Author Archives
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Analysis of Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist
A story of racial divisions in South Africa, The Conservationist shared the Booker Prize in 1975 with Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The story, told by a third-person objective narrator, opens with the arrival of Mehring, a successful… Read More ›
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Analysis of C. P. Snow’s The Conscience of the Rich
Published as volume seven in Snow’s 11-volume series Strangers and Brothers, the events of this story actually place it immediately after the action of the introductory novel of the series. The year is 1927 as the story opens, with the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers
A dark novella of love and cruelty, The Comfort of Strangers is set in the romantic city of Venice, Italy. There, an attractive young English couple, Colin and Mary, spend an idyllic vacation. They have had a relationship for some… Read More ›
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Analysis of John Fowles’s The Collector
When Ferdinand Clegg, a butterfly collector, turns his attention to human beings, the results are disastrous for Miranda Grey, the young woman he stalks and “collects” to assuage his obsession for her. Clegg has led a less than satisfactory life;… Read More ›
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Analysis of Farm Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort
This delightfully droll comic novel follows the adventures of Flora Poste, a proper young lady of modern notions, who finds herself alone in the world at the death of her parents. Since she is not yet ready for marriage and… Read More ›
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Analysis of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange
An innovative and violent three-part novel that formed the basis for an equally provocative 1971 film adaptation of the same name, A Clockwork Orange portrays a dystopian near-future world. Alex, a teenager who leads a small gang on violent forays… Read More ›
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Analysis of Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day
Using a third-person omniscient point of view, this four-part novel follows the four siblings of the Das family of Old Delhi. The eldest son is Raja; now living in Hyderabad and married to a Muslim woman, Benazir, he has become… Read More ›
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Analysis of Lawrence Durrell’s Clea
Volume four in the series known collectively as The Alexandria Quartet, this novel is once again related from the first-person point of view of Darley, the English writer who narrated the first and second volumes, Justine and Balthazar, respectively. The… Read More ›
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Analysis of Lindsay Clarke’s The Chymical Wedding
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 1989, this novel combines aspects of romance fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy to freshen the telling of a double set of complex relationships. Reminiscent of The French Lieutenant’s Woman by… Read More ›
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Analysis of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia
The seven volumes of this series include (in the order finally preferred by the author) The Magician’s Nephew (1955), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), The Horse and His Boy (1954), Prince Caspian (1951), The Voyage of the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Doris Lessing’s Children of Violence
The five volumes in this series include Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), Landlocked (1965), and The Four-Gated City (1969). Taking the series as a whole, critics rank this work as among the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End
Set in the not-too-distant future, Childhood’s End forecasts a future for the human race that will simultaneously be a transcendence and a termination, as the last generation of children fulfill the destiny of the species. Reflecting the tensions of the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 1987, this novel chronicles a father’s tragic loss, his deep grief, and his reconciliation to the world of the living. The protagonist is Stephen Lewis, a successful writer of children’s… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Keneally’s The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Winner of the Heinemann Award in 1973 and the basis of an effective 1978 film adaptation, this novel is a tale of cultural conflict in Australia between descendants of English colonialism and an Aborigine who tries and fails to become… Read More ›
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Analysis of David Lodge’s Changing Places
This first volume of an informal trilogy introduces the recurring settings of Rummidge University and Euphoria State and the characters Philip Swallow, a mild-mannered British professor of English literature, and Morris Zapp, a brash American scholar and literary critic. This… Read More ›
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Analysis of Anthony Powell’s Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant
The fifth of twelve volumes in Powell’s roman-fleuve entitled A Dance to the Music of Time, this novel continues the first-person point-of-view narration of Nicholas Jenkins, a writer, as he experiences the arts scene in London during 1936–37, meeting musicians,… Read More ›
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Analysis of W. Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale
In this roman à clef, the author contrasts Victorian repression with the freer attitudes, values, and behaviors of the 1920s. The novel’s protagonist is Willie Ashenden, a representation of Maugham himself. Ashenden, a writer, is friends with another writer, Alroy… Read More ›
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Analysis of Anthony Powell’s A Buyer’s Market
The second of twelve volumes in Powell’s roman-fleuve entitled A Dance to the Music of Time, this novel continues the first-person point of view narration of Nicholas Jenkins, a writer, as he enters the social whirl of debutante parties in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy
Based on the author’s recollection of a radio play he heard as a child, this dark novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1992 and became the basis of a film adaptation by Neil Jordan in 1998. The first-person… Read More ›
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Analysis of Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia
A celebration of London’s new multiethnic youth culture, this comic novel relates the adventures of the first-person narrator, Karim Amir, the 17-year-old son of a Muslim Indian businessman, Haroon, and an Englishwoman, Margaret. The family resides in the middle-class suburbs… Read More ›
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