P. H. Newby3.5 This book is the winner of the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969. It was 1956 and he was in Port Said. About these two facts Townrow was reasonably certain. He had been summoned there, to Egypt, by the widow of his deceased friend, Elie Khoury. Having been found dead in the street, she is convinced he was murdered, but nobody seems to agree with her. What of Leah Strauss, the mistress? And of the invading British paratroops? Only an Englishman, surely, would take for granted that the British would have behaved themselves. In this weirdly disorientating world, Townrow is forced towards a re-examination of the basic rules by which he has been living his life; and into a realization that he too may have something to answer for.
Barry England4.0 Two prisoners of war make a daring escape from their captors, fleeing across a hostile and alien terrain towards safety across the border, more than four hundred miles away. Equipped only with the few supplies they are able to steal and with nothing to fall back on but their courage and determination to survive, MacConnachie and Ansell suffer almost unimaginable horrors as their bodies are pushed by heat, hunger, and exhaustion to the limits of endurance. And all the while, they are pursued on foot by enemy soldiers and from above by a black helicopter hovering in the sky, menacing . . . and waiting.
A thrilling, page-turning story of perseverance in the face of almost certain death, Figures in a Landscape (1968) was shortlisted for the inaugural Booker Prize and filmed in 1970 by celebrated director Joseph Losey. This edition features a new introduction by Craig Russell and a reproduction of the iconic jacket art by Tom Adams.
Nicholas Mosley0.0 "The object of life is impossible; one cuts out fabrication and creates reality. A mirror is held to the back of the head and one's hand has to move the opposite way from what was intended."
In these closing lines from Impossible Object, one has embodied both Nicholas Mosley's subject of love and imagination, as well as his unmatched lyric style. In eight carefully connected stories that are joined by introspective interludes on related subjects, the author pursues the notion, through the lives of a couple seen by different narrators, that "those who like unhappy ends can have them, and those who don't will have to look for them."
The impossible object of the title, "the triangle that can exist in two dimensions but not in three," is a controlling symbol for the impossibility of realizing the good life unless one recognizes the impossibility of attaining it: only then can it be possible to realize it, through a kind of renunciation, especially in "a sophisticated, corrupt, chaotic world." Such a provocative theme, comic or tragic by turns, was met by critics in 1968 as brilliant, insightful, intense, and moving, but especially original.
Айрис Мёрдок3.9 Айрис Мердок — самая «английская» писательница XX века, выдающийся мастер тонкой психологии. Книги ее вошли в золотой фонд мировой литературы, удостаивались самых престижных литературных премий, в том числе Букеровской. Каждый ее роман — это своеобразный, замкнутый внутри себя мир, существующий по своим собственным законам, мир, одновременно логичный и причудливый, реалистичный — и в чем-то ирреальный. Действие романа «Лучше не бывает» начинается с загадочного самоубийства министерского чиновника в его кабинете. Служебное расследование, проводимое со всей тщательностью министерским юристом, переплетается с многофигурными любовными коллизиями, а завершается все самым неожиданным образом...
Мюриэл Спарк3.8 Мюриэл Спарк - английская писательница, литературовед. Критикуя мораль и жизненную философию английского современного общества (роман «Баллада о предместье» (1960); повесть «На публику» (1968); рассказы), использует приемы реалистического гротеска.
Gordon M. Williams0.0 Set in a small west of Scotland town in the 1950's, this novel by the author of "Straw Dogs" is the powerful and violent story of Duncan Logan, an adolescent growing up fast in the austere years after the Second World War. His father is brutal, his life seems drab and pointless, and the future looks bleak. As his world begins to crumble around him, Duncan searches desperately for a way out, only to find himself trapped in a downward spiral of betrayal and violence....
