The 306 Greatest Books #18 - Gulliver's Travels

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. This book can be found on the Sybervision, Norwegian, and the Observer Book Lists. 

Gulliver's Travels is another of my "I had to read this in college" books that I need to go back to sometime when I have the chance. I read this book towards the end of my undergraduate career and getting nearer to when I started this book list in earnest. I had found the book very enjoyable that superficially was a fantasy book but in reality was a political commentary, very similar to how Pratchett writes his Discworld series. The main plot of the story follows Gulliver as he travels through many fantastical islands after he is the victim of a shipwreck. These islands includes races of tiny people, the Lilliputians, a race of giant people, a flying island, immortal people, and a race of talking horses, among others. Throughout it all he is forced to face the realities of his world when confronted with these fantasy situations. Gulliver's Travels is considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces in the English language and I look forward to revisiting it someday. 

The 306 Greatest Books #17 - The Scarlet Letter

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This book can be found on the Sybervision and the Observer Book Lists. 

This is one of those "forced to read in college" books for me. I didn't get it at the time and that makes me want to go back and see if I better understand it now. At the time I had felt that the beginning was extremely slow and that had a tendency to drive people away from the book (at least that's how I felt). However, the book does get better fairly quickly. The novel follows a woman, Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and conceived a child from the affair within Puritan society. The strict rules of this religious society forces Hester to wear a bright red "A" to announce to everyone her improprieties. The novel explores how religion plays into her life as well as the guilt and sin associated with it. This is definitely a novel I plan on revisiting someday.

The 306 Greatest Books #16 - A Farewell To Arms

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List. 

For Whom the Bell Tolls got me really interested in Hemingway and since I had several of Hemingway's books from my grandfather's collection I decided to move on to the next one, A Farewell to Arms. This one did not strike me as strongly as the first book and to be honest, I barely recall the plot after all these years. As is Hemingway's frequent MO, the story takes place during World War I, however this time we are on the Italian front. Our main character is Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver who falls in love with an English nurse. As the war evolves, so does their love. This novel is a more "romantic" take on war but still continues the tragedy that is ever present and how war eventually takes everything from everyone. It is definitely a good novel but also a sad novel. 

The 306 Greatest Books #15 - For Whom the Bell Tolls

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. This book can be found on the Sybervision and My Book Lists. 

I started reading For Whom the Bell Tolls the summer before 11th grade for a class where we had to pick our own book to read over the summer. Unfortunately, I never actually finished the book for class. Fast forward three years and I was sick with mono during the end of my freshman year of undergrad and I clearly had nothing else to do so I picked the book up again and finally finished it. For Whom the Bell Tolls made me a Hemingway fan for life. I don't recall the reason I initially picked it up but I had loved it ever since. It is one of those books I need to go back to and rediscover, it had left such an impression on me as a kid/adult. The story follows an American soldier in the Spanish Civil War. Within the narrative there are the four main characters, all with their own opposing viewpoints on war and morality, and they question whether this, or any, war is really worth fighting. The ending has stuck with me to this day and I can picture the events within my head. It has a very Soprano's ending, for anyone who was a fan of that show. This story is definitely on my list of best books.

The 306 Greatest Books #14 - Oedipus Rex

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. This book can be found on the Sybervision and the Norwegian Book Lists. 

Oedipus Rex is one of those plays that sticks with you for long after you read it. Even though it has been a very long time since I read it in my humanities class in undergrad I still recall the play vividly and how it made me feel. The story is the ultimate classic, about a man who murders his father and marries his mother. The purpose of the play is about fate and how the more you try to avoid fate the more you are going to cause fate to happen. How does knowing the future help us or how could it cause the future to happen? The most tragic thing about the whole story was it wasn't all Oedipus' fault. It started with his parents and their "curse" was carried down to him, and really was about him in the first place, but they got the proverbial ball rolling. This is a story-line that has been rehashed over and over again throughout our literary history and here is one of the first, and one of the best, to use it. I found the play very easy to understand and enjoyable. There are also two plays that continue the story, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, although those are not as well known as this one.