The Class is Erich Segal’s 6th novel, published in 1985. The class of the title is the Harvard Class of 1958, and particularly refers to five fictional members of this class: Andrew Eliot, Jason Gilbert, Theodore Lambros, Daniel Rossi and George Keller.
The novel follows the life of five different people, from the time they enter Harvard as eager freshmen wanting to change the world, to their graduation anniversary 25 years later. We have an eager pianist wanting to reach the top of the world ( Danny Rossi ), a Hungarian immigrant who wants to reach the highest ranks of the White House ( George Keller ), a hard working Greek dedicated to study of the classics ( Theodre Lambros ), a sporty blonde gentleman who conquers others at tennis and squash ( Jason Gilbert ), and finally a son of an aristocrat, who is trying to find out his part in this world ( Andrew Elliot ). This book shows us the various different life paths people take, and the dificulties encountered along the way.
Andrew Eliot comes from the great, rich and immensely respectable and popular ’Eliot family’. Due to his background, he is always expected to follow the family traditions and do great things, which in result has made him less confident of himself. He is otherwise helpful and friendly, and a good friend to all his classmates. He is desperately trying to find out his place in the world and what he is worth of. To experience life without privilege and to fulfill his military obligation, he serves in the navy.
Jason Gilbert, has the makings of a perfect son, of whom any parent would be proud.He is a terrific tennis player and has all the luxury and happiness a person could get. Despite this, there is one thing that troubles him: his identity as a Jew, despite his parents’ assimilation and conversion to Unitarianism. He has a lot of experiences in which he is forced to believe that being a Jew is some kind of evil or bad thing. This disturbs him all the time and leaves him troubled.
Theodore Lambros was born to a working class Greek family, and was admitted to Harvard with no scholarship after graduating from Cambridge Latin School. Without much money, he has to work as a waiter to support himself in Harvard and therefore, is not allowed to live in Harvard. He is very knowledgeable about classics and his ambition is to secure a professorship in the classics at Harvard.
Daniel Rossi is a very talented pianist. He never got along well with his father, who was always "all praise" about his elder son and thought little about Daniel. His father disowns him due to his choice of Harvard. Daniel choose Harvard on the advice of his mentor in music, Gustav Landa. Daniel eventually wins his father’s approval due to his success and fame as a pianist, composer of a Broadway musical and conductor of two orchestras, but finds this acceptance meaningless after years of estrangement.
George Keller, enters the United States as a Hungarian refugee following the student uprising in 1956, and is granted a place in the Harvard Class of 1958. He tries to learn English and merge into the other students of The Class and soon becomes fluent in English. His determination and fierce loyalty to his country of refuge eventually result in a position in the White House, as a protégé of Henry Kissinger.
Read The Class to know about the lives of these people and what happens to each of them.
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"The Class" to me, wasn’t what I would exactly call ’interesting’ or ’wow’ or use words like ’awesome’ to describe it. Nope, it definitely wasn’t great and nothing to be hyper about though it wasn’t bad either. The main thing about this book is that there is no central story to it. Yes, this book follows the lives of five people. Yes, it presents us with five different lives, situations and stories but there isn’t much to relate between these five people. The stories were more like incidents noted down in the diary, instead of a written novel with appropriate feelings and emotions and etc. etc.
This novel was a loOOOOOng read and at a lot of parts - dead boring. Seriously, I couldn’t bear to read the book at some parts , it was so damn intolerable. Especially, the stories following Jason Gilbert and George Keller’s stories seemed a real burden.
But at the same time, the book even presents the undefined power to take us through a journey even when we know that you are not a part of the theme but still feel the happiness, agony, frustration that the characters go through. This is the magic of The Class and this is why I still recommend it to people, in spite of it being quite boring at parts. All the characters seem real and whatever they do, whatever they feel - seems to affect you as if they are part of your lives.
Excellent following of 5 very different fictional members of the Harvard Class of 1958 from their various struggles for acceptance all the way through to their 25th reunion. Very complex issues addressed with each of the 5 members ranging from political to religious to marital to power struggles.
Take my word, read this book and forget whatever I’ve written about it being boring at places. Cause this book presents you with a lot of wonderful things about life and you should definitely read it.