I read "The Chosen" in one sitting...something I haven't done in a long, long time. The book is a coming of age story about two Jewish teenagers, Reuven and Danny, who become best friends as a result of an accident during an interscholastic softball game. Danny is raised as a Hasidic Jew, while Reuven is raised as an Orthodox - a less strict sect of Judaism. Danny's father expects him to become a Rabbi but he wants to be a psychologist, and Reuven's father, who is much more liberal than Danny's father, would like him to be a mathematician, and he want to be a rabbi. The book explores the relationship between the two boys and their fathers. It is a story of contrasts, but at the same time is depicts how alike they all really are.

While the story is interesting and educational, I found the character's development stifled by Potok's inability to delve into their lives outside of a religious context. The story takes them through high school and college but we never get to know anything more about them then their relationships with their fathers, and the impact of their religious differences. But I guess that's the point of the book. I can't fault Potok for these limitations because he is an excellent writer and tells a great story. However, I wanted a bit more meat to the story. There are many wonderful themes in "The Chosen" and I highly recommend it to anyone in the mood for a clean-cut, "G" rated read.

This highly lauded book is a tale of fathers, sons, differing traditions, changing times, and ageless truths. Written in deceptively simple style and from the point of view of Rueven, a teen-aged Jewish boy in WWII era New York City, "The Chosen" is the story of his unlikely friendship with Danny, the son of a leader of Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg.

Inextricably woven through the narrative is the study of the Talmud, which in terms of time and attention, is the center of both boys' lives.

The two boys must work out their relationships among themselves and their fathers, and must find a way to pursue their
callings. Ironically, Danny's vocation is to become a "secular" psychologist rather than, as tradition dictates, a rabbi in the
footsteps of his father. Rueven is the one who senses a call to the rabbinate.

Potok writes cleanly, never letting his style get in the way of the story. At its close you will know the hearts of its four major characters.

I only heard of this book recently, here into my third decade of life, and that's a shame really. When certain books hit you during certain stages of life the impact can be profound. This one missed me by a few stages. "A Separate Peace" hit me during the early teens (a perfect time also to tackle "The Chosen"), Catch-22 upon entering college, recently "Underworld." The point I'm laboriously arriving at is that "The Chosen" is indeed a great book, but I wish I would have read it at fourteen. Its message would have been more poignant and internalized then (not that it was entirely lost on a grown up child of today though).

The real strength of Potok's book lies in three areas. First, the insight the reader gets into the American Jewish sub-culture of Hasidim and Orthodox at a critical point in history for Jews (1940's) is truly elevated. Second, the strong characterization between four very different individuals reveals a beautiful relationship development between father and son, friend and friend, and growing young men encountering the world. Third, it reaches out for the soul and stays true to things that matter; a search for spirituality, a tolerance for beliefs, a search for a place in this world (for individuals and cultures), and a search for knowledge.

The writing overall was simplistic and the reader is handed many things on a silver platter that could have been presented more subtle, more artistically. Another thing, Sigmund Freud lurks in a mystical "portent of doom" shroud when the character Danny starts to study him. It is never really explained why the other characters in the book have such a fear of Freud. What the reader sees is that Danny is studying Freud and the rest of the characters know for certain bad things will befall to his tainted mind.

Despite these inconsequential distractions, the story, search for meaning, and character interplay more than make up for it. I think I would have given this a 4.5 stars if allowed, but I'm leaning towards 5, baby, cuz more stars are better than less. Give this book to a teen and help them learn tolerance. It's fundamentally important--now more than ever.

Tom Sawyer is the first great coming of age American novel. In addition, Tom Sawyer is one of the most endearing characters in American fiction. This wonderful book deals with all the challenges that any young person faces, and resolves them in exciting and unusual ways.

Like many young people, Tom would rather be having fun than going to school and church. This desire to enjoy life is always getting him into trouble, from which he finds unusual and imaginative solutions. One of the great scenes in this book has Tom persuading his friends to help him whitewash a fence by making them think that nothing could be finer than doing his punishment for playing hooky from school. When I first read this story, it opened up my mind to the potential power of persuasion.

Tom also is given up for dead and has the unusual experience of watching his own funeral and hearing what people really thought of him. That's something we all should be able to do. By imagining what people will say at our funeral, we can help establish the purpose of our own lives. Mark Twain has given us a powerful tool for self-examination in this wonderful sequence.

Tom and Huck Finn also witness a murder, and have to decide how to handle the fact that they were not supposed to be there and their fear of retribution from the murderer, Injun Joe.

Girls are a part of Tom's life, and Becky Thatcher and he have a remarkable adventure in a cave with Injun Joe. Any young person will remember the excitement of being near someone they cared about alone in this vignette.

Tom stands for the freedom that the American frontier offered to everyone. His aunt Polly represents the civilizing influence of adults and towns. Twain sets up a rewarding novel that makes us rethink the advantages of both freedom and civilization. In this day of the Internet frontier, this story can still provide valuable lessons about listening to our inner selves and acting on what they have to say. Enjoy looking for fun in new ways!

This is the classic tale of a boy's life in St. Petersburg, Missouri (based on Mark Twain's [Samuel L. Clemens] home town of Hannibal, Missouri), on the banks of the Mississippi River (I believe the time frame is pre-Civil War). The original manuscript of "Tom Sawyer" was the first American novel to be submitted to a publisher in typewritten form. Tom is living in the house of his Aunt Polly with the irritating Sid, who turns him in for playing hooky from school. Tom's punishment is to whitewash a thirty-yard fence, nine feet high. With legendary skill and deviousness, he is able to get his friends to complete the onerous task! Later, he and his good friend Huck Finn go to a graveyard to swing a dead cat (to get rid of warts). They witness Injun Joe murder the town doctor and see Joe set up the evidence to appear that the drunken Muff Potter is the assailant. The boys hide out on Jackson's Island and the town believe them drowned. Of course, at their funeral they appear, falling right into the middle of the ceremony. At the trial of Muff Potter, Tom proves Potter innocent; but, Injun Joe escapes. At a town picnic, the boys (as well as Tom's girl Becky Thatcher) get lost in a cave, find Joe's treasure, are rescued, and become heroes. And, unfortunately, respectable. Tom and Huck represent typical boys, having their own adventures and dreams. It is sad to think that, in today's world of behavioral psychologists, counselors, and some teachers, both Tom and Huck would be considered abnormal and some physicians might even prescribe certain drugs to "calm them down." And, they are just being boys. The adventurous spirit of Tom and Huck should be celebrated, not repressed! Not enough adults read "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn."

