I want to share with you one of the most fascinating novels I have ever come across: “Martin Eden” by Jack London.
Plot summary:
We are first introduced to Martin Eden as a poor uneducated sailor. former sailor from a working-class background, who falls in love with the young, bourgeois Ruth and educates himself to become a writer, aiming to win her hand in marriage. But one day he was invited to Morse house, because of Martin meets his paramore Ruth Morse while visiting her house for dinner after he saved her brother's life in a fight in the streets. Martin sees himself for who he really is, an uneducated fool compared to Ruth's almost completed English degree from Berkeley and seeks to better himself through grammar, reading, and ettiquette. Spurred by his growing affection, Martin determines to live by his brain rather than his back: He will be an author. While keeping contact with Ruth, he is forced to take handouts from his sister or work at casual labor when his money runs low and the rejection slips pile up. He moves through many sectors of society, from the upper-middle-class world of the Morses to the petit bourgeois world of his sister to the lower-class environs...Martin is able to pass in polite society thanks to his co-teachers, Ruth and the Public Library and he continues his wooing of Ruth. As Martin grows more and more educated through his work at the library and his educational excursions into the middle class society of Ruth's world he realizes he doesn't fit in his working class world and seeks to escape his world through writing what he classifies as literature and sending it to monthly magazines. As months go by and Martin's amateurish work goes unpublished, he becomes more pretentious and even more broke. He realizes that he is better than Ruth and her world at the same time Ruth realizes she is in love with Martin and they become engaged. As Martin sinks into literary obscurity and