Great novel, but with surplus ambitions.
580903
While I was going through part I of the book, I was surprised by the fluid and well-conceived text, that seems a novel. Even if the story were all made-up, it would be a magnific reading. Then, in part II, the author is centered in convincing the reader of the Three Principles powers. She, then, returns to the "novel" in the last part of the book. I think it would be a remarkable book without the derails of part II.
Personally, I do not contest the Three Principles - they look rather obvious (if I understood them correctly...). But I do not understand how they are "liberating". Understanding the nature of the mind and of thoughts does not help much in changing the content of those same thoughts, I suppose (doctors understand diseases, but they also get sick!). Anyway, the book is well worthy to be read and I can say it is one of the best ones I came across in recent times.
1224624
Almost a great novel.  Certainly the best of the genre:  English teacher from small town writing about an English teacher from a small town.  Great characterizations, dialogue, humor and pathos mixed.  Ending seems problematic to me, just too jarring from what has gone before . . . but I have gone ahead and ordered the next three of Hassler's books, so I reckon that is a recommendation of the best sort.  Of course, I was an English teacher in a small town, so that probably has something to do with it.
588232
Without a doubt this has to be one of the greatest novels of all time. I won't say it's the best just because once a work of art attains greatness I find it quite incomparable to other great works. Great works are ones which have fully succeeded in expressing the emotions and convictions of the artist, and without a doubt Great Expectations acheives this. Unfortunately I only hold this view of the book containing the original ending, which was not the originally published ending. (spoiler) The original ending at first seems sad and frustrating, but one can't help but to feel satisfied in knowing that through suffering Estella had gained a heart, which is much more than she would have gained through a cold and heartless relationship with Pip. The happy ending which was published is almost a fairtale ending and it perverts the themes which make the novel so relevant to reality. I must admit, like Dickens' friends and publisher, the original ending was hard for me to swallow, but as I dwelt on it and how it related to the novel, no other ending seemed appropriate, especially not a happy one.
1280069
The story follows the career of a young man, naturally embued with a handsome frame, a fine mind, and little in the way of morals.  Through no particular effort on his own part, he somehow simply becomes a con-artist as people give him money or gifts simply because of his possessing a handsome frame and fine mind.
Now, while I cannot say this is a bad novel, for it is a head above most any other novel of the modern day, I cannot give this book a terribly high mark.  The text itself is written quite skillfully, but the story is lacking and in order for me to rate a book highly it must be fully developed in both of these arenas. The problem is that, as said, the story follows the career of this young man.  It watches him go from one thing to another and generally go about his life.  Unfortunately, even the most exciting of persons is not doing too much of interest ninety percent of the time, and this shows.  Eventually, one ends up with a story that, unless one is particularly impressed by infamy, is really fairly boring.
This is a good book, but to read it after having read such works as "The Red and the Black" by Stendhal or "Scaramouche" by Sabatini, it becomes quite clear that a sardonic text is not all that is required to write a great novel.
3650358
The book opens with a very well done, detailed profile of a once-wealthy woman--Mrs. Transome--who, like the estate she manages, suffers from dwindled resources.  George Eliot draws an interesting portrait of her, creating empathy and sympathy in the reader, yet also alluding in a quietly strategic way that "there is more to learn" about this woman and her circumstances.

Enter the long-traveling son, who has made his fortune in the middle east and has the potential to restore the estate to its former grandeur.  Indeed, he sets about doing this, and as that process begins, the other plots are ushered in.  There is a great deal of time and effort spent on the Whigs, Tories, and Radicals, which was interesting and yet prompted me to Google various terms on a frequent basis.  For us 21st century Americans, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since these royalist/anti-royalist/labor concepts were in flower.  The central plot, however, is the love story between the lovely Esther Lyon and her reluctant suitor, Felix Holt.  Felix seems to embody the pure voice of the common man, speaking with courage, selflessness, and unabashed virtue.  He is almost unbelievably pristine in his moral makeup, but he was still fascinating.  His prompting and nudging of Esther to abandon her pettiness and vanity has a surprisingly rapid effect on her, but this did not bother me, as I found the "early Esther" to be quite annoying and I--like Felix--very much wanted her to change.

