Extraordinary Men
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Remember the movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? All the characters were famous novel heros/anti-heros..... and I'm personally quite facinated with some of the original stories....
so bringing some summaries of what the original stories are about... -
This sounds intriguing... I'll prob go hunt for the book... keke
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (part 1)
As Basil Hallward artfully put the finishing touches on his full-length portrait of an extraordinarily beautiful young man, Lord Henry Wotton paid him a call. Lord Henry much admired the painting and desired to meet the subject. The artist objected, knowing the poisonous influence of which Lord Henry was capable; young Dorian Gray was his ideal of purity and had inspired Basil to the most expressive art of his life.
Just then, in walked Dorian Gray. Against Hallward's wishes, the two met, and Dorian was immediately taken by Lord Henry's fascinating words, presence and wittiness. Henry flattered Dorian with his comments on the virtues of beauty, the charms of youth, and expressed his sadness at the thought that such youth should fade into the ugliness of age. This caused Dorian to plummet into melancholy.
Seeing his portrait for the first time, Dorian gasped at his own beauty. He lamented that the picture would mock him his entire life; age would indeed steal his color and grace: "I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything ... Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself." Then he wished instead that the picture might grow old while he remained forever young: "I would give everything. I would give my soul for that!" Alarmed by these passions in the young man, Hallward attempted to destroy the painting, but Dorian stopped him and had it taken home that very evening.
After that first meeting, Dorian and Lord Henry became fast friends and frequent partners at local theatres. Henry presented Dorian with a gift - a book about a young man's passions, sins and vileness. Dorian became captivated by its plot. For years he leafed through its pages - and the book became an entrenched, tragic guide in the life of Dorian Gray.
Dorian met and fell madly in love with Sibyl Vane, a beautiful and talented actress who was portraying Juliet in a cheap theatrical troupe. But the night Dorian invited Lord Henry and Basil Hallward to meet his new love, her performance was lifeless. She was hissed and booed by even the uneducated audience. Afterward, she joyfully explained to the disappointed Dorian that her love for her "Prince Charming," - as she knew him - had transformed her from a mere actress into a real woman. Dorian coldly shunned her, admitting that his love for her had been killed, and vowed that he would see her no more.
On returning home, he was surprised to notice that the face in his painting had changed. A touch of cruelty now lined the mouth. His wish that the painting might be seared with suffering and guilt while his own face was left untarnished, had been granted!
But now he pitied the portrait and resolved to live a pure life. He would return to Sibyl and marry her. He would see no more of the selfish Lord Henry. Dorian wrote Sibyl a passionate letter and fell asleep, confident that he would make amends to Sybil the following day.
However, that next morning Lord Henry brought bad news: in grief, Sibyl had killed herself during the night. Lord Henry charmed the devastated youth, urging him to imagine the tragedy as a drama, with Juliet or Ophelia the victims, not the flesh-and-blood Sibyl.
No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part ... To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays ... But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vatic. She was less real than they are.
Now Dorian forgot his good resolutions. If fate would deal unjustly with him, he, in turn, determined to give himself up to a life of pleasure and let the portrait bear the burden of his corrupting soul. Eternal youth, wild joys, infinite passion would be his. -
The Picture of Dorian Gray (part II)
Horrified at Dorian's lack of remorse and feeling, Basil Hallward tried to reason with him. But Dorian was unmoved. He continued to guard the secret of the portrait from Basil, first covering it a with a sheet, and later moving it to an upstairs room, unopened since his grandfather had died mere five years earlier. Separated by this chasm of secrecy and scorn that Dorian had created, the two could no longer be friends.
For years Dorian lived in cruel joy; yet he kept the look of one unspotted by the world. He derived pleasure from comparing his own virtuous face with the gruesome one appearing on the canvas. Dorian consorted both with the town's thieves and its social elite. He collected jewels, fine clothing and art. And when he would appear on the street, "men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass him with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though they were determined to discover his secret."
At age thirty-eight Dorian was again visited by his old friend Basil Hallward. It was on the eve of Hallward's departure for an extended stay in Paris. He came in hopes of persuading Dorian to finally change his ways, hardly believing the rumors concerning the young man's evil deeds.
By this time, Dorian had become totally corrupt, as vile and ugly as the figure in the portrait.
Through some strange quickening of inner life, the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away. The rotting corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful.
One day, in spite, Dorian invited the elderly Hallward up to the room to see his filthy soul, face-to-face. As he drew back the curtain from the portrait, Hallward stood aghast at the hideous figure on the canvas; yes, there was his own signature, that one time stood out beneath the portrait of a handsome young lad. Basil immediately begged Dorian to pray and repent. Instead, Dorian seized a knife and plunged it again and again into the painter's neck and back. Then, relocking the door, he left the slumping figure in the room, feeling sure that Basil would not be missed for months. After all, no one knew he had come to the house, and he was expected to be in Paris from that night forward.
A few days later, Dorian coerced a former acquaintance, a chemist, Alan Campbell, to destroy Basil's body using chemicals and fire. He threatened to expose a past crime Campbell had committed if he refused. That night red blood stained the hands of the loathsome image on the portrait.
