Suicide Reviews: Animal Farm by George Orwell

 

Summary: Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organized to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges...

Date Published: August 17, 1945

Published By: Penguin (This Edition)

Number of Pages: 95

Rating: 5/5

What can be said about Animal Farm that hasn't been said already? This is why I find classics so hard to review but I'll do my best.

I read Animal Farm years ago for high school and really loved it. Reading it today, I still love it but because I wasn't studying the Russian Revolution simultaneously this time around, I forgot who some of the characters were supposed to represent. If anything this book is successful at, it does make me want to go back and study the Russian Revolution just so I can get a clearer picture of the allegory.

Animal Farm is subtitled A Fairy Story, which is entirely appropriate as the book reads like a modern-day fairy tale. There are no nuanced characterizations or complex plot details to be found. But that doesn't mean the story doesn't serve as a brilliant allegory and a scathing criticism of the failed ideals of the Revolution. It shows, little by little, how noble ideas can be swiftly corrupted by power and greed.

Animal Farm is still a great read after 71 years of being in print. But what's sobering is how relevant it still is to today's world. 

Suicide Reviews: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

 

Summary: Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.

Date Published: 1969

Published By: Dial Press

Number of Pages: 275

Rating: 5/5 

Slaughterhouse-Five is both incredibly funny and terribly sad. It's as if Douglas Adams wrote an anti-war novel.

The book is written in a style that is very dream-like. It reads almost like a fairy-tale. There are bizarre situations featuring aliens and time travel yet it's not science fiction in the traditional sense. Vonnegut uses this fable-like style to drive home the point just how absurd and futile war is.

Billy Pilgrim is such a down-to-earth and endearing character. He's sort of an Everyman who is thrust into these crazy adventures. His ability to time travel to different points of his life just kind of happens naturally and his abduction by aliens is completely random. These fantastical events aren't really treated as unbelievable or extraordinary - they just happen. It ties in so well to the book's oft-repeated phrase 'So it goes.'

The phrase 'So it goes' is often put at the end of a description of a horrible event, like a bombing or suicide. It's used to highlight how human beings treat these tragedies as inevitable - even though we are the species that is responsible for perpetuating them. It has a remarkably sobering effect upon the reader.

Slaughterhouse-Five deserves its place among the classics and the great anti-war novels. I think it should be read by everybody at least once in their lives. 

Suicide Reviews: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

  

Summary: This is the story of two sisters - one a missionary in Africa and the other a child wife living in the South - who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic novel of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.

Date Published: 1982

Number of Pages: 295

Rating: 5/5

I read this book as a part of Emma Watson's feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf.

This book starts out pretty bleak. On the very first page, we see the rape of Celie, a fourteen-year-old girl. She goes on to marry an abusive husband who beats her and treats her like a slave. But over the course of the story it takes on a more hopeful, optimistic tone.

Celie documents her life in a series of letters she writes to God. A devout woman, she tells him about her life, her hopes and dreams, her doubts and fears. But when she meets and bonds with a woman named Shug, she has a spiritual awakening and moves away from a patriarchal notion of God to a more personal and uplifting spirituality.

This is a deeply feminist novel with important themes of women's self-determination and liberty. I love how Celie goes from a timid, obedient wife to a fearless, independent woman. It was very inspirational to me and after I read it I wanted to ACOMPLISH ALL THE THINGS! I encourage every woman on the planet to read this book. And men should read it too.

I will say that the writing style takes a little getting used to and sometimes I had trouble keeping all of the characters straight. Still, this is a near-perfect novel and deserves to be called a classic.
 

Suicide Reviews: Love in the Time of Cholera

  

Synopsis: In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty-one years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

With humorous sagacity and consummate craft, Garcia Marquez traces an exceptional half-century story of unrequited love. Though it seems never to be conveniently contained, love flows through the novel in many wonderful guises - joyful, melancholy, enriching, ever surprising.

Date Published: 1985

Original Title: El amor en los tiempos del colera

Number of Pages: 348

Rating: 4/5

This book is held up as one of the greatest love stories in all of literature. Spanning over fifty years, it details the turbulent romance between Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza.

It's surprising how well this book works as a love story considering the two love interests spend most of the book apart. Instead, it details their individual lives and the ways they intersect at crucial moments. Florentino is determined to be with Fermina someday, while Fermina chooses to move on from her adolescent love affair and marry someone else.

The story is written so beautifully it took me about a week to read it because I wanted to linger over every single word. I can't count how many times a sentence broke my heart into pieces only to be shattered into even tinier pieces because of a sentence on the very next page. The language is so rich and captivating that it deserves close attention. This book is not a speed-read.

While I enjoyed the story overall, there were a couple of scenes that I found disturbing. There are certain circumstances where rape and pedophilia are presented in a romantic light. I'm wondering if this was done deliberately on the part of the author to make the point that passion and love can be used to justify the most atrocious acts. That's how I interpreted it anyway, but I would leave it up to each individual reader to make up their own minds about it.

Love in the Time of Cholera is ultimately about the different forms that love can take. It reminds us that adolescent love is often shallow and fleeting. It isn't until Florentino and Fermina reach old age that they are able to love each other wholly and unconditionally even after their youth, health, and beauty has been stripped away.

Suicide Reviews: Under the Skin by Michel Faber

  

Synopsis: This novel introduces Isserley, a mysterious female who drives around the Scottish Highlands picking up well-muscled hitchhikers. Scarcely big enough to peer over her steering wheel, scarred and vulnerable yet strangely erotic and threatening, Isserley makes the hitchhikers open up to her and reveal clues about who might miss them if they should disappear. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin is a heart-thumping ride through the dangerous territory where moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion collide.

Date Published: 2000

Published By: Harcourt

Number of Pages: 296

Rating: 5/5

Under the Skin is one mind-fuck of a novel, in the best possible way. Most people might know the basic premise from the 2013 film adaptation but, let me tell you, there is so much more to the book. 

This book is just layered with all sorts of though-provoking themes. Rape, animal cruelty, what it means to be human - it's all very heavy stuff but this is one of those books that needs to be read - because it just might change your perspective on everything. 

It is beautifully written, crammed with lyrical sentences that you want to pluck out and hold to the light. And while the book is not graphic, there are definitely some unsettling moments that will make you squirm. 

I can't really go into too much detail because I don't want to spoil the book. I'll just say that this is one of the best sci-fi books I've ever read and if you think you know the story because you've seen the movie, YOU DON'T!