Hmmm...

Look at me. Blogging without an audience. Anywho, this is a book review I did for English. I got level six and if you don't know what Outcomes Based Learning is, I won't bother explaining. It's crazy. By the way, I'm in year ten.

Worth the look
Rose Murch

One Last Look
Susanna Moore


A harrowing sea journey. The most clichéd beginning for a period drama since the birth of the novel. But Susanna Moore’s early 19th century saga is anything but. It follows the arduous journey of Lady Eleanor Oliphant as she evolves to accommodate the painful transition between upper class London and the dull sparkle of India.

Lady Eleanor’s brother Henry had been posted to the colony as governor-general and along with their sister Harriet and cousin Lafayette, they must remould their life into the society of Calcutta. Eleanor is shocked by all she sees about Government House. Etiquette has been abandoned and replaced by more practical means. In trying to deal with the heat, disease and missionaries, the Oliphants soon discover that all they were brought up to know, and how they were brought up to behave is rendered completely useless and all they can do is drop their airs and graces and act as everyone around them does. Eleanor is at first appalled at the the number of servants she has waiting on her hand and foot (for the presumption that she is incapacitated in some way, she finds the servants quaint), and at the intimacy some ladies share with them. All too soon she becomes as dependant on her household staff, particularly her jemandar Zahid, as a child to it’s mother. Harriet adapts into a pseudo-Indian lifestyle, taking up the religion, ideas and even smoking a hookah. She devotes her time to her adopted animals and due to increasingly odd remarks, there is a general fear for her sanity. Henry and Lafayette barely seem to notice the change, each being distracted by a heavy workload and a dancing girl called the Lotus respectively. India holds many battles for the whole family and as Henry's failing reign was drawn to a close, none of them find they want to leave. London life seemed impossible to step back into.

Moore’s description of British India shows both the rituals and pageantry of the rich English and the exotic Rajas, and the non discriminative death and disease that attacked the rich as much as the poor. Throughout the book, at every turn, each journal entry contains a nasty shock as some secondary character or other meets their maker. It is significant of the era as death at that particular time was “celebrated” above all things, but even mourning for dead children was uncommon. As displayed vividly through the book, there is a time and a place for everything and no amount of Shakespeare will make early Victorian India either.

Susanna Moore is an American author with many highly acclaimed books to her name, and One Last Look is no exception. The description of Indian life is balanced perfectly with the natural discretion one of Lady Eleanor’s upbringing would carry. With facts come subtle hints and, in her delicacy, Lady Eleanor gives the reader a stunning insight into the seedy underbelly of Calcutta, and the outline of an idea which explains why a spinster in her late thirties is so devoted to her brother, and clues to what their relationship may be. An absolute page turner, you won’t be able to put this masterpiece down without picking it back up again.

Strange Meeting

Wilfred Owen

(1917)

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, -
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
'Strange friend,' I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'
'None,' said that other, 'save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot- wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

'I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . .'

Well, will you look at this?

Another story! How good am I?

During the Second World War, in London, there lived a young girl of 14. Because she was no longer a child, her parents hadn't sent her with her younger sister to the country, to escape the Blitz, but had let her stay home to roll bandages and nurse the wounded civillians. When she had time to spare she went out with her school mates, to see the devestation. At her school was a boy. They often exchanged letters but somehow barely spoke at school. From the letters, she learned a lot about the boy and why he was the way he was. Though he seemed happy, he revealed his hidden sorrow. After the months of letters she tiny bit of worry which had rubbed off from each one built up. She felt as if she had the world on her shoulders. She was the only one he talked to. She felt it was all up to her. If he seemed sadder she felt she had let him down, no matter how much her better judgement told her it wasn't up to her. When he talked about joining up, she felt a glimmer of hope, his patriotism was coming back. But when he spoke of the war, he only talked of slaughter. He knew that if he went, he would die. He welcomed that. Her burden got heavier each day and the ways she lessened it, drop by drop, for only a moment, does not bare mentioning. Then one day, the air raid signal went off. She was by St Pauls and he friends all ran in to get cover in the crypt but she laughed. She saw the boy, as anxious for his life as the others were for theirs and all she could do was laugh her bitter, hard laugh. Then it hit her. She lay on the cobblestones, and let the silver rain fall around her...

Yeah, I know. I'm sensing a pattern here.

Tell me a story...

Once upon a time there was a girl who wore a happy mask. She thought she was happy because she had worn the mask all her life and she and those closest to her thought all was well. Then she slowly began to realise she wasn't as happy as she had thought. She kept slipping farther and farther until even the mask began to slip. She began to do things she hadn't thought she'd ever even consider doing. She thought she was too happy. She knew she needed help but she knew the response she'd get. "There's nothing wrong with you, your just looking for attention." So she left it. But by the time anyone realised, it was too late, she had swum too deep, gone too far, and no had noticed, no one had helped. No one knew.

A story I've started...

Tell me if it's going anywhere. It's pretty morbid but it's the kind of book I'd like to read, which is a shame if I'm writing it... I've got it all planned out. It will be a best seller and they will make it into a movie, and the tagline will be :

There is nothing
In the seven seas as turbulent
As the four small chambers
Of the heart - Pelsaert, Batavia

Belinda

"Belinda! The sun is up and your chores are not even begun!" The mill was dark. It's age caused creaks and whistles as the November wind whipped through it. The best of a man climbing the rickety stairs made the worn wood buckle alarmingly. The creaking grew ominously regular. Must be a flour sack hung on the heavy rope, thought the vast hulk of uncultered flesh, still lumbering up the stairs to the mills top floor, his neices favourite haunt. 'If the sack is up here, it can't be at market,' reasoned the vulgar man, using all of his tiny brain capacity. 'I'll hide that wench when I find her.' But when he reached the top floor, even he knew that no amount of "hiding" would get a reaction from the slight figure, head lolling to one side, lank hair half covering her face, swaying in the early morning breeze...


Ooooh...spooky. Who wants to know why she killed herself? If she did kill herself... I'm not even sure if it's worth continuing because it's one of those one's where some of it's set back then and the rest is in the present. And it keeps flipping back. But I don't really like those because there's always too much in the present and I prefer period dramas. *grumps* Anyway, it's called Belinda because both girls (that one from the first paragraph and the one from the present) are called Belinda. Creepy. Anyway, if anyones reading, tell me if they like the story, or the writing style or what ever. Paperback writer....

It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,