Review by Natalie Clark
Endlessly falling in love with literary heroines is a guilty pleasure of mine and Amber in Ali Smith’s fantastic novel The Accidental provides a sustaining allure throughout this engaging novel. From the eponymous heroine of Anna Karenina to John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman, I have been provided with the perfect seductive [...]
Author Archives: Guest
Review: The Accidental by Ali Smith
July 21, 2008 – 2:51 pm
Review: Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
June 17, 2008 – 6:34 pm
Review by Linda Aloysius
In Morvern Callar, Alan Warner effectively updates the critique of femininity’s relation to commerce that Gustave Flaubert provided in Madame Bovary. This is a far from obvious update, but undeniable once seen.
Both heroines have potentially doomed, but differing, relationships with consumerism. Emma Bovary eventually dies through suicide induced by the [...]
Review: Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado
June 9, 2008 – 9:51 am
Review by Oliver Redfern
The first edition of Captains of the Sands, published in 1937, was seized by the Brazilian government and burnt in public. Jorge Amado’s novel, depicting the story of street children in Brazil who rape, steal and kill (much like their future counterparts in Paulo Lins’ 1997 novel City of God) was an [...]
Review: Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
May 27, 2008 – 8:56 am
Review by Jen Glyn
Kelly Link has been getting rave reviews for years. The fact that she isn’t better known is probably the result of the British publishing industry’s squeamishness regarding short stories and science fiction (however literary or, in Link’s case, intelligent it is). Last year’s Nebula Awards (for science fiction [...]