Ferdinand is a quiet, mild mannered clerk who has recently come into a large amount of money. Unsure what to do with it, at first he wanders about Europe with his deformed Aunt Mabel and his prim and proper Aunt Annie, satisfying their desires to be rich and cultured, but not his. They travel to Australia and he attempts to figure out what to do with his life. He has no friends, no social skills, and no desire to better himself through education, culture or life experiences. All he cares about is his butterflies, which he collects with obsessive meticulousness, and with being proper and respectful, not at all 'immoral like most nowadays'.

Miranda is a young art student brimming with ideas and thoughts, creativity and wit. She is graceful and beautiful, with many friends, and has a close relationship with an almost caricature pretentious art-snob of a man, GP. Her world is full of color and vibrancy, she wishes to experience everything, to learn everything, and most of all, she wishes to escape the small minded 'New People' way of life that so encompasses the existence of everyone she grew up with. Through her paintings - youthful and young, she will admit, but alive! - she strives to learn about the world she has been thrust into, not to reject it but to embrace. Having open eyes is, to her, the greatest of all gifts.

She goes to a college near where Ferdinand lives in London. He first noticed her at work, her house was right opposite the Annexe, but after he wins some money, he begins to follow her about, learning the patterns of her daily life, where she works, where she studies, who her friends are. On a whim, Ferdinand purchases a house with an intricate cellar far out in the country-side, miles away from anywhere. Telling himself he would never use it, he sets about making the cellar all but impenetrable with locks and bolts and sound-proofing. He buys furniture and women's clothing, and tries his hardest to break out of the cellar he has created to see if it is possible. Satisfied it isn't, he takes the next step and captures Miranda, locking her in the cellar until she can learn to love him as he loves her.

Forty pages into the novel we have a kidnapped woman, a love-obsessed man, and two cellar rooms. First, we are thrust through the experience of Miranda's capture through Ferdinand's hopeless eyes, with his yearning love and his down-trodden way of thinking about himself. It is plain, to him, that he is the only man - no, the only person - ever capable of loving Miranda the way she deserves, and all he wishes is to show her this truth. He is chilling in his politeness: making her breakfast every morning - whatever she wants! - buying her nice things, having coffee with her, chatting, talking, letting her paint for him. He is also incredibly thorough, thwarting the few escape attempts she makes at the start with ease. All he wants is love, to be able to love her, and to know she loves him.

The second part of the novel is Miranda's diary. She is a wonderful woman: Alive, energetic, intelligent, exploratory - a true modern woman. Through her diary we learn of her friends, her passions, her interesting relationship with GP, and more. She begins to consider her captivity to be a positive experience in how it is changing her way of thinking, and she desperately pities Ferdinand - her 'Caliban', she calls him, echoing the hopeless love of Caliban for Miranda in the Shakespearean play 'The Tempest'.

The novel ends as it should, heart breaking and sad. Throughout, we learn a great deal about the two characters, developing a sad, hopeless pity-love for Ferdinand much like Miranda does, and we love Mirand for who she is. It ends on a chilling note, a tone of unbelievable inhumanity, but no less satisfying for that.

One of the best books I have read this year.

Considered by many to be one of the first modern novels, it is a hilarious exploration of 16th and 17th century Spain, all through the eyes of the chivalrous knight errant, Don Quixote, and his ever faithful squire, Sancho Panza.

Around the age of fifty, there was a man who, after reading countless chivalric romances, decided to adopt the name of Don Quixote and explore the world, righting wrongs, rescuing maidens and slaying giants. Deluded by the grandeur of his favourite stories, Quixote sees the world differently to normal men. An inn is not an inn but a castle, a monk not a monk but a wandering vagabond to be slain, a life-worn prostitute not a whore but a beautiful princess. After a rapid series of events, Quixote returns home, battered and bruised from the fights he has lost, in his mind a glorious knight errant returning from many victories. He convinces his neighbour, Sancho Panza, of his prowess, and the two set off once more, the first adventure they experience together being the famous windmill fight - the windmill that Quixote took to be a giant.

Over the next nine hundred pages or so, the relationship between Quixote and Panza develops into deep affection. The greatest pleasure is to be derived from reading their addled conversations, how they twist ordinary events into epic circumstances, and how willing Panza is to believe Quixote's exaggerations. He is promised early in the book that he will one day govern an island, and holds on to this for many months through ridiculous adventure after ridiculous adventure. Throughout, he shows an amusing level of stupidity, but also a staggering insight, seemingly able to change between the two within a sentence. And the proverbs!

