#GIDE_Andre

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David Copperfield

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

(dark childhood, miserable growing-up and eventual happiness in 19th-century London)

"Dickensian" Novels: Bleak Side of Life (the battle for existence fought - and lost)

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables  (1820s France: honest man convicted to gallets escapes and rebuilds his life)

Anthony Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Barset  (1860s England: honest man wrongly accused of theft; student making his way in London)

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth  (1880s New York heiress rejects ways of society to "be herself")

James Baldwin, Go, Tell It on the Mountain  (1950s Harlem: son of slum family learns about sex, racism and born-again Christian love)

John O"Hara, The Lockwood Concern  (1930s Pennsylvania family becomes wealthy by violence, destroys itself)

J.B. Priestley, Angel Pavement  (1920s London firm taken over, developed and ruined by confidence-trickster)

"Dickensian" Novels: Cheerful Side of Life (life maybe a struggle, but it can still be fun)

David Cook, Sunrising  (1830s England: three children rescued from degradation in rural and urban slums)

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  (1860s Mississippi: boy"s adolescence on river and in riverside communities)

H.G. Wells, The History of Mr Polly  (1890s England: middle-aged "drop-out" has many adventures, finds happiness)

Thomas Mann, The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man  (1900s Europe: confidence-man"s cheerful, amoral adventures among the bourgeoisie)

Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot  (1950s widow travels world I search of happiness)

Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March  (1930s Chicago: zestful account of slum boy using his wits to make his way)

Learning How to Be Grown-up (adolescence as a quest, with adulthood as the glittering prize)

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage  (1890s London school days, Paris student life and eventual happiness of lonely young man)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister  (1790s Europe: young man runs away to be an actor, esperiences real life, "finds" himself)

André Gide, The Counterfeiters  (1920s Paris: young people growing up, initiated into life and love)

Lisa Alther, Kinflicks  (1960s USA: young woman learns about sex, love, feminism, protest-politics and "dropping out")

Mordechai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz  (1930s Montreal: young man moves from rags to riches, loses his soul)

William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis  (1840s London: after many escapades, young man finds literary success)

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The Trial

Franz Kafka, The Trial

(Josef K. is arrested and forced to fight - for his life - against charges which he is never told)

A Mad, Mad World (just because life is Kafkaesque, it doesn"t have to be serious)

André Gide, The Vaticans Cellars

John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

Richard Condon, The Final Addiction

Tom Sharpe, Riotous Assembly

Inside the Skull (making nightmares for ourselves)

John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Bein

Italo Svevo, The Confessions of Zeno

Paul Bailey, Peter Smart"s Confessions

Jersey Kosinski, The Devil Tree

Society as Hell (humans invent a society, which then goes mad)

Alasdair Gray, Lanark

Wyndham Lewis, Childermass  (first part of the Human Age)

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity"s Rainbow

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid"s Tale

George Turner, The Sea and Summer

Trapped by the system (individuals caught like flies in the spiders" webs of circumstances they can"t control)

Saul Bellow, Mr Sammler"s Planet

Alejo Carpentier, The Chase

Max Frisch, I"m Not Stiller

Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Svejk

Joseph Heller, Something Happened