Dear readers, My time at the University of Oxford is drawing to a close; it is now time to sit my final examinations. As a result, I will be taking a hiatus from blogging and writing 😦 Thank you to all my readers for inspiring me to keep writing. I love to see my words…
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The Oxford Comma Now that the initial facts have had the time to sink in, I take it as a responsibility to ask: where do I stand now, once I’ve put a comma after ‘Oxford’ (yup, pun in the title is shamelessly intended)? An offer to study at Oxford is, without doubt, a testament to…
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Breathe in Dawn, Breathe out Starlight – some poetic observations on the endless intelligence and regeneration of the natural world around us.
Read MoreAfter successfully negotiating AS Levels in French, English, History and Psychology, lo and behold, here comes the onslaught of Year 13. Homework, university applications, extra reading, an EPQ are just a few things on my never-ending to-do list for the moment. In following with Paradise Prose custom (thanks to schoolwork, this has happened before), the…
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In the literary community, there seems to be quite a debate on whether Dorothea Brooke from George Eliot’s Middlemarch is a truly “satisfactory” character. Feminist critics such as Lee R. Edwards have pointed out that Dorothea succumbs to the conservative expectations of society, ultimately becoming no more than a mother and a wife. In some…
Read MoreSo, exam “season” is upon us. I wonder what the Romantic poets, with their capacity for celebrating the beauty of nature, would have to say about that phrase. Students, at this time of year, hardly look like poetic inspiration. We really don’t have time to think about gardens, like Blake, nor do we resemble the…
Read MoreEnduring love; the book’s title promises the story of a faithful relationship, of love transcending all obstacles, something reminiscent of Shakespeare’s ‘Marriage of True Minds’. Somewhat luckily, reading McEwan’s other masterpiece “Atonement” and living with the rather faulty configuration of my own mind had already primed me to discover something much more disturbing. McEwan doesn’t…
Read MoreAtonement by Ian McEwan plays with your mind on so many levels: just as promised in my title, this book is actually about a book. The narrative in that book changes someone’s life; it draws from many different narratives set in the real world’s story, one of wars and people sucked in by the conflict.…
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Okay, I just threw a jumble of long words on the screen, hoping that the general impression is that ‘I’m going to try my best to do well in AS level English this year, and I’m sharing how I plan to do that’. Read on if you think this could be useful! And if you’re…
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