Book Review 2- Lee Child- Gone tomorrow

This, I must say is much better than Michael Crichton in terns of content. Though Michael Crichton has strengths, unarguably. Now, as I give you a synopsis of the book in the following paragraphs, I hope you understand that the book is quite hard to summarize since the depth is great.





Characters-


Jack Reacher( ex-military cop)


Susan Mark( Civil Servant)


Lila Hoth





Plot:


Jack Reacher is a retired military cop and soldier. One day while on a train he sees 5 people- a golfer, a West African lady, a lady in a Hispanic outfit, a 50 yr old woman with a big bag, and a cleaner wearing NBA shirt and jeans. However, the one who was suspicious was the 50yr old woman, because she had matched up to the 11 point list of a suicide bomber developed by Isreali counterintelligence.





Jack Reacher, seeing a prospective suicide bomber, confronts her with the context of a cop. However, the woman mysteriously just takes out a gun, aims at Jack...then shoots herself. Jack is shocked, calls the train captain, but even when police deal with her Jack cannot let it go.





The federal agencies question him, but they find Jack clean, and without a single clue of the case of the dead woman. However, they keep bringing up two names- John Sansom and Lila Hoth.





Curious, Jack thinks more when just then he meets Jacob Mark, the brother of Susan Mark the dead woman. He tells her some background info, and his investigation sets off from here. He finds out that she is Susan Mark, has a son, Peter Mark.





His probing leads to the feds questioning him, and their suspecting that he has knowledge of where a thumbdrive belonging to Susan Mark, Jack says in reality he does not. So, the feds just tell him to stay out of affairs.





Jack completely disregards the feds. He goes to search, and discovers that John Sansom is an upcoming election member. Lila Hoth is a friend of Susan Mark and was the only one contacted before coming to New York. According to what he had heard from Theresa Lee, a NYPD cop, Susan Mark had arranged to come to New York to visit Lila Hoth as they had been friends after Lila had called her regarding some affairs and their conversation spun off quite well.



Jack does a few things for his research. He buys John Sansom's book, where he discovers that in the army in 1983 John had won 4 prestigious awards and there is also a picture of Donald Rumsfled with Saddam Hussein shaking hands. Jack realises that the awards could only have been gotten through high profile missions, and in 1983 there was a slight conflict with Soviet Union. Among the clues are also a strip of paper left behind by Susan Mark in her bag with the numbers 600-82219-D. The next piece of info was that Susan Mark had a son called Peter Mark, adopted. Peter hated his mother, but Susan still loved him like a son. Peter was very talented in basketball, and would usually go for training. But a few days ago after practice he had gone to a bar and has not returned home since.



After stalking John Sansom for a while, he finds out that the Hoths are a fake since John confessed that in 1983 he did fight a man called Grigory Hoth. However, he made no mention of Lila Hoth. Thus he tries to meet Lila Hoth. Lila Hoth tells him that back in the 1980s she and her mother Svetlana Hoth were in the war. Their soldiers would get captured and then tortured to death.



However, Lila Hoth was discovered to be al-qaeda leaders. They were sent to retrieve the thumbdrive.


Jack then meets an agent called Springfield( Sansom's bodyguard), who co-operates with him to try to get Lila Hoth killed. John reveals that the thumbdrive which Susan Mark has actually contains a photo of him shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. It would deal a great blow to America, so it had to be eliminated.

Lila Hoth is angry that her cover has been blown, and that Jack is a key investigator. She sends a VCD to Jack containing footage of Lila slicing mens' stomachs and ripping out the guts. Among them is Peter Mark, Susan Mark's son.

Jack finally figures it out.

Lila Hoth as terrorists want the thumbdrive. However, Susan Mark being a civil servant does not want to give it. Then she gets the VCD of her own son getting killed. Then she realises she has no choice but to take revenge, and goes down to New York. Thus at New York she probably knows it is the end of the road for her and seeing the thumbdrive as the source of problems she probably threw it away. Thus in the end his theory was true and the thumbdrive was recovered.

Book Review 1- The Summons by John Grisham

The Summons is a classic novel by the legendary author John Grisham who tells a tale of how lawyers aren't always the advocate of justice, and how the end product isn't a reflection of the process. What do I mean? Read on to find out.

Main Characters- Ray Atlee (main character)
Forrest Atlee (Ray's younger brother, on-and-off drug addict)
Reuben V. Atlee a.k.a The Judge (Father of the Atlee brothers, strong advocate of the law)

Plot overview:
Ray Atlee is an average guy. He lives on his own, is single and teaches law at University of Arizona. His life is almost completely cut off from his father, Reuben, and maintains little contact with Forrest. All that changes when one day, his father sends him a typewritten letter arranging a meetup to discuss the selling of the family estate after his death as well as the proceedings. Ray expresses little emotion over it, but calls Forrest and tells him to be present on that day for the meeting knowing his brother's nonchalant attitude over his father.

