My Year with Jane Austen

It took me a year to read the works Jane Austen had completed. Maybe it was because they were collected in a doorstopper of a book, or maybe I needed time because at first, it wasn't an easy journey for me. Reading Sense and Sensibility, I thought that the style was deft and that the … Continue reading My Year with Jane Austen →

Literature as the Mirror of Author’s Time: Kristin Lavransdatter

WARNING: Huge spoilers on an old boring book by a Noble-prize winner I wasn't sure how to start this essay. I wasn't sure whether to mention and describe our assumptions about the historical literature of the (broadly understood) past. Eventually, I decided to not reflect on it. Because it's a fact, not an opinion, that … Continue reading Literature as the Mirror of Author’s Time: Kristin Lavransdatter →

The Complex World of Barbara Kingsolver

WARNING: Lots of spoilers included Usually, I don't read a lot of general fiction in English. General fiction is something special to me, something which should be chosen meticulously. And so—except for the classics—this kind of books in their original language do not take a lot of place on my bookshelves. The case of me … Continue reading The Complex World of Barbara Kingsolver →

Why You Should Care About “Kristin Lavransdatter” even if You Disagree with the Author

As much as I am angry about all the puritanism in Robin Hobb's books, I accept the notion of sin in Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. I accept the strong religiosity of its characters and all the deliberation about guilt and grace. Why have I ever come to it although it's not my cup of … Continue reading Why You Should Care About “Kristin Lavransdatter” even if You Disagree with the Author →

Why I Stopped Reading the “Outlander” Series in the Middle of It

It's time for yet another one anti-review, I'm afraid. Maybe it's just me; I like writing about things I dislike or I disagree about. So, supposedly you've heard about a wanna-be-doctor Claire Randall who travels in time to the eighteenth-century Scotland and meets the local god of sex Jaime Fraser, haven't you? You must have … Continue reading Why I Stopped Reading the “Outlander” Series in the Middle of It →

Why I Stopped Reading Santa Montefiore on Two Books (or Rather, Why I Will Always Return to Victoria Hislop)

Or maybe, one thing about the hidden neo-colonialism of our culture? Reading A Room with a View can explain us, I think, an Anglosphere phenomenon. It's the phenomenon of the people born into relatively influential and wealthy countries fascinated with the countries more “exotic” and less influential at once. Fascinated to such an extent that … Continue reading Why I Stopped Reading Santa Montefiore on Two Books (or Rather, Why I Will Always Return to Victoria Hislop) →