To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 1961

Harper Lee wrote one novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and it won the Pulitzer prize in 1961. Its themes still resonate with readers and her novel has become a part of our culture. That, I believe, is success.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee almost perfectly captures the main challenge of growing up: realizing human nature, both good and bad.

(I say "almost" perfect because I am sure there are faults in the novel, but I love this novel so much that I don't want to search for them.)

The Age of Innocence by Edith Warton 1921

Edith Wharton’s 1921 Pulitzer prize-winning novel, The Age of Innocence, carefully illustrates the social stigmas prevalent in 1870s New York. I loved Wharton’s ability to draw me in to the internal battles the main characters faced, and I empathized with their desires to find belonging. While today’s social stigmas differ, the emotions remain the same.

In the beginning of the novel, Newland Archer ponders his upcoming engagement to May Welland, idealistic about his ability to influence her life and help her become a “free” woman, simply by being an engaging and caring husband.

Newland Archer’s idealistic world is shaken, however, first when May’s cousin and his old beau (Ellen Mingott Olenska) returns to New York, shamed and disgraced after leaving her cruel and abusive husband. Newland must reconsider his notions of women’s social position. When Madame Olenska begins to seek a divorce, the New York society is shocked. Such a situation would bring shame to all of Ellen’s family, including Newland’s wife-to-be. Newland must determine if his own exclamation “women should be free—as free as we are”(Vol. 1, Chap. 6) is realistic for “poor Ellen Olenska.”

In the process, Newland Archer realizes that he is not as free in his relationships as he had imagined. His developing relationship with Madame Olenska complicates the matter, and he realizes that his marriage will not be as he had envisioned.

Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. … There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free…. (Vol. 2, Chap. 2)

Ultimately, The Age of Innocence is the story of a man coming to terms with the 1870s social constraints on the most intimate of relationships, love and marriage. Newland Archer finds that the social stigmas prevalent in society distance people: “There they were, close together and safe and shut in; yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well have been half the world apart” (Vol. 2, Chap. 6). In the end, he must decide whether or not he will live within the socially unacceptable dreams he has or if he will look “not at visions, but at realities” (Volume 2, Chapter 11).

I highly recommend this novel.

Originally posted here.

2000 - Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

I read a review of Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri on this website. The next day, I saw it on display at the library. I hope reading a review of it prompts you to pick it up, too. It is an incredible collection of short stories.

This collection is the author’s first published book. It’s amazing to me because each story is completely captivating, with well-developed, believable characters—so well-written and creative that it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000. I want to write—reading this makes it seem like a near-impossibility. How does Lahiri do it so well?

The book contains nine short stories. In each story, one or more characters feel isolated as they search for their place. In “A Temporary Matter,” a man and a woman search for their place in their relationship after the still-birth of their child. In “Interpreter of Maladies,” a tour guide operator in India searches for his relationship to the world when he leads an Indian-American family on a tour. In “Mrs. Sens’”, Mrs. Sen feels isolated from her large extended family, who are in India, and she searches for a place in suburban America; the American boy she watches each afternoon is more at peace with his isolation.

Sadly, most of these stories end on a sad note as the characters reflect on their situations; most end with a sense of loss. The emotions are strong. I felt I needed a break after each story to reflect on the emotions I felt. And yet, I couldn’t wait to be drawn in to the next intricately developed story of isolation.

These stories help me reflect on my own situation: I live 16,000 miles from everyone in my family, just as Mrs. Sens does. But I don’t face differences in culture (suburban Melbourne isn’t all that different from suburban Chicago). How am I coping, and how can I nurture my relationships to avoid isolation? (So far, I'm doing fine.) I hope my ending is a bit happier, and I suspect it will be. But who around me might be feeling isolated? These characters were so real, I felt like they were living next door.

I love a book that makes me think and feel.

First posted here. Come visit me on my blog!

2006 - March

Author Geraldine Brooks read Little Women the first time when she was ten. When her mother recommended it, she said to take it with a grain of salt: “Nobody in real life is such a goody-goody as that Marmee” (Afterword, page 354). With that concept was born Brooks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, March.

While March focuses a little bit on Marmee, the majority of this book is about Mr. March (called March), the father of the girls, who, in part one of Alcott’s novel, is away fighting in the Civil War. In this novel, we read his letters to Marmee—and then we read the truth of what is happening to him in the South. March writes “I promised her that I would write something every day…I never promised I would write the truth” (page 4).

In a fascinating contrast to the girls’ failures in Little Women, March’s failings are huge to him; he cannot solve them in a chapter or even by the end of the book. As Little Women delves into the little problems of teenage girls, March delves into the larger problems of an adult before and during the civil war: slavery, death, violence and war, betrayal, marital and extramarital relationships, and confusion about one’s role in the world and in a family. To me, it is an intriguing contrast to the goody-goody world of Little Women.

Geraldine Brooks has thoroughly researched both the civil war and the life of Louisa May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, for many of the philosophies and characteristics of Mr. March. Since Alcott herself based Little Women on her own experience, basing Mr. March on Alcott’s father seemed very appropriate. I love a well-researched novel, especially historical fiction, and this certainly was well-researched.

I also loved the concept of fleshing out a character that otherwise wasn’t noticed. I know I never gave a thought to Mr. March when I first read Little Women. Only on rereading Little Women now, knowing that I’d read March next, did I realize how little attention is given to him.

Note: I’d recommend reading Little Women (at least part one) before approaching March. They complement each other nicely.

Originally posted here. Visit me on Rebecca Reads.

Rebecca's Progress

I’m excited to join this challenge. I don’t like deadlines, and this doesn’t have one.

Here are the books I’ve read in the past:
1999 - The Hours (Cunningham)
1995 - The Stone Diaries (Shields)
1994 - The Shipping News (Proulx)
1989 - Breathing Lessons (Tyler)
1988 - Beloved (Morrison)
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
1951 - The Town (Richter)

Books I just finished (reviews to come)
2006 - March (Brooks)
2000 - Interpreter of Maladies (Lahiri)

Books I want to read next (in no particular time frame)
1921 - The Age of Innocence (Wharton)
1972 - Angle of Repose (Stegner)
1947 - All the King’s Men (Warren)
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
1932 - The Good Earth (Buck)
1918 - His Family (Poole)
1919 - The Magnificent Ambersons (Tarkington)

I should add that if I don’t like a book in the first 100 pages or so, I won’t finish it—there are too many books out there to spend time reading ones I don’t like. I hope that doesn’t apply to any of the Pulitzers of fiction!

Visit me on Rebecca Reads.