For the Benefit of Mr Kite

DSCF1142, originally uploaded by amandainthecorner.

This unbearably cute thing, will, fingers-crossed, become the newest member of my household. Right now, she is just over five weeks old, so she is too young to leave her mother, but in a couple of weeks I hope that she can come and live with us.

She is a Manx cross kitten and she has no tail.

Of course, there will be more pictures to when she comes to live with us but for now, here is another:

So many things to blog about, but rather than fill you in on all of the happenings in my life over the past month, I choose to tell you about a book I have just finished reading.

It took me a long time, but I've finally finished Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy. It's a quite famous Australian novel written in 1950. The book is basically the fictional story of John Wren.

Before I started this book, I didn't know anything about John Wren let alone Victorian politics of the early twentieth-century. For all of those who are interested, I recommend a trip to Wikipedia as a starting point. 

Anyway, the book was a mammoth effort for me. It wasn't really written in the style that I like. It was very straight forward and had long descriptions of events and conversations that I found hard to follow. Nethertheless, it was an interesting book. Most of the events that were described in the book actually happened (though not in the way they are written) and the main character of 'John West' was very well written and developed. At the beginning of the book, you felt sympathy for him and his plight and you identify with his struggle to earn money illegally as a method to lift himself out of poverty. However, by the end of the book are kind of glad that he dies. You really do hate him.

This brings me to another thing that bothered me about the book. It was very political. Its author, Frank Hardy was a noted communist and this is very clear in the book. I do not wish to pass judgement on political persuasions - that will just cause all sorts of arguments but this book is very much on the side of socialism. 

Despite its failings, I'd recommend this book to others, as long as you're ready for a long-haul. It's not an easy book to read, but even if you don't enjoy the writing, you will learn something from this book - I'm still looking up all of the stuff that happens in the book. 

Enjoy!