Don Quixote is a very intelligent man, when he is not discussing chivalry. He is able to converse at great length of all manner of subjects, and every word he says seems wise and true. But turn the conversation to being a knight, or the never-seen love of his life, Dulcinea del Toboso, and he becomes a raving mad-man, spewing forth opinions and ideas that could never be believed. He is much given to grand gestures, turning a simple apology into a two paragraph discourse, highlighting ancient instances of forgiveness and sadness. The amount of references that he crams into his speech is simply amazing, and I am thankful that my Penguin Classics translation saw fit to explain them. From the bible to Greek mythology to current day (at the time) events and people to fictional giants and sorcerers to characters from books, Quixote is willing and able to place them in his speech in a way that feels effortless.

The book is in two parts, of roughly equal size, and the first is the best. In the second, the first part of the book has been published, and everyone is aware of who Quixote and Panza are. Consequently, many people take advantage of them, and it isn't so funny to see the two being ridiculed so harshly. Also, the narrator becomes a little too self-referential for my liking, a technique that wasn't present in the first book and feels awkward in the second.

But the beauty of this book is in the friendship. Sancho Panza is one of the greatest characters I have ever read, I truly feel a fondness for him and wish there were a thousand more books written of him. Don Quixote is larger than life, a caricature of a caricature, and it is a delight to read his rants. There is a sense that - if Cervantes hadn't killed off Quixote at the very end of his book to prevent further stories being written - that the two men would, even know, be travelling the countryside of Spain, bickering and chatting, secure in the knowledge that Don Quixote is an amazing knight, and that Sancho Panza is his ever faithful squire.

The Glass Bead Game is the pinnacle of intelligence, wisdom and learning that the 23rd century Castalia has to offer. Students are plucked from their families and lives at a young age to become 'elite' pupils, gradually inducted into the Order and the Game to carry on the traditions and ceremonies of Castalia. The Order's purpose is two-fold: One, to protect the sanctity and accuracy of knowledge from the current time down to antiquity, and two, to showcase the talents and minds of the elite with dazzling, lengthy Glass Bead Games.

But there is a problem, and only Joseph Knecht, the Magister Ludi - Master of the Game and hero of the story - can see it. The Glass Bead Game, while being the pinnacle of intellectual achievement, has no creativity side, no ability to move beyond what it currently is. Philosophy, music, art, mathematics, sciences: All these are condensed into symbols representing, say, a piece by Bach or a mathematical equation. However, no new symbols are allowed, or if they are, the process is so mired in bureaucracy that it may as well be impossible.

We follow Joseph from childhood to Magister Ludi, and we learn through him what Castalia is and is capable of. A supreme intellect, his life culminates not in the appointment of Magister Ludi - as so many other great player's would consider it to be - but rather with his famous 'circular letter', addressed to the other members of the Board, highlighting his concerns with the Glass Bead Game.

The plot of the book is minimal, and we are all but told it at the very beginning. Rather, we are invited to take a look at this could be-world of Hesse's. Castalia, however, is not the entirety of the world, as much as the inhabitants would like to think. No, they are 'merely' an enclosed, fully-supported (but not self-supported) university like establishment, churning out works that may or may not have any real use outside of their walls.

At first, the book mercilessly attacks our time, with its commercialism, its way of turning men intelligent in one field into minor celebrities in another, its way of asking movie stars or musicians to comment on the state of the world even though there talents lie elsewhere, its way of putting wealth above all. It seems at times as though Hesse was caricaturing his own time, but the frightening thing is, in 2004, we have become this caricature. After this attack, the beauty of Castalia is revealed, as explained above. But then, as Joseph Knecht learns and discovers and becomes Magister Ludi, we learn that Castalia is not so important, not so wonderful, not so essential as first presented. It is difficult for him to accept this, but easier for us.

In the end, no solution is given. Hesse emphatically states that our present time is too shallow to be the answer, but so is the staid environment of Castalia. It is worth noticing that no character beyond Knecht has a personality; even his is poor. Females do not play a part, and there is no conflict. Is Hesse saying that a world without creativity becomes a lifeless, boring world capable of beauty but incapable of appreciation of this beauty?

In 194-, an illness begins to form in the ordinary town of Oran. At first rats in their thousands die and strange occurrences begin, but the doctors and learned men shy from declaring a plague; the social and economic stigma of such a word makes them apprehensive and indecisive. Soon though, as the deaths mount to nearly a thousand a week, the city is quarantined, emergency procedures are put in place, and the novel truly begins.

The Plague is structured as an impartial account of six disease-ridden months. We are never given any insight into the thoughts or motives of the few named characters, rather we are presented with numerous essay-like sections on the gradual dehumanising of the populace and the often extreme measures put into place. All the same, there are various sections devoted to this or that character - one trying to escape the town to meet his wife, another struggling with his own private moral code, still another profiting from smuggling. This serves to give us both aspects of what a plague does to a city, though more time is spent discussing the broader aspects of it.

This might sound macabre, but the novel would have benefited from more characters dying. As it is, there are only a handful of character that leave any lasting impression, and these are mostly the doctors caring for the sick. By dint of their profession and intimate knowledge of the plague, the story must remain clinical and cold. This works to give a greater picture of the events happening in Oran, but unfortunately severs any real emotional attachment, save for a a very few characters, four in my mind. Perhaps if greater time was spent developing some other characters and their relationships - and then having them die - a more personal connection could be made.

But that is not the point of the novel. Many times throughout, it is stressed that the people are not special, that it is the community that lives and dies in plague times. At one point it is argued that men who volunteer and help should not be honored above others, for what man would not do such a thing? To help dying men and women in a quarantine situation does not require courage so much as an acceptance of what it means to be a human, to follow the responsibilities set forth by having life. This message, while at first seeming negative, is actually an overwhelming positive of the human race as a whole, and should not be discounted merely because it fails to glorify the few.

Naturally, the story's focus is the Plague, and when it breaks, so too does the narrative. We are sent through the numbing lows and artificial highs of such an event, and while it is somewhat impersonal, this book serves as an invaluable account of the emotional flow and ebb of a community as a whole, and what it means to be a part of a group.

gnatius J Reilly is fat. Ignatius is lazy. He is slothful, arrogant, condescending, self-obsessed, self-absorbed, incapable of empathy, calculating, ignorant, deluded and did I mention obese? After all but causing a car accident thanks to his tendency to 'aid' people with their driving, his mother demands that the unemployed, thirty-year old get a job. He is horrified, certain that gainful employment will disrupt the sporadic work he does on his masterpiece. And of course there is the problem with his valve.

So he finds himself a job. He breezes into the Levy Pants company and demands more pay, later starting time, and then spends his days carefully painting a cross to cheer everyone up. Then he incites a riot. Then he gets fired.

This first job sets a lot of events in motion. Characters are introduced and frequently we enter their lives to see what is happening. This has the effect of diluting Ignatius' presence from the story - but only slightly - however the compromise here is that we know it will all tie in together - we just don't know how.

There is Jones, the black floor-sweeper at the Night of Joy, quite possibly the worst strip-club in all of New Orleans. Mr Levy, the disillusioned son of the original - and best, if we can believe his wife - Mr Levy. George, the mysterious package deliverer. Mancuso, the down on his luck detective, and more. Excluding Jones, these characters all have sub-par development as character, and serve mostly as caricatures. This goes even more so for the lesser characters I have not mentioned.

Events do tie themselves up a little too neatly. There is a sense that every little action, no matter how inconsequential, builds towards a whole, which doesn't really reflect the reality of life, but this is a moot point. Ignatius is an amazing character, so awful, arrogant and just plain mean to every other person imaginable that you will have to fall in love. Who cannot enjoy his Working Boy Journals? Or his love/hate relationship with Myrna? Don't necessarily read this book for plot - which, though strong, plays out like a 1 hour crime special - read it for Ignatius.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is an interesting mix of social commentary, history lesson and relationship examination all rolled into one novel that is told, not by a narrator, but by Kundera himself.

The lightness of being is at the focal point of this novel. We are first presented with a brief essay-like section on whether life is a light or a heavy experience, and if it differs for others. He uses historical figures as evidence as to the weight of life, some, like Parmenides, consider life to be a light burden, as 'lightness' is positive and so is being alive, and Nietzsche appears to agree, though for very different reasons. Throughout the novel, Kundera takes over the narration to discuss, contrast and compare the actions of the characters as regards to the philosophy of great men, trying to determine whether life is in fact light or heavy. The conclusion he seems to come to is that it is up to the person themselves to decide, and after that, to decide which out of light or heavy is the negative aspect.

In terms of story, most of the activity centres around Tomas and Tereze, who met through a bizarre sequence of activities. In another show of polarity, Tereze considers these amazing coincidences proof that they should be together forever, whereas as Tomas thinks it means that their relationship will be as fleeting and ephemeral as the chance of them ever meeting. We also get to see on of Tomas' (many) mistresses, Sabine, although the details of her life are presented more to understand Tomas.

