Revision of the past:

1.Graham Swift, Waterland (1983) Meta historiographic fiction

Summary:

The title of the novel refers to its setting in The Fens in East Anglia. Waterland is concerned with the
nature and importance of history as the primary source of meaning in a narrative. For this reason, it
is associated with new historicism. Major themes in the novel include storytelling and history,
exploring how the past leads to future consequences.

The plot of the novel revolves around loosely interwoven themes and narrative, including the
jealousy of his brother for the narrator's girlfriend/wife, a resulting murder, the abortion the girl
undergoes, her subsequent inability to conceive, resulting in depression and the kidnap of a baby.

This personal narrative is set in the context of a wider history, of the narrator's family, the Fens in
general and the eel.

Tom Crick, fifty-two years old, has been history master for some thirty years in a secondary school in
Greenwich, in a sense the place where, in a world that sets its clocks according to Greenwich Mean
Time, time begins. Tom has been married to Mary for as long as he has been teaching, but the couple
have no children. The students in Tom's school have grown increasingly scientifically oriented, and
the headmaster, a physicist, has little sympathy for Tom's subject. One of Tom's students, Price,
questions the relevance of learning about historical events. The youth's scepticism causes Tom to
change his teaching approach to telling tales drawn from his own recollection. By doing so, he makes
himself a part of the history he is teaching, relating his tales to local history and genealogy. The
headmaster, Lewis, tries to entice Tom into taking an early retirement. Tom resists this because his
leaving would mean that the History Department would cease to exist and be combined with the
broader area of General Studies. Tom's wife is arrested for snatching a baby. The publicity that
attends her arrest reflects badly on the school, and Tom is told that he now must retire. In response,
he uses his impending forced retirement as an excuse to unfold a story to his students. The pivot of
Waterland focuses on both the past in 1937, and the present time thirty years after - all related
through the eyes of Dick.

A wide part of the novel is formed by the basis of some three hundred years of local - including
family - history, which relates to the broader historical currents of past centuries. Much of the plot
centers on Tom's tumultuous relationship with Mary, both as teenagers (which in turn shows the
growing hatred and jealousy of Tom's mentally handicapped brother Dick, partly due to their rivalry
over Mary's affections), and after their marriage. Mary lives close to his family on a farm close to
where Tom's father, a lock-keeper, has a home with his two sons in the lock-keeper's cottage, beside
a tributary of the Great Ouse. Tom's mother dies when he is eight years old, Mary's own mother
having died during her birth, resulting in a rigid religious upbringing from her father throughout her
childhood. As she matures, her interest in men grows, and she and Tom slip into an illicit relationship,
which is marred by Dick's resentment of them, and the subsequent discovery that she is pregnant.
Dick asks Mary if he is the father, thinking if he is he will be able to have some control over his
strained friendship with Mary, forcing her to devote a part of herself to him. Mary lies to him, telling
him that Freddie Parr is the father. Dick, distraught at this information, struggles with a drunken
Freddie, who is unable to swim, and pushes him into the river. Tom's father who pulls Freddie from
the sluice, not realising that his drowning is anything but accidental, as the coroner's inquest finally
finds. When Mary fails to provoke a miscarriage, she and Tom - who is the father of the child - go to
an old crone, who performs a dangerous abortion that leaves Mary sterile. Her father forces her into
seclusion, and for three years she remains isolated. The two fathers finally agree to bring their
children together again; unknown to them, Tom, away fighting in World War II, has already written
to Mary. When he comes home, the two marry, and Tom begins his teaching career while Mary takes
a position in an old persons home.

The novel returns to the present day, with Tom's growing horror over the child - who Mary believes
is a gift from God - forcing him to take action and return it to the real mother, despite his wife's
pleas. Obviously unstable and suffering from a pain that has been festering since her abortion all
those years ago, Mary is arrested after the baby is returned. Tom is later informed of her
commitment to a mental institute.

The plot closes on a final flashback, which shows Dick's breakdown following the revelation that he
was born out of incest to Tom's mother and his grandfather, part of the reason his adoptive father
has never really accepted him or valued him as he does Tom. Dick becomes inebriated with bottles of
drink stashed in an old chest from his real father - which also coincidentally held the letters revealing
his true parentage - and runs away on his motorbike. Frantic, his family coerce friends into letting
them have the use of a boat, and eventually find Dick several miles away, about to jump into the
water. Despite pleas that he will finally be valued as a surrogate son and an equal to Tom, Dick
throws himself in and never resurfaces - his death haunting Tom for the rest of his life.

