Sunday, 30 November 2014

31) Kind of Cruel 32) All's Well That Ends Well

31) Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah

The alternating points of view in this thriller come slowly together, revealing the importance of Little Orchard and why four members of her family disappeared one Christmas, only to come back two days later without a word.  Kind, Cruel, Kind of Cruel; the phrase reverberates through the novel, but what does it mean, and why is Amber arrested for saying it? This book is well-crafted and enjoyable to read, if not exactly relaxing. One to take on holiday, rather than late-night literature.






32) All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare

I'd never seen/ read this play before studying it this year, and while not one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, I enjoy the interesting gender dynamics implicated by Helen and Bertram's marriage and the bed trick. It's made me question my ideas on the ethics of deceit  and reconsider class distinctions.Undermining our expectations in many ways, it's easy to see why this is classed as a problem play; even the supposedly happy ending leaves us unsatisfied, as we question Bertram's conditional terms, and his ability to fulfill them. All's well that ends well, the title tells us, but in agreeing with this we are implicated in the characters' deceit and betrayal; can the end really justify the means? 


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