Consider This Classic: Vlora Recommends

Consider This Classic: Vlora Recommends

• Nov 5, 2014

Consider This Classic is a monthly feature where bloggers highlight and recommend their favorite classic. They'll tell you when they first read it, why they love it and where to go from there. If you'd like to participate in Consider This Classic, click here to sign up.

I was really pleased when I saw that Vlora from Reviews and Cake was recommending a play - a first for this feature! I've never even heard of her recommendation, which makes even more excited to share it today. Highlighting under-the-radar classics is what made me want to start this feature in the first place. Vlora just recently started blogging in August, so I'm happy to have her, in a way, introducing herself today!

Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose

Publication Date: 1954
Published In: United States
Amazon | Gooreads

Summary (from Goodreads)

Reginald Rose's landmark American drama was a critically acclaimed teleplay, and went on to become a cinematic masterpiece in 1957 starring Henry Fonda, for which Rose wrote the adaptation. A blistering character study and an examination of the American melting pot and the judicial system that keeps it in check, Twelve Angry Men holds at its core a deeply patriotic belief in the U.S. legal system. The story's focal point, known only as Juror Eight, is at first the sole holdout in an 11-1 guilty vote. Eight sets his sights not on proving the other jurors wrong but rather on getting them to look at the situation in a clear-eyed way not affected by their personal biases. Rose deliberately and carefully peels away the layers of artifice from the men and allows a fuller picture of America, at its best and worst, to form.

I first read it as a play in school. I didn't know it was a teleplay and then a movie before it existed in the form I got to know it. I read it because I had to, but contrary to my expectations I ended up loving it. I'm not sure it counts as a literary classic, but since I first experienced it as a play, I tend to think of it in written form.

Twelve Angry Men is a short and easy read, but it is also one that will stay with you. I love how one person has such an impact simply because he argues logically - not because he is fully convinced he's right, simply because he has an inkling of a doubt and wants to make the right decision. I went into it not expecting much and was completely surprised by how much it resonated with me. I love it because it holds lessons I try to remember every day: don't judge other people too easily and always question things you believe to be facts because you might just find out not everything is as clear-cut as you thought it to be. Also: logic wins. Don't think your degree in rhetoric can help you save lives? This play will prove you wrong.

Instead of reading something similar, check out the movie after you've read the play!

Twelve Angry Men (1957)