A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

I am part of a book club and this was our chosen book for last half term. I had heard of Ernest Hemingway before but I had never read any of his books so this was a new one for me. I'm always open to reading new books so that didn't bother me but because it is a war-esque book, I did wonder whether I would get bored.It is about an American ambulance driver called Lieutenant Frederic Henry who is in the Italian army during World War 1. The novel tells his story through events in the war, falling in love, fleeing from the army and losing everything he has.

Ernest Hemingway was a very interesting writer. He had the 'Iceberg theory' which reflected his very minimalistic writing style. The iceberg theory was that only 10% of what was going on was described/written about and the other 90% was left to the reader to infer/imagine- so only 'the tip of the iceberg' is what we are given. I hadn't heard of this before until a big Hemingway fan brought it up at book club and it got me thinking, why did he have this set way of writing, surely we needed a bit more then 10% to get the gist of what was happening. Because I found out about this after I read the book it meant I could reflect back with this new piece of information and I liked that. Throughout the book I kept thinking that it was a bit 2D but now I realize that was only the tip and there was a lot more to it that I had to infer. I mean, of course as a reader you have to infer things but not knowing about this theory whilst reading the book, I didn't realise to the extent that you had to do so. I would like to re-read it or perhaps another one of Hemingway's books to really appreciate this theory. Other authors are bound to have used it for inspiration and it is now something that I will think about every time I read a book. I wouldn't say I particularly liked this book but at least I could take this away from it.

I loved loved loved the love story in the novel. Yes ok, i'm a girl, yes i'm a sucker for love stories but the thing I liked most about it was, I didn't expect it. It being a war book, I didn't anticipate such a sweet and strong love story that there was. Because the excitement of the war didn't appeal to me, this is what I gripped on to. Of course there are love stories in most of the books you read but the thing that I enjoyed about this was that it wasn't predictable. It was just portraying the reality of what it would be like to deal with a relationship whilst one half of that relationship is at war. Having the baby at the end really tugged at my heart strings because it showed the harsh reality of trying to keep a baby during this time (due to lack of medicines and equipment etc.). I don't know what it is but I felt like there was something behind this relationship that was maybe influenced by something that had happened to Hemingway because it wasn't fake, it wasn't false, it just felt real.

Now let's talk about themes of the novel. The ones that we discussed were love and pain, reality of war and masculinity but i'm just going to talk about reality of war. You know straight away from the title that there is going to be a farewell to something and I think there are many meanings to this. It could mean Arms as in arms in war because he does escape from this which is most likely the actual reason but I thought it could be foreshadowing the baby at the end- because he loses both Catherine and the baby at the end so as parents they never go to hold their baby in their arms. But this is still showing the reality of war because Frederic Henry left the war (or escaped) so that he could be with Catherine and the baby was a result of that and then he loses everything. Firstly, the reality of war is the sort of theme where you have to get to the end to realize it because it takes you on the journey. At the beginning of the novel, all the extracts about the war convey it as very well-together and everything is fine however if you compare this with sections towards the end where a lot of the group lose their lives it shows how much can happen in such a short space of time. It's not doing this in a negative way; purely just showing the outcome of it.

Overall, it wasn't the best book I've ever read but I can take a few things away from it, mainly being the Iceberg theory but also just reading books like this every so often that I don't think will appeal to me because you do find sub-plots that you really enjoy and what more can you ask for from a book?

xx

The Love of the Nightingale by Timberlake Wertenbaker

I read this in one evening, cover to cover without stopping- that is how brilliant it is. I really didn't know what to expect of it because I've not read anything by Timberlake Wertenbaker before so was going in blind however this play is officially the best play I have ever read and I am frantically scrawling the Internet finding where it is being performed. It is so interesting and I was fascinated by the way it had been crafted together. I loved it so much that I'm even going to use it for an audition without looking at others because something about it has really sparked something inside me.

Firstly, a bit of context. The Love of the Nightingale was written in 1989. It is a re-telling of a Greek tragedy which some say is a feminist re-telling however I believe that imperialism is a stronger theme here. It was written at a time when Margaret Thatcher was in power where there was  a lot of privatizing and deregulation. The play has themes of imperialism of the private and public (men controlling women and territories being seized) which are things which would have been influenced by Thatcher's reign. It is about two sisters, Philomele and Procne who are manipulated by Tereus, Procne's husband. Philomele is violated by Tereus and both of them are tricked into thinking that their sister is dead.

It starts off with the male chorus discussing war and how it is all around us so they felt it was appropriate to open the play with this. I thought this was really interesting because it is true- there is always going to be war and everybody is affected by it one way or another. Despite it being written in 1989, they kept in the Greek elements such as the male and female chorus and certain events in the novel were very suited to that time. For example the reason that Tereus marries Procne is because he is talking to King Pandion about how he wants to have a taste of the Athenian culture (he is from Thrace) and that he feels women are a good representative of that. This is where we first see men controlling women because King Pandion offers his daughter, despite the Queen saying that they couldn't just give their daughter away. This is where the play is very much set in Greek times because I don't know whether that would have still happened in the 1980s.

