Latest news with #novella
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Air by John Boyne: Superb, at-times harrowing, still questioning
Air Author : John Boyne ISBN-13 : 978-0857529855 Publisher : Doubleday Guideline Price : £12.99 In The Irish Times in 2023, Dubliner John Boyne , a multimillion selling author thanks to 2006's The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, wrote about how he was sexually assaulted while in school . Facing up to this trauma, and reporting it, inspired him to write a quartet of novellas to, in his own words, 'focus on sexual abuse from four different perspectives'. Consequently, Water, Earth and Fire, all published over the past two years, made for uneasy reading. That's not to say they weren't well written, they certainly were, but Fire was particularly harrowing and Boyne said he found that book, narrated by a female paedophile, 'the most difficult and emotionally draining to write'. No one who has been following along with Boyne's elemental suite will, then, be expecting Air to be a light read. As before, he takes characters from previous books and moves them centre stage. Aaron Umber, one of the victims in Fire , is flying from Sydney to Ireland with his teenaged son Emmet. Aaron has split from Emmet's mother Rebecca, a daughter of the Vanessa who in Water temporarily moved to an island off the west coast to grasp at some kind of recovery after her first husband's crimes were revealed. READ MORE Aaron and Rebecca's marriage was a sexless one as both parties were understandably 'completely broken' when they met. Aaron dislikes being touched and recalls a random sexual encounter that shows how damaged he is. He naturally fears that the sins perpetrated on the father might be repeating themselves on the son when he finds semi-naked photos on Emmet's phone. Rebecca is so scarred that her own mother warned Aaron off her the night before their wedding, and has seemingly abandoned her only child. [ John Boyne: How I wrote The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Opens in new window ] Boyne's main characters are masterfully realised ordinary people trying to move beyond the weight of the past ('It's not fair, is it? Life. You'd wonder whether it's all worth the bother.'). That past continually elbows its way back into the present, such as when Vanessa's second husband Ron, who seems like a perfectly decent fellow, well and truly puts his foot in it. The question Boyne appears to be asking in this superb series is whether anyone, and he might even be including himself in that number, can ever fully escape from such horrific history.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Game of Thrones author sets fans straight on next book
George RR Martin has addressed fans' concerns about the delayed release of The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin announced he is producing an adaptation of Howard Waldrop's novella, A Dozen Tough Jobs, which triggered complaints about his work on projects unrelated to The Winds of Winter. Martin responded to criticisms that he doesn't care about finishing the series, detailing the typical negative comments he receives, including that his writing has deteriorated and he will die soon due to his age. He said he had worked on numerous other projects, but 'you don't care about anything but Winds of Winter. You've told me so often enough'. Martin has been working on The Winds of Winter since 2010, and despite expressing frustration and delays due to other projects, he stated in 2022 that the book was about "three-quarters of the way done".
Arab News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Arab News
Book Review: ‘A Shining' by Jon Fosse
Jon Fosse, the 2023 Nobel laureate, delivers a masterclass in existential minimalism with 'A Shining,' a novella that glimmers with metaphysical unease. Translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls, this brief but resonant work lingers like a half-remembered dream, inviting readers to grapple with its haunting ambiguity. An unnamed man drives into a remote forest, seeking isolation. When his car stalls, he abandons it, lured deeper into the trees by an enigmatic light. What begins as a quest for solitude spirals into a disorienting confrontation with the unknown. Strange encounters — a flickering figure, disembodied voices, a persistent glow — blur the boundaries of reality. Is the 'shining' a divine sign, a mental rupture, or something beyond comprehension? Fosse offers no easy answers. Fosse's sparse, rhythmic prose mirrors the protagonist's fractured psyche. Sentences loop and stutter, mimicking the repetitive chatter of a mind unraveling ('I walked, I walked, I walked'). Yet, within this austerity lies startling beauty: Descriptions of moss, shadows and cold air ground the surreal in the realm of the sensory. The novella probes humanity's existential contradictions, particularly the tension between our desire for solitude and our terror of abandonment. It lays bare the futility of seeking meaning in a universe indifferent to human struggles, while questioning how much we can trust our perceptions. Are the protagonist's encounters real, or projections of a mind teetering on the brink of collapse? Fosse leaves readers suspended in that uncertainty. Fosse refuses to cater to conventional narrative appetites. There are no villains or heroic arcs, only a man wrestling with the void within. Fans of Franz Kafka's existential labyrinths or Samuel Beckett's bleak humor will find kinship here. 'A Shining' is not for readers craving action or closure. It is a quiet storm of a book, best absorbed in one sitting under dim light. Perfect for lovers of philosophical fiction, poetry devotees, and anyone who has ever stared into darkness and wondered what stared back.
