“What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to have a body?” Part One: Summer The novel opens with Natsuko, a struggling writer in […]
German literature
Irrungen, Wirrungen
“Man muß nehmen, wie’s kommt, und wenn’s nicht kommt, muß man’s gehen lassen.”— Theodor Fontane, Irrungen, Wirrungen Chapter 1: A Summer Afternoon in Berlin The novel opens in […]
French literature
The Necklace
“She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans.” Mathilde Loisel, a beautiful but discontented […]
French literature
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
“We think we are passing time, but time is passing us.” Part One: The Elegance of the Hedgehog The novel alternates between the perspectives of two protagonists: Renée […]
American literature
The Great Gatsby
“Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,Till she cry ‘Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,I must have you!’”—THOMAS PARKE […]
English literature
NW
“The fat sun stalls by the phone masts. Anti-climb paint turns sulphurous on school gates and lampposts. In Willesden people go barefoot, the streets turn European, there is […]
English literature
Brideshead Revisited
“I am not I: thou art not he or she: they are not they.” — Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited Prologue: Et in Arcadia Ego Captain Charles Ryder, a […]
English literature
A Room with a View
“The sky settles everything—not only climates and seasons but when the earth shall be beautiful.” Part 1: Florence Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman, travels to Florence with her […]
English literature
The Mayor of Casterbridge
“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.” Chapter 1: The Folly of Youth The novel opens with Michael Henchard, a young hay-trusser, drunkenly […]
English literature
Emma
“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.” Volume 1 […]