The Longest Book — Yet the Shortest Story — I’ve Ever Read

“O implacable march of human society! Destroying men and souls in its way! Ocean, repository of all that the law lets fall! Ominous disappearance of help! O moral death! The sea is the inexorable night into which the penal code casts its victims. The sea is measureless misery. The soul drifting in that sea may …

In Three Words: What a Life!

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." -Charles Dickens, David Copperfield Thus begins Charles Dickens's semiautobiographical and personal favorite novel. As Dickens himself stated in the preface: "I have in my heart of hearts a favourite …

The Advent of Bureaucratic Totalitarianism Juxtaposed with an Existential Tale

"After all, they're discussing things they don't understand. Their confidence is based solely on ignorance. A few words spoken with someone of my own sort will make everything incomparably clearer than the longest conversations with these two." - Franz Kafka, The Trial Dystopian literature is everywhere. Be it George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, tales of completely unpleasant, …

The Epitome of Detective Fiction

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” -Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles Sherlock Holmes has become one of the most famous and influential characters in the history of world literature. In fifty-six short stories and four novels, he popularized the genre of detective fiction and …

Where the West Meets the East Amid Love, War, and Adventure

"Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. Patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.” - James Clavell, Shogun  …

The Basis of the One of the Greatest Movies Ever Made

"Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.” "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." "Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold." -Mario Puzo, The Godfather The year 1969 was an eventful one: the inaguration of Richard Nixon, …

Control vs. Freedom, Self vs. Others, and Desire vs. Desired

“It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.” -E.M. Forster, A Room With a View Although I have stated earlier that romance …

Short, Sweet, Serious, Humorous — and Everything in Between

"Juror #8: It's also possible for a lawyer to be plain stupid, isn't it? I mean it's possible. Juror #7: You sound like you met my brother-in-law." -Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men Let me be frank when I say that Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, while weighing merely 73 pages, is one of the most compact books …

One of Dickens’s Greatest

"We need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are ... overlying our hard hearts." -Charles Dickens, Great Expectations Although Dickens was a prolific writer throughout his life and produced some of English literature's most beloved novels, Great Expectations is arguably the greatest of Dickens's works simply because it gives a solid survey of Dickens's literary trademarks: biting …

The Most Symbolically Rich Novel Ever Written

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.” -William Golding, Lord of the Flies The review title speaks for itself. Lord of the Flies is simply the most symbolically rich novel ever written. Each element -- whether a character, object, or phenomenon -- has an allegorical meaning. However, among all this, the main theme isn't lost -- if anything, …