Late one evening, as Dorian was leaving an opium den, a drunken woman called him "Prince Charming." A sailor standing nearby turned out to be Sibyl Vane's brother, James. Overhearing this familiar nickname, James seized Dorian with the intent to kill him and avenge his sister's death. But Dorian's youthful appearance and smooth tongue saved him; when the crime had occurred Dorian could have been no more than a mere infant. When James returned to the den however, the woman swore before God that Dorian was indeed the ruinous Prince Charming. After destroying her life too, he had once boasted that he had sold his soul to the Devil years earlier in exchange for a beautiful face; and he had not changed in appearance since then.
For months Dorian imagined himself being hunted - tracked down by a vengeful sailor. His mask of youth had saved his life, but not his conscience.
Then, during a hunt at Dorian's country home, an unknown man in sailor's garb was accidentally killed. Dorian rushed to where the body was taken and there discovered James Vane, dead. At last, they were all dead: Sibyl; Alan Campbell - a mysterious suicide victim; and Basil Hallward, though, lately, people were inquiring about his strange disappearance. Only Dorian knew the truth. But now he would welcome death for himself; his only terror lay ill the waiting.
In his final, poignant visit with Lord Henry, Dorian admitted that, despite his unchanged features, he no longer thought himself handsome - his zest for life was shattered. "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Lord Henry righteously quoted. Dorian begged Henry never to be the devil's advocate again, never again to poison another soul with his book or his evil thoughts.
Disheartened, alone, and longing to be at peace with himself, Dorian contemplated his situation. Should he confess and atone for his evils? No, the only evidence against him was that horrid, hidden pictorial record of his debauchery. "A new life! That is what he wanted."
Resolving to kill that "monstrous soul-life" in the portrait, Dorian hurried upstairs, seized the same knife he had used on poor Basil, and stabbed the picture. A horrible cry brought the house servants creeping up to the barred room. Finally gaining entrance, they found upon tile wall the splendid portrait of their master, as fresh and beautiful as the day it was painted. On the floor was a dead man, "a withered, wrinkled, and loathsome man," with a knife in his heart. Only the rings on his fingers revealed his identify. It was Dorian Gray, who, in a miscarried struggle to kill his conscience, had killed himself. -
yah yah... Mina Harker is a woman, not a man... then again, think there's some movie about Van Helsing that's coming to the screens??
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Dracula is an epistolary novel, meaning that is composed from letters, journal and diary entries, telegrams, and newspaper clippings. Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray (later Mina Harker), and Dr. Seward write the largest contributions to the novel‹although the writings of Lucy Westenra and Abraham Van Helsing constitute some key parts of the book. The novel is meant to have a slightly journalistic feel, as it is a harrowing account supposedly written by the people who witnessed the book's events.
A young Englishman named Jonathan Harker travels through Transylvania on a business trip. He is there to aid Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman, in buying an English estate. His journey into the remote Eastern European landscape is fearsome, although initially he is charmed by the Count's generosity and intelligence. Gradually, he comes to realize that he is a prisoner in Dracula's castle, and that the Count is a demonic being who plans to prey on the teeming masses of London. Dracula leaves him to die at the hands of three female vampires, but Jonathan attempts a desperate escape. . .
Meanwhile, in England, Jonathan's fiancée Mina visits her best friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy has recently been proposed to by three men‹Arthur Holmwood, Dr. Seward, and Quincey Morris. She chooses Arthur to be her happy fiancé. Mina and Lucy vacation together at Whitby, a quaint seaside town. While they are there, a Russian vessel is shipwrecked. A large dog leaps from the wreck and runs away. All of its crew are missing save one dead captain. The ship was carrying fifty boxes of earth from Dracula's castle. Despite the wreck, the boxes are delivered as ordered. Lucy begins to exhibit strange behavior: she sleepwalks often, and she seems to be growing paler and weaker. Eerie things happen‹one night, Mina finds her unconscious in the cemetery, as a figure with glowing eyes bends over her. The figure disappears as Mina comes closer, but night after night strange events continue and Lucy grows thinner and paler with each passing day.
Word comes from Budapest that Jonathan has been found, sick with brain fever. He can remember nothing of his travels in Transylvania. Mina goes to nurse him back to health and to help him make the trip back to England. When she arrives, they marry immediately. He gives her his diary but is afraid to read it; she seals the diary and promises that she will never read it unless it is for his sake.
Back in England, Lucy has returned to her home in London. Arthur, fearful for her health, asks Dr. Seward to try to figure out what is wrong with her. Seward is baffled by her illness, and calls in the aid of his old mentor, the brilliant Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Van Helsing seems to know from the beginning what he might be up against. He tries to use various charms, as well as constant blood transfusions, to keep Lucy alive. Again and again, his attempts are thwarted by a mixture of Dracula's cunning and bad luck. Lucy's mother is killed by a heart attack during one of Dracula's more dramatic plots to get to Lucy, and Lucy dies a few days later. Arthur's father dies at about this time. Van Helsing takes possession of Lucy's diary and correspondence, which lead him to make contact with Mina Harker.