2.A.S. Byatt, Possesion (1990)

Summary:

Possession: A Romance is a 1990 bestselling novel by British writer A. S. Byatt that won the 1990
Booker Prize. The novel explores the postmodern concerns of similar novels, which are often
categorised as historiographic metafiction, a genre that blends approaches from both historical
fiction and metafiction.

The novel follows two modern-day academics as they research the paper trail around the previously
unknown love life between famous fictional poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte.
Possession is set both in the present day and the Victorian era, pointing out the differences between
the two time periods, and satirizing such things as modern academia and mating rituals. The
structure of the novel incorporates many different styles, including fictional diary entries, letters and
poetry, and uses these styles and other devices to explore the postmodern concerns of the authority
of textual narratives. The title Possession highlights many of the major themes in the novel: questions
of ownership and independence between lovers; the practice of collecting historically significant
cultural artifacts; and the possession that biographers feel toward their subjects.

The novel was adapted as a feature film by the same name in 2002, and a serialised radio play that
ran from 2011-2012 on BBC Radio 4. In 2005 Time Magazine included the novel in its list of 100 Best
English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[1] In 2003 the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The
Big Read.[2]

Obscure scholar Roland Michell, researching in the London Library, discovers handwritten drafts of a
letter by the fictional eminent Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash, which lead him to suspect that the
married Ash had a hitherto unknown romance. He secretly takes away the documents - a highly
unprofessional act for a scholar - and begins to investigate. The trail leads him to Christabel LaMotte,
a minor poet and contemporary of Ash, and to Dr. Maud Bailey, an established modern LaMotte
scholar and distant relative of LaMotte. Protective of LaMotte, Bailey is drawn into helping Michell
with the unfolding mystery. The two scholars find more letters and evidence of a love affair between
the poets (with evidence of a holiday together during which - they suspect - the relationship may
have been consummated); they become obsessed with discovering the truth. At the same time, their
own personal romantic lives - neither of which is satisfactory - develop, and they become entwined in
an echo of Ash and LaMotte. The stories of the two couples are told in parallel, with Byatt providing
letters and poetry by both of the fictional poets.

The revelation of an affair between Ash and LaMotte would make headlines and reputations in
academia because of the prominence of the poets, and colleagues of Roland and Maud become
competitors in the race to discover the truth, for all manner of motives. Ash's marriage is revealed to
have been unconsummated, although he loved and remained devoted to his wife. He and LaMotte
had a short, passionate affair; it led to the suicide of LaMotte's companion (and possibly lover),
Blanche Glover, and the secret birth of LaMotte's illegitimate daughter during a year spent in
Brittany. LaMotte left the girl with her sister to be raised by her, and passed off as her own. Ash was
never informed that he and LaMotte had a child.

As the Great Storm of 1987 strikes England, all the interested modern parties come together in a
dramatic scene at Ash's grave, where documents buried with Ash by his wife are believed to hold the
final key to the mystery and will be exhumed. Reading them, Maud learns that rather than being
related to LaMotte's sister, as she has always believed, she is directly descended from LaMotte and
Ash's illegitimate daughter. Bailey thus is heir to the correspondence by the poets. Freed from
obscurity and a dead-end relationship, Michell remedies the potential professional suicide of stealing
the original drafts, and sees an academic career open up before him. Bailey, who has spent her adult
life emotionally untouchable, finds her human side and sees possible future happiness with Michell.
The sad story of Ash and LaMotte, separated by the mores of the day and condemned to secrecy and
separation, has a kind of resolution through the burgeoning relationship between Bailey and Michell.

In a brief epilogue, it is revealed that both the modern and historical characters (and hence the
reader), have for much of the latter half of the book, misunderstood the significance of one of Ash's
key mementoes.

3. Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (2009)

Summary:

Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a highly fictionalised biography documenting the
rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir St.
Thomas More. The novel won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle
Award.[1][2] In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".[3]

The book is the first in a trilogy; the sequel Bring Up the Bodies was published in 2012.[4]

Born to a working-class family of no position or name, Cromwell rose to become the right-hand man
of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, adviser to the King. He survived Wolsey's fall from grace to eventually
take his place as the most powerful of Henry's ministers. In that role, he oversaw Henry assert his
authority to declare his marriage annulled from Catherine of Aragon and marriage to Anne Boleyn,
the English church's break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries.

Historical and literary accounts have not been kind to Cromwell; in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All
Seasons he is portrayed as the calculating, unprincipled opposite of St. Thomas More's honour and
rectitude.

