# Burmese Days
U Po Kyin\'s campaign against Dr Veraswami turns out to be intended simply to further his aim of becoming a member of the European Club in Kyauktada. The club has been put under pressure to elect a native member and Dr Veraswami is the most likely candidate. U Po Kyin arranges the escape of a prisoner and plans a rebellion for which he intends that Dr Veraswami should get the blame. The rebellion begins and is quickly put down, but a native rebel is killed by acting Divisional Forest Officer, Maxwell. Uncharacteristically courageous, Flory speaks up for Dr Veraswami and proposes him as a member of the club. At this moment the body of Maxwell, cut almost to pieces with *dahs* by two relatives of the man he had shot, is brought back to the town. This creates tension between the Burmese and the Europeans which is exacerbated by a vicious attack on native children by the spiteful and racist timber merchant, Ellis. A large but ineffectual anti-British riot begins and Flory becomes the hero for bringing it under control with some support by Dr Veraswami. U Po Kyin tries to claim credit but is disbelieved and Dr Veraswami\'s prestige is restored.
Verrall leaves Kyauktada without saying goodbye to Elizabeth and she falls for Flory again. Flory is happy and plans to marry Elizabeth. However, U Po Kyin has not given up. He hires Flory\'s former Burmese mistress to create a scene in front of Elizabeth during the sermon at church. Flory is disgraced and Elizabeth refuses to have anything more to do with him. Overcome by the loss and seeing no future for himself, Flory kills first his dog, and then himself.
Dr Veraswami is demoted and sent to a different district and U Po Kyin is elected to the club. U Po Kyin\'s plans have succeeded and he plans to redeem his life and cleanse his sins by financing the construction of pagodas. He dies of apoplexy before he can start building the first pagoda and his wife envisages him returning to life as a frog or rat. Elizabeth eventually marries Macgregor, the deputy commissioner, and lives happily in contempt of the natives, who in turn live in fear of her, fulfilling her destiny of becoming a \"burra memsahib\", a respectful term given to white European women.


# Burmese Days
- **John (in some editions, James) Flory**: referred to as just \"Flory\" throughout the novel. He is the central character, a timber merchant in his mid-thirties. He has a long, dark blue birthmark that stretches from his eye to the side of his mouth on his left cheek, and he tries to avoid showing people the left side of his face as he thinks the birthmark is hideous. Whenever he is ashamed or looks down upon himself he remembers his birthmark, a symbol of his weakness. He is very friendly with the Indian Dr Veraswami, and appreciates Burmese culture. This brings him into conflict with members of the club, who dislike his slightly radical views. Because of his rather shy personality and the fact that he dislikes quarrels, he is an easy target in arguments, especially with Ellis. This discourages him from fully advocating for the Burmese. He suffers a great deal emotionally because he is infatuated with Elizabeth. All he can think about is Elizabeth but they have conflicting interests and she does not reciprocate the love. Flory supports the Burmese whereas Elizabeth regards them as beasts. Flory wants Elizabeth to appreciate him, especially with his hindering birthmark, yet he wants to support the Burmese. Due to his indecisive personality he is caught between supporting the Burmese and the English. After Elizabeth leaves Flory the second time, he commits suicide.
- **Elizabeth Lackersteen**: An unmarried English girl who has lost both her parents and comes to stay with her remaining relatives, the Lackersteens, in Burma. Before her flighty mother died, they had lived together in Paris. Her mother fancied herself an artist, and Elizabeth grew to hate the Bohemian lifestyle and cultural connections. Elizabeth is 22, \'tallish for a girl, slender\", with fashionably short hair and wears tortoise shell glasses. Throughout the novel, she seeks to marry a man because her aunt keeps pressuring her and she idolises wealth and social class, neither of which she could achieve without a husband during this time period. When she first meets Flory, he falls in love because he values white women over Burmese women. After leaving Flory for the first time, she courts Verrall, who leaves her abruptly without saying goodbye. The second time she leaves Flory (and following his suicide), she marries Deputy Commissioner MacGregor.
- **Mr Lackersteen**: Elizabeth\'s uncle and Mrs Lackersteen\'s husband. Lackersteen is the manager of a timber firm. He is a heavy drinker whose main object in life is to have a \"good time\". However his activities are curtailed by his wife who is ever watching \"like a cat over a bloody mousehole\" because ever since she returned after leaving him alone one day to find him surrounded by three naked Burmese girls, she does not trust him alone. Lackersteen\'s lechery extends to making sexual advances towards his niece, Elizabeth.
- **Mrs Lackersteen**: Elizabeth\'s aunt and Mr Lackersteen\'s wife. Mrs Lackersteen is \"a woman of about thirty-five, handsome in a contourless, elongated way, like a fashion plate\". She is a classic memsahib, the title used for wives of officials in the Raj. Neither she nor her niece have taken to the alien country or its culture. (In *Burmese Days* Orwell defines the memsahib as \"yellow and thin, scandal mongering over cocktails---living twenty years in the country without learning a word of the language.\"). And because of this, she strongly believes that Elizabeth should marry an upper-class man who can provide her with a home and accompanying riches. She pesters Elizabeth into finding a husband: first she wants her to wed Verrall, then after he leaves, Flory.
- **Dr Veraswami**: An Indian doctor and a good friend of Flory. He has nothing but respect for the Britons living in Burma and often makes a point of vocally expressing his support for British colonial rule when he can, even though many in the European community, including Ellis, don\'t respect him. Veraswami and Flory often discuss various topics, with Veraswami presenting the British point of view and Flory taking the side of the Burmese. Dr Veraswami is targeted by U Po Kyin in pursuit of membership of the European club. Dr Veraswami wants to become a member of the club so that it will give him prestige which will protect him from U Po Kyin\'s attempts to exile him from the district. Because he respects Flory, he does not pester him to get him admitted into the club. Eventually U Po Kyin\'s plan to exile Dr Veraswami comes through. He is sent away to work in another run-down hospital elsewhere.
- **U Po Kyin**: A corrupt and cunning magistrate who is hideously overweight, but perfectly groomed and wealthy. He is 56 and the \"U\" in his name is his title, which is an honorific in Burmese society. He feels he can commit whatever wicked acts he wants---cheat people of their money, jail the innocent, abuse young girls---because although, \"According to Buddhist belief those who have done evil in their lives will spend the next incarnation in the shape of a rat, frog, or some other low animal\", he intends to provide against these sins by devoting the rest of his life to good works such as financing the building of pagodas, \"and balance the scales of karmic justice\". He continues his plans to attack Dr Veraswami, instigating a rebellion as part of the exercise, to make Dr Veraswami look bad and eliminate him as a potential candidate of the club, so he can secure the membership for himself. He believes his status as a member of the club will cease the intrigues that are directed against him. He loses pre-eminence when Flory and Vereswami suppress the riot. After Flory dies, Kyin becomes a member of the European Club. Shortly after his admission into the club he dies, unredeemed, before the building of the pagodas. \"U Po has advanced himself by thievery, bribery, blackmail and betrayal, and his corrupt career is a serious criticism of both the English rule that permits his success and his English superiors who so disastrously misjudge his character\".
- **Ma Hla May**: Flory\'s Burmese mistress who has been with him for two years before he meets Elizabeth. Ma Hla May believes herself to be Flory\'s unofficial wife and takes advantage of the privileges that come along with being associated with the European community in Burma. Flory has been paying her expenses throughout their time together. However, after he becomes enchanted with Elizabeth, he informs her that he no longer wants anything to do with her. Ma Hla May is distraught and repeatedly blackmails him. Once thrown out of Flory\'s house, the other villagers dissociate themselves from her and she cannot find herself a husband to support her. Encouraged by U Po Kyin, who has an alternate agenda to ruin Flory\'s reputation within the club, she approaches Flory in front of the Europeans and creates a dramatic scene so everyone knows of his intimacy with her. This outburst taints Elizabeth\'s perception of Flory for good. Eventually she goes to work in a brothel elsewhere.
- **Ko S\'la**: Flory\'s devoted servant since the day he arrived in Burma. They are close to the same age and Ko S'la has since taken care of Flory. Though he serves Flory well, he does not approve of many of his activities, especially his relationship with Ma Hla May and his drinking habits. He believes that Flory should get married. Flory has remained in the same reckless state that he was in upon arriving in Burma. In Ko S'la\'s eyes, Flory is still a boy. Ko S'la, on the other hand, has moved on with his life as he has taken wives and fathered five children. He pities Flory due to his childish behaviour and his birthmark.
- **Lieutenant Verrall**: A military policeman who has a temporary posting in the town. He is everything that Flory is not---young, handsome, privileged. He is the youngest son of a peer and looks down on everyone, making no concessions to civility and good manners. His only concern while in town is playing polo. He takes no notice of a person\'s race, everyone is beneath him. Verrall is smug and self-centered. Encouraged by her aunt, Elizabeth pursues Verrall as a suitor, but he uses her only for temporary entertainment. In the end, he vanishes from town without a word to Elizabeth.
- **Mr Macgregor**: Deputy Commissioner and secretary of the club. He is upright and well-meaning, although also pompous and self-important. U Po Kyin contacts Mr Macgregor through anonymous letters as he continues his attacks on Dr Veraswami to gain a position in the club. As one of the only single men left in the town, he marries Elizabeth.
- **Ellis**: A spiteful and violent racist who manages a timber company in upper Burma. He is a vulgar and rude member of the club who likes to stir up scandals. Ellis firmly maintains that the Burmese people are completely incapable of ruling the country themselves. His hatred of the Burmese culture causes some clashes with Flory due to Flory\'s friendliness with the Burmese, especially Dr Veraswami. Ellis is in support of U Po Kyin\'s plan to ruin the reputation of Dr Veraswami and needs no evidence whatsoever of Dr Veraswami\'s guilt.
- **Francis and Samuel:** Francis is a Eurasian clerk to an Indian money lender, whilst Samuel is a clerk to some of the pleaders. Both are sons of Christian missionaries, the book explores attitudes towards their mixed heritage.


