Classics > S Classics > John Steinbeck

Advantages: Amazing Characterization
Disadvantages: You Will Cry

...1937 being during the time of The Great American Depression - The Depression being caused by a collapse of the Wall Street Stock Market causing the American dollar to become almost worthless. During the great depression unemployment in America rose to 25% and as demand for American made products was falling. A job was never fully secure, because of this, and it was common to find manual workers going from one place to another in search of work. These ...
...collage. Steinbeck undertook a series of manual unskilled jobs, one of which as a farm laborer in ranches in northern California. When planning a novel an author focuses on three main parts; The plot, the characters and the scene. Steinbeck has incorporated the feeling of a desolate atmosphere in to each of these. Giving his novel a three dimensional outlook also adding an atmospheric feel into smaller details such as the names of places and the ... Read review

Advantages: Exceptional writing
Disadvantages: Not the author's best work

The Winter of our Discontent - John Steinbeck Toccata: A musical composition intended to display the skill and technique of the performer. If ever a novel could be sub-titled Toccata it would be John Steinbeck's 'The Winter of Our Discontent'. It is a piece of writing so skilful and so masterful that you are left in awe of the writer's ability to use the written word. This isn't the greatest story ever told, it isn't even the author's best novel ...
...is, however, the best written novel I've ever read. It is a painful paradox that here am I, with my sixth form grasp of English, trying to convey exactly why I think this is the best and I know I am destined to fail. John Steinbeck was born in 1902 in Salinas, California and spent much of his life in Monterey County also in California. An infrequent scholar he intermittently attended Stanford University for more than half a decade without graduating. ... Read review

Advantages: A great read!
Disadvantages: A very unpleasant end.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of my favourite Thomas Hardy novels, simply because the story is so unique and captivating. Ii read this over the summer and I can assure you that you also will enjoy the book. The price is very little and is definately worth having in your collection. However, those who are new to Thomas Hardy I must warn you that his work is often padded out with excessive details. This however does not ruin the story. The story ...
...invites you to sympathize with all that Tess is and all that she goes through. I highly recommend this novel, although it may not have a pleasant ending it is very interesting and meaningful! I must add that any woman intending on reading this you are surely to love it! ... Read review

Advantages: descriptions and not intimidating storylines
Disadvantages: maybe the french conversations for some people

Being a fan of the Bronte clan the first section I head to in my local library would be of that shelf. It was only a very short time ago that I discovered The Professor, not even realising Charlotte Bronte had written it. Indeed, ashamedly to admit, I had never even heard of it before then. It was created before Jane Eyre came about from the year 1845-6 and is an intimate and gentle story about William Crimsworth, a man working for his not quite ...
...to an 'older woman' from the adjoining girls school, it is only when he is appointed the position of teaching the young ladies to become better at speaking, writing and reading english that he discovers her cruel manipulations towards other peoples feelings and current situations. The girls he teaches and how he reactes to their behaviour is similar to that of Lucy Snow in Villette. As to where he mocks the written work of the prettiest and unruley ... Read review

Advantages: Some intriguing characters and great Gothic settings
Disadvantages: Sometimes too verbose in wrong places

Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker puts class to classics! Set in Victorian England and rather fictionalized fairytale Transylvania, Stoker´s lengthy novel is a story of a group of heavily idealized Victorian chaps, led by Dutch Professor Van Helsing, who try to save their womenfolk from a vampire king, Transylvanian Count Dracula (NOT Walachian prince Vlad of the most modern retellings!). Mixing the castles and graveyards, Victorian idyll and authentic ...
...vampire complexion), Stoker creates delicious backdrop to his most interesting characters Mina and Lucy, the feminine and pure "angels in house", who are vampirized by the Count. But who is saved in the end? And who dies? The prose is very Victorian, sometimes long-winded, and dehumanization of "lunatics" takes too much time, but great parts overshadow the morally polluted pedantry. ... Read review