The Garden Party (1922) is one of Katherine Mansfield's most famous short stories.
Note: Due to the short length of this story, it's impossible not to give away the plot; consider yourself warned.
The Sheridans, a wealthy New Zealand family, are hosting a garden party. During their preparations, they learn that a working-class neighbor has died that day. In wanting to call the party off, Laura Sheridan shows her sympathy for the neighbor's family. Her sisters and her mother dismiss Laura's idea and the party begins as the guests arrive. Afterwards, Laura brings a basket of leftovers to the dead man's home and sees his body. Laura ends the story with an incomplete sentence: "Isn't life..."
To write a story of 30 pages that captures many emotions, it requires genius -- that's what Katherine Mansfield had. Laura is the only one in her family who shows sympathy for the poor neighbors; this statement about class division is profound. Laura, up until the end of the story, has confronted neither death nor poverty; all she knows is luxury, good fortune, and garden parties. I am impressed with the number of themes Mansfield tackles in such a small number of pages.
I admire Mansfield's laconic writing style. The details of the story's setting are magnificently vivid. It is the perfect day for the garden party; the sunlight shining on the garden, the fragrance and abundance of the lilies, and the just right weather. Mansfield describes the scene perfectly in a few simple words. Mansfield never actually describes her characters. We sense their personalities through their dialogue.
Overall, this story hits many high notes in a few pages -- five out of five stars.
Lesser known than other George Orwell classics like 1984 and Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London was his first published book (1933).
George Orwell is destitute and living in Paris. He sleeps at a bug-infested inn and pawns his clothes for a meager amount. Starving and alone, he reunites with his friend Boris and, luckily, they get jobs as plongeurs at a filthy Paris restaurant.
Just when things start looking up for Orwell, he quits his job (because of the twenty hour days without breaks) and moves back to England. There, Orwell is among the poorest of the poor and spends his nights at "spikes", crowded lodging houses where poor men pay a very small amount of money for a rock-hard bed, tea, and bread. In and out of the spikes, Orwell befriends interesting characters and continues to live in poverty.
Orwell likes to rant. This may be the only time I genuinely felt that a writer's rants were important, not annoying. A memorable one was his dedication of a chapter to the evolution of curse words and his feelings about them. This is important because it keeps the history of those words alive; it was also interesting to read about who used the words and how their popularity died out. The frustrating part was that, in the modern American edition I read (Harcourt), three quarters of the curses Orwell used were censored.
The best part of the story was Orwell's short dictionary of poor men's lingo. This included words like "clodhopper" (street dancer) and "shackles" (soup). By defining the lingo for us, Orwell greatly enhances our feel for the period.
The descriptions of poverty and filth are gut-wrenching. Orwell vividly describes the awful conditions the poor men lived under, the lack of hygiene and sanitation in the spikes and the Paris kitchen, and the feelings of ennui and hunger that he and the other men endured. Orwell never shies away from sharing the details of poverty.
This book has only one major negative: its blatant anti-Semitism. Every description of a Jew is defamatory and offensive. While Orwell's attitudes towards Jews may have changed later, it is still unpleasant to hear him wanting to "flatten the rich Jewish pawn shopkeeper's nose." For me, this lowers the quality of the man, not the work.
Orwell's overall message is clear: the poor are human beings who should not be seen or treated as swine. This message is still relevant today because, as a society, we often treat the poor and homeless as beneath us. Five out of five stars for Down and Out.
Eleanor & Park is a 2013 young adult novel that has received a Michael L. Printz book honor, among many awards.
Eleanor Douglass is a red-headed, overweight high school girl who recently moved to Omaha, Nebraska. She lives an impoverished life with her mother, her four siblings, and her abusive stepfather. Park Sheridan is an Asian-American high school boy who meets Eleanor on the bus. As time goes by, Eleanor and Park bond over music and comic books and eventually end up dating, despite their different backgrounds.
The story is told by a third-person omniscient narrator who alternates the points of view of Eleanor and Park. I didn't care for this style of storytelling - if you're going to alternate points of view, let the characters narrate the story themselves in the first person.
I felt the writing wasn't very special - it lacked depth and description, which would have enhanced the book. The author focused more on Eleanor than Park and by the end of the book, I felt disappointed that there was less of his story told.
Eleanor and Park's relationship developed slowly and peaked in the last third of the story. I liked the way Rowell didn't rush it (as in most YA love stories) - this made it much more meaningful.
Eleanor and Park brings out all the feelings a good love story should; sadness, hope, heartbreak, and joy. For its meaningful love
story, I give Eleanor and Park three and a half out of five stars, despite some major flaws.
