[Alouette]

I thought The Fixer was pretty good. It is based on the true story of Mendel Beilis, who was accused and put on trial for "ritual murder" early in the 20th century. I do not recall the book being so pro-communist. As an Orthodox Jew, I have always believed the communists were much worse than the Czarist regime.

The book I hated most in high school was Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. It's about a guy in Victorian England who goes into a coma and wakes up 100 years later, Rip Van Winkle style, to find himself in a wonderful, utopian Communist society. Gag, barf, vomit. The assignment was, we had to write what we liked about this awful book. I wrote what I DID NOT LIKE. I don't remember what grade I got, but I do remember the teacher telling me that I had no business NOT LIKING this book because it's a LITERARY CLASSIC.

[BlackVeil]

We had to read Catcher in the Rye by D.J. Salinger, and I thought it was anarchistic rubbish. And they insisted that we should LIKE it, we all had to write about what aspects of the lead character we indentified with. It might be a fine novel in some ways, but I did not like it, and resented having it pushed.