I would recomend Tom Sawyer to anyone around the ages of nine to twelve years of age.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a book best for children. This is a book best for children because it is about a young rambunctious boy who gets into trouble all the time. Tom Sawyer is a normal boy.
Many exciting things happen in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In the beggining of the book Tom tricks his friends into white washing the fence for him.Tom falls in love,gets engaged with Becky Thatcher,and chases a box of gold. In church a dog makes a bad choice to bothera pinch bug and gets pinched and the dog runs around the church howling. And much more.
I learned that back then kids could be kids. Not like now when everyone expects you to act like you are twenty-five when your only twelve.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer tought me many things.

I had Peglet's experience when reading this book (and "Jude the Obscure" as well). I recommend, as she does, that the reader not try to empathize with the characters; it'll make you too angry. I wanted to reach into the book and strangle Angel a few times, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has read the book.

I must point out that one reviewer has stated incorrectly that Tess was "raped." If she had been, the book would not have had the force it does. It would have just been another "victim of society" or "victim of men" book. Take a close look at Tess' confession to Angel on their wedding night.

Think of this book not as an indictment of marriage and Victorian mores (although it certainly was meant to be, as "Jude" further develops), but rather look at it as the relationships of three people who are never quite able to understand themselves and their natures well enough to avoid disaster. An excellent book. But once again, don't try to empathize with the characters.

Having just finished this book a mere few hours ago the pain of it is fresh in my mind, but I'm sure it will distract me for weeks, such is the intensity of this tragedy. The only other novel of Hardy's I have ever read - Jude the Obscure - was a good book, stable and interesting, though not compelling until it's heart-wrenching twist three quarters of the way through the book. It was, in essence, more a social commentary, so it was with some surprise that I absorbed the constant emotion and passion that was this book. The basic storyline is as follows: Tess Durbeyfield, a young woman of a poor country family, is sent to visit her rich cousin, Alec d'Urbeville, after learning of her (perhaps mythical) relation to the ancient family which bears his name. In the obscure randomness that fate casts over life, innocent Tess is then pursued by perhaps the only man she could never tolerate (Alec), who is as his most evil in the early parts of the book. At Alec's house Tess works as a keeper to the poultry and is assaulted by Alec's constant sexual attentions until finally (and this is suggested rather than explained), exhausted and numb, she submits to intercourse with him. She later gives birth to a baby, whom she names Sorrow, who soon dies; and then meets a man she had glimpsed once years before at a dance: Angel Clare. Working together at a milking farm, they become drawn to each other despite Tess's unwillingness to incite the attentions of any man. Their love for each other grows but Tess knows that she dare not enter into marriage considering her past and a society that is both ludcrously religious and prejudiced. The strength of her love finally wears her down and they wed. However, on that very night she confesses her past, and is cruelly thrown aside by Clare, who now begins to view her as an impure woman separate to the Tess he had always loved (despite his past containing a similar history). After suffering years of solitutde and hardship, Tess finally gives up on Clare and falls in the way of Alec d'Urbeville again, relying upon him for the care of herself and her family. Sick and wasted, Clare eventually realizes the mistake he has made in casting Tess aside and finds her at d'Urbeville's mansion: too late. This brings the story to its close where greater tragedy ensues.

The book was brilliant in its emotive persuasion and its depiction of Tess, who is impossible to not feel for, and, indeed, love. The misfortunes of her life are never self-inflicted, and we are left to wonder at the end at the awful nature of a world that would bring such sorrow upon one person. Tess is wonderful, stoic, and pure in her unyielding love for Clare; d'Urbeville is horrible in his initial portrayal as the villain who will singlehandedly destroy Tess's life, though is perhaps a little less repulsive at the end as one understand's the depths of his feeling for her; and Clare is the one who holds in his hands the ability to restore all past wrongness and find joy himself, but tragically fails to do so because of pride and convention.

Overall, there were only two problems I had with the storyline: the first being Tess's succumbing to Alec's sexual persuasion in the beginning - if we are to believe that she is repulsed so many times by Alec's advances so completely and bodily, how are we to believe that she so easily concedes in one (unmentioned) incident? Her strength is greater than that. And the second is one which has been mentioned by another reviewer here: the ending, where a minor, unimportant character is introduced as a means through which to resolve everything, where in fact she is incapable of doing so, since we know nothing about this character, and can therefore put no faith in her.

Despite these minor quibbles the whole of the book, with its engaging plot and brilliant prose, is worth more than the sum of its parts, with the pain of lost love being the principle effect one experiences long after the reading is over. Tess is beautiful.

Please ignore the immature high-school student reviews and understand that this book is a masterpiece. Hardy analyzes the relationship between human desire and society's mores to an unprecendented degree. The characters are multi-faceted and very life-like. Hardly aptly avoids the mistake of creating mere carciatures of the pure woman, idealistic intellectual, and spoiled playboy. Moreover, his use of religious allusion is excellent although this may alienate the modern, secular reader. And perhaps this is the problem with some readers. Finally, Tess is an admirable and strong woman who had difficult circumstances. How many people would act as admirably in her circumstance? Not many! The reviewers that criticize her actions should realize this and that they ignore one of Hardy's key points: Don't be so judgemental! This is one of the best books I have read and believe me, I have read a lot of the "good" books.

