ed_moore's reviews
298 reviews

The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

“You cling to the idea that Germany is still a democracy not a madhouse” 

This book opened as a five star prediction, unfortunately it didn’t persist as strongly as it began but was still a very well written and numbing tale of the early years of the Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany. Written in 1938 following the events of Kristillnacht Boschwitz presents likely one of the earliest literary depictions of the holocaust, though the tragic story of the author in his personal escape from Germany but death at sea at only 27 when shot by a German U-Boat led to the manuscript for ‘The Passenger’ being lost and only rediscovered, translated and published in 2018. 

‘The Passenger’ follows Otto Silberman, a partly autobiographical insert of Boschwitz,  as he becomes alienated within his own country, still believing he identifies as a German and trying to get by and escape persecution by taking trains across the country, primarily between Berlin, Dortmund and Hamburg. It is such a quotable book with many the poignant image, though in its structure buying time and freedom through train travel it does get a little repetitive as the repeated train journeys are redescribed and relived. As a consequence towards the conclusion the book very much petered off in engagement and quality but for the most part was gripping, so numbing in its depictions of shifts in humanity, and though a bit choppy because it is in the state of a manuscript draft still has such a captivating control of imagery and language.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

“Writing gave me a reason to stay alive and as miserable as that makes me I will cling onto that magic for as long as I live” 

I absolutely flew through R.F. Kuang’s ‘Yellowface’. It was so different to ‘Babel’ in both topic and written style, other than overlapping themes of critiquing racism within industries, which I guess is a testament to Kuang’s range and ability as a writer. ‘Yellowface’ follows Juniper Hayward, a failing author, who plagiarises a manuscript about the Chinese Labour Front in WW1 written by her recently deceased bestseller friend Athena. As the book went on Juniper crossed the line more and more and you began to wonder how much lower she could possibly get in this charade to cover up her theft as the threads of her deception start to unravel. 

‘Yellowface’ exposes the toxic and crushing environment of the publishing industry and is very modern in its handling of it, discussing cancelling, booktok toxicity and the sacrifices authors have to make in order to maintain relevancy and succeed in the publishing world. It is honestly terrifying to read about from the perspective of someone who wants to get their foot into the industry some day. It also made satirical comments about unconscious biases regarding author perception which were extremely illuminating; one mentioned perceptions of Evelyn Waugh as a woman and I can’t pretend that isn’t a pitfall I had once presumed and fallen into. 

Though ‘Yellowface’ was extremely digestible and difficult to put down, I can’t help but feel like the prose wasn’t my exact cup of tea. It was very basic and trying to be relatable in a way, a style that I don’t recall being the case with ‘Babel’. Though a completely different genre and theme I feel to an extent Kunag’s ability to craft words should’ve carried through. 

All's Well by Mona Awad

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

“I’m the thick dark forest, I’m the lightless sky, I’m the hunter dogging her every step, I’m the heavy air and the sucking mud beneath her feet that make it impossible to run” 

Mona Awad’s ‘All’s Well’ follows a drama teacher called Miranda who is dealing with chronic pains and unable to find an explanation for such, as she attempts to put on a performance of Shakespeare’s ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’. Miranda makes a Faustian deal with three businessmen to pass on her pain to others and spends the duration of the novel grappling with this. The chapters about the presentation of the play and rehearsals combined with Miranda’s intensity were really enjoyable and the middle third of the book was great, although Miranda in facing this pain was such an insufferable and whiney character. The ending however was so weird and confused and I am not sure if I particularly enjoyed it, not to mention any chapters set in the bar with the Faustian trio felt so out of place and confused. Many elements of the book were enjoyable, particularly the engagement with a more ‘niche’ Shakespeare, but it just came to a very unsatisfying and odd conclusion. 

