Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth

Written in 1800, Castle Rackrent, a Hibernian tale is arguably the first historical (or regional, as George Watson described it) novel of Western literature. Though only a mere 100 pages long, Edgeworth creates a convincing portrayal of the aristocratic Rackrent family. The novels charts the demise of the family as they succumb to chronic drinking and debts. The tale is told through the narrative of Honest Thady, the family's steward. Edgeworth's use of dialectal dialogue is debatable in terms of authenticity, Edgeworth herself lived in Ireland for some years, yet when the novel was published some of the English audience were confounded by the Gaelic phraseology.
Sir Walter Scott, perhaps the most famous historical novelist used a similar strategy in his novel Ivanhoe. Scott replicates the mannerisms and language of the reign of Richard Coeur de Lion, yet in his preface he states that he has adapted some elements of the novel to fit the current audience.
Castle Rackrent, though only a short novel, is a curious account of Hibernian life, written at a time when England held strong derogatory stereotypes of the Irish race, Edgeworth's novel does little to challenge these stereotypes yet is still an interesting read for anyone interested in old Hibernian culture.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Read this book because of its Colonial agenda. Don't read it because your teacher told you to, read it because you want to know what a Moralist white man thought of the slave trade. And that's what you'll get from Heart of Darkness, the heart being the dense Congo jungle. Conrad gives a sympathetic account of the 19th century slave trade, even befriending certain slaves. Conrad's flawless prose is authentic and captivating, I have read the OneWorld Classics version which includes the Congo Diary. I would recommend this to any student of Critical Theory (Colonialism) or anyone with a passing interest in outdated views of slavery.

Queer by William Burroughs

William Burroughs is among those writers of the 20th century who have been ignored by the mainstream. Even now, in the present age numerous editions of Burroughs's work are being re-issued given their cult status. Yet, it is easy to be lured in by the shock value of Burroughs' work, anyone familiar with the magnum opus, Naked Lunch will attest to this. Burroughs was not out to purely shock his audience, rather he aimed to reveal the seedy underbelly of post-war America that was largely covered up in popular society. Burroughs' drug addiction and involvement with homosexuals and other period outcasts is perhaps the reason behind his detachment from the mainstream. Queer, only published until 1985 as it was since banned, is Burroughs' most lucid work. It describes William Lee's (Burroughs incognito) infatuation with a young man and his pursuit to gain requited love. Lee follows his lover to Ecuador (South America being a favourite retreat for Burroughs, there he tries to pursue his love interest whilst dealing with locals and his debilitating drug addiction.
It is perhaps important for the reader to consider the life of William Burroughs in comparison to his novels as there is a great disparity between his own self-mythologizing and fictional events. The reader would do well to read the Letters of William Burroughs available in Penguin paperback.
Queer is the easiest Burroughs novel to read, considering the cut-up novels and later obscure works. However, this is not an entry level into Burroughs' psyche, moreover, the reader would be better off reading Junky, Burroughs' debut novel. Queer is at times painfully sincere and caustically cynical. The 25th century anniversary edition reads as clear as any present day confessional novel. The reader should consider this work not just as a piece of truthful life-writing but as a indictment of 20th century values akin to Wilde's De Profundis.

The Grass Arena by John Healy

John Healy was born in London of poor Irish parents. His autobiography, The Grass Arena (1988) describes his descent from a poverty-stricken childhood to a down and out alcoholic, ending in his triumphant recovery into sobriety.

Healy's confessional narrative is sincere and unflinching, each moment of violence and abuse is combined with dark humour giving an honest reflection of the author's past. Perhaps, The Grass Arena is a hardened version of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist, albeit without the pretensions of modernism. The flow of the story is not entirely chronological, Healy gives a concise history of life with his family, bullying at school and his first ventures into the working world, involving petty theft and fighting. Yet, later on in the novel when Healy's alcoholism dominates the narrative the reader is dragged down into the dirty side of London through pub fights, sickness and death. The delirious flow of events only adds to the authenticity of Healy's voice; the experiences described are not feigned or dramatised, but merely drawn from the author's inebriated memory. 

The Grass Arena is a relatively short autobiography at under 300 pages, yet Healy compresses all his past demons into this work. His language is simple and devoid of pretension, his mimicry of London and Irish dialogue, unlike authors of fiction, is not laboured but reads naturally. 

Though it would be easy to compare The Grass Arena to other 'dirty' London novels, such as Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London or anything from the Will Self back catalogue, Healy's novel stands above these other works. Its exposure of the true London underworld is unparalleled, the vagrants who live in 'the grass arena' i.e: a public park use desperate tricks to avoid arrest and procure alcohol at one point they drink methylated spirits just to get drunk. All this, along with Healy's humourous nick-names for his fellow drinkers such as Bottle Joe, Humpy Smith and One-Eyed Tony add to the appeal of the novel. 

Healy was not a writer, he was not someone who dreamt up stories. He went out and lived his story before finding the time to write it all down as penance/catharsis. 