# Burmese Days
Orwell biographer D. J. Taylor notes that \"the most striking thing about the novel is the extravagance of its language: a riot of rococo imagery that gets dangerously out of hand.\"
Another of Orwell\'s biographers, Michael Shelden, notes that Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham and E. M. Forster have been suggested as possible influences, but believes also that \"the ghost of Housman hangs heavily over the book.\" The writers Stansky and Abrahams, while noting that the character Flory probably had his roots in Captain Robinson, a cashiered ex-officer whom Orwell had met in Mandalay, \"with his opium-smoking and native women\", affirmed that Flory\'s \"deepest roots are traceable to fiction, from Joseph Conrad\'s *Lord Jim* through all those Englishmen gone to seed in the East which are one of Maugham\'s better-known specialities.\"
Jeffrey Meyers, in a 1975 guide to Orwell\'s work, wrote of the E. M. Forster connection that, \"*Burmese Days* was strongly influenced by *A Passage to India*, which was published in 1924 when Orwell was serving in Burma. Both novels concern an Englishman\'s friendship with an Indian doctor, and a girl who goes out to the colonies, gets engaged and then breaks it off. Both use the Club scenes to reveal a cross-section of colonial society, and both measure the personality and value of the characters by their racial attitudes\...But *Burmese Days* is a far more pessimistic book than *A Passage to India*, because official failures are not redeemed by successful personal relations.\"
Orwell himself was to note in *Why I Write* (1946) that \"I wanted to write enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings, full of detailed descriptions and arresting similes, and also full of purple passages in which my words were used partly for the sake of their sound. And in fact my first complete novel, *Burmese Days*\...is rather that kind of book.\"


# Burmese Days
### Colonialism
Each of the characters in the novel hold differing views towards colonialism, influenced by their background and status in society. According to University of Singapore scholar Steven L. Keck, the novel\'s depiction of colonialism led it to become \"a part of the mythology of imperial experience not only for Burma, but for the British Empire as a whole\". *Burmese Days* takes place during a period of Burmese history when it was under British colonial rule, and Orwell intended the novel to serve as a critique of colonialism, both in the effects it had on the Burmese and the British. Colonial society in Burma is depicted as being divided on racial lines, \"with the Europeans exploiting both the land and peoples of Burma, while finding that the cost of exile and isolation was to fight a continuous battle against despair\"; the Burmese and Indians, on the other hand, are depicted as both supportive and opposed to colonial rule. Keck speculated that the fact that the Saya San peasant rebellion was ongoing during the period influenced Orwell\'s pessimistic attitude towards colonialism.
*Burmese Days* frequently uses characters in the novel to illustrate larger arguments about colonial rule. When Flory, someone who had grown disillusioned with colonialism, enters into a debate with Dr Veraswami about British colonial rule, each makes several points about the effects of colonialism in Burma. Flory charges that the British are only interested in Burma due to the economic opportunities the colony provides, and are living a \"lie that we\'re here to uplift our poor black brothers rather than to rob them\". Dr Veraswami counters that British rule has improved Burma, pointing to the levels of infrastructure, healthcare and education in the colony. Veraswami also notes how if it were not a British colony, he would not have been able to become a doctor in Burma. Their argument continues, but are unable to come to an agreement and ends inconclusively.


# Burmese Days
### Colonialism
The novel also explored the status of Burma as being part of the British Raj instead of being a separate colony. Burmese scholar Maung Htin Aung, in an article written about *Burmese Days*, claimed that the novel served as a \"valuable historical document\" due to the fact that it "recorded
vividly the tensions that prevailed in Burma, and the mutual suspicion, despair and disgust that crept into Anglo-Burmese relations as the direct result of the Government of India Act leaving out Burma from the course of its reforms".

### Isolation
The character of Flory, a *Pukka sahib*, serves as an emblematic depiction of the isolation faced by the European community in colonial-era Burma, a topic Orwell also explored in his short story *Shooting an Elephant*. He is torn between his fascination with Burmese culture, which sees him attempt to befriend several Burmese, and his role as a colonial teak merchant (ensuring that, as a member of the ruling class, he can never become intimately familiar with such a culture). He also defends the Burmese and sympathizes with various issues they face in the argument with Dr Veraswami, confirming his disillusion with colonialism which isolates him from the European community. Flory aims to satisfy both the Burmese and the Europeans while ultimately pleasing neither, further confirming his isolation.


# Burmese Days
### Racism
The theme of racism frequently appears in *Burmese Days*, being depicted in the interactions between the three primary ethnic groups in Burma- the Europeans, Indians and Burmese. The European gentleman\'s club in which Flory spends a significant portion of the novel in, holds a debate on whether or not to admit a \"native\" (referring to Burmese people) into the club, with the violent and spiteful racist Ellis immediately objecting and declaring that he will never share a club with \"natives\". Racism remains a strong theme throughout the novel, with the European community in Burma frequently expressing racist attitudes towards the Indians and Burmese they interact with. In the view of Keck, the depiction of racism in *Burmese Days* has been cited by numerous historians \"as a means to explore some of the more important features of modern history\".
Harpers brought out *Burmese Days* in the US on 25 October 1934, in an edition of 2,000 copies. In February 1935, just four months after publication, 976 copies were remaindered. The only American review that Orwell himself saw, in the *New York Herald Tribune*, by Margaret Carson Hubbard, was unfavourable: \"The ghastly vulgarity of the third-rate characters who endure the heat and talk ad nausea of the glorious days of the British Raj, when fifteen lashes settled any native insolence, is such that they kill all interest in their doings.\" A positive review however came from an anonymous writer in the *Boston Evening Transcript*, for whom the central figure was, \"analyzed with rare insight and unprejudiced if inexorable justice\", and the book itself praised as full of \"realities faithfully and unflinchingly realised.\"
On its publication in Britain, *Burmese Days* earned a review in the *New Statesman* from Cyril Connolly as follows:


# Burmese Days
### Racism
Burmese Days is an admirable novel. It is a crisp, fierce, and almost boisterous attack on the Anglo-Indian. The author loves Burma, he goes to great length to describe the vices of the Burmese and the horror of the climate, but he loves it, and nothing can palliate for him, the presence of a handful of inefficient complacent public school types who make their living there\... I liked it and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a spate of efficient indignation, graphic description, excellent narrative, excitement, and irony tempered with vitriol.
Orwell received a letter from the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer as follows
Will you allow me to tell you how very much indeed I admire your novel *Burmese Days*: it seems to me an absolutely admirable statement of fact told as vividly and with as little bitterness as possible.
It was as a result of these responses that Orwell renewed his friendship with Connolly, which was to give him useful literary connections, a positive evaluation in *Enemies of Promise* and an outlet on *Horizon*. He also became a close friend of Gorer.
In 2013, the Burmese Ministry of Information named the new translation (by Maung Myint Kywe) of *Burmese Days* the winner of the 2012 Burma National Literature Award\'s \"informative literature\" (translation) category. The National Literary Awards are the highest literary awards in Burma.
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# A Clergyman's Daughter
***A Clergyman\'s Daughter*** is a 1935 novel by English author George Orwell. It tells the story of Dorothy Hare, the clergyman\'s daughter of the title, whose life is turned upside down when she suffers an attack of amnesia. It is Orwell\'s most formally experimental novel, featuring a chapter written entirely in dramatic form, but he was never satisfied with it and he left instructions that after his death it was not to be reprinted. Despite these instructions, Orwell did consent to the printing of cheap editions \"of any book which may bring in a few pounds for my heirs\" following his death.
After Orwell returned from Paris in December 1929 he used his parents\' house in Southwold as his base for the next five years. Southwold is a small provincial town on the east Suffolk coast.
The family was well established in the local community and he became acquainted with many local people. His sister Avril was running a teashop in the town. Brenda Salkeld, a gym teacher at St Felix School and the daughter of a clergyman, was to remain a friend and regular correspondent about his work for many years, although she rejected his proposal of marriage.
Rana Balaj was tutoring Orwell and Orwell was writing at Southwold, and resumed his sporadic expeditions going undercover as a tramp in and around London. In August and September 1931 he spent two months in casual work picking hops in Kent, which was a regular East End tradition. During this time he lived in a hopper hut like the other pickers, and kept a journal in which \"Ginger\" and \"Deafie\" are described. Much of this journal found its way into *A Clergyman\'s Daughter*.
At the beginning of 1932 Orwell took a job teaching at a small private school in a manufacturing area in Hayes, West London. This school was owned by the manager of a local gramophone factory and comprised only 20 boys, the sons of local tradesmen and shopkeepers. Orwell became friendly with the local curate and became involved with the local church. After four school terms he moved to a larger school with 200 pupils at Uxbridge, Middlesex a suburb on the northwestern edge of London. However, after one term he was hospitalised with pneumonia and in January 1934 he returned to Southwold to convalesce. He never returned to teaching.


# A Clergyman's Daughter
Orwell started writing *A Clergyman\'s Daughter* in mid-January 1934 and finished it by 3 October 1934. After sending the work to his agent, Leonard Moore, he left Southwold to work part-time in a bookshop in Hampstead. After various last-minute alterations for fear of libel, Gollancz published *A Clergyman\'s Daughter* on 11 March 1935.

### Title
Christopher Hitchens, author of the book *Why Orwell Matters*, speculated that Orwell took the title of the novel from James Joyce\'s 1922 novel *Ulysses*.
How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you when you were hungry?
Marry, I wanted it.
Take thou this noble.
Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson\'s bed, **clergyman\'s daughter**. Agenbite of inwit.
It has also been suggested that Orwell took the title from D. H. Lawrence\'s 1915 novel *The Rainbow*:*Miss Inger was a Bachelor of Arts, who had studied at Newnham. She was **a clergyman\'s daughter**, of good family.*
The story is told in five distinct chapters.

### Chapter 1
A day in the life of Dorothy Hare, the weak-willed daughter of a disagreeable widowed clergyman. Her father is Rector of Knype Hill, a small town in East Anglia. She keeps house for him, fends off creditors, visits parishioners and makes costumes for fund-raising events. Throughout she practises mortification of flesh to be true to her faith. In the evening she is invited to dinner by Mr Warburton, Knype Hill\'s most disreputable resident, a middle-aged bachelor who is an unashamed lecher and atheist. He attempts to seduce Dorothy, having previously tried once to force his attentions on her and using any opportunity to \"make casual love to her\". As she leaves he forces another embrace on her and they are seen by Mrs Semprill, the village gossip and scandal-monger. Dorothy returns home to her conservatory late at night to work on the costumes.


# A Clergyman's Daughter
### Chapter 2
Dorothy is transposed to the New Kent Road with amnesia. Eight days of her life are unaccounted for. She joins a group of vagrants, comprising a young man named Nobby and his two friends, who relieve her of her remaining half-crown and take her with them on a hop-picking expedition in Kent.
Meanwhile, the rumour is spread by Mrs Semprill that Dorothy has eloped with Mr Warburton and this story captivates the national press for a while.
After hard work in the hop fields, culminating in Nobby\'s arrest for theft, Dorothy returns to London with her negligible earnings. As a single girl with no luggage, she is refused admission at \"respectable\" hotels and ends up in a cheap hotel for \"working girls\" (prostitutes). Her funds are constantly dwindling, so she is forced to leave the hotel and live on the streets. She takes up residence in Trafalgar Square.