Meanwhile, the Harkers have returned to England. Peter Hawkins, Jonathan's boss, dies suddenly‹leaving the Harkers a considerable fortune. One day while they are in London, Jonathan actually sees the Count‹who has been restored to his youth by his feeding‹and although Jonathan cannot really remember things clearly, he has a nervous attack and falls unconscious. When he comes to, he cannot remember what upset him. Disturbed by this behavior, Mina decides to read the journal. The contents of the journal baffle her, and she wonders if her husband was already in the throes of brain fever. When Van Helsing comes to visit her to ask questions about Lucy, Mina is so impressed by the man that she gives him Jonathan's journal. It provides the missing link for Van Helsing, who now knows how the vampire came to England.
Mysterious attacks against children have begun in the area where Lucy was buried. Van Helsing shows Seward, Quincey, and Arthur that the cause is Lucy, who is now one of the undead. Arthur is the one who gives his fiancée peace by staking her through the heart. The four men pledge to destroy Dracula next.
Mina and Jonathan join with the men, and using the asylum of Dr. Seward as their headquarters, they plan to destroy Dracula for good. The fifty boxes, now scattered in and around London, are the key. The boxes are full of earth made sacred by Dracula's family, and he cannot survive unless he sleeps in them for at least part of the day. The men begin to hunt down the boxes' whereabouts. But Renfield, one of Dr. Seward's patients, works as Dracula's henchman, and with his aid the vampire is able to feed on Mina in secret. By the time the men learn what is going on, they are too late: they burst into the room one night to find Jonathan unconscious and Mina being forced to drink blood from Dracula's chest. Now, after enough time has passed she will become one of the undead‹unless they can destroy Dracula first.
They set to work, sterilizing (with holy wafer) all but one of the boxes in one day. Dracula, in the last box, flees back to Transylvania to rest and regroup for another attack. The band of friends tracks him down, splitting up so that Van Helsing and Mina will go to purge the castle while the four young men track the last box. Van Helsing and Mina succeed, killing the three female vampires and using holy wafer to render the castle uninhabitable for the undead. They then regroup with the others, and all together they surround the gypsies who are transporting Dracula in his coffin. During the struggle against the gypsies, Quincey receives a mortal wound. Jonathan and Quincey deliver the killing blows to Dracula just as the sun is setting. -
kinokuniya sells these classics in small leatherbound books (which look pretty good on your mantlepiece) but kinda expensive to collect them all.
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yah van helsing is coming out soon
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Hugh Jackman!!
/squeals
/fans herselfOriginally posted by HENG@:yah van helsing is coming out soon -
you want a cheaper option? go to popular bookstore.. think they still have plenty of unsold stock on these classics and other authors too... in penguin paperbacks... selling at $3 plus per book I believe... I got almost all my Jane Austens by hunting down the books in popular...Originally posted by JLennon:kinokuniya sells these classics in small leatherbound books (which look pretty good on your mantlepiece) but kinda expensive to collect them all.
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Borders, here i come to browse...
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yup... I saw the trailer and I want to *swoon* too...Originally posted by choco B:Hugh Jackman!!
/squeals
/fans herself
hehehe -
i bought a really thick "The Count of Monte Cristo"... was only $5+ at the bookstore in citylink. guess people these days know less about appreciating classics....Originally posted by KittynMeow:you want a cheaper option? go to popular bookstore.. think they still have plenty of unsold stock on these classics and other authors too... in penguin paperbacks... selling at $3 plus per book I believe... I got almost all my Jane Austens by hunting down the books in popular... 
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don't hyperventilate!Originally posted by choco B:Hugh Jackman!!
/squeals
/fans herself -
I don't blame them because some were written 2 centuries ago and the vocab plus sentence structure can be tougher to understand... not to mention the cultural references that we are not familiar with in old time England and France...... kekeOriginally posted by HENG@:i bought a really thick "The Count of Monte Cristo"... was only $5+ at the bookstore in citylink. guess people these days know less about appreciating classics.... -
well i admit my visit to marseille where a part of the sotry was set in helps. i even visited the island fort prison where the main character was supposedly held in the story. but i dun think the sentence structure is that difficult to understand really. anyways i enjoyed the book greatly.Originally posted by KittynMeow:I don't blame them because some were written 2 centuries ago and the vocab plus sentence structure can be tougher to understand... not to mention the cultural references that we are not familiar with in old time England and France...... keke -
tsk tsk tsk... there you go again... *shake head*Originally posted by HENG@:well i admit my visit to marseille where a part of the sotry was set in helps. i even visited the island fort prison where the main character was supposedly held in the story. but i dun think the sentence structure is that difficult to understand really. anyways i enjoyed the book greatly. -
okokOriginally posted by KittynMeow:tsk tsk tsk... there you go again... *shake head*
I find it VERY difficult.
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*abish*Originally posted by HENG@:okok
I find it VERY difficult. -
always get *abish* by u...Originally posted by KittynMeow:*abish*
mmm... i like it.
*submissive masochist mode on* -
The dangers of going Schizo....
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The book begins with two men, Mr. Utterson and his cousin Mr. Richard Enfield, on a walk in London. Although the two men are initially silent, after passing a mysterious cellar door in a basement, Mr. Enfield launches into a strange occurrence that centered around the door. Late one night, while he was on his way home, he chanced upon a deformed, short man who trampled a girl in the street who was on her way to get a doctor. The girl's family and Mr. Enfield catch the mysterious man and instead of getting the police, they decide to blackmail him and force him to give the girl's family money. Agreeable, the mysterious man disappears into the same cellar door and comes out with a check bearing not his own name, but that of the respectable Dr. Jekyll. Surprisingly, the check was not a forgery.
After hearing the story, Utterson returns to his home where he removes Dr. Jekyll's mysterious will, which he recently filed with Mr. Utterson. Jekyll's will stated that in case of his death, his substantial estate will pass to Mr. Hyde, but even stranger, in case of his disappearance for more than three months, Hyde will assume Jekyll's life without delay. He also realizes that the mysterious door is connected, in an L shape way, to Jekyll's home. Utterson decides that Jekyll is being blackmailed by Hyde and seeks to search to see his face in order to understand why. After tracking him down, he is initially civil but turns angry when Utterson proceeds in the conversation.
One year later, Hyde murders Sir Danvers Carew with a cane. With help from Utterson, the police find Hyde's apartment ransacked. After leaving, Utterson proceeds to Jekyll's and confronts him for harboring a murder. Jekyll claims that he is done with Hyde and promises that he has nothing left to do with him. He does, however, have a farewell note from Hyde. Utterson examines the note and his clerk, Mr. Guest, later discovers that the handwriting from the note matches a dinner invitation written by Dr. Jekyll. Angrily, Utterson assumes that Jekyll has forged a letter for a murderer.
More time passes, and we learn that although Hyde has not been located, Dr. Jekyll becomes more and more social until one day Utterson attended a dinner party at Jekyll's where Lanyon was present. Shortly there after, Jekyll secluded himself and Dr. Lanyon fell ill and died. After his death, Dr. Lanyon left Jekyll a letter than instructed him not to read it for ten years. After these mysterious events, Enfield and Utterson again walk by the mysterious door. Through one of the windows, they witness Jekyll having a frightening seizure through the windows of the cellar.
About a week later, Poole, Jekyll's butler, approaches Utterson, who is afraid because Jekyll has locked himself in the basement and the only things that hear is strange sounds, including crying. The only communication that has come is letters desperately asking for a specific type of salt. Utterson follows Poole to Jekyll's house and breaks down a red cabinet where the body of Hyde is found. In the laboratory, the two discover a large envelope addressed to Mr. Utterson. Inside, Jekyll urges Utterson to read the package from Lanyon and if he wished to know more, read the further description that Jekyll provided within the envelope.
Lanyon's narrative begins by describing a strange letter he received from Henry Jekyll, the night after a dinner party at Jekyll's residence. The letter urges Lanyon to go to Jekyll's house and get the contents of a drawer in the laboratory. Afterwards, a strange caller will come to Lanyon's house in Jekyll's name and recover these same items, powder, a phial, and a paper book. Lanyon does as much, thinking that Jekyll is crazy, and Mr. Hyde appears at the subscribed time. He gives Hyde the ingredients; Hyde mixes them into a potion, and after drinking it transforms into Dr. Jekyll. This shock, the pure evilness of the situation, was what brought about Lanyon's subsequent death.
After reading the account of Dr. Lanyon, Utterson then reads Jekyll's own account of his failed experiment. Jekyll believed that the soul is made up of two separate distinctions: evil and the good. These two separate beings live in continuous and inherent conflict with each other. Slowly, Jekyll begins an experiment where he makes two potions and transforms himself into Edward Hyde. Shortly after becoming Hyde, he drinks a second potion and once again becomes Henry Jekyll. This experiment begins Jekyll's exploration of his other self, a side that he freely explores and feels no remorse for the negative and evil actions of Mr. Hyde.
For some months, this behavior continued until one moment, "I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde." Alerted that the character of Hyde might irrevocably stay, Jekyll chose to give up the freedom of Hyde and for two months his decision held weight. Unfortunately, he was tortured with Hyde's longing and he once again took the potion and brutally murdered Carew. Because of the manhunt for Hyde, he swore this character off forever and set out to try to remedy the evil.
This, however, failed because Hyde was an irrevocable part of Jekyll's character. One night, while contemplating the deeds of Hyde, Jekyll was once again transformed into Edward Hyde. Realizing that he could not return to his house, he sent the letter to Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Poole and went immediately to a hotel. He went home once again but every time he would fall asleep, he would revert to Mr. Hyde. Soon, his potions began to fail to work and he ran out of the salt needed for the potion. Hyde launches a desperate search across London for this potion, but was unsuccessful. In the end, Hyde kills himself and therefore lets both Jekyll and Hyde free. -
The Invisible Man (Part I)
The novel opens with a Prologue describing the depressed state of the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the novel. He is an invisible man, he proclaims, and has taken to living unknown underground, sucking electricity from the state of New York into his many light bulbs that he has hung in his lair. The novel is to be the story of how he came to be in this position.