Mantel's novel offers an alternative to that characterization, a more intimate portrait of Cromwell as
a pragmatic and talented man attempting to serve king and country amid the political machinations
of Henry's court and the religious upheavals of the Protestant Reformatio

4. Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies (2012)

Summary:

Bring Up the Bodies begins not long after the conclusion of Wolf Hall. The King and Thomas
Cromwell, who is now Master Secretary to the King's Privy Council, are the guests of the Seymour
family at their manor house, Wolf Hall. The King shares private moments with Jane Seymour, and
begins to fall in love with her. His present queen, Anne Boleyn, has failed to give him a male heir.
Their relationship is a stormy one, sometimes loving and sometimes characterized by angry quarrels.
At length, the King tells Cromwell privately, "I cannot live as I have." Cromwell understands this to
mean that the King has tired of a wife who gives him neither peace nor a son and wants his marriage
to her ended. Cromwell promises the King he will find a legal way to make this happen.

Ever the dealmaker, Cromwell attempts to negotiate a voluntary dissolution of the marriage with
Anne through her father, the Earl of Wiltshire, and her brother, Lord Rochford. Wiltshire is willing to
negotiate, but Rochford is intransigent, telling Cromwell that if Anne and the King are reconciled, "I
will make short work of you."

Cromwell makes inquiries among the ladies and gentlemen who are close to Anne and hears more
and more rumors that she has been adulterous. The musician Mark Smeaton and Anne's sister-in-
law, Lady Rochford, are particularly helpful in passing on rumors. He determines to build a case
against Anne and succeeds in doing so, ultimately securing enough damaging testimony to have her
arrested and tried on capital charges. The King seems quite willing to see Anne destroyed if it will
serve his purposes. Always mindful that some of the people closest to Anne connived at the ruin of
his old mentor Cardinal Wolsey, Cromwell relishes the opportunity to bring them down as well. In the
end, Anne and several of her confidantes, including her brother, are tried and executed. Cromwell is
aware that not all of the evidence against them is true, but he is willing to do what is necessary to
serve the King (and to avenge Wolsey), and having started the process he must see it through if he
himself is to survive. As the King focuses on a new marriage with Jane Seymour, Cromwell is
rewarded for his efforts with a barony and his position as the King's chief adviser seems assured.
 Intellectual Satire

1. David Lodge, Changing Places (1975)

Summary:

Changing Places is a comic novel with serious undercurrents. It tells the story of the six-month
academic exchange program between fictional universities located in Rummidge (modelled on
Birmingham in England) and Plotinus, in the state of Euphoria (modeled on Berkeley in
California). The two academics taking part in the exchange are both aged 40, but appear at first
to otherwise have little in common, mainly because of the differing academic systems of their
native countries.

The English participant, Philip Swallow, is a very conventional and conformist British academic,
and somewhat in awe of the American way of life. By contrast the American, Morris Zapp, is a
top-ranking American professor who only agrees to go to Rummidge because his wife agrees to
postpone long-threatened divorce proceedings on condition that he move out of the marital
home for six months. Zapp is at first both contemptuous of, and amused by, what he perceives as
the amateurism of British academia.

As the exchange progresses, however, both Swallow and Zapp find that they begin to fit in
surprisingly well to their new environments. In the course of the story, each man has an affair
with the other's wife. Before that, Swallow sleeps with Zapp's daughter Melanie, without
realizing who she is. She, however, takes up with a former undergraduate student of his, Charles
Boon.

Swallow and Zapp even consider remaining permanently. The book ends with the two couples
convened in a New York hotel room to decide their fates. The novel ends without a clear-cut
decision, though the sequel Small World: An Academic Romance, reveals that Swallow and Zapp
returned to their respective countries and domestic situations.

1.b David Lodge, Small World (1984)

Summary:

The book begins in April 1979 at a small academic conference at the University of Rummidge. It is
the first conference that Persse McGarrigle, (a reference to Percival the grail knight), an innocent
young Irishman who recently completed his master's thesis on T. S. Eliot, has attended. He
teaches at the fictional University College, Limerick, after having been mistakenly interviewed
because the administration sent the interview invitation to him instead of someone else with the
same last name. Several important characters are introduced: Rummidge professor Philip
Swallow, American professor Morris Zapp, retired Cambridge professor Sybil Maiden, and the
beautiful Angelica Pabst, with whom McGarrigle falls immediately in love. Much of the rest of the
book is his quest to find and win her. Angelica tells Persse that she was adopted by an executive
at KLM after she was found, abandoned, in the washroom of an aeroplane in flight. Persse
professes his love for her, but she leaves the conference without telling him where she has gone.
Morris Zapp and Philip Swallow, who are seeing each other for the first time in ten years after
the events of Changing Places, have a long evening talk. Since the previous novel, Swallow has
become a professor and head of the English Department. Zapp has discovered deconstructionism
and reinvented himself academically. Swallow tells Zapp about an incident a few years before,
when after almost dying in a plane crash he spent the night at a British Council official's home
and slept with the official's wife, Joy. Soon after, Swallow read in the newspaper that Joy, the
official, and their son had died in a plane crash.

