Dalia Judith Pineda Rodr Judith Pineda Rodr itibaren 31030 Gravoni TV, Italy itibaren 31030 Gravoni TV, Italy

I found a copy of this book at the Museum of London Docklands and saw that it suggested it was required reading for anyone interested in the social history of the East End. I thought the book was ok though it did have some problems. The biggest being that it didn't really discriminate between sources. It quoted almost exclusively novels and newspapers with out and notice that one was a fictional account and treated the events within the novel as factual. The other problem was that there was no real analysis of the history being presented, or any sense of argument being presented. The chapters were just a presentation of example after example, usually quotes from newspapers (either the East London Advertiser or the East London Observer). So what you got was a snapshot of life but were unable to give this a context, what was typical. While the articles quoted were interesting I felt like I would have learned just as much, or more, sitting and reading through the microfilms of the newspapers for that year myself. I also had issues with the way the chapters were divided up. For instance the chapter Women and Children touched on women's work but only mentioned in one paragraph that women were responsible for the "matchgirl strike" of 1888, one of the key things said to be mentioned on the back cover. However, the subject was given about a 15 page treatment in the politics section. That made me want to look for a more modern feminist history on the subject, which I think I may have located called Striking a match. While this book did provide quite a lot of information about the year based on sources from the time I'm not really sure I would recommend it. It comes across as quite old fashioned social history (being written in the 80s by a man in his 60s). It was entertaining at times but overall not that interesting and I found myself hurrying to get to the end of it.

متعةُ الحكي لدى كيليطو خالصةٌ دائماً. تحليلاته الأدبية لأعمالٍ تراثيةٍ عربية هي الوحيدة التي أقرؤها بتلذذٍ كبير كما لو كنتُ أقرأ نصاً إبداعياً، وأشعرُ أن كيليطو يلتذُّ في كتابته الحلمية هذه. كنتُ متوجسةً من أن يخيّبني كيليطو هذه المرة في روايته. لكنّها أتت جميلةً كبقية نتاجه، ولعلها تفوقت عليها جمالاً. أكثرُ ما أحببتُ فيها الراويَ الملتبس، هذا الخطاب المتردد بين أكثر من شخصيةٍ يتعمّدُ فيها كيليطو تقمص أدوارٍ عدّة تحيل إليه دائماً وَيبثّ علاماتهِ هنا وهناك ليستدلّ إليه القارئ دائماً. هذه الشيزوفرينيا السرديّة المذهلة التي تشدّ القارئ لمتابعة السرد المنسابِ كمن يحاول اصطياد ظلّ.