Top 30 Modern Classics - XXX

The Sound And The Fury

William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury, written by the American author Willaim Faulkner, was first published in 1929.

Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a person with lower mental capabilities, was considered to be a shame to his family. He was cared by Caddy, his older sister; and Dilsey, a servant.

Benjy's had three passions: fire, the golf course on land that used to belong to the Compson family, and his sister Caddy. But by 1928 Caddy had been banished from the Compson home after her husband divorced her because her child was not his. The family sold the golf course to a local golf club in order to finance Quentin's Harvard education. Benjy remembered his sister ardently and held very fond memories of her.

Pregnant and alone, Caddy then marries Herbert Head, whom Quentin did not like. Caddy was determined in marrying Herbert as she wanted to get married before resolute the birth of her child. Herbert found out that the child was not his and sent mother and daughter away in shame. 

Quentin, who was a very tormented person with a complex psyche, could not come to terms wit Caddy's fate and after sometime commited suicide.

Jason, the third child of the family had a single minded desire to acquire material wealth.  By 1928, after his father's death, Jason became the provider for the family consisting of his mother, Benjy, and Miss Quentin (Caddy's daughter), as well as the family's servants. His role made him bitter and cynical. He went so far as to blackmail Caddy into making him Miss Quentin's sole guardian, then used that role to steal the support payments that Caddy sent for her daughter.

Dilsey, the powerful matriarch of the black family servants drew a great deal of strength from her faith, standing as a proud figure amid a dying family.

On this Easter Sunday, Dilsey took her family and Benjy to the 'colored' church. Dilsey was mistreated and abused in the Compson family, but nevertheless remained loyal. She, with the help of her grandson Luster, cared for Benjy, as she took him to church and tried to bring him to salvation. 

Meanwhile, the tension between Jason and Miss Quentin, Caddy's daughter, reached its climax in the family discovering that Miss Quentin had run away in the middle of the night with a carnival worker She had taken with her all money that Jason had hidden in his closed which also included the support money sent be Caddy for Miss Quentin but stolen by Jason. He sets off once again to find her on his own, but loses her trail in nearby Mottson, and gives up.

After church, Dilsey allows her grandson Luster to drive Benjy in the family's decrepit horse and carriage to the graveyard. Luster, disregarding Benjy's set routine, drives the wrong way around a monument. Benjy's hysterical sobbing and violent outburst can only be quieted by Jason, who understands how best to placate his brother. Jason slaps Luster, turns the carriage around, and, in an attempt to quiet Benjy, hits Benjy, breaking his flower, whilst screaming "Shut up!". After Jason gets off the carriage and Luster heads home, Benjy suddenly becomes silent. Luster turns around to look at Benjy and sees Benjy holding his drooping flower.

In 1945, Faulkner wrote an appendix to the novel.

The appendix reveals that Caroline Compson died in 1933, upon which Jason had Benjy committed to the state asylum; fired the black servants; sold the last of the Compson land; and moved into an apartment above his farming supply store. It is also revealed that Jason had himself declared Benjy's legal guardian many years ago, without their mother's knowledge, and used this status to have Benjy castrated.

The appendix also reveals the fate of Caddy, last seen in the novel when her daughter Quentin is still a baby. After marrying and divorcing a second time, Caddy moved to Paris, where she lived at the time of the German occupation.

The appendix concludes with an accounting for the black family who worked as servants to the Compsons. 

Namaste

Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXIX

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale, written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, was first  published in 1985.

The Handmaid's Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, ruled by a military dictatorship. 

A terrorist attack kills the President and most of congress. A group calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" takes control of Gilead.They take away all of women's rights. In the new regime women are forbidden to read. A compulsorily christian regime based on religious fanaticism inspired by Old Testament is put in place.

The new regime has created a class of women called handmaids. The handmaids are used for bearing children. The story is told by Offred, a handmaid, in first person. She describes her life while in her third assignment as a handmaid to a high official, Fred, who is called the Commander. Offred describes the structure of Gilead's society, including the several different classes of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theocracy.

The Commander is a high-ranking official in Gilead. Although he is supposed to have sexual intercourse with Offred on defined ritual days and in presence of his wife, he begins an illegal relationship with her. He offers her hidden or contraband products, such as old fashion magazines and cosmetics, takes her to a secret brothel run by the government, and furtively meets with her in his study, where he allows her to read, an activity otherwise prohibited for women. The Commander's wife, Serena Joy, also has secret interactions with Offred, arranging for her secretly to have sex with Nick, Serena's driver, in an effort to get Offred pregnant. In exchange for Offred's cooperation, Serena Joy gives her news of her daughter, whom Offred has not seen since she and her family were captured trying to escape Gilead.

Offred's meets with Nick, illegally, more frequently. Offred discovers she enjoys sex with Nick, despite her indoctrination and her memories of her husband. She shares potentially dangerous information about her past with him. Through another handmaid, Ofglen, Offred learns of the Mayday resistance, an underground network working to overthrow the regime in Gilead. The Commander's wife finds evidence of illegal relationship between Offred and the Commander. Offred contemplates suicide. As the novel concludes, she is being taken away by the secret police, the Eyes of God, under orders from Nick. Before she is put in the large black van, Nick tells her that the men are part of the Mayday resistance and that Offred must trust him. Offred does not know if Nick is a member of the Mayday resistance or a government agent posing as one, and she does not know if going with the men will result in her escape or her capture. She enters the van with her future uncertain.

Namaste


Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXVIII

Appointment in Samarra

John O'Hara

Appointment in Samarra, written by John O'Hara, is the first novel by the author published in 1934.

Julian English is a car dealer, who lives comfortably and moves in the elite circle of the society in Gibbsville. 

The novel spans over three days of Julian's life at the end of which he commits suicide.

During those three days, Julian gets drunk several times and propositions to two women. 

On successive days, he commits three unacceptable acts in social situations. First, he throws a drink in the face of Harry Reilly, an important investor in his business. This is  not only going to affect investments but also has the potential of his catholic customers deserting him as Harry is a well connected Catholic.

The second event occurs at a roadhouse, where Julian, after getting drunk, indulges in a sexual act with a gangster's girlfriend in his car. The gangster's muscleman, sent to keep an eye on the gangster's girlfriend and Julian's wife, see the couple going out. goes with his wife and some friends. Julian feels the excitement building up inside him in expectation of the punishment that may be meted out to him due to his impulsive act. 

The third event occurs the next day at the elite Gibbsville Club. Julian engages in an argument and brawl with a war veteran, Froggy Oden, which ends in Julian sugging Froggy and one other bystander. with a one-armed war veteran named Froggy Ogden. 

He indulges in two suicidal daydreams. In one he daydreams about Caroline, his wife, being involved sexually with Harry. H placing a gun in his mouth for killing himself but does not follow through.

His second suicidal daydream follows after his attempt to seduce a local reporter is rejected. He believes that he has lost his credibility and standing in the society. And no woman - worth having - would like to be associated with him.

Apparently, not able to reconcile himself with his fallen social status he commits suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning,  running his car in a closed garage.

O'Hara in his story was probably hitting at a generation who received their prosperity too easily and were not ready to face the challenges.

Namaste

Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXVII

Native Son

Richard Wright

Native Son , written by African American author Richard Wright, was published in 1940.

Bigger Thomas is a 20 year old black American lives in poverty in Chicago.

Bigger Thomas lives in a small room with his brother Buddy, his sister Vera, and their mother.

Bigger hates Whites. H along with his friends, Gus, GH and Jack, plan to rob whites. However the plan does not materialise because of fear, which none of them wants to admit.

Bigger meets a rich white, Mr Dalton, for a job which he gets. Bigger finds himself uncomfortable in that environment although the Daltons are kind to him. He meets Mary, Mr Dalton's daughter, who has leftist leanings. Mary dies not hesitate in calling her father a Capitalist and advises Bigger to join an Union.

