Ugh, I *hate* my title, but I guess that’s what I’m looking for. I’m reading *Martin Eden* by Jack London, and I like it well enough. It was pitched to me as being an underappreciated classic about a roughneck discovering his inner life – which absolutely does happen. It’s also just *laced* with eugenics, and the sort of thinking that promotes a natural aristocracy, the basis for a sort of populist view that…ugh. Again, I like it for what it is, and I’ll definitely finish it – but it’s not what I was looking for.
What I’m looking for is something like a mix of Ed Bunker’s work and *Le Comte de Monte Cristo* – relatively modern, fairly gritty stuff about how a dude makes his cell into a sort of Shaolin Monastery. Getting in stupid shape while on a heavy autodidact program, something like that. Joe Loya’s autobiography was *kinda* good for that, but he was mostly already educated right – it was really just a question of him finally getting a grip on some emotional issues (oh, just that?).
So yeah, fiction or nonfiction about how someone underprivileged gets jacked & well-read.
by SameUsernameOnReddit