### Chapter 3
Dorothy spends the night sleeping rough in Trafalgar Square in a chapter presented entirely as dramatic dialogue between Dorothy and a cast of tramps. The vagrants discuss the difficulties of life on the road, including paying for hot water, finding food, avoiding police, and prostitution. Mr Tallboys, a defrocked minister, performs a mock-religious ritual as Dorothy dreams of \"monstrous winged shapes of Demons and Archdemons.\" After spending ten days on the streets, she is arrested for vagrancy and ends up in a police cell for twelve hours for failure to pay the fine.

### Chapter 4
Dorothy believes that her father, distraught at the rumours of her running away with Mr Warburton, has ignored her letters for help. In fact he has contacted his cousin Sir Thomas Hare, whose servant locates her at the police station. Hare\'s solicitor procures a job for her as a \"schoolmistress\" in a small \"fourth-rate\" private girls\' \"academy\" run by the grasping Mrs Creevy. Dorothy\'s attempts to introduce a more liberal and varied education to her students clash with the expectations of the parents, who want a strictly \"practical\" focus on handwriting and basic mathematics. The work, which initially she enjoys, quickly becomes drudgery. Mrs Creevy eventually dismisses her, without notice, when she finds another teacher.


# A Clergyman's Daughter
### Chapter 5
Shortly after Dorothy steps out of the door of the school Mr Warburton turns up in a taxi to say that Mrs Semprill has been charged with slander, and that her malicious gossip has been discredited. He has come, therefore, to take her back to Knype Hill. On the trip home he proposes marriage. Dorothy rejects him, recognising but disregarding his argument that, with her loss of religious faith, her existence as a hard-working clergyman\'s daughter will be meaningless and dull, and that marriage while she is still young is her only escape. It is suggested (here and earlier in the novel) that another reason for Dorothy\'s refusal of Warburton\'s proposal is her sexual repression. The story ends with Dorothy back in her old routine, but without the self-mortification.


# A Clergyman's Daughter
### Chapter 5
- Dorothy Hare -- a spinster in her late twenties (28 at first), she lacks the ability to direct her own life and ends up as a trapped victim in every situation. She is successively dependent upon her father for a home, upon a fellow transient (Nobby) for means of survival and direction, upon fellow pickers for food in the hop fields, upon her father\'s cousin to find her employment, upon Mrs Creevy whose school appears to offer the only job available to her, and finally upon Mr Warburton to bring her home.
- Rev. Charles Hare -- Dorothy\'s father, he is a self-centred clergyman whose spirituality and charity exist only in formal terms. He believes that tradesmen and the working class are beneath him, and refuses to pay them. He has some money, albeit dwindling, in stocks, and accumulates gargantuan debts.
- Mr Warburton -- an easy-going and friendly bachelor in his late forties. He has three illegitimate children (whom he refers to as \"the bastards\") by his Spanish mistress, Dolores. He is seen as highly immoral.
- Mrs Evelina Semprill -- Knype Hill\'s malicious gossip monger, she gets her comeuppance when she is sued for libel.
- Nobby -- a vagrant who lives by begging, casual work and petty crime. He is eventually arrested for theft while working in the hop fields.
- Sir Thomas Hare, a \"good-hearted, chuckle-headed\" baronet -- a caricature Wodehousian aristocrat.
- Mrs Creevy -- the mean proprietress of a small school -- she is tight-fisted and enjoys minor victories at the expense of others.


# A Clergyman's Daughter
### Chapter 5
Dorothy is economically pressed to work extremely hard. Her low earnings, in all cases, restrict her escape and function to perpetuate her dependent state. Orwell draws a picture of systematic forces that preserve the bound servitude in each setting. He uses Dorothy\'s fictitious endeavours to criticise certain institutions. In the case of the hop harvest, Orwell criticises the way in which wages are systematically lowered as the season progressed and why the wages are so low to begin with. He describes the life of a manual labourer, down to the constant state of exhaustion that somehow eliminates any potential to question circumstances. Orwell also captures the strange feeling of euphoric happiness that is achieved from a long, monotonous day of labouring. He describes the attitude of the seasonal worker who vows not to return the following year, but somehow forgets about the hardship and remembers only the positive side during the off season, and inevitably returns.
In the case of the private-school system in the England of Orwell\'s era, he delivers a two-page critique of how capitalistic interests have rendered the school system useless and absurd. His attack on the commercial imperative is conveyed in Mrs Creevy\'s primary focus: \"It\'s the fees I\'m after,\" she says, \"not developing the children\'s minds\". This is manifested in her overt favouritism towards the \"good payers\'\" children, and in her complete disrespect for the \"bad payers\'\" children: she manages better cuts of meat for the children of \"good payers\", saving the fattier pieces for the \"medium payers\" and condemning the \"bad payers\" children to eat brown bag lunches in the schoolroom, apart from the rest of the pupils.


# A Clergyman's Daughter
### Chapter 5
The novel also explores the role of religion and charitable giving. Dorothy questions her religious beliefs throughout the novel, concluding that there is \"no possible substitute for faith; no pagan acceptance of life as sufficient to itself; no pantheistic cheer-up stuff, no pseudo-religion of \'progress\' with visions of glittering Utopias and ant-heaps of steel and concrete. It was all or nothing. Either life on earth is a preparation for something greater and more lasting, or it is meaningless, dark and dreadful.\" For Richard Smyer, the novel represents England\'s \"spiritual dryness\" in modernity and Dorothy\'s awareness of the \"gap between genuine Christianity and a money-worshipping society . . . in the city, only one commandment is respected: \'Thou shalt not lose thy job.\'\"
The book is largely experimental. The novel contains an interlude, the night scene in Trafalgar Square, written under the influence of James Joyce, specifically the \"Nighttown\" scenes in *Ulysses*. In a letter to Brenda Salkeld Orwell himself disowned the novel as \"tripe \... except for chap 3, part 1, which I am pleased with\". He prevented it from being reprinted during his lifetime. In a letter to Henry Miller a week after the book\'s publication in the United States (August 1936) Orwell described the book as \"bollocks\", though he added that he felt that he had made some useful experiments with it.
In a letter to George Woodcock dated 28 September 1946 Orwell noted that there were two or three books he had written that he was ashamed of and called *A Clergyman\'s Daughter* even worse than *Keep the Aspidistra Flying*, as \"it was written simply as an exercise and I oughtn\'t to have published it, but I was desperate for money\". The poet and novelist Vincent McHugh, reviewing the novel for the *New York Herald Tribune Books* in 1936, declared that it had affinities with the work of George Gissing, a writer whom Orwell greatly admired, and placed the novel in a particular tradition, that of Dickens and Gissing: \"Mr Orwell too writes of a world crawling with poverty, a horrible dun flat terrain in which the abuses marked out by those earlier writers have been for the most part only deepened and consolidated. The stages of Dorothy\'s plight -- the coming to herself in the London street, the sense of being cut off from friends and the familiar, the destitution and the cold -- enact -- the nightmare in which one may be dropped out of respectable life, no matter how debt-laden and forlorn, into the unthinkable pit of the beggar\'s hunger and the hopelessly declassed.\"


# A Clergyman's Daughter
### Chapter 5
According to Orwell biographer D. J. Taylor:
The book was translated into Thai as *Lok Khong Khru Sao* (โลกของครูสาว) by Sunantha Laojan (สุนันทา เหล่าจัน) and first published in 1975 by Kledthai Publishers.
It was first translated into Russian by Kenneth MacInnes and Vera Domiteeva (1994) and released by Azbooka Publishers (2004) and Astrel (2011).
There was no French version of *A Clergyman\'s Daughter* until 2007, when Silvain Chupin\'s translation was published by Éditions du Rocher.
Also the book was translated into Ukrainian (2021) by Mariia Holovko, publisher Vydavnytstvo Jupanskogo.
- George Orwell bibliography


# Maskerade
***Maskerade*** is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the eighteenth book in the *Discworld* series. The witches Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg visit the Ankh-Morpork Opera House to find Agnes Nitt, a girl from Lancre, and get caught up in a story similar to *The Phantom of the Opera*.
The story begins with Agnes Nitt leaving Lancre to seek a career at the Opera House in Ankh-Morpork, recently purchased by Seldom Bucket, formerly a cheesemonger. When Granny Weatherwax realizes Nanny Ogg has written an immensely popular \"cookbook\" but has not been paid by the publisher (and that the nom de plume of \'A Lancre Witch\' may lead people to believe that she rather than Nanny wrote it), the witches leave for Ankh-Morpork to collect the money. They also hope to recruit Agnes into their coven, to replace Magrat Garlick who left the coven when she became Queen of Lancre (in *Lords and Ladies*). This has the side benefit of distracting Granny from becoming obsessive and self-centered, or so Nanny believes to her great relief. En route, they meet Henry Slugg, an Ankh-Morporkian opera singer who adopted a Brindisian persona of Enrico Basilica to further his career but yearns for Ankh-Morporkian cuisine after years of Brindisian pasta, squid and tomato sauce; and Granny makes a deal with Death for him not to claim the fatally-ill son of an innkeeper.
Agnes Nitt is chosen as a member of the chorus, where she meets Christine, a more popular but less talented girl whose father lent Bucket large sums of money to purchase the Opera House. The Opera House Ghost, who has long haunted the opera house without much incident, begins to commit seemingly random murders staged as \"accidents\", and also requests that Christine be given lead roles in several upcoming productions. Due to her incredibly powerful, versatile and possibly magical voice, Agnes is asked to sing the parts from the background, unbeknownst to Christine or the audience.