Mary introduces Bigger to her leftist boyfriend, Jan. They all have dinner together at a diner inhabited by the blacks. At the diner, they buy a bottle of rum. Bigger drive.after drinking rum. On coming back home, Bigger carries Mary's listless body to her room. On the way Bigger can not resist the temptation of kissing Mary.

Just then, the bedroom door opens, and the blind Mrs. Dalton enters. In the anxiety of the moment, Bigger could not reason. To ensure that Mrs Dalton does not become aware of their presence in the bedroom, Bigger presses a pillow on Mary's face. However Mrs. Dalton smells the alcohol, scolds Mary and leaves. Mary dies due to suffocation. To prove to the world that Mary has left Chicago, Bigger burns her body in the house furnace.

Mr. Dalton calls for the services of a private detective, Britten. Bigger, on being interrogated by Britten, tells the events in a way that puts suspicion on Jan. Jan is surprised by Bigger's story but offers him help.

Bigger, in an effort to divert the investigation, slips a kidnapping note under the front door of Mr Dalton's  to project that Mary has been kidnapped. The investigation is taken over by the police. Journalists also crowd the house. One of the journalists finds the remains of Mary's bones and an earring inside the furnace. Bigger runs away.  

Bigger goes to his girlfriend, Bessie, and tells her the whole story. Bessie, realising the danger Bigger is in, runs away with Bigger and take shelter in an abandoned building. there Bigger rapes Bessie. Bigger decided to kill Bessie in her sleep . He hits her on the head with a brick and throws her in an air shaft.

Bigger runs through the city. Eventually the police catch him. Bigger is despised by both, white and black, communities.

During his first few days in prison, Bigger does not eat, drink, or talk to anyone. Jan and another leftist lawyer, Max come to his help and fight his case in the court. Max makes the case that there is no escape from this destiny for his client or any other black American because of the social norms that formed their beliefs. Max helps. Max helps Bigger come to terms with his perceptions of family, whites and the world in general.Then Jan comes to visit him. Bigger is found guilty in front of the court and sentenced to death for murder.

Namaste

Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXVI

Lord Of The Flies

William Golding

Lord of the Flies, by Nobel Prize winning English author William Golding, was published in 1954.

In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British plane crashes on or near an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are boys in their middle childhood or pre adolescence. Two boys—the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy nicknamed "Piggy"—find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to call all the survivors to one area. Ralph is elected their leader, though he does not receive the votes of the members of a boys' choir, led by the red-headed Jack Merridew. 

Jack organises his choir group into a hunting party responsible for discovering a food source. Ralph, Jack, and a quiet, dreamy boy named Simon soon form a triumvirate of leaders. 

The semblance of order quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild peg, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. A ship travels by the island, but without the boys' smoke signal to alert the ship's crew, the ship continues by without stopping. Angered by the failure of the boys to attract potential rescuers, Ralph considers relinquishing his position, but is convinced not to do so by Piggy.

Jack calls an assembly and tries to usurp the position of Ralph. He dose not receive much support. Jack, Roger, and another boy leave the shelters to form their own tribe. However, they are subsequently successful in luring away boys from Ralph's group by providing a feast of cooked pig. 

Simon has a secret hideaway where he goes to be alone. One day while he is there, Jack and his followers erect a faux sacrifice to the beast nearby: a severed pig's head, mounted on a sharpened stick, and soon swarming with flies. Simon conducts an imaginary dialog with the head, which he dubs the "Lord of the Flies". The head mocks Simon's notion that the beast is a real entity, and reveals the truth that the boys, are the beast; it is inside them.

Jack and his crew conclude that the real symbol of power on the island is not the conch, but Piggy's glasses—the only means the boys have of starting a fire. They raid Ralph's camp, confiscate the glasses. In the scuffle that ensues, Ralph escapes while his other three companions as either captured or killed by Jack's crew. 

The following morning, Jack orders his tribe to begin a manhunt for Ralph. Jack's savages set fire to the forest while Ralph desperately weighs his options for survival. Following a long chase, most of the island is consumed in flames. With the hunters closely behind him Ralph trips and falls. He looks up at a uniformed adult - a naval officer whose party has landed from a passing warship to investigate the fire. Ralph bursts into tears over the death of Piggy and the "end of innocence". Infected by his emotion, Jack and the other children, filthy and unkempt but suddenly reverting to their true ages, also spontaneously erupt into sobs.

