Little Brother

Little Brother is an Young Adult novel. This a is a market of books aimed at teens specifically but some it's books spill over in general appreciation, like The Hunger Games series. The title makes an allusion to another famous novel 1984 b George Orwell, where Big Brother Is Watching You. Most of the books are idealistic in their ( Read more... )

Prophecy on Gethen.

One aspect of folktales are prophecies spoken by human or animal oracles. Prophecies have the mixed message that events are predetermined but the conclusion still relies on the choices characters make to fulfil the prophecy. In Le Guin's novel The Left Hand of Darkness, the Foretellers are a specialized community of various ( Read more... )

Both books have male protagonists who are fostered into the new societies by a caring female member of the alien communities. In Herland, Vandyck, Terry, and Jeff have their “aunties” while in A Princess of Mars John Carter has Sola.

Vandyck, Terry, and Jeff fly into the feminine paradise of Herland. After initial contact with the younger females, ( Read more... )

H.G. Wells lived in a time of rapidly advancing scientific knowledge, most good and some bad. As a man who studied science in his early adult hood, it would inspire his best known novels. Both The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Invisible Man are cautionary tales of science gone horribly wrong with dire consequences for Moreau and Griffin and those ( Read more... )

Did not do the essay this week but both authors had interesting takes on human behaviour gone to obsessive extremes.

Frankenstein: The New Prometheus.

To understand Frankenstein, you must at least know Greek mythology. Prometheus is a Titan, who created man and disobeyed the gods' edict not to give fire to man. He was punished for this transgression by being chained up to a rock wall so an eagle could eat his liver every day, rescued by Hercules. (1)

Victor ( Read more... )

Graveyards are supposed to be the final resting place of the dead but in Dracula, different graveyards have variations in effect based on some basic cues Bram Stoker gives in their descriptions.

The first grave is the ruined chapel in Dracula's castle, where Harker finds himself “in an old ruined chapel, which evidently been used as a graveyard. The ( Read more... )

It's easy to be confounded and confused in both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass and What She Found There for words can easily be misconstrued or twisted into another meaning. This is a method in literary nonsense. Lewis Carroll loved to play logic and word games, so his hobby is reflected in the books. At two ( Read more... )

I have always loved this tale from the first time I heard Danny Kaye act it out on an old LP with a dozen other fairy tales. You can tell Grethel is one of a kind saucy girl based on her shoes, which have red heels. Red was a hard colour to come by in dyes so it was used to differentiate the haves from the have nots. She also acts more important ( Read more... )

I've seen two film versions and a theatrical production of this book so it was good to finally read the book. Apart from the Victorian noble sentimentality, it's an interesting read because it gives you an idea of what was important during this time with mental illness treatment, women's place in society, religious beliefs, and foreign relations. ( Read more... )