Part II of the book begins by going around the world, time zone to time zone, showing what
different characters are doing all at the same time: Morris Zapp travelling; Australian Rodney
Wainright trying to write a conference paper; Zapp's ex-wife Dsire trying to write a novel;
Howard Ringbaum trying to convince his wife Thelma to sleep with him on an aeroplane so he
can join the Mile High Club; Siegfried von Turpitz talking to Arthur Kingfisher about the new
UNESCO chair of literary criticism; Rudyard Parkinson plotting to get that chair; Turkish Akbil
Borak reading William Hazlitt to prepare for a visit by Swallow; Akira Sakazaki translating English
novelist Ronald Frobisher into Japanese; Ronald Frobisher having breakfast; Italian Fulvia
Morgana (a reference to Morgan le Fay) meeting Morris Zapp on a plane; and more.`

Cheryl Summerbee is also introduced. She is a check-in clerk for British Airways at Heathrow and
plays a small but very important role in helping, or hindering, other characters as they travel
around the world. She loves reading romance novels, especially the kind published by "Bills and
Moon" (a fictionalised Mills & Boon).

People continue to move around from conference to conference around the world in Part III.
Persse continues to pursue Angelica. At a meeting in Amsterdam, Persse hears the German
literary scholar Siegfried von Turpitz speaking about ideas that he submitted in an unpublished
book, and all but accuses von Turpitz of plagiarism. Zapp rises to defend Persse from von Turpitz.
Later, Persse sees someone who looks like Angelica, and thinks she has appeared in pornographic
movies and worked as a stripper. In Turkey, Phillip Swallow meets Joy, the woman he thought
was dead. She explains that only her husband had been on the plane that crashed. They begin an
affair, and Swallow plans to leave his wife.

Events and characters move along in Part IV, often with direct reference to the genre of
romance, such as Sybil Maiden (who at one point acts as a sibyl) saying that grail knights "were
such boobies... All they had to do was ask a question at the right moment, and they generally
muffed it." Zapp is kidnapped by an underground left-wing movement, but is later released after
pressure from Morgana. Persse, who has won an award and got a credit card, has enough money
to continue to chase Angelica but never manages to catch up with her. She does leave him a clue
referencing The Faerie Queene and he discovers that she has an identical twin, and it is the twin,
Lily, who made the pornographic movies.

When Persse meets Cheryl Summerbee again, she is now reading not romance novels but
romances such as Orlando Furioso and critics such as Northrop Frye after Angelica has passed
through her line. Persse is happy to learn this, but Cheryl is shaken to see that Persse is
infatuated with Angelica, because she loves him herself. Persse continues to chase Angelica
around the world, to conferences in Hawaii, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and Jerusalem, but he never
catches up with her. At that Jerusalem conference, Philip Swallow is with Joy, but after he sees
his son there he becomes psychosomatically ill, which people think might be Legionnaires'
Disease in a moment of panic. This stops the conference, and leads to the end of Philip and Joy's
affair.

Part V takes place at the Modern Language Association conference in New York at the end of
1979. All of the characters in the book are there. Arthur Kingfisher oversees a panel discussion
about criticism where Swallow, Zapp, Morgana, and others present their opinions on what
literary criticism is. Zapp's kidnapping experience has cured him of his interest in
deconstructionism. Persse (contrary to what Sybil Maiden had said about knights not asking the
right question at the right time) asks, "What follows if everyone agrees with you?" Kingfisher is
inspired by this question, and recovers from his mental and physical impotence.

Persse finally finds Angelica and hears her read a paper about romances that directly reflects the
structure of Small World itself: "No sooner is one crisis in the fortunes of the hero averted than a
new one presents itself; no sooner has one mystery been solved than another is raised; no
sooner has one adventure been concluded than another begins... The greatest and most
characteristic romances are often unfinished they end only with the author's exhaustion, as a
woman's capacity for orgasm is limited only by her physical stamina. Romance is a multiple
orgasm." After this talk, Persse runs through the hotel and sees a woman he takes to be Angelica,
kisses her and declares that he loves her. She takes him up to her hotel room where they make
love, in Persse's first sexual experience. However, after this encounter, she reveals that she is not
Angelica, but the twin sister, Lily. Persse feels ashamed, but Lily convinces him that he was "in
love with a dream".