# Maskerade
Having discovered the problems at the Opera House and also having coerced the publisher to pay Nanny richly for her book, the witches investigate the mystery, with Granny posing as a rich patron, Nanny insinuating herself into the opera house staff, and Greebo being transmogrified into human form (as during *Witches Abroad*) to pose as Granny\'s companion. Agnes unmasks Walter Plinge, the janitor, as the ghost, though as he is seemingly harmless, the others are unconvinced. Andre, another employee, is suspected, but he turns out to be a Cable Street Particular. Granny determines that the finances of the Opera House, which are a complete mess, have been made so intentionally in order to hide the fact that money is being stolen, with the murders being used either as a distraction or to cover the evidence.
It is finally revealed that two people had been masquerading as the ghost. The original (and harmless) ghost, Walter Plinge, was being psychologically manipulated and blackmailed by the second ghost, Mr Salzella (Director of Music at the Opera House), who assumed the identity to commit the murders and theft. With the witches\' help, Walter is able to overcome his fears and help defeat the murderer, who is killed by believing that the fencing staged in opera is actual lethal swordplay, dying despite not actually being injured. Walter then goes on to become the new Director of Music, integrating his own music into the opera, turning them into musicals. Slugg, decidedly abandoning his Enrico Basilica persona after being assaulted and concussed by Salzella, reunites with Angeline Lawsy, his childhood sweetheart, and is introduced to his long-lost son Henry Lawsy. Agnes returns to Lancre to learn how to be a witch from Granny and to serve as the third member of the Lancre Coven.
- Perdita
- Christine, a parody of Christine Daae
- Walter Plinge, a parody of Michael Crawford
- Mrs. Plinge
- Salzella
- Seldom Bucket
- Dr. Undershaft
- The Opera Ghost
- Enrico Basilica
- Nanny Ogg
- Greebo
- Granny Weatherwax
- André
- The Librarian
- Death


# Maskerade
A stage adaptation by Hana Burešová and Štěpán Otčenášek (partly using adaptation by Stephen Briggs) premiered in Divadlo v Dlouhé, Prague in April 2006. Pratchett attended the closing performance five years later.
*BuzzFeed* listed *Maskerade* as the 11th-best Discworld novel, noting that \"it works well as a parody of the tropes of opera, and as a murder mystery\".
- *Envoyer* (German) (Issue 3 - Jan 1997)


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
***Northern Lights**\'\' (titled***The Golden Compass**\'\' in North America and some other countries) is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published in 1995 by Scholastic UK. Set in a parallel universe, it follows the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned uncle, Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as \"Dust\".
*Northern Lights* is the first book of the trilogy, *His Dark Materials* (1995 to 2000). Alfred A. Knopf published the first US edition April 1996, under the name *The Golden Compass*, under which title it was adapted as a 2007 feature film and as a companion video game. The book has also been adapted as a TV series in 2019 under the name *His Dark Materials*.
Pullman won the 1995 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year\'s outstanding British children\'s book. For the 70th anniversary of the Medal, it was named one of the top ten winning works by a panel, composing the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. *Northern Lights* won the public vote from that shortlist and was thus named the all-time \"Carnegie of Carnegies\" on 21 June 2007.

### Setting
The setting is a world dominated by the Magisterium (commonly called \"the Church\"), an international theocracy which actively suppresses heresy. In this world, humans\' souls naturally exist outside of their bodies in the form of sentient \"dæmons\" in animal form which accompany, aid, and comfort their humans. An important plot device is the alethiometer, a truth-telling symbol reader. By setting the alethiometer\'s hands to point to symbols around a dial a skilled practitioner can pose questions, which are answered by the movement of a further hand.


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
### Plot
Twelve-year-old Lyra Belacqua runs wild with her dæmon Pantalaimon around Jordan College, Oxford, under the guardianship of the college\'s Master. One day, she witnesses the Master poison wine intended for Lord Asriel, Lyra\'s rebellious and adventuring uncle. She warns Asriel not to drink the wine, then spies on his lecture about \"Dust\", mysterious elementary particles attracted to adults more than to children. Asriel shows the college scholars images of a parallel universe seen through the Northern Lights amidst a concentration of Dust. The scholars agree to fund his controversial research, which is considered heretical by the oppressive Church.
Lyra\'s best friend Roger goes missing, presumed kidnapped by child abductors known as the \"Gobblers\". Mrs Coulter takes Lyra to her home in London, but before Lyra leaves Jordan, the Master entrusts her with an alethiometer, a strange truth-telling device, which she quickly learns to use intuitively. After several weeks, Lyra discovers that Coulter is the head of the Gobblers, or \"General Oblation Board\", a secret Church-funded project. Horrified, Lyra flees to the Gyptians, canal-faring nomads, many of whose children have also been abducted. They reveal to Lyra that Asriel and Coulter are her parents.
The Gyptians form an expedition to the Arctic with Lyra, where they believe the Gobblers are holding their children. They stop in Trollesund, where Lyra meets Iorek Byrnison, the dispossessed royal heir of the *panserbjørne* (armoured bears). Lyra uses her alethiometer to locate Iorek\'s missing armour; in return, he and his human aeronaut friend, Lee Scoresby, join her group. She also learns that Lord Asriel has been exiled, guarded by the *panserbjørne* on Svalbard. Trollesund\'s witch consul tells the Gyptians of a prophecy about Lyra which she must not know, and that the witch clans are choosing sides for an upcoming war.


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
### Plot
The search party continues towards Bolvangar, the Gobbler research station. Guided by the alethiometer, Lyra detours at a village and discovers an abandoned child who has been cut from his dæmon and who soon dies. She realises the Gobblers are experimenting on children by severing the bond between human and dæmon, a soul-splitting process called intercision. Lyra and her companions are attacked by bounty hunters, and Lyra is captured and taken to Bolvangar, where she is briefly reunited with Roger before being sent to be separated from Pantalaimon. Just before this can occur, Coulter arrives and halts the intercision process. She tells Lyra that intercision prevents the onset of troubling adult emotions, though it has not yet been perfected.
Lyra activates Bolvangar\'s emergency alarm, sets the station on fire, and evacuates the children, where they are rescued by Scoresby, Iorek, the Gyptians, and the witch clan of Serafina Pekkala, who battle the station attendants as Lyra, Roger, and Iorek flee in Scoresby\'s hot air balloon. Lyra directs the witches to tow the balloon towards Asriel in Svalbard, but she falls out and is taken by the *panserbjørne* to the castle of their usurping king, Iofur Raknison. She tricks Iofur into fighting Iorek, who arrives with Roger to rescue Lyra. Iorek kills Iofur and regains his place as the rightful king.


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
### Plot
Lyra, Iorek, and Roger continue onwards to Svalbard, where Asriel has continued his Dust research in exile. He tells Lyra all he knows of Dust: that it has spawned parallel universes, it is somehow connected to death and misery, and that the Church believes it is the physical basis of sin. Lord Asriel travels with Roger through the snow, Lyra and Iorek follow using the tracks of Asriel\'s sled. Asriel ascends a mountain with Roger as Lyra and Iorek and his squadron of bears battle the witches that are allied with Asriel. Mrs Coulter and the Tartars arrive in a military airship and attack the bears. During the battle, Mrs Coulter follows Lyra to the top of the mountain, where Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter embrace at the peak of the mountain where Asriel has set up his equipment. Suddenly, Lord Asriel severs Roger from his dæmon, killing Roger but releasing an enormous amount of energy that tears a hole in the Northern Lights into a parallel universe, through which he walks. Devastated, Lyra and Pantalaimon also pass through the opening in the sky.
All humans in *Northern Lights*, as well as witches, have a dæmon (pronounced \"demon\"), which is the physical manifestation of a person\'s \"inner being\", soul, or spirit. It takes the form of a creature (such as a moth, bird, dog, monkey, or snake) and is usually the opposite sex to its human counterpart. The dæmons of children have the ability to change form from one creature to another, but near the end of a child\'s puberty, their dæmon \"settles\" into a permanent form, which reflects the person\'s personality. When a person dies, the dæmon dies too. Armoured bears, cliff ghasts and other creatures do not have dæmons. An armoured bear\'s armour is his soul.


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
### Plot
- **Lyra Belacqua** and **Pantalaimon**: The principal characters. Lyra is described as having blue eyes and blond hair, along with being short for her age and quite thin. She is also brave, curious, and crafty. Her dæmon is Pantalaimon, nicknamed Pan. Because Lyra is still a child, Pan is still capable of changing into any shape he wishes *(often a brown moth, a wildcat, a white ermine, or a mouse)*. Lyra has been prophesied by the witches to help the balance of life, but must do so without being aware of her destiny.
- **Roger Parslow**: Lyra\'s friend, an orphan who works at Jordan College. When he is kidnapped and taken north, Lyra pursues him in hopes of rescuing him, meeting up with him again at Bolvangar.
- **Lord Asriel**: Ostensibly Lyra\'s uncle, he is actually her father. His dæmon is Stelmaria, a snow leopard.
- **Marisa Coulter**: An agent of the Magisterium, who does not hesitate to manipulate the Church to obtain funds for her projects. She is intelligent and beautiful, but also ruthless and callous. She is Lyra\'s mother; as a result, she is unexpectedly kind to Lyra. Her dæmon is a golden monkey who, unusually, is not named throughout the trilogy.
- **Iorek Byrnison**: Rightful king of the panserbjørne, armoured bears with human-level intelligence, Iorek has been tricked out of his armour and reduced to a slave of the human village Trollesund. After Lyra helps him recover his armour, he becomes very protective of her and joins the expedition to find the children seized by Gobblers.
- **Iofur Raknison**: A panserbjørn who has usurped Iorek Byrnison\'s authority as king.
- **Serafina Pekkala**: A witch who closely follows Lyra on her travels. She is aware of Lyra\'s destiny. Serafina\'s dæmon is Kaisa, a snow goose, who is capable of physically moving separately from Serafina over long distances, a quality that only witches\' dæmons possess innately.
- **Lee Scoresby**: A Texan aeronaut who transports Lyra in his balloon. He and Iorek Byrnison are good friends and Lee comes to see Lyra as a surrogate daughter. His dæmon is Hester, an arctic snow hare.
- **Ma Costa**: A Gyptian woman whose son, Billy Costa is abducted by the \"Gobblers\". She rescues Lyra from Mrs Coulter and takes her to John Faa.
- **John Faa**: The King of all Gyptian people. He journeyed with Lyra to the North with his companion Farder Coram.


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
### Plot
`130px 130pxLeft: God wielding the golden compasses, by William Blake. Right: Jesus as geometer in a 13th-century medieval illuminated manuscript of unknown authorship.`
During pre-publication of the novel, the prospective trilogy was known in Britain as *The Golden Compasses*, an allusion to God\'s poetic delineation of the world. The term is from a line in Milton\'s *Paradise Lost*, where it denotes the drafting compass God used to establish and set a circular boundary of all creation:
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
**He took the golden compasses, prepared**
**In God\'s eternal store, to circumscribe**
**This universe, and all created things**:
One foot he centred, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure
--- Book 7, lines 224--229
In the US, publisher Knopf had been calling the first book *The Golden Compass* (singular), which it mistakenly understood as a reference to Lyra\'s alethiometer (depicted on the front cover shown at the head of this article), because of the device\'s resemblance to a navigational compass. By the time Pullman had replaced *The Golden Compasses* with *His Dark Materials* as the name of the trilogy, the US publisher had become so attached to the original title that it insisted on publishing the first book as *The Golden Compass* rather than as *Northern Lights*, the title used in Britain and Australia.

