Classic Fiction: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley was the only daughter of the writers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. She eloped with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1814, and they were married two years later. It was during this time that they stayedvfor a few days at the Vila Diodati on Lake Geneva. It was here that they and friends Byron and Polidori decided to devise stories to entertain themselves. It was the two lesser-known literary figures which produced the most memorable work.

Polidori's Vampyre was relatively successful in its day, but the story of Frankenstein has burned brightly in the popular imagination ever since its publication in 1818.

The story is told by an English explorer in the Arctic who assists Frankenstein on the final leg of his chase at the end of the novel. Frankenstein is a talented young medical student who strikes upon the secret of endowing life to the dead. He becomes obsessed with the idea that he might make a man. The resulting creature is lonely, miserable and an outcast who seeks murderous revenge for his condition.

The creature flees with Frankenstein in pursuit. It is here that he meets the explorer and recounts his story, dying soon after. The novel has been filmed numerous times, but none has effectively conveyed the stark horror and philosophical acuity of the novel.

 “I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.”

A Little Guide to Second-hand Books Buying

Here are some of handy acronyms for second-hand book purchasing on ebay...

ARC     Advance reader's copy (paperback edition circulated before the trade edition for publicity)
AUTO  Autographed
EXLIB  Ex-library book
F/E       First edition
HB/DJ  Hardback with dust jacket
HIC      Hole in cover
SC        Slight crease
NC       No cover
NM      Near mint
OOP    Out of print
PB        Paperback or paperbound
PC        Poor condition
RC        Reader copy (a book in a good condition but with no real investment value)
ROM    Romantic
VHTF   Very hard to find
WOC   Writing on cover

...and one that should be there:

DBAWOI  Don't believe a word of it

Modern Fiction: The Alexandria Quartet

This much acclaimed tetralogy published between 1957 and 1960 consists of Justine (1957)m Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958) and Clea (1960). In this four vivid novels, the author Lawrence G. Durrelluses an innovative Postmodernist style, recounting a set of events experienced by the same protagonists but from different perspectives. Each book reveals a little more of the whole truth of the matter, and ends in a death.


The overarching themes centre on love, lust and politics. The novels are set just before the Second World War in the exotic city of Alexandria, with its ancient Egyptian and Hellenic overtones.

The main characters include Darley (the narrator and a poet), his mistress Melissa, Justine (a free-loving Jewess) married to Nessim, Clea, Pursewarden (the brilliant novelist) and Mountolive (the British Ambassador). Together and individually they express the full range of passions, emotions and in some cases perversions.

Durrell's use of rich, exotic and even extravagant descriptions make this read a sumptuous banquet.

Bad Sex in Fiction Prize

Each year the Literary Review awards its "Bad Sex in Fiction" prize to a novel featuring the most "inept, embarrassing, unnecessary" sex scene. Rachel (sister of Boris, mayor of London) Johnson was awarded the 2008 prize for her novel Shire Hell.

The prizewinning book "Shire Hell"

She described her victory as an "absolute  honour". Below is the prizewinning extract:

Almost screaming after five agonizingly pleasureable minutes, I make a grab, to put him, now angrily slapping against both our bellies, inside, but he holds both my arms down, and puts his tongue to my core, like a cat lapping up a dish of cream so as not to miss a single drop. I find myself gripping his ears and tugging at the locks curling over them, beside myself, and a strange animal noise escapes from me as the mounting, Wagnerian crescendo overtakes me. I really do hope at this point that all the Spodders are, as requested, attending the meeting about slug clearance or whatever it is.

Poetry: Anna Akhmatova's "tortured mouth"

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova is the literary pseudonym of Anna Andreevna Gorenko. Her first husband was Nikolay Gumilev, and she too became one of the leading Acmeist poets. Her second book of poems, Beads (1914), brought her fame. Her earlier manner, intimate and colloquial, gradually gave way to a more classical severity, apparent in her volumes The White Flock (1917) and Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922).
The growing distaste which the personal and religious elements in her poetry aroused in Soviet officialdom forced her thereafter into long periods of silence; and the poetic masterpieces of her later years, A Poem without a Hero and Requiem, were published abroad. 
Her style, characterised by its economy and emotional restraint, was strikingly original and distinctive to her contemporaries. The strong and clear leading female voice struck a new chord in Russian poetry. Her writing can be said to fall into two periods - the early work (1912–25) and her later work (from around 1936 until her death), divided by a decade of reduced literary output. Her work was condemned and censored by Stalinist authorities and she is notable for choosing not to emigrate, and remaining in Russia, acting as witness to the atrocities around her. Her perennial themes include meditations on time and memory, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism.