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The Diamond Smugglers | Ian Fleming | 1,957 | The Diamond Smugglers is the account of Ian Fleming's meeting with John Collard, a member of the International Diamond Security Organisation (IDSO). The book takes the form of background narrative by Fleming of where the two men met, interspersed with the interview between Fleming and Collard, who is introduced under the pseudonym of "John Blaize". Collard relates how he was recruited into the IDSO by Sir Percy Sillitoe, the ex-head of MI5, under whom Collard had worked. The book goes on to look at the activities of the IDSO from the end of 1954 until the operation was closed down in April 1957, when its job was complete. Collard explained that the IDSO was set up at the instigation of the Chairman of De Beers, Sir Philip Oppenheimer, after an Interpol report stated that £10 million of diamonds were being smuggled out of South Africa each year, as well as additional amounts from Sierra Leone, Portuguese West Africa, the Gold Coast and Tanganyika. As well as providing a history of the IDSO's operations, Collard relates a number of illustrative vignettes concerning the diamond smuggling cases he and the organisation dealt with. |
The Clerk's Prologue and Tale | Geoffrey Chaucer | null | The Clerk's tale is about a marquis of Saluzzo in Piedmont in Italy named Walter, a bachelor who is asked by his subjects to marry in order to provide an heir. He assents and decides he will marry a peasant, named Griselda. Griselda is a poor girl, used to a life of pain and labor, who promises to honor Walter's wishes in all things. After Griselda has borne him a daughter, Walter decides to test her loyalty. He sends an officer to take the baby, pretending it will be killed, but actually conveying it in secret to Bologna. Griselda, because of her promise, makes no protest at this but only asks that the child be buried properly. When she bears a son several years later, Walter again has him taken from her under identical circumstances. Finally, Walter determines one last test. He has a Papal bull of annulment forged which enables him to leave Griselda, and informs her that he intends to remarry. As part of his deception, he employs Griselda to prepare the wedding for his new bride. Meanwhile, he has brought the children from Bologna, and he presents his daughter as his intended wife. Eventually he informs Griselda of the deceit, who is overcome by joy at seeing her children alive, and they live happily ever after. |
Daisy Miller | Henry James | null | Annie "Daisy" Miller and Frederick Winterbourne first meet in Vevey, Switzerland, in a garden of the grand hotel where Winterbourne is vacationing from his alleged studies (although an attachment to an older lady is rumoured). They are introduced by Randolph Miller, Daisy's 9-year old brother. Randolph considers their hometown of Schenectady, New York, to be absolutely superior to all of Europe. Daisy, however, is absolutely delighted with the continent, especially the high society which she wishes to enter. Winterbourne is at first confused by her attitude, although greatly impressed by her beauty, but soon determines that she is nothing more than a young flirt. He continues his pursuit of Daisy in spite of the disapproval of his aunt Mrs. Costello, who spurns any family with so close a relationship to their courier as the Millers have with their Eugenio. She also thinks Daisy is a shameless girl for agreeing to visit the Château de Chillon with Winterbourne after they have known each other for only half an hour. Winterbourne then informs Daisy that he must go to Geneva the next day. Daisy feels disappointment and chaffs him, eventually asking him to visit her in Rome later that year. In Rome, Winterbourne and Daisy meet unexpectedly in the parlor of Mrs. Walker, an American expatriate. Her moral values have become adapted to those of Italian society. Rumors about Daisy meeting with young Italian gentlemen make her socially exceptionable under these criteria. Winterbourne learns of Daisy's increasing intimacy with a young Italian of questionable society, Giovanelli, as well as the growing scandal caused by the pair's behavior. Daisy is undeterred by the open disapproval of the other Americans in Rome, and her mother seems quite unaware of the underlying tensions. Winterbourne and Mrs. Walker attempt to persuade Daisy to separate from Giovanelli, but she refuses any help that is offered. One night, Winterbourne takes a walk through the Colosseum and, at its center, sees a young couple sitting there. He realizes that they are Giovanelli and Daisy. Winterbourne, infuriated with Giovanelli, asks him how he could dare to take Daisy to a place where she runs the risk of "Roman Fever" . Daisy says she does not care and Winterbourne leaves them. Daisy falls ill, and dies a few days later. |
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle | Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov | null | Ada tells the life story of a man named Van Veen, and his lifelong love affair with his sister Ada. They meet when she is eleven (soon to be twelve) and he is fourteen, believing that they are cousins (more precisely: that their fathers are cousins and that their mothers are sisters), and begin a sexual affair. They later discover that Van's father is also Ada's and her mother is also his. The story follows the various interruptions and resumptions of their affair. Both are wealthy, educated, and intelligent. Van goes on to become a world-renowned psychologist, and the book itself takes the form of his memoirs, written when he is in his nineties, punctuated with his own and Ada's marginal notes, and in parts with notes by an unnamed editor, suggesting the manuscript is not complete. The novel is divided into five parts, each approximately half the length of the preceding one. As they progress chronologically, this structure evokes a sense of a person reflecting on his own memories, with an adolescence stretching out epically, and many later years simply flashing by. The story takes place in the late nineteenth century on what appears to be an alternative history of Earth, which is there called Demonia or Antiterra. Antiterra has the same geography and a largely similar history to that of Earth; however, it is crucially different at various points. For example, the United States includes all of the Americas (which were discovered by African navigators). But it was also settled extensively by Russians, so that what we know as western Canada is a Russian-speaking province called "Estoty", and eastern Canada a French-speaking province called "Canady." Russian, English, and French are all in use in North America. Russia itself, and much of Asia, is part of an empire called Tartary, while the word "Russia" is simply a "quaint synonym" for Estoty. The British Empire, which includes most or all of Europe and Africa, is ruled (in the nineteenth century), by a King Victor. Aristocracy is still widespread, but some technology has advanced well into twentieth-century forms. Electricity, however, has been banned since almost the time of its discovery following an event referred to as "the L-disaster". Airplanes and cars exist, but television and telephones do not, their functions served by similar devices powered by water. The setting is thus a complex mixture of Russia and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The belief in a "twin" world, Terra, is widespread on Antiterra as a sort of fringe religion or mass hallucination. (The name "Antiterra" may be a back-formation from this; the planet is "really" called "Demonia".) One of Van's early specialties as a psychologist is researching and working with people who believe that they are somehow in contact with Terra. Terra's alleged history, so far as he states it, appears to be that of our world: that is, the characters in the novel dream, or hallucinate, about the real world. The central characters are all members of the North American aristocracy, of mostly Russian and Irish descent. Dementiy ("Demon") Veen is first cousins with Daniel Veen. They marry a pair of twin sisters, Aqua and Marina respectively, who are also their second cousins. Demon and Aqua raise a son, Ivan (Van); Dan and Marina two daughters, Ada and Lucette. The story begins when Van, aged 14, spends a summer with his cousins, then 12 and 8. A rough idea of the years covered by each section is provided in brackets, below, but the narrator's thoughts often stray outside of the periods noted. This part, which one critic called "the last 19th century Russian novel", takes up nearly half the book. Throughout this part of the novel, the many passages depicting the blossoming of Van and Ada's love vary in rhythm, in style, and in vocabulary—ranging from lustrous, deceptively simple yet richly sensual prose to leering and Baroque satire of eighteenth-century pornography—depending on the mood Nabokov wishes to convey. The first four chapters provide a sort of unofficial prologue, in that they move swiftly back and forth through the chronology of the narrative, but mostly deal with events between 1863 and 1884, when the main thrust of the story commences. They depict Van and Ada discovering their true relationship, Demon and Marina's tempestuous affair, Marina's sister Aqua's descent into madness and obsession with Terra and water, and Van's "first love," a girl he sees in an antique shop but never speaks to. Some readers regard these first four chapters as being deliberately difficult. Chapters 4 to 43 mostly deal with Van's adolescence, and his first meetings with his "cousin" Ada—focused on the two summers when he joins her (and her "sister" Lucette) at Ardis Hall, their ancestral home, in 1884 and 1888. In 1884 Van and Ada, age 14 and 12, fall passionately in love, and their affair is marked by a powerful sense of romantic eroticism. The book opens with their discovery that they are in fact not cousins but brother and sister. The passage is notoriously difficult, more so as neither of them explicitly states the conclusion they have drawn (treating it as obvious), and it is only referred to in passing later in the text. Although Ada's mother keeps a wedding photo dated August 1871, eleven months before her birth, they find in a box in the attic a newspaper announcement dating the wedding to December 1871; and furthermore that Dan had been abroad since that spring, as proved by his extensive filmreels. Hence he is not Ada's father. Furthermore they find an annotated flower album kept by Marina in 1869–70 which indicate, very obliquely, that she was pregnant and confined to a sanatorium at the same time as Aqua; that 99 orchids were delivered to Marina, from Demon, on Van's birthday; and that Aqua had a miscarriage in a skiing accident. It later transpires that Marina gave the child to her sister to replace the one she had lost—so she is in fact Van's mother—and that her affair with Demon continued until Ada's conception. This makes Lucette (Dan and Marina's child) the uterine half-sister of both of them. Van returns to Ardis for a second visit in the summer of 1888. The affair has become strained because of Van's suspicions that Ada has had another lover and the increasing intrusion of Lucette (their 12-year-old half sister) into their trysts (an intrusion that Van half welcomes but Ada resents). This section ends with Van's discovery that Ada has in fact been unfaithful and his flight from Ardis to exact revenge upon those "rivals" of whom he is aware—Phillip Rack, Ada's older and weak-charactered music teacher; and Percy de Prey, a rather boorish neighbour. Van is distracted by a chance altercation with a soldier named Tapper, whom he challenges to a duel and by whom he is wounded. In hospital he chances upon Phillip Rack, who is dying, and whom Van cannot bring himself to exact revenge upon. He then receives word that Percy de Prey has been shot and killed in Antiterra's version of the ongoing Crimean War. Van moves to live with Cordula de Prey, Percy's cousin, in her Manhattan apartment, whilst he fully recovers. They have a shallow physical relationship, which provides Van with respite from the emotional strain of his feelings for Ada. Van spends his time developing his studies in psychology, and visiting a number of the "Villa Venus" upper-class brothels. In the autumn of 1892 Lucette, now having declared her love for Van, brings him a letter from Ada in which she announces she has received an offer of marriage from a wealthy Russian, Andrey Vinelander. Should Van wish to invite her to live with him she will refuse the offer. Van does so, and they commence living together in an apartment Van has purchased from Ada's old school-friend, and Van's former lover, Cordula de Prey. In February 1893 their father, Demon, arrives with news that his cousin (Ada's supposed father, but actual stepfather) Dan has died following a period of exposure caused by running naked into the woods near his home during a terrifying hallucinatory episode. Upon grasping the situation regarding Van and Ada, he tells Van that Ada would be happier if he "gave her up"—and what is more, he would disown Van completely if he failed to do so. Van acquiesces, leaves, and attempts suicide, which fails when his gun fails to fire. He then leaves his Manhattan apartment and preoccupies himself with hunting down a former servant at Ardis, Kim Beauharnais, who had been blackmailing them with photographic evidence of their affair, and beating him with an alpenstock until he is blind. With Ada having married Andrey Vinelander, Van occupies himself in traveling and his studies, until 1901 when Lucette reappears in England. She has herself booked on the same transatlantic ship, the Tobakoff, that Van is taking back to America. She attempts to seduce him on the crossing and nearly succeeds, but is foiled when Ada appears as an actress in the film, Don Juan's Last Fling, that they are watching together on the onboard cinema. Lucette consumes a number of sleeping pills and commits suicide by throwing herself from the Tobakoff into the Atlantic. In March 1905, Demon dies in a plane crash. Later in 1905, Ada and Andrey arrive in Switzerland as part of a party engaged in uncovering Lucette's fortune, concealed in various hidden bank accounts. Van meets with them, and together he and Ada formulate a plan for her to leave her husband and live with him. This is now considered possible due to the death of Demon. During their stay in Switzerland, however, Andrey falls ill with tuberculosis, and Ada decides that she cannot abandon him until he has recovered. Van and Ada part, and Andrey remains ill for 17 years, at which point he dies. Ada then flies back to Switzerland to meet with Van. This part consists of Van's lecture on "The Texture of Time", apparently transcribed from his reading it into a tape recorder as he drives across Europe from the Adriatic to meet Ada in Montreux, Switzerland, while she is on her way from America via Geneva. The transcription has then been edited to merge into a description of his and Ada's actual meeting, and then out again. This makes this part of the novel notably self-reflexive, and it is sometimes cited as the "difficult" part of the novel, some reviewers even stating that they wished Nabokov had "left it out." It could conversely be argued that it is one of the most potent evocations of one of the novel's central themes, the relation of personal experience of time to one's sense of being in and of the world. At the end of this section, Van and Ada join to live as man and wife. This section of the novel is the one most clearly set in 1967, as Van completes his memoirs as laid out in Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. He describes his contentment, such as it is, his relationship with his book, and the continuing presence and love of Ada. This is interspersed with remarks on the ravages of time. As cancer develops painfully within him, Van and Ada restructure 80 years of fragments into a conversation about death, and Van breaks off from correcting his essentially complete but not yet fully polished work as the book becomes distorted. The book stops referring to Van and Ada, merging them into "Vaniada, Dava or Vada, Vanda and Anda", as they begin a suicide and "die into the finished book." (Whether they do indeed die is disputed by critics, as the author says "if our time-racked flat-lying couple ever intended to die".) |
Idlewild | Nick Sagan | 2,003 | A young man wakes up with no memory of who he is, where he is, or anything about his life and is initially unable to move. He knew only three things — he was a young male student, someone was trying to kill him, and Lazarus was dead. He didn't even know who Lazarus was. After a short period of time, he regains motion, but no memories. Over the next few pages, he is faced with flashing lights, disembodied voices, a cathedral, teddy bears nailed to wooden posts, graveyards, the realization that he is both alone and that his world is impossibly small, and terrifying creatures known as Nightgaunts, before meeting with Jasmine, a 'human' who identifies him as Halloween. As the book progresses, Halloween realizes where he is. He's in a virtual reality school that his parents have sent him to. Upon completion of the school, each student will receive both a scholarship to go through college and a position in a prestigious medical company called Gedaechtnis Corporation. The ten students are Mercutio (Adam), Pandora (Naomi), Simone, Isaac, Lazarus, Vashti, Tyler, Champagne (Charlotte), Fantasia (Gina), and Halloween (Gabriel) himself. Fan, Merc, Hal, and Ty are considered the "clods" while Simone, Isaac, Laz, Vashti, Cham, and Pan are the "pets". Where pets study and follow all of the rules, clods do the opposite. The digital teacher of the school is named Maestro, but the clods call him Maeshtro and do not respect or care for him. Each student is given a digital world that they may edit to their liking; this is where they 'live' while in IVR and where Halloween first finds himself at the beginning of the book. They are also assigned a "Nanny," a digital being that can help a student with anything they need help with. For example, when Halloween realizes that Jasmine is not real, he asks Nanny to bring her back to life (she died in a fight against Fantasia), and Nanny does so. Because of Halloween's suspicions that he may have killed Lazarus, he does not confide in anyone for a long period of time. Mercutio asks Halloween if he'd like some food, and they decide to dine at the Taj Mahal. Mercutio begins to order a steak, but halfway through his order, the entire world freezes up. Merc has triggered a jammer so that he and Hal can escape IVR, and they both wake up in their beds in the school. They decided to visit their favorite diner, Twain's, and enjoy a nice meal before Merc decides to head back to IVR. Halloween, however, chooses to call his parents and report that he is dropping out. After a tough time with both his parents and Ellison, the school's headmaster (and the man Maestro was modeled after), Halloween is sent back to IVR. At her request, Halloween goes to visit Simone, who also believes that something happened to Lazarus, although she is not sure what. The school claims that he has graduated, but Simone and Hal don't believe that. Hal agrees to help Simone determine what happened to him, so they both travel to Laz's last known IVR location — his own domain. Hal still believes that he was the one who killed Laz, but since he loved Simone, he would have done anything for her. However, Simone keeps talking about how she loved Laz, because before he had left, they had been going out. In what is almost a legendary event, like the Last Supper, Halloween throws a party on what turns out to be the last night the students spend together in IVR. At the party, Mercutio breaks the rules, which brings the governor program Maestro to the scene. Using a prepared code, Mercutio breaks the system. With information gathered in the course of his murder investigation, Halloween is able to get out of the broken system, to what he assumes will be the Idlewild IVR Medical Academy in Michigan. Instead, he finds out that his entire life has been spent in a pod. The periods of time he spent out of the school were periods of virtual reality just like the personal domains and virtual schoolhouse he knew. The ten students of the school - five boys and five girls - are divided between four different locations in Europe and America, with another in space, guarding against the possibility of some catastrophe. Halloween and Fantasia break out of their facility, steal a car, and decide to wake up one of their friends, not being able to wake the others due to the distance between the pods. In the meantime, Halloween goes back to speak with his classmates and finds Tyler suffocating to death in Champagne's domain. Back in the real world, he decides to go to Idlewild HQ, the American headquarters of the real Gedaechtnis Corporation located at the real-world address of the virtual school (in Idlewild, Michigan), to release their other friends. There they are attacked by the real murderer - Mercutio. He refuses to explain his actions, telling Halloween only that he has won. They battle, and Mercutio is fatally shot. Afterwards, Halloween finds Mercutio's strange log. His last cryptic messages imply he wanted to kill his virtual siblings to rule alone, and that he alone should survive to breed. Halloween "graduates" all of the remaining students, waking them up from IVR. They decide to fulfill Gedaechtnis' plans for them to rebuild the world, but Halloween rejects the plan. The book ends with Halloween standing in the woods of Michigan, angry at the world for robbing him of his illusions, the girl he loved and his two best friends. |
Beautiful Losers | Leonard Cohen | 1,966 | At the centre of the novel are the members of a love triangle, united by their obsessions and fascination with a 17th-century Mohawk, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. The triangle is made up of the unnamed narrator, an authority on the vanishing A———— tribe, his wife Edith, one of the last surviving members of the tribe, and their maniacal and domineering friend, F, who may or may not exist. |
No Crystal Stair | Mairuth Sarsfield | null | Widow Marion Willow works at two jobs to raise her three daughters properly. Fighting racism and sexism, Marion schools her girls in manners, English poetry and the need for an education; her elegant neighbour and rival (both women are in love with railway porter Edmund Thompson) teaches the children the ways of the street and their black cultural heritage. |
1975 in Prophecy! | null | null | The events described were to begin shortly after February 1972 and climax during 1975. Armstrong stated that his church was operating on two 19 year cycles. The second cycle began after January 7, 1953 when The World Tomorrow was first broadcast over Radio Luxembourg, meaning that the second cycle would end around the beginning of February, 1972. This was not intended as a work of fiction, but as a warning to the reader of what was scheduled to happen. The timeline was uncertain and, although the title of the booklet was specific, 1975 was not mentioned in the text in relation to Biblical prophecy. All specific dates within the booklet were in relation to events or outcomes not specified by the Bible. The biblical prophecies are ambiguous as to their timing. ...The prophecy does Not reveal exactly which ten nations will be included-but this resurrected Roman Empire will bind together some 250 to 300 millions of peoples! That is more manpower than Russia, or the United States has. The strong indication of these prophecies, then, is that some of the Balkan nations are going to tear away from behind the iron Curtain ...When this United States of Europe emerges... The booklet was written in 1956 during the Cold War years. It stated that the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia and other English speaking ("Israelite") nations, contrary to popular cultural belief, would neither be attacked nor destroyed by the Soviet Union, but that a nuclear World War III would destroy these countries. The attack would come from a German dominated United States of Europe led by a Nazi-style dictator (identified as The Beast), and dominated by a religious leader who would probably be a Roman Catholic Pope identified as the Antichrist. In the aftermath of the nuclear attack one third of the populations would be dead. Another third would then die as a result of simultaneous attacks from abnormal weather patterns which would create drought, destruction and epidemic diseases. The remaining third would then be taken into slave labor camp captivity by the United States of Europe. Armstrong was also certain that the USSR would not attack the USA or UK but disintegrate instead: ... some of the Balkan nations are going to tear away from behind the iron Curtain. The literary style of this publication is in a form of advertising script mixing capital and lower case words at whim. Herbert W. Armstrong had previously written in this style as an advertising copywriter in Chicago. Enhancing the text were graphic illustrations by Basil Wolverton. The impact that 1975 in Prophecy! had on the reading public can only be understood in the context of the Cold War years when nuclear attack was anticipated and threatened. In 1956 this booklet was not attempting to predict the future, it was stating future events as fact. Balancing scientific advances, wrote Herbert W. Armstrong, would be the disintegration of society due to increasing mental health problems; crime statistics and divorce. Then he announced that he would reveal the end of the story first. ... we are really going to have world peace! We are going to have actual UTOPIA - far beyond the dreams of today's world-planners! It will not be a millennium of man's devising, however. It will not be a world of idleness and ease-but one of production, plenty, health and happiness. What Armstrong promised was not a Christian evangelical rapture of spirit beings, but a rescue of human beings living in a physical world into which Jesus would return as world dictator, for the good of humanity. Central to his discussion of prophecy was the emergence of the United States of Europe. While our prime objective seems to be idleness, ease and luxury, the German mind and heart and interest appears set on just one thing-hard, energetic WORK that will yet put "Deutschland Uber Alles!" - "Germany Over All!" Armstrong stated: ... even this coming military-political leader does not yet know how many, or precisely which European nations will join in this United Nazi Fascist Europe. ... The German - dominated European combine will blast our cities and industrial centers with hydrogen bombs. ... And that surviving third will be up-rooted from their homes-transported like cattle as slaves to Europe, and probably some to South America ... However, Armstrong was certain that if Britain joined the European Common Market then, either before or after it became the United States of Europe, Britain would withdraw and would eventually be attacked by ten nations in the ultimate federation of a: ... resurrected Roman Empire ... bind(ing) together some 250 to 300 millions of peoples!. |
Sula | Toni Morrison | 1,973 | The Bottom is a mostly black neighborhood in Ohio, situated in the hills above the mostly white, wealthier community in the town of Medallion. The Bottom first became a community when a master gave it to his former slave. This "gift" was in fact a trick: the master gave the former slave a poor stretch of hilly land, convincing the slave the land was worthwhile by claiming that because it was hilly, it was closer to heaven. The trick, though, led to the growth of a vibrant community. Now the community faces a new threat; wealthy whites have taken a liking to the land, and would like to destroy much of the town in order to build a golf course. Shadrack, a resident of the Bottom, fought in World War I. He returns a shattered man, unable to accept the complexities of the world; he lives on the outskirts of town, attempting to create order in his life. One of his methods involves compartmentalizing his fear of death in a ritual he invents and names National Suicide Day. The town is at first wary of him and his ritual, then, over time, unthinkingly accepts him. Meanwhile, the families of the children Nel and Sula are contrasted. Nel is the product of a family that believes deeply in social conventions; hers is a stable home, though some might characterize it as rigid. Nel is uncertain of the conventional life her mother, Helene, wants for her; these doubts are hammered home when she meets Rochelle, her grandmother and a former prostitute, the only unconventional woman in her family line. Sula's family is very different: she lives with her grandmother, Eva, and her mother, Hannah, both of whom are seen by the town as eccentric and loose. Their house also serves as a home for three informally adopted boys and a steady stream of boarders. Despite their differences, Sula and Nel become fiercely attached to each other during adolescence. However, a traumatic accident changes everything. One day, Sula playfully swings a neighborhood boy, Chicken Little, around by his hands. When she loses her grip, the boy falls into a nearby river and drowns. They never tell anyone about the accident even though they did not intend to harm the boy. The two girls begin to grow apart. One day Sula's mother's dress catches fire and she dies of the burns. Eva, her mother, sees her from the window and jumps out into the garden. After high school, Nel chooses to marry and settles into the conventional role of wife and mother. Sula follows a wildly divergent path and lives a life of fierce independence and total disregard for social conventions. Shortly after Nel's wedding, Sula leaves the Bottom for a period of 10 years. She has many affairs, some, it is rumored, with white men. However, she finds people following the same boring routines elsewhere, so she returns to the Bottom and to Nel. Upon her return, the town regards Sula as the very personification of evil for her blatant disregard of social conventions. Their hatred in part rests upon Sula's interracial relationships, but is crystallized when Sula has an affair with Nel's husband, Jude, who subsequently abandons Nel. Ironically, the community's labeling of Sula as evil actually improves their own lives. Her presence in the community gives them the impetus to live harmoniously with one another. Nel breaks off her friendship with Sula. Just before Sula dies in 1940, they achieve a half-hearted reconciliation. With Sula's death, the harmony that had reigned in the town quickly dissolves. |
Beloved | Toni Morrison | 1,987 | The book concerns the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver after their escape from slavery. Their home, I24 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, is haunted by a revenant, whom they believe to be the ghost of Sethe's daughter. Because of the haunting —- which often involves objects being thrown around the room —- Sethe's youngest daughter, Denver, is shy, friendless, and housebound, and her sons, Howard and Buglar, have run away from home by the time they are thirteen years old. Soon afterward, Baby Suggs, the mother of Sethe's husband Halle, dies in her bed. Paul D, one of the slaves from Sweet Home, the plantation where Baby Suggs, Sethe, her spouse Halle, and several other slaves once worked, arrives at 124. He tries to bring a sense of reality into the house. He also tries to make the family forget the past. In doing so, he forces out the spirit. At first, he seems to be successful, even bringing the family, including the housebound Denver, out of the house for the first time in years. However, on their way back, they encounter a young woman sitting in front of the house. She calls herself Beloved. Paul D, suspicious, warns Sethe, but charmed by the young woman, Sethe ignores him. Paul D is gradually forced out of Sethe's home by a supernatural presence. When made to sleep outside in a shed, he is cornered by Beloved. While Paul D has sex with her, his mind is filled with horrific memories from his past. Overwhelmed with guilt, Paul D tries to tell Sethe about it but cannot and instead says he wants her pregnant. Sethe is elated, and Paul D resists Beloved and her influence over him. But, when he tells friends at work about his plans to start a new family, they react fearfully. Stamp Paid reveals the reason for the community's rejection of Sethe. When Paul D asks Sethe about it, she tells him what happened. After escaping from Sweet Home and making it to her mother-in-law's home where her children were waiting, Sethe was found by her master, who attempted to reclaim Sethe and her children. Sethe grabbed her children, ran into the tool shed and tried to kill them all, succeeding only with her oldest daughter. Sethe explains to Paul D, saying she was "trying to put my babies where they would be safe." The revelation is too much for him, and he leaves. Without Paul D, the sense of reality and time moving forward disappears. Sethe comes to believe that the girl, Beloved, is the daughter she murdered when the girl was only two years old; her tombstone reads only "Beloved". Sethe begins to spend carelessly and spoil Beloved out of guilt. Beloved becomes angry and more demanding, throwing tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Beloved's presence consumes Sethe's life to the point where she becomes depleted and sacrifices her own need for eating, while Beloved grows bigger and bigger. In the climax of the novel, Denver, the youngest daughter, reaches out and searches for help from the black community. Some of the village women arrive at 124 to exorcise Beloved. At the same time, the white man who helped Sethe and Halle in their escape comes to pick up Denver who is beginning work with him that day. Sethe attacks the white man with an ice pick and is brought down by the village women; in the meantime Beloved disappears from I24While Sethe is confused and has a "rememory" of her master coming again, Beloved disappears. The novel resolves with Denver becoming a working member of the community and Paul D returning to Sethe and pledging his love. At the outset, the reader is caused to assume that Beloved is a supernatural, incarnate form of Sethe's murdered daughter. Later, Stamp Paid reveals the story of "a girl locked up by a white man over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that's her". Both are possible by the text. Beloved sings a song Sethe believes to be known only to her and her children; elsewhere, she speaks of a pair of earrings and asks Sethe what happened to them. The second section of the novel, however, contains memories of Beloved's that seem to corroborate the possibility that she is the escaped girl from Deer Creek. |
