Book choice for September
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee [suggested by Lisa Williams]
Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus - three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up. Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her tale. We first meet the Finches the summer before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance as well - in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them." By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, To Kill a Mockingbird is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves to be reread often. [review by Alix Wilber - the first of 1660 customer reviews on Amazon.com]
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, to Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham
Finch Lee. Harper Lee grew up in the small southwestern Alabama town of
Monroeville. Her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, was a
lawyer who also served on the state legislature (1926-38). As a child,
Lee was a tomboy and a precocious reader, and she enjoyed the friendship of her
schoolmate and neighbor, the young Truman Capote, who provided the basis of the
character of Dill in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
Lee was only five years old in when, in April 1931 in the small Alabama town of
Scottsboro, the first trials began with regard to the purported rapes of two
white women by nine young black men. The defendants, who were nearly lynched
before being brought to court, were not provided with the services of a lawyer
until the first day of trial. Despite medical testimony that the women had
not been raped, the all-white jury found the men guilty of the crime and sentenced
all but the youngest, a twelve-year-old boy, to death. Six years of subsequent
trials saw most of these convictions repealed and all but one of the men freed
or paroled. The Scottsboro case left a deep impression on the young Lee,
who would use it later as the rough basis for the events in To Kill a Mockingbird,
her first and only novel, which was published in 1960 after a two-year period
of revising and rewriting under the guidance of her editor, Tay Hohoff. To
Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize despite mixed critical reviews.
See also her Wikipedia page.
Shortlisted for this month
This is the second month of our second experiment into new ways of choosing our monthly reads. Lisa also presented these two other books, with Therese narrowly missing being chosen (by one vote).
Pride and Prejudice
How does one demarcate pride and prejudice, or bias and stubbornness? In Pride
and Prejudice, Jane Austen deftly exposes the folly of and further ridicules judging
by first impressions.
When Elizabeth Bennet first met the fine, tall, handsome eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam
Darcy, she immediately deemed him arrogant, conceited and utterly obnoxious. Her
first impression of Darcy, who was initially looked upon with prodigious admiration,
was quickly assured as his conceited manners gave a disgust which turned the tide
of his popularity.
Darcy's conceit and selfish disdain of the feelings of others formed the foundation
of Elizabeth's disapprobation on which succeeding events had built so inevitably
a hatred. When she later found out Darcy had deliberately altered Bingley's
opinion of her beloved sister Jane and determined to separate them, she was determined
to exasperate herself as much as possible against Darcy.
In the comedy of manners that follows, Austen, in a superb manner and prose so
elegant and lyrical, verbalizes the stubbornness, bias, and prejudices of Elizabeth
toward a man whom resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of his admiration
for her escaped him. Despite the fact that he struggled to maintain his
composure, in his breast there existed a powerful feeling toward her, which soon
procured her pardon and directed his anger elsewhere upon Elizabeth's weighty
accusations of him.
Pride and Prejudice presents us a romance comedy with a modern feel and touch. The
opening of the novel Fitzwilliam Darcy is blackened as the most obnoxious snob
for whom "there is not another woman in the room who it would not be a punishment"
to him to stand up with. To Elizabeth, almost all of Darcy's actions "maybe
traced to pride" and "pride had often connected him to virtue." No sooner
had Darcy's superiority of mind (pride) been fully exposed than Elizabeth's
prejudice was revealed.
Unlike her sister Jane, Elizabeth was more hasty in censuring anyone (especially
Fitzwilliam Darcy) and never supposed the possibility of any extenuating circumstances
in the case, let alone urging the possibility of mistake and misunderstanding. In
confronting Darcy of his inexcusable act of separating Bingley and Jane, Elizabeth
judged from assumptions, suspicions, and the biased first impression. In a sense
she sought to discredit Darcy and the relation of events that might be capable
of a turn which must render Darcy blameless throughout the whole affair.
When Elizabeth finally considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided Darcy,
her anger and indignation was turned against herself and Darcy's dejection (more
or less disappointed feelings toward her) became object of her compassion. Elizabeth's
folly and rashness also become object of our compassion. How awful her petulance
and acrimony of her manner in rejecting Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Pride and Prejudice evokes the fact that human nature is prone to pride and very
few of us do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality
or another. Pride usually relates more to our opinions of ourselves, of
which Elizabeth has epitomized. Pride is the real superiority of mind,
when along with stubbornness, bias, and determination, would casue irremediable
regret. The novel also evokes the friendship, the values of marriage, and
snobberies of English middle-class life in the early 19th century.
[review from amazon.com by Matthew M. Yau (San Francisco, CA)]
About the Author
Jane Austen (16 December 1775 - 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works
include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma,
Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Her social commentary and masterful use
of both free indirect speech and irony eventually made Austen one of the most
influential and honoured novelists in English literature. Her novels were
all written and set around the Regency Era. She never married and died at
age 41.
The above text is the introduction to the Jane Austen Wikipedia
entry. Further information can be found on the Jane Austen
info page.
Therese
Mauriac, who won the 1952 Nobel Prize for literature, later said of Therese that what she needed was a priest-confessor who truly represented Christ. Since he (at the time of writing the novel) knew of no such person, he could only write of a woman whose passion cried out in futility for fulfillment. The novel takes place in three (maybe four?) vignettes, with Therese first being accused of poisoning her husband, then moving to Paris and becoming a lover of many men, and finally her one truest act of love toward a young man who is drawn to both her and to God. The novel may offend Christians (since there's no cute or easy ending), offend protestants (since Mauriac sees Christanity and Catholicism as synonyms), and offend non-believers (Mauriac, for all his literary brilliance, is a Jesus freak at heart). [review from amazon.com by Jon Trott (Chicago, IL)]
About the Author
French novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, journalist, winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1952. Mauriac belonged to the long tradition of French
Roman Catholic writers, who examined the problems of good and evil in human
nature and in the world.
Francois Mauriac was born in Bordeaux as the youngest son of Jean-Paul Mauriac,
a wealthy businessman. When Mauriac was not quite two years old, his
father died, and the family lived with grandparents. His mother was a
devout Catholic who was influenced by Jansenist thought. From the age of
seven, Mauriac attended a school run by the Marianite Order. The author
never ceased to acknowledge the importance of his early education although he
was unhappy at Ste Marie.
After studies at the University of Bordeaux, Mauriac received his licence (the
equivalent of an M.A.) in 1905. Next year he went to Paris to prepare for
entrance in the �cole des Chartes, where he was accepted in 1908. However,
Mauriac remained at the school only a few months and then decided to devote himself
entirely to literature. His first volume of poems, LES MAINS JOINTES,
appeared in 1909.
Read more of this biography,
or check out Francois
Mauriac on Wikipedia.
Previous Months' Book Choices
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006