### Awards
Pullman won both the annual Carnegie Medal for British children\'s books and the annual Guardian Children\'s Fiction Prize for *Northern Lights*, an award which authors can only win once in their lifetime. Six books have won both awards in 45 years through 2011.
In the US, *The Golden Compass* was named *Booklist* Editors Choice -- Top of the List, *Publishers Weekly* Book of the Year, a *Horn Book* Fanfare Honor Book, and a *Bulletin* Blue Ribbon Book in 1996.


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
### Religion
Some critics have asserted that the trilogy and the movie portray organised churches and religion negatively, while others -- notably Dr Rowan Williams, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury -- have argued that Pullman\'s works should be included in religious-education courses. Journalist Peter Hitchens views the series *His Dark Materials* as a direct rebuttal of *The Chronicles of Narnia* by C. S. Lewis. Literary critic Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College in Illinois suggested that Pullman had recast the Narnia series, replacing a theist world-view with a Rousseauist one.
New Line Cinema released a feature-film adaptation of the novel named *The Golden Compass* in December 2007. Chris Weitz adapted the novel and also directed the film. Dakota Blue Richards, in her film debut, played Lyra. The cast included Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Ian McKellen, Sam Elliott, Derek Jacobi, and Christopher Lee.
In 1996 Natasha Richardson narrated an audiobook version of *Northern Lights*. The trilogy, *His Dark Materials*, was abridged in a dramatisation by BBC Worldwide, published on 1 January 2003. It was also adapted unabridged and released by BBC Audiobooks, narrated by Philip Pullman. The cast includes: Joanna Wyatt as Lyra, Alison Dowling as Mrs Coulter, Seán Barrett as Lord Asriel and Iorek Byrnison, and Stephen Thorne as the Master and Farder Coram.
The National Theatre in London staged a two-part adaptation of the trilogy in 2003--2004.
Sega released a video game of the movie adaptation of the book, titled *The Golden Compass* and developed by Shiny Entertainment, on 4 December 2007. Players assume the role of Lyra as she travels through the frozen wastes of the North in an attempt to rescue her friend kidnapped by a mysterious organisation known as the Gobblers. Travelling with her are an armoured polar bear and her dæmon Pantalaimon (Pan). Together, they must use a truth-telling alethiometer and other items to explore the land and fight their way through confrontations to help Lyra\'s friend. *The Golden Compass* features a mix of fighting and puzzle-solving with three characters.


# Northern Lights (Pullman novel)
### Religion
On 3 November 2019, BBC One began broadcast of their TV adaptation of *His Dark Materials*. This first series mainly covers events from *Northern Lights*. It premiered on HBO on 4 November 2019 in the United States. The series was produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema and directed by Tom Hooper. Cast members included Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ian Gelder, and Ruta Gedmintas.
- *His Dark Materials*
- List of *His Dark Materials* and *The Book of Dust* characters
- Races and creatures in *His Dark Materials*
- Locations in *His Dark Materials*


# Independent People
***Independent People*** () is an epic novel by Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness, originally published in two volumes in 1934 and 1935; literally the title means \"Self-standing i.e. self-reliant folk\". It deals with the struggle of poor Icelandic farmers in the early 20th century, only freed from debt bondage in the last generation, and surviving on isolated crofts in an inhospitable landscape.
The novel is considered among the foremost examples of social realism in Icelandic fiction in the 1930s. It is an indictment of materialism, the cost of the *self-reliant spirit* to relationships, and capitalism itself. This book, along with several other major novels, helped Laxness win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955.
*Independent People* is the story of the sheep farmer Guðbjartur Jónsson, generally known in the novel as Bjartur of Summerhouses, and his struggle for independence.
The \"first chapter summons up the days when the world was first settled, in 874 AD---for that is the year when the Norsemen arrived in Iceland, and one of the book\'s wry conceits is that no other world but Iceland exists. \... The book is set in the early decades of the twentieth century but \... *Independent People* is a pointedly timeless tale. It reminds us that life on an Icelandic croft had scarcely altered over a millennium\". As the story begins, Bjartur (\"bright\" or \"fair\") has recently managed to put down the first payment on his own farm, after eighteen years working as a shepherd at Útirauðsmýri, the home of the well-to-do local bailiff, a man he detests. The land that he buys is said to be cursed by Saint Columba, referred to as \"the fiend Kolumkilli\", and haunted by an evil woman named Gunnvör, who made a pact with Kólumkilli.
Defiantly, Bjartur refuses to add a stone to Gunnvör\'s cairn to appease her, and in his optimism also changes the name of the farm from Winterhouses to Summerhouses. He is also newly wed to a young woman called Rósa, a fellow worker at Rauðsmýri, and is determined that they should live as independent people.


# Independent People
However, Rósa is miserable in her new home, which does not compare well to the luxury she was used to at Rauðsmýri. Bjartur also discovers that she is pregnant by Ingólfur Arnarson Jónsson, the son of the bailiff. In the autumn, Bjartur and the other men of the district ride up into the mountains on the annual sheep round-up, leaving Rósa behind with a gimmer to keep her company. Terrified by a storm one night, desperate for meat and convinced that the gimmer is possessed by the devil, Rósa kills and eats the animal.
When Bjartur returns, he assumes that Rósa has set the animal loose. When he cannot find her when it comes time to put the sheep inside for the winter, he once more leaves his wife, by now heavily pregnant, to search the mountains for the gimmer. He is delayed by a blizzard, and nearly dies of exposure. On his return to Summerhouses he finds that Rósa has died in childbirth. His dog Titla is curled around the baby girl, still clinging to life due to the warmth of the dog. With help from Rauðsmýri, the child survives; Bjartur decides to raise her as his daughter, and names her Ásta Sóllilja (\"beloved sun lily\").
The narrative begins again almost thirteen years later. Bjartur is now remarried to a woman who had been a charity case on the parish, Finna. The other new inhabitants are Hallbera, Finna\'s mother, and the three surviving sons of Bjartur\'s second marriage: Helgi, Gvendur (Guðmundur) and Nonni (Jón).


# Independent People
The rest of the novel charts the drudgery and the battle for survival of life in Summerhouses, the misery, dreams and rebellions of the inhabitants and what appears to be the curse of Summerhouses taking effect. In the middle of the novel, however, World War I commences and the prices for Icelandic mutton and wool soar, so that even the poorest farmers begin to dream of relief from their poverty. Particularly central is the relationship between Bjartur and Ásta Sóllilja.
The most important theme of the novel is independence, what it means and what it is worth giving up in order to achieve it. Bjartur is a stubborn man, often callous to the point of cruelty in his refusal to swerve from his ideals. Though undoubtedly a principled man, his attitude leads to the death and alienation of those around him.
There are strong economic themes, a discussion of the co-operative movement in Iceland and the exploitation of crofters like Bjartur by Danish merchants and rich Icelanders like Jón the Bailiff.
*Independent People* also reveals Laxness\'s anti-war leanings in a chapter that depicts Icelandic farmers sitting around talking about the economic benefits of the Great War.
The ancient Icelandic sagas and Icelandic folklore are still alive in the stories and fables that the characters live with on a daily basis. The imaginations of the characters are inhabited by elves, ghosts and demons. Bjartur is also a talented poet, a living embodiment of the great oral tradition of the sagas.
\"The author\'s ironical appraisal is already expressed in the title of the novel, and also in the titles of some of the chapters \... : \"Free of Debt\", \"Years of Prosperity\".\"
The popular Icelandic poet Hulda wrote the two-volume novel, *Dalafólk* (People of the Valleys) as a reaction to *Independent People*. In contrast to Laxness\' bleak view of rural life in Iceland, Hulda presents a somewhat idealized picture of the old manorlike farmsteads.
In her review of the 1997 Vintage International reissue of the English translation of the novel, Annie Dillard wrote, \"The greatest Scandinavians\' work shows opposing strains of lyricism and naturalism\... *Independent People* fits the dual bill: it is a mythic tale \-- cum Marx.\"


# Shirley (novel)
***Shirley, A Tale*** is a social novel by the English novelist Charlotte Brontë, first published in 1849. It was Brontë\'s second published novel after *Jane Eyre* (originally published under Brontë\'s pseudonym Currer Bell). The novel is set in Yorkshire in 1811--12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The novel is set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry.
The novel\'s popularity led to Shirley\'s becoming a woman\'s name. The title character was given the name that her father had intended to give a son. Before the publication of the novel Shirley was an uncommon but distinctly male name. Today it is regarded as a distinctly female name.
While Charlotte Brontë was writing *Shirley* three of her siblings died. Her brother Branwell died in September 1848, and her sister Emily fell ill and died in December. Brontë resumed writing, but then her only remaining sibling, her sister Anne, became ill and died in May 1849.
Some critics believe that the character of Caroline Helstone was loosely based on Anne and it has been speculated that Brontë originally planned to let Caroline die but changed her mind because of her family tragedies. However, Ellen Nussey, Charlotte\'s lifelong friend, claimed that the character of Caroline was based on herself.
Charlotte Brontë told Elizabeth Gaskell that Shirley is what she believed her sister, Emily Brontë, would have been if she had been born into a wealthy family. Again, Ellen Nussey, who knew Emily as well as anyone outside the family, did not recognise Emily in Shirley.


