Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. In this post, I will be doing a wrap up of all the books I read in October. This month I read 3 books. Here are my thoughts on all of them:
1. FICTION: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Two of the most important topics in this book are individuality and identity. More specifically, the individuality and identity of African Americans living in a dominant white society that does not recognize their personhood.
Set in the early 20th century, I think that this book is just as relevant today as it was in 1952 when it was first published. Symbols such as Mary Rambo’s broken cast-iron bank, which symbolizes the narrator’s shattered image of himself, and Brother Tarp’s chain links representing the narrator’s freedom from physical and mental slavery are just as important today as they were 70 years ago. African Americans today still struggle to construct an identity for themselves in a world plagued by and stigmatized by racism.
I didn’t know about this book until I had to pick it up for one of my book clubs. American literature is one of my least read genres in classical fiction and I admit I didn’t think I would like it much. I didn’t love it either, but I realized that it is an important book and that more people should read it. Unfortunately, it’s very likely that not many people do and I wasn’t surprised to note that it has been banned from several school districts in the US before. But this is one of those books that conscientizes a reader about racism and bigotry, and how important it is to stand up to it and face an issue that is still prevalent in our society today. Let us not forget George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And every other person in history who has been killed because of the color of their skin.
2. BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR: Hitler: Downfall, 1939-1945 by Volker Ullrich
This second volume of Volker Ullrich’s biography of Adolf Hitler is an account of both the Führer’s dogged pursuit of living space for Germans and his determined extermination of Jews. Once again, however, the author attempts to relate what Hitler did to accomplish this without losing focus of his public persona. Who the dictator was behind the mask he showed to the public is still this author’s main objective in this new biography of Führer. So if you want to read about the life of Adolf Hitler, the political events that occurred during this time to instigate WWII and the battles the Germans fought both in the West and East to defeat their enemies, then this is a book for you. But if you want to read about the Holocaust, concentration camps, and the war crimes the Germans committed against the Jews, then you may be left wanting something more. Volker Ullrich does touch upon this in a very well-written and thoroughly researched chapter that is worth the read. But this is not his main focus. I highly recommend this two-volume work nonetheless to anyone interested in reading about Adolf Hitler and the history of WWII.
3. CLASSIC: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is one of the most famous and beloved love stories in world literature. So I don’t think I need to write a synopsis of it here. It is one of those books that don’t need an introduction, like Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Jane is also one of the most liked heroines in the genre, and I picked this book up again after reading it for the first time almost 20 years ago. And I remembered some things about it (mostly the love story and the wife upstairs), but I also didn’t remember a lot of things about it that make it so much more than a romance novel. And I realized that 20 years ago I was too young to notice them. What stood out to me more this time around was Jane’s determinedness and steadfastness to do what is right according to her religious beliefs. And this surprised me. I hadn’t expected religion to be such an important topic in this novel, but it is. It is actually one of the most important traits of our heroine. The other one is her capacity to love both wholeheartedly and faithfully, for she stays true to the love of her life no matter what. But it is something that comes to the forefront in every one of Jane’s tribulations and sufferings.
Mr. Rochester also deserves a mention here. And compared to other leading men in literature like Mr. Darcy, Mr. Thornton, and Mr. Knightley, Mr. Rochester is a troubled soul. True, he’s probably not as troubled as Heathcliff, but he is a man that needs Jane’s peace and righteousness to be the best version of himself that he can be.
I highly recommend this book and will probably read it again sometime in the future.
This is all the books I read this month. Thank you for reading.
