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Aetiology vs. teleology~cause vs. goals
Agathon vs. kakon~good vs. evil

“As my Sociology Professor used to emphasise, ‘There is generally one person in every situation you must never underestimate the power of.’”

Now I am struggling with this book for a number of reasons which quite possibly is the fault of the reader, not the writer! It's just the character is so ephemeral, it's like I'm reading about the literary equivalent of "Salomé of the Seven Veils". Ultimately, this is just too hazy a concept, I have to ask: Is this a expanded literary thesis rather than a work of non-fiction?

Chapter 1: 1901-1903.
Commencing with Yuri's mother's funeral at age 10 followed by his father's suicide 2 years later, we meet his other adolescent friends, Nicky Dudorov and Misha Gordon as well as "Holy Oil", Uncle Kolya. Pastoral metaphors abound.
The river blazed in the sun, hurting the eyes. It shimmered, bending and unbending like sheet metal. Suddenly, its surface creased. A big ferry loaded with carts,etc.

The Curtain Blown By The Breeze: 5*

The Go-Away Bird:3.75*

All the People were Mean and Bad: Lucy Caldwell

The eventual winner of the award is a tale about a solo mother travelling back to London from Toronto after a cousin's funeral, accompanied by her toddler. The fraught journey is, however, ameliorated by her compassionate neighbour's behaviour, and the preschool storybook of Noah's Ark, from which the title is drawn. It's a story of emotional depth and nuance, 4.5*

The Children of Heracles: Fleeing from Eurystheus who had enslaved their father, Heracles: the children under the care of the old friend of their father, Iolaus, beg for protection at the temple of Zeus. Denying abduction by an agent of their persecutor, their wishes are granted by Demophon, ruler of Athens, who fights on their behalf but sacrificing M.Iolaus leaves his age and infirmity behind, capturing Eurystheus.

Medea: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' is an idiom that is adapted from a line in William Congreve's play, The Mourning Bride (1697). The line from which it came is 'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

A dangerous woman indeed with quite a track record of murder! Jason, you should have been warned to upset her at your peril!🙄

Alcestis: The title of the play is the queen of Admetus, who has offered herself as a sacrifice to die in his place, when none of his kinsfolk was prepared to be a martyr. After this event occurs, he swears that he would have been better off dying, rather than have years of grief, misery and anguish to look foward to. He fights with his father-in-law but help arrives in the form of Heracles, who performs a miracle!

WMT and me,
Have seen fit to disagree,
Vanities fair pall....

Oh dear, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley, what's happening to your teenage years? Vanquished and surviving suitors, is Becky out of the marriage market?

'The fucking machine makes sense'.

Oh Mr. McEwan, you're such fun....and so naughty!

Poor Jim, he started out as such a promising sailor! Then he became the chief mate on that rust bucket, the Patna, and things went "bump" in the night resulting in his jumping overboard into a fleeing boat with the other officers-the fat Australian captain with German heritage; the alcoholic chief engineer who gets an impressive dose of the "jimjams", ie DTs and the whining second engineer. Marlow acts as counsellor.

The Tender Shoot:
An old roué tells of a glorious autumn love affair with a 15 year old girl & being cursed by his passion. The writing is glorious but amusing!

The Smile of Fortune - a Harbour Story
Think fatal attraction in Mauritius where the protagonist, a freighter captain, has gone to pick up a cargo of sugarcane. He is aggressively courted by a ship-chandler by the name of Jacobus who is the estranged brother of a man to whom he has a letter of introduction from his ship's owners. Temptation arrives in the form of a slovenly sullen vamp of a teenage daughter...

The Képi 5*
Beautiful tragic tale of a love affair rent asunder by a military cap...never better written.

The Rainy Moon: 4*
Fascinating sinister Gothic tale where Colette observes a delusional young woman "convoking" death of an alleged husband in the refracted light of a previous abode. Graphic but unsettling.

The Rendezvous: 4*
Moroccan tale of a lover's tryst which unravelled.

The Patriarch: 5*
Memorable short anecdotes from a rural French GP revolving around putative fathers...

Bella Vista: 4.5*
A delightful but macabre tale of living in a hotel by the Mediterranean inhabited by some very interesting individuals. It certainly made 'The Great Gatsby' appear pedestrian by example; the prose was equally as evocative but the dialogue better.

Gribiche: 3.5*
Poignant, charming tale from her music hall revue days, featuring the 'accident' that befalls 1 of her fellow artistes.