The gunshot in Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck comes to both readers and characters alike as a surreal sort of shock. It’s a shot of adrenaline straight to the veins, a state where we’re aware of the presence of something very physical and, at the same time, something elusive–simply because…
What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be? When 16-year-old Starr Carter is the only witness to her best friend’s death at the hands of a police officer, it’s up to her to stay silent or decide against it. The…
Imagine that one day you wake up a changed person. The Vegetarian by Han Kang attempts to answer the question of why. Enter Yeong-hye. When she suddenly wakes up a vegan, her only explanation being that she “had a dream,” her unremarkable life is delineated as something unthinkable. Her meat-loving…
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken. In the world of Jane Austen’s novels, Emma is up there as having one of the most misunderstood of the Austenian heroines. Beautiful, rich, and witty…
Vanity has always been my poorest quality. I hate it in myself, and yet am as plagued with it as I am with needing to sleep or eat or breathe. The most noticeable thing when going into Vladimir by Julia May Jonas is its cover. The titular and attractive Vladimir, a…
I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life. The Great Gatsby is the quintessential American novel of glamor, irony, and social class. A profound exploration of the American Dream, the novel presents the timeless themes of wealth, class, and love in the most…
When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from his unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. Containing, perhaps, some of the most absurdly comedic lines in classic literature, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka perfectly illustrates a similarly absurd type of tragedy: Gregor Samsa wakes up…
When it comes to the realm of murder mystery books, And Then There Were None is the book that is bound to come up every time. Hailed as one of the greatest and most iconic murder mysteries of all time, it continues to stand today as Agatha Christie’s magnum opus. The basic…
“Sometimes we want what we want, even if we know it’s going to kill us.” It is when you read pieces like Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch that you realize that modern literature has failed us. A lot of the books that we are accustomed to fail to leave lasting impressions. Most of…
“The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of. So that’s why I need to be cured. Unless I’m cured, normal people will expurgate me.” Convenience Store Woman is one of the books whose titles reflect the contents of…