Rivals Novel Quotes

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I was born to be your rival,' she [Anne] said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters, aren't we?
Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9))
No, to produce ideas you don't have to be a saint. And anyway there are very few true intellectuals. The mass of the educated spend their lives commenting lazily on the ideas of others. They engage their best energies in sadistic practices against every possible rival.
Elena Ferrante (The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novels, #4))
In truth, I did not have to wonder. She would be feeling that disturbing mixture of emotions that she always summoned from me: admiration and envy, pride and a furious rivalry, a longing to see a beloved sister succeed, and a passionate desire to see a rival fall.
Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9))
Good becomes better by playing against better, but better doesn't become the best by playing against good.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
Anne's smile was as sweet as poison. 'What matter? So long as it is a Boleyn girl?' 'I didn't want you to come back to court to be my rival,' I said sulkily. 'I was born to be your rival,' she said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters aren't we?
Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9))
We may be of the same family, but that is the very reason why we are not friends, for we are rivals for the throne. What quarrels are worse than family quarrels?
Philippa Gregory (The Red Queen (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #3))
A literary mystery, a damsel in distress, and his rival deposed. If that doesn't get him here then he's not much of a knight in shining armor.
Charlie Lovett (First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen)
Probably we’d have been better off born in nineteenth-century Russia. I’d have been Prince So-and-so and you Count Such-and-such. We’d go hunting together, fight, be rivals in love, have our metaphysical complaints, drink beer watching the sunset from the shores of the Black Sea. In our later years, the two of us would be implicated in the Something-or-other Rebellion and exiled to Siberia, where we’d die. Brilliant, don’t you think? Me, if I’d been born in the nineteenth century, I’m sure I could have written better novels. Maybe not your Dostoyevsky, but a known second-rate novelist. And what would you have been doing? Maybe you’d only have been Count Such-and-such straight through. That wouldn’t be so bad, just being Count Such-and-such. That’d be nice and nineteenth century.
Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
One of my top ten favorite novels in any category is Stephanie Plowman’s The Road to Sardis, a heartbreaking retelling of the events of the Peloponnesian War, which broke out in 431 B.C. between longtime rivals Athens and Sparta, and lasted for twenty-seven years.
Nancy Pearl (Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason)
The revolutionaries thought they would be destroying vanity when they destroyed the privileges of the noble. But vanity is like a virulent cancer that spreads in a more serious form throughout the body just when one things it has been removed. Who is there left to imitate after the tyrant has been removed. Henceforth men shall copy each other; idolatry of one person is replaced by hatred of a hundred thousand rivals. In Balzac's opinion, too, there is no other god but envy for the modern crowd whose greed is no longer stemmed and held within acceptable limits by the monarch. Men will become gods for each other.
René Girard (Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure)
Gu Mang had been his companion, his rival, his shixiong, his comrade in arms - and in the end, Gu Mang became an enemy he was meant to slaughter.
Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (Remnants of Filth: Yuwu (Novel) Vol. 1)
For him, the writer should be the very devil, a disturber of dreams and wrecker of fatuous utopias, the bringer-in of reality, and rival of God in his wish to make worlds.
Hanif Kureishi (The Last Word: A Novel)
Speaking of novels,’ I said, ‘you remember we decided once, you, your husband and I, that Proust’s rough masterpiece was a huge, ghoulish fairy tale, an asparagus dream, totally unconnected with any possible people in any historical France, a sexual travestissement and a colossal farce, the vocabulary of genius and its poetry, but no more, impossibly rude hostesses, please let me speak, and even ruder guests, mechanical Dostoevskian rows and Tolstoian nuances of snobbishness repeated and expanded to an unsufferable length, adorable seascapes, melting avenues, no, do not interrupt me, light and shade effects rivaling those of the greatest English poets, a flora of metaphors, described—by Cocteau, I think—as “a mirage of suspended gardens,” and, I have not yet finished, an absurd, rubber-and-wire romance between a blond young blackguard (the fictitious Marcel), and an improbable jeune fille who has a pasted-on bosom, Vronski’s (and Lyovin’s) thick neck, and a cupid’s buttocks for cheeks; but—and now let me finish sweetly—we were wrong, Sybil, we were wrong in denying our little beau ténébreux the capacity of evoking “human interest”: it is there, it is there—maybe a rather eighteenth-centuryish, or even seventeenth-centuryish, brand, but it is there. Please, dip or redip, spider, into this book [offering it], you will find a pretty marker in it bought in France, I want John to keep it. Au revoir, Sybil, I must go now. I think my telephone is ringing.
Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire)
Horror is a woman’s genre, and it has been all the way back to the oldest horror novel still widely read today: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, daughter of pioneering feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. Ann Radcliffe’s gothic novels (The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian) made her the highest-paid writer of the late eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Charlotte Riddell were book-writing machines, turning out sensation novels and ghost stories by the pound. Edith Wharton wrote ghost stories before becoming a novelist of manners, and Vernon Lee (real name Violet Paget) wrote elegant tales of the uncanny that rival anything by Henry James. Three of Daphne du Maurier’s stories became Hitchcock films (Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, The Birds), and Shirley Jackson’s singular horror novel The Haunting of Hill House made her one of the highest-regarded American writers of the twentieth century.
Grady Hendrix (Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction)
To devote any time and thought to a rival is to diminish one’s worth. I had my dignity.
Laura Rahme (The Mascherari: A Novel of Venice)
The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York,
Alison Weir (A Dangerous Inheritance: A Novel of Tudor Rivals and the Secret of the Tower)
Tell me this,” Pudge would often ask me, as he sat and read about the exorbitant funeral of a rival. “If he was the guy with all the power, then how come he’s riding in the lead car, stuffed inside a coffin?
Lorenzo Carcaterra (Gangster: A Novel)
Of the rival league of Clan Quhele we have a still less distinct account, for reasons which will appear in the sequel. Some authors have identified them with the numerous and powerful sept of MacKay. If this is done on good authority, which is to be doubted, the MacKays must have shifted their settlements greatly since the reign of Robert III, since they are now to be found (as a clan) in the extreme northern parts of Scotland, in the counties of Ross and Sutherland. We
Walter Scott (The Complete Novels of Sir Walter Scott: Waverly, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, Old Mortality, The Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, The Heart of Midlothian and many more (Illustrated))
The Soul of Man Under Socialism, the most brilliant line of which says that it is capitalism that lays upon men “the sordid necessity of living for others.” Robert Tressell’s novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914) is the only rival to The Jungle
Christopher Hitchens (Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens)
«No, per produrre idee non è necessario essere santi. E comunque gli intellettuali veri sono pochissimi. La massa dei colti commenta pigramente per tutta la vita idee altrui. Le loro migliori energie le impegnano in esercizi di sadismo contro ogni possibile rivale».
Elena Ferrante (The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novels, #4))
The revolutionaries thought they would be destroying vanity when they destroyed the privileges of the noble. But vanity is like a virulent cancer that spreads in a more serious form throughout the body just when one thinks it has been removed. Who is there left to imitate after the "tyrant"? Henceforth men shall copy each other; idolatry of one person is replaced by hatred of a hundred thousand rivals. In Balzac's opinion, too, there is no other god but envy for the modern crowd whose greed is no longer stemmed and held within acceptable limits by the monarch. Men will become gods for each other.
René Girard (Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure)
Pour produire des idées, il n'est pas nécessaire d'être un saint. De tout façon, les vrais intellectuels, il y en a très peu. La plupart des gens cultivés passent leur vie à commenter paresseusement les idées des autres. Leur énergie est principalement consacrée à exercer leur sadisme pour contrer tout rival potentiel.
Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1))
My mom has worked her way down to the court and heads straight over to me. “I’m so proud of you, honey!” “Thanks, Ma, but we lost.” “I don’t care. Just seeing you out there, playing so well. I enjoy it so much.” “Cool.” I love that watching me play makes her happy. I don’t love that it’s one of the only things that makes her happy.
Tommy Greenwald (Rivals: (A Game Changer companion novel))
Henry Fielding’s first novel was published in April 1741 under the name of Mr. Conny Keyber and sold for one shilling and sixpence. Although the author never owned to writing the short satirical novel, it is widely considered to be his work. An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews is a direct attack on the contemporary novel Pamela, published in November 1740, by Fielding’s rival Samuel Richardson.
Henry Fielding (Delphi Complete Works of Henry Fielding (Illustrated))
The Turn of the Screw” has been turned and returned through a large number of critical approaches, perhaps only rivaled in this regard by Hamlet. The spectrum of critical approaches ranges from Freudian, to feminist, to gay, to materialist, partly because the complexity of the first-person narrative lends itself to analysis and partly because the tale also offers an engaging twist on the traditional genre of the ghost story.