Later in the evening, Arthur Kingfisher announces that he will offer himself as a candidate for the
UNESCO chair. Right afterwards, Sybil Maiden steps forward and announces that she is Angelica
and Lily's mother and Kingfisher is their father, which throws the entire meeting into a joyous
uproar. Angelica introduces Persse to her fianc, Peter McGarrigle, the person whose job Persse
was interviewed for back in Ireland. However, Peter is not angry, because as a result, he went to
America and there met Angelica. Swallow has returned to his wife, saying "Basically I failed in the
role of a romantic hero."

All of the narrative threads of the novel wrap up but for one: Persse realises that Cheryl
Summerbee, not Angelica, is the woman for him, and he flies to Heathrow to see her. He arrives
at the airport on New Year's Eve, but learns that Cheryl no longer works there, having been fired
the day before Persse arrives. The new attendant tells Persse that Cheryl wanted to travel
anyway at some point, and took this as her chance. No one knows where she has gone. The novel
ends with Persse wondering "where in the small, narrow world he should begin to look for her."

2. Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones`s Diary (1996)

Summary:

ridget not only obsesses about her love life, but also details her various daily struggles with her
weight, her over-indulgence in alcohol and cigarettes, and her career. Bridget's friends and family
are the supporting characters in her diary. These friends are there for her unconditionally
throughout the novel; they give her advice about her relationships, and support when problems
arise. Her friends are essentially her surrogate family in London. Bridget's parents live outside of
the city, and while they play a lesser role than her friends, they are important figures in Bridget's
life. Her mother is an overconfident, doting woman who is constantly trying to marry Bridget off
to a rich, handsome man; and her father is considerably more down-to-earth, though he is
sometimes driven into uncharacteristically unstable states of mind by his wife. Bridget often
visits her parents, as well as her parents' friends, primarily Geoffrey and Una Alconbury; Geoffrey
creates a mildly uncomfortable situation for Bridget by insisting she call him "Uncle Geoffrey"
despite his propensity for groping her rear end whenever they meet. In these situations, Bridget
is often plagued with that perennial question "How's your love life?" and exposed to the
eccentricities of middle class British society, manifested in turkey curry buffets and tarts and
vicars parties at which the women wear sexually provocative ("tart") costumes, while the men
dress as Anglican priests ("vicars"). The novel is based on Pride and Prejudice.[2]

3. Nick Hornby, About a Boy (1998)

Summary:

Set in 1993 London, About a Boy features two main protagonists: Will Freeman, a 36-year-old
bachelor, and Marcus Brewer, an incongruous schoolboy described as 'introverted' by his suicidal
mother, Fiona, despite his tendencies to bond and interact with people. Will's father wrote a
successful Christmas song, the royalties of which have afforded Will the ability to remain
voluntarily redundant throughout his life he spends his huge amounts of free time immersing
himself in 1990s culture, drinking, using soft drugs and pursuing sexual relations with women.

After a pleasant relationship with a single mother, Angie, Will comes up with the idea of
attending a single parents group as a new way to pick up women. For this purpose, he invents a
two-year-old son called Ned. Will then makes a number of acquaintances through his
membership of the single parents group, two of which are Fiona and her son Marcus. Although
their relationship is initially somewhat strained, they finally succeed in striking up a true
friendship despite Will being largely uninterested during the early-middle stages of the novel.
Will, a socially aware and "trendy" person, aids Marcus to fit into 1990s youth culture by
encouraging him not to get his hair cut by his mother, buying him Adidas trainers, and
introducing him to contemporary music such as Nirvana. Marcus and Will's friendship
strengthens as the story progresses, even after Marcus and Fiona discover Will's lie about having
a child.

Marcus is befriended by Ellie McRae, a tough, moody 15-year-old girl, who is constantly in
trouble at school because she insists on wearing a Kurt Cobain jumper. He also spends some time
with his dad Clive, who visits Marcus and Fiona for Christmas together with his new girlfriend
Lindsey and her mother. Clive has a minor accident during some D.I.Y work, and breaks his collar
bone. This prompts Clive into having 'a big think' about the meaning of his life, and he summons
Marcus to Cambridge to see him. Marcus decides to bring Ellie along with him for support,
however they are arrested on the way as Ellie smashes a shop window displaying a cardboard
cut-out of Kurt Cobain accusing the shopkeeper of 'trying to make money out of him' after his
suicide.

