“And God took Job’s children, his cattle, his house, his health—but not his faith.” Chapter 1: Mendel Singer’s Life in Zuchnow The novel opens in the small Jewish […]
German literature
Narcissus and Goldmund
“You are an artist, and I am a thinker. You sleep at the mother’s breast; I wake in the desert.” Part One: The Monastery Narcissus, a disciplined and […]
Russian literature
The Foundation Pit
“Man is not nourished by bread alone, but by the truth.” Chapter Summaries Chapter 1 The novel opens with Voshchev, a worker dismissed for “thoughtfulness,” wandering the Soviet […]
Russian literature
The Defense
“The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature.” Chapter 1: […]
American literature
As I Lay Dying
“My mother is a fish.” — Vardaman Bundren As I Lay Dying follows the Bundren family’s arduous journey to bury their matriarch, Addie Bundren, in her hometown of […]