I first read Moby Dick; or The Whale over thirty years ago and I didn't understand it. I thought I was reading a sea adventure, like Westward Ho! or Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym. In fact, it did start out like an adventure story but after twenty chapters or so, things began to get strange. I knew I was in deep water. It was rough, it seemed disjointed, there were lengthy passages that seemed like interruptions to the story, the language was odd and difficult, and often it was just downright bizarre. I plodded through it, some of it I liked, but I believe I was glad when it ended. I knew I was missing something and I understood that it was in me! It wasn't the book; it was manifestly a great book, but I hadn't the knowledge of literature or experience to understand it.

I read it again a few years later. I don't remember what I thought of it. The third time I read it, it was hilarious; parts of it made me laugh out loud! I was amazed at all the puns Melville used, and the crazy characters, and quirky dialog. The fourth or fifth reading, it was finally that adventure story I wanted in the first place. I've read Moby Dick more times than I've counted, more often than any other book. At some point I began to get the symbolism. Somewhere along the line I could see the structure. It's been funny, awesome, exciting, weird, religious, overwhelming and inspiring. It's made my hair stand on end...

Now, when I get near the end I slow down. I go back and reread the chapters about killing the whale, and cutting him up, and boiling him down. Or about the right whale's head versus the sperm whale's. I want to get to The Chase but I want to put it off. I draw Queequeg with his tattoos in the oval of a dollar bill. I take a flask with Starbuck and a Decanter with Flask. Listen to The Symphony and smell The Try-Works. Stubb's Supper on The Cabin Table is a noble dish, but what is a Gam? Heads or Tails, it's a Leg and Arm. I get my Bible and read about Rachel and Jonah. Ahab would Delight in that; he's a wonderful old man. For a Doubloon he'd play King Lear! What if Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of The Whale? Would Fedallah blind Ishmael with a harpoon, or would The Pequod weave flowers in The Virgin's hair?

Now I know. To say you understand Moby Dick is a lie. It is not a plain thing, but one of the knottiest of all. No one understands it. The best you can hope to do is come to terms with it. Grapple with it. Read it and read it and study the literature around it. Melville didn't understand it. He set out to write another didactic adventure/travelogue with some satire thrown in. He needed another success like Typee or Omoo. He needed some money. He wrote for five or six months and had it nearly finished. And then things began to get strange. A fire deep inside fret his mind like some cosmic boil and came to a head bursting words on the page like splashes of burning metal. He worked with the point of red-hot harpoon and spent a year forging his curious adventure into a bloody ride to hell and back. "...what in the world is equal to it?"

Moby Dick is a masterpiece of literature, the great American novel. Nothing else Melville wrote is even in the water with it, but Steinbeck can't touch it, and no giant's shoulders would let Faulkner wade near it. Melville, The pale Usher, warned the timid: "...don't you read it, ...it is by no means the sort of book for you. ...It is... of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hausers. A Polar wind blows through it, & birds of prey hover over it. Warn all gentle fastidious people from so much as peeping into the book..." But I say if you've never read it, read it now. If you've read it before, read it again. Think Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Goethe, and The Bible. If you understand it, think again.

It's always dangerous to label a book as a "masterpiece": that word seems to scare away most readers and distances everyone from the substance of the book itself. Still, I'm going to say that this is the Greatest American Novel because I really think that it is--after having read it myself.

Honestly, Moby Dick IS long and looping, shooting off in random digressions as Ishmael waxes philosophical or explains a whale's anatomy or gives the ingredients for Nantucket clam chowder--and that's exactly what I love about it. This is not a neat novel: Melville refused to conform to anyone else's conventions. There is so much in Moby Dick that you can enjoy it on so many completely different levels: you can read it as a Biblical-Shakespearean-level epic tragedy, as a canonical part of 19th Century philosophy, as a gothic whaling adventure story, or almost anything else. Look at all the lowbrow humor. And I'm sorry, but Ishmael is simply one of the most likable and engaging narrators of all time.

A lot of academics love Moby Dick because academics tend to have good taste in literature. But the book itself takes you about as far from academia as any book written--as Ishmael himself says, "A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." Take that advice and forget what others say about it, and just experience Moby Dick for yourself.

Most readers of Moby Dick seem to praise it for the wrong reasons and some miss the boat completely.

Criticize all you want of Melville's scientific inaccuracy, wandering themes, or even his improper punctuation. The guy wrote this thing in a year - not enough time to refine it, and it was a book he knew would not sell.

Underneath a mess of useless whaling information and Ishmael's rambling are ideas and questions that most people don't dare think about. Unlike Charles Darwin, Galileo or the fearless Ahab, Melville hid safely behind his metaphors and guided the careful readers to draw their own conclusions without completely leading the way.

Let me explain.

While to Ishmael, Moby Dick is nature's wonder and to Starbuck is just a whale, to Ahab Moby Dick is God, with his infinite power.

There are some disturbing things in the universe begging for an explaination, such as why one person is rewarded with happyness while another punished in suffering. There are feel-good answers, like the idea that the score will be evened in the afterlife and there are humble answers, like the book of Job, which suggests that man has no right to complain or question God. Melville's Ahab takes this to another level when he asks why man needs to be God's puppets. Ahab is insulted by God's creation of man, letting man live in suffering, "with half a heart and half a lung".

The bewildered God-fearing masses will not comprehend the depth Melville trys to take them. This most important theme was written for the pursuit of truth, not happyness. This book is not for everyone, and a lot of chapters are better off skipped, but those with enough empathy for Melville will find an emotional and intellectual adventure.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the story of Maya Angelou and her difficult life from her early childhood and onward. To put it plainly, I found this book to be a large amount of incoherent babble. This book simply further emphasizes a point drilled into my head years ago. What they went through was hell, but how many times must the point be proved? I have encountered many passages throughout this autobiography describing white people as "them" or explaining why whites are in fact not even real people! Imagine that!

This book fell into my hands late last June and part of a summer homework assignment to read the book, pick ten key passages, and respond to them in a journal like presentation. I found this book extreamly painful to get through and it literally took me until the very last minute to acually sit down and force myself through three desciptions of sexual molestation, and countless descriptions about how white people are "different" or "not of this world". I see the only audience for this book are white supremacists who are looking to change their views on this world.

Bagna Braestrup 5/15/00 English 8W I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings My name is Bagna and I am currently in 8th grade. As an assignment for my English class I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Dr. Maya Angelou. While reading this book, I experienced a lot of different emotions such as happiness, sadness, and anger. It was hard to believe how horrible life was for the black people. Dr. Maya Angelou talked about all the terrible events that happened in her life and transfered her feelings into her writing. Many of them took courage to write about. While reading this book I was additionally reading To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings described the Blacks' perspective on life during that era. To Kill a Mockingbird was written from a white persons point of view. Because it was written from the point of view of a white man, the Blacks in the story do not seem individual, they were portrayed as a group seemed to possess the same traits. It was the contrary in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The lifestyles of the two races, were very different. The grammar each race used was dissimilar, the Whites being more educated. By contrasting the two books, I can see how the Whites and the Blacks lived in two different worlds, one of luxuries and the other of necessities. The diction Dr. Maya Angelou uses to describe the setting with is fitting to the story line. Her knowledge is shown in her style, by the way she writes so articulately. It shows her education compared to the schooling of the other Blacks. One sentence in the book genuinely shows this: "My relief melted the fears and they liquidly stole down my face." This sentence is describing her crying out of relief. The way in which she words it is truly beautiful. There were points in the book that were tiring because the author kept describing everyday events that were irrelevant to the story. Dr. Angelou talked about living in a town called Stamps longer than necessary. This book was very good. I would certainly recommend this book to a friend. The events are described in such a way that the reader can not put the book down. The author apparently is very scholarly, and can tell her story in a very admirable way.

Although I'm caucasion, I was able to relate to many of the experiences that Maya describes in her book; it's more than the Negro experience in the racist South during the depression of the 30's and early 40's, it's about the tenacity one must adhere to in order to overcome the myriad of obstacles that one endures during a lifetime. It's about finding your voice, and then using it effectively. What makes Maya Angelou's book so poignant is her honest narrative as she journeys back to the little town of Stamps, Arkansas. The reader is almost immediately pulled in to the story because we can simply share in her episodic adventures: Growing up with "Momma", who is really her grandmother, and a very strict and dedicated Christian woman who doesn't waver from the God's will nor his ten commandments; she deals with an inspiring school teacher who serves as a springboard for Maya's eventual success as a person and writer; Maya also deals with the inequality of the races, the blatant disrespect by the white people, and the mixed feelings she experiences due to her parents uninvolvement with her and her brother, Baily. Maya Angelou is honest and straight forward with her language. This book is clearly one of the best books I've ever read. You have no choice but to be moved. There is something for everyone is this masterpiece. We all want to feel connected, to become a part of the story, if you will, and this book does just that. Maya Angelou is truly gifted as a writer, and we're lucky that a woman named Mrs. Flowers tapped into Maya's talents and encouraged her to expose it. The end result has been an eternal gift for all of us to share.

This classic of the english literature, written by Kate Chopin, is a revolutionary novel for the time she had to live. It was bad seen and was forbiden for more than 50 years. The idea that a woman, a married woman, would laeve her husband and her children, to live with another man,wasnt allowed in her society. Im not saying that nowdays such a thing is allowed, but in those earlies days, this thing wasnt even thought, thats why this book can not have a happy end for Edna, because in no way her dream would have been come true. Personally Y think Robert loved Edna vey much, but he knew, he never could have been with the woman he loved. Her friend Madmoisselle Reisz, told her she needed to be strong to face her feelings and let Robert by side, because he finally would destroy her life. At the end that was what finally happened, Ednas complete life turned around Robert until that point, in the absence of her husband, she left home with the only purpuse of beeing alone until Roberts return. Y think that she was so in love, that she was forced to sink in the sea. Personally I found it an excellent book and it could bea very good advice for further generations.

Can you imagine the impact this book must have had when it was first published in 1899? So scandalous! And it still has the power to make its readers eyes grow wide.

My only complaints are that the ending was unrealistic. (Of course, it fit the BOOK completely---it just wasn't practical.) I also think the portrayal of Edna as a nonchalant mother (as opposed to a nurturing mother) was unfair. Chopin wanted readers to view Edna as a victim, and when Edna turned around and neglected her own children...that didn't help our sympathy for her. ...Yet surely we readers realized this was a woman who was too oppressed and stifled to know what to do with herself.

Anyway, before I forget, a word of caution: HAVE A DICTIONARY NEARBY!! WHOA! Chopin was obviously VERY intelligent, along with being ahead of her time. Vocab. word after vocab. word, I tell ya.

Overall, the reader feels pity for practically every character. But it's not such a melancholy atmosphere that would make one want to stop reading it; it's merely proof that Chopin can weave a web of believable characters struggling with believable circumstances.

I would voice one more disappointment, though, if it wouldn't serve as a spoiler. ...Um, I think I was hoping that Edna would betray her husband a little more than she did...succumb to temptation a bit more...because I was rooting for her! I was sympathizing with her, and I thought she should get what she has longed for. But no such luck. Her conscience probably prevented something from going too far. Rats.

This is a sophisticated read laced with French phrases and lengthy paragraphs, but worth your while.

Though at one time I, too, would have rated "The Awakening" one of the worst reads of a lifetime--for its predictability in the context of a woman oppressed by Victorian society, and the most undeveloped, unsympathetic heroine for whom I was unable to muster the slightest emotional investment--a nagging, relentless undercurrent of something I couldn't quite identify festered long inside me regarding this novel until the story, and author, were at last redeemed upon my third reading, in a literature course that finally ended this internal struggle.

Having much faith in Kate Chopin as a writer, I never felt 'the awakening' was about sex. This was too easy, even for a book set in Victorian Society. Further, it occurred to me that although women were limited beyond the domestic sphere in this era, suicide was not particular to the phenomenology of Victorian women (as it was, say, to Wall Street brokers at the onset of the Great Depression).

