This book had been on my TBR for a while and I finally got around to reading it prior to watching a new adaptation of the novel.

Some “classic” books age fairly poorly. That may have been literary giants of their time but upon reading in the present day they lose their luster. Any deeper meaning or resonance must be laboriously extracted through supplemental background information about the author’s time and place and even then these books aren’t quite the sensations they were way back when.

This is not one of those books. This is one of those classics you read and say to yourself, “Yes, I get it, this absolutely deserves to be on reading lists and remain in print for years to come”. This book feels as if it was written last year and yet might also be relevant for centuries to come. This book is immediate and bloody and achingly heartfelt, and funny in places, and tragic, and so incredibly human.