Books which caused you to raise your eyebrows
Which books have caused you to raise your eyebrows?
(Discusses A Town Like Alice, Tom Brown's School Days and Jane Eyre).
I am thinking mostly books written some time ago, although not necessarily. For example, I was slightly surprised by some of the casual racism in A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute, which I still think is a good book. I was also surprised by chastity of the protagonists.
I was very surprised by Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes. I did not think that was a great book, but it was an interesting one. Attitudes have certainly changed a lot since those days. I doubt health and safety would sanction some of the fairground attractions. What seemed like childish high-jinks or acceptable pass-times would be looked on very doubtfully these days. On the other hand, the religiosity of some of the characters was also surprising. It would seem laughable now, but apparently not then.
Another book that surprised me recently was Jane Eyre. What took me aback was the short life expectancy. It was just assumed. Death in childhood was commonplace, I knew, but it is still disturbing to hear it described. Even if you reached adulthood, it seemed you could not count on living more than ten years, twenty years at most. When Jane is considering going to India, she thinks it is almost certain death. That was very surprising considering that many British people obviously did decide to go there.
However, even more recent books do not seem entirely up to speed. Kurt Vonnegut obviously considered himself progressive and enlightened, but his books did contain some Mad Men like sexism. He didn't seem to be aware of it.
