![]() ![]() Oryx and Crake isn’t about the future it’s about the present. If some of these details sound uncomfortably like the present, well, that’s the point. Oh, and corporations control the world, social and economic inequality are endemic, catastrophic climate change is a given, and science and technology, especially genetic engineering, are exploited purely for profit by said all-powerful corporations without regard for human consequences. ![]() Potential outrages include a narcissistic, self-pitying protagonist who treats women poorly, unflinching depictions of child pornography and sex slavery, all manner of unfettered consumerist debauchery, and (spoiler alert) the deliberate annihilation of the human race by a brilliant scientist. ![]() Oryx and Crake isn’t a book for the faint of heart or the easily offended. As in The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), her classic takedown of totalitarian theocratic misogyny, the author’s satiric wit is razor-sharp and unsparing. But examines isn’t the right word for what Atwood accomplishes here eviscerates is more fitting. Part dystopian satire, part post-apocalyptic nightmare, the novel examines the flaws of contemporary society through the lens of an imagined future that could all too easily come to pass. ![]() Oryx and Crake is speculative fiction at its finest. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() It’s interesting the Russos have a background in comedy because it’s really missing in these otherwise well-made pictures and very, very missed. €œ Civil War had a good opening twenty mins, but then I honestly can’t remember what the movie was about. The man that created the original comic series, Mark Millar, took notice of the film and did not have the most flattering things to say. ![]() The film was important because it’s meant to bridge the gap between two Avengers movies, and it introduced Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, many fans know this was not a direct comic adaptation but more of an interpretation of the title. Earlier this year Marvel Studios released Captain America: Civil War and the film did quite well in the box office grossing $1,151,684,349, making it one of the biggest films in the history of comic book adaptations. ![]() ![]() I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. ![]() ![]() Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. From the Academy Award®-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The experiences recorded in It Was Different at the Time overlap in period and subject with Holden's earlier work Night Shift, setting up a vibrant dialogue between the two texts. It Was Different at the Time was intended to be a join project written with Holden's friend George Orwell and includes disguised appearances by Stevie Smith and other notable literary figures of the period. Per the jacket copy: Their drama comes from the courage and endurance of ordinary people met in the factories, streets and lodging houses of a city under bombardment. Kristin Bluemel's edited edition of mid-century British writer Inez Holden's two short works, a novella and a memoir, written from the experience of the 1940-1941 London Blitz. "Essential documents of the Blitz"-Rod Mengham, TLS. "Bluemel’s introduction is invaluable not just for putting these two books in the context of writings about the war but also for providing the only available overview of Holden’s life and work to be published this century"- Neglected Books Page. ![]() ![]() How an individual is put to trial not for the murder he commits but for being who he is, a nonconformist to the prevailing social mores and niceties.įinally, I picked up a book in a completely different – a new – genre for me, absurdist fiction. A perfect window to how everything is twisted inside the courts, by both the parties, to achieve their respective ends. Part Two begins with – what else – but a trial, and some religious talk to the point of the protagonist being called an embodiment of antichrist. And that is where Part One ends – with murder – at the hands of Meursault. His life revolves around himself, his job, his girlfriend, his neighbours, their friends, their dogs, etc. Set in Algiers, the book tells the story of Meursault, a man whose life seems to go by as normally as can be after the death of his mother. ![]() No one – no one – had the right to cry over her.ĭate of Publication (of Translation): 31 October 2013 (also known as The Stranger and originally published in French as L’Étranger) ![]() ![]() ![]() And even though I’m complaining about how he’s been making a lot of mistakes, he is no dummy. Joe is so quick to anger and immediately jump to murder. ![]() I mean, it’s really obvious now that Joe is more obsessed with the hunt than he is Amy The Person. ![]() So, now that’s another life’s blood on his hands, and Joe continues about his mission to find Amy because now she REALLY has to pay, I guess. Tl dr: Joe crushes up a ton of Percocet and puts it in water and feeds it to Henderson, who overdoses on it. And even though Henderson had told the entire house party that Amy told him that her ex was shit in bed, he confessed to Joe that this wasn’t true, and in fact she had told him that her ex was the fucking cat’s pajamas… only, you know, in less delicate words. And he may have ambushed Henderson, and got him to admit that he never actually slept with Amy. And he may have hidden in Henderson’s bedroom closet. And he may have found a way into a house party that Henderson was throwing. My