Festival Issue Two: More Great Writers.
Charles Dickens, by Daniel Cure
In our Great Writers series we have a brilliantly concise biography of Charles Dickens. Daniel Cure, the author of the scholarly novel, The Silver Knight, like so many of our contributors, does a marvellous job of rendering the works of a great author into a vanishingly small space of eight hundred words. Daniel explains how Dickens' own childhood in poverty and squalor shaped him as a man, a social reformer and an author. Charles Dickens is not only one of England's greatest writers. He's also a moralist, an observer and a historian of sorts, albeit a populist one. It's almost impossible to overestimate the importance of Dickens. And, given that he had so little space to write in, I believe that Daniel Cure shows admirably how true that statement is.
James Ellroy LA Confidential, by Roger Cave
Next in our Great Writers series we've an introduction to James Ellroy's LA Confidential, by Roger Cave. Roger makes references to both the book and the film. He doesn't compare them in any great detail, although he ranks them against each other and finds the book far superior. Roger is careful to point out that Ellroy's complex web of characters, plots and backstories can make following the story difficult at times. But he is adamant that regardless of how tricky keeping up with the plot may be, the book must be read. In order to whet our appetites, Roger then gives us a tiny glimpse of what we've missed, if we haven't already read the book. Not surprisingly, in his enthusiasm, and having praised the novel by calling it almost perfect, he makes anybody who hasn't yet read the book wonder why they haven't read it.
Christopher Marlowe by Daniel Cure
Here Daniel Cure gives us another insight, this time into the short and violent life of Christopher Marlowe. Some may either know him as Kit Marlowe or as a contemporary of William Shakespeare. Either way, although brilliant and hugely talented, he was, like Caravaggio, a genius inexplicably drawn into life's squalid, dark places, to violence and brutality. This enigmatic playwright leaves us with one of the world's most renowned plays, Tamburlaine, and an almost never-ending list of questions. Was he a spy? Was he an atheist or a homosexual? Perhaps we'll never know. But what we do know was that he was one of the most charismatic and interesting artists of his period. And though his work is greatly overshadowed by that of his more illustrious contemporary, he's well worth investigating.
Beyond Dorking by Claude Bouchard
Claude Bouchard, the author of a superb series of Canadian crime thrillers, which are featured in our Crime Wave series, takes on a theme which Litarena has been paying no small amount of attention to of late. It's the genre that gave rise to HG Wells' classic story The War of the Worlds. It's inspired countless generations of authors to write stories, films and all manner of other kinds of materials about invasions of all kinds. And it's simply called Invasion Literature. It all began with a short story written in 1879.
Three Terrific Thrillers
The first two are written by Claude Bouchard and Jeanette McCarthy. First let me say how well both of them write. Both writers produce very fine pieces of work indeed. Both writers use an eye for detail in their cover designs. Claude's covers are stark and so are his books. They're pared down. They're simple and they're raw. His writing is just as direct. Claude and his killers rampage through each of his fast-paced stories leaving the all the readers, the police and the captivated media too dizzy and on tenterhooks. Jeanette is more graceful. Her covers are more wistful. Her books play on feelings as well as betrayal, abuse, murder, and the kind of beastliness that you almost only ever find in fiction. In the book that our festival concentrates on she shows us how one woman survives on a remote island. But it's not an ordinary island. Jeanette has studied its horror and its fascination. This story is disturbing. It's also very good indeed.
Litarena Review Magazine Festival Issue One
For those of you who missed issue one of our online festival, here it is again, featuring introductions to Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S Thompson, Nietzsche and Raymond Chandler.
Submissions Wanted! Write About a Great Writer for Litarena Magazine!
If you've written a publishable article about any of the classic authors, or any of America's hard-boiled fiction writers, and you'd like to put it to good use, then we'd love to hear from you.
