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Jitenotes
Not long ago I purchased a portable eBook reader, a wonderful thing. With most classic literature available from Gutterberg Press free on the Internet, I’ve read a lot of late. Here are a few short reviews.
Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes 1605 An aging Spanish nobleman gets so consumed by reading books of chivalry, he sells off his land to buy books and goes broke. He takes what is left of his estate and buys an old horse, some silly armor and with his sidekick,Sancho Panza, goes out into the world to do great good by deeds of chivalry. His humorous adventures cause him to be thought a clown, insane and pathetic. Though Cervantes’ purpose was to decry the age of chivalry as a game of fools, whether he intended his hero to be perceived as an altruistic clown or the most beloved character in literature is still argued today. This very long book contains more famous clichés and platitudes than any other single work of literature.
A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe 1722 A fictionalized account of London visited by plague and smallpox. The rich leave town for their country homes and do well. The dirty masses stay in London and act wretchedly while watching each other die. The author explains they are mostly a bunch of superstitious morons, who because of not giving God his proper due, pretty much deserve what they get. Defoe is most famous for his earlier book Robinson Crusoe (1719), which is considered the first novel written in English. Before that fiction had to be in verse.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas 1845 A friend betrays a friend who is sent to prison for 13 years. The betrayed finds a treasure and with his wealth gets his revenge upon the men and their families and not until the end does he realize plying his vendettas only made matters worse.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville 1854 A big white fish bites off a man’s leg. Years later the man takes a hundred men in a boat to go kill the son of a bitch. Everyone dies but Ishmael, but only because someone has to live to tell the story of the futility of vengeance.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 1862 A man steals a loaf of bread. He goes to prison and ends up rowing in a hole for twenty years. He finally gets out and within a couple days gets caught stealing from a church. When the police bring him to the Church, the kind Minister tells the police that he gave the convict the stuff. Jean Valjean has a spiritual awakening, dedicating himself to a life of philanthropic altruism. But a nastyass policeman, by the name of Inspector Jarvet, is totally consumed in bringing Valjean to justice. For almost 50 years the chase goes on. Valjean finally gives up and turns himself over to Jarvet during one of France’s many revolutions. Jarvet is so confounded that the man (he now realizes did so many good deeds) would just give up, that he comes to see that his entire life of rule of law and going by the book was wrong and wasted. So he jumps in the Seine as Valjean walks into the sunset.
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 1884 A poor white kid helps an illiterate black man escape slavery. Told from the point of view of the illiterate boy, we learn that there is an innocence and honesty inherent in hardscrabble youth that very often comes up with the right answers so many adults are unable to.
Steppenwolf by Herman Hess 1923 High intellect causes high loneliness.
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger 1951 A kid gets kicked out of an Eastern prep school, buys a stupid red hunting hat, and spends a couple days bumming around Central Park before he goes to his nearby home where he will have to face the music with his parents. In his three day journey he realizes; that his love for the innocence and honesty of children, his respect for women, his shunning of materialism, his careless use of money, his refusal to accept the phoniness of Madison Avenue, his romanticism, his altruism and his need to discuss such matters are not shared by any adult on the Planet, causing him to write this narrative from the nut house. An allegory of Jesus with the nuthouse replacing the cross.
Lord of the Rings by JRR Toilken 1954 Two very small and meek young men, by serendipity, are burdened with having to take a ring across the land to throw in a volcano which will destroy the evil being taking over the world. They face untold terrors and death, but their determination, grit, and bravery win the day, and are saved from certian death by the eagles. Just like the Brits did in WWII, with America coming to their rescue!
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