(Extracts from Wikipedia)

Namaste

Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXV

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man,by Ralph Ellison, was published in 1952. The story is about an African American man whose color makes him invisible.

The narrator says that he is invisible, not due to any special attributes, but because others refuse to see him.

The narrator was a gifted speaker and he is invited to speak to a group of important white men. He is rewarded, by the white men, with a scholarship to a top black college after being humiliated in various ways.

Three years later, the narrator is a student at the college. He is asked to drive a wealthy white trustee of the college, Mr. Norton, around the campus. During their tour Norton needs a drink, and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day, a saloon and brothel that normally serves black men. A fight breaks out among a group of mentally imbalanced black veterans at the bar, and Norton passes out during the chaos. 

Back at the college, the narrator is rebuked by the college president on the issue of taking Mr Norton to Golden Day instead of showing Mr Norton civilized face of black life.  He expels the narrator, giving him seven letters of recommendation and sends him to New York city in search of a job.

The narrator travels to Harlem and searches fruitlessly for work till someone helps him to get a low paying job in a paint factory. The narrator gets into a fight with his supervisor, during which one of the process tanks explodes, and the narrator is knocked unconscious. He loses his memory and speech temporarily.

After the narrator recovers his memory and leaves the hospital, he collapses on the street. Some black community members take him to the home of Mary, a kind woman who lets him live with her for free in Harlem. One day, the narrator witnesses the eviction of an elderly black couple from their Harlem apartment. Standing before the crowd of people gathered before the apartment, he gives an impassioned speech against the eviction. Brother Jack overhears his speech and offers him a position as a spokesman for the Brotherhood, a political organization that, reputedly, works to help the socially oppressed. The narrator takes the job and is placed in charge of advancing the group’s goals in Harlem.

After being trained in rhetoric by a white member of the group named Brother Hambro, the narrator goes to his assigned branch in Harlem, where he meets an intelligent black youth leader, Tod Clifton, and the black nationalist leader, Ras. Ras opposes the interracial Brotherhood and believes that black Americans should fight for their rights over and against all whites.

The narrator delivers speeches and becomes a high-profile figure in the Brotherhood, and he enjoys his work. This causes jealousy among some other people and he is accused of satisfying his personal needs rather than working for Brotherhood's interest. While a committee of the Brotherhood investigates the charges, the narrator is moved to another assignment. 

After a short time, the Brotherhood sends the narrator back to Harlem, where he discovers that many black men have left the Brotherhood feeling that it had betrayed their trust. The narrator finds Clifton on the street selling dancing dolls. Clifton is shot dead on the streets by some white policemen after a scuffle. The narrator organizes a funeral for Clifton and galvanizes community sentiment in Clifton's favor. The Brotherhhod is displeased with the narrator's initiative and sends him to Brother Hambro to learn about the organization’s strategies in Harlem.

The narrator decides to seek revenge on the Brotherhood. He arrives in Harlem to find the neighborhood in agitation over race relations. Ras sends his men to beat up the narrator, and the narrator is forced to disguise himself for escaping. At last, the narrator goes to Brother Hambro’s apartment, where Hambro tells him that people are merely tools and the larger interests of the Brotherhood are more important than any individual. To undermine the Brotherhood's intentions, the narrator decides to gain proximity and seduce a woman close to one of the party leaders to get secret information about the group.

But the woman he chooses, Sybil, knows nothing about the Brotherhood.  While still with Sybil in his apartment, the narrator receives a call asking him to come to Harlem quickly. On arriving in Harlem he finds the place in the midst of a full-fledged riot incited by Ras. In the chaos, while trying to run away from that place, the narrator falls down a manhole and the men nearby, cover the manhole with its cap. 

The narrator says that he has stayed underground ever since. But he finally feels ready to emerge from underground.

