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A review by maksch03
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
3.0
This book starts with our narrator Stingo miserable at a job in New York City at the beginning of summer in 1947. He’s a Southern man at 22 who’s come to the city in order to become a writer. In order to reach this goal Stingo begins working for a publishing company and living in a terrible boarding house. He quickly loses interest in this job as he’s so unhappy that he’s been unable to write. Through a stroke of luck Stingo inherits some money from his grandmother and is able to find a new place to live and relinquish this publishing job in order to spend more time writing. He moves to a mostly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, to a boarding home called the Pink Palace. Soon after moving into this house he comes across a couple of his new housemates having a catastrophic fight in the doorway. This is his introduction to Sophie and Nathan,our other main characters. Nathan is saying some of the most horrendous things to Sophie, claiming that she’s been unfaithful. As he storms out he runs into Stingo and precedes to berate him for being from the south. Nathan then leaves and is insistent that he’ll never be back. Stingo goes to check on the crying Sophie who says she’ll be okay and at that point Stingo notices a tattoo of numbers on her arm, the mark of being in a concentration camp.
The next day Nathan comes back and apologizes profusely to Sophie and Stingo and begins a close and dear friendship with Stingo, quickly becoming like an older brother to him. Throughout the rest of the summer Stingo writes his book and learns more about Sophie and Nathan. Sophie is a non-Jewish Polish immigrant haunted from her time in the concentration camp Auschwitz from which she barely escaped with her life and sanity. She’s moved to the U.S. by herself, with no family or friends until she met Nathan. Nathan is a Jewish man born and raised in New York City who works as a biologist in a university lab. He has a lot of money and lavishes Sophie and Stingo with gifts and trips while in a good mood. From the description of the argument above you can see that he’s not always in good spirits.
Through the book Stingo learns and tells of Sophie’s life and experiences in Poland before and during the war. He also falls madly in love with her, but tries to hide that due to his respect for Nathan. Stingo spends this summer trying to finally lose his virginity as a means of escaping these feelings for Sophie. As the summer goes on this becomes more and more difficult, especially as Nathan’s dark side begins to show.
I am torn by this book. I wasn’t a big fan of Stingo or his story line, which was mostly his search for sex. His views on women were frankly offensive. Several times he tries to guilt women into having sex with him because he claims they had led him on. This tactic, thank god, doesn’t work. And then he proceeds to whine for several pages about it. But I did really enjoy Sophie and Nathan’s story lines and the method of backtracking to tell Sophie’s story. For this reason I gave the book 3 stars.
Warning: this book has graphic sex scenes, rape scenes, graphic descriptions of violence and death, descriptions of depression and self harm, descriptions of drinking and drug taking, and talk of racism and anti-semitic views.
The next day Nathan comes back and apologizes profusely to Sophie and Stingo and begins a close and dear friendship with Stingo, quickly becoming like an older brother to him. Throughout the rest of the summer Stingo writes his book and learns more about Sophie and Nathan. Sophie is a non-Jewish Polish immigrant haunted from her time in the concentration camp Auschwitz from which she barely escaped with her life and sanity. She’s moved to the U.S. by herself, with no family or friends until she met Nathan. Nathan is a Jewish man born and raised in New York City who works as a biologist in a university lab. He has a lot of money and lavishes Sophie and Stingo with gifts and trips while in a good mood. From the description of the argument above you can see that he’s not always in good spirits.
Through the book Stingo learns and tells of Sophie’s life and experiences in Poland before and during the war. He also falls madly in love with her, but tries to hide that due to his respect for Nathan. Stingo spends this summer trying to finally lose his virginity as a means of escaping these feelings for Sophie. As the summer goes on this becomes more and more difficult, especially as Nathan’s dark side begins to show.
I am torn by this book. I wasn’t a big fan of Stingo or his story line, which was mostly his search for sex. His views on women were frankly offensive. Several times he tries to guilt women into having sex with him because he claims they had led him on. This tactic, thank god, doesn’t work. And then he proceeds to whine for several pages about it. But I did really enjoy Sophie and Nathan’s story lines and the method of backtracking to tell Sophie’s story. For this reason I gave the book 3 stars.
Warning: this book has graphic sex scenes, rape scenes, graphic descriptions of violence and death, descriptions of depression and self harm, descriptions of drinking and drug taking, and talk of racism and anti-semitic views.