Babel-17 was an interesting short novel and I would say revolutionary for its time. Samuel R. Delany choses a strong female protagonist which is rare for 1960s science fiction works. Rydra’s crew is unique as well, there is a huge ethnic and cultural variety which adds more interest to the story. However, they serve as a collective and only Rydra’s and Butcher’s characters stand out to be remembered from this novel. The character designs are very weird and did not make much sense to the point that it became too random for me and I was not interested in them. Rydra Wong is a famous poet and linguist that has to solve the language/code called Babel-17. I am amazed by the amount of dialogue the novel has. The goal of the characters is very clear right from the beginning. In my opinion it helps to explain the situation, help the reader understand the underlying science and even aids worldbuilding even though there is not much. The language Babel-17 is used as a weapon that may ...
The Clockwork Orange was an interesting read. This was the first book from this semester I decided to read in russian without knowing that there are russian words in the original work which were written in latin letters to keep the originality of the author. This anglo-russian slang the characters use gives the story a unique look and completes its mood. However, it was very hard to understand what exactly the words meant because of the horrible spelling that I switched to listening to the audiobook from halfway through the book. The story is pretty violent but at the same time very realistic. Mostly because of the amount of detail the protagonist gives while describing every single scene and character. The author makes the reader face the reality not letting them close their eyes on the dark sides of it. Alex is a complicated and interesting character. What surprised me the most about him was his love towards classical music juxtaposed with his cruel lifestyle. It seems li...
Margaret Atwood created this totalitarian childless world that skillfully hides the actual historical events used to shape the novel. While reading the novel I noted that none of the characters are pure evil. Everyone is affected by the Gilead. There are memories showing the happy times of the pre-Gilead period and it always contrasts with the present Gileadean nightmare. The handmaids are affected the most in this new system as their sole role was to bear children for the Commanders whose wives could not. Even their names were formed by “of” plus the name of their commander, as Offred once said “everyone’s on the take” (Atwood). There is huge tension throughout the novel created by almost all the characters. As Gilead has intense power over everyone resistance is unavoidable. Even the Commander, having all the privilege, being a wealthy man, powerful and having a contribution in designing the Gilead performs small scaled rebellions. One of his rebellions is when he calls Offred ...
Comments
Post a Comment