Review: Henry V by William Shakespeare

This is, by far, my favorite Shakespeare play yet. While A Midsummer's Night Dream is delightfully absurd and Much Ado About Nothing is a laugh-riot, Henry V is both inspiring and thought-provoking. 

It is all thanks to the title character himself, the King Henry V. He is a good commander and king, presented a shining paragon of chivalry and virtue, yet simultaneously his character is opaque. Prince Hal, the wastrel heir to the throne, has seemingly grown up to be King Henry V, the shining star of England who successfully laid waste to the fields of France. King Henry V is heroic, just, and honest, everything a good King should be. 

But is he really? 

Quoting from another reviewer, from my point of view, good ol' King Henry V, Harry Plantagenet, Prince Hal of Eastcheap, is an "amiable monster, a very splendid pageant." He is, in trope-speak, obfuscating stupidity. From the first scene, where the Bishop of Ely and the Archbishop of Canterbury persuades the King to reject a bill appropriating their church property in exchange for spiritual support for the French invasion, we can see his ingenuity. The King is dawdling, as we learn from the Bishops, on where he stands for the bill. Is he dawdling because he is politically inexperienced, or is he bidding his time, knowing that the Bishops would come to him with the pretext needed for his invasion?

And for a patriotic play about war filled with jingoism, there are some highly critical passages here: the scene of Harry, incognito, speaking with Michael Williams, a common soldier, about the nature of kings and his subjects. The fate of Pistol and his friends. In the end, we are left with the fact that for all of the sacrifices made, for all the soldiers that have given up their lives so that he can rule France, it will be all for naught; France will be lost forever by his son Henry VI

Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

First things first: this book destroyed my soul. And now I'm going to explain why.

Review: Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of essays by Joan Didion, and I have never felt so much for a non-fiction collection. Slouching is basically perfect; it's the kind of book that stays with you even long after you read it.

Review: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

Cotillion is the third Georgette Heyer that I've finished, even though chronologically I read it before The Talisman Ring. It's also probably one of my favorite romance novels, quite simply because the hero is one of the best heroes I've had the pleasure to read.

The plot started out fine. Kitty Charing is a penniless orphan cared by the wealthy curmudgeon Matthew Penicuik. Mr Penicuik declares he would bestow his massive fortune to any of his nephews who married Kitty. Naturally, his great-nephews came scrambling to his home to offer for Kit's hands. There's the Reverend Hugh Rattray, a handsome but droll and strict reverend. There's the Earl of Dolphinton, an Irish peer who's kind of strange in the head. Both of them offered to Kit - Hugh, due to pity and Dolph due to his overbearing mother - but they are both rejected by Kit since she's insulted by their offers and anyway she's waiting for Jack Westruther, Uncle Matthew's and Kitty's favorite. But he doesn't arrive when Uncle Matthew calls for him, because he feels that he'll marry Kitty anyway sooner or later, so why not make it later? He still wants to have some fun and he dislikes the old man to force his hand so. Humiliated and disappointed, Kitty sets off to run away but on his way he meets The Hon. Freddy Standen, one of Uncle Matthew's great-nephews. Freddy is the heir to a viscountcy and is independently wealthy himself, so he doesn't need to answer Uncle Matthew's summons, but he goes there anyway since on his letter to him Uncle Matthew doesn't disclose his true intentions. When dining in an inn, he encounters the distressed Kit. Hatching a scheme, she begs him to be pretend to be engaged to her. The reason that she told him was that she wanted to go to London and Uncle Matthew wouldn't allow her to go if she weren't engaged. An ulterior reason is ostensibly to make Jack jealous. So the pretend-couple sets forth to London.

I've told you before that Pretend Lovers are one of my favorite tropes. But this book is glorious for other reasons. because Freddy Standen is such a great and atypical hero in romance.

