interest in her he begins to court emma and the pair eventually get engaged and married though emma is happy at first she soon becomes bored with her marriage and what she considers a humdrum and unromantic country life she wants to live a more glamorous and materialistic lifestyle with a more interesting man emma proceeds to spend lavishly on clothing furniture and all sorts of frills after she has a daughter emma engages in affairs with other men first with a local land owner and later with a handsome clerk named leon all this time charles is oblivious to what is going on even though emma and her lovers are often indiscrete eventually emma s excessive spending catches up with her as debt collectors begin to move to sell the bovarys possessions all this eventually leads to calamity for the bovarys there are other important characters including the village pharmacist monsieur homais this man supposedly befriends the boverys but his friendship is eventually shown to be false he is pompous and pretentious and ultimately very successful he uses people for his benefit and abandons them when he no longer needs them he is also a rationalist who likes to have philosophical arguments i would describe the prose is this book as both soaring but also intentionally pretentious that sounds contradictory but the language sometimes seems sublime while at other times it seems to be very exaggerated sometimes it seems as if flaubert is skirting the line between the two the over the top language seems to be a reflection of emma and her pretentious associates thoughts personalities and feelings emma is often overemotional phony and also sees the world in a kind of super romantic state of course i only read a translation of this book i chose the lydia davis version because it seems to be very respected and multiple reviewers have commented that it is close to the original french thus i feel fairly comfortable commenting on the language used in this book a good example of this language occurs when emma s lover leon is waiting for her in a church at any minute now she would appear charming agitated glancing behind her at the eyes that were following her in her flounced dress her gold lorgnette her thin little boots all kinds of elegant refinements he had never tasted before and with all the ineffable seductiveness of virtue yielding the church like a vast boudoir was arranging itself around her the vaults were leaning down to gather up in the shadows the confession of her love the windows shone resplendent to illuminate her face and the censers burned so that she might appear like an angel amid clouds of perfume despite the almost religious nature of the above leon s hypocrisy and shallowness is illustrated when he fails to provide help or much support to emma when she most needs it the entire nature of emma is at the heart of the book she has the opportunity to live a comfortable life her husband while not the most interesting man in the world sincerely loves her is hard working and is honest however her actions as well as her thoughts as reflected in the novel s language indicate that she has been seduced into believing that she needs to live in world of indulgence and a kind of faux depth there are obvious connections to romanticism in her outlook in fact some have described this book as an attack upon romanticism others have described it as a scathing criticism on bourgeois values i am skeptical of attacks by the elite on the bourgeois or middle class that have been leveled throughout history however i think that flaubert is on to something with his criticism of a certain kind of over the top fake sophistication with all that though i did not live in the time and place that the author did i suspect that like today many people lived life in a state of happy medium between materialism over emotionalism and over indulgence and more down to earth thoughts and pursuits however emma has lost all sense of that balance there is more complexity here however the humdrum and unromantic life that emma bristles over is also critiqued despite charles s virtues he really is dull and hopelessly naive monsieur homais seems to represent much of what is bad about of the middle class average life perhaps flaubert is looking toward a happy medium or perhaps he is just being critical of multiples aspects of the human experience there is more going on here for instance there is an ongoing and debate that spans several years between homais and the village curate bournisien the two men engage in a classic argument between science and rationality on one side and and spiritualism and faith on the other this debate concludes for the reader when both characters eventually fall asleep in the midst of their argument obviously there is much to this conclusion this also provides one of the best and most amusing passages in the book the pharmacist and the curé plunged back into their occupations not without dozing off from time to time something for which each would reproach the other every time they woke and then a little later homais did not challenge these superstitions for he had fallen asleep again monsieur bournisien being more resistant went on moving his lips very softly for some time then imperceptibly he lowered his chin let go of his thick black book and began to snore they sat opposite each other their stomachs out their faces swollen both scowling after so much dissension united at last in the same human weakness flaubert seems to be mocking the over seriousness and repetitiveness of some of these discussions at the same time he seems to be illustrating how human commonality even when it is in the form of weakness is more important than these philosophical differences i will mention that complex characters are not this novel s strong point almost everyone from emma and charles to the villagers and emma s lovers are close to caricatures i think that it is fair to describe them as symbols because we really get into the emma s head there may be hints that there is some real depth underneath but there are only hints with all that the characters are enjoyable to read about despite her flaws at times emma seems sympathetic and i suspect that many readers want her to find a measure of happiness this has been called one of the greatest novels ever written while i would not go that far i thought that it was fantastic the plot was engrossing it bandies about all sorts of interesting ideas the characters m while not all that nuanced were entertaining to read about the language even in translation is grand in a kind of ironic way for those who like nineteenth century literature i highly recommend this one posted by brian joseph at 7 26 pm 57 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels french literature saturday september 19 2020 george iii by jeremy black j eremy black s george iii is a somewhat unusual look at the english monarch this biography has a fairly unconventional structure and style to it in some ways the book is a challenging read and seems to be aimed at a specific audience of people who already know something of its subject with that i personally found this work to be educational and interesting black is a professor of history at exeter university this was first published in 2008 though i am interested in many historical topics my initial interest in george iii stemmed from the fact that he was the british monarch who reigned during the american revolution the revolution is the area of history that i am most interested in like any biography of this man a number of pages here are dedicated to the revolution in fact some versions of this book are subtitled america s last king i think that subtitle is a little misleading as this is a full biography that does not put special influence on the revolution i would guess that the subtitle is part of a marketing strategy as interest in the american revolution is high in the united states i am not complaining about this as i was looking to read a full biography george was a generally interesting figure who is worth knowing about this is the second biography of george that i have read i had previously read g eorge iii a personal history by christopher hibbert my commentary on that book is here though i enjoyed hibbert s work and found it educational i thought that as that book is advertised there was not enough detail about politics or national and international affairs in it black s book though very detailed in those areas has its own quirks that i will talk about below thus while i am glad that i read both books i have not found a single satisfying and comprehensive book on george iii george was born in 1738 and reigned as king from 1760 until his death in 1820 great britain was a constitutional monarchy at the time thus while george wielded real power he shared that power with parliament and other components of government george was king during both the american revolution and the napoleonic wars there are many aspects of george s life and reign worth focusing on i cannot do any kind of comprehensive assessment within a single blog post instead i will do what i am sometimes known to do and focus on a couple of things that i find interesting one ironic point in light of the fascination that so many people have about george s mental illness is how stable and balanced he was he was also principled and ethical in comparison to most royalty of the time in george s time when almost all royalty had extramarital affairs he fell in love with his wife who he had married as the result of an arraignment and had no affairs at a time when so many me...