50 Books to Read Before You Die

words to inspire before you expire

Tag: Emotion

The Stranger

March 18, 2019 /

Good morning, class.

It’s hard to write about The Stranger because there’s so little of it. It’s not the shortest novel on the list of 50 Books to Read Before You Die, but it feels like it is—it’s like an extended short story, circling one major event in the center, building up to it and reacting to it. It’s the story of a man named Meursault, unworried and unambitious, who commits murder and goes to trial. There, he faces his own mortality and means to understand the meaninglessness of the universe.

Meursault has a philosophy of life that answers every problem that approaches him: nothing matters. His mother dies in the opening line of the novel—and nothing matters. His employer doesn’t see him as ambitious enough and dares him to care more about his job—but nothing matters. He is arrested for murder that he feels isn’t his fault—still, nothing matters. It’s more of a philosophy than a story; but then the philosophy and the story collide, and things get interesting. What about love? Romantic love, family, friendship? Does that matter? What about religion, afterlife, the soul—do those things matter? Does one’s own life matter? Meursault faces those questions with his philosophy like a knight faces a dragon with a sword—the drama of such a mundane, detached story comes in when his lifestyle of detachment is threatened by things that require passion, care, commitment . . . and whether or not Meursault upholds his beliefs is what makes him a philosophical hero.

I have some personal bias here—like with other books on the 50-books list that handle belief systems, the philosophy of this story conflicts with mine and makes it difficult for me to connect with it. It’s hard enough anyway to connect with The Stranger—it disregards and abandons connection. The belief that nothing matters is found not only in what’s being said, but also in how it’s being said. It’s a story that feels emotionless, and it means to strip away not only the things we’re supposed to care about, but also the act of caring at all. Long story short, it’s difficult to appreciate this story while reading it.

But to discuss it (especially in a classroom setting) opens up some of the most important questions people can ever ask. What does it mean to live as if nothing matters? What are the stories—or, more appropriately, lies—that we tell each other to convince ourselves to care? And the things that we care about—justice, family, God, money, comfort, morality, health, beauty . . . what if those things are simply shadows on a cave wall?

I don’t have answers to those questions, and I don’t even have all the questions. But if you read The Stranger honestly and witness this one man’s struggle with his state in the vast universe, I can bet you’ll start asking those questions yourself.

Author Albert Camus

It’s hard to tell this kind of story, so credit is due to the author, Albert Camus. It’s not the most exciting book—like I said, it’s less story, more philosophy—but Camus knows how to frame philosophy in the heart of his story. I’ve also read The Plague by Camus, and it asks similar unanswerable questions of existence and mortality, and tells a story worth reading. If anything, Camus made the list for a good reason.

Next up is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad—another one as morbid and thought-provoking as The Stranger, with a bit more story in it’s punch. More on that next time.

Until then,

Prof. Jeffrey

February 22, 2018 /

[speaking about Anna Karenina]

“”What a marvelous, sweet and unhappy woman!’ he was thinking, as he stepped out into the frosty air with Stepan Arkadyevitch.

‘Well, didn’t I tell you?’ said Stephan Arkadyevitch, seeing that Levin had been completely won over.

‘Yes,’ said Levin dreamily, ‘an extraordinary woman! It’s not her cleverness, but she has such wonderful depth of feeling. I’m awfully sorry for her!'”

—from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Missing From the List: The Giver

September 7, 2017 /

Hello again, class.

Everything about Brave New World that depresses me is something that gives me hope in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. It’s the same futuristic society, heavily medicated and rid of all the emotions that plague humanity; but there’s room for change. There’s a hero with the emotional strength and the courage to do what he thinks is right, and there’s the tiniest cracks in his perfect world for him to slip through, allowing him to succeed. If Brave New World were like this, it probably wouldn’t be as impactful or important.

Thankfully, the comparisons between Brave New World and The Giver end there. For all its similarities, The Giver is actually something quite different, and that’s why I think it should make the list of books to read before you die.

