Top 5 Classic Books | The Odyssey Online
Start writing a post
Arts Entertainment

5 Classic Novels You May Not Have Had Assigned To You In School

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed." - Ernest Hemingway.

736
5 Classic Novels You May Not Have Had Assigned To You In School
Flickr

The books compiled on this list are not books that came out recently. In fact, some of them are very old books. For some, they are ancient. However, they all have that timeless factors that only the best novels seem to have. After all, books are not a way to relate to the world and it's problems--sometimes its happiness--but to also find solutions to them...or sometimes we just read to escape for who couldn't love a book that simply encapsulates you with its vibrant language and thundering moral commentary?

1. Clockwork Orange

Pixabay

Though often looked over in favor of the novel 1984, Clockwork Orange is a book that captures a farcical social order through wordplay! Who could definitely not like that? These words seem to capture the narrator, a 15 year old delinquent named Alex, in a world of corrupted values, violence, and infantile indulgence, but the main question posed by the book sis this: In a world where evil can be chosen freely and without consequences, is goodness still compelling?

2. Lolita

Flickr

When you are a middle-aged, cynical, and borderline nihilistic man, who cannot love young, hopeful, pretty girls? Right? RIGHT? Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, is the story about a man named Humbert Humbert and his affair with Dolores Haze, a 12 year old girl. Vile and repugnant as you can imagine it to be, Lolita manages to be an endlessly angry, tragic, and twisted epic-- though it almost got buried in drafts by the author.

3. Native Son

Penguin Books

Richard Wright, author of Native Son, wrote a book about Bigger Thomas, a black man in a bloodthirsty 1930s white society, and how he grotesquely murders a young, white girl. This novel explores the effects of racism on the black community and how that violent murder is a sort of retroactive act of will through passages of social preachment, taking Native Son to places literature hadn't been taken yet.

4. Their Eyes Were Watching God

Goodreads

Janie Crawford, a black woman, has outlived three husbands and horrendous weather, and hence it becomes a tale about the bravery and strength of colored women in a world where bad men and equally bad weather can be found by the dozen. Filled with beautiful prose and the enchanting symbolism of the thunderous storms, Zora Neale Hurston wrote a timeless tale in which time cannot affect it.

5. To The Lighthouse

AlmaBooks

Who doesn't love their family? In Virginia Woolf's novel, family dynamics is a theme explored and the effect of time within themselves and the others, showing the fluidity of the human emotional spectrum and the desire to embark on epic voyages--sometimes spiritual--that don't guarantee an even better destination. Packed with vivid prose and stunning characterization, To The Lighthouse is definitely a novel to remember.

These books, if read, can change your whole perspective of our world and the way we function within it. Maybe that's why they are called classics after all.

Report this Content
This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
Entertainment

Disney magic for New Year!

The "Happiest Place on Earth" has a lot of characters with some pretty great advice.

4523
Disney magic kingdom castle on new years
StableDiffusion

Disney movies are well known and very popular in today's world. Although many people appreciate the plot and the storyline, not many people appreciate the wisdom these characters possess. Every Disney movie has unique advice that can be applied to everyday life. Here are 11 Disney quotes to help start your New Year off right:

Keep Reading...Show less
Lifestyle

40 Gift Ideas for the Indecisive

It's a time of love, family, memory-making, and gift-giving. But also a time of stressing over the perfect gift.

118929
Christmas gifts around a tree
StableDiffusion

It's officially December. There is less than a month of 2024, and I still feel like yesterday was summer. Now comes the merriest time of the year, the Christmas season.

Everyone has been waiting for this time of year since mid-October (which is way too early, in my opinion) or before. It's a time of love, family, memory-making, and gift-giving. A lot of times when I ask friends and family what they want, I get a lot of "I don't know" or "I don't care."

Keep Reading...Show less
Lifestyle

Bucket List To Live In The Now

Find excitement in your life and start exploring wherever you are right here, right now.

964
mu bucket list

I was sitting at my cubicle, now that I am an adult, looking at the rain pouring down on the windowsill, bumming on life, wishing for the rain to just stop for a full day.

There are moments where we count down the hours until work is over and how many more days till the weekend, and this many weeks until something exciting. Or something like that? Well, I was bumming because my next day off from work is not until Memorial Day weekend, which is not until the end of May. And since this is my first year out of college being a “real person,” I am totally missing the winter, spring and summer breaks. I am sure all of us have felt this way even if just for a hot minute…

Keep Reading...Show less
Entertainment

11 Ways To Survive Finals As Told By Leslie Knope

Because you know you're going to be stressed out, and Leslie knows exactly how to survive.

705
Everything hurts and I'm dying

So finals are on their way. That's right everybody, finals are about to start.

But hey, don't panic. Start getting your affairs in order and prepare for a week of hell. Here's a few things Leslie Knope wants you to do to make your finals week just a little bit less stressful:

Keep Reading...Show less
Student Life

10 Signs You Go To Kent State

You know you're a true Kent Stater when...

790
Kent State University
Great Value Colleges

If you go to or went to Kent State, then more than likely you have done or will do some of these things.

1. You’ve slipped and fallen on the ice at least once.

The winters at Kent are brutal, and while the heated sidewalks and some great snow boots are always a help, there’s no chance you won’t bust it on the ice at least once in your four plus years at school.

Keep Reading...Show less

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Facebook Comments