# Shirley (novel)
The maiden name of Mrs Pryor is Agnes Grey, the name of the main character in Anne\'s first novel. She was based on Margaret Wooler, the principal of Roe Head School, which Brontë attended as both student and teacher.
The novel is set in and around the Spen Valley in what is now called West Yorkshire (then the West Riding of Yorkshire). This area is now known as \"Shirley country\" to some locals. Briarmains, a house mentioned in the novel, is based on the Red House in Gomersal, where Mary Taylor, a friend of Charlotte, lived. The house is currently closed but previously open as a museum. Fieldhead, another house in the novel, is based on the Elizabethan manor house Oakwell Hall, which is also now a museum. The attack on Robert Moore\'s mill was based on the Luddite attack on Cartwright\'s Mill at Rawfolds, Liversedge, though it is believed that Charlotte also took some inspiration from Taylor\'s Mill at Hunsworth. Charlotte\'s father Patrick Bronte had lived in the Hightown area of Liversedge for a while, and Charlotte knew the area well.
Robert Moore is a mill owner noted for apparent ruthlessness towards his employees. He has laid off many of them, and is apparently indifferent to their consequent impoverishment. In fact he had no choice, since the mill is deeply in debt. He is determined to restore his family\'s honour and fortune.
As the novel opens Robert awaits delivery of new labour-saving machinery for the mill, which will enable him to lay off additional employees. Together with some friends he watches all night, but the machinery is destroyed by \"frame-breakers\" on the way to the mill. Robert\'s business difficulties continue, due in part to continuing labour unrest, but even more to the Napoleonic Wars and the accompanying Orders in Council, which forbid British merchants from trading in American markets.
Robert is very close to his cousin Caroline Helstone, who comes to his house to be taught French by his sister, Hortense. Caroline worships Robert. Caroline\'s father is dead and her mother has abandoned her, leaving her to be brought up by her uncle, Rev. Helstone. To keep himself from falling in love with her Robert keeps his distance, since he cannot afford to marry for pleasure or for love.


# Shirley (novel)
Caroline realises that Robert is growing increasingly distant and withdraws into herself. Her uncle does not sympathise with her \"fancies\". She has no money of her own, so she cannot leave, which is what she longs to do. She suggests that she might take up the role of governess, but her uncle dismisses the idea and assures her that she need not work for a living.
Caroline recovers somewhat when she meets Shirley, an independent heiress whose parents are dead and who lives with Mrs Pryor, her former governess. Shirley is lively, cheerful, full of ideas about how to use her money and how to help people, and very interested in business. Caroline and Shirley soon become close friends. Caroline becomes convinced that Shirley and Robert will marry. Shirley likes Robert, is very interested in his work, and is concerned about him and the threats he receives from laid-off millworkers. Both good and bad former employees are depicted. Some passages show the real suffering of those who were honest workers and can no longer find good employment; other passages show how some people use losing their jobs as an excuse to get drunk, fight with their previous employers, and incite other people to violence. Shirley uses her money to help the poorest, but she is also motivated by the desire to prevent any attack on Robert.
One night Rev. Helstone asks Shirley to stay with Caroline while he is away. Caroline and Shirley realise that an attack on the mill is imminent. They hear the dog barking and realise that a group of rioters has come to a halt outside the rectory. They overhear the rioters talking about entering the house, but are relieved when they decide to go on. The women go to the mill together to warn Robert, but they are too late. They witness the ensuing battle from their hiding place.


# Shirley (novel)
The whole neighbourhood becomes convinced that Robert and Shirley will marry. The anticipation of this event causes Caroline to fall ill. Mrs Pryor comes to look after her and learns the cause of Caroline\'s sorrow. She continues her vigil even as Caroline worsens daily. Mrs Pryor then reveals to Caroline that she is Caroline\'s mother. She had abandoned her because Caroline looked exactly like her father, the husband who tortured Mrs Pryor and made her life miserable. She had little money, so when her brother-in-law offered to bring up the child, she accepted the offer, took up the name of Pryor and went off to become a governess. Caroline now has a reason to live, since she knows that she can go and live with her mother, and begins to recover.
Shirley\'s uncle and aunt come to visit her. They bring with them their daughters, their son, and their son\'s tutor, Louis Moore. He is Robert\'s younger brother and taught Shirley when she was younger. Caroline is puzzled by Shirley\'s haughty and formal behaviour towards Louis. Two men fall in love with Shirley and woo her, but she rejects both of them because she does not love them. The relationship between Shirley and Louis, meanwhile, remains ambivalent. There are days when Louis can ask Shirley to come to the schoolroom and recite the French pieces she learned from him when she was younger. On other days Shirley ignores Louis. However, when Shirley is upset the only person she can confide in is Louis. After a supposedly mad dog bites Shirley and makes her think that she is to die early no one except Louis can make her reveal her fears.


# Shirley (novel)
Robert returns one dark night, first stopping at the market and then returning to his home with a friend. The friend asks him why he left when it seemed so certain that Shirley loved him and would have married him. Robert replies that he had assumed the same, and that he had proposed to Shirley before he left. Shirley had at first laughed, thinking that he was not serious, and then cried when she discovered that he was. She had told him that she knew that he did not love her, and that he asked for her hand, not for her sake, but for her money. Robert had walked away filled with a sense of humiliation, even as he knew that she was right. This self-disgust had driven Robert away to London, where he realised that restoring the family name was not as important as maintaining his self-respect. He had returned home determined to close the mill if he had to, and go away to Canada to make his fortune. Just as Robert finishes his narration his friend hears a gunshot and Robert falls from his horse.
The friend takes Robert to his own home and looks after him. After a turn for the worse Robert slowly gets better. A visit from Caroline revives him, but she has to come secretly, hiding from her uncle and his friend and his family. Robert soon moves back to his own home and persuades his sister that the very thing their house needs to cheer it up is a visit from Caroline. Robert asks for Caroline\'s forgiveness.
Louis proposes to Shirley, despite the difference in their relative situations, and Shirley agrees to marry him. At first Caroline is to be Shirley\'s bridesmaid, but Robert proposes to her and she accepts. The novel ends with Caroline marrying Robert and Shirley marrying Louis.
Illustration by Thomas Heath Robinson
Unlike *Jane Eyre*, which is written in the first person and narrated by the title character, *Shirley* is narrated by an omniscient but unnamed third-person narrator. For her third novel *Villette*, Brontë returned to first-person narration.
The novel has been filmed only once, in 1922. The silent adaptation was done by A. V. Bramble and Carlotta Breese starred as the title character.
In March 2014 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a ten-episode dramatisation by Rachel Joyce in the station\'s *15 Minute Drama* slot. Narrated by Lesley Sharp, the series starred Joanne Froggatt as Caroline and Jemima Rooper as Shirley.


# Shirley (novel)
Coming soon after *Jane Eyre*, which was extremely successful, *Shirley* originally received a muted reception from critics.
The four central characters are studies in contrast: the two friends Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar, and their lovers, the brothers Robert and Louis Gérard Moore.
- **Robert Gérard Moore** -- An industrialist whose textile mill is idle because of the war. Perceived as an outsider because he comes from Antwerp, even though he is a cousin of Caroline\'s. Robert Moore installs new labour-saving machinery in his mill and becomes the target of Luddite attacks.
- **Louis Gérard Moore** -- Robert\'s brother, working as a tutor for Shirley\'s uncle.
- **Caroline Helstone** -- A timid and uncertain, but also wise and capable young woman, the niece of Rev. Helstone and best friend of Shirley.
- **Shirley Keeldar** -- An orphaned heiress to a fortune. A headstrong, independent and determined young woman.
Other characters in the novel include:
- **Rev. Matthewston Helstone** -- Caroline\'s uncle. A fierce man, who is not cruel, but still shows little affection for his niece. Marriage has made him distrustful of women in general.
- **Hortense Gérard Moore** -- Robert and Louis\'s sister.
- **Hiram Yorke** -- A local landowner.
- **Joe Scott** -- Robert Moore\'s foreman at the mill.
- **Mrs Pryor** -- Shirley\'s timid but wise governess, who moves to Fieldhead together with Shirley. She eventually turns out to be Caroline\'s long-lost mother, Mrs Agnes Helstone.
- The three curates of the three parishes -- the Anglo-Irishman Peter Malone, the Cockney Joseph Donne, and the amiable Davy Sweeting.
- **William Farren** -- a hardworking, patient worker. The book\'s example of the perfect working-class man.


# The Drifters (novel)
***The Drifters*** is a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener, published in 1971 by Random House. The novel follows six young characters from diverse backgrounds and various countries as their paths meet and they travel together through parts of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Mozambique. The story is told from the perspective of the narrator, George Fairbanks, who is an investment analyst for the fictional company World Mutual Bank in Switzerland. Mr. Fairbanks is connected with nearly every character in some way, and they all seem to open up to him throughout the novel in one way or another.

### Chapter I: Joe
In the first chapter, Joe is introduced as a disenfranchised twenty-year-old youth who is enrolled at the University of California during the Vietnam War. After Joe realizes that with his grades he is going to get drafted, he hitchhikes to Yale University, where he gets the name of a professor who may be able to get him across the border into Canada. After being referred to a woman in Boston named Gretchen, she helps him get into Canada, and he eventually goes to Torremolinos, Spain. While looking for a job and a place to stay, he takes over the ownership of a bar called The Alamo, and a man named Jean-Victor finds him a place to stay in Torremolinos.

### Chapter II: Britta
In keeping with the theme throughout the book, the second chapter is about the character Britta, an 18-year-old girl from Tromsø, Norway. After finishing school, she finds a job in an office at the docks, but eventually becomes curious about the world beyond Tromsø, and goes to vacation in Torremolinos, Spain for fifteen days. Once in Torremolinos, she loves it and finds a job as a waitress in a bar called The Alamo. Here, a man named Jean-Victor finds her a place to stay, where another newcomer to Torremolinos, Joe, is already staying.


# The Drifters (novel)
### Chapter III: Monica
Of the main characters in the book, Monica goes through trials and tribulations as she transitions from living as royalty in a foreign country to being forced out and finally finding her way to Torremolinos to join the rest of the cast in the book. She is introduced as living with her father in the Republic of Vwarda, where Monica becomes rebellious and begins to cause a stir in Vwarda\'s Royal Family. She is forced out of the country and runs away with an airline pilot to Torremolinos, where she can live on her monthly allowance from her grandmother. She meets a man named Jean-Victor, who finds her a place to live with a woman from Norway and a man from the United States.

### Chapter IV: Cato
The fourth character of the book is Cato; he is introduced as the son of the Reverend Claypool Jackson, a local minister in the area trying to salvage his community through his church. Cato Jackson is a sophomore at University of Pennsylvania, whom the narrator meets at a drugstore where he stumbles upon a shooting of a local drugstore owner. After meeting Mr. Fairbanks, he and Cato talk all night and the next day, after Cato\'s girlfriend is stabbed and killed. Cato then runs off to Torremolinos, where he finds shelter in an apartment with a few other runaways of his own age.

### Chapter V: Yigal
In the fifth chapter of the book, the character Yigal is introduced as the son of a dean at a college in Haifa, Israel. He is struggling to identify with either his parents and their life in Israel, or with his grandfather and his American life in Detroit, Michigan in the United States, and his other grandfather in England. He is shuffled between Israel and America throughout his youth, and even fights and becomes a hero in the Six-Day War, before finally enrolling in Technion University in Haifa. After a few months he moves back to England with his other grandfather and begins to engage in a lot of reading and in conversations with his grandfather. Eventually his grandfather suggests that he needs to spend some time away, and he suggests the south of Spain, and Torremolinos, as a place to go.