"The Awakening," in title and content, is irony. Edna Pontellier's awakening is about who she perceives herself to be, and who she actually is. She dreams of passion and romance and embarks on a summer affair, yet she married Leonce simply to spite her parents, who don't like him. She moves out of the family home to live on her own--with the permission, and resources, of Leonce--hardly independent. She claims to crave intimacy, yet she fails horribly at every intimate relationship in her life: she is detached with her children, indifferent to her husband, leery of her artist friend, and can hardly stand another minute at the bedside of her warm, maternal friend, Mrs. Ratignolle, to assist her in childbirth. (Ratignolle was my favorite character of all, read after read, simply because she was so content with herself.)

The Awakening? The surprise is on Edna, who is not the person she imagines herself to be. The irony? Edna Pontellier is never awakened to this, even at the bitter end. Feminists have adopted this book as their siren song...embarrassing at least! A feminist reading would, predictably, indict Victorian society as oppressive to women. Yawn...So that's new?!! Tell us something we don't know! I can tell you that concept wouldn't be enough to keep a book around for a hundred years.

But the concept that has sustained this novel over a century's time is its irony. And it is superbly subtle. I believe Chopin deliberately set up Victorian society as her backdrop to cleverly mask this irony...'the awakening' is not something good (a daring sexual awakening in a dark era for women): it is something horrible that evolves and is apparent to everyone except the person experiencing it. This reading makes Edna's character worth hating! Chopin herself hated Edna Pontellier and called her a liar through her imagined conversation with her artist friend at the end of the novel.

Chopin also cleverly tips the scales in Edna's favor in the first half of the novel, but a careful read reveals those scales weighed against her in the second half. I give the novel 5 stars because it took me three readings and help from a PhD lit professor to figure out this book. And I'm proud to say that I am, at last, awakened.

The Jungle is a very well written book, particularly for an author who was only 28 years old when he wrote it. The story features an early twentieth century family who has just immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania, and their struggles to survive in America. This is not an inspirational story about the American Dream. Quite the contrary, it is a story about how the American Dream was a nightmare for many poor and uneducated immigrants. The Jungle chronicles the travails of Jurvis and his family, as they struggle to learn how to survive. It is depressing to read about the disasters which befell this family, and how their ignorance was taken advantage of on so many levels. One would hope that this no longer happens to immigrants, but of course, it does, just in different ways. Jurvis and his family work in the meat processing district of Chicago, and the book details the working conditions of the meatpacking plants. Those details led to investigation and greater regulation of the meatpacking industry, as well as modern child labor laws. In the last several chapters, we witness a transformation of Jurvis, as he learns his entire family has either died or is selling themselves into prostitution. Jurvis stumbles upon socialism, and quickly becomes a supporter of the movement to bring power to the working class people, and end the wage-slavery taking place in the meatpacking plants. Jurvis' transformation into a socialist is a classic pro-socialism story, and it was particularly interesting to read that part. This pre-communist account reminds us that socialism is really simply a political theory, which was never really properly introduced in supposedly socialist countries. I did find the last few chapters dealing with socialism to be hastily written, and not nearly as engaging as the first part of the book. The Jungle is a classic, and for so many reasons, it should be required reading in college, if not high school (but sadly, it is not).

Upton Sinclair's the Jungle is a distressing and touching story of the immigrant life in America during the early years of this century. Jurgis, Ona, and their families came to America from Lithuania to live a better life. After some time, reality set it. Their faith in America remained though. America was not what they had expected, especially once Ona and Jurgis were married. There was a constant pressure to work, but no matter where they turned they were poverty-stricken. Jurgis insisted Ona not work, but their financial situation demanded her to. This historically accurate book displays and reveals the horrific factory work and the workers suffering. Jurgis job descriptions were unbelievable. He was asked to stay after one day from work to butcher pregnant cows and cows that had gone down or ones that were sick and had boils all over them. Their meat was then mixed with all the uncontaminated meat. Jurgis then realized how the packers operated. They sold this spoiled, contaminated, or adulterated meat without thinking twice. The workers were exposed to horrible diseases, had to work harsh working condition, were not paid for days off. The employers did not care because if they quit or would not do the work, there were plenty of people who would do the work and needed a job. Throughout the novel, it seems no matter where the family turns they cannot get ahead. After Antanas, wife Ona, and his two sons die, and Jurgis is forced to give up the house, he enters crime with a friend he met in jail. Jurgis found out quickly just how corrupt Chicago and city government was.

I decided to finally read this classic after reading Schlosser's work this year, Fast Food Nation. He mentioned the terrible conditions of the meat-packing plants today and I wanted to get an idea of what they began with back in Sinclair's time. I found this book to move very quickly as the story of Jurgis Rudkus and his demise is extensively fascinating.

We begin with Jurgis and his family leaving Lithuania to come to the 'free' land of America for more opportunities. What they find is a situation where they pay their life savings for a home which they don't really own, a situation in which jobs are scarce and the available ones are very dangerous, and a plethora of new diseases and ailments which take away members of the family bit by bit.

I enjoy the intense irony of this story because they came for freedom and found they themselves locked in poverty because of the capitalist society. The usurping heads of the meat industry end up controlling much more than their wages and their work hours. ...

I have just finished reading Bless Me, Ultima in my English class and I can say that it is a good choice.

The book is about a young Mexican boy, Antonio Marez, growing up in New Mexico during the mid 1940s. It begins when he is six years old, and Ultima, a curandera or healing woman, comes to live with his family because she is getting too old to live by herself. Through Ultima's gentle guidance and support, Antonio faces his uncertainties and learns to go on with life.

Antonio's parents are opposites, his father being a Marez, people of the llano (the desert land in New Mexico), and his mother being a Luna, farmers and people of the moon and the earth. His father wants Antonio to grow up free to roam the land and become a vaquero, as he once was. His mother wants Antonio to be a priest, a man of learning. Antonio is torn between them regarding his future.