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

adventurous dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

“It is sinful, replied the friar, to christ those whom heaven has doomed to destruction. A tyrant’s race must be swept from the earth to the third or fourth generation” 

Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’ is recognised as the first work of the Gothic genre, though despite being very atmospheric and vibey with a very fast paced opening, it does seem like a book that’ll be very much forgettable. It is very Shakespearian feeling in plot but also seems awfully convenient in parts, much of it relying on tropes of prophecy. I also think Manfred gets away with far too much given his violent and impulsive nature and with frankly how awful a protagonist he is. The man really needs to get some grief counselling… 

Also Horace, what did speech marks do to hurt you? 

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

dark informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

“Nonsense! Nonsense!” Snorted Tasbrough. “That couldn’t happen in America, not possibly! We’re a country of freemen.” 

I have taken a day to mull over ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ before writing my review, because I wasn’t quite sure if it would be a five star, but it just made the cut. Sinclair Lewis’ dystopia imagines an America where an anti-immigration right wing dictator called Buzz Windrip is elected by the American people, sound scarily familiar? The most horrifying thing is that Lewis published this in 1935, before the true horrors of Nazi Germany had occurred and been exposed to the world, though Lewis almost perfectly imagines the course of actions following Hitler’s rise to a dictatorship within his imagined America. Equally, it serves as a harsh warning to the modern day; that in the environment of the USA, so fuelled by hatred and capitalism, it is feasible for fascist power to slowly manipulate the country to their pleasing. I did also find fascinating sections of remarks that the election of Buzz would bring America back to its glory days, when there wasn’t “the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays, and living on my income tax and yours” - and that quote is so ironic in that it proves the ‘better past’ to be nothing but a myth. 

The first half of the novel focused on Buzz’s campaign and then a political recount on how he spent his first months in office, and the subsequent changes to laws and the governance of the USA. Once again, the early policy changes and the messages pushed by Buzz are so reflective of what we are seeing in America today, and such is terrifying. The latter half of the book more closely follows the protagonist Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor who is censored by the regime and attempts to fight against it. Doremus wasn’t the most interesting of protagonists which was the cause for a lot of my initial reluctance to give five stars, however then I remembered the character of Winston has never held back ‘1984’ for me and in that philosophy the political worldbuilding and applicability to the modern day absolutely deserves the merit. 

If the state of right wing politics is of any worry to you, please pick this up! You’ll see a scarily large amount of Donald Trump in Buzz Windrip! 

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

“We were eighteen, and had begun to love life in the world, then had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion burst in our hearts” 

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is the first war story I have read from the German perspective, and it has at its heart that at the end of the day both sides were victims of the war, and the huge majority of casualties men with no real hatred for their enemy, but just died following orders. This is explored both in the sympathy you feel for the German protagonists, the dehumanisation of the British and French (as you would often see the Germans presented as in many pieces offer literature), and how one was forced to dehumanise to remain sane, as at the end of the day nobody there wanted to be fighting. It was a book full of endless trench conflict and violence, with harrowing images consistently, yet as partially indicated by the title has such a still feel to it throughout. 

So many of the images in this book will be burnt to my mind. Depictions of horrific injuries and death are not described lightly whatsoever by Remarque, his intentions being to heavily criticise warfare. I did try to listen to sections when ill this weekend and quote frankly I couldn’t bring myself to as I didn’t need to aggravate how sick I felt, and though there is some power in Remarque’s writing to have this harrowing effect on my body just when reading it also just felt like too much in places. 

I do need to mention the audiobook recording I had too, which was probably one of the worse I have ever read. It was recorded as if it was a wireless broadcast and there was a static hum in the background for the entire duration of the book. I genuinely can’t work out if this was an artistic choice given the topic and time period, or just really poor recording equipment, but either way it wasn’t great. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, War, and Injury/Injury detail

An Inspector Calls and Other Plays by J.B. Priestley

dark reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“One Eva Smith is gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us , with their lives, their hopes and fears, their sufferings and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives” 

I have reread this play maybe four or five times since studying it at GCSE and now tutoring it, but seem to never have actually logged it so given I just wrapped up a full read through with a student now is a good as a time as any. ‘An Inspector Calls’ was the highlight text back at GCSE and it still holds up, Priestly is absolutely brilliant. It follows the interrogation of the Birling family by Inspector Goole following the suicide of Eva Smith, a suicide they all played a part in causing. Priestly pushes a socialist message through the character of the Inspector and the lessons of the younger generation within the Birling family, his primary aim being to criticise capitalist societal structures. It has so many brilliant lines and the ending still hits even after reading and analysing it so many times. It is a play that  really hasn’t become dry after all these years. 

Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

informative slow-paced

2.5

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable” 

Orwell’s essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ is his attack on the use of idiom and lack of clarity in political speech. He argues that the language is decaying due to a prevalence of foolish thoughts, this creating foolish language of which causes a cycle allowing for further foolish thoughts. Ultimately he argues against political jargon and for not speaking rather than saying something when one is unclear on the definition. He establishes key rules for writing and tears apart examples of writing from others, yet other than the debate about the unreliability of political language I am not sure how much I agree with Orwell in this essay, nor if he even follows his own rules in his works. 

Ulysses by James Joyce

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

“There’s no one as blind as the fellow who won’t see” 

Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ is an epic narrative of the journey of Leopold Bloom across his day in Dublin. It parallels the events of Odysseus’ homecoming in ‘The Odyssey’, each episode representing a segment of his journey. On the one hand this was really clever, full of subtle allusions which I appreciated once I clocked onto them, though on the other hand a fair few of these allusions I had to chase up analysis’ of and given how obscure and loosely ties they were in some cases that perhaps takes away from them being particularly impressive as generally they were difficult to pick up and understand. 

A lack of understanding was a common trend in ‘Ulysses’. I would describe most of this novel as simply ‘words’. So much of it was just stream of consciousness lists and playing with the narrative format, imitating other authors or switching to script in parts, but ultimately most of it was just incomprehensible lists and extremely specific descriptions that confused the narrative and made it feel less of a story and more just - words. That being said Joyce was clearly extremely well read and educated, his work is full of philosophy and literary allusions which in the cases that I picked up on and understood made parts of the book very rewarding. I read that ‘Ulysses’ is a testament to how well read you are as a reader dependent on how much you pick up, and in each reread you will learn more and more about yourself and see how far your own personal reading journey has come, and I would be inclined to agree; though it will be a very long time until I can see myself ever having the enthusiasm to try and pick this up again. 

I liked the relationship between Bloom and Stephen Daedalus, as morally questionable as they are presented to be it was sweet in places, especially in the Homeric homecoming during the ‘Nostos’ third of the narrative. I didn’t as much enjoy the extremely sexualised relationships between couples and flings throughout though, Joyce is very specific in his depictions of these scenes and the ‘Roman Candle’ episode which I had read an excerpt from for uni a few years ago was not an enjoyable experience to revisit. After all, Bloomsday is an anniversary of Joyce’s first sexual encounter with his wife-to-be so what more can be expected. 

As it stands, for the better or the worse, ‘Ulysses’ was an extremely tricky read and I can’t say I enjoyed it very much, but know I will be glad of myself for reading it when I am scurrying around Dublin and able to recognise the locations in a few months. 

The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius by George Orwell

informative tense slow-paced

3.75

“I began this book to the tune of German bombs and I begin this second chapter in the added racket of the barrage”

Writing during an air raid in 1941, a poignant backdrop you can imagine Orwell at his desk to, Orwell writes ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ as a long form essay arguing England’s patriotism, the struggles that Nazism would have to force the country to bend the knee, and that to win the war the establishment of a socialist state is a necessity. The essay argues that WW2 is proof that capitalism is a flawed system but due to focus on trade union heritage Labour too is unable to provide the socialist revolution. Orwell writes in his signature tone condemning totalitarianism and extremists while really effectively arguing his politics. I really appreciate his definitive and assured style and can see so many of these ideas bleeding into his novels.