About halfway through the novel, we are taken on an excursion into the way life was in Czechoslovakia, with the threat of the Russians and communism, and the way people were deluded. This part is interesting from a historical and social aspect, as our heroes are involved in the proceedings, but thankfully the author does not let his own political ideology take over the narrative at the expense of the characters.

Since we are being told this story by Kundera and not some nameless, faceless narrator, the writing is very playful, tangential and casual. Many things are explained then further explained in brackets (like so), which might seem like the author is bashing our head with the point he is trying to make, but it never comes across as this. Rather, we are thankful for such personal insight.

The book can be very sad, and very weighty, but most of the time it remains light-weight and playful - thus mimicking the subject matter and narrative structure of the story itself. The insight into the Czechoslovakia as a nation and as people is quite interesting also, but as said above, the focus remains on Tomas and Tereze's relationship, and through that, an analysis of all relationship's is made.

She is the last of the Unicorns. For centuries, she has lived within her forest, at one with nature and her surroundings. Immortal, she has been unconcerned with the fate of the other Unicorns, for surely, if they were all gone, she would know of it? But it is not the case. Feeling curiosity and doubt for the first time in many years, she sets off to find out what has happened to the other Unicorns, why humans don't even seem to see her, and just what the mysterious Red Bull is.

Beagle writes beautifully. Metaphors and similes are used with ease, and almost without exception they evoke images of verdant forest, shimmering lakes or crashing seas. Nature is a well-used tool for poetic license, and fits the theme and setting of the book perfectly.

Along the way, she meets the bumbling magician Schmendrick after being captured by a dark, evil witch, then Molly Grue next befriends her. Together the trio explore the land, venturing deep into the mean King Haggard's domain in search of the Red Bull.

Characters are either very black or very white. The Unicorn, we are told, is the most perfect, beautiful creature of all, and this lofty description is met and matched and every opportunity. We believe that she is perfect because her actions are perfect and the words to describe her are perfect. There is a sense of great sadness when she walks through a human town and is considered to be only a white mare, she cannot understand how the villagers seem unable to even see her horn.

There are mis-steps along the way, but not many. Some of the dialogue between humans is too anachronistic for my liking, and the opening to the second part of the novel in Haggard's castle dragged a little bit. A few too-clever modern day references were made as well, but really, all of these are minor. The writing is beautiful, capable of evoking sadness and joy, and the characters are a lot of fun to be around. The ending, while tidy, was expected almost from the start and is thus satisfying.

On a last note, the butterfly near the start was probably my favourite part of the whole novel, what a great character!

Soul Mountain is the story of one man's quest to discover the truth about himself, or, if you interpret it differently, it is the struggle of two men, or three men, or three men and a woman. In the quest for meaning he stumbles across many truths about humanity, the culture of China, and the effects of man on the environment.

There are two main threads through this novel. First is the 'I' character, he is a writer, wandering through the small towns and farm-lands of China in an effort to find Lingshan, 'soul mountain'. Then there is 'You', another person searching the rural areas of China for Lingshan. Chapters alternate between 'I' and 'You', and there are a lot of parallels between the two. In one chapter, the 'You' character might have a run-in with some explorers searching for pandas, then, five chapters later, the 'I' character interacts with the same or similar people. There is a sense that these two are in fact the same, that they offer different perspectives on the same events, and how, to two different people, the same thing can have such different meaning. Later, a 'She' is introduced as an accompaniment to 'You', 'She' is represented not as a coherent female character, but rather as all females; her personality changes radically from chapter to chapter while still retaining a common thread.

There is no real structure beyond that, however. Plots lines are taken up, then mysteriously discarded by the time we return to the character, never to be mentioned again. Small details change, and lots of story-lines are repeated. There is a lot of exploration into the mostly forgotten culture of China - or more accurately, a lot of the culture that was all but eradicated by the Cultural Revolution of the 50s and 60s - and with all of these sequences there is a sense of sadness. So to with the meditations on the effects the spreading, more technologically able population of China is having on the wilderness.

There are a lot of passages which serve only to explore the mind and soul of the author. A lot of these occur in the 'You' sections, which serve to bring us, the reader, into the dilemmas and solutions presented. Without this technique, a lot of these chapters or paragraphs might have seemed self-indulgent.