Throughout the story, Antonio also faces confusion over religion and spirituality. Ultima believes in God, but she also believes and works magic. But there is no evil in Ultima and Antonio is confused over Catholicism. His mother wants him to become a priest, and though he does believe in God, he wants understanding from Him, answers to his many questions.

From a very young age, Antonio witnesses death. Death of a war-crazed man, Lupito. Death of a good family friend, Narcisco. And finally the unjust death of Ultima, killed by an evil man vowing revenge on Ultima for the death of his two daughters who were brujas (witches).

Through the trials he is faced with and the death of his beloved mentor, Ultima, Antonio learns to go on with life and leave the past behind. He realizes the power of good over evil and understands that truth is more powerful than that which is prescribed by custom.

A lot of what goes through Antonio's mind through the story is similar to the questions I have had through growing up. I can relate to him and to the other characters in the book. And I have learned that mankind is no different in spite of age, race, religion, culture, and upbringing.

Kudos to Rudolfo Anaya for his first novel that brings Mexican-American culture to the reader and a genuinely poignant "growing up" story that can be read by all ages.

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, is a story of maturation of a young Hispanic American boy named Antonio, during the 1940's. This story, though it sounds fairly straight forward, is anything but average. Bless Me, Ultima mixes the supernatural world and the traditional Catholic ideals. The young protagonist must choose for himself his fate whether to be a priest/farmer and follow his mother's wishes or to become a man of the flesh like his father's people. The boy is torn by his high morals and sins that are occurring around him. The novel tries to answer many of life's moral questions such as this. The author accomplishes this. His mentor and closest friend, Ultima, uses the spiritual world of herbs and medicine to counteract against the evil that had taken place in the small towns in New Mexico. Ultima represents pure goodness and the character named Tenorio is a representation of pure evil. The last "showdown", is the ultimate battle between goodness and evil, like in the book of Revelations in the New Testament Bible which depicts goodness to ultimately win over evil and the people are saved from the sins of the world. "It is because good is always stronger than evil... The smallest bit of good can stand against all the powers of evil in the world and it will emerge triumphant"(Bless Me, Ultima 98). In many ways, this novel has parallels to the novel The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Much of the novel is spent chasing evil in the form of witches. As in The Crucible, innocent people are accused of witchery because the townspeople were fearful of things they could not understand. Antonio sums up human nature by saying, "I think most of the things we call evil are not evil at all; it is just that we don't understand those things and so we call them evil. And we fear evil only because we do not understand it. When we went to the Téllez ranch I was afraid because I did not understand what was happening, but Ultima was not afraid because she understood-" (248). The accuser who takes revenge against the pure goodness of Ultima takes her life but not her soul. The goodness is left in the form of young Antonio. Evil actions that takes place in the towns of New Mexico included: prostitution, drunkeness, witchcraft, having other gods, and murder. Through maturation Antonio is able to ask himself, must one lose their innocence? "Had I already lost my innocence? How? I had seen Lupito murdered... I had seen Ultima's cure... I had seen the men come to hang her... I had seen the awful fight just now... I had seen and reveled in the beauty of the golden carp! ...How had I sinned?" (165). This is a major theme important to people living in the 20th century. Antonio is witness to all of these sacreligious actions and questions where God is to let these things to happen. He is very unsure of his faith towards God since he sees three deaths, Florence, Narciso, and Lupito. Antonio goes on further on to ask himself, does one gain understanding by losing innocence? His father's answer was simply stated, yet with much truth, "understanding comes with life, as a man grows he sees life and death, he is happy and sad, he works, plays, meets people-sometimes it takes a lifetime to acquire understanding, because in the end understanding simply means having a sympathy for people" (248). How could we make sense of the deaths, though? Three of the towns deaths were beings who were evil: two of the witches who cursed Lucas, and their father Tenorio. As the deaths of the evil were necessary for the end of the witch hunt, the goodness is also believed to die to bring the town back to harmony. According to the Bible, this fight between goodness and evil is predicted to occur at the end of the world. At this time, the believers of the savior will be saved, while the unforgiven go to either Hell or Purgatory. A major question for the working class and Antonio is education help you in life? My answer to how I believe the author would answer this is that school education helps us progress in this world, but only the religion will help you get through the after life. This novel asks the major questions posed in humanity and deals with it in an innocent yet knowledgeable way. Looking through young Antonio's eyes, we can see from the perspective of the innocent what is wrong with our beliefs and in general, our world. Anaya does a fantastic job asking question and answering in his own way some of life's unexplainable happenings. I would recommend this book to everyone, but especially for those looking for answers to why bad things happen and how to overcome them.

The religious and spiritual symbolism in Anaya's book, Bless Me, Ultima blend beautifully with the powerfully described New Mexican setting and culture that surround the novel's main charatcer, Antonio, and place him at the center of a series of thematic struggles including the classic struggle of good vs. evil, the difficult decision of choosing between one's apparent destiny and giving in to one's choices, and the intense discovery and formation of alternate beliefs in a higher being.
Anaya places Antonio in a Catholic household of Mexican descent in the rural setting of Las Pastures, New Mexico; illustrating the natural beauty and land-based lifestyle that Antonio grows up knowing. Tony's mother is a faithful and passionate Catholic, believing in the imporatance of direct prayer to God and the adoration of the Virgin Mary. She sees and feels the holyness that surrounds Tony's being from his birth, and raises him in hopes that he will some day become a priest. The characterization of Tony's father provides a nice contrast that lends an insight into the formation of Tony. His father is a man of the land, using it respectfully and living in symbiance with it to ensure the heathly lifespans of both his family, and his family's land or llano. The contrast in Tony's parental upbringing sets the stage for his future conflicts concerning the true existance of a God, and the reasons for the existance of good and evil that he witnesses in life.
Symbolism is a cetral tool that Anaya uses to artistically convey Tony's journey and his discoveries, amazments, and disappointments along the way. Perhaps most finely crafted is Anaya's creation of the golden carp, used to represent the startling effect of peace and joy that Tony feels after discovering its existance. The golden carp itself is a symbol of an alternate idol of worship besides the Christian God that Tony had grown to believe in through the teachings he recives at home, school, and at church. The fact that Tony is willing to belive in the golden carp's existance, as he is both amazed and mystified by its beauty, is made to appear especially surprising through the description is the things that Tony is denying in order give into the peace and happines he feels in the golden carp.
At one point, Tony is at sunday school at church, and the priest is describing to the students the concept of an eternity. An eternity, he proceeds to explain, is the amount of time it would take a bird to pick up every grain of sand on a beach, one by one, and fly it across the pacific ocean to deposit on a shore in Japan. And then, when the entire beach has been transported, he does it again, and brings every grain to the other side, a million times. That's how long an eternity is, and that's how long you will stay in heaven or in hell. This concept frightened me like a week ago, I can imagine how it might affect an eleven year old boy. Yet, the beauty of the golden carp, and the balance that it's existance creates within Tony is more than enough to allow him to betray the doctrine he has been taught to believe in and risk finding out the hard way exactly how long an eternity is.
The book's symbolism is far deeper than what I can describe in this review, and it includes themes like free will vs. destiny that I have not mentioned. Overall I can say it is a beautifully written book, with easy to recognize parallels to the inner-turnmoil of the reader, and I recommend reading it at least twice to truly appreciate the ideas and messages conveyed in Anaya's novel.

