My Alfie Collection

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Sin embargo la masculinidad de Alfie y su misoginia se antojan aquí como un mecanismos de defensa y evasión, contra la vida, la juventud que se escapa cada día y la maldición esa de despertar solo en cama, o peor aún, con alguien que no te puede importar menos. Having thought about it in the last few months, I'm not sure I like the term “unreliable narrator”, especially the way it's often used on Goodreads - a way of dismissing certain types of characters [and by implication real people who resemble them]. Is anyone's self awareness 100%? Must people outwardly demonstrate exhaustive awareness of their contradictions at all times to please those who place themselves in judgement? Does any first-person account really contain full understanding of others' experiences of the same situation? And words and concepts have slightly different meanings to people within their own personal subculture (created out of what they know, whether that's friends and family, what they've read and watched etc). “Thieving” in the idiolect of Alfie and his mates – and his dad and step-mum who've fenced goods for him down the pub – evidently has a particular meaning narrower than it does in the eyes of the law and people who would never pilfer. Alfie Gets in First - Alfie runs in the front door ahead of his Mum and slams the door behind him, causing a minor upset on the street before Alfie manages to open it for himself again. The intimate and uplifting memoir from one of Britain's most loved singers - this is Alfie, off stage. I'd rather literature were seen as a way of understanding our common humanity with dodgy characters without having the unpleasant experiences that knowing some of them might entail; they're not entirely anathema – we probably have things in common with them even if we'd never do the worst things they do. Some of these characters are like manifestations of id - Alfie is a good example of this type - doing things many more people think of than actually do, or things many readers have grown out of. (A long time ago I, similarly, walked out for several hours on someone who was having an operation - someone I shouldn't really have been going out with because I didn't fancy or respect them enough, though I kept trying to persuade myself to because I knew they deserved it. I remember intending to support, then that sudden claustrophobic feeling of Have to get out of here. I've been too much of a rotter myself not to understand those who in turn hurt me.)

Confieso que terminé tomando el libro detonado por la simpática película de Jude Law (que está muy vagamente basada en el texto original), pero en realidad Alfie resultó ser algo más entrañable, vigente y empático de lo que jam��s hubiera esperado. But this book is also a heartfelt insight to Alfie's unmasked truth for the first time ever. His unflinching honesty reveals not only the success stories, but also the pressures and how, through challenging times, he learned more about himself than he ever thought possible. If there’s two things I like to do, then the first thing is having it away with a nice old married bird, they’re so much more grateful than the single ones, I have found, and the second thing is chewing somebody’s ear off about all the interesting observations I have made about life. When I say life, course, I generally mean the old how’s your father and the ways you can get yourself set up just lovely. If you’re a bloke that is. But even if you’re a bird all is not lost. You just have to figure out a few of the basics and you’ll be okay too. But for blokes, this is the way I think it should go. Alfie es ese adorable hijo de puta que todos quisiéramos como amigo, o que en algún momento de la vida hemos sido. Un patán consumado en periodos tan ausentes de pertenencias que va encontrando los fragmentos de su hogar bajo las faldas de cada dama que conquista compulsivamente. Esta suerte de abuelo del personaje de Barney Stinson de How I Met Your Mother, tiene unos matices más complejos, dramáticos y efectivos que realmente lo vuelven alguien entrañable. Como una especie de Holly Golightly en versión británica, cínica, rota, triste y masculina. Con una hermosa fijación poética por referirse a las mujeres como "aves".And Alfie is Michael Caine. His is the voice you hear in your head as you read this speedy, funny, sad, piquant swinging London novel. No one else could possibly do. Alfie's Feet - Alfie is taken to the shop to buy Welly Boots, He puts them on himself, but on the wrong feet. Alfie is selfish, a player, and just completely clueless when it comes to life and women. He’s so clueless in his own little world of justifications for the way he treats women and explanations for the way women think that he truly believes he has all the answers to life and love (or how to steer clear of it, at least). He refers to women as objects, often times calling them “it”, bird, or bint. These women, and there are plenty, all serve one purpose, and that is to provide pleasure for Alfie. He sees them as nothing more and is so ready to discard them when he has no more use for them or when things get a bit complicated. And yet, I couldn’t help but like Alfie, with all his cluelessness. Alfie.. Is a rake by such enormous standards! A jerk. A fool and a selfish player...and yet one can not put this book down.

What's great about this highly entertaining and yet dark novel is that the author passes no judgment on Alfie and people like him. Instead, Alfie's voice reveals all - he justifies his indiscretions by claiming he's actually doing the women a favor, and his rationalizations show just how much of a narcissist he is. While not deep in a Jamesian sense or daring in the Joycean, ALFIE is a very good, book-length interior monologue. If a reader gets nothing from it other than a sense of urban British slang in the post-World War Two era, Alfie is a memorable book. But it is, I think, a realistic portrait of a man whose outmoded view of the world keeps him from fully participating in it. He always wants to impose his rules on it, not merely because he is selfish, which he is, but because he has been raised in ignorance of the coming changes. He is corrupt, but that is not what makes him different from others. What makes him different is his awareness that he is despised for his inability to climb socially. People from exactly his class are getting ahead for the first time in many years. He is not going to get ahead. His peers are leaving him behind.Heder's prose is spare, leaving the reader space to savor the words and appreciate the illustrations. The text doesn't really convey that Alfie was on his adventure for a full year, but the illustrations give clues about the changing seasons, and the birthday balloons with Nia's age give additional hints. Also, I recommend because all in all it is a very readable book. Quirky, at times funny and entertaining by a long shot.

I’m always prepared to make an adjustment. If I’m having it off with a short bandy-legged bint I keep telling myself how marvellous bow legs are and asking myself why I don’t go in for them more. Same with great big fat birds. Whoever I’m with at the time is my favourite type, if you see what I mean. That’s what we’re here for, to make one another happy. I think I’ll have a whisky", I said. "A Dimple Haig, if you’ve got it." I knew she hadn’t. And to be quite frank I wouldn’t know a Dimple Haig from Long Tom except for the shape of the bottle, but I find I like reeling off a name now and again. When Nia is given a pet turtle for her sixth birthday, the little girl takes Alfie to her heart, sharing all of her activities with him. His seeming unresponsiveness sees a falling off in her attentiveness, until the day of her seventh birthday, when he goes missing. Where can he be? It turns out, while Nia may have grown bored with Alfie, he is still enthralled with her, and has set out to find the perfect birthday gift. Unfortunately, as a turtle, he doesn't move very fast... If you ever wanted to know what goes on the mind of a man who treats women badly, just read this. Though it was written in the 1960s, it is still timely for understanding men like Harvey Weinstein.

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Alfie is a classic unreliable narrator as I learned the term – at school when studying another piece of Northern writing originally designed as drama, Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. He says something and then shortly afterwards contradicts, with words or action his own stated opinion of himself – or rather contradicts the way “most people” would interpret what he said, a sort of unconscious hypocrisy. Sometimes he does it in the same sentence: I don't mean thieving or anything like that, just the odd few bob a day [taken from the till at work]. Alfie Gives a Hand - Alfie gets invited to a birthday party, where the birthday boy is naughty and Alfie comforts a crying girl. At one point I was rooting for him when he somewhat seemed like he could possibly settle down with Gilda. It would have been nice to see what Alfie could have been around his son Malcolm. There was a soft side to Alfie in the presence of Malcolm. But a man like Alfie is not one to settle down. They are a little bigger in size than a CD case which seems small, but they are perfect for little hands. Big enough for cosy-ing up close on the sofa for a read, the pictures are big enough to be able to see all the detail, but sometimes you need to look closely (which is fun) Bill Naughton wrote the screenplay, based on his theatre play some time before. In the same year as the movie’s release, he published the novel. It is very faithful to the film’s narrative, or vice versa, but as a novel and even with the film’s regular breaking of the fourth wall, the book delves slightly deeper into Alfie’s thoughts and musings. Shorter scenes are given length and detail. Idiosyncratic turn of phrases are added which are really quite funny - I don’t think these all appear in the film - and the ending is different but not too much.