Monday, August 30, 2010

1959: Speculations about Jakob to The Two Cultures


Purpose of this blog: Brief summaries of World, British and American literary classics for English majors.

Uwe Johnson. German. 1959. Novel. Speculations about Jakob. Life and death of Jakob Abs. East vs. West Germany; crushed by trains going east and west.

Gunter Grass. Germany. 1959. Novel. The Tin Drum. Narrated by grotesque hunchback; recollections of bizarre events before, during and after Hitler. Like Peter Pan, Oskar decides at age 3 to grow no more. Beats on toy drum to relieve feelings, anxiety, contempt for petty bourgeois adults who fostered the rise of Nazism. From unique perspective, comments on hypocrisy of his elders.

CP Snow. British. 1959. Nonfiction. The Two Cultures. Science is of the lower middle class and at the center of progress. The literary is from the upper-middle class, part of the Establishment and conservative.

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