Like many readers these days, I sometimes listen to audiobooks while doing other tasks. A good source for free audiobooks in the public domain is LibriVox. You can download or stream audiobooks from the web site, or you can install an app on your phone or tablet to do the same thing. Here is the basic description of LibriVox from its web site:
Continue readingTag: Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens (English classic)
“A body is found in the Thames and identified as that of John Harmon, a young man recently returned to London to receive his inheritance. Were he alive, his father’s will would require him to marry Bella Wilfer, a beautiful, mercenary girl whom he had never met. Instead, the money passes to the working-class Boffins, and the effects spread into various corners of London society.”
Our Mutual Friend details corruption and falsity in those “various corners of London society” to such a degree that a glimpse of Zion didn’t come easily to me as I read it. In this Babylon-like society, the altruistic mingle with the mercenaries, and distinguishing between them isn’t always simple. One thing that Dickens does well in this novel is show how these types exist at all levels of society and that it is possible for a person to change—sometimes for the better and, just as often, for the worse.
Continue reading
The Devil’s Disciple, by George Bernard Shaw (Irish classic, play)
“Set in Colonial America during the Revolutionary era, the play tells the story of Richard Dudgeon, a local outcast and self-proclaimed ‘Devil’s disciple’. In a twist characteristic of Shaw’s love of paradox, Dudgeon sacrifices himself in a Christ-like gesture despite his professed Infernal allegiance.”
The above description sounds serious, but the play itself is quite satirical. While Dudgeon is certainly a Christ figure, he is an unlikely and irreverent one, although he fills this role in a way I don’t find offensive. I love satire, however, so if you don’t, you might come away from this play with a different opinion. The mix-up of identities that leads to Dudgeon going to the gallows will inevitably remind readers of the switch that occurs between Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. One of the primary differences between Carton and Dudgeon, however, is that Carton acts on feelings of sincere love, and Dudgeon sets out to sacrifice himself for entirely different reasons:
Continue reading
