Books : Poetry, Drama & Criticism : History & Criticism : Key Critics : Bradbury, Malcolm

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Books : Poetry, Drama & Criticism : History & Criticism : Key Critics : Bradbury, Malcolm

• The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

  Malcolm Bradbury

  
  
   

• Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (Penguin Modern Classics)

  George Orwell

  
  Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has been recognized as a classic of modern political satire. Fuelled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing--both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson
  
   

• Herzog (Penguin Modern Classics)

  Saul Bellow

  
  
   

• A Room with a View (Penguin Classics)

  E.M. Forster, Malcolm Bradbury

  
  
   

• Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930 (Penguin Literary Criticism)

  
  
   

• From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature

  Malcolm Bradbury, Richard Ruland

  
  
   

• The Routledge History of Literature in English

  Ronald Carter, John McRae

  
  
   

• Becoming a Writer

  Dorothea Brande

  
  Refreshingly slim, beautifully written and deliciously elegant, Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer remains evergreen decades after it was first written. Brande believed passionately that although people have varying amounts of talent, anyone can write. It's just a question of finding the "writer's magic"--a degree of which is in us all. She also insists that writing can be both taught and learned. So she is enraged by the pessimistic authors of so many writing books who rejoice in trying to put off the aspiring writer by constantly stressing how difficult it all is.

  With close reference to the great writers of her day--Wolfe, Forster, Wharton and so on--Brande gives practical but inspirational advice about finding the right time of day to write and being very self disciplined about it--"You have decided to write at four o'clock, and at four o'clock you must write." She's strong on confidence building and there's a lot about cheating your unconscious which will constantly try to stop you writing by coming up with excuses. Then there are exercises to help you get into the right frame of mind and to build up writing stamina.

  This edition comes with an informative foreword by the late Malcolm Bradbury, a man who knew a thing or two about teaching writing, having pioneered the innovative MA course in creative writing at the University of East Anglia which nurtured, among many other writers, Rose Tremain, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. It's a pity, however, that Brande (and Bradbury) define "writing" so narrowly. They refer only to novels and short stories--ignoring biography, travel writing, plays, poems, essays and reportage. In fact, Brande is unreasonably dismissive of journalism as if it were just an uncreative, prostituted form of "real" writing. --Susan Elkin

  
   

• The Great Gatsby (Everyman's Library classics)

  F.Scott Fitzgerald

  
  
   

• Introduction to American Studies

  
  
   

• The Modern American Novel (OPUS)

  Malcolm Bradbury

  
  
   

• The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland

  Ronald Carter, John McRae

  
  
   

• Pudd'nhead Wilson (English Library)

  Mark Twain

  
  
   

• The Modern British Novel

  Malcolm Bradbury

  
  
   

• Pelican Guide to European Literature: Modernism (Pelican Guides to European Literature)

  
  
   

• No, Not Bloomsbury (Arena Books)

  Malcolm Bradbury

  
  
   

• Unsent Letters (Arena Books)

  Malcolm Bradbury

  
  
   

• Liar's Landscape: Collected Writing from a Storyteller's Life

  Malcolm Bradbury

  
  
   

• Novel Today, The: Contemporary Writers on Modern Fiction

  
  
   

• The Novel Today: Contemporary Writers on Modern Fiction