European Literature

Spanish

Miguel de Cervantes, Nationality

Russian

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nationality

French

Gustave Flaubert, Nationality

French

Marcel Proust, Nationality

German

Thomas Mann, Nationality

Russian

Vladimir Nabokov, Nationality

Portuguese

Jose Saramago, Nationality

Czech

Milan Kundera, Nationality

Italian

Umberto Eco, Nationality

Cervantes

Don Quixote, Author

Cervantes

Author: La Galatea

Don Quixote

Alonso Quijano decides to become Knight-Errant protagonist, but starts attacking Windmills

Don Quixote

Don Quixote’s squire is Sancho Panza, who rides a donkey named Dapple.

Don Quixote

Don Quixote rides a horse named Rocinante

Don Quixote

The Duke and Duchess play pranks on Don Quixote

Don Quixote

Don Quixote is defeated by the Knight of the White Moon

Don Quixote

Sancho Panza gets tossed in the air in a blanket by an innkeeper after Don Quixote refused to pay him

Don Quixote

Don Quixote is in love with Dulcinea

Don Quixote

Features the funeral of the shepherd Grisóstomo

Don Quixote

A priest and a barber burn down Don Quixote’s library, but he believes it was done by a wizard

Don Quixote

The story is supposedly based on the notes of the fictional Arab writer Cide Hamete Benengeli

Dostoevsky

His epilepsy influenced his works

Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov, Author

Dostoevsky

Crime and Punishment, Author

Dostoevsky

The Idiot, Author

Dostoevsky

Notes from Underground, Author

Dostoevsky

Author: Demons

The Brothers Karamazov

Follows father Fyodor and three sons Dimitri, Ivan, and Alexei (Alyosha) who murder him

The Brothers Karamazov

A brass pestle may have been used to kill Fyodor

The Brothers Karamazov

Features the Parable of the Grand Inquisitor

The Brothers Karamazov

The “Speech at the Stone” is given at a funeral

The Brothers Karamazov

A boy bites the finger of Alyosha even though Alyosha stopped a group of bullies who were throwing stones at the boy

The Brothers Karamazov

A boy kills a dog by feeding it a piece of bread with a pin in it

The Brothers Karamazov

Grushenka tells a story about a woman who tried to climb out of hell with an onion

Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov kills a pawnbroker to get rich, but deals with the consequences

Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov writes an article arguing that “extraordinary” men, such as Napoleon, are allowed to commit crimes

Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov dreams of a horse being beaten to death

Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov is given a cypress cross and a copper cross

Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov falls in love with the prostitute Sonya

Crime and Punishment

Svidrigailov nicknames a policeman “Achilles” before stating that he’s “going to America” and then shooting himself on a bridge

Crime and Punishment

Its epilogue takes place in a hospital in Siberia

The Idiot

epileptic Prince Myshkin perceived as lacking intelligence because of his kind nature

The Idiot

Begins and ends at a Swiss sanitorium (Not to be confused with The Magic Mountain)

The Idiot

Prince Myshkin breaks a Chinese vase at a dinner party

The Idiot

100,000 rubles get thrown into a fire

Notes from Underground

retired civil servant living in Saint Petersburg

Notes from Underground

Opens with “I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man”

Notes from Underground

Its second part is titled “Apropos of the Wet Snow”

Notes from Underground

The prostitute Liza refuses to accept a payment of five rubles

Notes from Underground

The Underground Man buys an expensive coat to show off to a rival for revenge

Flaubert

Madame Bovary, Author

Flaubert

Author: Salammbo / Three Tales

Madame Bovary

Emma wants to marry Charles Bovary for lavish life, affairs with Leon Dupuis and Rodolphe Boulanger

Madame Bovary

Hippolyte is the victim of a failed clubfoot surgery, so his leg must be amputated

Madame Bovary

Emma has a daughter, Berthe, but becomes disinterested in her

Madame Bovary

At a performance of the opera Lucia di Lammermoor, Emma reunites with Leon Dupuis

Madame Bovary

Emma kills herself by swallowing Arsenic

Proust

In Search of Lost Time, Author

In Search of Lost Time

also called Remembrance of Things Past

In Search of Lost Time

Narrators experience of live, reflecting on passage of time and lack of meaning in the world

In Search of Lost Time

The narrator’s childhood memories are triggered by eating a tea-soaked madeleine

In Search of Lost Time

Features a homosexual encounter between Jupien and the Baron de Charlus

In Search of Lost Time

Includes the volumes The Guermantes Way and The Swann’s Way

In Search of Lost Time

Its title comes from a line in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30

Mann

The Magic Mountain, Author

Mann

Author: Death in Venice / Buddenbrooks / Lotte in Weimar / Doctor Faustus

The Magic Mountain

Hans Castorp visits cousin Joachim in Swiss Sanatorium, but gets Tuberculosis

The Magic Mountain

Hans loves a woman with “Kirghiz eyes”

The Magic Mountain

The Jesuit Naphtha debates philosophy and then kills himself

The Magic Mountain

Hans has a vision of witches killing and dismembering a child in the snow

Nabokov

Feuded with Edmund Wilson on how Eugene Onegin should be translated

Nabokov

Lolita, Author

Nabokov

Pale Fire, Author

Nabokov

Author: Speak, Memory

Lolita

Humbert Humbert obsessed with 12 y/o Dolores Haze, described as "nymphet"

Lolita

Dolores’ mother is hit by a car while going to mail letters in the rain

Lolita

Humbert Humbert’s “very photogenic mother” died by “picnic, lightning”

Lolita

Dolores appears in the play The Hunted Enchanter, which almost shares its name with the Enchanted Hunter hotel

Lolita

Humbert Humbert shoots and kills Clare Quilty

Lolita

The first love of Humbert Humbert was Annabel Leigh, who died of typhus

Lolita

Humbert Humbert’s first wife, Valeria, leaves him for a Russian taxi driver

Pale Fire

999 Line Poem written by John Shade, edited by neighbor Charles Kinbote

Pale Fire

Charles Kinbote becomes convinced he is the king of the fictional country of Zembla

Pale Fire

The poem begins with “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain”

Pale Fire

John’s daughter, Hazel Shade, drowns in an icy like

Saramago

Blindness, Author

Saramago

Author: Cain / The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

Blindness

Epidemic of title affliction effects everyone except Doctor's Wife

Blindness

The novel begins at a traffic light

Blindness

The “dog of tears” comforts the Doctor’s Wife

Blindness

The Doctor’s Wife uses scissors to stab a gang leader in the throat

Blindness

After being overwhelmed by the smell of dead bodies in a supermarket basement, the Doctor’s Wife visits a church

Kundera

Citizenship revoked after going to exile in France, restored in 2019

Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Author

Kundera

Author: The Joke

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Four People and the dog Karenin living through Prague Spring

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tomáš has an affair with the artist Sabina

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tomáš becomes a window washer after refusing to retract an article he wrote comparing the Communist Party to Oedipus

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Several characters temporarily flee to Switzerland after Czechoslovakia is invaded

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Sabina inherits her grandfather’s bowler hat and wears it during sex