Henry James (The Turn of The Screw and Other Short Novels (Signet Classics))
In literature, plays, and cinema, substitutionary sacrifice is always the most riveting and moving plot point. In the movie The Last of the Mohicans, British major Duncan Heyward asks his Indian captors if he might die in the flames so that Cora, whom he loves, and Nathaniel can go free. When, as he is being dragged away, Duncan cries, “My compliments, sir! Take her and get out!” we are electrified by his unflinching willingness to die to save others, one of whom has been his rival. He dies with his arms bound and stretched out, as if he were on a cross. In Ernest Gordon’s memoir of being a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, he recounts how at the end of a day of forced labor the guards counted the shovels, and one was apparently missing. A furious guard threatened the British POWs that unless the guilty person confessed, he would kill them all. He cocked his gun to start shooting them one by one. At that moment, one prisoner stepped forward calmly and said, “I did it.” He stood quietly at attention, and “he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53: 7) as he was beaten to death. When they all got back to the camp and counted the shovels again, it turned out that they were all there. The man had sacrificed himself to save them all. In the first Harry Potter novel, the evil Lord Voldemort can’t touch Harry without being burned. Later Dumbledore explains it to him. “Your mother died to save you. . . . Love as powerful [as that] . . . leaves its own mark. . . . [T]o have been loved so deeply . . . will give us some protection forever.” Why do these stories move us? It’s because we know from the mundane corners of life to the most dramatic that all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice. We know that anybody who has ever done anything that really made a difference in our lives made a sacrifice, stepped in and gave something or paid something or bore something so we would not have to.
Timothy J. Keller (The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God's Mercy)
Before we look at Perkins’s critique and Fitzgerald’s revision, I should say why I chose to discuss Gatsby and not another novel. In truth, the book chose me. When I read it on a whim to see how it matched Berg’s account of its making, I was floored. Every sentence and event felt necessary. Fitzgerald managed to fuse ultramodern prose—taut, symbolic, elliptical—with splendid lyricism: ornate, fluid descriptions of parties, for example, that rival Tolstoy’s descriptions of war. Gatsby is a case study of Flaubertian froideur—the cold that burns. Finally, and heroically, Fitzgerald maintained compassion for a humanity he portrayed in the most sinister terms.
Susan Bell (The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself)
Who in the Hell is Tom Jones?" I was shacked with a 24 year old girl from New York City for two weeks- about the time of the garbage strike out there, and one night my 34 year old woman arrived and she said, "I want to see my rival." she did and then she said, "o, you're a cute little thing!" next I knew there was a screech of wildcats- such screaming and scratch- ing, wounded animal moans, blood and piss. . . I was drunk and in my shorts. I tried to seperate them and fell, wrenched my knee. then they were through the screen door and down the walk and out into the street. squadcars full of cops arrived. a police heli- coptor circled overhead. I stood in the bathroom and grinned in the mirror. it's not often at the age of 55 that such splendid things occur. better than the Watts riots. the 34 year old came back in. she had pissed all over her- self and her clothing was torn and she was followed by 2 cops who wanted to know why. pulling up my shorts I tried to explain. Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye: A Novel. (Ecco; Reprint edition July 29, 2014) Originally published 1982.
Charles Bukowski (Ham on Rye)
Near a stone house, bleached and weathered from salt and the sun, stood an old abandoned school. At its foot, before the house and the school, a rolling vineyard spread out. The boy walked through the vineyard every day on his way back from the school. That day, when Antonio ran to his father, not suspecting the upheaval in his young life, he’d learned from the village teacher about the crusades, religion, ethnicity, and some wicked people, as his classmate had called them. The little boy ran, full of questions, and shouted from a distance: − Father, I’m happy that we live in Sicily! − Why, my son? − We have no wars, no fighting, and if someone attacks us, we have many dangerous people who will protect us from all evils! Aldo took a long stick with a cloth on top, which he used to cool the fruits in the vineyard, turned it on end and drew two circles in the dry soil. He drew a flower in one circle and a sword in the other. Looking at the boy, he asked: − These are the heads of two rivals. Which adversary is good and which is evil? − I don’t know ‒ the little boy replied, knowing that his father was presenting him with a new riddle. − Both opponents are good. One knows his power and the other doesn’t. − But how can a good adversary wield a sword? − One day you’ll understand.