Khaleej Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
Meet the 18-year-old Dubai artist blending sci-fi, soundtracks and storytelling
Hlib Futymskyi stands out. With his shoulder-length copper curls and an unusual musical moniker — Digital Bell (D-Bell), the 18-year-old Dubai-based Ukrainian is not your typical teenager. A self-confessed music nerd, he is an author, lyricist, composer, and producer, currently basking in the success of his recently released book and album, Intersection. The book, a sci-fi fantasy novella, comes alive lyrically through 14 songs in the namesake album. Every aspect of Intersection — from storytelling, composition, song writing to mixing, mastering, and even the album cover — has been conceptualised and created by D-Bell in his home studio in JLT. The project that was two years in the making was released at Dubai Audio in Dubai Hills Mall. 'The idea for Intersection first came to me when I was around 16,' says D-Bell, 'I wanted to create a world where music and stories were not separate, but completely connected. The book and the album grew parallelly. I called it Intersection because everything in the story fits like one large puzzle.' The narrative is set in a crumbling futuristic mega city, where bright artificial spheres have replaced the moon, a world where the inhabitants have everything but freedom, happiness, and music. When the protagonist, who lives on the 719th floor, finds an old jukebox, its musical notes rejuvenate the city. The plot turns in each chapter are played out through a range of emotions and genres in the soundtrack. Themes of loneliness, identity, and quest for happiness are central to the story. The book explores how these issues manifest in a hyperconnected, yet emotionally disconnected society. By blending music and literature, Intersection steers audiences through an immersive experience, with songs shifting musical genres — from jazz and opera to folk, electronic and rock. 'Each story corresponds to a specific song, making the music an extension of the book. Much like a movie soundtrack, the reader can relive the narrative through a medley of sounds,' reveals D-Bell. In the storyline, when the Floating Park, the last place where artists and musicians gathered, was destroyed, it swept all creativity from the city. To capture the event, D-Bell wrote and composed the song Skies are Blue, an opera piece featuring Spanish singer Isabel Canada Luna and opera singer Sophia, performed with a live orchestra and recorded at the Firdaus Studio in Dubai. 'The song fuses electronic and classical music with a full orchestra, in which fading piano notes and distorted echoes represent the emotions of memories breaking apart,' he says. In the book, when the city rediscovers music, the narrative is played out through Delusion, a 1980s synth-pop number created by D-Bell in collaboration with Ukrainian vocalist Verona. In Silence, the audiophile included Ukrainian folk music and in Surface, he experimented with drum and bass. D-Bell and his family moved from Kiev, Ukraine, to Dubai eight years ago. Last year, he graduated from the Nibras International School and, since then, has been focusing on his album while searching for study options that would let him merge his interests in storytelling, music and technology. He reminisces about a childhood surrounded by music and dance. 'For as long as I can recollect, there was always music at home. I loved listening to the soulful voice of Whitney Houston, the timeless jazz of Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong, iconic songs by Queen and powerful dance performances of Michael Jackson.' It helped that his family, especially his mother, Maryna, a watercolour artist, encouraged his creativity and self-expression. D-Bell's artistic journey began with a fascination for dance. It was while perfecting his moves for one of his performances that he felt a sudden urge to compose its music as well. This led to him teaching himself to play the guitar, the ukulele, and the synthesiser. By 12, he had embraced the nickname D-Bell, an ode to his love for sounds and songs. 'I started my journey with dance, focusing on freestyle. But over time, music became my primary focus,' he explains. When he is deeply inspired, it is music that D-Bell turns to, to convey his feelings. 'Every moment, every place carries a unique emotional texture. Seeing how people interact, love, struggle, and grow often brings up emotions in me that flow naturally into melodies and lyrics. Some moments are so powerful that they demand to be translated into music.' In Intersection too, its music and art that fix the broken world. Besides music, D-Bell is passionate about philosophy, science, and how technology connects with human emotions. 'To me, philosophy asks the 'why', science answers the 'how', and technology helps us in implementing both. I also derive heavily from philosophies that suggest that everything is interconnected through a universal consciousness. Intersection is an exploration of the merging of these fields shaping human experience and creativity.' In spite of being a fan of new age tech, he stayed away from using AI in the making of Intersection, crafting it instead as a deeply personal creation. When not composing D-Bell enjoys traveling, collecting and restoring vintage audio tech, analogue equipment and old cassette players. Did we not say this teen was in a league of his own?