# The Drifters (novel)
### Chapter VI: Gretchen
Gretchen is introduced as a very intelligent girl from Boston who, at the age of 19, has already completed her bachelor\'s degree, and is working for senator Eugene McCarthy\'s presidential campaign. After campaigning across the United States for McCarthy\'s nomination in Chicago at the Democratic Convention, during the riots she and the people she is with are falsely arrested. During the process she is sexually assaulted, but the policemen who did it deny it, and nothing is ever done about it. After fighting with her parents and the police over the issue of what happened, she decides to go to school in Besançon, France, where one of her professors tells her about an excellent language school. Upon enrolling at the University of Besançon and living with her peers for a little while, she decides to travel. Someone suggests Torremolinos, so she buys a yellow pop-top van and begins to live out of it in Torremolinos.

### Chapter VII: Torremolinos
At the beginning of chapter seven, the whole set of characters are all in Torremolinos, and everyone is getting settled in with their various living conditions. Cato and Monica begin a relationship, and some of the characters begin to experiment with drugs such as LSD; they continue to smoke large amounts of marijuana and drink regularly. During this time, they go to Paxton Fell\'s house, a man whom a few of the characters were referenced to see in case of an emergency. Everyone, including Mr. Fairbanks, who is in Torremolinos to supervise a real estate deal, end up partying with Mr. Fell and a few of his guests throughout the night. Eventually, during their stay, the characters are approached by a woman, Susan Elgerton, who tries to convince Cato and Gretchen to join her in the name of starting a violent revolution back in America. As time goes on, Torremolinos begins to lose its luster; Monica is partying too much for her own good and Gretchen starts to look for something else to entertain her, and the characters leave Torremolinos in Gretchen\'s yellow pop-top and head towards Portugal.


# The Drifters (novel)
### Chapter VIII: Algarve
As they drive towards the Algarve, the characters begin to notice that not everywhere in Europe is so nice as Torremolinos. They eventually find a small town by the name of Alte. Here, Yigal meets a local girl whom he kisses, upsetting the rest of the village, and Monica and Cato keep on going to the nearby town of Albufeira to take doses of LSD with a local bar owner, where Gretchen also tries it for the first time and unfortunately has a really bad trip. Eventually the group moves on to the seaside town of Algarve. After living in Algarve for a while, Monica tries to run away to Nepal, but Joe, Yigal and Cato end up getting into a fight with the people with whom she was going to run away. She returns, and the crew heads off to Pamplona, Spain with Mr. Fairbanks.

### Chapter IX: The Tech Rep
In the ninth chapter, a new character is introduced by the name of Harvey Holt. He works as a technical representative on radars in remote locations. He is an old friend of Mr. Fairbanks, and has been everywhere; from Afghanistan to Sumatra to Thailand. He is a fan of old music and movies. He is very old-fashioned, and in a break from the rest of the characters in the book, he isn\'t vehemently anti-war, as he had served in World War II. He very much disapproves of how Joe dodged the draft to travel the world. Harvey\'s old music tapes include the vocalist Bea Wain; her recording of \"My Reverie\", discussed in two separate chapters, serves as a symbol of the generation gap.


# The Drifters (novel)
### Chapter X: Pamplona
Pamplona is known for its Running of the Bulls, an event characters come to see. They stay in the same hotel as Mr. Fairbanks and Harvey Holt, and there are many conversations between Mr. Holt and Joe about commitment to one\'s country. Here, Gretchen starts to show her feelings for Clive, a recurring character throughout the book who brings news from the outside world as well as new music from his homeland in England. For a week, everybody enjoys themselves, and Joe begins to think that he also wants to run with the bulls with Harvey at some point. During the week, Yigal\'s American grandfather tracks him down and tries to bring him back to Detroit with him, although he is torn because he doesn\'t like America, although something in it still has him interested. In the end, he leaves to go to school at Case Western Reserve in Ohio. During the run, Harvey gets gored by a bull but survives. Joe and even Mr. Fairbanks run, and the gang decides next to leave Europe and head to Mozambique for the next leg of their journey.

### Chapter XI: Mozambique
In Mozambique things begin to go downhill for Monica: she has moved beyond LSD, begins to use heroin regularly, starts to bring Cato down with her, and gets Joe to try heroin on occasion. Cato hangs around the local historians in the area, and begins to learn about the history of Africa, and the effect slavery has had on the continent. As quick as Cato is to point out how badly the Christians have treated the Arabs, Mr. Fairbanks and Gretchen are quick to point out how much the Arabs used slavery against their own people in the past. The group also explores some of the natural beauty of Mozambique, and starts to reconnect with that side of the world, which is something they have not explored thus far on their journey. The group then decides to head to Marrakesh, Morocco, where there is a man who could help out Joe with some papers, so he could re-enter the United States at some point, and not be considered a criminal.


# The Drifters (novel)
### Chapter XII: Marrakesh
In the final destination of the journey, the remainder of the group ends up in Marrakesh, Morocco, where the marijuana trade is booming, a town where young people could get lost very easily. The group finds a place to stay at a hotel, where on the top floor there is a man who can help out Joe with his papers, and helps out people who become addicted to heroin, which makes it a good fit for Monica. Monica is becoming more addicted to heroin, and things are starting to look bad for her. Her father has all but given up hope for her, and the rest of the group is beginning to split up; Britta and Harvey fly off to Ratmalana, and Monica runs away more often than before. Eventually, Monica dies from an infection caused by her heroin use, Britta leaves with Harvey, Cato begins his trip to Mecca hoping to return to Philadelphia, Joe goes off to Tokyo and Gretchen returns home to Boston.
One of the most important aspects of the book is the places to which the characters travel; some of the places that the characters travel to, and originate from, are fictional.

### Fictional places
- Republic of Vwarda
- Qarash Pass
- Zambela Game Sanctuary
- The Alamo in Torremolinos
- Bar Vasca in Pamplona
- World Mutual Bank in Switzerland

### Real places
- Torremolinos, Spain
- Pamplona, Spain
- Silves, Portugal
- Besançon, France
- Alte, Portugal
- Algarve, Portugal
- Mozambique Island, Mozambique
- Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Marrakesh, Morocco
- Ratmalana, Sri Lanka.
- Vietnam War
- 1968 Democratic National Convention and related protest activity
- Six-Day War

### Main characters
- Joe
- Britta
- Monica
- Cato
- Yigal
- Gretchen
- George Fairbanks
- Harvey Holt

### Secondary characters
- Reverend Claypool Jackson
- Jemail
- Sir Charles Braham
- Jean-Victor
- Big Loomis
- Clive
- Mr. Melnikoff
- Mr. Clifton
- Hajj
- Akbar Muhammad

## Reception
The book was a commercial success, ranking as one of the ten best-selling novels of 1971.


# The Drifters (novel)
## Reception
The New York Times\' book critic Thomas Lask found the novel superficial and lacking in character insight, stating that Michener \"\...is not investigating the states of mind of those suffering from existential anxiety, of those fundamentally alienated from the world. He is setting down the log of a number of people who think they may be able to solve some problems by postponing consideration of them\...those interested in knowing how a sympathetic member of the older generation views some of the shenanigans of the younger will find "The Drifters" a tolerable interlude, especially as it is spiced with travelogue evocations of foreign climes.\"
A review in The Hartford Courant stated that \"Overall, Michener has produced a fine work, a lively and entertaining examination of the New Society\'s would-be solutions to old society problems\", while noting that \"the drifters never launch into meaningless diatribes against society, as expatriates are wont to do\...instead, they fly into carefully controlled rages, which at times seem highly unrealistic.\"


# Less Than Zero (novel)
***Less Than Zero*** is the debut novel of Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1985. It was his first published effort, released when he was 21 years old and still a student at Bennington College. The novel was titled after the Elvis Costello song of the same name.
The novel follows the life of Clay, a rich, young college student who has returned to his hometown of Los Angeles, California for winter break circa 1984. Through first-person narration, Clay describes his progressive alienation from the culture around him, loss of faith in his friends, and his meditations on events in his recent past.
After reuniting with his ex-girlfriend Blair, and friends like Trent, now a successful model, Clay embarks on a series of drug-fueled nights of partying, during which he has one-night stands with both sexes. While partying, he tries to track down his best friend from high school, Julian, with whom he hasn\'t spoken in months. In between descriptions of his days and nights, Clay recounts a vacation spent with his parents and grandparents, during which he seemed to be the only person concerned that his grandmother was dying of cancer.
Over time, Clay becomes progressively disillusioned with the party scene as he witnesses the apathy of his friends towards the suffering of one another and those around them: at one party, he watches as the revellers joke and take Polaroids of his friend, Muriel, while she injects heroin; at another, he and Blair are the only two who exhibit revulsion when Trent shows a snuff film, which sexually excites several partygoers.
Clay ultimately tracks down Julian, who borrows a large sum of money from Clay. At first, Julian says that the money is for an abortion, but Clay doesn\'t believe him. Later, when Clay asks Julian to pay him back, Julian brings him to meet his abusive pimp, Finn. It is revealed that Julian has become a heroin addict and turned to prostitution in order to pay off a debt to unnamed drug dealers. Believing what he has been told, yet still feeling an empty desire to witness this awful scene for himself, Clay accompanies Julian to a rendezvous in a hotel room with a married closeted businessman from Indiana, where he is compelled by the john to watch the man and Julian have sex for several hours.


# Less Than Zero (novel)
After attending a concert with his friends, Clay accompanies them to an alleyway, where they stare, fascinated, at the corpse of a young man, presumably dead by overdose. Afterward, Clay follows the group back to the home of his drug dealer, Rip, who wants to show off his latest acquisition: a sex slave whom Rip has been keeping drugged in his bedroom. When Clay tells Rip, \"I don\'t think it\'s right,\" Rip says, \"What\'s right?\" Clay leaves, but Trent decides to stay so that he can participate.
Now feeling completely isolated and with winter break coming to an end, Clay reflects on the brutal nature of his surroundings as he returns to college in New Hampshire.
Ellis began work on what would become *Less Than Zero* in 1980. He cites his major influences as Joan Didion and Los Angeles noir, but he was also inspired by the moral ambiguity of *American Gigolo*.
*Less Than Zero* was to become Ellis\' first attempt at a proper novel, following much roman à clef juvenilia. Its first draft was incredibly emotional and overwrought, and in the third-person. Ellis\'s creative writing teacher, novelist Joe McGinniss, advised that he return to the first-person style of roman à clef (which Ellis was hesitant to do) and Ellis stripped it back, from there evoking the minimalist style for which it became famous.
In the former child actor Danny Bonaduce\'s 2002 autobiography, *Random Acts of Badness*, Bonaduce notes the striking similarity between the fictional high school in *Less Than Zero* and The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, where Bonaduce, recording artist Michael Jackson, film actor Christian Brando, and other children of wealth and celebrity went to school together. In commenting on the novel, Bonaduce notes, \"When the book *Less Than Zero* came out, all my classmates were pissed. Not because it was an exact portrayal of our school -- but because we failed to get any royalties.\"
*Less Than Zero* has an extensive cast of characters; the ones listed play major roles throughout the novel.


