20th Century Novel - Simrah

Within the span of The Stranger , Meursault commits murder; provides a false statement to the police; helps Raymond abuse his mistress and have relations with her as a product of deceit; and gets drunk and involved with a girl less than twenty-four hours after his mother's funeral, among other things. In today's world, any one person who committed all these actions would be shunned by society and all but canceled. However, in The Stranger, Camus analyzes right versus wrong, good versus evil, and what it means to be subject to society's expectations when you don't fit in. Camus concludes that thanks to Meursault's supposed amorality, he is neither a bad nor a good person. He is just a person who does things. In The Stranger,  Meursault goes through all these actions without looking back. He says this himself: "I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. My mind was always on what was coming next, today or tomorrow" (Camus 100). He doesn't ...

While writing this post, I was compelled to differentiate between Brett and Jake, to play devil's advocate and argue against either of the characters. I wanted to flesh out why, exactly, Jake and Brett's relationship would never work. I eventually surmised that Brett and Jake have very different understandings of what constitutes a successful relationship -- Brett defines a perfect relationship as involving both romantic and physical elements, while Jake views his relationships as purely emotional. I assumed this created a rift between them, a chasm of Brett's promiscuity that Jake simply couldn't fulfill. However, I was gravely mistaken.  Throughout the novel, Brett relies on Jake for emotional support. She sleeps with other men and gets angry when they act possessive; she returns to Jake when her other relationships go haywire and waxes poetic about how he has never acted as "badly" as her other suitors and how he's the best of them all (Hemingway 187). ...

This is my take on an alternate ending to Mrs. Dalloway and how I think the book should have ended. I believe Mrs. Dalloway is the tale of a woman who learns to appreciate life for all that it is. I am essentially arguing that beyond being Mrs. Dalloway or even possibly Mrs. Walsh, our main character is Clarissa Parry. I think the time she spent in the little room upon learning about Septimus' death allowed her to realize that she should appreciate her life for all its joys and its grievances, and while she may hold regrets from the past, she's not disappointed with how her life has turned out, and she certainly doesn't think it would've been better if she married Peter. She has learned to live and be happy with the decision that Clarissa Parry made, because she, in the end, is Clarissa Parry. A polite smile on her face and hands clasped in front of her dress, he could only watch in awe and slight fear as she began to approach the two of them. "Peter, Sally," ...

One could say that The Mezzanine is not special. It is not an enjoyable book to read in the least. It is quite literally fifteen chapters of the stream of thoughts of an ‘80s office worker: just about as interesting as you would imagine it. What makes it so different?  Simply put, The Mezzanine is a 135-page catalog of all the thoughts our narrator, Howie, has while making his way up his office building’s escalator. He ponders his lunch, his shoelaces, the different ways he ties his shoes, various conversations he’s had since he was but a child, how long it’s going to take him to stop reminiscing about his childhood, the different types of amenities in his office bathroom, approximately how many times he uses the office bathroom, and so on. Throughout the novel, Howie jokes with himself, makes vague references he expects his readers to understand, and goes about his day while innately analoging every single idiosyncratic detail.  Nothing distinguishes Howie from the rest of th...