You see, Georgette Heyer and romance novels in general have two kind of flavors for a hero: the dashing wealthy rake who's very much in the petticoat line and the older smarter (but still dashing) heroes, What I like about Freddy is that he's neither of those. Freddy is wealthy, but he's neither a nonesuch or a rake or a dashing hero or very much in the petticoat line. He's a dandy, the Pinkest of the Pinks, and he cheerfully admits that he's not very clever or sardonic. Everybody likes Freddy; he's everyone's friend. And although he doesn't do much dashing rescue to maidens from odious gentlemen, he's sweet and he has address, which is very useful if you want to get out of a dreaded social engagement without offending anybody. I like what Kitty said in the end: Freddy might not be the typical heroes in the novel who snatches maidens from a mansion all willy-nilly, but no one is like that, and if Kitty meets that kind of hero in real life, she would think of him as very odious indeed! Freddy might not have any accomplishments, but he has some thing better than an accomplishment: a kind heart.

Freddy undergoes a lot of character development in this book. When the novel starts, he seems like a scatterbrained ditz, although I can see that he's a sweetie deep inside since he agrees to Kitty's scheming just so that she won't cry. Freddy's a bit lazy in the beginning, in my opinion, but as the novel progresses, he begins to take a more active role. Freddy doesn't think of himself highly at first but Kitty manages to make him see himself in a different light. His and Kitty's exploits made him realize that he can actually do something meaningful in the world.

Kitty, on the other hand, also learn some lessons in the ways of the ton, But I think the biggest lesson she's had is how she manages to see Freddy for the good man that she really is. As she becomes more acquainted with Jack, she realizes how odoriferous his behavior really is and how they're not really suited in the end after all. I also enjoy seeing Kit blooming into a confident woman by wearing clothes that she likes and fits her instead of the plain and dowdy gowns that she's had when living with the miserly, penny-pinching Uncle Penicuik.

Cotillion, at its heart, is a character-driven novel. There's not much in the way of plot (or romance) but the humor and overall sweetness makes up for it. It's a good book for a first-time foray into Georgette Heyer or a comforting palate cleanser after reading a particularly depressing historical novel.

Review: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale tells the story of an oppressive, patriarchal society in what's known as America. As one read it from a Western point-of-view in the 21st century, one would see that this tale and the Republic of Gilead are completely fantastical. How could this happen, you'd say, how could anyone let this happen?

But I could easily name several politicians that would espouse the same views expressed by the Gileadean elite even now, in the 21st century. What makes the Handmaid's Tale so chilling is that the danger is still present, that the subjugation of women still lurks in the dark corner. How can it not, when there are politicians that can say that there's a thing called 'legitimate rape'? How can it not, when a teenage girl is gang-raped society gives her less sympathy than her rapists? How can it not, when there are people who legitimately believes that marital rape does not exist? How can it not, when women march to oppose a bill that would give them equal pay with men? What makes Gilead so chilling and scary is because we can easily see it coming to fruition. Hell, if you can see in the world now, there are many places where women are subjugated to Gilead-like draconian laws, maybe not as extreme as it's depicted in the novels, but still pretty bleak.

Mrs Atwood has a way with prose. The peculiar nature of the novel's narrative - that it is mainly a woman recollecting her experiences as a Handmaid - makes it easy for the narrator to jump time from her time with the Commander's family to her time with her own family to her time in college to her escape attempt or to her childhood. Because of the "reconstructive" nature of the novel too there are a lot of ambiguities, and even we cannot be sure of the names of the narrator's friends or even the names of the narrator herself. The plot device of it being a collection of recording that is assembled by a team of future archaeologist trying hard to be chronologically faithful can also be a way to account for the disconnected, almost episodic nature of the novel.

There are a lot of allusions with the subjugated women of Gilead with the plight of the slaves during the Antebellum. The narrator tried to escape to Canada, like what most slaves did in the pre-Civil War era. There's a mention of the Underground Femaleroad, no doubt meant to allude to the Underground Railroad used by Black slaves to escape to the North or "friendly" states. Quaker families are often mentioned as being friendly to women and tried to help them escape, just like how several Quaker families helped slaves escape by becoming active in the Underground Railroad. There are mentions of organized protest in the UK to help "Save the Women" as they say, no doubt meant to evoke the abolitionist movement that emerged earlier in Britain. The recordings of Offred's tale are usually preceded by several minutes of music, no doubt meant to evoke how music came to be an important means of communication in helping slaves escape, although the catch in here is if the songs of the Underground Railroad are spiritual in nature, the songs of the Mayday Resistance and the Underground Femaleroad are secular in nature to contrast with the Gileadean theocracy. There's also a nice contrast between the repressive Gilead (located in what is ostensibly USA) and the passive but freer Canada.

