Book Reviews: Famous Classic Novels
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About this ebook
This book contains forty four reviews of famous classic novels. The review provides a summary of the book as well as insights or opinions about it. The review also includes quotes from the book that make it outstandingly interesting and universal.The goal of this work is to highlight the most famous classic novels in English and American literature and to make the readers eager to read them and discover their everlasting literary value.
Mohamed Brahim
I am a retired English teacher. I taught English at secondary schools for 15 years then at an engineering school for 20 years. I am fond of writing books for learning English for beginners as well as extracurricular books for secondary school students. I enjoy farming and travelling.
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Book Reviews - Mohamed Brahim
The story revolves around the adventures of a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain named Alonso who becomes so entranced by reading tales of chivalry that he slowly starts to lose touch with reality and begins to believe that he is one of these fiction heroes- a knight-errant himself. He finds himself a knight-like name- Don Quixote and a lady-love, Dulcinea del Toboso. He decides to take up his lance and sword to destroy the wicked and defend the helpless. Don Quixote’s main quest in life is to save the world which is devoid of chivalric virtues and values. He set off on a great adventure on his skinny old horse, Rossinante to win honor and glory in the name of his invented ladylove, Dulcinea. Don Quixote is accompanied by a naïve peasant laborer, Sancho Panza, as his squire to whom he promises riches, fame and the governorship of an island. However, it will not take long for clashes to occur between the real world and the fantasy world of Don Quixote as he attempts feats of knighthood that are mostly in his imagination. He thinks that the ordinary inns are enchanted castles and the peasant girls princesses. He attacks windmills, thinking them to be giants.
He fights with a herd of sheep believing they are an army of enemies. Don Quijote generally injures the innocent and wreaks havoc everywhere he goes, getting him and his squire beaten up in the process.
The main characters exhibit completely contradictory traits. Don Quixote is an educated honest, dignified, and idealistic man with great intelligence; but when the subject of chivalry is raised, his madness prevails. Sancho Panza is illiterate and greedy but kind and faithful. His gross appetite, common sense, and vulgar wit serve as a foil to the mad idealism of his master. He occasionally proves himself to be incredibly wise. They undergo many ordeals in pursuit of Quixote’s delusional ideals. Sancho Panza stands by Don Quixote, often bearing the brunt of the punishments that arise from Don Quixote’s behavior. The interactions between the sane madman and the wise fool provide the dynamics and humour of the novel. Throughout their adventures, they encounter various people from all walks of life; Don Quixote either assaults or is assaulted by as the result of his attempts to act out chivalric scenes. The novel looks like a canvas upon which Miguel De Cervantes explores humanity-the good, the bad, the ugly, the greatest joys and sorrows.
In the end, the beaten and battered Don Quixote retires in the countryside and denounces all the chivalric truths he followed so fervently and recovers his full sanity. He dies soon after. With his death, knights-errant become extinct.
The character of Don Quixote is still utilized to mock politicians and satirize the self-righteous.
Cervantes not only created one of the greatest comic figures of world literature, but with his realist and humanist techniques, he originated, some critics assert, the modern novel.
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
David Copperfield is Charles Dickens’ favourite child
.
It is a bildungsroman, the story of the David’s life from early childhood to maturity. The book is a skillful mixture of fiction and autobiography. It is the story of David’s journey from a troubled and impoverished childhood to his career as a successful novelist.
David lives with his widowed mother and nurse Peggotty. His father dies before he is born. When David is eighty ears old his mother marries a frightful man, Murdstone, who makes life unbearable for young David. He is sent off to boarding school, and afterward after his mother dies when he is twelve years old, Murdstone sends him to work in a factory. At the factory, he undergoes the hardship of child labor --until he runs off to Dover to seek protection from his remaining living relative, his aunt Betsey Trotwood. Life begins anew under her care and he returns to school.
He studies law under Mr. Spenlow and marries his daughter Dora. He finally becomes a skilled journalist; but soon after he becomes successful, his wife Dora dies. Then, David begins his career as a popular novelist and marries Agnes. He finally finds the ideal woman whose support enables him to get the happy family life he has always wanted.
David Copperfield covers mainly the following themes: Social Class, The abuse of power and the importance of kindness and charity.
1. Social status and class are ever-present as issues throughout the novel. Characters in the novel represent different classes and illustrate the wide gap between the classes in Victorian England. Favoritism and undeserved respect are shown constantly for those of a higher class.
2. The abuse of power is a theme that prevails in David Copperfield. Dickens depicts women, orphans, and mentally disabled people as first and foremost kind-natured and good in order to highlight their suffering at the hands of powerful people and the industrial society - and this makes some of the most affecting moments in the book.
3. While Dickens does not suggest ways to systematically reform society to lessen the social problems such as urban poverty and debt ,child labor and abuse, crime in society, the mistreatment of women, he does put forward an antidote to the dehumanized industrialized society; it is the demonstration of kindness and charity.
4. Throughout the book Dickens keeps the reader entertained while urging him/her to think about the social issues.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice starts as follows «It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. This ironic line sums up quite well the central theme of the novel. It is evident then that marriage and courtship will play the dominating factor in the plot.
The Bennets, a middle-class family in England in the eighteenth century- have five unmarried daughters—Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia—and Mrs. Bennet is anxious to see them all married. At that time, marriage was the only way to financial security. During this time, women could only gain social status through marriage since they could hardly be economically independent.
The main actions of the novel are the interactions between opinions, ideas, and attitudes, which weave and advance the plot of the novel. The use of satire and wit, a common form of 18th century literature, is the main characteristic