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Native Son by Richard Wright

Short Summary:

Native Son, novel by Richard Wright, published in 1940. The novel addresses the issue of white American society’s responsibility for the repression of blacks. The plot charts the decline of Bigger Thomas, a young African American imprisoned for two murders—the accidental smothering of his white employer’s daughter and the deliberate killing of his girlfriend to silence her. In his cell Thomas confronts his growing sense of injustice and concludes that violence is the only alternative to submission to white society.

Source: Encylopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/Native-Son

My Opinion on the Novel:

The novel does seem interesting - but it seems to more about race relations and violent struggle against oppression.

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The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Short Summary:

Discussion at the mahjong table diverges into the histories ot four Chinese women who immigrate to America and their fully assimilated American-born daughters, A series of vignettes highlights the differences between the mothers and their daughters.

The years following World War II brought a surge in immigration from the Chinese mainland to the West Coast of the United States. This was in part due to the 1943 repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and was later compounded by civil war in China and its eventual communist takeover in 1949. Once in America, many Chinese immigrants families began to produce a generation of American-born children. Amy Tan, born in Oakland, California, in 1952, was part of this wave. She wrote The Joy Luck Club in 1989, by which time Tan was married and had begun to write fictional stories after forgoing a career as a technical writer. Her novel reflects the real-life experiences of postwar Chinese immigrants and their daughters.

My Opinion on the Novel:

This novel seems interesting but once again it talks about familial social politics rather than generational issues, and seems isolated to Chinese immigrants. Broad stories about society are far better than personal stories.

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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Short Summary:

In this widely discussed work, Atwood creates a dystopic future in which the population has become threateningly infertile and women are reduced to their reproductive capabilities. Patriarchy takes on a new, extreme aspect; one that oppresses in the name of preservation and protection, one in which violence is perpetrated by the language of ownership and physical delineation. In this nightmare society women are unable to have jobs or money, and are assigned to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the Wives. The tale’s protagonist, Offred—so named to denote the male master to whom she belongs (Of-Fred)—recounts her present situation with a clinical attention to her body, now only an instrument of reproduction. A counterpoint is provided through moving glimpses into her past life: memories of a sensual love for her lost family.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Handmaids-Tale-by-Atwood

My Opinion on the Novel:

This novel seems great, it is dystopian and a social criticism, I think this is the novel I will be reading.

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Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Short Summary:

Set in the small, decaying, nearly bankrupt town of Empire Falls, Maine, this is the story of the unassuming manager of the Empire Grill, Miles Roby, who has spent his life in the town. The town, and Miles' life to a large degree, are controlled by the Whitings, a rich family that owns the local factories and much property.

Miles is separated and later divorced from Janine, who has become a cocky, selfish person after losing weight and exercising rigorously. This is partly due to encouragement from Walt Comeau, the antagonistic owner of a local fitness center who visits the Empire Grill daily and has moved into Roby's old house.

Roby is protective of his loving teenage daughter, nicknamed "Tick", who loves art. Tick is dealing with Zack Minty, her ex-boyfriend who continues to pursue her, and struggles with her mother's relationship with Walt whom Tick cannot stand. In addition, Tick has a complicated friendship with John Voss, an emotionally disturbed boy at school. The obnoxious jock Zack and his friends constantly bully John.

Other important people in Miles' life include his grubby, ne'er-do-well father, a rascal who can't resist a handout when it comes his way; Miles' reformed, marijuana smoking brother, who is a talented Empire Grill cook; Miles' good-hearted ex-mother-in-law, who owns a bar; the town's wealthiest woman, Francine Whiting, a condescending matron who owns the Empire Grill; Whiting's daughter, who has loved Miles for many years; an attractive waitress; a retiring police chief; and a dimwitted police officer, who is Zack's father and has known Miles since childhood.

Miles is plagued by flashbacks of his family when he was a child; these include memories of a mysterious affair between his mother and a suitor, the details of which might answer some questions Miles has had his entire life.

Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Falls

My Opinion on the Novel:

The novel seems to be about the typical American town and AMerican life rather than an extremely interesting story. The story has no action and also seems to be extremely cliché.

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Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Short Summary:

Primarily a coming-of-age story (Bildungsroman) and family saga, the novel chronicles the effect of a mutated gene on three generations of a Greek family, causing momentous changes in the protagonist's life. According to scholars, the novel's main themes are nature versus nurture, rebirth, and the differing experiences of what society constructs as polar opposites—such as those found between men and women. It discusses the pursuit of the American Dream and explores gender identity. The novel contains many allusions to Greek mythology, including creatures such as the Minotaur, half-man and half-bull, and the Chimera, a monster composed of various animal parts.

Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_(novel)

My Opinion on the Novel:

This novel seems interesting but at the same time far too weird and fantasy-like for my liking.

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Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle

Short Summary:

Cándido Rincón (33) and América (his pregnant common law wife, 17) are two Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, dreaming of the good life in their own little house somewhere in California. Meanwhile, they are homeless and camping at the bottom of the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles, in the hills above Malibu. Another couple, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, have recently moved into a gated community on top of Topanga, in order to be closer to nature yet be close enough to the city to enjoy those amenities. Kyra is a successful real estate agent while Delaney keeps house, looks after Kyra's son by her first marriage and writes a regular column for an environmentalist magazine.

The two couples' paths cross unexpectedly when Cándido is hit and injured by Delaney, who is driving his car along the suburban roads near his home. For different reasons, each man prefers not to call the police or an ambulance. Cándido is afraid of being deported and Delaney is afraid of ruining his perfect driving record. Delaney soothes his conscience by giving Cándido "$20 blood money," explaining to Kyra that "He's a Mexican." From that moment on, the lives of the two couples are constantly influenced by the others.

After the accident, Cándido's problems deepen. At first he can't work after being injured by the car crash and when he does not find a temporary job at a local work exchange anymore, he unavailingly tries to find one in the city, hoping to save money for an apartment in the North despite the low wages offered. With América, his wife, pregnant, his shame at not being able to get a job and procure a home and food for his family increases, especially when América decides to find some illegal—and possibly dangerous—work herself. At one point in the novel, after Cándido is robbed by some Mexicans in the city, they are forced to go through the trash cans behind a fast-food restaurant so as not to starve.

The Mossbachers, Delaney's family, are also having problems of their own, though of an altogether different nature. Comfortably settled in their new home, in a gated community, they are faced with the cruelty of nature when one of their two pet dogs is killed by a coyote. In addition, the majority of inhabitants of their exclusive estate feel increasingly disturbed and threatened by the presence of—as they see it—potentially criminal, illegal immigrants and vote for a wall to be built around the whole estate.

Cándido has a stroke of luck when he is given a free turkey at a grocery store by another customer, who has just received it through the store's Thanksgiving promotion. When Cándido starts roasting the bird back in their shelter, he inadvertently causes a fire which spreads so quickly that even the gated community the Mossbachers live in has to be evacuated.

In the midst of the escalating disasters, América gives birth to Socorro, a daughter, who she suspects might be blind. But the couple has no money to see the doctor. Delaney stalks Cándido back to their shack. He carries a gun, but does not intend to kill Cándido with it. Meanwhile, América tells Cándido about the night when she was raped, as she suspects that the baby's blindness was caused by a venereal disease transmitted by the rapist. Just as she is telling him this, Delaney finds their shack and is about to confront Cándido about the forest fire, when the shack is knocked over in a landslide. Cándido and América manage to save themselves, but Socorro drowns in a river. The book ends with Cándido helping Delaney out of the river. Time and again in the novel, however, it is hinted at that the real perpetrators can be found inside rather than outside the projected wall: well-to-do people insensitive to the plight of the have-nots.

My Opinion on the Novel:

This novel seems interesting, but by looking up the summary the book was spoiled and now I know the entire plot, so there's no point reading it.