Meanwhile, to Will's despair, he falls in love with a woman called Rachel. Ironically, Rachel is a
single mother with a son named Ali (Alistair) who is the same age as Marcus. The two originally
fight, but quickly become friends. Will's emotional faculties are liberated and he begins to 'shed
[his] old skin' of emotional indifference simultaneously Marcus is becoming more typical of his
age, and he begins to enjoy his life more.

The penultimate scene takes place in a police station in a small suburban town, where nearly
every significant character in the novel is present; their common link being Marcus. The novel
ends during a three-way dialogue between Marcus, Will and Fiona where Will, to see if Marcus
has truly changed, proposes the idea that he play a Joni Mitchell song on Fiona's piano, which
she is enthusiastic about. However, Marcus responds saying he 'hates' Joni Mitchell whereby
Hornby concludes the novel with the narration saying "Will knew Marcus would be OK."

The novel ends with Will and Marcus both having become more typical of their age groups, and
happier because of it. Will intends to marry Rachel, and embraces romantic normality and
Marcus enters his teenage phase in the typical fashion of a boy growing up in 1990s London.

Novels of Memory and Personal History

1. Doris Lessing, The Summer before the Dark (1973)

Summary:

As in The Golden Notebook, Mrs. Lessing is concerned with the situation of present-day women.
But her treatment of the emotional gulf that opens up before a forty-five-year-old woman no
longer needed as a wife and mother is a starting point for much more - a confrontation wit the
threat of annihilation, the terrors of old age and death.

Kate Brown is faced for the first time in twenty years with the prospect of being alone. Her
children are grown; her husband, a successful neurologist, is going to work for some months in
an American hospital. Urged by him to take a job, she finds herself acting as interpreter for an
international conference on food, becoming substitute mother to all the delegates, flying off to
Turkey for another conference, to Spain for an affair with a younger man - all the traditional
outlets... But none of this turns out as she might have expected, and this summer of exploration,
freedom and self-discovery, during which she rejects the stereotypes of femininity - that, like her
conventional clothes, do not fit her any longer - becomes more than a private stocktaking; what
Kate discovers in this time of crisis enrages and appalls her as it brings her face to face with
herself.

At the beginning of the novel, Kate Brown is a fashionable and competent woman in a suburban
garden; before it ends, she is stripped of everything she believes she is. The Summer Before the
Dark is told in direct narrative, simply; but through dreams, through archetype and myth, the
woman is related to the dark impersonal forces that underlie all our lives.

As The London Times said, in reviewing her last novel, Briefing for a Descent into Hell, 'Mrs.
Lessing has become a universal novelist.'
2. Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince (1973)

Summary:

The Black Prince is remarkable for the structure of its narrative, consisting of a central story
bookended by forewords and post-scripts by characters within it. It largely consists of the
description of a period in the later life of the main character, ageing London author Bradley
Pearson, during which time he falls in love with the daughter of a friend and literary rival, Arnold
Baffin. For years Bradley has had a tense but strong relationship with Arnold, regarding himself
as having 'discovered' the younger writer. The tension is ostensibly over Bradley's distaste for
Arnold's lack of proper literary credentials, though later the other characters claim this to be a
matter of jealousy or the product of an Oedipus complex. Their closeness is made apparent from
the start of the book, however, as Arnold telephones Bradley, worried that he has killed his wife,
Rachel, in a domestic row. Bradley attends with his former brother-in-law, Francis Marloe, in
tow. Together they calm the injured Rachel and restore peace to the Baffins' household.

Yet Bradley begins to get trapped in a growing dynamic of family, friends, and associates who
collectively seem to thwart his attempts at achieving the isolation he feels necessary to create his
'masterpiece'. His intervention in the Baffins' marriage, for instance, prompts Rachel to fall in
love with him. His depressed sister, Priscilla, leaves her abusive husband, demanding that her
brother shelter her. The Baffins' young daughter, Julian, declares her admiration for Bradley and
begs him to tutor her. Even Christian, Bradley's ex-wife, invades his life by seeking to repair their
long-defunct relationship.

Bradley attempts to navigate these complications with mixed success. His inability to reciprocate
Rachel's affections ultimately defuses their affair. She agrees, much to Bradley's satisfaction, to
be no more than his friend. Christian meanwhile starts an affair with Arnold, drawing her
attentions away from Bradley. Indeed, Arnold informs Bradley that he intends to leave Rachel for
Christian. Yet Bradley fails to give proper attention to Priscilla, who pathetically alternates
between despair and hysterical optimism. Only Francis remains a constant annoyance; the
former psychoanalyst is implicitly in love with Bradley.