Felix gets himself in some very hot legal water through a chain of events that seems a bit fantastical, but the plot moves along briskly.  I am so used to George Eliot and have so much respect for her that I don't mind her lofty and rhapsodic passages.  They are fine and they help make her the great author she is.
732590
I enjoyed this novel, the whole premise was fresh and the women in it, Tor, Rose, and above all Viva, were quite fresh and interesting.

Having said that, the men in the book are quite flat, even the villain of the piece, the disturbed Guy, did not ring true. Frank and Toby were almost too good to be true, but the on and off nature of Viva's relationship with the man she is supposed to love got a bit confusing and then just plain dull.

As for former lover William, he is also too awful for words.  The end of the novel dragged as well; I was waiting for some interesting revelations and got, well, you'll see in the book.

Setting the novel against the backdrop of Gandhi's rise to power could also have been made more of, but was still interesting.  This is a fat book, with the best sections on board the ship, which I actually feel could have been longer, and the ending shorter.

I wanted to understand Guy more, so interaction with him at that stage would have been more helpful. Finally, Viva is very un-self-reflective at times, so it make it hard to really get to know her as the 'main' protagonist. Tor is far more interesting. Ci Ci is a really awful piece of work, and therefore a ton of fun.  The two of them risk stealing the novel.

If you are as fascinated by India as the author clearly is (and I have to admit I am too!) you will really enjoy this book if you are prepared to overlook the flaws mentioned above.
2664488
"The Rehearsal" is a precocious work -- and it is a most precious work.  The characters are too witty to be true, and they're so in love with their own words that they fail to understand that eloquence is not necessarily truth.  The novel does have promise, but ultimately it's too mired in its own precocity.
21980
The Grand Pursuit, as Nassar writes, is the ambitious quest to improve the material well-being of everyone in a given society. The tale starts in the mid-1800s when it was assumed that "nine parts of mankind" would live in misery and poverty. But as Burke was making that claim, the Industrial Revolution was gaining steam thanks to the classical economists, and the world was changing forever.

While this book ably covers the big picture economic developments of the last 200 years (the Industrial Revolution, class warfare, the rise of the welfare state), it is really about the economists that thunk the thoughts that made up that history. We find out what kind of people Marx, Marshall, Fischer, Keynes, Schumpeter, Hayek, and Friedman were, and so get a better glimpse of the life and times behind the genius.

In engaging vignettes, the author reveals that Marx wrote&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Das-Kapital/dp/1934568430/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Das Kapital</a>&nbsp;without having visited a factory and that his income placed him among the top 2% in Britain; that it was a woman, Beatrice Webb who invented the concept of the welfare state; and that the prize monetarist Milton Friedman was the one who first suggested the automatic income tax withholding (a measure he later denounced).

Since the author focuses on the lives of the economists, one doesn't get a fully-formed economic theory such as the one in&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Juggernaut-Why-the-System-Crushes-the-Only-People-Who-Can-Save-It/dp/1600200494/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Juggernaut: Why the System Crushes the Only People Who Can Save It</a>. The themes and implications do amount to something of an assertion--that industrialism is the source of the widespread increase in well-being, and that capitalism, not socialism is the best mechanism for supporting it.

Altogether, this is a welcomed addition to any economist's bookshelf, and a fantastic follow-up for one of the best storytellers in economics today.
1718848
This was an engrossing novel and I appreciated its relevancy to current events, but the author goes a bit overboard to espouse his personal philosophy concerning actions by our government leaders.
1930772
The book is of course great fun.  But Heinlein's condition for franchise -- namely one must have worked satisfactorily _for_ the government before one can vote -- is an effective means to keep the government in power, the privileges (voting and otherwise) neatly concentrated and unchallenged, and, IMHO, a pretty good empirical definition of a totalitarian state.