# Less Than Zero (novel)
Clay
:   The 18-year-old protagonist, a student at Camden College in New Hampshire, who comes home to Los Angeles for Christmas and meets his old friends. He revives his old life: parties, concerts, drugs, sex, the city. Clay has brief affairs (a male USC student named Griffin (pp. 35--39), and an unnamed female character (pp. 120--122)), but he goes through periods of apathy and longing for his girlfriend Blair.

Blair
:   Clay\'s girlfriend who is studying at USC. Clay is unsure how he feels about her; neither has he been faithful to her. They vacation together and though at first they enjoy the experience, it eventually becomes tedious and ends on a sour note.

Julian Wells
:   Clay\'s friend from grade school and high school. Julian is often described as \"thin\" and many of Clay\'s friends declare him \"completely fucked up\". Julian has become a heroin addict and a prostitute.

Trent Burroughs
:   Another of Clay\'s friends, a model who attends UCLA. He says things that Clay doesn\'t understand and Clay gradually becomes disenchanted with him. Trent is shown as increasingly unethical and immoral, raping a drugged twelve-year-old girl in his penultimate scene.

Rip Millar
:   Clay\'s dealer. Sporting a fedora and a penthouse on Wilshire Boulevard, Rip is also a DJ, but feels his trust fund \"might never run out.\" At the end of the story, he shows Clay and other boys a 12-year-old girl naked, drugged and tied to his bed to be a sex slave. When a distressed Clay questions Rip as to why he has done this, Rip replies \"Why not? What the hell?\"

Daniel Carter
:   Daniel is another student who attends Camden and is from Los Angeles. Many of the characters think he\'s gay. In his earlier appearances, he was worried he had gotten a girl from Camden, Vanden, pregnant, but then doesn\'t seem to care. In his final appearance, he tells Clay he won\'t return to Camden, opting instead to stay in LA and write a screenplay. (Vanden, who isn\'t seen in the book, later appears in *American Psycho* as well as *The Rules of Attraction*, in which she and Clay are briefly \"involved\".)

The Handsome Dunce
:   A minor character who has a cameo speaking to Clay at Blair\'s Christmas party. He goes on to appear in *The Rules of Attraction*, where it is revealed that he goes to Camden College and that his name is Steve.

Kim
:   One of Blair\'s friends. During the course of the book she\'s never sure where her film producer mother is and only knows what she reads in trade papers. At one point in the novel, she and Clay both agitate each other notably when they repeatedly question each other, \"What do you do?\", \"What do you do?\", this ending with Kim finally replying, \"Don\'t ask me because\...I don\'t know.\"

Alana
:   Another one of Blair\'s friends. She has an abortion and comes to Clay afterwards. Clay lets her stay in his room for the night while he lies by the pool until dawn. When he goes back up, she informs him she has bled a lot and feels weak before thanking him. When he asks \"what for?\" she says \"I don\'t know\" and leaves. When Clay flushes his toilet, it becomes clogged up with tissue and blood clouds the water. Clay puts the lid down as \"there\'s nothing else for me to do\".

Muriel
:   An anorexic girl who Clay visits at a rehabilitation center. She appears a few times in the novel, most notably at a New Year\'s party where she shoots heroin publicly while laughing and crying.

Finn Delaney
:   Julian\'s pimp, who \"helps\" him pay off his drug debt. In public, he acts kindly towards Julian, calling him \"Julie\" and \"his best boy\" and often showing him off to his clients, but in private he abuses Julian emotionally and sexually and forces him to shoot up heroin.

Clay\'s family
:   Clay has two sisters, aged 13 and 15, although his narration suggests he cannot distinguish between them and is unsure of their age. His parents are separated; his mother occupies their house while his father lives in an apartment. His mom has no job but nonetheless lives a life of luxury off of her ex-husband\'s large alimony payments, and his dad is \"in the film business\", with an office in Century City. In flashbacks, Clay talks about his grandfather, proprietor of several hotels, and his grandmother, now deceased.


# Less Than Zero (novel)
The book *Less Than Zero* was very loosely adapted into a movie in 1987 by 20th Century Fox in title only. It starred Andrew McCarthy as Clay, Robert Downey Jr. as Julian, Jami Gertz as Blair, and James Spader as Rip. A then-unknown Brad Pitt also appeared as an extra. In the film, Clay is an anti-drug crusader who returns home from college to try to rescue his friends from their various narcotics addictions.
Due to all the liberties taken, Ellis refused to see the movie. In an interview, Ellis stated that he has warmed up to the movie, and appreciates it visually as a snapshot of a particular time. Ellis claimed that there was no connection between the book and the movie, except for the title, the location of Southern California and the names of the characters.
A long-running rumor in the film industry is that Quentin Tarantino has been interested in filming a new version of *Less Than Zero.* His workmate Roger Avary adapted *The Rules of Attraction,* (also based on a novel by Ellis) in 2002, and since both he and Tarantino like the works by Ellis, Tarantino has been eyeing the possibility of adapting *Less Than Zero.* Ellis stated in an interview for *Vice* Magazine that Quentin Tarantino has been \"trying to get Fox to let him remake it.\" At a Q & A at Harvard Book Store in 2012 Ellis stated in a reply to a question of whether *Less Than Zero* will be remade that Tarantino \"has shown interest\" in adapting the story. This Q & A filmed by WGBH Forum Network is called *Bret Easton Ellis: Imperial Bedrooms* and can be seen on YouTube.
On July 31, 2018, it was announced that Hulu had ordered a pilot for the series. Bret Easton Ellis was set to executive produce alongside Craig Wright, who was also the series developer, and Brett Morgan was set to direct the pilot. However, Hulu chose not to produce a series based on the pilot.
Ellis announced in 2005 that he would be writing a sequel to *Less Than Zero*: a story following the same characters, set in the present day, that focuses on their lives as they approach middle age.


# Less Than Zero (novel)
In January 2008, Ellis announced that his forthcoming novel *Imperial Bedrooms* would be the sequel to *Less Than Zero*. In keeping with the original, the title is taken from the title of an Elvis Costello record (both a 1982 album and song). The book was published in 2010.
The author stated:
Upon the release of *Imperial Bedrooms*, *Details* commented on *Less Than Zero* and its original reviews, stating: \"Years ago people could have read some of your books and said, \"Oh, this is just nihilism. These people don\'t exist! There\'s nobody that rich and stupid and narcissistic!\"\". (The article states, \"When Michiko Kakutani first reviewed Less Than Zero in *The New York Times* in June of 1985, she began the review this way: \"This is one of the most disturbing novels I\'ve read in a long time.\"\") Ellis remarks \"surprise!\". They also credit him with \"In a way, inventing Paris Hilton and Spencer Pratt and the Kardashians.\"


# Tropic of Cancer (novel)
***Tropic of Cancer*** is a novel by Henry Miller that has been described as \"notorious for its candid sexuality\" and as responsible for the \"free speech that we now take for granted in literature.\" It was first published in 1934 by the Obelisk Press in Paris, France, but this edition was banned in the United States. Its publication in 1961 in the U.S. by Grove Press led to obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography in the early 1960s. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the book non-obscene. It is regarded as an important work of 20th-century literature.
Miller wrote the book between 1930 and 1934 during his \"nomadic life\" in Paris. The fictional Villa Borghese was actually 18 Villa Seurat in Paris\' 14th arrondissement. As Miller discloses in the text of the book, he first intended to title it \"Crazy Cock\". Miller gave the following explanation of why the book\'s title was *Tropic of Cancer*: \"It was because to me cancer symbolizes the disease of civilization, the endpoint of the wrong path, the necessity to change course radically, to start completely over from scratch.\"
Anaïs Nin helped to edit the book. In 1934, Jack Kahane\'s Obelisk Press published the book with financial backing from Nin, who had borrowed the money from Otto Rank.
In the 1961 edition, opposite the novel\'s title page is a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
These novels will give way, by and by, to diaries or autobiographies---captivating books, if only a man knew how to choose among what he calls his experiences that which is really his experience, and how to record truth truly.
The 1961 edition includes an introduction by Karl Shapiro written in 1960 and titled \"The Greatest Living Author\". The first three sentences are:
I call Henry Miller the greatest living author because I think he is. I do not call him a poet because he has never written a poem; he even dislikes poetry, I think. But everything he has written is a poem in the best as well as in the broadest sense of the word.
Following the introduction is a preface written by Nin in 1934, which begins as follows:


# Tropic of Cancer (novel)
Here is a book which, if such a thing were possible, might restore our appetite for the fundamental realities. The predominant note will seem one of bitterness, and bitterness there is, to the full. But there is also a wild extravagance, a mad gaiety, a verve, a gusto, at times almost a delirium.
Set in France (primarily Paris) during the late 1920s and early 1930s, *Tropic of Cancer* centers on Miller\'s life as a struggling writer. Late in the novel, Miller explains his artistic approach to writing the book itself, stating:
Up to the present, my idea of collaborating with myself has been to get off the gold standard of literature. My idea briefly has been to present a resurrection of the emotions, to depict the conduct of a human being in the stratosphere of ideas, that is, in the grip of delirium.
Combining autobiography and fiction, some chapters follow a narrative of some kind and refer to Miller\'s actual friends, colleagues, and workplaces; others are written as stream-of-consciousness reflections that are occasionally epiphanic. The novel is written in the first person, as are many of Miller\'s other novels, and does not have a linear organization, but rather fluctuates frequently between the past and present.
The book largely functions as an immersive meditation on the human condition. As a struggling writer, Miller describes his experience living among a community of bohemians in Paris, where he intermittently suffers from hunger, homelessness, squalor, loneliness, and despair over his recent separation from his wife. Describing his perception of Paris during this time, Miller wrote: