School Book: The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling

It's taken me a bit, but I finally finished the prose retelling of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. I have never read The Canterbury Tales in their entirety, so this was a great opportunity for me. (Previously I have read both the General Prologue and the Miller's tale twice).

But right off the bat, things seemed a bit off. The big problem is that Peter Ackroyd's version is a prose retelling; the original Canterbury Tales is a Middle English poem. Yes, it can be a bit hard to understand for us modern audiences, but a lot is lost in translation. Both the General Prologue and the Miller's Tale seemed quite cut and rather dry compared to the original; they were missing both the clever use of language and the multiple meanings inherent within the original. I was also kind of bothered by the use of swears throughout the prose retelling. They often seemed out of place, particularly in the Miller's tale.

But otherwise this was an enjoyable read. As long as you keep in mind that this is a retelling which is rather different from the original, Peter Ackroyd's version will keep you quite entertained!

School Book: Moon Tiger

I finished reading Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger yesterday and loved every minute of it! Hands down, Moon Tiger is the best book I have read for school this year!

Moon Tiger reminded me of a Margaret Laurence book I read back in high school called Stone Angel. But Moon Tiger was what Stone Angel should have been: Moon Tiger has wonderfully deep characters whom you care about.

Moon Tiger is the story of Claudia, who is dying of cancer. She is planning on writing the history of the world, and is going over her life while she contemplates writing. Claudia shares with us all the major events and people that have coloured her unconventional life.

While Claudia might not be the best mother in the world, she is very interesting and very full of life. She reminded me a bit of Harriet Scrope from Chatterton, but I liked Claudia more. I also liked how her version of events was never priviledged over other people's; whenever Moon Tiger narrated how Claudia saw something, it would immediately give how the other people in her life saw that same event. Moon Tiger is a fantastic glimpse into the different worlds that are people.

Unfortunately, I find myself unable to really describe Moon Tiger in any other words at the moment. So I will just say that it is a fantastic book and I heartily recommend it to everyone! And as far as I am concerned, it definitely deserved to win the Booker Prize of 1987 (it beat out Chatterton!)

School Book: Chatterton

This is the first book all week that I've actually enjoyed. Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton is not something that I would normally decide to read on my own. But after both By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept and Mrs. Dalloway, I was just really happy that it actually had a plot.

Chatterton is an odd tale. It starts off when Charles Wychwood finds an old painting of a middle aged man whose face looks familiar. Charles and his friend Philip recognize the face as Thomas Chatterton, but much older than he should have been. Suddenly, Charles finds himself confronted with the intriguing possibility: what if Chatterton didn't die when he was supposed to, at age 17, but faked his death and kept forging the work of other famous people?

I really liked the many interesting and unique characters, from Charles, the poet who knows he is good but hasn't been discovered yet, to Harriet Scrope, the eccentric author who is failing to write her memoirs. All of them helped to make Chatterton a relatively quick, enjoyable read.