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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Short Summary:

Capote’s most famous work is a pioneering example of both the "nonfiction novel" and the modern "true crime" story. It retells the story of the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Kansas by a pair of drifting misfits, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, and of the subsequent trial and execution of the killers. Capote also uses the polarities of this particular case as the starting point for a larger examination of the values of late 1950s and early 1960s America; the respectable Clutters are so wholesomely all-American that they could almost have been invented, while Smith and Hickock come over as brutal real life versions of the James Dean "rebel" culture. The world of the victims is painstakingly and sympathetically reconstructed, but Capote’s real interest is in the emotional lives of Perry and Dick, and what might have led them into such murderous excess. Indeed, some argue that Capote was so fascinated by Perry Smith because he saw in him a possible alternative version of himself.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/In-Cold-Blood-novel-by-Capote

My Opinion on the Novel:

The novel seems extremely interesting - it is a murder mystery/crime novel based off real life events. I would definitely like to read this book and is among the top most interesting of this list.

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This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Short Summary:

Immature though it seems today, the work when it was published was considered a revelation of the new morality of the young in the early Jazz Age, and it made Fitzgerald famous. The novel’s hero, Amory Blaine, is a handsome, spoiled young man who attends Princeton, becomes involved in literary activities, and has several ill-fated romances. A portrait of the Lost Generation, the novel addresses Fitzgerald’s later theme of love distorted by social climbing and greed.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/This-Side-of-Paradise

My Opinion on the Novel:

This novel is far too similar to Gatsby - I wanna read a novel that is different from the ones that I have already read.

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Short Summary:

In her distinctive lyrical prose, Angelou recounts the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettled childhood in America in the 1930s and her changing relationships. When her parents separate, Maya and her brother Bailey, three and four years old respectively, are sent from their parental home in California back to the segregated South, to live with their grandmother, Momma, in rural Arkansas. Momma provides a strict moral center to their lives. At the age of eight, Maya goes to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she is molested and raped by her mother’s partner. With her brother she later returns to stay with Momma before returning again to live with her mother and her mother’s husband in California. The book ends with the birth of Maya’s first child, Guy.

Source: Encylopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Know-Why-the-Caged-Bird-Sings

My Opinion on the Novel:

This novel seems too boring - it is simply an autobiography of Maya Angelou's life, and doesn't have any interesting fictional characters and follows a familiar narrative style.

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The Bell Jar  by Sylvia Plath

Short Summary:

This thinly veiled autobiography details the life of Esther Greenwood, a college woman who struggles through a mental breakdown in the 1950s. Plath examines coming of age in a hypocritical world in this painfully introspective novel, which is noted for its symbolic use of bottles and jars and black-and-white colours and its symbols of imprisonment and death.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Bell-Jar

My Opinion on the Novel:

This novel does seem extremely interesting, but dark and morbid as it details the real life terror of a woman facing the awful social politics of her time.

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Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Short Summary:

In lyrical prose influenced by folk tales that the author heard while assembling her anthology of African American folklore Mules and Men (1935), Janie Crawford tells of her three marriages, her growing self-reliance, and her identity as a black woman. Much of the dialogue conveys psychological insight through plain speech written in dialect. Whereas her first two husbands are domineering, Janie’s third husband, Tea Cake, is easygoing and reluctantly willing to accept Janie as an equal. Hurston manages to characterize these three very different men without resorting to caricature in the first two instances or idealization in the third. Janie is one of few fictional heroines of the period who is not punished for her sensual nature.

Source: Encyclopedia Brittannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/Their-Eyes-Were-Watching-God

My Opinion on the Novel:

I prefer post-modern novels, so this book wouldn't be that great. Furthermore this book delves into the racism of the 1930s which infuriates me, so I do not wish to read more about it.

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The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Short Summary:

Set in the 1920s, the novel deals with a group of aimless expatriates in France and Spain. They are members of the cynical and disillusioned post-World War I Lost Generation, many of whom suffer psychological and physical wounds as a result of the war. Two of the novel’s main characters, Lady Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes, typify this generation. Lady Brett drifts through a series of affairs despite her love for Jake; she and Jake are unable to consummate their love, because of a war wound that rendered him impotent. Friendship, stoicism, and natural grace under pressure are offered as the values that matter in an otherwise amoral and often senseless world.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Sun-Also-Rises

My Opinion on the Novel:

While the story does sound interesting, it seems too much of a romantic story for my taste. Furthermore the style is modern, and I am interested more in post-modern literature.