Invisible Man won US National Book Award for fiction in 1953. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked this book nineteenth on its list of 100 best novels of the 20th century. Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

Namaste

Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXIV

Beloved

Toni Morrison

Beloved, by the American writer Toni Morrison, was published in 1987. The story is set around the American Civil War, it is inspired by the story of a slave, Margaret Garner, who became free of slavery in Kentucky by escaping to a free state, Ohio.

Sethe and her youngest daughter Denver, after their escape from slavery, have their home in Cincinnati. Their house is haunted and they find objects being thrown around in their home. Denver is shy and introverted.

Paul D, one of the slaves from their earlier plantation, arrives at Sethe's home and tries to bring a sense of reality into the house. In attempting to make the family forget the past, he forces out the spirit. He seems successful at first; he even brings housebound Denver out of the house for the first time in years. But on the way back, they encounter a young woman sitting in front of the house, calling herself Beloved. Paul D is suspicious and warns Sethe, but she is charmed by the young woman and ignores him. Gradually, Paul D is forced out of Sethe's home by a supernatural presence.

When made to sleep outside in a shed, Paul D is cornered by Beloved. They have sex. Feeling guilt, Paul D tells Sethe that he wants her pregnant which Sethe joyfully accepts. However Pail's friends tell the reason why Sethe was rejected by her community.

When Paul D asks Sethe about it, she tells him the circumstances of her kiiling her eldest daughter and her intention to kill all her children to save them from the tyranny of slave master and slavery. Paul D is unable to reconcile to what he hears and he leaves.

Sethe comes to believe that the supernatural being, Beloved, is the two-year-old daughter she had murdered. Out of Guilt, Sethe indulges Beloved sacrificing all her needs. Sethe becomes weaker while Beloved becomes bigger and stronger.

In the novel's climax, youngest daughter Denver reaches out and searches for help from the black community and subsequently becomes a working member of the community. 

I will leave it to the reader to find out what happens to Sethe and Paul.

The novel was awarded the Pullitzer Prize for fiction in 1988.  It was adapted during 1998 into a starring Oprah Winfrey. 

One of the best work in American fictions of the 20th and 21st century.

Namaste

Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXII

Slaughterhouse Five

Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, written by Kurt Vonnegut was published in 1969.

Chaplain's assistant Billy Pilgrim is an ill-trained and clumsy American soldier who refuses to fight. He does not like war. He is captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Before the Germans capture Billy, he meets Roland Weary, who derides Billy's cowardice. When Weary is captured, the Germans confiscate everything he has, including his boots, giving him hinged, wooden clogs to wear; Weary eventually dies of gangrene caused by the clogs. While dying in a railcar full of prisoners, Weary manages to convince another soldier, Paul Lazzaro, in putting the blame on Biily for his death. Lazzaro vows to avenge Weary's death by killing Billy.

At this moment, Billy becomes "unstuck in time" and he experiences flashbacks from his former life. Billy and the other prisoners are transported to Luxembourg. By 1945, the prisoners are transported to Dresden to perform labor. The Germans put Billy and his fellow prisoners in an empty slaughterhouse -  "slaughterhouse five". During bombing, the prisoners of war and German guards hide in a deep cellar, allowing them to be among the few survivors. After war is over, Billy is transferred to the United States and discharged in July 1945.

Soon, Billy is hospitalized with a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and placed under psychiatric care. A man named Eliot Rosewater introduces Billy to the novels of an obscure science fiction author named Kilgore Trout. After his release, Billy marries Valencia Merble. Valencia's father owns the Ilium School of Optometry that Billy later attends. In 1947, Billy and Valencia's first child, Robert, is born, and two years later they have a daughter named Barbara. On Barbara's wedding night, Billy is captured by an alien space ship and taken to a planet light-years away from Earth called Tralfamadore.

On Tralfamadore, Billy is put in a transparent dome exhibit in a zoo representing a house on Earth. The Tralfamadorians later abduct a movie star named Montana Wildhack, who had disappeared and is believed to have drowned herself in the Pacific Ocean, with the intention of seeing her mate with Billy. She and Billy do indeed fall in love and have a child together. Billy is instantaneously sent back to Earth in a time warp to relive past or future moments of his life.