Dushica Labovich (Secret of a Bridge)
A factory it was, rivaling such earlier operations as Beadle & Adams (creators of Victorianera novels by the dozens), the Stratemeyer syndicate (a powerhouse in juvenile thriller books, creators of Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, the Rover Boys, the Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, and others going strong today), and the system that enabled Alexandre Dumas to turn out more than 250 books in his lifetime.
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
The imminent arrival of NT had turned the computer industry on its ear. After outsiders took stock of the first beta, expectations for NT grew. While easy to nitpick over flaws, some heralded the program as a grand achievement likely to alter the destinies of scores of computer and software companies. Those rivals most at risk—IBM, Sun Microsystems and Novell, to name the three biggest—girded themselves against the onslaught. First Boston, a securities firm that advised investors on the industry’s outlook, captured the mood on February 15, 1993, calling NT the “most aggressive new piece of software ever.” Eight
G. Pascal Zachary (Showstopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft)
The explanation is that it is rivals rather than enemies who hamper our beginnings, and it is against them we fight until the great conflicts arise which decide ways of life, modes of thought, and the meaning of history.
Jean d'Ormesson (The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History)
Its track record in services was mixed. iTunes had been a runaway success that had transformed the music industry, but Apple Maps had been a bust. MobileMe, a 2008 online service for email, contacts, and calendar, hadn’t worked, and Siri, Apple’s novel voice assistant, had fallen behind its rivals in performance. In the absence of the next game-changing device, Cook was betting that he could persuade customers to stick with iPhones by getting them as tethered to Apple Music and other services as they had been
Tripp Mickle (After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul)
The novel situation faced by Stephen, and Matilda, and those around them, was the potential of a viable alternative. Nobels rebelled - that was nothing new - but they would generally find themselves reconciled, excuted of exiled. … The exeptional situation in 1136 was that ...From this moment on, anyone who fell out with Stephen could seek out Empress Matilda and promote her cause. There was no imperative to seek a reconciliation with stephen and exile was not the end of the matter either. How could he enforce order amongst his barons when they could simply transfer their support at any moment? Many of the traditional levers available to a king to maintain law and unity were removed from Stephen by the existence of this rival claimant to his throne!
Matthew Lewis (Stephen and Matilda's Civil War: Cousins of Anarchy)
What an opportunity the senior Bachchan lost to make a difference to the prejudiced heads by making a statement against the mangalik nonsense. Oh how small really the Big B is, and how big the media made Diana the small. It’s incredible how her quest for lust was portrayed as her search for love! No faulting her taking a lover on the rebound as her man thrust a rival into her marital life but for the media to picture her bed hopping as her craving for love is galling indeed. Why in picturing Diana as the icon of love the media made lust a synonym of love and what’s worse, it made a villain out of her man who embodies the best of love that is constancy.
B.S. Murthy (Glaring Shadow - A Stream of Consciousness Novel)
When she looked down the hall at Anne and at me it was as if she looked straight through us, as if we were nothing but clear panes of Venetian glass and all she wanted to know was what might be beyond. She did not seem to envy us, nor see us as rivals to her father’s attention or even as a danger to her mother’s place. She saw us as a pair of light women, so insubstantial that the wind might blow us away in a merciful puff. She
Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels #9))
It still remains as the best moment of my sex life.... touching and feeling the bosoms of a girl for the first time is an experience with no near rival.
