My Science School

In the olden days, adventure and chivalry were two things that were celebrated in Europe. No wonder, Don Quixote, a novel by Miguel de Cervantes was one of the most widely read novels in the western world. This Spanish novel is a saga of Alonso Quixano, a noble from La Mancha who loses his mind as a result of reading too many chivalric romances. He decides to become a knight-errant to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote of La Mancha.

Don Quixote employs Sancho Panza, a farmer as his squire. Sancho Panza possesses a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote’s rhetorical monologues on knighthood. The ideas that Don Quixote holds onto were already considered old-fashioned at that time. He does not see the world for what it is and chooses to imagine his life as a knightly story of chivalric quest instead.

Don Quixote was an instant success and the readers found it comic; it is considered to be the prototype of the modern novel.

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a true masterpiece of terror and tells of one of the most famous monstrous creatures in European literature. It began as a fireside ghost story and grew into a worldwide phenomenon.

The name Frankenstein is popularly attached to the creature itself. Don’t be surprised to know that Mary Shelley drew upon her nightmares to come up with this spine-chilling story.

Frankenstein is the story of a Swiss scientist, Victor Frankenstein who is fascinated about the latest advances in science.

He resolves to pioneer a new way to explore unknown powers, and unfold the deepest mysteries of creation. At the end of a lot of mysterious experiments, he manages to create a body that comes to life.

What Frankenstein created turns out to be a monster. In a chain of tragic events, his creation destroys everything that he loves. With nothing left to live for but revenge, Frankenstein dedicates himself to destroying the monster.

A daring scientist, he goes to the Arctic Circle in search of his monstrous creation. Unfortunately, he falls into the freezing water and contracts pneumonia. The novel ends with the death of Victor Frankenstein.

The monster he created is overcome by grief and pledges to incinerate himself at ‘the Northernmost extremity of the globe’. He then departs, never to be seen again.

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Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky raised a lot of literary discussions. The novel presents a nineteen-year-old as the hero in the very beginning. Alyosha Karamazov is the youngest of the Karamazov brothers and he is the hero that we are talking about.

Alyosha is an immensely likeable young boy. It is believed that Dostoyevsky based the character sketch of Alyosha on his friend Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian philosopher and poet who led a generous life, even giving away his clothes to people in the street.

Alyosha is a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery. Quiet contrary to his faith, his brother Ivan is an atheist. Alyosha gets engaged to a young girl named Liza Khokhlakov. Liza sinks into depression and self-hatred later and ends up rejecting Alyosha.

Alyosha’s place in the novel is that of a messenger or witness to the actions of his brothers and others. His involvement with a group of school boys adds a hopeful message to an otherwise tragic novel.

The novel began to be celebrated right after its publication. In fact, Dostoyevsky wanted to come up with a sequel about Alyosha’s life, but unfortunately, he died shortly after the publication of Brothers Karamazov.

Ivan Turgenev chronicles the philosophies and actions of Yevgeny Bazarov, a young physician, in his novel Fathers and Sons. Bazarov does not believe in anything but science; he is rude, sarcastic and strident at work. He calls himself a nihilist and rejects all traditional institutions and forms of authority.

The novel begins with Arkady Kirsanov who has just graduated from the University of Petersburg returning to his father’s modest estate in an outlying province of Russia. He has a friend with him, Bazarov. Though his father welcomes both of them, Arkady’s brother soon gets disturbed by Bazarov’s philosophy of nihilism. Nihilism says that life is meaningless; this philosophy rejects all religious and moral principles. The novel ends with Bazarov’s death.

Fathers and Sons talks about the inevitable conflict between generations, and between the values of traditionalists and intellectuals. It created a lot of controversy when it was published.

Have you heard of the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky? This novel features Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a poor student and it is often regarded as Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece.

Raskolnikov is a young student living in extreme poverty in Saint Petersburg, who cannot even afford to pay the rent of the tiny garret that he lives in. He sleeps on a couch using old clothes as a pillow, and eats very rarely.

He is devoted to his mother and sister. Though he is handsome and intelligent -two qualities that attract people in college, he is disliked by many of his peers. The novel is a psychological analysis of this miserable hero.

