Bitter Fruit is the story of the Ali family, set in South Africa during the investigations leading up to the Truth Committee Report. As a member of the political underground fighting apartheid, Silas was made witness to the rape of his wife Lydia, by a white policeman, of which their son Mickey is the product.
Surprisingly, it is Cross’ valiant effort to write decently about men doing - or failing to do - the right thing that both touches most and disappoints most.
Fantasy novels seem to be filled with the battle between cultured, sensible enlightenment and the wild, natural, instinctual senses. In Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell these two opposites represent the two sides that make up the nature of all things English.
‘Like the best historical novels, it vividly captures the period yet resonates with the present’, enthuses the hype for Havoc, in its Third Year. It may be a whimsical suggestion, but what exactly is wrong with an old-fashioned swashbuckler that doesn’t resonate with the present?
I generally hate novels about the working class: the writers either have a very low opinion of our intelligence, or they worship us as improbable saints.
Like the contemporary self, the mystical mind which believed its soul would last for eternity was not a rational mind, yet that soul also reflected a progressive human trait which has been lost in our contemporary times – the sense that humanity at least shares some common interests.
On the surface, Clear is about Blaine and his box. The Above the Below circus at London’s Tower Bridge is backdrop; common curiosity drawing the characters into their strangely fractured discourses in its shadow; and a shared lexicon through which they interrogate each other.
Aslam’s vision is not a happy one, and his painting of it takes much getting used to. The influence of Rushdie, instructive metaphors threatening at times to drown the sense, is almost overpowering, but both reader and author can settle down together after a couple of chapters.
Kambili must navigate her way through a complex of confusing and contradictory symbols just as Nigeria itself searches for unity amidst external imposition and internal unrest.
The hysterical realists may be gifted writers, but they are not able to translate their understanding of the world in a truly literary way, without debasing the form in the name of, for example, macro-microeconomics.
Lucy then finds herself on a Musical Road that leads to Craigmillar Castle. There lurks Simon Cowell, the Wizard of Pop himself. To return home Lucy has to reach the castle and become Britney Spears for the day.
Lack of innovation in musical theatre leads to the real danger of lack of variety in the performance and production of this genre as a whole, and that includes opera as well.
Whatever I align myself with at the time, I always totally believe in. But I’m not going to stay stuck for ever. I think I’ve had my moment with being with the Stuckists. It’s carried me into a relationship. It’s almost served its purpose, but I don’t think that’s where my future lies.
This pamphlet is basically an advert for New Labour’s proposed changes to funding higher education, in particular its case for universities charging students fees for courses.
Charlton’s and Andras’ thesis is itself a prescriptive method of analysis which provides instructions not on whether to ‘modernise’, but how.
