Dika Araujo từ Pakkiripalayam, Tamil Nadu, India

dikaraujo3dab

05/03/2024

Dữ liệu người dùng, đánh giá và đề xuất cho sách

Dika Araujo Sách lại (10)

2018-05-13 06:31

Little Star - Ngôi Sao Nhỏ Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Hà Mi

Hugh Laurie is...I suppose I should begin by saying I have something of a crush on him. In the beginning he was fantastic in "Blackadder" as the various Georges, then he was extremely fabulous opposite Stephen Fry in "Jeeves and Wooster", and then, having proved himself one of the best comic actors of his generation, he came to America to star in "House", and became not just one of the most versatile actors, but a sex symbol to boot. It was on the strength of this reputation that I started to read The Gun Seller. I finished it because it is a novel of the sort I rarely encounter and seldom have the words to describe. If I were the sort who gave things one line zingers, Hollywood pitch style, I'd say it's "P.G. Wodehouse meets Ian Flemming", and I don't think I'd be far off. Laurie has taken plot elements from spy novels and, discarding Flemming's often wooden prose (have you ever read a Bond book? I have. There's a reason there's not a huge market for them) he infects the whole thing with the humor and energy of a Wodehouse book, and keeps a lovely dark underbelly to the whole thing, because he is a comedian and the one thing comedians do better than anyone else is look at the downside of things. Thomas Lang, once of the British Military Complex but now a sort of free spirit muscle-for-hire, is offered quite a bit of cash to assassinate an American businessman. He says no, and then undertakes to warn the intended target, something he has cause to regret over the next three hundred or so pages. Through the whole thing, he gives both a view of and commentary on the events he experiences, interlacing everything with a rather dark, funny look at human nature. He also gives a refreshing perspective on Americans and Americana, one that most US writers (and to be honest, most Brits as well) either don't see or don't have the courage to write about. Laurie as a writer is notable because he does in many ways what Wodehouse strove to do: cast off cliche and look at everything anew, try to figure out which poetic tropes we refer to work and which should be tossed out with the morning mail. He subverts some idioms and picks at the fabric of others. While the language is wonderful, it is in this vein that the novel occasionally stumbles. At the beginning of one crucial scene, Lang spends several paragraphs nattering on about why we say "day breaks" but "night falls" when perhaps "night breaks" would be more accurate. Wodehousian novels require a certain amount of momentum to carry themselves along, and these moments of introspection (while doubtless serving a point from a literary perspective) provide a bit too much of a stall to the story; picture a paper airplane thrown upwards at a slightly-too-steep incline that, reaching the top of the arc, slows almost to a standstill before turning and falling. Some parts of the book feel like a prolonged series of these peaks and dips. But as I said, I am completely willing to overlook this, because it is in all other respects a tightly plotted, funny, insightful, and above all energetic novel. Someone tell Mr. Laurie to get in the line for high fives - he's totally earned them.

Người đọc Dika Araujo từ Pakkiripalayam, Tamil Nadu, India

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.