faithful_critic

goodbye

Tue, 01 Feb 2005 03:44:42 GMT

hello everyone. i'm not doing this anymore. full explanation can be found at my personal journal, happypenny_2104.

i'm sorry. i just feel too dead to continue with any lj stuff. maybe in time...

my fondest farewells.

A Girl From Zanzibar, Roger King - Review

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:26:52 GMT

hi everyone! i'm so sorry that i've taken ages to do a report, but never mind, it's here!!! yay!!! A Girl From Zanzibar, magnificent novel by Roger King. funfortunately i had to return the book yesterday along with all the other ones that i still haven't written reports for yet....which is a bit of a bummer, really....but oh well....here it is!!!! yay!! (i had to rush it a bit, so it's a little short, cos i wrote it in like under an hour yesterday, in the library.....please forgive me :(

A Girl From Zanaibar - Roger King

Overall Review

Marcella D'Souza is a woman who is trying to escape from her Zanzibar past. She longs to be different, to be European, to be anything other than just another Zanzibar girl. The novel is written according to two different timelines, as though Marcella's determination to separate her past from the prest and potention future carries on to the narratives. Her persistence to be free of her restrainst, whether cultural or physical, can be seen in many instnaces. For example, her sexual exploration with different partners, her dogged visits to Omar every week, travelling to England with Geoffrey - a man she does not love and liking Ali because 'he was not us'

Apart from trying to escape her bonds, Marcella is also trying to find where she belongs and shwere her origins lie. A Girl From Zanzibar is a novel about a woman's life-long search for identity across continents. Reinventing herself, Marcella tries to fill p the emptiness in her life that she feels. At the end of the novel, Roger King does not end Marcella's story with a conclusion, but another beginning, another sprak of life within Marcella, as she reinvents herself yet again and finds her way to wherever her home and past may be.

Review of writing

The style of writing by Roger King in A Girl From Zanzibar is detailed, lovingly described, brisk and gentle, much like the woman in focus. Descriptions flood the pages without overwhelming the reader, leaving a sense of satisfaction and contentment. Roger King uses his vocabulary to caress the reader's imagination. However, even though the novel is rich in intensity, it does not dawdle but moves briskly, a characteristic of Marcella that many will recognise. At times the dialogue is snappy and immediate, carrying the reader down a waterfall of ideas and opinions.

Themes of belonging, love, origins and familiarity abound in the novel. Marcella's serach for her origins is mirrored in her class plans, the injustice she faced in Zanzibar followed her her through to London in the form of Mrs. Thatcher. Her longing for love and acceptance evident in George, Benji and Julia, and finally, her yearning of home and familiarity in her search of Indian motels across America, 'tearfully hopeful that a greeting in Swahili might be a common language'.

Rating from a critic's point of view:

9/10

Review from a christian perspective

There are some sex scenes in the novel, some graphic, some not. Likewise, some may be offended, while others will not be. The novel's approache towards sex is not exactly christian, but they are used as a tool in the novel to protray Marcella's loneliness and yearning to be accepted. One commendation is that there are limited, if any, profanities in the novel, so that earns extra brownie points. The loneliness Marcella expresses at the end of the novel 'It's a sort of simple faith that, if I am patient, and if I am busy, and if I am kind, the space within me will someday be filled, that the world has created a woman from everywhere, belonging nowhere, because if has some use for her' can be identified by some as a space that nothing can fill except for God himself. Again, this is up to your interpretation, however, my reading is that Marcella is simply looking at the wrong places to fill up this 'space' she speaks of.

Rating from a christian point of view:

8/10

once again, pleas forgive this very short review. the novels deserves better, so apologies to Roger King also. i'm sorry! i'll try to be quicker and not leave things til the last minute :(......

neways, whoever is reading this, hope you like the review!

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:27:36 GMT

heya everyone! sorry about the lack of posts lately. the hallway outside the study was getting repaved and i couldn't get in. but neways, i'm back! after the review of The Talisman, i think i'll get started on A Zanzibar Girl (Robert King). Great book from a critic's perspective, not so good from a christian perspective :) neways, if anyone's read it before, feel free to comment on the posts and stuff or even just drop a comment somewhere in the very few posts i've made so far. hmmmmm, did that make sense? but you get the drift.

God bless everyone!

yes! finally finished!!!!Book review – The Talisman by Steven King and Peter Straub

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 01:37:59 GMT

Book review – The Talisman by Steven King and Peter Straub

Yay! I’ve finally finished the review!!!!!

What the blurb says

‘On September 15th, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood where the water and land come together, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking out at the steady Atlantic…His life seemed as shifting, as uncontrolled, as the heaving water before him. His mother was moving him through the world, twitching him from place to place; but what moved his mother?

His mother was running, running.’

