|
|
The Confessions of Nat Turner, by William StyronThis masterpiece of a novel won Styron the 1967 Pulitzer Prize. Also, Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. It was controversial at the time it was published, due to a large extent to the heated discussions about issues concerning race in the USA at the time. The book is about a revolt The Confessions of Nate Turner is based on an extant document, the "confession" of Turner to the white lawyer Thomas Gray. In the historical confessions, Turner claims to have been divinely inspired, charged with a mission from God to lead a slave uprising and destroy the white race.
The book tells the story of Nat Turner and the uprising masterfully. But more than that; it is also a tale of some of the extremely agonizing and hard essences of slavery. Styron tells the story using the mind of a slave, and recreates and reconstructs masterfully in a way that makes this book a kind of literary history that conveys not only the facts but also the experiences of slavery. The Confessions of Nat Turner is narrated by Nat himself as he lingers in jail through the cold autumnal days before his execution. This is not a fun novel. Rather it is very dark, and full of ugliness and very negative characters from both sides of the divide. It is, however a very deep and penetrating novel, with excellent psychological analyses, that uncovers and lays bare motivations and shows in considerable detail some of the extremely dehumanizing aspects of the institution of slavery as it once existed. The Confessions of Nat Turner is a great story still deserves to be read. It is a masterful novel, an important novel in American literature, and a book that will forever have a special place in the literature of the United States. Bibliography, William Styron
Sophie's Choice, by William StyronSophie’s Choice is a grand novel – really world class fiction. It was first published in 1979, and is a complex, daunting and very ambitious novel. It is also a profoundly moving “Sophie's Choice is a thriller of the highest order, all the more thrilling for the fact that the dark, gloomy secrets we are unearthing one by one—sorting through lies and terrible misunderstandings like a hand groping for a golden nugget in a rattlesnake's nest—may be authentic secrets of history and our own human nature." The main character in Sophie's Choice is Stingo, a young southern man who has moved to New York City after the war. He struggles to become a writer. Along the way he meets Sophie, a beautiful Polish woman whose wrist bears the grim tattoo of a concentration camp, and her Jewish love, Nathan. Nathan is strange and unstable. Most of the time he seems normal, but he can also be wild and violent. Sophie is deeply in love with Nathan, and unable to detach herself even when he is cruel to her. Stingo somehow connects with both of them. And more so to Sophie, who starts sharing details about her life with him. Even things she keeps secret from Nathan. Much of what she tells concerns the infamous death camp of Auschwitz and the evil things that took place there. The stories Sophie tells are hard to read. They are the kind of stories that can make you cry. Her suffering was terrible, beyond imaginable in many ways, but even so there were others who were treated far worse. Sophie's story and her choices are extremely tough. You should perhaps also be warned that there is some quite graphic sexuality in the novel. Whether it should be called pornography or not, is hard to say. The sex stories to some extent serve to keep the story bearable for the reader, as a book just about Sophie's tale would be very hard to get through. Styron's writing style is very clever and original. He alternates between points of view and changes styles to tell the story in ways which reflect situations and emotions. The novel is beautiful yet heartbreaking, and at times it even manages to be funny – a true literary masterpiece, and in its way a strong tale of survival and the Holocaust as well. |
Søk på LesergledeSøk på netttetSiste 10 bokanmeldelserThe Nearest Exit, by Olen Steinhauer The Rembrandt Affair, by Daniel Silva Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy Sophie's Choice, by William Styron Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley Das Boot: The Boat, by Lothar-Günther Buchheim Falketårnet, av Erik Fosnes Hansen Delta of Venus, av Anias Nin Juvikfolket, av Olav Duun |
occurring in the late summer of 1831. In a remote section of southeastern Virginia, the only effective, sustained revolt in the annals of American Negro slavery took place. The revolt was led by a remarkable Negro preacher named Nat Turner. He was an educated slave who felt himself divinely ordained to annihilate all the white people in the region.
Styron, of course, takes liberties with the historical Nat Turner. Nat Turner is a man whose life is undocumented, and so Styron created a life. And the book is on the whole fairly sympathetic to Turner, at the same time as it does not express such sentiments concerning Turner’s thoughts and ideas.
, 
, and 
. See also 