As a young boy, the narrator overhears the last words of his dying grandfather, whose message lingers with him through high school. He is struck with this idea when he is asked to give his college oration to the town's most honored white men. At the fancy ballroom where he attends the occasion, he is ushered into the battle royal with the other boys hired for the evening's entertainment. First however the boys are brought into the room where a naked woman dances. The boys are next blindfolded and pitted against each other in a boxing ring. After several fights, only the narrator and the largest boy, Tatlock, remain and they are told they must fight each other for a prize.
The next stage requires the boys to grab for gold coins on a rug which turns out to be electrified. The narrator is finally allowed to give his oration and is awarded a scholarship to a renowned black college. At college, he is first faced with the disillusionment which will overcome him by the end. The memory is painful as he relates the day he was given the honor of driving an old white trustee, Mr. Norton, around the campus. The drive goes smoothly for a while although Mr. Norton's questions surprise the narrator. Norton sees every student at the college as part of his fate. He also welcomes a chance to explore parts of the surrounding town . Mistakenly, the narrator drives Norton into a poor district of black sharecroppers and Norton is intrigued by a disgraced member of the community, Jim Trueblood, who is rumored to have impregnated both his wife and daughter. Trueblood gives a long description of the dream which made him commit the act of incest and resulted in his wife trying to kill him. After this episode, Norton feels faint and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day brothel in order to find whisky to revive him. Mental patients visiting the bar unfortunately rise up against their attendant, trapping the narrator and Norton in the middle of the fight. Falling unconscious, Norton is revived by a former doctor who speaks to him of the narrator's invisibility. Thinking the doctor insane, he and the narrator finally return to the college where the narrator is punished for his treatment of Mr. Norton. The college president, Dr. Bledsoe, relates to the narrator that he should have only showed the trustee what the college would have wanted him to see. The narrator is expelled and sent to New York with seven sealed letters to wealthy employers with the promise that he can return as a paying student in the fall. Though stunned, the narrator decides to take advantage of the opportunity to work for an important person in New York City.
Arriving in Harlem, he is dazed but excited. He rents a room at the Men's House in Harlem and sets out the next morning to start handing out his letters. That process goes smoothly although he is only able to give the letters to secretaries and is told the employers will contact him. After not hearing anything, the narrator becomes suspicious of the secretaries and holds the last letter back, asking first to meet with the employer, Mr. Emerson, upon which he could personally give him the letter. The narrator's efforts are once more interceded, though, as Mr. Emerson's son takes the letter from him at the office and attempts to talk him out of returning to the college or speaking to his father. Finally, the son finally shows the narrator the letter from Dr. Bledsoe which the narrator had been told not to look at. The narrator is horrified to read what is written. Bledsoe writes explicitly to the employers that the narrator will never be allowed back to the school and asks them to see to it in the meantime that he will not be able to return to school as a paying student. Disillusioned, the narrator leaves the office utterly humiliated and terribly angry. He decides to take a job at a paint factory in order to be able to plan out his revenge on Dr. Bledsoe.
The idea of revenge is jumbled during the one long day he spends working at the paint plant. His boss, Mr. Kimbro, is very brusque and demanding, putting the narrator immediately on the job with very few instructions and the order not to ask questions. When the narrator mixes the wrong ingredient into the paint because he is afraid to ask Kimbro, he is fired from that job and handed to another boss, Mr. Brockway, who works as the engineer of sorts. Brockway is paranoid that the narrator is trying to take his job and is thus quite irritable toward him, asking him many questions about his past. They get along agreeably enough until after the narrator returns from retrieving his lunch. In the lockerroom he had run into what he thinks is a union meeting, though we later realize it was a Brotherhood meeting, and it had delayed him. He explains this to Brockway who explodes in anger at his participation in a union and attacks him, refusing to listen to the narrator's explanation. The narrator feels the tension snap inside him and fights off Mr. Brockway. Because of their inattention to the gauges in the room, the tanks burst from the pressure and the narrator is covered in white paint and knocked unconscious.
He swims in and out of consciousness for what seems like days in a plant factory, surrounded by doctors who speak of lobotomies and tests which they would not try on him if he had been a white Harvard student. Desperately clutching consciousness at one point, he is asked his name but is unable to remember it. Finally, the doctors release him from the tubes and machines, saying that he has been saved though he never really knows from what. He is brought to the hospital director before he can leave, where he is told that he can no longer work at the plant but will receive ample compensation. Still foggy, he stumbles back toward the Men's House where he is relieved on his way by a strong, motherly woman named Mary Rambo. The narrator hesitantly agrees to let her take him back to her house where he can rest and revive his spirits. She feeds him and also offers him a place to stay before he returns to the Men's House. Returning to the house after his hospital stay and lowly employment, he feels inferior and realizes he can no longer reside there. After offending a man he first believes is Bledsoe, he is thrown out of the House and takes Mary up on her offer.
