Lady Brett Ashley: A Hemingway Anachronism

by Ben Ballard

The ‘roaring twenties’ are often seen as the coming of age for women, who were liberated to wassail and flaunt their sexuality. Despite its contrasting intentions, the Prohibition era in the United States saw the transformation of women across the United States; the 1920s woman smoked, drank, voted and cut her own hair. However, this salvation of female sensuality became only another reason for 1920s men to condemn the nature of women to the core. These notions of misogyny were inherited by contemporary popular culture and particularly by the male-dominated field of literature. Critically-acclaimed authors such as T.S Eliot, Sherwood Anderson and F. Scott Fitzgerald harnessed a wide range of ‘femme fatale’ or just simply ‘bitch’ female characters in their work to express their misogynistic views but no author epitomised this era of chauvinist literature quite like Ernest Hemingway.

Book of the Week

A Very Expensive Poison by Luke Harding
Recommended by Zack Colton


Polonium. Russia. MI6. In 2006, two KGB members assassinated a Russian informant, called Alexander Litvinenko, in a hotel in Mayfair. They used a highly rare and highly reactive substance called polonium, produced almost exclusively in Russia, which causes unknown and highly shocking effects. As a true story, this book is action-packed and perfectly written, with the exact balance of history and current events to keep it enticing and shocking.

Can Rap Be Considered Poetry?

Rob Norris

Rap has always operated in an undefinable grey area, half in poetry, half in music. Its roots can be traced back to Africa, centuries before hip-hop existed, when the griots of West Africa would deliver stories rhythmically over a simple instrumental compromised of traditional drums and sparse instrumentation. Rap has since evolved, incorporating jazz and other genres before modern hip hop was born.

Here is the first argument as to why rap can never be poetry. Since its conception, rap has always been paired with the musical backing. Had the music been added later, then there is an argument to be made that rap is just a natural evolution of pure poetry. However, since there has been a clear separation from the beginning, there remains a distance between the art forms. A rapper cannot write a song and remove the music and call it poetry, in the same way a poet cannot add music to a poem and call it rap.

Book of the Week

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Recommended by Isaac Wighton

On the verge of completing a decade’s worth of neurological training, Paul Kalanithi had examined hundreds of CT scans. This one was especially bad: 'the lungs were matted with innumerable tumours, the spine deformed, a full lobe of the liver obliterated. Cancer, widely disseminated.' What made it worse was that this was not a patient’s scan. It was his own.

At 36, Kalanithi had led a glittering academic career. Holding degrees in English literature, human biology and history and philosophy of medicine, graduating from Yale School of Medicine, winning the coveted American Academy of Neurological Surgery's highest award for research and very nearly completing years of training in Neurosurgery, the future was most definitely bright for Paul. This made the discovery that he had type IV inoperable lung cancer even more painful.

Books vs e-Books

Luke Jopling

In the constantly-changing modern world, there are times where we all just want to step back, relax, and enjoy reading a good book that takes you to another world. One where you can forget all your issues, decisions, and other important matter and focus on the life within the book.

In recent years this old-fashioned, calming, and simple practice has been changing. More and more people are no longer reading a book when they want to get away from our modern world and the technology that comes along with it: instead, they are using technology to read a book. But is this good or bad?

Book of the Week

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Recommended by Sam DeMarco

This week’s recommendation for Book of the Week is one that lies very close to my heart: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I first read it a few years ago, but since then, I have found myself drawn back to it, and such is the nature of the book that every re-read presents something new and rewarding. 

English Society

Orlando Strachan

Friends, Paulines, countrymen, lend me your ears. You may or may not be aware of the prestigious English Society. A gathering of only the most esteemed academics during a Wednesday lunchtime (normally at 1:15, check the posters) to debate and ponder modern (and ancient) literary conundra. But mainly just to eat pain au chocs.

Book of the Week

The Ride Down Mount Morgan by Arthur Miller
Recommended by Robert Brewer

This short play by legendary playwright Miller is about Lyman Felt, a man who has lied all his life, coming face to face with his two wives at the same time, for the first time.

The play circles around Lyman, confined to a hospital bed, forced to reveal the truth to his wives. Theo - the first wife of over 20 years - stable, genuine, and the mother of Lyman’s child Bessie, and Leah - young, attractive, and restless.

In Defence of the Novel?

Dr Hudson

Jane Austen appears on the new ten-pound note with the quotation, ‘I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading’ emblazoned beneath her picture.

The line comes from Pride and Prejudice and is – as many commentators have pointed out – spoken by a character who is merely pretending, and actually has no interest in reading at all. We might look to another of her works, Northanger Abbey, only published after her death but written early in her career, to see a more detailed discussion of novels and reading.