Things, however, are not according to plan. When Ray arrives there the house is silent, and the Judge is still on the couch dead. Ray is surprised, but before anything else is done he searches the whole house. There are a stack of boxes hidden in his study, and in each of the boxes are stashes of thousand-dollar-bills totalling three million.

Thinking that Forrest does not have a single clue he is unsure of what to do with the money, soon he keeps it with hiself as he goes on a journey to find the cause for the stash of bills and why the Judge had not ever used it. However, the suspects on the list are few. The Judge hardly gambled, earned low wages and did not do other jobs other than a chancellor. There were people who seemed to be after the money too-primarily his subordinate, Claudia, although she proved to be clean.

After a long search he finally found a case his father had taken in Hancock County, a faraway place from the hometown. It rang a bell, and so he went there to their library of state affairs and looked at the file with the proceedings of the court case. His father had supervised a case about Ryax, a wonder drug that lowers cholestrol but destroys the kidneys. On the case was also Patton French, a rich lawyer who had won the case. Seeking some answers Ray looks this man up.

As the man reveals info Ray discovers this man, Patton French has taken on hundreds of Ryax cases and won all of them earning hundreds of bilions. And as thanks to the man who had kickstarted the spree of cases Patton French gave Reuben Atlee three million.

Meanwhile Forrest locks himself up in the drug rehab centre. He suddenly disappears and soon at the end of the story he has been transferred to another high security rehab centre. There Forrest reveals that all along he had known about the money and had replaced the will with his own to get half the money. This is a great shock, and the story ends here.

A doze of poetry, food for the thinking soul

Well this is the last week of a term in the academic year, and poetry is in the air!
Today I will share with you the different literary techniques or devices which are used by singers, poets, playwrights and others who want to inject flavour into a literary piece. Of course I love it, and I hope your spine is tingling hard.

Poem, as in the word, originates from the Greek word, poema, and is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative quality with or without its ostensible meaning. Its power is derived from achieving a low word count encapsulating a deep and rich meaning. Actions, moods or feelings are widely used in expressing the subject of the poem.



Poems are defined like this by Archibald McLeish: "A poem should not mean, but be."



Poems usually have meters, rhythms and intonations. First, we will study the analysing of a poem.



1 line is a poem.

2 lines are a couplet.

3 lines are a triplet or tercet.

4 lines are a quatrain.

5 lines are a quinrain or cinquain,

6 is a sextet,

8 is an octet.



1 stanza of 4 lines make a quatrain.

From lines we go to stanza. A stanza is a group of 4, 5, 6 lines and usually used to develop an idea or a picture. They make an organised structure of a rainbow of ideas.

With that said I will go on to various techniques we commonly see, and their specialties.

Alliteration is two words with the same starting letter.
Atrocious Apples, Boisterous bear are some examples. This adds some catchiness to the poem.

Personification is adding a touch of human to a non-living item to add liveliness to the subject. Thw window panes flapping their arms- what do oyu picture in your mind?

Rhymes add catchiness and bounce. They make you wanna say the poem out loud.

Exaggeration is to emphasize a point.

Well I should not be spoonfeeding you, reader. Go find out more on your own.

Now look at the poem The Son is in Secondary School by Affian Sa'at

The poet or the student in the poem recalls his school days and specific moments in time and he feels that the little things of school life are the hardest to forget like the cleanliness of his shoes, the jokes shared among the Malay chaffeurs, him in a photograph. You can see some techniques like he shares his thoughts rather than narrate events, like when he talks of the schools Latin motto, he says, hope for the future, or the future is hope, or something." He plainly states his feelings at grappling with Latin.
We can see that he feels that he will forever be a part of the school; He will remember the teachers like Mrs Lee who sang Bengawan Solo.

Now, I also share fond memories of my primary school. Students laughing, no fear of embarrassment, progressing together, uncompetitive students who see the process more importantly then the end result, or the exam results for that matter. We laughed, groaned at hot weather during PE and I will always love and cherish the times I had in the Primary School- Rulang Primary.


I will attempt constructing a poem of my own.

The sun bathes the neighbourhood in morning light,
students come in uniforms so clean and bright,
I greet the security guard with a smile so wide,
We bear the school name with pride.

I play with my friends during break time,
About our sweaty attire our teachers gripe,
We give a cheeky smile and can only say,
Sorry teacher, we forgot today.

Teachers always give us care,
inspiring us to love and share.
Friends we are and friends we will be,
This school belongs to you and me.

Term 2 Post- Music

I love music as it is so refreshing,
the likes of Kenny G, Michael Buble,
awaken me to my senses, and I just
adore their rich, sexy voice,oozing
feeling and richness into the melody
and I find solace in the soothing touch
of sound; I cock up my ears, relax in
the chair and rest quietly. At times
I wish I could have the gift of singing,
to translate feelings into songs.

Term 2- Families

Welcome back to another round of intellectual discourse. In this post we will look at functional and dysfunctional families. What are the apparent actors of a dysfunctional family? What sets them apart?

Functional family: In The village by the sea, one functional family is Biju's family. Biju fulfills his father role by going out to sea to catch fish to earn a living for the family. His wife fulfills the mother role by staying at home and maintaining the household. A family is functional and strong when the roles are met, e.g. The father-figure, mother-figure, child-role as a student, descendant of the family. I will be talking on the roles as we move on.

Father role: The father takes care of the cash flow and the teaching of the children. Responsible for the monetary needs of the family, or the "structure" of the family.

Mother role: The mother maintains the household and uses the earnings to provide for the family. She uses it to buy groceries, school bags, books, food or for any other family needs. She must also spend time with the children, to teach them and help them through their journey in life.

Child role: The child plays many little roles. One would be as a filial child, as a student, to study hard and build a foundation to prepare for the workforce, and as a descendant of the family, to continue the lineage although this is of little importance of our topic.

If these roles are fulfilled then the family is complete and functional. Now, if one role is not fulfilled, like the father role, the family cannot be fully supported, the child has a lack of fatherly love and guidance.

Now, what is a dysfunctional family? A family whereby roles are not fulfilled and there is a mix up. For example, in The village by the sea, Hari's family is dysfunctional. His father is a drunkard who wastes away at the toddy(alcoholic drink)shop, his mother is down with disease and cannot do anything, Hari's sister has to take over the roles of the mother, and Hari has to work in the fields. The elder children have to stop schooling, which is detrimental to their future, if they have it.

Also, in B.B, B.B's father is always travelling, thus the family is not too strong, but B.B's father still provides for the family, so the role is satisfactorily completed. B.B's parents' marriage is strained, because they do not communicate often enough. Thus, their family is not so functional.

Families can be functional or dysfunctional. For it to be functional, the members must fulfil their roles well so that the children can study hard to contribute back to the society, and the parents must fully commit to prevent any strains.

Child labour (Slumdog Millionaire)

Slumdog Millionaire- Child labour
The show, Slumdog Millionaire, is set in India and the story is told through a teenage boy, Jamal Malik’s childhood. Through his various encounters as he lived his younger days on the run, the show tells us some of the happenings in India, a lot of which focuses on child labour. (Of course, in a site quoting Danny Boyle, the director said that “Slumdog Millionaire is not a documentary”; thus, we should take what we see on the show with a pinch of salt.)
The villain of the show is Maman, a gangster who tricks children into being beggars on the pretense of providing for them and teaching them to sing before blinding them to beg on the streets of Bombay. The boys are subject to a cruel fate as this, but Latika, with fairly good looks, is made to be an entertainer, as Maman says that she would fetch a high price. The children have no choice, particularly because they do not have anywhere else to turn to for food except Maman. Jamal, however, escapes this fate because Salim, Jamal’s brother, had seen the ultimate motives of Maman and thus escaped with Jamal to prevent themselves from being blind.
Child labour is still rampant nowadays because firstly, it is cheap in the sense that the children are forced into compliance to accept low pay and appalling conditions. Nike has been exploiting child labour. From the UNICEF website*, it says that “An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour - one in six children in the world. Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations.” This is unfair on the children’s part, because they are resigned to this life not of their own accord, but of their poverty and inability to get a decent education. As such, since there is so much poverty in the world, this is reality.
In the slums, as they call it, the boy Jamal chances upon an old friend he knew when he was still under Maman’s clutches when he was in search of Latika. Up till years later, the child who was unfortunately blinded by Maman was still begging on the streets. Children who are forced to be labourers must work all day, and the pay is infinitesimal. However, since education is the only way out of poverty, and these children do not have the rights to it, they can only turn to these exploiters.
Though many see it as a violation of fundamental rights, these people who practice it believe that they are not only giving these children a life, they are merely using them for work only. There is no abuse. However, in the show we already see examples where Salim gangs up against the children to give them fear so that they obey. Life without freedom is worse than death. Child labour can only stop through efforts to give children schooling.
Thus, through a simple movie we see that child labour is prevalent in India. We must understand that the children do not have a choice. It is the vicious cycle of poverty that forces these children to give in to torture.

B.B

Not sure if you have read the story, but B.B is about a strange infidel father who hardly stays at home. It is a little vague if B.B is male or female, but I am guessing that it is a female. A part in the story which says the urgent tone of a girl and the common indirect expression of feelings in the story shows that she might be a girl.