Tag: Gen Lit

Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Gen Lit, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: Rooftop Soliloquy by Roman Payne

by The Lit Bitch4 Comments on Review: Rooftop Soliloquy by Roman Payne

I just finished reading Roman Payne’s novel Rooftop Soliloquy and I have to say I had great expectations for this book. Payne was selected by Literature Monthly Magazine as one of the top five up and coming- out of the mainstream- authors and his new book RS sounded really interesting.

As some of you might have guessed, I have a flair for the eccentric so this sounded right up my alley and I looked forward to reading it. The opening sentence of the book  made me really want to read it as it sounded intriguing and tantalizing.

As I began the book I was transported back to various locations in Paris that I had the pleasure of visiting this summer. The story reads in a very poetic and lyrical manner, it’s like reading an epic poem like Beowulf or something by Homer. The ‘chapters’ are actually called a soliloquy in stead which I thought was a great little detail which really made the novel authentic. It’s about a writer/composer who is working on a hero’s tale while living in Paris and searching for his muse.

Linguistically and mechanically, the novel is flawless and beautiful- very pleasurable to read. However the story itself, characters, and over-all point of the novel left much to be desired. Continue reading “Review: Rooftop Soliloquy by Roman Payne” →

Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Gen Lit, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

by The Lit Bitch5 Comments on Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I have just finished The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which actually went pretty fast compared to the four novels I read earlier. This collection of short stories was a fun fast read which satisfied my need to read but I did not feel committed to an entire long novel however after the first five short stories I found myself wondering if I was simply re-reading the same story over and over again?

Every short story seemed to follow the same pattern, a client came to see Holmes, he enlisted Watson’s help, Holmes found some small detail in the client’s story that no one else could and made it look easy and eventually he solved the case.

Holmes does have his moments of humor but overall his character seems a little underdeveloped for me. Perhaps when I finish the entire book series he will develop more but really he seems flat.

The one question I kept coming back to throughout this collection was it’s lack of unoriginality. I am sure for most Victorian era readers this was considered very very very fantastic writing and very visionary so I tried to keep that in mind as I read….for the period it was SHOCKINGLY good and different. So I suppose one must not look too far into the essence of the characters and plot line as it much of it is period related but it does get old after a while….I suppose that is why these were published in magazines etc.

Watson starts almost every story with some sort of preface like ‘blah blah blah of all the cases Holmes and I worked together none amazes me more than blah blah blah (I’m paraphrasing horribly here)’ and then he launches into the case. Watson must not get out much or else he has a very bad memory because to him EVERYTHING is amazing!

This leads me to the one question not answered by the books yet…..why DOES Watson start documenting their adventures in the first place? Continue reading “Review: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” →