Paradise Lost builds upon a tradition of epic poetry begun with the work of Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. I have held back from fully reviewing t Paradise Lost builds upon a tradition of epic poetry begun with the work of Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. I have held back from fully reviewing this work for a while but I feel that I can at least provide a decent review at this stage.
I first read Paradise Lost when one of my teachers recommended it during a devotional session at school. I knew nothing about the work prior to this mention, but being the dedicated reader that I am I knew any book recommended by a teacher as being for me would likely be academic or literary. Part of me was interested in the book because of the connotation and the status of reading a complex work of fiction. Part of me was intrigued by the idea of a classic reinterpretation of the tale of The Garden of Eden.
So I read Paradise Lost and I will admit that I found it trickier than any text I had tried before. I found it trickier than the translations of Homer I recently read as though it was written in English it has a level of complexity and density to the poetry which is unique and brilliant. When I first read the poem I was blown away by the use of metaphor and other symbolism. I was stunned by the language itself, beautifully archaic and yet still relevant for modern readers. In my eyes Paradise Lost is one of the great works of all time that should be read by any serious reader. The fact that the author composed it while blind adds a little to the legend surrounding the poem but it is the poem itself which has survived across time and it is the poem which is magnificent.
I recommend reading Paradise Lost because of its status as a literary monument. Many, many texts reference it, including from memory Frankenstein. I recommend reading it for the beautiful language and the story, the themes of which are universally fascinating. I recommend reading it because you like the idea of reading it. Whatever reason you can devise for reading it I encourage you to find some time and read it. ...more
Whenever I have something to write for university, for personal entertainment or as a review I always start at a basic idea. A single question or thou Whenever I have something to write for university, for personal entertainment or as a review I always start at a basic idea. A single question or thought that I can grow my writing from organically. Sometimes it could be a question such as 'what if Mondays became Tuesdays?' My answer, we'd want Tuesdays to become Wednesdays and so on until we had nothing left but Sundays. In this case as I come back and write this review of a book read years ago my question is: Is Alice in Wonderland really a children's novel?
The reason I ask this is not to question what the genre of this book really is. I merely wonder if Alice in Wonderland is more adult than we realise when often it's thought of as simply a children's novel. After all it has an exceedingly childish character, language which children find easy enough to read and plenty of magical fairytale characters. However it also has suggested implications of hallucinations, insane characters and features plenty of wordplay that is certainly over children's heads (and precisely not how to teach them to write). Clearly I benefited a lot from reading this as a child (drugs, insanity, strange friends? - nothing speaks about me more).
One day I will re-read this and answer my question satisfactorily. And in greater depth. But for now I'm simply content to live in wonder. Maybe I'll add this to my fictional list of books that are 'for children' but not to be read by children. Peter Pan might have to feature too along with Dr Seuss......more
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