Nikhil Bhardwaj (O Amor)
When I rose up the queen was looking toward me, not as if I were a rival, but as if I were still her favorite little maid in waiting who might bring her some comfort. She looked at me as if for a moment she would seek someone who would understand the dreadful predicament of a woman, in this world ruled by men. George
Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels #9))
An intellectual rather than a rival alpha male, Gasol preferred opera to rap—he even read Roberto Bolaño’s nine-hundred-page novel “2666,” a gift from Jackson—
Anonymous
however, the round trip was a very long one (fourteen months was in fact well below the average). It was also hazardous: of twenty-two ships that set sail in 1598, only a dozen returned safely. For these reasons, it made sense for merchants to pool their resources. By 1600 there were around six fledgling East India companies operating out of the major Dutch ports. However, in each case the entities had a limited term that was specified in advance – usually the expected duration of a voyage – after which the capital was repaid to investors.10 This business model could not suffice to build the permanent bases and fortifications that were clearly necessary if the Portuguese and their Spanish allies* were to be supplanted. Actuated as much by strategic calculations as by the profit motive, the Dutch States-General, the parliament of the United Provinces, therefore proposed to merge the existing companies into a single entity. The result was the United East India Company – the Vereenigde Nederlandsche Geoctroyeerde Oostindische Compagnie (United Dutch Chartered East India Company, or VOC for short), formally chartered in 1602 to enjoy a monopoly on all Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan.11 The structure of the VOC was novel in a number of respects. True, like its predecessors, it was supposed to last for a fixed period, in this case twenty-one years; indeed, Article 7 of its charter stated that investors would be entitled to withdraw their money at the end of just ten years, when the first general balance was drawn up. But the scale of the enterprise was unprecedented. Subscription to the Company’s capital was open to all residents of the United Provinces and the charter set no upper limit on how much might be raised. Merchants, artisans and even servants rushed to acquire shares; in Amsterdam alone there were 1,143 subscribers, only eighty of whom invested more than 10,000 guilders, and 445 of whom invested less than 1,000. The amount raised, 6.45 million guilders, made the VOC much the biggest corporation of the era. The capital of its English rival, the East India Company, founded two years earlier, was just £68,373 – around 820,000 guilders – shared between a mere 219 subscribers.12 Because the VOC was a government-sponsored enterprise, every effort was made to overcome the rivalry between the different provinces (and particularly between Holland, the richest province, and Zeeland). The capital of the Company was divided (albeit unequally) between six regional chambers (Amsterdam, Zeeland, Enkhuizen, Delft, Hoorn and Rotterdam). The seventy directors (bewindhebbers), who were each substantial investors, were also distributed between these chambers. One of their roles was to appoint seventeen people to act as the Heeren XVII – the Seventeen Lords – as a kind of company board. Although Amsterdam accounted for 57.4 per cent of the VOC’s total capital, it nominated only eight out of the Seventeen Lords.
Niall Ferguson (The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World)
Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object.
C.S. Lewis (The Complete Works of C. S. Lewis: Fantasy Classics, Science Fiction Novels, Religious Studies, Poetry, Speeches & Autobiography: The Chronicles of Narnia, ... Letters, Mere Christianity, Miracles…)
A Belloq?” “Too bad the Hovitos don’t know you the way I do, Belloq!” Alec growled with a grimace, impersonating his favorite movie character. “Indiana Jones’ archenemy, his top rival, the Moriarty to his Sherlock Holmes!
Jim Geraghty (Dueling Six Demons: A Dangerous Clique Novel (The CIA’s Dangerous Clique Book 4))
The next words she said Iris felt in her chest, resounding like a second heartbeat. Words that were destined to bind them together as friends. "I don't want to wake up when I'm seventy-four only to realize I haven't lived.
Rebecca Ross (Divine Rivals: A Novel (Letters of Enchantment, 1))
was my college rival, Gus (though now he went by Augustus, because Serious Man) and his highbrow debut novel The Revelatories.
Emily Henry (Beach Read)
The lion does not constantly war with the leopard; the horse does not war with the cow; even among themselves they rarely kill each other, no matter how important the issue to them.” “But they would,” said Count Roldero, undaunted. “They would if they could anticipate events. They would if they could work out the rate at which the rival animal is consuming food, breeding, expanding its territory.
Michael Moorcock (The Eternal Champion: An Eternal Champion Novel)
My inspiration for this attack was a weapon that had been developed back in a country from my former world known as America. Commonly, they were called “rods from God.” Rods from God was an idea for a weapon that would drop metal rods from satellites orbiting in space. Upon impact, the rods would rival the power of nuclear weapons. There were problems with actually realizing this weapon, though. The cost of placing objects of that mass in space was prohibitive, and even if you did get the projectiles into space, keeping them from burning up in the atmosphere before they reached the ground was an issue as well.
Rui Tsukiyo (The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat, (Light Novel) Vol. 1)
As he absorbs what he is hearing, David muses that just this morning he was taught that fundraising is part of the lifeblood of a private equity firm—and yet here he is working on a secret plan for a version of…immortality. Management fees without the ticking clock of a finite fund life, helping to drive the Firm’s stock price higher as the Firm’s profits increase year after year. The concept is not new; it is inspired by Berkshire Hathaway, the listed investment vehicle led by Warren Buffett. But the application to private equity firms is novel, and at this stage, none of the Firm’s rivals are focused on it.