Athens are relieved when Tereus leaves because he is "expensive, rude and rowdy"- you really begin to get a sense of Tereus' obnoxious character here. Philomele wants to go and visit Procne when she moves to Thrace because she misses her but the journey is too dangerous for a young girl to do alone so Tereus is sent to get her. This is ironic because she ends up being in more danger when she is with Tereus. King Pandion doesn't think Philomele should go because, as mentioned before, the journey will be too dangerous. Eventually she is allowed and she begins her journey to Thrace. During the journey, Tereus becomes very attached to Philomele in quite a creepy way. She is only interested in seeing Procne so he tricks her into thinking that Procne is dead so she stops talking about her. After Tereus sees her flirting with the captain, he drags her off and Niobe, an old lady on board, knows exactly what will happen. Tereus completely violates her and when Philomele speaks out against him she is silenced (a strong theme in the play- physically and emtionally). When Procne and Philomele find out that each other are actually still alive, Procne finds out what Tereus did to her when Philomele uses Dolls to re-enact it, which she is horrified at. At the end of the play they turn into birds: Philomele is a nightingale, Procne is a swallow and Tereus is a hoopoe. Philomele became a Nightingale because as she is silenced she now sees the world in a different light so she can "sing" because she has been through that experience however Procne is a swallow so can't sing because she hasn't been through the suffering of being silenced (saying this, she was partly silenced by her surroundings when she moved to Thrace but that wasn't a permanent silencing).

Things that I liked:

• I really really liked the role of the male and female chorus because they were a modern twist on a typical Greek chorus. I like how the male chorus moved the story along for example when they were on the boat to show that time was passing they just said "Days", "Days" and "More Days". I thought that this was really effective because it was so simple yet it didn't distract away from the scene like it would if they kept saying "2 more days passed" or "the next day". In an actual Greek play, we know that the chorus are there to observe but in this play the chorus actually say "we are only here to observe". I think that this was so that we kept in mind that they were being true to their role and even though they wanted to help, they couldn't. Again when they see Tereus kill the captain they "saw nothing". It was also interesting how there was a male and a female chorus because they would've had just one chorus of females but they would've been played by men.
• In Scene Five there is a play within the play which helped King Pandion come to a decision whether he should let Procne go. It was very comedic because it was almost as if they were completely separate from the play. For example, Aphrodite (the goddess of love) enters and she says "But we already know that. It's a tragedy". I thought this portrayed aspects of a Greek play well because often the characters would just say it straight.  The Queen says "The playwright always speaks through the chorus" and this made my love for the chorus even bigger because all the comments that the chorus had made (e.g. the affects of war at the beginning and the questions about today at the end) allowed us to see the thoughts of Wertenbaker. 
• One of the themes in the play is men controlling women and I feel that this was explained in a nutshell in the line where Philomele says "I never understood obedience" and the Captain says "you're a woman". The man is talking down to the woman, making her inferior, thus showing the control, power and status that men had over women. Especially as Philomele hasn't particularly been unpleasant to the Captain at any point in the play. 
• Silence is a massive theme in the play. Philomele is silenced by having her tongue chopped off, Procne is silenced when she doesn't know anyone in Thrace and Niobe is silenced just by the power of Tereus- she can't warn Philomele what will happen because she will face the consequences. Niobe says my favourite quote of the play "Power is something you can't resist". The reason for this is it sums up the whole play. It sums up  power in Greek times and it sums up the role of power and money now- no matter how hard you try to avoid it, it will come back around again and you'll just have to "accept it in the end" like Philomele has to. 
• The little touches of history- how the King is named and the Queen was unnamed as this was a common practice in Athens in legal proceedings. Easily pleased.

Finally, the use of rape to show the dominance of man was very well crafted. It was an incredible metaphor for wealth, power and corrupt leaders: things that we see as issues in the world today were the basis of Greek tragedies too which was something that I hadn't thought about before so I was enlightened in that sense. The imperialism and oppression expressed in the play was fascinating. If someone had told me to read a play about imperialism, I would not have thought I would have enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed this. 

I would love to hear your thoughts on this play. Don't forget to follow my blog! and on Blog Lovin' x

“So many books, so little time.”

The hardest question I find to answer is "What is your favourite book?". How can you possibly choose out of over 130 million different titles? I certainly have not read millions of them but out of each book I have read, I come away with something new- each book tells you a different story, with different characters and a different ending. Trying to pick a favourite book is like trying to choose your favourite person but because they all have something slightly different about them you can't compare them.

I've always loved reading. I think the thing that fascinates me the most is that just a bunch of words on a page can create something that has so much meaning. To many people, they will read the book at face value but to me, there is nothing better then really getting beneath the front cover and finding out all the hidden meanings (whether they were the authors intentions or not) because there is no right or wrong answer: a book will be whatever you make it out to be. That is the beauty of reading a book: you can take from it what you want to. It may be different to the person next to you who is reading it but it just shows that you have both found what it means to you and what parts of your life, views or opinions you found in that book- you can't argue with that. If anything it's more exciting when someone disagrees with your thoughts on a book or an idea in the book because this sparks discussion and this can only further your understanding more.

Other book lovers out there will understand when I say that my 'to read' pile is no longer a pile but in fact an entire shelf. There is just so many books that I want to read whether it be a classic or the latest teen fiction or a play or just a book that took my fancy (hence why my book list is so long and forever expanding). I want to read as much as I can whenever I can and from as my genres as I can because you can never be bored of reading, right? Right.