In 1968, Billy and a copilot are the only survivors of a plane crash. Valencia dies of carbon monoxide poisoning while driving to visit Billy in the hospital. Billy shares a hospital room with Bertram Rumfoord, a Harvard history professor. They discuss the bombing of Dresden and the professor claims it was justified.

Billy's daughter takes him home to Ilium. He escapes and flees to New York City. In Times Square he visits an adult book store. Billy discovers books written by Kilgore Trout and reads them. Later in the evening he discusses his time-travels to Tralfamadore on a radio talk show and is evicted from the studio. He then returns to his hotel room, falls asleep, and time-travels back to 1945 in Dresden, where the book ends.

(Extracts from Wikipedia)

It is a class book and, undoubtedly, the most influential by the author. 

Namaste

Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XXI

To The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse, authored by Virginia Woolf, was published in 1927. It is set in Scotland.

The book is in three sections.

The novel begins with an disagreement between Mrs and Mr Ramsay and their son James, on a visit to the Lighthouse on the isle of Skye in Scotland.

The Ramsays and their eight children have been joined at the house by a number of friends and colleagues. One of them, Lily Briscoe, a young woman, is plagued with self doubt on her abilities as a painter. Her self doubts are further fueled by another guest, Charles Tansley, another guest, who asserts that women can neither paint nor write.

Ten years pass, during which the First World War is fought. Mrs Ramsay and two of her children die. Mr Ramsay is left adrift without his wife to praise and comfort him during his periods of self doubt on the value of his philosophical work.bouts of fear and anguish regarding the longevity of his philosophical work. 

Some of the remaining Ramsays and other guests, including Lily, return to their summer home after 10 years. Mr Ramsay, his son, James, his daughter Camilla finally take the trip to the Lighthouse.  During this trip the children see the benevolent side of their father and start admiring him

Lily, meanwhile, completes the painting she has held in her mind since the start of the novel. She draws on her memory of Mrs Ramsay for completing the painting. Upon finishing the painting and seeing that it satisfies her, she realises that the execution of her vision is more important to her than the idea of leaving some sort of legacy in her work.

One of the best novels published in the 20th century.





Namaste


Prabir

Top 30 Modern Classics - XX

Catch - 22

Joseph Heller

Catch-22 written by the American author Joseph Heller, was first published in 1961. The novel is set in World war 2, specifically during the period 1942 to 1944.

Captain John Yossarian is a bombardier in the 256th Squadron of the Army Air Forces during World War II. The agenda of his squadron is to bombard Italy and some parts of France. 

The initial chapters are ironic and humorous and vies the military and political establishments with cynicism.

The novel assumes gravity when the bombing raids on Ferrara, Bologna, and Avignon are described. During one such bombing run a young airman, Kraft, is killed.  On success of the bombing, John is promoted to Captain and awarded a medal. However the death of Kraft haunts him. 

The squadron flies to bomb Bologna a second time. John's tent mate, Orr, is shot down. The mission over Avignon next month is even more traumatic for John. His plane gets badly hit and his gunner, Snowden, is severely wounded. The author gives a very vivid description of the trauma of the war.

Leaves of absence in Rome allow respite for the men  who indulge in romance and parties. John has a brief affair here.

The reality of the war is brought out by the author in other forms also.  The squadron's mess officer, Milo, uses squadron funds to purchase black-market products. He builds a syndicate which deals in providing from food to sex. He organises  an air raid on his own base for profit. Another team member, Nately's devotion to his prostitute seems like an innocent young man's harmless crush until he insists on flying extra missions so that he can stay near her — and is killed the next time out.

Nately's death causes his girl friend to heap blame on John. He refuses to fly further missions. His commanding officer calls him and offers him a bargain which offers him a return home if he speaks well of his commanding officers. John agrees. As he leaves the office, he is assaulted by Nately's girlfriend and gets wounded. In the hospital, John reflects on all his friends who have died or disappeared during the year. He decides on a course  of action which I leave for the Reader to find out.

One of the best books of 20th century.

Namaste

Prabir