“You are all a lost generation.”— Gertrude Stein (epigraph) Chapter 1: Paris and Jake Barnes The novel opens with Jake Barnes, an American expatriate and journalist living in […]
American literature
On the Road
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the […]
American literature
Catch-22
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate […]
American literature
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
“Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in […]
American literature
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a […]
American literature
Breakfast of Champions
“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.” Chapters 1-5 The novel introduces Kilgore Trout, a largely unknown science fiction writer whose works are […]
American literature
Cat’s Cradle
“Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”(*Harmless untruths) Chapter 1-10: Introducing Jonah and the Hoenikker Legacy The narrator, John (or Jonah), […]
American literature
Slaughterhouse-Five
“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.” Chapter 1 The novel opens with the author’s meta-commentary, explaining his struggle to write […]
American literature
The Color Purple
“You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.” The novel opens with Celie, a poor Black girl in early 20th-century rural Georgia, writing letters […]
American literature
Invisible Man
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am […]