There has been a debate whether or not The Handmaid's Tale belongs to the speculative fiction genre or to the science fiction genre, partly because of the fundamental question: can the world described in the novel exists? Even if I shelved it in the science-fiction shelf, I believe that Gilead can exist in our world; there're enough ingredients for it. But thankfully, due to divine intervention or some other way, Gilead hasn't yet come to fruition. The Handmaid's Tale then serves as both a horror story and a warning to us, to not let rampant intolerancy and religious fundamentalism run its course.

Review: A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

What is the importance of A Room of One's Own? Perhaps because it, maybe for the first time, exposes the treatment women face in academia and the literati, these so-called sacred liberal place where anything is permitted in the name of knowledge and art, glorious in its supposed progressiveness, turned away a woman from a library because she did not have a (male) Fellows with him or a letter of introduction from the (male) Dean. Perhaps because it talks about the importance of material things in creating literature, that if we see the biography and history of great poets and writers we shall see a history of privileged men educated in the best schools meant to foster their genius. Perhaps because it emphasizes that for a woman to be truly free, then she must have a room of one's own i.e. an income independent of her husband or any one in her life, an income that is truly, wholly hers.

The theme of A Room of One's Own is classic. It is about women's emancipation, about women and fiction, about women and history. Mrs. Woolf predicts that in a hundred years, more women will take on traditionally male profession such as stockbroker and barristers and soldiers and doctors. In some ways, she is true: there are more female CEOs, female lawyers, female doctors, female stockbrokers, female soldiers now than there were in 1928, but that is not high praise, for any number is greater than zero. Even with this progress, women still face sexism in everyday life. Despite the fact that any field now welcomes women if she pleases to enter it, the "glass ceiling" still exist, and women were still paid less than men. Mrs. Woolf pointed out an essay that espouses women's inferiority in her book. She said that due to its antiquated ideals, we may be excused to think that it was written in 1868 and not 1928. Sadly, as I read the essay, I think it's similar to many other essays written by "well-meaning" (male) academia and religious leader that I have the misfortune to read in 2015.

A Room of One's Own then remains relevant even a hundred years after its publication. Like when Mrs. Woolf pointed out how "drawing-room" novels were derided because most often they're written by women about women and how "battlefield" novels were praised because they are written by men about men, so does now, when women who watch romantic-comedy films are said as silly chits while films who have explosion and guns were given high ratings. Women who read romance are ridiculed yet no one ridicules men who read those awful Tom Clancy thrillers and its derivatives. Sexism is still alive, even when women are granted the vote, even when there are women barristers and women stockbrokers taking up office in the City. The cards are stacked against us, but women will always find their voice. As Mrs. Woolf said: "lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."

Review: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

20 pages into the book, only five percent in, I can feel tears swelling in my eyes and dread filling my heart as  I read. Like a fortune-teller, years of being a bookworm have taught me how to read plots and characters even only a few pages in. Most stories follow patterns based on genres, and I enjoyed them mostly to savor the words and details, not to know how it end, because in the end, most stories follow a predictable pattern. I knew, only thirty pages in, which characters were going to die. As I flip the last pages and finished my sobbing, I cross-checked my list with reality. It came in a 100%. All of my predictions came true.

Yet as I turn the pages, I couldn't stop reading. Mr Doerr had a way with words, the chapters are short, but beautiful and you ache for the characters, you ache for their plight and unrealized potential. More than six hours I spent reading this book, and in the last three, I prayed to god every minute that my precious babies are safe and sound and unhurt even though I know they are going to be hurt anyway. But still I prayed, going against what the literary gods have dictated, hoping, hoping that there's a twist at the end of the book, that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that everything, everything is miraculously fine.