The China of today (or the near future) might just satisfy Heinlein's condition to a tee: only civil servants/party cadres get to exercise Democracy.

Utopia?
84756
Burke Devore is the Willy Loman of the new economy -- with a few critical distinctions that reveal as much about our times as they do about the two protagonists.  Where Willy aspires to be "well-liked,"  Burke just wants a damn job.  Where Willy dresses up his son's accomplishments, Burke destroys evidence of his son's larceny.  And where Willy's sense of failure leads him to kill himself, Burke's leads him to murder others.
This book is chilly in its moral ambiguity.  But -- offering further proof of our accelerating cultural cycle times -- the novel seems slightly, just slightly, out of date now that the economy has strengthened.  An otherwise excellent piece of writing,  The Ax misses the Zeitgeist bullseye by about fourteen months.
4342520
If the storys premise is even half correct, the U.S. is doomed -- because our nations intelligence system is not just infiltrated by Chinese intelligence agents, it is infested wih them at the highest levels.

The tale opens with the kidnapping of a contract intelligent analyst who works indirectly for the CIA.  Hes the protagonist of the novel and reasonably believable as a character.

The fundamental premise of the novel  which is delivered as four episodes -- is both logical and clever: China wants to not just steal U.S. military secrets, but use those stolen secrets to create what amounts to a fool-proof invasion/occupation plan.

A good hook and a frightening scenario.

But then the improbabilities began to pile up. They keep the action level high,but they eventually overran my willing suspension of disbelief. Enough so that Im not likely to move on to novel No. 2. (Which presumably will lead to Novel No. 3, and then Novel No. 4.)

If you are a proponent of serial novels that are driven in part by coincidences, this might be a great prospect. But if you like tightly written, self-contained stories, this is probably a pass.

I started out thinking that this novel would rate five stars. By the end of book No. 1, I was thinking three  partly for inconsistencies, and partly because the story is going to be (or at least seems) interminable. But while I cant go five stars, three is perhaps too low, so Novel No. 1 ends up with four stars. The concept is imaginative and anyone who can create a coherent novel  much less a series of them  deserves praise.
1774774
The title of my review is a quote from the novel itself, and it reflects the main weakness of the novel.  Atwood creates a bleak but well-developed view of the future, and much of her political and social satire is spot-on.  She also crafts an interesting "last man standing" story a la "I Am Legend" or "A Canticle for Leibowitz".  However, many of these interesting aspects are overwhelmed by an almost puerile focus on sex.  Almost every chapter includes some reference to intercourse, genitalia, or pornography.  Perhaps, at some level, Atwood is critiquing society's obsession with sex and the way it influences the evolution of a culture, but after the tenth reference to the male organ (not really an exaggeration) it becomes very heavy-handed and a bit annoying.  There were so many interesting dystopian questions left unanswered (more description of "the pleeblands", for instance) that could have been addressed if, for example, the story of Oryx's childhood as a prostitute had been condensed.  Overall, an interesting sci-fi premise (although Atwood doesn't like to call it sci-fi!), some beautiful writing (as expected of a writer of Atwood's status), but an unpleasant and generally uninteresting overemphasis on the characters' (including the genetically altered Crakers') sex-lives.
4126373
I'm not a literary critic by any stretch; nor am I completely ignorant of what makes a great novel. One thing that I very much enjoy is when an author conveys in their writing a compelling idea or feeling in a surprising way. While I find the ideas and emotions behind this story (e.g., the perils of ambition, the emptiness of success, the loneliness of greatness) very compelling, I felt as though I were reading a comment on The Fountainhead -- not surprising and definitely not unique.