Jonas is a regular 12-year old kid in this futuristic society. At 12, children go through a ceremony designating them to a role in the community—Nurturers, Instructors, Pilots, Birthmothers, Laborers, etc. At the ceremony, Jonas is chosen as Receiver of Memory, a rare assignment. He is to spend every day with a older man known as the Giver, and eventually take on his duties.

Jonas’s sessions with the Giver involve the transfer of memories—the Giver gives them, and Jonas receives them. They are the memories of humanity . . . things that Jonas’s community has purposely removed, which only the Giver and Receiver of Memory are allowed to hold. Memories of war, terror, grief, depression, violence . . . but also memories of elation, passion, joy, and love. Even colors have been removed from people’s minds because of what they can do to destabilize society.

Poster from the movie adaptation of The Giver (2014)

Eventually, Jonas begins to see through the cracks. He realizes things should be different, but that won’t happen while everyone else is happy—which, as he comes to understand, really means that everyone is medicated, lied to, and ignorant of the mistakes they are making. And that’s when the action really begins.

The Giver is the first book in a series, and I have yet to read the rest; I hope they are just as amazing as this first entry. For me, The Giver is special. In the same way that reading Brave New World in high school challenged me to read uncomfortable adult literature, reading The Giver in middle school challenged me to imagine literature that wasn’t neatly tied up to perfection. The Harry Potter series, for example, looks like a magical explosion of chaos, but underneath is J. K. Rowling’s carefully constructed artistic mechanism. But Lowry does the opposite: the world she creates is perfectly ordered, but underneath that is humanity trying to break free.

Author Lois Lowry

This is best shown by the ending. Where Harry Potter ties up at least 99% of its loose ends, Lowry leaves the ending of The Giver as open-ended as children’s literature will allow. The action isn’t resolved, the mystery of Jonas’s choice remains a mystery, and there’s only the possibility of hope that Lowry just barely lets readers see before ending the narrative. Sure, there are other installments in the series, but it’s still a daring creative move that did a lot to twist my reading habits.

And that’s the point of The Giver: to give young readers an idea of a perfect society, and to tarnish it; to show readers that perfection, if achievable, is not good. Perfection can actually be what hurts humanity most of all. Our imperfection is better for us in the end.

The fact that Lowry tackles these themes in a book for children makes it all the more powerful. The attempt to teach children themes like these undermines the discomfort of Brave New World because it drives the point home sooner. The particular discomforts of Brave New World outshine The Giver by far, but The Giver gets the chance to show children how to change the world before they realize it needs changing. The book is dedicated to all children, “to whom we entrust the future,” which says a lot about Lowry’s aims. Just another reason why everyone should read it.

As a reminder, next week is my post on Wuthering Heights! Make it to class on time!

Prof. Jeffrey

Brave New World

August 28, 2017 /

Hello again, class.

I’m still a little surprised that I was able to read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in high school—at the time, it was the most sexually explicit required reading that had ever crossed my path. But I had a teacher who made it clear that this was an adult novel . . . it wouldn’t be fun or funny. It would be challenging and disturbing, and probably raise more questions than it could answer. In another teacher’s hands, I would have written this novel off as weird; but as I read it for his class, and as I reread it over the past few weeks, I realize that this book is one of the few that invited me to read more challenging stories, even if I didn’t like them.

And there are parts of Brave New World I don’t like, but the novel is special for that exact reason. You aren’t supposed to like it because it’s not entertainment . . . it’s a warning.

The society of Brave New World runs on a set of rules that everyone happily follows; for instance, solitary actions are as prohibited as possible, and in sexual terms, everyone belongs to everyone else. Extreme emotions have been all but eradicated with removal of the family unit, genetic modification, psychological conditioning, and a drug called soma. Without extreme emotions—passion, rage, fear, jealousy, misery—all that’s left is a mellow contentment. Between universal happiness and ideals like truth, beauty, or knowledge, the populace has overwhelmingly chosen happiness.