Alas, it did not happen. But this book, this book has sparked something deep in me. Over the years, I've become a bit bored by the stores and novels which I read, however, reading this has brought me something fierce that I hadn't felt in quite some time. I am exhilarated. I feel alive. I feel like I was there, in Saint-Malo, crouched in a cramped chimney, listening to the crackle and the hums of the radio. My guts twisted when we got into Werner's part with the Nazi Youth. I cried, praying to god to keep Marie-Laure safe please, please, please. Pity and dread churned in me as I read Werner's plight in the Wehrmacht, the German Army. I sympathize with the characters. In front of me, they become more than words on papers. I feel like a god, looking down on my own miniature Saint-Malo and the Academy, watching wooden figures of Marie-Laure and Werner go about their lives, until finally they meet that fateful day in the walled city of Brittany.

I am Matilda again, sitting in a library chair with a book, travelling all around the world while not moving a single inch - right at the time when I felt that I was too old to be Matilda, that the magic's gone. But it's not gone - it never will go out. All it takes is to light it again is the right kind of story, one that this novel fits perfectly.

Review: Mythology by Edith Hamilton

I love this book. I have always been interested in mythology, but the way some reference book told them is very dry. These stories live through riveting poems and plays throughout centuries; it is by its very nature theatrical. The Greeks and Romans use the stories of the gods to terrify and inspire all kinds of emotions in their subjects.

So I am very pleased with Ms. Hamilton's Mythology. Ms. Hamilton, while still maintaining a respectable distance with her subject-matter, also inserts her own opinions and views in the stories. She is clearly passionate about her work, knows the stories very well, and cares for the characters. She laments the fates of innocents who were needlessly and absurdly brutalized by the gods. She sympathizes with Medea, the wife who was cast off by Jason, but acknowledges that she was cruel in her actions. Though I like Roman mythology, I LIVE for her distaste for Roman writers (she can throw amazing shade). You can clearly see her opinions and sympathies, but she does so subtly, weaving it in her beautiful prose, so that it does not feel patronizing or preaching.

Though the book focuses too much on Greek/Roman mythology and little on the other world mythologies, I still think this is a must-read for any mythology buff.


--
Book information:
Title: Mythology
Author: Hamilton, Edith.
Edition: New York: Little, Brown and Company. First Bay Back paperback edition (reissued). 2013. (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-316-22333-1

Review: The Queen of Attolia and the King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

You know a book is good that even when you knew the plot and its twists and turns (thanks, Wikipedia!) it still hits you like a thousand bricks when it did happen. And boy, did it happen gloriously.

Now, you must be wondering why I chose this two particular book and why I hadn't bothered with the first book. Well, I was short on cash, and I had low opinion on first-person POV, so I chose to buy the two books that I knew didn't have a first-person narrator: The Queen of Attolia and the King of Attolia. I devoured the first book in a span of four hours, a feat that was unheard of from me. I finished the second one a little slower, reading the first half late until night, and finishing the rest of them the first thing in the morning.

And let me tell you, I was glad I picked up this series. It's everything I expected and more. With an all-knowing third-person narration, you would expect the book to be plain and tame, since as the reader we knew all the twists even if the characters didn't. But no, much like how the titular Thief of Eddis steals belongings, this book hides its secrets that you wouldn't even realize exists until it is revealed oh-so-casually by a line. And what a line indeed! When you read it, you feel like you have to backtrack and read the whole book again because now, with the knowledge imparted by it, everything changes. Every dialogue, every thought, every action; all of them was brought into new light because of one simple line.

These two books held my rapt attention and had me read them all in one sitting, something which doesn't happen very much. I am a skeptic, well-versed in the inner-workings of a novel, and I usually read the general plot of a book before buying it, since I don't want to spend money and then come back disappointed because I don't like the book's ending, or that I think the plot is inane. Owing to this qualities, nothing really fazes me anymore. I am more interested in how the way an author weaves their worlds rather than the twists and turns of the plot.