God, it feels like so long ago, and it was only a handful of chapters! Yeah, so you know how Henderson had talked about Amy’s bush on television? Well, Joe didn’t really take too kindly to that, no sir, he didn’t. I feel that he’s not going to get caught - not yet anyway - but he still makes stupid misstep after stupid misstep. Even though Joe has continued to be an idiot, just like I feared and expressed in my last Hidden Bodies post. I really love the characters in this book. ![]() ![]() ![]() I’m hoping it will be just the tonic we need. We’ll be able to judge that for ourselves over the coming weeks – and also whether it is, as the Sunday Times called it, “the sweetest grownup book in the world”. When it was re-released in 2000 by Persephone Books, a publisher dedicated to reviving women’s authors, the Guardian asked why we had had to wait half a century for this “wonderful flight of humour to be rediscovered”? Probably, came the conclusion, because “it is high entertainment not serious social comment or great literature”. The result has been described as a “cross between Cinderella and Mary Poppins” in 1938, the Times Literary Supplement promised that the book was “entirely delightful”. Miss Pettigrew has had to spend a dowdy and impecunious life as a governess “living in other people’s houses and being dependent on their moods”.īut this sad situation makes it feel all the more splendid when she is offered a reprieve from her threadbare existence and falls into the “the way of sin” with the louche younger woman Miss LaFosse. The titular Miss Pettigrew is a “superfluous woman”, of the generation after the first world war when women far outnumbered men, leading to those who didn’t land a husband being considered “on the shelf” and all too often ending up in domestic service. It’s also worth noting that even if this book is determinedly amusing, there are darker shades in the background. ![]() ![]() ![]() Bhagat narratesthe story in a humorous way and ends it in a serious tone to reveal the inner struggle of the characters and finds a solution through spiritual forces that to be,from a machine. This paper throwsa glance atthe inner psychological predicaments of the modern young generationwholongs for self-consciousness inner consciousness.Bhagat portrays this inner consciousness of theindividualsthrough his characters in the novel One Night the Call Centerwith the exposure of their predicaments. ![]() He deals with the human relationships and predicaments with a philosophical touch in his novels which inculcates the values and shows a path in a new direction to the youth where one can find the secret of life. His fictional works elevate the youth concernsand the solutions. He created a new trend in Indian English fiction as the Indian English literature can be distinguished before and after Chetan Bhagat. Chetan Bhagat is one of the most significant writers of the post-modern Indian English fiction. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() 3 of the Constitution and Bylaws, to reflect the following (deleted language struck through):ġ7. If there is fair-catch interference or illegal contact with the receiver after he has made a fair catch.Įffect: For one year only, puts the ball in play at the receiving team’s 25-yard line if there is a fair catch on a free kick (kickoff and safety kick) behind the receiving team’s 25-yard line.Īmend Article XVII, Section 17. Note: A receiver may make or be awarded a fair catch in his end zone. ![]() (b) snap from the spot of the catch (or the succeeding spot after enforcement of any applicable penalties), unless a player on the receiving team makes a fair catch of a free kick behind the receiving team’s 25-yard line, in which case the ball will be put in play at the receiving team’s 25-yard line. (a) fair-catch kick (drop kick or placekick without a tee) from the spot of the catch (or the succeeding spot after enforcement of any applicable penalties or rule) (3-10 and 11-4-3), or ![]() After a fair catch is made, or is awarded as the result of fair-catch interference, the receiving team has the option of putting the ball in play by either a: 42) (new language bold, deleted language struck through):ĪRTICLE 4. For one year only, amend Rule 10, Section 2, Article 4 (Putting Ball in Play After Fair Catch, pg. ![]() ![]() ![]() I enjoyed not just the story and the creativity but the words themselves. Jennings isn’t afraid to get weird, and fortunately for us, he has the writing chops to make it work. ![]() Jazz lives!–and hangs out regularly with Afro-Pippi Longstocking. Talking catfish and nutria go on side quests with Black American history. Ancient Central Asian myths rub elbows with hoodoo. The lore here is deep, the themes expansive, and the callbacks legion. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like this but I want to read many, many more books in this vein. It’s also totally not what this book is about. If you dig a little deeper, they might mention a trans man with a gift and a secret, a coming storm and a big bad Haint. The publisher blurbs for this book all say something about magical NOLA, nine songs of power, and a little boy named Perry who goes on a quest with his sister Brendy to recapture those songs in a magic piano and save the city. This is still an honest review and I bought my own copy of this book because Paying Writers Cures Foolishness.) ![]() (Disclosure: I met Alex aka at Under The Volcano 2022 and have been known to message him whiny existential writer complaints on occasion. ![]() |