1984 by George Orwell

1984 by George Orwell, 328 pages

From the MARC: "The year 1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell's nightmare vision from 1949 of the world we are becoming is timelier that ever. 1984 is the great modern classic of a 'negative utopia' - a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing."

1984 is a classic that slipped through the cracks in my education. I was aware of the novel and its importance to literature, but until now I had never actually read it. Haunting is a good word for the vision provided in this story. The events feel eeriely relevant and sharply prescient. I hate to say that I enjoyed the novel because it was terrifying

 

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen, 259 pages

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last finished novel and follows the long suffering, roundabout romance between Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth.

My personal reading goal this year was to read classics I hadn't read before, and this novel was at the top of the list. Pride and Prejudice has been a great favorite of mine for many years, but Persuasion has come close in esteem. Anne's inner analysis of her family's ridiculousity provides a port of respite for the reader in the novel's rocky shoals of family, society, and love. Like all the best books, I can't wait to read it again. 

 

The Stranger

The Stranger by Albert Camus (translated by Matthew Ward) // 123 pgs

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Published in 1942 by French author Albert Camus, The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."

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This is a book I grabbed only aware of its general “classicness”, but not of the plot. It's super short, but it packs a good punch in its length. I feel like it's made to be reread to fully take everything in, and I enjoyed how the little, seemingly irrelevant events in Part One (such as the protagonist hanging out with his girlfriend) pop up again in Part Two. I really felt for the protagonist and the themes of existentialism it presented, and the ending being one of general acceptance is nice. Risking an incorrect interpretation, I do also feel like it serves as an interesting allegory for mental illness/neurodivergence in a society that does not care to understand; how we find the "strangers" to us and, ignoring their perspective, criminalize them based on our own morality.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving-80 pages

⭐⭐⭐

This is the classic tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. Ichabod is a poor school teacher (pedagogue as Irving calls him) who aspires to woo Katrina Van Tassel and potentially inherit her father's wealth. However, there's a rival suitor nicknamed "Brom Bones" who is described as a rantipole (I had to look that word up and it means rowdy/wild/reckless) hero. Brom Bones and his gang likes to play practical jokes on Ichabod. One of the legends told in Sleepy Hollow is of a Headless Hessian Horseman who rides at night. One night after his affections were possibly spurned by young Katrina Van Tassel, Ichabod rides hard and fast away from her family's farm estate. He rides into the woods past the area where the Headless Horseman has been seen before. A solitary aloof rider is still a little ways down the road. After a few moments, the rider chases him and Ichabod tries to escape. However, he realized it's the Headless Horseman and as Ichabod seemingly nears escape the Headless Horseman throws his head at him and hits Ichabod in the head. Ichabod is never heard from again in Sleepy Hollow and all that's found is a smashed pumpkin and a few of his effects. Was it really the Headless Horseman or was it Brom Bones playing another practical joke?? 

I could definitely tell this was first written and published in 1820 by the language used. In addition to rantipole mentioned above words such as higgledy-piggledy (arranged in a confused/confusing manner), niggardly (boring), coquette, and negro are all used mostly as adjectives or nouns. Irving spends quite a few pages describing Sleepy Hollow, Tarry Town, and their inhabitants, especially Ichabod Crane. Very few pages are actually spent describing Ichabod's encounter with the Headless Horseman. Overall, I thought the book was okay. I actually prefer the movie "Sleepy Hollow" with Johnny Depp and so many other great actors/actresses. It takes the premise of the Headless Hessian Horseman and turns it into a paranormal mystery with elements of horror. 

Night by Elie Wiesel

 

Night (The Night Trilogy #1) by Elie Wiesel, 120 p.

"Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again." -- from back cover.

Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade by Ryan North (Goodreads Author) (adaptor), Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Albert Monteys (Illustrations)

 Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade

by Ryan North (Goodreads Author) (adaptor), Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Albert Monteys (Illustrations)-192 pages

"So it goes." This is the statement after every mention of death. Whether it's one person or a multitude who has died this is said. Billy Pilgrim is an 18-year-old soldier serving on the European front who gets captured and sent to a German prison camp. He ends up in Dresden, Germany and witnesses the Allied bombings there that kill 25,000 civilians. He also witnesses the death by firing squad of a comrade. This book is presented as Billy coming out of time ("unstuck") at different points in his life. It goes back and forth between these points in time. Slaughter House-Five is the place where Billy and the other Allies end up in Dresden as refugees. He survives because he hid in the meat locker below ground while the bombings raged. They emerged to find Dresden in ruins. This novel, even in graphic form, is thought-provoking on war and the nature of man. I thought of all the wars man has ever fought (as many as I could think of anyway), such as the Peloponnesian War, The Crusades, The Hundred Years' War, The American Civil War, World War I and II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, and so many more. There's a video game series called "Fallout" and at the end of several of the games in the series the statement is made "because war, war never changes." Reading this work made me think of that statement. Overall, I found this to be thought-provoking and full of dark humor. 

Deadpool Killustrated by Cullen Bunn

Deadpool Killustrated by Cullen Bunn  96 pages

Dadpool has already killed every hero in the Marvel Universe, but he isn't through. This time...Deadpool's gonna take down the most famous characters in classic literature! Why read a book when you can watch a book die?! Tom Sawyer gets slashed in TWAIN! The Little Women's throats MAY get ALL-CUT! Scrooge gets a visit from THREE BULLETS! Gulliver gets a SWIFT DEATH! The Three Musketeers are all for DONE! Sherlock Holmes gets to the bottom of HIS OWN GRAVE! And more book-related puns! Can Deadpool rid the universe of the scourge of classical literature?

90 Classic Books for People in a Hurry by Henrik Lange

90 Classic Books for People in a Hurry by Henrik Lange - 180 pages

This book contains a one page comic-book style synopsis of 90 classic books.  It was rather interesting to read.  I especially liked the author's commentary that he included on some of the books. (i.e. calling Hamlet the "whiny prince")  I do wonder how the author chose the 90 books that he considers classics.  There were several that I had not heard of before.

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James, 291 p.

   Being a Jane Austen fan myself, I went into this book with apprehension. While mostly well-written (it is P.D. James, after all), I found I couldn't love the characters with the depth as I could when Austen wrote about them. Elizabeth was, as always, very endearing, but Darcy, having changed from his so very proud ways, was vapid and too sentimental. The mystery kept me engaged, but I didn't feel like every aspect of it was wrapped up in the end. While I enjoyed reading it, and always looked forward to picking it up when I had to put it down, I was left feeling a bit disappointed. It was at least worth the read, and would recommend it to Austen fans.