Able to pay rent with his compensation money, the narrator lives with Mary for a while in relative quiet. Once the winter comes to New York, the narrator feels restless and takes to wandering streets, still filled with rage toward Bledsoe. After reconnecting with his own identity by eating southern yams sold on the street, he is drawn to an eviction where an old black couple is being thrown out into the cold. A crowd has formed around the defenseless couple who shriek and cry out against the injustice. The scene of dispossession strikes the narrator to the core and he begins to speak to the crowd after the couple is denied the chance to go inside their home and pray. His emotions clashing, he stands in front of the crowd calming them and forming their chaos into an ordered rage. Once the crowd rushes the house, the narrator runs to escape lest the police come after him. Running over rooftops, he is followed by a short man who later approaches him on the street. The man introduces himself as Brother Jack and praises the narrator on his moving oration. He offers him a job with the Brotherhood, taking advantage of his speaking skills. Brushing aside the offer, the narrator later reproaches himself for not getting more details about the job when he is in such debt to Mary. He decides to accept the job in order to pay back Mary, but must stop living with her once he is accepted into the Brotherhood. His first glimpse into the organization is at the party/meeting they bring him to at the Chthonian Hotel. The upscale, mostly white crowd makes him uncomfortable but they all appear friendly and praise his action at the eviction. Brother Jack explains to the narrator that his role will be one of leading the community of Harlem in line with the Brotherhood's teachings, in the manner of Booker T. Washington. Secretly, the narrator vows to follow the example set by the college's founder instead. -
The Invisible Man (Part II)
The narrator leaves Mary's house the next day. In his room that morning, he finds a piggy bank in his room shaped offensively like a black man with overly exaggerated features. After breaking it by accident, he attempts to get rid of it but cannot. He is then sent to Brother Hambro for training, given a new apartment, and a new name. After completing training, the Brothers call him down to Harlem and he is shown the office where he will work, along with Brother Tarp and Brother Clifton, the handsome youth leader. He quickly becomes accustomed to his new work, relishing the ability to inspire the community around him. He and Clifton meet up with Ras the Exhorter, who competes with them for the community's support and chastises them for being traitors to their African race. The two groups fight until the narrator leads them away. Still the narrator feels secure and powerful in his position until he receives an ominous note warning him to move slowly and carefully. Alarmed, he questions Brother Tarp to see if he has any enemies. Tarp reassures him and opens up to him, relating painful parts of his past and giving to him a broken link he has saved from breaking away from a chain gang after nineteen years. Brother Wrestrum also visits on the day of the mystery note, and incites suspicion with the narrator because he seems meddlesome. His idea for a Brotherhood emblem is overshadowed by his attack on the inherently symbolic message of Tarp's chain link. The narrator agrees to be interviewed by a Harlem publication after trying to get them to speak to Clifton.
Weeks later, the narrator is called by the Brotherhood committee to an urgent meeting where he is charged by Wrestrum for attempting to overshadow and dominate the Brotherhood, naming some unknown plot against the Brotherhood and using the article the narrator was interviewed for as evidence. Until the accusations are cleared, the narrator moves downtown to speak on the Woman Question. Frustrated by the move but willing to try it, he meets a married woman who seduces him. The affair stays with him though he does not see her again, as he is frightened that the Brotherhood will find out and use it against him. Soon he is summoned to another emergency meeting which alerts him to Clifton's disappearance and reinstates him in Harlem. Returning to his old post, he finds that much is changed in the short time he has been gone. Tarp and Brother Maceo are gone as well and the spirit in the district is much subdued, as many of the people feel that the Brotherhood has let them down. Realizing he is now out of the Brotherhood loop, he plans to revive the neighborhood sentiment on his own. By chance, he finds Clifton further uptown where Clifton has become a street seller of a dancing, paper Sambo doll. Disgusted and intrigued, the narrator watches the performance and the police chase which follows, ending in the unnecessary killing of Clifton.
He decides to hold a funeral which can serve to unite the community of Harlem around a fallen hero of sorts. Though successful, the Brotherhood is outraged and meets him back in his office, at which point Jack angrily reveals that he has not been hired to think. They order that he continue in the district and send him to Hambro in order to understand the new, less aggressive program.
Thoroughly changed by Clifton's fate and the recent events, the narrator feels very angry toward the Brotherhood and walks around the neighborhood to think. He notices that the district is much more stirred by Clifton's shooting than he had presumed and he is drawn in by Ras to explain the Brotherhood's limited action following the murder. He defends their position and then moves away to buy a disguise so he will not be harmed by any of Ras's men. Surprisingly, due to dark green glasses and a wide hat, people begin to approach him and refer to him as Rinehart. He is able to go unnoticed by Ras but is constantly noticed by others as Rinehart, by lovers and zoot-suiters. Going back to a bar he normally frequented, he is still mistaken for Rinehart and is almost swept along into a fight with Brother Maceo. Later, on the way to Hambro's, the narrator uncovers a church where Rinehart is a reverend. His many identities and obvious manipulation of people's faith disturbs the narrator greatly and he approaches Hambro even more cynical than the Brotherhood left him. Hambro attempts to indoctrinate him into the new program, describing the scientific logistics, but to no avail. The narrator feels he can finally see how the Brotherhood and so many organizations in his life have swindled and manipulated their constituents. Resolved to attack the Brotherhood from the inside, he plans to "yes" the white men to death, referencing his grandfather, and to find a woman whom he can seduce into giving him inside information.
He chooses Sybil as she is vulnerable and married to an important brother, however she surprises him by wanting him to rape her. He escapes the situation when he is called uptown to Harlem for a crisis, although she attempts to tag along. A riot is in action and the narrator is swept along with it, nearly shot, and aids in the arson of an apartment building. The climax of the riot occurs when Ras rides through on a black horse dressed as a chieftain and wants the narrator hanged. Running from Ras' goons, the narrator falls down a manhole and realizes that he must live underground for awhile. The Epilogue is his resolution to reemerge into the world of social responsibility. -
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (where Captain Nemo came from)
The book starts out with a naturalist named Pierre Arronax. HeÂ’s a man that is fascinated by underwater life, and enjoys watching and studying underwater creatures. News spread worldwide about a serpent-like creature, part of the whale family, had been ramming ships and seeking them with ease. Pierre was very interested in this issue.
One day, while Pierre was staying the night in a hotel in Paris, he received a letter. The letter said that the American government was going to build a frigate to chase down and kill the sea monster. The letter also said that they would be more than happy to have him come along. Pierre and his trustworthy servant, Conseil, weÂ’re going to attend this expedition. They packed up the belongings that were necessary, and then headed out to the dock to meet the ship, named the Abraham Lincoln. He gets aboard the ship, and the crew set sail to kill the monster.
On the ship they meet a Canadian harpooner, Ned Land. He is the one who is supposed to kill the monster when they find it. The crew goes on for about four weeks without finding any sign of the monster. Just as they are about to give up, Ned spots the monster! The monster proved to be 100 times faster than the Abraham Lincoln. After chasing the monster for a long period of time, they finally get close to the monster. They thought that maybe the creature was now sleeping, because it wasnÂ’t running from them like the previous times. The monster seemed to be letting off a radiant glow in which nobody had seen before. The crew decides they are going to go for the kill. The men start firing guns at it, and start shooting different weapons trying to kill the beast. Nobody seemed to get close to hitting the beast, and if they were, it wasnÂ’t effecting it. One elderly man steps up with his gun, and he decides that he is going to take a shot at it. The old man proves his marksmanship by hitting the beast dead on. The crew celebrated, but it still showed it wasnÂ’t taking any effect. Ned Land steps up and decides to take a shot as well. He decides to try to create a serious injury to it. He grabs his harpoon, and he then takes the shot. Pierre saw the harpoon soar and then hit the monster, but it made a sound as if it had hit some kind of metal. The light from the animal then went out, and the object could be seen moving at the ship full speed. It then hit the ship, making a big triangular shaped hole in the side of the ship. When the monster had struck the ship it had then threw Pierre overboard.
Pierre sunk about 20 feet into the ocean. He was a pretty good swimmer, and he managed to swim back up to the top. He could see the Abraham Lincoln slowly drifting away. Thoughts were racing through his head about his life, and he was wondering if they had noticed he had been thrown off the ship. He swam desperately trying to make his way to the ship. Pierre started growing tired, and the ship started getting away faster. He started trying to scream help, but it was no use. He grew tired of swimming and just started to sink, but was then grabbed up by the collar by somebody. He coughed up water, and realized that it was his trustworthy assistant Conseil. He thanked him, and tried discussing how they were going to make it. They decided to help each other swim, and take turns pulling each other. The two men swam for a while and the struck something hard. They then realized that they were on top of the giant monster. It turned out that another man was on top of the monster. It was Ned Land. Ned explained to them that the reason that the harpoon and the guns had no effect on the monster was because it seemed to be made of some sort of metal plates. The object rose to the surface a little more. The three men then discovered that it wasnÂ’t a monster at all. They started stomping their feet, and then a man with a mask on came out of the top of it. He started screaming a German language at them. Before they knew it, a group of men grabbed the three men, took them in their ship, and threw them in a dark room.
, Pierre, and Conseil realized that they hadnÂ’t been chasing a monster, and a monster hadnÂ’t been sinking those ships. They realized that it was some sort of submarine. They walked around the dark room. It seemed as if there werenÂ’t any doors in it. They stayed locked up for a while. Then they heard latches and locks opening. There in the door stood two men on each side of a person that seemed to be a captain. They tried speaking to the captain in all kinds of different languages. They were trying to tell them their story, and what had happened. The captain just stood there, then just left. Shortly after, a man walked into the room and served them dinner. Ned hated the place, and attacked a butler trying to get answers. He was pulled off of him, and then he calmed down again.
The men remained locked up in the solitary room for a long time. Then one day the captain walked in and introduced himself. He told the men that his name was captain Nemo, and that they were aboard the Nautilus. He told them that he despised life on land, so he built a submarine, and decided to live underwater. Captain Nemo said that he got all of his necessities from the ocean, and that nobody knew about the submarine except the crew, and the three men now aboard. He said since they attacked his ship and since nobody was supposed to know about it, that they would have to stay aboard the ship forever. Ned Land wasnÂ’t happy. He then lets them roam the ship.