It was as if Millhauser set out to warn us about the other, darker half of Howard Rourke's world. In fact, Martin Dessler seems the mirror image of Rourke in many ways (e.g., the rampant eclecticism of his hotels versus Rourke's utilitarian architectural style). Certainly, we should all be reminded of the downside of success and unchecked ambition. After reading Martin Dressler, I felt that Millhauser's reminder could have come in a more subtle and inventive package.
4526192
A lot of interest has sparked about this novel, which I read six years a ago, now that the novel showed up in the hatch on a Lost episode. Don't worry. Reading the novel won't ruin the plot of Lost or give you definitive details. What the novel will do is give you an allegory that may parallel Lost. The allegory is the following: An inept young man with no moral backbone allows himself to be persuaded by a devilish man to kill someone for money. After the crime, the ninny finds himself quite lost in a world that is no longer recognizable to him. He starts to ask himself, like the cast of Lost, "Where the heck am I?" It appears in fact he is suffering perdition for his crime and he must go through life in a hellish repitition for which there seems to be no end. That this book was inserted by the Lost writers into their show attests to how sophisticated their influences are for a TV program that is quite unusual for being so popular while at the same time being "literary," visionary, and highly original.
2577690
This book is not so much a novel as a series of examples of how the author believes situations in an upcoming collapse should be handled.  It is still interesting and the characters are relatable, but the concept that these are the 'right' answers means there is very little drama as the central characters survive and thrive.  To that end, it is only good for two purposes:  raw escapism for us paranoid types, where we can imagine that our paranoia has preserved something of civilization, and as the novel was intended, as a series of illustrations of a specific military theory.

As for the first, I found it two parts pleasant and one part disquieting.  My mind finds little in the book's philosophical assumptions to fault, but my heart is the product of this age.  The idea of burning witches makes me uneasy.

As for the second, I find it quite fascinating.  I recommend that anyone read this book alongside William Lind's On War or his 4 Generations of War, as the novel basically provides clear illustrations of how the principles in these books might work out.

So, if you are studying fourth generation war, this book makes a great companion novel to Castalia House's other books on the subject, with easy-to-grasp illustrations of the principles found therein, presented in an engaging manner.  If you are looking for a pipe-dream about the unification of Christendom after the fall of the modern age, this book will also be a pleasant read.  If you are looking for an exciting novel where the forces of good overcome evil at terrible odds, I must warn you that the nature of this book severely undercuts the drama.  Three stars as entertainment; four as illustration.  I gave it the score that accords with its intended purpose.
2351600
I read this as an early example of a Utopian novel, and its vision of the future is certainly interesting. However, the plot is pretty thin and as a novel, it is not particularly satisfying. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the read in terms of its vision of socialism, particularly given that it is from the early years of socialism, prior to being able to see how history actually did unfold in terms of the history of the USSR.

As a social scientist, I did enjoy it, especially once I had given up on expecting a plot. Most of the chapters are basically just Dr Leek explaining a specific aspect of the Utopian future. There is some vivid imagery that stuck with me, particularly the dream near the beginning of a chariot driven by Hunger that is carried by the poor with the wealthy occupying a very comfortable, but precarious position at the top. The ideas are interesting, but with the benefit of history and hindsight it is easier to see the potential cracks in the ideas. What particularly interested me was that it appeared at the time that the West's trade union movement would inevitably lead to revolution, which of course did not happen.

The argument that I found particularly interesting is that morality is viewed as not being dependent on human nature, but rather on the environment in which specific humans find themselves. What seems like a vision driven by fundamental changes in human nature, Dr Leek argues (with Bellamy as the puppeteer) is actually due to re-engineering the context in which they find themselves.

I would recommend this as an interesting read, for those with an interest in history and the evolution of socialism. But don't read it as a novel. If you want an older Utopian novel that has more of a story, I would suggest&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Herland/dp/B00K5EBDV6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Herland</a>, which provides an interesting insight into early feminism as well as having slightly more plot and characterisation.