And that’s the setting for a rather depressing story, told from the perspective of a handful of individuals in a society where individuals shouldn’t exist. Bernard Marx is the catalyst for the plot—a man shorter than those he is genetically similar to, and therefore made an outsider. He is simple and somewhat shallow, but by being an outsider, he refuses to medicate himself for happiness and wishes society were different. His friend, Helmholtz Watson, is an outsider because of his affinity for poetry—the happiness of their society begins to wear itself thin for him, causing him to challenge social norms for the sake of the beauty of language.

Author Aldous Huxley

But the real outsider is John the Savage, a man born in one of the few Savage Reservations left that are not “civilized” like the rest of the world. His mother was a woman from civilization, but she became trapped visiting the reservation and was left there, unexpectedly pregnant with John. He grew up with a different skin color from everyone else in the reservation, so he had been an outsider his whole life—then the opportunity arose to visit civilization, as a scientific and social experiment. But he soon learns that the “brave new world” of civilization is terrible, where adults act like children, morality and freedom are all but stripped away, and humanity is weighed down under machines and medication.

Huxley’s novel portrays less of a dystopia and more of a parodied utopia; there’s a clear distinction. A dystopia is inherently bad, like 1984 or The Hunger Games, where it’s clear people are suffering due to humanity’s mistakes. But Brave New World actually represents a utopia—an almost unrealistically happy society, without war, poverty, famine, misery, or burden. The only person who cannot bear this society is John, who grew up apart from it.

1984 is about a regime holding power and using ideology, propaganda, and torture to subdue threats . . . humanity’s enemy is more powerful than ever, but it’s the same enemy: an upper class with all the power. Brave New World might even be scarier, because there is no enemy. Humanity simply gave up, surrendered to happiness. All the things we like to think make humanity good—art, morality, intelligence, curiosity, passion . . . all replaced by peace. A numbing, terrifying global peace.

Brave New World is a warning, but not like most dystopian novels, warning us against threats to society. It’s warning to us that if our everlasting search for happiness and comfort continue, we may gain peace, but we will lose what makes us human.

Nothing hits this point more at home than the many Shakespeare references throughout the novel. Shakespeare has been completely removed from this society, because his words are too beautiful and evocative. His stories of revenge, passion, tragedy, and love cause too much instability to the stable World State, so his works cannot be allowed to exist in society.

A Portrait of William Shakespeare

But in the reservation, John finds one of the last remaining copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which he uses at a young age to learn how to read. His attraction to Lenina Crowne in the civilized world becomes reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, while his contemplation of suicide is mirrored in Hamlet‘s “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Most importantly, the title of the book comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which John uses to describe civilization when he sees it for the first time: “O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t!”

And that, possibly more than anything else, it what makes this future so horrible. To have happiness, we have to get rid of Shakespeare . . . as well as any other good story, along with God and religion, scientific discovery, and anything else that doesn’t serve the greater purpose of providing comfort and stability for society. Welcome to the brave new world.

I honestly don’t like thinking about this. At least with 1984, I can see that abuse of power is something that has always happened and will continue to happen—the current state of the political world does nothing to convince me that that will ever change. But this . . . Huxley’s novel is simply messed up, and I can’t stand the possibility that humanity might surrender itself completely. This is scarier than any horror I can think of.

So I’m just going to move on to the next novel. Hopefully, students, you feel better about this than I do. I’ve got nothing.

Next up, I’m reading Wuthering Heights, another somewhat depressing story, but at least it comes with a better ending!

Until then, be careful with your happiness and beware the future.

Prof. Jeffrey

May 25, 2017 /

“Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to to express the result of the process in words.”

—from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

October 7, 2016 /

“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.  Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary.  A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.  And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.  Thus, at one moment Winston’s hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies.”

–from 1984 by George Orwell

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