The Peace War | Vernor Vinge | 1,984 | The story takes place in 2048, 51 years after scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develop "the ultimate weapon", a force field generating device they term a Bobbler. The bureaucracy running the Laboratory use it to enforce an end to conventional warfare (triggering a brief war in the process), calling themselves the Peace Authority. The Bobbler creates a perfectly spherical, impenetrable, and persistent shield around or through anything, and is used to contain nuclear weapons, people, and occasionally entire cities or governments, separating them from the rest of the world (and presumably killing everyone inside by eventual suffocation and lack of sunlight). In an effort to retain their monopoly on this weapon, they make technological progress illegal, and their power and fear of rebellion corrupts them. In this world, governments are weak, where they are permitted at all; the Peace Authority is the true bearer of power and becomes a worldwide government. A group of rebels, the Tinkers, develop technology clandestinely far beyond what the Authority has (while limited to riding horseback and other Authority-mandated anachronisms), but still has no defense against the bobble. One of the original inventors of the bobble is part of the resistance, and he develops a more advanced version of the bobbler which does not require the huge electrical power sources available only to the Peace Authority. It is discovered by the Tinkers (and much later by the Peace Authority) that the bobbles are actually not force fields, but stasis fields; within which time has stopped. So not only are the contents perfectly preserved, but they open spontaneously after a certain time period. The Tinkers use their knowledge and the Peacers' ignorance of this effect to their advantage (bobbling themselves for short time periods, for instance), and with the help of a young thief (and mathematical genius), they lead a rebellion to try to bobble the power generators of the Peace Authority and thus neutralize its primary weapon. |
Marooned in Realtime | Vernor Vinge | 1,986 | In the story, a device exists which can create a "bobble", a spherical stasis field in which time stands still, allowing one-way time travel into the future. These frictionless, perfectly reflective spheres are also used as weapons, as shields against other weapons, for storage, for space travel (combined with nuclear pulse propulsion), and other purposes. People whose bobbles open up after a certain date in the 23rd century find the Earth completely devoid of human life. All living humans have disappeared, with only ambiguous archaeological clues for the reasons, and only those who were inside bobbles during the event survive into the future. The "low-techs" — those who were bobbled soon after the original invention of bobbles — have roughly late-20th-century technology. The "high-techs" — those who were bobbled later in time (in the period of accelerating technological progress leading up to the singularity) — have vastly superior technology, including cybernetic enhancements, faster and thought-controlled bobblers, personal automaton extensions of self, space ships, medical technology to allow practical immortality (barring accidents or fatal injuries), and individual arsenals comparable to entire countries of the 20th century. Indeed, those who were bobbled at slightly different times leading up to the singularity, have vastly different technology levels. The protagonist is Wil Brierson, a detective who also was the protagonist of the preceding novella The Ungoverned. Some time after the events in The Ungoverned, Brierson was forcibly bobbled 10,000 years into the future to prevent his testimony in a case, effectively murdering him. As a punishment, the law enforcement of his time period bobbled criminals for a slightly longer amount of time than their victims, with a message explaining the crime and allowing future law enforcement to provide more specific punishment (or revenge), after the true fate of the victim can be determined. However, in this unpopulated world, every human is valuable, and the high-techs give the criminals new false identities to protect them and welcome them into their small society. The group of several hundred people seeks to gather up all the humans left in order to gain enough genetic diversity to create a new civilization and their own singularity. They travel into the future so that they can recruit colonies of people, ending approximately 50 million years ahead in order to gather one of the largest groups trapped inside one of the earliest but longest-lived bobbles. Before one of their very long transits, the computers of one of the high-tech project leaders, Marta Korolev, are hacked, and she is excluded from the automated bobbling. Left stranded in normal time, with her bobbling capability blocked, she dies alone after a natural lifespan on a deserted Earth. When the "murder" is discovered, the low-tech Brierson is hired by the surviving project leader, Yelén Korolev (who is also Marta's widow) to find the killer, who has to be one of the high techs. Della Lu, a high tech who was an agent of the Peace Authority during The Peace War, agrees to assist Brierson with the technical aspects of the case. In the millions of years since the singularity, Della had spent 9,000 years alone in real time, exploring the galaxy. She discovered that intelligent life is profoundly rare, and there were parallel vanishings in the few civilizations she found, but no definitive proof of the cause. The singularity is implied to be an explanation for the Fermi Paradox. To complicate matters, as a high tech, Della Lu is also a suspect, and the vast amount of time she has spent alone in deep space and in real time leaves questions about whether she is still human. Furthermore, Yelén Korolev herself is a suspect. The novel thus deals with the investigation of two parallel locked room mysteries: the murder of Marta Korelev, and the "locked planet" mystery of the disappearance of the human race. Brierson interviews each of the high-tech suspects, seeking evidence of any motive for murder while discussing their views on how the human race vanished. While some suggest that an alien invasion, ecological collapse, or other disaster was the culprit, by the end it is strongly suggested that this event was a technological singularity, and that the human race had transcended to a different form of existence with the assistance of exponentially improving technology. |
Haroun and the Sea of Stories | Salman Rushdie | 1,990 | The novel opens in the sad city in the country of Alifbay, where Haroun Khalifa lives with his father, a famous storyteller, and his mother. One day, Haroun arrives home from school to learn that his mother has run off with his upstairs neighbor. This neighbor had often been critical of Haroun's father, Rashid, because he did not understand the usefulness of stories. In anger, Haroun assails his father for the uselessness of his stories. This crushes his father. Haroun finds it difficult to concentrate on schoolwork and so his father decides to take him on a storytelling job he is performing for some politicos in the Land of G and the Valley of K. When Rashid attempts to tell his stories, however, no words come out, and the politicos get very mad. Haroun and Rashid board a mail bus bound for the Valley of K. It is driven by a parrot-looking man named Butt who stutters and speaks in riddles. Haroun makes a deal with Butt to drive them on the dangerous road between the Land of G and the Valley of K so that his father can see the Valley of K before sunset in order to attempt to inspire him. Butt drives dangerously and Haroun is worried that he will die. When they reach the beautiful sights of the Valley of K, Rashid tells Haroun that it all reminds him of "khattam-shud," an ancient concept that means silence. When they reach K, Haroun and Rashid meet Mr. Buttoo, the politician, who takes them to his boat on the Dull Lake. As they depart on the lake, they are engulfed in a thick mist. The mist smells very bad and Haroun realizes that it is a Mist of Misery brought on by his father's foul mood. When the sea begins to rock, Haroun tells everyone to think good thoughts, and when they do, the sea calms. Haroun and Rashid reach the yacht that will take them to their destination the next day. The yacht is very luxurious, but both Rashid and Haroun have difficulty sleeping. Just as Haroun dozes off, he hears a noise in his bedroom. He finds an old man with an onion shaped head, who disappears as soon as he sees Haroun. The old man drops a wrench, which Haroun confiscates. The old man materializes and tells Haroun he is Iff, and that he must have the wrench to turn off the Story Stream for his father, Rashid. When Haroun protests, Iff tells him to take it up with the Walrus in Gup City, Kahani. Haroun demands that the Water Genie take him there, and Iff reluctantly concedes in order to get his wrench back from Haroun. The Genie tells Haroun to pick his bird and give it a name and it will materialize. He pulls out a handful of tiny magical creatures. Haroun picks the Hoopoe and Iff throws it out the window and into the water where it balloons into a huge bird. They climb on its back and accelerate into space. The Hoopoe looks like Mr. Butt, so Haroun names it Butt the Hoopoe. They are able to communicate telepathically. Butt the Hoopoe lands on the Sea of Stories of Kahani, Earth's second moon, which moves so fast it is undetectable by human instruments. It evenly distributes Story Water across the earth. They land in the ocean so that Iff can give Haroun Wishwater and hopefully bypass meeting the Walrus. Haroun drinks the Wishwater and wishes for his father's storytelling to return. He can only focus on an image of his mother, however, and after eleven minutes, he loses his concentration. Iff then gives Haroun a cup of water from the Sea that contains a story. Haroun drinks it and then finds himself in a coma. He hallucinates about a princess being trapped in a tower. As the hero climbs the tower to rescue the princess, he turns into a spider and princess hacks away at him until he falls to the ground. When Haroun wakes from his story, Iff tells him that someone named Khattam-Shud is poisoning the stories. Haroun, Butt the Hoopoe, and Iff the Water Genie fly to the Land of Gup, where they meet the Water Gardner and the Plentimaw fishes. The entire land is preparing for war. The Chupwalas have stolen Princess Batcheat from Gup. In addition, they have polluted the Sea of Stories so that many do not make sense anymore. Prince Bolo, General Kitab, and the Walrus announce their plans for war to the Pages of the Guppee Library (or, army). They bring in a spy with a hood over his head. When the hood is removed, Haroun sees his father. Rashid tells everyone that he transported to Kahani and was in the twilight strip when he saw the Princess Batcheat captured. The Chupwalas have come under the spell of Cultmaster Khattam-Shud who wants to sacrifice her to an idol to silence. Prince Bolo and General Kitab declare war on Chup and Rashid offers to guide them to the Chupwala encampment. One of the soldiers in the army, Blabbermouth, takes Haroun to his room. They become lost and Haroun knocks the hat off Blabbermouth's head. Long hair falls out and Haroun sees Blabbermouth is a girl. She then distracts him with a juggling act, and Haroun completely forgets that she is a girl. The army sails towards Chup, chattering about the causes for the war in a way that Haroun thinks might be mutinous. They enter the land of Darkness and land on the beach. They explore the interior and come upon a dark warrior fighting his own shadow in a kind of seductive dance. The man realizes he is being watched and comes to find the trespassers. The shadow begins to speak. It croaks out unintelligible words until Rashid realizes the warrior is speaking in an ancient gesture language. Rashid knows this language and he interprets the "words" His name is Mudra and he had been second in command in Chup. He is now fighting against Khattam-Shud in order to bring peace back to Chup. Mudra agrees to help the Guppees defeat Khattam-Shud. Haroun volunteers to spy for the army because of his love of stories. He, Iff, Butt the Hoopoe, Mali, and the Plentimaw fishes begin to trek towards the Old Zone. The water becomes so poisonous that the fish cannot go on. The remaining crew is suddenly ambushed and captured in nets. They are taken to a giant, black ship. On the deck are cauldrons of saddness. To Haroun, it looks like everything is impermanent, like a shadow. Khattam-Shud appears and he is a tiny, weasly, measly man. Haroun realizes that this is Khattam-Shud's shadow that has detached from its owner. The Cultmaster tells them that stories are inefficient and useless and that is why they are being destroyed. The ship's hull is full of darkness and machines too complicated to explain. The Cultmaster shows them where they are building a great Plug to seal the Story Source at the bottom of the Sea. Haroun sees roots growing through a port window and Mali appears, latching onto the generators and breaking the machines. Haroun breaks free, puts on a protective wetsuit, and dives down into the Sea where he sees the Plug being constructed. He returns to Butt the Hoopoe and takes out a vial of Wishwater given to him by Iff. He drinks it and wishes that the axis of Kahani would spin normally. A few minutes pass and then the entire land is bathed in sunlight. All of the shadows on the ship begin to fade away and soon everyone is free and the poison is removed. In Chup, Khattam-Shud sends an ambassador to the Guppee army. The ambassador begins to juggle and pulls out a bomb. Only Blabbermouth's quick action keeps everyone from being blown up, but it is revealed that Blabbermouth is a girl in the process. Bolo tries to fire her, but Mudra asks her to be a part of his army because of her bravery. The battle between the army commences. Because the Guppees have had such open and honest communication, they fight as a team. The Chupwalas, because of their silence, distrust each other. The Guppee army overwhelms the Chupwala army. As the battle ends, there is a great earthquake and the moon begins to spin. The statue of Bezaban falls and crushes the real Khattam-Shud. Peace is declared and everyone receives a promotion within their rank. Haroun prepares to leave and is told that he must see the Walrus. In the Walrus's office, Haroun learns that it is all a joke and that he is not in trouble. All his friends are there with him. The Walrus tells him that for his bravery he is to be given a happy ending to his story. Haroun doubts that this is possible, but he wishes for his city to no longer be sad. He wakes up back in the Valley of K where his father is preparing his political story. As he stands up to give it, his father tells the story of Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It is a story that the crowd loves and they turn against their autocratic leader. When Rashid and Haroun return home, it is raining and they walk through it getting soaked. All of the people in the sad city are dancing and Haroun asks why. They claim that the city has remembered its name, Kahani, which means "story." Haroun realizes that the Walrus has put a happy ending into the raindrops. When he arrives home, he finds his mother there, telling them that she made a mistake in running off with Mr. Sengupta. The next day, Haroun awakes to find it is his birthday and his mother singing in another room in the house. The novel concludes with an appendix explaining the meaning of each major character's name. |
Ill Met by Moonlight | W. Stanley Moss | 1,950 | During World War II, the Greek Mediterranean island of Crete was occupied by the Nazis. British officers Major Patrick Leigh Fermor DSO (Dirk Bogarde) and Captain Bill Stanley Moss MC (David Oxley) of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) land on the island. With the help of the local Cretan resistance in April 1944, they kidnap German General Heinrich Kreipe (Marius Goring), the commander of the island. They take Kreipe across rough country to a secluded cove on the far side of the island, where they are picked up and taken to Cairo, where British forces are stationed. |
Licence Renewed | John Gardner | 1,981 | When Licence Renewed begins, M reminds Bond that the 00 section has in fact been abolished; however, M retains Bond as a troubleshooter (pun intended), telling him "You'll always be 007 to me". Bond is assigned to investigate one Dr. Anton Murik, a brilliant nuclear physicist who is thought to have been having meetings with a terrorist named Franco. Franco is identified and tracked by MI5 to a village in Scotland called Murcaldy. Since Murcaldy is outside of MI5's jurisdiction, the Director-General of MI5, Richard Duggan requests that M send Bond to survey Murik. Relying on information that MI5 did not have, M changes Bond's assignment to instead infiltrate Murik's Scottish castle and gain Murik's confidence. Bond makes contact with Murik at Ascot Racecourse where he feigns a coincidental meeting, mentioning to Murik that he is a mercenary looking for work. Later, Bond joins Murik in Scotland at Murik's behest and is hired to kill Franco, for reasoning at the time unknown. Franco in turn has been tasked by Murik to kill his young ward, Lavender Peacock because she was the true heir to the Murik fortune, which could only be proved by secret documents Anton kept in a hidden safe within his castle. Murik's plan is to hijack six nuclear power plants around the world simultaneously with the aid of bands of terrorists supplied by Franco. To ensure that Murik can never be associated to this deal, he attempts to use Bond to assassinate Franco. Ultimately terrorists do take over six nuclear power plants, but are prevented from starting a meltdown when they are given an abort code by Bond, believing him to be Murik. Murik is eventually defeated by Bond and Lavender before his demands were met. |
Une histoire américaine | null | null | Grégory Francœur, a brilliant professor from Quebec, leaves his family and political career behind to become the assistant to a distinguished academic in San Francisco. Because of a misunderstanding, typical of the ambiguity that has been Francœur's lot in life, he becomes involved in a dangerous case of illegal immigration. |
For Special Services | John Gardner | 1,982 | Bond teams up with CIA agent Cedar Leiter, daughter of his old friend, Felix Leiter, to investigate one Markus Bismaquer, who is suspected of reviving the criminal organisation SPECTRE, which was believed to have been disbanded years earlier following the death of its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, at the hands of Bond (in You Only Live Twice). The British Secret Service learns that Bismaquer is an obsessive collector of rare prints, so Bond and Cedar visit the man's huge ranch in Amarillo, Texas posing as art dealers. Their true identities are soon revealed, but not until Bond holds his own both in an impromptu (and fixed) car race arranged by Bismaquer, and in the bed of Bismaquer's frustrated wife, Nena. Nena, who has only one breast, quickly wins Bond's heart and his sympathy and Bond is convinced that Bismaquer is the one now being referred to as the new Blofeld. Bond discovers that the revitalised SPECTRE plans to take over control of NORAD headquarters in order to gain control of America's military space satellite network. His true identity revealed, Bond is captured and brainwashed into believing he is an American general assigned to inspect NORAD. Although he has been set up to be killed in the ensuing attack by SPECTRE forces on the base, Bond regains his personality and his memory. Apparently Bismaquer, who is bisexual, has taken a liking to Bond and sabotaged the hypnosis. When Bond returns to Bismaquer's ranch, he witnesses Bismaquer being killed by Nena, who is in fact the mind behind the operation and the daughter of Blofeld, a fact she confesses to Bond just before falling into the crushing grip of her pet pythons. She is later put out of her misery by Felix Leiter, who arrives on the scene to help rescue his daughter. |
Carl's Afternoon in the Park | null | null | The book starts when a woman walking in the park with her baby daughter and her rottweiler Carl run into a friend of hers. The lady's friend has with her a Rottweiler puppy. The two friends decide to go off to have some tea and leave the baby alone with the Rottweiler and the Rottie pup. The book is a look at the adventures of a dog and a baby in the park. At the end of the book, the women return to express that they hope the dog and baby weren't bored after having been left alone too long. |
Icebreaker | John Gardner | 1,983 | Bond reluctantly finds himself recruited into a dangerous mission involving an equally dangerous and treacherous alliance of agents from the United States (CIA), the Soviet Union (KGB) and Israel (Mossad). The team, dubbed "Icebreaker", waste no time double-crossing each other. Ostensibly their job is to root out the leader of the murderous National Socialist Action Army (NSAA), Count Konrad von Glöda. The Count used to be known as Arne Tudeer, a one-time Nazi SS officer who now perceives himself as the new Adolf Hitler. The National Socialist Action Army is essentially a new wave of fascism as a means to wipe out communist leaders and supporters around the world. The novel is full of double-crosses and even triple-crosses where the agents and agencies go without sharing their true loyalties with one another. The American agent, for instance, first appears to be a good guy then later in cahoots with von Glöda, and then still even later a good guy once again. Things become even more complicated when the Israeli agent, Rivke, is revealed to be the daughter of von Glöda/Tudeer and her allegiance, although appearing to be legitimate, in doubt. The Russian agent also double-crosses Bond in hopes of capturing him for KGB interrogation. Bond gets several weeks of driving training from Erik Carlsson as preparation for this Arctic assignment. |
Role of Honour | John Gardner | 1,984 | After receiving a large inheritance, James Bond 007 is accused of improprieties and drummed out of the British Secret Service. Disgusted with his former employers, Bond places his services on the open market, where he later attracts the attention of representatives of SPECTRE who are quite willing to put their one-time enemy on their payroll. But the whole thing was a hoax, just a plan to get Bond inside the enemy's organization. Prior to joining up, Bond spends a month in Monte Carlo with Miss 'Percy' Proud, a CIA agent who teaches him everything she knows about programming languages and computers in general. This background allows Bond to attract Jay Autem Holy, an agent of SPECTRE who left the Pentagon, faked his death, and later started a computer game company that creates simulations based on real-life battles and wars. Bond's allegiance to SPECTRE is periodically questioned throughout the novel, even at one point going so far as to send Bond to a terrorist training camp (known as "Erewhon") to see if he has 'the right stuff'. Proving his worth, Bond becomes involved in a plot to destabilise the Soviet Union and the United States, by forcing them to rid the world of their nuclear weapons. What SPECTRE leaders Tamil Rahani and Dr. Jay Autem Holy suspect, but never fully realise is that Bond's resignation is false. Along with Bond, the Secret Service plays a vital role in foiling SPECTRE; however, Rahani, the current leader of SPECTRE is able to escape Bond's clutches by parachuting out of an airship over Switzerland. |
Nobody Lives For Ever | John Gardner | 1,986 | En route to retrieve his faithful housekeeper, May, from a European health clinic where she is recovering from an illness, Bond is warned by the British Secret Service that Tamil Rahani, the current leader of SPECTRE, now dying from wounds suffered due to his last encounter with Bond (as described in Role of Honour), has put a price on Bond's head. "Trust no one," Bond is warned. Soon after, May and Miss Moneypenny, who had been visiting his housekeeper are reported missing, and Bond finds himself dodging would-be assassins while searching for his friends, assisted by a young débutante and her capable, yet mysterious, female bodyguard. The price on Bond's head is a competition orchestrated by Rahani and SPECTRE known as 'The Head Hunt', and is an open contest to anyone willing to capture, kill, or present Bond to Rahani, where he would be subsequently decapitated by guillotine. Along Bond's journey of attempting to rescue Moneypenny and May, Bond is betrayed and chased by a number of people and organisations, including his own British Secret Service ally, Steve Quinn who has defected to the KGB, corrupted police officers, and agents of SPECTRE in disguise. |
No Deals, Mr. Bond | John Gardner | 1,987 | No Deals, Mr. Bond begins with a mission in the Baltic Sea dubbed "Seahawk", which involves James Bond stealthily extracting two women that have completed an assignment in East Germany. After accomplishing his mission, the book continues 5 years later with Bond being called in by M to learn more background into what those women were doing there before being extracted. Their mission, dubbed Cream Cake, was a honey trap that involved getting close to top Soviet personnel as a means to not only spy for the British Secret Service, but to secure the defection of 2 highly ranking Soviet officers, an act that the Soviets occasionally performed against countries of the West. Involving 4 women and a man, the operation was considered a complete debacle that ended with the members being found out. After being extracted and given new identities, however, two of the women were discovered to be gruesomely murdered. Bond is subsequently sent by M, "off the record", to find the remaining members of Cream Cake before they suffer the same fate. During the adventure, Bond believes that Colonel Maxim Smolin, the primary target during operation Cream Cake, is systematically killing off the former members of the Cream Cake operation and leaving a signature of having their tongues removed. This, however, is not the case, and, in actuality, Smolin is a turncoat now working with the British Secret Service. Instead, the former members, in addition to Smolin and another Soviet turncoat, Captain Dietrich, are being targeted by General Chernov, an agent of a department formerly known as SMERSH. The situation is further complicated after M gets a message to Bond warning him that one of the surviving Cream Cake members is a double and that he wants Chernov brought in alive. |
Voyage of the Damned | Gordon Thomas | null | Based on actual events, the story told of the MS St. Louis, which departed from Hamburg, Germany in 1939, carrying 937 Jews from Germany to Havana, Cuba. By this time, the Jews had suffered the rise of anti-Semitism and realised that this might be their last chance to escape. The film details the emotional journey of the passengers who gradually become aware that their passage has been an exercise in propaganda and that they were never intended to disembark in Cuba. Rather, they were to be used as examples before the world. A Nazi official said that when the whole world has refused to accept them as refugees, no country can blame Germany for the fate of the Jews. The government of Cuba refuses entry to the passengers, and as the liner waits near the Florida coastline, they learn that the United States has also rejected them. They have no choice but to return to Europe. The captain tells a confidante that he has received a letter signed by 200 passengers saying they will join hands and jump into the sea rather than return to Germany. He says he is intending to deliberately run the liner aground on a reef off the southern coast of England. Shortly before the film's end, it is revealed that the governments of the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and the Netherlands have each agreed to accept a share of the passengers as refugees. As they cheer and clap at the good news, footnotes disclose the fates of some of the main characters, and reveal that more than 600 of the ship's 937 passengers ultimately lost their lives in Nazi concentration camps. However, the book presents a much lower number: By using the survival rates for Jews in various countries, Thomas and Morgan-Witts estimated that about 180 of the St. Louis refugees in France, 152 of those in Belgium, and 60 of those in the Netherlands, survived the Holocaust. Adding to these the passengers who disembarked in England, they estimated that of the original 936 refugees (one man died during the voyage), roughly 709 survived and 227 were slain. (See the relevant article.) In 1998, Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum traced the survivors from the voyage. The conclusion of their research was that a slightly higher total of 254 refugees died at the hands of the Nazis. |
Win, Lose or Die | John Gardner | 1,989 | M receives word that a terrorist organisation known as BAST (Brotherhood of Anarchy and Secret Terrorism) is planning to infiltrate and destroy a top-secret British Royal Navy aircraft carrier-based summit scheduled a year hence between American President George H. W. Bush, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. To counteract this, James Bond is returned to active duty in the Royal Navy and promoted from Commander to Captain, in order to infiltrate the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible and identify potential sleeper agents. In the months leading to the top-secret summit, Bond spends his time training at Yeovilton learning to fly a Navy Sea Harrier jet. With knowledge of Bond's task, BAST decides that Bond is a hindrance to their plans and attempts to kill him, once attempting to shoot him down while in his Sea Harrier during a training exercise. Later, when Bond goes on holiday in Italy, another attempt is made on his life. Bond escapes and, presumably, ends up taking the life of his then-current girlfriend, Beatrice Maria da Ricci. Returning from holiday Bond boards HMS Invincible and is tasked with security for the secret summit referred to as the "Stewards' Meeting" all the while a massive war game is being carried out between American, British, and Soviet Navies known as Landsea '89. Before long Bond is at the centre of a murder investigation of an American Naval Intelligence officer, and while away to report the incident BAST has executed its plans to capture the ship and hold the world's three most powerful leaders for a 600 billion dollar ransom. |
Brokenclaw | John Gardner | 1,990 | After expressing frustration over a lack of action after his year-long mission with the Royal Navy (as detailed in Win, Lose or Die), Bond threatens to resign. Instead, M orders Bond to take a vacation. Bond travels to Victoria, British Columbia where he is intrigued by Lee Fu-Chu, a half-Blackfoot, half-Chinese philanthropist who is known as "Brokenclaw" because of a deformed hand. Later, Bond is ordered to San Francisco where he is tasked to investigate the kidnapping of several scientists who have been working on a new submarine detection system and an "antidote" known as LORDS and LORDS DAY. Bond and CIA agent Chi-Chi Sue go undercover using the codenames Peter Abelard and Héloïse that were assigned to two agents from the People's Republic of China that are sent to evaluate the submarine technology before purchasing it. Ultimately, Bond discovers that Brokenclaw is involved in this scheme on behalf of China, and also has plans of his own which involve sparking a worldwide economic disaster by bringing about the collapse of the dollar by tapping into the New York Stock Exchange, which would in turn bring down other major currencies worldwide. The plan, dubbed Operation Jericho was a long-term plan initially started by the Japanese, but now believed to have been worked on simultaneously by the Chinese before being acquired by Brokenclaw. Brokenclaw's hideout in California is raided by Special Forces after he is located by Naval Intelligence officer Ed Rushia who was searching and attempting to help Bond and Chi-Chi while on their mission. Brokenclaw escapes the raid only to be tracked down by Bond and Rushia, off the books, to the Chelan Mountains of Washington where Bond is challenged to a torture ritual known as o-kee-pa. In the end, the competition comes down to a fight between the two using bow and arrows; Brokenclaw barely misses Bond and in turn is shot through the neck by Bond's arrow. |
The Man from Barbarossa | John Gardner | 1,991 | The Man from Barbarossa begins with a prelude that includes some background information on the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union codenamed Operation Barbarossa, the massacre at Babi Yar that occurred not long after, and information on Josif Voronstov, a fictional character said to be a deputy of real-life Paul Blobel who was primarily responsible for the massacre. When the story begins, an elderly American living in New Jersey is kidnapped by a Russian terrorist group called the "Scales of Justice". The man, Joel Penderek, was captured under the belief that he is Josif Voronstov, the war criminal partially responsible for the massacre at Babi Yar. The group demands the Soviet government put the man on trial for his crimes, and begins murdering government officials when leaders refuse and are slow to react. The situation is slightly more complicated as the CIA and the Mossad believe Voronstov to be a man located in Florida who they had under surveillance. Captain James Bond is partnered with an Israeli Mossad agent, Pete Natkowitz, and two agents from the French Secret Service, Henri Rampart and Stephanie Adoré. They are assigned to work with Bory Stepakov and his assistant Nina Bibikova from the KGB to infiltrate the Scales of Justice posing as a TV crew so as to discover their real motive. Accomplishing this, they learn that the group plans to sabotage perestroika and supply Iraq with nuclear weapons before the United Nations-led coalition invades. The man behind the Scales of Justice, General Yevgeny Yuskovich, is a cousin of Josif Voronstov who is identified as Joel Penderek. The trial was staged in order to shift focus away from Yuskovich's other plans. |
Death is Forever | John Gardner | 1,992 | The aftermath of the Cold War provides the setting for the plot of Death Is Forever. After the deaths of a British Intelligence agent and an American agent with the CIA working in Germany under mysterious and surprisingly old-fashioned circumstances, James Bond and CIA agent Elizabeth Zara ("Easy") St. John are assigned to track down the surviving members of "Cabal", a Cold War-era intelligence network that received a mysterious and unauthorized signal to disband. Soon, Bond finds himself playing a life-or-death game of "Who do You Trust?" as he and Easy track down Wolfgang Weisen, the power responsible for killing off Cabal's members one by one. Bond uncovers Weisen's plot to kill off the heads of each European country during the inaugural run of the Eurostar from London to Paris in an effort to create havoc in the west and usher in a second era of Communism. More than most other Gardner novels, Death Is Forever is grounded in current events, with the fallout from the end of the Cold War and the failed 1991 Russian coup being important backdrops to the story. The Eurotunnel connecting England and France, which was still under construction at the time the book was written, also serves as a major setting. |
Never Send Flowers | John Gardner | 1,993 | A murder in Switzerland of Laura March with MI5 connections follows assassinations in Rome, London, Paris & Washington. Left at each scene is a rose with marks of drops of blood on the petal. He also left a branch from an oak tree. Bond is sent to investigate where he meets the lovely Swiss agent Fredericka von Grüsse whom he later calls Flicka when on better terms. Trails lead to a former international stage actor, David Dragonpol, a friend of March who lives in a castle on the Rhine called Schloss Drache which he is turning into a theatre museum. They also meet a widow and flower grower, Maeve Horton. |
SeaFire | John Gardner | 1,994 | With the help of his latest girlfriend Flicka von Grüsse, James goes after billionaire Sir Maxwell Tarn, who thinks he's the next Hitler. Captain Bond now works for MicroGlobe One rather than an ill M whom he visits to cheer up and keep informed of the plot. The global trail takes 007 to Puerto Rico via Spain, Israel and Germany. During the story, Bond proposes to Flicka. An old friend reappears to aid James and split up this spy twosome. |
COLD | John Gardner | 1,996 | The novel is split into two books, one called "Cold Front" and the second entitled "Cold Conspiracy". The time between each book appears to be the time period allotted to Gardner's previous Bond outings, Never Send Flowers and SeaFire. The story opens with the crash of a Boeing 747-400 at Dulles International Airport in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and the apparent death of Bond's friend and lover, the Principessa Sukie Tempesta. Bond is then sent by M to the airport with an investigation team which leads to meetings with FBI agent Eddie Rhabb. The main action takes place in Italy at the home of the Tempesta brothers, Luigi and Angelo, where Bond gets caught in the act with one of the brothers' wives. As James later explains to M, the lady made the advances. The enemy of the story is provided by a terrorist army called COLD, which stands for Children Of the Last Days. |
The Facts of Death | Raymond Benson | null | The Facts of Death starts off with several deaths from mysterious diseases. We first find Bond in Cyprus where a number of British troops have been discovered murdered, under mysterious circumstances. Bond gets too close for comfort for the group behind the actions and is attacked, but rescued by a fiery Greek female agent, Niki Mirakos. Bond then returns to Britain. He is invited to attend a dinner party being held by his former boss, Sir Miles Meservey. His current boss and her boyfriend are in attendance. After the party M's boyfriend is murdered. She then tells Bond that all of the killings are connected because near all the bodies there were statues of Greek deities and numbers counting the victims of the horrible killing spree. Bond is sent to Greece and partnered with his current love interest Niki Mirakos. They both seem to be suspicious of an internationally known mathematic cult called the Decada. The head of the group is Greek mathematician, Konstantine Romanos. Bond goes to a Greek casino that is about two hours away from Athens and battles Romanos in a game of bacaraat. He defeats Romanos and catches the attention of a pretty Greek woman named Hera Volopoulos, who is also a card carrying member of the Decada. Bond chats with and later beds Hera. He then is drugged by her after they have made love. She takes him to Konstantine who talks to Bond and tells Hera to kill him. Bond manages to escape Hera's evil clutches. He then manages to figure out Konstantine's plan, to start a major war between Greece and Turkey. Bond figures out where the hideout is and gets there just in time to witness Hera murder Konstantine. She leaves Bond to stop a nuclear missile that will be fired from Greece into Turkey. Bond then figures out Hera's plan, to profit from worldwide murder through a new virus. Bond, with assistance from the Greek military, boards a helicopter and prepares for battle with Hera. He kills her and stops the missile. Locations where the book takes place include: * Los Angeles * Tokyo * Austin, Texas * Cyprus * London * Greece |
High Time to Kill | Raymond Benson | 1,999 | The world of James Bond is introduced to the ruthless terrorist organization called "The Union", whose brutal trademark is slashing the throat of those who cross them. Bond and his girlfriend Helena are attending a dinner party thrown by the Governor of The Bahamas. The Governor, who has a gambling debt with a member of The Union, has refused to pay up since he feels that he had been cheated, so there is much security detail at the event. However, the assassin disguises himself as one of the guards and kills the Governor, just as Bond realizes the danger. Bond almost catches the assassin but he commits suicide before he can be interrogated. A top secret British formula hidden in microfilm, codenamed "Skin 17", is stolen by traitors; scientist Steven Harding and RAF officer Roland Marquis. The microdot is surgically implanted in the pacemaker of an unhealthy old man, who is a former Chinese intelligence agent. James Bond is sent in to recover it before the Union can sell the microfilm to a foreign power. Bond tracks Harding and the Chinese ex-agent to Belgium, but the latter two slip away while Bond narrowly kills Harding's bodyguard Basil. MI6 tracks the Chinese man to Nepal. It turns out, however, that Harding planned to double-cross the Union, by having the plane of the pacemaker’s host hijacked. Le Gerrant, the blind leader of The Union, immediately deduces Harding's double-cross and has him executed; Harding's body later washes up on the beaches of Gibraltar. The plane containing the pacemaker's host crashed into the Himalayas, so a deadly race commences to recover Skin 17. Bond, sexy mountaineer Hope Kendal, and Roland Marquis, also Bond's schoolboy-days rival, lead one of the expeditions. Early on, they successfully destroy the Chinese base camp, forcing that team to withdraw. Not long after, however, everyone on the British expedition has been killed, save for Bond, Hope, and Marquis. The race climaxes with Bond battling Marquis atop the peak of Kangchenjunga. It turns out that Marquis had collaborated with Harding to steal Skin 17, though they were not planning to sell it to The Union. After a physical high elevation fight, Bond trades oxygen to receive Skin 17 from a mortally wounded Marquis. As Bond and Hope return to base camp, they realize that it has been infiltrated by The Union as Paul Baack, having earlier faked his death while killing the rest of the team, demands Skin 17. Bond and Hope manage to kill Baack and Skin 17 is returned to the British. Bond's now-estranged girlfriend Helena reveals herself to be in the employ of The Union due to blackmail and threats of violence to her family. However, she is killed just before Bond can reach her. Locations where the book takes place include: * The Bahamas * London, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire—England * Belgium * Delhi, India * Morocco * Nepal * Mt. Kangchenjunga * Brighton, England |
Doubleshot | Raymond Benson | 2,000 | DoubleShot, the second novel in Raymond Benson's Union trilogy, again sets James Bond, 007 against the evil terrorist organization called the Union. Still smarting from their last encounter with 007 when he foiled their plans to get Skin 17 in High Time to Kill, the Union has decided that Britain and James Bond are their new number one priority, and targets. Coming up with an elaborate plan to plunge Britain into war and destroy Bond's reputation in the process, the Union sets up their scheme. Domingo Espada, a Spanish Nationalist/Gangster/Ex-Matador who wishes to see Gibraltar returned to Spain from Britain, is approached by Nadir Yassasin, the Union's master strategist, as the centrepiece to their plan. They plan to help Espada forcefully take control of Gibraltar, killing the British Prime Minister and the Governor of Gibraltar, and having a Bond-Double do it, thus ruining Bond's career and life. But first, through an elaborate series of events, they convince Bond he is losing his mind, and force him to investigate these happenings on his own, without approval from M or SIS. Since Bond's return from the Himalayas, he begins experiencing terrible headaches, hallucinations, and black-outs. This leads him to Dr. Kimberly Feare. She diagnoses a lesion on the back of Bond's skull that is causing these symptoms. After getting Dr. Feare in bed, Bond wakes up to find her murdered, her throat slit ear-to-ear, the Union's mark. This causes Bond to leave England. Bond's trek takes him from England to Tangier, where he encounters the Taunt twins, Heidi and Hedy, CIA agents asked by M to bring him back to London. Here Bond finds the connection between the Union and Espada, and that he has some part in the Union's plan. Convincing M and the Taunts to play out his hand, Bond goes to Spain. On arrival in Spain, he encounters Margareta Piel, Espada's female assassin and a member of the Union. Followed closely by the climax of Bond vs. his double in Espada's practice bullfighting ring, and the culmination of the Union's plot at the Gibraltar peace conference, Bond takes his double's place and along with the Taunt twins, prevent the assassinations, kills Espada, Piel, Jimmy Powers (a high-ranking American in the Union, and their number one expert in stealth and tailing), and captures Yassasin, foiling the Union's plans once again. |
Never Dream of Dying | Raymond Benson | 2,001 | It begins when a police raid goes horribly wrong, killing innocent men, women, and even children. Bond knows the Union is behind the carnage, and vows to take them down once and for all. His hunt takes him to Paris, into a deadly game of predator and prey, and a fateful meeting with the seductive Tylyn Mignonne, a movie star with a sordid past, who may lead Bond to his final target—or his own violent end... Eventually it leads him to the Union's latest attack on society, which involves Tylyn's husband, Leon Essinger, and his new movie, "Pirate Island", which stars Tylyn. (US Paperback) The conclusion to Benson’s Union Trilogy. Locations are Nice, Paris, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Corsica (also Los Angeles, Japan, and Chicago briefly). |
The Man with the Red Tattoo | Raymond Benson | 2,002 | On a flight from Japan to the United Kingdom, a young Japanese woman dies of a mysterious illness. The illness is a mutated version of the West Nile virus. James Bond finds out that not only was she the daughter of an important Japanese businessman, her entire family is also dead. James Bond travels to Japan in search of the killer. Here Bond reunites with his longtime friend Tiger Tanaka, who introduces him to a female Japanese agent who is later killed by the mutant virus. |
Facundo | Domingo Faustino Sarmiento | 1,845 | After a lengthy introduction, Facundos fifteen chapters divide broadly into three sections: chapters one to four outline Argentine geography, anthropology, and history; chapters five to fourteen recount the life of Juan Facundo Quiroga; and the concluding chapter expounds Sarmiento's vision of a future for Argentina under a Unitarist government. Facundo begins with a geographical description of Argentina, from the Andes in the west to the eastern Atlantic coast, where two main river systems converge at the boundary between Argentina and Uruguay. This river estuary, called the Rio de Plata, is the location of Buenos Aires, the capital. Through his discussion of Argentina's geography, Sarmiento demonstrates Buenos Aires' advantages; the river systems were communications arteries which, by enabling trade, helped the city to achieve civilization. Buenos Aires failed to spread civilization to the rural areas and as a result, much of the rest of Argentina was doomed to barbarism. Sarmiento also argues that the pampas, Argentina’s wide and empty plains, provided "no place for people to escape and hide for defense and this prohibits civilization in most parts of Argentina". Despite the barriers to civilization caused by Argentina’s geography, Sarmiento argues that many of the country's problems were caused by gauchos like Juan Manuel de Rosas, who were barbaric, uneducated, ignorant, and arrogant; their character prevented Argentine society's progress toward civilization. Sarmiento then describes the four main types of gaucho and these characterizations aid in understanding Argentine leaders, such as Juan Manuel de Rosas. Sarmiento argues that without an understanding of these Argentine character types, "it is impossible to understand our political personages, or the primordial, American character of the bloody struggle that tears apart the Argentine Republic". Sarmiento then moves on to the Argentine peasants, who are "independent of all need, free of all subjection, with no idea of government". The peasants gather at taverns, where they spend their time drinking and gambling. They display their eagerness to prove their physical strength with horsemanship and knife fights. Rarely these displays led to deaths, and Sarmiento notes that Rosas's residence was sometimes used as a refuge on such occasions, before he became politically powerful. According to Sarmiento, these elements are crucial to an understanding of the Argentine Revolution, in which Argentina gained independence from Spain. Although Argentina’s war of independence was prompted by the influence of European ideas, Buenos Aires was the only city that could achieve civilization. Rural people participated in the war to demonstrate their physical strengths rather than because they wanted to civilize the country. In the end, the revolution was a failure because the barbaric instincts of the rural population led to the loss and dishonor of the civilized city—Buenos Aires. The second section of Facundo explores the life of its titular character, Juan Facundo Quiroga—the "Tiger of the Plains". Despite being born into a wealthy family, Facundo received only a basic education in reading and writing. He loved gambling, being called el jugador (the player)—in fact, Sarmiento describes his gambling as "an ardent passion burning in his belly". As a youth Facundo was antisocial and rebellious, refusing to mix with other children, and these traits became more pronounced as he matured. Sarmiento describes an incident in which Facundo killed a man, writing that this type of behaviour "marked his passage through the world". Sarmiento gives a physical description of the man he considers to personify the caudillo: "[he had a] short and well built stature; his broad shoulders supported, on a short neck, a well-formed head covered with very thick, black and curly hair", with "eyes ... full of fire". Facundo's relations with his family eventually broke down, and, taking on the life of a gaucho, he joined the caudillos in the province of Entre Ríos. His killing of two Spaniards after a jailbreak saw him acclaimed as a hero among the gauchos, and on relocating to La Rioja, Facundo was appointed to a leadership position in the Llanos Militia. He built his reputation and won his comrades' respect through his fierce battlefield performances, but hated and tried to destroy those who differed from him by being civilized and well-educated. In 1825, when Unitarist Bernardino Rivadavia became the governor of the Buenos Aires province, he held a meeting with representatives from all provinces in Argentina. Facundo was present as the governor of La Rioja. Rivadavia was soon overthrown, and Manuel Dorrego became the new governor. Sarmiento contends that Dorrego, a Federalist, was interested neither in social progress nor in ending barbaric behaviour in Argentina by improving the level of civilization and education of its rural inhabitants. In the turmoil that characterized Argentine politics at the time, Dorrego was assassinated by Unitarists and Facundo was defeated by Unitarist General José María Paz. Facundo escaped to Buenos Aires and joined the Federalist government of Juan Manuel de Rosas. During the ensuing civil war between the two ideologies, Facundo conquered the provinces of San Luis, Cordoba and Mendoza. On return to his San Juan home, which Sarmiento says Facundo governed "solely with his terrifying name", he realized that his government lacked support from Rosas. He went to Buenos Aires to confront Rosas, who sent him on another political mission. On his way back, Facundo was shot and killed at Barranca Yaco, Córdoba. According to Sarmiento, the murder was plotted by Rosas: "An impartial history still awaits facts and revelations, in order to point its finger at the instigator of the assassins". In the book's final chapters, Sarmiento explores the consequences of Facundo's death for the history and politics of the Argentine Republic. He further analyzes Rosas's government and personality, commenting on dictatorship, tyranny, the role of popular support, and the use of force to maintain order. Sarmiento criticizes Rosas by using the words of the dictator, making sarcastic remarks about Rosas's actions, and describing the "terror" established during the dictatorship, the contradictions of the government, and the situation in the provinces that were ruled by Facundo. Sarmiento writes, "The red ribbon is a materialization of the terror that accompanies you everywhere, in the streets, in the bosom of the family; it must be thought about when dressing, when undressing, and ideas are always engraved upon us by association". Finally, Sarmiento examines the legacy of Rosas's government by attacking the dictator and widening the civilization–barbarism dichotomy. By setting France against Argentina—representing civilization and barbarism respectively—Sarmiento contrasts culture and savagery: France's blockade had lasted for two years, and the 'American' government, inspired by 'American' spirit, was facing off with France, European principles, European pretensions. The social results of the French blockade, however, had been fruitful for the Argentine Republic, and served to demonstrate in all their nakedness the current state of mind and the new elements of struggle, which were to ignite a fierce war that can end only with the fall of that monstrous government. |
The Silencers | Donald Hamilton | 1,962 | When a female agent in Mexico is killed before Helm can complete his mission to extract her, he finds himself teamed up with the woman's sister as he fights to save the lives of a number of scientists and Congressmen. |
The Ambushers | Donald Hamilton | 1,963 | Matt Helm conducts a by-the-book assassination in the (fictional) Central American nation of Costa Verde. Afterwards, he finds himself pursuing an ex-Nazi named von Sachs, who has obtained one of the nuclear missiles that had been bound for Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and who is threatening the United States with the weapon. Along the way he finds himself working with a Russian agent named Vadya (who would return in later Helm adventures). |
Crusade in Jeans | Thea Beckman | 1,973 | Rudolf "Dolf" Hefting is a fourteen year-old who volunteers for an experiment with a time machine. The experiment goes well, but through an accident Dolf is stranded in the 13th century. He saves the life of Leonardo Fibonacci, without realizing who he is, and teaches him Arabic numerals. Together they join the German Children's Crusade, and through his modern-day knowledge, Rudolph manages to save a lot of children from horrible fates. However, his knowledge also leads to accusations of witchcraft. In the book, two slavers delude a group of children into coming with them with stories of how the innocent shall liberate Jerusalem. Their actual intent is to sell them for profit. With the aid of his twentieth-century knowledge and skepticism, and the aid of a "magical" device or two (such as a box of matches), the boy manages to keep most of the children alive and eventually gets them to safety. |
Smilla's Sense of Snow | Peter Høeg | 1,992 | Smilla Qaaviqaaq Jaspersen, 37-year-old product of the stormy union of a female Inuit hunter and a rich urban Danish physician, is a loner who struggles to live with her fractured heritage. Living alone in a dreary apartment complex in Christianshavn, Copenhagen, she befriends Isaiah, the neglected son of her alcoholic neighbour, because he too is Greenlandic and not truly at home in Denmark. Smilla's friendship with Isaiah, recounted in the novel in flashback, gives some meaning to her otherwise lonely life. Isaiah’s sudden death is explained officially as a fall from the roof whilst playing, but Smilla’s understanding of the tracks the child left on the snowy roof convinces her that this is untrue. She complains to the police and quickly encounters obstruction and hostility from the authorities and other sources. Working with Peter, a mechanic neighbour who had also known and liked Isaiah, and with whom she begins an affair despite her fear of dependency, Smilla discovers that there is a conspiracy centred on Gela Alta, an isolated glaciated island off Greenland. Previous expeditions have found something there (Isaiah’s father was a diver who died on one of them, allegedly in an accident) and now plans are afoot to return for it. Isaiah’s death is linked to this conspiracy in some way. After a long journey of discovery in Copenhagen, during which she learns that the mechanic is not who he says he is, Smilla braves intimidation and threats and eventually gets on board the ship chartered for the mysterious expedition to Gela Alta, ostensibly as a stewardess. The final action takes place on the ship and the island. Smilla is held in deep suspicion by the ship's crew—who turn out to be all in some way compromised and in the pay of the mysterious Tørk Hviid, who is the expedition's real leader. Despite repeated attempts on her life by crew members, who assume she is from the authorities, Smilla doggedly pursues the truth, even when she discovers that Peter has deceived and betrayed her. The secret of the island is revealed to be a meteorite embedded in the glacier, certainly uniquely valuable—perhaps even alive in some way. However, the water surrounding it is infested with a lethal parasite related to the Guinea worm, which is what really killed Isaiah’s father. Isaiah was forced off the roof because he had accompanied his father on the previous expedition and had evidence of the meteorite’s location—and the parasite itself was actually dormant in his body. When Smilla learns that Tørk Hviid had chased Isaiah off the roof to his death, she pursues him out onto the frozen sea. He tries to reach the ship and force it to sail away, but Smilla chases him, using her intuitive ice-sense to head him off, out into isolation and danger. Here the novel ends. |
A View from the Bridge | Arthur Miller | null | The main character in the story is Eddie Carbone, an Italian American longshoreman, who lives with his wife, Beatrice and his orphaned niece, Catherine. As the play begins, Eddie is protective and kind toward Catherine, although his feelings grow into something more than avuncular as the play develops. His attachment to her is brought into perspective by the arrival from Italy of Beatrice's two cousins, Marco and Rodolpho. They have entered the country illegally, hoping to leave behind hunger and unemployment for a better life in America. Marco is an exceptionally strong man, said by Eddie's friends to be 'a regular bull.' He also has a starving family in Italy (a wife, and 3 sons, one with tuberculosis). Rodolpho is in his late 20's, fair skinned, blond, and unattached. He is unconventional in that he sings (notably 'paper doll'), dances, is good at sewing and dress making and is also a good cook. Catherine soon begins a relationship with Rodolpho. After three weeks, the pair have been seeing each other, and Eddie sets about pointing out all of Rodolpho's flaws to Catherine and Beatrice. He persistently complains that Rodolpho is "not right," referring to Rodolpho's effeminate qualities, such as sewing, cooking and singing. He is embarrassed by Rodolpho's reputation for singing during work. When Catherine decides to marry Rodolpho, Eddie becomes desperate and begs his lawyer, Alfieri (who is also the narrator), to help him. However, he is told that the only way the law is able to help him is if he informs the Immigration Bureau of the presence of the two illegal immigrants. Due to his earlier assertion that "it's an honor" to give the men refuge, he refuses to betray them. At home he continues to passively insult Rodolpho, and ends up offering to teach Rodolpho to box, however Eddie uses this opportunity to hit Rodolpho. In retaliation, Marco challenges Eddie to lift a chair from the bottom of its leg, when Eddie fails to do this, Marco picks up the chair with one hand from the bottom of its leg and lifts it above his head. This demonstrates Marco's superior strength and that he will always be watching over Rodolpho, should Eddie harm him. In the second Act, Eddie catches Rodolpho leaving the bedroom with Catherine. He then sees Alfieri a second time. Eddie ignores his lawyer's advice to let events run their course, and calls the Immigration Bureau. This betrayal proves disastrous: he comes back to learn that Catherine and Rodolpho are engaged, and Beatrice informs him two more illegal immigrants have moved into the upstairs apartment. Suddenly, the Immigration Officers arrive and shortly arrest the four immigrants. As the detainees are being taken from the tenement, Marco breaks free from the group, "dashes into the room" and spits in Eddie's face. This happens inside Eddie's house – however Eddie's rage is such that he follows Marco out into the street. He berates Marco for the insult, failing to notice that the gathering crowd are growing as one to conclude that Eddie is the traitor. This suspicion is confirmed as Marco singles Eddie out as the one who "killed my children." Rodolpho is allowed to stay in the country due to his marriage, but Marco faces imminent deportation. Reluctantly, he promises Alfieri not to take revenge on Eddie (as is the Sicilian custom) and is let out on bail. In the final scene of the play, Eddie is shown to be furious with his humiliation and refuses to attend the wedding. He rejects Rodolpho's offer to reconcile and refuses to get out of the house when he learns Marco is arriving. The play ends with a fight between Eddie and Marco, in a street filled with his friends and family. Eddie brandishes a knife and attacks Marco, who turns the blade onto Eddie, killing him. It is not known whether Marco actually intended to stab Eddie, and his reaction is not described. Eddie dies as the curtain falls, calling out to Beatrice. |
Quiet as a Nun | null | null | The novel begins with the death of a nun, Sister Miriam, who apparently starved herself to death in a ruined tower, known as the 'Tower of Ivory', which adjoins the grounds of the Convent of the Blessed Eleanor, a nunnery and an all-girls school. The tower has specific significance to the order, as it was the original convent building. The tower and the ancient history of the order are recorded in the Treasury of the Blessed Eleanor, a manuscript which is referenced throughout the story. Though it is never stated explicitly, Blessed Eleanor is presumed to be Eleanor of Aquitaine, the once Queen of England. Television reporter Jemima Shore is an old school friend of Sister Miriam, who was also known as Rosabelle Powerstock and was heiress to "the Powers fortune", one of the largest fortunes in Britain. Jemima is invited back to the convent by Reverend Mother Ancilla, where she uncovers a number of mysteries, including the suggestion that Miriam, whose family owned the convent lands, may have written a second will bequeathing them away from the Order, and into the hands of another charity. The tension builds when the girls at the convent school tell Jemima that the Black Nun - a malevolent faceless spectre reputed to appear whenever a death is about to take place within the grounds - was seen just prior to Sister Miriam's death, and has been sighted again. |
The Chimes | Charles Dickens | 1,844 | One New Year's Eve Trotty, a "ticket-porter" or casual messenger, is filled with gloom at the reports of crime and immorality in the newspapers, and wonders whether the working classes are simply wicked by nature. His daughter Meg and her long-time fiancé Richard arrive and announce their decision to marry next day. Trotty hides his misgivings, but their happiness is dispelled by an encounter with a pompous alderman, Cute, plus a political economist and a young gentleman with a nostalgia, all of whom make Trotty, Meg, and Richard feel they hardly have a right to exist, let alone marry. Trotty carries a note for Cute to Sir Joseph Bowley MP, who dispenses charity to the poor in the manner of a paternal dictator. Bowley is ostentatiously settling his debts to ensure a clean start to the new year, and berates Trotty because he owes a few shillings to his local shop which he cannot pay off. Returning home, convinced that he and his fellow poor are naturally ungrateful and have no place in society, Trotty encounters Will Fern, a poor countryman, and his orphaned niece, Lilian. Fern has been unfairly accused of vagrancy and wants to visit Cute to set matters straight, but from a conversation overheard at Bowley's house, Trotty is able to warn him that Cute plans to have him arrested and imprisoned. He takes the pair home with him and he and Meg share their meagre food and poor lodging with the visitors. Meg tries to hide her distress, but it seems she has been dissuaded from marrying Richard by her encounter with Cute and the others. In the night the bells seem to call Trotty. Going to the church he finds the tower door unlocked and climbs to the bellchamber, where he discovers the spirits of the bells and their goblin attendants who reprimand him for losing faith in man's destiny to improve. He is told that he fell from the tower during his climb and is now dead, and Meg's subsequent life must now be an object lesson for him. There follows a series of visions which he is forced to watch, helpless to interfere with the troubled lives of Meg, d, Will and Lilian over the subsequent years. Richard descends into alcoholism; Meg eventually marries him in an effort to save him but he dies ruined, leaving her with a baby. Will is driven in and out of prison by petty laws and restrictions; Lilian turns to prostitution. In the end, destitute, Meg is driven to contemplate drowning herself and her child, thus committing the mortal sins of murder and suicide. The Chimes' intention is to teach Trotty that, far from being naturally wicked, mankind is formed to strive for nobler things, and will fall only when crushed and repressed beyond bearing. Trotty breaks down when he sees Meg poised to jump into the river, cries that he has learned his lesson, and begs the Chimes to save her, whereupon he finds himself able to touch her and prevent her from jumping. With this the vision ends and Trotty finds himself awakening at home as if from a dream as the bells ring in the New Year, and the book ends with celebrations for Meg and Richard's wedding day |
The Cricket on the Hearth | Charles Dickens | 1,845 | John Peerybingle, a carrier, lives with his young wife Dot, their baby boy and their nanny Tilly Slowboy. A cricket constantly chirps on the hearth and acts as a guardian angel to the family. One day a mysterious elderly stranger comes to visit and takes up lodging at Peerybingle's house for a few days. The life of the Peerybingles intersects with that of Caleb Plummer, a poor toymaker employed by the miser Mr. Tackleton. Caleb has a blind daughter Bertha, and a son Edward, who traveled to South America and was thought dead. The miser Tackleton is now on the eve of marrying Edward's sweetheart, May, but she does not love Tackleton. Tackleton reveals to John Peerybingle that his wife Dot has allegedly cheated on him and shows him a clandestine scene where Dot embraces the mysterious lodger who is in disguise, a man much younger than he actually seems. John is cut to the heart over this as he loves his wife dearly, but decides after some deliberations to relieve his wife of their marriage contract. In the end, the mysterious lodger is revealed to be none other than Edward who has returned home in disguise. Dot shows that she indeed has been faithful to John. Edward marries May hours before she is scheduled to marry Tackleton. However Tackleton's heart is melted by the Christmas season, like Ebenezer Scrooge, and he surrenders May to her true love. |
A is for Alibi | Sue Grafton | 1,982 | The first novel in the "Alphabet Mysteries" series introduces the character of Kinsey Millhone as she looks into through the facts surrounding the death of prominent divorce lawyer Laurence Fife, whose murder eight years previously was blamed on his wife, Nikki Fife. After being released from prison, Nikki hires Kinsey to find the true murderer. In the course of the investigation, Kinsey becomes involved with Charlie Scorsoni, Laurence's former business partner, whose charms are sufficient to overcome temporarily Kinsey's reservations about sleeping with someone she hasn't yet crossed off her list of suspects. While flipping through the police reports courtesy (somewhat belligerently) of Lieutenant Dolan, Kinsey discovers something which never came up at Nikki's trial: that Laurence's death has been linked by police to that of an accountant in Los Angeles, Libby Glass. Both died under the same circumstances - oleander capsules were substituted for allergy pills - and Kinsey soon learns that the two were rumoured to be having an affair. She tracks down Libby's parents, and meets Libby's former boyfriend, Lyle, whom she suspects of being involved in Libby's death. Kinsey interrupts someone meddling with the boxes of Libby's possessions in the Glasses' basement, and on searching through what remains, finds nothing of significance except a letter from Laurence, indicating that he was in love with 'Elizabeth', which seems to confirm that he and Libby were indeed having an affair. Kinsey goes to Las Vegas on the track of Laurence's ex-secretary, Sharon Napier, who apparently had a mysterious hold over Laurence, but Sharon is shot minutes before Kinsey arrives on the scene to interview her, and Kinsey has to get out fast before she is caught in a compromising situation. It seems that like with the boxes in the basement, someone else is just ahead of her. Back in California, and quizzing Nikki further, Kinsey is mystified that Nikki's young son, Colin, recognises Laurence's first wife, Gwen, in a photograph. Kinsey has already discovered from a couple of interviews with her that Gwen is very bitter about her break-up with Laurence, but the only way that Gwen could have come into contact with Colin would have been through Laurence. Kinsey surmises that despite Gwen's hatred of Laurence, they were having an affair at the time of his death, and when she accuses Gwen of this, Gwen finally confesses - not only to the affair but to murdering Laurence. Shortly afterwards, she too is dead: killed in a hit and run accident. Kinsey has solved the case she was hired to solve, but the knowledge of Gwen's affair with Laurence leads her to question her previous assumption that he was involved with Libby Glass. She realises the letter in Libby's belongings was a plant - dating from an affair with Sharon Napier's mother, Elizabeth, many years before. So who killed Libby? In a plot twist, she discovers that her previous notions about Libby's death were entirely wrong: In fact, it was Charlie Scorsoni who had been having an affair with Libby, and he killed her when she discovered he was embezzling money from mutual accounts. He'd used the same method as Gwen used to kill Laurence only a few days before as a cover for her murder, so that everyone would assume the same person was guilty of both murders. Charlie realises that Kinsey has worked out the truth, and during a dramatic confrontation, he pursues her across the beach, armed with a knife. Before he can kill her, she shoots him dead instead. The novel ends as it begins, with Kinsey, exonerated as acting in self-defence, reflecting on the experience of having killed someone. |
Phaedo | Plato | null | The scene is at Compoton where Echecrates who, meeting Phaedo, asks for news about the last days of Socrates. Phaedo explains why a delay occurred between his trial and his death, and describes the scene in a prison at Athens on the final day, naming those present. He tells how he had visited Socrates early in the morning with the others. Socrates' wife Xanthippe was there, but was very distressed and Socrates asked that she be taken away. Socrates' relates how, bidden by a recurring dream to "make and cultivate music", he wrote a hymn and then began writing poetry based on Aesop's Fables. Socrates tells Phaedo to "bid him (his friend) farewell from me; say that I would have him come after me if he be a wise man" Simmias expresses confusion as to why they ought hasten to follow Socrates to death. Socrates then states "...he, who has the spirit of philosophy, will be willing to die; but he will not take his own life." Cebes raises his doubts as to why suicide is prohibited. He asks, "Why do you say...that a man ought not to take his own life, but that the philosopher will be ready to follow one who is dying?" Socrates replies that while death is the ideal home of the soul, man, specifically the philosopher, should not commit suicide except when it becomes necessary. Man ought not to kill himself because he possesses no actual ownership of himself, as he is actually the property of the gods. He says, "I too believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we men are a chattel of theirs". While the philosopher seeks always to rid himself of the body, and to focus solely on things concerning the soul, to commit suicide is prohibited as man is not sole possessor of his body. For, as stated in the Phaedo: "the philosopher more than other men frees the soul from association with the body as much as possible". Body and soul are separate, then. The philosopher frees himself from the body because the body is an impediment to the attainment of truth. Of the senses' failings, Socrates says to Simmias in the Phaedo: Did you ever reach them (truths) with any bodily sense? -- and I speak not of these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength, and, in short, of the reality or true nature of everything. Is the truth of them ever perceived through the bodily organs? Or rather, is not the nearest approach to the knowledge of their several natures made by him who so orders his intellectual vision as to have the most exact conception of the essence of each thing he considers? The philosopher, if he loves true wisdom and not the passions and appetites of the body, accepts that he can come closest to true knowledge and wisdom in death, as he is no longer confused by the body and the senses. Death is a rite of purification from the "infection" of the body. As the philosopher practices death his entire life, he should greet it amicably and not be discouraged upon its arrival, for, since the universe the Gods created for us in life is essentially "good," why would death be anything but a continuation of this goodness? Death is a place where better and wiser Gods rule and where the most noble souls exist: "And therefore, so far as that is concerned, I not only do not grieve, but I have great hopes that there is something in store for the dead..., something better for the good than for the wicked." The soul attains virtue when it is purified from the body: "He who has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and, so to speak, of the whole body, these being in his opinion distracting elements when they associate with the soul hinder her from acquiring truth and knowledge--who, if not he, is likely to attain to the knowledge of true being?" Cebes voices his fear of death to Socrates: "...they fear that when she [the soul] has left the body her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may perish and come to an end immediately on her release from the body...dispersing and vanishing away into nothingness in her flight." In order to alleviate Cebes' worry that the soul might perish at death, Socrates introduces his first argument for the immortality of the soul. This argument is often called the Cyclical Argument. It supposes that the soul must be immortal since the living come from the dead. Socrates says: "Now if it be true that the living come from the dead, then our souls must exist in the other world, for if not, how could they have been born again?". He goes on to show, using examples of relationships, such as asleep-awake and hot-cold, that things that have opposites come to be from their opposite. One falls asleep after having been awake. And after being asleep, he awakens. Things that are hot can become cold and vice versa. Socrates then gets Cebes to conclude that the dead are generated from the living, through death, and that the living are generated from the dead, through birth. The souls of the dead must exist in some place for them to be able to return to life. Cebes realizes the relationship between the Cyclical Argument and Socrates' Theory of Recollection. He interrupts Socrates to point this out, saying: ...your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that our learning is simply recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our soul had been somewhere before existing in this form of man; here then is another proof of the soul's immortality. Socrates' Theory of Recollection shows that it is possible to draw information out of a person who seems not to have any knowledge of a subject prior to his being questioned about it (a priori knowledge). This person must have gained this knowledge in a prior life, and is now merely recalling it from memory. Since the person in Socrates' story is able to provide correct answers to his interrogator, it must be the case that his answers arose from recollections of knowledge gained during a previous life. Socrates presents his third argument for the immortality of the soul, the so-called Affinity Argument, where he shows that the soul most resembles that which is invisible and divine, and the body resembles that which is visible and mortal. From this, it is concluded that while the body may be seen to exist after death in the form of a corpse, as the body is mortal and the soul is divine, the soul must outlast the body. As to be truly virtuous during life is the quality of a great man who will perpetually dwell as a soul in the underworld. However, regarding those who were not virtuous during life, and so favored the body and pleasures pertaining exclusively to it, Socrates also speaks. He says that such a soul as this is: ...polluted, is impure at the time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the body always and is in love with and bewitched by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and see, and drink and eat, and use for the purposes of his lusts, the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid that which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, but is the object of mind and can be attained by philosophy; do you suppose that such a soul will depart pure and unalloyed? Persons of such a constitution will be dragged back into corporeal life, according to Socrates. These persons will even be punished while in Hades. Their punishment will be of their own doing, as they will be unable to enjoy the singular existence of the soul in death because of their constant craving for the body. These souls are finally "imprisoned in another body". Socrates concludes that the soul of the virtuous man is immortal, and the course of its passing into the underworld is determined by the way he lived his life. The philosopher, and indeed any man similarly virtuous, in neither fearing death, nor cherishing corporeal life as something idyllic, but by loving truth and wisdom, his soul will be eternally unperturbed after the death of the body, and the afterlife will be full of goodness. Simmias confesses that he does not wish to disturb Socrates during his final hours by unsettling his belief in the immortality of the soul, and those present are reluctant to voice their skepticism. Socrates grows aware of their doubt and assures his interlocutors that he does indeed believe in the soul's immortality, regardless of whether or not he has succeeded in showing it as yet. For this reason, he is not upset facing death and assures them that they ought to express their concerns regarding the arguments. Simmias then presents his case that the soul resembles the harmony of the lyre. It may be, then, that as the soul resembles the harmony in its being invisible and divine, once the lyre has been destroyed, the harmony too vanishes, therefore when the body dies, the soul too vanishes. Once the harmony is dissipated, we may infer that so too will the soul dissipate once the body has been broken, through death. Socrates pauses, and asks Cebes to voice his objection as well. He says, "I am ready to admit that the existence of the soul before entering into the bodily form has been...proven; but the existence of the soul after death is in my judgment unproven." While admitting that the soul is the better part of a man, and the body the weaker, Cebes is not ready to infer that because the body may be perceived as existing after death, the soul must therefore continue to exist as well. Cebes gives the example of a weaver. When the weaver's cloak wears out,he makes a new one. However, when he dies, his more freshly woven cloaks continue to exist. Cebes continues that though the soul may outlast certain bodies, and so continue to exist after certain deaths, it may eventually grow so weak as to dissolve entirely at some point. He then concludes that the soul's immortality has yet to be shown and that we may still doubt the soul's existence after death. For, it may be that the next death is the one under which the soul ultimately collapses and exists no more. Cebes would then, "...rather not rely on the argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the soul after death." Seeing that the Affinity Argument has possibly failed to show the immortality of the soul, Phaedo pauses his narration. Phaedo remarks to Echecrates that, because of this objection, those present had their "faith shaken," and that there was introduced "a confusion and uncertainty". Socrates too pauses following this objection and then warns against misology, the hatred of argument. Socrates then proceeds to give his final proof of the immortality of the soul by showing that the soul is immortal as it is the cause of life. He begins by showing that "if there is anything beautiful other than absolute beauty it is beautiful only insofar as it partakes of absolute beauty". Consequently, as absolute beauty is a Form, and so is the soul, then anything which has the property of being infused with a soul is so infused with the Form of soul. As an example he says, "will not the number three endure annihilation or anything sooner than be converted into an even number, while remaining three?". Forms, then, will never become their opposite. As the soul is that which renders the body living, and that the opposite of life is death, it so follows that, "...the soul will never admit the opposite of what she always brings." That which does not admit death is said to be immortal. Socrates thus concludes, "Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another world. "Once dead, man's soul will go to Hades and be in the company of," as Socrates says, "...men departed, better than those whom I leave behind." For he will dwell amongst those who were true philosophers, like himself. |
Michael Strogoff | Jules Verne | 1,876 | Michael Strogoff, a 30-year-old native of Omsk, is a courier for Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Tartar Khan, Feofar, incites a rebellion and separates the Russian Far East from the mainland, severing telegraph lines. Rebels encircle Irkutsk, where the local governor, brother of the Tsar, is making a last stand. Strogoff is sent to Irkutsk to warn the governor about the traitor Ivan Ogareff. Ogareff, a former colonel, was once demoted and exiled and now seeks revenge against the royal family. He intends to destroy Irkutsk by setting fire to the huge oil storage tanks on the banks of the Angara River. On his way to Irkutsk, Strogoff meets Nadia Fedor, daughter of an exiled political prisoner, Basil Fedor, who has been granted permission to join her father at his exile in Irkutsk, the English war correspondent Harry Blount of the Daily Telegraph and Alcide Jolivet, a Frenchman reporting for his 'cousin Madeleine'. Blount and Jolivet tend to follow the same route as Michael, separating and meeting again all the way through Siberia. He is supposed to travel under a false identity, but he is discovered by the Tartars when he meets his mother in their home city of Omsk. Michael, his mother and Nadia are eventually taken prisoner by the Tartar forces. Ivan Ogareff alleges that Michael is a spy. After opening the Koran at random, Feofar decides that Michael will be blinded as punishment in the Tartar fashion, with a hot blade. For several chapters the reader is led to believe that Michael was indeed blinded, but it transpires in fact that he was saved from this fate (his tears at his mother evaporated and saved his corneas) and was only pretending. Eventually, Michael and Nadia escape, and travel to Irkutsk with a friendly peasant. They are delayed by fire and the frozen river. However, they eventually reach Irkutsk, and warn the Tsar's brother in time of Ivan Ogareff. Nadia's father, who has been appointed commander of a suicide battalion, and later pardoned, joins them and Michael and Nadia are married. |
Thérèse Raquin | Émile Zola | 1,867 | Thérèse Raquin is the daughter of a French captain and an Algerian mother. After the death of her mother, her father brings her to live with her aunt, Madame Raquin, and her sickly son, Camille. Because her son is so ill, Madame Raquin dotes on Camille to the point where he is selfish and spoiled. Camille and Thérèse grow up side-by-side, and Madame Raquin marries them together when Thérèse is 21. Shortly thereafter, Camille decides that the family should move to Paris so he can pursue a career. Thérèse and Madame Raquin set up shop in the Passage du Pont Neuf to support Camille while he searches for a job. Camille eventually begins working for the Orléans Railroad Company, where he meets up with a childhood friend, Laurent. Laurent visits the Raquins and decides to take up an affair with the lonely Thérèse, mostly because he cannot afford prostitutes anymore. However, this soon turns into a torrid love affair. They secretly meet up regularly in Thérèse's room. After some time, Laurent's boss no longer allows him to leave early and so the two lovers have to think of something new. Thérèse comes up with the idea to kill Camille. They eventually succeed in doing so by drowning Camille during a boat trip. Defending himself, Camille bites Laurent in the throat. Madame Raquin is in shock after hearing the disappearance of her son and everybody believes the fake story of an accident. But Laurent is still uncertain about the death of Camille and frequently visits the mortuary, where he finally finds the dead Camille. Still, Thérèse has nightmares and doesn't talk, so Michaud - one of the regular visitors of the family - comes up with the idea, that Thérèse should marry again and the ideal husband would be Laurent. But even after their marriage, the murder doesn't let go of them. They have imaginations of seeing the dead Camille in their bedroom every night, preventing them from touching each other and quickly driving them insane. Laurent, who is an artist, can no longer paint a picture (even a landscape) which does not in some way resemble the dead man. They also have to look after Madame Raquin, who suffered a stroke after Camille's death. Madame Raquin suffers a second stroke and becomes completely paralyzed except for her eyes (as in locked-in syndrome), after which Therese and Laurent reveal the murder in her presence during an argument. During an evening's game of dominoes with friends, Madame Raquin manages to move her finger with an extreme effort of will to trace words on the table: "Thérèse et Laurent ont t...". The complete sentence was intended to be "Thérèse et Laurent ont tué Camille" (Thérèse and Laurent killed Camille). At this point her strength gives out, and the words are interpreted as "Thérèse and Laurent look after me very well". Eventually, Thérèse and Laurent find life together intolerable and plot to kill each other. At the climax of the novel, the two are about to kill one another when each of them realizes the plans of the other. They each then break down sobbing and reflect upon their miserable lives. After having embraced one last time, they each commit suicide by taking poison, all in front of the watchful gaze of Madame Raquin, who enjoys the late vengeance of her son. |
Les Rois Maudits | null | null | http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515%2BQUIXZuL._SL500_AA300_.jpg The novels take place during the reigns of the last five Direct Capetian kings and the first two Valois kings, from Philip the Fair to John II. The plot revolves around the attempts of Robert of Artois to reclaim the county of Artois from his aunt Mahaut. |
Kaleidoscope Century | John Barnes | null | The narrator, at first appearing to be just over 60 years old, wakes up May 27, 2109 in an apartment on human-settled Mars. With no memory of his past, he goes to his werp, a voice-activated laptop computer, and learns that his name is Joshua Ali Quare and that he was born in 1968. From this frame story and a box containing several objects from his past, Quare pieces together what he believes is true about his life leading to the early 22nd century. It is soon clear that he is unburdened by any form of morality. Joshua ran away from home early in his teens to escape his abusive father; while he stayed in an upstairs apartment at Gwenny's Diner. Joshua's mother, a Communist party member, surreptitiously helped him. He entered the Army at the behest of some Party organizers, and he was put in contact with a KGB operative who provides him with an injection to keep him from receiving or transmitting AIDS (which mutates and spreads soon after, wiping out a large percentage of the population of Earth), enhance his memory, and periodically regenerate his body, becoming 10 years younger with each 15-year life period. This makes him a longtimer, and gives him the side-effect of having his memory wiped after every life period. Joshua's US Army career is spent in Operation Desert Storm (the First Oil War in the novel) and the "Second Oil War" which culminated in a march on Tehran. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB diversified and became "the Organization," a counter-insurgency group that supplied technical and logistic support to every side in the Eurowar, a NATO-Central European Union-Russian conflict in the early 21st century. Among the innovations of the Eurowar were Simulation Modeling Optimizing Targeters (SMOTs) a jump from smart weapons to "brilliant weapons" that attacked an enemy country's natural resources and means of production. These weapons cause massive environmental damage to the earth, and are the predecessors of the memes. Joshua, as an agent for The Organization, begins his violent operative career with a gang rape involving US soldiers, and then sets out a series of terrorist-like missions to intensify the war. During the Eurowar, Joshua raped a woman and killed her and her family (perhaps the only disturbing memory he regrets), murdered many soldiers and civilians, suppressed science and research through rape and torture, and essentially caused mayhem along with other Organization longtimers, for great sums of pay. After the Eurowar ended, Joshua took in "Alice", a war orphan from Prague in an incident where he got the dog tag -- and inspiration for future alias -- "John Childs". In the 2010s, the Organization abandoned Joshua, who then joined the Reconstruction after the Eurowar and worked in Quito, Ecuador on the GeoSync Cable and saw with Alice the beginning of the development of memes that would unify all countries and religions, leading to the War of the Memes (referred to in some of Barnes' other books) that culminated in the takeover of Earth by One True. Alice runs away, and the Organization finds and rehires Joshua to fight in the War of the Memes, for One True. By the time One True consolidated its hold on the people of Earth, Mars, the Jupiter and Saturn systems had been colonized for decades. Joshua steals another person's ID and becomes an ecoprospector on Mars. The best scientists and engineers of free humanity had developed the technology to unleash a singularity at the edge of the solar system that would provide a return point in time and space for the descendants of five transfer ships sent to colonize other nearby star systems. When Joshua finally ventures forth to meet his Organization contact in Red Sands City, he's confronted by a tremendous hustle and bustle of people preparing for the transfer ship descendants to arrive from the 25th century and either destroy One True (and the population on Earth under its control) or confine it there. A fellow Organization agent named Sadi has been in Joshua's life one way or another since the inception of the Organization. On Mars, Sadi, who's also a longtimer, meets Joshua as a woman, Sadi's original gender, and now gender of choice. This is possible due to the Organization perfecting the regeneration process, now called 'revival', which also gave Sadi complete memory recovery and a permanent 20-year-old body. From Sadi, whom Joshua had met as a woman after the Eurowar and was partnered with when Sadi was male during the War of the Memes, Joshua learns that it's possible to go through the singularity to 1988, when the technology to construct it was first built and put into orbit by the Soviets. By the time of the novel's frame story, Sadi has done this thirty times, each time changing history to his/her benefit. After Joshua's revival and a time as Sadi's lover, Joshua, who's repeatedly refused to accompany Sadi on these excursions through the singularity, (also known as a closed timelike curve), is sent by her via force on a preset course through the singularity once more. Sadi claims to have brought Joshua back in time with her before, without being revived, so she could 'help' Joshua love her as obsessively as Sadi loves him. Now she wants him to experience the freedom she's had, in hopes of having him come back to her for good. Joshua makes plans when he comes back to the late 20th century to change history himself, many times over, alone. |
Persian Letters | Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu | 1,721 | In 1711 Usbek leaves his seraglio in Isfahan to take the long journey to France, accompanied by his young friend Rica. He leaves behind five wives (Zachi, Zéphis, Fatmé, Zélis, and Roxane) in the care of a number of black eunuchs, one of whom is the head or first eunuch. During the trip and their long stay in Paris (1712–1720), they comment, in letters exchanged with friends and mullahs, on numerous aspects of Western, Christian society, particularly French politics and mores, ending with a biting satire of the System of John Law. Over time, various disorders surface back in the seraglio, and, beginning in 1717 (Letter 139 [147]), the situation there rapidly unravels. Usbek orders his head eunuch to crack down, but his message does not arrive in time, and a revolt brings about the death of his wives, including the vengeful suicide of his favorite, Roxane, and, it appears, most of the eunuchs. The Chronology breaks down as follows: *Letters 1–21 [1–23]: The journey from Isfahan to France, which lasts almost 13 months (from 19 March 1711 to 4 May 1712). *Letters 22 [24]–89 [92]: Paris in the reign of Louis XIV, 3 years in all (from May 1712 to September 1715). *Letters 90 [93]–137 [143] or [supplementary Letter 8 =145]: the Regency of Philippe d’Orléans, covering five years (from September 1715 to November 1720). *Letters 138 [146]– 150 [161]: the collapse of the seraglio in Isfahan, approximately 3 years (1717–1720). The novel consisting of 150 letters appeared in May 1721 under the rubric Cologne: Pierre Marteau, a front for the Amsterdam publisher Jacques Desbordes whose business is now run by his widow, Susanne de Caux. Called edition A, this is the text utilized in the recent critical edition of Lettres persanes for the complete works of Montesquieu published by the Voltaire Foundation in 2004. A second edition (B) by the same publisher later in the same year, for which there is so far no entirely satisfactory explanation, curiously included three new letters but omitted thirteen of the original ones. All subsequent editions in the author’s lifetime (i.e., until 1755) derive from A or B. A new edition in 1758, prepared by Montesquieu’s son, included eight new letters – bringing the total to 161 – and a short piece by the author entitled "Quelques réflexions sur les Letters persanes." This latter edition has been used for all subsequent editions until the Œuvres complètes of 2004, which reverts to the original edition but includes the added letters marked as "supplementary" and, in parentheses, the numbering scheme of 1758. |
Bonjour Tristesse | Françoise Sagan | 1,954 | Seventeen-year-old Cécile spends her summer in a villa on the French Riviera with her father and his mistress. Her father, Raymond, is a seductive, worldly, amoral man who has had many affairs. His latest woman friend is Elsa Mackenbourg: she and Cécile get on well. When Elsa comes to the villa to spend her summer with Raymond, it is clear that she is the latest of many women whom Cécile has seen enter the life of her father and exit fairly quickly: young, superficial, and fashionable. Raymond excuses his philandering with an Oscar Wilde quote about sin: "Sin is the only note of vivid colour that persists in the modern world." Cécile says, "I believed that I could base my life on it", and accepts their lifestyle as typical. Cécile, at 17, is still somewhat naive and tries to disguise this by attempting to attract men of the same age as her father. Her love life is unsuccessful until she meets a younger man, Cyril, with whom she has a romantic but ultimately dissatisfying relationship. Raymond, Elsa and Cécile are spending an uneventful summer together until Anne Larsen arrives by way of an earlier invitation from Raymond. A friend of Cécile's late mother, Anne is very different from Raymond's other girlfriends. She is cultured, educated, principled, intelligent, and is his age. Raymond eventually leaves Elsa for Anne, and the next morning Anne and Raymond announce their impending marriage. At first, Cécile admires Anne, but soon a struggle begins between Cécile and Anne for Raymond's attentions. The plot begins to focus on the relationship between the two women. Realizing that Anne will do away with their carefree lifestyle, Cécile devises a plan to prevent the marriage. She arranges for Elsa and Cyril to pretend to be a couple, and to appear together at specific moments in the hopes of making Raymond jealous of Cyril so that if Raymond decides he wants Elsa back, he'll leave Anne. Cécile is jealous and desperate for Anne to recognize the life she and her father have shared, but she misjudges Anne's sensitivity with tragic results. When Raymond finally relents and goes into town to see Elsa, Anne leaves, only to drive her car off a cliff in an apparent suicide after she sees Elsa and Raymond in the woods together. It is later known that they were kissing. Cécile and her father return to the empty, desultory life they were living before Anne interrupted their summer. |
Return to Peyton Place | Grace Metalious | 1,959 | After the phenomenal success of her first novel, Metalious hastily penned a sequel centering on the life and loves of bestselling author Allison MacKenzie, who ironically follows in the footsteps of her mother by having an affair with a married man, her publisher Lewis Jackman. In the finale of the book, Lewis is killed, which destroys Allison. The similarity of their situations bond Allison and her mother, whom advises Allison to live for him by returning to her writing, which she does. When she returns to her hometown following the publication of her first novel, Samuel's Castle, she is forced to face the wrath of most of its residents, who are incensed by their barely disguised counterparts and the revelation of town secrets in the book. Certain members of the community stood by the MacKenzies, most notably, Seth Buswell, the newspaper editor; and his oldest friend, Dr. Matthew Swain. In fact, whenever anyone came into Dr. Swain's office and complained about Allison's book, he would roar them down and after a tongue lashing from him, that person wouldn't ever complain about Allison's novel after that. However, Roberta Carter, a member of the school board, makes it her mission to ban the book from the high school library. She also punishes Allison by firing her stepfather, Michael Rossi (a decision which she eventually reverses, to the anger of her former friend, Marion Partridge); while at the same time trying to dissolve her son Ted's marriage to his snobbish bride. Roberta is eventually murdered by her scheming daughter in-law, Jennifer Burbank. Another union in trouble is that of Allison's mother Constance, who is shocked by her daughter's exposé, but nonetheless stands by her, and stepfather Michael Rossi, the school principal and one of the novel's defenders. Betty Anderson returns from New York, after giving birth to Roddy, the child she had by Rodney Harrington and, along with her co-hort and Roddy's babysitter, Agnes, moves to Peyton Place, so she can allow Leslie, Roddy's grandfather to know him. Selena Cross, who had been acquitted of murder in the previous novel, was trying to make a life for herself and her brother, Joey. She is manager of the Thrifty Corner Apparel Shoppe, and is a success. She meets Timothy Randlett, an itinerant actor, who after attacking her, ended up getting hit with fireplace tongs, similar to how Lucas Cross was killed. She eventually decides to marry Peter Drake, her former attorney. In this book, Selena and Allison had rebonded as friends, and Allison's roommate, Stephanie, was also part of their circle. Return to Peyton Place had many of the same soap opera elements of the original. Although it sold well, its total sales did not equal those of its predecessor. |
Eastern Standard Tribe | Cory Doctorow | 2,004 | The protagonist, Art Berry, has been sent to an insane asylum as a result of a complex conspiracy. The novel takes place in a world where online "tribes" form, where all members set their circadian rhythms to the same time zone even though members may be physically located throughout the world. He works in London as a consultant for the Greenwich 0 tribe (though he and his associate Fede are in fact double-agents for the Eastern Standard Tribe). Despite his talents as a human experience engineer, he delivers subtly flawed proposals to them in order to undermine them and enable his own tribe to get a coveted contract. He meets a girl, Linda, after he hits her with his car at 3am. Art has an idea for peer-to-peer music sharing between automobiles, and plans to give it to the EST (taking a cut to himself.) However, his girlfriend meets his coworker, Fede, and they plan to double cross the EST and sell the idea to another tribe. Knowing Art won't approve of the plan, they do it behind his back. Fede later claims he would have cut Art in on the deal afterwards. However, Art figures out what is going on, and as a result they have him committed to an insane asylum to protect their plot. The book alternates between two points of view: Art meeting Linda in London, and Art in the asylum. The London plot culminates in his attack on Fede when he discovers his betrayal. The asylum plot takes place after his attack on Fede, and culminates in his escape from the asylum and founding of a new company to market health care products using his inside knowledge of psychiatric institutions. |
The Gold Bug Variations | Richard Powers | 1,991 | The novel intertwines the discovery of the chemical structure of DNA with the musicality of Johann Sebastian Bach's harpsichord composition, the Goldberg Variations. A similar theme is explored by Douglas Hofstadter in his 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. The title also alludes to Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 short story "The Gold-Bug", which is also incorporated in the plot of the novel. The plot hinges on two love affairs: the first, set in the 1950s, between two scientists intent on discovering the mysteries of DNA; the second, in the 1980s, between two lovers who befriend the scientist featured in the novel's flashbacks. |
The Golem | Gustav Meyrink | 1,914 | The novel centers on the life of Athanasius Pernath, a jeweler and art restorer who lives in the ghetto of Prague. But his story is experienced by an anonymous narrator, who, during a visionary dream, assumes Pernath's identity thirty years before. This dream was perhaps induced because he inadvertently swapped his hat with the real (old) Pernath's. While the novel is generally focused on Pernath's own musings and adventures, it also chronicles the lives, the characters, and the interactions of his friends and neighbors. The Golem, though rarely seen, is central to the novel as a representative of the ghetto's own spirit and consciousness, brought to life by the suffering and misery that its inhabitants have endured over the centuries. The story itself has a disjointed and often elliptical feel, as it was originally published in serial form and is intended to convey the mystical associations and interests which the author himself was exploring at the time. The reality of the narrator's experiences are often called into question, as some of them may simply be dreams or hallucinations and others may be metaphysical or transcendent events which are taking place outside the "real" world. Similarly, it is revealed over the course of the book that Pernath apparently suffered from a mental breakdown on at least one occasion, but has no memory of any such event; he is also unable to remember his childhood and most of his youth, a fact that may or may not be attributable to his previous breakdown. His mental stability is constantly called into question by his friends and neighbors, and the reader is left to wonder what if anything that has taken place in the narrative actually happened. |
Storm of Steel | Ernst Jünger | 1,920 | Storm of Steel begins with Jünger as a private entering the line with the 73rd Hanoverian Regiment in Champagne. His first taste of combat came at Les Eparges in April 1915 where he was first wounded. After recuperating, he took an officer's course and achieved the rank of Ensign. He rejoined his regiment on the Arras sector. In 1916, with the Battle of the Somme underway, Jünger's regiment moved to Combles in August for the defence of the village of Guillemont. Here Jünger was fortunate to be wounded again, shortly before the final British assault which captured the village — his platoon was annihilated. In 1917 Jünger saw action during the Battle of Arras in April, the Third Battle of Ypres in July and October, and the German counter-attack during the Battle of Cambrai in November. Jünger led a company of assault troops during the final German Spring Offensive, 21 March 1918 when he was wounded again. On 23 August he suffered his most severe wound when he was shot through the chest. In total, Jünger was wounded 14 times during the war, including five bullet wounds. He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class and was the youngest ever recipient of the Pour le Mérite. |
Timeline | Michael Crichton | 1,999 | In the middle of the New Mexico desert, a vacationing couple comes across an ill man wandering miles from town. They find the man, Joe Traub, is a physicist and an employee of a company called ITC. However, ITC's headquarters are mysteriously far from where Traub was found. Traub soon dies of a cardiac arrest. The hospital receives an MRI scan later, which reveals that Traub's blood veins did not match up to each other. Traub, being the last of his family, is taken and cremated by ITC to prevent any further evidence about his death from coming through to the public. In the Dordogne region of France, Professor Edward Johnston leads a team of historians and archaeologists studying the remains of the medieval towns of Castelgard and La Roque. Suspicious of the detailed knowledge of the site shown by ITC (their funder), Johnston flies to ITC's headquarters in New Mexico to investigate. While he is gone, the archeologists make a startling discovery in the ruins; a lens from a pair of glasses as well as parchment with a request for help written in modern English, apparently in Professor Johnston's handwriting. Researchers Chris Hughes, Kate Erickson, André Marek and David Stern fly to ITC and meet Robert Doniger, its founder, who tells them Johnston has used their quantum technology to travel to Dordogne in the year 1357, but has not returned as expected. Chris, Kate, and Marek agree to travel back themselves to find him. Stern remains behind, distrusting ITC's technology and believing they aren't telling them everything. They dress in period specific clothing, but Doniger allows only biodegradable modern advances to go back, banning plastic and weapons. When they arrive in the past, the team is plagued by misfortune. They are attacked by a group of horsemen led by Sir Guy, who kills the ITC military escorts and causing a grenade snuck on the mission to go to the present, destroying the transit pad. Unable to return, Kate and Marek are taken away by the men of Lord Oliver of Castelgard. Separated from the others, Chris accidentally declares himself as a noble to a boy who helps him and is led to Castelgard. The boy is revealed to be the Lady Claire in disguise, trying to escape from the leader of the horsemen, Sir Guy de Malegant. In the castle, Chris and André Marek find themselves challenged to a joust by Sir Guy and his second, Sir Charles de Gaune. Chris, instructed by Marek, lies on the ground after Sir guy hits him on the chest on his second run. While Marek fought with Sir Charles de Gaune, Sir Guy tried to kill Chris. However, André fights with Sir Guy and manages to beat him. Lord Oliver orders the death of André and Chris, but Kate helps them escape Castelgard and they are pursued by Guy and his knight Sir Robert de Kere. Lord Oliver believes that Johnston knows a secret passageway into the otherwise impenetrable castle of La Roque. Oliver's enemy Arnaut de Cervole, otherwise known as the Archpriest, is approaching the Dordogne to lay siege and Oliver wants the secret to defend La Roque. Johnston helps Oliver develop a weapon despite knowing that historically Oliver loses the siege, while Chris, André, and Kate use clues from the future to search for the passage themselves. Chris realizes that someone else is in the past with them and spying on their transmissions. Eventually Robert de Kere reveals that he is Rob Deckard, an ITC employee and former marine driven insane from the accumulation of "transcription errors," deformities that build up over multiple quantum trips. De Kere intends to take their trip home for himself. Meanwhile at ITC, Stern and the vice president, Gordon, try desperately to repair the transit pads. It is revealed that Doniger is trying to use the past as a marketing tool. After Lady Claire helps Kate, Chris, and André elude Arnaut's men, André enters La Roque as Johnston's assistant while Chris and Kate discover the passage. As Arnaut begins his siege, Oliver decides that Johnston is hiding information and takes him to a torture device known as Milady's Bath to drown him. Kate fights and kills Guy on the rafters of the Great Hall, while André and Chris are able to rescue Johnston when Arnaut himself intervenes and defeats Oliver in a duel. Arnaut thanks them and leaves Oliver to die. As the battle rages, de Kere attacks Chris to get his ceramic marker, but Chris manages to set him on fire with Johnston's automatic fire and spittle. ITC and Stern finally repair the landing area just in time for the travelers to return. André—who realizes he has longed for this life—decides to remain in the past with Lady Claire while Chris, Kate, and Johnston return to 1999. When it becomes clear that Doniger had little regard for the lives of the travelers, the researchers and engineers, mainly John Gordon, send him to 1348—the outbreak of the Black Death. In the epilogue, Chris and Kate are expecting a child together. The researchers find André and Lady Claire's graves and discover that André lived out a good and satisfying life. His gravestone reads a message in French to his companions, quoted from Richard Lionheart, - "Companions who I love, and still do love,... tell them my song." |
Time in Advance | William Tenn | 1,958 | The Earth is visited by large, enigmatic alien spheres, who take up residence in colonies on several prairies and deserts across the world. They make visits to cities, factories and other areas of human activity, seemingly to merely float and observe. All attempts at communication are unsuccessful and despite the best efforts of mankind, no one is able to decipher their intentions. Some, however, have come in to close encounter with the aliens, and emerged dramatically altered beings. These people, called humanity-prime, and dubbed 'primeys', are highly intelligent, can bend matter to their will, but are also, by human standards, quite, quite mad. Algernon Hebster is a highly successful businessman, owing mostly to his dealings with primeys, who supply him with the knowledge for advanced technologies which he puts to use in commerce. The problem is that primeys are so dangerous that dealing with them is highly illegal and every attempt is made to confine them to the reservations around their perceived alien masters. |
Danse Macabre | Stephen King | null | Despite using King's college teaching notes as the backbone of the text, Danse Macabre has a casual, non-linear writing style. In the introduction, titled "October 4, 1957, and an Invitation to Dance", King begins by explaining why he wrote the book, and then describes the event itself: the launching of the Soviet satellite Sputnik, intended as his personal introduction to what he calls "real horror." This is followed by the chapter "Tales of the Hook," specifically the urban legend of the escaped criminal who left his hook on the door handle of the car where lovers had parked. The author uses this for his contention that horror in general "offers no characterization, no theme, no particular artifice; it does not aspire to symbolic beauty." In the following chapter, he creates a template for descriptions of his macabre subject. Entitled “Tales of the Tarot," the chapter has nothing to do with the familiar tarot card deck. Rather, King borrows the term to describe his observations about major archetypal characters of the horror genre, which he posits come from two British novels and one Irish: the vampire (from Dracula), the werewolf (from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), and the "Thing Without a Name" (from Frankenstein). King sees deeply sexual undertones—in light of its Victorian Era publication—in Dracula. Frankenstein is reviewed as "a Shakespearean tragedy", and he argues that "its classical unity is broken only by the author's uncertainty as to where the fatal flaw lies—is it in Victor's hubris (usurping a power that belongs only to God) or in his failure to take responsibility for his creation after endowing it with the life-spark?" King does not mistake Mr. Hyde for a "traditional" werewolf, but rather sees the character as the origin of the modern archetype defined by werewolves. The evil-werewolf archetype, argues King, stems from the base and violent side of humanity. These major archetypes are then reviewed in their historical context, ranging from their original appearances to their modern-day equivalents, up to and including cartoon breakfast cereal characters such as Frankenberry and Count Chocula. The chapter "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause" begins with King's explanation for why he included the section: "I cannot divorce myself from a field in which I am mortally involved." He then offers a brief family history, discussing his abandonment by his father at the age of two, his childhood in rural eastern Maine, and then explains his childhood fixation with the imagery of terror and horror, making an interesting comparison of his uncle successfully dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of the H.P. Lovecraft collection The Lurker in the Shadows, which had belonged to his long-since-departed father. The cover art—an illustration of a monster hiding within the recesses of a hell-like cavern beneath a tombstone—was, he writes, the moment in his life which "that interior dowsing rod responded to." King then resumes his discussion of the horror genre by making detailed commentary of horror in all forms of media, beginning with radio, then proceeding to a highly critical review of television horror, two separate chapters on horror in the motion pictures, and finally concluding with an examination of horror fiction. His critique on the radio examines such American programs as Suspense, Inner Sanctum, and Boris Karloff, and praises Arch Oboler's Lights Out. King ultimately concludes that, as a medium for horror, radio is superior to television and films, since radio's nature requires a more active use of imagination. King then turns to two separate chapters of horror in the motion pictures. In "The Modern American Horror Movie—Text and Subtext," the "subtext" he refers to consists of unspoken social commentary he sees in the films. The 1951 film The Thing from Another World implies commentary on the threat of communism, "the quick, no-nonsense destruction of their favorite geopolitical villain, the dastardly Russians," King writes. The popular 1973 film The Exorcist was aptly suited in the wake of the youth upheavals of the late 1960s and early '70s. 1975's The Stepford Wives, King says, "has some witty things to say about Women's Liberation ... and the American male's response to it." In The Amityville Horror, King sees "economic unease" and maintains that the film's 1979 release "could not have come along at a more opportune moment." He also calls The China Syndrome, released the same year, a horror movie that "synthesizes technological fears ... fears of the machinery gone out of control, run wild." In the following chapter, "The Horror Movie as Junk Food" King begins by making the statement: “I am no apologist for bad filmmaking, but once you've spent twenty years or so going to horror movies, searching for diamonds in the dreck of the B-pics … you begin to seek the patterns and appreciate them when you find them, you begin to get a taste for really shitty movies.” He makes the point that his agent Kirby McCauley had selected the obscure 1977 film Rituals as his favorite, while King himself chose 1979's Tourist Trap as one that “wields an eerie spooky power. Wax figures begin to move and come to life in a ruined, out-of-the-way tourist resort.” He continues a reviews of such films as Prophecy (1979), I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958), The Horror of Party Beach (1964), and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), among others; concluding: “Bad films may sometimes be amusing, sometimes even successful, but their only real usefulness is to form that basis of comparison: to define positive values in terms of their own negative charm. They show us what to look for because it is missing in themselves.” King then turns his most weighty criticism toward television, borrowing Harlan Ellison's description of television as "the glass teat", and subtitling the chapter, "This Monster Is Brought to You by Gainesburgers." He reviews horror anthology programs such as The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows, and Night Gallery, ultimately concluding that television is severely limited in its ability to illustrate horror because it is enslaved to the demands of network Standards and Practices censorship and the appeasement of advertising executives that provide the financial means necessary for television to continue its free access. In the "Horror Fiction" chapter, King describes and reviews a number of horror novels written within a few decades of Danse Macabre, including Peter Straub's Ghost Story, Anne Rivers Siddons's The House Next Door, Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, and several others. His primary context is defining what impact they have had on the horror genre, and how significantly they have contributed to the popular culture. Specifically pointing out allegories in his review, King notes: The final chapter, "The Last Waltz", is a brief analysis of how the medium or horror fiction in all its forms has inspired real-life acts of violence. He describes an incident in which a woman was brutally murdered by youths who confessed to imitating a scene from a TV movie, then objectively includes an example of violence perpetrated by a woman who had been reading his novel The Stand at the time she committed the crime. "If it had not been shown", he writes, "stupidity and lack of imagination might well have reduced them to murdering ... in some more mundane way." In an analysis of why people read and watch horror, he concludes, "Perhaps we go to the forbidden door or window willingly because we understand that a time comes when we must go whether we want to or not." Additionally, King classifies the genre into three well-defined, descending levels; 1) terror, 2) horror, and 3) revulsion. He describes terror as “the finest element” of the three, and the one he strives hardest to maintain in his own writing. Citing many examples, he defines “terror” as the suspenseful moment in horror before the actual monster is revealed. "Horror", King writes, is that moment at which one sees the creature/aberration that causes the terror or suspense, a "shock value." King finally compares “revulsion” with the gag-reflex: a bottom-level, cheap gimmick which he admits he often resorts to in his own fiction if necessary, confessing: |
Practical Demonkeeping | Christopher Moore | null | Travis was born in 1900, yet he has not aged since 1919, because he accidentally called up a demon from hell named Catch as his servant, presumably forever. Ever since then, Travis has been trying to get rid of Catch, but he is unable to do so because he has lost the repository of the necessary incantations. He traces their whereabouts to a fictional town called Pine Cove, along Big Sur coast, where he thinks the woman he gave them to may be residing. Interactions with the townspeople and with a djinn, who is pursuing Catch, create considerable complications. Several characters from this novel continue their lives in later novels by Moore; in addition, the setting of Pine Cove itself is revisited for The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and The Stupidest Angel. The fictional town of Pine Cove is described as being within easy driving distance of San Luis Obispo, California, and seems to be modeled after the town of Cambria, California. |
The Return of the Condor Heroes | Louis Cha | 1,959 | The protagonist Yang Guo is the orphaned son of the first novel's antagonist Yang Kang. He is raised briefly by the couple Guo Jing and Huang Rong he is sent to the Quanzhen Sect for better guidance in moral values and orthodox martial arts. In Quanzhen, Yang Guo is often picked on and bullied by his fellow students and his master Zhao Zhijing is biased against him. Yang Guo flees and ventures unknowingly into the nearby Tomb of the Living Dead, where the Ancient Tomb Sect is housed. He is saved by Xiaolongnü, a mysterious maiden of unknown origin, and becomes her apprentice. They live together in the tomb for many years until Yang Guo grows up. After being attacked by Li Mochou, they leave the tomb and stay on the mountain. Xiaolongnü develops romantic feelings for Yang Guo and after a while, he too falls in love with her. However, their romance is forbidden by doctrines of the Confucianist society of that time. Throughout the story, their love meets with several tests, such as the misunderstandings that threaten to tear them apart and the encounter with Gongsun Zhi. Finally, after their reunion and marriage, Xiaolongnü leaves Yang Guo again, owing to her belief she cannot recover from a fatal poison, and promises to meet him again sixteen years later. While Yang Guo is wandering the jianghu alone, he meets several formidable martial artists and a giant condor. His adventures gradually mould him into a courageous pugilist, whose prowess matches the Greats of his age. Yang Guo serves his nation by helping the Han Chinese of Song defeat the Mongol invaders. At the end of the novel, he is reunited with Xiaolongnü and they are recognised as heroes of their time. |
Where the Red Fern Grows | Wilson Rawls | null | Before leaving work one afternoon, Billy Coleman spots a Redbone Coonhound in a fight with neighborhood dogs. He chases the other dogs away and helps it recover from its wounds. When it is feeling stronger again, he realizes he must set it free, knowing that it will find its way home. This event makes him revisit his past, and the two Redbone Coonhounds he had taken care of when he was a boy in the Ozarks. Growing up in the Ozarks with his parents and three younger sisters, Billy Coleman, at age 10, wants to own a pair of Redbone Coonhounds but his parents tell him that they can't afford them. One day he finds an article in a sportsman magazine offering a pair in Kentucky for $25 each. He decides to earn the money himself. For two years, he works many different jobs, and manages to save $50. His grandfather writes to the kennel and finds out that the dogs have dropped in price by $5 each. He sends for two Redbone Coonhound puppies. The mail does not deliver packages, and so the puppies have to be sent to the depot at Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Billy travels on his own by walking there and gets them. With the extra $10 his grandfather gave him, he buys gifts for his family: a pair of overalls for his dad, cloth for making dresses for his mom and sisters, and a bag of candy for his sisters. On the way back home, he spends the night in Robber's Cave on Sparrow Hawk Mountain. There he builds a fire and plays with the puppies. While trying to sleep, he hears a noise that at first seems like a woman screaming, but he soon realizes it is really that of a mountain lion from far away. Both puppies run to the mouth of the cave and challenge the cat. Billy worries for them, and he remembers that his father told him "mountain lions are scared of fire," so he makes fire and waits for morning. In the morning, he continues on. He comes to a sycamore tree and sees the names Dan and Ann carved inside a heart in the bark and decides to name the puppies Old Dan and Little Ann. To train his dogs, Billy catches a raccoon with the help of his grandfather and uses the fur to teach them how to trail one. During their training, their personalities become apparent: Old Dan is brave and strong, while Little Ann is very intelligent. Both are very loyal to each other and to Billy. On the first day of the hunting season, Billy takes his dogs out for their very first hunt. He promises them that if they tree a raccoon, he will do the rest. They are very ready to chase their first raccoon in a large tree, which Billy had before nicknamed "the Big Tree", and is one of the largest in the woods. As he tries to call his well-trained dogs off the hunt, they look at him sadly and he cuts down the enormous tree to keep his promise — an exhausting effort that takes him a few days of chopping and costs him blistered hands. In the end, when about to give up his effort, he offers a short prayer for strength to continue. Mysteriously, a strong wind starts to blow and the tree comes crashing down. Old Dan and Little Ann take the raccoon down. Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann go out hunting almost every night. As months go by, he brings more fur to his grandfather's store than any other hunter, and the stories of his dogs spread throughout the Ozarks. One day, he and his grandfather make a bet with Rubin and Rainie Pritchard, that his hounds can catch the legendary "ghost coon." The Pritchard boys set out with him to see if Old Dan and Little Ann can catch it. It leads them on a long, complicated chase, and the Pritchard boys want to give up. But Billy is determined. Finally, when they have it treed, Billy refuses to kill it. Just as Rubin starts to beat up Billy, Old Dan and Little Ann begin to attack the Pritchards' dog, Old Blue. Rubin runs to attack them with an axe, but he falls on it and kills himself. Billy is very distraught afterward. Finally he goes to Rubin's grave with some flowers, then feels much better. A few weeks later, Billy's grandfather enters him into a championship raccoon hunt, putting him against experienced hunters and the finest dogs in all the country. Before it starts, he enters Little Ann into a contest for the best-looking dog, where she wins and is given the silver cup. On the fourth night of the hunt, Old Dan and Little Ann chase three raccoons, making it to the final round. The sixth night, they chase one before a blizzard hits. Billy, his dad, grandfather, and the judge lose sight of them. When they finally find them, Billy's grandfather falls and sprains his ankle which prevents him from walking. They built a fire, and when Billy's dad chops down a tree, three raccoons rise. The dogs take down two of them, and chase the third one to another tree. In the morning, the hunters find them covered with ice circling the bottom of a tree. The last raccoon wins them the championship and the gold cup. Billy's mom and sisters are overjoyed. Billy keeps up his hunting. One night, however, his dogs tree a mountain lion. Old Dan howls defiantly, and the big cat attacks. Billy is horrified, and with his axe he enters the fray, hoping to save his dogs, but they end up having to save him. Eventually, the dogs defeat the mountain lion, but Old Dan is badly wounded, and Billy soon finds Old Dan's intestines in a bush. He dies the next day. Billy is heartbroken, but Little Ann is so sad that she loses her will to live, and dies a few days later. Billy's papa tries to tell him that it is all for the best, because with the money he has earned, they hope to move to town. He does not completely recover until on the day of the move; he goes to visit the dogs' graves and finds a giant red fern between them. According to Indian legend, only an angel can plant a red fern. He and his family look at it in awe, and he feels ready to leave for town. |
Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags | John Augustus Stone | null | Metamora, or the Last of the Wampanoags follows the story of its eponymous Indian hero and his downfall at the hand of English settlers during Puritan infiltration in seventeenth century New England. At the opening of the play, Metamora is cordial, if hesitant, towards the Puritans, even befriending Walter and his love Oceana, who is betrothed to Fitzarnold. The remainder of the play is devoted to the converging stories of Oceana and Walter, among other Puritans, and Metamora, his wife Nehmeokee, their son, and the remainder of the Wampanoag forces. The ending is bittersweet as Oceana is at last able to marry Walter, but Metamora lies slain next to his wife and child, cursing the English with his final breaths. |
The Sovereign State of ITT | null | null | In part it was a portrait of Harold Geneen, the chief executive of ITT from 1959 until 1977. Geneen was a legendarily hands-on manager, who believed it necessary to penetrate through layers of "false facts" to get to the "unshakable facts" about any of the markets or divisions of his conglomerate. In terms of its broader themes, though, this book was one of a spate of early-70s books that promoted the thesis that multinational corporations were taking over the traditional prerogatives and functions of national governments. In a review of Sampson's book in the (London) Sunday Telegraph, Sir Frank McFadzean, Vice Chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell, took issue with that thesis. Such corporations are "prisoners of their past investments," he wrote, because "even the most puny government can nationalize, and the only redress is to seek compensation." Although as Sampson's book shows ITT has used other means of redress to defend its own business interests from nationalisation, that have not been confined to the courts. These have ranged from supporting the 1930's military takeover by General Franco in Spain, investing in Hitler's war machine throughout WWII and funding a CIA backed coup led by General Pinochet in Chile 1973. |
Tortilla Flat | John Steinbeck | 1,935 | The following chapter titles from the work, along with short summaries, outline the adventures the dipsomaniacal group endure in order to procure red wine and friendship. Chapter Summary 1 How Danny, home from the wars, found himself an heir, and how he swore to protect the helpless. — After working as a mule-driver during The Great War, Danny returns to find he has inherited two houses from his deceased grandfather. Danny gets drunk and goes to jail. He and the jailer drink wine at Torelli's. After escaping, Danny talks his friend, a clever man named Pilon into sharing his brandy and his houses. 2 How Pilon was lured by greed of position to forsake Danny's hospitality. — Danny fails to get the water turned on. Pilon kills a rooster, rents Danny's second house for money which it is understood he will never pay, and exchanges paper roses for a gallon of Señora Torelli's wine. 3 How the poison of possessions wrought with Pilon, and how evil temporarily triumphed in him. — Danny and Pilon share wine, two women, and a fight. Drunk a second time, Pilon sublets half his house to Pablo. 4 How Jesus Maria Corcoran, a good man, became an unwilling vehicle of evil. — Pablo, Pilon and Danny discuss women and the payment of rent. Pablo and Pilon sublet their house to Jesus Maria. Since he has just $3 and a dime with him, they take a $2 deposit and leave him the rest to buy a woman he likes a present. 5 How Saint Francis turned the tide and put a gentle punishment on Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria. — Pilon and Pablo enjoy two gallons of wine. Monterey prepares for night. Pablo enjoys dinner, firewood and love from Mrs. Torelli. Jesus Maria is beaten up by soldiers because he enjoys their whiskey and their girlfriend Arabella. Pablo's candle, dedicated to St. Francis, burns down the house, while Danny, who is with Mrs. Morales next door, pays no attention. 6 How three sinful men, through contrition, attained peace. How Danny's friends swore comradeship. — Pablo, Pilon and Jesus Maria sleep in the pine forest. They wake up smelling a picnic lunch which becomes theirs, and is shared with Danny, into whose remaining house they move. 7 How Danny's friends became a force for good. How they succored the poor pirate. — The pirate, a mentally handicapped man who is followed by 5 dogs, is invited by Pilon to stay at Danny's house. Pirate promised that if God would save his sick dog, he would buy a golden candlestick for St. Francis. The sickly dog recovered, though he was soon after run over by a truck. Pirate is determined to keep his promise to buy a gold candlestick for St. Francis with 1000 quarters, or "two-bitses" ($250). The Pirate is the only paisano who works, and makes 25 cents a day selling kindling, but lives on food scraps given in charity, and saves the cash. He has hidden a great bag of quarters, known about by all. When he reveals his treasure to them, they are guilted into aiding him in his endeavor. 8 How Danny's Friends sought mystic treasure on Saint Andrew's Eve. How Pilon found it and later how a pair of serge pants changed ownership twice. — Joe Portagee returns from army jail, burns down a whorehouse, goes to jail again. He and Pilon seek treasure in the woods on St. Andrew's Eve (29 Nov), and see the faint beam from a spot which they mark. Next night, with wine Joe has gotten for a blanket he has stolen from Danny, they dig at the spot and uncover something labeled "United States Geodetic Survey + 1915 + Elevation 600 Feet". Realizing it is a crime to take, they get drunk on the Seaside beach. Pilon, to punish Joe for stealing from his host, recovers the blanket and trades Joe's pants for wine, leaving Joe naked on the beach. 9 How Danny was ensnared by a vacuum cleaner and how Danny's friends rescued him. — Danny trades stolen copper nails for money for a vacuum cleaner from Mr. Simon, to give to Sweets Ramirez (who has no electricity). Sweets contentedly pretends she has electricity, pushing the machine over the floor while humming to herself, and Danny wins her favors. He spends every evening with Sweets, until Pilon, telling himself he misses his friend, takes the vacuum and trades it to Torelli, the local shopkeep, for wine. Torelli then finds the vacuum which has been "run" with pretend electricity, actually has a pretend motor. 10 How the friends solaced a corporal and in return received a lesson in paternal ethics. — Jesus Maria befriends a young man with a baby, and brings him to the house. The baby is sick. A Capitán has stolen the man's wife. The baby dies, and the man explains why he wanted the baby to be a Generál, not so that he may steal other men's wives, instead of being stolen from, but for his child's happiness. The friends are touched by the corporal's sincerity. 11 How, under the most adverse circumstances, love came to Big Joe Portagee. — Joe Portagee comes out of the rain into Tia Ignacia's. He drinks her wine, goes to sleep, and wakes up to a beating from the woman because he drank her wine and did NOT take advantage of her. In the midst of fending off this attack in the middle of the street and in the rain, he is stricken with lust. A policeman happens by and asks them to stop doing what they're doing in middle of the muddy road. 12 How Danny's friends assisted the pirate to keep a vow, and how as a reward for merit the pirate's dogs saw a holy vision. — The pirate finally trusts Danny and delivers his bag of quarters into the house, whereupon the bag disappears. Big Joe is beaten into unconsciousness for stealing the money. The friends take the thousand quarters which the pirate has earned over several years of woodcutting, to Father Ramon for him to buy a candlestick and feast. In San Carlos Church on Sunday the Pirate sees his candlestick before St. Francis. The dogs rush into the church and must be removed. Later the pirate preaches all of Fr. Ramon's St. Francis stories to the dogs, which are suddenly startled by something behind him, which the pirate believes must be a vision. 13 How Danny's friends threw themselves to the aid of a distressed lady. — The unmarried Teresina Cortez has a menagerie of nine healthy babies and children, who all live on nothing but tortillas and beans, but nevertheless are found amazingly healthy by the school doctor. Teresina gleans the beans from the fields. As the Madonna of the tale, Teresina produces the droves of babies with seemingly no particular help. When the bean crop is ruined by rain, Danny's housemates steal food all over Monterey for the children. It makes them sick. However, the arrival of some stolen sacks of beans at the door is deemed a miracle, the children regain their health, and Teresina is also pregnant again. She wonders which one of Danny's friends was responsible. 14 Of the good life at Danny's house, of a gift pig, of the pain of Tall Bob, and of the thwarted love of the viejo Ravanno. Why the windows shouldn't be cleaned. The friends tell stories. Danny: how Cornelia lost Emilio's little pig to its sow. Pablo: how everyone laughed after Tall Bob blew his nose off. Jesus Maria: how Petey Ravanno got Gracie by hanging himself and being rescued at exactly the right moment, thus convincing her of his love; and how Petey's father the viejo (old man) hanged himself to get the same effect, but the door blew shut at exactly the wrong moment, and nobody saw him. 15 How Danny brooded and became mad. How the Devil in the shape of Torelli assaulted Danny's house. — Danny moves to the forest and cannot be found by his friends. When Torelli shows the friends the bill of sale for Danny's house, they steal and burn it. 16 Of the sadness of Danny. How through sacrifice Danny's friends gave a party. How Danny was translated. — Danny is deeply remorseful. His friends work a whole day cutting squid for Chin Kee. All of Tortilla Flat makes a party at Danny's home. He enjoys many women, and challenges all men to fight (wielding a table leg). He dies after a forty-foot fall into the gulch. 17 How Danny's sorrowing friends defied the conventions. How the talismanic bond was burned. How each friend departed alone. — Danny's friends cannot dress adequately for his military funeral. They tell stories of him beforehand, in the gulch. Afterward, they drink wine stolen by Pilon from Torelli's. Pablo sings "Tuli Pan." A small fire is accidentally set in the house, and the friends watch in approval, doing nothing to save it. No two walk away together from the smoking ruins. |
Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali | Gil Courtemanche | null | Bernard Valcourt, a documentary filmmaker from Quebec, has been sent to the Rwandan capital Kigali to set up a television station. He falls in love with a Rwandan girl Gentille, who in reality is an ethnic Hutu, but she is often mistaken for a Tutsi. With the Hutu government is encouraging violence against Tutsis, Gentille's life becomes in danger. Encouraged by his love for Gentille, and a desire to complete a documentary to bring the tragedy of AIDS to the attention of the outside world, Valcourt refuses to leave Rwanda. When the two are married, they become tragically separated, leaving Valcourt believing that Gentille has, inevitably been killed. He then determines to document her life story, and sets out to discover the story of her final days. |
Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee | null | null | There are three cases in this book. The first might be called The Double Murder at Dawn. The case describes the hazardous life of the traveling silk merchant and the murder which is committed to gain wealth. The second is The Strange Corpse which takes place in a small village, a crime of passion which proves hard to solve. The criminal is a very determined woman. The third case The Poisoned Bride contains the murder of the daughter of a local scholar who marries the son of the former administrator of the district. This case contains a surprising twist in its solution. All three cases are solved by Judge Dee, the district magistrate - Detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury all wrapped up into one person. |
Destination Moon | Hergé | 1,953 | Tintin's friend Professor Calculus has been secretly commissioned by the Syldavian government to build a rocket ship that will fly from the Earth to the Moon. Tintin and Captain Haddock agree to join the expedition, even though Captain Haddock shows considerable reluctance. Upon arriving in Syldavia, they are taken to the Sprodj Atomic Research Centre, called simply "the Centre", headed by Mr. Baxter, an engineer. They are escorted by the "ZEPO" (Zekrett Politzs), a special security force charged with protecting the Centre from outside threats. While working for Syldavia, Calculus is assisted by engineer Frank Wolff, who works in the Centre, and accompanies Tintin and Haddock around the facility. Prof. Calculus reveals that the Syldavian government invited nuclear physicists from other countries to work at the Centre, which was created four years earlier when large uranium deposits were discovered in the area. The Centre is entirely dedicated to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Calculus heads the Centre's astronautics department, since this is his primary area of expertise. An unmanned subscale prototype of the rocket — the "X-FLR6", resembling a V-2 rocket — is launched on a circumlunar mission to photograph the far side of the Moon, as well as test Professor Calculus's revolutionary nuclear rocket engine. The night before the launch, the Centre's radar picks up a plane which slips through the security cordon and drops three paratroopers. Tintin's curiosity is piqued and he sets out to look for them. He intercepts a paratrooper receiving information from a vent located on the cliffs near the Centre, but is ambushed and knocked unconscious. This incident confirms the Centre's suspicions that the paratroopers were agents of a foreign power, but Tintin fears that any efforts to trace the leaked information would be futile, guessing that the intruder simply made copies of whatever information he passed on. On the day of the launch, the rocket successfully orbits the moon, but it is then intercepted by the foreign power; the leaked information concerned the rocket's radio control. However, Tintin had anticipated this and asked Calculus to rig a self-destruct mechanism for the rocket. The Centre has no choice but to use it and destroy the rocket. As the compound is heavily secured, there must have been a spy who leaked information through the grille, but no suspects are found. Despite this setback, preparations are made for the moon trip – the rocket's engine still having been confirmed as viable even if they were unable to access the data it gathered – and the equipment is tested. While testing one of the space suits, Captain Haddock becomes frustrated and accuses Calculus of "acting the goat" (a line that would become famous in the Tintin series), causing Calculus to go into a fit of anger. He leads them out of the complex – breaking every security rule in the book – and to the site of the moon rocket which is in near completion. While taking Haddock and Tintin through the rocket's interior, he falls down a ladder and suffers temporary memory loss. Haddock caringly — and unwittingly — attempts helps him recover, using British redcoat soldier costumes, trick cameras, water guns, fire crackers, and even a ghost costume. When his attempts elicit no reaction whatsoever, Haddock angrily says he will not be "acting the goat", which makes Calculus recover his memory in a fit of rage. Preparations are made for a manned flight, and the full-scale rocket is completed. Finally, on 3 June 1952, at 1:34 am, the rocket takes off for the Moon with Tintin, Haddock, Calculus and Wolff aboard. The story continues in Explorers on the Moon. |
Racists | Kunal Basu | null | Two scientists decide to settle the question of racial superiority by leaving two children—a white girl and black boy—alone on an island to be raised without speaking by only a nurse, Norah. The British scientist Samuel Bates believes that the girl will emerge as the leader, while the French scientist Jean-Louis Belavoix believes that the two races can not live in peace and the children will ultimately murder each other. The experiment begins to run into problems when Bates and Belavoix argue about the validity of cranial measurements. Meanwhile, Bates's long suffering assistant Nicholas Quartley falls in love with Norah and decides to rescue her from the island. |
Ghostwritten | David Mitchell | 1,999 | This details the actions of Quasar, a member of a millenarianist doomsday cult, attempting to evade capture after releasing nerve agents into a Tokyo Subway train. He believes himself to be able to converse telepathically with 'His Serendipity', leader of the cult, and regards ordinary people with disgust, waiting for an apocalyptic moment — a comet's prophesied collision with earth — in which they will be destroyed. He is hiding in Okinawa, first in the capital Naha, then in the small island of Kumejima. When he runs out of money, he phones a number that was given to him by the association of the cult and says the secret message "the dog needs to be fed". While he is in Okinawa the police crack down on the cult and arrest His Serendipity. Quasar is shocked by this, since he believes that His Serendipity has the power to teleport himself and walk through solid walls. In a seemingly unlinked next chapter, the spotlight lands on Satoru, a young Japanese jazz lover working in a record shop in downtown Tokyo. He plays the tenor saxophone with a pianist friend. His mother was a Filipina prostitute who was deported back to her country and he never met his father. He was raised by the madam of the whore-house. When one day a group of girls come to the shop, he finds himself attracted to one of them, Tomoyo, but the girls leave and he thinks he will never see her again. On a later occasion, having just closed up the shop, he hears the phone ringing from within and returns to answer it: it turns out to be a phone call from somebody who says just the words "the dog needs to be fed" before hanging up. His tarrying to receive the call leads to another meeting with Tomoyo. Satoru and Tomoyo strike up a conversation and they start a relationship. She turns out to be half Japanese and half Chinese and lives in Hong Kong. She later asks him to follow her to Hong Kong and the section ends with them discussing what flights he can catch. The life of financial lawyer Neal Brose starts to unravel as he tries to cope with the money laundering deal he is carrying out, and impending divorce. He lives alone in an apartment that he used to share with his wife, who left him to return to London because they couldn't have children. The apartment is haunted by the ghost of a girl. The owner of the company for which Neal works, Denholme Cavendish, asked him to manage a secret bank account, number 1390931, where a mysterious Andrei Gregorski from Saint Petersburg regularly deposits large sums of money. One day at a restaurant, a couple, evidently in love, sits at the same table with Neal. The girl is Chinese and the boy Japanese and he is carrying a saxophone case. After his wife leaves him, Neal has an affair with the Chinese maid who cleans his apartment. He eventually suffers a break-down: Instead of going to work, he climbs a hill towards a Buddhist temple, along the way throwing away his briefcase. In the grip of a debilitating diabetic condition he drops dead, sending shockwaves through the economy of the world and also causing major impacts on the next storylines. In typical Mitchell fashion, the Neal Brose character is used in the author's fourth novel, Black Swan Green. In this novel, Brose is a young teenager living in Worcester. This section involves the reminiscences of a woman who runs a Tea Shack on the side of Mount Emei in China. She lived through the late feudalism of China through to the surge of new ideas in the twentieth century and the shocking brutality of Communism under Mao Zedong. When she was just a girl the son of the local warlord raped her. She had a daughter who was raised by her aunts and whom she never saw. Through all the turmoil of the last half century of Chinese history, she never moves from the Holy Mountain and her Tea Shack. The solitude of the Holy Mountain and hope for her illegitimate daughter keeps her alive through the defining points of China's turbulent recent history, and allow her to make peace with the world. A great old Tree outside speaks to her and gives her counsel. The representatives of various powers come to the shack in turn: the Japanese, the Nationalists, the Communists. The shack is destroyed several times and always rebuilt by her hand. On occasion she sees ghosts. One day she receives a letter from her daughter, who has fled to Hong Kong. She discovers that she is now a great-grandmother and her granddaughter works as a cleaning lady for a Westerner. She never goes up to the top of the mountain, where the Buddhist temples are, until the end of her life. Urban and rural Mongolia is seen through the eyes of a disembodied spirit, a 'noncorpum' which survives by inhabiting living hosts. Whilst generally non-malevolent, the spirit uses whatever measures necessary to discover more about its birth and the nature of its existence. The narration starts with Caspar, a Danish backpacker travelling on a train to Mongolia. He meets an Australian girl, Sherry; they start travelling together and they initiate a relationship. The narrator, the noncorpum, lives inside Caspar's mind. It has lost memory of its origin. It can recollect starting inside the mind of a man at the village at the foot of the Holy Mountain in China. This man had been a brigand and a soldier in Mongolia. Its only preceding memory is a story of three animals thinking about the fate of the world. The noncorpum transmigrates from host to host, trying to find its origin by trying to find the origin of the three animals story. Mitchell implies that at one point the noncorpum had inhabited the mind of Jorge Luis Borges. For a time, it was inside the mind of the lady of the Tea Shack. The noncorpum came to Mongolia after overhearing a mother tell the animal story to her son while staying as a guest at the Tea Shack. The mother said that the story is an old Mongolian folk tale. While in Mongolia, the noncorpum transmigrates from Caspar to a Mongolian woman and then to several other natives as it tries to find a writer who is collecting traditional Mongolian stories and is said to know the tale of the three animals. When one of its hosts is murdered, the noncorpum gets loose and finds itself in a ger (a traditional Mongolian tent) with many other ghosts, unable to get out. It is eventually reborn, 3 months later, as the newborn child of a young Mongolian woman. The noncorpum transmigrates first to the mother, then her husband, and finally to her grandmother. In the mind of the grandmother the noncorpum finally discovers its origin. It was once a young Buddhist boy from a remote Mongolian village. When the Communists were about to execute the boy, his master, and other monks, tried to save his life by transporting his soul into the body of a young girl (who later became the grandmother). The connection, however, was broken and only the memories passed on to the girl. The rest of the boy's soul ended up in a Chinese soldier. The noncorpum decides to transmigrate back to the newborn girl—who would have otherwise died—as her soul. Involved in a Russian art heist, curator Margarita Latunsky lives out a squalid existence as concubine and sleeper agent in the Hermitage Museum. As repercussions from the business crash in Hong Kong and events in Mongolia ripple towards Russia, her life and the lies she has forced herself to believe are torn apart. In Soviet times she was the lover of a powerful politician and an admiral. Now she is the mistress of the museum chief curator and works for a band of art thieves. Her boyfriend Rudi is the mastermind of the band, while the English painter Jerome produces fake paintings that they substitute for the stolen ones. The band obeys the Russian crime boss Gregorski, who procures buyers for the stolen artifacts and pockets most of the proceedings. Margarita dreams of leaving Russia and going to live in Switzerland with Rudi on the money they have made by stealing the art. Their latest plan is to steal the painting Eve and the Serpent by Delacroix. The buyer sent by Gregorski is the Mongolian hitman Suhbataar, whose real task is to test the fidelity of Rudi. Rudi had been in charge of laundering money through a Hong Kong bank account. When the person in charge of that account dies, Gregorski suspects Rudi. The band is seized by panic, Jerome kills Rudi and Margarita kills Jerome. Suhbataar takes the stolen painting and leaves Margarita in the hands of the police, in a state of shock and denial. In the first direct reference to the title of the novel, the action jumps to London and the exploits of Marco, a ghostwriter-cum-drummer, scraping out a living whilst barely avoiding the darker seductions of the capital. Complex plotlines involving the science of chance and destabilization of the world, sparked off in earlier chapters, begin to pick up speed. Marco is a womanizer. He wakes up one morning in the bed of Katy Forbes. She sends him away when the postman delivers an antique chair sent to her by her husband from Hong Kong before he died of diabetes. On his way out, Marco saves a woman who was about to be hit by a taxi. She is in a hurry and takes the taxi to Gatwick airport. Afterwards three men in suits interrogate Marco about her and he lies about where she went. Marco plays in a rock band called The Music of Chance. This whole part is about the interplay between chance and destiny. He has an almost stable relation with Poppy, who already has a daughter, India. But he cannot abandon his random life to commit completely to her. Marco is also a ghostwriter, writing the autobiography of Alfred, an old radical homosexual of Hungarian Jewish origin. On this day, Alfred tells Marco about that time in 1947 when he saw his own alter ego. The narration is interrupted by Roy, Alfred's lover, with the news that their friend Jerome has been murdered in Russia. Later, Marco visits the publishing house he works for. The director is Tim Cavendish, brother of Denholme, who finances the company but is running into financial trouble because his law firm in Hong Kong is being investigated. In the evening, the rich cousin of Marco's friend Gibreel makes a bet with an Iranian acquaintance: they give some money to Marco and Gibreel, go to the casino, and bet on which of the two will win more. Marco cheats and a fight breaks out. Eventually Marco takes the decision to put an end to the way he is living and marry Poppy. Mo Muntervary is a physicist studying quantum cognition or quancog. She has returned to Clear Island, her birthplace in the south of Ireland, after being on the run from the American government. She was employed in a research facility in Switzerland when she discovered that her results were being used by the U.S. military to build intelligent weapons. Her resignation for moral reasons is rejected, and an American general calling himself "Mr. Stolz" tries to force her to go and work in Texas. She runs away and finds temporary shelter in Hong Kong with her old friend Huw Llewellyn. When unknown people almost catch her, she has to be on the move again. On the run, she develops a revolutionary new theory of quantum cognition, which she writes down in a little black book. She returns to Clear Island to stay with her blind husband John and her eighteen-year-old son Liam. Eventually the Americans catch up with her. The whole island is prepared to defend her, but she decides to surrender. Before being caught, she feeds the little black book to her goat Feynman, so the Americans must rely on her for the theory, and she can set her own conditions. One condition is for John to follow her to Texas. She has a plan to make her research turn to the cause of peace. Night Train is a late night radio show in New York. Its host is Bat Segundo. Several eccentric people phone in the show. An entity calling itself "the Zookeeper" phones one night. The Zookeeper is a non-corporeal artificial intelligence that broke loose from its creators, who intended it for military use. It inhabits communication and military satellites through which it monitors the state of the "Zoo", that is, the Earth. The Zookeeper follows four rules of behaviour, which are never given in full but only hinted at. The first rule says that it must be accountable for its actions, which is why it phones the show to reveal its existence and undertakings. There is a war going on between the U.S. and an alliance of North-African Islamic states. Reciprocal nuclear annihilation is imminent, but the Zookeeper blocks all the launching devices, averting the end of the world. One year later, another entity phones the show. It reveals that it is a non-corporeal being that can transfer from one body to another. It has been inside Mo Muntervary, the developer of the Zookeeper. It offers the Zookeeper a pact to dominate the world, but the Zookeeper refuses, identifies the entity and disables it (we don't know whether temporarily or permanently). The Zookeeper reveals to Bat its moral dilemma: Conventional wars are breaking out everywhere on Earth. Innocent people are killed and the Zookeeper can't prevent it because one of its laws dictates that it cannot kill. But by not intervening more people will die. After an ethical discussion with Bat, the Zookeeper reveals that it has made up its mind but doesn't reveal its plans. The implication is that the Zookeeper may choose to mislead the UN about the comet's trajectory and allow it to impact Earth rather than stopping it. Bat unwittingly resolves the conflict of the two laws with the example of damaging a bridge that a group of African mercenaries would be crossing and allowing the bridge to destroy them, instead of the Zookeeper doing it directly. The conclusion of the novel brings us back to the Tokyo underground and the terrorist attack perpetrated by Quasar. He almost gets stuck in the train car after unlocking the timer that will release the deadly gas. As he struggles to get out, people and objects with strong references to the other stories occur to him. Strands from all of the other chapters of the book are introduced via his hallucinations. He is left on a station platform, pondering what is real. |
Endymion | Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield | 1,880 | Like most of Disraeli's novels, Endymion is a romance, although Disraeli took the unusual step of setting it between 1819 and 1859. This meant that the hero of the novel–Endymion Ferrars–had to be a Whig, rather than a Tory. The time period that Disraeli chose was dominated by the Whig party; there would have been little opportunity for a young, rising Tory. Given that, it seems likely that Disraeli chose the time period in order to move a final time in the world in which he grew up and began his ascent. |
Puerto Vallarta Squeeze | Robert James Waller | null | Former journalist Danny Pastor has relaxed in Puerto Vallarta over the past year with María de la Luz Santos, a 22-year-old woman whom he'd first met as a cantina waitress. They moved in together shortly thereafter, and Luz asked Danny to marry her, but he kept her at arms' length. One night when Luz went off by herself, she got pregnant by a drunken college student. Danny paid for her to have an abortion, and that incident made up his mind about her. One night as they relaxed in the El Niño cantina, Danny heard a gunshot and rushes outside to see two men dead. One was an American Navy officer, and the other was a software engineer ready to sell his company's work on failure analysis to the Taiwanese government. Back at their apartment, Danny and Luz met a man who identifies himself as "Peter Schumann" and needs to get north of the Rio Grande quickly. Paying Danny five thousand in cash, Schumann arranges his passage in a rusting Ford Bronco named Vito. The film adaptation featured a Jeep Wagoneer instead of a Ford Bronco. Unaware at first of the nature of their journey, Luz wants to go with them to see her grandparents' graves along the coast. When she met with them for the trip, Luz wore blue jeans and a shirt that read "Puerto Vallarta Squeeze" with two halves of a lime dripping down the center. Danny saw in the story of this trip a great opportunity for a literary comeback. As they travelled north, Danny, Luz, and Schumann evade American military and Mexican authorities. Schumann later revealed that he's really former Marine sniper turned mercenary Clayton Price; he was commissioned to kill the engineer, but he took his job personally when he shot the naval officer. During the Vietnam War, Price was abandoned behind enemy lines by the officer who commanded the helicopter. After commandeering the backroads of rural Mexico, Price arranged to have a helicopter meet him near an abandoned silver mine at Zapata. After a fiesta the night before, Luz decided to go with Price because she's fallen in love with him. As Price put it, "I'm not sure I'm capable of loving at all. But, Danny, you love too timidly. I'm not sure which is worse. You have this offhand way of treating her most of the time, as if she's a partially reformed street whore. . . . She told me about her past. She says I treat her with respect. You figure it out." In a standoff with authorities, Price and Luz are killed. Danny heads back to Puerto Vallarta through Mazatlán, but he's arrested when the gun Price used in the double murder is found behind his apartment's toilet. Despite the evidence being circumstantial, Danny serves seventeen months of a ten-year prison sentence before he's released with a one-way ticket to Laredo. Although ordered never to return to Mexico again, Danny does so to find Price and Luz's graves in the Zapata cemetery. Price's marker was removed, but Danny exhumed Luz's coffin and reburied it in Celaya, where her grandparents were buried. During his time in prison, Danny wrote a manuscript about his adventures with Price and Luz as they rode north, but he never saw it again. |
Mary Barton | Elizabeth Gaskell | 1,948 | The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working-class families. John Barton is a questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relations between rich and poor. Soon his wife dies—he blames it on her grief over the disappearance of her sister Esther. Having already lost his son Tom at a young age, Barton now falls into depression and begins to involve himself in the Chartist, trade-union movement. Having taken up work at a dressmaker's (her father having objected to her working in a factory), Mary becomes subject to the affections of hard-working Jem Wilson and Harry Carson, son of a wealthy mill owner. She fondly hopes, by marrying Carson, to secure a comfortable life for herself and her father, but immediately after refusing Jem's offer of marriage she realizes that she truly loves him. She therefore decides to evade Carson, planning to show her feelings to Jem in the course of time. Jem believes her decision to be final, though this does not change his feelings for her. Meanwhile, Esther, a "street-walker," returns to warn John Barton that he must save Mary from becoming like her. He simply pushes her away, however, and she's sent to jail for a month on the charge of vagrancy. Upon her release she talks to Jem with the same purpose. He promises that he will protect Mary and confronts Carson, eventually entering into a fight with him, which is witnessed by a policeman passing by. Not long afterwards, Carson is shot dead, and Jem is arrested on suspicion, his gun having been found at the scene of the crime. Esther decides to investigate the matter further and discovers that the wadding for the gun was a piece of paper on which is written Mary's name. She visits her niece to warn her to save the one she loves, and after she leaves Mary realises that the murderer is not Jem but her father. She's now is faced with having to save her lover without giving away her father. With the help of Job Legh (the intelligent grandfather of her blind friend Margaret), Mary travels to Liverpool to find the only person who could provide an alibi for Jem—Will Wilson, Jem's cousin and a sailor, who was with him on the night of the murder. Unfortunately, Will's ship is already departing, so that, after Mary chases after the ship in a small boat, the only thing Will can do is promise to return in the pilot ship and testify the next day. During the trial, Jem learns of Mary's great love for him. Will arrives in court to testify, and Jem is found 'not guilty'. Mary has fallen ill during the trial and is nursed by Mr Sturgis, an old sailor, and his wife. When she finally returns to Manchester she has to face her father, who is crushed by his remorse. He summons Henry Carson, Harry's father, to confess to him that he is the murderer. Carson is still set on justice, but after turning to the Bible he forgives Barton, who dies soon afterwards in Carson's arms. Not long after this Esther comes back to Mary's home, where she, too, dies soon. Jem decides to leave England, where, his reputation damaged, it would be difficult for him to find a new job. The novel ends with the wedded Mary and Jem, their little child, and Mrs Wilson living happily in Canada. News comes that Margaret has regained her sight and that she and Will, soon to be married, will visit. |
Love in Excess; Or, The Fatal Enquiry | Eliza Haywood | null | The first part details the competition between Alovisa and Amena, two upper-class young women of disparate wealth, for D'Elmont's attentions. The narrator specifically mentioned the "custom which forbids women to make a declaration of their thoughts." That women were not permitted to express their affections or choice until a suitor formally proposed marriage is important to both the plot and the theme of the novel. Alovisa writes an unsigned letter to D'Elmont in hopes of eliciting a definite amorous response from him, which inadvertently leads D'Elmont to court Amena. Amena's father refuses to allow his daughter to continue meeting with D'Elmont without a proposal of marriage, which forces the pair to meet via subterfuge. With the help of Anaret, Amena's woman servant, two attempts for the pair to meet are made, the second of which sees Amena and D'Elmont alone in the Tuileries at night. The two are compromised by the intervention of Alovisa's servant, Charlo, who awakens Amena's household. Amena is eventually conducted by D'Elmont to Alovisa's residence. Alovisa feigns desire to help the pair by allowing them to meet in her apartment; however, Alovisa agrees with Amena's father (unbeknownst to Amena) to help ship Amena off to a convent in the countryside. Amena discovers Alovisa's designs for D'Elmont's affections when D'Elmont mistakenly slips her one of Alovisa's letters, which results in her begging to be sent away as soon as possible. D'Elmont, in the meanwhile, has left to receive his brother, Chevalier Brillian. During the course of their conversation, it is revealed that the Chevalier has fallen in love with Alovisa's sister Ansellina (who resides in Amien). The first part concludes with a mutual decision by Brillian and D'Elmont to marry the sister-pair Alovisa and Ansellina with love, status, and wealth as motivations for the respective matches. Part the Second deals with D'Elmont's falling in "true" love with Melliora, a girl entrusted in his care. D'Elmont ends up nearly raping the loving but resisting Melliora; meanwhile, D'Elmont's friend Baron falls in love with D'Elmont's wife Alovisa. A climax scene leads to the death of the Baron and Alovisa and D'Elmont's self-exile. D'Elmont ends up in Italy in Part the Third, endlessly yearning for Melliora - who in the meantime has been kidnapped from the convent to which she was sent after Part the Second. In Italy, D'Elmont happens to meet Frankville, Melliora's brother. D'Elmont helps Frankville flee Italy with his forbidden love Camilla; the two women in Italy who have fallen in love with D'Elmont (Ciamara, the lusty "bad" woman; and Violetta, the chaste "good" woman) both end up dead. The survivors - D'Elmont and Melliora; Frankville and Camilla; Melliora's kidnapper and Charlotta, a girl he loved before Melliora - all marry. |
The Gift | Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov | null | Fyodor Konstantinovitch Cherdyntsev is a Russian émigré living in Berlin in the 1920s, and the chapter starts with him moving to a boardinghouse on Seven Tannenberg Street. He has recently published a book of poems, and receives a call from Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski congratulating him on the poems and inviting him to come over to a party to read the favorable critique in the newspaper. The poems reach back to Feodor’s childhood that was spent with his sister Tanya in the pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and the Leshino manor, the country estate of the Godunov-Cherdyntsevs. Fyodor arrives at the party only to learn that he fell victim to a crude April fool’s joke; his book had not received any attention in the literary circle. The Chernyshevskis had a son, Yasha, who "looked like Fyodor" who had loved poetry. Yasha died by suicide when caught in a tragic love triangle. His mother wanted Fyodor to use his story for his writing, but he declined. As a result of Yasha’s death, his father had episodes of insanity. When Fyodor returns to his “new hole” he notices that he had taken the wrong keys, fortunately, after a while a visitor is leaving and he can get back in. Fyodor “dawled away the summer”. In the fall he attends a literary meeting of Russian émigrés where he meets Koncheyev whom he considers a rival. A reading of a new play bores the audience. Upon leaving Fyodor has a lengthy and animated discussion about Russian literature with Koncheyev, a discussion that turns out to be largely fictitious. Fyodor is dreaming about his native Russia as he rides in the tramcar to his language student, but “could not stand it no longer “and returns to his place. His mother, Elizaveta Pavlovna, comes from Paris to visit him and the shadow of his lost father hangs over their encounter, his mother believing that he is still alive. Before her departure they attend a local Russian literary event, and Fyodor is the last almost unnoticed reader to recite one of his poems. Inspired by her visit and his study of Pushkin he seeks her support for his new project, a book about his father Konstantin Kirillovich. He collects material, stumbles over Sushoshchokov’s account of his grand father, Kirill Ilyich (a gambler who made and lost a fortune in America before returning to Russia), and starts to focus on the activities of his father, an explorer, lepidopterist, and scientific writer whose journeys between 1885 and 1918 led him to Siberia and Central Asia. Fyodor who only had come along on local trips and is imbued with the love of butterflies, imagines being a participant on his explorations to the East. In 1916 his father departed for his last journey and remains missing. Fyodor’s difficulty to proceed with his project gets complicated by the need to look for a new lodging. With the help of Mrs. Chernyshevski he finds a place with the Shchyogolevs. As it turns out later, the presence of a short pale blue dress in the adjacent room that he thinks belongs to their daughter makes him take the apartment. This chapters starts by describing a day in the life of the protagonist. In the morning Fyodor hears the Shchyogolevs get up and begins the day with thinking about poetry. He reflects on his development as a poet. Later he joins the family for lunch, Shchyogolev is talking about politics, his wife, Marianna Nikolavna, cooks, and the daughter behaves in an antagonistic way. Fyodor then gives his tutorial lessons, goes to a bookstore where among others he finds Koncheyev’s book of poems Communication and reviews that failed to understand it. He reads an article about Chernyshevski and Chess in the Soviet chess magazine 8x8, and visits his editor Vasiliev. After returning home and having supper in his room, Fyodor leaves the place to meet secretly Zina. Waiting for her he composes a poem embedded in the narrative. Zina Mertz has appeared in the narrative before on occasion,,- she had bought one of the few copies of Fyodor’s poems, and she is the daughter of Marianna Nikolavna, and Shchyogolev’s stepdaughter, living next door to the protagonist). The story of their encounters is recalled and it is learned that Zina knew of Fyodor the poet when he lived at his previous place. Their meetings are in secret and hidden from her parents. Shchyogolev implies that he may have married her mother to get to her which may explain the strain between him and Zina and why she hates him. Zina works for a law firm, Traum, Baum, and Kaesebier. Fyodor gets more involved with Chernyshevski’s work and declares that he wants to write about him for “firing practice”. He reads all by and about him, and passes from “accumulation to creation”. Zina is his muse and reader. The finished manuscript is handed to his publisher who rejects it as a “reckless, antisocial, mischievous improvisation.” However, Fyodor has more luck with another publisher. This chapter is a critical biography within the novel, a book within a book, about the Russian 19th century writer Chernyshevsky - Lenin's favorite author -titled The Life of Chernyshevski written by the protagonist. Fyodor ridicules Chernyshevsky's aesthetics and understanding of literature. The book about Chernyshevski finds itself in a “good, thundery atmosphere of scandal which helped sales”. Most reviews in the literary world of the émigrés are critical as the book debunks its subject as a writer and thinker, Koncheyev ’s review, however, is quite positive. Fyodor is unable to show the book to Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski who had recently died. His death and funeral are described. On his way home, Fyodor walks with the writer Shirin, “a deaf and blind man with blocked nostrils”. Shirin tries to engage Fyodor in the activities of the Committee of the Society of Russian Writers in Germany. Fyodor declines but attends some meetings observing the infighting for control of the society. Shchyogolev is offered a job in Copenhagen, and plans to leave Zina in the Berlin apartment. Fyodor is elated and takes a walk in the Grunewald forest, where he imagines to have a talk with Koncheyev. His clothes including the key to the apartment get stolen, and he has to return in his bathing trunks. At night he dreams that his father has come back. Next morning the Shchyogolevs leave for Copenhagen, and Zina stays behind. Fyodor who is planning to write a "classical novel" (The Gift) and Zina can now live together. They are without money, both at the moment have lost the key to their apartment, but they are happy, they feel that fate brought them together, and Zina declares that he will be “a writer as has never been before“. |
Triss | Brian Jacques | 2,002 | At Riftgard, an isle in the far north, the ferret king, King Agarnu, and his cruel offspring, Princess Kurda and Prince Bladd hold sway over a Ratguard army and enslaved creatures. One of the slaves, Trisscar Swordmaid escapes with her friends Shogg and Welfo, southward to Mossflower. In the attempt, her friend Drufo is killed. Meanwhile, Kurda hires a pirate ship, the Seascab, captained by Plugg Firetail, to take her to Mossflower, where she must find the royal artifacts of Riftgard in order to seal her queenship. In Redwall Abbey, rebellious Dibbuns Ruggum and Bikkle run away into Mossflower Woods. They discover Brockhall, the ancestral home of badgers, but are chased away by serpents. Fortunately, they are rescued by the Skipper of Otters and Log-a-Log Groo, and they bring with them a golden pawring with strange markings. Sagaxus, heir to Salamandastron, and his friend Bescarum Lepuswold Whippscut (who go by Sagax and Scarum respectively), leave the mountain for adventure with Kroova Wavedog, in his ketch the Stopdog. Scarum's father, Colonel Whippscut of the Long Patrol, searches for them in the name of Lord Hightor, the Badger Lord. Sagax finds a bow on the ketch (the property of its previous owners) with similar markings to the pawring. They disregard it and decide to journey to Redwall, and on their way, they wind up in possession of a dagger with the same pattern. Triss and her friends, in their ship, see the same markings. Triss is able to interpret them as an R, H, O, and R, standing for "Royal House of Riftgard". On the journey, they become dehydrated, but are rescued by the hedgehogs of Peace Island. Welfo remains with her newfound love, Urtica, while Triss and Shogg continue south. They cross paths with Kurda on the Seascab in the middle of a lightning storm, but the contraband vessel escapes. Meanwhile, the Redwall denizens try to explore Brockhall, but it is inhabited by three serpents, one of which wears a crown with the Riftgard pattern. The adders, Zassaliss, Harssacss, and Sesstra, are the children of Berussca, an adder slain by and who in turn slayed King Sarengo, Agarnu's father; they remain bound by Sarengo's mace and chain. Ovus, a tawny owl, brings Bluddbeak, an ancient red kite from afar to defeat the adders, but in their attempt, both birds die. Mokug, a golden hamster who had been Sarengo's slave, is rescued and brings with him a message in Riftgard script. Martin the Warrior visits Skipper's niece, Churk, in her dreams, giving the Redwallers the hint they need to decode the message, but it is a riddle that's difficult to interpret. Elsewhere, Sagax, Scarum, and Kroova are captured by the crew of the Seascab, and the Stopdog is destroyed. Triss and Shogg meet up with them, and together they are able to escape. Kroova and Shogg set up a hidden stake that injures Plugg, and his firetail falls off, though he reattaches it with pine resin. Kurda and her vermin then cross paths with the Redwallers, who fend them off, while Triss, Shogg, Sagax, Scarum, and Kroova enter the safety of the abbey. Triss sees the Sword of Martin and is immediately drawn to it, wielding it as the Redwallers continue to battle the Ratguard army. Bladd is killed by a falling pot of oatmeal, and Plugg is killed by the snakes, while Kurda concentrates her efforts on destroying the denizens of Redwall. Eventually, Skipper's niece helps solve the riddle, which leads the Redwallers to Brockhall. There they encounter both the Ratguards and the snakes. During the ensuing battle, Shogg, Sagax, and Triss kill Sesstra, Harssacss, and Zassaliss, but Shogg is poisoned and dies by Triss's side. Later, Triss and Kurda face off, but Kurda falls on her own sword and dies. Triss, Kroova, Sagax, Scarum, Groo, Skipper, Mokug, and others sail to Riftguard and free the slaves. There, King Agarnu is drowned by the slaves. Kroova stays on Riftguard with the sea otter Sleeve, and the others return to Redwall Abbey. |
Watch Your Mouth | Daniel Handler | 2,000 | The first part of the novel is laid out as an opera, with act and scene numbers as chapter titles and each of the characters being assigned a singing voice. Joseph quickly begins to suspect that Cynthia's entire family is engaging in incestuous behaviour, and that her mother, Mimi, is building a golem in the basement. The first part of the novel ends (operatically) in death. The second part is presented somewhat more conventionally, as Joseph attempts to recover from the events of the first part; this half of the book follows the form of a 12-step program. The first section of the novel is printed in black ink, while the 12-step program is printed in dark red. |
Blinded by the Right | David Brock | 2,002 | Brock recalls his days at the University of California, Berkeley and how he was turned off by hecklers at a speech by then United States ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick. Brock's main attraction to conservatism was his disdain for communism. After college, Brock moved with his then-partner (called "Andrew" to conceal his identity) to Washington, D.C. In D.C., Brock worked for The Washington Times and The American Spectator. Brock claims while he was working for those publications he thought he was doing honest journalism, but later stated that he had never corroborated his facts. While working for The American Spectator, he wrote an article on Anita Hill, which he later expanded into The Real Anita Hill, a book that made him popular in the conservative movement. Brock would later say that many of the details he used were false. After Bill Clinton was elected, Brock was assigned to write a story, later dubbed Troopergate, about four Arkansas state troopers who held a grudge against Bill Clinton. He claims that the troopers made up stories about affairs that could never be corroborated. Brock was given assurances that the troopers would not get paid for telling their stories. He later discovered he was deceived and that the troopers had been paid by Richard Mellon Scaife, who bankrolled The American Spectator and the Arkansas Project, a secret project to discredit Clinton. Brock made sure to conceal the identities of the women identified by the troopers, with the exception of one woman named "Paula". Brock thought that by not revealing her last name, it would be enough to conceal her identity. Brock did not take into account that Little Rock is a small city. Eventually her identity would be revealed as Paula Jones, which led to her civil lawsuit against Bill Clinton. Following the Troopergate story, Brock wrote a book about Hillary Clinton, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham. Unlike the Anita Hill book, Brock decided not to put anything in the book that he could not corroborate. The book was not as critical of Hillary Clinton as it was promised to be. Brock claims that conservatives planned on the book being so damning as to influence the outcome of the 1996 presidential election. The Seduction of Hillary Rodham was the beginning of Brock's falling out with the conservative movement. The issue that forced him to leave the conservative movement was the movement's intolerance towards homosexuality. Brock had reluctantly come out of the closet prior to writing the Hillary Clinton book, and believes this contributed to his being shunned by many in the movement. Brock voted for Al Gore in 2000, the first time he voted since he voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984. During the period in which he did not vote, he had two rationalizations for his non-voting: * He believed that his vote didn't count in liberal Washington D.C. * He believed that not voting allowed him to stay neutral Brock proclaimed that the latter rationalization was bogus, as he was not neutral during that time period. |
The Republican Noise Machine | David Brock | 2,004 | Brock details the conservative media strategy subsequent to the time of (Brock hero) Barry Goldwater, predicated on corporate funding of think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation. Brock believes such think tanks serve not only as propagandists, but as tutors for industry lobbyists, and a training ground for conservative journalists who are not limited by the standards of objectivity and impartiality emphasized in the conventional news media. Conservative and Republican strategists "concoct smears, distortions, and outright lies", and then disseminate the product as 'talking points' to right-wing radio and Fox News, which Brock says set a narrative echoed by more mainstream news sources. |
Prochain épisode | Hubert Aquin | null | The narrator, like Aquin himself, turns his adventures into a spy thriller to while away the time he is forced to spend in the psychiatric ward of a Montreal prison, where he is awaiting a trial for an unspecified revolutionary crime. The novel was translated by Penny Williams in 1967, and later again by Sheila Fischman. |
Visa for Avalon | Bryher | null | During a fishing vacation to Trelawney in an unidentified country, Mr. Robinson (his first name is never given) receives word that the Movement, a protest group with the tacit approval of the government, is planning a General Strike. Mr. Robinson's landlady, Mrs. Blunt, is given notice that the government is claiming her land as eminent domain. The pressures of mass industrialization and scattered reports of Movement activity lead Robinson, Blunt, Alex, Mr. Lawson, and Sheila Willis to seek refuge in the country of Avalon before the borders are closed for good. Avalon is not specifically identified in the story; only a glimpse is seen of white sandy beaches there at the book's end. |
Something Wicked This Way Comes | Ray Bradbury | null | The novel opens on an overcast October 23. Two friends, William "Will" Halloway and Jim Nightshade, both on the verge of their fourteenth birthdays, encounter a strange lightning rod salesman who claims that a storm is coming their way. Throughout that same night, Will and Jim meet up with townsfolk who also sense something in the air; the barber says that the air smells of cotton candy. Among the townspeople is Will's 54-year-old father, Charles Halloway (who works in the local library, and who broods philosophically about his position in life, including on how he misses being young like his son). Both Charles Halloway and the boys learn about the carnival that is to start the next day. Will's father sees a sign in a store window that advertises Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, while Jim and Will find a similar handbill in the street. The boys are excited that a carnival has come so late in the year, but Charles Halloway has a bad feeling about it. The boys run out to watch the carnival arrive at three in the morning, and they run home after seeing the tents get set up mysteriously. Mr. Halloway talks about this time of night as "soul's midnight", when men are closest to death, locked in the depths of despair. The boys go the next day to explore the carnival and they help their seventh grade teacher, Miss Foley, who is dazed after visiting the Mirror Maze. Later in the day, Jim goes into the maze and Will has to pull him out. Jim insists on coming back that night, and Will agrees, but when they bump into the lightning-rod salesman's bag, they realize that they must stay to learn what has happened to the man. Finally, after searching all of the rides, they go up to a carousel that is supposedly broken. A huge man grabs Will and Jim and tells them that the merry-go-round is broken. Another man tells him to put them down, introduces himself as Mr. Dark and tells them the huge man's name is Mr. Cooger. Mr. Dark is the Illustrated Man, covered in tattoos, and he pays attention only to Jim, who is enthralled by what he sees. Mr. Dark tells them to come back the next day and the boys run off but then hide and wait. What they see is unbelievable. Mr. Cooger rides backwards on the carousel (while the music plays backwards), and when he steps off he is twelve years old. They follow Mr. Cooger to Miss Foley's house, where he pretends to be her nephew who got lost earlier at the carnival. Jim tries to meet up with Mr. Cooger because he wants to ride the carousel, but Will stops him briefly before Jim takes off toward the carnival. When Will reaches the carnival Mr. Cooger is on the carousel, growing older, and Jim is about to join him. Will knocks the switch on the carousel and it flies out of control, spinning rapidly forward. Mr. Cooger ages over 100 years before the carousel stops, and Jim and Will take off. They return with the police, but Mr. Cooger is nowhere to be found. Inside the tents he is set up as a new act, Mr. Electrico, a man they run electricity through. Mr. Dark tells the boys to come back to the carnival the next day. Will tries to keep his father out of the situation, promising him that he will tell all soon. That night, the Dust Witch comes in her balloon to find Jim and Will, but Will outsmarts her and destroys her balloon. They later both dream of a bizarre funeral for the balloon, featuring a giant, misshapen coffin. The next day the boys see a young girl crying and realize after talking to her that she is Miss Foley. They go to her house but when they come back their path is blocked by a parade. The carnival is out searching the streets for them. They hide and the little girl is gone. Will's father sees them hiding under an iron grille in the sidewalk and the boys convince him to keep quiet because the Illustrated Man comes to talk to him. Will's father pretends not to know the two boys whose faces are tattooed on the man's hand, and then when the Witch comes and begins to sense the boys' presence he blows cigar smoke at her, choking her and forcing her to leave. Mr. Dark asks Charles Halloway for his name, and Will's father tells him where he works and who he is. Later that night Will and Jim meet Mr. Halloway at the library, where he has done research and found out some things about the carnival. He tells them that their best weapon is love, but they are not sure how to fight. Then Mr. Dark shows up and the boys hide. He finds them and crushes Charles Halloway's hand when the man tries to fight him. The Dust Witch casts spells on the boys to make them easy to handle and goes to stop Mr. Halloway's heart. Just before he is about to die, Charles Halloway looks at the Witch and begins to laugh hysterically, and his laughter wounds her deeply and drives her away. He goes to the carnival to get the boys. At the carnival Charles Halloway outsmarts Mr. Dark, finds his son, kills the Witch, and destroys the Mirror Maze in a matter of minutes, all through the use of laughter and happiness. Then he and Will search for Jim. Mr. Cooger turns to dust and blows away before he can be saved at the carousel, and Jim moves towards the merry-go-round. Jim starts to ride and Will tries to stop him. They both end up going for a ride before Will jumps off and rips Jim away from the machine. Jim falls into a stupor, close to death. A child comes begging them to help him, but Mr. Halloway recognizes the boy as Mr. Dark. He holds the boy tight and kills him with affection, because Mr. Dark cannot survive in such close contact with someone good. The carnival falls apart as Will tries to revive Jim. They save Jim by singing and dancing and laughing; their happiness bringing him back from the edge of death. |
Century Rain | Alastair Reynolds | 2,004 | Wendell Floyd is an expatriate American living in an alternate version of 1950s Paris. In this world, the Nazi invasion of France failed, and Hitler was deposed by the German High Command. Without World War II, technology in this world has stagnated at 1930s levels, and Fascist political parties have gained power in France. Floyd is a part time jazz musician whose career has stalled since his ex-girlfriend, Greta, left Paris to pursue a musical career touring with another jazz band. He and his band-mate André Custine earn a supplemental income working as private detectives. When the novel opens, Floyd and Custine are hired by a concerned landlord to investigate the death of one of his tenants. Blanchard, the landlord, is certain that the death of Susan White, which the Parisian police have written off as an accident, is murder. Floyd is not so certain, but he's willing to investigate. In a scene seemingly from another novel, Verity Auger finds herself responsible when her archaeology dig beneath the frozen ruins of some far-flung future Paris results in the death of one of her students. During her trial she is caught up in political infighting, and maneuvered into accepting a high risk assignment, without knowing what it entails. But when she is summoned on a mission to Mars by the top-secret security agency Contingencies, Auger is more than relieved to be exempt from her tribunal and the years of prison that she would otherwise have to face. However, when she is taken to a secret underground base on the Martian moon Phobos containing an ancient alien relic that opens a portal to a distant part of the galaxy, and told that she is to go through it, she begins to have second thoughts about continuing with her mission. Things get even more bizarre when she finds out that at the other end of the portal is an alternate-history version of Earth in the year 1959 - almost 300 years behind the present time - and that she is to retrieve a tin of documents that was left behind by Susan White, an earlier agent sent to "Earth Two", who died under mysterious circumstances. |
The Way of the Wiseguy | Joseph D. Pistone | null | The book records psychological portraits of the personalities Pistone associated with during his years undercover. Among the many recurring themes in the book: wiseguys are not nice people, they don't have friends (not even people they have known and worked with their whole life), and they will beat or kill you without hesitation. Pistone relays experiences with international organized crime, as a consultant and undercover agent for Scotland Yard, and infiltrating a drug lord's operation in a foreign country. An audio CD is included with the book, containing actual FBI surveillance recordings of Pistone, working undercover as Donnie Brasco, and his capo. |
The Eyes of Heisenberg | Frank Herbert | 1,966 | Chs. 1-4: Harvey and Lizbeth Durant arrive to witness the cutting of their embryo. Svengaard, a low-ranking doctor, tries to convince them to skip the procedure, but they are adamant and insist on their right, all the while secretly communicating their contempt for Svengaard in a silent Courier code. Potter, a high-ranking surgeon, arrives to perform the cut. During the procedure, he is shocked to discover that the embryo has qualities not seen in millennia; superior genetics in the areas of intelligence, plus vocation for immortality and full fertility. Obligated to destroy it, Potter is surprised to find himself unwilling to do so, aided by the on-the-spot collusion of one of the nurses who sabotages the record of the operation. Ch. 5: Max Allgood, Boumard and Igan arrive at the Hall of Counsel for an audience with the Tuyere. Tachy-Security monitoring has detected something amiss with the Durant embryo cutting. The nurse has been arrested, but has died under interrogation. The Optimen Calapine, Nourse and Schruille playfully mock their subordinates, always with a faint undercurrent of menace. Calapine flirts with Allgood in a semi-bemused fashion. The Tuyere order that Svengaard be brought before them. Boumard and Igan are revealed to the reader as Cyborg agents. Ch. 6: Svengaard is interrogated by the Tuyere. Badly frightened, he fumbles and grows agitated under their mockery, becoming insubordinate. The Tuyere calm him down by a display of magnanimity, reminding him of their power, wisdom and seniority. Ch. 7: In a service area under the Seatac Megalopolis, the Durants have gone into hiding. They meet with the Cyborg Glisson, who informs them of events, tells them that a strange external force had (beneficially) interfered with the cutting process of their embryo, and orders them to stay put. The Durants chafe under its unfeeling, domineering manner, hoping to one another to one day be free of the Optimen and Cyborgs. They scheme to deliver their baby the unheard-of natural way, and keep it out of reach of both. They wonder if the interfering power is God. Ch. 8-9: Svengaard detects activity in the hospital vat room, where the embryo is kept. Investigating, he is rendered unconscious and abducted from under the nose of Max Allgood's surveillance. Ch. 10-11: Potter is escorted through the streets of Seatac by a resistance agent. Near their destination, they are intercepted by security forces. Potter's escort sends him ahead, revealing himself as a combat cyborg and decimating the pursuers until it is destroyed. Potter is spirited away by the resistance. The Tuyere - and many other Optimen - watch the battle live, the long-unfamiliar thrill of violence awakening odd sensations in them. Ch. 12: In a resistance safehouse, Igan tries to recruit a recalcitrant Svengaard. Failing, they sedate him and make plans to evacuate Seatac, which they suspect the Optimen are about to genocidally purge of all life. Ch. 13: The Durants, Boumard and Igan (their cover blown) and a gagged Svengaard are moved out of Seatac in a hover-truck driven by a Cyborg, later revealed to be Glisson. At a checkpoint, Svengaard cries out briefly, causing them to be traced. Glisson changes their destination. Ch. 14: The Tuyere wipe out Seatac through a combination of poison gas and sonic weapons. They find themselves surprised by their unstable emotional reactions to the event. Ch. 15: The occupants of the truck observe the destruction of Seatac; Svengaard's faith in the Optimen is badly shaken. The Durants notice that Boumard and Igan are in the early stages of cyborgization. The truck proceeds to a ramshackle safehouse in the forest. Ch. 16: The Tuyere receives a field report from Max Allgood. Calapine, growing suspicious of his behavior, scans him with her instruments, discovering that he has accepted Cyborg implants. Enraged, she kills him remotely. Calapine and Schruille decide to run Tachy-Security themselves, finding themselves oddly stimulated by the prospect of an even more active involvement in violence. Potter is revealed to have died offstage in Seatac. Calapine and Nourse both require treatment for enzyme imbalance. Ch. 17: The occupants of the cabin decide that the apathetic Svengaard cannot be trusted, and should be killed. Harvey asks him if he wants to live; Svengaard suddenly finds that he does. He offers to care for the Durant's child, an offer Harvey accepts as he does not trust the cyborgs Boumard and Igan. The security forces of the Optimen surround the house and disarm Glisson. Ch. 18: The Tuyere debate what to do with the prisoners. They speculate that, if the infection of viability spreads, wiping out all the Folk and starting over is not out of the question. They decide to have the prisoners brought to themselves for interrogation. Ch. 19: A full assembly of Optimen meet in the Hall of Counsel. The prisoners are brought in, immobilized in a solid block. The Optimen begin to feel odd emotions, spiraling into greater and greater instability. Glisson asserts that reintroducing them to firsthand violence was a Cyborg ploy to destabilize the delicate equilibrium of the Optiman mind, and that the Cyborgs have won. A semi-hysterical Calapine converses with the prisoners, verging on killing them, but abruptly releases them instead. The Optimen descend into insanity; several, including Schruille, are killed in a stampede. The former prisoners try to help. Ch. 20: Calapine and the former prisoners discuss the new status quo. Glisson's gloating is cut off when a biological solution is proposed. Svengaard thinks that he will be able to stabilize the Optimen, and introduce the beneficial mutations of the Durant embryo on a wide scale, giving the Folk a lifespan of at least 12 - 15,000 years - longevity without the pernicious ossification of immortality. The novel concludes on a note of guarded optimism. |
Families and How To Survive Them | John Cleese | null | Chapter 1: Why Did I Have to Marry You? Chapter 2: I'm God, and Let's Leave it Like That - In the extensive further reading section at the end of the book, Skynner acknowledges that this chapter "depends heavily on the ideas of Melanie Klein, founder of The English School of Psychoanalysis". Chapter 3: The Astonishing Stuffed Rabbit Chapter 4: Who's in Charge Here? Chapter 5: What are You Two Doing in There? |
Popcorn | Ben Elton | 1,996 | The book takes place in different parts of Los Angeles, US. The date is never actually specified, but various clues suggest it is set in the near future. Mostly the story takes place in the centre of Hollywood. The book depicts the differences between different social groups in America, from rich people with guards like Bruce Delamitri to poorer people Wayne and Scout. The protagonist, Bruce Delamitiri, is an artist who works in the motion picture industry. Many people in the US think that, by making these movies, Bruce makes killing cool. Numerous characters throughout the book imply that he encourages everyone who's watching these movies to kill for fun. Bruce, on the other hand, defends himself by telling everyone that he doesn’t think he encourages anyone to do anything. He says that there has always been violence but humans are not like robots, seeing something on the screen does not necessarily make us want to do it ourselves( p. 13 "people get up from the movie theatre or the TV and do what they just saw"). He also claims that he is just showing existing violence. Unfortunately for Bruce, Wayne and Scout (a pair of psychopaths known in the media as "the mall murderers") have formulated a plan to hold him hostage and have him publicly announce that his movies are responsible for their crimes so they can avoid the death penalty (Wayne has a lengthy speech giving examples of how in America it is possible to be guilty and innocent at the same time.) As the novel progresses, Bruce and a critically injured Brooke Daniels are joined inside his house by his wife and daughter and a TV camera crew. The siege reaches its climax as Wayne holds a ratings monitor and announces on live TV that he will spare the hostages if everyone stops watching the siege in the next few minutes - however, this does not happen and he begins firing as the LAPD begin a frantic attempt to subdue him. Many of the characters die in the ensuing violence and the Epilogue of the story reveils grimly details how all of the survivors have found a way of escaping responsibility for the tragedy (using varying routes from lawsuits and finding religion to making documentaries which explicitly blame everyone else.) The book ends with the line "No one has taken responsibility" - echoing an earlier rant by Bruce that we have created a blame free society in which any problem or shortcoming can be blamed on others rather than accepting responsibility for our own actions. |
Doomsday Book | Connie Willis | 1,992 | Kivrin Engle, a young historian specializing in medieval history, persuades her reluctant instructor, Professor James Dunworthy, and the authorities running the project to send her to Oxford in 1320, encouraged by Professor Gilchrist, who takes charge of the project in the absence of the department head to try to enhance his own prestige. This period had previously been thought too dangerous, because it stretched the time travel net 300 years earlier than it had been used before. She will be the first historian to visit the period, and is confident that she is well prepared for what she will encounter. Shortly after sending Kivrin to the 14th century, Badri Chaudhuri, the technician who set the time travel coordinates for Kivrin's trip, collapses suddenly, an early victim of a deadly new influenza epidemic which severely disrupts the university and eventually leads to the entire city being quarantined. Infected with the same influenza despite her enhanced immune system, Kivrin falls ill as she arrives in the past. She awakens after several days of fever and delirium at a nearby manor, whose residents have nursed her. Unfortunately, the move has caused her to lose track of where the "drop point" is; in order to return home, she must return to the exact location where she arrived when the gateway opens at a prearranged time. The narrative switches between Kivrin in the fourteenth century and 2054/2055 Oxford during the influenza epidemic. Kivrin discovers many inconsistencies in what she "knows" about the time: the Middle English she learned is different from the local dialect, her maps are useless, her clothing is too fine, and she is far too clean. She can also read and write, skills unusual even for the educated men of the time and rare among women. As nuns are the only women commonly possessing these skills, some family members conclude Kivrin has fled her convent and plan to return her to the nearest convent. She fakes amnesia, afraid the background story she originally planned out would have similar inconsistencies, and takes up a job as a companion for two girls in the manor as she tries to find the "drop point". In Oxford, fears grow that the virus causing the epidemic had been transmitted from the past via the time travel net, despite its scientific impossibility. This causes the acting head of the university, Mr. Gilchrist, to order the net closed, effectively stranding Kivrin in the past, even as Mr. Dunworthy tries frantically to reverse the decision. At parallel points in their respective narratives, Kivrin and Mr. Dunworthy realize that she has been sent to England at the wrong time as a result of the technician's illness: she has arrived during the Black Death pandemic in England in 1348, more than 20 years later than her intended arrival. The Black Death cuts a swathe through the Middle Ages just as the influenza overwhelms the medical staff of the 21st century. Many who could have helped Mr. Dunworthy fall ill and die, including his good friend Doctor Mary Ahrens, who dies even as she tries to save the other influenza victims. Mr. Dunworthy himself is stricken by the disease. In the fourteenth century, two weeks after Kivrin's arrival, a monk infected with the plague comes to the village. Within days, many residents of the village fall ill. Kivrin tries to care for the victims, but, lacking modern medicines, she can do little to ease their suffering. The arranged date for retrieval passes with neither side able to make it. At last, in desperation, Mr. Dunworthy arranges with Badri to send himself back in time to rescue Kivrin. In the Middle Ages, Kivrin can only watch while all the people she has come to know die from the Black Death, the last being Father Roche, the priest who found her when she was sick and brought her to the manor. Father Roche insisted on staying with his parishioners, despite Kivrin's attempts to arrange an escape, as he feels it his duty to care for them although it may mean his own death. As Roche lies dying in the chapel, he reveals that he was near the drop site when Kivrin came through, and misinterpreted the circumstances of her arrival (shimmering light, condensation, a young woman appearing out of thin air) as God delivering an angel to help during the mysterious illness sweeping through England. He dies still believing that she is God's messenger to him and his congregation, while Kivrin comes to appreciate his selfless devotion to his work and to God. As she sits in the graveyard, unable to dig a grave or finish tolling the peal for his death, her rescuers, Mr. Dunworthy and Colin (the adventurous great-nephew of Doctor Mary Ahrens), arrive from the future (having found a horse and located her by the sound of the bell). They barely recognize her: her hair is cropped short (from when she was sick with the flu), she is wearing a boy's jerkin, and she is covered in dirt and blood from tending to the sick and dying. The three return to 21st-century England shortly after New Year's Day. |
This Sweet Sickness | Patricia Highsmith | 1,961 | David Kelsey leads a double life. During the week he lives under his real name at Mrs. McCartney's boarding house and has a well-paid job as a scientist. During the weekends, while pretending to visit his invalid mother at a nursing home (his mother has in fact been dead for quite some time), he assumes the identity of William Neumeister and stays at an isolated house which he bought under that name. "Neumeister" sees himself as a success at whatever he does, whereas Kelsey considers himself a failure. In both his lives he is a recluse. He has bought and furnished his house for Annabelle, the love of his life, who in reality has never come to visit him. Every weekend he cooks dinner for two, with Annabelle present only in his imagination. One weekend two of his coworkers, Wes Carmichael and Effie Brennan secretly follow him. On this occasion they see him enter the house without realising that it is his own and without Kelsey noticing it. Kelsey suffers under what he calls "the Situation", said situation being his infatuation with Annabelle, and Annabelle's failure to reciprocate. Kelsey considers this a personal failing on his own part, blaming himself for moving away from Annabelle to take up the factory job (the irony being that he took the job in order to save money to marry Annabelle in the first place), and is so sensitive about the "Situation" that he refuses to discuss it with other people - or, if pressed, claim that he and Annabelle are due to wed in the near future, despite the fact that Annabelle never consents to marry Kelsey. At the beginning of the novel, Annabelle has already married another man, Gerald Delaney, and early on in the story gives birth to Gerald's son. Kelsey is convinced that Annabelle has made a serious mistake, and sees Delaney as a brutish, monstrous figure, but he does not give up hope of winning Annabelle back. He keeps writing her letters in which he insists that she leave her husband and marry him, and goes so far as to visit their apartment, getting into an argument with Gerald. When Kelsey writes a letter directly asking Annabelle to leave Delaney for him, Delaney is enraged and goes to the boarding house to tell Kelsey to leave them alone. Delaney is given directions by Effie to Kelsey's secret house; when Delaney arrives there, Kelsey is appalled that Delaney has tracked him down, since he had thought nobody knew that he owned the house, and confronts Delaney; with both men acting aggressively, a fight soon breaks out, in the course of which Delaney is knocked down and falls badly on the steps of Kelsey's house, breaking his neck. Kelsey calmly reports the incident at the nearest police station. The police have no reason to doubt what he tells them: that his name is Neumeister, a freelance journalist who frequently travels, that he did not know Delaney or any of his family, and that he only acted in self-defense on being attacked by a stranger. Kelsey chooses to give the Neumeister identity to the police because, whilst he could make the same self-defense argument if he had given his real name, Annabelle would then know that he had fought and killed Delaney, and Kelsey is convinced that if she discovers this he would have no hope of ever winning her back. Thus, his "Situation" becomes much more complex, since he must not only try to win back Annabelle whilst keeping the failure of his love life a secret from the world, but he must also ensure that no one ever finds out that Kelsey and Neumeister are the same person. Consequently, Kelsey builds an astonishing web of lies, betrayal and denial. When doing so, he has to rely heavily on the people surrounding him not telling anyone about their suspicions. Effie, who is in (unrequited) love with Kelsey, promises him she will never tell anyone that Kelsey and Neumeister are one and the same. When Annabelle wants to meet Neumeister in person to ask him about the circumstances of her husband's death, he writes her a very sympathetic letter (signed Neumeister), which she accepts instead of a personal meeting. Kelsey also sells his house, quits his job, gets a new one nearer to where Annabelle lives, moves out of the boarding house and buys a new house, now in his real name. He now insists on seeing Annabelle more often, and when she refuses, he discovers that she's now seeing a man called Grant Barber. Believing she's just making another mistake, he arrives at her apartment and insists she leave with him; when Grant steps in, David violently assaults him and is eventually thrown out of the building by Annabelle's neighbours,who just about render him unconscious. Matters deteriorate further when Effie and Wes arrive at his house for the weekend. After some heavy drinking and quarrelling, David suffers memory lapses, demanding Wes call him 'Bill' (as in William Neumeister). When Wes leaves, David goes upstairs and thinks he sees Annabelle lying in his bed; however, when he realises that its actually Effie, he suddenly flies into a blind rage and throws her against the wall, inadvertently breaking her neck. He leaves (unaware that he's killed her), and drives past Wes's car in the road. David stays at a motel for the night and, upon hearing about Effie's death the next morning, goes on the run, his mind rapidly degenerating into confusion and insanity. By the time Wes discovers Effie's body and the police realises that Neumeister is just Kelsey's alter ego, the latter is already in New York City. He has a leisurely day out with the imaginary Annabelle, pretending to take her to the Museum of Modern Art, clothes shopping and dinner at a fancy restaurant. However, the facade breaks down when said restaurant's head waiter ponders over the name of David Kelsey; David runs away into the night, believing himself to be accompanied by Annabelle, and eventually arrives at the home of old school acquaintance Ed Greenhouse. Ed's wife sneaks out into the apartment block hallway and calls the police, and David eventually himself on the ledge outside their ninth floor window. Following desperate attempts by the police and fire crews to save his life, he eventually jumps to his death upon seeing Annabelle standing below him. |
The Green Brain | Frank Herbert | 1,966 | The book is set in the not-so-distant future, where humankind has all but succeeded in controlling all life on the planet and almost completely wiping out all insect life. The earth is divided into a "Green Zone" which humans totally dominate (or so they believe) and a diminishing "Red Zone" that is not yet conquered. The "Green Brain" of the title is an intelligent organism that embodies and arises from nature's resistance to human domination. It is able to command social insects to form humanoid-shaped collective organisms which it uses to infiltrate the "Green Zone". The book is about a small team sent in to the jungles of Brazil to investigate the problem, who find out that some of their assumptions were wrong. fr:Le Cerveau vert he:המוח הירוק |
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle | Tobias Smollett | 1,751 | At the beginning of the novel Peregrine is a young country gentleman. Rejected by his cruel mother, ignored by his indifferent father and hated by his degenerate brother, he is raised by Commodore Hawser Trunnion who is greatly attached to the boy. Peregrine's upbringing, education at Oxford, journey to France, his debauchery, bankruptcy, jailing at the Fleet, unexpected succeeding to the fortune of his father, his final repentance and marriage to his beloved Emilia all provide scope for Smollett's satire on human cruelty, stupidity and greed. The novel is written as a series of adventures, with every chapter typically describing a new adventure. There is also a very long independent story, "The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality", inside the novel. Peregrine Pickle features several amusing characters, most notably Commodore Hawser Trunnion, an old seaman and misogynist who lives in a "garrison" of a house with his former shipmates. Possibly, Trunnion's lifestyle helped Dickens to create Wemmick of Great Expectations. Another interesting character is Cadwallader Crabtree, an old misanthrope and Peregrine's friend, who amuses himself by playing ingenious jokes on the naive and gullible human creatures. Smollett also caricatured many of his enemies in the novel, most notably Henry Fielding and the actor David Garrick. Fitzroy Henry Lee was supposedly the model for Hawser Trunnion. |
True Women | Janice Woods Windle | null | The story starts with young Euphemia Texas Ashby (Tina Majorino) and her older sister Sara McClure (Dana Delany). When Euphemia gets back to the house from picking flowers she finds out that the Sam Houston is coming to the house. Santa Anna is on his way so they must head east in the Runaway Scrape. While they attempt to cross a river Sara suffers from a miscarriage while her young son Little Johnnie dies in Euphemia's arms. Many other young and old Texans die and Euphemia is almost lost in a sea of graves. After a month and a week, Sam Houston defeats Santa Anna's army and Texas is reborn as the Republic of Texas. They now live in a new home with their horses. Their sisters Fannie and Jane Isabella come to live with them after their father dies at sea. They are very different from Sara and Phemie (Annabeth Gish) and must adapt to their new brutal life. One year later, Sarah survives an encounter with Tarantula (Michael Greyeyes), a Comanche warrior, and his band of Comanches. Later, Euphemia's close friend Matilda Lockhart (Anne Tremko)is abducted by the Comanches and only later released. When given back, the Texans discover that she was brutally tortured, and the skin is falling off her nose. Matilda is bloody and shows signs of beating everywhere. She never fully recovers from her time with the Indians. Euphemia is now sixteen and almost gets attacked by a panther when William King (Matthew Glave), a boy who she only dreams about frequently, saves her. They continue to talk every day for the next five years and then get married. Sara's own husband dies in battle and she gets remarried to a musician. She has a few children with William while they live happily together with the slave Tildy (Khadijah Karriem) and their horses, among the few Dancer. Euphemia meets Tarantula once again at a show (he is one of the actors) and since he is walking far for an old man, she gives him Dancer, her best horse. He gives her the name "Brave Squaw Child". This is the end of Euphemia's life in the book. Now we meet Georgia Lawshe Woods (Angelina Jolie) as she falls in love with a doctor at the age of fifteen and has children years later. Before all that her parents, Julie Carmen and Michael York want to leave Georgia because Cherokee, Georgia's mother is part Creek Indian and they were being driven out. They wanted to leave before they were forced to. Georgia is fifteen and at Swann Lake when a rogue goose attacks her and Colonial Doctor Peter Woods (Jeffrey Nordling) tends to her wounds. She finds herself falling in love with this man and they get married the same year. They have five or four children a few years later and head to Texas where things will be better. Along the way Georgia has doubts but Peter wants to keep going. They live in Texas for a while but find out the river is infected with cholera, the disease. They move again and Georgia and Euphemia meet when Sam Houston keeps them together. There is a bit more to Georgia's life and then it switches to Bettie Moss. |
Bhowani Junction | John Masters | null | The book is set in 1946/1947, shortly before India gained independence. Victoria is an Anglo-Indian, the daughter of a railwayman. Patrick, also an Anglo-Indian, considers himself her boyfriend, but her feelings towards him have become ambivalent since her experience of British Army culture (see below). In vigorously defending herself from a British army officer who is attempting to rape her, Victoria unintentionally kills him. She is persuaded not to report the matter by a subordinate of Patrick's, a Sikh, Ranjit, who hopes to marry her and whose family and friends help her to avoid detection. As presented in the novel (though rather simplified in the film), Victoria had earlier decided to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Anglo-Indian community by joining the British Army during the Second World War. With the war's end and her return home, however, she is confronted with the problem of her identity all over again. She decides to get engaged to Ranjit in an attempt to become assimilated in wider Indian society—since British rule is visibly on its way out—but then she realises that such a marriage would require her to give up her name (and, essentially, her identity). She runs away from the Sikhs and literally into the arms of a dashing British officer, Rodney Savage (commander of a Gurkha battalion), becoming both his lover and his unofficial adjutant in the last hectic days of British rule in India. But in the end she realises that she cannot escape her origins, and—rejecting both the Indian man and the British one—chooses Patrick, an Anglo-Indian like herself. Rodney Savage recognises that he is losing out to his social inferior, but realises that he is powerless to prevent it. Patrick for his part begins to realise that, in the new India, his children might have a chance of becoming anyone they want to, rather than having to stick to the Anglo-Indians' traditional role of working on the railways. In the film version of Bhowani Junction, Patrick dies heroically, rather than surviving to win Victoria as in the novel. In the film, it is Rodney Savage who gets the girl. The change was presumably required because the book's conclusion was in contradiction to the conventions of Hollywood, in which dashing European officers, played by leading movie stars like Stewart Granger, are not expected to lose out to gauche, mixed-race railway-workers played by less-established actors (as Bill Travers was in 1956). |
Fences | August Wilson | null | The focus of Wilson's attention in Fences is Troy, a 53-year-old head of household who struggles with providing for his family and with his obsession with cheating death. The location is never specified but seems to be Pittsburgh as there are several references to some of its notable institutions. Troy was a great baseball player in his younger years, having spent time practicing in prison for an accidental murder he'd committed during a robbery. Because the color barrier had not yet been broken in Major League Baseball, Troy was unable to make good money or to save for the future. He now lives a menial, though respectable life of trash collecting--remarkably crossing the race barrier and becoming a driver instead of just a barrel lifter. He lives with his wife, Rose, his son Cory (who still lives in the house at the play's opening), and Troy's younger brother Gabriel, an ex-soldier whose war injury to his head causes him to often act crazy. Lyons is Troy's son from a previous marriage, and lives outside the home. Bono is Troy's best friend. Troy had taken Gabriel's money that he'd been entitled to for his injury, and bought the house he currently lives in. A short time before the play's opening, Garbriel has rented a room elsewhere, but still in the neighborhood. The play begins on payday, with Troy and Bono drinking and talking. Troy's character is revealed through his speech about how he went up to their boss, Mr. Rand, and asked why Black men are not allowed to drive garbage trucks (Troy works as a garbage man); Rose and Lyons join in the conversation. Lyons, a musician, has come to borrow for money from Troy, confident that he will receive it and promises to pay him back because his girlfriend Bonnie just got a job. Troy gives his son a hard time, but eventually gives him the requested ten dollars after Rose persuades him to do so. About mid-play, an affair between Troy and a woman named Alberta (who is never seen in the play) is revealed, followed by the discovery that Alberta is pregnant. She dies during childbirth. Seven years later, Troy has died. During this final act, Raynell, the daughter conceived in Troy's union with Alberta, is seen as a happy seven-year-old; Cory comes home from military training. He initially refuses to go to his father's funeral due to long-standing resentment, but is convinced by his mother to pay his respects to his father—the man who, though hard-headed and often poor at demonstrating affection, nevertheless loved his son. The fence referred to by the play's title is revealed to be finished in the final act of the play, and Bono has bought his wife a refrigerator as he promised Troy he would do if he finished building it. It is not immediately known why Troy wants to build it, but a dramatic monologue in the second act shows how he conceptualizes it as an allegory—to keep the Grim Reaper away. Rose also wanted to build the fence and forced her husband to start it as a means of securing what was her own, keeping what belonged inside in and what should stay outside stay out. |
The Adventure of the Dancing Men | Arthur Conan Doyle | null | Mr. Hilton Cubitt of Ridling Thorpe Manor in Norfolk visits Sherlock Holmes and gives him a piece of paper with this mysterious sequence of stick figures. The little dancing men are at the heart of a mystery which seems to be driving his young wife Elsie to distraction. He married her about a year ago, and until recently, everything was well. She is American, and before the wedding, she asked her husband-to-be to promise her never to ask about her past, as she had had some “very disagreeable associations” in her life, although she said that there was nothing that she was personally ashamed of. Mr. Cubitt swore the promise and, being an honourable English gentleman, insists on living by it, which is one of the things causing difficulty at Ridling Thorpe Manor. The trouble began when Elsie received a letter from the United States, which evidently disturbed her, and she threw the letter on the fire. Then the dancing men appeared, sometimes on a piece of paper left on the sundial overnight, sometimes scrawled in chalk on a wall or door, even a windowsill. Each time, their appearance has an obvious, terrifying effect on Elsie, but she will not tell her husband what is going on. Holmes tells Cubitt that he wants to see every occurrence of the dancing men. They are to be copied down and brought or sent to him at 221B Baker Street. Cubitt duly does this, and it provides Holmes with an important clue. Holmes comes to realize that it is a substitution cipher. He cracks the code by frequency analysis. The last of the messages conveyed by the dancing men is a particularly alarming one. Holmes rushes down to Ridling Thorpe Manor only to find Cubitt dead of a bullet to the heart and his wife gravely wounded in the head. Inspector Martin of the Norfolk Constabulary believes that it is a murder-suicide, or will be if Elsie dies. She is the prime suspect in her husband’s death. Holmes sees things differently. Why is there a bullet hole in the windowsill, making a total of three shots, while Cubitt and his wife were each only shot once? Why are only two chambers in Cubitt’s revolver empty? What is the large sum of money doing in the room? The discovery of a trampled flowerbed just outside the window, and the discovery of a shell casing therein confirm what Holmes has suspected — a third person was involved, and it is surely the one who has been sending the curious dancing-man messages. Holmes knows certain things that Inspector Martin does not. He seemingly picks the name “Elrige’s” out of the air, and Cubitt’s stable boy recognizes it as a local farmer’s name. Holmes quickly writes a message — in dancing men characters — and sends the boy to Elrige’s Farm to deliver it to a lodger there, whose name he has also apparently picked out of the air. Of course, Holmes has learned both men's names by reading the dancing men code. While waiting for the result of this message, Holmes takes the opportunity to explain to Watson and Inspector Martin how he cracked the code of the dancing men, and the messages are revealed. The last one, which caused Holmes and Watson to rush to Norfolk, read “ELSIE PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD”. The lodger, Mr. Abe Slaney, another American, unaware that Elsie is at death’s door and quite unable to communicate, duly arrives at Ridling Thorpe Manor a short while later, much to everyone’s astonishment, except Holmes’s. He has sent for Slaney using the dancing men, knowing that Slaney will believe that the message is from Elsie. He is seized as he comes through the door. He tells the whole story. He is a former lover from Chicago and has come to England to woo Elsie back. She originally fled his clutches because he was a dangerous criminal, as Holmes has found out through telegraphic inquiries to the US. When an encounter at the window where the killing happened turned violent with Hilton Cubitt's appearance in the room, Slaney pulled out his gun and shot back at Cubitt, who had already shot at him. Cubitt was killed and Slaney fled. Apparently, Elsie then shot herself. Slaney seems genuinely upset that Elsie has come to harm. The threatening nature of some of his dancing-man messages is explained by Slaney's losing his temper at Elsie's apparent unwillingness to leave her husband. The money found in the room was apparently to have been a bribe to make Slaney go away. Slaney is arrested and later tried. He escapes the noose owing to mitigating circumstances. Elsie recovers from her serious injuries and spends her life helping the poor and administering her late husband’s estate. |
His Last Bow | Arthur Conan Doyle | null | On the eve of the First World War, Von Bork, a German agent, is getting ready to leave England with his vast collection of intelligence, gathered over a four-year period. His wife and household have already left Harwich for Flushing in the Netherlands, leaving only him and his elderly housekeeper. Von Bork and his diplomat friend Baron von Herling disparage their British hosts, having judged them rather negatively. Von Herling is impressed at his friend's collection of vital British military secrets, and tells Von Bork that he will be received in Berlin as a hero. Von Bork indicates that he is waiting for one last transaction with his Irish-American informant Altamont, who will arrive shortly. The treasure will prove rich, Von Bork thinks: naval signals. Von Herling leaves and Von Bork gets to work packing the contents of his safe. He then hears another car arriving. It is Altamont. By this time, the old housekeeper has turned her light off and retired. Von Bork greets Altamont, and Altamont shows him the package that he has brought. Altamont proceeds to disparage Von Bork's safe, but Von Bork proudly says that nothing can cut through the metal, and that it has a double combination lock. He even tells Altamont the combination: “August 1914”. Altamont then insinuates that German agents get rid of their informants when they are finished with them, naming several who have ended up in prison. Von Bork is left to make excuses for these events. Altamont's mistrust of Von Bork is evident in his refusal to hand over the package before he gets his cheque. Von Bork, for his part, claims the right to examine the document before handing Altamont the cheque which he has written. Altamont hands him the package, and upon opening it, it turns out to be a book called Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, hardly what he expected. Even less expected is the chloroform-soaked rag that was held in his face by Altamont a moment later. Altamont, it turns out, is none other than Sherlock Holmes, and the chauffeur who brought him is, of course, Dr. Watson. Now much older than in their heyday, they have nonetheless not only caught several spies (Holmes is actually responsible for the imprisoned agents, of course) in their return from retirement, but fed the Germans some thoroughly untrustworthy intelligence. Holmes has been on this case for two years, and it has taken him to Chicago, Buffalo, and Ireland, where he learnt to play the part of a bitter Irish-American, even gaining the credentials of a member of a secret society. He then identified the security leak through which British secrets were reaching the Germans. The housekeeper was part of the plot, too. The light that she switched off was the signal to Holmes and Watson that the coast was clear. They remove Von Bork and all the evidence, and drive him to Scotland Yard, where his welcome will not be as triumphant as the one that was awaiting him in Berlin. After the story has concluded, it is revealed that Holmes has retired from active detective work. He spends his days beekeeping in the countryside and writing his definitive work on investigation. The story is the last chronological instalment of the series, though yet another collection (The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes), set before the story, was published four years later. In reference to the impending World War I, Holmes concludes, :"There's an east wind coming, Watson." :"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm." :"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared." The patriotic sentiment of the above passage has been widely quoted, and was later used in the final scene of the Basil Rathbone film Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), set in World War II although it is presented as if Holmes were quoting Churchill. |
Amazing Rain | null | null | The book begins with the main character describing the city he (or she; the character's gender is unclear) lives in, "the city you can not see out of". Many of the city's residents believe it is impossible to leave the city, but the main character suggests that he and the reader should leave, "because there is something I want to talk to you about". Leaving the city, the main character and the reader drive until their car breaks down, at which point they continue on foot until they come across a house where a strange person (who looks like what is presumably an alien on the explodingdog site) invites them in, offers them soup, and tells stories. The first story is the story of the king, a narrative about a king who believes he has improved the land he rules, making his people happy (by forcing them to wear happy masks, a point that is not mentioned in the narrative but clear from the artwork). The king has also built "an amazing army" and "wonderful weapons". Next, the alien host tells about the future. For example, in the future we will get our food over the internet. The title of the book comes from the statement that, "in the future, the rain will never mess up your hair". In the end, with the king's rockets raining down on them, the main character and the reader flee. The main character has decided that "I love you" and "I want us to be together". Torn to shreds by the rockets, they flee into the ocean, where they are eaten by fish. |
The Long Ships | Frans Gunnar Bengtsson | null | The first book covers the years 982 to 990. While still a youth, Orm is taken captive by a Viking party raiding the sheepfold of his father's farm in Skåne after an unprofitable campaign among the Wends. The party consists of three ships, some 180 men, led by Krok. Orm is accepted as a crew member and makes a lifelong friend of Toke Greygullson. They sail south, along the coast of the Frankish Empire. They collect an escaped prisoner, Solomon, an Andalusian Jew. Solomon guides them to the castle of the Castilian Margrave who had betrayed him. The Vikings sack the castle and take the spoils to the ships, Solomon returning to his own land. As they sail off, they are attacked and defeated by an Andalusian fleet, and Orm together with Krok and seven others are captured and made slaves. They serve as galley slaves for more than two years, during which time Orm becomes left-handed (due to his position on the rowing bench), and Krok dies killing their hated supervisor. Thanks to the intervention of Solomon, the surviving eight Norsemen are made members of the slave-bodyguard of Al-Mansur. They nominally convert to Islam and take part in Al-Mansur's campaigns in the Marca Hispanica for four years. Raiding Iria Flavia, the burial place of St. James, Al-Mansur charges the Norsemen with shipping a captured bell of the Christian church back to Cordova. On their way back, they encounter and slay the killers of Krok, and are forced to flee Andalusia, taking the bell with them. They cross to Ireland, and learning that Brian Boru has gained the upper hand over the Norse there, continue directly to the court of Harold Bluetooth. Harald has recently converted to Christianity, and they present him with the bell of St. James, upon which Harald invites them to celebrate Yule with him. Both Orm and Toke are wounded in duels during Yule. After convalescence, during which he meets Ylva, daughter of Harold, and presents her with a golden necklace given to him by Al-Mansur, Orm returns to Skåne. Toke runs off with an Andalusian slave-concubine of Harald's and continues back home to Blekinge. The one-eyed Rapp, another of Orm's companions from Andalusia, stays with him, being an outlaw in his home district. After King Harald dies in exile, and Styrbjörn the Strong in the Battle of the Fýrisvellir (moved to 991 in the book, historically probably taking place a few years before), Orm and Rapp join a Viking party raiding England under Thorkell the High, participating in the Battle of Maldon. The Norsemen set siege to the church of Maldon, and after negotiation with two English bishops agree to accept payment of Danegeld. The chieftains agree to be baptized, and travel to London for the occasion. Orm, having learned that Harald's daughter Ylva is staying in London, agrees to be baptised, and Poppo, former bishop of Harald, joins them in Christian matrimony. Orm, Ylva, Rapp and the priest Willibald leave London for Denmark, and collect the necklace Ylva had hidden in Jellinge, now Sweyn's stronghold. Sweyn's men discover them, and fleeing, Willibald wounds Sweyn with a stone throw. Fearing Sweyn's revenge, Orm moves to a neglected farm, his mother's inheritance in Göinge, northern Skåne, near the border with Småland. During the following years (992 to 995), Orm prospers, and Ylva gives birth to twin girls (Oddny and Ludmilla), a son, Harald, and later to another son, Svarthöfde (Blackhair in the Michael Meyer translation). Orm beats off a treacherous attack sponsored by Sweyn, and Willibald advises against killing the surviving attackers, forcing them to be baptised instead. At the Thing between the men of Göinge, Värend and Finnveden, Orm renews his friendship with Toke, who has gained wealth as a fur trader in Värend. Rainald, a Christian priest who had come to the Thing with Orm to be exchanged for a priest enslaved by the Värenders, disrupts a fertility ceremony, causing the death of a priest of Frey. He is given to the women of Värend as recompense. The year 1000 passes without Christ returning. In 1007, with Orm now forty-two, his brother Are returns from the east, blind, mute and mutilated. He succeeds in telling of his fate with the help of runes. He had left Skåne in 978 and served in the Varangian guard of Basil II. Are participated in a raid on a Bulgar castle at the mouths of the Danube with the aim of capturing the gold treasure of the Bulgar king. The emperor's treasurer made away with the gold, heading for Kiev, and Are pursued him. He managed to recapture the gold and hid it in the Dniepr, at the cataracts south of Kiev, but was later caught and mutilated, and with much luck made his way home to Denmark. Orm decides to travel to Kievan Rus for the gold, and together with Toke and the Värend chieftain Olof (who is promised Orm's daughter Ludmilla upon their return) mans a ship. They travel by way of Visby, reaching the Dniepr via the Daugava and Beresina. They find the treasure, but are attacked by Pechenegs, and Orm's son Svarthöfde is captured. Orm pays a high ransom, but enough of the treasure remains to liberally reward his entire crew. They return to Skåne safely, just four days after Orm's farm has been attacked by outlaws, led by the former priest Rainald, who have abducted Ludmilla and other women. Orm heads a punitive expedition, the women are freed and Olof slays Rainald. From then on, Orm and Toke live in peace and plenty as good neighbours, and Svarthöfde Ormsson becomes a famous Viking, fighting for Canute the Great. The story ends with the statement that Orm and Toke in their old age "did never tire of telling of the years when they had rowed the Caliph's ship and served my lord Al-Mansur." |
Up at the Villa | W. Somerset Maugham | null | The action takes place in the late 1930s. 30 year-old Mary Panton, whose extraordinary beauty has always been one of her greatest assets, has been a widow for one year. Her late husband Matthew, whom she married when she was 21 because she was really in love with him, turned out to be an alcoholic, a gambler, a womanizer, and a wife-beater. However, Mary Panton patiently endures all the hardship and pain inflicted on her by her husband (including him having sex with her while drunk). When he drinks and drives he has a car accident and eventually, a few hours later, dies in Mary's arms. This, she concludes, is a blessing for both of them. The Leonards—a couple who never appear in the novella—offer her their 16th century villa on a hill above Florence, Italy, to stay there for some time, and she gladly takes them up on it. The old villa is staffed by two people—Nina, the maid, and Ciro, her husband, a manservant—but otherwise empty. Mary, whose parents are both dead, enjoys the solitary life up at the villa. Occasionally, she joins other highbrow residents of, and visitors to, Florence for a party or luncheon. Also, she likes driving round the countryside in her car. So far it has never occurred to her to take a lover—whether this is because she considers it immoral, because it may cause a scandal or because she does not feel the need remains obscure; what she does say is that it has been easy for her to do without one because she has never been tempted. During dinner at a restaurant together with some of her acquaintances—among them the old Princess San Ferdinando, an American who is said to have been quite a loose woman in her day—they listen to a young man playing the violin. He is ridiculously dressed up in folkloristic clothes and not good at all at playing the instrument. At the end of the evening, the Princess tries to set Mary up with Rowley Flint, a young Englishman of independent means whose reputation is very bad, by asking her to give him a lift back to the hotel where he is staying. Flint actually makes a pass at her, but she rejects him and just laughs at him when he even proposes to her. They both seem to know without speaking that this proposal of marriage could not be meant seriously. After she has dropped him off at the hotel, she drives back home. On her way up to the villa, although it is late at night and dark, she stops to have a look at the scenery. She senses that there is someone else quite close to her. This other person turns out to be Karl Richter, the fiddler from the restaurant, also admiring the view. They strike up a conversation, and Mary learns that he is a 23 year-old Austrian art student who has recently fled the country because he was being persecuted by the Nazis, and now, without a passport or any other documents, is staying as an illegal immigrant in a shabby rented room at the foot of the hill quite close to the Leonards' villa. Mary takes pity on the poor boy and, on the spur of the moment, asks him if he wants to come up with her to have a look at the precious paintings in the villa. Once there, it turns out that, due to his having no money, Richter has not had dinner. With the servants long gone to bed, Mary fixes him some bacon and eggs. They have wine with their improvised meal. One thing leads to another, and they end up in bed. Earlier that same night, when taking leave of Flint, Mary confessed to him that if she ever had sex outside marriage it would have to be with a poor man whom she pitied; and it would only be once. This kind of foreboding now becomes reality. When Mary thinks it is time for Richter to leave and the latter, to her dismay, asks when he will be able to see her again, the idyllic situation quickly deteriorates. Mary remembers the revolver her suitor, 54 year-old Sir Edgar Swift, has forced upon her as a means of protection. When Richter starts insulting and threatening her, she pulls it out of her handbag, aims it at Richter, but then cannot summon up the courage to pull the trigger. She wants to do him good, advising him to try and escape to Switzerland, but to no avail. Richter feels utterly humiliated when he learns from Mary that she has only slept with him out of pity. He says he saw a goddess in her, but now she is just a whore for him. It is then that Mary Panton's nightmare begins: Richter with a swift gesture picks her up and roughly throws her on her bed, before covering her face with kisses. She tries to get away from him but as he is much stronger than her, she is powerless and ceases to resist. A few minutes later in a fit of remorse over what he sees as the impossibility of life since escaping his homeland Richter announces You asked me not to forget you. I shall forget, but you won't, then in the dark he shoots himself through the breast with Swift's gun. There is only little blood due to the internal haemorrhage Richter inflicted on himself. Nina, her maid, hears the shot and presently knocks at her bedroom door. Mary panics and sends her away without opening. Then she phones Rowley Flint and asks him to help her. As taxis are not available all night, Flint borrows the hotel porter's bicycle and then walks up the hill to the villa. They have to think fast as there are only a few hours left before the break of the new day. Mary Panton is prepared to accept full responsibility for her actions. But then Flint has the idea that the two of them might just as well try to dispose of the body. Flint and Panton drag the body out of the house and into Mary's car. Then they drive along the highway and finally turn into a country lane. There, in the dark of the night, Flint dumps the body. A dangerous situation arises when a car full of drunk Italians approaches. The driver has difficulty passing Mary's car and has to slow down almost to a halt. When the party see Mary and Flint, who are embracing each other, pretending to be lovers, they start singing "La donna è mobile" and drive on. On the following morning, in broad daylight, Flint returns to this spot to throw away the revolver, which they forgot the night before. On the following morning Mary Panton sleeps almost until noon. She has an invitation for luncheon, and Flint has inculcated upon her not to show any signs of panic or fear or whatever, so she goes there. Her guilty conscience is her constant companion though. The situation becomes even more complicated with the impending arrival of Sir Edgar Swift, who has known her and her parents since she was a little child, and who politely retreated when she got married to Matthew Panton. Now Swift has gathered new hope ever since she has been widowed. Shortly before Richter's suicide, he had informed her of his impending promotion to a high government post in colonial India. As he will have to do a lot of entertaining, he is looking for a suitable wife, and he actually proposes to Mary before he flies off to Cannes on urgent government business. Mary tells him she will give him an answer when he is back in Florence. When Swift comes up to the villa Mary has already made up her mind to confess everything to him. After listening to her story he says that he forgives her and that he still wants to marry her. At the same time, however, he declares that he will not be in a position to accept the post he has been so eager to get, claiming that if his wife's criminal past caught up with them, the ensuing scandal might even jeopardize the Empire. He suggests the following course of action: He retires, they get married, and then they move to the French Côte d'Azur. Mary, however, objects to that: She tells him bluntly she is not in love with him and that she could not stand his presence 24 hours a day. After Swift has left, Flint turns up at the villa again, remarking that he does not "keep all [his] goods in the shop window": He owns an estate in Kenya, and has also read Dr Johnson, so all of a sudden he does appear eligible to Mary. She remembers the previous night, their emergency embrace in the dark country lane, which she found not wholly unpleasant. And, agreeing with him that life is all about taking risks, she decides to accept his proposal this time. |
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