Classics


Most people seem to get the idea that any book considered a "classic" is old and boring. This is very frequently true. However, there are some true gems out there, old books that still rock hardcore. You should decide for yourself which books live up to their reputation, because it is the opinion of you, the reader, that ultimately matters. It don't matter none if someone tells you a book is good; you have to decide for yourself. It is always okay to think the classics suck.


A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess

(From the back cover) “A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess’s nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends’ social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to ‘redeem’ him, the novel asks, ‘At what cost?’”

Review:

Beyond the hype and the label of being a “classic,” there is actually a very good book here. If you can decipher Alex’s bizarre slang, you’ll find a very violent tale that doesn’t skimp on irony. Look closely, and you’ll find humor at its blackest. The style of writing highlights the way language can soften the way we view of violence.


The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger


(Amazon.com synopsis) "Holden Caulfield narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.'

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation."


Review:

If you've ever felt alienated or if you've ever been a teenager, you might get something from this book. Holden Caulfield is a different kind of protagonist, a kid who hates the "phoniness" of people around him even as he finds the same flaws in himself. The language isn't as intense as reviewers make it sound, considering that Holden generally dislikes cursing, but the dialog is raw and realistic. The narrative flows naturally as someone would speak it. There is no definite "plot" in the normal sense- this book is all about Holden reflecting on and reacting to the world around him as he tries to work out some messed up events in his life. This book is painfully real but well worth the read if you like realistic characters and a look into the less glamorous parts of life.


Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury

(From the back cover) "Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires...

The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning ... along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames... never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think... and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do!"


Review:

An obvious critique of censorship and media-obsessed culture, this book is all the more eerie once you realize it was written half a century ago. Bradbury's vision of the future is disturbingly accurate, with earbud radios and wall-sized televisions in a rabid consumer culture. As is typical of Bradbury's style, the story flows along dreamily even as main character Guy Montag has a crisis of faith that ultimately tears his life apart. It's familiar and yet feels like fiction in the best possible way, and the book leaves a distressing but memorable impression. Ray Bradbury is a talented author, and although his works won't appeal to everyone, Fahrenheit 451 remains one of his most accessible and pertinent books.



The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas


Edmond Dantès is a young sailor from Marseilles who, on the way to marry the beautiful Mercedès, is denounced as a Bonapartist conspirator by his friend and rival in love. Wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years in the Château d'If of the coast of Marseilles, he becomes acquainted with a fellow prisoner, the abbot Farria, who before dying confides in him about the existence of an immense hidden treasure. After his escape, Dantès returns to France under the guise of the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo with the intent of quenching his thirst for revenge.

Review:

Revenge may be a common theme, but here we see it masterfully rendered as an obsession. Watching the Count's plan unfold is morbidly fascinating as his enemies fall one by one. Naive young Edmond is dead- in his place is the debonair, calculating, manipulative Count, who pursues his adversaries with merciless precision. Emotionless and bitter, he stops at nothing to destroy the people who ruined his life. That is not to say that his actions are wholly justified- the Count's questionable morality becomes a major theme in the book. Is he himself beyond redemption? Originally published as a serial in Le Siècle newspaper in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo remains a powerful and engrossing work. It well deserves its reputation as the greatest story of revenge ever written.



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