Sachin Khajuria (Two and Twenty: How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win)
Well, you found me," I said. "I guess you're going to call and report me to Mr. Louis now..." "Eventually," she said, "but first I wanted to tell you that I know how you feel... if you'll stop being a total jerk for two seconds. Can you?" "I don't know," I told her. "My longest period of not being a jerk is only one second, two might be stretching it, but I'll try my best.
Robert G. Culp (Knight School: A Mystic Brats Novel (The Mystic Brat Journals #1))
Three months later, in the month of Ianuarius AD 69, Galba was murdered by his rival Otho, who then set himself up as emperor, removing and killing several friends and confidants of the late emperor. Drusus had escaped Rome just in time.
Betsie A. Gebbia (The Work of Thy Hand A Novel of Early Christianity)
Iris chuckled, slightly embarrassed. “I know, it sounds…” “Like something out of a novel?” Attie offered wryly.
Rebecca Ross (Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1))
The fact was, these issues had become so urgent and feelings ran so high that tolerance was too difficult. All over France the various groups isolated themselves, and didn’t go where they would meet their political rivals.
Upton Sinclair (Wide Is the Gate (The Lanny Budd Novels #4))
STYLE & STRUCTURE LANGUAGE Simple, clear; effectively creates the atmosphere of a world that, on the surface, is down-to-earth and unsophisticated, but that on a deeper level is complex and contains many conflicting forces. NARRATOR Invisible, third-person narrator who emphasizes the thoughts, feelings, and actions of animals. FABLE (Short tale that teaches a moral lesson, with animals as characters.) The animals act in accordance with their animal nature, but their ideas and emotions are those of human beings: Benjamin is skeptical about the chances of improving his lot and feels just as disillusioned about their new society as a human would; Clover, the gentle, patient elderly mare, reacts to tragic events with the compassionate tears of a human being. It is obvious that Orwell sympathizes with the plight of the animals, whether they are ruled by Jones or Napoleon. His treatment of animals makes them believable as individuals, not just as types. IRONY (Use of words to express a meaning opposite to the literal meaning.) Orwell sees the animals’ flaws as well as their positive qualities; treats circumstances of their lives with persuasive irony: the Rebellion occurs not merely because of a bloodthirsty desire for revenge on the animals’ part, but also because Jones has forgotten to feed them and they are desperately hungry. STRUCTURE Ten chapters. Rising action: First five chapters tell of the animals’ Rebellion. Crisis (turning point): Napoleon launches the surprise attack that drives Snowball into exile, thus eliminating a rival for the position of power. The novel’s second half tells how Napoleon firmly establishes his power by making clever use of propaganda and terrorist tactics. Several unexplained events are cleared up as the story develops: why Napoleon took puppies (he raises them as a police force); what happened to the cows’ milk (it is reserved exclusively for the pigs’ use); the reason for the pigs’ moving into farmhouse (they are secretly learning to acquire human habits); the strange negotiations with Foxwood and Pinchfield Farms (Napoleon attempts to deal with humans on terms advantageous to him).
W. John Campbell (The Book of Great Books: A Guide to 100 World Classics)
have to tell that cook to scatter his hits. He’s bunching ’em too much in my direction,” and Tom wiped the tears from his eyes. “To answer your question,” said Professor Bumper, “I will say that I have made partial arrangements for men and animals, and boats if it is found feasible to use them. I’ve been in correspondence with one of the merchants here, and he promised to make arrangements for us.” “When do we leave?” asked Mr. Damon. “As soon as possible. I am not going to risk anything by delay,” and it was evident the professor referred to his young rival whose arrival might be expected almost any time. As the party was about to leave the table, they were approached by a tall, dignified Spaniard who bowed low, rather exaggeratedly low, Ned thought, and addressed them in fairly good English. “Your pardons, Senors,” he began, “but if it will please you to avail yourself of the humble services of myself, I shall have great pleasure in guiding you into the interior. I have at my command both mules and boats.” “How do you know we are going into
Victor Appleton (The Tom Swift MEGAPACK®: 25 Complete Novels)