But Megan Whalen Turner is an expert wordsmith, and her books did not disappoint. She weaves her worlds expertly, breathing them life. When I read this, I am not in the confines of my room, sitting contently in my bed: I am in Attolia, I am in Eddis, and I move between them as swift as Eugenides do in the night. The characters, too, are a treat. They are layered beautifully like a good baklava, doused with a rich personality instead of honey. They calculate their actions carefully, so that everything means something, and no energy is wasted. After spending too much time with too-stupid-to-live YA protagonists obsessed with boys and romance, the Queens of Attolia and Eddis are a breathe of fresh air.

As a future diplomat, I also like the focus on politics and the precarious world of inter-kingdom relations. Not too many YA books discuss these topics, I am afraid, but with a main character roster consisting of kings and queens and members of their courts, it is inevitable that politics will come to play. But the book does not give a black and white approach to politics, like so many YA fantasy books do. I find it tiring when YA books have a "rebellious princess" that is careless and tactless when it comes to politics, insulting nobles left and right, disregarding courtly manners, etc, and yet everyone is awed at her boldness. Politics do not work that way. There is an art to it, and chances are if you're insulting your retainers, or show blatant favouritism to one of them, they would be irked enough to revolt themselves. Wars have been waged for less, and the Queens of the Queen's Thief series knows that. Eugenides acts like a typical rebellious prince--disregarding courtly manners, throwing thinly veiled insults to his nobles, complaining about court functions--but almost everyone agrees he is a buffoon and does not take him seriously or respect him.

Well-written and smart, this series is an underrated gem more people should be into. Five stars to both the Queen of Attolia and the King of Attolia.

Final rating:

--
Book information:

Title: The Queen of Attolia
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Edition: New York: Greenwillow Books. First Eos edition. 2006. (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-06-084182-9
--
Title: The King of Attolia
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Edition: New York: Greenwillow Books. 2007. (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-06-083579-8

Review: 1984 by George Orwell

I know 1984 will rank as one of my favorite book since the first time I had heard it. I know this. But I keep postponing my intent to read it, since I feel like due to my age I will not be able to understand properly, and because I want to work on my English so that I can read it without much difficulty. But one day I was at my local bookstore, window-shopping, and I happened upon a translated copy of 1984 in one of the shelves. I didn't expect it at all and I was so shocked and happy at the same time that I paced around the shelves for some time to calm myself. I was seized by the sudden impulse to grab it and stuff it into my shopping bag, before I saw the publisher. I've read several books by this publisher, and most of them have shoddy translations; I even have to buy a copy of one of them in its original language to even remotely understand anything because the translation is that bad.

But the book haunts me even as I got home. I agonized about it for days. Should I or should I not buy the book? Am I ready yet? Well, I decided finally, if I'm old enough to go to college I'm old enough to read the book. So I placed an order in one of those online bookshops and wait. When it arrived a week ago, I promptly read it.

You must be wondering why it took me almost a week if I liked it so much? Well, because a book like this is like fine wine; you can't read it all at one but rather savor it slowly. And because this book is depressing as fuck, that's why. There were many times when I have to put the book down, draw a long sigh, then took a rest browsing for cute puppies and kittens pictures. The book gets to you. Its worldbuilding is so good that you can't help but get sucked into its world and feel the helplessness of the character. I was there, with Winston in London, trying to survive under constant censorship and squalor, despite the fact that we are separated by the pages of the book.

Orwell has a vivid writing style. He can make his character and his world come to life with mundane words. Every author who thinks that the only way they can write well is by using the most superfluous words needs to read Orwell. Sure, sometimes his paragraph is long and confusing, but like I said, you need to savor it slowly like fine wine. You can't speed-read an Orwell. I usually felt bored upon encountering a wall of text in a novel, but with Orwell, the wall of text makes me feel excited. It doesn't bore me, not at all.

Wow. I really don't have anything to add anymore. What can I say? Everything that needs to be said has been said in this book. You need to read it. That's all I'm going to say.

Final rating:

Book information:

Title: 1984

Author: George Orwell

Edition: New York: Signet Classics.1950

ISBN: 978-0-451-52493-5