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(e)Book – Love and friendship

  (e) Book –  Love and friendship Full title :  Love and friendship and other early works Author : Jane Austen Score : /10 Year : 1790 (original) ; 2012 (this edition) Publisher : Duke Classics   ISBN  978-1-62012-155-9  // 9781620121559  (ebook)  Pages :  Language: English Jane Austen is best known for her 6 novels, which all have been adapted into tv movies - but after having read Virginia Woolf's short fiction in chronological order, I decided to apply the same for Austen's publications, to better appreciate her growth and evolution in narrative style. So, before reading her novels which were released from 1811 to 1817, in the following order :  Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma,  Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, I decided to go back to her teenage years, reading Love and Friendships, and other early works.
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Book – Becket



Book – Becket
Author : Jean Anouilh
Score : 7/10  (due to inaccuracies it is dropped down from 9 for style)
Year : 1960 (original play from 1959) 
Publisher : Signet books 
ISBN : N/A (before it's time)
Pages : 128 

Language: English (translated from French by Lucienne Hill) 

A play in 4 acts - which would be adapted into a movie - Becket, or the Honor of God, opposes a King and his friend, Becket, and treats with the topics of separation of state and the Church, with clever critic of both, alternating between humour and grave drama. 

More precisely, the protagonists are Thomas Becket and King Henri II of England. But, as the author acknowledges, there are many historical inaccuracies. 

 Becket comments on the notions of honor, deceits and treachery ; dialogues and acts comprising sexual overtones, with subtext of homo-erotica and the king's fickle shifts of moods. 

Jean Anouilh had been inspired to write this after he bought, on the quays of the Seine, Augustin Thierry's old history book, the Conquest of England by the Normans, as explained in the introduction. 

The dialogues are clever, witty and show a great contempt towards royalty, the Church, and blindly followed orders. 

I enjoyed reading this play, more than I'd anticipated in view of the topics at hand. 

Becket is also my 28th completed book in goodreads' challenge, but as Earthsea trilogy was one volume comprising 3 novels, this actually completes my challenge, and anything else I manage reading shall be a bonus. 


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