I don't wish to reveal the ending of The Grass Arena here, as I found it pleasantly surprising to read through pages of despair and intoxication before the author redeems himself with sobriety. I would recommend this book to any interested in The London Novel, or even any form of 'dark' autobiography. Healy's London is as dark as any horror story.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary (1856) is a story of hasty marriages and female independence. The title character is a young woman of some distinction living in provincial North France. Flaubert, renowned for his sense of le mot juste, creates a convincing portrait of Madame Bovary, the pressures put on her by her parents to find a suitable husband as well as her own consciousness that is skillfully blended into the narrative. This is Flaubert's first novel and perhaps best work, despite receiving criticism for its sexualised themes when it was published.
Emma Bovary marries a doctor who soon becomes a notable figure in society for his expertise, yet Emma does not find much fulfillment in this recognition and her mind soon wanders into vice and temptation. Charles Bovary, husband of Emma is oblivious to her frustrations and mistakes her reticence as a symptom of illness. This is where Flaubert is successful in portraying the male ignorance of complex female emotions. The novel is an exemplary work of gender portrayal in literature, Flaubert gives a convincing 3rd person narrative that does not cloud the work with sentiment but instead delivers a steady plot that is interspersed with revealing thoughts, most notably Emma's question of: 'Why, dear God, did I marry him?'
The decline of the Bovary family is caused by Emma's overspending on luxuries and later on a string of affairs, all brought on by the ennui she feels towards her marriage with Charles. Yet, Emma Bovary's frustration is the result of Charles' mundane, cyclic existence, the pair being unsuited to each other.
Emma is portrayed a beautiful young woman who has a host of admirers willing to marry her, yet her decision to marry Charles is due to both her fickle nature and her independent mindset. It is this attribute of the character of Emma Bovary that make the work revolutionary, in the same vein as Tess of the D'Urbervilles or Jane Eyre. The idea of female independence was controversial during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and it is for this reason that Flaubert may be categorized as proto-Feminist. This being said, the novel still has dominant male characters who are in charge of money and business matters, yet behind this is the struggle of Emma Bovary as she submits to the temptations put before her.
Madame Bovary is written in lucid and at times beautifully poetic prose that is perhaps easier to digest than Proust's lengthy, digressive monologues. The plot has all the features of a Romantic novel, particularly in its tragic end, where the reader learns the consequences of an unhappy marriage and an incarcerated soul.

A Romance with Cocaine by M.Ageyev

A Romance with Cocaine is a roman-a-clef novel by the Russian author M.Ageyev. The copy that I have used for this blog post is published by Hesperus.
The first person narrative is delivered by a young man named Maslennikov. The novel begins by describing the tempestuous relationship the protagonist has with his ageing mother. Given that the work was first published in 1934, the social attitudes may seem out of place to the modern reader. That said, the adolescent frustrations of the protagonist are relevant to a modern audience.
Some readers may be disappointed by the lack of drug-related subject matter, but this novel is not to be judged on its title alone, it is a Romance in the traditional sense, with life itself as well as cocaine.
The first part of the novel establishes the protagonist's fractured relationship with his classmates as he competes to become top of the class. As well the author describes the numerous visits to brothels and prostitutes that a teenage school boy of this period in Russia would be familiar with, or at least would know of; James Joyce and JD Salinger are examples of the bildungsroman sexual experience.
The next part of the novel continues on from Maslennikov's exploits with prostitutes where he meets Sonya, the mistress of a house. The two fall in love yet their Romance is cut short by Maslennikov's fickle mind, he cheats on her with a young girl.
The next part is titled simply 'Cocaine' and it begins with a dingy description of a cafe the protagonist frequents. There he recognizes the waitress as a girl he previously had sex with, he also meets an old school friend. They all meet in a backroom and Maslennikov gets his first taste of cocaine albeit with the faux pas of spilling the powder at first. There is rich imagery of the gradual effects of the drug, something that will either entice or perturb the reader.
The final section titled 'Thoughts' is the protagonist's reflection on his cocaine addiction. The retrospective narrative changes the tone of the novel to a more a more confessional piece.
The ending, which readers will love or hate, is told by an authoritative figure who has read Maslennikov's notes and describes how his school friend Burklewitz, who by this time had a high position in the revolution, had refused him help and as a result Maslennikov had died of cocaine poisoning.
Readers should not be attracted to this novel expecting a full out description of drug culture, if anything cocaine is used by Ageyev as an allegory of the Russian revolution. This book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in 20th century European politics and the beginnings of counter culture.

The Pied-Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning

This poem was published in the collection Dramatic Lyrics, 1842. It is a classic children's story told here in Browning's easily accessible rhyming verse. Though many are familiar with the story of a town overrun with rats which are then dispersed by the piper's notes and the subsequent loss of the town's children by the piper as he is not paid by the greedy mayor, there are perhaps less who have read Browning's interpretation. Unlike the stuffy, Romanticized verse that was typical of the 1800s, Browning writes lucid verse that would easily be understood. The poem itself is dedicated to 'W.M the Younger', that is the son of theatre owner and friend of Browning, William McReady.
The dividing up of the poem into stanzas breaks the narrative into episodic chunks, avoiding the long-windedness of other narrative poems such as Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Though the story itself may be taken to be allegorical of poor living conditions and authoritative greed, Browning maintains a charm and innocence through his playful and captivating language. The second stanza evokes immediacy with the single word line: 'Rats!' (l.10), this sets the scene for the proceeding narrative:

'They fought the dogs and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradle,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles' (ll. 11-14)

This tale of rat infestation could potentially have been a grotesque account of poverty and disease, but instead Browning creates a fairy-tale atmosphere for 'Hamelin's town in Brunswick/ By famous Hanover city'

The mysterious appearance of the piper dressed like a gypsy creates an unlikely hero figure although this is ultimately not his role as he exacts his revenge by kidnapping the town's children after being refused 'the thousand gilder' for ridding the town of rats. Nevertheless, the Pied-Piper of Hamelin serves as both an endearing fairy-tale in simple rhyming verse but also as a profound allegorical text of social injustice.