My Antonia was a colorful book full of exploration, times of life and laughter, and times of heartbreak and sorrow. My Antonia written by Willa Cather portrays how life was for imigrants trying to make it in the world. Also, how life was for those already living in North America.

The book opens up with Jim Burden, a 10 year old boy who has just lost his mother and father and is traveling with a ranch hand, Jake. They are both going to Nebraska to live with Jim's grandparents. After Jim has gotten settled in and has made himself known to most of his new surroundings, he and his family go to visit their new Bohemian neighbors. There they meet the Shimerdas consisting of: Mr. Shimerada, Mrs. Shimerada, Ambrosch,Yilka, Marek, and Antonia. Once Jim and Antonia meet they become close friends rather fast, by hanging out and teaching Antonia English. This is only the beginning of many years of love, friendship, heartache, and emotion.

The weather represents many events and emotions in My Antonia such as, "As the sun sank there came a sudden coolness and the strong smell of earth...." Another place that Cather uses emotion is Antonia, "looked off at the red streak of dying light," although Antonia knows her father would have liked her to go to school and get a good education she must stay at home and do chores like a man. Her hope that she might do what her father would have liked her to do is that, "of dying light."

Whether you are into the adventure novel or the romantic sappy one; My Antonia is both. I began reading this book and didn't want to put it down. Although certain parts of the book were slow, that happens in the best of novels. I would recommend this book to the avid reader and even to the every once in a while reader.

Ten-year-old Jim Burden arrives in the dark Nebraska vastness, on the same train as a hopeful but impoverished Bohemian family. The newly orphaned boy is welcomed by loving grandparents and kind farm hands, who gently teach him prairie survival skills. Alas, there is no one but a sly cousin from the old country to greet/dupe the hardworking folk who sacrificed their homeland to make a better life in the New World for their children. Still, hroughout the entire book it is Nature--particularly in the form of the undulating, ever metamorphosing prairie--which dispenses both cruelty and blessing on Americans and immigrants alike. How each group copes reveals their moral fibre and hints at future success.

Young Jim is most enchanted by his 14-year-old neighbor, a bronzed, hardworking daughter of the soil, who toils selflessly for her family--Antonia Shimerda. Their strange customs and diverse personalities awe and confuse Jimmy, who immediately feels appreciation and affection for this brave girl from a flawed family. The novel recounts their lives from childhood until young adulthood; how they took divergent paths in their quests for true happiness and contentment in life.

Cather's style is lyric: music is found in both Papa's violin and the waving of golden grain. She vividly portrays the chiaroscuro of shimmering sunsets and dappled leaves by the creek; gracefulness in the lilt of a barefoot walk and the natural aspiration of the heart toward peace and beauty. Does Jim regret the lost days of his boyhood, when life's pleasures were innocent, when hope was young and shy, when dreams were easily shared with a trusting companion and sincere smile? Was it worth all his serious studies and prestigious N.Y. job, when he recalls the tremulous private confessions of their youth? Can a prairie lad completely divest himself of his nurturing environment, or do the dancing grasses still hold secret sway in his adult heart? An American classic of the midwest, MY ANTONIA is meant for readers all over the world because of the unashamed truths it reveals about the heart of man.

In MY ANTONIA Willa Cather does an extraordinary job of showing a true struggle with the weight of the personal nostalgic impulse. Jim Burden is unfulfilled in his life as a New York husband and lawyer, a predicament that his many travels near the Nebraska he grew up in do not alleviate. His most powerful memories center around the Bohemian immigrant girl Antonia. The story is really about their relationship rather than either individual: Cather's depiction of Jim's friendship with Antonia as a child, a young adult, and then a man shows how both Jim and the novel reconcile and transcend the combination of place, time and fortune. Written primarily from Jim's perspective, the story helps him regain a vital measure of the fulfillment he has lost in the over twenty years he spends away from his roots. It's hard to go home again, and often we don't when we should, but Cather reminds us that home is not strictly a matter of geography: the people we carry in our hearts mean more to us than any street address ever can.

Cather's pen paints vivid and detailed pictures of the landscape and complex, well-rounded characters to people it. I could not finish this book when it was assigned for summer reading in high school; it didn't grip me. Reading it twelve years later, with my childhood gone and a dozen years more life experience and memories, I found it not only gripping, but stirring and beautiful.