A primary concern of mine was the way the 'She' was treated. I don't know much about how women are treated in China, but in almost every instance, 'She' was either madly obsessive, fragile, weak and pathetic, or hopelessly domineering. Also, every sex scene had the woman become limp 'like a fish' and say 'no, no, no'. For me, this was disturbing to read.

In the end, this book is for people willing to search within themselves and ask the hard questions. Solutions are offered, but just as easily rejected. By having a 'You', we are drawn into the story quickly, and without this, it would suffer as there is no real cohesive thread throughout the 550-odd pages. With it, we are sent on a journey through the soul of a man contemplating his own life, and through that, our own.

Moses E Herzog is going mad. He's aware of this, doesn't seem to bother him too much, though he can sense that it worries his friends and families. He begins to write letters, first to people he knows, then to celebrities, dead philosophers, himself; letters he never intends on sending but that act as a therapeutic activity for his troubled mind. By the end of the novel, we know Herzog, understand him, sympathise with him, even love him.

His second wife Madeleine recently ran away with his best friend, taking their young child with her. Herzog is filled with hatred towards her, but, strangely, it is an oddly amiable hatred. He recognises her good qualities, wishes her well in life, and generally doesn't want to ever see her again no matter what. The breakup with her is certainly the pivotal point for his madness, most of the events and thoughts in the novel surround her or the marriage.

Through his letters, Herzog explores his past and previous relationships. A letter to an old school friend will trigger memories of his failed crook of a father, a letter to a favoured philosopher will trigger memories of sleeping late with Madeleine and making love. We are rocketed back and forth, from Europe to America, childhood to adulthood with ease and skill, it never jars, but flows naturally.

Herzog is a very complicated character. He is aware of his own weaknesses, but only some he tries to fix. Others he is comfortable with, safe in the knowledge of what they are. He is a man who, while lacking confidence in some areas, has supreme confidence in who he is as a person. He does come off as arrogant sometimes, but he is aware of it, and to an extent enjoys the mild prestige of being the wise, in-print professor.

The narrator is mostly separate from Herzog, but he follows the professor's erratic, excited, jumpy speech. Occasionally the narrator will slip into the first POV, referring to Herzog as 'I', but this is rare. For the most part, the narrator is fresh, exuberant and in love with life - much like Herzog himself.

By the end of the novel, Herzog is complete. He breathes, lives and walks among us. There is no problem with believing that this is a real person. He has flaws, he has problems, he perhaps philosophises a little too much to be of any practicable use (his words), but by the end of the book, I wouldn't have him any other way.

Kangaroo Notebook is a darkly surreal novel, at turns bizarre and ridiculous then just as easily becomes normal and calm. While lacking a sense of continuity through a few odd narrative choices, Kangaroo Notebook remains an interesting experiment into imagination.

One day, our nameless narrator wakes to find that he has radish sprouts growing from his knees. Not particularly alarmed at this, he soon discover to his pleasure that they are edible and quite tasty. A doctor's appointment lands him in the hospital where he is knocked out with drugs. From there, using his trusty Atlas bed as a transportation device, we are led through bizarre scene after bizarre scene, from hairy American martial arts experts to the souls of aborted children who perform plays on the banks of the river Sai for charity.

The narrator is on one hand an interesting fellow - he IS growing radish sprouts from his knees, after all - and his adventures are quite entertaining, but there is a lack within him. He show no great curiosity as to why everything is happening to him, nor does he really seem interested in getting everything back to normal. He is content to go with the flow, and throughout the novel, he acts more as a spectator than an actual character. Almost, but not quite, he is an omniscient narrator, in the sense that his voice does nothing more than record what is happening. Not quite though, because he does participate in a few interesting conversations along the way. Unfortunately, his lack of personality is a definite crutch.

The nameless narrator ricochets from bizarre sequence to stunningly normal locale, then back to bizarre with a speed that is at time dizzying. Often, scene changes are precipitated by the narrator being knocked unconscious, a fairly weak literary device that is used far too often here. The end sequence is the most bizarre of them all, juxtaposing the lengthy normal hospital scene that proceeds it.

The novel ended, to my mind, abruptly and without closure. There is a cryptic message at the end - which, I'll admit, I was expecting something of the sort - but I couldn't really decipher it at first. But, after thinking about the novel for a few hours after I had finished, I realised that the ending was, in fact, perfect.

To my mind, appreciation of this book comes down to a personal choice. If you enjoy bizarre series of events that don't seem to be going anywhere but suddenly illuminate at the end, then by all means read it. If however, you don't like barely connected scenes with a personality-less narrator, steer clear.