Category: Literary Canon & Reading Notes

Chapter 19; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainJune 25th, 2015This book counts 366 pages and was first published in 1884 in the UK and a year later in the US. It played mainly along the Mississippi River into a pre-civil war society that already 20 years ceased to exist by the time the … Continue reading Reading the Canon of World Literature

An answer to Pynchon’s question "What comes now?" is heavily explored by an often-neglected facet of US literature; science fiction, a genre that contemplates possible futures. Because science fiction spans the spectrum from the plausible to the fanciful, its relationship with science has been both nurturing and contentious. HG Wells who, by most critics, is … Continue reading A Synopsis of US literature: Science Fiction

The 1960s, a period often called the "Sixties" or the "Swinging Sixties," were characterized by significant social, political, and cultural shifts. Key themes included the fight for civil rights, the Vietnam War, the rise of the counterculture, the sexual revolution, and the beginning of the feminist movement. The decade witnessed both optimism and upheaval, with … Continue reading A Synopsis of US literature: 1960 – 1980.

In the early thirties, the first reaction to the depression was a literature of social protest. The failure of the American dream became the main theme in Jewish-American literature. The novel “Call it Sleep" mixes Marxism and Freudian theory, Jewish mythology and a stream of consciousness writing style. Farrell writes more about spiritual poverty then … Continue reading Synopsis of US literature: 1930 – 1960

In the 1890's, many realists became naturalists, a term created by Emile Zola. For them realism was an ideology and the novel had the power to become a political weapon. Crane had the view that life and death are determined by fate. He wrote about a man who said to the Universe "Sir, I exist! … Continue reading A Synopsis of Us Literature: 1890 -1910.

European observers, who take a close look at the characteristics that they qualify as typical for white Americans, discover soon that they were originally attributes of the American Indian. The liberation from a social hierarchy and the idea that “all men are born equal” is also an American Indigenous invention that crossed the Atlantic Ocean … Continue reading A sinsopsis of US literature: 1854 – 1890

Shantaram is another book that should be read while gathering impressions of a place. It is a 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts, in which a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict escapes from Pentridge Prison and flees to India. The novel is commended by many for its vivid portrayal of life in Bombay … Continue reading Reading and location: Shantaram’s Mumbai