Professor Annorex and Conseil found the ocean depths to be a new world! Many life and death experiences made Ned Land feel uneasy about his new life aboard the Nautilus. He was determined to escape.
Captain Nemo took them to many wonderful places. They experienced hunting and searching for pearls. They went to Viglo Bay, a hollowed out volcano, and the underwater city of Atlantis. Captain Nemo took them to the South Pole, where no man had ever been before. That made Captain Nemo the first person ever there. They almost died leaving the Great Ice Barrier. Then they also got in a fight with a giant squid! The only bad parts about their voyages were that Captain Nemo seemed to be seeking revenge on ships from his own country. He used the powerful Nautilus as a weapon to sink many ships. After ten months of being aboard the Nautilus, they completed their underwater exploration covering 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Later on, a maelstrom hit the Nautilus. The prisoners had then planned their escape. Professor Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land, already in the dinghy ready to escape, were thrown from the submarine. They then floated to safety, and returned to their homeland. The mystery remains. Nobody knows what happened to the Nautilus, and itÂ’s infamous Captain Nemo. -
I tried to find a sufficiently informative version of his story but dem... he's got too many stories to sum it all in one... those of you who want to find out more abt this character... go read the books.
anyway...
Allan Quartermain
Allan Quartermain, famous literary hunter/explorer, is the hero of H. Rider HaggardÂ’s novel King SolomonÂ’s Mines. First published in 1885, that story was followed by sequels including Allan Quartermain, in 1887. The fictitious heroÂ’s exploits were serialized in LongmanÂ’s Magazine before the novel was released in book form.
Conceived in the late 19th century by an Englishman who thought more of colonial conquests than indigenous competence, Allan Quartermain (HaggardÂ’s literary hero) has a Victorian attitude toward the people of Africa where his exploits occur. Alan Moore, author of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, gives Quartermain a very different vision and mission.
About King Solomon's Mines
A classic in its day, this book is one of the more famous titles from the Victorian eras. It is very much a classical boys own adventure typical of the genre.
The story revolves around a group of three Englishmen searching for the lost brother of the three. The story is narrated by another of the three, Allan Quatermain, who is something of a big game hunter type of adventurer. They have a lead that the missing brother is somewhere in the interior of Africa lost on his own quest for King Solomon's mines.
This book is particularly interesting as it is an excellent example of how a fantastical, fictional story actually became the basis for real events in the scramble for Africa. When diamonds were discovered in such abundance in South Africa many people were convinced that the geology of the continent must be conducive to more of the same riches (in fact, exactly the same theories were expressed when gold was also discovered). King Solomon's Mines plays on this theory and many of it's readers would not have found this adventure story in the least bit too fantastical. To emphasise this fact, and the racism implicit within, many people ascribed the discovery of Great Zimbabwe in Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe) as being easier to explain in the terms of the biblical stories of King Solomon rather than to credit any African civilisation for their creation and construction.
This book demonstrates nicely the kind of technological gap that existed between the whites and the blacks. It gives a description of how the white hunters demonstrate their magic tube that speaks to some tribesmen that have never seen a white man before. The exhibtion of firepower on some of the largest animals on the plains would have been as equally impressive in fact as it is here in fiction. The fact that the tribesmen then think that these white men must be from another planet can not have been too far from reality and must have been a source of terror and awe for millions of black Africans.
Reading this book enables the reader to look at the world through a typical nineteenth century mindset. The concepts expressed of fair play and philanthropy make very uncomfortable company with the racist commentary that can be detected throughout the book. This superiority complex of whites over blacks almost seems to find an exception in the budding romance of one of the heroes with a black woman who cares for him when he is injured, and ultimately dies protecting him. However, just in case any nineteenth century reader was concerned at any such interracial behaviour, Haggard reasserts the inadvisability of such an occurence with the heroine utterance: "Can the sun mate with the moon, or the white with the black?" In fact, just in case you miss this warning, he goes on to repeat it later.
It's alway easy to condemn an earlier generation by today's standards. However, it must be remembered that both the author and his audience were very much products of their time. This book, allows you to transport yourself back to that time and judge for yourself the, at times highly complicated, relations between the races.
At the end of the day, this book is an old fashioned adventure novel written for boys and young men. It succeeds admirably in conveying adventure, battle and the hardship of life on the frontier. Reading it will cast light on all sorts of unexpected areas of Imperial study. -
actually Moore himself belongs to the LXG hee hee, check these out:Originally posted by KittynMeow:Alan Moore, author of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
- Batman: The Killing Joke
- V For Vendetta
- Saga of the Swamp Thing
- Watchmen
'nuff said
-
Think after all that, I'm still most intrigued by Dorian Gray.... kekeOriginally posted by True_Xerion:actually Moore himself belongs to the LXG hee hee, check these out:
- Batman: The Killing Joke
- V For Vendetta
- Saga of the Swamp Thing
- Watchmen
'nuff said