When people tell me about a book that’s interesting, I write it on my “Books” list and appreciate them for telling me. What I don’t appreciate is when people give me that half-smirk and say “Oh, you haven’t read ___, yet? This is a classic though. I thought you read!” or some variation of this (sometimes it’s just full condescension). I feel that books are like people, and I’ll meet the right one when I meet them, whenever that may be. To help curb that feeling or maybe find an adventure while staying home, I listed some classics and provided short summaries and their major themes while doing my best to avoid spoilers as much as possible!
1. Nathanial Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter: A Romance (1850) Summary: Hester Prynne is affixed with a letter in the color of scarlet for her sin. Ostracized by the town, she raises her child on her own while her lover feigns stranger to them and pure reverend to the townspeople. This book contains themes of sin, guilt, and repentance as Hester tries finding dignity again in the eyes of the townspeople and in herself. Her lover, Dimmesdale, fumbles with his guilt and lies. The contrast between the two characters’ forms of sin and how they grow from it also puts the question of happiness on the table. Extra Note: no one says what the letter stands for.
2. Herman Melville – Moby Dick (1851) Summary: Ishmael the whaler recounts his whaling experiences hunting the legendary white whale, Moby Dick. Or does he? People like to question if he’s a real character, if he’s just Captain Ahab’s alter ego, if his story is an allegory, if he’s making fun of people who think his story is an allegory. He takes his sweet time in getting to any of the whale parts, so don’t anticipate that kind of “action” any time soon. Moby Dick is a dense whopper that mimics whaling: lulling and drowsy with a storm every few months.
3. Robert Louis Stevenson – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) Summary: While trying to uncover the truth of the town’s murder cases, Gabriel John Utterson uncovers his friend’s trick for playing society’s human. This book questions personality’s ties to morality, whether they are entwined, certain as one and the same, or as only countenances to wear in public.
4. Toni Morrison – Beloved (1987) Summary: Sethe made life for herself after finally running away to freedom, but shadows of the slave past surface out of everything: her house, her neighbors, her back, her relationships, her womb. One of the first neo-slave narratives (a story about slavery after it was abolished), Beloved talks about the fallouts of community, the comparison of suffering, and the familial, emotional, physical, and identity trauma that remains after slavery is supposedly gone.
5. Cormac McCarthy – The Road (2006) Summary: In a post apocalyptic world where everything and everyone is dead or dying, a man and a boy try to survive physically and morally. This book grapples with morals and hope in a dead world, asking how much can sacrificing them yield, if it’s better to throw those morals and hopes away, and what choice is more painful. Extra Note: the book doesn’t have quotations to set off dialogue.
Stay safe and cozy, everyone~!