Book Reviews | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Anita Mathias — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 18:03:00 +0000

It’s one of my very favourite novels, which I have loved for most of my life.I first encountered it when I was very little in an anthology my grandfather gave me, and instantly identified with Maggie of the rough unkempt hair who cuts her hair off when she’s criticized. I was so taken with the […]

The post The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,

Anita Mathias — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 23:22:00 +0000

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-TimeWe are listening to this in the car with a good deal of pleasure and laughter. It is eerily familiar. Now none of us are autistic or have aspergers. However, we are pretty logical, and intellect-dominated rather than emotion-dominated. For instance, we would probably all be T […]

The post The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

Anita Mathias — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:34:00 +0000

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo IshiguroThis novel is a truly astonishing act of ventriloquism. Ishiguro, doomed to be a perpetual outsider in England, by virtue of race, has used the outsider’s gifts of ventriloquism and distance to produce an extraordinary study of aspects of the English.Stevens, the perfect English butler, looks back on a life […]

The post The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Anita Mathias — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:17:00 +0000

A Fine Balance by Rohinton MistryWell, I have finished this gargantuan novel, and I must admit that I wish I had not embarked on it. It made me sad.A Fine Balance is the story of four unlikely intertwined lives in Bombay. There’s Dina, a Parsee lady whose doting father dies, leaving her at the mercy […]

The post A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

Annie Dillard–An American Childhood

Anita Mathias — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:57:00 +0000

Annie Dillard–An American Childhood A magical moment in a writer’s life is when you read a book–and realize the similarities between the writers’ subject matter, and your own raw material. You think, Hmm, I could do this. Then you look at the writer’s structure. Simple, huh? And think, I could do this. And so on. […]

The post Annie Dillard–An American Childhood first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

Patricia Hampl–A Romantic Education.

Anita Mathias — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:14:00 +0000

Patricia Hampl–A Romantic EducationOne of the magical moments in a writer’s life is the moment when you read something with a sense of recognition--I can do that too!! Seamus Heaney describes his unpleasant adventures with frog spawn and tadpoles in a poem called “The Death of a Naturalist.” –the naturalist he now knows he will […]

The post Patricia Hampl–A Romantic Education. first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

Father and Son by Edmund Gosse: a Memoir of Science and Faith

Anita Mathias — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:17:00 +0000

Father and Son by Edmund Gosse, a Memoir of Science and Faith. Father and Son by Edmund Gosse is a deeply moving Victorian memoir, full of Devon, the sea, tidal pools, and religion! Gosse’s father Philip was a distinguished naturalist. (One finds traces of Gosse as Oscar in Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda, while Oscar’s father […]

The post Father and Son by Edmund Gosse: a Memoir of Science and Faith first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

Anita Mathias — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:22:00 +0000

Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic GirlhoodI really enjoyed the spare elegance of this memoir. It is a New Yorker style memoir, much like Nabokov’s “Speak Memory,” and I must say there are worse things than New Yorker style memoirs.Each chapter was originally a self-contained (and well-paid) essay published in the New Yorker. Together they […]

The post Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

THE BLUE BEDSPREAD by RAJ KAMAL JHA

Anita Mathias — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:16:00 +0000

THE BLUE BEDSPREAD by RAJ KAMAL JHAA very quick read, in an experimental minimalist style, mining the territory opened up by Arundhati Roy–incest and familial sexual abuse. Do these things really happen in India? I remember the shock I felt as an 18 year old when a maid working for one of the leading and […]

The post THE BLUE BEDSPREAD by RAJ KAMAL JHA first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

Anita Mathias — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 22:18:00 +0000

The Glass Palace by Amitav GhoshAn old-fashioned, multi-generational novel, it tells a story, as E.M. Forster tiredly remarked. Oh yes, it tells a story.The story is set in Burma, around the time the British ruthlessly conquered it, sending the Royal Family into exile in India. A new breed of Indian entrepreneurs flooded Burma, making fortunes […]

The post The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh first appeared on Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires.