The Edge of Sadness is a novel by the US author
Edwin O'Connor (1918 - 1968); published in 1961 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1962. The story of the book is about a middle-aged Catholic priest in New England.
The Edge of Sadness (Pulitzer Prize winner)
Breathing Lessons is a novel by the US author
Anne Tyler (1941- ); published in 1988, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 and was Time Magazine's book of the year in 1988.
Breathing Lessons is Tyler's eleventh book. It is the story of the ordinary and run-of-the-mill marriage of a couple (Ira and Maggie Moran). The story describes the joys, pains and tribulations of marriage while Maggie and Ira travel from Baltimore to a funeral and home in one day.
Breathing Lessons (Pulitzer Prize winner & Time Magazine's book of the year)
them (styled as
them and not Them) a novel by the US author
Joyce Carol Oates (1938 - ), the third novel in
The Wonderland Quartet, was first published in 1969.
them received the National Book Award in 1970.
them describes the hard and complex struggles of American lives through three people, Loretta, Maureen and Jules, who are trying to get all embracing dreams through life, marriage and money.
them (National Book Award winner)
The Idiot is a novel written by 19th century Russian author
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881); first published serially in Russky Vestnik between 1868 and 1869. The Idiot is ranked as one of the most brilliant literary achievements of the Russian Golden Age of Literature.
Part I: Chapter ITowards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o'clock one morning, a train on the Warsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed. The morning was so damp and misty that it was only with great difficulty that the day succeeded in breaking; and it was impossible to distinguish anything more than a few yards away from the carriage windows.
Some of the passengers by this particular train were returning from abroad; but the third-class carriages were the best filled, chiefly with insignificant persons of various occupations and degrees, picked up at the different stations nearer town. All of them seemed weary, and most of them had sleepy eyes and a shivering expression, while their complexions generally appeared to have taken on the colour of the fog outside.
When day dawned, two passengers in one of the third-class carriages found themselves opposite each other. Both were young fellows, both were rather poorly dressed, both had remarkable faces, and both were evidently anxious to start a conversation. If they had but known why, at this particular moment, they were both remarkable persons, they would undoubtedly have wondered at the strange chance which had set them down opposite to one another in a third-class carriage of the Warsaw Railway Company.
One of them was a young fellow of about twenty-seven, not tall, with black curling hair, and small, grey, fiery eyes. His nose was broad and flat, and he had high cheek bones; his thin lips were constantly compressed into an impudent, ironical--it might almost be called a malicious--smile; but his forehead was high and well formed, and atoned for a good deal of the ugliness of the lower part of his face. A special feature of this physiognomy was its death-like pallor, which gave to the whole man an indescribably emaciated appearance in spite of his hard look, and at the same time a sort of passionate and suffering expression which did not harmonize with his impudent, sarcastic smile and keen, self-satisfied bearing. He wore a large fur--or rather astrachan--overcoat, which had kept him warm all night, while his neighbour had been obliged to bear the full severity of a Russian November night entirely unprepared. His wide sleeveless mantle with a large cape to it--the sort of cloak one sees upon travellers during the winter months in Switzerland or North Italy--was by no means adapted to the long cold journey through Russia, from Eydkuhnen to St. Petersburg.
The wearer of this cloak was a young fellow, also of about twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age, slightly above the middle height, very fair, with a thin, pointed and very light coloured beard; his eyes were large and blue, and had an intent look about them, yet that heavy expression which some people affirm to be a peculiarity. as well as evidence, of an epileptic subject. His face was decidedly a pleasant one for all that; refined, but quite colourless, except for the circumstance that at this moment it was blue with cold. He held a bundle made up of an old faded silk handkerchief that apparently contained all his travelling wardrobe, and wore thick shoes and gaiters, his whole appearance being very un-Russian.
His black-haired neighbour inspected these peculiarities, having nothing better to do, and at length remarked, with that rude enjoyment of the discomforts of others which the common classes so often show:
"Cold?"
"Very," said his neighbour, readily. "and this is a thaw, too. Fancy if it had been a hard frost! I never thought it would be so cold in the old country. I've grown quite out of the way of it."
"What, been abroad, I suppose?"
"Yes, straight from Switzerland."
"Wheugh! my goodness!" The black-haired young fellow whistled, and then laughed.
The conversation proceeded. The readiness of the fair-haired young man in the cloak to answer all his opposite neighbour's questions was surprising. He seemed to have no suspicion of any impertinence or inappropriateness in the fact of such questions being put to him. Replying to them, he made known to the inquirer that he certainly had been long absent from Russia, more than four years; that he had been sent abroad for his health; that he had suffered from some strange nervous malady--a kind of epilepsy, with convulsive spasms. His interlocutor burst out laughing several times at his answers; and more than ever, when to the question, " whether he had been cured?" the patient replied:
"No, they did not cure me."
"Hey! that's it! You stumped up your money for nothing, and we believe in those fellows, here!" remarked the black-haired individual, sarcastically.
"Gospel truth, sir, Gospel truth!" exclaimed another passenger, a shabbily dressed man of about forty, who looked like a clerk, and possessed a red nose and a very blotchy face. "Gospel truth! All they do is to get hold of our good Russian money free, gratis, and for nothing. "
"Oh, but you're quite wrong in my particular instance," said the Swiss patient, quietly. "Of course I can't argue the matter, because I know only my own case; but my doctor gave me money--and he had very little--to pay my journey back, besides having kept me at his own expense, while there, for nearly two years."
"Why? Was there no one else to pay for you?" asked the black- haired one.
"No--Mr. Pavlicheff, who had been supporting me there, died a couple of years ago. I wrote to Mrs. General Epanchin at the time
(she is a distant relative of mine), but she did not answer my letter. And so eventually I came back."
"And where have you come to?"
"That is--where am I going to stay? I--I really don't quite know yet, I--"
Both the listeners laughed again.
"I suppose your whole set-up is in that bundle, then?" asked the first.
"I bet anything it is!" exclaimed the red-nosed passenger, with extreme satisfaction, "and that he has precious little in the luggage van!--though of course poverty is no crime--we must remember that!"
It appeared that it was indeed as they had surmised. The young fellow hastened to admit the fact with wonderful readiness.
"Your bundle has some importance, however," continued the clerk, when they had laughed their fill (it was observable that the subject of their mirth joined in the laughter when he saw them laughing); "for though I dare say it is not stuffed full of friedrichs d'or and louis d'or--judge from your costume and gaiters--still--if you can add to your possessions such a valuable property as a relation like Mrs. General Epanchin, then your bundle becomes a significant object at once. That is, of course, if you really are a relative of Mrs. Epanchin's, and have not made a little error through--well, absence of mind, which is very common to human beings; or, say--through a too luxuriant fancy?"
"Oh, you are right again," said the fair-haired traveller, "for I really am ALMOST wrong when I say she and I are related. She is hardly a relation at all; so little, in fact, that I was not in the least surprised to have no answer to my letter. I expected as much."
"H'm! you spent your postage for nothing, then. H'm! you are candid, however--and that is commendable. H'm! Mrs. Epanchin--oh yes! a most eminent person. I know her. As for Mr. Pavlicheff, who supported you in Switzerland, I know him too--at least, if it was Nicolai Andreevitch of that name? A fine fellow he was--and had a property of four thousand souls in his day."
"Yes, Nicolai Andreevitch--that was his name," and the young fellow looked earnestly and with curiosity at the all-knowing gentleman with the red nose.
This sort of character is met with pretty frequently in a certain class. They are people who know everyone--that is, they know where a man is employed, what his salary is, whom he knows, whom he married, what money his wife had, who are his cousins, and second cousins, etc., etc. These men generally have about a hundred pounds a year to live on, and they spend their whole time and talents in the amassing of this style of knowledge, which they reduce--or raise--to the standard of a science.
During the latter part of the conversation the black-haired young man had become very impatient. He stared out of the window, and fidgeted, and evidently longed for the end of the journey. He was very absent; he would appear to listen-and heard nothing; and he would laugh of a sudden, evidently with no idea of what he was laughing about.
"Excuse me," said the red-nosed man to the young fellow with the bundle, rather suddenly; "whom have I the honour to be talking to?"
"Prince Lef Nicolaievitch Muishkin," replied the latter, with perfect readiness.
"Prince Muishkin? Lef Nicolaievitch? H'm! I don't know, I'm sure! I may say I have never heard of such a person," said the clerk, thoughtfully. "At least, the name, I admit, is historical. Karamsin must mention the family name, of course, in his history- -but as an individual--one never hears of any Prince Muishkin nowadays."
"Of course not," replied the prince; "there are none, except myself. I believe I am the last and only one. As to my forefathers, they have always been a poor lot; my own father was a sublieutenant in the army. I don't know how Mrs. Epanchin comes into the Muishkin family, but she is descended from the Princess Muishkin, and she, too, is the last of her line."
"And did you learn science and all that, with your professor over there?" asked the black-haired passenger.
"Oh yes--I did learn a little, but--"
"I've never learned anything whatever," said the other.
"Oh, but I learned very little, you know!" added the prince, as though excusing himself. "They could not teach me very much on account of my illness. "
"Do you know the Rogojins?" asked his questioner, abruptly.
"No, I don't--not at all! I hardly know anyone in Russia. Why, is that your name?"
"Yes, I am Rogojin, Parfen Rogojin."
"Parfen Rogojin? dear me--then don't you belong to those very Rogojins, perhaps--" began the clerk, with a very perceptible increase of civility in his tone.
"Yes--those very ones," interrupted Rogojin, impatiently, and with scant courtesy. I may remark that he had not once taken any notice of the blotchy-faced passenger, and had hitherto addressed all his remarks direct to the prince.
"Dear me--is it possible?" observed the clerk, while his face assumed an expression of great deference and servility--if not of absolute alarm: "what, a son of that very Semen Rogojin-- hereditary honourable citizen--who died a month or so ago and left two million and a half of roubles?"
"And how do YOU know that he left two million and a half of roubles?" asked Rogojin, disdainfully, and no deigning so much as to look at the other. "However, it's true enough that my father died a month ago, and that here am I returning from Pskoff, a month after, with hardly a boot to my foot. They've treated me like a dog! I've been ill of fever at Pskoff the whole time, and not a line, nor farthing of money, have I received from my mother or my confounded brother!"
"And now you'll have a million roubles, at least--goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the clerk, rubbing his hands.
"Five weeks since, I was just like yourself," continued Rogojin, addressing the prince, "with nothing but a bundle and the clothes I wore. I ran away from my father and came to Pskoff to my aunt's house, where I caved in at once with fever, and he went and died while I was away. All honour to my respected father's memory--but he uncommonly nearly killed me, all the same. Give you my word, prince, if I hadn't cut and run then, when I did, he'd have murdered me like a dog."
"I suppose you angered him somehow?" asked the prince, looking at the millionaire with considerable curiosity But though there may have been something remarkable in the fact that this man was heir to millions of roubles there was something about him which surprised and interested the prince more than that. Rogojin, too, seemed to have taken up the conversation with unusual alacrity it appeared that he was still in a considerable state of excitement, if not absolutely feverish, and was in real need of someone to talk to for the mere sake of talking, as safety-valve to his agitation.
As for his red-nosed neighbour, the latter--since the information as to the identity of Rogojin--hung over him, seemed to be living on the honey of his words and in the breath of his nostrils, catching at every syllable as though it were a pearl of great price.
"Oh, yes; I angered him--I certainly did anger him," replied Rogojin. "But what puts me out so is my brother. Of course my mother couldn't do anything--she's too old--and whatever brother Senka says is law for her! But why couldn't he let me know? He sent a telegram, they say. What's the good of a telegram? It frightened my aunt so that she sent it back to the office unopened, and there it's been ever since! It's only thanks to Konief that I heard at all; he wrote me all about it. He says my brother cut off the gold tassels from my father's coffin, at night because they're worth a lot of money!' says he. Why, I can get him sent off to Siberia for that alone, if I like; it's sacrilege. Here, you--scarecrow!" he added, addressing the clerk at his side, "is it sacrilege or not, by law?'
"Sacrilege, certainly--certainly sacrilege," said the latter.
"And it's Siberia for sacrilege, isn't it?"
"Undoubtedly so; Siberia, of course!"
"They will think that I'm still ill," continued Rogojin to the prince, "but I sloped off quietly, seedy as I was, took the train and came away. Aha, brother Senka, you'll have to open your gates and let me in, my boy! I know he told tales about me to my father--I know that well enough but I certainly did rile my father about Nastasia Philipovna that's very sure, and that was my own doing."
"Nastasia Philipovna?" said the clerk, as though trying to think out something.
"Come, you know nothing about HER," said Rogojin, impatiently.
"And supposing I do know something?" observed the other, triumphantly.
"Bosh! there are plenty of Nastasia Philipovnas. And what an impertinent beast you are!" he added angrily. "I thought some creature like you would hang on to me as soon as I got hold of my money. "
"Oh, but I do know, as it happens," said the clerk in an aggravating manner. "Lebedeff knows all about her. You are pleased to reproach me, your excellency, but what if I prove that I am right after all? Nastasia Phillpovna's family name is Barashkoff--I know, you see-and she is a very well known lady, indeed, and comes of a good family, too. She is connected with one Totski, Afanasy Ivanovitch, a man of considerable property, a director of companies, and so on, and a great friend of General Epanchin, who is interested in the same matters as he is."
"My eyes!" said Rogojin, really surprised at last. "The devil take the fellow, how does he know that?"
"Why, he knows everything--Lebedeff knows everything! I was a month or two with Lihachof after his father died, your excellency, and while he was knocking about--he's in the debtor's prison now--I was with him, and he couldn't do a thing without Lebedeff; and I got to know Nastasia Philipovna and several people at that time."
"Nastasia Philipovna? Why, you don't mean to say that she and Lihachof--" cried Rogojin, turning quite pale.
"No, no, no, no, no! Nothing of the sort, I assure you!" said Lebedeff, hastily. "Oh dear no, not for the world! Totski's the only man with any chance there. Oh, no! He takes her to his box at the opera at the French theatre of an evening, and the officers and people all look at her and say, 'By Jove, there's the famous Nastasia Philipovna!' but no one ever gets any further than that, for there is nothing more to say."
"Yes, it's quite true," said Rogojin, frowning gloomily; "so Zaleshoff told me. I was walking about the Nefsky one fine day, prince, in my father's old coat, when she suddenly came out of a shop and stepped into her carriage. I swear I was all of a blaze at once. Then I met Zaleshoff--looking like a hair-dresser's assistant, got up as fine as I don't know who, while I looked like a tinker. 'Don't flatter yourself, my boy,' said he; 'she's not for such as you; she's a princess, she is, and her name is Nastasia Philipovna Barashkoff, and she lives with Totski, who wishes to get rid of her because he's growing rather old--fifty- five or so--and wants to marry a certain beauty, the loveliest woman in all Petersburg.' And then he told me that I could see Nastasia Philipovna at the opera-house that evening, if I liked, and described which was her box. Well, I'd like to see my father allowing any of us to go to the theatre; he'd sooner have killed us, any day. However, I went for an hour or so and saw Nastasia Philipovna, and I never slept a wink all night after. Next morning my father happened to give me two government loan bonds to sell, worth nearly five thousand roubles each. 'Sell them,' said he, 'and then take seven thousand five hundred roubles to the office, give them to the cashier, and bring me back the rest of the ten thousand, without looking in anywhere on the way; look sharp, I shall be waiting for you.' Well, I sold the bonds, but I didn't take the seven thousand roubles to the office; I went straight to the English shop and chose a pair of earrings, with a diamond the size of a nut in each. They cost four hundred roubles more than I had, so I gave my name, and they trusted me. With the earrings I went at once to Zaleshoff's. 'Come on!' I said, 'come on to Nastasia Philipovna's,' and off we went without more ado. I tell you I hadn't a notion of what was about me or before me or below my feet all the way; I saw nothing whatever. We went straight into her drawing-room, and then she came out to us.
"I didn't say right out who I was, but Zaleshoff said: 'From Parfen Rogojin, in memory of his first meeting with you yesterday; be so kind as to accept these!'
"She opened the parcel, looked at the earrings, and laughed.
"'Thank your friend Mr. Rogojin for his kind attention,' says she, and bowed and went off. Why didn't I die there on the spot? The worst of it all was, though, that the beast Zaleshoff got all the credit of it! I was short and abominably dressed, and stood and stared in her face and never said a word, because I was shy, like an ass! And there was he all in the fashion, pomaded and dressed out, with a smart tie on, bowing and scraping; and I bet anything she took him for me all the while!
"'Look here now,' I said, when we came out, 'none of your interference here after this-do you understand?' He laughed: 'And how are you going to settle up with your father?' says he. I thought I might as well jump into the Neva at once without going home first; but it struck me that I wouldn't, after all, and I went home feeling like one of the damned."
"My goodness!" shivered the clerk. "And his father," he added, for the prince's instruction, "and his father would have given a man a ticket to the other world for ten roubles any day--not to speak of ten thousand!"
The prince observed Rogojin with great curiosity; he seemed paler than ever at this moment.
"What do you know about it?" cried the latter. "Well, my father learned the whole story at once, and Zaleshoff blabbed it all over the town besides. So he took me upstairs and locked me up, and swore at me for an hour. 'This is only a foretaste,' says he;
'wait a bit till night comes, and I'll come back and talk to you again.'
"Well, what do you think? The old fellow went straight off to Nastasia Philipovna, touched the floor with his forehead, and began blubbering and beseeching her on his knees to give him back the diamonds. So after awhile she brought the box and flew out at him. 'There,' she says, 'take your earrings, you wretched old miser; although they are ten times dearer than their value to me now that I know what it must have cost Parfen to get them! Give Parfen my compliments,' she says, 'and thank him very much!' Well, I meanwhile had borrowed twenty-five roubles from a friend, and off I went to Pskoff to my aunt's. The old woman there lectured me so that I left the house and went on a drinking tour round the public-houses of the place. I was in a high fever when I got to Pskoff, and by nightfall I was lying delirious in the streets somewhere or other!"
"Oho! we'll make Nastasia Philipovna sing another song now!" giggled Lebedeff, rubbing his hands with glee. "Hey, my boy, we'll get her some proper earrings now! We'll get her such earrings that--"
"Look here," cried Rogojin, seizing him fiercely by the arm, "look here, if you so much as name Nastasia Philipovna again, I'll tan your hide as sure as you sit there!"
"Aha! do--by all means! if you tan my hide you won't turn me away from your society. You'll bind me to you, with your lash, for ever. Ha, ha! here we are at the station, though."
Sure enough, the train was just steaming in as he spoke.
Though Rogojin had declared that he left Pskoff secretly, a large collection of friends had assembled to greet him, and did so with profuse waving of hats and shouting.
"Why, there's Zaleshoff here, too!" he muttered, gazing at the scene with a sort of triumphant but unpleasant smile. Then he suddenly turned to the prince: "Prince, I don't know why I have taken a fancy to you; perhaps because I met you just when I did. But no, it can't be that, for I met this fellow " (nodding at Lebedeff) "too, and I have not taken a fancy to him by any means. Come to see me, prince; we'll take off those gaiters of yours and dress you up in a smart fur coat, the best we can buy. You shall have a dress coat, best quality, white waistcoat, anything you like, and your pocket shall be full of money. Come, and you shall go with me to Nastasia Philipovna's. Now then will you come or no?"
"Accept, accept, Prince Lef Nicolaievitch" said Lebedef solemnly; "don't let it slip! Accept, quick!"
Prince Muishkin rose and stretched out his hand courteously, while he replied with some cordiality:
"I will come with the greatest pleasure, and thank you very much for taking a fancy to me. I dare say I may even come today if I have time, for I tell you frankly that I like you very much too. I liked you especially when you told us about the diamond earrings; but I liked you before that as well, though you have such a dark-clouded sort of face. Thanks very much for the offer of clothes and a fur coat; I certainly shall require both clothes and coat very soon. As for money, I have hardly a copeck about me at this moment."
"You shall have lots of money; by the evening I shall have plenty; so come along!"
"That's true enough, he'll have lots before evening!" put in Lebedeff.
"But, look here, are you a great hand with the ladies? Let's know that first?" asked Rogojin.
"Oh no, oh no! said the prince; "I couldn't, you know--my illness--I hardly ever saw a soul."
"H'm! well--here, you fellow-you can come along with me now if you like!" cried Rogojin to Lebedeff, and so they all left the carriage.
more ...The Idiot (one of the most brilliant of the Russian Golden Age of Literature)
The Blind Side of the Heart (original name in German:
Die Mittagsfrau) is a novel by the German author
Julia Franck (1970 - ), published in 2007 and won the German Book Prize in the same year.
Full Description for The Blind Side of the Heart [1]
Amid the chaos of civilians fleeing West in a provincial German railway station in 1945 Helene has brought her seven-year-old son. Having survived with him through the horrors and deprivations of the war years, she abandons him on the station platform and never returns. Many years earlier, Helene and her sister Martha's childhood in rural Germany is abruptly ended by the outbreak of the First World War. Her father, sent to the eastern front, comes home only to die. Their Jewish mother withdraws from the hostility of her surroundings into a state of mental confusion. Helene calls the condition blindness of the heart, and fears the growing coldness of her mother, who hardly seems to notice her daughters any more. In the early 1920s, after their father's death, she and Martha move to Berlin. Helene falls in love with Carl, but when he dies just before their engagement, life becomes meaningless for her and she takes refuge in her work as a nurse. At a party she meets Wilhelm, an ambitious civil engineer who wants to build motorways for the Reich and to make Helene his wife. Their marriage, which soon proves disastrous, takes Helene to Stettin, where her son is born. She finds the love and closeness demanded by the little boy more than she can provide, and soon she cannot shake off the idea of simply disappearing. Finally she comes to a shocking decision. "The Blind Side of the Heart" tells of two World Wars, of hope, loneliness and love, and of a life lived in terrible times. It is a great family novel, a powerful portrayal of an era, and the story of a fascinating woman.
[1] http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9780099524236/The-Blind-Side-of-the-Heart?b=-3&t=-20#Fulldescription-20
The Bone People is a 1984 novel by New Zealand author
Keri Hulme (1947- ) published in 1984 and won the 1984 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction, the Booker Prize (The Man Booker Prize for Fiction) in 1985, and The Pegasus Prize for Literature in 1985.
The folowing plot summary is quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bone_People:
The book is divided into two major sections, the first involving the characters interacting, and the second half involving their individual travels. In the first half, 8-year-old Simon shows up at the hermit Kerewin’s tower on a dark and stormy night. Simon is mute and thus is unable to explain his motives. When Simon’s adoptive father Joe comes to thank Kerewin, she learns their unusual story. Simon was found washed up on the beach years earlier with no memory and very few clues as to his identity. Joe and his wife Hana take in Simon, despite his apparently dark background, and attempt to raise him. However, both Hana and their infant son die soon after, leaving Joe alone to raise the wild boy Simon.
Kerewin finds herself developing a relationship with both the boy and the father, becoming more involved in their lives and stories. However, it gradually becomes clear that Simon is a severely traumatised boy, whose behaviours Joe is unable to cope with. Kerewin eventually finds that, despite a constant and intense love between them, Joe is physically abusing Simon. There are hints that Joe was also abused as a child.
Following a catalyst event, the three are driven violently apart. Simon witnesses a violent death and goes to Kerewin, but she is angry with him for stealing some of her possessions and will not listen. He reacts by kicking in the side of her guitar, a much prized gift from her estranged family, whereupon she throws him out. He then goes to the town and breaks a series of public property windows. When he is returned home by the police, Joe beats him severely, fracturing his skull and breaking his jaw. Simon however has concealed a piece of glass and stabs his father with it, resulting in the hospitalization of both.
In the second half of the novel, Simon is in the hospital, Joe is being sent to jail for assault, and Kerewin has developed stomach cancer. Simon's wardship is being taken from Joe, a move strongly resisted by all three of the trio, despite their violent relationship. Simon is sent to a children's home, Joe to jail, and Kerewin deconstructs her tower and leaves, expecting to be dead within the year.
All three experience life-changing events, strongly interlaced with Maori mythology and legend, eventually leading to their healing and return. Kerewin is miraculously healed and adopts Simon, to keep him both near to and protected from Joe, while Joe is able to contact Kerewin's family and bring them back for a reunion of forgiveness. In the final segment of the book, Kerewin adopts a blind cat known as Li, or balance, seemingly representing the path they have travelled.
Life of Pi is a novel written by Spanish-born Canadian author
Yann Martel (1963- );
first published in 2001; won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002 and the 2003 Boeke Prize, was chosen for CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2003, and its French translation (
L'Histoire de Pi) was chosen in the French version of the reading competition (Le combat des livres).
Life of Pi Plot SummaryThe novel begins with the author describing in an author’s note his travels to India, where he meets a man named Francis Adirubasamy in a coffeehouse in Pondicherry. His response to the author’s claim that he needs inspiration is “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” After which he refers the author to Piscine Patel in Toronto, who immediately begins to tell his own story, starting in Chapter 1.
As a teenager in Pondicherry, India, Pi Patel describes his family – himself, his parents, and his brother Ravi. He is constantly exploring new opportunities and learning many odd and exciting things. His father is the proprietor of the Pondicherry Zoo, where Pi learns much of the workings and raising of animals. Pi’s mother is an avid reader and introduces to him numerous literary works from which he learns the joys of numerous schools of thought. His school is filled with amazing teachers, one of whom, Mr. Kumar is an inspiration to Pi.
Deriving his full name (Piscine) from a world famous swimming pool in France, his parents are good friends with Francis Adirubasamy (from the author’s note), a world class swimmer who often goes on about the Piscine Molitor in Paris. He goes by Pi instead because his schoolmates make a big deal out of calling him “pissing” instead as it sounds similar. They all take to the name and from that point on, his name is no long Piscine but Pi.
Pi grew up a Hindu, but discovered the Catholic faith at age 14 from a priest by the name of Father Martin. He is soon baptized. He then meets Mr. Kumar, a Muslim of some standing and converts to Islam. Therefore, he openly practices all three religions avidly. When the three religious teachers meet up with his parents at the zoo, they demand that he choose a single religion, to which he announces he cannot. Throughout this section, Pi discusses numerous religious matters as well as his thoughts on culture and zoology.
At age 16, Pi’s father decides that Mrs. Gandhi’s (the leader of India) political actions are unsavory and closes up the zoo to move to Toronto. He sells off a majority of the zoo animals to various zoos in America. The animals are loaded onto the same boat that the family will take to reach Winnipeg, Canada. On the journey to North America, the boat sinks.
As the only survivor of the shipwreck, he’s stuck in a lifeboat with a dying zebra and a hyena. Pi sees another survivor floating in the water and only after throwing them a life preserver and pulling them aboard does he realize that “Richard Parker” is actually the 400 pound tiger from his father’s zoo. He immediately jumps overboard until he realizes that there are sharks nearby.
So, upon reentering the boat, he wedges the tarpaulin up with an oar and decides he might survive if he can stay on top and keep Richard Parker beneath it. Over the next week an Orangutan arrives as well and the four animals interplay carefully, eating each other until there is only Richard Parker left.
Over the course of the next 7 months aboard the lifeboat, Pi hides on a makeshift raft behind the boat and begins the process of taming Richard Parker with a whistle and treats from the sea, as well as marking his portion of the boat. He begins to get close to the tiger, developing the kind of bond a zookeeper does with his menagerie. After a while, Pi learns to kill and eat from the sea, sharing with the tiger. The two do not eat nearly enough though and as time passes, they become quite ill.
At a certain point, the two become so hungry and ill that they lose their sight and come across another blind man amazingly floating along in the ocean as well. The two talk for a bit about food and eventually the blind man tries to board Pi’s boat, intent on eating him. However, when he boards the boat the unsuspecting man is attacked by Richard Parker and eaten. The tears from the situation eventually clear up Pi’s vision and they continue on alone in the boat.
Still floating along alone and desperate, the two come across an island made of algae. They disembark and Pi begins eating the algae, regaining his strength during the day and sleeping on the boat. Richard Parker regains his strength from eating the meerkats who live on the island, sleeping in the trees during the night. Eventually, Pi realizes that they leave at night because of an acid produced by the island during the night hours. He eventually notices a tooth among the algae, evidence of another man having died on the island. They leave quickly as the island is apparently carnivorous.
Finally, after more time spent floating along in the ocean, Pi sights land in Mexico and disembarks. Richard Parker immediately runs off into the woods and Pi is recovered by two men from the shipping company who owned the boat that sank with his family on it. He relates to them the story of his 227 days on the boat, but they do not quite believe his fantastic tale of surviving with a Bengal Tiger and meeting a blind man in the ocean.
So, Pi relays to them a second story instead of his mother, a sailor with a broken leg and a cannibalistic cook, with no animals and no magical islands this time around. The story closely parallels the first story without all of the fancy involved, and one of the men points this out. However, the two ignore the final story in favor of the better story and write it up in their report after Pi mentions that it does not matter as both lead to the same outcome.
The above plot summary is quoted from http://www.wikisummaries.org/Life_of_Pi.
The Snow Queen is a novel by American science fiction author
Joan D. Vinge (1948- ), published in 1980, and won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1981 (it was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1980).
The Snow Queen (novel)
Plot Summary:
The residents of Tiamat are split into two clans: "Winters" who advocate technological progress and trade with offworlders, and "Summers" who depend on their folk traditions and rigid social distinctions to survive on this marginal planet. Every 150 years, the sun's orbit around the black hole dramatically impacts the planetary ecology and to keep the uneasy peace, the government switches from Winter rule to Summer rule under a matriarchal monarch. Interstellar travel between Tiamat and the Hegemony is only possible during the 150 years of Winter rule, and a single woman rules the entire planet: a "Snow Queen" in Winter, a "Summer Queen" in Summer.
The reason for the Hegemony's interest in Tiamat has to do with the "mers," sentient sea-dwelling creatures whose blood provides the "water of life," a substance that totally inhibits physical aging. The most valuable substance in the galaxy, mer hunts go on as frequently as possible during the Winter years, to the point of extinction. This also allows the Snow Queen to reign for the entire 150-year season, and it is with the Snow Queen, Arienrhod, that the story begins. She has secretly implanted several Summer women with embryos, clones of herself, in the hopes of extending her rule past her ritual execution at the end of Winter.
The novel follows the only one of these clones, Moon, to survive to adolescence. She and her cousin Sparks are lovers, both sharing the distinctive status of being "merry-begots", children conceived during the planetary festivals held every 20 years to remind Tiamat of the cycle of power. Moon becomes a sibyl, a position of high status among the Summer people, since they are keepers of knowledge freely available to anyone who asks. Sibyls enter a trance and by mysterious means, can answer questions. Sparks, unable to join her among the sibyl mystics and curious about his offworld heritage, travels to Carbuncle, Tiamat's capital, where he is immediately caught up by Arienrhod and eventually becomes the "Starbuck," her lover—a position that not only requires him to do away with the previous Starbuck (Herne) but orchestrates the mer hunts, a capital crime in the summer islands.
Moon manages to secure transport to Carbuncle, where sibyls are proscribed, and is eventually smuggled off-world, a one-way trip for a Tiamatan citizen, as the Hegemony forbids Tiamat full access to their worlds. She is taken to the capital planet, Kharemough, and discovers that the prejudice against sibyls is a political tool used by the Hegemony to keep the balance of power on Tiamat skewed in their favor. Sibyls are also highly respected throughout the eight planets of the Hegemony, only on Tiamat, due to a careful reinforcement of superstitions during the reign of Winter, are they considered dangerous and mentally unstable. Eventually, despite the waning window of safe travel offered by Tiamat's orbit, she negotiates a return after finding out from a trance that Sparks is in danger.
After being derailed by a crash landing and short sojourn as a captive by an outback tribe of Winter fugitives in the north, Moon returns to Carbuncle and confronts Arienrhod for the fate of her beloved Sparks. Here she discovers the truth of her heritage and that Arienrhod considers her a failure; she wanted a clone in spirit, not just in body, a clone who would keep the Summers from throwing all the technical advances offworld trade brings to Tiamat into the sea during The Change. Moon proves her wrong by participating in the ritual competition for the Summer Throne, and winning. The Change will proceed, and Winter will end—but with an enlightened queen, preparing Tiamat to face the Hegemony as a peer when the 150 years of summer end and interstellar travel is again possible through the black hole.
The above plot summary is quoted from: en.wikipedia.org.
The Tsar's Dwarf (
Zarens dværg in Danish) is a 2006 novel by Danish novelist
Peter H. Fogtdal (1956- )
transl ted in English by American author and translator
Tiina Nunnally.
"Like 'The Elephant Man' by David Lynch, Peter H.
Fogtdal's novel celebrates the life and the dignity of those who were considered sub-humans. It's a wonderful novel where the pursuit of human dignity is narrated with a masterly mixture of drama and humour." Sergio Luis
de Carvalho, Portuguese novelist.
"It's immensely liberating to read this grotesque novel far out of the fringes of fiction. It has been many years since Danish literature produced such a phantasmagorical novel that brushes so closely to plausible historical reality." Niels
Houkjær,
Berlingske Tidende, Denmark
The Tsar's Dwarf
Sørine is a rich and deeply realized character, but she is also often a difficult one to connect with. There’s a very good reason for this: not only has she been dropped within a set of almost farcically terrible circumstances, but, as a result of the lifelong mockery and abuse that she has experienced, her demeanor is caustic and aggressive, cynical and frequently quite cruel. She further compounds the distance between herself and other characters by referring to “human beings” as almost an entirely different species from herself. In putting the burden of empathy on the reader, and forcing one to fully consider the emotional consequences of the treatment that
Sørine has received, however,
Fogtdal uses his heroine’s alienation to the narrative’s advantage.
This process of learning to empathize with another is actually twofold: as the reader is learning how to empathize with
Sørine,
Sørine is also learning to empathize with others. Where at the novel’s start she’s equally spiteful towards “human beings,”
dwarfs, and “
goodfolk,” by its end, she’s arrived at a place of acceptance towards those who have wronged her.
Sørine’s world is one in which everyone has their own share of suffering and everyone has been wronged. Tsar’s sons are murdered by their own fathers. Infants die of plagues.
Dwarfs are forcibly married for the amusement of aristocrats and displayed in museums. The Tsar’s Dwarf is a novel that shows us that regardless of the form that it takes, it is suffering that binds us together. And ultimately, it is this shared experience that makes it possible to be compassionate towards individuals who at first, seem impossibly different from ourselves.[1]
[1]
Three Percent, University of Rochester
The Old Capital (in Japanese 古都) is a novel by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata originally published in 1962. The Old Capital was one of the three novels cited by the Nobel Committee in awarding the 1968 Prize for Literature to Kawabata (the other two were
Snow Country and
Thousand Cranes).
In the
The Old Capital, Chieko Sada is the daughter of Takichiro and Shige, who operate a kimono wholesale business in Kyoto. Now twenty, Chieko has known for years that she was a foundling adopted by Takichiro and Shige. Soon after a chance encounter at Yasaka Shrine, Chieko learns of a twin sister Naeko, who had remained in her home village in Kitayama working in the mountain forests north of the city. The identical looks of Chieko and Naeko confuse Hideo, a traditional weaver, who is a potential suitor of Chieko. The novel, one of the last that Kawabata completed before his death, examines themes common to much of his literature: the gulf between the sexes and the anxiety its recognition brings.
The novel was adapted in 1963 into a Japanese feature film known in English under the title Twin Sisters of Kyoto. Directed by Noboru Nakamura, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. A second film adaptation was made in 1980 by director Kon Ichikawa. The movie was the last in which actress Momoe Yamaguchi appeared before she retired to marry her co-star, Tomokazu Miura [1].
[1]
Wikipedia
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma is a novel written and published by Nobel Prize-winning, Egyptian novelist
Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) in 1983. It was translated from Arabic into English in 1992.
Plot Summary [1]:
Ibn Fattouma, also known by his birth name Qindil Muhammad al-Innabi, is a Muslim man disillusioned by the corruption in his home city. When he asks his teacher, a Sufi, why a land whose people obeys the tenets of Islam suffers so, Ibn Fattouma is told the answer he seeks lies far away from the city. Since travel broadens one's horizons, the teacher encourages Ibn Fattouma to seek the land of Gebel, where such problems have been solved. The teacher tried to travel there himself, but civil war in neighboring lands and the demands of family ultimately prevented him from completing the journey. Also, no documents exist about Gebel and no one is known to have traveled there and come back.
Ibn Fattouma says farewell to his mother and proceeds with a camel train out of his home city to the land of Mashriq. In this sexually libertine society (by Ibn Fattouma's standards), the women and men do not marry, they share sexual partners and they share power over their children. Nevertheless, Ibn Fattouma settles in Mashriq with a woman named Arousa and they have five children as husband and wife. Because of Ibn Fattouma's insistence upon teaching his eldest son Islam, he is exiled from Mashriq and prohibited from seeing Arousa or their children again. Ibn Fattouma then travels to the land of Haïra. The invasion of Mashriq by militaristic Haïra further separates Ibn Fattouma from his family, and when the annexation of Mashriq is finished, Arousa is brought to Haïra as a slave. The chamberlain of the god-king of Haïra wants Arousa as his wife and arranges for Ibn Fattouma to be jailed. Twenty years pass in Haïra before the god-king is overthrown, and the chamberlain (who was also jailed) tells Ibn Fattouma to look in the neighboring land of Halba for his wife and son.
In Halba, the freedom of the individual is the greatest good. All religions peacefully coexist and openly encourage freedom of inquiry. The Halbans are also aggressive promoters of their philosophy of life in other nations; preparations are underway as Ibn Fattouma arrives for a war with neighboring Aman. Ibn Fattouma is reunited with Arousa, who thought him lost and had since married a Buddhist. There Ibn Fattouma meets and marries Samia, a pediatrician in Halba's hospital. With his wife's reluctant approval, Ibn Fattouma decides to continue his journey before war makes such travel impossible.
In the land of Aman, justice is held as the greatest good, and every citizen is encouraged to spy on every other to maintain order. He leaves just as Aman and Halba prepare to fight. His next stop, the land of Ghuroub, finds Ibn Fattouma questioned to the depths of his being. Does he earnestly desire to go to Gebel, and why? Ibn Fattouma states as he has many times before that he seeks to learn Gebel's secret of perfection in life and share it with the people of his homeland. He and the other seekers of Gebel are driven from Ghuroub by an invading army from Aman, and after months of travel, they sight Gebel itself from a mountain peak. As Ibn Fattouma descends to continue his journey, the story ends without the reader learning whether he finds the perfection he seeks.
__________________________
[1] The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
Wikipedia
Man Gone Down is the debut novel of U.S. author
Michael Thomas (? - ). It is:
- Winner of the 2009 International Dublin/IMPAC Literary Award (a prize of €100,000)
- New York Times Top Ten Best Books of 2007
- New York Times Notable Books of 2007
- San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of 2007
- Spring/Summer 2008 Book Sense Best Reading Group title
The book was praised by the judges, who included James Ryan, for its "energy and warmth" and for being "tuned urgently to the way we live now".[1]
The novel is about an African-American man estranged from his white wife and their children, and who must come up with a sum of money within four days to have them returned. It focuses on an attempt to achieve the American Dream. Thomas describes Man Gone Down as having a "gallows humour".[2]
Man Gone Down: A Novel
[1] "Debut novel by US writer wins Impac". The Irish Times. 2009-06-11. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0611/breaking49.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
[2] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Gone_Down
Budapest (Budapeste) is a novel by Brazilian writer, singer, guitarist, composer, dramatist, and poet
Francisco Buarque de Hollanda (1944- ), published in 2003 and won the Prêmio Jabuti award (the most important and well-known literary award in Brazil).
See the Editorial Reviews
here.
The Shipping News is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning novel by
E. Annie Proulx (1935- ), published in 1993, and adapted into a film of the same name released in 2001.
The Shipping News
Plot Summary[1]
The story centers on Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper reporter from upstate New York whose father emigrated from Newfoundland. Shortly after his parents' suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive wife Petal, and her lover, leave town. Days later, Petal sells their two daughters to a 'black market adoption agency' for $6,000. Soon thereafter, Petal and her lover are killed in a car accident; the young girls are located by police and returned to Quoyle. Despite his daughters' safe return, Quoyle's life is collapsing, and his paternal aunt, Agnis Hamm, convinces him to return to Newfoundland for a new beginning. Their ancestral home is located on Quoyle's Point.
He obtains work as a traffic accident reporter for the Gammy Bird, the local newspaper in Killick-Claw, a small town. The Gammy Bird's editor also asks him to document the shipping news, arrivals and departures from the local port, which soon grows into Quoyle's signature articles on boats of interest in the harbour.
Quoyle gradually makes friends within the community, learns about his own troubled family background, and begins a relationship with a local woman, Wavey. Quoyle's growth in confidence and emotional strength, as well as his ability to be comfortable in a loving relationship, become the book's main focus. Quoyle learns deep and disturbing secrets about his ancestors that emerge in strange ways.
[1]
Wikipedia.org
Movie:
Alfred and Emily, published in 2008, is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning, Iranian-born British author
Doris Lessing (1919- ).
From Bookmarks Magazine: In Alfred & Emily, groundbreaking author Doris Lessing returns to the subject matter explored in her 1994 autobiography, Under My Skin. Fans will recognize common themes and details, but Lessing’s outlook and tone have softened. Critics were touched by her genuine attempt to understand her overbearing, self-absorbed mother, though her writing is still tinged with resentment. Lessing’s fictional novella is no fairy tale, but most critics found it unconvincing. Why invent a fictional life if it isn’t compelling? They much preferred the memoir: its somber tone and gritty details bring the unhappy couple wrenchingly and heartrendingly to life, its fractured, unconventional structure reminiscent of that of The Golden Notebook. While Lessing has penned a powerful and unsparing portrait of a marriage framed by the physical and psychological damages of war, a few critics suggest that general readers might do best to start with Under My Skin, The Golden Notebook, or another of Lessing’s novels.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC
Review
“A clever, moving coupling of fiction and nonfiction. ALFRED & EMILY is...a testament to [Lessing’s] ongoing literary vitality.” (Washington Post Book World )
“A stirring exploration . . . gently yet deeply moving” (Minneapolis Star Tribune )
“A truly intriguing piece of work...the book is also an interesting glimpse of an empire and an era.” (Christian Science Monitor )
“Alfred and Emily reveals why Lessing deserved literature’s highest honor. There is a remarkable level of courage, honesty, and wisdom in Alfred and Emily. . . . Lessing, nearing 90, continues to surprise.” (USA Today )
“An intriguing work . . . [that] shimmers with precisely remembered details.” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times )
“An odd and powerful excursion into lost time. . . . a powerful reminder not only of Lessing’s past but also of how each of us can return to our own and come back with something precious.” (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review )
“Laced with the subtlest of observations and the wryest of wit...This unusual marriage of fiction and memoir (and family photographs) results in a book at once spellbinding, rueful, and tragic.” (Booklist (starred review) )
“Lessing’s taste for discomfiting truths is as evident as ever…as bracing and engaging as anything she has written.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“She has never displayed her potent imagination to better effect, or her gift for probing realism . . . a profoundly moving memoir and portrait of a marriage.” (Wall Street Journal )
Olive Kitteridge (also known as
On the Coast of Maine), a novel by American author
Elizabeth Strout (1956- ), published in 2008, is a collection of thirteen connected short stories about a woman named Olive and her immediate family and friends in the town of Crosby in coastal Maine. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009, and was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award.
Olive Kitteridge
Stories Included in the Collection:Pharmacy
Incoming Tide
The Piano Player
A Little Burst
Starving
A Different Road
Winter Concert
Tulips
Basket of Trips
Ship in a Bottle
Security
Criminal
River
The Color Purple is a novel by American author
Alice Walker (1944- ). It received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
The Color Purple
The Color Purple was adapted into a
film and musical of the same name.
Plot SummaryThe story is told in the form of diary entries and letters. Celie is a poor uneducated young black woman in 1930s Georgia who, aged only fourteen, is raped and impregnated twice by a man she calls Pa. Her children both disappear; Celie assumes their father has murdered them, until she meets a small girl in town to whom she bears a strong resemblance. Celie is forced into a marriage against her will, to Mr. Johnson, a man who originally approaches her father to ask permission to marry her younger sister, Nettie. Shortly after moving into her new home, she is joined by Nettie, who is also seeking to escape the unpleasant conditions at home. After Celie's husband tries to seduce her and fails he forces Nettie to leave and, following Celie's advice, she goes to the home of a local pastor, promising to write to Celie. As time passes, no letters arrive and so Celie assumes that Nettie is dead.
In her writings, Celie deferentially refers to her husband as "Mr.__", and it is far into the tale before we find out his first name is Albert. One of his sons, Harpo, falls in love with and marries a strong-willed and physically imposing woman named Sofia. Though both Harpo and "Mr." attempt to treat her as an inferior, Sofia fights back. Celie initially encourages this bullying behaviour, as being second to a man is the only way she has ever known to live, but when confronted by Sofia she realises her error. Celie is both envious of and intimidated by Sofia's strong spirit and florid defiance of her husband's absolute authority.
"Mr." has a long-term mistress, a singer named Shug Avery. She comes to live with the family due to poor health. Like "Mr.", Shug at first has little respect for Celie and the life she lives. She copies her lover, abusing Celie and adding to her humiliation. Celie feels intrigued and excited by this effervescent, liberated version of femininity. Through her relationship with Shug, Celie realizes that she is worthy of being loved and respected. When Shug discovers that "Mr." beats Celie, she decides to remain in the house for a short time in order to protect her.
After a few years of constant fighting, Sofia leaves Harpo, taking their children with her. At the same time, Celie and Shug become intimate and a strong bond grows between them. Shug helps Celie discover her sexuality as a woman. When Sofia returns to town for a visit, she becomes involved in a fight with Harpo's new girlfriend, Mary Agnes, who is nicknamed "Squeak" because of her high-pitched voice.
One day, the mayor’s wife, Miss Millie, asks Sofia to work as her maid. When Sofia declines with the words, "Hell, no," the mayor slaps her, not reckoning with her fiery temper. She returns the blow, knocking the mayor down, and is arrested for hitting a white man. Sofia is severely beaten in jail and is later sentenced twelve years in prison. The separation from her family and the loss of her freedom breaks her spirit. After some intervention from Squeak, who is raped by a white prison warden to whom she is related for her trouble, Sofia's sentence is altered and she serves as the mayor's wife's maid for the remainder of her time.
Having left on a singing tour, Shug returns, married to a man named Grady. Celie is initially hurt by this relationship, as she feels betrayed, but grows to accept it. Other than Nettie, Shug is the only person who has ever truly loved Celie.
One night, when Shug asks Celie about Nettie, Celie says that she believes her sister to be dead, since she had promised to write but Celie had never received any letters. Shug informs Celie that she has seen "Mr." hide numerous mysterious letters in a trunk and suggests that they investigate. When they do so, they find dozens of letters written by Nettie to Celie over the years. These tell of Nettie's travels to Africa with a missionary couple, Samuel and Corrine, and their adopted children, Olivia and Adam. When Corrine becomes ill, Samuel tells Nettie how they came to adopt their children and that his wife has suspected that Nettie was their biological mother due to their close resemblance. It transpires that Olivia and Adam are Celie's long-lost children, and that she is their aunt. She also learns that Alphonso was not her and Celie's father but rather their stepfather. Their biological father, a store-owner, had been lynched by a mob of white men because they believed he was too successful. After Corrine's acceptance of Nettie's story, she dies, and Samuel and Nettie discover that they are deeply in love; they eventually marry.
Having read the letters and learned the truth about her children as well as her biological father, Celie visits Alphonso to confirm the story, which he does. Celie finds a new sense of empowerment, and at dinner one night she releases her pent-up anger at "Mr.", cursing him for the years of abuse that she has had to endure. Shug, Celie, and Squeak decide to move to Tennessee, where Celie begins a lucrative business designing and sewing tailored pants together. She returns to Georgia for a visit and finds that not only has "Mr." reformed himself and his ways, but Alphonso has died. She finds out that the shop, house and land she thought was his had been willed to her and Nettie when their mother died. Celie decides to move back, relocating her business. Soon after, Shug falls for nineteen-year-old Germaine and travels with him across the country in a last hurrah for her youth.
Meanwhile, Nettie and Samuel are preparing for their return to America. Adam falls in love with and marries an African girl named Tashi, who undergoes the painful rituals of female genital cutting and facial scarification. Adam also goes through the facial scarring ritual in solidarity. Nettie writes to Celie to let her know that the family is on their way.
Celie is now an independent woman. Celie and "Mr." eventually reconcile, but remain friends rather than lovers. He helps her with her business, sewing with her as they sit on the porch. Sofia and Harpo reconcile, and Sofia also works for Celie at her pants-making shop. Shug returns, satisfied with her last fling and ready to settle down. Nettie and Samuel return with the children, and Celie and her sister are happily reunited. [
Reference]
Movive (The Color Purple):
The Sweetness of Life (Die Suesse des Lebens) is a 2006 novel by Austrian psychiatrist and writer
Paulus Hochgatterer (1961- ). It won The European Union Prize for Literature in 2009.
Synopsis
This novel takes us through the lives of a group of damaged people living in a pleasant and seemingly tranquil Austrian village. It’s a village where nothing dramatic occurs, until one Christmas…
It’s the Christmas holiday, the presents have been opened, and a six-year-old girl is drinking cocoa and playing Ludo with her grandfather when the doorbell rings. Her grandfather goes to the door, talks to someone there, gets his coat, and goes out.
When her grandfather doesn’t come back, the little girl puts on her new green quilted jacket with a squirrel on it and goes out to find him. She follows some footprints and finds her grandfather’s body on the ramp that leads to their barn. There is no doubt it is his body - the clothes are his - but his head has been crushed to a bloody pulp. The little girl goes home and says nothing for the next few days.
However, the body is discovered the morning after the murder, and detective superintendent Ludwig Kovacs - a middle-aged divorcé who loves gazing at the stars, has a daughter he can’t communicate with and is beginning a new relationship with a local woman - has to solve this case and the spate of animal killings - chickens, ducks, hamsters and 16 hives’ worth of bees - which follow.
On a basic level, this novel is about a horrific crime and the investigation which follows. But it’s really about far more than this. It’s about harming children through trauma, violence and cruelty, and it’s about the pain that parents and elders can cause. Hochgatterer pulls back the veil of normality and reveals the part of life going on beneath the surface. [Reference]
Empire Falls is a novel written by
Richard Russo (1949- ); published in 2001 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.
A small, fictional mill town in Maine called Empire Falls, though once booming in industry, is quickly deteriorating. Dominated by the powerful Whiting family, the town can no longer sustain itself. Seen through the eyes of Miles Roby, the manager of the Empire Grill, which is also owned by Mrs. Whiting, his struggles with family, including his divorce and the life of his teenage daughter, Christina (nicknamed "Tick"), greatly mirror the condition of the town. His soon-to-be ex-wife Janine is going out with and preparing to marry the owner of a fitness center in town. As prospects for the town's future dwindle, the past is visited to explain Miles' history as well as those around him and the town itself. A subplot of the novel involves a school shooting carried out by a poor high school student, who is orphaned after the death of his grandmother, and bullied by the rest of the school's students, particularly Tick's ex-boyfriend, Zack. [
Reference]
Empire Falls
Middlesex is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by American author
Jeffrey Eugenides (1960- ) published in 2002.
Despite slow initial sales, the book became a bestseller. Its characters and events are loosely based on the author's life and his observations on his Greek heritage. Eugenides developed the idea of writing Middlesex after he read the memoir Herculine Barbin, and was unsatisfied with its lack of discussion about hermaphrodites' anatomy and emotions.
The novel begins with the narrator, aged 41, recounting how the recessive gene, 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, caused him to be born with the characteristics of a female. He is christened with a female name Calliope and nicknamed Callie. After learning about the syndrome in his adolescence, he changes his name to the masculine name Cal. The narration periodically returns to the frame story of present-day Cal, who is bearded, male and interested in women, foreshadowing the personal revelations of Callie. The narration briefly explains how Desdemona, Cal's grandmother, predicted her grandchild to be male while Callie's parents had already made preparations for the birth of a daughter.
The story starts again further back in time, in a small village in Asia Minor, with the protagonist's Greek paternal grandparents. Eleutherios "Lefty" Stephanides and Desdemona Stephanides are orphaned siblings who share a close bond that begins to develop into a romantic relationship, despite their misgivings. Soon, in the aftermath of the 1922 war between Greece and Turkey, and amid graphic scenes of the Great Fire of Smyrna, the siblings are forced to seek refuge by emigrating to America. On the eve of their departure, Desdemona agrees to marry her brother. The marriage is possible because no one in America knows they are siblings and, as such, the legal and social prohibitions against marriage between siblings are not a risk. They reach the United States, and settle in Detroit, Michigan, home of their cousin Sourmelina "Lina" Zizmo, hinted to be a closeted lesbian, their American sponsor, and her husband Jimmy. Lefty soon goes into an alcohol-smuggling business run by Jimmy. In time, Desdemona gives birth to a son, Milton, while Lina gives birth to a daughter, Theodora, called "Tessie". Desdemona is made aware of the potential for disease in children due to consanguinity and becomes anxious about her pregnancy and the morality of her sexual relationship with Lefty. With the quality of his marriage declining, Lefty decides to open a bar and gambling room, calling it the Zebra Room.
Lefty and Desdemona's son, Milton, marries Lina's daughter, Tessie. Milton and Tessie, who are second cousins, have two children, Chapter Eleven and Callie. Chapter Eleven (a reference to the fact that he eventually becomes bankrupt) is a biologically "normal" boy, while Callie is intersexed. However, the family does not know this for many years, and Callie is consequently raised as a girl.
At 14, Callie falls in love with her female best friend, who is referred to in the novel as the "Obscure Object" (is a reference to the 1977 film That Obscure Object of Desire directed by Luis Buñuel). Callie has her first sexual experiences with both genders, the Obscure Object and the Obscure Object's brother. After Callie is injured by a tractor, a doctor discovers that Callie is intersexed, and she is taken to a clinic in New York where she undergoes a series of tests and examinations. Faced with the prospect of sex reassignment surgery, Callie runs away and takes the male identity of Cal. Cal hitchhikes cross-country, finally arriving in San Francisco, where he becomes an attraction in a burlesque show.
The club where Cal works is raided by police, and Cal is returned to Chapter Eleven's custody. Desdemona sees Cal as male for the first time, and the book ends when Desdemona confesses to Cal that Lefty was her brother. After learning that Milton had been killed in a car accident, Cal stands in the doorway to the family's Middlesex home (a male-only Greek tradition thought to keep spirits of the dead out of the family home) while Milton's funeral takes place. As an adult, Cal becomes a diplomat and is stationed in Berlin. He meets Julie Kikuchi, a Japanese-American woman with whom he starts a relationship. [1]
[1].
Wikipedia.org
Gilead is a novel written by American author
Marilynne Robinson (1943- ), published in 2004 and won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Gilead
Plot [1]: The book is an account of the memories and legacy of John Ames as he remembers his experiences of his father and grandfather to share with his son. All three men share a vocational lifestyle and profession as Congregationalist ministers in Gilead, Iowa. Ames' father was a Christian pacifist, but his grandfather was a radical abolitionist who carried out guerrilla actions with John Brown before the American Civil War, served as a chaplain with the Union forces in that war, and incited his congregation to join up and serve in it; as Ames remarks, "He preached this town into the war." The grandfather returned from the war maimed with the loss of his right eye. Hereafter he was given the distinction that his right side was holy or sacred in someway, that it was his link to commune with God and he was notorious for a piercing stare with the one eye he had left. The grandfather's other eccentricities are recalled in his youth; the practice of giving all and any of the family's possessions to others and preaching with a gun in a bloodied shirt. The true character and intimate details of the father are revealed in context with anecdotes regarding the grandfather, and mainly in the search for the grave of the grandfather. One event that is prevalent in the narrators orations is the memory of receiving communion of sorts from his father at the remains of a Baptist church, burned by lightning. Ames recalls this as an invented memory adapted from his father breaking an ashy biscuit for lunch. In the course of the story, it quickly emerges that Ames's first wife, Louisa, died while giving birth to their daughter, Rebecca (a.k.a. Angeline) who also died soon after. Ames reflects on the death of his family as the source of great sorrow for many years with special reference to the growing family of his dear and lifelong friend, Boughton. Many years later Ames meets his second wife, Lila, a less-educated woman who appears in church. Eventually Ames baptizes Lila and their relationship develops culminating in her proposal to him. As Ames writes, John Ames Boughton (whose father is the local Presbyterian minister and Ames' lifelong friend) reappears in the town after leaving it in great disgrace following his seduction and abandonment of a girl from a poverty-stricken family near his university. The daughter of this relationship died when she was three years old despite the efforts of the Boughton family to look after her. Young Boughton, the apple of his parents' eye but deeply disliked by Ames, seeks Ames out; much of the tension in the story results from Ames's mistrust of young Boughton and particularly of his relationship with Lila and their son. In the dénouement, however, it turns out that Boughton is himself suffering from his forced separation from his own common-law wife, an African American from Tennessee, and their son; the family are not allowed to live together because of segregationist laws, and her family utterly rejects Boughton. It is implied that Boughton's understanding with Lila lies in their common sense of tragedy as she prepares for the death of Ames, who has given her a security and stability she has never known before.
Although there is action in the story, its mainspring lies in Ames' theological struggles on a whole series of fronts: with his grandfather's engagement in the Civil War, with his own loneliness through much of his life, with his brother's clear and his father's apparent loss of belief, with his father's desertion of the town, with the hardships of people's lives, and above all with his feelings of hostility and jealousy towards Boughton, whom he knows at some level he has to forgive. Ames's struggles are illustrated by numerous quotations from the Bible, from theologians (especially Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion), and from philosophers, especially the atheist Feuerbach, whom Ames greatly respects. It is unusual that a book with so much of this kind of content should be so widely recognized as a successful novel, and should achieve such acclaim from a secular audience. However the abstract and theological content is made meaningful because it is seen through the eyes of Ames, who is presented in a deeply sympathetic manner, and writes his memoir from a position of serenity despite suffering while always remaining conscious of his limitations and failings. In the closing pages of the book, Ames learns of Boughton's true situation, and is able to offer him the genuine affection and forgiveness he has never before been able to feel for him. Although it is not stated, there is an implication that he dies in his sleep, or at his prayers, after reaching this resolution.
[1]. Wikipedia.org
The Time Traveler's Wife is the debut novel of American author
Audrey Niffenegger (1963- ), published in 2003 and won the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize and a British Book Award (millions of copies sold in the United States and the United Kingdom).
Plot summary [1]
Using alternating first-person perspectives, the novel tells the stories of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and his wife, Clare Abshire (born May 24, 1971), an artist who makes paper sculptures. Henry has a rare genetic disorder, which comes to be known as Chrono-Displacement, that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry at the Newberry Library in 1991 at the opening of the novel, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life.
Henry begins time traveling at the age of five, jumping forward and backward relative to his own timeline. When he leaves, where he goes, or how long his trips will last are all beyond his control. His destinations are tied to his subconscious—he most often travels to places and times related to his own history. Certain stimuli such as stress can trigger Henry's time traveling; he often goes jogging to keep calm and remain in the present. He also searches out pharmaceuticals in the future that may be able to help control his time traveling. He also seeks the advice of a geneticist, Dr. Kendrick. Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past; he always arrives naked and then struggles to find clothing, shelter and food. He amasses a number of survival skills including lock-picking, self-defense and pickpocketing. Much of this he learns from older versions of himself.
Once their timelines converge "naturally" at the library—their first meeting in his chronology—Henry starts to travel to Clare's childhood and adolescence in South Haven, Michigan, beginning in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits (from her perspective), Henry gives her a list of the dates he will appear and she writes them in a diary so she will remember to provide him with clothes and food when he arrives. During another visit, he inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future. Over time they develop a close relationship. At one point, Henry helps Clare frighten and humiliate a boy who abused her. Clare is last visited in her youth by Henry in 1989, on her eighteenth birthday, during which they make love for the first time. They are then separated for two years until their meeting at the library.
Clare and Henry marry, but Clare has trouble bringing a pregnancy to term because of the genetic anomaly Henry may presumably be passing on to the fetus. After five miscarriages, Henry wishes to save Clare further pain and has a vasectomy, not before impregnating Clare for the sixth time which results in another miscarraige. Clare is impregnated for the seventh time and gives birth to their daughter Alba when Henry time travels forward in time when he is 33 to Clare's bedside. Alba is diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement as well but, unlike Henry, she has some control over her destinations when she time travels. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets his ten-year-old daughter on a school field trip and learns that he died when she was five years old.
When he is 43, during what is to be his last year of life, Henry time travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. As a result of the hypothermia and frostbite he suffers, his feet are amputated when he returns to the present. Henry and Clare both know that without the ability to escape when he time travels, Henry will certainly die within his next few jumps. On New Year's Eve 2006 Henry time travels into the middle of the Michigan woods in 1984 and is accidentally shot by Clare's brother, a scene foreshadowed earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Clare's arms.
Clare is devastated by Henry's passing. She later finds a letter from Henry asking her to "stop waiting" for him, but which describes a moment in her future when she will see him again. The last scene in the book takes place when Clare is 82 years old and Henry is 43. She is waiting for Henry, as she has done most of her life, and when he arrives they clasp each other for what may or may not be the last time.
[1] Wikipedia.org