The Talisman is about a young, 12 year old boy’s (Jack Sawyer) journey to save his mother’s life from cancer and from his uncle, the evil Morgan Sloat. Jack must travel through an alternate, magical world called the Territories that parallels the ‘real’ world, with ‘twinners’, two people that are essentially the same only living in different worlds, people/animal hybrids and magic. A ripple effect links both worlds together, what happens in one world may well happen in another, or a cause and effect/consequence may occur. Jack’s mother, the ‘Queen of the B(s)’ movies, has a twinner, the Queen of the Territories. Morgan Sloat knows about the Territories and wants to make a profit out of exploiting it, but first the Queen must die. So Jack embarks on a journey of ‘flipping’ through both worlds by himself, and at times with others, escaping from evil monsters and people in the Territories, and avoiding policemen, child molesters and other evil people in the ‘real’ world with occasional help from a mysterious man, Speedy Parker. Jack, travelling alone, must find the Talisman, a magical artefact with healing powers and the power to make everything ok again. Along the way, Jack meets friends, loses friends, confronts his fears, rediscovers friends and comes to accept the unique individual that is he, Jack Sawyer.

What the book claims the critics say:

‘Extraordinary…makes your hair stand on end’ – The Washington Post
‘A classic…rare and dazzling.’ – New York Daily News

What I say (from a critic’s perspective):

About the plot, narrative, writing style and technique:

The Talisman is a very thick book, 653 pages in all. Both authors have done a marvellous job in the description department, with wonderful imagery, descriptions (well, duh!), similes, metaphors, graphical details, and much, much more. Obviously King and Straub have given a lot of thought into the plot, as many events are interlinked, explained and given consequence. However, I feel that the story is too clichéd, too average, too run of the mill. There was never a moment in the novel where I seriously thought that Jack would fail his ‘mission’ or otherwise. There were no twists, no turns, no head-benders. Even though the narrative is interesting, almost to the point of captivating, it does not compensate for the lack of interest in the plot. What King and Straub do well is to expand and give gorgeous detail on everything in the physical and emotional sense. For example, the grief expressed by Jack over Wolf’s death is pure heart-breaking agony. The reader truly feels the raw pain through the poignancy of Jack’s situation, the way the writers have chosen to portray this often over done emotion is interesting, thoughtful and unique. Also, the imagery of Smokey Updike’s ‘pitcher trap’ is perfect in its filthy, dank setting. When reading those chapters, it made me recoil from its disgusting, slimy image in my head. Both authors have a talent for creating fantastically realistic scenes and trapping the reader’s imagination.

About the themes, symbolism and characters:

In terms of themes, clearly maturity and growing up plays a large role, but I feel that King and Straub could have done a better job in exploring these themes. The author could have explored these themes in much more depth and analysis, instead of just moving the plot forward, which frankly, isn’t all that good anyway. Even though the reader can sense and understand the changes in Jack’s maturity and experience, such as when Jack reunites with Richard Sloat and some of the comments that Jack initiates in the narrative, neither author expands this theme enough for the reader to truly appreciate it. The theme of growing up is taken for granted overall in the novel, with no marked events that gives the reader a sense of growth or leap in maturity, which there should be, as Jack was forced into his situation quite rapidly.
Also, I feel that nothing was made of what could be a very interesting theme – evil, goodness, heroes and villains. Every character was black and white. There were no shades of grey. This made most characters unrealistic, even though some, like Myles P. Kiger of Ogden, Illinois, are given some shades of grey. Take, for instance, Morgan Sloat and Osmond is pure evil, malice and cruelty, whereas Jack and Richard are the innocent, heroic boys unwittingly pulled into this adventure. The characters are one dimensional, with no other nature than the obvious, detracting from what may have been a very good novel. I can find almost no symbolism in the novel, other than perhaps a fun jab at unscrupulous companies determined to make a buck, but again, this was not explored properly, and the symbols were so one-dimensional it’s hard to give any credit to it.

Rating from a critic’s point of view:

6/10

From a Christian perspective:

The language is controlled and fluid. However, there is a mild presence of profanities, as Steven King is of course not know for his political correctness (lol). Medium levels of violence, but not really any cruelty, so it’s kinda bearable. There were no places where I cringed inwardly as I read the book, so that scores brownie points. Almost zero sex references, no explicit sex scenes. There are however a few chapters where the psychotic villain hides behind a mask of Christianity whilst abusing children (physically, not sexually). I’m not sure if it is a symbolic of the authors’ views of Christianity, but that’s up to your interpretation. There are also places in the novel where the Lord’s name is used inappropriately, in common phrasing and in the ravings of the aforementioned psychotic villain. Other than that, nothing that I am highly critical of, but there are backgrounds of magic and sorcery throughout the novel that some may disapprove of.

Rating from a Christian’s point of view

7.5/10

Sun, 02 Jan 2005 01:06:06 GMT

hello, just a note to say that the review of The Talisman (Steven King and Peter Straub) will be coming out in the next few days. anyone who has read it are welcome to comment on the it, but i'm not sure exactly how that will work, cos this is normal journal and not a community...hmmmm....maybe i should've created a community instead.....

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:20:03 GMT

hi everyone! this is my new journal, devoted strictly to book reviews from a christian perspective. upcoming reviews are:

Dreamcatcher - Steven King
The Talisman - Steven King and Peter Straub
Two to Tango - Peter Guttridge
and
A Girl From Zanzibar - Roger King

i've just started to read Pompeii, by Robert Harris and am halfway through Phaic Tan, (that's right, say fake tan) by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch.....it's soooo funny. I've only read about 2 or 3 pages of Pompeii, but already it's very exciting and it's got me hooked on its everyword, so it's looking pretty good.....

neways, going to go now.....