Classics

[Oldposts]

Rajesh:

I just wrote back to you in another thread. I think this place is more suitable. PGW belongs in the classics- timeless.

Ramji

P.S. I just realized I had quoted the same lines in two places. Will come back with more later.

[Oldposts]

Ramji and Ramamoorthy sir,

Here I am again..but I am afraid I'll have to take
leave till March. Tomorrow, I'll try to sign off in style with more quotes..

I'll be looking forward to reviving this thread in March, if you choose to leave it dormant till then, that is. Please do continue the good work!
Here are some links on the net:9if you havent seen them ,that is)

http://mech.math.msu.su/~gmk/pgw.htm
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~siddarth/pgwodehouse.html
http://www.egr.msu.edu/~bhurkeal/wodehousians.html
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~chandra/pgw.html
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~chandra/plum.HTML
http://www.smart.net/~tak/wodehouse.html
http://www.smart.net/~tak/wodehouse.html
http://kekux1-stub.kek.jp/~marat/pgw.html
http://www.aiusa.com/satire/wodehouse.htm
http://www.newdream.net/~scully/toelw/wodehouse.htm

"Do you know,' said a thoughtful Bean,'I'll bet that if all the girls Freddie has loved and lost were placed end to end--not that I suppose one could do it--they would reach half-way down Piccadilly.'
'Further than that,' said the Egg. 'Some of them were pretty tall.' "

``Alf Todd,'' said Ukridge, soaring to an impressive burst of
imagery, ``has about as much chance as a one-armed blind man in a dark
room trying to shove a pound of melted butter into a wild cat's left
ear with a red-hot needle.''
_Ukridge_ (1924)


More can be found from the sites above.

Cheerio, then.
Raj

[Oldposts]

Anybody here to discuss W. Somerset Maugham ?

[Oldposts]

Babu : SURE! Have you read "Liza of Lambeth"?

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yeah, thats his first short story I think. My favourite is "On Human Bondage". the title itself deserves credit and none of the novel I have read describes unrequited love and intense obsessions with such passion. That novel sort of reminded me of myself

[Oldposts]

Ramji and Ramamoorthy:
Wodehouse fan is back! Try this:
"To attract attention in the dining-room of the Senior Conservative
Club between the hours of one and two-thirty, you have to be a mutton
chop, not an earl."

" It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a fellow wish
he'd got a soul or something..."

More will come

[Oldposts]

When I was schooling, our English master forced us to read up P.G.Wodehouse. He said it would improve our style and vocabulary. The old man was right.
It did help a lot. You know what a "lily-livered poltroon" is? Aha! For that you have to be a Wodehousian.
I started with the "Jeeves" series. Carry on, Jeeves", etc. and my last book was "Mulliner Nights". When I went to do my medicine in India, Higginbotham's was a treasure house. So I continued with my forage into the world of Wodehouse. Bertram Wooster getting into trouble all the time. Jeeves would ridicule him, just by lifting one eye-brow.
Such subtlities.
I only dropped Wodehouse when I became addicted to Ian Fleming. But Ian Fleming is no master. But through him, the world got its greatest hero of all times-J.B. Not JayBee. I meant James Bond-special agent 007, licenced to kill

Regards

JayBee

[Oldposts]

Could someone review Charles Dic*ens.. for me?

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just finished reading 'the old curiosity shop' by CD.. while the story is extremely predictable and even quite cliched at times, the descriptions more than make up! especially descriptions of Quelp, the ultimate villain of all time.. i shall post some clips soon..

[Oldposts]

a review of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

Dostoevsky considered this last novel his magnum opus. With this he felt he had expressed himself completely. This sprawling 936-page novel does tackle every issue that ever fascinated man--religion, society, class, sensuality, morality, mortality, honor, love, lust, greed, kinship, sin, retribution--you name it this has got it.

After having read modern novels with their crystal focus and edited crispness, The Brothers Karamazovoverflowed my mind with outlandish tangents, intense-to-a-fault pondering and blatant pontificating. But no matter how taxing and dated the style or subject matter, the underlying soul, the integrity of the writer's search won me over time and again. Dostoevsky is the kind of noble soul who would feel shame for the natural flaws in him, flaws that we easily rationalize and even feel proud of in ourselves. He also embraces these flaws in others with such insouciance that I want to go hug him and buy him vodka. With his characteristic concern, fascination, understanding, and philosophy about the pull and push of human instincts, Dostoevsky creates a macabre universe of characters that appall and rivet us and ultimately reveal humanity in all its paradoxical splendor.

At the center of the The Brothers Karamazov is the patricide, the events that foreshadow it, the three sons--Dmitry the sensualist, Ivan the amoral intellectual, and Alyosha the searching mystic, the lengthy trial, and resolution. Affecting the lives of these three starkly different brothers are their illegitimate brother the deranged, confused Smerdyakov, the elegant Katerina, and the vixen Grushenka. There also other important characters, like the prosecutor, the defense lawyer, Rakitin the cynical friend and the priest who guides Alyosha.

On a larger level, Dostoevsky uses Dmitry to stand for Russia's inherent national character of being caught between passion and honor, whereas, Alyosha stands for the ideal, spiritual, all healing Russia and Ivan stands for the other extreme of cold, dispassionate intellectual rationale. Dostoevsky also takes surprising jabs at American society and psychology as a discipline during the trial scenes that I hadn't found in his other works. All in all, this is an ambitious, monumental work to say the least. If you already like Dostoevsky, you might appreciate this work. If you haven't read any of his other stuff, you may want to start with , "Crime and Punishment" or "The Idiot" before coming to this heady novel.

{It is awkward to have to post a review under classics just because the book is pre-WW. Review of books should all belong in one section regardless of the era of the book.}