During this time, however, Bradley cannot escape falling in love with Julian. He privately vows
never to confess or seek to realise this love, but he cannot contain himself. He promptly blurts it
out to Julian herself, and the two embark on a brief, intense affair. He steals away Julian to a
rented sea-side cottage to evade Rachel and Arnold, who both condemn the relationship. But he
also neglects pressing needs at home. Priscilla, left without any companions, commits suicide;
Bradley nonetheless postpones returning. He feels that the news would destroy any romantic
connection between him and Julian. When Arnold arrives, enraged, to collect his daughter,
however, he turns this deception against Bradley. Julian is visibly disturbed, and she promises to
return home the next day. Yet Julian vanishes in the nightin Bradley's mind, at least, Arnold has
taken her off and hidden her against her will.

Bradley returns to London in a lovesick fury. A jealous Rachel confronts him, (incorrectly) telling
him that Arnold has taken Julian to Europe. She mocks Bradley's high-minded notions regarding
love; Julian, she says, already rues their affair. Filled with anger, Bradley tells Rachel about
Arnold's plan to leave her. This revelation startles Rachel and she departs. The final action of the
main section takes place at the Baffins' residence, where Bradley attends an incident parallel to
the opening one. Rachel appears to have struck Arnold with a poker, killing him. Taking pity on
her, Bradley helps her clean up the crime scene and advises her to tell the police the truth. She
instead blames the murder on Bradley; he is put under arrest.

Bradley's arrest, trial, and conviction for Arnold's murder are briefly described. The police
attribute the murder to Bradley's jealousy of Arnold's writerly success. No one can corroborate
Bradley's version of events; Francis's obviously biased account only harms his cause. Thus, his
affairs with both Rachel and Julian, as well as Arnold's affair with Christian, remain secret. Rachel
appears as a grieving widow, whereas Bradley appears as a cruel, possibly homosexual sociopath.
He is convicted and sent to prison. Bradley then closes his account from his prison cell,
reaffirming his love for Julian.

3. Iris Murdoch, The Sea , The Sea (1978)

Summary:

The Sea, the Sea is a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a self-satisfied playwright and
director as he begins to write his memoirs. Murdoch's novel exposes the motivations that drive
her characters the vanity, jealousy, and lack of compassion behind the disguises they present to
the world. Charles Arrowby, its central figure, decides to withdraw from the world and live in
seclusion in a house by the sea. While there, he encounters his first love, Mary Hartley Fitch,
whom he has not seen since his love affair with her as an adolescent. Although she is almost
unrecognisable in old age, and outside his theatrical world, he becomes obsessed by her,
idealizing his former relationship with her and attempting to persuade her to elope with him. His
inability to recognise the egotism and selfishness of his own romantic ideals is at the heart of the
novel. After the farcical and abortive kidnapping of Mrs. Fitch by Arrowby, he is left to mull over
her rejection in a self-obsessional and self-aggrandising manner over the space of several
chapters. "How much, I see as I look back, I read into it all, reading my own dream text and not
looking at the reality... Yes of course I was in love with my own youth... Who is one's first love?"[1]

4. Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (1992)

Summary:

Black Dogs is a 1992 novel by the British author Ian McEwan. It concerns the aftermath of the
Nazi era in Europe, and how the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s affected those who once
saw Communism as a way forward for society. The main characters travel to France, where they
encounter disturbing residues of Nazism still at large in the French countryside.

The novel was well-regarded by critics. In Entertainment Weekly, writer Gary Giddens said of the
book, "Black Dogs is at once characteristic McEwan and a departure... The first half of the novel
is a dialogue of ideas, or betrayals, reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's anatomy of marriage, The
Genius and the Goddess. June is disgusted with Bernard's belief that science can cure the world's
'wretchedness'; Bernard is embarrassed by June's 'unbounded credulousness,' her eagerness to
buy into the bywords of mysticism." He concludes, "McEwan's narratives are small and focused,
but resonate far into the night."[2] In The New York Times, critic Michiko Kakutani wrote, "The
black dogs that give Ian McEwan's new novel its evocative title come from the name that
Winston Churchill once bestowed on his depressions. As used by Mr. McEwan's heroine,
however, they signify something larger and more menacing: evil, darkness, irrationality,
"civilization's worst moods." They give Mr. McEwan a metaphor by which he can turn a fictional
family memoir into an elliptical meditation on Europe's past and future.... The result is an
absorbing yet vexing book that is less a conventional novel than a long prose-poemlike mediation
on love and faith and history."[3]

5. Ian McEwan, Atonement (2002)

Summary:

Atonement is a 2001 British family saga novel written by Ian McEwan concerning the
understanding and responding to the need for personal atonement. Set in three time periods,
1935 England, wartime England and France, and present-day England, it covers an upper-class
girl's half-innocent mistake that ruins lives; her adulthood in the shadow of that mistake; and a
reflection on the nature of writing.

