- The Class (Erich Segal novel)
infobox Book |
name = The Class
title_orig =
translator =
image_caption = "The Class" mass-market paperback edition, 1986
author =Erich Segal
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country =United States
language = English
series =
genre =Novel
publisher =Bantam Books
pub_date = 1986
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Paperback )
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0553270907
preceded_by =
followed_by ="The Class" is
Erich Segal 's 6th novel, published in1985 . The class of the title is theHarvard Class of 1958, and particularly refers to five fictional members of this class: Andrew Eliot, Jason Gilbert, Theodore Lambros, Daniel Rossi and George Keller.Plot summary
"The Class" follows the diverse fates of five members of Harvard's Class of 1958, recording the way their lives intertwine, and coming to a dramatic conclusion at their class reunion, twenty-five years later.
Andrew Eliot comes from the
Boston Brahmin Eliot family. Due to his background, he always feels the pressure of high expectations, and suffers from a lack of confidence as a result. He is otherwise laid-back and friendly, and a good friend to all his classmates. To experience life without privilege and to fulfill his military obligation, he serves in the navy as an ordinary swabbie. After his military service, he makes an ill-fated marriage to the daughter of one of his father's classmates and takes up a career ininvestment banking . Unfortunately, his wife is a serial adultress and alcoholic and demands adivorce , leaving him estranged from his own son and daughter, with limited visitation after his wife places both inboarding school at the age of 9 and 6, denying him custodial rights and frustrating his attempts to give them a home life. He has an interest in his family's history during theAmerican Revolution , which in turn leads to him following his conscience and helping organize the Moratorium Day protests onWall Street .Jason Gilbert, Jr., son of Jason Gilbert, Sr. "né" Jacob Gruenwald, has the makings of a perfect son, of whom any parent would be proud. Despite this, there is one thing that troubles him: he is in constant conflict with his identity as a
Jew , despite his parents' assimilation and conversion to Unitarianism. He experiences prejudice at several points, when denied admission toYale and when denied invitation to the punches of Harvard'sfinal clubs . He also notes more pervasiveracism , when a popular black athlete is denied entrance to the Hasty Pudding Club, and when adrill instructor punishes him during his service in the Marines when he inadvertently invites him to a segregated restaurant off-base, which the drill instructor interpreted as taunting. Over the course of the book, he overcomes this, due to the loss of his Dutch Christian fiancée, a pædiatrician who is killed while attending a sick kibbutznik child during a visit toIsrael . The incident leads him to immigrate to Israel and become a "kibbutznik" himself and join the Israeli paratroopers, in exploring the Jewish identity that had been denied to him throughout his life by his family's assimilation while being externally imposed on him. He is shown as participating in the Six Days' War and theYom Kippur War , and dies during the rescue of Jewish hostages from Uganda.Theodore Lambros was born to a
working class Greek family, and was admitted to Harvard with no scholarship after graduating from Cambridge Latin School, and thus must work as awaiter to support himself throughout his schooling, and does not have the wherewithal to live on campus. During the course of the book, this fact makes it difficult for him to truly "belong" to his class. All the same, he endures and eventually achieves his ambition of securing a professorship in the classics at Harvard. Tragically, he has no one to share it with, after committingadultery while on sabbatical at Christ Church, and his subsequentdivorce from his college sweetheart.Daniel Rossi is a talented pianist. His father disowns him due to his choice of Harvard in light of President Pusey's refusal to cooperate with the McCarthy hearings, particularly after the death of his older son in the
Korean War . Daniel chooses Harvard on the advice of his mentor in music, Gustav Landau, who likens the McCarthy persecutions to those of the Third Reich which he himself fled. Daniel eventually wins his father's approval due to his success and fame as apianist ,composer of a Broadway musical and conductor of two orchestras, but finds this acceptance meaningless after years of estrangement. However, to maintain this extremely hectic way of life, he becomes alienated from his wife, and a serial adulterer addicted to stimulants andphenothiazine . The drug addiction becomes his downfall and causes severe motor dysfunction that ends his musical career, but redeems him through allowing him to reconcile with his wife and daughters.George Keller, "né" Gyuri Kolozsdi, enters the
United States as a Hungarianrefugee following the student uprising in 1956, and is granted a place in theHarvard Class of 1958. He rushes to assimilate as quickly as possible and becomes fluent in English in seven months. He remains highly paranoid and deeply regrets his abandonment of his fiancée, aBudapest pharmacy student, in the rush to flee Hungary. His determination and fierce loyalty to his country of refuge eventually result in a position in theWhite House , as a protegé ofHenry Kissinger . His personal detachment and unresolved emotions leave him unable to form any meaningful relationship with his wife or to consider becoming a father, and they eventually divorce. After a lengthy speech at his 25th class reunion, where he is confronted with the human toll of his policy implementation in theVietnam War , he commitssuicide , asking Andrew Eliot, as his executor, that his money be sent back to his family in Hungary.External links
* [http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/erich-segal/class.htm book covers, more books by Erich Segal and others]
* [http://www.harvard.edu/ Harvard University]
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