Social injustice
Social Misery
Because I am born in a city of miners, what comes to my mind is the situation of miners and children in mines in the 19th century during the industrialization period. It is why I quoted Zola on the industry page: I have been raised with horror stories of children disappearing in slagheaps and turning to ashes. Other stories of the dark days are found with Victor Hugo (Les Misérables) and in all Charles Dickens (a good start is Great Expectations).
19th century authors such as Dickens, Hugo, Dumas, Feval all came on when public schools were coming of age and almost everybody learned to read: it is one requirement of evolving societies. All the great dictionaries date from that period. The way people read was from the newspaper, not buying books; they followed their favorite stories in serials. Most writers were paid by the line by their newspaper. As a result, the stories are long, complicated, digressing and not "taut" and reviewed by professional editors as they are today. Keep that in mind and enjoy taking your time. Alternatively, buy abridged versions and do not tell.
Vincent Van Gogh started in life wanting to be a preacher, and tried to live poor like his poor parishioners. For instance, he warmed himself by stuffing newspapers under his shirt in winter. Parishioners, of course, wanted a preacher that would look like a bourgeois. You get a look at the early drawings*** of Van Gogh, you learn a lot on social issues.
Light in August*** by William Faulkner: on racial hatred and religious fanaticism in the South. The book is filled with Christian symbolism and has been largely studied from that point of view, from analyzing the number of chapters to parallels with Jesus life story.
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath*** depicts the end of the American Dream (on migrant labor and the Dust Bowl).
Slavery, colonialism, consequences
We have here a habit of concentrating on America's sins. What about looking elsewhere? There was, still is, no paradise. Let us start with a 19th century book about Indonesia, coffee and the Dutch colonization. Here comes a great European book, very rewarding after you patiently follow the first 50 pages: Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company*** by Multatuli. It is about people, not ideology.
From the French Caribbean come the strong books of Simone and Andre Schwarz-Bart. One of the most extraordinary couple of French literature, Simone (from the Guadeloupe) and Andre (a Polish-French who lost his parents in the Holocaust) published sometimes together and sometimes separately.
A Woman Named Solitude*** by Andre Schwartz-Bart is the story of a slave named Solitude, born as a result of the rape of her mother during the pariade, a ritual rape feast organized by sailors onboard slave ships. The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart is a tribute to Black women through generations of misery.
From Nigeria a more difficult but great book, by Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart***
During the colonial times and beyond, it was common for pedophiles and gay men to visit the colonies in search of cheap victims. Although I do not know anything of their private lives, I always cringe when reading of the travels of some of the most well known authors: Pierre Loti, Andre Gide, Josef Winkler, Paul Bowles. It is just a reminder for me that many victims of society have their own victims. I am however grateful to musician/writer Paul Bowles for beautifully translating and adapting the stories of Driss Ben Hamed Charhadi A Life Full of Holes***. My life has been full of holes too (just a different kind of holes)! The book shows misery, describes hunger in the most striking way, the difficulty of getting married if you have no money (in a culture where you still buy your wife) and the weight of religious passivity.
In the States, there is plenty of great reads on the subject, amongst others
Booker Washington: Up from Slavery
Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Barack Obama Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
How is our society now? Look at the most progressive part: the arts. We certainly made progress: Indians are now "good guys", it had been old-fashioned for two generations to show them as bad guys, but we still have to see an Indian broker or pharmacist in a good movie. Many black people have good roles, but Arabs have the short end of the stick. I am grateful that the girl who works in a bar does not have to die at the end of the movie any more: she did until 1960 when she finally married John Wayne in North to Alaska which is not remembered as the progressive film it was, long before Pretty Woman gave bad ideas to good girls. For the first time, we see people working in movies; It used to be farmers and doctors, but you rarely saw people actually working in movie; think of the TV series Dallas: so many episodes and not a day of work for anybody. We even have movies on the workplace: it is at most one generation old. Finally, I think it is significant that we did not give orders to protect museums in Iraq and let looting reign. These museums testified of the birth of writing for humanity.
Well, it is where we are and what we are: a democracy in progres.
Holocaust
Diary of a Young Girl ***by Anne Frank. Anne Frank was a young typical Dutch girl who started to write her diary when she was 13 years old and ended up being killed by the Nazis for no reason at all. It is a beautiful read.
The last of the Just ***by Andre Schwartz-Bart is based on the legend that for every generation 36 Jews take the weight of the world sufferings and die in sacrifice. The story starts in 1105 and ends up with the holocaust. It should not been interpreted (as some stupid critics did) in a literal way as if the author was explaining and somehow justifying the pogroms. The image is symbolic, the text is a Lament, the subject is: where there is evil, is there a God?
Elie Wiesel Night
Women
You are on your own for reading feminist literature, because I am a member of the MWAL, the Movement of Women Already Liberated (and yes, I just made that up).
There is an illuminating text of linguistic called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff where you find, amongst other delights, a list of words meaning making love. It is very revealing.
Also worth reading is the classic Flatland ***by Edwin Abbott Abbott (you need to get the Princeton edition with an introduction by Thomas Banchoff). In a two-dimensional world, women are described as dangerous second-class citizen. There is constant humor in the book: you got to read it with your Victorian spectacles.
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