Widely regarded as one of McEwan's best works, it was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for
fiction.[1] In 2010, TIME magazine named Atonement in its list of the 100 greatest English-
language novels since 1923.[2]

In 2007, the book was adapted into a BAFTA and Academy Award-nominated film of the same
title, starring Saoirse Ronan, James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, and directed by Joe Wright.

6. Vikram Seth, An Equal Music (1999)

7. John Banville, The Sea (2005)

Post Modernism

1. Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (1979)

Summary:

A teenage girl marries an older, wealthy French Marquis, whom she does not love. When he
takes her to his castle, she learns that he enjoys sadistic pornography and takes pleasure in her
embarrassment. She is a talented pianist, and a young man, a blind piano tuner, hears her music
and falls in love with her. The woman's husband tells her that he must leave on a business trip
and forbids her to enter one particular room while he is away. She enters the room in his
absence and realises the full extent of his perverse and murderous tendencies when she
discovers the bodies of his previous wives. Marquis returns home prematurely, discovers that
she has entered the room and proceeds to try to add her to his collection of corpses through
beheading. The brave piano tuner is willing to stay with her even though he knows he will not be
able to save her. She is saved at the last moment at the end of the story by her mother, who
shoots the Marquis just as he is about to murder the girl. The girl, her mother and the piano
tuner go on to live together, and the girl uses her now considerable fortune to convert the castle
into a school for blind children
2. Julian Barnes, Flaubert`s Parrot (1984)

Summary:

The novel follows Geoffrey Braithwaite, a widowed, retired English doctor, visiting France and
Flaubert locations. While visiting sites related to Flaubert, Geoffrey encounters two incidences of
museums claiming to display the stuffed parrot which sat atop Flaubert's writing desk for a brief
period while he wrote Un Coeur Simple. While trying to identify which is authentic Braithwaite
ultimately learns that Flaubert's parrot could be any one of fifty ("Une cinquantaine de
perroquets!", p. 187) that had been held in the collection of the municipal museum.

Although the main focus of the narrative is tracking down the parrot, many chapters exist
independently of this plotline, consisting of Braithwaite's reflections, such as on Flaubert's love
life and how it was affected by trains, and animal imagery in Flaubert's works and the animals
with which he himself was identified (usually a bear, but also a dog, sheep, camel and parrot).

One of the central themes of the novel is subjectivism. The novel provides three sequential
chronologies of Flaubert's life: the first is optimistic (citing his successes, conquests, etc.), the
second is negative (citing the deaths of his friends/lovers, his failures, illnesses etc.) and the third
compiles quotations written by Flaubert in his journal at various points in his life. The attempts to
find the real Flaubert mirror the attempt to find his parrot, i.e. apparent futility.

Novel/Essay

1. Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines (1987)

Summary:

The Songlines is a 1987 book written by Bruce Chatwin, combining fiction and non-fiction.
Chatwin describes a trip to Australia which he has taken for the express purpose of researching
Aboriginal song and its connections to nomadic travel. Discussions with Australians, many of
them Indigenous Australians, yield insights into Outback culture, Aboriginal culture and religion,
and the Aboriginal land rights movement.

Synopsis

In the book Chatwin develops his thesis about the primordial nature of Aboriginal song. The
writing does not shy away from the actual condition of life for present day indigenous
Australians, it does not present the songlines as a new-age fad but from an appreciation of the
art and culture of the people for whom they are the keystone of the Real. While the book's first
half chronicles the main character's travels through Outback Australia and his various
encounters, the second half is dedicated to his musings on the nature of man as nomad and city
builder.

Thesis

The basic idea that Chatwin posits is that language started as song, and the aboriginal Dreamtime
sings the land into existence. A key concept of aboriginal culture is that the aboriginals and the
land are one. By singing the land, the land itself exists; you see the tree, the rock, the path, the
land. What are we if not defined by our environment? And in one of the harshest environments
on Earth one of our oldest civilizations became literally as one with the country. This central
concept then branches out from Aboriginal culture, as Chatwin combines evidence gained there
with preconceived ideas on the early evolution of man, and argues that on the African Savannah
we were a migratory species, moving solely on foot, hunted by a dominant brute predator in the
form of a big cat: hence the spreading of "songlines" across the globe, eventually reaching
Australia (Chatwin notes their trajectory generally moves from north-east to south-west) where
they are now preserved in the world's oldest living culture.