In a turn of events, he murders a pawnbroker from St. Petersburg. This incident shakes our hero; Raskolnikov is hit by a tremendous wave of nightmarish guilt.

The story is told in a feverish, compelling tone which follows the twists and turns of Raskolnikov’s emotions; it elaborates his struggle with his conscience and his mounting sense of horror as he wanders the city’s hot, crowded streets. In the end, Raskolnikov realizes that happiness cannot be attained by a reasoned plan of existence, but must be earned by suffering.

Through Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky portrays the struggle of living each day, trying to figure out the meaning of one’s existence. This novel is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in literature.

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Doctor Zhivago is a novel by Boris Pasternak, another trend-setting Russian author. It is about Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet, whose life is marked by two prominent events-the Russian Revolution and the First World War.

The novel captures the journey of Yuri Zhivago, the son of a wealthy man who eventually becomes addicted to alcohol and later takes his own life. After his mother’s death Yuri was cared for by his uncle Kolya. He becomes a doctor and a writer and serves in World War I. He marries Tonya and they have two children, but he falls in love with Lara while working in a military hospital.

It talks about the effects of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath on a bourgeois family.

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War and Peace stood the test of time and still remains a classic; Tolstoy wrote the novel over the course of six years. It is regarded as one of Tolstoy’s finest literary achievements. What is so special about this novel? Let us see.

War and Peace is about the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on the Tsarist society. The novel is told through five aristocratic Russian families. Natasha Rostova, the daughter of Ilya Rostov, is an acclaimed singer and dancer. Raised in Moscow with all the love of a close family, she is a fresh breath of life and laughter. As she grows up, she yearns for experiencing romantic love.

Tolstoy wrote War and Peace at a time when depression was not defined. But Natasha shows the symptoms of depression; these symptoms were referred to as ‘melancholy’ back then.

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‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’. This is how Leo Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina, one of the most celebrated novels in world literature. Anna Karenina is perhaps one of the bravest women Tolstoy ever created. She rebels with her class and fights for love while searching for the meaning of her life. A woman like Anna was way ahead of her times.

Anna belongs to the highest circle of St. Petersburg. She is married to Karenin and has a son. She also possesses a great deal of passion and refuses to live her life without contradictions. This is what causes Anna’s downfall.

Anna Karenina is the story of the relationship between Anna and Count Vronsky that scandalizes the social circles of St. Petersburg. This forces the young lovers to flee to Italy in search of happiness, only to come back to Russia later. Anna’s passion drives her life, something that makes her choose Vronsky over her son. The novel also has many other famous characters including Kitty and Levin.

The novel was first published in the format of a book in 1877. It was initially released in instalments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger. Anna Karenina is celebrated as one of the greatest novels ever written; Tolstoy himself considers this work as his first true novel.

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Tom Sawyer needs no elaborate introduction. Everyone knows him; a boy full of mischief, yet pure at heart. He is perhaps best remembered for brainwashing a number of other boys to whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence by making the work seem to be extremely absorbing, only because he finds the task unpleasant. He is considered to be the epitome of American boyhood.

Tom Sawyer first appears in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The name of the character was based on Tom Sawyer, a jolly and flamboyant local hero whom Twain met in San Francisco.

Tom appears in many other works of Twain including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Detective, Tom Sawyer Abroad, and Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians.

Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians was abandoned by Twain after finishing the first few chapters and do not have a complete plot.

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Let us now turn our focus to Tom’s best friend and companion Huckleberry Finn, fondly known as Huck. Nobody knows Huck’s exact age; he is perhaps ‘thirteen or fourteen or along there’ as Twain puts it.

Huck leads the life of a destitute vagabond. He is the son of the town’s vagrant drunkard ‘Pap’ Finn, who beats up Huck as he pleases. He wears the clothes of full-grown men which he probably received as charity and lived on what others gave him. Huck lives a carefree life free from societal norms or rules, stealing watermelons and chickens, boats and cigars. But clever Huck calls his actions borrowing.

Huck is adopted by Widow Douglas after he finds a treasure. The story does not end there. In a turn of events, Pap kidnaps Huck, Huck escapes, fakes his death and camps alongside the Mississippi River with a runaway slave named Jim.