I have to admit that I have not really given Jack London his proper due up to now. Perhaps it is because I don't by my nature like outdoor adventure type stories, or perhaps it is because I associate White Fang and "To Build a Fire" with my youth. The fact is that Jack London is a tremendously talented writer. His understanding of the basics of life matches his great knowledge of the snow-enshrouded world of the upper latitudes. The Call of the Wild, despite its relative brevity and the fact that it is (at least on its surface) a dog's story, contains as much truth and reality of man's own struggles as that which can be sifted from the life's work of many another respected author. The story London tells is starkly real; as such, it is not pretty, and it is not elevating. As an animal lover, I found parts of this story heartbreaking: Buck's removal from the civilized Southland in which he reigned supreme among his animal kindred to the brutal cold and even more brutal machinations of hard, weathered men who literally beat him and whipped him full of lashes is supremely sad and bothersome. Even sadder are the stories of the dogs that fill the sled's traces around him. Poor good-spirited Curly never has a chance, while Dave's story is made the more unbearable by his brave, undying spirit. Even the harsh taskmaster Spitz has to be pitied, despite his harsh nature, for the reader knows full well that this harsh nature was forced upon him by man and his thirst for gold. Buck's travails are long and hard, but the nobility of his spirit makes of him a hero--this despite the fact that his primitive animal instincts and urges continually come to dominate him, pushing away the memory and reality of his younger, softer days among civilized man. Buck not only conquers all--the weather, the harshness of the men who harness his powers in turn, the other dogs and wolves he comes into contact with--he thrives. This isn't a story to read when you are depressed. London's writing is beautiful, poignant, and powerful, but it is also somber, sometimes morose, infinitely real, and at times gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.

The two rivals circle the ring, probing for any point of weakness. The duel has lasted longer than either competitor had anticipated. Weakened by fatigue, the challenger feints high and goes for a crippling blow. No, this is not a boxing title match in Las Vegas. This is a life-and-death struggle of one domestic dog for survival in the cold, icy, barren regions of the Alaskan plains. This is a clash between the civilized and the primordial. This is the conflict between domestication and liberation. This is the Call of the Wild.

Jack London centers his story on a dog by the name of Buck. Buck is a big, strong dog, his father being a St. Bernard and his mother being a Scottish shepherd dog. At one hundred and forty pounds, Buck was no mere house pet. Kept physically strong with a love of rigorous swimming and constant outdoor exercise, Buck was a lean, formidable dog. Undoubtedly, his great condition was part of the reason that the gardener's helper dog-napped and sold him to dog traders, who in turn sold him to Canadian government mail couriers. The gold rush in Alaska had created a huge demand for good dogs, which eventually led to the "disappearances" of many dogs on the West Coast. Buck was no exception. He was sold into a hostile environment, which was unforgiving and harsh. Although civilization domesticated him from birth, Buck soon begins almost involuntarily to rediscover himself, revealing a "primordial urge", a natural instinct, which London refers to as the Call of the Wild.

This book is set in the Klondike, a region in Alaska that was literally stormed by thousands of men looking to get rich quick via the gold rush. Transportation was increasingly important, but horses were near useless in winter, prone to slip and fall on snow and ice. Dogs were by far the best means of transportation in Alaska at the time, somewhere near the end of the 19th century. As the demand for dogs grew, the prices for good dogs skyrocketed. This price hike inevitably created a black-market- style selling of dogs, and the gardener's helper Manuel did what many men did; they sold the dogs for a good price.

A recurring theme in London's novel is the clash between natural instinct and domesticated obedience. Soon after the dog traders captured Buck, a man broke him with a club. Buck is thoroughly humiliated, but learned an all-important truth of the wild: The law of club and fang. Kill or be killed. Survival is above all. Buck resolved to himself to give way to men with clubs. In the beginning, Buck had problems with this new restriction, but learned that when his masters' hands hold whips or clubs, he must concede. However, that did not keep Buck from doing little deeds like stealing a chunk of bacon behind his masters' backs. However, as London says, "He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach . In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them." In this way Buck learns the way of the wild but also acknowledges his inferiority to men with clubs or whips. Eventually in this novel, Buck throws away his old life completely and replaces it with his natural urge, the primordial version of himself, the Call of the Wild.

Another underlying theme is the relationship between dog and master. In the beginning, Buck is acquainted with the Judge with a dignified friendship, his sons with hunting partnership, his grandsons with protective guardianship, the mail couriers Francois and Perrault with a mutual respect. Against the man with a club he despised but gave respect. However, when Buck met John Thornton, he loved his master for the first time ever. There wasn't anything Buck wouldn't do for his master. Twice Buck saved Thornton's life, and pulled a thousand pounds of weight for Thornton's sake. Even after Buck routinely left his master's camp to flirt with nature, Buck always came back to appreciate his kind master. However, even after Thornton was gone and Buck had released all memories of his former life, Buck never forgot the kind hands of his master, even after answering the Call of the Wild.

Jack London truly brings Buck to life. Using a limited 3rd person view, the reader is told of Buck's thoughts and actions. Obviously, London gave several ideal human qualities to Buck, including a sharp wit, rational reasoning, quick thinking, and grounded common sense. However, he does not over-exaggerate the humanity in Buck, which would have given an almost cartoon-like feeling for a reader. Rather, being a good observer, London saw how dogs acted and worked backwards, trying to infer what the dogs think. The result is a masterful blend of human qualities and animal instinct that is entirely believable. It is obvious that Buck's experience was similar to many other dogs' experiences.

This novelette is a chiling, gripping masterpiece of Survival lore, set in the brutal harshness of the Yukon during the Alaskan gold rush of 1897. The plot is the gradual metamorphosis of Buck--a splendid rancho dog of the warm, soft Southlands (part St.Bernanrd/part German Shepherd). From pampered pet on his master's country estate, he is kidnpaped and sold into the bondage of dogteam slavery for sheer Greed, where he endures the horrors of weather plus those of cruel and stupid men. Yet Buck ultimately carves out his own domain in the bitter wilderness, leaving a legacy of prodigious strength, cunning and ferocity. When his last master dies, he answers the growing Call to revert to his ancestors' wild state, as the alpha male of a wolf pack. Despite little dialogue, this book reads swiftly and holds your interest. Fiction made absolutely Real by the pen of a master!