Huck and Jim share days of adventures, trying to escape two search parties looking for them. In the end, Jim is set free; Huck refuses to be adopted and goes to the West.

As we all know, the story of Huck is chronicled in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book is noted for its colourful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. It was adapted for television and films several times.

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All the members of the Chuzzlewit family have something in common; they are all selfish. Dickens talks about the Chuzzlewit family in a satirical fashion in his novel The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit.

Old Martin Chuzzlewit, the wealthy patriarch of the Chuzzlewit family, lives in constant suspicion of the financial designs of his extended family. Young Martin Chuzzlewit is the grandson of old Martin and his closest relative. Along with money, he has also inherited much of the stubbornness and selfishness of the old man. Young Martin’s engagement to Mary causes a rift between the grandfather and grandson. Towards the end of the novel, Martin becomes a changed man; he ends up repenting for his past actions born out of selfishness.

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit was first published by Chapman & Hall in installments between 1842 and 1844. The novel is also notable for two of Dickens’s notorious villains, Seth Pecksniff and Jonas Chuzzlewit.

Let us now talk about Nicholas Nickleby, a novel about the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man with whom rests the responsibility of providing for his mother and sister after his father dies.

After his father’s death, Nicholas is forced to leave a comfortable life at Devonshire and travel to London to seek aid from his uncle Ralph Nickleby. He has to take his mother and sister along with him. Ralph is a cold and ruthless businessman who has no desire to help his destitute relations. He hates Nicholas as he reminds him of his dead brother.

In the beginning of the novel, Nicholas is shown as an honest and steadfast young lad. But as the story progresses, his youth and inexperience of the world make him violent and emotional.

There is another interesting fact about the novel. Dickens began writing Nicholas Nickleby while still working on Oliver Twist. It was originally published in twenty monthly installments.

 

Have you heard of the novel The Old Curiosity Shop? The novel is about Little Nell Trent and the evil Quilp.

Little Nell’s grandfather gambles away his curiosity shop to his creditor Quilp. The grandfather and granddaughter are left with no other option but to run away. Nell’s friend Kit Nubbles and a mysterious Single Gentleman attempt to find them but are thwarted by Quilp. The Single Gentleman turns out to be the wealthy brother of Nell’s grandfather. The novel ends on a sad note; Little Nell dies and her heartbroken grandfather dies days later.

Queen Victoria read The Old Curiosity Shop in 1841 and found it ‘very interesting and cleverly written’. The novel was popular beyond measure; it is said that readers in New York stormed the dock when the ship bearing the final installment arrived in 1841!

 

A case filed in the court may not be resolved immediately; some verdicts come out in months while some others may take many years. One such case filed in England’s Court of Chancery drags on through decades. The Bleak House is about this lawsuit, filed by Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

Esther Summerson is one of the most prominent characters in the novel. In fact, half the novel is narrated from her perspective. Esther was orphaned right after she was born; she is raised by Miss Barbary, whom she knows as her godmother. Miss Barbary was in fact, her mother’s sister. When she dies a sudden death, Esther is left in the care of John Jarndyce, a philanthropist. He also arranges for Esther to receive a sound education.

Esther stays at the Bleak House, Jarndyce’s house near St. Albans. Over the course of Esther’s stay at Bleak House, she learns more about her family, and learns the identity of her mother.

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Samuel Pickwick is remembered for his child-like simplicity and loyalty towards his friends. Moreover, he is the founder of the Pickwick Club. The tale of Samuel Pickwick is told in The Pickwick Papers, or The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.

Samuel Pickwick is often tricked by conmen because of his innocence. Though he is always gallant towards women, young and old, he is indecisive in his dealings with them. It is Samuel who suggests that he and three other ‘Pickwickians’ should travel around the country and report whatever they saw to the members of the club.

Mr. Winkle, Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Tupman accompany him in the mission. They come back to tell the tales of their adventures to the members of the club as planned beforehand.

The Pickwick Papers was first published in serialized form between 1836 and 1837. The witty accounts of the kindly, naive Samuel Pickwick and his friends in the Pickwick Club became an instant success. Though the novel offers a pleasurable reading, it addresses a serious issue-the injustice that prevails in the justice system. Dickens himself worked as a clerk in the law department and was aware of the inequities and incompetence of the system.